Heretic Dawn (60 page)

“Well, sire,” rejoined Rambouillet, “Your Majesty is too good: you ask where you could command.”

“Command?” laughed Navarre. “I command no one here, not even Margot!”

And at this, laughing uproariously and giving Rambouillet a little pat on his stomach, he passed through the gate, followed by his Swiss guards, who were wearing uniforms of red and yellow (red for Navarre and yellow for Béarn) and, except for a couple of them, were not Swiss at all, but from Béarn.

I presented myself in turn to the captain of the gate, who, to my considerable surprise, since he’d never been so friendly to me, extended his hand, and, as I shook it, pressed my hand tightly and said, lowering his eyes:

“Adieu, Monsieur de Siorac! May you return safely to your provinces!”

This wish was very banal, to be sure, and yet it surprised me all the more since I’d never told Monsieur de Rambouillet that I was going to leave—which, moreover, was now impossible, for lack of money and horses, and because, of course, the city gates were now irrevocably closed.

Miroul, who was just outside, came up and could see immediately by my expression that I’d failed in my quest. I hurried forward and, as night was beginning to fall, I joined Navarre and his escort, who, as I’d thought, were heading towards the admiral’s lodgings, since they were taking the rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain.

As soon as Navarre caught sight of me, he turned around and, looking at me intently with his long face, said jovially:

“Aren’t you the doctor who believed that the admiral could be carried in a litter despite his wounds?”

“Indeed, sire,” I said, making a deep bow. “My name is Pierre de Siorac, and I’m the younger son of the Baron de Mespech in Périgord.”

“Well!” said Navarre. “A doctor and the son of a baron: I like that! What do you think of our present predicament?”

“Sire, I agree with Monsieur de Ferrières.”

“And yet,” said Navarre, whose manner always seemed a bit light-hearted, “you didn’t leave with him.”

“For lack of horses, sire, and of money to rent them.”

“This is honest talk, and brave!” said Navarre. “Only a brave man wouldn’t be afraid to say that he wished to flee from an ambush.”

To which I made him another bow, feeling more affection for him than I had, since I’d never been much attracted by his physical presence, nor his provincial manners. But he definitely had something princely about him, however light-hearted he appeared, and however much he loved a good laugh and preferred cajolery to giving commands, understanding very well that you catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with ten barrels of vinegar.

“All this civil discord is a great pity,” he continued, but now with some gravity, “and I’m very disturbed at all the bloodshed between Frenchmen over religion. I don’t know whether the admiral will get his war in Flanders. They seem to want to stop him at all costs—even that of his life. May God take Monsieur de Coligny by the hand and lead him to safety on this earth!”

Just then, he heard one of the guards behind him quietly complaining of his empty stomach, and turned round; then, returning to his more jocular tone, he joked:

“Well, me too, my good Fröhlich, I’m starving! And I’d love a crust of black bread, a garlic clove and a goblet of wine!”

“Sire,” returned Fröhlich in the same familiar tone, “in the Louvre you’ve got other kinds of meat,
Herrgott
!”

“To be sure! But I lack the appetite that the Pyrenees gave me as a child!”

“
Ach!
” agreed Fröhlich with a huge sigh. “I miss my mountains of Berne as well!”

This Swiss, who was Swiss in name only, was himself a mountain of a man, big and fat, with arms like thighs, legs as big as another man’s trunk and a large, crimson face.

“I have to say,” said another of the escort, a native of Béarn, in his dialect, “I like my hills more than this shitty city, which stinks with corruption and hatred.”

“Speak French, Cadieu,” cried Navarre in a mocking tone, “so that our Swiss friend can understand you!”

And in response, Cadieu, who was only slight less massive than Fröhlich and seemed to enjoy a great friendship with him, repeated his thought in a French so badly pronounced that Navarre had to laugh out loud as he threw me knowing glances.

But Navarre’s mood soured dramatically when we turned into the rue de Béthisy and saw that the street in front of the admiral’s lodgings was occupied by about forty arquebusiers, who had taken over the two shops opposite and lit bonfires in the street, setting up camp as though they intended to spend the night there.

“By the belly of Christ!” he said between clenched teeth. “I don’t like the look of this!” Then, calling to a guard who was serving as sentinel at the corner of the street, and heavily armed for combat, as were all the others there, he said, “Guard, who’s in charge here?”

“Camp-master Cossain,” said the arquebusier.

“Cossain!” repeated Navarre, and he frowned even more deeply.

Hurrying their pace, Navarre’s Swiss guards closed ranks around him and tensely cast sidelong glances at the king’s guards with little trust or amity, especially since they themselves were in simple uniforms, armed only with halberds and short swords at their belts. Navarre reached the door of the house at the moment a violent argument was taking place between Monsieur de Guerchy and a great lump of a man, armoured head to foot, as arrogant and swaggering as they come. As soon as I saw him, I knew he must be the camp-master, given the common expression around the Louvre, “swaggering like Cossain”.

“What’s going on?” asked Navarre, with his usual easy-going manner and a wide smile on his face—the admirable pliability with which he governed his humour never ceasing to amaze me.

“Sire,” said Monsieur de Guerchy in the most inflamed tone, “Cossain wants to prevent the page, here, from bringing two arquebuses belonging to Monsieur de Téligny into the house.”

This seemed to bring Navarre up short, but he immediately took control of himself and, addressing the camp-master with amiable and enviable good humour, and raising his eyebrows in feigned astonishment and naivety, said:

“What’s the matter, Cossain? Is there some problem with that? Is Monsieur de Téligny supposed to be the only one in there who doesn’t have a weapon?”

“Sire,” Cossain replied, clearly crestfallen, “I’m acting under the king’s orders that no firearms be allowed in the house, but,” he added, playing the good servant, “if Your Majesty wishes the page to bring in some arquebuses, I’m happy with that.”

“That’s very good of you!” Navarre smiled, and, giving the page a little tap on the neck, he added, “Go on in, my boy!”

After which, he took Guerchy, still visibly fuming, by the arm and dragged him into the house, with Miroul and me at his heels, but the Swiss guards remained outside. They looked imperturbable enough,
but I imagined that they were pretty ill at ease to be confronted with forty well-armed soldiers who were staring at their red and yellow uniforms with undisguised contempt.

“Guerchy,” asked Navarre as soon as we were out of earshot, “what’s going on? What’s Cossain doing here?”

“He’s here to protect the admiral from the uprising. It was Coligny who, during the afternoon, sent word to the Louvre asking the king for protection, believing that the sight of a few guards in the street would dissuade the populace from attacking his lodgings.”

“Ah,” said Navarre sotto voce, and in an ambiguous tone, somewhere between ironic and respectful, “so it was the admiral himself who requested this protection?”

And then, throwing his head back, his long nose seeming to breathe in the scents in the air, but not liking what he smelt, he added in a deep voice, through his clenched teeth, “But who’s going to protect the admiral from Cossain?”

“That’s exactly the problem,” said Guerchy, still red-faced from his quarrel with the camp-master.

Navarre sighed, and, giving Monsieur de Guerchy a little tap on his shoulder, turned on his heels and quickly mounted the stairs to the admiral’s chambers, but came down again immediately saying that Monsieur de Coligny was sleeping, but that he appeared to be recovering well, and that, at least from that perspective, he could be content. However, he remained standing there, eyes half-closed, appearing to stare at something on the floor, and seemed to be mulling something over in his mind, his expression no longer light-hearted and gay, but rather very grave. Quitting his silence and his immobility, he ordered six of his Swiss guards to remain for the night in the admiral’s lodgings, commanding them to lock and bolt the door, close the shutters and keep a vigilant watch. After which, recovering his more light-hearted manner, he said goodnight to Guerchy, to me
and to La Bonne (the admiral’s major-domo), and left with his escort diminished by half, leaving behind, besides four others of lesser girth, both Fröhlich and Cadieu, whose combined bulk seemed suddenly to fill the house to capacity. But what could these giants do with their swords and halberds against forty arquebuses?

The major-domo, La Bonne, was, true to his name, a gentle, good fellow, as round as a top, with a suave, benevolent expression and a voice as soft as a stream in April. He set up our Swiss in the lower hall with a bottle of wine, and some bread and cheese, and then retired with me to the admiral’s chambers. Miroul, his varicoloured eyes so worried they both looked black, stayed as close to me as my shadow, his hand constantly checking the hilts of his sword, his dagger and the two knives he concealed in his breeches for throwing. With us upstairs were the valet Yolet, the German interpreter Nicolas Muss, the minister Merlin, the orderly Cornaton and Madame de Téligny, but the admiral, upon awakening, asked that she be escorted to her lodgings in the grand’rue Saint-Honoré. A dozen men who were still there volunteered to take her, and were flanked by two lackeys bearing torches, but she insisted on turning back twice to say goodbye to her father, her beautiful blue eyes drowned in tears and her face wracked with grief. The admiral tried to comfort her by repeating that he felt much better, but she couldn’t bear to pull herself away, prey, as she must have been, to a deep presentiment that she would never see him again.

La Bonne extinguished all the candles except one, and each of us arranged himself as best he could on the various stools, leaving the one armchair for Merlin, the minister, who was old and tired. None of us expected to get any sleep, despite the profound silence that reigned both throughout the house, which is not so surprising, and throughout this immense city, which surrounded us on all sides, holding us ensnared in its trap with no possibility of escape.

It wasn’t the fear of dying that touched me in this funereal vigil—and funereal it was, well before the first Protestant had been massacred—but rather the despair we felt at being so thoroughly hated by such a large number of our fellow men, nay compatriots, subjects of the same sovereign, who endured the same human condition as us, were made glad by the same joys, suffered the same illnesses, were terrified by the same indignities of ageing on our perishable bodies—in short, they were our brothers and sisters, as we were theirs, without any doubt, and not some “rotten branch of the tree of France” that had to be cut off by force, as Jezebel was, at this very instant, explaining to her son in the Louvre in order to assuage his doubt about the death warrant he’d signed. Yes, and I’ll say it again: in every way we are their brothers and sisters, and not the beings the priests in their pulpits have dismissed from the human community, calling us “dogs”, “vipers”, and “vermin” that God has told them to eradicate.

And as my thoughts ran in the silence of the night, my eyes barely open, fixed on the candle whose yellow flame seemed to want to go out, without ever going out—very much like the persecuted faith of the Huguenots—I began to think about Alizon, and these thoughts were very painful to me, not that I felt anything more than friendship for her, but because that good girl’s very hateful words—an echo of an entire people’s—were lodged in my very soul, so much so that in this silence, in this solitude, in this interminable waiting, my suffering was so intense and so great that, covering my eyes with my left hand so as not to be seen, I began to cry.

I know all too well, alas, that religious zeal has also had inhuman and pitiless consequences in our party, that the blood of the Michelade of Nîmes cries out against us and that it was Calvin himself who ordered the great physician Michael Servetus to be burnt in Geneva. Oh, God of love! When will we see the end of this chain and
concatenation of hatreds that break out in both religions and are used to justify the murders that are consciously committed in the name of Truth—which itself varies and changes so much that the heretic who burns at the stake thinks only of denouncing the heresy of his tormentor?

Twice during the night, I got up from my stool and lifted the curtain enclosing the admiral’s bed and listened to his breathing. It was so even and peaceful that he could have been sleeping in his sweet country retreat in Châtillon-sur-Loing, and not on a barrel of gunpowder. Indeed, poor Merlin, the minister, who was, in fact, younger than Coligny, seemed to have a much harder time of it, his uneven and difficult breathing causing him a lot of agitation as he slept. Miroul, as far as I could determine from the light of the one candle, was not asleep, but was watching over me, though he lowered his eyes when I looked his way so as not to disturb me with the care he was taking of me—which had quite the opposite effect since it comforted me more than I can say to feel loved precisely at the moment I felt myself to be the target of widespread detestation.

I heard the cry of the nightwatchman at ten as he made his rounds. I heard it again at eleven and also at midnight. But I must have dozed off after that, for a loud knocking at the door woke me with a start, and, jumping to my feet, Miroul already dressed at my side, his hand on the pommel of his sword, I saw the major-domo, La Bonne, groping about on the table for his keys, since his sight was less than perfect.

“What’s that, La Bonne?” cried Merlin, sitting up on his chair, looking terrified.