The King's Women

by Deryn Lake

  “Monsieur, she says she has seen a vision, or several to be precise. She says that she has been chosen to save France. That she is the virgin selected by heaven to come to the King’s rescue.”

  “A virgin you say? Does she by any chance live near woods?” asked René, his saturnine face suddenly rapt and attentive.

  Alison looked at him sharply. “Yes, she does. She comes from Domrémy, near Chesnu Woods. How did you know?”

  René stroked his chin with long, thin fingers. “Because of an ancient prophecy. A woman called Marie d’Avignon long ago predicted the salvation of France by a virgin. Furthermore, according to certain things known privily to my order, Chesnu Woods has been named as the place from which the girl will come.”

  Alison narrowed her eyes. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, very. It has been so predicted. Now, tell me about her. How old is she?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Ah! So it could well be the onset of puberty causing her to see and hear these things.”

  “Quite possibly. She also fasts a great deal, for what reason I do not know.”

  “Umm. That too could lead to delusions,” René answered matter-of-factly. He may well be Grand Master of a strange and mystic society, whose sworn purpose was deliberately shrouded in mystery, but he was at the same time very much a practical young man of the world.

  “Indeed it could.”

  “Is she quite sane?”

  “It would appear so. She is really a simple creature at heart. Poor little thing, I feel rather sorry for her.”

  “How did you get to hear about all this?”

  “I visit her parents every few months, give them money for small luxuries for her, that sort of thing. She’s told them nothing, by the way, but confessed her secret to a friend, who waylaid me as I left and whispered it in my ear. But when I taxed the child about it she cried and begged me to tell no one.”

  “Why?”

  “She thought her voices might go away if they became publicly known.”

  “Voices? I understood she saw things as well?”

  “She does.”

  “What?”

  “Various saints come to her.” Alison’s eyes twinkled. “They speak to her in ydioma Franck apparently.”

  “That’s as well,” said René, and laughed his hilarious laugh despite the solemnity of the topic.

  “It’s an hallucination, isn’t it?” said Alison. “I mean there have been so many of these prophetesses and holy virgins. She’s bound to have heard about them and now thinks she is one.”

  “If it weren’t for the odd coincidence of Chesnu Woods.” René pressed his fingers together. “Alison, I want to meet her. Can you arrange it?”

  “She’s very nervous. She truly thinks this thing — whatever it is — will stop if it becomes common knowledge.”

  “Tell her I can help her. That if it really is her mission to save France she will need assistance.”

  “I’ll try.” Alison hesitated. “René, you won’t exploit her, will you? She is so pathetically earnest.”

  “I’ll take care of her. I shall treat her with the respect I would give a sister.”

  His companion lost colour so fast that the Prince wondered if she were going to faint. “What’s the matter? Are you quite well, Madame?” he asked anxiously.

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Alison fanned herself with her hand. “Forgive me. It’s the heat.”

  “You’re certain?”

  Madame du May nodded.

  “Then I look forward to hearing news of the meeting soon. What did you say the girl’s name was?”

  “She’s known as Jehannette to her family and friends but she’s actually called Jehanne.”

  “Any other name?”

  “Dare. Her father is the keeper of the Domrémy cattle pound.”

  “Jehannette Dare,” said René thoughtfully. “It doesn’t really sound like the saviour of France, does it?”

  And with those fateful words the audience between them ended.

  The new Constable of France, sworn into office in March 1425, had already made some sweeping changes at court. He had, as part of his inaugural oath, pledged to love, sustain and support those men who surrounded the King: Louvet, Tanneguy de Chastel, Guillaume d’Avagour, Pierre de Giac and his homosexual partner, Pierre Frotier. But three months later they had all been sent into exile with the exception of de Giac and de Chastel, though the last named was shortly to follow his friends. It had been an apparent disaster for Charles as Richemont took the law into his own hands, but after the news of the banishments had been made public he had smiled his glittering smile at Marie and said, “Good.”

  “You’re not sorry?”

  “A bit about Tanneguy, he was a friend. But Marie, ma chérie, the rest were all getting too sure of themselves. Why, Louvet practically owned me body and soul I owed him so much money.”

  “Well, now he’s gone,” answered the Queen practically, “and we can get The Mirror back.”

  “Yes,” said Charles, and laughed.

  “You,” commented his wife, “are a cynical little beast,” and she tickled his ribs, happier than ever after several years of marriage.

  Yet it was all true. With the old wave of courtiers seen off by Richemont another way of life could start, and this one without the worry of owing Louvet a small fortune, the security for which had been Charles’s great diamond, nicknamed The Mirror.

  “I think you play one lot off against the other,” said Marie thoughtfully.

  “I have to survive,” answered Charles, “and they were trying to swamp me. Anyway Robert le Maçon, who saved my life in Paris, can come back now his enemies are gone. And I am pleased about that.”

  “Is there anything else behind all this?”

  “Possibly that your mother and the Duke of Brittany will soon be meeting with a view to making peace. And he never trusted Lou vet, you know.”

  “Skulduggery indeed! But then of course the Duke and Richemont are brothers and Richemont would do anything for my mother.” Marie paused. “Why hasn’t de Giac been sent away? Is it because of Bonne?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still love her?”

  “A little bit.”

  “Oh, well,” Marie answered, sighing.

  But it was she who ruled the roost and she knew it. When Charles was at leisure amongst his courtiers, Marie would sit on one side of the room, contentedly pregnant, her baby son playing about her feet, his infant sister bouncing on her mother’s lap; meanwhile, on the other would be Bonne, thin as wire, pale and lovely, obviously envious. Everyone wondered at the Queen’s ability to shine against such fierce competition, yet shine she did.

  The epitome of the contented married man, Charles would exchange little glances and signals with his wife throughout the entire evening. Everyone knew by now that they invariably shared the same bed, and it was said that Marie had found the one thing she was good at and that it certainly kept the King at her side. The consensus of opinion was that these days Bonne de Giac was someone more to be pitied than anything else.

  “She’s still very beautiful, you see,” Charles put in now, as if to justify himself.

  “Beautiful and sad. Poor Bonne. Are you tired, Monsieur?”

  “Very. Hold me close and let me sleep.”

  “Of course,” said Marie, and in the darkness smiled to herself the sweet small smile of satisfaction.

  *

  René d’Anjou did not know quite what he had been expecting of Jehannette Dare but, whatever it might have been, the first sight of her came as both a surprise and shock. A tallish girl, about five feet two inches, which was large compared to other females of her age, she did not have the skinny body he would have associated with a creature who fasted so often. Rather, Jehannette was stocky, almost powerful, with a full throat and muscular shoulders and thighs. René’s conscious idea that girls who saw visions should have blonde hair, be pale and wan, was also firmly dismissed. Thi
s odd little thing had hair black as a rook’s and dark penetrating eyes fringed by a set of thick lashes.

  Yet despite her vivid colouring and tanned skin there was nothing really feminine about the child, her breasts as yet undeveloped, her manner boyish and brusque. His practical mind, so often at odds with his mystical training, briefly ran over the possibility that the girl might be one of those creatures whose sexuality remains somewhat dubious throughout the whole of their lives.

  “Jehannette?” René said softly, and putting his hand beneath her elbow drew her gently to one side.

  It had been arranged by Alison du May that he go to the glade in the Chesnu Woods on a certain appointed day and time and that Jehannette’s friend, Blanche, would bring her to meet him there, unbeknownst to the family.

  “She’ll only come if she thinks you are going to help her,” Alison had repeated. “You will be kind to her, won’t you René?”

  “I shall find out what she believes herself,” he had answered, growing very slightly impatient with Madame du May’s protective attitude towards the child, “and act accordingly. Does that satisfy you?”

  But now he was here, staring the strange young girl directly in the eye, he could sympathise with Alison’s mother-hen approach. There was something vulnerable and sad about Jehannette, there could be no doubt of it.

  “Show me where the saints come to you,” René added gently. “Is it by that spring over there?”

  She flushed dark as damask then spoke for the first time. Despite her appearance her voice was feminine enough, low and quiet, but her accent was atrocious and the thought that her visions spoke to her in the local patois had a grin that would not be suppressed crossing René’s features before he could stop it.

  “You’re laughing at me,” she said angrily.

  “No I’m not, I’m merely smiling,” he countered.

  The girl looked furious and just for a second, very strangely, in the set of her head, the wing of a brow, René saw a distinct resemblance to his own mother, Yolande d’Anjou.

  “Don’t be angry,” he said, “I have come to help you. If you are going to save France you really must trust me, you know.”

  The dark eyes became positively molten with suspicion. “My visions are not to be mocked. They have come to me, they did tell me I must aid the Dauphin and get back France.”

  “I don’t dispute it for one second,” René answered smoothly. “I am merely questioning whether the voices told you how?”

  Jehannette looked vague. “I can’t answer that exactly. They only said to me that the King should have his kingdom again whether his enemies liked it or not.”

  René narrowed his gaze very slightly. There could be no disputing the fact that the girl was sincere, blazingly honest in fact.

  “I hear you fast a lot,” he said casually.

  Jehannette looked defensive. “Yes, on saints’ days.”

  “And other days as well?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why do you do it? Does it help you see your visions more clearly?”

  “In a way.” She glared again. “You don’t believe me, do you? You think I imagine things.”

  “But do you think you imagine things?” René answered, soft as silk.

  “I know that I don’t! I know my visions are real and are not demons sent to torment me. I know that my mission is to save France because they told me so.”

  “Then that,” the Prince replied firmly, “is all that really matters.”

  “Is Jehanne mad?” asked Alison later that night as she and René sat before the fire in her apartments, the Prince having come to report to her on the day’s events.

  “Not in the sense of being a danger to herself or others, no. But she is not normal, whatever that might mean.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought normal people ever see visions,” Alison answered tartly.

  “They don’t,” René countered. “Normal people don’t do anything a great deal. But Madame, there is no question of lunacy to be answered here. I went to find out if the girl is sincere or an attention seeking faker, and the answer is that she is absolutely genuine. She believes visions come to her. But whether they do or do not none of us, not even she, will ever know for certain.”

  Alison accepted this in silence, unusually sombre, or so René thought.

  “So what are your plans for her?” she asked finally.

  “I am going to get her trained.”

  “As what?”

  “A soldier of course.”

  “A soldier!” Madame du May exclaimed in horror. “A thirteen-year-old girl!”

  René had not been raised as Grand Master to no effect. He stood up and loomed over the seated woman.

  “Madame, it has been prophesied that a virgin from Chesnu Woods will be the saviour of France. Such a virgin has now appeared. Yet there is no conceivable way that this creature, strong though she be, could lead any army, ride a war horse or handle the weapons in common usage. If a miracle is to take place it must be orchestrated and planned.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Precisely what I say. Full of God’s visions she may be but they won’t prevent her from getting an aching arse when she rides a cavalry horse.”

  “René!”

  “It’s true, Alison. Come along with you.” Then the Grand Master paused momentously. “So I am sending her to Scotland to join the only part of the military brotherhood which escaped persecution.”

  “Jehanne is to become a member of the Knights Templar?”

  “Yes, a letter bearing my signature will go with the girl. She will leave early next year when she is fourteen and return to France only when she is fully prepared.”

  “But what of her parents? What of the girl herself?”

  “Next week I shall receive her into l’Ordre de la Fidélité to give her more prestige.” His tone became gentle. “Alison, a life as a warrior-nun, a soldier-mystic, will suit her. How can she live as other girls now that this thing, real or imaginary, has happened to her? Let her fulfil the destiny that has been decreed for her.”

  But Madame du May was still not happy, he could see it in her eyes.

  “She’s your child, isn’t she?” said René, very directly. “No, she’s not, I swear it.”

  “But there’s something unusual about her parentage and you know what it is.”

  Alison stood up, her plump form settling itself into rigid lines.

  “If there is — and I’m not admitting it — you can be certain that I will have taken an oath never to reveal the truth, and by that oath I intend to stand until the day I die. All I will say is that Jehanne is special and should be treated with respect.”

  “If she is admitted into one of the most exalted orders in the world I can think of no greater honour.”

  “But…”

  René visibly lost his patience. “Enough, Madame. I have made my decision as Grand Master and will brook no further interference. I order you now to make no move to stop Jehanne entering the order.”

  “I am not bound by your rules,” she answered boldly.

  “Indeed not. But the Priory of Sion is not without certain powers and influence. I advise you to leave well alone.”

  And with that he poured himself out of the room, all dark eyes and scowling features, every inch the son of Yolande d’Anjou.

  Alison wrung her hands in a torment of indecision. It was her bounden duty to write to Jehanne’s mother at once informing her of all the strange and mysterious things that were happening to her bastard daughter. Yet such facts written down would be highly dangerous. A compromise must be found. Eventually, after much heart-searching, Madame du May went to her desk and scratched a terse note to the Queen of Sicily and Duchess of Anjou.

  ‘Madame la Reine: There is much that I would say to you on so many different subjects. I long to see you and talk as once we used. Could we perhaps meet at some point convenient to us both before the ways become too treacherous? I await your reply with
much eagerness. Ever your loving servant, Alison du May.’

  “Oh, please, ma Reine, understand the urgency of this,” she said as she put her seal into the wax. “I do not know what to do for the best. Oh, God help me — and also help poor hapless Jehanne to come to no mortal harm in this world.”

  Twenty-Six

  The ritual had been long, slow and terrifying, building up to a horrific climax which had both drained and elated the two principal enactors, Pierre de Giac and his handsome new henchman, Gilles de Rais, a young Breton nobleman who had arrived at court in the autumn of 1425, instantly taking the place of the recently banished Pierre Frotier.

  The impact of Gilles on de Giac had left the older man gasping. Up to this time he had considered himself the master of all that was evil but now he bowed to a superior. There could be no doubt that de Rais, still only twenty-one when the two men had met, was by far the most wicked creature living. Pierre de Giac had fallen in love with him at once. And with this love had come revelation. Pierre, who had always used animal sacrifices as part of his satanic rituals, now allowed his young companion to persuade him otherwise.

  “To please our Dark Master we should have infants to offer, must give him their soft sweet blood to drink. To turn base metal to gold, as I know how to do, the essential ingredients are the hearts, hands and eyes, and above all the blood, of young children. We must have them, Pierre.”

  “But how? Where do we find such creatures?”

  “You can leave that to me.”

  “But we might be discovered.”

  “It is worth the risk. For only by human sacrifice does true power come. Why do you think you have risen so high and no higher?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because you are not pleasing him. Once Satan sees you are prepared to bow to his demands you will be rewarded in full.”

  And it was true. No sooner had Gilles de Rais started to procure babies and young boys as terrified participants in the couple’s vile practices than de Giac had gone from strength to strength. A woman who satisfied him had finally come into his life, the first since his relationship with the gross Queen Isabeau had ended, and then promotion at court had followed. Much to de Giac’s amazement, Charles had made him First Chamberlain, though for what hidden motive Pierre could not tell.