In the Shadow of the Enemy

by Tania Bayard

  ‘Yes. A while ago. The girl who came to find you was with her. What has happened?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Christine said as she and Marion ran out into the street.

  There was no sign of Willem and Klara. Instead, Henri Le Picart strode up to them.

  ‘Willem has run away,’ Christine cried.

  ‘Calm yourself.’

  ‘Don’t tell me to be calm! We found him!’

  ‘And you let him get away? Why can’t you women ever do anything right?’

  Christine lashed out at him with her fists. He took hold of her hands to make her stop. She took a deep breath and said, ‘Willem disguised himself as the mother of the queen’s fool. He stole a set of playing cards the queen intended to give the king and painted them with orpiment.’

  ‘You discovered this?’

  ‘I suppose you don’t think a woman is capable of such a thing!’

  Henri looked a bit chagrined. Christine even thought he might apologize. But all he said was, ‘The king would poison himself. Very clever. Where did the boy get the paint?’

  ‘He stole it from Jacquemin the illuminator.’

  ‘It was the beguine who did the painting.’

  Christine had to admit that he was probably right. She remembered Jacquemin saying that the boy had never learned much. Agnes hadn’t done a very good job with the paint, either.

  Henri said, ‘When I saw them together near the Châtelet, she was returning the cards to him.’

  ‘Do you think it was her idea to throw a lighted torch at the king?’ Marion asked.

  ‘No doubt,’ Henri said. ‘She was surely the one who prompted the boy to get entry to the palace.’

  ‘And she probably knew about the masquerade because she heard Huguet de Guisay bragging about it in the street, just like I did,’ Marion said.

  ‘But how could they have known that Jeannine’s mother was going to visit her?’ Christine asked as she wrenched her hands away from Henri’s. ‘And where is the real mother now?’

  ‘I know,’ said Colin, who’d suddenly appeared. ‘I’ll take you there.’

  FORTY-NINE

  The work here is very hard, often turning night into day and day into night. The poor sick people have to be kept clean, lifted, laid down, bathed, wiped, given food and drink, carried from one bed to another, covered, set into bathing tubs. Their beds have to be made and remade, their rags have to be cleaned every day in clear water, the cloths they wear on their feet have to be warmed, eight or nine hundred sheets have to be washed in lye and rinsed in clear water every week, wood has to be brought for the fires, the ashes have to be relit, sheets have to be washed in the Seine when there is ice, wind, and rain, spread out in the galleries in the summer, dried by the fire in winter, and folded. The dead have to be wrapped in winding sheets, and there are many other laborious and painful tasks.

  Jehan Henry, Livre de vie active de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, c. 1482

  ‘I’m going to look for Willem,’ Henri announced. ‘You two go with Colin.’

  Will he never stop ordering me around? Christine asked herself as she and Marion ran after the boy. They struggled to keep up as he raced through the courtyard, out into the street, down the rue Saint-Antoine, through the place de Grève, and across the Planche-Mibray to the Île.

  ‘Why is he taking us to the cathedral?’ Marion asked breathlessly as they went up the rue Neuve Notre-Dame.

  ‘He isn’t,’ Christine said. ‘He’s taking us to the Hôtel Dieu.’

  Colin had gone to the main entrance of the hospital, an enormous building that stood on the south side of the parvis of Notre-Dame. He pulled the chain of a large bell, and a woman in a white habit and a black veil opened the heavy door. Colin spoke to her for a moment, and she motioned that they should all come in. They followed her though a long corridor, at the end of which another woman, wearing a similar white habit and black veil, waited. ‘This is Sister Hélène,’ Colin said.

  They followed the sister into a huge room with many beds and an altar at one end. She led them to a bed with two women in it. One was fat and had a bandaged leg. The other was thin and grey-haired, and she had a large bandage around her head. Colin went to the second woman and said, ‘This is Jaquiette, Jeannine the fool’s mother.’

  The woman looked at her visitors hopefully.

  Sister Hélène shook her head. ‘All she says is that she wants to go to the queen.’

  ‘How do you know who she is?’ Christine asked Colin.

  ‘Because I talked to her once. Don’t you recognize her? She’s the woman we saw in the cemetery at the church of Saint-Pol.’

  ‘The woman who’d been struck on the head, who’d been lying under a tree all night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Christine was about to question Colin further, but she stopped. She didn’t want the boy to say too much in front of the other woman in the bed.

  ‘I keep telling Sister Hélène that Jaquiette is not out of her mind,’ Colin said. ‘She should go to the queen, so she can see her daughter.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Christine said to the sister. ‘This woman is supposed to be at the palace. Her daughter is the queen’s fool.’

  Jaquiette started to cry. Sister Hélène stroked her forehead.

  ‘So can she go there now?’ Colin asked.

  ‘She was badly hurt, and she should have another day or two to recover,’ Sister Hélène said. ‘Also, she needs some clothes. She had only her chemise when she came here.’

  ‘The boy who hit her took the rest of her clothes, and he’s been wearing them,’ Christine said.

  The sister looked puzzled. ‘It’s hard to explain,’ Christine said.

  ‘I want to know all about it.’

  Christine looked around the room. There were about fifty beds. In each there were two or three patients, and five sisters rushed back and forth caring for them. One was spooning broth into the mouth of an old woman who could barely sit up, another was helping a woman put slippers on so she could go to the privy, another was lifting patients so she could change the sheets where someone had vomited, and another was making the bed of someone who had just died. Christine watched attendants carry the corpse from the room, and she thought about the hard life these sisters had and how little they saw of the outside world. She looked at Sister Hélène’s hands, noted that they were red and chapped, and wondered whether she had to help launder the sheets in the cold winter waters of the Seine. She decided that task was probably left to the novices. Nevertheless, Sister Hélène’s eyes were rimmed with red, and she looked very tired; she’d obviously been hard at work for many hours. Yet she was looking at her eagerly, wanting to know the story of the poor woman who lay on the bed before them. Christine was not about to reveal everything that was happening at the palace, but she decided to tell her some of it.

  The woman with her leg in a cast was listening. Christine smiled at her. ‘We mustn’t disturb you.’

  Sister Hélène adjusted the woman’s bedclothes, told Jaquiette she would return soon, and led the visitors to a small chapel. ‘We can talk privately here.’

  ‘Jaquiette really is the mother of the queen’s fool Jeannine,’ Christine said.

  ‘Do tell me how she came to be here in such a condition.’ Sister Hélène’s eyes sparkled.

  ‘Perhaps Colin is the best one to tell you that.’

  The sister looked at Colin. ‘It seems you have some explaining to do.’

  Colin looked shamefaced. ‘It’s my fault she got hurt.’

  Marion couldn’t help interjecting, ‘Your big mouth got you into trouble, didn’t it?’

  ‘It did.’ The boy looked as though he would cry. ‘I used to see Willem in the street, and we got to talking, and I started bragging about how I know everything that goes on at the palace. I told him the queen likes me and gives me messages to deliver. I told him about the fool, and how her mother was coming to visit her. Willem wanted to know all about it, so I told him I’d let
him know when the mother arrived. When the woman was found lying under the tree, I knew what had happened. He’d hit her and taken her clothes. I had no idea what he was planning to do after that.’ He started to cry.

  ‘Didn’t you recognize him in the queen’s chambers?’

  ‘No. He’d disguised himself so well.’

  ‘You’re not as clever as you think you are,’ Marion said.

  ‘I think we must forgive Colin,’ Sister Hélène said. ‘He followed the men who brought her here, and he’s been here every day since. He talks to her and tries to get her to remember who she is and where she was going.’

  ‘But she does remember,’ Colin wailed. ‘It’s just that you don’t believe her.’

  ‘Well, I believe her now. But what I want to know is, what happened to the boy who stole her clothes?’

  ‘That’s what we all want to know,’ Christine said. ‘He’s caused a lot of trouble at the palace, and now he’s disappeared. We need to find him, but we don’t know where to look.’

  ‘Didn’t Jeannine know he wasn’t a woman? Didn’t she know it wasn’t her mother?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Christine said. ‘She seemed to ignore him, but she doesn’t talk much, and no one knows what she thinks.’

  ‘Perhaps she was paying more attention than you realize,’ Sister Hélène said. ‘Ask her whether she knows where the boy went.’

  Why didn’t I think of that? Christine asked herself. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We have to get back to the palace right away.’

  ‘Colin can stay here,’ Sister Hélène said. ‘I must attend to other patients. Jaquiette will get better faster if she has the boy at her side.’ She turned to go, and then said over her shoulder, ‘Tell Jeannine her real mother will be joining her soon.’

  FIFTY

  The lion is cruel and wood when he is wroth, and biteth and grieveth himself for indignation, and gnasheth with his teeth.

  Bartholomaeus Anglicus, thirteenth century

  Christine and Marion hurried back to the palace. At the entrance to the queen’s residence Simon greeted them sadly. ‘I’m afraid Loyse is not doing well.’

  In the queen’s chambers, Alips was sitting in the queen’s big high-backed chair, wrapped in a red blanket. She was slumped over and in pain, but she looked up when she realized Christine was standing over her. ‘I have a very hard head,’ she rasped.

  ‘Can you talk about what happened?’ Christine asked.

  ‘Let me sit up.’

  A chambermaid who was standing nearby put her arms around the dwarf and lifted her into a comfortable position.

  ‘When did you realize it was the fool’s mother?’ Christine asked.

  ‘I didn’t. I thought it was Guillaume.’

  Christine looked over at the fool, who stood next to Jeannine. Jeannine was crying, and he stroked her hand.

  ‘It was that book,’ Alips said. ‘The one with the mean dwarf. They were reading about a knight who acts like a fool, and I thought of Guillaume. I thought he was in league with the Duchess of Burgundy. I thought they were just pretending to hate each other.’

  ‘The Duchess of Burgundy had nothing to do with this. I’ll explain everything later.’

  Alips lowered her voice. ‘Please don’t tell Guillaume I suspected him!’

  ‘Of course I won’t. But why did the boy who was pretending to be Jeannine’s mother think he was the one you suspected?’

  ‘He must have seen me looking around the room, trying to think who was guilty. He knew he was the one, so he assumed I’d found him out.’

  Alips put her hand to her head and winced. Christine said, ‘He tried to kill you, you know. He left you for dead in that chest.’

  ‘As I said, I have a very hard head. I don’t think Loyse does. She’s badly hurt.’

  Loyse lay on the queen’s bed, with the doctor standing over her and one of the queen’s maids applying warm poultices. ‘There’s not much more I can do for her,’ the doctor said when Christine approached. ‘She may recover if she’s kept warm and quiet, but I can’t guarantee it.’

  ‘At least she recognizes me,’ Christine said as Loyse tried to smile at her.

  ‘And me,’ Marion exclaimed. She leaned over, took Loyse in her arms, and said to the doctor, ‘All you doctors do is make people worse.’

  ‘Marion!’ Christine cried. She was going to tell her to apologize, but the doctor was already out the door, cursing as he went.

  Jeannine the fool came to the bed and touched Loyse gently on the cheek. ‘A bad person hurt you,’ she said.

  Remembering what Sister Hélène had advised, Christine asked her, ‘Do you know where the bad person went?’

  ‘The lions,’ Jeannine said.

  ‘The lions? Why would he go to the lions?’ Christine asked.

  ‘We should go and find out,’ Marion said. She grabbed Christine’s hand and drew her out the door.

  It was dusk when they ran out into the palace grounds. A light rain had started to fall, and the paths through the gardens were wet and muddy. Water dripped from the trees and thunder roared in the distance. As they approached the lions’ stockade, there were other, more frightening, sounds.

  ‘My God!’ Christine cried. ‘What are they doing?’

  The lions were roaring, and someone was screaming. They raced toward the sounds and were horrified to see the lions surrounding a mangled body on the ground. Spurred on by the scent of the blood pouring from their victim, the lions, no longer the gentle creatures Marion had always claimed were too old to be a danger to anyone, roared and pounced, now wild animals mauling their prey.

  Christine and Marion stood, helpless and horrified. Then Gilet appeared. He had a large tree branch, and he used it to drive the lions back. Still growling and snarling, they let the keeper, who spoke to them in a soothing voice, herd them into their stockade.

  Christine knelt in the mud beside the figure on the ground. In the fading light, she could see that the women’s clothes he wore were nearly all ripped from his body. His face was badly mangled, but the eyes stared at her. They were an icy blue.

  ‘Can you talk?’

  Willem made a garbled sound.

  ‘We know what you did. We know you painted the playing cards with orpiment, to poison the king.’

  A ghastly grimace appeared on the boy’s ravaged face.

  Christine’s knees hurt so much she had to stand up. Marion knelt in her place and leaned in close to the boy. ‘Did you throw the lighted torch at the masqueraders?’ she asked. He whispered something. Then he fell back. He was dead.

  ‘What did he tell you, Marion?’

  ‘He said he did it. He said he was only sorry the king didn’t die.’

  FIFTY-ONE

  If you are a married lady, don’t object to being obedient to your husband. Sometimes it is not the best thing to be independent.

  Christine de Pizan, Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, 1404–1405

  Klara stood at the entrance to the lions’ stockade, sobbing.

  Marion took the girl in her arms. ‘Why was Willem here?’ she asked.

  ‘I told him he could hide with the lions until it got dark, and then he could run away without anyone seeing him.’

  ‘But why did the lions attack him?’

  ‘Gilet said they would be angry if someone shouted at them, so I did.’

  ‘You deliberately made them attack your brother?’

  ‘I hated him for ignoring me and running away from Martin’s house. And he killed Loyse,’ the girl said, sobbing louder than before.

  ‘What is she saying?’ asked Christine, who hadn’t heard because of a loud clap of thunder.

  ‘She says the lions killed her brother because she shouted at them.’

  ‘She meant for the lions to attack him?’

  ‘It looks that way. She says she did it because she was angry at him. And she thinks he’s killed Loyse.’

  ‘Loyse is badly hurt, but she may not be dead.’


  Klara’s sobbing grew even louder. Christine took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. ‘You must never tell anyone what you did.’

  By this time the palace guards had arrived. The rain came down heavily, soaking everyone’s clothes and forming puddles at their feet. Christine and Marion wore cloaks, but Klara wore only a dress, drenched and covered with mud. She was shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘We have to get her away from here,’ Christine said. She and Marion put their arms around the girl and ushered her along a slippery path through the gardens, lifting her over puddles and water-laden branches that barred their way.

  As they emerged into the street, a man enveloped in a huge black cloak rode past on a black horse. He wheeled the horse around and came back. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We’ll tell you later,’ Christine said. ‘Right now the most important thing is to get her someplace warm and dry. Take her to my house.’

  ‘I know where it is,’ the man said as he leaned down and scooped Klara up onto the saddle in front of him. Cradling her gently in his arms and pulling his voluminous cloak around her, he galloped off.

  ‘I wonder what he was doing here,’ Christine said.

  ‘I suspect he has passed by often, ever since I told him Klara was helping take care of the lions,’ Marion said.

  They hurried down the street, slipping and sliding and plunging through puddles, until they reached Christine’s house, where they found Martin du Bois standing outside, waiting for them.

  ‘Your mother is taking care of Klara,’ he said.

  ‘Willem is dead,’ Christine said. ‘The lions killed him.’

  ‘The lions?’

  ‘Those lions are not dangerous if one knows how to treat them. Willem didn’t.’

  ‘But why was he in the lions’ stockade?’

  ‘Klara took him there.’ She couldn’t bring herself to tell him why.

  Martin was silent for a long time. His eyes were full of tears. ‘I tried to do my best for the boy. But it was no use. He hated me, and all of us. I can understand. We did terrible things in Courtrai.’