In a Dark Wood Wandering

by Hella S. Haasse

  “This is my daughter, Monseigneur,” said the Countess with visible relief. Charles turned toward his bride; he had to bow deeply to raise her from her curtsey.

  “Welcome, Monseigneur,” said Madame d’Orléans, offering her cheek to her husband for a greeting kiss. Only when she secretly pressed a silver écu into his hand did Charles recognize her.

  For Charles, Bonne was a source of infinite, unprecedented rapture and surprise. No matter what she did, the young man found her continually fresh and captivating; he who had known only sorrow and worry, of whom until now life had demanded only self-mastery and responsible acts, could now bask for the first time in a bliss which was as radiant as it was unexpected. Charles behaved as reticent and solitary natures usually behave under these circumstances: he gave himself wholly, without reservation. His heart was so full of love for Bonne that he knew he could never express his feelings. What he could not put into words or translate into action oppressed him like a pain that nevertheless did not make him unhappy.

  The days came and went, but Charles lost all sense of time. The sand in the hourglass, the shadowy streak on the sundial, showed him only that he had spent time with Bonne; they were together everywhere and always—first at Biom, later at Montargis, one of Charles’ castles. The young Duchess of Orléans had a sunny, playful disposition; she was slight, swift and happy as a bird; as light as the leaves in the wind, carefree without being frivolous and changeable without inconstancy. She possessed all the qualities which Charles lacked and which he desired: the ability to live easily, without worry, to act boldly on a whim, to laugh heartily, to enjoy the good things in full measure, to be warm and loving without constraint. Everyone—young and old, adults and children, courtiers and servants—loved her. As for Charles, he had the feeling that he could not do without her for a single moment; when she was not there, he longed so much for her that he knew no rest; when he saw her he could think of nothing else. He perceived, in truth, that in Bonne he had found a good woman, despite her youth; she had been wisely brought up by her mother.

  The Countess d’Armagnac, whom a hard life had made into a prudent woman without illusions, had not neglected to take into account the possibility that Orléans might one day be an impoverished exile. Bonne could read, embroider and play the lute as befitted a noblewoman, but she also knew how to bake bread, make soap and wash linens. In Armagnac’s ramshackle castle, she had learned how to mend clothing again and again; she knew how to be thrifty and keep a sharp eye on servants. Moreover, she had a strong belief that highly placed persons were responsible for the welfare of their subjects. Armagnac’s wife, who had made it her task to try incessantly to alleviate the distress caused in and around the castle by her husband’s cruelty, had been unable or had not wished to spare her child the spectacle of sickness and misery. Bonne visited the poor, tended the sick, played with the children. She continued this custom even in the castles where she stayed with Charles for only a short time. They traveled together from region to region, surveying the damage to the country estates ravaged by war, reviewing the harvest and the produce from the fields. Bonne had good sense; she was a great comfort to Charles.

  Every day he felt greater amazement that she could be a daughter of the loathsome Gascon; nothing about her reminded him of his father-in-law, except possibly the color of her eyes. She resembled her mother; she had in fact seldom seen her father; she feared him and was ashamed of his reputation. Eagerly, Charles heaped gifts upon his young wife; for the first time he regretted having sold all his jewels and ornaments. But Bonne, laughing, disputed his rueful ruminations. She threw her arms about his neck and said that she did not need jewels and rich clothing. “Good health and a happy heart—and of course Monseigneur’s love—for me these are the most valuable ornaments.”

  “You will never lack that last, Bonne,” Charles said. “My own fear is that one day you might get tired of it.”

  Bonne looked at him with shining eyes and shook her head. They were in the bedchamber at Montargis. The fire flared up the chimney, the February wind roared behind the shutters. Charles unbuckled his girdle and put his clothes, one by one, on the chest at the foot of the bed, purposely loitering so that he could watch Bonne, who knelt before the fire in an ample white night shirt, holding a kitten which she had found somewhere. Her long, coal-black curly hair hung down to the floor. She disliked wearing nightcaps.

  “Bonne,” Charles said abruptly, “I am eager to take you back with me to Blois. I feel most at home there. I think you will like it too.”

  “Yes, of course.” Bonne smiled at him over her shoulder. “And there are the two little girls there too. It’s time that you looked in on the poor wretches again. But we have to stay here for now, don’t we?”

  Charles was awaiting a delegation from Asti; in addition the Duchess of Brittany, the wife of his former ally, had announced her intention to pay a visit. The messengers had arrived from Lombardy to pay homage to the young Duke in the name of the people of his domain; but Madame of Brittany’s visit was inspired—Charles knew this from the letters—by less agreeable motives. In the past few months Charles had been only remotely conscious of politics; he did not ask for news. But he could not hide from reality behind the fragile walls of his dream castle. He was forced against his will to hear an account of recent events.

  The King of England was dead: the son who succeeded him under the name of Henry V had shown himself, after a rather wild, pleasure-seeking youth, to be a disciplined, faithful, austere and ambitious ruler, firmly resolved to complete the conquest which his father, always thwarted by domestic strife, had been unable to finish. With growing self-confidence, the young King had watched the turbulence in France; he believed that God had singled him out to punish the dissolute crowd; England, he thought, had an ancient right to Guyenne, Poitou, Angiers and Perigord, but he believed it would be better and simpler if England and France could be united under one Crown. The time was ripe for swift, vigorous action.

  Henry surveyed the game and marshalled his troops. Jean of Burgundy, after his defeat before Paris, had resumed negotiations with England; it was not very difficult for Henry to persuade him to sign a declaration that he would not intervene in the approaching conflict. This done, Henry sent an emissary to France with unheard-of demands: the hand of the young princess Catherine, a dowry of two million gold francs, a series of important territories. It could not be supposed that he expected these demands to be granted; therefore it was quite clear where the matter would lead. Berry and Armagnac, who ruled the Council at the time, kept negotiations going for as long as possible, while they sent couriers to the princes of the realm requesting that they send more men. Charles had received a similar summons. More and more lately he had been receiving news about the state of military operations; Bourbon, Alencon and Brittany were already busy raising troops.

  Charles knew that it would be impossible to come to an accord with England in the present circumstances; he too expected war. For Bonne’s sake he decided to live, during the visit of the Duchess of Brittany, in a style befitting the name and rank of the House of Orléans. To this end he borrowed money, mortgaging his property. He relished the sight of Bonne, beautifully dressed, moving through festively decorated halls, and presiding at a well-stocked table. The guests were entertained royally with hunts, balls and tournaments. While the Duchess of Brittany and her advisors spoke to him about the need to prepare for war at once—they had heard that King Henry was on the point of taking ship with a large army—Charles, with a smile, toasted his young wife’s health. In her honor he had ordered the sleeve of his tunic embroidered with the opening words of a love song which the minstrels sang in parts: Madame, je suys plus joyeulx… , Madame, I am overjoyed. My wife, never have I been as happy as I am now.

  The moon hid behind clouds; a fine, even, cold rain fell. There was no wind, but the raw damp of the long night seemed far less bearable than a dry cold. On the muddy plain the French army stood with its vast camp of ten
ts: hundreds of bonfires smouldered in the dank mist. Torches flashed like comets through the darkness. Flags and banners hung limply; from the pointed tops of the tents water trickled down the gold and silver escutcheons.

  Inside the tents the noble lords sat over their wine, cards and conversation; the men in the open fields tried to keep warm by stamping their feet, running hard or shoving, with curses, for a place near one of the fires. The Gascons and Bretons who, as usual, made up the majority of the foot soldiers, were especially exasperated. They hated campaigns in the northern part of the Kingdom like the plague. At Arras they had had their fill of rain, fog and mud. What possessed the captains to keep waging war in the fall? This was already the night of the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of October; winter was at hand. What the devil! The English should have been attacked long before this—as soon as they landed; when they besieged Harfleur; when, enfeebled by sickness and losses, they began their rash, presumptuous march north to Calais across enemy terrain. This view was shared by most soldiers, horsemen and knights. Those who had some knowledge of strategy believed that the Constable and other royal commanders were wrong to cling to the old rules of knightly combat with a formal challenge and a traditional order of battle.

  This desire to exact a proper vengeance for the defeats suffered by the French half a century before at Crecy and Poitiers had caused the supreme command to delay endlessly, much to the annoyance of the more experienced soldiers. No one doubted the imminence of victory: that a handful of exhausted Englishmen could be routed without much trouble. It was a matter of fifty thousand against eleven or twelve thousand at the most. The counts and barons would not allow themselves to be deprived of such a wonderful opportunity for military renown. From their treasuries and arsenals they brought forth their splendid armor, ancestral broadswords, crowned and plumed helmets, unrolled their stitched and painted banners, re-gilded their coats of arms. The honor of France was about to be defended against the arch-enemy; the long-awaited moment had arrived. Everyone in the Kingdom who bore a famous name had a grandfather, father or kinsman to avenge. The lions ascendant, the hawks and eagles, the griffins and panthers were ready with pointed claw and cleft tongue—they did not fear the British unicorn.

  In an open patch of ground between the tents, heavily armored horses covered with hanging scalloped cloths stood together motionless in the rain; only their eyes gleamed moistly behind the large openings in their almost ridiculous iron masks. Those who were to ride these monsters were already being thrust into their armor. Straddle-legged, with extended arms, the knights stood in their tents. Through the drawn-up flaps of the tent-openings, they exchanged words with their friends and kin who were all similarly occupied. Meanwhile, beakers and bowls made the rounds; it was senseless to fast on the eve of such an easy conquest.

  The men of lesser rank, camped under tents of hide, wood and straw, showed no more inclination to abstain from the pleasures to which they were accustomed than their lords; they had fetched supply wagons inside the camp, shared food and drink and rolled in the mud with the whores who were part of the army’s equipment. The horses, driven together into a gigantic herd between the palisades, neighed incessantly, upset by the fires and the rain. Dark shapes loomed outside the reddish fog which hovered over the camp: thickets, a row of trees, an abandoned hut. When the moon became faindy visible through the clouds and the fog, there could be discerned against the night sky the massive towers and ramparts of Agincourt, after which the field was named.

  Toward midnight Charles d’Orléans left the Constable’s tent where the commanders were gathered—the Dukes of Bourbon, Bar and Alencon, the Counts d’Eu, Vendome, Marie, Salm, Roussy and Dammartin, the Marshal de Longny, Admirals de Brabant and Dam-pierre and a great number of captains. After long arguments they had decided who would stand at the head of vanguard, center, rearguard and flanks; because each of the great lords coveted a place in the front lines, these ranks would be formed almost exclusively of princes and nobles with their heralds, pages, squires and armed following. Knights of lower rank, horsemen, bowmen and foot soldiers had been relegated to the rear guard.

  Charles, who had listened quietly all evening to the battle of words, got up to leave as soon as he heard that he would be one of the leaders of the vanguard; he had confidendy sought the post, his rank entitled him to it. He felt little inclination to remain in that company until daybreak. He had agreed to risk a reconnaissance of the English camp, which lay a few miles away against the hill of Maisoncelles. The separate parts of his armor lay displayed in his tent: mechanically he examined the arm and leg pieces, tested the mobility of the scales at the neck and gaundets. He had a new breastplate of burnished black iron decorated with golden lilies. By the light of the torch overhead, he saw his face reflected vaguely in the glittering surface. He looked away; a shudder of cold apprehension passed through this body. For five long years he had done almost nothing except wander about at the head of an army, but he had never yet engaged in combat—never released an arrow, never used a sword or lifted his shield in self-defense, except for exercise. Charles knew himself well enough to recognize that he had little talent for military heroism, but after all he was a man and naturally he wanted to prove himself. He had not yet killed a knight because he had never enjoyed man-to-man combat. He had planned the reconnaissance so that he could march into battle as a fully worthy knight; he thought perhaps blows would fall on this eve of battle.

  Before he left Blois he had exercised vigorously for a few weeks with lance and sword; he had exerted himself to the utmost, especially because Bonne was watching him from the window of her chamber. It was for her sake in the first place that he craved military fame; in addition he hoped to have an opportunity, if the English army should be defeated, to liberate his brother Jean. In any exchange of prisoners Charles’ brother would undoubtedly be returned to France. But along with these thoughts a slight fear mounted to his heart, a fear of unknown dangers, of the arrow destined perhaps to strike him, of the enemy who could defeat him in a hand-to-hand melee, of the death which he dreaded especially just now. He picked up his sword, a beautiful narrow weapon with a cruciform hilt which his mother had brought from Italy as part of her dowry; for a moment he held it high between the palms of his hands. The blade, catching the glow of the flame, seemed a long line of light. Charles had ordered the weapon consecrated before the altar of Saint-Sau-veur in Blois; now at midnight in his tent at Agincourt he entreated once more in a whisper the blessing of God and Saint-Denis on the sword with which he must avenge the dishonor of France and win back his brother.

  He heard voices and footsteps outside his tent; the curtain before the entrance was pushed aside and two men in coats of mail and tunics entered: Arthur, Count de Richmont, Brittany’s younger brother, and Marshal Boucicaut. Charles had met Boucicaut, his father’s great friend and confidant, for the first time only a comparatively short time ago; the Marshal had returned a few years earlier from Italy, ousted by the rebellious inhabitants of Genoa and its environs, who had risen up against domination by the French. Boucicaut had aged greatly: his hair was grey, his figure less upright, but his solemn frank eyes and his self-assurance still inspired confidence. Richmont was a young man of Charles’ age, lively, loquacious and restless. He would represent Brittany in the coming conflict.

  “Orléans,” said Richmont, “we are ready. I see that you too have been wise enough not to wear armor; one can’t possibly walk with all that steel on one’s back. We just want to see how the land lies with the English. It’s so quiet over there; they seem to have put out all their fires. I wonder what they’re doing.”

  Boucicaut shook his head, looked at Charles, and remarked calmly, “They’re probably sleeping. They’ve had an arduous journey—twenty days’ march through hostile territory without enough food and supplies. Tomorrow they face a serious challenge—they know that too.”

  Richmont snorted incredulously and began to pull the hood of his hauberk over his head. “Last
week during the battie on the Somme my troops captured a couple of Englishmen. It seems that when they talk among themselves about the size of our army, they say, ‘Enough to put to flight, enough to take prisoner, more than enough to kill.’ And Henry insists that he is entirely satisfied with the number of his men. He says that God will help him, because the French are a race of sinners.”

  Charles laughed, but Boucicaut interposed hastily, “Nonetheless it does not behoove us to laugh at King Henry. No one can deny that he is a pious and honorable man who lives soberly and sets his soldiers a good example. It must be said to the credit of the English that they have no wine or women with them, and do not waste precious time with curses and dice. Our army is notorious for licentiousness and crime … and righdy. The common soldiers’ behavior is an abomination.”

  Richmont, who was helping Charles put on his coat of mail—Charles had silently begun to make himself ready for the nocturnal expedition—shrugged and said impatiently: “Ah, come, Messire Boucicaut. I know Henry. Don’t forget that I lived in England for four years. I have watched the fellow from close by. He can swig liquor with the best of them, and as far as women and dice are concerned, believe me, he needs no instruction there either. Oh yes, he’s now God’s own right hand or at least he acts as if he were—but I myself think he is nothing but a hypocrite.”

  “You are probably exaggerating, Richmont,” Charles said, carefully buckling on his shoulder belt. “Alas, I cannot say that King Henry is wrong when he calls us a quarrelsome, disorderly mob. God knows we do not seem able to govern the Kingdom as we should.”