The Iron King

by Maurice Druon

  ‘The King or the Templars,’ said an apprentice, ‘they’re one and the same thing. Let the wolves eat each other and then they won’t eat us.’

  At that moment a woman happened to turn round, grew suddenly pale, and made a sign to the others to be quiet. Philip the Fair was standing behind them, gazing at them with his unwinking, icy stare. The sergeants-at-arms had drawn a little closer to him, ready to intervene. In an instant the crowd had dispersed; those who had composed it ran off shouting at the tops of their voices, ‘Long live the King! Death to the heretics!’

  The King’s expression remained perfectly impassive. One might have thought that he had heard nothing. If he took pleasure in taking people by surprise, it was a secret pleasure.

  The clamour was growing louder. The procession of the Templars was passing the end of the street. Through a gap between the houses, the King saw for an instant the Grand Master standing in the wagon surrounded by his three companions. The Grand Master stood upright; in the King’s eyes this was an irritation; he looked like a martyr, but undefeated.

  Leaving the crowd to rush towards the spectacle, Philip the Fair passed through the suddenly empty streets at his usual slow pace, and returned to his palace.

  The people might well grumble a bit, and the Grand Master hold his old and broken body upright. In an hour the whole thing would be over, and the sentence, so the King believed, would be generally well received. In an hour’s time the work of seven years would be finished and completed. The Episcopal Tribunal had issued their decree; the archers were numerous; the sergeants-at-arms patrolled the streets. In an hour the case of the Templars would be erased from the list of public cares, and from every point of view the royal power would come out of the affair enhanced and reinforced.

  ‘Even my daughter Isabella will be satisfied. I shall have acceded to her plea, and so contented everyone. But it was time to put an end to it,’ Philip the Fair told himself as he thought of the words he had just heard.

  He went home by the Mercers’ Hall.

  Philip the Fair had entirely renovated and rebuilt the Palace, preserving only such ancient structures as the Sainte-Chapelle, which dated from the time of his grandfather, Saint Louis. It was a period of building and embellishment. Princes rivalled each other; what had been done in Westminster had been done in Paris too. The mass of the Cité with its great white towers dominating the Seine was brand-new, imposing and, perhaps, a little ostentatious.

  Philip, if he watched the pennies, never hesitated to spend largely when it was a question of demonstrating his power. But, since he never neglected an opportunity of profit, he had conceded to the mercers, in consideration of an enormous rent, the privilege of transacting business in the great gallery which ran the length of the palace, and which from this fact was known as the Mercers’ Hall, before it became known as the Merchants’ Hall.8

  It was a huge place with something of the appearance of a cathedral with two naves. Its size was the admiration of travellers. At the summits of the pillars were the forty statues of the kings who, from Pharamond and Mérovée, had succeeded each other at the head of the Frankish kingdom. Opposite the statue of Philip the Fair was that of Enguerrand de Marigny, Coadjutor and Rector of the Kingdom, who had inspired and directed the building.

  Round the pillars were stalls containing articles of dress, there were baskets of trinkets, and sellers of ornaments, embroidery and lace. About them were gathered the pretty Parisian women and the ladies of the Court. Open to all comers, the hall had became a place for a stroll, a meeting-place for transacting business and exchanging gallantries. It resounded with laughter, conversation and gossip, with the claptrap of the salesmen over all. There were many foreign accents, particularly those of Italy and Flanders.

  A raw-boned fellow, who had determined to make his fortune out of spreading the use of handkerchiefs, was demonstrating the articles to a group of fat women, shaking out his squares of ornamented linen.

  ‘Ah, my dear ladies,’ he cried, ‘what a pity to blow one’s nose in one’s fingers or upon one’s sleeve, when such pretty handkerchiefs as these have been invented for the purpose? Are not such elegant things precisely made for your ladyships’ noses?’

  A little farther on, an old gentleman was being pressed to buy a wench some English lace.

  Philip the Fair crossed the Hall. The courtiers bowed to the ground. The women curtsied as he passed. Without seeming to do so, the King liked the liveliness of the scene, the laughter, as well as the marks of respect which gave him assurance of his power. Here, because of the tumult of voices, the great bell of Notre-Dame seemed distant, lighter in tone, more benign.

  The King caught sight of a group whose youth and magnificence were the cynosure of every eye: it consisted of two quite young women and a tall, fair, good-looking young man. The young women were two of the King’s daughters-in-law, those known as the ‘sisters of Burgundy’, Jeanne, the Countess of Poitiers, married to the King’s second son, and Blanche, her younger sister, married to the youngest son. The young man with them was dressed like an officer of a princely household.

  They were whispering together with restrained excitement. Philip the Fair slowed his pace the better to observe his daughters-in-law.

  ‘My sons have no reason to complain of me,’ thought Philip the Fair. ‘As well as making alliances useful to the Crown, I gave them very pretty wives.’

  The two sisters were very little alike. Jeanne, the elder, the wife of Philippe of Poitiers, was twenty-one years old. She was tall and slender, her hair somewhere between blond and chestnut, and something in the way she held herself, something formal about the line of the neck and the slant of the eye, reminded the King of the fine greyhounds in his kennels. She dressed with a simplicity and sobriety that was almost an affectation. This particular day she was wearing a long dress of grey velvet with tight sleeves; over it she wore a surcoat edged with ermine, reaching to the waist.

  Her sister Blanche was smaller, rounder, rosier, with greater spontaneity. Though she was only three years younger than Jeanne, she still had childish dimples in her cheeks and, doubtless, they would remain there for some time yet. Her hair was of a bright blond and her eyes, and this is rare, were of a clear and brilliant brown; she had small transluscent teeth. Dress was more to her than a game, it was a passion. She devoted herself to it with an extravagance that was not always in the best of taste. She wore enormous pleated coifs and hung as many jewels as she could upon her collar, sleeves and belt. Her dresses were embroidered with pearls and gold thread. But she was so graceful that everything could be forgiven her, and appeared so pleased with herself that it was a pleasure to see.

  The little group was talking of a matter of five days. ‘Is it reasonable to be so concerned about a mere five days?’ said the Countess of Poitiers, at the moment the King emerged from behind a pillar masking his approach.

  ‘Good morning, my daughters,’ he said.

  The three young people fell suddenly silent. The good-looking boy bowed low and moved a pace or two aside with his eyes upon the ground as befitted his rank. The two young women, having made their curtsies, became tongue-tied, blushing and a little embarrassed. They looked as if they had been caught out.

  ‘Well, my daughters,’ the King went on, ‘one might well think that I had arrived at an inappropriate moment? What were you saying to each other?’

  He was not surprised at his reception. He was accustomed to the fact that everyone, even his greatest friends, even his closest relations, were intimidated by his presence. He was often surprised by the wall of ice that fell between him and everyone who came near him – all, that is, except Marigny and Nogaret – and he found it difficult to explain away the terror that seized strangers whom he happened to meet. Indeed, he believed he did everything possible to appear pleasant and amiable. He wanted to be loved and feared at the same time. And it was asking too much.

  Blanche was the first to recover her assurance.

  ‘You mus
t forgive us, Sire,’ she said, ‘but it is not an easy thing to repeat!’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Philip the Fair.

  ‘Because … we were saying unkind things about you,’ Blanche replied.

  ‘Really?’ said Philip, uncertain whether she was teasing, astonished that anyone should dare tease him.

  He glanced at the young man, standing a little apart, who seemed very ill at ease. Jerking his chin towards him, he said, ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Messire Philippe d’Aunay, equerry to our uncle Valois who has lent him to me as escort,’ replied the Countess of Poitiers.

  The young man bowed once again.

  For an instant the idea crossed the King’s mind that his sons were wrong to permit their wives to go abroad accompanied by such good-looking equerries, and that the old-fashioned custom, which insisted that princesses should be accompanied by ladies-in-waiting, had undoubtedly a good deal of sense to it.

  ‘Haven’t you a brother?’ he asked the equerry.

  ‘Yes, Sire, my brother is in the service of Monseigneur of Poitiers,’ answered young Aunay, bearing the King’s gaze with some discomfort.

  ‘That’s it; I always confuse you,’ said the King.

  Then, turning back to Blanche, he said, ‘Well, then, what unkind things were you saying of me, my girl?’

  ‘Jeanne and I are in complete agreement that we owe you a grudge, Father. For five consecutive nights we have not had our husbands at our service because you keep them in council or send them far away on affairs of state.’

  ‘My dear daughters, these are not matters to be spoken of out loud,’ said the King.

  He was a prude by nature, and it was said had remained chaste for all the nine years that he had been a widower. But he could not be severe with Blanche. Her liveliness, her gaiety, her daring, to say the least, disarmed him. He was at once amused and shocked. He smiled, which was a thing that hardly happened to him once a month.

  ‘And what does the third one say?’ he added.

  By the third one, he meant Marguerite of Burgundy, the cousin of Jeanne and Blanche, who was married to his eldest son, Louis, King of Navarre.

  ‘Marguerite?’ cried Blanche. ‘She’s shut herself up, she’s sulking, and she says that you’re as wicked as you’re good-looking.’

  Once more the King found himself in uncertainty; wondering how he should interpret the last phrase. But Blanche’s expression was so limpid, so candid! She was the only person who dared tease him, the only person who did not tremble in his presence.

  ‘Well, you can reassure her, and reassure yourself, Blanche; Louis and Charles can keep you company tonight. Today is a good day for the kingdom,’ said Philip the Fair. ‘There will be no Council tonight. As for your husband, Jeanne, I can tell you that he’ll be home tomorrow and that he has forwarded our affairs in Flanders. I am pleased with him.’

  ‘Then I shall make him doubly welcome,’ said Jeanne, inclining her beautiful neck.

  This conversation was a peculiarly long one for King Philip. He turned quickly away without saying good-bye, and went towards the grand staircase which led to his apartments.

  ‘Ouf!’ said Blanche, her hand on her heart as she watched him disappear. ‘We were lucky to get away with it that time.’

  ‘I thought I should faint with terror,’ said Jeanne.

  Philippe d’Aunay was blushing to the roots of his hair, not from embarassment as a moment ago, but from anger.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said drily to Blanche. ‘What you’ve just said made nice hearing.’

  ‘What did you expect me to do?’ Blanche cried. ‘Did you think of anything better yourself? You stood there like a stuck pig. He came upon us without warning. He’s got the sharpest pair of ears in the kingdom. If by any chance he heard our last words, it was the only way to put him off the scent. And instead of blaming me, Philippe, you’d do better to congratulate me.’

  ‘Don’t begin again,’ said Jeanne. ‘Let’s walk towards the stalls and stop looking as if we were plotting.’

  They moved forward, looking unconcerned, and acknowledging the bows in their honour.

  ‘Messire,’ said Jeanne in a low voice, ‘I must tell you that it’s you and your ridiculous jealousy that cause all the trouble. If you hadn’t started groaning here about what you suffer at the Queen of Navarre’s hands, we wouldn’t have run the risk of the King hearing too much.’

  Philippe went on looking gloomy.

  ‘Really,’ Blanche said, ‘your brother is much more agreeable than you are.’

  ‘Doubtless he’s better treated, and I’m glad of it for his sake,’ answered Philippe. ‘No doubt I’m a fool, a fool to allow myself to be humiliated by a woman who treats me as a servant, who summons me to her bed when she feels inclined, who sends me about my business when the inclination has passed, who leaves me whole days without a sign, and pretends not to recognise me when we meet. After all, what game is she playing?’

  Philippe d’Aunay, equerry to Monseigneur the Count of Valois, the King’s brother, had been for three years the lover of Marguerite, the eldest of Philip the Fair’s daughters-in-law. And he dared to speak thus to Blanche of Burgundy, the wife of Charles, Philip the Fair’s third son, because Blanche was the mistress of his brother, Gautier d’Aunay, equerry to the Count of Poitiers. And if he dared to speak thus to Jeanne, Countess of Poitiers, it was because Jeanne, no one’s mistress as yet, nevertheless was a party, partly from weakness, partly because it amused her, to the intrigues of the other two royal daughters-in-law. She arranged meetings and interviews.

  Thus it was that in the early spring of 1314, upon the very day that the Templars came up for judgment, the very day this serious matter was the Crown’s main concern, of the three royal sons of France, the eldest, Louis, and the youngest, Charles, were cuckolded by two equerries, one of whom was in their uncle’s household and the other in their brother’s, and all this was taking place under the auspices of their sister-in-law, Jeanne, who, though faithful as a wife, was a benevolent go-between, finding a pleasurable excitement in living the loves of others.

  The report that had been given the Queen of England a few days earlier was thus very far from false.

  ‘In any case, there’ll be no Tower of Nesle tonight,’ said Blanche.

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, it won’t be any different from previous nights,’ replied Philippe d’Aunay. ‘But what makes me absolutely furious is the thought that tonight, in the arms of Louis of Navarre, Marguerite will say the very same words that she has so often said to me.’

  ‘That’s going too far, my friend,’ said Jeanne with considerable haughtiness. ‘A little while ago you were accusing Marguerite, quite unreasonably, of having other lovers. Now you wish to prevent her having a husband. The favours she gives you have made you forget your place. Tomorrow I think I shall advise our uncle to send you into his county of Valois for several months. Your estates lie there and it will be good for your nerves.’

  At once, good-looking young Philippe calmed down.

  ‘Oh, Madam!’ he murmured. ‘I think I should die of it.’

  He was much more attractive in this mood than when angry. It was a pleasure to frighten him, merely to see him lower his long silken eyelashes and watch the slight trembling of his white chin. He was suddenly so unhappy, so pathetic, that the two young women, forgetting their alarm, could do no other than smile.

  ‘You must tell your brother, Gautier, that I shall sigh for him tonight,’ said Blanche in the kindest possible way.

  Once again, it was impossible to tell whether she was lying or telling the truth.

  ‘Oughtn’t Marguerite to be warned of what we’ve just learnt?’ said Aunay hesitatingly. ‘In case she intended tonight …’

  ‘Blanche can do what she likes; I won’t undertake anything more,’ said Jeanne. ‘I was too frightened. I don’t want to have anything more to do with your affairs. It’ll all end badly one day, and I’m really compromising myself for nothing at all.
’

  ‘It’s quite true,’ said Blanche; ‘you get nothing out of our good fortune. And of us all, it’s your husband who’s away most often. If only Marguerite and I had your luck.’

  ‘But I’ve no taste for it,’ Jeanne answered.

  ‘Or no courage,’ said Blanche gently.

  ‘It’s quite true that even if I did want it, I haven’t your facility for lying, Sister, and I’m sure that I should betray myself at once.’

  Having said so much, Jeanne was pensive for a moment or two. No, certainly, she had no wish to deceive Philippe of Poitiers; but she was tired of appearing to be a prude.

  ‘Madam,’ said Aunay, ‘couldn’t you give me a message for your cousin?’

  Jeanne looked covertly at the young man with a sort of tender indulgence.

  ‘Can’t you survive another day without seeing the beautiful Marguerite?’ she said. ‘Well then, I’ll be kind. I’ll buy a jewel for Marguerite and you shall go and give it to her on my behalf. But it’s the last time.’

  They went to one of the baskets. While the two young women were making their choice, Blanche at once selecting the most expensive trinkets, Philippe d’Aunay was thinking again of the meeting with the King.

  ‘Each time he sees me, he asks me my name over again,’ he thought. ‘This must be the tenth time. And every time he makes some allusion to my brother.’

  He felt a sort of dull apprehension and wondered why the King frightened him so much. No doubt it was because of the way he looked at you out of those over-large, unwinking eyes with their strange, indefinite colour which lay somewhere between grey and pale blue, like the ice on ponds on winter mornings, eyes that remained in the memory for hours after you had looked into them.

  None of the three young people had noticed a tall man, dressed in hunting-clothes, who, from some distance off, while pretending to buy a buckle, had been watching them for some little time. This man was Count Robert of Artois.

  ‘Philippe, I haven’t enough money on me, do you mind paying?’

  It was Jeanne who spoke, drawing Philippe out of his reflections. And Philippe responded with alacrity. Jeanne had chosen for Marguerite a girdle woven of gold thread.