The Strangled Queen

by Maurice Druon

  When Mass was over, Marguerite of Burgundy was the first to approach the Captain of the Fortress.

  ‘Messire Bersumée,’ she said, looking him straight in the eye, ‘I wish to talk with you upon matters of importance which also concern yourself.’

  The Captain of the Fortress was always embarrassed when Marguerite of Burgundy looked directly at him and on this occasion he felt even more uneasy than usual.

  He lowered his eyes.

  ‘I shall come to speak with you, Madam,’ he replied, ‘as soon as I have done my rounds and changed the guard.’

  Then he ordered Sergeant Lalaine to accompany the Princesses, recommending him in a low voice to behave with particular correctness.

  The tower in which Marguerite and Blanche were confined had but three high, identical, circular rooms, placed one above the other, each with hearth and overmantel and, for ceiling, an eight-arched vault; these rooms were connected by a spiral staircase constructed in the thickness of the wall. The ground-floor room was permanently occupied by a detachment of their guard – a guard which caused Captain Bersumée such anxiety that he had it relieved every six hours in continuous fear that it might be suborned, seduced or outwitted. Marguerite lived in the first-floor room and Blanche on the second floor. At night the two Princesses were separated by a heavy door closed halfway up the staircase; by day they were allowed to communicate with each other.

  When the sergeant had accompanied them back, they waited till every hinge and lock had creaked into place at the bottom of the stairs.

  Then they looked at each other and with a mutual impulse fell into each other’s arms crying. ‘He’s dead, dead.’

  They hugged each other, danced, laughed and cried all at once, repeating ceaselessly, ‘He’s dead!’

  They tore off their hoods and freed their short hair, the growth of seven months.

  Marguerite had little black curls all over her head, Blanche’s hair had grown unequally, in thick locks like handfuls of straw. Blanche ran her hand from her forehead back to her neck and, looking at her cousin, cried, ‘A looking-glass! The first thing I want is a looking-glass! Am I still beautiful, Marguerite?’

  She behaved as if she were to be released within the hour and had now no concern but her appearance.

  ‘If you ask me that, it must be because I look so much older myself,’ said Marguerite.

  ‘Oh no!’ Blanche cried. ‘You’re as lovely as ever!’

  She was sincere; in shared suffering change passes unnoticed. But Marguerite shook her head; she knew very well that it was not true.

  And indeed the Princesses had suffered much since the spring: the tragedy of Maubuisson coming upon them in the midst of their happiness; their trial; the appalling death of their lovers, executed in their presence in the Great Square of Pontoise; the obscene shouts of the populace massed on their route; and after that half a year spent in a fortress; the wind howling among the eaves; the stifling heat of summer reflected from the stone; the icy cold suffered since autumn had begun; the black buckwheat gruel that formed their meals; their shirts, rough as though made of hair, and which they were allowed to change but once every two months; the window narrow as a loophole through which, however you placed your head, you could see no more than the helmet of an invisible archer pacing up and down the battlements – these things had so marked Marguerite’s character, and she knew it well, that they must also have left their mark upon her face.

  Perhaps Blanche with her eighteen years and curiously volatile character, amounting almost to heedlessness, which permitted her to pass instantaneously from despair to an absurd optimism – Blanche, who could suddenly stop weeping because a bird was singing beyond the wall, and say wonderingly, ‘Marguerite! Do you hear the bird?’ – Blanche, who believed in signs, every kind of sign, and dreamed unceasingly as other women stitch, Blanche, perhaps, if she were freed from prison, might recover the complexion, the manner and the heart of other days; Marguerite, never. There was something broken in her that could never be mended.

  Since the beginning of her imprisonment she had never shed so much as a single tear; but neither had she ever had a moment of remorse, of conscience or of regret.

  The Chaplain, who confessed her every week, was shocked by her spiritual intransigence.

  Not for an instant had Marguerite admitted her own responsibility for her misfortunes; not for an instant had she admitted that, when one is the granddaughter of Saint Louis, the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, Queen of Navarre and destined to succeed to the most Christian throne of France, to take an equerry for lover, receive him in one’s husband’s house, and load him with gaudy presents, constituted a dangerous game which might cost one both honour and liberty. She felt that she was justified by the fact that she had been married to a prince whom she did not love, and whose nocturnal advances filled her with horror.

  She did not reproach herself with having acted as she had; she merely hated those who had brought her disaster about; and it was upon others alone that she lavished her despairing anger: against her sister-in-law, the Queen of England, who had denounced her, against the royal family of France who had condemned her, against her own family of Burgundy who had failed to defend her, against the whole kingdom, against fate itself and against God. It was upon others that she wished so thirstily to be avenged when she thought that, on this very day, she should have been side by side with the new king, sharing in power and majesty, instead of being imprisoned, a derisory queen, behind walls twelve feet thick.

  Blanche put her arm round her neck.

  ‘It’s all over now,’ she said. ‘I’m sure, my dear, that our misfortunes are over.’

  ‘They are only over,’ replied Marguerite, ‘upon the condition that we are clever, and that quickly.’

  She had a plan in mind, thought out during Mass, whose outcome she could not yet clearly envisage. Nevertheless she wished to turn the situation to her own advantage.

  ‘You will let me speak alone with that great lout of a Bersumée, whose head I should prefer to see upon a pike than upon his shoulders,’ she added.

  A moment later the locks and hinges creaked at the base of the tower.

  The two women put their hoods on again. Blanche went and stood in the embrasure of the narrow window; Marguerite, assuming a royal attitude, seated herself upon the bench which was the only seat in the room. The Captain of the Fortress came in.

  ‘I have come, Madam, as you asked me to,’ he said.

  Marguerite took her time, looking him straight in the eye.

  ‘Messire Bersumée,’ she asked, ‘do you realize whom you will be guarding from now on?’

  Bersumée turned his eyes away, as if he were searching for something in the room.

  ‘I know it well, Madam, I know it well,’ he replied, ‘and I have been thinking of it ever since this morning, when the courier woke me on his way to Criquebœuf and Rouen.’

  ‘During the seven months of my imprisonment here I have had insufficient linen, no furniture or sheets; I have eaten the same gruel as your archers and I have but one hour’s firing a day.’

  ‘I have obeyed Messire de Nogaret’s orders, Madam,’ replied Bersumée.

  ‘Messire de Nogaret is dead.’2

  ‘He sent me the King’s instructions.’

  ‘King Philip is dead.’

  Seeing where Marguerite was leading, Bersumée replied, ‘But Monseigneur de Marigny is still alive, Madame, and he is in control of the judiciary and the prisons, as he controls all else in the kingdom, and I am responsible to him for everything.’

  ‘Did this morning’s courier give you no new orders concerning me?’

  ‘None, Madam.’

  ‘You will receive them shortly.’

  ‘I await them, Madam.’

  For a moment they looked at each other in silence. Robert Bersumée, Captain of Château-Gaillard, was thirty-five years old, at that epoch a ripe age. He had that precise, dutiful look professional soldiers assume so easi
ly and which, from being continually assumed, eventually becomes natural to them. For ordinary everyday duty in the fortress he wore a wolfskin cap and a rather loose old coat of mail, black with grease, which hung in folds about his belt. His eyebrows made a single bar above his nose.

  At the beginning of her imprisonment Marguerite had tried to seduce him, ready to offer herself to him in order to make him her ally. He had failed to respond for fear of the consequences. But he was always embarrassed in Marguerite’s presence and felt a grudge against her for the part she had made him play. Today he was thinking, ‘Well, there it is! I could have been the Queen of France’s lover.’ And he wondered whether his scrupulously soldierly conduct would turn out well or ill for his prospects of promotion.

  ‘It has been no pleasure to me, Madam, to have had to inflict such treatment upon women, particularly of such high rank as yours,’ he said.

  ‘I can well believe it, Messire, I can well believe it,’ replied Marguerite, ‘because one can clearly see how knightly you are by nature and that you have felt great repugnance for your orders.’

  As his father was a blacksmith and his mother the daughter of a sacristan, the Captain of the Fortress heard the word ‘knightly’ with considerable pleasure.

  ‘Only, Messire Bersumée,’ went on the prisoner, ‘I am tired of chewing wood to keep my teeth white and of anointing my hands with the grease from my soup to prevent my skin chapping with the cold.’

  ‘I can well understand it, Madam, I can well understand it.’

  ‘I should be grateful to you if from now on you would see to it that I am protected from cold, vermin and hunger.’

  Bersumée lowered his head.

  ‘I have no orders, Madam,’ he replied.

  ‘I am only here because of the hatred of King Philip, and his death will change everything,’ went on Marguerite with such assurance that she very nearly convinced herself. ‘Do you intend to wait till you receive orders to open the prison doors before you show some consideration for the Queen of France? Don’t you think you would be acting somewhat stupidly against your own interests?’

  Soldiers are often indecisive by nature, which predisposes them towards obedience and causes them to lose many a battle. Bersumée was as slow in initiative as he was prompt in obedience. He was loud-mouthed and ready with his fists towards his subordinates, but he had very little ability to make up his mind when faced with an unexpected situation.

  Between the resentment of a woman who, so she said, would be all-powerful tomorrow, and the anger of Monseigneur de Marigny who was all-powerful today, which risk was he to take?

  ‘I also desire that Madame Blanche and myself,’ continued Marguerite, ‘may be allowed to go outside the fortifications for an hour or two a day, under your guardianship if you think proper, so that we may have a change of scene from battlements and your archers’ pikes.’

  She was going too fast and too far. Bersumée saw the trap. His prisoners were trying to slip through his fingers. They were therefore not so certain after all of their return to Court.

  ‘Since you are Queen, Madam, you will understand that I owe loyalty to the service of the kingdom,’ he said, ‘and that I cannot infringe the orders I have received.’

  Having said this, he went out so as to avoid further argument.

  ‘He’s a dog,’ cried Marguerite when he had left, ‘a guard-dog who is good for nothing but to bark and bite.’

  She had made a false move and was beside herself to find some means of communicating with the outside world, receive news, and send letters which would be unread by Marigny. She did not know that a messenger, selected from among the first lords of the kingdom, was already on his way to lay a strange proposal before her.

  2

  Robert of Artois

  ‘YOU’VE GOT TO BE READY for anything when you’re a Queen’s gaoler,’ said Bersumée to himself as he left the tower. He was seriously perturbed, filled with misgiving. So important an event as the King’s death could not but result in a visitor to Château-Gaillard from Paris. So Bersumée, shouting at the top of his voice, made haste to make his garrison ready for inspection. On that count at least he intended to be blameless.

  All day there was such commotion in the fortress as had not been seen since Richard Cœur-de-Lion. There was much sweeping and cleaning. Had an archer lost his quiver? Where could it have got to? And what of those coats of mail rusted under the armpits? Go on, take handfuls of sand, polish them till they shine!

  ‘Should Messire de Pareilles appear suddenly, I don’t want him to find a troop of ruffians!’ shouted Bersumée. ‘Make haste, get a move on there!’

  The guard-house was cleaned; the chains of the drawbridge greased. The cauldrons for boiling pitch were brought out, as if the fortress were to be attacked within the hour. And bad luck to anyone who did not hurry! Private Gros-Guillaume, the same who had hoped for an extra ration of wine, got a kick on the backside. Sergeant Lalaine was worn out.

  Doors were slamming everywhere; Château-Gaillard had an atmosphere of moving house. If the Princesses had wished to escape, this was the one day to choose among a hundred. Such was the chaos, no one would have seen them leave.

  By evening Bersumée had lost his voice, and his archers slept upon the battlements. But the following day when, in the early hours of the morning, the look-outs reported a troop of horsemen, a banner at their head, advancing along the Seine from the direction of Paris, the Captain congratulated himself upon having taken the steps he had.

  He rapidly donned his smartest coat of mail, his best boots, no more than five years old with spurs three inches long, and, putting on his helmet, went out into the courtyard. He had a few moments left in which to glance with anxious satisfaction at his still tired men, but their arms, well polished, shone in the pale winter light.

  ‘Certainly no one can reprimand me for this turn-out,’ he said to himself. ‘And it will make it easier for me to complain of the meagreness of my salary, and the arrears of money due to me for the men’s food.’

  Already the horsemen’s trumpets were sounding under the cliff, and the clatter of their horses’ hooves could be heard upon the chalky soil.

  ‘Raise the portcullis! Lower the drawbridge!’

  The chains of the portcullis quivered in the guide-blocks and, a moment later, fifteen horsemen, bearing the royal arms and surrounding a red-clothed cavalier, who sat his mount as if impersonating his own equestrian statue, passed like a whirlwind beneath the vault of the guard-house and debouched into the courtyard of Château-Gaillard.

  ‘Can it be the King?’ thought Bersumée, rushing forward. ‘Good God! Can the King have come to fetch his wife already?’

  From emotion his breath came in short gasps, and it took him a moment to recognize the man in the blood-red cloak who, slipping from his horse, colossal in mantle, furs, leather and silver, was forcing a way towards him through the surrounding horsemen.

  ‘On the King’s service,’ said the huge cavalier, fluttering a parchment with dependent seal under Bersumée’s nose, but giving him no time to read it. ‘I am Count Robert of Artois.’

  The salutations were cut short, Monseigneur Robert of Artois slapped Bersumée on the shoulder to show that he was not haughty and made him wince; then asked for mulled wine for himself and his escort in a voice that made the watchmen turn about upon their towers. He created a hurricane about him as he paced to and fro.

  Bersumée, the night before, had decided to shine whoever his visitor might be, had determined not to be caught napping, to appear the perfect captain of an impeccable fortress, to make an impression that would not be forgotten. He had a speech ready; but it was never delivered.

  Almost at once Bersumée found himself being invited to drink the wine he had been ordered to produce, heard himself stuttering servile flattery, saw the four rooms of his lodging, which was attached to the keep, reduced to absurd proportions by the immense size of his visitor, was aware of nervously spilling the contents
of his goblet, and then of finding himself in the prisoners’ tower, following in the wake of the Count of Artois, who was racing up the dark staircase at incredible speed. Until that day Bersumée had always considered himself a tall man; now he felt a dwarf.

  Artois had only asked one question concerning the Princesses: ‘How are they?’

  And Bersumée, cursing himself for his stupidity, had replied, ‘They are very well, thank you, Monseigneur.’

  At a sign Sergeant Lalaine unlocked the door with trembling hands.

  Marguerite and Blanche were waiting, standing in the middle of the round chamber. They were both pale and, with the opening of the door, with a single, instinctive impulse for mutual support, reached for each other’s hands.

  Artois looked them up and down. His eyes blinked. He had halted in the doorway, completely filling it.

  ‘You, Cousin!’ said Marguerite.

  And, as he did not reply, gazing intently at these two women to whose distress he had so greatly contributed, she went on in a voice grown quickly firmer, ‘Look at us, yes, look at us! See the misery to which we are reduced. It must offer a fine contrast to the spectacle presented by the Court, and to the memory you had of us. We have no linen. No dresses. No food. And no chair to offer so great a lord as you!’

  ‘Do they know?’ Artois wondered as he went slowly forward. Had they learnt the part he had played in their disaster, out of revenge, out of hate for Blanche’s mother, that he had helped the Queen of England to lay the trap into which they had fallen?3

  ‘Robert, are you bringing us our freedom?’

  It was Blanche who said this and now went towards the Count, her hands extended before her, her eyes bright with hope.