‘Well, you smell better than you did last night, at any rate. You have slept well?’
I inclined my head. ‘I must apologise again for intruding in such a state, and at that hour. It was not my idea.’
He waved this away. Replacing his quill carefully in its stand, he folded his hands together and gave me a long look over his glasses.
‘Let us deal frankly with one another, Doctor Bruno. I have had a communication from Master Secretary Walsingham urging me to make use of your talents now that you are here in Paris. He says that for courage, loyalty and cunning I will not find your equal.’
‘That is generous of him.’ I could barely hide my surprise; Walsingham was famously grudging with his praise. I had been of use to him while I was in England and resident in the French embassy, with access to their communications, but I had felt this past summer that, if he had truly valued my abilities, he would have done more to enable me to stay in London. He had assured me, when it seemed inevitable that I must return to France, that he would recommend me to Stafford, but as I had heard nothing, I had come to believe he meant it only as a courtesy. I should have had more faith in the old spymaster.
‘I know that you were instrumental in preventing the success of that conspiracy two years past, now known among the Queen’s councillors as the Throckmorton Plot, and that you rendered further services to Her Majesty during your time in London. I am only sorry I have not acted sooner, but things have been rather fraught of late. Now listen.’ Stafford leaned forward and fixed me with a serious expression. ‘We have good intelligence that the Duke of Guise and his supporters are planning a coup against King Henri.’
I laughed, assuming this to be some kind of straight-faced English humour. ‘Every tavern-keeper and laundress in Paris has that intelligence. People talk of little else.’ I stopped when I saw his expression.
‘You think it is a laughing matter?’ He pushed his eyeglasses up his nose again, indignant. ‘France in the hands of the Catholic League would be calamitous for England. There would be nothing then to stop France and Spain joining forces to invade us. We could not repel such an attack, especially if those Catholics remaining in England were to support them and take up arms – it would be death for Queen Elizabeth and the English Church. The murder of this priest could be the spark that starts the whole conflagration.’
‘If people think King Henri is responsible, you mean?’
‘Guise intends to denounce a man publicly as an assassin hired by the King. The people will be incensed.’
‘What man?’
‘I don’t know – that hardly matters. Some wretch who will have been tortured and threatened until he says whatever Guise needs him to say.’ He picked up the quill again and turned it between his fingers. ‘There was a riot yesterday outside the priest’s church of Saint-Séverin. It was only put down when the King sent a company of archers to disperse the crowd. At least one person was severely injured, which has made matters worse. With a sufficient mob at his back and popular feeling in his favour, Guise would have the strength to march on the Louvre. If he succeeds in toppling Henri, he will not rest until the Protestant Church in France is torn up by the roots and cast into the fire. It would make the Saint Bartholomew’s massacre look like a children’s game.’ He pressed his lips together until they disappeared in a white line.
‘How do you know all this?’
He shot me a look over his glasses, as if to say I should know better than to ask his sources. But before the question was even out of my mouth, I had answered it myself: Charles Paget. I recalled his comment about serving two masters; was he now selling Guise’s secrets to the English? And what did he stand to gain by it?
‘You were friends with this priest, I understand?’ Stafford continued.
‘I would not say that, exactly. I knew him a little from the university, some years ago.’
‘You had a secret meeting with him shortly before his last sermon. And you were there at his deathbed.’ He rearranged some papers on his desk as he said this, not looking at me, his tone matter-of-fact.
‘Only by chance. And the time before I was making my confession.’ Paget had been keeping a keen eye on me, it seemed.
Stafford clicked his tongue, impatient. ‘You are excommunicate, Doctor Bruno, you are not permitted the sacrament of confession. So you must have had other business with him. In any case, the Duke of Guise is under the impression that the priest told you some secret with his dying breath. He will no doubt be concerned lest that information undermine the version he wants people to believe. Lefèvre belonged to the League. It is my view that he must have been killed because he knew more than he ought, or because his loyalty was suspect. Guise clearly fears that he confided something to you. So I am asking you plainly what you know of the matter.’
I took a deep breath, considering how much to lay before him. While I could not deny I was excited by the prospect of working for Walsingham again, especially
