by Deryn Lake
Staring moodily down the length of the table, Charles recalled yet again the words of the Grand Master.
“Three women will help you: a tall queen, a virgin bearing a rose, and the third will be beauty to your beast.”
The tall queen could obviously be no other than the Duchess of Anjou, Queen of Sicily and Naples. She had already, in the two years that he had lived with her, been more than a good friend to him and, as much as one could love a great woman with a rapier mind like a mother, Charles did so. But the other two were a puzzle. Frowning deeply, Charles turned his mind to another of the alchemist’s enigmatical phrases.
“You shall be told the name of the secret order when you are a man. You will shortly meet the one who is to tell you, and recognise him by the fact that his little finger is almost the same length as his fourth.”
‘Well, that didn’t come true,’ thought the Count. ‘I didn’t meet anyone like that at all. He was wrong.’
Was it the will of God or a quirk of fate that at that very moment he happened to glance in the direction of René d’Anjou, who was sitting opposite him? The child’s extraordinarily large hands were spread out on the tablecloth before him, their very shape and contour enhanced by the white cloth embroidered in gold with the coat of arms of Anjou. With a gasp of amazement, Charles noticed for the first time that the boy’s little fingers were anything but that, as long and as tapering as the fourth, a unique accident of birth.
The child realised he was being stared at and looked up. “What is it, Charles?”
“Do you know a man called Nicolas Flamel?” he answered, too surprised to be subtle.
There was a second’s frozen silence during which René’s brilliant eyes flickered then dropped and a shutter came down over his youthfully saturnine face.
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
But he was lying, there was no doubt about it. Even if he had not met the Grand Master, the name meant something to him.
The Count of Ponthieu leant forward, narrowing his eyes, but smiling all the while as if he had just heard a new and very amusing joke.
“Mon Dieu,” he said quietly, “how foolish of me. I must be confusing you with someone else.”
Just as Charles had guessed he would, René d’Anjou did not reply.
Fifteen
It was like going straight from Paradise to Hell. The royal party had left Anjou in June, riding past the gleaming rivers and through the rich vine-filled valleys, away from the sunshine and the luscious green of the bountiful land, heading north to Paris. Charles had turned his head for one last look, and had felt in that final glance that his two golden years of childhood had come to an end for ever, that nothing of the carefree magic he had known for the first time in the castle of Angers could ever come back again. And when he had seen the city of his birth once more his worst fears had been realised. It was even more terrible than he had remembered it.
Fires blazed round the outer walls of Paris, fires lit by the mercenaries of Jean the Fearless, for though the Duke of Burgundy might be skulking in Flanders, his cohorts incessantly pounced in lightning raids on the capital, inflicting as much damage as possible to both property and personnel. But even worse than this constant state of danger was the plight of the city’s wretched people. Count Bernard d’Armagnac, now Constable of France, had been so determined to regain the fortress of Harfleur, manned by English soldiers left behind by Henry V, that he had levied a tax on the wretched population in order to raise the money to pay his troops. The suffering caused to a people already near to starvation had been enormous, and to make matters worse the Count’s campaign had not succeeded. Harfleur remained in English hands.
Charles simply did not know which was more awful, the situation in Paris or the state of his mother, for during the years since he had last seen her, fat had consumed the Queen utterly. Isabeau now had nothing left that could be called a body, only a colossal bulk out of which rose a head, weighted down by the most enormous and extravagant kind of head-dresses. What there was of her neck was consequently foreshortened and thus Isabeau looked like two puddings, one, smaller, balanced upon another, enormous. At this size movement had become impossible for her and these days the Queen was dragged about in a wheelchair the width of a chariot.
Incredibly, this unappetising woman still had lovers. Georges de la Trémoille, his ransom paid promptly and already returned from England, serviced her on a regular basis, a thought which had Charles’s imagination wandering down strange corridors as Georges himself was now beginning to put on a serious amount of weight. Pierre de Giac, too, appeared from time to time, his eyes blazing wildly as he and Isabeau locked themselves away together for as long as a week. And when neither of those two was available, the Captain of the Guard offered himself as her stud. Even more amazingly, though no one would have believed it possible, Jean Louvet of Anjou trembled with lust when he first set eyes on the monstrous matron, secretly admitting to the Provost of Paris, Tanneguy de Chastel, that he found hugely fat women overwhelmingly attractive.
But her son thought her hideous and loathed it when Isabeau made a public display of affection, putting her overpainted face close to his and demanding a kiss. Near as Charles was at those moments, the boy could see the thick cake of her make-up and the place where her red lip paint had smudged and run. Everything about his mother repulsed him and if it had not been for the presence of the Duke and Duchess of Anjou in Paris, his real parents as the Count now thought of them, he felt he would have gone mad.
A further strain was added to the Dauphin’s heir by the fact that the Dauphin himself was missing. Jean’s wife, ugly Jacqueline, now Dauphine, may well have been a Duchess of Bavaria on her mother’s side but her father was the ambitious Count of Hainault, a province which on its north-west border was neighbour to Flanders, a territory belonging to Burgundy and Jean the Fearless’s present home. To say that the Duke and the Count were friends would not have been to state the case fully, they were like blood brothers and were political allies into the bargain. And now that Jean had unexpectedly become the Dauphin it was Hainault’s avowed intent to unite his son-in-law and Jean the Fearless and in that way see the Armagnacs off for ever.
And all the sudden and heavy responsibility of standing in for a missing brother who was the Dauphin of France had promptly fallen on the shoulders of a thirteen-year-old boy; a boy who wanted nothing more than to run away to Angers and resume his former peaceful existence within the walls of its castle. Charles, constrained by reason of Jean’s absence to attend the meetings of the Council, where the noble lords sat arrayed in their velvets, felt that they looked on him as an intruder, as if he should have been in the company of tutors not bothering them with his unwanted presence, and hated every moment of it.
The summer of 1416, plagued by poverty and pestilence, passed thus, made worse by a heatwave during which Jean the Bastard and Charles, fearful to swim in the Seine because of the number of rotting bodies, both human and animal, floating therein, sighed for Anjou and the river Maine.
“Do you think we’ll ever get back?” Charles had asked.
“Not unless the Dauphin returns to Paris soon,” Jean had answered gloomily. “They seem to be relying on you to act for him these days.”
“I feel sometimes that all this is a nightmare and that I’ll wake to find I’m still in Angers.”
“If only that were true.”
“You may go,” Charles had said loftily. “Don’t think you have to stay here just because of me.”
The Bastard’s brilliant eyes had darkened. “I am your Chamberlain, Monsieur. I will serve you all my days as I have sworn. Now that my brother is prisoner in London’s Tower it is you to whom I have pledged allegiance. I will remain by your side through thick and thin.”
They had clasped hands and embraced and Charles had felt such a rush of fraternal affection that he had suspected yet again that both he and the Bastard had perhaps been sired by the same man.
For the re
st of that noisome summer the Count had been sustained by Jean’s loyal friendship, but never more so than when the Duchess of Anjou, pale to her mouth, had suddenly announced that she and the Duke must unexpectedly return to the Duchy.
“But why, Madame?”
Yolande had looked at him with such a serious expression on her face that the boy had felt himself begin to tremble.
“It is the health of Monsieur le Due. I am afraid, Charles, that he is quite seriously ill.”
The Count of Ponthieu had screwed up his ugly face to stop sudden tears.
“How is he ill? What do you mean?”
“Do you remember when my Lord could not fight at Azincourt? How he had a seizure on the way to battle and was in such pain that he could go no further?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well now,” Yolande said bitterly, “those enemies who accused him of cowardice will have to take back all they said. Monsieur is afflicted once more with that same agonising pain in his bladder and bowels.”
The tears had flowed then and Charles, throwing aside all decorum, had run to Yolande and flung himself into her arms.
“Does this mean you’re going to leave me here by myself? Oh, my good mother, please don’t go. I can’t bear it.”
It had been too much for her. The brilliant Duchess of Anjou, remembering another child she had been forced to abandon, had broken down and wept, and she and Charles had hugged one another tightly as the bitter tears fell.
Eventually, Yolande had controlled herself. “Mon cher, please realise that I must go with the Duke. We are obliged to return to Anjou and take up the reins of government. All must be prepared.”
“For what?”
“For the possibility of my becoming Regent once more.”
“But nothing’s going to happen to him,” Charles had sobbed despairingly. “It can’t. He is my guardian, my father, the only proper one I’ve ever had.”
Again, Yolande had not been able to answer, unable to voice her fears that her husband was now terminally ill, and Charles had wept hysterically, wanting reassurance, wanting to go with them, dreading the thought of being left at the mercy of his gross and greedy mother and her court of lovers and freaks.
“You will have the Bastard and your Gentlemen,” Yolande had said, attempting to reassure him. “They will keep you company and look after you.”
“But it won’t be the same, Madame.”
Yolande had hesitated, then added, “If I can possibly come back I will, but for the moment the family of Monsieur le Due must remain together. And I am afraid, Charles, that means Marie must also return with us to Anjou.”
Those words had been a relief, though the Count had been far too polite to say so. His future bride, hating the capital and her mother-in-law elect equally, had taken to sighing and sobbing at the slightest pretext, constantly bemoaning the fact that she had been forced to leave her carefree life in Angers to dwell in such a stinking hole as Paris, full of rats and beggars.
But if the Duchess had suspected what the Count of Ponthieu’s true feelings were she had not said a word, and the next morning the royal family of Anjou, together with all their retainers and servants, had left Paris by the South Gate.
Duke Louis, suddenly old-looking, his full lips sunken and his strong nose pinched and thin, travelled in a decorated wagon, his wife and daughter sitting on either side of him, as Charles and his Gentlemen, on foot, stood amongst the falling leaves of autumn and waved them farewell.
“I shan’t see him again,” the Count whispered to the Bastard as the last of Louis’s horsemen disappeared from view.
“But the Duke is only forty years old. Surely he will recover.”
“I don’t think so,” answered the boy, and fell to wondering with a dull kind of anger at the extraordinary and haphazard whims of a destiny which allowed a lunatic hulk like his father to shamble about horribly alive while a vigorous and good man such as the Duke should already be under sentence of death.
“There’s no justice in this world — or in heaven either come to that,” said Charles miserably.
“You’re right,” replied Jean. “How can there be when men like my brother and the Earl of Richmond are confined in the Tower of London to rot away their sky-blue youth?”
“But surely Richemont’s brother of Brittany is financing his return?”
“The rumour is that Henry of England doesn’t want money for the Earl, that he prefers to keep him a permanent prisoner.”
Charles looked at him in amazement. “Why, for God’s sake?”
“The lousy pig maintains that Richemont betrayed his liegeman’s oath to Henry IV by fighting for the French at Azincourt.”
“He’s not seriously claiming that Arthur should have fought on the English side?”
“Oh yes he is. That man is capable of more cunning and deception than any living creature I know.”
“And he wants to marry my sister,” said Charles in disgust. “It mustn’t happen.”
“But what other way out is there? The Lancastrian has set his heart on Catherine and now it seems nothing will deter him from getting her.”
“He’s never even seen her!” the Count replied angrily. “You know as well as I that she is simply a means to an end. Through her, Henry of England can get land and money. Why, I swear to God he’d marry a donkey if it were rich enough.”
“I believe he is one of the most despicable men ever born,” said Jean the Bastard with much dark feeling.
“I’ll not argue with that,” answered Charles, and on those sentiments the boys shook hands, as was their custom, and made their way back through the wretched stinking streets of Paris to the Hotel St. Pol, glad only that the cold winds of autumn had come to kill the pestilence that had raged in the suffering city throughout the long hot summer months.
Sixteen
With Christmas over, invitations for the Count of Ponthieu’s fourteenth birthday banquet became highly prized. It was to be held at the Chateau de Vincennes to which the Queen had removed her court, and rumour was rife that this would be one of the great events of the year 1417.
At fourteen the royal princes by tradition entered into man’s estate, being obliged to take their places on the Council and assume certain important duties, though these had been thrust on Charles somewhat early by reason of the Dauphin’s continuing absence.
News had reached the capital that the young man had now taken up residence in Compiegne, from whence his father-in-law, the Count of Hainault, sent messages to the Council of France that the Dauphin would not return unless accompanied by Jean the Fearless. Furthermore, the Count added, he would be coming to the capital personally to spell out to the Council the terms under which Jean the Dauphin would resume his duties. It was blackmail and everyone knew it but at the moment there was not a great deal that could be done. It was easier all round to stall for time and let the youthful Count of Ponthieu act in his brother’s place, ignoring the fact that Charles was being overburdened prematurely.
In the gallery of gossip which was Paris, it was whispered that the price for the Dauphin’s return, namely to be under Burgundian domination once more, might be too high to pay. It was further rumoured that the Queen had been in secret correspondence with Jean the Fearless, that she was his hidden ally and was only waiting for the moment when he would return to Paris and her bed, boots and all!
But Charles knew nothing of this and on the day of his fourteenth birthday, there was a restless energy about the boy throughout the ride to the Chateau de Vincennes and the time in which he and his retinue prepared themselves for the festivities. So much so that the Count was in a mood of great elation when at four in the afternoon, everything eventually being ready, he and his Gentlemen made their way to the Great Hall and took their places at the high table awaiting the arrival of the Queen.
Much intrigued, Charles cast his eyes round the guests to see who was new on the scene.
Georges de la Trémoille had recently married
. His bride, easy to identify because she was older than her groom, was a sandy-haired woman with a gap between her two front teeth large enough to house an écu d’or. She was also inclined to obesity and had large loose bosoms not entirely concealed by the open-work lacing at the front of her gown. Charles thought to himself that nobody was actually baring their breasts, as was becoming ever more fashionable, and then stared in surprise as he realised that one woman was.
A tiny thin creature with huge grey eyes set in a pale frightened but lovely face, a mass of dark hair pulled back and tucked into her head-dress, was revealing a surprisingly voluptuous breast, the comer of her crimson dress tucked back to show it. Yet how reluctantly and with what obvious distress, head down, eyes darting nervously, lips pressed tightly together as if to stop herself crying, did she do so.
‘Poor little thing.’ thought Charles. ‘I wonder who she is?’
But despite the fact he pitied her, the Count could not but feel a sharp pang of lust as he stared at her perfect shape, all gold and glistening with the cosmetics that had been applied to it. Then he could have died of shame as the girl stared straight at him, read what was in his eyes and looked away despairingly, as if she could have ended her life. At this moment, in a great flurry of trumpets, Isabeau’s wheelchair appeared and both it and its mighty occupant were pushed to the head of the table, then silence followed as the Queen spoke.
“My Lords and Ladies, honoured guests, tonight we celebrate the fourteenth birthday of our beloved son, Charles. Today the Comte de Ponthieu becomes a man…Isabeau gave a merry but somewhat sinister chuckle…and may enter into a man’s world. I ask you to stand and raise your wine cups in a toast to his health.”