For about a quarter of an hour they stayed like that. He said nothing. She watched him. Then he heard his mother’s voice, calling softly up the stairs to see if he was awake. He thought quickly. He didn’t want his parents coming up to his room.

“I’d better go down to my mother,” he said to the little girl. “You stay here. All right?”

She nodded.

His parents were sitting in the kitchen. They were looking solemn.

“I heard the bells,” he said.

“We must stay inside today,” said his mother.

“Are they killing people?” he asked.

“Why do you say that?” said his father.

“I don’t know.” He waited for a reply, but none came. “Can I have some bread and milk?” he said. His mother gave it to him. “I think I’ll take it to my room,” Simon said. “I feel sleepy.” And his parents seemed quite glad that he should go back up there.

When he got back to his room, he gave the bread and milk to the little girl. After she’d finished it, he put his arm around her. Then she fell asleep.

It was about an hour later that he heard a horse’s hooves outside his window. Then a rap at the door. He stole out of his room to the top of the stairs. He saw the top of his father’s head as he went to the door and called out, “Who is it?” Then he heard the door open.

“I can’t stop, Cousin.” Guy’s voice. “Don’t go out there. They’ve killed Coligny, and all the Protestants staying at the Louvre. Every one of them. They’ve been going around every lodging where Protestants are staying. The Protestants have realized what is happening and they’re trying to leave the city. But they can’t. All the gates have been locked to keep them in. You don’t hear it here, but they’re hunting them down in the streets. I saw twenty bodies floating in the river as I came this way. There’s a dead woman in the street at the end of your alley.”

“A woman?”

“They’re killing all the Protestants, Pierre. Men, women, children, all of them. It’s even worse than I imagined. I don’t know if it’s part of the plan, but there are mobs out in the street now. If they think someone might be a Protestant, they butcher them. One Catholic family were sheltering a Protestant, and so they killed them as well.”

“This is terrible. It must be stopped.”

“By whom, Pierre? Who’s going to stop it? This is all done by royal order. It’s the churchmen who are ringing the bells.”

“But it is evil.”

“Don’t say that, Cousin. They’ll say you’re a heretic and butcher you too. Keep your mouth shut, I beg you. And keep your door shut too. And wear those armbands. I have to go.”

Simon heard his father close the door and slip the bolts.