The Iron King

by Maurice Druon

  His left eye was closed; his right eye shone with calm innocence.

  Though he had lived in France for many years, he had never been able to get rid of his Italian accent. He was fat and dark and had a double chin. His greying hair, carefully cut, fell upon the collar of his robe which was of fine cloth and edged with fur. At the belt the robe was stretched taut over his pot-belly. When he spoke, he raised fat, pointed hands and rubbed them together. His enemies asserted that his open eye was the lying one and that he kept the truthful one shut.

  He was one of the most powerful bankers in Paris and had the manners of a bishop. At all events he assumed them on this occasion because he was speaking to a prelate.

  The prelate was Jean de Marigny, a slender, elegant, almost graceful young man who, the day before, at the episcopal tribunal in front of Notre-Dame, had been remarked for his languid air until the moment came when he lost his temper with the Grand Master. He was the brother of Enguerrand de Marigny and had been appointed to the archbishopric of Sens, from which depended the diocese of Paris, in order to bring the proceedings against the Templars to a happy conclusion. He was therefore in the closest touch with the great affairs of state.

  ‘Two thousand pounds?’ he said.

  He seemed a little on edge and turned his head away to hide his gratified surprise at the banker’s figure. He had not expected so much.

  ‘Yes, certainly, that figure will suit me pretty well,’ he said with an assumed air of detachment. ‘I’d like to settle the business as quickly as possible.’

  The banker watched him as a cat watches a fat bird.

  ‘We can deal with the matter at once,’ he replied.

  ‘Excellent,’ said the young Archbishop. ‘And when shall I send you the …’

  He interrupted himself, thinking he heard a noise beyond the door. But no, all was quiet. There was nothing to be heard but the usual morning sounds from the street of the Lombards, the cries of the knife-grinders, the water-sellers, the hawkers of herbs, onions, watercress, white cheese and charcoal. ‘Milk, ladies, milk … Fine cheeses from Champagne! … Charcoal, a sackful for a penny!’ From the triple, mullioned window, built in the Siennese fashion, the light fell softly upon the rich tapestries on the walls with their warrior themes, upon tables of polished oak, and upon the great coffer bound with iron.

  ‘The objects?’ said Tolomei, finishing the Archbishop’s sentence. ‘At your convenience, Monseigneur, at your convenience.’

  He had gone over to a long work-table which was covered with goose-quills, rolls of parchment, tablets and styles. He took two bags from a drawer.

  ‘A thousand in each,’ he said. ‘Take them now if you wish. They were prepared for you. Will you sign this receipt, Monseigneur?’

  And he handed Jean de Marigny a document which had also been prepared in advance.

  ‘Certainly,’ said the Archbishop, taking up a quill pen.

  But as he was about to sign, he hesitated. On the receipt were listed the ‘objects’ which he was to send to Tolomei that the latter might sell them: church plate, gold chalices, jewelled crucifixes, valuable weapons, all that had been sequestered from the Templars in the diocese of Sens. Yet all these valuables should have been handed over either to the royal treasury or to the Order of Hospitalers. The young Archbishop was committing, and without losing any time over it, malversation and embezzlement. To append one’s signature to that list, when the Grand Master had been roasted only the night before …

  ‘I would prefer …’ he said.

  ‘That the objects should not be sold in France?’ said the Siennese. ‘That goes without saying, Monseigneur. Non sonno pazzo, I’m not mad.’

  ‘I meant to say that this receipt …’

  ‘It will never be seen by any eyes but mine. It’s as much to my interest as to yours,’ said the banker. ‘It’s merely in case something should happen to one or other of us … may God preserve us.’

  He crossed himself, and then quickly, behind the table, made the sign for warding off the evil eye with two fingers of his right hand.

  ‘They won’t be too heavy?’ he went on, indicating the bags, as if the matter as far as he was concerned required no further discussion. ‘Would you like me to send someone with you?’

  ‘Thank you, my servant is below,’ said the Archbishop.

  ‘Then, just here, if you please,’ said Tolomei, indicating the place on the document where the Archbishop was to sign.

  The latter could no longer refuse. When one is compelled to have accomplices, one is also compelled to trust them.

  ‘Besides, you must very well realise, Monseigneur,’ the banker went on, ‘that in giving you a sum such as this I am making no profit. I shall have all the trouble and none of the reward. But I want to help you because you are a powerful man, and the friendship of powerful men is more precious than gold.’

  He had said all this in an easy good-natured way but his left eye was still closed.

  ‘After all, the man’s telling the truth,’ thought Jean de Marigny. ‘He’s thought to be cunning; but his cunning is merely frankness.’

  He signed the receipt.

  ‘By the way, Monseigneur,’ said Tolomei, ‘do you know how the King received those English hounds I sent him yesterday?’

  ‘Oh, so that big greyhound that never leaves him and which he calls Lombard came from you, did it?’

  ‘He calls it Lombard? I am happy to know it. The King is a man of wit,’ said Tolomei, laughing. ‘Do you know that yesterday morning, Monseigneur …’

  He was going to tell the story when there was a knock on the door. A clerk appeared and announced that Count Robert of Artois asked to be received.

  ‘Very well. I’ll see him,’ said Tolomei, dismissing the clerk with a wave of his hand.

  Jean de Marigny looked glum.

  ‘I would rather not meet him,’ he said.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ the banker replied soothingly. ‘Monseigneur of Artois is a great talker. He’d tell everyone that he had seen you here.’

  He rang a bell. The hangings immediately parted and a young man in a tight-fitting tunic came into the room. It was the same boy who had very nearly knocked over the King of France the day before.

  ‘Nephew,’ said the banker, ‘take Monseigneur out without passing through the gallery and take care that he should meet no one. And carry these for him down to the street,’ he added, placing the two bags of gold in the boy’s arms. ‘Good-bye, Monseigneur!’

  Messer Spinello Tolomei bowed low to kiss the amethyst on the prelate’s finger. Then he pulled the hangings aside.

  When Jean de Marigny had gone out, the Siennese came back to the table and took up the receipt, rolling it carefully.

  ‘Coglione!’ he murmured. ‘Vanesio, ladro, ma pure coglione.’ (Vain, thieving and a fool to boot.)

  And now his left eye was open. He put the document in the drawer and went out to greet his other visitor.

  He crossed the great gallery, lit by ten windows, and containing his trade counters; for Tolomei was not only a banker but an importer and merchant of rare goods of every kind, from spices and Cordova leather to Flanders cloth, gold-embroidered Cyprian carpets and the essential oils of Arabia.

  A multitude of clerks dealt with the ceaseless coming and going of clients; the accountants made their calculations on a special kind of abacus, moving the brass counters in the frames; and the whole gallery was filled with a low hum of business.

  Passing rapidly through the gallery, the fat Siennese bowed to a client here, corrected a figure there, reprimanded an employee or refused, with a ‘niente’ lisped between the teeth, a demand for credit.

  Robert of Artois was leaning over a counter of Oriental weapons, weighing a heavy damascened dagger in his hand.

  The giant turned quickly when the banker placed his hand on his arm, assuming that boorish, jovial manner which he generally affected.

  ‘Well,’ said Tolomei, ‘you want to see me?’
/>   ‘Yes,’ said the giant. ‘I’ve got two things to ask of you.’

  ‘And the first is money, I suppose.’

  ‘Quiet!’ groaned Artois. ‘Must all Paris know, you damned money-lender, that I owe you a fortune? Let’s go and talk privately.’

  They left the gallery. Once in his private room with the door closed, Tolomei said, ‘Monseigneur, if it’s a question of a new loan, I very much fear that it is not possible.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My dear Monseigneur Robert,’ Tolomei went on calmly, ‘when you brought a lawsuit against your aunt Mahaut for the inheritance of the County of Artois, I paid the costs. Well, you lost the case.’

  ‘But you know very well that I lost it through dishonesty,’ cried Artois. ‘I lost it through the intrigues of that bitch Mahaut. May she die of it! A thieves’ market! She was given Artois so that Franche-Comté should revert to the Crown through her daughter. But if there were any justice in the world, I should be a peer of the realm and the richest baron in France! And I shall be, do you hear me Tolomei, I shall be!’

  And he banged the table with his enormous fist.

  ‘My dear fellow, I sincerely hope so,’ said Tolomei, still perfectly calm. ‘But in the meantime you’ve lost your case.’

  He had discarded his episcopal manners and was a great deal more familiar with Artois than he had been with the Archbishop.

  ‘Nevertheless, I’ve received the County of Beaumont-le-Roger, and an income of five thousand pounds, as well as the castle of Conches in which I live,’ replied the giant.

  ‘Certainly,’ said the banker. ‘But that has not paid me back. Rather the contrary.’

  ‘I haven’t yet succeeded in getting paid. The Treasury owes me for several years in arrears.’

  ‘Of which you’ve borrowed the greater part from me. You needed money to repair the roof of Conches and the stables.’

  ‘They had been burnt down,’ said Robert.

  ‘Very well. And then you needed money to maintain your partisans in Artois.’

  ‘What should I do without them? It’s through them, Fiennes and others, that one day I shall win my case, arms in hand if necessary. And then, Messer Banker, tell me …’

  And the giant changed his tone, as if he had had enough of playing the part of a rebuked schoolboy. He took the banker’s robe between his thumb and forefinger, and began slowly pulling him to his feet.

  ‘Tell me this. You paid for my costs, my stables and all the rest of it, of course you did, but haven’t you been able to do a very satisfactory deal or two because of me? Who told you that the Templars were about to be arrested, and advised you to borrow money from them which you never had to pay back? Who told you about the debasing of the currency, which permitted you to lay out all your gold in merchandise and re-sell it for twice the amount? Well, who did that for you?’

  For Tolomei, obeying a tradition which still exists in high banking circles, had informers who were close to the councils of state, and his principal informer was Robert of Artois who was the friend and close companion of Charles of Valois, who told him everything.

  Tolomei disengaged himself, smoothed out the crease in his robe, smiled and, his left eye closed, replied, ‘I grant it, Monseigneur, I grant it. You have sometimes given me useful information. But, alas!’

  ‘Alas, what?’

  ‘Alas! The profits I have been able to make through you are very far from covering the advances I have made you.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘It is,’ said Tolomei with the most innocent air in the world.

  He was lying, and was sure of being able to do so with impunity, for Robert of Artois, though clever in intrigue, understood very little about accountancy.

  ‘Oh!’ said the latter, vexed.

  He scratched the stubble on his chin and meditatively shook his head.

  ‘All the same, when I think of the Templars … You ought to be pretty pleased this morning, eh?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes and no, Monseigneur; yes and no. For a long time they have done our business no harm. Who is going to be attacked next? Is it to be us, us Lombards, as we’re called. Dealing in gold is not an easy business. And without us nothing could be done. But by the way,’ Tolomei went on, ‘has Monsieur de Valois said anything to you about another change in the value of the Paris pound, as I hear is proposed?’

  ‘No,’ said Artois who was following his own line of thought. ‘But this time I’ve got Mahaut. I’ve got Mahaut because I hold her daughters and her niece in the hollow of my hand. And I’m going to strangle them … crack! … like that!’

  Hatred hardened his features and made him almost good-looking. He had moved nearer to Tolomei once more. The latter was thinking, ‘This man, due to his obsession, is capable of almost anything. Anyway, I’ve made up my mind to lend him another five hundred pounds – though he does smell of game.’ Then he said, ‘How have you done this?’

  Robert of Artois lowered his voice. His eyes were bright.

  ‘The little sluts have got lovers,’ he said, ‘and last night I found out who they are. But, not a word, eh! I don’t want anybody to know – yet.’

  The Siennese grew thoughtful. He had already heard the story, but had not believed it.

  ‘What good can it do you?’ he asked.

  ‘Good?’ cried Artois. ‘Listen, banker, can’t you imagine the scandal? The future Queen of France caught like a whore with her coxcombs. There’ll be a row, they’ll be repudiated! The whole family of Burgundy will be plunged up to the neck in the midden, Mahaut will lose all credit at Court, their inheritance will no longer be within reach of the Crown; I shall reopen my case and win it!’

  He was walking to and fro and the boards and furnishings vibrated.

  ‘And are you proposing to explode the scandal?’ asked Tolomei. ‘You’ll find the King …’

  ‘No, Messer, not I. I should not be listened to. But there’s someone else, much better placed to do it, who is not in France. And this is the second thing I came to ask you for. I need a sure man who can take a message secretly to England.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To Queen Isabella.’

  ‘Ah! so that’s it,’ murmured the banker.

  There followed a silence in which could be heard the noises from the street, the hawkers offering their wares.

  ‘It is indeed true that Madame Isabella is said not to like her sisters-in-law of France overmuch,’ said Tolomei at last. He had no need to hear more to understand how Artois had set about his plot. ‘You’re very much her friend, I believe, and you were over there a few days ago?’

  ‘I came back last Friday, and got to work at once.’

  ‘Why don’t you send a man of your own to Madame Isabella, or perhaps a courier of Monseigneur of Valois’s?’

  ‘In this country, where everyone watches everyone else, all my men are known, as are Monseigneur’s. The whole business might easily be compromised. I thought a merchant, and particularly a merchant whom one can trust, would be more suitable. You have many agents travelling for you. Moreover, the message will have nothing in it that need cause the bearer any anxiety.’

  Tolomei looked the giant in the eyes, meditated a moment, and then rang the bronze bell.

  ‘I shall endeavour to render you service once again,’ he said.

  The hangings parted and the young man, who had shown the Archbishop out, reappeared. The banker presented him, ‘Guccio Baglioni, my nephew, who has but recently come from Sienna. I don’t think that the Provosts and sergeants-at-arms of our friend Marigny know him well as yet, although yesterday morning,’ Tolomei added in a low voice, looking at the young man with feigned severity, ‘he distinguished himself in a pretty exploit at the expense of the King of France. What do you think of him?’ Robert of Artois looked Guccio up and down.

  ‘A good-looking boy,’ he said, laughing; ‘well set-up, a well-turned leg, slim waist, eyes of a troubadour and a certain cunning in the glance – a fine boy. Is it
he you propose sending, Messer Tolomei?’

  ‘He is another self,’ said the banker, ‘only less fat and younger. Do you know, I was like him once, but I alone remember it.’

  ‘If King Edward sees him, we run the risk of his never coming back.’

  And thereupon the giant went off into a great gale of laughter in which the uncle and nephew joined.

  ‘Guccio,’ said Tolomei when he had stopped laughing, ‘you’re going to get to know England. You will leave tomorrow at dawn and go to our cousin Albizzi in London. Once there, and with his help, you’ll go to Westminster and deliver to the Queen, and to her alone, a message written by Monseigneur. I will tell you later on and in more detail what you have to do.’

  ‘I should prefer to dictate,’ said Artois. ‘I manage a boarspear better than your damned goose-quills.’

  Tolomei thought, ‘And careful into the bargain, my fine gentleman, you don’t want to leave any evidence about.’

  ‘As you will, Monseigneur.’

  He took down the following letter himself.

  The things we guessed are true and more shameful even than we could have believed possible. I know who the people concerned are and have so surely uncovered them that they cannot escape if we make haste. But you alone have sufficient power to accomplish what we desire, and by your coming to put a term to this villainy which so blackens the honour of your nearest relatives. I have no other wish than to be utterly your servant, body and soul.

  ‘And the signature, Monseigneur?’ asked Guccio.

  ‘Here it is,’ replied Artois, handing the young man an iron ring. ‘You will give this to Madame Isabella. She will know. But are you certain of being able to see her immediately upon your arrival?’ he asked as if in doubt.

  ‘Really! Monseigneur,’ said Tolomei, ‘we are not entirely unknown to the sovereigns of England. When King Edward came over last year with Madame Isabella to attend the great ceremonies at which you were knighted with the King’s sons, well, he borrowed from our group of Lombard merchants twenty thousand pounds, which we formed a syndicate to lend him and which he has not yet paid back.’