Read Online A Column of Fire by Ken Follett - Free Book Online Page A

but had to concentrate on the widow.
    She said: ‘I don’t know about your name, but I know you have no honour, you young rogue. I want my money.’
    ‘You shall have it, I assure you.’
    ‘Take me to your home now, then.’
    ‘I cannot oblige you, I fear. My mother, Madame de Châteauneuf, would not consider you a suitable guest.’
    ‘Your mother isn’t Madame de anything,’ said the widow scornfully.
    Bertrand said: ‘I thought you were a student living in college.’ He was sounding less drunk by the minute.
    It was over, Pierre realized. He had lost his chance with Bertrand. He rounded on the young man. ‘Oh, go to hell,’ he said furiously. He turned back to Madame Bauchene. He felt a pang of regret for her warm, heavy body and her cheerful lasciviousness; then he hardened his heart. ‘You, too,’ he said to her.
    He threw on his cloak. What a waste of time this had been. He would have to start all over again tomorrow. But what if he met another of his past victims? He felt sour. It had been a rotten evening. Another shout of ‘Calais française’ went up. To the devil with Calais, Pierre thought. He stepped towards the door.
    To his surprise, the man-at-arms with the mutilated ear now got up and blocked the doorway.
    Pierre thought
For God’s sake, what now?
    ‘Stand aside,’ Pierre said haughtily. ‘This has nothing to do with you.’
    The man stayed where he was. ‘I heard you say your name was Pierre Aumande de Guise.’
    ‘Yes, so you’d better get out of my way, if you don’t want trouble from my family.’
    ‘The Guise family won’t cause me any trouble,’ the man said, with a quiet confidence that unnerved Pierre. ‘My name is Gaston Le Pin.’
    Pierre considered shoving the man aside and making a run for it. He looked Le Pin up and down. The man was about thirty, shorter than Pierre, but broad-shouldered. He had hard blue eyes. The damaged ear suggested he was no stranger to violent action. He would not be shoved aside easily.
    Pierre struggled to maintain his tone of superiority. ‘What of it, Le Pin?’
    ‘I work for the Guise family. I’m head of their household guard.’ Pierre’s heart sank. ‘And I’m arresting you, on behalf of the duke of Guise, for falsely using an aristocratic name.’
    Widow Bauchene said: ‘I knew it.’
    Pierre said: ‘My good man, I’ll have you know—’
    ‘Save it for the judge,’ said Le Pin contemptuously. ‘Rasteau, Brocard, hold him.’
    Without Pierre’s remarking it, two of the men-at-arms had got up from the table and were standing quietly either side of him, and now they grabbed his arms. Their hands felt like iron bands: Pierre did not bother to struggle. Le Pin nodded to them and they marched Pierre out of the tavern.
    Behind him, he heard the widow yell: ‘I hope they hang you!’
    It was dark, but the narrow, winding medieval streets were busy with revellers and noisy with patriotic songs and shouts of ‘Long live Scarface’. Rasteau and Brocard walked fast, and Pierre had to hurry to keep up with them and avoid being dragged along the road.
    He was terrified to think what punishment might be imposed on him: pretending to be a nobleman was a serious crime. And even if he got off lightly, what was his future? He could find other fools like Bertrand, and married women to seduce, but the more people he cheated, the more likely he was to be called to account. For how much longer could he maintain this way of life?
    He looked at his escorts. Rasteau, the older by four or five years, had no nose, just two holes surrounded by scar tissue, no doubt the result of a knife fight. Pierre waited for them to get bored, relax their vigilance and loosen their grip, so that he might break away, dash off, and lose himself in the crowd; but they remained alert, their grip firm.
    ‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked, but they did not trouble to reply.
    Instead, they talked about sword fighting, apparently continuing a conversation they had