‘Will Guise be there?’ I asked, apprehensive.
‘Not tonight. Exclusively Englishmen and Scots. And friends of England,’ he added, with an inclusive sweep of his hand towards me. ‘Stafford is coming. My neighbour Sir Thomas Fitzherbert. Archbishop Beaton. You might find the conversation interesting. Some supper, wine, a few hands of cards.’
‘Alas, I am not a gambler,’ I said, backing away.
He answered with an arch smile. ‘I beg to disagree, Bruno. Your entire life is a gamble. I recognise it all too well.’
‘Let us say, then, that I do not have the appetite to play with you and your friends. I suspect the stakes will be too high.’
The smile widened. He was a man who appreciated a double meaning. ‘Let that not hinder you. I could always extend you credit. You would not be the first.’
‘I thank you, but I am occupied this evening.’
‘Pity. You would have added much to the entertainment. Well, I hope you will spend your time profitably making enquiries about the de Châtillon girl. Guise is losing patience with you. His sister the Duchess wants you arrested for murder and I can’t hold them off forever.’
I was not sure how to respond; the image of Paget standing bravely between me and the Fury of the League was hard to swallow, but I could not deny that my continued liberty was a surprise to me, given what a gift I would make as a scapegoat for Joseph’s murder, so I had to conclude that someone must be speaking for me and could not discount the possibility that it might be Paget. The question of why was another matter, and one I preferred not to dwell on for the moment.
‘I shall come and find you tomorrow,’ he called after me, as I crossed the rue Saint-Jacques. His tone was jaunty, but to me it carried an implicit threat.
‘I hope Dame Fortune smiles on your cards tonight,’ I replied, looking back.
‘She always does.’ He tilted his hat to a rakish angle. ‘I make sure of it.’
SEVENTEEN
I returned to my rooms, locked the door and sat down to write a brief letter to Walsingham. This was a more laborious process than it sounded, thanks to Master Secretary’s devilishly complicated system of encryption, but at length it was complete: a warning to look out for Gilbert Gifford’s arrival in England and keep a close eye on his contacts, since I believed he would be entrusted with packages that might prove interesting. I hesitated with my quill over the page, wondering if I should pass on what Catherine had told me regarding Stafford’s gambling habit. I decided against it; Walsingham would know the ambassador’s vices better than I, and there was no proof beyond an old woman’s insinuations. Besides, there was every chance that Stafford would attempt to read the letter first, since I would have to send it through the diplomatic courier; I did not have time to wait for this messenger of Walsingham’s to make himself known. I signed my name, dusted the ink with sand and sealed the paper with plain wax, adding to the outside corner my customary symbol, the astrological sign for Jupiter, to let Walsingham know the contents were urgent.
Before I set out again, I took down the cloth bag from its hiding place in the roof and tipped the contents on to my bed. All these items – the love letter from Frère Joseph’s mattress, the silver penknife found by his body and the scarf from the clearing last night – connected the three murders in some way that I could not yet comprehend. It was another kind of code, but one to which as yet I lacked the key. The manner of Joseph’s and Léonie’s deaths – both garrotted with a knotted ligature – suggested the same killer, one with some experience of murder. If Joseph was found naked because he was killed – or at least lured to his death – by his lover, then it was a question of identifying the author of that letter, and that meant finding a match to the handwriting. I pushed my hands through my hair and sighed; it would not be easy, but it was my only firm idea of where to start. I left the letter and turned the penknife over in my hand. To my unskilled eye it offered no obvious marks of identification save the hallmark of the tower on the blade. I would need to take it to an expert, someone trained in reading the language of the silversmiths’ symbols. Finally, the scarf. I smoothed it out on the bed and noticed again the faint smudge of blood on the ivory silk. I was still dogged by the lingering sense of guilt that I might have been close enough to save Léonie last night. If I had not frightened her by revealing my face, or if I had pursued her when she fled, perhaps her attacker would have been denied his opportunity, at least for that night. ‘Will you not release me?’ she had begged. But from what? What had bound her to the man she had arranged to meet in the clearing, for whom she had mistaken me?
With some effort, I forced my attention away from these unanswered questions, and held the scarf up to examine it more closely. The border was delicately embroidered with a pattern of curling vines and leaves, recurring emblems worked into them at intervals: a double-barred cross and a small crest, a gold shield crossed with a band of crimson showing three white eaglets displayed. I did not recognise the crest, but I was familiar enough with the court to know it was not the arms of the House of Valois or the House of Guise. Jacopo would know; he could identify the devices of most of the French and Italian nobility at a
