The King's Women

by Deryn Lake

  But these cynical speculations had been brought abruptly to a halt by a stir at the back of the council chamber. A door at the top of a short wooden staircase leading to a platformed landing behind which lay the other rooms in the King’s dwelling, had been thrown rudely wide and Count Bernard d’Armagnac had appeared in the opening, his savage face almost purple beneath his bristling white hair.

  “Arrest that man,” he had shouted, pointing a gauntleted finger towards Hainault. “Put him on a charge of high treason for imprisoning the Dauphin against his will.”

  That the whole disturbance had been prearranged was immediately obvious as guards suddenly filled every entrance, rushing towards the Count with weapons drawn so that the man had temporarily vanished, set upon from all sides.

  “Take him away,” Armagnac had shouted, thundering down the staircase towards the hapless prisoner. “We’ll not brook that kind of blackmailing sedition here.”

  “Damn you Armagnac,” Hainault had shouted back. “We’ll see who comes out of this best. You’ll be a dead man the minute Burgundy enters the city.”

  “That he’ll never do,” the Count had answered, removing one of his gauntlets and striking Hainault full in the face with it. “I’ll challenge you to combat hand to hand before that traitor is ever allowed to return.”

  The Count of Hainault had turned away, biting his lip to stop the flow of blood trickling from it, then had been dragged roughly from the room and on, in manacles, to the fortress of the Bastille.

  But unfortunately that had not been the end of him. Whether there had been Burgundian sympathisers amongst the prison guards or whether Hainault had simply bribed his way out, nobody knew. Yet the fact remained that he slipped the leash and was gone within twelve hours, back to Compiegne and his precious son-in-law. In the city of Paris, Bernard d’Armagnac raged at the Council, the prison guards and everyone who came within earshot, that a prime captive had been lost and thus the cause of the Duke of Burgundy strengthened. But Charles almost felt beyond caring, caught up as he was in all the tumultuous and rapturous sensations of his very first love affair.

  “For God’s sake, Monsieur, be careful,” said Jean the Bastard, as they talked on the night of Hainault’s escape.

  “What do you mean?” Charles answered irritably. “I love Bonne and always will.”

  “She is another man’s wife, dear fool.”

  “But he doesn’t want her, everyone knows that. He no longer sleeps with her, in fact he has no interest in his bride at all.”

  “I don’t entirely believe that.”

  “Are you inferring Bonne does not tell the truth?”

  “No, of course not,” Jean replied hastily, more than aware that he was skating on thin ice. “It is de Giac I do not trust. He may say one thing but rest assured he’ll mean another. He is one of the most evil beings in the world, surely you do not trust his word?”

  But the Count would not see it, blinded by his mad infatuation.

  “He is my mother’s lover, he adores mountains of blubber. My little sweet is too delicate for him.”

  “But Charles, think, think, think. Where is it all going to lead? What can possibly be the outcome?”

  “She will stay with de Giac until such time as he tires of her and orders her to quit. And then I shall set Bonne up as my mistress and we will have children.”

  “And do you really think it will be as easy as that? Do you honestly believe that de Giac will calmly tell her to go without causing her pain?”

  But it was hopeless, like talking to a piece of masonry, and Jean, from whose spine the chill of apprehension was very rarely absent these days, gave up, for the young man had his own troubles to worry about. Not only was his half-brother, the Duke of Orleans, still a prisoner in London but his future bride’s father, another lover of gross bulk apparently, had started an affair with the Queen. The Bastard had temporarily given up all thoughts of his own liaison with the widow in an effort to help his various relations through their current difficulties and diversions.

  “I wonder if the Dauphin will come back to Paris now that Hainault is on the run,” he said, by way of changing the conversation.

  Charles looked at him strangely. “I don’t know, but I hope he sees sense soon. I would like to talk to him again before…”

  “Before what?”

  But the Count would not answer, gripped by a presentiment that the prophecy of Nicolas Flamel was about to come true and the days of his brother were nearing their end.

  Was it this sense of foreboding that made him dream, as he lay beside Bonne a few nights later, that he was riding behind the Count of Hainault, that he saw the fugitive return to his chateau at Compiegne, only to be greeted by a grim-faced woman who whispered something to the Count that Charles could not hear? Was it simply his daytime dreads that made him follow Hainault up the stairs in the dream state, only to see Jean the Dauphin inert on a canopied bed, his body, tongue and lips swollen beyond recognition, his poor sad eyes bolting from his head?

  “Mon Dieu,” Charles heard Hainault exclaim, “what is that terrible rasping noise?”

  And, indeed, the room was filled with the sound of Jean’s agonised breaths as he fought to get air through his swollen windpipe.

  “He’s finished,” said the long-faced woman, who had come silently to stand beside the Count. “Monsieur le Comte, the Dauphin is dying.”

  “Oh no!” screamed Hainault. “Oh no, oh no!”

  And so screamed Charles, waking in terror, sitting bolt upright and clutching his mistress, his voice reverberating round the tower room in which he and Bonne kept their loving and dangerous trysts, the door safely locked against the outside world.

  The arrangements for these illicit meetings teetered on a very knife’s edge, everything depending on de Giac announcing in advance that he would be going out for the night. And this, in turn, depended on whether Isabeau was amusing herself with one of her other lovers or had chosen him, for though Pierre himself was happy to have a Roman orgy, his rivals were not.

  Though all his sexual activities may be conducted away from home, de Giac’s satanic rites were practised in his own castle, in the dungeons, converted to a chapel for Devil worship. Here no servant or wife dared to tread, and those who came at night to join him in his demonic rituals were never seen, though rumour was rife that Isabeau was one of them, for no hood or mask could adequately disguise that vast body crammed into its wheelchair.

  On these sinister occasions, Charles did not call and Bonne, terrified out of her wits, would go to bed and lock the door, praying to her Christian God that her husband would not come and demand she open it at once. If he did so it meant rape and brutality, albeit marital, and the girl would carry her bruises and cuts into her lover’s bed, where Charles would kiss each one, rubbing in soothing ointments given him by Guy, and grinding his teeth at his extreme youth and consequent lack of power over people and events.

  But this night Bonne was whole, unhurt, and it was she who ministered to Charles, holding him to her beautiful breasts, her nimbus of dark hair falling round his face as she bent over and comforted him like a child.

  “Shush, it’s all right. You’ve had a nightmare. I’m here with you.”

  He calmed down, drawing in a deep breath like a sigh. “I dreamt about the Dauphin, dreamt that he was at his last gasp. Oh Bonne, it was so real I think the dream is going to come true.”

  “Because of Flamel’s prediction?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do not wish death on anyone,” answered the girl, snuggling even closer to her boy lover. “But yet I long for the day when you will be King.”

  Charles smiled in the candlelight. “Because I will be able to give you jewels and gifts?”

  The wild hair flew as Bonne shook her head. “You know that’s not the reason. It is because you will have the authority to banish de Giac for good so that I can be your Maitresse en Titre, seeing you every day of my life.”

  “That would
be wonderful,” said the Count and eased down in the bed again, hugging the slight body next to his.

  They lay in each other’s arms quietly, listening to the noises of that April night: the chant of a distant owl, the light murmur of a spring breeze, the lap and gurgle of the emerald waters of the moat. A nearby nightingale called suddenly, a soaring sensuous sound, surprisingly close, and Bonne whispered, “I wish it could be like this always, you and I together, utterly at peace.”

  And it was then, as if their innocent happiness had challenged her husband’s satanic master, that the drumming of hooves broke the harmony of those gentle rustic sounds.

  “De Giac!” exclaimed Bonne, rearing up in alarm, her face suddenly white as ice. “You must go, quickly!”

  She was not foolish this young girl, for in deciding on the place for her adulterous meetings she had chosen carefully indeed. A little-used tower room, situated well away from the great hall and living quarters, with two staircases one of which led onto the battlements, had been the chamber elected to give most seclusion and be the easiest to escape from should the necessity arise.

  “Hurry,” she said now, throwing a shift over her nakedness and pulling a loose robe over that. “Get your clothes on.”

  But Charles had already struggled into his hose and had one arm in his doublet, shrugging on the other sleeve even while he made for the stairs.

  “Wait for me,” whispered the girl and, blowing out the candle, was beside him in the darkness, a wraith with moonlit hair, as she led the way up the short spiral and shot back the bolts, then turned the key which held fast the door at the top.

  Outside, the moonshine was vivid, and standing in the dark of the tower’s shadow Bonne and Charles could see for miles, every leaf clearly etched with shimmering silver. They were afraid to peer too closely over the parapet, for the horseman below was just going out of their line of vision, about to enter the gatehouse guarding the moat, but even that one brief glimpse was enough to tell the silent onlookers that it was not de Giac who returned home early. In that brilliant light the fleur-de-lis emblem on the box of the Queen’s chevaucheur could be seen distinctly.

  “A messenger,” whispered Bonne. “I must get back to my bedroom for they’ll come to wake me when the servants discover de Giac is out. Wait for me here, my darling.”

  And with that she breathed a kiss onto his lips and was gone, scurrying along the battlements, then through another door to a staircase which led down to the castle’s main dwelling area.

  In the moonlight Charles stood alone, feeling the touch of destiny on him, almost knowing what the courier had come to say. From below came the rattle of powerful chains and the groan and crack of the portcullis as it slowly raised in the air, these sounds followed by the distant murmur of voices. In the Count’s imagination he could see Bonne, small and anxious, still in her night clothes, receiving the courier in the anteroom, hearing what he had to say in silence, then offering the man food and shelter as was the custom. Soon she would come back to him and nothing would ever be the same again. Almost as if he wished to remember every detail of that moment, the boy walked to the parapet and looked round.

  The stars that guided the destiny of mankind were all in their myriad places, some having names that Charles knew. Towards the east, Orion’s belt sparkled with all the richness of the wonderful jewels with which that belt was encrusted; the Plough glittered more gorgeously than any earthly counterpart could ever do; the Wolf Star and the Centaurs gleamed as wickedly as their namesakes, shimmering intensely in the clear April sky. Slowly, the Comte de Ponthieu raised his eyes to them and prayed for help in whatever great perils might lie ahead.

  And then Bonne was returned, breathless as she came through the door from the tower, something of the spangled firmament in her own eyes. Without saying a word she went down on one knee and Charles knew then that what he had expected was indeed a fact.

  “Monsieur,” she said, her voice trembling with all her crowding emotions, “the Dauphin is dead, long live the Dauphin.”

  So the Wheel of Fortune had started to turn, fate had singled out the ugly boy as had been decreed.

  “So be it,” said Charles. “I will do my best.”

  Long before the many messengers who were to take to the roads of France during the next few days left for their destinations, two in particular swiftly set out. One, a dark, hard man on a sinewy black horse rode off with secret instructions, sealed with the crest of the Duke of Burgundy himself, making for the Château de Vincennes where Isabeau still held court; the other, a personal servant of Charles de Valois, the Dauphin of France, Duke of both Berri and Touraine, Count of Ponthieu, left at speed for Angers, going to the people whom the boy considered his true parents.

  So it was that on 9th April 1417, the two Queens, the hawk and the pouter pigeon, the proud and the profane, read the news of Charles’s raising up simultaneously.

  Isabeau, of course, already knew. Word had come from Paris within hours that the son she disliked, the plain-featured child who resembled no one, conceived at a time when she had been experimenting with a new aphrodisiac which had demanded instant satisfaction with anyone at hand, was to be the future king. The irony of the situation had struck the Queen forcibly and she had laughed out loud. He could have indeed been the King’s son, or that of the Duke of Orleans, equally he could have been fathered by any one of the thirty men with whom she had had intercourse that month.

  “Upstart!” she had mouthed, and not known whether to laugh again or cry.

  But the letter from Jean the Fearless had put a different complexion on the entire matter. She and the Duke had never, in truth, lost touch with one another, keeping up a clandestine correspondence throughout the years of Jean’s exile. They had shared too much in the way of perversion and power ever to break the bond between them. And now he had instructions for her: to lure both Charles and the King to Vincennes so that he, the Duke, could take physical possession of the two of them and thus turn the tables once more on Count Bernard d’Armagnac.

  “The Dauphin Jean who was my ally is gone,” Burgundy had written. “Now I must forge a new alliance with the Dauphin Charles. Ma chérie, I leave it to you to get them to Vincennes and to let me know as soon as they arrive.”

  Loving the challenge of a new scheme, Isabeau wheeled her chair to her desk and opening a drawer took out several medicine bottles, and poured herself a good measure of liquid gold. Then she picked up her pen, and started to write a letter to Tanneguy de Chastel, the Provost of Paris, asking him to escort the King from the Hotel St. Pol to attend a great banquet celebrating the elevation of her third son to the rank of Dauphin.

  Similarly, Yolande d’Anjou wrote a letter, sitting at her desk in the room overlooking the river where she and her husband saw petitioners and heard their pleas. But today there was no husband and none had come to seek audience, for the news was out and through the town, both the walled city and the Doutre, that the Duke was seriously ill, that the malignancy which had kept him from the fight at Azincourt had gained ascendancy over their beloved Louis. And it was true. Though she would not admit it even to herself, Yolande knew secretly that the head of the house of Anjou was dying.

  But the letter she wrote reflected none of this, containing instead expressions of sadness for the loss of Charles’s brother but also words of delight at the fact he was now the Monsieur, the heir to the throne, and of reassurance that she would help him in every way possible with the duties that lay before him. This was the true letter of a mother to her son and as such moved Charles to tears on the morning he was due to set out for Vincennes.

  It did not occur to the Dauphin even when the Queen’s escort, headed by her soldier lover Captain Louis Boisridon, came to fetch him that there was anything suspicious about this visit, in fact Charles was looking forward to it. So, as custom decreed, the Dauphin’s escort left the city first, to be followed at a distance by that of the King. Today, the madman was passive, lying on his back in a litt
er, his person sweet smelling, all the filth and parasites scrubbed away, and it was not until his cavalcade, under the leadership of de Chastel, had reached the half-way point of the journey and caught them up, that Charles realised anything was wrong at all. But to his amazement as the Provost of Paris’s men drew alongside those of the Dauphin, Captain Louis and his troops were suddenly set upon and put under arrest.

  “No need to worry, Monsieur,” said de Chastel smoothly, trotting to the Dauphin’s side, bowing, and offering his sword hilt first to show that he meant no harm.

  “There’s every need,” Charles snapped back angrily. “What in the name of God is going on?”

  They stared at one another, the olive-skinned soldier and the tall thin boy who had risen overnight to a position of considerable power.

  “I’m sorry, Monsieur,” de Chastel answered eventually. “I was acting on the direct orders of the Comte d’Armagnac.”

  “Which were?”

  “To arrest the Queen’s escort and to take you and His Grace safely back to Paris.”

  Charles glared at him. “What do you mean ‘safely’? We were in no danger.”

  De Chastel’s face hardened. “On the contrary, Monsieur, you and the King were walking straight into a trap.”

  “What nonsense is this? We were on our way to attend the Queen’s banquet.”

  “You were on your way,” answered the Provost shortly, “to certain danger. This morning a messenger with confidential information for the Duke of Burgundy was apprehended not far from Vincennes. The letter he bore stated that you and the King would be at the chateau later today and would be staying for nearly a week. There were plans afoot to snatch both you and your royal father into Burgundian hands.”

  Charles stared at him askance. “But who could have done such a thing? There must be a traitor at Vincennes who should be stopped immediately.”

  For the first time in their exchange, de Chastel dropped his fierce eyes. “Yes, there must.” he answered quietly.

  “But the letter obviously bore a signature. Whose was it?”