He pressed his lips together and lowered his voice further. ‘You tell me, Bruno. Word has it you were caught rifling through the man’s room a couple of days before he died. The Montpensier family do not accept that he was killed in any gaming-house brawl, at any rate, and they are powerful. You are lucky not to have been arrested.’
I turned the mask over in my hands. I knew this already; young Frère Benoît had come hotfoot to tell me on the last day of November, the day Joseph’s body was officially discovered. Guise’s people must have moved the body the night after I found him in Paul’s bed. Now the death was public knowledge, and plenty among the friars at Saint-Victor had seen me dragged out of his cell the night he fled; there was no doubt that the family would have heard too, and drawn their own conclusions. If they had not moved against me, it could only be because Guise was holding them in check. I still did not understand his motives; since our encounter I had grown increasingly anxious, wavering between the conviction that Guise was covering for his sister, and the belief that he genuinely did not know who had killed Joseph and expected me to discover the truth. The fact that I had not yet been arrested lent weight to the latter theory, which itself did not exclude the possibility that the Duchess of Montpensier had acted without her brother’s knowledge. These past couple of days, I had taken to keeping my shutters closed just in case, and freezing behind the door, dagger drawn, whenever I heard footsteps on my stairs.
‘All the more reason for me to find the real killer,’ I said, not meeting Jacopo’s eye.
He let out a heavy sigh. ‘Let me speak to Henri. You are a philosopher, Bruno, and he should give you his patronage as such. You know I do not always agree with your ideas, but the world should have the chance to hear them nonetheless. He should not have you chasing around the city on the heels of killers.’
‘Will he listen to you? It seems he has not so far,’ I added, unable to resist the implicit accusation.
‘Ah. Well.’ He folded his hands and looked at the floor. ‘My influence with Henri is not what it was, but if I catch him in the right frame of mind, he will sometimes recall the respect he once felt for his old tutor and give me his ear.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘He was always wilful, even as a boy, but he was also eager to learn. Now he pitches between these fits of melancholy and debauchery, it is hard to steer him back to equilibrium. But he still holds you in great esteem, you know, though he may not show it. I pray you, Bruno – do not pursue this matter of Lefèvre’s death any further. Henri has left you undefended, and you are not without enemies in this city.’
‘I know it,’ I said, with feeling. ‘But listen, Jacopo – the reason I wanted to see you so urgently this past week. There is something I need to ask, in connection with this business, that I dared not commit to paper.’ I glanced again at the players. ‘Have you ever heard of—’
‘Signor, the boat is ready.’ A boy in the Queen Mother’s livery appeared in the doorway and delivered his announcement with a stiff bow. A babble of commands went up from the players, as they began bundling props into baskets and arguing over who had last seen Arlecchino’s hat.
‘Later, Bruno.’ Jacopo squeezed my arm. ‘Our friends are expected at the palace. Time to hide our real faces.’ He reached up and pulled his Pantalone mask over his eyes.
‘I do that all the time already,’ I muttered, threading the ribbon around the back of my head. The Doctor’s mask smelled of stale breath and damp leather.
‘So do we all,’ Jacopo said darkly, his voice muffled.
ELEVEN
Torches blazed along the length of the landing stage outside the river gatehouse of the Tuileries. Boats with curtained canopies glided into place, hauled in by boys uniformed in Catherine’s colours, who held the crafts steady for guests in fur-trimmed cloaks and jewelled or feathered masks as they extended their gloved hands and stepped out on to the jetty, slippers crunching on a carpet stiff with frost. The biting wind of the past few days had dropped, leaving the night clear and still; ice glittered on the trees and the sky was a high dome of ink-blue, studded with bright stars and a new-minted moon like a silver écu, blurred at the edges. They said Catherine had borrowed half a million écus from the Gondi bank to finance tonight’s extravagance, so that every ambassador would moan over his dispatches tomorrow morning, resting his pounding head on a fist as he wrote to his master of how the Valois court could still dazzle, how the royal house stood firm and laughed at the rumours of ruin.
Despite the December cold, people would spill into the gardens later in pairs, or perhaps more than pairs, seeking the shadows of trees and hidden bowers behind hedges. I had only been on the fringes of Catherine’s entertainments on one occasion, but I knew how these nights ended; solitary revellers in drooping costumes stumbling through corridors, masks dangling limp from one hand as the torches burn themselves out, asking forlornly if anyone knows where their husband or wife might be. Best make your way home without them, or find a substitute. For all her stern piety and stiff widow’s attire, Catherine knew how to make sure her festivities were remembered. From behind the walls I caught the rising sound of pipes and viols, gusts of laughter and raised voices. I drew the hood closer around my face. My breath condensed on the inside of the mask and grew
