by Deryn Lake
“Monsieur,” said the Provost, bowing, a fact which made the Dauphin smile a little, “welcome to the Bastille. My lodgings are at your disposal. May I suggest that you resume your broken sleep while we others plan the best way for you to leave Paris without danger.”
“I thank you for the thought,” Charles answered at once, “but I would rather be privy to your decision. After all, it is me that is going to have to do the escaping.”
It was said so quaintly that everyone laughed and with a great sense of camaraderie the five men, the difference in their ages and rank forgotten, went to the Provost’s quarters and sank down several flagons of good wine to raise their spirits and help their thoughts flow more brilliantly. And, so inspired, at about two in the small hours, the escape plan was formulated.
Visiting the prisoners that night and now unable to return to their Abbey were an order of monkish brothers, and it was soon decided that they, out of love for their King and his heir, should surrender their habits to the five gentlemen wishing to leave the city urgently. But then another problem was posed, namely that there was only one horse in the entire fortress and that belonging to Robert le Maçon.
“You must take it, Monsieur,” said the Chancellor. “The road to Melun is still clear, or was at the last reconnoitre. I insist that you go ahead, knowing we will follow as soon as other mounts have been found.”
“But I will be leaving you in danger.”
Guillaume d’Avagour, silent till now, said, “Monsieur, that really is beside the point. It is you not us who are heir to the throne and consequently the one to rally to your side those still loyal to our cause. If harm should befall you I think all our futures would be in the direst peril.”
So it was agreed and an hour before dawn Charles, dressed in the robes of a white friar and escorted by a band of fellow hooded monks, all on foot, left Paris by the only gate that had not yet fallen into Burgundian hands. But at the last second the Dauphin turned to Jean the Bastard.
“Bonne and Marie, you are certain they have already left?”
“I assure you of it, Monsieur,” answered Jean, crossing himself surreptitiously within the folds of his disguise.
“And all of you will only be an hour behind me?”
“At the most. We will go in search of horses as soon as you have gone.”
“Make your way straight to Melun, Monsieur,” ordered de Chastel, his voice harsh with strain. “Stop for nobody and nothing. Wait for us there but if we have not come within a day and a night, go to Angers and join the Regent.”
“And you?”
“We will find you, never fear.”
“God speed,” called Robert le Maçon as the boy wheeled in the gateway.
“Au revoir,” Charles called back, and with that galloped away from the city of Paris, a city that he was destined not to see again for another nineteen years.
They got out as best they could, the Dauphin’s men. Some went in disguise, some blatantly going through the gates. Pierre de Giac gave the Burgundian porter such a terrible look from eyes both wild and frightening that the man, thinking the Devil himself was leaving in the wake of the Armagnacs, let him through without demur.
Some journeyed on foot, amongst them Guy, who limped out dressed as a beggar in the company of the brothers Jean and Hervé du Mesnil, sons of Charles’s ex-governess who had now retired to Anjou. They took the guise of lepers and were let out of the city instantly. Others such as Jean Louvet, a fortune’s worth of Queen Isabeau’s confiscated jewels and coin carried in bags stitched under his saddle and cloak, left importantly, bearing a forged safe conduct apparently signed by Jean the Fearless himself.
Others, again, bribed their way out, the grand maître of the Dauphin’s household, Hardouin de Maille, together with Hugues de Noyer, doing just that, giving the gatekeeper more than he could earn in three years in order to go past him. Fortunately the two most senior men, Yolande’s previous Seneschal, Pierre de Beauvau, and Charles’s confessor, Gerard Machet, were visiting the Regent in Anjou at the time when the sickening massacre of all those suspected of pro-Armagnac leanings took place, and consequently were spared the danger and harsh necessity of escaping from the Burgundian coup.
Yet the hideous reprisals had an oddly beneficial effect on the Dauphin’s cause. The administrators of Paris, men of the University, from the judiciary and Parliament, suddenly found themselves not only unemployed but under threat, and abandoned fine houses and all the goods they could not carry with them as they rallied to the side of the true heir of France. Willy-nilly, a proper court was beginning to form itself.
But yet there were three victims unable to make their escape in time. The lunatic King continued to decay in his palace under house arrest, while Marie d’Anjou, given the Dauphin’s apartments, was told to keep utterly quiet, an unnecessary instruction in her case. As for Count Bernard d’Armagnac, the focus of so much hatred, he was hurled into the deepest dungeon in the Bastille and left to exist in constant darkness.
The rallying point for all these people who were now suddenly Dauphinists was the town of Charenton, where Tanneguy de Chastel was organising an army to go on the offensive against the Duke of Burgundy. Yet though his Gentlemen tried to stop Charles, he refused to be left out of the fight and insisted on riding with de Chastel’s troops, admitting to the Bastard that he was thoroughly enjoying every minute of it.
But the attempted storming of Paris ended in disaster. The people of the city, taxed beyond endurance by the Count d’Armagnac, and victims of the plague and starvation into the bargain, joined sides with Jean the Fearless and threw anything that came to hand at the invading force, who were reluctantly compelled to turn back. With the capital obviously impregnable, the Dauphinists had no choice but to withdraw to their territories surrounding the rivers Loire and Cher and set up a rival court and parliament, to which those who remained loyal now made their way from all over France.
It had been Bonne’s dearest wish to fly straight to Charles’s side, once having escaped the carnage in Paris. Yet de Giac, safely at his castle near Vincennes, would have none of it.
“Before I go to join the Dauphin I must pay my respects to his mother,” he had announced airily.
“But how can you?” Bonne had asked unwisely. “Surely you dare not be seen to have a foot in both camps?”
Even while the foolish girl had watched him, Pierre’s face had changed to that of a satyr.
“Why not, ma chérie? I would have thought you to know all about that situation.”
“What do you mean?” she had blundered on.
“Surely you understand? For are you not the greatest living exponent of the art, having a leg in each bed I mean? Or have you neglected mine so long that you have forgotten?”
His arm had shot out like a whip and grabbed her cloud of hair, wrenching her teeth in their sockets.
“What do you have to say to that, whore? Don’t you think it time you fulfilled your marital duties?”
Bonne had been unable to answer, terrified out of her wits.
“Can’t speak, eh? Well, I’ll get some sound out of you, even if I have to work to do it.”
He had raped her then, his organ enormous, battering and hurting until she finally did cry out. But not satisfied with that, Pierre had gone on to give her a beating, first with his hands and feet, then his evil tongued whip. Afterwards he had carried the barely conscious girl to the tower room where she and Charles had made love long ago, then he had thrown her on the bed.
“Don’t worry,” Bonne’s husband had whispered just before he left her. “I won’t abandon you here to die. Not because I give a damn about that but simply because, my little sweet, you are far too useful alive. For all I care the Dauphin can get astride you a hundred times a day, and you can do likewise. But tell your ugly boy from me that I will want a reward for being so obliging, and now he is setting up a court of his own I shall soon be asking for it.”
De Giac’s wife had moaned involunt
arily at this and Pierre’s voice had sharpened in tone.
“Now be quiet, do you hear, or I might forget my kind offer! If you behave yourself I will send Guy to you, if you don’t you can rot. Oh you needn’t look so surprised, the creature walked in this morning. He is a spy for the Dauphin of course, otherwise he would have gone straight to Bourges. However, the freak amuses me, so grotesque but such a good singer! He’ll make you fit for your lover again.”
De Giac had patted his codpiece obscenely. “And I’m certainly fit for mine, for only she knows how to pleasure me.” He had blown Bonne a mocking kiss. “Au revoir, my beauty. I’ll see you at court.”
“I curse you,” she had whispered silently, but those were the last coherent thoughts Bonne had as unconsciousness finally relieved all of her burning agony.
The brutal summer of 1418 gave way to autumn and the Dauphin, safe in the beautiful countryside of the Loire Valley, looked with love and delight on the subtle changes in the landscape, the curl of a leaf here, a colder evening there, a certain deepening in the colour of the sky. For much as Charles enjoyed the high season and its pleasurably lazy pursuits, he could only feel a sense of relief that this particular year was at last coming towards its end.
Following the coup and bloodbath of May, June had seen the death of Bernard d’Armagnac, dragged into the streets and killed after de Chastel’s unsuccessful attempt to re-take the city. Six weeks after that, Queen Isabeau had entered Paris in triumph, the Duke of Burgundy riding beside her carriage, and somewhere in her victory procession, the Devil’s man de Giac. Then, with the capital finally in Anglo-Burgundian hands, Henry V had begun a brutal siege at Rouen, a siege in which the people of the town very quickly came to exist on rats, and mice alone, while the ten thousand poor souls turned out into the ditch below the city wall because of their weakness consumed their own droppings and one another before they died.
In the teeth of this dire situation, Charles had been proclaimed Lieutenant-General of France, acting for his imbecile father, his task to defend the realm against the Burgundians. It was now up to him, fifteen years old and thrust unexpectedly to the forefront, to unite every loyal Frenchman behind him. And still, just when the Dauphin could do with all the encouragement he could get, there was no sign of his helpmate Bonne.
“You are sure you saw her going from Paris?” Charles asked the Bastard one September evening, repeating the question for about the millionth time since the Burgundian attack.
“I think I did,” Jean answered reluctantly. “But I suppose in hindsight I could have been mistaken in all that noise and confusion.”
“God’s Holy Mother!” came the violent reply. “For the first time, uncertainty. Did you see her go or didn’t you?”
“I don’t think I did,” said Jean, suddenly very serious.
“By Christ’s blood, I’ve a mind to dispense with you from my service,” hissed the Dauphin. “If there’s one thing I cannot tolerate it is a liar.”
It was the first argument the two young men had ever had in all their years together and Jean rose to his feet, his dark eyes flashing in his suave and handsome face.
“Well, know then, mon Prince, that I didn’t see your affianced bride go either, and that reports reached me only yesterday that the terrible rumours are true. She is still in Paris under house arrest, but I forbore to tell you knowing how desolated you would be.”
The heavy sarcasm was not lost on the Dauphin who seemed almost to have forgotten Marie d’Anjou’s existence, and he flushed as the Bastard stared at him angrily.
“So you lied to me completely on the night we escaped?”
“Yes, I lied, Monsieur, thinking only that you would not leave the city if Madame de Giac — and Madame Marie of course! — were not safe. I did what I considered best for both your royal self and the future of France.” He picked up his jewelled hat from where it lay on a chair. “I take my leave of you, mon Prince, and shall either assume my duties as an ordinary servant or return to Angers.”
He swept to the door, bristling with pride and indignation, but the Dauphin made no move to stop him, watching his friend go with a curious expression on his face.
It was beginning to settle on him, like an item of new clothing moulding to his shape and growing comfortable, the idea that he was, against all the odds, one day going to be King. And with it had come the realisation that no one, however well loved, must take advantage of the thing which the Dauphin represented, nor must anyone be allowed to manipulate, or attempt to do so, the heir to the throne of France. With a humourless smile at the magnitude of his inheritance, Charles crossed to his desk and rang a bell for a servant to attend him, looking out of the window at the fine autumn evening as he did so.
He had never in his life, except perhaps for his two wonderful years at the castle of Angers, lived in greater comfort, for on succeeding to the title of Dauphin, Charles had also become the Duke of both Touraine and Berri, and though the old Duke of Berri may indeed have been senile when he died he had in his day collected round him the most superb art treasures, all of which packed his castle to overflowing. And it was this castle, thoroughly modernised with money loaned by Jean Louvet, that the Dauphin had decided upon as his principal home.
Splendid views over the river Yèvre were his, hunting land and deer, to say nothing of a fine stable of thoroughbred horses. But the boy knew that all this was under threat, that Henry V’s ruthless march south would not stop with Normandy and its adjoining territories, that the Englishman would not be happy till the whole of France had bowed the knee to him.
As the servant appeared, Charles wrenched his mind to the present. “Come back in five minutes, if you will. I want you to take a letter to Monsieur the Bastard.”
The man bowed and left and Charles, with the flicker of a cunning smile, sat down at the desk. He was about to play a trick that would become typical of his tactics as both Dauphin and King, he was going to punish an unruly Gentleman by forgiving him; the statesmanlike manipulation of his courtiers had begun.
‘My dear Jean,’ he wrote. ‘As soon as you left the room I realised how greatly I had upset you, so I know you will be anxious to make amends for the lie that angered me, well intended though it undoubtedly was.
‘It strikes me that the best way harmony can be restored between us is for you to go on my behalf to Angers, where I would ask you to inform the Regent of Madame Marie’s plight, and ask how best we can work together to bring about her safe return. Secondly, I would beg you to find Madame de Giac for me. No doubt a man as resourceful as her husband would have escaped from Paris and it seems unlikely he would sacrifice anyone as useful to him as his wife. She is probably still at Vincennes which is too near the city for safety in my view. Request the couple to come to Bourges immediately at my express command.’
He signed the letter, ‘Charles le Dauphin’ and added a postscript.
‘I will not hear of your resignation as my Chamberlain. We have weathered too many storms together for me to accept such a thing.’
It was a neat turn of the tables and the Dauphin felt quite pleased with himself as he went to join Hardouin de Maille for a ride with their hawks, just the two of them alone in the clear crisp evening.
Apropos of nothing in particular — though Charles felt certain it was leading somewhere — the grand maître said, “I received a letter from my wife this morning,” as they mounted and set off, the birds being placed on their wrists by the falconer.
“Oh?”
“You are aware that she now serves the Duchess Yolande as one of the Regent’s ladies.”
“Yes.”
“Well, she writes to me that Monsieur René is about to leave Anjou, that the Duchess is sending him to Lorraine to take up residence with his future father-in-law. I hope it is not indiscreet of me, Monsieur, but I believe the Regent intends to invite you to visit the boy and say farewell.”
The Dauphin smiled. “It is indiscreet but I thank you for the news. I shall go if t
he war permits me.”
De Maille shot him a curious glance. The war, as such, had not moved sufficiently far south to be a daily threat, and yet Charles seemed in a constant state of frustration, itching to get at the enemy. There had also been a chilling incident in July, shortly after the boy had been made Lieutenant-General, which had showed him in a much tougher light than his courtiers had believed possible.
Riding at a discreet distance past the garrison at the castle of Azay-le-Rideau, firmly held in Burgundian hands, Charles, at the head of a troupe of men, had heard the soldiers on the battlements hurling insults at him. Phrases like ‘Bastard’, ‘Whore’s son’, and ‘Shove off, frog face’ had floated on the air, and the Dauphin had gone into an absolute frenzy. Turning his horse and ordering the charge himself, Charles and his men had taken the place by assault. Then the boy had exacted his revenge. The Captain had been beheaded and every other soldier in the garrison hanged, nearly three hundred people in all.
It had been a salutary lesson to all who thought him puny and every one of his Gentlemen, however well they knew him, had changed their opinion of this white-faced and implacable creature who would not countenance personal remarks and had no compunction about ordering the death sentence.
Now, as the leaves of the woods surrounding the castle crackled beneath their horses’ feet and the clear sweet air of the river blew the feathers on their hats, Hardouin ventured to say, “The war is indeed a pressing problem, Monsieur, but there is the bond of shared childhood between you and René. I am sure he would like to see you.”
Charles did not answer, staring instead at the sky, and the maître wondered if he had heard him. But the Dauphin was remembering the moment when he had realised for the first time that René d’Anjou’s extraordinary hands had been those described to him by Nicolas Flamel as belonging to a future Grand Master of that mystic order which seemed in some way to have power over the future hopes of France.