In the Shadow of the Enemy

by Tania Bayard

  ‘Don’t worry. Christine understands.’

  Francesca put her hands on her hips and shouted at Christine. ‘I can’t believe you’d leave Klara alone with this prostituta!’

  Christine drew her mother aside and whispered to her, ‘Marion thinks she knows how to make Klara behave.’

  ‘Questo è totalmente assurdo!’

  ‘What’s she saying?’ Marion wanted to know.

  ‘She says it’s absurd to think you can do anything with Klara.’

  ‘She doesn’t even know what I’m going to do.’

  ‘At least tell us where you’re taking her.’

  ‘I want her to meet someone. Not a prostitute, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  Klara said to Francesca, ‘You can’t tell me what to do. I’ll go with her if I want.’

  ‘We can’t stop her,’ Christine said. ‘She’s a married woman, capable of making up her own mind.’

  Francesca threw up her hands and stormed out of the room.

  Marion had Klara out the door before Christine could say anything else. But as they walked down the street away from the house, Klara dragged her feet, and Marion had to keep stopping to wait for her to catch up.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, Klara?’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to go with you. Where are we going, anyway?’

  ‘To the palace. You’ll see why when we get there.’

  But instead of turning up the rue Saint-Antoine, Marion went to the rue de l’Ave-Maria. When they came to a complex of buildings around a church, she said, ‘Christine told me you had a beguine helping you. She probably lives here.’

  Klara shrugged.

  ‘Haven’t you ever wondered about her?’

  ‘All I know is that her name is Agnes. I don’t like her. She has too many rules.’

  ‘That’s because she lives by those rules, as a beguine. They’re like nuns, but they aren’t, really. Most of them are poor women who just want to live peaceful, prayerful lives. They have to support themselves, so they go out to work, doing all kinds of jobs, including the one your husband gave Agnes, caring for an ungrateful girl like you.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that!’

  ‘I talk to you like that because you are ungrateful and uncaring. Your husband was kind enough to hire someone to help you, and you do nothing but complain. You act the same way with the people who’ve taken you into their home. You don’t know anything about them, and you don’t even want to know.’

  ‘I know that Christine is boring. She’s always out working for the queen while her mother stays home and takes care of the children, who are rude. What else is there to know?’

  ‘A lot.’

  Marion turned up another street and entered an area with trees and shrubs. Klara stopped. ‘I don’t want to go in there.’

  ‘Nonsense. You wanted to go to the palace. This is one of its orchards. There’s something special here.’

  ‘Just old trees with no leaves.’

  ‘Of course they don’t have leaves. It’s not spring yet. Although actually, the leaves are just coming out. Look. Can you see them?’

  ‘Sort of. Is that what you wanted to show me?’

  ‘No. Follow me.’

  They walked on until they came to a place where there were no trees, just a tall, sturdy stockade, much of it hidden under thick bushes and dead branches, and a large gate. They could hear something shuffling around on the other side of the enclosure.

  Klara turned and started to run away, but Marion caught her arm. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. You like animals, don’t you?’

  ‘What kind of animals?’

  ‘The king’s lions.’

  ‘Lions! They’re dangerous!’

  ‘These aren’t, not unless they’re provoked. I want you to meet the woman who takes care of them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she needs friends. You’re about the same age as she is, so you two should get along.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Her name is Loyse. She helps the king’s lion-keeper because he says he’s too old to do the job all by himself. She’s good with animals, the way you are with Goblin.’

  Between the palings of the stockade, they could see a shadowy figure moving around, and then, very slowly, the gate opened. Klara stepped back. ‘What if the lions escape?’

  ‘They won’t. See, she’s shutting the gate behind her, and the lions are safe inside.’

  Klara stared at the person who approached them, a woman dressed in rags, with matted auburn hair that swirled around her head and almost completely hid her face. Marion took Klara’s arm and drew her forward. ‘This is Loyse,’ she said.

  The two young women looked at each other. Then Loyse put out her hand and gently touched Klara’s cheek. Klara didn’t pull away; she seemed mesmerized.

  Loyse unbolted the gate and motioned for Klara to follow her. As if in a trance, Klara stepped gingerly into the lions’ stockade.

  ‘Why doesn’t she talk?’ Klara whispered to Marion, who was right behind her.

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  The interior of the lions’ stockade was not as dark and frightening as Klara had feared. A large trough of fresh water stood in one corner, and mounds of leaves and grass covered the ground, as though someone had tried to make comfortable places for the lions to sleep. Klara started to back away when she saw six lions standing quietly, staring at her. Loyse went up to one of them and put her arms around his neck.

  ‘I could never do that,’ Klara whispered to Marion.

  ‘Of course you could.’

  Loyse beckoned to Klara, and the girl tiptoed gingerly up to the lion. Loyse indicated that she should put her hand on his mane. The lion turned his head and leaned it against Klara’s chest. ‘I guess they aren’t so different from Goblin,’ Klara said.

  Loyse grabbed another lion by his mane and pulled him forward. And then another. Soon Klara was surrounded by all six lions. She looked frightened, and then she relaxed. She stroked the lions’ heads, while Loyse looked on, smiling. After a while Klara said to Marion, ‘You come and pet them, too.’

  ‘It’s time to go now,’ Marion said.

  Klara looked disappointed, but she followed Marion out of the stockade. Loyse shut the gate after them and watched them as they made their way through the orchard back toward the street.

  ‘Tell me about her,’ Klara said excitedly. ‘Why doesn’t she speak?’

  ‘Can’t you guess? She’s deaf. She can’t hear, and so she never learned to talk. When her mother came to work at the court, she found out that the lion-keeper wanted a helper, and because she didn’t know what else to do with her, she let Loyse become his assistant.’

  ‘How did you come to know her?’

  ‘It’s a long story. All I’ll tell you now is that her mother was a murderess, and the woman you find so boring tracked her down and exposed her before the wrong woman could be burned at the stake.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. You’re too busy feeling sorry for yourself. What’s so bad about the life you’ve led, anyway?’

  ‘Nothing, I suppose. Martin is kind enough. But he’s too old. And I don’t like living in the city. It’s better when we go to Martin’s house in the country.’

  ‘House in the country? Where?’

  ‘Somewhere outside the Temple Gate, past a village called La Courtille.’

  ‘Do you like it there?’

  ‘Yes. Martin’s house is big, and it’s on a farm with animals and gardens and orchards.’

  They were passing the beguinage, and Klara looked glum. ‘Agnes comes with us to the house in the village. She spoils everything.’

  ‘I can’t imagine she’s as bad as you say.’

  ‘You don’t know her.’

  ‘You don’t seem to like anyone very much, Klara.’

  ‘I don’t have any friends.’ Klara bent down, picked up a stone lying in the roa
d, and tossed it up in the air. ‘How is it that you’re friends with Christine? You’re a prostitute.’

  ‘That’s part of the long story you don’t know yet. But I’ll tell you a secret. Do you see this embroidered belt I’m wearing?’

  ‘It’s pretty.’

  ‘I made it myself. I make lots of embroidered things, like belts and purses and collars. And I sell them. That’s how I make most of my living now. But I haven’t told Christine and her mother yet. Francesca gets so upset about my being a prostitute. I like to watch her fuss.’

  ‘I’ll bet Christine knows already,’ Klara said.

  Marion walked on in silence for a while, lost in thought. Then she said, ‘Has anyone gone to see whether your husband is staying at his farm near La Courtille?’

  ‘His steward, Jehan, went out there, but they told him no one had seen Martin for a while.’

  ‘I wonder about that,’ Marion said under her breath.

  TWENTY

  There are so many perils at the court, it’s hard to stay safe.

  Eustache Deschamps (c. 1340–1404), Ballade 208

  Marion and Klara returned home to find Christine and Francesca sitting in the kitchen, looking worried. Francesca jumped up and ran to Klara. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course she’s all right. What did you think I’d done to her?’ Marion sniffed.

  Francesca put her arm around Klara’s shoulder and made her sit down on the bench. ‘Tell us where you have been.’

  Klara looked at Marion. ‘It’s a secret,’ she said.

  The children filed into the room and gathered around Klara. ‘I’ll bet she’s done something naughty,’ Thomas said.

  ‘I have not! Enfant morveux.’

  ‘I am not,’ Thomas cried. ‘And anyway, it’s better to have a snotty nose than no nose at all!’

  Francesca slapped him. ‘I do not want to hear you say that ever again.’

  Christine went to Marion and whispered, ‘Whatever you did with Klara doesn’t seem to have helped much.’

  ‘But it has. Be patient, and you’ll see. We have other things to think about, like the big problem Henri Le Picart left us with.’

  ‘I know. But I’m too tired to think about it tonight. I’m going to bed.’

  ‘No supper?’ Francesca asked. Christine didn’t hear; she was already at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Where’s Goblin?’ Klara asked, and the dog came running to her.

  ‘Are you planning to take him with you when you go back to your house?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘I’m sure Klara knows he is our dog,’ Francesca said.

  The children sat down to their supper, grumbling, and Klara flounced up the stairs, clutching Goblin to her chest.

  Marion left. We really do have to find that girl’s husband, she thought.

  In the kitchen the next morning, Christine found Lisabetta watching Francesca and Georgette make an onion tart. Francesca shaped the pastry dough, and Georgette, sniffling and wiping her watering eyes with a dish towel, chopped the onions, dropping pieces onto the floor. Francesca looked at the girl and muttered something under her breath.

  Georgette looked up. ‘Why can’t I make the dough and you do the chopping?’

  ‘No,’ Francesca said as she patted the dough around the inside of a ceramic tart pan she’d brought from Italy. The pan, which would be covered with a ceramic lid and buried in the live embers of the fire, was fragile, and she wasn’t about to let the clumsy girl handle it.

  Georgette started to protest, when there was a knock on the door. Christine went to open it and found Colin.

  ‘The queen wants you,’ he said.

  She went upstairs to get her writing materials. When she came back down, she found Lisabetta and her mother in the hall waiting for her. She put on her cloak, took Lisabetta in her arms, and asked, ‘Do you know what grand’maman is going to say?’

  The little girl nodded. ‘Don’t go there. There are evil spirits.’

  ‘There, Mama. She’s said it, so you don’t have to.’

  Francesca stomped back into the kitchen.

  Colin said, ‘I’ll walk with you,’ and they went out into the street. On the rue Saint-Antoine several pastry vendors approached them. Christine bought a pork pasty from one, a sweet wafer from another, and a marzipan tart from a third, giving everything to Colin, hoping that on a full stomach he might be induced to talk about Martin du Bois. But when she questioned him, he just shrugged and walked on, ignoring her. At the palace he hurried across the courtyard and disappeared.

  In the queen’s chambers, Isabeau, dressed in an emerald-green houppelande with a pearl-studded belt and a diamond circlet, sat on her day bed. The Duchess of Burgundy, wearing a black gown with blood-red rubies at the neck, stood over her with a malevolent look on her long, severe face. The queen tried to meet her gaze, but the duchess looked so menacing, she had to turn away, and when she did, she saw Christine standing at the door. She raised her hand in greeting but seemed powerless to summon her.

  Alips, who’d been standing behind a large chair, came over to Christine, followed by the greyhound, and drew her into the hallway.

  ‘The queen wants to talk to you, but the duchess is there, so no one else can get near her, not even her ladies-in-waiting. They’ve all left. I was hiding, and the duchess didn’t see me.’

  ‘Brother Michel warned me about the duchess.’

  ‘I know she’s treacherous.’

  ‘You’re not afraid of her?’

  ‘Did he tell you I should be?’

  ‘He did. He says you shouldn’t be listening to people’s conversations. He was adamant about it.’

  ‘What about your friend Marion? Did he say she should be careful, too?’

  ‘Do you know Marion?’

  ‘I know all about how she helped you save Alix de Clairy. I’m sure she’s helping you now. I’d like to meet her.’

  ‘I don’t think she’d be welcome here.’

  ‘She’s already been here. I’ve seen her talking to some of the guards.’

  Christine started to laugh. ‘I mean, she won’t be coming to see the queen, at least not if the Duchess of Burgundy has anything to say about it.’

  The queen looked pale and tired, and when Madame de Malicorne appeared with her baby and placed him in her arms, she fondled the little prince listlessly. Everything in the room seemed to have been infected by the duchess’s malicious demeanor. The golden fleurs-de-lis in the tapestries didn’t shine, the silver bowls and crystal goblets on the sideboard had lost their sparkle, the glass in the windows admitted no colored light.

  The duchess waved Madame de Malicorne away; Isabeau sighed as she watched her go.

  Guillaume ran to the duchess and fell to his knees. ‘Shall I speak now, Madame?’ he asked. The duchess tried to step around him, but he shifted around to keep her from passing.

  ‘You fool! Don’t you know I could have you hanged?’ she asked.

  He sprang to his feet, pranced to the other side of the room, and fell to the floor, shouting, ‘You’re right. I’m a fool. But you won’t have me hanged.’

  Gracieuse picked up her lute and sang something in Spanish.

  ‘I think the song has something to do with the duchess,’ Alips said. Jeannine seemed to understand. She cast sly glances at the scowling duchess and giggled.

  The queen, who usually laughed at Guillaume’s antics, sat morosely, looking sadly at her baby.

  ‘You’ve got to help her,’ Alips said.

  ‘What can I do? Right now I can’t even talk to her. The duchess is there.’

  ‘Not for long,’ the dwarf said. She grasped the greyhound’s jeweled collar and whispered something in his ear. The dog ran toward the duchess, barking. She gave a little cry and put her hands over her face. The queen spoke sharply to the dog, and he sat, making soft growling sounds.

  ‘Get that beast out of here,’ the duchess commanded.

  ‘He won’t hurt you,’ the queen said. The duc
hess was not reassured. She called to one of her ladies and swept out of the room.

  The queen beckoned to Christine, who went in and knelt.

  ‘Have you learned anything?’

  ‘I have many questions, Madame.’

  ‘You are clever. You will find the answers.’ The queen rocked the baby and tickled his stomach. The little prince didn’t laugh; he just looked at his mother and started to cry.

  Guillaume ran over. He made faces, waved his cap, and did a few somersaults, but nothing helped. Madame de Malicorne came in and took the wailing baby away.

  ‘Please go to your work,’ the queen said to Christine. ‘Come back to me later.’

  Christine knelt quickly, went to the room where she did her copying, and sat at the desk. Alips followed and stood at her side.

  ‘There’s something I didn’t tell her,’ Christine said. ‘The person who threw the torch seems to have thrown a golden spur as well.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Henri Le Picart told me.’

  ‘I know who he is.’

  ‘He found the spur on the floor of the ballroom. He thinks it’s one of the golden spurs taken at the sack of Courtrai.’

  ‘I didn’t see anything like that, it all happened so fast. It makes sense, though, if the Duchess of Burgundy is responsible. She couldn’t have done it herself, so she got someone else to throw the torch, perhaps someone who’s angry at the king because of what he did in Courtrai. Her father is the Count of Flanders, so she has lots of Flemish connections.’

  Alips had her arms around the greyhound, which had followed her. How little she is, Christine thought. She’s not much taller than the dog.

  ‘I’ve found out something else about the Duchess of Burgundy,’ Alips said. ‘Do you remember that when the king was on his way to fight the Duke of Brittany last summer, a ragged man jumped out of the woods and told him to turn back because he was betrayed?’

  ‘I’ve heard the story many times.’

  ‘The Duchess of Burgundy put the man up to it. Only it wasn’t a man. It was a boy.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I heard the duchess tell her husband. She didn’t want the king to fight the Duke of Brittany, so she got a boy to dress in rags and scare him away.’