This needled me, because I knew he was right; I had allowed myself to grow careless.
‘Why should I trust you?’
‘Because—’ and there was an edge to his voice now – ‘I’ve just handed over a hefty purse of money to free you from that hole. I didn’t see any of your friends from the Louvre queuing up to get you out.’
‘Who sent you?’
He rolled his eyes to Heaven. ‘Who do you think?’
I shook my head, blank. The only people I could think of who would send Charles Paget after me wanted me dead. He slapped the horse’s neck twice and gave me a meaningful look. My eyes widened.
‘Walsingham? But—’
‘Let’s not discuss it in the middle of the street, eh? For the last time, Bruno, get on the damned horse.’
He reached down and the servant crouched to give me a forceful shove in the backside with his shoulder, as my arms were too tired to heave myself up into the saddle. Exhaustion crashed over me; I slumped against Paget’s back and could not even muster a smile when he said, ‘On, Francis, good fellow,’ nudging his mount’s flanks with his heels. He was right; I had no choice in the matter.
‘Is Walsingham here in Paris?’ I asked, as we rode along beside the river.
‘All will become clear,’ he replied, enjoying his enigmatic act as much as it was infuriating me. I tried again.
‘But you work for the Queen of Scots. You are still secretary to her ambassador, unless I am mistaken?’
He hesitated; I waited for him to deny it.
‘Our Lord Jesus Himself said a man cannot serve two masters,’ he replied, after a while. ‘I venture to suggest He had little experience of intelligence work.’
He was so pleased with that answer that I did not bother to reply. We reached the grand, four-storey houses of the Quai de la Tournelle, with their wide leaded windows overlooking the river. The torch-bearer stopped outside one with a heavy studded front door, and knocked. There was no response. He pounded again; after some time the door was opened by a harassed-looking servant, who regarded us with understandable outrage. Paget’s man exchanged a few words with him, gesturing up at us; the servant appeared to be protesting, until finally he nodded and closed the door in our faces.
‘They are all abed. Let me go home,’ I said to Paget, when it seemed we had been turned away.
‘Wait.’ He pointed to a high double gate at the side of the house. After some minutes, it swung open and he clipped through into a cobbled stable yard. A boy came forward to take the reins; Paget hopped down lightly and held out a hand to assist me. I ignored it and slid to the ground. I could not help but notice that the boy seemed nervous. He may have been skittish at being roused from sleep, but I did not think that was the case; he was dressed in outdoor clothes and seemed alert, his eyes flitting past us as he led Paget’s horse towards the stables. Following the direction of his gaze, I saw a fine black stallion tethered to a post in the yard, a handsome creature with four white socks, saddled up with expensive tack, as if someone had that moment arrived, or was about to leave. There was no distinguishing badge or livery on the harness or saddle cloth. The horse turned its head to regard us with dark liquid eyes and I noticed a pink scar running along its nose and down one cheek.
We were met by the servant who had answered the front door, who led us, apologising, through a tradesmen’s entrance to a stone-flagged scullery and on into a spacious kitchen, where a fire burned in a hearth large enough to accommodate an entire cow on a spit; Paget gently urged me towards it and I crouched by the embers, shivering violently, grateful for the heat but conscious of the prison stink rising from my clothes.
‘The ambassador will be with you shortly,’ the servant said, as he craved our pardon once again for the wait. Paget nodded graciously, as if the fulsome apologies were no more than he was due; I found this curious, since we were the ones who should be sorry for disturbing them at this hour.
‘God’s teeth, you smell like a leper,’ Paget remarked, pacing the kitchen, slapping his hands together in their leather gloves. ‘You should get those clothes off and burn them as soon as possible. Probably infested with all kinds of vermin. I’ll bring you replacements tomorrow.’
‘Thank you, but there is no need—’
I broke off at the sound of voices; Paget had heard them too. We both turned to look at the interior door of the kitchen; from beyond it came an urgent, whispered exchange, two men speaking, one angry, the other mollifying. The conversation stopped abruptly and the door swung open. A short, mouse-haired man entered alone, wearing a woollen robe over a sombre grey doublet and hose and rubbing tired eyes with the heel of his left hand. In his right he dangled a quill pen and a pair of spectacles. I had the growing impression that whatever we had interrupted here, it was not a household asleep.
‘This is damned inconvenient, Paget.’ The man sounded irritable, but I thought I detected an underlying note of fear. He polished the eyeglasses on his sleeve, replaced them on his nose and glared at Paget, who crossed the room in a couple of long strides and bent to murmur in the man’s ear.
The short man squinted past him and took in my appearance with evident antipathy. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, wrinkling his
