Read Online The Borgia Ring by Michael White - Free Book Online

I’d have to do some close analysis. We have some useful computer-enhancement software in college.’
    ‘They’re yours,’ Pendragon said as he stood up. ‘And, thank you, Professor.’

France, February 1589
    When I bring to mind the journey from the Venerable English College in Rome to the city of Paris, the overriding memory is of my bones being chilled to the very marrow, for it was the coldest winter anyone could remember. Sebastian Mountjoy, three servants and I took ship at Civitavecchia, a short ride from the Vatican, making Genoa through high swells and two terrible storms four days later.
    When we reached good solid land, it felt like God’s blessing on us. I had been ravaged by seasickness almost before we left port. But although we had exchanged water for land, there was no respite from the cold. The southern part of France is renowned for its mild winters and comforting coastal breezes, but the exceptionally harsh weather had spread far. Indeed, we witnessed snow in the town of Nice.
    Of course, the weather worsened as we travelled north, so that by early-February, when our party reached Lyon, we were unable to make any headway at all. Luckily, Sebastian found us comfortable rooms in a small guest house close to the city wall. The town was packed with other stranded travellers, some of whom were fretting about the enforced delay, while others simply accepted it as God’s will. Sebastian and I were definitely in the latter category and those three days and nights we were forced to stay put in the good town of Lyon proved a welcome diversion. Our mission was ofthe utmost seriousness and we knew we were walking into danger, but these facts only added to our desire to take advantage of the respite. I recall with fondness playing dominoes before a roaring fire, eating good venison and sampling the local hops. I’m sorry to say that, in truth, these things constitute the last good memories I can now draw upon.
    On the fourth morning after our arrival in Lyon, we managed to return to the road heading north, but it was very hard going and slow. Fourteen freezing days and nights we spent on that road. The landscape had changed and was rarely more than a white carpet, punctured occasionally by the outline of a church spire or a city wall. Sometimes a purple rope of smoke ascending to the chilled heavens broke the monotony.
    It was close to dusk on the eighteenth day of February when we finally reached Créteil. An early and unexpected thaw had turned the snow to slush. For a month Paris and all the towns around it had been entombed in snow. Hundreds had died. Theirs had been cold deaths, so very different from the reaper’s tally during summer when plague-ravaged bodies bobbed in the Seine. With the thaw came water and mud, whole streets where the sludge ran knee-deep.
    From a high point on the road, just outside Créteil, and sitting straight in the saddle, I could just make out the outline of Paris, solemnly shrouded in brown. My back ached and my limbs were sore. I was filthy, hungry and exhausted. I also felt an undeniable sense of disappointment, for this view of Europe’s largest, grandest city was nothing like the one I had hoped for. Paris looked like an amorphous thing, decrepit, the colour of ditchwater.
    ‘Not far now, my friend,’ Sebastian said from his own mount to my left.
    ‘And not a moment too soon,’ I replied, digging my heels into my horse’s sides and flicking the reins to urge onthe exhausted beast through the mud weighing down her tired legs.
    Le Lapin Noir was popular: warm and dark. The servants stabled the horses and had them fed and I followed Sebastian into the main room of the inn. It was a wide, low-ceilinged room, with just one window looking out on to the dark road. Most of the locals were gathered around the huge fireplace in the far wall. The air was thick with smoke from the damp wood and the whole place stank of embers and sweat. The regulars eyed us suspiciously as we