As the Doctor changed into his Abbot’s habit, Lerans explained the plan to him.
‘You’ll be taken to the entrance in Notre Dame,’ he began.
‘There’s one in the Cathedral?’ The Doctor was surprised.
‘We have ways in almost everywhere. The Catholics sealed them and then forgot about them. We remembered them and opened them. You entered the Cardinal’s palace through the scullery yesterday,’ Lerans reminded him.
‘True, but why am I not going back there?’ the Doctor asked as he finished dressing and Lerans produced a transcript of the royal audience which he gave to the Doctor to read.
‘That’s where we start undermining them,’ he said, tapping the document with his forefinger, ‘with Tavannes.
And you have two hours, Doctor, as the Abbot should he in his quarters resting and reading his Office.’
‘Should be, not will be,’ the Doctor remarked.
‘Almost certainly will be,’ Lerans replied with a smile.
A few minutes later the Doctor was on his helter-skelter ride through the dark tunnels until the driver drew in the reins and the dogs stopped.
‘Up the steps over there, sir,’ the driver said, handing him a lit taper. ‘There’s a judas-hole in the door and when you come back, I’ll be waiting here.’
The Doctor went up the steps to the door and blew out the taper which he laid down on the top step. He peered through the judas-hole and saw that he was looking into a small crypt.
No one was in sight so he cautiously opened the door, went into the crypt and closed it behind him. Light filtered in and he saw that on either side of the crypt was a stone tomb, with the effigy of a reclining knight in armour on one and a woman in a flowing robe on the other.
At the end of the crypt was a wooden door with an iron grill. The Doctor pushed down the latch and pulled the door open. In front of him was a short flight of steps leading up to one aisle of the Cathedral. The Doctor put his hands in prayer in front of his face to conceal it and went up the steps into the main body of the Cathedral. He made his way swiftly to the west entrance and drew the cowl over his head as he stepped out into the sunshine.
With his head bowed he crossed the square and entered the Cardinal’s palace, threw the cowl back off his head and then, ignoring the salutes of the palace guards, made his way to Duval’s office on the second floor.
Duval was seated at his desk rereading reports of the vain attempts to find the Huguenot apothecaries when the Abbot’s presence was announced. He stood up quickly and respectfully as the Doctor swept into the room.
‘I wish a word with Marshall Tavannes,’ the Doctor announced, ‘so escort me to his residence.’
‘I’ll summon a carriage, my Lord,’ Duval replied.
‘No, we’ll walk, my son,’ the Doctor replied. ‘A prelate should be as one with his flock.’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Duval agreed, although the last thing he wanted to do was walk through the crowded streets on a sweltering afternoon. But the people stood aside to permit them free passage and the Doctor acknowledged their politeness with little gestures of one hand.
‘Watchfulness is the mark of a good shepherd,’ he observed as they made their way towards Tavannes’s home, ‘’lest some predator fall upon his charges and devour them.’
‘I agree, my Lord, we must always be on the alert for an enemy in our midst,’ Duval replied with conviction.
‘Quite so, quite so,’ the Doctor murmured as they entered the Marshall’s house. They were received in Tavannes’s study.
‘If unprepared for it, my Lord, I am honoured by your visit,’ said Tavannes, a portly man with a flowing moustache who was in his mid-sixties.
‘I do not procrastinate, Marshall.’ The Doctor was curt.
‘Catholic must not fight Catholic. So I agree with your hypothesis. France cannot afford a war with Spain.’
‘That’s the truth, my Lord, and the Queen Mother knows it.’ Tavannes raised his arms in emphasis. ‘Also she fears Spain’s force of arms.’
‘Yet both Catherine and her son favour de Coligny,’ the Doctor reminded him.
Tavannes stroked his moustache and smiled. ‘The King perhaps, but the Queen Mother has been wooed away.’
‘That was not evident today, Marshall,’ the Doctor snapped.
‘It suits our purposes for the Admiral to believe he still has her high esteem,’ Tavannes replied, ‘hut let me assure you, my Lord, that the Court will soon be rid of the Huguenot’s influence.’
The Doctor raised a protesting hand. ‘I serve only the faith, Marshall, and I repeat, Catholic must not fight Catholic,’ he said. ‘The politics of France are no concern of mine.’
Looking at his face, Duval, who relished the thought of Lerans’s and Muss’s humiliation, was convinced that the Abbot could out-politic the Devil, if need be.
As they walked back towards the Cardinal’s palace, the Doctor announced his intention of going to the Cathedral to meditate and instructed Duval to return to his office.
‘I shall transcribe your conversation with Marshall Tavannes at once, my Lord,’ Duval said.
The Doctor looked suitably horrified, ‘No, no, my son’, he replied, ‘we spoke informally as man to man. What was said will remain a secret between the three of us.’
‘Of course, my Lord, you may rely on my discretion.’
Duval bowed his head in respect and left.
The Doctor entered the Cathedral and, as he walked along the aisle, was about to push the cowl off his head when he saw the Abbot of Amboise walking in the opposite direction along the nave.
Hastily, the Doctor dropped to his knees and bowed his head as if in prayer whilst thinking that with ‘should be’s’
and ‘will be’s’ the sooner he and Steven were quit of Paris the better.
9
Steven and Anne found Preslin’s shop without much difficulty and walked along the narrow lane to the back as the Doctor had done on the previous day. Steven knocked several times at the door but there was no reply.
‘Three of them’s in there hiding somewhere,’ the rosy-checked, stout woman announced from the next door window. ‘Unless they crept out in the middle of the night.’
She added that not much missed her eyes, either on the street or behind it.
‘Hiding?’ Steven exclaimed.
‘The soldiers came by early yesterday evening, looking for them, I suppose, but they went away empty-handed,’
she replied.
‘Was one of the three men elderly, wearing a cloak and carrying a silver-knobbed cane?’ Steven asked.
‘He was the one who came asking for Monsieur Preslin in the first place. But why don’t you go in and look?’ she suggested. ‘It’s never locked.’
Tentatively, Steven tried the door and it swung open.
‘Thank you, madame,’ he said and, taking Anne by the arm, went inside. They searched the house thoroughly but found nothing to give Steven a clue that the Doctor had been there.
‘They must have made good their escape before the soldiers arrived,’ Steven said as they stood in the bedroom which was a shambles with Preslin’s clothes strewn everywhere.
‘And the neighbour didn’t see them leave, sir?’ Anne sounded dubious. ‘A busybody like her’
‘Then can you explain it?’ Steven replied irritably.
‘No, sir, I can’t,’ Anne said.
‘But I must find him’, Steven was emphatic.
‘Best not in those clothes, sir,’ Anne suggested, ‘they’re a bit funny and you’d soon be recognised if anyone were to see you.’
Steven smiled wryly. ‘I think you’re right, Anne, but what else have I to wear?’
‘His things, sir,’ Anne pointed to Preslin’s clothes.
‘By the look of them, we’re not the same build,’ Steven replied.
‘There’s plenty of people in Paris who wear ill-fitting clothes, sir.’ Anne scratched her head and smiled. ‘So many you don’t even notice them. I’ll wait for you downstairs.’
Steven looked with dismay at the hose, the doublets, the buckled shoes and the plumed hats lying on the floor and the bed. He knew Anne was right but everything, apart from the hat, was too small. He sighed and changed, then he bound his clothes up in a bundle which he slung over his shoulder and went downstairs. As soon as Anne saw him, she had a fit of the giggles.
‘Nobody would ever know it was you, sir,’ she said, her shoulders jiggling.
‘That’s a relief,’ Steven’s voice had an edge to it. ‘But stop calling me sir all the time. My name’s Steven.’
‘Yes sir – er – Steven, sir,’ Anne replied.
He smiled. ‘Where does your aunt live?’
‘In the
rue des Fossés Saint Jacques
. It’s not far from here,’
Anne said.
‘Saint James’s Ditches,’ Steven translated. ‘I’ll take you there.’
‘Very handsome you look, very handsome indeed, sir,’ the neighbour said as Steven and Anne left the house.
Steven gave her a sickly smile. It did occur to him to say that he would eventually return Preslin’s clothes but he decided against it.
As they made their way through the streets Steven discovered two things: the first was that Anne was right, no one paid any attention to him, and the second was that his borrowed shoes pinched. But the third discovery when they reached the aunt’s modest home was much more serious. A neighbour came in tears to say that Anne’s brother and her aunt had been abducted on the previous evening by Catholic soldiers.
At approximately the same time Roger Colbert presented himself at the Admiral’s house and asked to see Nicholas Muss. Nervously intertwining his plump fingers the young man explained that Duval would he willing to exchange the relatives for the wench.
‘Your master places considerable importance on retrieving this – er – wench, as you call her,’ Muss said calmly from behind his desk, ‘and for the life of me, I cannot think why.’
‘She has a contract of employment which she has broken’, Colbert replied, untwining his fingers to tap one set on the back of the other hand. ‘A situation, sir, which I am sure you would not tolerate in this household.’
‘Indeed not,’ Muss smiled, ‘it would mean instant dismissal.’
‘That is not our way,’ Colbert returned the smile, ‘After an appropriate reprimand the offender is given a second chance.’
‘In the true Christian spirit,’ Muss retaliated.
‘Perhaps the girl should be allowed to decide for herself?’ Colbert suggested.
‘Her return against her relatives’ release. That’s hardly the same spirit, is it?’ Muss shook his head and then pointed at Colbert. ‘Go back and tell Simon Duval to free her family and come here himself with a guarantee on his honour that they will not be abducted again.’ Muss leant forward, put his elbow on the desk and raised his forefinger towards the ceiling. ‘At that point, I will have Anne Chaplet summoned here’ – he reversed the direction of his finger – ‘to make her choice.’
Colbert inclined his head slightly and left the room.
After a few moments, Muss rang the small bell on his desk and asked his secretary to fetch Anne. When he learned she was missing he sent for Steven, only to be told that he, too, had disappeared. In exasperation he hit the desk with the his fist.
‘Find them, find them before the Catholics get wind of this!’ he ordered.
The Doctor had returned to the cave and, whilst he changed into his own clothes, Lerans listened to his account of the meeting with Tavannes.
‘So now Catherine’s with them and the Admiral’s on his way out,’ Lerans summarised when the Doctor had finished.
‘That’s how it appears,’ the Doctor confirmed.
‘The Queen Mother’s equivocation I can understand,’
Lerans replied. ‘She’s always tried to maintain a balance between Catholic and Huguenot. But getting rid of de Coligny is more difficult to understand because he’s the King’s man.’
‘You’re forgetting that Charles is tied to his mother’s apron strings,’ the Doctor pointed out.
‘Not since she forced him to marry Elizabeth of Austria,’ Lerans answered. ‘Since then he’s tried to be his own master.’
‘But he’s sick,’ the Doctor emphasised.
‘Yes, I know, and his little brother, the Duke of Anjou, the heir to the throne, is no friend of ours,’ Lerans added and then asked the question the Doctor dreaded: ‘But how do they intend to get rid of de Coligny?’
‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor lied and changed the subject.
‘Where’s Steven?’
‘Safe and sound at the Admiral’s house,’ Lerans replied confidently and returned to his own question. ‘Obviously, the Queen Mother must know. Anjou, Tavannes and Guise would not dare move without her consent.’ He paused and then smiled at the Doctor: ‘We’ll arrange an audience as soon as possible with her for you, my Lord Abbot, to find out.’
The Doctor looked at him with lugubrious eyes and sighed in resignation.
Duval was furious when Colbert told him about Muss’s reaction to the exchange.
‘No, I will not free them,’ he shouted and hammered on his desk. ‘Not until the girl is here. Go back and tell him that.’ There was a knock on the door. ‘What is it?’ he snapped as a sentry came into the office with a sealed note which he handed to Duval. Duval broke it open with a small knife and read the message. Then he roared with laughter and crumpled the parchment in his hand. ‘He’s got her out of there! He’s done it! Quickly, Roger, go and find them.’
‘Who sir?’ Colbert was completely confused.
‘The young man, the Abbot’s agent, and the wench,’
Duval replied excitedly. ‘Reach them before the Huguenots do.’ He took Colbert by the sleeve. ‘There’s a promotion in it if you succeed.’
Colbert scuttled from the room.
Steven stood on the street and tried to think. He was stuck with Anne as she had nowhere to go. But neither had he.
The auberge was out of the question as both sides would look for him there and he had no idea where the Doctor was.
Finally he realised that, without papers, there was only one safe refuge for him; the rubbish dump where the TARDIS stood, but he was obliged to take Anne along.
Dressed as he was, a carriage was out of the question so they made their way back across the city as quickly as Steven’s blistering feet would allow. On the way they saw patrols of Catholic soldiers and groups of men who looked suspiciously like Huguenots on a similar mission – to find them. Steven squeezed Anne’s shoulder in appreciation as they walked unrecognised through the streets. He did not relish the idea of waiting for the Doctor among the putrescence, as the latter had described it, but he seemed to have no choice.