Gerard MacNeacail, lieutenant in the Garde Écossaise of His Majesty King Henri IV of France, stamped his feet to warm them, his red-daubed, gilt-spurred boot-heels smashing through a remnant sheet of ice that lay in the shadowed curve of the bastion, where he stood in an attempt to stay out of the way of the morning traffic that crowded the Pont Neuf.

MacNeacail was trying to be inconspicuous, an effort doomed to failure from the beginning. He was one of the tallest people in Paris, standing six foot four inches in his stockings, and his hair and beard were as bright as a burning hay-rick, a legacy of his Scottish heritage, for all that he was of the fourth generation to serve a French King and had never even seen the Western Isles.

In addition to his remarkable height, and the brightness of his hair and beard, MacNeacail had incautiously opened his cloak, revealing to any curious onlooker that he wore the saffron-yellow doublet of the Scottish Guard, its upper sleeves slashed to show the cream shirt beneath; he had a sword on his right side and main gauche on his left, indicating that he was left-handed; and there were two pistols thrust through his belt. To cap off this imposing appearance, several angel-blessed charms in the shape of gold bees hung from the brim of his broad felt hat.

“A monk,” remarked his shorter, darker, more handsome and better-proportioned companion, who was similarly attired but had not opened his cloak, as he felt that the winter sun had not sufficiently warmed the air, and though known for his bravery, was always concerned for his health. This was Armand de Vitray, a fellow lieutenant in the Scottish Guard, and a close companion. Like MacNeacail’s dead father, his own parent had been one of the guardsmen who had saved the king from the madman Ravaillac fifteen years earlier, an event commemorated by the bronze equestrian statue that rose out of the river on its own foundation and abutted the bridge some forty feet away, opposite the entrance to the Place Dauphine.

“A monk astride a white horse, being led by a scarlet woman,” continued de Vitray. There was a popular legend to the effect that if you stood on the Pont Neuf long enough, you would eventually see a monk, a white horse and a prostitute–but not at the same time and certainly not travelling together, as appeared to be the case with this unlikely trio.

“Abbé?” MacNeacail asked the grey-clad ecclesiastical gentleman who was peering over the side to the waters of the Seine below, a small silver object that might be a pocket watch–a Nuremberg egg perhaps–in his hand. “Is that significant?”

The abbé, who was an incessantly cheerful Irish Jesuit priest by the name of Cathal Gallagher, turned swiftly around, tucking the silver object into the silk gauntlet cuff of his right glove. He peered through the crowd upon the bridge, gaze darting over the ox-cart laden with something noisome, between the three mules carrying sacks of dye, and then without pause over the heads of many pedestrians of every stripe, quality and persuasion, before fixing on this unusual embodiment of the popular myth.

“Monk, white horse, whore,” muttered Gallagher. “It must draw near…strange, I had thought there was a vibration upon the river… Shelalhael, are you here? Shelalhael?”

The three in the bastion heard no answer, but Gallagher suddenly pointed, and MacNeacail and de Vitray saw the equestrian statue stamp its bronze foreleg twice, and the bee charms in the Scotsman’s hat gave a warning murmur. An angel was present, ready to work magic at the Irishman’s behest.

“Warn your men,” said Gallagher. “The monk, the woman and the horse may only be only a warning, an indication that it comes.”

“What…ah…exactly is it?” asked De Vitray.

Gallagher shook his head and shrugged, indicating that he knew but would not tell, which in anyone else would have driven De Vitray to issue an immediate challenge, priest or not, but Gallagher’s smile assuaged the insult. Besides, he was not only a priest, he was also the Duc de Sully’s agent and Sully, despite the incessant plots against him, continued to be the chief minister and primary confidant of the King. Besides all that, Gallagher owed De Vitray twenty-seven écus lost playing lansquenet in the guardroom the night before.

“Secrets,” muttered De Vitray. “Always secrets. No one tells me anything. Do you know, MacNeacail?”

“I do not wish to know,” said MacNeacail. He took off his hat and waved it three times above his head. Throughout the crowd, along both stretches of the bridge, hats waved back in response. The number of people on the bridge was so great that this coordinated movement appeared to attract little attention, but immediately afterwards, the pace of movement to either bank noticeably increased and several itinerant booksellers towards the middle of the main span began to hurriedly pack their wares. One particularly perspicacious fellow–most likely a survivor of the religious wars and so finely attuned to trouble–didn’t even bother to pack up, but immediately swung his tall basket on to his back, tucked several loose volumes under his arm and loped away at a pace considerably faster than a normal walk.

MacNeacail carefully repositioned his hat so that it would not fall over his face should fighting commence–as had once occurred, to his eternal embarrassment–and loosened his sword. De Vitray pushed back his cloak and immediately coughed, wincing as he did so, as if struck by a sudden pleurisy.

Gallagher looked up at the windows of the house opposite, on the south-west corner of the Place Dauphine. No one else heard Shelalael speak, but the angel’s voice was clear inside the Irishman’s head, sharp as a needle to the brain.

The garret window, on the right-hand side. A match is applied to a gun.

“Stand before us!” shouted Gallagher, and he saw his companion angel manifest itself in the air above the bridge, just as a small cannon fired from an upper window. White smoke billowed out, and there was the sound of hail upon shingles, as two handfuls of old nails and broken iron spattered ineffectually against the angel’s folded wings; or as most of those on the bridge saw it, simply fell short and rained down without effect upon the eastern parapet, as if discharged with insufficient powder.

For a few seconds, all was still, as if everyone on the bridge was held in thrall till the last echo of the cannon’s boom should fade. After those few seconds, the quiet was replaced by a hubbub of urgent noise and activity.

“Guards!” shouted MacNeacail, pointing up at the house with his sword. “Seize that cannon!”

“Keep de Lartigue and Despreaux,” muttered De Vitray, as if to the air. He didn’t look at MacNeacail, but kept his gaze upon the populace of the bridge, most of whom were now in sudden flight to either bank or on to the Ile de la Cité.

“Ah, De Lartigue and Despreaux!” called MacNeacail. “Stay, if you will.”

Two guardsmen struggled towards him, beating a path through the terrified crowd with their sword-hilts, while the remaining dozen charged across the bridge to throw themselves in a fevered assault upon the bronze-studded door of the house in question, which opened a moment before the full weight of the soldiers could be brought to bear upon it. The two foremost fell inside, and were promptly trampled by their fellows.

Amidst the shouting, the screams of the panicked, and the general riot, it was noticeable that apart from the guardsmen, there were two distinct groups of travelers upon the bridge who did not take to their heels. The first of these was the trio of the monk, the white horse, and the flaxen-wigged prostitute, who had continued their steady way along the bridge, going against the tide of fleeing pickpockets, dog-barbers, pedlars, toothpullers and less immediately identifiable Parisians which flowed south.

The second, some hundred paces behind this trio, was an ox-drawn conveyance that plodded on its way, its driver unfazed by the fact that he alone of all the various drivers on the bridge had not only chosen to stay with his cart, but to keep driving it. His team of four oxen was also unusual, in that they maintained their pace with equanimity, unlike the various horses, donkeys and palanquin-bearers who had either joined the rout or, in the case of the animals not free to do so, were kicking, rearing and shrieking in their traces.

“Is that the cart?” asked MacNeacail cautiously. “Its load is much as described.”

He referred to the description given to them some hours before, in the dark before dawn, by the Duc de Sully in the anteroom adjoining the King’s bedchamber. Though he had not expected it to be drawn by oxen, the box upon the cart was at least sixteen feet long, and six feet high, and it was curiously narrow, so that it did resemble an over-large coffin. Apart from the driver’s seat, the cart was shrouded in rough sack-cloth that had been daubed here and there with mud, which to some might look as if the contents were agricultural, but to MacNeacail smacked of an ineffectual attempt at subterfuge.

“Yes…” replied Gallagher distractedly. He had a terrible headache, the result of getting his angel to perform a significant feat of magic, and he could feel a faint trickle of blood from his nose running down the back of his throat. It was difficult to concentrate, and he could no longer feel a strong connection to Shelhalael. “I have to sit down.”

He slumped to the pavement, and reached into his doublet to draw out a silver-chased flask of eau de vie.

MacNeacail looked down at Gallagher and frowned. While it was true that practitioners of angelic magic were extremely useful to have around, as for example when being fired upon from ambush, they had a regrettable tendency to fall over after they had worked what to him seemed to be only minor miracles. But then he had not seen the angel’s protective wings, only the fall of shot.

“De Vitray and Despreaux,” said MacNeacail. “You stop the ox-cart. De Lartigue, we shall speak with this monk and his…attendant.”

MacNeacail strode out as he spoke, his sword still in hand, and struck a pose in the centre of the bridge, curling his rather thin moustache as an afterthought. De Lartigue stood beside him, with a pistol held ready, the lock pulled back.

“Stop!” called out MacNeacail when the woman was some ten feet distant. But she did not stop, and though her blonde wig was capacious and partly shielded her face, he noted that the one eye he could see was fixed on the far end of the bridge, and she seemed unaware that he stood in her way.

“Stop in the name of the King!” commanded MacNeacail again, when the whore was almost upon him, but she walked on, and even when he pushed his hand against her shoulder, she still kept trying to walk forward, her slippered feet tracing the same steps over and over again.

“She sleeps,” said the monk, and he threw back his hood.

Both MacNeacail and De Lartigue retreated a step. The monk’s eyes were silver, and shone with an unearthly light, the feared and awful sign that indicated he was more than a common practitioner of angelic magic, much more–that he had entered into the closest possible bond with an angelic being, an angelic being who was not an entity of the first or second hierarchies, but of at least the third.

MacNeacail bowed clumsily, since he was still holding the woman back with one hand. He had no doubt that this was the man they had been sent to meet, with orders to escort him and whatever he had brought into the city, wherever he wished to go. He was sure of this, even though no mention had been made that the fellow was a monk. However, MacNeacail was used to following directives from the King or his right-hand man, the Duc de Sully, that were intentionally roundabout and thus could be easily denied or laughed away as the mistake of a well-intentioned but youthful officer.

“But I am not always a monk,” said the man. “I might have chosen to appear in a different guise.”

He smiled thinly, at some private joke, then continued, “So no one could have told you to expect a monk.”

MacNeacail felt a slight pain in his forehead, and his bee charms buzzed. He blinked rapidly, like an owl, or a prematurely awakened lackey, which was supposedly a method of preventing one’s thoughts being read, while still continuing to see, which was preferable in the current case to the more foolproof method of screwing your eyes shut and looking the other way.

The pain lessened and the bees fell silent.

“Come, let us proceed,” said the monk.

MacNeacail let his arm fall, and stepped aside, so that the woman could continue her somnabulical stroll. As she did so, her over-large wig slipped a little to one side, and MacNeacail got a good look at her face.

“Irene Amytzantarants!” he exclaimed, gazing at her perfect, olive-skinned oval face. She was one of the ladies-in-waiting to Helen Palaeologus, the niece of the Byzantine Emperor, who had married the Dauphin Louis three years previously. Though Louis still lived with his mother at the Luxembourg Palace, he and the Dauphine Helen were frequent visitors to the Louvre, and MacNeacail had been conducting inconclusive flirtations with several of the ladies in waiting, including Irene, who was herself a noblewoman of high distinction in the vast empire of the Greeks.

“A noblewoman, certainly, but also an agent of Constantine,” said the monk. “She found me at Etampes last night, and sought to divert me from my course.”

MacNeacail frowned but didn’t bother to blink, as there seemed little point in trying to resist. Now he had nasty, vertical headache that was forcing its way from the back of his head out through his right eye.

“Where do you want–” MacNeacail started to ask, but he had to stop as the bees on his hat vibrated so much they began to bounce and clang against each other, reacting far more vigorously than they would to the simple act of mind-reading.

“Ventre Gris!” swore the monk, and he twisted around on his horse to look behind him. “Protect the cart!”

As he did so, Irene stopped, cried out something in a language MacNeacail recognized as Greek but could not understand, looked down at her immodest scarlet dress in surprise, then clapped her hands to her wig, finding that also to be an unwelcome addition to her ensemble. She was about to throw it off when she stopped, and instead pulled it down more firmly on top of her head, once more obscuring her features. Then she thrust herself against MacNeacail, insinuating herself into a one-armed embrace, though he managed to keep his sword-arm free.

“Monsieur MacNeacail,” gasped Irene. “You must help me. I do not know how I came to be here, save by some foul magic.”

MacNeacail was unable to immediately answer this appeal, as De Lartigue stepped past him and fired his pistol, the report of the shot immediately followed by shouts and the clash of steel. Over by the ox cart, De Vitray and Despreaux were beset by half a dozen small, masked bravos, who while no taller than children, had extraordinarily long arms and elegant tails that twitched and pounced behind them. More of these creatures, who wielded poniards and hatchets, were climbing over the side of the bridge, to advance upon the beleaguered guardsmen.

“Alas, I have my duty,” said MacNeacail. Pushing her away, he pulled the wig firmly down over Irene’s face, turned her about, and projected her in the direction of Father Gallagher, who had just managed to get to his feet.

“Secure her!” MacNeacail shouted over his shoulder as he ran towards the combat. The monk had caracoled his horse about at the same time, and was just ahead of him.

“To me!” roared De Vitray, swinging his sword like a scythe, as the bravos crowded him from all sides. Despreaux was already down, ashen-faced, with a poniard in his leg above the knee and his blood running to the gutter.

MacNeacail ran faster, extending his sword arm, and then–he felt a rush of wind, far greater than even the notably errant airs encountered on the bridge. His hat sailed off his head, the bee charms spread gossamer wings and took flight back towards him, and the tailed bravos shot into the sky, chattering and screaming as the breeze carried them higher and higher till they were lost in the winter clouds.

The monk pulled his hood forward once more. As he did so, MacNeacail shivered, for he saw the shadow of a vast wing move across the bridge, in unison with that motion.

“Thank you,” said De Vitray, doffing his hat to the monk. “I daresay I would have managed, but–ah, Despreaux!”

Despreaux, pale as a ghost, lay upon the pavement, a slight, philosophical smile upon his face. He tried to raise his head as De Vitray bent down and ripped off his sleeve to fasten a bandage, but failed and fell back.

“Dead,” remarked De Vitray. “He always did neglect his guard.”

He turned his companion slightly, revealing the dagger thrust to the kidney that had finished him, though he would likely not have survived the leg wound in any case, unless one of the angels about had chosen to intervene, which they hardly ever did. Those angels who chose mortal companions were usually of the most combative sort, and were not known for their interest in the fragility of the flesh that clad immortal souls.

“It is such an annoyance to have to cross this particular bridge at the appointed hour, particularly when everyone knows it,” said the monk.

“Everyone?” asked MacNeacail. He himself had no idea what the monk was talking about, though it had already cost Despreaux’s life.

“Everyone concerned in the current matter,” said the monk. “That is to say, His Majesty the King and those who serve him; the Dauphin Louis; the Dauphine Helen, or rather her uncle, the Emperor Constantine; the Spanish whose soldier-monkeys they were, brought from the Americas; the English; the Pope; and I suspect, the Dauphin’s adviser, Cardinal Richelieu.”

“Cardinal Richelieu?” asked MacNeacail. “He was only an Archbishop yesterday.”

“He has his hat,” said the monk. “It will be all the news of Paris by tomorrow. Come. We have to get the cart out of the sun. It must be kept cold.”

MacNeacail looked up. There was little sun to speak of, and he did not like to think what might be in the coffin-shaped box on the cart that needed to be cold.

“If everyone does know it, monseigneur, why cross the bridge at this time?”

MacNeacail called him “monseigneur” because it seemed fitting but also from caution. Whoever this man was, he was not a mere monk. Apart from the powerful angel who kept him company, there was a look about him that seemed familiar. Something about the nose reminded MacNeacail very much of His Majesty the King, and at the back of his not very retentive mind he dimly remembered some story about a cousin, who had taken holy orders.

“Ritual,” replied the monk. “It is as the ancient ceremony dictates. Summon your men. We will need them to carry it inside.”

MacNeacail wanted to ask about the “ancient ceremony” and investigate exactly what “it” and “inside” might mean, but he knew better. Instead, he looked up at the house in the Place Dauphine, and saw one of his men in the window.

“Cauvignac! What occurs?”

“We have been fighting apes, or perhaps monkeys, I know not what to call them!” called down Cauvignac. “They had a falconet, but lacked practice in reloading.”

“Come down!” ordered MacNeacail. Already the braver citizens of the city were venturing back on to the bridge, emboldened perhaps by the distant drumming that announced that a force was marshalling in the Châtelet upstream on the right bank, and would soon–but not too soon, due to the innate caution of the city watch of the Prévôt des Marchands–march forth to investigate the disturbance.

He also belatedly noticed the flash of a scarlet dress as Irene Amytzantarants left the northern end of the bridge and disappeared down the steps to the quay. Gallagher, who he had supposed to be detaining her, instead appeared on the other side of the horse and bowed his head most subserviently to kiss a ring on the monk’s hand, which confirmed MacNeacail’s wisdom in using a polite address.

“I beg your pardon, monseigneur,” said MacNeacail, striding around the horse’s head. He bent down to Gallagher’s ear and whispered, “Where is Ir…the woman? I told you to secure her!”

“I am a priest,” Gallagher whispered back. “I cannot be holding on to harlots and whores.”

MacNeacail chose not to respond to this, though knowing Gallagher as he did, he could offer several examples of occasions when the Jesuit had chosen to be less the priest and more the man, for example quite recently with a certain young and beautiful widow who favoured the Irishman for her confessions. Besides, he knew it was probably more to do with politics than the public display of a suitably holy aversion to women. Irene, and more importantly her mistress the Dauphine, would now owe the priest a favour for letting her go.

“The woman is not important,” said the monk. “You must bring the cart to a house on the northern end of the Rue de Harlay, just short of the quay. There are carvings of orange trees around the door. Bring the box inside. I must go ahead and open the way. Quickly now!”

“At once!” cried MacNeacail. He ran back to the cart and leapt on to the driver’s seat, but almost fell off again when the fellow emerged from beneath it, and took up the reins.

“Through there!” commanded MacNeacail, pointing to the entrance to the Place Dauphine. The driver grunted and rolled his eyes insolently, but MacNeacail didn’t notice, distracted by his guardsmen who were emerging from the house. He called out to them to fall in around the cart, while he stood next to the driver and struck a commanding pose. It was his habit to do so, acting upon the deathbed instruction of his father, who had told him to take the high ground at every opportunity, and make himself obvious. That way, according to the older MacNeacail, he would be noticed. If noticed by enemies, they would be drawn into acting against him so that they could then be defeated; if noticed by friends, they would rally to him; and if noticed by superiors, they would see his actions, which might then lead to rewards and honour.

Gallagher and De Vitray picked up Despreaux’s corpse. The priest muttered a prayer as they carried him into the house on the Place Dauphine that had housed the monkey-soldier’s cannon, and instructed the householder to keep the dead guardsman’s body and possessions safe, upon pain of having his house ransacked and destroyed by the entire Scottish Guard. The man, a water-merchant already terrified at the prospect of retribution for unwittingly allowing his attic to be infested with enemies of the state, bowed and grovelled and promised the utmost care.

As the cart trundled through the Place Dauphine with a file of guardsmen on either side, MacNeacail looked back at the mud-washed sacking. One corner was torn, revealing a finely-shaped and inlaid panel of chestnut and ebony, and this made whatever lay upon the cart’s axles look even more like a coffin. A very large coffin, made for a giant.

“To the left,” instructed MacNeacail as they approached the Rue de Harlay. This time he did see the driver roll his eyes, and awarded him a judicious blow to the head for insolence.

“Thank ‘ee, sir,” croaked the driver. He ceased to roll his eyes and passed on his punishment by flicking his whip across the backs of the oxen, who paid it no more heed than they did the flies that clustered in columns along their ridged backs.

The house with the carvings of orange trees was the second-last one before the quay. The white horse was tied up outside it, and the door was open, but there was no sign of the monk. The ox-cart stopped outside the door, the oxen lowering their heads in dumb obedience to their driver, who immediately jumped down and began to pull the sacking away, to reveal the ornate, polished box.

MacNeacail swung himself casually off the cart and glanced inside the doorway. He was surprised to see not an entrance hall or room, but a garden. The house was a mere shell, without a roof or upper floors. The high, windowless stone walls enclosed a narrow but very long paved courtyard that had two lines of bare, ancient olive trees, one down either side. At the far end, the monk knelt in front of an ancient standing stone that had a cross crudely carved into its granite surface.

“Make haste!” ordered the monk, without looking back.

“Curious,” muttered De Vitray, who had to peer past MacNeacaill’s elbow, as he could not see over his shoulder. “A very secret garden. I wonder–”

“Best not to wonder,” warned MacNeacaill.

He turned about and negligently waved at the box, as if it were a handkerchief or something he had left behind on a chair.

“Cauvignac! Montausier! All you fellows. Be kind enough to bring that box over here.”

The guardsmen looked at him in surprise. Carry a box as if they were lackeys, rather than nobleman serving in the Scottish Guard of His Majesty? Impossible!

MacNeacaill knew this, and was drawing breath to attempt a rephrased and cajoling rendition of the same request, when Gallagher, smiling as ever, got in first.

“Gentlemen! This is not some mere box! It contains a holy relic of great importance to His Majesty the King and to France. In usual times it is borne on the shoulders only of princes of the blood, but in the present circumstances, noble birth shall suffice.”

“Why didn’t you say so!” exclaimed Cauvignac to MacNeacaill.

MacNeacail sighed and looked suspiciously at Gallagher, but he couldn’t tell whether the tale of the holy relic was the truth or some invention. At the same time he was trying to remember long-forgotten sermons and readings of scripture. Was there a Saint who was a giant whose body had been preserved by some miracle? Or was that a children’s story his nurse had once told him?

The task being properly explained, the dozen guardsmen made short work of lifting the box from the cart. Taking it on their shoulders, they carefully followed MacNeacail and Gallagher into the courtyard. De Vitray shivered as he crossed the threshold and drew his cloak held tightly around his neck. It was much colder inside, though the roofless courtyard was no more shaded than the street.

Close to the standing stone, MacNeacail noticed that the worn grey pavers underfoot became a faded, but still wonderful mosaic, partly obscured by dirt. He could not pause to inspect it, but from surreptitious glances down as he trod over it, he took in a narrative of some kind, the mosaic telling a story of the construction of a city, dealings between angels and men, a titanic battle and all of it ending near the stone with a glorious sunburst, the disc of the sun immediately beneath the kneeling monk.

The monk crossed himself and stood to receive the guardsmen and their burden.

“Lift it up,” he instructed. “Set the foot of it here, upon the sun.”

The guardsmen did as they were told, lifting one end of the box so it stood upright, like a small, narrow house and less like a coffin.

“Strip the sacking away,” said the monk.

With the sacking torn off, the box was revealed to be of very fine construction, rich chestnut panels bordered with ebony and a large fleur de lis in coromandel wood, ivory and gold leaf set in the middle of the front panel.

It also had bronze hinges on three edges, and a huge latch upon the other.

“It is a cabinet!” exclaimed De Vitray.

“Indeed,” said the monk. “De Vitray, is it not?”

“Yes, monseigneur,” replied De Vitray, puffing out his chest at being recognised.

“Take your men and guard the doorway. Allow no one to enter without my word. MacNeacail, you will remain here with Father Gallagher.”

De Vitray doffed his hat and bowed, but did not say anything, as he was no longer pleased. He snapped out a command and stalked off to the doorway, without a backwards glance, the other guards following. Most of them did look back, as they wished to see what might be in the case.

“Welcome to the heart of the city, gentlemen,” said the monk.

“This is the heart of Paris?” asked MacNeacail. He looked around again at the bare walls and the bare trees. “Surely not?”

“Since time immemorial,” snapped the monk. “Do you take me for an idiot?”

“I beg your pardon,” said MacNeacail. He bowed in some confusion and would have doffed his hat, but he’d forgotten to pick it up. The bee charms, who were now attached to his hair, rustled as his fingers brushed them.

“No matter,” said the monk. “It has been a long journey, and I am tired. Please, gentlemen, open the cabinet.”

MacNeacail and Gallagher undid the latch, and eased the front of the cabinet open. A wave of chill flowed out, even colder than the winter air. This unnatural frost intensified as they pulled the sides of the cabinet fully open, to reveal that what lay inside the box was not the body of a giant saint, as MacNeacail had suspected, but a throne. An immense throne carved out of a single block of ice, the back and arms covered in lines and lines of tiny incised letters in an alphabet that MacNeacail didn’t even recognise, let alone be able to read.

“The throne of ice of the Parisii,” whispered Gallagher as he stepped back. “I had never thought to see it.”

MacNeacail nodded dumbly. He had never even heard of it, but he was impressed.

“Step back,” warned the monk. “We must not touch the throne until after the ceremony.”

MacNeacail stepped back quickly. Gallagher lingered for a moment, then came to stand by him. The monk pushed back his hood and the sleeves of his habit, and knelt before the throne. He muttered a short prayer, then stood up and raised his arms. As he did so, dark shapes moved up the walls, the broad shadow of spreading wings. MacNeacail’s bee charms huddled closer together in his hair, but did not buzz.

“Bellinus! Protector of the city! I, Charles de Guise, a prince of the blood and Archbishop, with my companion Ophaniel, bring you the throne of ice!

MacNeacail backed away another step, and almost fell over Father Gallagher. As he did so, the bee charms in his hair buzzed in alarm. Gallagher pushed him upright and looked around wildly, his expression distant. He fumbled in his glove for the silver object and flipped open its cover. This time MacNeacail saw it was a watch, but instead of hands, it had a silver cross mounted on the central dial. The cross spun wildly and then pointed at the blank wall to the south.

“Shelhalael…” whispered Gallagher. “What occurs? Show me…ah!”

He bent down on one knee. Blood gushed from his nose as he looked up at the monk and cried out, “There is a tunnel dug from the house opposite, they have placed a mine…another angel opposes–”

Gallagher gave a gargled, choking cough and fell forwards to the ground.

The monk still faced the throne, his arms stretched up to the sky in supplication. But the shadow of the wings disappeared, and the southern wall suddenly rippled, as if all the bricks were momentarily water and something had dived through.

“Bellinus! We keep the compact!” called out the monk, in a parched, high voice. He slowly sank to his knees, and his arms quavered closer to his head, as if he were trying to hold up a great weight. Then he collapsed, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth to the foot of the throne of ice.

MacNeacail was left alone in the courtyard. Both the monk and Gallagher were unconscious, and their angels thus no longer present, or at least no longer acting under the persuasion of their mortal companions. Gallagher had muttered something about a mine, but there was nothing he could do to stop that exploding, if the fuse was already lit on the other side of the wall.

It was very quiet. The bees were completely still, and he could not even hear the usual, muffled noises of the city beyond.

Man said a voice inside his head.

MacNeacaill turned around and then quickly looked down at the ground, blinking furiously. There was something on the throne of ice now, something that he could not gaze directly upon, though it was not bright, but simply too terrible to behold.

Man? said the thing upon the throne.

“Yes,” mumbled MacNeacaill. He edged sideways and prodded the monk with the toe of his boot, hoping desperately that he would return to his senses. Or that Gallagher would recover, that some priest used to dealing with angels could speak to–

But I am not an angel.

“Oh dear Father in heaven,” whispered MacNeacaill. It must be a demon. He reversed his sword and held it by the blade, the hilt in front of him to make a cross. “Save me.”

Not like Shelhalael or Ophaniel, who flutter about me here. Long ago, the Parisii called me a god. Later, in the book Enoch wrote, he named me Archangel.

This revelation did not calm MacNeacaill, but he did take up a more usual grip on his sword.

Are you to conclude the compact?

MacNeacaill kicked the monk harder, no matter that he was a prince of the blood.

Are you to conclude the compact?

“Ah, yes,” said MacNeacaill.

But you do not know how.

“No…I do not.”

It is simple enough. The throne of ice is my worldly temple. When I am called to inhabit my temple, my worshippers may ask my favour. It is usual to ask me to protect the city for whoever rules it, or wishes to do so. That is the compact I made long ago, MacNeacaill.

“You know my name now?”

He sensed the archangel’s amusement. It was like remembering an uncle’s distinctive laugh from some festive occasion of his childhood, something forgotten that had risen to the surface, unbidden.

I have looked inside your head, Gerard MacNeacaill. It has been a very long time since I looked inside a mortal’s head…

“MacNeacaill…”

It was the monk, spitting blood-specked foam from his lips as he spoke.

“Tell Bellinus to protect the city in the name of His Majesty, King Louis! Quickly! The English prepare to fire their mine!”

“But Louis is not yet King!” protested MacNeacaill. “I serve King Henri!”

“Fool!” hissed the monk. “Henri is sick and dying. You must–”

Whatever the monk was going to say was lost in a titanic blast of noise and fury. MacNeacaill was knocked down by the explosion, and then as he struggled to get up, the earth gave way beneath his feet and he was drawn down into a new-born ravine that extended from the collapsing southern wall to just underneath the mosaic. Bricks rained down around him as he struggled to claw his way out of the dirt.

Just as he got his upper body free of the gripping soil, the throne of ice slowly toppled over and fell upon him. MacNeacaill had only a moment to twist and roll so that he was in front of the seat, instead of being instantly crushed to death by the back or the lower half of the throne.

But that meant he was balled up in a hole in the ground, under a huge block of ice, and he shared that small, shifting space with the awful, unknowable thing that was Bellinus.

He did not look at it, and he shrank away from it the little distance that he could.

So the compact is no more, said Bellinus. I shall return to ************.

The last word was not something MacNeacaill could comprehend. Hearing it created a pressure inside his head, such a pressure that he though his skull would explode and his eyes burst like punctured wineskins. But he knew he had a duty to perform. He must somehow make Bellinus remain, to protect the city, in the name of the king.

“Stay,” he said, and reached out, as if he might hold the angel back.

As he touched it, MacNeacaill’s heart stopped. He felt it halt, felt the sudden absence of rhythm. A terrible pain filled his chest and he tried to scream, but only a pathetic, rattling croak came out.

An instant later, he died.

The pain and the bewilderment immediately stopped, and MacNeacail felt the sudden warmth of summer sun on his skin, welcome after the long winter. He stood up out of his body, left the hole, and walked up an unseen slope into the sky.

He looked down as he climbed, watching his friends engage the Englishmen who had emerged through the hole in the wall. The monk, or rather Charles de Guise, lay with his head crushed under one corner of the throne, very evidently dead. Gallagher was alive, on his knees, digging furiously at the middle of the throne. Curiously, MacNeacaill could now also see Shelhalael, hovering in the air above the priest.

The guardsmen had the Englishmen well in hand, MacNeacail noted with approval. The enemy had obviously mistimed the mine, since most were blackened and in rags, and kept falling over, their balance lost with deafness. It was surprising, given their national fascination with blowing things up, but perhaps de Guise’s angel had intervened.

The duelling figures below got rapidly getting smaller as MacNeacail found himself several hundred feet above the courtyard and rising, giving him a hawk’s-eye view of the city. There was still quite a commotion on the Pont Neuf. It appeared that the troops of the city watch had thought a common disturbance was in progress and in their attempts to quell the imagined uproar, had actually started a riot. A barge had also run into one of the piers, though this was probably the method of delivery for the Spanish monkey-soldiers. Behind him, the great bourdon bell of Notre Dame was tolling, though whether this was for the riot or to mark the hour, he did not know.

Very well said Bellinus, inside MacNeacaill’s head.

“What?” asked MacNeacaill idly. He could not see Bellinus, but he could sense his presence. The archangel was next to him, one great wing brushing his shoulder. The nearness did not trouble him now, nor did anything else. He felt completely calm, more so than he had ever done before.

I will stay.

MacNeacaill screamed as the pain came back and he plummeted earthward like a flung stone, far faster than he had risen. Inside an instant, he was back in his body, and pressed into the mud, with the rapidly-melting throne of ice above him.

There is work to be done upon you said Bellinus.

The pain in his chest went away and with a galvanic thump, MacNeacaill’s heart started to beat. He sighed in relief, then screamed again as his eyes were burnt by a terrible fire, a fire that entered into his brain and threatened to entirely consume everything that defined his consciousness and identity.

It is complete.

With these words, the pain disappeared, leaving MacNeacaill sobbing, choking and threshing in a pool of mud. Water was flooding over his face, and the dread of drowning lent him strength as he tried to claw a tunnel out from under the ice. Then he felt a hand brush his, and he gripped it with panicked strength and so was drawn out of his entombment by Father Gallagher.

Leaving MacNeacaill gasping face-down on the flagstones, Gallagher knelt beside him and whispered urgently, “Did De Guise reaffirm the compact? In whose name?”

The Scotsman coughed or almost vomited up a mouthful of dirty water, then slowly turned his head. The priest gasped and bit the knuckle of his hand, rapidly crossed himself, then tore a broad strip from his sleeve and bound it tight around MacNeacaill’s eyes.

“What…what are you doing?” rasped MacNeacaill. He reached up to strip the blindfold away, but stopped as he saw that it did not impede his vision. He could see straight through the cloth.

Hiding our eyes said Bellinus. Our silver eyes.

“Silver…my eyes…but I am not a priest…”

I have decided to accompany you, MacNeacail. We shall look after the city together.

“Is Bellinus with you?” whispered Gallagher. He was holding the silver egg. The cross was whirring around the dial like the vanes of a storm-swept windmill.

MacNeacaill nodded slowly.

“Say nothing to anyone!” said Gallagher.

“I don’t …I don’t understand what has happened,” said MacNeacaill.

“The impossible,” said Gallagher shortly. “An ancient entity–one some would call an archangel–has chosen to companion you, which has not occurred for a thousand years, and you are not even ordained! And the angel is Bellinus, the guardian of Paris! The city has lost its greatest defender! We must go to the Cardinal Richelieu, he has great knowledge of angelic–”

“No,” said MacNeacaill. He looked at Gallagher, and saw into his subtle mind, saw all the cunning schemes and stratagems that the priest was part of, and the multiple masters he served, as he prepared for the passing of Henri and the decline of Sully, and the consequent rise of Louis, the Dauphine Helen and her Cardinal. “We must go to the King. Whatever has happened to me, I am still the King’s man.”

He slowly stood up and looked around. De Vitray was standing upon the rubble of the breached wall, supervising the guardsmen as they dispatched the mortally-wounded Englishmen and tied up the survivors. The throne of ice had almost entirely melted, so that there was merely a muddy waterhole where it had been.

Only part of the mosaic had survived. A sliver of the sun, smeared with mud.

“For such a city,” MacNeacaill said. “It is very small, this heart.”

It is not the heart that makes a city said Bellinus. It is the head.

“Where is the head?” asked MacNeacaill. He thought of the Louvre, where the King resided, though the power there was fading as Henri sank towards his death.

It is not a place answered the archangel. It is all the people. Come, let us walk amongst them. It is long since I looked at Paris through mortal eyes.

MacNeacaill nodded and clutched at Gallagher’s shoulder. He felt the priest flinch, and Shelhalael also, as they felt some small part of the power of Bellinus in his touch.

“Lead me,” he said, for he knew there was sense in Gallagher’s warning to keep his eyes bound. “Let us look upon the city, as we go to see the King.”