Cardinal Monteria had only recently returned from his visit to Notre Dame when he heard Silas enter his office. He hadn’t bothered to look up as his servant stepped up to the desk at which he wrote, the first task of the day’s administration to be done. A lifetime of recognising the different footsteps and their business told him who he needed to acknowledge and who he could answer with the opening of a palm. The letter was pressed into the Cardinal’s outstretched hand and its messenger slunk away from sight. Monteria opened it absently, his eyes still on the speech in front of him, silently mouthing the words he was going to speak in two days’ time.
He finished the paragraph he was reciting and turned his eyes to the open letter. At once his jaw slackened and his eyes burnt into the paper. He raced across the words several times over, back and forth, each time recounting fewer and fewer of the details. Something clutched at his throat, snatching the breath from out of him. He crushed the letter into a ball in his palm and reached out for his walking stick where it usually stood, knocking it to the floor. He hissed angrily, and reached down over the arm of the chair to gather it into his shaking hands.
“Silas!” he called, pushing back his chair and gathering himself to his feet. “Silas! Where are you?!” he asked of the young man, not caring if his irritability got the better of him.
“Is everything okay, Cardinal?” called the young acolyte, hurrying back to the Cardinal’s chamber as fast as he was able.
“Have you heard news of Cardinal Poré in Arras?” Monteria asked, clacking past the young man with his cane and then realising there was nowhere else which needed his attendance more urgently than where he currently was. He stopped and stared at the young man. “Has he left for Paris yet?”
“I believe he was going to leave in the next day or so,” Silas replied anxiously.
“Get news to him. At once! Tell him he’s to leave immediately. Without delay.”
“Yes. Of course. We will wire him. Is anything the matter?”
“No, it’s like anything,” the venerable Cardinal replied, regaining a little of his composure. “With every action there is a reaction,” and he looked back to the window with the rain pouring down outside. “As we in the Catholic Church always do, we simply need to ensure we act faster and with more conviction than our enemies.”