by Deryn Lake
“Pierre de Giac, sweet Queen. The man born to serve you.”
And when he said it she knew that it was true, knew that a lover had come who could once again mean something to her.
Attempting nonchalance, Isabeau asked, “What is your message from the Queen of Sicily?”
“She greets you as one monarch to another and orders me give you this,” and with that Pierre bowed again and produced a rolled and sealed parchment from within his cloak.
“I shall read it later,” Isabeau answered, waddling down from her high seat. “For now it is my turn to give you orders.”
“Whatever they are I shall obey them to the letter,” Pierre replied fulsomely, and taking her hand raised it to his lips. They were strangely cold, bloodless almost, reminding Isabeau of the dank touch of a reptile.
Slightly disturbed, she none the less said, “I command that you sup with us and that you spend the night as my honoured guest.”
De Giac’s eyes blazed like torches. “If I had my way, Madame, you would repeat those instructions every day that I have left on earth.”
“You are very bold, Monsieur,” Isabeau answered, wishing that she were not so drawn to this extraordinarily insolent creature.
“In the sight of such beauty only a eunuch could be anything but,” Pierre whispered in return.
The Queen looked at him sideways, about to tell him that he was an idle flatterer, then saw that he meant it, that her age and her fat did not deter him at all.
“I find you very forward,” she answered. “I should have you whipped outdoors for a saucy fellow.”
“But you won’t,” answered Pierre, his look dangerous. “For it is decreed that you and I will love as no couple ever have before.”
He was so close that she could feel his breath upon her, smell the heavy scent on his body, exciting as a drug. Isabeau pursed her full lips.
“That remains to be seen, young man.”
“I shall love you tonight, never fear. It is foretold.”
“By whom, pray?”
“I cannot say that,” de Giac answered, smiling.
Isabeau shook her head, uncertain quite how to handle the situation but forgiving much of Pierre’s bad behaviour because of his thrilling looks and ardent manner.
“Will you take wine, Monsieur?” she said by way of changing the conversation, and before he could reply had clapped her hands for her servants, who came and went as discreetly as always.
De Giac drained the cup they brought thirstily and held it out for more, his sleeve falling back at the wrist as he did so. A flash of gold caught Isabeau’s eye and she saw that he wore a thick bracelet, its clasp formed by the representation of a pair of horns, a triumph of the goldsmith’s art, each one surmounted by a small twinkling diamond.
“What a handsome adornment,” she said curiously.
Pierre turned to look at her, his crazy eyes suddenly alight. “I am never without it. It shall be cut from my body when I die.”
The Queen shivered, thinking of the fate of her lover, of how he had been savagely struck down, his right hand hacked from his wrist, probably while he still lived.
“Don’t say that,” she breathed, aware that suddenly she was as cold as ice.
“Why not, ma Reine? It is true.”
“It reminds me of something I prefer to forget.”
“Of Monsieur le Due d’Orleans?” de Giac answered, uncannily correct. “They say he was a Satanist and his severed hand had been guided by sorcery.”
“That’s a lie!” Isabeau exclaimed. “He was interested in all forms of love but that is the only resemblance he had to a follower of Satan.”
“Love,” said de Giac with a cynical smile, “is merely a part of what the Prince of Darkness offers. There is also wealth and power. But it is true that an uninhibited delight in sexual extravagance is probably the best gift of all.” His expression changed. “You should join his entourage, ma Reine. You with your wonderful body, built for ecstasy.”
In a flash, Isabeau saw it all. A Devil worshipper was in her presence, a man who equated her with Astarte, the great nature goddess, fruitful and voluptuous.
“You…” she hissed shudderingly, “you are a Devil’s man.”
De Giac’s eyes smouldered. “Yes. I am his sworn henchman. I have signed a pact with the Dark Master himself.”
Isabeau found herself gripped by a terrible fascination. “What were its terms? What did you offer and what did you get in return?”
“I have pledged him my right hand. It is his to do with as he wills. In exchange he has made me the greatest lover in France. Women would kill to receive my favours. He has also promised me gold and power — but these gifts are yet to come.”
The Queen stood staring in disbelief. “Mon Dieu! Is this really true?”
De Giac smiled. “Speak not of God, ma Reine. My dark Prince has sent me to you, to satisfy you as no man has ever done before, not even Louis d’Orleans. And in return…”
“What?”
“You are to raise me high, help me in my search for riches and supremacy.”
Isabeau found that she could not speak, enraptured by the presence of evil so tangibly close to her.
“And if I do?”
“I shall be yours.”
As he said this Pierre’s lips parted in a lupine smile and the Queen found herself quivering with sheer raw lust.
The cruel smiled broadened. “Come to me, ma Reine,” de Giac said slowly, then without another word drew her towards the great draped couch which stood close to the crackling fire.
It could not but be noticed that Yolande, Queen of Sicily, Duchess and Regent of Anjou, was unusually silent during the council meeting held that month of April 1411 in the great hall of the castle of Angers. This hall, restored and rebuilt after a fire in the 1130s, lay along the top of the cliffs over the river Maine, commanding a devastating view for any Conseiller whose attention might momentarily wander. And today, with the river running in high spring spate, it was Yolande’s eyes which turned towards the one large window, her hawkish profile slightly averted, her eyelids drooping a little.
With a sense of shock the Seneschal, or Steward, of Anjou, the Lord de Beauvau, seated near to her high chair of state, realised that his royal master’s wife was not attending. For to him Yolande was almost masculine in her capability and courage, her grasp of state affairs rivalling that of her husband, and the sight of her behaving like a moonstruck girl, daydreaming and paying scant attention, was not one he relished at all.
With a note of asperity in his voice, de Beauvau cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered, “Is all well, ma Reine?”
Yolande started noticeably, then collected herself. “Yes, thank you, Seneschal.” She raised her voice. “Gentlemen, I have just recalled a matter of great urgency to which I must attend at once. Lord Chancellor, if you would be good enough to preside over the rest of the meeting.”
Everyone stared at her aghast. It was unheard of for the Regent to depart before the end of the Council’s session, yet that was precisely what she was doing. With a swish of her heavy skirts, embroidered in silver with a design of strawberry leaves, Yolande got to her feet, bade a polite farewell to the gentlemen present and without another word left the great hall, its occupants staring after her.
“Well, well,” said le Maçon, sitting down.
The Seneschal looked knowing, his great face creasing into a thousand lines. “She’s missing her lord I dare say.”
“I suppose so, though if she caught someone saying as much the consequences would be dire.”
“Yes. She always puts on a convincing show of being self-sufficient.”
“The trouble is she thinks like a man,” answered Robert le Maçon slowly.
“Not all the time,” contradicted the Seneschal, looking like a grizzly bear as he shook his head and his long brown hair fell from beneath his high-crowned hat and swung about his face.
“What do you mean?”
&nb
sp; “Today the lady was far away, in a dream, not contemplating the Council at all.”
“An unusual occurrence.” Le Maçon smiled. “But who knows? Perhaps she was planning the next move in a campaign so secret that none of us is yet privy to it.”
“Perhaps,” answered de Beauvau, winking a round brown eye.
Robert glanced at him in silence, then got back to his feet.
“Gentlemen, as the Regent is otherwise engaged I suggest that we reconvene the meeting for this time tomorrow.”
There was a murmur of agreement and a shuffling of feet as the Conseillers of Anjou made their way to the huge oak door. A stone spiral staircase took them down from the first-floor
great hall, out to where the entire complex of the fortress of Angers lay spread before them.
The original castle had been constructed in the beginning of the tenth century by Fulke the Red, but over the decades many alterations had been made so that now it stood a vast citadel, guarded by seventeen enormous towers, only the unscalable cliffs above the Maine left unprotected.
Fulke’s first dwelling place had been rebuilt by St. Louis between 1228 and 1238 and it was Yolande’s husband, Duke Louis II of Anjou, who had undertaken even further restoration and construction, so that now the fortress could be divided into two separate groups of buildings. Going in through the City Gate, the military and administrative offices, the gardens, pavilions and walkways, lay to the left; while to the right were the living quarters, all built round a large quadrangle known as Nobles’ Court, access to which was obtained by means of a gatehouse.
Immediately opposite the gatehouse and built on the cliffs edge stood the great hall, these days high on the list of restorations that Duke Louis intended to make; to the right, joining the hall at a right angle, stood the King’s Lodging, allowed to be so described by reason of Duke Louis including the title of King of Sicily and Naples amongst his many other honours. Adjoining the Lodging and filling the eastern comer was the new chapel that Yolande and her husband had ordered to be built especially for them; living and service quarters, including the kitchens, buttery and a high vaulted bakery, made up the other two sides of the square. The Duchess’s private apartments lay in that part of the Lodging which adjoined the great hall, thus giving her a superb view over the river and the rolling countryside of the right bank.
But it was not to her rooms that Yolande now made her way. Instead, she crossed the space between the hall and the gatehouse and, passing through the entrance, walked towards the City Gate, then turned just short of it and climbed a steep stone staircase set in the huge battlements. Here, between the castle’s outer curtain wall and an inner retaining wall, where St. Louis had built ramparts, Yolande had asked the gardeners to create a pleasure garden and vineyard for her on the resultant terraces.
High above the city, protected by the massive towers, each one three storeys high, their huge foundations sunk deep into the moat, Yolande could wander amongst her herbs and flowers, her fruit trees and grapes, away from the world in every sense. Each day, whatever the weather, she could come to look at and enjoy the change in nature’s colours, sweeping away the snow if necessary, feeding the birds which nested in the trees year after year. Fish swum in an ornamental pond near by and in a shady arbour stood a stone seat where the Duchess could rest when the sun was at its hottest. And now she went to it and sat down at once, pulling her mantle tightly around her and shivering. Yet it was not altogether the coldness of that bright raw spring day which made Yolande d’Anjou tremble where she sat, but rather the fact that she, as a woman not as a Regent, was in turmoil.
It had been her father, hard as leather and a tough capable ruler, who had personally supervised that part of Yolande’s education dedicated to life and the humanities. And it had been he, Juan of Aragon, who had explained to his daughter that a disciplined person leading a disciplined life would be he — or she — who came out the victor in every situation. Juan had also taught her that two of Christ’s messages should most seriously be taken to heart: ‘As you sow so shall you reap,’ and ‘Cast thy bread upon the water and it shall be returned after many days.’
“What do they mean?” the ten-year-old Princess of Aragon had asked.
“Simply this. If you sow a bad crop, which is a hidden way of saying do bad things, bad things will be done to you. If you sow a good crop, however, good things will happen. Do you understand?”
“I do,” Violante, as Yolande had been called, had said seriously. “But what of the other?”
“That is somewhat complex. The casting of the bread is a way of describing what you put into life, whether it be in relation to other people or simply to events. The returning
is the richness that will follow as a result of all the positive things you have done, however intangible.”
“Father, are you saying that people who take little action are rewarded by leading empty lives?”
“In a way, yes.”
“But what about the people with no money and no hope, how can they cast their bread?”
“Very easily,” King Juan had answered. “It has nothing to do with riches, it is the richness of the soul that I am talking about.”
The child had understood most of it, the girl had put the ideas into action, the woman knew them to be true. Yolande had tried hard to sow a good harvest, to give herself generously to husband, children and subjects, to cast her bread fruitfully. And the person who had emerged from this way of life had been self-controlled and highly intelligent, a woman who could never deliberately be unjust or cruel unless she thought that ultimate good would follow. In this way Yolande had put down uprisings by the use of force, had presented a stony face to the enemies of Anjou, had ruled in her husband’s stead as a powerful Regent. But now, in the privacy of the Queen of Sicily’s garden, this strong personality wept.
The easy thing would have been to send Arthur de Richemont away without seeing him again, and the reason the Duchess had given herself for not doing so had been that he was the brother of her ally, the Duke of Brittany. On its northern border Anjou had Brittany as its neighbour and it was important for the duchy to keep cordial relations with that house. Thus the ruling families were on friendly terms, and to dismiss the Duke’s younger brother without a farewell would have been inexcusable. This is what the Duchess told herself, knowing all the while that it was not true.
In reality, the reason why she could not bear him to go without seeing her once more was far more dangerous. For all her discipline, for all her desire to live according to the strict rules she had set herself, Yolande was still only thirty-one years old and full of the warm rich blood of Spain. Her marriage to Duke Louis, arranged by their respective fathers, was as successful as any partnership of that kind could be. As a bride with no choice in the matter of husband, at least she and Louis had become friends, united in their efforts to do the utmost for the Duchy of Anjou. But Yolande had never felt the thrill of real passion until last night, when a virgin boy had put his lips on hers and showered her with the hot wild tears of love.
In this agony of mind, the Duchess sat alone in her private garden wrestling with a conscience which seemed to be deserting her, and a physical longing not helped by the fact that her husband had been away at war for some considerable while. For the sensual side of her admitted that it wanted Richemont, longed to lie down beside his shapely young body and teach him all it knew about love and, perhaps, in that very teaching learn something itself.
“Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu,” Yolande said aloud. “What shall I do?”
And this was no empty cry for the poor creature meant it, tom between her natural instincts and the knowledge that to commit adultery was sowing the seeds of a bitter harvest indeed. But finally it would seem the Duchess came to some sort of decision for she stood up, her back in its usual straight line, and determinedly paced right round her floral domain before descending the stone steps and returning to the King’s Lodging.
Yet here she was tortur
ed by doubt again for on reaching her vaulted bedroom, the fire already blazing in the big stone hearth, Yolande kicked off her shoes and flung herself onto the bed, crying as she had not done for years. Finally, though, every tear was shed and she stood up dry-eyed, then plunged her face into a basin of cold water until all traces of her recent despair had vanished. Crossing to her desk, the Duchess picked up her quill pen and scratched a note.
‘My dear Richemont,’ it said. ‘I think it would be better if we did not meet for some while. So let me bid you farewell in this letter and wish you all joy and happiness in your future life. My greetings to both you and your brother. Yolande.’
Now that she had made the decision she seemed determined to act on it, loudly ringing a bell for her servants, sealing the note with hot wax into which she pressed a mould bearing her device then, almost with a sigh of relief, handing it over to her principal lady, Jacqueline Sarrazin, with the instruction to deliver it to the Earl of Richmond where he resided in the Guests’ Lodging. This done, Yolande sank down on a stool in front of the fire and stared moodily into the flames.
Inside the vaulted chamber the light grew dim as the sharp April afternoon deepened, and a shower flirted over the walled city, throwing a rainbow above the Maine. Birds in Yolande’s terraced gardens preened their feathers in clear drops of fresh water, and a blackbird boldly chanted his song for the darkening day. But she saw and heard none of it, sinking her chin deeper into her cupped hands, seeing in her mind’s eye a vision of her father and knowing that he had been right.
“As you sow, so shall you reap,” said Yolande into the shadows. “Oh, God, help me please.”
Into this dense silence, punctuated only by the Duchess’s occasional sigh, came the far distant clamour of sound and, almost in disbelief, she raised her head to listen. Distantly but distinctly came the noise of hurrying feet, almost running, and two voices raised in disagreement. Yolande recognised with a great surging of blood that of Arthur de Richemont.