The poisoned chalice

the silence and unspoken accusations. He laughed. 'We cannot be responsible for what our parents do, eh, Shallot?'
    I let the subtle insult pass and changed the conversation to other matters. Yet, whatever my master had intended, his arrow had struck home. I left the hall and went back to report what had been said. Benjamin finished shaving himself, washed his hands carefully in the pewter bowl on the lavarium and grinned as he dried himself.
    'Soon, my dear Roger, a new game will begin. Or, as we say in Ipswich, you have shaken the tree, let's see what falls out.'
    The first real change was Millet's exclusion by the rest of the embassy staff as if he was already marked out. Dacourt gave him more menial tasks and, when these were finished, the dandified fop spent most of the time in his own chamber. The real game, however, began two days later when Dacourt summoned Benjamin and myself to his chamber. The old soldier glared at us accusingly.
    'It would appear,' he began, 'you have made great friends at the French court.'
    'We have no friends at the French court,' Benjamin quietly replied.
    'Well, sir, it appears that you have.' Dacourt waved a small piece of white parchment with a purple seal on the end. 'An invitation from His Most Christian Majesty, despatched under his signet seal, inviting you to his palace at the Tour de Nesle in Paris to discuss the matter of a certain ring.' Dacourt glanced at the parchment. 'Of course, this was not written by the king but his creature, Vauban.'
    Benjamin snatched the parchment from his hand and, with me peering over his shoulder, studied it carefully. Dacourt had not given us the full message. King Francis said he wished to discuss the matter of the ring: 'As well as other matters attendant upon it, which could ease the ring's speedy return to His Most Christian Majesty's royal brother, King Henry of England.' 'What does it mean?' Dacourt snapped.
    Benjamin handed the parchment back. 'I suggest, Sir John, you keep this matter to yourself. And whilst we are gone, be most careful what happens here at Maubisson.'
    We left the ambassador standing open-mouthed. Benjamin hustled me back through the corridors to our chamber.
    'Pack now!' he snapped. 'We leave for Paris immediately. And we go well armed. Roger, I urge you to eat or drink nothing, to touch nothing, and to stay close by me until we are out of the chateau.' He raised one bony finger to his lips. 'Trust me, Roger, and be most careful, for we are to face a most ruthless and skilful enemy.' 'Then why are we going?' I asked.
    'My dear Roger, we have no choice. If we stay we are in great danger. You must realise that. And how can we face our own master if there is a letter on record, held by the English ambassador in Paris, that King Francis offered to negotiate over King Henry's ring and we refused?'
    Benjamin dragged our saddle-bags from their peg on the wall.
    'A clever plan,' he murmured. 'We don't control the game yet, Roger, so we must dance to the tune that's being played.' He started pushing clothes into one of the bags. 'Do you think King Francis wishes to negotiate?'
    Benjamin made a face. 'God knows. He may well do. Francis is like our own master, duplicitous. On the one hand he declares Henry is his brother. On the other, Uncle told me that the French king has even consulted an astrologer on how to kill Henry. Francis has already sent assassins to England who, by careful and crafty means, tried to kill the king but were caught and summarily hanged.' Benjamin threw the saddle-bag on to the bed. 'This may be a trick or Francis could be trying to save his master spy, Raphael.' He smiled thinly. 'Be well armed and remember, Roger, when you go to sup with the devil you always take a long spoon!'
    We entered Paris just before curfew and made our way through its streets, smelling even fouler after a violent summer thunder storm, to a comfortable tavern near the Latin Quarter. We dined in silence, Benjamin in one of his withdrawn moods, mumbling to himself as if I wasn't there. The following morning, as the church bells were clanging the hour for lauds, we presented ourselves at the ornate gateway to the king's palace at the Tour de Nesle on the right bank of the Seine. A strange building, towers and turrets soaring into the sky, it was half-fortress, half-palace with extensive gardens and orchards all enclosed by a high-bricked, crenellated wall. (A place cursed, or so Benjamin told me, for it was here two hundred years