Read Chapter 31: The Final Path

The merchant's cart rattled over the cobbled bridge into Paris, its wheels complaining beneath sacks of Flemish wool. Claude kept his head bowed, his face smeared with road grime, his fine clerk's hands callused from three days of hauling cargo. He wore the rough-spun tunic of a journeyman and answered to the name Jehan when the toll keeper shouted at him to state his business.

"Wool for the Guildhall," Claude called back, his Burgundian accent buried under a flattened Parisian drawl he'd practiced for weeks. "Master Aubert sends his regards to the provost."

The toll keeper waved him through without a second glance. Claude exhaled. Two years ago he would have found this disguise beneath his dignity. Now it was simply another layer of armor.

Paris stank of river mud and unwashed thousands. Claude had visited once as a boy, when his father had brought the family to see the royal relics at Sainte-Chapelle. He remembered Marguerite's hand in his, her awe at the jeweled crown of thorns. She had been nine then, and she had believed in miracles.

Now she was somewhere in this city, hunting a cardinal who had killed their father.

Master Aubert's warehouse stood near the Halles, a three-story timber frame groaning with bolts of cloth and barrels of salt fish. Claude spent the first evening hauling inventory, sleeping in a loft above the storage room with two other laborers who snored like warhorses. The second morning, he slipped out before dawn.

The document-forgery operation would not announce itself. But men who made false letters needed certain supplies—parchment of specific weight, inks mixed to mimic aging, wax seals from disgraced bishops. Claude had spent his last month in Burgundy mapping the trade routes of such materials. They all led to a scriptorium on the Rue de la Huchette, a narrow shop supposedly owned by a retired notary named Bricot.

Claude watched the shop from a tavern across the street for three hours. In that time, only two men entered. The first wore the robes of a papal messenger. The second, hooded and quick, carried a satchel that clinked with the sound of coin.

The spider's web extended beyond the cardinal. It reached toward Rome itself.

On the third evening, a summons arrived at Master Aubert's warehouse, written on cream paper sealed with the royal fleur-de-lis. The masthead of the King's Chamberlain requested Master Aubert's presence at a masquerade ball honoring the betrothal of a royal cousin. The invitation extended to his household, as the chamberlain's office valued the wool guild's patronage.

Claude stood in the warehouse office, reading the invitation over Aubert's shoulder. The old merchant had been paid handsomely for his silence and his cooperation. He asked no questions.

"You'll need proper clothes," Aubert said. "I have a spare doublet in the back. It belonged to my son, before he died of the sweating sickness. Fine enough for a noble's house, plain enough for a servant."

The doublet was midnight blue velvet, slightly worn at the elbows. Claude donned it that evening, masking his face behind a simple half-mask of black leather trimmed with gold thread. The disguise felt like a second skin—appropriate, since he had become so many men in the past year.

The Palais de la Cité blazed with a thousand candles when Claude arrived. Nobles in silk dominoes and merchants in gilded grotesques crowded the great hall, their laughter bouncing off vaulted ceilings painted with hunting scenes. A consort of viols played from a gallery above, their music nearly drowned by the roar of conversation.

Claude moved through the crowd with a servant's economy, refilling wine cups, collecting empty plates, keeping his eyes low and his ears open. He heard rumors of English troop movements near Rouen, gossip about the King's failing health, whispers about a cardinal who had grown too ambitious for his crimson robes.

Then the music changed—a stately pavane replacing the lively saltarello—and the dancers formed their lines. Claude looked up, searching for the cardinal among the masked figures.

He found him immediately. Cardinal Louis de Bar was unmistakable even in a silver domino mask, his bulk draped in robes of watered silk that glittered like a fish's belly. He moved with surprising grace, his gloved hand resting on the waist of his partner.

She wore a mask of white feathers and a gown of deep emerald that matched the D'Argent family color. Her dark hair was pinned with pearls, and when she laughed at something the cardinal whispered, Claude saw the familiar tilt of her head.

Marguerite.

His sister danced with their father's murderer.

Claude's hand went to his belt, where a small knife rested concealed in the lining. He could cross the dance floor in twenty paces. He could end this, here, now—drive the blade between the cardinal's ribs and let the chaos swallow his escape.

But Marguerite was dancing with him. Willingly. Laughing.

Claude forced his fingers to uncurl from the knife's hilt. He watched his sister and the cardinal complete their turn, watched her curtsy to him with perfect courtly grace. She was not his enemy. She was something more dangerous—a piece on a board she did not control, moved by a hand she could not see.

The cardinal bent close to Marguerite, whispering something in her ear. She nodded. Then she looked across the hall—directly at Claude.

Their eyes met through the crowd. Her smile did not waver, but something flickered in her gaze: recognition. Warning.

She thinks I am here for her, Claude realized. She does not know what she is dancing with.

The pavane ended. The cardinal released Marguerite's hand, turning to greet a cluster of bishops who had approached with deferential bows. Claude slipped through the crowd, positioning himself near a side corridor that led toward the chapel.

A hand caught his sleeve.

Marguerite stood beside him, her face now inches from his, her mask pushed up into her hair.

"You fool," she breathed. "You cannot be here."

"I came to stop you."

"Stop me?" Her laugh was hollow. "You came to stop me? Claude, you have no idea what is happening."

"Then tell me."

She glanced back at the cardinal, who was now deep in conversation with the churchmen. "Not here. Not now. The Palais has ears in every stone."

"Then where? When?"

"There is a passage beneath the city, near the church of Saint-Médard. The old catacombs. I will meet you there at matins." She squeezed his arm, her grip fierce. "But if you are followed, if you bring the Burgundian spies with you, I will not come. And I will never speak to you again."

Before Claude could answer, she released him and melted back into the crowd. A moment later, the cardinal turned, scanning the hall. His eyes passed over Claude without stopping, but lingered on the corridor where Marguerite had been.

At that moment, the cardinal's gaze shifted to a servant standing near the chapel door—a thin man in livery who had been watching the exchange with sharp, patient eyes. The servant gave the faintest nod to the cardinal.

The cardinal smiled.

He had known. He had known every moment of their meeting, and he had allowed it.

Claude walked out of the Palais into the cold night air, the invitation to the catacombs burning in his pocket like a summons to a trap.