Free Mary Gentle by A Sundial in a Grave-161 Page B

green, and I could guess why. Preferment would be thin on the ground for Protestants in a Medici court. Lassels added, “He will not come out unless he knows himself safe. Will he be safe, messire?”
    “We may hope,” I said, feeling as grim as I sounded.
    The late afternoon sun shone on Poissy; on the small white stones paving the main road that led through the square, going arrow-straight to the north-west. Even here, the roads were full. All kinds and conditions of men: lawyers, farmers, soldiers, servants; walking or riding; all anxious to take the news out to the provinces. Light flickered through the poplars that walled the road beyond the town gate. Light shone through the clouds of dust going up from men’s feet. Great Henri is dead . It will take a week to spread the news from one end of the country to the other.
    And there will be men riding post to the Lowlands, to
Spain
, to the Pope; men in the pay of other spy-masters, who will need to calculate how this event shatters the buildup of power in Europe. What will happen to
France
now?
    I re-sharpened the quill that Lassels had brought me, and dipped it in the ink, finishing the third copy of my enciphered letter to the Duc my master. Each copy detailed, as well as I could deduce it, the circumstances under which Maignan could have been kidnapped, and therefore the most likely men in the household amongst whom he should look for the traitor.
    I cannot hope for acknowledgement of receipt. And to be certain, I must send more messages than a traitor can intercept.
    “The governor,” Lassels added anxiously. “M. the Intendent says the governor is closing all the town gates and calling out the local troops, in case we’re invaded by the Spanish. Do you think there’ll be a Spanish invasion, M. Rochefort?”
    I gave him, absently, something that sounded convincing. “There are too many French guns and men near the Spanish Netherlands border for that to happen; they can as well defend us as go to Jülich and Cleves.”
    “Yes. Yes, thank God!”
    “You may open M. the Intendent’s purse, while I’m about it,” I said with a grimace at Lassels. “I am down to my last few pistoles, and I cannot help the Duc with that alone.”
    Lassels flushed. “But, messire, I can’t. He’s taken the taille money with him. He and the governor and the mayor are all together at the governor’s house; they’re planning to put down a revolt by the local Protestants—”
    “Is there an uprising in Poissy, then?”
    “No!” Lassels sounded frustrated. He was a small, thin man; he did not wear a sword; still, there was a light on his face at the thought of a Protestant rebellion. It vanished. “The dear good God—if the Huguenots are blamed for Henri’s death now, it could be another Bartholomew’s Day!”
    Strange, the potency of that memory in men’s minds. I was born about the time that the Valois King Charles IX stood back and let his Catholic subjects slaughter Coligny and almost all the Protestant citizens of Paris, and even I sometimes feel that I lived through it.
    “You must ask M. the Intendent for money.”
    “I can’t!” Lassels looked the colour of old cheese rind. “He won’t do anything now, not even for you, M. Rochefort. He’s frightened. Look! Who knows what will happen now!”
    Where Lassels pointed, I saw men with half-pikes and arquebuses jogging out to assemble in the town square, with a richly dressed man I took to be the local governor haranguing them. They made no appreciable difference to the flood of traffic on the main road, but plainly it wouldn’t be long before the town gates did get closed.
    And there is M. Dariole, I thought, bringing my gaze back to him through the obscure panes of the leaded window. I could observe him clearly enough to see that he was watching the militia drill with a would-be professional eye. If he gets into conversation with the soldiers. If he should think it funny to have them apprehend M. Rochefort.