Fearful and troubled, Mariken fumbled and dropped the key. In all her years in the community she had never disobeyed the rules in such a manner. Her old heart thumping, she finally succeeded in unlocking the gate. She stepped onto Begijnensloot and into the narrow medieval streets beyond the bridge. Mariken was so anxious that she did not observe the shadows shimmer behind her. As she crossed Kalverstraat, head bowed, she did not feel the shifting of the air. So when the blow came, pitching her forward into the Amstel, she had no time to think.
Like many Amsterdammers who lived their lives ringed by canals, Mariken could not swim. As the first mouthful of water filled her lungs, she just had time to think how glad she was that now she could not be forced to betray the trust placed in her. She was aware of a man standing on the quay watching her drown. As her heavy grey robes quickly pulled her under, Mariken prayed that the boy Pieter and his mother would, in time, be reunited in God’s grace.
And that the cardinal would never know the truth.
CHAPTER TWO
Two Weeks Later
CHÂTEAU DE PUIVERT, LANGUEDOC
Friday, 6 June
There was barely a whisper of wind.
Minou held her long, pale fingers to her temples and pressed. Her head continued to pound. She could feel the approaching storm in the prickling of her skin and the sheen of sweat at the base of her throat.
Her family would be gathering now to hear her decision. She could delay no longer, yet still she hesitated. Minou glanced around the musicians’ gallery. The familiarity of it soothed her spirits. But when she turned back to the window, and saw black storm clouds mustering above the valley, unease caught in her chest.
What should she do?
Minou loosened the high collar at her neck, the brocade stiff between her finger and thumb. It was unlike her to be so indecisive. She presumed it was because so many of her family were here, bringing back dark memories of the last time they had all been together in Puivert.*
‘Les fantômes d’été,’ she murmured. The ghosts of summer.
Blood and sinew and bone. The thrust of the sword and the swing of the rope, the roar of the fire as it took hold in the northern woods. Many had been lost between that dawn and dusk.
Ten years had passed. The forest had come back to life. New green shoots had replaced the black, charred trunks, soft dappled light painting new pathways between the trees. A carpet of pink and yellow woodland flowers blossomed in the spring. But if the land no longer bore the scars of the tragedy, Minou still did. She carried the horror of what she had witnessed deep inside her, like a shifting splinter of glass. She never forgot how closely Death had walked beside them. How his breath had scorched her cheek.
It was why she had invited her whole family to a service of remembrance in the chapel to mark the anniversary and to lay the past to rest once and for all. Afterwards, Minou had gone alone into the woods and laid flowers at the overgrown grave of the previous châtelaine of Puivert. There had been other tributes, poesies and scraps of ribbon. A Latin prayer. For although the castle was now a Huguenot enclave, many in the surrounding countryside remained committed to the old Catholic faith. The flourishing Église Saint-Marcel in the village of Puivert below attested to that.
As if mirroring the pattern of her thoughts, the bells of the church began to call the hour. Minou picked up her journal. It was her custom to write in the afternoons, carrying parchment and ink up to the open viewing point at the top of the keep. It was her way of linking the girl she had been to the woman she had become. So, though duty was calling, she decided to allow herself a few moments more of solitude. Writing helped her make sense of the world, a testimony on life as she lived it. Writing, if nothing else, would calm her conflicted thoughts.
Quitting the chamber, Minou climbed the narrow stone staircase to the roof, up steps worn thin by generations. At the narrow landing at the top of the keep, she took her old green travelling cloak from its hook beside the door, lifted the latch and was about to step out onto the roof when a voice rang out below.
‘Maman!’
Feeling as if she had been caught out, she turned quickly.
‘Je suis ici, petite.’
Minou heard footsteps, then the inquisitive face of her seven-year-old daughter appeared on the floor below. Marta was never still, in body or mind. Always rushing, always impatient. As usual she was holding her linen cap, stitched with her initials, crumpled in her hand.
‘Maman, where are you?’
Minou took her fingers from the latch. ‘Up here.’
‘Ah.’ Marta peered into the gloom and nodded. ‘I see you now. Papa says it is time. It is past four o’clock. Everyone is waiting in the solar.’
‘Tell Papa I will be there presently.’
She heard Marta draw breath to protest but then, for once, think better of it.
‘Oui, Maman.’
‘In point of fact, Marta, could you also ask Papa to –’
But only the echo of Minou’s own voice swam back at her. Her quicksilver daughter had already gone.
PUIVERT WOODS
The assassin crouched in the tangled undergrowth, his finger and thumb stiff in position around the wheel-lock pistol. His gaze was fixed upon the highest point of the castle.
He was ready, had been so since first light. He had made his confession and prayed for deliverance. He had laid his offering at the grave in the woods of the previous châtelaine, a pious and devout Catholic lady murdered by Huguenot vermin. His soul was pure. Shriven.
He was ready to kill.
On this day, he would rid Puivert of the cancer of heresy and be blessed for it. He would purify the land. For ten years, the Protestant harlot, an imposter, had filled the château de Puivert with refugees from the wars. She had given sanctuary to those who should be driven down into the fires of Hell. She’d taken food from the mouths of the true Catholics who belonged here.
No more. Today he would fulfil his vow. Soon, the bells of the castle would ring out for Mass once more.
‘Thou shalt not suffer a heretic to live.’
Had not the eminent priest preached those very words from the pulpit in Carcassonne? Had he not fixed him with a gimlet eye, selecting him of all the congregation to fulfil God’s command? Had he not given him benediction and provided him with the means?
The assassin’s right hand tightened on the pistol, as his left slipped to the heavy purse hanging at his waist next to his rosary. Though his greatest reward for his most Christian service would come in the hereafter, it was only fair he should have some credit on this earth too.
The man rolled his shoulders and flexed his fingers. He could be patient. He was a poacher by trade, well used to tracking and hunting his prey. The blood-stained sack at his feet gave testament to his skill. A rabbit and an entire colony of rats. The kitchen gardens in the upper courtyard of the castle attracted all kinds of scavengers. It would have been a sin not to profit from his presence there.
The assassin shifted position, feeling the taut muscles spasm in his right thigh. He looked up through the canopy of green leaves. The sun was shrouded by dark clouds as he heard the solitary toll of the village bell strike the hour. The Huguenot whore customarily took the air at the top of the keep at this time in the afternoon, so why did she not show herself today?
He listened, alert to the slightest sound, hoping for the creak of the wooden door. He heard nothing save for the rumble of distant thunder in the mountains and foxes on the slopes of the garrigue beyond the boundary of the woods.