‘No – please!’ I cried, feverish with desperation. ‘Send a message to the palace for me – I beg you.’
‘Tell you what – I’ll put a word in next time I’m taking dinner with the King. In the meantime, you keep quiet and I might throw you something to eat later if you behave.’
‘No, wait—’
But the flickering circle of light vanished and the wooden cover dropped back into place with terrible finality; his laughter was still audible as the bolt was shot into place. I called a few more times, but it was evident that he was not coming back. It was only now that I realised how painfully hungry and thirsty I felt; I was torn between the need to try and negotiate with him, and the fear of jeopardising my prospects of food. And possibly those of my companion, I thought, and I could not risk that; he looked as if one more day without eating might be the end of him – although perhaps that would be a kindness. I crawled across the straw in the direction of the poor wretch in the corner, making reassuring noises to disguise my own fear. I could hear him moving away from me as I approached.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ I whispered. ‘Listen. Your hands are free. Can you untie me?’
His only response was a choked sob. Curbing my impatience, I tried again.
‘I won’t hurt you. Will you help me? Please. I can’t think clearly with this pain in my arms.’ I shuffled closer on my knees until I heard his ragged breathing beside me. The stink coming off him made me retch; not just of his own filth, but the rotting odour of infected flesh from the sores and lacerations I had seen all over his body. It was a wonder the man was still alive. I turned my back and lifted my bound hands until my fingers made contact with him. I waited, breathing through my mouth – though that made little difference. After a long moment, a bony hand clasped my wrist. I gritted my teeth; those who fear the dead walk out of their graves to visit the living on All Hallows’ Eve must imagine just such a touch as this. But with surprising gentleness, those claw-like fingers began to pick at the knot on the cord holding me.
‘Are you really a count?’ I asked, as he worked. For a while he didn’t answer. I could tell the task was costing him considerable effort; it must have been painful to bend his fingers.
‘I had that name once,’ he croaked, when I no longer expected a response. ‘Now I am no one.’
‘Why are you here?’ I was determined to keep up a conversation, though he seemed to find speech difficult. But only this meagre human contact could keep me from despair, I knew, though it was probably too late for him.
Another long silence elapsed; I could not tell if he was ignoring me or merely concentrating.
‘Saint Bartholemew’s,’ he whispered, at last, and his voice cracked as he spoke. At the same time, I felt the rope slacken slightly around my wrists. I tried to pull them apart; he laid his hand on my arm. ‘Patience,’ he murmured, and resumed his plucking at the knot.
‘Saint Bartholomew’s night? You are here because of the massacre?’ I flinched, despite myself.
He remained silent as he eased the rope away from my hands and rubbed at the raw patches on my wrists where the bindings had broken the skin. Gingerly, I raised one arm and touched the back of my head; there was a tender lump where I had been struck, and my hair was crusted with dried blood, but the wound was no longer bleeding. The massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s happened thirteen years ago. Had he been here all this time? My mind baulked at the thought.
‘They came for the wedding,’ he said eventually, in a distant voice. ‘From the south. All Huguenots, you see. They were guests in my house.’
‘Who?’
‘My cousin. His wife. The little girls. They had new gowns for it.’ His voice faltered and his breath hiccupped again. If he had had eyes, they would have been shedding tears. I reached out and through the dark I found his hand. Swallowing down my revulsion, I let him fold those dreadful skeletal fingers around mine and gradually his distress appeared to subside.
No one in France could fail to shiver at the mention of Saint Bartholomew’s night. The twenty-third of August, 1572, when Catholic mobs rampaged through the city, putting every Protestant they could find to the sword. The Seine ran crimson with blood for days after. Catherine de Medici had tried to force an end to the wars of religion by marrying her wild and beautiful daughter Margot to the leader of the Huguenots, the Protestant Henri of Navarre. The marriage was not approved by the Pope, and many devout Catholics were furious at the prospect of such an alliance, but Catherine pushed ahead with the wedding regardless, inviting the most prominent Huguenot nobles in the country to Paris for the celebrations, more extravagant and decadent than any of her famed entertainments. After three days of feasting, dancing and pageantry, the bells of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois rang out at midnight – a prearranged signal for Catholic troops to kill all the Huguenot leaders in Navarre’s entourage, off guard, undefended, many of them in their bedchambers. No one, even now, could say for certain who planned the assassinations or gave the initial command, but the bloodlust spread quickly through the streets; anyone known or suspected to be Protestant was cut down where he stood, or dragged out of bed to be murdered along with his family. Women, children, babies, grandmothers; corpses piled up in the gutters and clogged the river.
I was still in
