Page 200 of A Column of Fire
The boy opened his eyes, saw his mother and threw his arms around her. ‘He said you were dead!’ he wailed.
‘You cruel swine,’ Odette said to Pierre. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘To teach the boy a lesson,’ Pierre said, pleased with himself. ‘He lied to me, so I lied to him. He won’t do it again in a hurry.’
*
THELOUVRE WASa square medieval fort with round cone-roofed corner towers. Walsingham and Ned crossed a drawbridge over a moat to enter the courtyard. Ned was alert, excited, eager. The power was here. In this building were the men who commanded armies and started wars, men who could raise their friends to high rank and destroy their enemies, men who decided who should live and who should die. And Ned was going to talk to them.
The late King Henri II had demolished the west wall of the square and replaced it with a modern palace in the Italian style, with fluted pilasters, immensely tall windows, and a riot of sculpture. There was nothing like it in London, Ned reflected. More recently Henri’s son, Charles IX, had extended the new building, making an L-shape.
As always, the court gathered in a series of interconnecting spaces that delineated a hierarchy. Grooms, maids and bodyguards remained outside in the courtyard, whatever the weather. Ned and Walsingham entered the central door into the ballroom, which occupied the entire ground floor of the west wing. In this room were superior attendants such as ladies-in-waiting. Passing through, on his way to the next level, Ned was surprised to notice a stunning woman staring at him, her expression an odd mixture of shock, hope and puzzlement.
He looked hard at her. About his age, she was a classic Mediterranean beauty, with a mass of dark hair, heavily marked eyebrows, and sensual lips. Wearing bright red and black, she was easily the most flamboyantly dressed woman in the room, though her clothes were not the most expensive on display. There was something about her that made Ned think she was not merely a lady-in-waiting.
She spoke with an accent that was neither French nor English. ‘No, you’re definitely not Barney,’ she said.
It was a confused statement, but Ned understood. ‘My brother’s name is Barney, but he’s taller than I am, and handsomer.’
‘You must be Ned!’
He placed her accent as Spanish. ‘I am, Señorita,’ he said, and bowed.
‘Barney mentioned you often. He was very fond of his little brother.’
Walsingham interrupted impatiently to say: ‘I’ll go on. Don’t be long.’
The woman said to Ned: ‘I am Jerónima Ruiz.’
The name rang a bell. ‘Did you know Barney in Seville?’
‘Know him? I wanted to marry him. But it was not in the stars.’
‘And now you’re in Paris.’
‘I am the niece of Cardinal Romero, who is here on a diplomatic mission for King Felipe of Spain.’
Ned would have heard about such a mission if it was official, so this must be something informal. Fishing for information, he said: ‘I assume King Felipe doesn’t want Princess Margot to marry a Huguenot.’ In the chess game of international diplomacy, the king of Spain supported the Catholics in France just as the queen of England helped the Protestants.
‘As a mere woman, I take no interest in such matters.’
Ned smiled. ‘Answered like a skilled diplomat.’
She kept up the pretence. ‘My role is to act as hostess at my uncle’s table. The cardinal has no wife, obviously.’ She gave him a provocative look. ‘Unlike your English priests, who are allowed to do anything.’
She was alluring, Ned found. ‘Why didn’t you marry my brother?’
A hard look came over her face. ‘My father died while being “interviewed” by the Inquisition. My family lost everything. Archdeacon Romero, as he then was, invited me to join his household. He saved me – but of course I could not think of marrying.’
Ned understood. She was not Romero’s niece, she was his mistress. The priest had taken advantage of her at a moment when her world seemed to have collapsed. He looked into her eyes and saw pain there. ‘You’ve been treated cruelly,’ he said.
‘I made my own decisions.’
Ned wondered whether her experiences had turned her against the Catholic Church – and, if that were the case, whether she might take her revenge by helping the Protestant cause. But he hesitated to ask her outright. ‘I’d like to talk to you again,’ he said.
She gave him an appraising look, and he had the unnerving feeling that she knew what was in his mind. ‘All right,’ she said.
Ned bowed and left her. He passed under the musicians’ gallery, held up by four caryatids, and went up the stairs. What a beautiful woman, he thought, though she was more Barney’s type than his. What is my type? he asked himself. Someone like Margery, of course.
