In a Dark Wood Wandering

by Hella S. Haasse

  Day in and day out, little Marie had sat at the window. She knew every valley, every thicket, every green hilltop, and every bend of the broad gleaming white Rhine. She followed the river with her eyes until it vanished among the hazy blue hills in the distance. The mysterious Swan Knight who had sought out Elsa of Brabant became a reality for the child; she hoped and believed that if she persisted long enough in her silent vigil he would come to her, too. It was not the ship drawn by swans that she saw approaching, but a glittering golden coach surrounded by armored riders carrying the banners of Burgundy. Her father had raised objections; he was not eager to see his children depart for palaces in Brussels and Ghent from which they would return to him with dainty, fastidious manners. But Marie was his sixth daughter—he could not give her a large dowry. Like a queen, the child rode out of Cleves to take up the unknown life.

  Through the small windows of the carriage, she had watched the gradual alteration of the landscape; the wood merged into meadows and orchards expanded into fields of grain and flax. She rode through bustling valleys; the streets teemed with well-dressed, industrious people. In Flanders it always seemed to be market day. The magnificence of the great cities overwhelmed the child, but she became really speechless when she was led into the castle where her Aunt Isabelle lived. She walked across gleaming mosaic tile floors, past walls hung with tapestries; brightly-colored birds sang in gilded cages; in rooms and corridors she met beings who seemed to her to be princes and princesses, but who bowed to her in salutation.

  Quickly Marie forgot the castle in Cleves and her frugal childhood there. The glory of Burgundy reflected even on her; she seemed to have become a princess of the blood, exalted, unassailable. She was not troubled by—she scarcely realized—the fact that she was only a pawn on the chessboard of her mightly kinsmen, an instrument with which to confirm treaties and alliances, to draw money, land and possessions into the Burgundian sphere of influence.

  Now she was going to be Duchess of Orléans; her bridegroom, they said, had been a powerful man in France, and would surely be so again once he was restored to his own dominions. They showed her the verses which Monseigneur had sent the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy from England in recognition of their efforts on his behalf. Marie imagined her future husband to be a courtly man, dignified, noble, perhaps somewhat melancholy in appearance, made all the more interesting by prolonged exile. Without question he would love and honor her, and dedicate many beautiful verses to her.

  Full of expectation, Marie rode between the ladies who followed the Duchess of Burgundy to Gravelines. The damp grey sand spurted up in small clots under the hooves of the brightly bedecked trotting horses; the strong incessant wind blew mantles and veils about; the women in their green and violet dresses looked like so many banners themselves. In the shelter of two sand dunes tents were pitched, adorned with flags and ensigns; a meeting would take place here. Waiting grooms came forward to take the horses; with her retinue of nobles and women the Duchess sought the shelter of the pavilions.

  Marie of Cleves stood behind her noble protector, but made sure that she could command a clear view of the sloping dune overgrown with wild grass … After a short time the blue and gold standards of Orléans became visible on top of the dune; a group of horsemen in fluttering mantles slowly descended, riding toward the ducal tents. Marie watched with pounding heart. The riders dismounted, three of them moved off together to the pavilion, where Isabelle was already coming toward them with both hands outstretched in greeting.

  A herald ceased blowing his trumpet and cried out in a loud voice, “The Duke of Orléans, the Earl of Fanhope, Sir Robert Roos.”

  Two of the lords, a tall, slim, richly dressed knight and a still youthful man in armor, knelt in the sand at some distance from the tent. He who now approached alone was a fairly stout older man, his shoulders bent as though in great weariness. Between the notched flaps of his hat his face looked very pale; deep furrows ran from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. When he stopped before the Duchess a smile lit his sad, faded face. He knelt and doffed his hat. Marie of Cleves saw that his hair was grey as ashes.

  “But he is a very old man,” whispered one of her companions, casting a compassionate glance at the bride. Marie flushed with shame and distress and lowered her eyes.

  “Welcome, welcome to the soil of Burgundy, Monseigneur,” said Isabelle of Burgundy, smiling. “Will you be so good as to rise?”

  Charles d’Orléans took the hand which she extended to him and replied lightly, but in a voice quivering with emotion.

  “Madame, when I consider all that you have done to effect my release, I can only give myself over wholly to you. I am your prisoner.”

  At midday the Duke of Burgundy, too, arrived in Gravelines. Both processions—that of Isabelle and her guest, and that of the sovereign lord—met before the main portal of the parish church of the Holy Willibrord. The people—who had hurried from far and wide to see the meeting between Orléans and Burgundy, the protagonists of a now-legendary family feud—pushed forward against hastily-constructed barricades, intent on missing nothing that happened. Heralds had carried communication between the two royal processions and had made sure that both arrived at the same time in the square before the cathedral. Now from both sides the standard-bearers and trumpeters approached, who preceded the royal personages. On the church steps, surrounded by priests and choirboys, stood two bishops who would lead the solemn service: an Englishman and a Burgundian. The crowd shouted loudly, threw their caps in the air, waved pieces of cloth, applauded. “The Good! The Good!” called the people along the road. “Burgundy holds, holds Burgundy!”

  Burgundy rode slowly past without acknowledging the cheers, but with a faint smile on his lips. He stared straight before him at the multi-colored flapping streamers and banners behind the barriers at the opposite side of the square. Above his dull black garments (he had not put off mourning since his father’s death), his face was stiff and pale with tension. He knew quite well that he had to overcome his aversion to this meeting. Isabelle had smoothed the way for it and the task of making Charles welcome devolved upon Philippe himself. There was no need for him to say much. He saw that under the present circumstances it was senseless to let the feud with Orléans go on; besides, he scarcely knew his second cousin, and he had no reason to fear him. Political interests demanded this reconciliation; there was no other conceivable solution. Nevertheless, he felt guilty; his father and his grandfather would undoubtedly have rejected any agreement with Orléans. But I am not cooperating with him, I am using him, thought Burgundy while he nodded mechanically to his master of ceremonies. The cry of “Largesse!” which rose from the spectators could not be ignored. A storm of small silver coins rained upon the cobblestones, but Burgundy did not react when the elated crowd broke screaming and shoving through the barricades.

  The procession had now reached the open square before the cathedral; both sides alighted. Isabelle took her guest by the hand and led him forward; Burgundy was approaching them with slow, controlled steps, his right hand holding the emblem of the Golden Fleece which he wore on a broad chain around his neck. Courtiers and dignitaries remained at a proper distance behind the royal personages. Heralds pulled out their trumpets, the people shouted hurrah, and the solemn voices of the choir streamed out through the open doors of the church.

  Charles d’Orléans—who during the ride to Gravelines had attempted to chat courteously with his noble hostess, distracted as he was by the unnerving prospect of the coming meeting—saw that Burgundy was deathly pale; he was no longer smiling. The two men stood facing each other motionless in a strained silence. Both realized that this was the moment when the gap between them should be bridged. Each read in the other’s eyes the memories which made friendship between them impossible; between them flashed, as quick as lightning, a human lifetime of combat, deceit, quarrels and mutual hatred, a long series of battles and sieges, of false peace treaties, of intrigues and cunning. The bridge at Mont
ereau, the dark street corner near the Barbette palace, stood between them; the dead mutilated bodies of their fathers, for whose murders neither side had achieved complete satisfaction. So strong was the force of this inherited hatred that both Orléans and Burgundy involuntarily stepped back. Whatever might have appeared on paper or in their minds during the negotiations carried on by couriers or deputies became meaningless now that they stood face to face. Everyone around them waited breathlessly. The sound of the trumpets had died away, the singing in the church had ended. The courtiers waited, the horsemen and armed soldiers of the escort waited, the priests on the steps before the main portal of the church waited, the crowds, suddenly silent, waited behind the barricades. All the flags and banners fluttered in the wind, the horses stamped on the cobblestones, and behind the sand hills the sea glided murmuring over the shore.

  Charles saw Burgundy’s wide, tight-lipped mouth begin to tremble with uncontrollable emotion at the same moment that his own eyes filled with tears. They stepped forward at the same time and embraced. So they stood for a time, unable to speak. Each felt the body of the other shake with partially suppressed sobs.

  Standing before the altar, with the Archbishop of Rochester, the Lords of Fanhope and Roos and a few English lawyers, Charles read in a loud voice declarations which he had made in Westminster Cathedral before his departure from London.

  “I, Charles, Duke of Orléans, swear by God’s Holy Gospel, which I hold here, that I shall faithfully keep everything contained in the agreements and treaties concluded between the Exalted Sovereign Henry, by the Grace of God King of England, and me, Charles d’Orléans, to wit: that within half a year I shall pay the remaining amount of my ransom, 160,000 gold ecus; that I shall bring about a peace with England and France within a year; that if it should prove impossible for me to keep these vows after a year has passed, I shall return of my own free will to captivity. This I swear and affirm. Sic me Deus adjuvet et haec sancta!”

  From Gravelines the ducal procession traveled inland to Saint-Omer. The procession was disposed to celebration; musicians seated on a painted carriage struck up song after song under the autumn sky; Isabelle’s maids of honor laughed loud and clear, the courtiers joked and chatted with one another to the monotonous jangle of the tiny bells on saddles and reins.

  Only Charles, who rode between Burgundy and his lady, could not find the proper tone. True, on this first day of freedom he felt slightly drunk, but the English lords still rode behind him with their retinues, and when he glanced over the landscape on either side of the road, he saw, with a feeling of uneasiness, flat marshy meadows, tiny windmills and blunted church towers; he could fancy himself again near Wingfield Castle. The twilight fell swiftly, mist rose from the sluggish rivulets crossing the land; in long rows along the water’s edge willow trees, under the constant pressure of the slanting wind, stood gnarled and bare like monsters in almost human form. Here it smelt of mud and dank grass, of fog and salt marshes.

  Charles shivered, the chill penetrating his very marrow. In the summer this was rich meadowland, but how gloomy and forsaken, how deadly monotonous it became in cold weather. He felt odd; after the nearly complete isolation of these past years in the Tower, he found it difficult to adjust once more to court life with its intricate ceremonies, its carefully determined social gradations. During his imprisonment he had lost the habit of making a sharp distinction between high and low degree, between lords and servants; he had become inclined to regard each man whom he met as a friend. After the solemn church service in Gravelines he had greeted gentlemen of the Duke’s retinue whose names or faces seemed familiar to him—he had repeatedly encountered Burgundy’s envoys—but when the Duchess Isabelle raised her brows in surprise and his cousin the Duke turned away with a look of slight displeasure, Charles understood that he was in a court society infinitely more rigid and formal, subject to many stricter distinctions, than even the royal household of France.

  The Duke and Duchess of Burgundy seemed as exalted as gods; each act, each word, was accompanied by ceremony; they were addressed only with bent knee and downcast eyes; at every step they were regaled with marks of homage which Charles had seen given only to the King of France and then only on exceptionally solemn occasions. Burgundy does not really have to convince me of his power and wealth, thought Charles, a little annoyed at so much pomp. I would believe in it without all this showing-off. The fact that I am here, that I accept his terms, that I have him to thank for the advance payment on my ransom—all this shows that he has the means to assert his authority. To Charles, the courtiers around the ducal couple were only puppets in an elaborate marionette show. In captivity he had lost the taste for this sort of thing. He made up his mind that in the future, at Blois, he would not put up with such senseless, artificial activity.

  But he would not be able to enjoy his return to Blois undisturbed; his thoughts remained shrouded in uneasiness. He would not be alone after his return. The Duchess of Burgundy had presented his bride to him in the pavilion among the dunes outside Gravelines. A child in robes of state who sulks because she finds me too old, he thought when he greeted her with a bow and with courteous words that were perhaps not flowery enough for Marie’s taste. After that first meeting she had taken her place again among the Duchess’s ladies-in-waiting. Since then Charles had had no further occasion to speak to her. The prospect of the marriage depressed him deeply, although he saw the advantages of such an alliance in the present circumstances.

  He did not feel capable of pleasing so young a woman; what did they have in common, what could they talk about together? He felt ridiculous; he was surely not the man to attempt to win the favor of a fourteen-year-old girl. He had forgotten how to practice the art of love; he had spent his life without women except for a few fleeting adventures, brief encounters with ladies and maidens whose names he had forgotten long ago. One of Lady Fanhope’s chambermaids, the wife of a knight with whom he used to hunt in Ampthill, a young noblewoman for whom he had composed some verses in English. His memories had faded quickly. Alice, Lady Suffolk … thoughts of her he could not shrug away. He was still amazed at the surprise she had in store for him; she appeared to be as cold and chaste as the effigies in Wingfield church, a dignified, grave, thoughtful hostess. But in London, during Suffolk’s temporary absence, she had suddenly shown another side of herself and Charles had succumbed in spite of himself. He had plunged into the adventure as a starving man grabs a crust of bread. Afterward he would not remain under Suffolk’s roof at any cost, especially not when he saw that his host responded indifferently to any mention of the incident and waved explanations and apologies away with a good-natured, dismissive gesture. It was only later that Charles learned that Suffolk himself had fathered many bastards in England as well as in France.

  Later, in the Tower, the prisoner’s yearning for female company had vanished. The feeling of guilt which had never wholly left him and the awareness of his own inability to go a-courting after all these years of forced solitude, continued to torment him now that he stood on the threshold of a new era as the bridegroom of an inexperienced child.

  Before complete darkness fell, the ducal procession reached Saint-Omer. In the dusk Charles could just make out the high ramparts and towers of the city rising like mountains from the flat land. Outside the gates, awaiting the noble company, stood the notables: the clergy of the abbey of Saint-Bertin and many deputations from the guilds; torchbearers came running and through the arched gate one could see the torchlit square where bailiff’s men were having great difficulty in keeping the crowds back so that the procession would have room to pass.

  The magistrate of Saint-Omer gave a welcoming speech, addressed mainly to Charles.

  “Monseigneur,” said the magistrate at the end; bowing deeply he offered Charles the parchment containing the beautifully lettered text. “The population of our good city has grown considerably over the last few days; the people have come here from far and wide to witness your entry and the fes
tivities to be held in honor of your return. They have travelled even from Picardy and the He de France to Saint-Omer to welcome you. It is a great privilege for our region to be the first to offer hospitality to Your Grace. Tomorrow, if it pleases you, a delegation will come from the city to bring you welcoming gifts; we hope you will permit us to offer a contribution toward your ransom, Monseigneur.”

  The bystanders and members of Burgundy’s retinue broke into loud cheers in response to these words. Burgundy smiled in approval. When Charles noticed the expression on Burgundy’s face, he tensed somewhat; he realized that the friendliness and hospitality of Saint-Omer were part of a carefully worked-out plan.

  Amid the blaring of trumpets and in the light of hundreds of torches, they rode through the gate and entered the city. The crowds lining the roads seemed especially eager to shout with joy. Calls of “Long live Burgundy! Long live Orléans! God bless Orléans! Welcome, Orléans!” resounded from street to street, from square to square. Despite his depression, Charles was carried away by the tribute; never before in his life had he been hailed in this personal way. The glow of the torches, the shouts and the applause of the surging crowd mounted to his head; he saluted right and left without troubling himself about the distinguished tranquillity of the Duke of Burgundy and his wife, who sat silent and motionless in their saddles, letting the flood of appreciation wash over them.