‘How long after?’
‘I don’t know, Bruno, you can’t expect me to remember every – oh. I see.’ He glanced at me, understanding. ‘You’d have to ask her. She’ll be dancing in the masque later on. But try to keep your presence quiet – my mother will have you stuffed and hung from the ceiling with her crocodiles if she finds you.’
Female laughter gusted out behind us; I glanced back to see a group of costumed revellers emerge from the door to the Grande Salle, jostling one another and shrieking. The King pulled his mask down and nudged me further along the terrace, lowering his voice.
‘You had better find this killer before the Duchess of Montpensier has you arrested for de Chartres’s murder and tries to bring me down with you. Whoever he is, I will make him talk. I will expose the Duke of Guise before all of Paris as a man who murders loyal Catholics to serve his own ends.’ He gripped my cloak in his fist, his masked face eerie as it loomed close to mine. As he stared into my eyes, his resolve seemed to falter. ‘What is it, Bruno? What are you not telling me?’
‘There is always the possibility, Majesty, that it was not the Duke of Guise who ordered the murders.’
‘What?’ He let go of me abruptly and I stumbled back. ‘What makes you say that? Who else would be plotting against me?’
I held out my hands, empty. ‘I only say that we should keep an open mind. I have made contact with some of Guise’s associates, as you suggested. It seems the Duke is also concerned to find out who was behind the death of de Chartres.’
Henri grunted. ‘A bluff on his part, no doubt. You be careful, hanging about with his people. Nest of vipers. They’ll tear you apart in a heartbeat if you give them the slightest cause, and I won’t be able to protect you.’
‘I am well aware of that,’ I said, giving him a pointed look, but the effect was lost behind the mask. I thought again of the burned scrap of paper in Paul’s hearth, and of something Jacopo had said earlier, about messages disappearing inside the palace gates. ‘Who takes care of your letters these days?’
‘Writing them?’
‘Delivering them. Any letters that arrive for you at the Louvre, I mean. Whose hands must they pass through to reach you?’
Henri made a face that implied he had never given any thought to such procedures. ‘Official correspondence is usually sent by private couriers, who are instructed to put it directly into the hands of my secretary or his representative. As for unsolicited petitions and the like, I suppose they would come to the guards at the gatehouse, in the first instance. Then I imagine some household official collects them and passes them on to my secretary, who decides which are significant enough to warrant my attention. Why?’
‘And your secretary has never mentioned seeing any letter warning you of a plot against your life or your throne in the past month? It would almost certainly have been unsigned, but clearly written by an educated man.’
He pursed his lips. ‘As I understand it, my secretary burns scores of communications every day from righteous Parisians predicting my imminent downfall and informing me that I am bound for Hell to join the rest of my family. We heat an entire wing of the Louvre with them.’ His tone grew serious. ‘But anything that spoke of a specific danger he would have brought to my attention immediately.’
‘You are certain? You trust him?’
The mask twitched as he frowned. ‘Are you impugning the loyalty of my household? What is this, Bruno? Do you know of such a letter?’ His voice had risen; I held up a hand to calm him and dropped my voice to a whisper.
‘I found a burned draft of some correspondence in the priest Lefèvre’s lodgings, warning of danger to Your Majesty. That a fair copy never reached you does not mean one was not sent. Any number of people along the way might have intercepted it and decided to find their own solution without your knowledge.’
‘Including people close to me, you’re implying.’ Henri pressed a palm over his mouth under the mask, trying to compose himself. ‘People who chose to keep it from me.’
‘Not necessarily. As a League supporter Lefèvre would likely not have risked being seen near the Louvre himself – he could have sent a messenger who read the contents and thought to profit by putting it into other hands. But it may be that it came as far as the Palace and was read by someone there. I only wondered if there was anyone with access to your letters whose integrity you were not entirely sure of.’
‘Christ, Bruno – is one ever entirely sure of anyone’s integrity?’ He reached under his hairnet and scratched at the back of his neck. ‘Everyone has his price. I dare say Guise makes it his business to find out what will buy those nearest to me. So, no – I cannot vouch for all my household servants. But I can vouch for my secretary. His loyalty to my family is undisputed.’
‘Who is your secretary now?’
He laughed. ‘Of course – you have been away. I appointed Balthasar de Beaujoyeux. He serves both me and my wife as valet de chambre. My mother thought it politic to surround me with her people. She hasn’t always approved my choice of confidants.’
I thought of the handsome young mignons that Henri had appointed to positions of power over the years, many of them unfit for the job and several of them actively working against him, it had later turned out. Small wonder Catherine had decided to assert her control.
‘Of course, it may be that Lefèvre never sent that letter at all,’ I said. ‘I have no way of knowing. But somebody surely found out he was thinking about it – I’m certain that’s why he was killed.’
‘What about this de
