The Wolf Cub

by David Pilling

  In their place was a single white tent, and beside it a slender figure, hooded and cloaked, mounted on a sleek black courser.

  The figure pushed back its hood, to reveal the tumbling tresses and strong, dark-skinned features of the Lady Constanza de Santaella.

  28.

  Constanza turned over in bed to face me. “John,” she said, “what will you do next?”

  “Next?” I murmured drowsily, “a little more sleep, a very large breakfast, and then...

  She gave my chest a playful tap. “Don’t avoid the question,” she said, mock-offended, “you know well what I meant. What are your plans for the future?”

  I gazed at the ceiling and tried to think. It was difficult. The joy of my unexpected rescue from the Bastard of Thian, the consequent physical pleasure and lack of sleep, all conspired to stuff my head with straw.

  “That depends,” I said after a while. “I should do my duty, and ride to Pontoise to join the King. There is little enough to keep me here. This castle is full of evil memories, the land is mostly waste, and the people hate me.”

  We lay together in one of the smaller bedchambers inside the tower. I still refused to sleep inside the Baron’s old chamber on the top floor. Sometimes I imagined his angry spirit stalking the room above me, and fancied I could hear slow footsteps dragging across the floor.

  I had considered asking a priest to exorcise the dead man’s presence with bell, book and candle, though it would mean sending Ralf to Paris to fetch one. The local priests had either been driven out by the Baron or slaughtered in the wars. My lordship was a truly godless place.

  Constanza chewed her bottom lip. Her long brown fingers delicately stroked my midriff. If I had any doubts of how extraordinary a woman she was, her account of the past few hours had laid them to rest.

  Somehow she had learned of the Bastard of Thian’s invasion of Rougemont-sur-Seine, and ridden straight from Rouen to persuade him to leave.

  The Bastard was not a gentle or chivalrous man. I would have expected him to laugh in Constanza’s face, and either rape her or have her flogged out of his camp.

  Instead he received her in his pavilion with something akin to courtesy, listened to her words, and finally acted on her advice. Or threats. An hour or two before dawn, while I lay unconscious on the chapel floor, he gave orders for his men to break camp and ride away.

  Constanza had explained this much to me in a breathless rush, while I hurried her up the steps to my bedchamber. My physical longing for her had grown in the months since we parted.

  She returned my passion, or pretended to. I could never be sure of her true self. Constanza was too good an actress, and had lied and deceived for too long, to ever reveal it. I suspect her late husband, the knight of Castile, was her only true love.

  Perhaps I do her an injustice. She must have felt something for me to confront the Bastard on my behalf. Then again, perhaps King Henry kept me in mind after all, and she acted on his orders.

  “King Henry will not lay siege to Paris,” she said suddenly.

  Startled, I turned to look at her. “Why not?” I asked, “once the capital is in his grasp, the whole of France will follow.”

  “Think of it as a game of chess, John. The pieces on the board have moved, and one has been taken. Or rather, betrayed. The Duke of Burgundy is dead.”

  I sat bolt upright. “Dead? How can that be? Explain!”

  She pushed a hand through her unruly mane and blinked up at me. In the half-light of morning, I could see how tired she looked. There were dark smudges under her eyes, and little creases at the corners. I wondered what those eyes had seen since we last met. What secrets they had absorbed.

  “You know Duke John wished to forge an alliance with the Dauphin,” she asked, “and put an end to the Armagnac feud?”

  I nodded, and she continued. “When Henry advanced on Paris, the duke had the royal family, mad Charles and all, bundled away for safe keeping to Troyes, east of the city, where the English couldn’t get at them there. Then he renewed his talks with the Dauphin.”

  “They had never met in person before. Special arrangements had to be made for their meeting, since there was so much hatred and distrust on all sides. After much argument, it was agreed that the Duke and his retinue would go to the bridge of Montereau, on the banks of the Seine, and there discuss terms with the Dauphin and his retinue. Carpenters were employed to build a cage in the middle of the bridge, with doors in each side.”

  “The duke and the dauphin both entered the cage, each with an escort of ten men who had sworn sacred oaths not to do each other harm. This was their method of guarding against treachery.”

  It sounded farcical, two of the most powerful nobles of France packed inside a cage with twenty other men, attempting to patch up some form of truce. Meanwhile their armed retainers eyeballed each other from the opposite banks of the Seine, keen to drown a few old scores in blood.

  “Were you there?” I asked, “did you witness Burgundy’s death?”

  True to character, she ignored the question. “The duke was warned beforehand that his life was in danger if he entered the cage. However, he was not called John the Fearless for nothing, and went in regardless with his escort.”

  “He knelt before the dauphin, who refused to look at him. This offended the duke’s pride, and he put a hand to his sword. One of the dauphin’s supporters, Robert de Loire, accused him of daring to lay hand on a weapon in the presence of His Highness the Dauphin.”

  Any fool could predict what happened next. I groaned and put a hand over my eyes.

  “The duke turned to his own men,” Constanza went on, “what he might have said to them shall never be known. Tanneguy de Chastel raised his axe and shouted “kill, kill!”. He hit the duke in the face with his axe.”

  “Wait,” I said, raising my hand, “who in God’s name is Tanneguy de Chastel?”

  “The provost of Paris,” she replied, “a great favourite of the Dauphin. He may have been told beforehand to strike down the duke. I’m not certain. In any case, his cry was the signal for the dauphin’s escort to draw their knives and stab Burgundy as he lay on the ground.”

  “The door on the dauphin’s side of the cage had been left open. As the duke was being stabbed, more soldiers piled through and finished him off with axes and swords. They cut off his right hand, just as his assassins had cut off the left hand of Louis of Orléans, twelve years ago.”

  “What of the duke’s escort?” I demanded, “didn’t they try to defend him?”

  “It seems not. There was treachery in the air that day. Perhaps the Dauphin or his allies had bribed them to stand back while their master was cut to pieces. Whatever the truth, John the Fearless is no more.”

  My tired mind spun as I tried to make sense of it all. “I don’t understand,” I said, “why would the Dauphin plan or agree to such a thing? Murdering the duke will only drive the Burgundians into King Henry’s arms. Burgundy’s heir will never forgive the men who slew his father.”

  The late duke’s son and heir was Philip, later known as Philip the Good. He was nineteen, still young, but old enough to avenge his father. It appeared to me that the Dauphin, and his allies among the Armagnac faction, had signed their own death warrants.

  They had also sealed the fate of their country. With the new Duke of Burgundy for an ally, hot for revenge, Henry would sweep all before him.

  Constanza swung her long limbs out of bed and crossed to the window seat. She sat down and gazed out at the morning sunshine. There was an enigmatic half-smile on her face, and she looked far too pleased with herself.

  “The Dauphin is a strange creature”, she said, “easily roused to action, and easily frightened. He will carry the blame for the murder, and deserves to. It was he who arranged it, with the connivance of his father-in-law, the Count of Armagnac, and certain members of Duke John’s entourage.”

  None of this surprised me, nor that Constanza should know so much about it. “Why, though?” I
asked, “what compelled Charles to do it?”

  “He received a letter, delivered to him at Bourges by a certain friar. It carried no signature, and the seal was blank. The letter warned Charles that Duke John was in secret negotiations with the English. That he had promised them arms, troops, siege equipment and a ready supply of funds. This was enough to persuade the Dauphin to act.”

  I sank back against the pillows. “An anonymous letter,” I said, “what a fool the Dauphin is. He should have held his nerve. At a stroke, he has delivered his realm into our hands.”

  “You seem to know most things, Constanza,” I added after a moment’s reflection, “do you know who wrote the letter?”

  Maybe it was just the shadows playing on her face, but her smile took on on a sinister aspect.

  “Who do you think wrote it, John?” she said.“Duke John played a double game for too long. We couldn’t rely on him.”

  “You...?” I whispered, “you wrote the letter, on Henry’s orders?”

  Constanza gave a slow nod. “I prefer not to reveal secrets,” she said, “take this one as a measure of my regard for you.”

  She was cold, Constanza, almost as cold as her royal master, and this revelation was the nearest to an expression of true warmth or affection I ever got from her. Even when we made love, if it could be called that, there was a part of her that remained absent.

  Great Sultan, you may be surprised to hear that the hero-king of the English, Henry the Fifth, would have stooped so low as to arrange the murder of so high and puissant a nobleman as the Duke of Burgundy. Remember, Majesty, that Henry thought of himself as the scourge of God, sent by divine will to chastise the French nation for their sins. For him the laws of chivalry did not apply to France, and no stratagem was too base or ignoble to bring his treacherous subjects to heel.

  Once I had rested, and recovered from the shocks and alarms of the previous few days, I was able to take stock. Constanza informed me that King Henry intended to take full advantage of his new alliance with Burgundy, and press on with the conquest of France.

  “He plans to offer his hand in marriage to Catherine, King Charles’ daughter,” she said, “on condition that her father agrees to disinherit the Dauphin and make Henry regent, as well as heir to the French throne.”

  “King Charles is mad,” I replied, “how can he agree to anything, when he doesn’t even know who he is most of the time?”

  Constanza waved that aside. “We only need his seal on the documents. Queen Isabeau and the royal council will do the actual negotiations on his behalf. By all accounts, the queen is willing enough to sell her daughter to Henry in exchange for peace, and the guarantee of her own position.”

  “The Dauphin will fight,” said Herr Hartmann, “he is not finished yet, even if his own father agrees to disinherit him. Henry has much work left to do.”

  The three of us were at breakfast in the great hall. Sunlight poured through the high windows and reflected off the silver platters and goblets Pepin had fetched from the buttery. This was the old Baron’s best silver, which I had ordered to be broken out to celebrate our deliverance from the Bastard of Thian.

  Our platters were heaped with porridge, the same porridge Pepin had intended to pour on the heads of the Bastard’s men. There was also some rye bread, and venison left over from the feast two nights gone. A plain enough meal, but I savoured every mouthful, grateful and relieved to be alive.

  This was the first time Constanza and Herr Hartmann had met. The German, who was a shrewd judge of character, plainly distrusted my bedmate. He gave her suspicious glances, and only spoke to her through me.

  “John,” said Constanza, “you never answered my question. What do you plan to do next?”

  “The war looks set to continue,” I replied, “I cannot hope to avoid it. Perhaps God sent the Bastard of Thian to teach me that lesson.”

  “I will go back to the the army. There is little option. I am down to my last few pennies, and cannot afford to run even this meagre household without more funds. My only trade is war.”

  “First,” I added, “there is an oath I must fulfil. I vowed to hang the peasants who betrayed me and gave food and aid to the Bastard.”

  “That oath shall not be kept,” Constanza said firmly, “hanging able-bodied men will achieve nothing. You need them to till and sow your fields.”

  She pointed her knife at me. “The King has not forgotten you, John. He has a prodigious memory, and never forgets those who have rendered him good service in the past. If you want to earn more royal favour, more lands and castles, then you will not destroy the only estate he has given you so far.”

  “Henry would not forgive them,” I said forcefully, “he has a short way with traitors, as Sir Roland found out. So do I.”

  “He has an even shorter way with fools,” she retorted, “I warn you, do nothing rash.”

  Another man might have done it, hanged the villagers, and left their bereaved families to starve.

  I was not that man. Yet. In spite of my hard words, there was still enough goodness left in me to overcome the base desire for revenge.

  “To the army, then,” I sighed, “let the traitors live.”

  29.

  Great Sultan, I shall not weary you with a lengthy account of the war that followed. As in Normandy, King Henry fought no great battles, but wore the French down in one bloody siege after another. I believe his true genius for warfare lay in siegecraft rather than pitched battles, which presented too great a risk. It should be remembered that Henry only fought at Agincourt because he had to, and would have gladly avoided the French army in return for safe passage to Calais.

  His skill at reducing French towns to rubble was equalled by a talent for careful diplomacy. I was there at Troyes, the great cathedral town east of Paris, when he signed the Treaty of Troyes, whereby the madman King Charles agreed to disinherit his son and marry his daughter to Henry.

  How much Charles knew about the treaty is debatable. He was present, in body at least, a frail, sick-looking man with scanty white hair, who had to be held upright by two French knights when he tried to stand. He remained silent, his eyes vacant, while Queen Isabeau conducted the negotiations. She was a tall, imposing woman, her high beauty marred by a lifetime of debauchery and politics.

  Isabeau was as ruthless as any of the men about her. She justified the exclusion of the Dauphin, her own son, by claiming that he was in reality a bastard, the illicit product of one of her many affairs. His real father, so she claimed, was Louis, the Duke of Orléans murdered twelve years previously by supporters of John the Fearless.

  Consider, O Sultan, the shamelessness of this woman. She was reader to sully her reputation, such as it was, in public, and admit to having cuckolded the King of France with a host of lovers. Not only that, but she also cast dirt on her son, stripped him of his princely status and dignity and humiliated him in the eyes of Christendom.

  Perhaps I judge her too harshly. As a woman, she could not take the field and lead armies into battle. Isabeau sacrificed her reputation, and the interests of her son, for the sake of France. Her husband was a lunatic, her country was in tatters, her nobles a pack of worthless fools, more inclined to plunge knives into each other than unite against a common enemy.

  In her eyes, the only man who could save the realm was King Henry, who had done so much to bring misery and destruction to it. By giving Henry her daughter, she hoped to end the war, and ensure that the royal blood of the Valois would run in the veins of future Kings of France.

  The supporters of the Dauphin, who had declared himself the true regent and heir in opposition to Henry, still held many towns and castles south of Paris. Henry was keen to hurl himself back into the fray, but first had to go through the tedious business of wedding and bedding his new Queen.

  With typical economy, he combined war with pleasure. A few days after the wedding he marched to lay siege to Sens, sixteen leagues from Troyes, and took his bride with him.

  I wa
s among the knights of the rearguard, and caught occasional glimpses of Queen Catherine, who rode in a covered litter, guarded by an escort of her own knights. She was a pale, slender little thing, with far too much of her father in her for my liking. The same watery blue eyes, milky complexion and silken fair hair.

  “She is Valois through and through,” remarked Herr Hartmann, “and may have inherited the taint of their blood.”

  I made a half-hearted attempt to defend her. “She is only half-Valois. Her mother is as sane as you could wish, if not very moral.”

  Herr Hartmann batted away the flies dancing around his destrier’s muzzle. It was a hot, sticky summer, and the heat threatened to bake us alive in our armour.

  “For your country’s sake,” he said, “I shall pray the maternal blood proves the stronger.”

  The Armagnac garrison at Sens surrendered almost as soon as our banners appeared before its walls, and King Henry was able to parade his wife before the citizens. We marched on to Montereau, where the garrison refused terms of surrender, and held out with desperate valour against our efforts to take it by storm. When the town fell, Henry had the surviving men of the garrison marched out and butchered like so many sheep in front of the gates.

  He ordered a band of Welsh archers to do the throat-slitting. I was near his side while the men were slaughtered, and overheard him explain his reasons to the mayor of the town, who begged the King to show mercy.

  “They die to atone for the murder of the Duke of Burgundy,” he said, “as all such traitors and assassins must perish.”

  This was a flat-out lie. The garrison of Montereu had nothing to do with the Duke’s death, and Henry was in no way obliged to avenge it. He killed those men to provide another example of his severity, and terrify his enemies into submission.

  The summer of blood wore on. Siege after siege. One town after another engulfed in smoke and flame. At Melun our artillery smashed through the walls, while our engineers undermined the foundations. It was Caen all over again, and we fought hand-to-hand on the ramparts and in the tunnels.