‘How could my uncle disobey the King’s order, Madame?’
‘What did that whore’s servants have to say for themselves during the two days they were in jail? Were they made to talk? Did your uncle put them to the question?’
‘But Madame,’ said Beatrice in her drawling voice, ‘he could hardly do that without a legal order. Look what happened to your bailiff of Béthune.’
Mahaut brushed the argument aside with a wave of her huge hand.
‘None of you serve me loyally any more,’ she said, ‘and, if it comes to that, you’ve always served me ill, the lot of you!’
Mahaut was growing older. Age had left its mark on that giant body of hers; there was a rough white down on her cheeks which grew empurpled at the least cross; and the blood mounting from chest to throat sometimes looked like a red bib. She had been seriously ill several times during the last year. It had been a disastrous time in every way.
Since the perjury at Amiens and the commission of inquiry had been set up, her temper had been appalling. Her mind was becoming senile and she began to lump all her troubles indiscriminately together. If a frost came to spoil the roses she grew by the thousand in her gardens, or some mechanical fault affected the hydraulic machines that supplied the water for the artificial cascades at her Château d’Hesdin, her fury fell like a hurricane on gardeners, mechanics, pages and Beatrice alike.
‘And those paintings, completed scarcely ten years ago!’ she would cry, pointing to the frescoes in the gallery at Conflans. ‘Forty-eight livres parisis I paid that painter your Uncle Denis summoned from Brussels. He guaranteed he’d use only the best colours!13 Not ten years ago, and look at them now! The silver on the helmets is tarnished already and at the bottom the paint’s peeling off the wall! Do you call that sound honest work?’
Beatrice was bored. Mahaut’s suite was numerous enough but it consisted entirely of people older than Beatrice. At the moment Mahaut was keeping herself rather aloof from the Court of France, which was entirely subject to Robert’s influence. In Paris and at Saint-Germain the Makeshift King was continually holding tournaments, festivals and banquets in honour of the Queen’s birthday, the departure of the King of Bohemia, or for no reason at all, except his own pleasure. Mahaut scarcely went to Court at all and, when she did, it was to put in only a brief appearance because her rank as a peer of the realm obliged her to do so. She was no longer of an age to dance, nor of a humour to watch others enjoying themselves, particularly at a Court where she was treated so ill. She no longer even cared to stay in Paris, in her house in the Rue Mauconseil; she lived in retirement within the walls of Conflans, or at Hesdin which she had restored after Robert’s devastation of it in 1316.
Tyrannical, now that she no longer had a lover – the last had been Bishop Thierry d’Hirson whom she had shared with La Divion, which was why Mahaut hated the woman so much – and fearful of being suddenly taken ill in the night, she insisted on Beatrice sleeping at the farther end of her room, where the atmosphere was stagnant with the accumulated odours of age, medicaments and food. For Mahaut ate as much as ever, and was liable to be seized with a monstrous hunger at any hour of the day or night. The hangings and carpets smelt of venison, jugged hare, and garlic broth. Frequent fits of indigestion obliged her to call in physicians, apothecaries and surgeon-barbers; and potions and infusions of herbs followed the spiced meats. Ah, indeed, where were the good times now, the days when Beatrice had assisted Mahaut to poison kings?
Beatrice herself was beginning to feel that time was passing. Her youth was over. She was thirty-three, the age at which every woman, even the most perverse, knows she has reached a watershed in life, and begins to think of the past with nostalgia and of the future with anxiety. But Beatrice was still beautiful; she found proof of it in men’s eyes, her favourite mirrors. But she knew, too, that she no longer had quite that perfect golden-fruit complexion which had made her so attractive at twenty; her dark eyes, which showed almost no white between the lashes, were less brilliant when she awakened in the morning; and her hips were spreading a little so that she had to alter her dresses. The day had come when she could not afford to waste time.
But how could she escape to meet a lover when Mahaut insisted she should sleep in her room? How could she go at midnight to some secret house to attend a black mass and enjoy the spice of pleasure in the practices of the sabbath?
‘What are you dreaming about?’ the Countess asked sharply.
‘I’m not dreaming, Madame,’ she replied, gazing at Mahaut with her liquid eyes. ‘I’m merely thinking you might find someone who would serve you better than I do. I’m thinking of getting married.’
It was a sly threat and its effect was immediate.
‘And a fine match you’d be!’ cried Mahaut. ‘Ah, the man who takes you for wife will have done well for himself! He’ll have to go searching the beds of all my equerries for your maidenhead, and then search them again for his horns!’
‘At my age, Madame, and as you’ve kept me unmarried to serve you, a maidenhead is more of a misfortune than a virtue. In any case, it’s a great deal commoner than are the houses and property I shall bring my husband.’
‘If you keep them, my girl! If I let you keep them! For they’ve been shorn from my back!’
Beatrice smiled and once again veiled her dark eyes with her lashes.
‘Oh, Madame,’ she said sweetly, ‘you surely wouldn’t take back your presents from someone who has served you in all the secret things we have done together?’
Mahaut looked at her with hatred. ‘The bitch has a hold over me,’ she thought.
Beatrice knew very well when it was necessary to remind Mahaut of the royal corpses that lay between them, of the Hutin’s sugared almonds, of the poison on the lips of little Jean I; and she knew very well, too, how the scene would end: there would be a rush of blood to the Countess’ face and the red bib would rise in her bull-neck.
‘You shan’t marry! Just look at the harm you’re doing me by arguing, and content yourself with that!’ said Mahaut, collapsing into a chair. ‘The blood’s making my ears sing. I shall have to be bled again.’
‘Don’t you think, Madame, that it’s because you eat so much you have to be bled so often?’
‘I shall eat what I please,’ shouted Mahaut, ‘and when I please! I don’t need a fool like you to tell me what’s good for me. Go and get me some English cheese! And some wine! Hurry!’
There was no English cheese left in the larder; the last consignment was finished.
‘Who’s eaten it? I’m being robbed! Bring me a pie then!’
‘All right, you shall have a pie! Stuff yourself and die!’ thought Beatrice, as she set down the dish.
Mahaut seized a large slice and bit into it. A sudden crack rang through her head, but it was not caused by the crust; a front tooth, rotten at the neck, had broken.
Mahaut’s bloodshot grey eyes opened a little wider, and an expression of astonishment swept over her face. The slice of pie in one hand, and a glass of wine in the other, she sat with her mouth open, the half-broken tooth sticking out horizontally from her lip. She put down the glass, painlessly pulled out the broken tooth, and stared at it in childish horror. With the tip of her tongue she probed the gap in her jaw, the rough, sore surface of the root. She had lost many teeth, including all her back teeth, but never in this way. They had disintegrated bit by bit and caused abscesses, till the rotten teeth had been extracted, cloves being inserted into her gums. But this time it was a front tooth, a piece of herself; she had been accustomed to seeing it; and now, suddenly, it had gone. The little piece of yellow ivory held in her fat fingers seemed the very symbol of old age. She heard a gasp from Beatrice and looked up. Her lady-in-waiting was standing there with arms akimbo and shoulders shaking, unable to contain her laughter.
Quickly, before Beatrice could escape, Mahaut slapped her face hard, twice. Beatrice’s laughter ceased abruptly; her long lashes parted to reveal a wicked glint in her dark
eyes, but it lasted only a second.
That night, as Beatrice helped the Countess to undress, peace seemed to have been restored between them. Automatically running her tongue over the stump the surgeon-barber had filed down, Mahaut reverted to her obsession and said: ‘Don’t you see why I was so anxious those two women should be questioned? I’m convinced La Divion is helping Robert to forge documents, and I want him to be caught red-handed.’
But Beatrice, now that she had been slapped, had other plans.
‘May I make a suggestion, Madame? Will you listen to it?’
‘Of course, my girl, speak out, speak out! I’m quick to anger and have a ready hand; but I trust you, you know that.’
‘Well, Madame, the difficulties all arise out of my Uncle Thierry’s will, and the fact that you’ve refused to pay over to La Divion the moneys he left her. She’s a wicked woman, of course, and doesn’t deserve it. But you’ve made an enemy of her, and there can be no doubt that she was told certain secrets by my uncle which she’s now selling to Monseigneur Robert. It was certainly lucky I was able to empty the safe at Hirson in which my uncle kept some of your papers. Think of the use that wretched woman could have put them to. If you’d given her a little money and some lands her lips would have been sealed.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mahaut, ‘I may have made a mistake there. But you must admit she’s only a whore who went and took her pleasure between a bishop’s sheets and then got herself put into his will as if she were a legal wife. All the same, I may well have made a mistake.’
Beatrice was helping Mahaut to take off her shift. The giantess had her huge arms raised above her head, revealing the sorry white hair in her armpits. There was a hump of fat at her neck, as on the withers of an ox. Her breasts were heavy, monstrous, pendulous.
‘She’s old,’ thought Beatrice, ‘and she’s going to die – but the question is when? Till her dying day I shall have to dress and undress her hideous body and spend all my nights with her. And what will happen to me when she’s dead? No doubt Monseigneur Robert will win his case with the King’s support. Mahaut’s household will be dispersed.’
When Mahaut had put on her nightgown, Beatrice said: ‘If you offered to pay La Divion the legacy she’s claiming, and even perhaps a little more, you’d win her over to your side and, if she’s been wickedly intriguing with Monseigneur Robert, you’d find out what they’ve been doing and thereby gain the advantage.’
‘You may be right,’ said Mahaut. ‘It’s well worth spending a thousand livres for my county, even if they’re the wages of sin. But how can I approach the whore? She lives in Robert’s house, and he no doubt has her closely watched – and probably sleeps with her, too, for that matter, for he’s always lacked taste. If she’s approached he must not be allowed to get wind of it.’
‘I’m quite prepared to undertake it, Madame. I’ll go and see her and have a talk with her. After all, I’m Thierry’s niece; he might easily have asked me to help her in some way.’
Mahaut gazed attentively at the calm, almost smiling face of her lady-in-waiting.
‘You’re running a considerable risk,’ she said. ‘If Robert ever came to hear of it …’
‘I know, Madame, I know the risks I’m running; but they don’t frighten me,’ said Beatrice, as she drew the embroidered coverlets over the Countess.
‘You’re a good girl,’ said Mahaut. ‘I hope your cheek isn’t smarting too much?’
‘It is, Madame; but, as always, it’s at your service.’
6.
Beatrice and Robert
LORMET OPENED THE tradesmen’s door to her, as if she were merely a second-hand clothes-dealer or a seamstress come to deliver an order. Indeed, dressed in a light cloak of grey cloth, of which the hood covered her hair, Beatrice d’Hirson looked like any ordinary bourgeoise.
She recognized Monseigneur of Artois’ valet at once, for he was the man who served his master in his secret enterprises; but she showed no surprise, nor did she on being led across the two courtyards, past the kitchens, and up towards the private apartments.
Lormet went first; he was rather short of breath these days, and every now and then looked back over his shoulder, to glance suspiciously at her. She was decidedly too beautiful and, as she followed him with a smooth, swaying step, she seemed not in the least intimidated.
‘What are Mahaut’s people doing here?’ Lormet wondered disapprovingly. ‘What has this bitch come to cook up on our stoves? Ah, Monseigneur Robert is very imprudent to let her in! Madame Mahaut knows how to set about things; she’s certainly sent him a good-looker!’
They passed through a corridor with an arched roof, a hanging tapestry and a low door that opened on well-oiled hinges. Beatrice saw the three walls frescoed with Saint George, his lance in rest, Saint Maurice leaning on his sword and Saint Peter hauling in his nets.
Monseigneur Robert was standing in the middle of the room, his legs wide apart, his arms akimbo, and his chin resting on his collar.
Beatrice lowered her long lashes, and felt a delicious tremor of mingled fear and pleasure.
‘I don’t suppose you expected to see me,’ said Robert of Artois.
‘Oh, yes, Monseigneur,’ Beatrice replied in her drawling voice, ‘it was you I came in the hope of seeing.’
For the last week, she had been sending her emissaries openly enough to La Divion and the whole household must have known what was going on.
Nevertheless Robert seemed rather surprised.
‘Well, what have you come for? To tell me of the death of my Aunt Mahaut?’
‘Oh, no Monseigneur!’ said Beatrice. ‘Madame Mahaut has merely lost a tooth.’
‘That’s good news anyway,’ said Robert, ‘but it hardly seems worth a visit. Has she sent you with a message? Does she realize she’s lost her case and does she want to negotiate with me? Because I shall not do so!’
‘Oh, no, Monsiegneur, Madame Mahaut has no thought of negotiating because she knows she’s going to win.’
‘Does she, indeed! And against fifty-five witnesses all of whom are prepared to swear to the thefts and frauds she has committed!’
Beatrice smiled.
‘Madame Mahaut will have at least sixty witnesses, Monseigneur, to prove that yours are lying, and they will have been just as well paid too.’
‘Oh, so that’s it, is it? You’ve gained entry here to beard me, have you? Your mistress’ witnesses will count for nothing against mine, because mine will be supported by documentary evidence which I shall produce!’
‘Oh, really, Monseigneur?’ said Beatrice, her voice hypocritically respectful. ‘So Madame Mahaut was wrong, was she? She was so surprised to hear that members of your household had recently been searching Artois for old seals.’
‘They’ve been looking for seals,’ said Robert irritably, ‘because my new chancellor is trying to lay his hands on all old documents so as to put some sort of order into my archives.’
‘Oh, really, Monseigneur’ said Beatrice.
‘How dare you question me? I’m asking you what the devil you’re doing here Have you come to bribe my people?’
‘There’s no need to do that, Monseigneur, since I have reached your presence.’
‘Well, what do you want?’ he shouted.
Beatrice glanced round the room. She noticed the door she had come in by, which opened in Mary Magdalene’s stomach. She laughed lightly.
‘Does every woman you receive come in through that cat’s hole?’
The giant was becoming slightly unnerved. That drawling, ironical voice, that quick laugh, those dark eyes which sparkled momentarily and were then extinguished behind the long curving lashes, all rather disturbed him.
‘Take care, Robert,’ he said to himself, ‘she’s a famous whore and has certainly not been sent to see you for your good!’
He had known Beatrice for many years. Nor was it the first time she had exercised her fascination on him. He remembered the night at the Abbey of Châlus when, o
n coming from a late council with Charles IV about the affairs of England, he had found Beatrice waiting for him in the cloisters of the guesthouse. And there had been other occasions, too. At every meeting she had gazed into his eyes in just this way, had swayed her hips and made her bosom heave. Robert was not the man to be fettered by constancy; a tree trunk clothed in a skirt would have made him turn aside. But this woman, who was hand-in-glove with Mahaut, had always made him prudent.
‘Slut though you may be, my dear, you’re probably well-informed. My aunt thinks she’ll win her case; but you see further than she does, and you’re already pretty certain she’ll lose it. Favourable winds are going to cease blowing towards Conflans and it’s high time to make your peace with Monseigneur Robert, who has been so slandered and wronged, and whose hand will be very heavy on the day of vengeance. Isn’t that it?’
He was as usual pacing up and down. He was wearing a short tunic that seemed moulded to his body; the huge muscles of his thighs stretched tight the stuff of his hose. From behind her lashes Beatrice watched him, her eyes moving from his red hair to his shoes.
‘How heavy he must be!’ she thought.
‘But, I can tell you, my favour is not to be gained merely with a smile,’ Robert went on. ‘Unless, of course, you’re in desperate need of money and have a secret to sell me? I’m generous to those who serve me, but pitiless to those who try to cross me.’
‘I have nothing to sell you, Monseigneur.’
‘In that case, Demoiselle Beatrice, if I may give you a word of warning, it will be in your best interests to steer clear of the doors of my house, whatever pretext you may have for entering them. My kitchen is carefully guarded. My dishes and my wine are tasted.’
The Lily and the Lion Page 11