THE CROWN AND THE KINGDOM
A novel
by
Jeannette Angell
This is a work of fiction, based upon actual people and actual events.
The Crown and the Kingdom
Novel by Jeannette Angell
Copyright © 2010 by Customline Wordware
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or via any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.
~Winston Churchill
Acknowledgments
I have been truly working on this book for the better part of my life. It’s been through many renditions and many readers, and I cannot thank them all.
But I need to single out my friend and supporter Carem Bennett, who has worked tirelessly to help me make it the best that it can be, and who has encouraged me beyond all expectations. This one is for you, Carem.
Chapter 1 — 1301
Marguerite had always thought she would make something of her life.
Not that anything had ever happened to indicate that she would, of course. She had lived in this same place for all of her twelve years, and nothing exciting had happened to her yet. She wished, with all of her heart, that something would; she sat for hours at her window, gazing off into the lush fields and dark mysterious woods that surrounded her parents’ castle, thinking about being abducted by some handsome prince who would take her off to a fairytale kingdom where she would reign forever as queen.
They were pleasant dreams, and she indulged in them frequently. The prince was always handsome, and clever, and she was the wisest and most wonderful queen that the kingdom had ever known, and the people all cheered when she rode through the towns and villages of her realm.
It wasn’t anything like the real world at all, of course: in the real world, the king lived in Paris and seldom rode through any streets at all — and, if he did, people probably wouldn’t cheer. They hated him, because of the taxes.
That was what Marie, her nursemaid, told Marguerite. Marie lived in the village, where things happened, and she told Marguerite about them in the mornings when she would arrive to braid her hair. “Tax collector came by again yesterday,” she would say, pulling the comb vigorously through Marguerite’s hair as though she were attacking the tax collector himself. “Second time this month. The king must be having expenses, he must.”
“Kings are like that, I suppose,” said Marguerite, hardly interested; and she was rewarded with another fierce tug. “People need to eat, Mademoiselle Marguerite, and that’s a fact, too.”
Marie was always there to remind Marguerite of reality, with her earthy stories and her mundane concerns and her bustling around all the time. She seemed to enjoy interrupting when Marguerite was daydreaming, talking about irrelevant things like supper and clothes and bath times, and breaking the fragile gossamer thread of fantasy that Marguerite had woven around herself. She never forgave Marie for that.
All in all, it wasn’t easy.
It especially wasn’t easy, being the granddaughter of a saint. That, Marguerite decided, was her real problem. Not that her life was dull, but that it shouldn’t have been. She deserved more, somehow, being who she was.
Who she was, was the daughter of Robert, one of the powerful Dukes of Burgundy, who had only died recently, just before the century turned. He had been both terribly handsome and terribly kind, and there were nights, still, when she lay awake in her bed, crying because he wasn’t around anymore, and the world seemed more empty without him in it. He had been everything a father should be, strong and brave, but tender and caring, too. The servants all shook their heads when Marguerite skinned her knees at play; but her father used to take her in his arms and tell her stories until she forgot about her knees altogether. She missed him, she thought, more than she would miss the sun and the moon and the stars, all together, if they ever disappeared; and the world still echoed with his absence.
Her mother was Agnes, daughter of Louis, who was the king of France that they had made into a saint, which to Marguerite seemed a very curious thing to do. In any case, and whatever the reason, it was important lineage, and Marguerite and her brother Hugh had many people to remind them of how important it was, all the time: tutors and servants and visiting nobility... She listened to their words, but was impatient with them, all the same; they clearly didn’t know what they were talking about.
If she came from such a great family, then why on earth weren’t great things happening to her?
“Be patient, child.” That was her mother’s voice, her mother who was content to sit about and sew all day long, working the dark beautiful shining threads on the looms that made the tapestries that hung in the dining hall and the bedrooms, any place — and there were plenty of them — in the cold stone castle where some warmth and insulation was needed. That was how Agnes spent her days, surrounded by her women, pausing now and then to drink from a nearby silver goblet of wine, listening to the girl from the Auvergne who played so sweetly on the harp. It was not Marguerite’s idea of a way to pass the time. She went to sit with them when her mother sent for her; but she went unwillingly, her mind and soul and body all rebelling against the dark halls of the castle when she far preferred the sunshine outside.
“She looks like her father.” That was what they all said, with nods and smiles; and Agnes smiled in turn, her hand stroking Marguerite’s dark hair, her head slightly to one side, as though considering the question.
They were right, of course. Surely it was not she that her daughter resembled, with her fair blonde hair and her blue eyes; Marguerite’s hair was raven-black, almost blue in the sunlight, and the eyes beneath the fringe on her forehead were equally dark, a strange violet color, filled with all the mysteries and longings that she would never be able to put into words. She would sit on a stool near her mother’s loom in the Ladies’ Hall, and listen to their silly talk for as long as she could bear, and then finally she would look up and ask to be excused.
Agnes was always surprised. “But whatever for, child?”
“Because I’m bored here. I want something to happen. I want something exciting to happen.”
“Be patient, child.” Agnes smiled dreamily, her hand still on Marguerite’s hair, her eyes looking far away to her own impatient childhood, to her wedding to the dashing and fiery Duke Robert of Burgundy. “Be patient. Something will happen, you’ll see.”
It was hard to be patient. Marguerite refused the sewing lessons offered to her by her mother’s ladies, choosing instead to learn to read, to study astronomy and geography and history with her tutors.
Her thirst for learning was insatiable, and she always demanded more. A visitor to the castle had told her, one night, that languages were useful to know, and so Marguerite applied herself fiercely to the study of Greek and Latin, of English and Flemish and Irish and the strange Germanic languages they spoke far to the north, conversing by herself for hours in the garden in first one and then another of the strange foreign tongues she studied. If a prince ever did abduct her, Marguerite thought, at least she would be able to speak his language … whatever it turned out to be.
She had learned to ride from her father, when she was still very young, and had been given her own horse for hunting last year when she was eight — although this, too, was an activity upon which her mother frowned. “A pretty girl like you, going off to the hunt! What if you fall? What if you hurt yourself?”
“Everyone falls sometimes, Maman,” Marguerite replied. “I’ll just get up again.” She went and kissed Agnes on the cheek. “It’s all right, Maman, really it is.”
But she knew in her heart that, for her mother, it never would be all right. Marguerite’s father had been thrown from a horse when he was out hunting, paying more attention to his bow and arrows than to the treacherous footing beneath him, and had broken his neck, and that had been the end of that. Agnes had very nearly forbidden horses in her stables, at all, afterward; but Marguerite had begged and pleaded and – as usual – had ended up getting what she wanted.
It was true that she looked very much like her father, and Agnes had never known how to say no to Robert, either.
Horses were more to Marguerite than a pastime, though; they were her means to freedom. Because of her horses, she could escape from the narrow confines of her mother’s world and take herself away, through fields and villages and woods to the places that she loved. The secret place in the forest known only, she was convinced, to herself, where the fairy-bluebells grew; and the miller’s fields, which turned scarlet and crimson when the sun was setting over them; and the village smithy, where handsome young men stood about and drank beer and talked among themselves... if she were to lose her horses, she would have to go sit in the Ladies’ Hall all the time; she would lose whatever little freedom she had, and that would have been unthinkable.
She would also have lost her friends, and, for different reasons, that would have been unthinkable too.
Burgundy was divided, which for a long time Marguerite hadn’t understood — it seemed a needless complication, really — into the Duchy of Burgundy (which was a part of the Kingdom of France) and the County of Burgundy (which owed some allegiance to the Empire but was otherwise semi-independent). Marguerite, of course, lived in the Duchy of Burgundy; but when she went visiting, it was across the invisible line into the County of Burgundy that she went, to see her friends.
They were her cousins, really, but nonetheless her friends. Their home was a day’s ride away, but well worth the effort; for while Duchess Agnes presided over her castle with an air of restrained melancholy, the Countess of Burgundy, Mahaut of Artois, presided over hers with gaiety and charm.
Agnes seemed to play the part of the ineffectual widow to the hilt, as though her life had ended with her husband’s. Mahaut, on the other hand, displayed her widowhood with strength and delight, almost as a challenge, as though she had been waiting for nothing other than her husband’s death to release her to the kind of life that she had always wanted for herself. As may well have been the case; Mahaut revealed only those parts of herself which she wanted others to see.
She absolutely fascinated Marguerite.
And it was Mahaut’s daughters who became, from the beginning, Marguerite’s playmates, confidantes, and friends. Jeanne was exactly her age, or at least to within a few months of it, pretty in the same blonde way that Agnes had been pretty in her day, with blue eyes and pale skin that freckled when she sat out in the sun for too long. Blanche was younger by three years, with red hair, hair the color of burnished copper in the firelight, stubborn and spoiled and rebellious and possessing a charm that Jeanne would never have, not in a thousand years.
In the summer, when the roads were relatively safe, Marguerite rode to the County seat at least two or three times a month. Her mother insisted that she take a retinue with her – for when the roads were good, they were good for traveler and brigand alike, and everyone had heard the horror stories of what happened to young women, sometimes, on those roads, when they were not sufficiently well guarded. They lost their lives, Agnes said, or worse (and her women would cross themselves at the thought, though for a long time Marguerite didn’t understand what she meant).
The brigands seldom attacked if they were outnumbered, unless they knew one to be traveling with a great deal of coin or jewels, neither of which particularly interested Marguerite; and so she would set out, with her own personal maid and ten or twelve of her mother’s best guards, dressed in full armor, one of them carrying the banner of the Duke of Burgundy. No one, Marguerite thought, would dare assault her behind that banner: the Duchy was too strong, and too much feared, for even brigands to risk attacking.
The name of Burgundy protected her.
And Agnes would sigh and whisper a prayer for her daughter’s safety, because it was precisely for those reasons that Marguerite was even more likely to be attacked in the forest.
It was not just brigands that they had to fear. It was a wild country, creeping in all around the carefully cultivated lands of the various villages and fiefdoms, and the wild animals did not forget it. The danger was highest in winter, when the wolf packs were starving and would attack anything that they could find; but even in the good weather, they were always prowling about, and if one wandered too far from one’s retinue one always took risks. Wolves, and wild boars, and even bears ... Marguerite always took trouble to complete her toileting needs before leaving the castle, and drank very little en route so she wouldn’t be obliged to leave her companions.
It was a simple enough precaution, and it may well have saved her life more often than she knew.
Jeanne and Blanche always greeted her arrival with delight; there were too few people their own age in their mother’s castle. The girls would organize a hunt, or play in the castle’s dark cold dungeons (it was forbidden, of course, but what Mahaut didn’t know...), or swim in the stream that fed into the moat (also forbidden, and a greater risk of being caught, which made it a more pleasant game by far).
They shared lessons with each other, although Blanche was easily bored with any intellectual pursuits and usually wandered off when Marguerite or Jeanne talked about astronomy or theology; and they would feast, visiting the cook in his lair, deep in the cavernous castle kitchens, begging for samples of the fares being prepared for Mahaut’s banquet-hall. It seemed to Marguerite, during that summer – and all other summers – that Mahaut was always entertaining somebody interesting, or important, or famous.
Agnes only entertained ancient venerable bishops.
And now Marguerite was twelve years old, and it was summertime, and still, maddenly, nothing exciting had happened in her life. “I think,” said Blanche, biting into an apple and dangling her bare feet over the edge of the fountain in the courtyard, “that we ought to go into town, to the fair.”
“Mother will never allow us,” Jeanne said, automatically. “She said not until we’re fourteen, or married, whichever happens first.” She fanned herself. “Lord, but it’s hot.”
Marguerite made a face at her reflection in the fountain water and watched it dissolve as more cascaded down to the surface from the spout. As Jeanne had observed, it was terribly hot.
Boredom had set in. “I think that we ought to go,” Marguerite said impulsively.
“There!” Blanche exclaimed in delight. “That makes it two against one, Jeanne.”
“I don’t care,” her sister responded, a stubborn tilt to her chin. “Mother said no, and she’d find out, you know that she would, Blanche. Mother finds out everything.”
Blanche swirled her feet in the water some more. She had stripped off her stockings and hitched up all her skirts — even in the summertime, it would have been improper not to wear several layers of clothing, no matter how hot the weather — and kept splashing the water about. Marguerite wished that she would stop. It looked too tempting, and in another moment she, too, would be in the fountain with Blanche, and that really wasn’t done. “Well,” Blanche said, around the apple, “Mother has other things on her mind, just now.”
Jeanne looked up, sharply. She had been braiding some wheat to put in her hair. “What do you mean?”
Blanche shrugged. “Marie-Laure said that Cook said that Gaston ordered extra capons for tonight from the farm, and lots of wine, and that Anne said that there was to be music in the Great Hall, and when I asked if we were invited she nearly screamed at me. Definitely not for children, she said.” Blanche looked at her sister. “Satisfied? She’ll never notice, Jeanne, not today.”
“I wonder who is coming?” Jeanne said, her elbows in the air as she worked the strands of wheat into her hair. They were both flaxen fair in the sunlight. “Marguerite, have you any idea? Has it anything to do with you?”
“No,” Marguerite said. “I’m not that important.” She paused. “But Blanche is right, Jeanne. Aunt Mahaut will be much too busy to notice if we slipped out and went to the fair... only for a few hours...”
“Oh, you two,” Jeanne shook her head in exasperation. “You’re either always in trouble or always trying to get into it. Besides, it will be hot in town.”
“It’s hot here,” Blanche said.
“And,” added Marguerite, with more confidence now that she saw Jeanne wavering, “we won’t mind it so much, the heat, if we’re busy. Oh, do say yes, Jeanne! You know that you want to do it. And you’ll have all the time in the world to play mother hen, once you’re married...”
Jeanne lifted her long blonde hair off her neck to let the breeze cool it. “When I’m married,” she said, firmly, “I’ll see to it that none of my daughters runs off to the fair. All right.” There was a smile in her voice, and Marguerite and Blanche exchanged quick glances. “Only we must be very careful.”
“We will be,” said Blanche, tossing away her apple core and sliding off the edge of the fountain. “We will be, Jeanne, don’t worry. Race you to the house to change, Marguerite!”
The town square was bustling with activity when at length they got there. An old woman was selling chickens right at the first wall, and there was an explosion of squawking and feathers flying as soon as they arrived, with chickens scattering every which way in front of their prospective owners. The girls skirted around the booth, turning to come face to face with a young juggler, handsome and smiling, balancing colored balls on his fingertips. He bowed deeply to them. “A penny for a trick, mes demoiselles,” he suggested, winking at Jeanne, who flushed a deep scarlet. Blanche giggled and took her sister’s arm. “He likes you, Jeanne!”
“Shh! Don’t talk nonsense,” she responded, and blushed again when the juggler offered her one of his tiny bells. “For the prettiest girl at the fair! I will do a trick, for you, mademoiselle, for nothing.”
Marguerite had moved on. Her eyes, restless as always, scanned the crowd, looking for... what? Excitement? Her imagined handsome prince? She didn’t know, she knew only that somewhere, something was out there, for her.
Her cousins caught up to her then, and they all stopped at the waffle-stand, where sweetened fried waffles, thin and crisp, were being sold. They paid for their purchases, and waited while Blanche added sugar and jam to hers, before continuing through the square, eating as they went.
Blanche insisted on stopping by the jewelers’ stands, all of them, to gaze in delight and envy at the iridescent wares displayed there. “Crystal, my lady!” one middle-aged man crooned to her. “Sure to protect you, in whatever might happen.”
“Look, Jeanne,” she said. “Crystal! It’s supposed to be magic.”
Jeanne automatically blessed herself, more from habit than real fear. “Black magic, you can be sure,” she said. “Best to leave it alone, Blanchette.”
“No, my lady!” the merchant cried, his eyes narrowing, alarmed to see a sale slipping away. “Pure crystal, as ever is! Why, there is nothing holier! This is the same stone that, legend says, is set into the Grail, the holy cup that caught the blood of Christ. And such a paltry price! Why, for only pennies you can wear this about your neck, as a holy relic to protect you.” Marguerite nudged Jeanne. “For a few more pennies, he’s probably got the Grail itself for sale.”
“I’m buying one,” Blanche said firmly, pulling her beaded purse out of her pocket. “I don’t care what you say, Jeanne. I want one.”
“Blanche’s problem,” Jeanne said to Marguerite, “is that she wants one of everything.”
“Don’t we all?” murmured Marguerite, with a smile; but they waited until Blanche was ready, the clear bright stone on a chain around her neck, along with all of the other bright chains that she wore there. Blanche loved pretty things, jewelry and hats and clothes; but she found it so difficult, usually, to choose among them that she would put everything on at once. Mahaut often said, in sardonic amusement, that she always looked like a merchant’s stand; but Blanche would giggle and twirl around and charm everyone with her transparent delight at the material goods available in the world.
“And what will you tell Mother, if she asks you where you got it?” asked Jeanne, reaching protectively to wipe jam from the corner of her sister’s mouth.
“Oh, Mother, I simply can’t remember where I got everything, can I?” laughed Blanche, clasping her hands in front of her in a pleading gesture which had little to do with the mischievous light in her eyes. “Don’t worry, Jeanne. Leave her to me.”
Marguerite pointed to the other side of the square. “Music!” she said. “Come on, then, if you’ve finished jabbering at each other.”
They found several musicians standing in a semi-circle, a lute-player and a drummer and two men playing flutes; and in the center of the semi-circle a girl was dancing. It was a slow, mesmerizing dance, one of those brought back from the East by the Crusaders, no doubt. Certainly with her gauzy clothing she looked more comfortable on that day than any of the rest of them felt.
She danced with her eyes closed, as though in a trace, and the small crowd followed her every move with appreciative remarks. Marguerite, curiously, found her own muscles aching to respond, to try this new dance out for herself, to see if her body could move in those sensuous patterns, if she could get people to look at her the way that they looked at that girl. That was a new thought: she had never before considered what it might be like to be sensual. Perhaps, when he came, her prince would awaken that in her...
If it was not already awakened.
There was a shout behind them, and the spell was, abruptly, broken. Marguerite turned, and heard Blanche next to her giggling in delight. Some enterprising soul had brought an elephant to the fair, and rides were being offered.
“Oh, Jeanne, we must try!”
“Don’t be silly. Even for you, this is going too far.”
Marguerite, with the Orient still sparkling seductively in her ears and eyes, automatically sided once again with her younger cousin. “Oh, Jeanne, it would be such fun! We may never have another chance to do it, not in our lives!”
“That,” said Jeanne, “is what you say about everything.”
Blanche had broken off and run ahead of them, and with a smile of satisfaction Marguerite saw her giving some money to the elephant-handler. She pulled Jeanne’s arm. “Come on, dear cousin, or you may hate yourself forever.”
They were helped up into the wicker carrier while the elephant obediently knelt, and if the trainer had any speculative thoughts about the presence of three such young women, obviously of the nobility, obviously educated, then he kept his own counsel. He waved the beast to its feet with a shouted command, and there was a sickening lurch, first forward, and then backward, before the giant animal was once again firmly established on it feet. Blanche squealed in mock horror, “Oh, it’s too awful!”
Marguerite only smiled. Once up, the view was spectacular: she could see everything and everyone in the square, the vendors and the children, the jugglers and fire-swallowers and the people who wrote letters, for a price, most of them defrocked priests.
She could see the too-handsome young men with the roving eyes, and the girls who wore a great deal of paint on their faces and smiled for everyone. She really had no idea what either of those species actually did; she knew only that, for some reason, they were dangerous to be near.
She could see it all. And, somehow, she felt a sense of power over it, over these now-small people and their small lives.
This, Marguerite thought suddenly, this is what it would be like to be queen. To survey all of these people, and know that they were hers. She smiled again. She would, she thought, like very much to be queen.
The elephant obediently walked in the circle proscribed by the trainer, and Blanche forgot her fear and waved happily at the people below, and Jeanne looked around herself with worried eyes as though afraid of seeing someone that she might know.
They drank some wine after that, and ate some more, roasted pig and nuts and waffles and sweets, until even Blanche complained that her stomach was hurting her. And they watched everything that there was to be seen, and had their fortunes told by the gypsy woman with the crystal ball and Tarot cards, who looked at their hands and talked about their futures.
“There are great things in store for you,” she murmured to Marguerite, following a line on the girl’s palm with her finger. “Very great things.”
“What kinds of things, madame?”
“Greatness. Power.” She raised her painted eyebrows. “A man.”
“A handsome prince?” Marguerite giggled.
“A prince, yes. But not handsome. Not handsome at all.” A shiver passed through the woman. “He wishes you harm, little one. Be careful.” She raised her eyes to meet Marguerite’s. “Be very careful.”
It was as though a cloud had passed in front of the sun; Marguerite felt a sudden chill, even though the day was as hot as ever. The shouting and the music and the laughter behind her receded, as though those people were in a different world altogether, leaving her alone, alone with the gypsy fortuneteller, and the mists of the past and the future were swirling all around them. She moistened her lips. “Why does he wish me harm?”
“I do not know. I cannot see. But there is danger here, for you.”
“I thought you said that you saw very great things.”
The woman shook her head. “Poor child. Such fine clothes, and such fine language, and how little you know of the world. Danger and greatness go hand in hand. I will show you more. If you wish, I can read the Tarot cards for you. They see all. For just a few pennies more — “
Marguerite jerked her hand away, and suddenly the mists had dissipated and she was sitting, again, in a town square, with all the sights and sounds and smells of the fair around her. “Never mind,” she said, loudly. “I don’t believe in all of this nonsense, anyway. I don’t believe in any of it. You probably say the same thing to everybody.”
She stood up and strode away, young and purposeful and strong; and she did not see the woman’s eyes following her, or read the sadness in her expression. And no one was there to hear the low mutter, “Poor child. If she only knew... if she only knew.”
And she had told Blanche that she would marry a handsome prince, and Blanche was going on and on about it, and Marguerite decided that there was nothing at all to the gypsy woman’s prediction. Nothing at all. She did say the same thing to everybody, and one would have to be a fool to believe her.
They had left their horses tethered by the inn, and it was dusk before they got back to the castle, riding quickly over the meadows and even more quickly through the stretches of forest, for it was well-known that brigands were frequently about after dark on those forest paths.
There were signs of activity everywhere at the castle. All of the torches in the wall-brackets of the courtyard had been lit and were blazing away, their thick black smoke pouring up into the heavens above, and darkening the sky even further. People filled the courtyard, running to and fro, grooms in their leather jerkins and boots leading horses off to the stables, servants shouting commands to each other. “You see?” Blanche said to Jeanne, as they surrendered their horses to a waiting groom. “I knew that something was going on tonight! I knew it! Mother will never even have noticed!”
“She may start looking for us now, though,” Jeanne said, watching all of the activity. “Come on, Marguerite. We’d best be getting into some more suitable clothes. Why is it still so hot?”
They passed through the stone corridors and up the narrow spiral stone staircase of the north tower, passing still more people on the way.
One of them, a woman no longer in her first youth and dressed in a plain dress of pale blue serge, her hair in the wimple and veil which was proper, for servants, stopped in one of the upper corridors and squinted at the girls. The torches were smoking, here, as well, and it was indeed more than a little difficult to see. “Mademoiselle Jeanne? Mademoiselle Blanche? That you? Your lady mother is going to have my hide if it’s not.”
“It’s us, Clothilde,” Blanche said carelessly and started to walk on, but Jeanne detained her sister with a hand on her sleeve. “What is it, Clothilde?” she asked the woman. “Is Mother looking for us?”
“Aye, that she is, Mademoiselle Jeanne, and a good thing it is that I’ve found you, though what your lady mother the countess will say when she smells the horses on you — ugh! You would choose the hottest day of the summer to be out riding, wouldn’t you, and not a word to the likes of me as might be looking for you...”
“What does she want?” Marguerite interrupted. “Why is she looking for us?”
“Well, and Mademoiselle Marguerite, I’m sure that I couldn’t say, and it’s not my proper place to say even if I could, now is it?” she asked comfortably. “Only that my lady the countess is having a feast in honor of her cousin, and she wants her daughters and her niece to put in their appearance, though what she will say when she sees what that appearance might be is beyond me, I’m sure, but I’m not to return to the Great Hall without you, my young ladies, so if you would please step smartly here...”
“Then let’s go,” said Blanche, impatiently, tearing away from Jeanne. “Let’s get it over with. Besides, I’m starving.”
“Again?” asked Marguerite in amazement, the words automatic before she realized that they might give them away. They were, after all, supposed to have been out riding, not eating; but Clothilde was quick. “Young ladies, I’m sure that it’s not my business if you want to go and spend all of your time and not to mention all of your money at a town fair, and it’ll certainly not be me what tells my lady the countess, as I know better than that, I’m sure, but it is my business to see that you gets to the Great Hall, and that’s where you are going now, and no mistake about it.” She shepherded them along the corridor, looking for all the world like one of the worried chickens they had seen that very afternoon.
“Mother’s cousin?” murmured Jeanne to Marguerite, but Marguerite shrugged her shoulders. Families were too complicated to keep up with at the best of times.
The Great Hall filled with smoke when they arrived. Here, too, the wall-torches were blazing, and huge thick candelabras on the tables held fat wax candles; the tables and timbers of the Hall were already black from the smoke of many such banquets. In the haze, one could discern a tremendous pig being turned on the central spit in the first fireplace, with steaming platters of baked vegetables and fruits being handed around by the servants.
Fresh bread was being brought up from the cavernous kitchens below, and its thick, yeasty odor drifted on the smoke-filled air. Fish from the estate river sat on platters next to the great carafes of wine, and the harsh smell of over-ripe venison cast itself over the food-tables towards where they stood. Over by the small fireplace, Mahaut’s minstrels were tuning their instruments.
The huge refectory tables, arranged in a crude sort of semi-circle, were already full, mostly with people that Marguerite knew or at least recognized. Friends of her aunt, of course, whom she had seen here, at the County, before: her mother never gave feasts such as this one, not anymore. Not since her father died.
Marguerite was surprised at the shiver that accompanied that thought.
Mahaut, Countess of Burgundy and Artois, sat at the head table, her blonde hair with the streaks of silver in it braided and wound around her head, like a crown; her dress was crimson shot through with gold threads — Mahaut never did things by half. She was laughing, her elbows on the table, her goblet of wine firmly clasped in her strong hands.
Next to Mahaut sat a man, a huge giant of a man, with a full flaming red beard and a hearty manner, drinking deeply as they watched from a pewter tankard of ale, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. This, then, was the cousin. Marguerite had never seen him before.
Someone jostled her arm just then, and she exclaimed in irritation, and the movement caught Mahaut’s attention. She said something to the server in front of her, who bowed and approached them through the yellow smoke-laden air. “Ladies, the countess requests that you approach the head table. She wishes to present you to the Count of Artois.”
Marguerite looked at Jeanne, who shook her head. “I remember him now. Robert of Artois,” Jeanne whispered. “They’ve never been particularly friendly. I can’t imagine what he’s doing here.”
Marguerite shrugged. “Let’s get it over with, then,” she said. Already Blanche was running across the room, impulsive as ever, pausing only for a moment to curtsy to the giant with the red beard before darting around the table to kiss her mother’s cheek. “Impudent child,” murmured Mahaut, but she spoke with affection and indulgence. It was the way that most people responded to Blanche.
Jeanne and Marguerite stood in front of the table, and Marguerite could feel the big man’s eyes on her, and just as surely she could feel her face flush under his gaze. Mahaut was talking to him. “May I present my other daughter, Jeanne, who you know; and my niece, Marguerite of Burgundy,” she said; but Marguerite was still uncomfortably aware of his speculative gaze.
“My honor, Sire Count,” she murmured, copying Jeanne’s reverence, trying to keep her eyes demurely downcast. But what a handsome man he was!
“They are lovely girls,” the red-bearded giant said to Mahaut, ignoring Marguerite’s confusion. “They will fetch you a fine marriage-price, one of these days.”
Marguerite gasped at his words, and Mahaut turned to her. “Are you offended by my cousin’s thoughts?” she asked coldly, her gray eyes as fathomless as a lake in winter, her voice, as usual, giving nothing away.
“Only surprised, my aunt,” Marguerite responded. “Surely we are yet too young for you to think of marriage-prices and weddings.”
Mahaut laughed at her. That was something else that had always fascinated Marguerite about her aunt: her laugh. While all the women Marguerite knew (and this, of course, included her mother) tended to titter politely, or else to giggle as she and her cousins always did, Mahaut laughed like a man, throwing back her head and letting a full throaty merry sound tumble out. It was wonderful. It was terrifying.
The giant was drinking again from his tankard, but he was smiling, too. “My dear Marguerite,” Mahaut said, at length, “you would be surprised. You would truly be surprised. Now run off, children, and find something to eat. I have important matters to discuss with my lord of Artois.”
Jeanne inclined her head obediently, and turned to go; and Blanche kissed her mother again and moved to join them. Mahaut raised her voice. “And get some sleep, ladies, for tomorrow we discuss the consequences for dallying at the fair!”
“You see,” Jeanne said, as they found themselves a corner and plates heaped with food. “You see! I told you that Mother always knows everything!”
“Yes,” said Marguerite pensively, picking up a piece of capon and biting into it. “Yes,” she said again, “She knows everything. I wonder what she plans?”
“What do you mean?” asked Blanche, sleepily, her head pillowed on large Oriental cushions a long-ago knight had brought Mahaut from the Crusades in the East. She could hardly keep her eyes open. Jeanne met Marguerite’s eyes. “Whatever it is,” she said, almost entreatingly, “she’ll do it with or without our cooperation, cousin. You know that.”
“I know,” Marguerite said. “I know. Still, I wonder.”
She went to bed early, turning down the fresh linen on the massive bed that was hers when she stayed at the County, and slipping naked between the sheets. It was still very hot, but she fell asleep at once. Her dreams were confused images, of mists rising and the gypsy fortuneteller shaking her head and talking about wicked princes, and someone turned over the Tarot card to the hanged man... and then, coming out of the mist, was the great tall figure of Robert of Artois.
She awoke, sweating, with a claw of fear at the base of her spine and dryness in her mouth.
It was night, still: she could see the stars from where she lay, near the mullioned window, and the fire had burned down low.
Something had awakened her, she was positive, and not just the haunting images of her dream that were still wrapped around her like a web of fine gossamer.
There it was: voices, outside, not below her window, which faced out over the fields and towards the town; but from the courtyard. She got up, and pulled on the long white linen shift which Clothilde had laid out ready for her, earlier in the evening, her dark hair falling down to her waist; and she went to the door and lifted the heavy iron latch which bolted it shut.
The corridor was dark and empty. Marguerite turned and went back to her room, and in the firelight she found her oil lamp. She lit it, carefully, using a small branch from the hearth; and just as carefully let herself back out into the corridor. The stone floor was cold against her bare feet, and she ran a hand along the cool stone of the walls, just to keep her bearing and her balance. The scant light made shadows loom and jump alarmingly, and she was glad enough to find one of the corner staircases, and slip down its sharp spiral to the courtyard on the other side.
Even at this time of night, it was brightly lit: the servants must have been replenishing the rushes in the wall-torches for hours. It was a large, square courtyard, bordered on three sides by the castle itself and on the fourth by the drawbridge; it wasn’t paved with cobbles, as was the castle at home, but the dirt was hard-packed and there was Mahaut’s own precious fountain in the middle. An Italian custom, Marguerite had heard Mahaut say that was.
A number of horses were about, snorting over their bits, jiggling with impatience to be off: fresh horses. The grooms holding them had their hands full. There were people milling around in some confusion, putting packs on some of the horses and even, a few of them that Marguerite didn’t recognize, getting up on some of the saddled animals themselves.
The red-bearded giant from the Great Hall was there, a light cloak over his shoulder, wearing leather jerkins. Traveling clothes. One of his men was unfurling his banner, while his seneschal held his horse.
So he was leaving. That was odd, Marguerite thought. It was considered rude to leave by night, without appropriate fanfare or farewell, and insulting to one’s host to not take shelter under his roof after having taken his food in the banquet-hall.
He moved, a little, and Marguerite saw then who was facing him. Mahaut.
She looked magnificent. Still dressed in her crimson and gold, wearing her hair around her head like a crown, with fire burning in her eyes. A shiver of anticipation ran up Marguerite’s spine.
Whatever was happening here, she knew with sudden wisdom, was important. Whatever was happening here was of more significance than the visit itself, than the banquet, than anything. Later, she would want to remember everything that she saw, everything that she heard, so that she could tell Jeanne about it — Blanche would never understand — and so she looked about her, searching for a hidden shaded corner where she could remain unseen but seeing. She licked her lips and moved closer, still in the shadows of the castle wall, knowing that if they saw her they would send her away.
The cousin, Robert of Artois, was speaking. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said, his voice thunderous and tight with anger. “You couldn’t!”
“I would dare anything!” Mahaut retorted, her voice loud and confident. “You think you are the only important family member, the only one that counts? That you alone can hold property and be powerful? Think again, cousin! That land is mine. And I will prove it to you in a court of law!”
He laughed; but this was not the merry laugh of the banquet hall, and Marguerite knew intuitively that he would never laugh like that again, not here. Whatever was happening here was irrevocable. Nothing could be taken back. “Don’t threaten me, woman!” he spat out. “No court will care about your case. I’m a knight of the king, don’t forget. He certainly won’t.” He laughed again, an unpleasant sound, cruel, almost frightening. “You can’t prove your claim. You can’t prove anything. Besides, I’ve already given fifty acres of it away, as a gift, and I shouldn’t want to offend the king’s brother, now should I?”
“You offend me!” she screamed back at him. “You will have to give him other acres, acres of your land, cousin! And do be sure that it is really yours before you give it away! I have no need to substantiate my rights to the county. It is mine by right, mine by birth. I’m taking this case to the Royal Court, in Paris.”
“They’ll eat you alive there,” he said, his voice steely. “And if they don’t, I shall.”
Mahaut shook her head. “Poor Robert. Always the warrior. When will you learn to think with your head instead of with your sword? I do regret, cousin, that we were unable to settle this matter here, but I do assure you that this is not the end. You don’t intimidate me, cousin. I will take it to Paris!”
“Go ahead! I’d like nothing more than to see you embarrassed in front of the king and the royal court! Don’t forget, dear Mahaut, that I’m in the king’s favor these days. This sword you profess to disdain has served him well, and he’s not about to forget something like that so quickly.”
Marguerite could see Mahaut’s face clearly, could see the cunning smile which crept across her features; and she knew, with a shiver of anticipation, that it was coming now. Now Mahaut would say the words that she had been waiting all evening to say. Marguerite even found herself smiling.
Later, she would remember that.
“Robert, it was you who pointed out the jewels that I keep here, and the value that they have, the price that they will bring me. Fool! Do you think that I present my daughters to every visitor? There was a reason, dear cousin: so that you could see with your own eyes how very serious I am. I have two daughters, Robert, and a niece. All of good family — why, my niece is the granddaughter of Saint Louis himself, God rest his soul, and you know that there’s no better lineage in all the kingdom — in all of Europe, Robert! I have here three girls, and the king has three sons who will soon be looking for wives. Bear that in mind, Robert, when you speak of currying the king’s favor!”
It was not Marguerite’s imagination: even across the courtyard, she could see that the red-bearded giant had turned white. As white as death. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said, his voice husky. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I? Care to call my bluff, then, cousin dear? Or shall we settle this property matter here and now?” “Never!” he shouted. He turned and seized the bridle of the horse nearest him, and swung himself quickly into the saddle, startling the beast whose hooves clattered around on the ground. “I’ll see you in Hell first, Mahaut!”
He turned, and his men with him, and they all galloped through the gates an across the drawbridge, with noise and shouts, their torch-bearers and standard-bearers hurrying so as to get ahead of them, the footmen dashing off into the darkness. Mahaut stood and watched him go, and the smile never left her face. “You may at that, Robert,” she said aloud. “You may at that.”
Chapter 2 — 1301
Pierre Flotte was the first one to arrive.
He was perspiring. It was high summer, and the city was hot. It was at times like this that he missed his home in the Auvergne, the peaceful meadows and fields, the cooling gurgling sounds of the river, the noises of a country evening — sheep bleating and crickets chirping in the twilight.
Paris was filled with its own noises, wagons and carriages clattering over the cobblestones, people shouting to their neighbors, the church bells vying with each other for predominance.
And those noises, he thought, only added to the heat.
Still, Paris was his home, now. A home from which he departed, time and time again, on the diplomatic missions to which the king assigned him, the long and arduous travels required by his position; but it was a home to which he always returned. Catherine liked Paris, too, which helped; he had heard of too many men whose wives hated the city, and who made their lives miserable in consequence. But Catherine was happy among the cobblestones and the noise and the people, and for that Pierre was grateful.
He was glad enough now to sit and wait for the meeting in the comparative coolness of the Louvre chamber. The walls were thick and the windows narrow, keeping the heat at bay; and if it was a little dark inside, it was a small price to pay for the relief.
Already the oil-lamps stood ready on the table, and the wall-torches were filled with rushes; Pierre grimaced. That was a bad sign, a sign that this meeting — like so many of the royal meetings — would last well into the night. Catherine kept telling him what a wonderful thing it was, to work for the king, and she never complained about his late-night meetings. He supposed that she was right; their fortunes had certainly improved since he had taken this post. But there was no mistaking the fact that those who did work for Philippe earned their living by working very hard and very long hours.
Still, if they worked hard, the king worked harder, and there was something to be said for that.
Pierre sat down and took off his hat. He had exchanged the usual velvet chapeau for something lighter, made of cotton, for the hot weather; but he was still perspiring beneath it. He was beginning to bald, already, and Catherine was forever urging him to keep his hat on.
“I can’t stop a process of nature, my dear,” he said; but Catherine always had a response. “They want young men for all that traveling you do, Pierre,” she scolded. “And don’t think I want you losing your position, and being home all the time, underfoot. I have a household to run, you know!”
He smiled. He knew men who had married meek, submissive women. Sometimes he envied them.
Pierre didn’t need to think about the agenda for the meeting ahead; it was the same agenda that had held for so many meetings, for so many months, both here in the king’s Council and over at the Parliament.
Flanders.
Always Flanders, the rebellious vassal, the angry count, the people who could never quite conform to the wishes of the French king. Pierre sighed. They never would, either, but the king didn’t want to hear that. Pierre knew what was going on; it was he who, all these months and years, had been in charge of diplomatic meetings with Flanders; it was he who, more than any of the people in Paris, understood the Flemish disposition. And they were not likely to swear obedience to Philippe, not now, not ever.
No one would listen, of course. Not here, where allegiance to the king took on a form of religion: absolute, fanatical, driven... and sincere. The king could do no wrong, and his vassals were the most fortunate in Europe. The king was wise and prudent, and cared for his people, asking only in return something so small, so trifling: nothing less than their complete loyalty. It was doctrine.
The king himself believed it; how could his people do otherwise?
There were voices in the corridor outside, now, and Pierre hurriedly replaced his hat, still hearing Catherine’s voice echoing in his mind. The door swung open and the voices grew louder.
”... and so I told him that there was no use in arguing. If the man’s a heretic, and the Inquisition wants him, then he’s as good as burned already.”
“But it seems to me that we ought to have some say in the affair, damn it! Particularly if he appeals to secular courts.”
“But that’s just the point, don’t you see? It’s not against the law to be heretical. Just against the Church’s law... ah, my lord Flotte! Here already?”
The speaker was Gilles Aicelin, the Archbishop of Narbonne and Pierre’s own nephew. He was resplendent, as always, in the robes of his office. One would never guess to look at him that he had ever been anything but a prince of the Church; he fingered his bejeweled pectoral cross with a touch that was, almost, a caress. His hood and his cape were of the finest silk from Byzantium, and matched the bland blue of his eyes; his cap sat on a head that was, Pierre was glad to see, even more bald than his own, and that despite Giles’ relative youth.
With the archbishop was Charles of Valois, the king’s younger brother and confidant, also obviously suffering from the heat. He gave Pierre a curt nod before sliding into the chair that was closest to the head of the table, and immediately stripped off his outer tunic. “God’s teeth, but it’s hot.”
“That it is,” the archbishop said, but his eyes were still on Pierre, probing, assessing, shrewd and clever. “You have news from Flanders,” he said, suddenly.
Pierre raised his eyebrows. “I thought you were concerned with the Inquisition, Eminence,” he said mildly. “And news of Flanders can surely wait for the king’s arrival.”
Gilles smiled, suddenly, his plump countenance lightening vividly with the grin. He sat down, a faintly theatrical gesture, swirling his cape around him before going back to fingering his pectoral cross. “Ah, well spoken, my uncle, well spoken indeed. It’s a trifling matter that we’re discussing here, only that my lord Valois thinks that the government should now have jurisdiction over local Inquisitors. What would you say to that?”
“I would say that it’s hardly appropriate; but then, Eminence, you know my views on the Inquisition as a whole. I have repeatedly urged the king to end it altogether.”
“Not as long as the pope sits in Rome,” muttered Charles, under his breath; and Giles began to laugh; but then the door opened and the king walked in.
The first thing that one noticed about Philippe was how very handsome he was. He didn’t share the wide forehead and squat nose of most of his Capetian ancestors; his face was thin and slightly sallow, but his eyes burned, dark and intense, with a light that could be frightening. His hair, too, was dark and thick, and he wore it down slightly over his collar.
He didn’t dress like most kings, either, wearing the hood and, over it, the broad-brimmed hat of the country-people rather than the rich velvet hats worn about the court and Parliament. He shaved his face, like the courtiers, but often wore rough cloaks and leather breeches.
And yet, for all of that, there was no mistaking, ever, who he was.
He had never planned to be king. He was the second son of King Philippe III, and had devised for himself the simple existence of a second son, even thinking once of entering the Church. The death of Prince Louis, his older brother — and the scandal that surrounded it — changed all of young Philippe’s plans; but he never changed, fundamentally, in who he was. He was simple and straightforward, and his dress as well as his manner reflected his dislike of circuitous dealings.
They all stood up as he entered the room, the deference due to his rank, and then sat again as he took his place swiftly and silently at the head of the table. The king wore no hat today, and a shaft of sunlight from one of the narrow windows fell precisely where he sat, so that by some trick of the light he appeared to be wearing a halo. Pierre smiled at the thought: an able administrator and visionary leader the French king might be – but he was no saint.
Philippe looked around the table. “All here?” he asked, rhetorically, and then placed his rolls of manuscripts in front of him. It was unnecessary: he always remembered what he had to say, even without notes. “All right. My lord Flotte, you have news from Flanders,” he said, economically, and fixed Pierre with the dark intense gaze that flustered so many men.
Pierre cleared his throat. “My liege,” he said, carefully, “perhaps it is not news that I bring, but rather a suggestion. It is my sense – and that of our people in Flanders – that it is time for some display of homage. The people are being ruled by a king who is foreign to them. To them, you are far away, in Paris, concerned only with things French. We would propose a tour of Flanders — a triumphal tour, of course, a pageant in fact — to show the people who you are, who is their ruler.” There. That had come out all right, after all.
Philippe said, flatly, understanding what the words really meant, “there have been uprisings again.”
Pierre nodded unhappily. “Yes, my liege. Small ones, against isolated garrisons. I have the captains’ full reports here.”
Philippe turned to his brother. “I thought that you assured me that there would be peace now.”
Charles of Valois glanced at Pierre before speaking. “It’s not as simple as that,” he said, sorrowfully. “We’ve gotten control of the country, yes. We’ve got the old Count Guy and his son in honorable captivity — “
“The count has nothing to do with this,” Pierre interrupted, his voice unnaturally loud. It was now or never, he thought. They weren’t going to like what he had to say, but he had to say it anyway. “It’s the townspeople.”
All three men stared at him. Pierre took a deep breath. He had known that this wasn’t going to be easy, trying to convince them of something that they weren’t going to either believe or understand; but if he didn’t, the war would go on and on and on.
Philippe leaned back in his chair, his fingers forming a steeple over which he looked at Pierre. “Go on, Messire Flotte,” he said softly. “We are all attention.”
Pierre shook his head. “We can’t occupy Flanders the way that we’ve occupied Aquitaine,” he said, a little desperately. “It’s a different kind of place. Aquitaine is rural, with the power concentrated in one or two places — Bordeaux, mostly, and across the Channel. Flanders is different: it’s mostly towns. It’s a different economy. The people there are different.”
“Every place is different from another,” Giles offered, suave and smooth, conciliation in his voice. “But we have had success in the past...” His voice trailed off uncertainly, as he saw the king continuing to fix Pierre with his stare.
“I think,” said Philippe, “that Messire Flotte has not yet reached his point.”
“Thank you, my liege,” Pierre said hurriedly. “Think of Flanders, my lords, my liege: trace the contours of the map in your minds. What do you see? Towns, prosperous towns: Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, Douai, Lille. Not isolated villages and farming communities, and not major cities, either: just towns, each of them with its own strengths and influences.”
“But the towns,” Giles interposed, “are controlled by the barons.”
“We have no proof of that, Eminence,” Pierre said. “Au contraire, we are beginning to have the sense that the towns are independent. That safeguarding their economy is more important to them than allegiance to any baron.” He turned directly to Philippe, his voice earnest. “Controlling the count is all well and good, my liege. But our occupying forces will continue to be harassed as long as we do not deal directly with the burghers, the merchants in the towns.”