by Deryn Lake
The words, The Comte de Ponthieu’, were on everyone’s lips and Charles saw that his mother was floundering to her feet, gross beyond belief but still with a fluttering smile for de la Trémoille and de Giac, who had followed behind her chair and now took his seat at the trestle.
“My dear Madame de Giac,” Isabeau swung her bulk in the direction of the stranger in the red dress, “would you do me the honour of sitting opposite my son tonight?”
Charles felt his jaw drop unattractively, hardly able to credit that de Giac had married, let alone such a sensitive soul.
“As Her Majesty wishes,” the girl murmured and, rather reluctantly or so the Count thought, changed places.
In total silence, Charles stared at his plate, embarrassed and worried and, in the presence of Madame de Giac, highly charged with adolescent longing. Out of the far comer of his eye he saw the Bastard, wedged between two large titled ladies, looking appraisingly in his direction, and wished that his friend could somehow come to the rescue.
But immediate help was at hand with the arrival of mounds of food, the first course being served. Isabeau had obviously spared no expense or effort as a boar’s head complete with tusks was carried to the carving table, together with mounds of herons, pheasants and cygnets, and lovely sweet delights like Crustarde Lumbarde and Viaund Royale. Yet nothing seemed to tempt the appetite of poor Bonne who picked at her victuals then left them on her platter.
As the wine flowed and Charles drank more than he should, he found himself staring at her almost continuously, utterly fascinated, and when the minstrels played for dancing in between the first course and the second, it was his mother’s hand that guided the boy to his feet, and de Giac himself who charmingly bowed his wife from her seat and into the Count of Ponthieu’s arms.
“Well done.” said Isabeau softly as the two young people moved away, then gave her lover a wicked smile. “Do you have the stuff?”
“I do, ma Reine. A powerful combination indeed: satyrion, mandrake, hippomanes and cockle-bread.”
The Queen glanced in the direction of the youthful couple, dancing well apart, neither catching the other’s eye.
“I think our plan is already half-way there. Charles is obviously smitten. Bonne, this new wife of yours, is a very beautiful girl though you must have brought her out. I always thought her insipid when she waited on me.”
“Too thin,” said de Giac. “Skin and bone. Only a body like yours can excite me, chérie. I am not aroused by such a one as she.”
“Then why did you marry her?” asked Isabeau curiously. “She is an heiress as well you know, and her guardian wanted her off his hands. I have done very well as far as money is concerned. But the girl herself bores me to tears.”
“Never mind. We’ll soon get rid of her on to Charles.”
“And what of our future?”
“We’ll speak of that later tonight,” the Queen said throatily and was rewarded with a look of sheer lust. “But back to business. Is the potion in liquid form?”
“It is,” answered de Giac, and taking a phial from an inner pocket poured half its contents into Bonne’s goblet, the other into Charles’s.
“There could be only one snag now,” he said, as he hid the container away again.
“And what is that?”
“She hardly drinks, that bag of bones.”
“Leave it to me. I will propose another toast and she will be obliged to do so.”
“And at the end of the evening?”
“You are to take her to his bedchamber and lock her in.”
De Giac’s predatory smile consumed his face. “And you say we can watch them through your mirror?”
“Oh yes, it was made in Italy and is a spying device. One can see straight through it into the room beyond.”
“Excellent,” answered Pierre, and under the table slid his hand up the Queen’s thigh. “I love watching others.”
“I too,” she said, and each of them went thrillingly cold at the depths of depravity that both now enjoyed.
But Charles, falling in love by the second with the exquisite little creature whose hand he held as he danced, knew nothing of the base initiation his mother had planned for him, though the wife of the Devil’s man, as if some fine-tuned instinct was already at work, surreptitiously glanced in her husband’s direction from time to time, trembling as she did so.
“What is it, Madame?” asked Charles, speaking to her for the first time. “Is anything wrong?”
Bonne looked at him properly, also for the first time, having to tilt her head back to do so as the boy was already taller than she. She did not notice his homely features, only his honest eyes, and a little of her terrible fear went away.
“Nothing, Monsieur,” she whispered.
“Then why are you shaking?”
“I am cold.”
Without being able to help himself, Charles pulled her closer and, as if he had conjured it, the music changed to a faster beat and couples began to whirl together. Through the padding of his jewelled and embroidered doublet, the Count of Ponthieu could feel the lovely shape of Bonne’s naked breasts, and was aware that he had never known till now what it was to desire another human being.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, feeling gauche, yet wanting to show her in some way that he was falling in love with her.
“I think my husband is looking at us,” Madame de Giac answered anxiously.
“Let him,” blustered Charles, “it is my birthday after all. I am a Prince of the Blood and may dance with whom I please.”
“But if he becomes angry—”
“Then he will have to answer to me.” Charles’s tone altered and his clear eyes searched her face. “You’re afraid of him, aren’t you? I do believe you are nervous, Madame.”
“Don’t be kind to me, please,” Bonne replied falteringly. “If you are I shall cry, here, in public.”
“If that blackguard is misusing you,” the Count said furiously, “I shall put you under my personal protection.”
“But you are only a boy,” Madame de Giac answered tactlessly. “How could you?”
“I am considered important in Anjou,” Charles protested, stung to the quick. “And will have more power here in Paris now that I am fourteen.” He looked at Bonne appraisingly. “And so how old are you, Madame?”
On the lips of that anxious little face a smile hovered momentarily. “It is supposed to be impolite to ask a woman such a question, didn’t you know that?”
Charles blushed. “I’m sorry, I had forgotten.”
Now she was smiling. “I forgive you, and the answer is that I am seventeen.”
“Then we are practically the same age.”
The dance abruptly ended at that point and the boy, unbelievably flushed and excited, bowed his partner back to her seat, to see that Isabeau was once more hauling herself to her feet.
“My dear guests, one and all. My son and I would like to drink your health. Charles, will you join me?”
There was no need to ask. Reckless now, the Count looked straight at Bonne as he raised his glass, then drained it in a single swallow. Instantly, as soon as the fluid reached his stomach, everything went black and the boy had to clutch the table for support. Gratefully, he sat down as Pierre de Giac got to his feet.
“On behalf of the guests I will propose an answering toast. To our gracious Queen and her son, Charles, Count of Ponthieu. On behalf of you all I wish him good health, a long life, and a happy birthday.”
Nobody queried the fact that he was not an official spokesman nor had even been asked to propose the Count’s health. Everyone drank politely and Bonne, too, drained her glass.
Now the momentary faintness had gone, Charles thought he had never had such wonderful wine. He glowed from head to foot, suddenly seeing the world as beautiful, even his mother appearing younger and thinner, her dark eyes brilliant as they had been in the days of his early childhood. As for Bonne, she was loveliness and delicacy personified, lea
ning forward on the table, smiling at him, no longer self-conscious of the bareness of her breast, which glowed in the candlelight like honey and rubies.
“I love you,” murmured Charles, and she smiled all the more.
“It’s my birthday,” he said out loud, “and I am allowed to eat and drink what I like and make love to the most beautiful women in France.”
Everyone laughed politely, for after all the boy was a Valois and obviously drunk, only the Bastard of Orleans frowning at his friend’s extraordinary behaviour.
“Are you all right?” he said, slipping out of his space between the two weighty women, and leaning over Charles, pretending to pour him a drink.
“Of course,” answered the Count, grinning like a cat.
But he wasn’t, as Jean could see at a glance. For the pupils of Charles’s eyes were as dilated as if he had been drugged and there was a high bright spot of colour on each cheekbone. The Bastard looked round surreptitiously and took in at one sweeping glance the change in Madame de Giac, from frightened waif to alluring woman.
“An aphrodisiac!” he guessed correctly — and not too far to look for the perpetrators of that joke. The Queen and de Giac, quite the two nastiest people in the land, were exchanging sly smiles and secret winks as Charles stood up to dance once more, holding his hand out to Bonne, then grasping her as if she already belonged to him.
‘Oh dear,’ thought Jean, ‘there goes a lost virginity.’
But if Charles was ready for love it was partly the Bastard’s fault for giving the boy such graphic descriptions of his own affair with the widow. Helplessly, Jean looked round for an ally but the only other one of Charles’s chamberlains who had even noticed what was going on was the Bastard’s future father-in-law, who had obviously decided to ignore the Count’s odd behaviour and instead was gazing at Isabeau as if he would like to ravish her on the spot. Weary of the world’s warped deceits, Jean decided to stay as close as he could to his friend without getting in the way of any private matters that might be conducted later in the evening.
The lavish feast went on, the minstrels blew and plucked, the guests became drunk and riotous, and as night wore towards morning, Charles drew Bonne out of sight and kissed her, the first kiss of love he had ever exchanged with a woman, the giving of an unspoken promise for the rest of his life.
“I must make love to you,” he said. “Young as I am, I know that you are my chosen woman.”
The girl’s fear overcame the power of even that most powerful of drugs.
“That can never be,” she answered, pulling away from him in alarm. “De Giac would kill me if I were unfaithful to him.”
“I would kill him first.”
“You are a boy, he is an evil man. He knows things, does things, that you and I could never even comprehend.”
She turned at that and ran back to the feast, making her way to the high table and taking a seat beside her husband, leaving the place opposite Charles to the anxiously hovering Bastard.
“Why, Bonne!” said de Giac, tongues of flame curling in his scorching blue eyes. “I do hope you are not overtiring yourself. You look exhausted, ma chérie.”
“I am perfectly all right,” she answered, hanging her head so that she would not have to look at him.
“I promised your guardian that I would cherish you. It is long past your bed time, come.”
His fingers on her wrist were like bands of steel and Jean felt a frisson of fear sweep the length of his spine. He watched in horror as Bonne went limp, crumpling like a doll of rags. And then Charles arrived, his face taut and grim as he saw Madame de Giac’s plight. Smoothly, the Bastard stood up and placed himself between the girl and his friend.
The great hall was very nearly empty now, only a few of the truly drunk still remaining to watch the capers of Isabeau’s fool. The masquers, who had enacted the story of a Knight rescuing a Maiden from a wild man, half beast, half human, had long since gone. The Queen sat motionless in her chair, asleep apparently. An air of sudden somnolence was everywhere and Charles sat down hard, as deflated as the girl with whom he had that evening fallen in love.
‘The drug’s worn off,’ thought the Bastard gleefully. ‘By God’s teeth the Devil’s man and the fat sow are beaten!’
Almost as if she knew what he had been thinking, Isabeau opened one unblinking black eye and fixed it on Jean. “Take the Count of Ponthieu to bed,” she ordered. “The great chamber is already prepared for him, the room next to mine.”
“Do you wish to go, Monsieur?” asked the Bastard, deliberately ignoring her.
“I may as well,” he answered, looking unhappily at Bonne, who sat with eyes closed and head hanging, fit to collapse.
In the body of the Hall the servants were already stacking the trestle boards as Charles and his Chamberlain made their way to the upstairs chambers, having bidden goodnight to the handful of remaining revellers.
“I feel as if I left the earth tonight and have only just returned,” said the Count of Ponthieu, as they climbed the stairs.
“I think perhaps your drink was rather strong,” Jean replied grimly.
“But it wasn’t the wine that made me fall in love,” Charles said earnestly.
It was too late at night to reason with the flushed-faced boy, to tell him that however much he cared for Bonne de Giac, she was married to one of the most wicked men
in the world and her future was entirely in the hands of fate.
“Come on,” said Jean. “It’s been a long night.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost dawn. There’s light in the sky. Here’s your room. Now get some rest.”
The Count of Ponthieu, shaking slightly from the aftereffects of the aphrodisiac, suddenly felt so exhausted that he almost fell into the beautiful bed prepared for him, the air of his chamber full of the perfume of the scented candles that burned in brackets attached to the wall, the light just beginning to peep through the mullioned windows. He would have slept, then, at once, had not a noise in the doorway made him sit bolt upright, suddenly afraid.
Bonne stood there, stark naked, her mass of wild dark hair, released from its confining head-dress, her only protection.
“Oh, Mon Dieu!” Charles exclaimed. “What is this?”
She shook her head in a combination of shame and bewilderment. “I don’t know. My husband forced me in, said it was my new room. Oh, God help me, am I married to a monster?”
“Yes,” said die Count, getting out of bed and going to her, not sure whether he was glad or sorry that he was still partly dressed. “You are. But Bonne my sweetheart, even though I have no good looks my nature is not monstrous. Come here, I will look after you.”
He should have been honourable and slept on the floor but Charles could not. Instead he removed what was left of his clothes and the two young people got into bed together, instantly falling asleep, wrapped closely in one another’s arms. Strands of Bonne’s hair lay across the Count’s ugly face transforming it to beauty in the first soft rays of the morning light.
“Christ’s blood!” swore de Giac in disgust, looking through the two-way mirror. “They’ve gone to sleep. I’ll whip that girl when I get hold of her.”
“Forget them,” answered Isabeau, ravenous for coupling as she had now taken a massive dose of Pierre’s special love potion. “We’ll wake early and watch them then. Come on.”
He turned to look at her, saw the quaking heap of flesh and gladly went to oblige her, overjoyed by her obesity.
‘Tomorrow will you celebrate a Black Mass with me?” he whispered into her ear. “Will you finally join me and serve my Dark Master?”
“I cannot be certain,” quavered the Queen.
“Then I’ll serve you no more,” growled her lover, and rolled away.
“Oh please, please,” begged Isabeau. ‘I’ll do anything. Just don’t stop.”
“Good, then,” Pierre said triumphantly and rammed into her until she screamed aloud with pleasure.
Just as those two appalling people finally fell asleep, the son of one and the wife of another awoke gently in the early sunshine.
“Oh, Bonne, my Bonne,” said Charles, and kissed her.
Then suddenly the transition from boy to man was easy for him and with his body ready for love, Charles’s penis entered the joyous place between Bonne’s thighs and set up the slow, strong, harshly sweet rhythm that Jean the Bastard had described to him.
It was heavenly for them both as the girl, unafraid at last, raised to him her lips, her breasts, her hips, abandoning shame and moving with Charles as their bodies mingled and merged. Then came the moment when the boy became ruthless, though never like her cruel husband, and slipping a hand beneath her buttocks held Bonne pinioned while he drove his shaft into her rapidly and remorselessly. Then both of them left life for a moment as the power of their shared completion swept them away on a tidal wave of pleasure which finally put them down onto a warm beach of contentment on which they slept once more.
Seventeen
Exactly one week to the day after the Comte de Ponthieu’s fourteenth birthday, the Count of Hainault had arrived in Paris to sign the conditions for the return of the Dauphin. The Council of France, sitting in full session in the great chamber in the Hotel St. Pol, heard his words in stony silence.
“Monsieur le Dauphin, my son-in-law, will only enter the gates of Paris if he is accompanied by Jean the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy.”
The Conseillers had looked at one another in horror, knowing full well what such a warning meant. As soon as that rotting lump of madness known as the King had the good grace to die, France would fall into Burgundian hands once more.
There had been a stir as the youthful Count had risen to his feet. “I say let my brother stay where he is. Paris will not tolerate the presence of the Duke of Burgundy again. Tell him that.”
It was a brave little speech and the great lords of France had stared at Charles in surprise.
“That ugly boy is growing up,” one had said to another.
“He even looks different. Cherchez la femme perhaps.”