‘I have some experience in that area.’
‘Oh, I know it. I know what you were up to in England. Tell me – do you still correspond with your friends there?’
Her tone was light, but there was no mistaking the threat beneath it. I tried to keep my face as neutral as hers.
‘My friend Sir Philip Sidney now commands a garrison at Flushing. I write to him from time to time.’
She snorted. ‘Do not talk to me of the war in the Low Countries. My youngest son’s involvement there was nearly the death of me, God rest him.’ She paused to cross herself before fixing me with an appraising look, her head tilted. ‘And what do you make of Stafford, Elizabeth’s ambassador here? You are in touch with him, I believe.’
There seemed little point denying it, though I wondered how she could have come by that information. ‘I find him to be a gentleman.’
‘Hm. Still fond of the card-table, is he?’
‘If so, he has not invited me to join him.’
‘You should. You would come out of it a richer man. I hear his judgement is somewhat flawed when it comes to a hand of cards. Perhaps not only cards.’ She leaned towards me, one bent forefinger raised in admonition. ‘I give you this advice, Bruno, since you are a man whose life depends on judging whom to trust: never put your faith in a man who cannot temper his appetite for gaming.’
‘A man who cannot temper his appetite for anything is not apt to be trusted,’ I said.
‘True. Obsession is a malady that consumes all reason. I know that too well.’ Her eyes flitted to the portrait of her husband over the fireplace and I sensed she spoke from the heart. ‘Well – Elizabeth of England is deceived in her ambassador. There is my counsel – heed it if you will, though I suppose you will not, since Stafford must be lining your pockets.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Elizabeth favoured you, it seems. She gave you licence to publish your heretical books. Four of them in three years. You must have done something to please her.’
‘You have seen my books?’
‘Of course. Those you sent to the King via Jacopo. I told you, there are no secrets from me.’
‘And did you read them?’ I realised I could not quite disguise my eagerness. I should have realised Henri would not keep anything from his mother.
‘I read enough.’
A long silence unfolded. One of the guards coughed. From beyond the double doors I heard the women laughing.
‘You wish to know what I thought, I suppose,’ Catherine said, when the silence had grown unbearable. She shifted her weight from one hip to the other. ‘I will tell you. I think you are a very dangerous man, Doctor Bruno. All the more so because your arguments appeal so persuasively to reason. And reason is frequently the enemy of obedient faith.’ She pinned me again with that frank stare, a half-smile on her lips. ‘If our first mother Eve had obeyed the Lord’s command in the garden without question instead of allowing the serpent to reason his way around it, how different the story of mankind might have been. We would be spared all this.’ She gestured towards the window as if to encompass the general predicament of France.
I was denied the chance to contest this, because at the same moment the doors at the other end of the gallery crashed open and Balthasar de Beaujoyeux appeared as if he had been harried out of Hell, wringing his hands, his face white and his eyes wild, his hose and his velvet dancing slippers all spattered with mud and leaves. He flung himself to his knees before Catherine, shaking his head and snatching gasping breaths.
‘What is it, man?’ she said, her tone growing more imperious, as if to counter Balthasar’s evident distress.
‘Majesty, she is dead.’ He looked up at her, imploring. ‘Circe is dead!’
FIFTEEN
Catherine blanched, but did not lose her composure; only her free hand flailed, clawing the air in search of support. I stepped to her side and she grasped my arm.
‘Where? How?’
‘In the gardens – she was found – all bloodied – oh madonna santa, what shall we do?’ Balthasar was struggling to form sentences between snatched breaths. He pressed his hands to his face. Catherine inhaled sharply, her eyes calculating. Only I could feel how hard her fingers were gripping my arm.
‘This must be kept quiet,’ she said, at length. ‘Get up. Have her brought in through the back door by the kitchen, down to the cellar.’
Balthasar rose unsteadily to his feet, shaking his head. ‘Too late for that, I fear – the people who found her made such a commotion it drew others to the site. Someone ran for the guards. They are bringing her to you now. They didn’t know what else to do,’ he added, spreading his hands to show his helplessness.
Catherine’s face tightened. ‘Through the palace? For all to see? God save us – does no one here think?’
‘You must have all the gates barred immediately,’ I said. ‘If she has been killed, the murderer must be here in the palace. He – or she – will most likely try to leave as soon as possible, if they have not already done so. Your guards should detain anyone attempting to escape in a hurry. If we are fortunate, we may even catch them with blood or a weapon on their person.’
She turned to look up at me with slow amazement, as if she had only now remembered I was there.
‘Do you give the commands here? We do not yet know what has happened. If
