‘No doubt. You Italians always stick together. Though he would be a fool to soil his hands in this instance. And in any case, I am not your messenger boy.’ He crushed the letter Cotin had written for me in his fist and turned in the doorway, motioning to someone out of sight. Still believing I might negotiate my way out of the situation, I dropped the purse on the bed and picked up the candle. Without thinking, I bent to retrieve my knife – it was valuable and I did not want to leave it behind if I was to be escorted out under guard. But the Abbé glanced back as I was reaching for it and cried out with as much drama as if I had stuck the blade in his ribs. Before I could surrender the weapon, he had retreated and two men armed with pikestaffs barged into the room; one seized me by the hair while the other twisted my arm behind my back and wrenched the knife from my grasp. In the commotion I let go of my candle, which caught the edge of Joseph’s bedding; a small conflagration erupted and the man holding my arm yelped and let go, flapping his hands at his leg where the flames had singed his hose. I took advantage of the confusion to tear myself away from the other one, leaving a clump of my hair in his fist. I hurled myself towards the door and out into the corridor; by now most of the cell doors stood open and a row of pale, awed faces stared at me.
The Abbé stood blocking my way to the stairs; there was no sign of Cotin and I could only hope he had had the sense to vanish with the statue before anyone had seen him.
‘Stop that man!’ the Abbé thundered. I glanced back, in time to see the arc of a pikestaff descending, a moment before I felt the impact of the blow and my knees buckled beneath me. I tried to speak but no sound emerged; my sight blurred as the soldier crouched over me and the world turned black.
It remained dark when I opened my eyes some time later, to find I was lying on my side, face pressed to the ground. My senses were still dulled from the blow to my head, though not sufficiently to block out the fierce smell of excrement that assailed my nostrils as soon as I was conscious. Where was I? I raised my head an inch as pain seared up the back of my skull like a hot needle. Under my cheek, the prickling of dried straw. A stable, perhaps? But it was not the clean, grassy smell of horse dung making me retch; this stink was human. Mine? I could hardly tell. When I tried to roll over, I found I could not move my arms; my wrists had been bound together behind me. I struggled to my knees and twisted my right shoulder up to try and wipe the dirt, or caked blood, from my eyes on my sleeve, but it made no difference to the darkness. There was no source of light in the room. I was frozen through, shivering so hard that my teeth clattered together and I was in danger of biting my tongue. I slumped back on to my heels, rolled my shoulders to ease the pain and tried to join the jolted fragments of memory. I had drifted in and out of consciousness after I was struck; they had put me on a horse, or had I imagined that? With a hood over my head, so I had no idea where they had taken me. I forced myself to my feet, feeling the world tilt and sway unnervingly as if I were at sea. I could at least stand upright. Despite the filthy air, I breathed slowly and deliberately, in and out. The pain in my head advanced and receded, making my eyes swim. When I was reasonably certain that I was not about to faint or vomit, I called out.
‘Is anyone there? Hey!’
From somewhere behind me came an answering moan that sounded as if it had been loosed by one of Dante’s lost souls. I let out a cry, startled to find I was not alone. Dear God, what was this – a dungeon? The darkness was so thick you could almost feel it sliding across your face. I staggered forward, step by halting step, until finally I collided with a wall, slimy to the touch. Facing away, I groped along the stones with my bound hands as far as I could, until I met a corner. I followed that wall too, battling my rising fear that there was no door here, no way out. I stood still and shouted again for help, stamping my feet on the stone floor, though this produced no effect at all. The formless lament from the depths of the room grew louder and more agitated the more I yelled for someone to come, until the pitch of it made the wound on my head throb as if it would burst open—
‘For the love of Christ, will you stop that? I’m trying to make myself heard here.’
The tortured noise broke off abruptly. I peered into the darkness but could make out nothing. In the silence I heard a shuffling in the straw and a soft trickle of water, which could have been the damp running down the walls or my companion relieving himself. I put the thought from my mind and resumed my shouting.
‘They won’t come.’ The voice from the corner scraped like a rusted hinge, as if it had not been used in years.
‘Where are we?’ I cast around in the dark, desperate. ‘Who are you?’
There was a rasping sound, a cough or possibly laughter, followed by the wet spatter of a gob of phlegm ejected on to the wall or floor. ‘I don’t remember.’ A pause. ‘That’s why we’re here. They forget you, then you forget yourself.’ More hacking, as if he were amused by his own joke.
Forget yourself. Dio mio … ‘An oubliette? Is that where we are?’ The deepest pit of any prison, underground, where they throw those who will never see the sky again. Those best forgotten, as my unseen companion pointed out. Panic surged through my veins; I resumed my stamping and shouting with renewed urgency, fighting the insistent voice in my head telling me it was likely that no one who could help me knew I was here. My fellow prisoner took up his wordless keening again, softly this time, as if exhausted by his own grief. After another prolonged bout of yelling until my throat was raw with the effort, I began to understand why his voice sounded so broken. Presumably he, too, had screamed himself hoarse at first in the belief that someone would respond. I stopped to gather my breath, and was rewarded by the sound of a metal bolt rattling overhead.
A hatch swung open above me and a greasy yellow light swept around the walls, revealing a low-ceilinged, windowless pit. I squinted, turning my face away; though it was only one candle in a lantern, the glow was still shockingly bright after the long spell in darkness. Once my eyes had adjusted, I was able to peer upwards to see the lower half of a face, veiled in shadow, looming through the opening.
‘You listen. I’m only here to tell you that if you keep up that fucking noise, I will come back and shut your mouth for you.’ I could make out stumps of teeth and a prominent growth on the man’s stubbled cheek. ‘Understood?’
‘Wait,’ I managed to stammer, ‘there’s been a mistake. I shouldn’t be here.’
The gaoler cackled. ‘That’s right, friend. You and all the others. Never met one yet that thought he should.’ He withdrew, and the light with him.
‘Please! I need to send a message to my friend. I will pay you handsomely if you help me.’ I lurched a step closer to the opening. The man leaned down, cocking his head as if he were considering the offer. His expression suggested he doubted my ability to deliver on this promise.
‘Tricky. See, someone’s already paid me to keep you in here.’
‘I will pay you more.’
‘Wouldn’t be so much use to me without a head, though.’
‘That won’t happen. Please – just send a message to the Louvre, that’s all I ask.’
‘Oh, is that all?’ In the light from the lantern his face contorted into a grotesque grin. ‘Friend of the King, are you?’
‘In fact, yes. Only let me prove it.’
He let out another bark of laughter. ‘You’ll be right at home here, then. Among the nobility. You all right, Monsieur le Comte?’ He lowered the light through the hole and I turned to see the creature in the corner raise his head with a frightened whimper. I could not suppress a gasp; my fellow prisoner was hardly recognisable as a man. He was so emaciated that he seemed little more than a corpse. Blistered yellow skin stretched tight over his skull; wisps of long grey hair cobwebbed over