Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [71]
Jerott Blyth turned his back on the girl. He said rapidly, ‘Francis. If you are discovered helping a high-ranking noblewoman to escape from a Protestant orgy, they’ll burn you in the Marché aux Porceaux, whatever you’ve done for them. No one could stop this. Except maybe the Cardinal.’
‘The soul of the King, and who has so many brave brothers? Exactly,’ said Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny, ‘what I was thinking.’
Chapter 2
De gens d’Église sang sera espanchè
Comme de l’eau en si grand abondance
Et d’un long temps ne sera res tranché
Ve vë au clerc ruine et doleance.
During the singing of the first table of the Decalogue word reached the pastor in the Hôtel Bétourné that crowds were gathering in the rue St Jacques outside the building. He did not announce it, but allowed the Decalogue to finish, delivered the prayer for forgiveness and during the intoning of the remaining Commandments sent out for the latest report, which was that the road had been cleared by mounted archers and armed men of the City’s militia, who had then formed a block at either end. Behind, the Sorbonne had closed the doors leading into its street and men were guarding these too. The chanting finished, leaving in its wake the trailing voices of tired children in the arms or at the knees of the women who formed tonight the greater part of his congregation.
Speaking carefully, M. de Morel proceeded to the reading of the Word of God and to his exposition. Tribulations of mind and body, he informed them, were not a sign of Christ’s displeasure. God’s Elect did not refuse to do battle for their faith but sought for their Defender and hence for their final deliverance.
He hoped they would take to heart what he was saying. He hoped God the Father was listening also and would send a miracle that, whatever he said, would save his congregation from stampeding outside, to be hunted like geese by their enemies. Outside, the windows were crowded, it seemed, with all the men of the quarter. And they had piled wall-stones and paving slabs on their sills to cast down on the heads of the faithful. Whether the archers were there for their arrest or for their protection would hardly matter, He proceeded, his hands trembling, to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
Marguerite de St André, standing with the comtesse de Laval at the back of the big, candlelit room, was aware of noise penetrating the thick old walls. Next door was the Church of St Benoît le Bétourné with its twisted High Altar which had once given the whole street its nickname. Opposite was the high, galleried frontage of the double College of Marmoutier and Plessis, and all around, arm in arm with the other tall houses, the rest of the scattered colleges of the University.
One would put down the disturbance perhaps to the students, except that the college streets were mostly barred off at night for this reason. And in any case, the students were allies: they were aware, as no one else, of the abuses of the old order. They realized, as she had not until Claude had explained it to her, and her friend the Prince of Condé, and, discreetly, so many of those who held high positions at Court, that she could place no reliance on confession and a Catholic penance to save her. To obtain salvation, she must be one of the Elect. And, stricken with humility, the Maréchale de St André was from time to time much aware of her need for salvation. Worried, she moved forward to receive the bread and the wine with Claude, murmuring the incantation: C’est la communication du corps et du sang du Seigneur; then returned to her place for the psalms, and the prayers for the King and the Church and the prosperity of the kingdom.
The preacher had contrived a few words with his elders. If no help had arrived by the end of the service, he would put a choice to the congregation. Either they could wait for the law and give themselves up to justice; or the more active among them could force a path into the street, and fight their way through the crowd with their weapons.
He hoped, to the