The King's Women

by Deryn Lake

  Her wish that her body could rest completely after the delivery of Jehanne had been most bitterly refused by fate. In that vulnerable time after a birth when it is so easy for a woman to conceive again, she had done so. The ardour of a love-starved Duke Louis, just as Yolande had secretly dreaded, had resulted in another pregnancy and a baby girl had been born to them in December, eleven months after Jehanne had come into the world.

  The pregnancy had nearly killed her and the Duchess could only thank God that she was naturally strong and resilient otherwise, she felt certain, the two travails so close together could have ended her life. As it was she had been far from well and the King-Duke had remained in Angers until after the birth of his child before considering it safe to return to his kingdoms of Sicily and Naples.

  They had called the infant Yolande for its mother and the Duchess had fiercely dispensed with a wet nurse for the first three months, hoping that the pain of having to part with Jehanne might in some way be alleviated by nursing another. And, strangely, it had. Yolande had looked down at the contented baby feeding peacefully, and felt happier than she had for months.

  So now there were five children in the castle — Louis, Marie, René, baby Yolande and Katherine of Burgundy, Jean the Fearless’s daughter, still betrothed to young Louis despite the war. Secretly, Yolande was growing ever more uneasy about the girl, not really wanting to link the house of Anjou with the Burgundian cause, and casting round for any excuse to break the betrothal. But final decisions on this score had to be made by the Duke of Anjou himself and she could do nothing until Louis’s return.

  With a bright clattering of hooves Yolande’s elegant mare left the bridge and turned towards the western heights overlooking the valley of the Brionneau, where lay the abbey of St. Nicolas. Here were housed the two other young people for whom she was responsible, Guy the hunchback and his twin brother Jacques, still at the abbey school and shortly to celebrate their fifteenth birthday.

  With a swish of her long skirt in the grass of the meadow, Yolande entered the fields worked by the monks and called a greeting to the brothers already toiling. They smiled and waved back, always pleased to see the Regent, the Queen-Duchess who so wisely ruled her province in her husband’s absence. In the abbey enclave, too, Yolande was warmly met as, indeed, she was by the Abbot, coming out of his lodging and standing on the steps to welcome her personally.

  “You ride alone, ma Reine?”

  “Yes, Abbot Dominique.”

  “Then one of the brothers will see to your horse. Pray come in.”

  The Abbot’s parlour was still cool, the first trickles of sunshine coming through the open window splashing gold onto the stone-flagged floor. The smell of flowers filled the air and Dominique’s face, sitting as he was with his back to the light, was full of dark hollows and gleaming planes.

  ‘Not a handsome man,’ thought Yolande as she took a seat on the other side of his desk, ‘but curiously attractive with all those slanting facial bones.’

  “You wanted to see me, my Lord?” she said.

  “Indeed I do, Madame, though I had not expected quite such an early visit.”

  “I have combined it with the task of collecting blossom for my lodgings.”

  “Ah yes, the first of May.” The Abbot smiled away the pagan custom. “And no doubt you would like to visit Guy and Jacques before their lessons begin.”

  “I would, Father. And I presume that it is about the twins you wish to see me.”

  “Indeed yes.” His dark profile gleamed in the sun’s rays.

  “Jacques has recently told me he wishes to enter the cloister, that he has come to this belief of his own free will and believes he is now old enough to make such a choice.”

  “I see.” Yolande raised a wing of eyebrow. “And what of you, my Lord? Do you think he is ready?”

  The shadows in the Abbot’s face shifted as he moved his head, silently considering the Regent’s views on child oblates, in the past expressed forcibly to both himself and the Abbess of Ronceray.

  “What I believe is beside the point, Madame. You are the boy’s guardian and the decision rests finally with you.” Yolande leaned forward, her face earnest. “I have told you before, my Lord, that I believe it wrong to put a young child into the cloister before it knows anything of the world. I think that step should not be taken until the person concerned, be they boy or girl, is at least eighteen years of age.”

  “Not even to become a novice?”

  “Not even that.”

  “But Jacques is not quite fifteen, yet still he longs to join our order. He says he has a vocation to do so.”

  “A vocation?” Yolande’s mobile eyebrow rose again. “I shall have to speak to him.” She changed the subject deliberately to the other boy. “And what of Guy, how is he faring? Does he also wish to enter the cloister?”

  Abbot Dominique gave a delightfully small shrug. “Very far from it I fear. Frankly, ma Reine, the child is not cut out for either monastic or academic life. Guy sings divinely, still practises juggling, tumbles too, even with his crooked back. So I fear his ambition is very far removed from the pursuit of a religious life.”

  Yolande smiled more broadly than she had intended. “What can it be? A jester?”

  “No, the study of the stars, Madame. Somewhere in his past the child was once given shelter by an astrologer, a magic man he called him. Now Guy is convinced this is his calling. Strange, is it not, that one brother has turned to God, the other to sorcery?”

  “But surely,” Yolande answered gently, “they are both in their different ways a quest for truth, for greater understanding of the hidden meaning of life.”

  Dominique shook his head ruefully. ‘With that I cannot agree, ma Reine. God is truth, there is no other.”

  Yolande nodded, saying nothing, knowing the moment when her liberal views might give offence.

  “May I see the boys, my Lord?”

  The Abbot rose to his feet. “They are probably preparing for their first lesson. Would you like them sent to you here?”

  Yolande stood up also. “No, Father, I would prefer to walk with them in the grounds if that is agreeable to you. It is too fine a morning to be indoors.”

  “Indeed,” answered Dominique, his face glowing as it caught the full sunlight. “I shall instruct the twins to meet you in the rose garden. The flowers are already in bloom and it is very pleasant to stroll there.”

  He made a solemn reverence, which Yolande returned, and went on his way leaving the Duchess to turn out of the great courtyard and walk down between the high hedges to where the flower-beds bloomed beyond the kitchen and herb gardens. Making her way to the stone seat set amongst the rose beds, Yolande sat down and closed her eyes in the sunshine.

  She must have dozed momentarily for the next thing she knew was that a flower had been put into one of her hands and the twins, grinning cheerfully, were standing in front of her.

  “Happy May Mom to you both,” said the Duchess. “Do I find you well?”

  “Yes, Madame,” they chorused, and bowed formally. “Come, sit beside me. Father Abbot wishes me to talk to you about your futures and I would like to do so as well.”

  She patted the spaces on either side of her and the twins sat, both looking at her expectantly. They had somehow contrived, even though they were identical, to grow less alike since she had seen them last. With a shock, Yolande realised that this must have been almost a year ago, kept indoors and forced to rest as she had been by her last exhausting pregnancy.

  The beauty which had lain hidden beneath their layers of grime was now obvious, each boy being seen to have thick curling hair the colour of cedar, streaked by the sun in places to a paler shade resembling oats. Their eyes were extraordinary, both a fierce piercing blue with an aureole of emerald green around the pupils. But there the similarity ended, for Jacques had grown straight and tall and slender, while little Guy, with his hunched back, had a round face and body that could never be anything but slightly comi
c.

  “So,” said Yolande, “you are soon to be fifteen.”

  “We believe that,” answered Jacques, who these days was obviously very much in the lead. “The mountebank told us he found us in May and we were newborn then.”

  “Then you are still very young. Yet Father Abbot tells me you wish to enter the order, to become a Benedictine.”

  “Oh, yes,” Jacques replied instantly. “I do. You see, I have had a sign.”

  “A sign?” Yolande drew her dark brows downward. Jacques’s brilliant eyes consumed her face. “A very simple sign, Madame. I was in the chapel, dusting it actually, and I heard a voice.”

  “Whose?”

  “That I don’t know. It simply told me that for the sake of France I must enter the abbey of St. Nicolas and one day in the future when Father Abbot is dead I will take his place.”

  “You saw nothing?”

  “Only a brightness; the whole place was suddenly light as if the sun had burst forth. And the voice told me that when I was Abbot I would be called upon to help La Pucelle and must prepare.”

  “The virgin?” repeated the Duchess, frowning. “Surely you do not mean Christ’s mother?”

  “No, I don’t think so because Mary is known to be the one who helps us, not the other way round.”

  “The voice meant somebody else,” said Guy suddenly. “Somebody who is yet to come.”

  The Duchess turned to him with a smile. “And how do you know that?”

  “I believe I have the gift of prediction, Madame, which is why I want to study the stars, to develop that art.”

  Yolande leaned back against the seat’s hard stone. “Well, well, I don’t know what to make of you two. I thought you would have pleasant uncomplicated lives when your time at the abbey was over and here you are throwing all my ideas awry.”

  “Let me leave the school now, ma Reine,” Guy added urgently. “Let me live in the castle with you and study under Dr. Flavigny.”

  “But…”

  “Oh, please, Madame. I know he is old and was astrologer to your father-in-law before he became that of your husband, but why can’t he be allowed to pass his knowledge on to me, who is so very willing to learn?”

  Put in those terms the whole scheme sounded eminently sensible but still Yolande hesitated, feeling beholden, as adults frequently do when a child presents a good idea, to object.

  “But I thought you wanted to be a singer and would eventually be attached to my household in that capacity,” she said.

  “Do you have something against astrologers?” asked Guy directly.

  “I can’t say that I have any particular belief in them.”

  “But in that you are singular, Madame. There are many others that do. And why could I not both sing and study the stars? I would have thought my chances of a place in a noble household would have been doubled with those two skills.”

  There was no arguing with the logic of this and the Duchess realised she had been put in a position of refusing the boy’s pleas for no better reason than that she did not altogether approve of them.

  “Well…”

  “Please, ma Reine. I promise I will study diligently and you will be proud of me.”

  “And if you will let me enter the novitiate now,” added Jacques, “I can start getting ready straight away for the coming of La Pucelle.”

  The Duchess frowned into her lap, not daring to meet those two pairs of vivid eyes staring at her so imploringly.

  “I will compromise,” she said eventually. “Knowing how changeable young people’s minds are I will give you one year to this day to see if you are still determined on these courses. If you are I will grant my permission for you to follow your chosen paths and on the day you celebrate your sixteenth birthday your new lives will begin.”

  The twins simultaneously opened their mouths to object and equally simultaneously closed them again. The Regent of Anjou had given her ruling, to argue would be both pointless and foolish. Moving at the same moment, the boys stood up, considering the audience to be at an end.

  “Thank you, Majesty,” said Jacques, and kissed Yolande’s long thin hand.

  “Thank you,” repeated Guy and, rolling himself into a ball, turned joyous somersaults at her feet.

  Outside the Hotel St. Pol the people of Paris had gathered in their thousands and wherever the courtiers scurried to escape the sound, the cry of “Death to the foreign woman. Death to the great whore,” could still be heard. The downtrodden populace had risen at last, sickened by the brutality of the Caboche, rebelling against Burgundian domination, wanting their city back and the laughing-stock of a Queen, the gigantic Bavarian, gone for good.

  Crouching in her high chair, her face flushed and anxious, Isabeau thought that perhaps she had made a mistake in celebrating the recent May Day in her usual way. Talk of her lewd behaviour with yet another foppish young man had somehow got back to the citizens and two days later they had stormed the Bastille and released the prisoners, then come on to the palace, where they had burst into the Dauphin’s apartments screaming that he must take over from his mad father and send both the Queen and the Duke of Burgundy away. Burgundian soldiers had quelled the riot on that occasion but now, two weeks later, to judge by the sound from the streets, the entire population had turned out and by sheer weight of numbers could prove unstoppable.

  The Dauphin’s apartments were tonight heavily guarded with extra troops and Isabeau, for her own safety, had been advised to leave the Hotel Barbette and stay close to her family. Only the King remained oblivious of the threatened rebellion, lying in his apartments, shrieking to the walls that he was made of glass and no one should touch him lest he splinter.

  To make matters more embarrassing and tense there was an official visitor to the court from the house of Anjou. The Duke’s chancellor, Robert le Maçon, had arrived to further the arrangements for the betrothal of Charles to his master’s daughter, Mane. And now he stood with everyone else listening to the highly vocal mob outside hurl insults at the Queen.

  “Mon Dieu!” Isabeau felt desperate, furious that a new man on the scene should be hearing ill of her. “What lies! But then this rabble have crawled out of the gutter to come here. They do not truly represent the people of Paris.”

  Le Maçon looked up, his light brown eyes expressionless. “Wherever they have crawled from there seem to be a great many of them, Madame.”

  “Professional trouble-makers,” she answered. “They want to overthrow law and order. They are anarchists everyone.” The Chancellor nodded. “They certainly want to overthrow something. Listen to them now.”

  “Whore,” came the distant cry. “Whore, whore, whore!”

  “Such filthy language!” Isabeau pulled what she hoped was a disapproving face. “I am ashamed that my children are forced to hear it.”

  “But there is no other room we can take them to, ma Reine,” put in Jeanne du Mesnil. “This is the safest place with all the extra guards on duty. And nowhere in the palace is out of earshot, believe me.”

  “It’s disgusting,” Isabeau went on, ignoring her. “The people of France sicken me sometimes.”

  “But you are their Queen,” remarked Louis the Dauphin, grinning insolently.

  He had reached that stage of drunkenness where reality had begun to elude him and was refusing to take the riot seriously, though his wife Marguerite, the Duke of Burgundy’s daughter, made up for his lack of interest by screaming hysterically, partly because her father, very wisely, had taken himself off to an unknown destination, partly because she was utterly terror stricken.

  “Shut up!” said her husband unsympathetically.

  “But we might all be killed.”

  “Well at least if I’m dead I won’t have to listen to you anymore.”

  “Heartless wretch!” boomed Jacqueline of Bavaria unexpectedly, her large plain face red as a strawberry with rage. “You should not be so spiteful to her.” She glared at the Dauphin and then added, “Monsieur,” which ruined
the effect.

  “Mind your manners you ugly-faced bladder,” he shouted in reply, at which Marguerite bellowed all the louder and the Duke of Touraine, Jacqueline’s husband, not as drunk as his brother but well on the way, burst into a fit of hysterical giggling.

  It was chaos, only the two youngest children behaving with any show of decorum while the rest screamed at one another and Isabeau, visibly sweating, kept repeating the words, “Oh, what will become of me? What will become of me?”

  In the midst of this ridiculous scene Robert le Maçon suddenly lost his temper, bellowing, “Stop squabbling, the lot of you, do you hear?”

  Everyone stared at him and in the silence that followed, the sound of the great wooden doors of the Dauphin’s Lodging splintering apart fell like a stone.

  “They’ve stormed the walls again,” shrieked Isabeau. “Oh, God protect us, they’re coming in.”

  And indeed the terrible noise of hand-to-hand fighting could be heard from the great hall as the Dauphin’s guard struggled to keep the furious mob away from the upstairs chamber.

  “Listen,” said le Maçon urgently, addressing the drunken boy who stood swaying, obviously not in command of himself. “They’re going to come in. There are hundreds of them, your men haven’t got a chance. Whatever you do, agree to their terms, do you understand? Otherwise we could all end up dead.”

  “Do what he says,” Isabeau added hysterically. “They’re after my blood.”

  Somebody, somewhere, said, “They’ll have a terrible time finding it,” and le Maçon quite literally did not know whether to laugh or cry at the sheer outrageousness of such a remark in these appalling circumstances. Beside him the boy Charles stifled a giggle and the Chancellor stared at him with suspicion.