Cardinal Poré knew there was something different about the communiqué due to the fact it had been typed. He tore the delicate bond which kept the message secret and stared at it hard. Unlike Monteria’s letters which could be long winded and detailed, touched with the use of beautiful language, this letter was abrupt, cold, precise. The Inquisitor, unnamed (but Poré knew who was meant) was heading east to Fampoux. Arras was no longer safe. The plan was in jeopardy. The Cardinal was to leave immediately.
Poré roared, tearing the letter into shreds, which he let fall like confetti into the waste bin beneath. Was he to be forever cursed by their kind? Would he never be free of them? Everything he had worked for, everything he had envisaged, had dreamed of achieving: was it to be snatched from him at the eleventh hour?
He looked up at the clock and thought of what he needed to take with him. He wouldn’t need much, and much was already packed and ready to be loaded into his own private carriage. Once in Paris, as Monteria had previously said, he would be safe, the plan too. Tacit was too far behind, with no time to catch them now. Indeed, there was all probability that he would never even leave Fampoux.
Pain shot up his leg as he turned without thinking, having forgotten momentarily about his wound. His hand clutched around the seeping hole. He’d noticed how it had started to smell. He needed to find medical help. But not yet. Not till he was finished. Once his part had been played, he would seek help then. Until that moment, he would carry his wound as Christ had on his final journey to Calvary.
Grimacing, he limped from his office and into his waiting carriage.