The Accursed Kings Series Books 1-3: The Iron King, the Strangled Queen, the Poisoned Crown

by Maurice Druon

  Bouville then gave an account of his peregrinations about the district of Avignon, trying not to cut too ridiculous a figure. He did not mention how he had succeeded in meeting Cardinal Duèze. He equally forbore to mention Marigny’s activities; he felt a certain repugnance about accusing his oldest friend, and accusing him wrongly moreover. For Bouville admired Marigny, feared him too, and knew that he possessed political perceptions that he himself was utterly incapable of grasping. ‘If he is acting thus, it is because he has good reason to do so,’ he thought. ‘I must not risk judging him wrongly.’ He contented himself with underlining the fact that the Pope’s election depended above all upon the wishes of the Rector of the kingdom.

  Louis X listened with the greatest attention, his eyes fixed upon Clémence’s portrait.

  ‘Duèze, yes,’ he said. ‘Why not Duèze? He is prepared to give me my annulment at once. He lacks four French votes. So you assure me, Bouville, that only Marigny can arrange matters and provide me with a Pope?’

  ‘It is my firm belief, Sire.’

  The Hutin went slowly towards the table where lay the parchment his brother had given him containing the Commission’s findings. He took up a goose-quill and dipped it in the ink.

  Charles of Valois’s face turned pale.

  ‘Nephew,’ he cried, leaping forward, ‘you are not going to exonerate the rogue?’

  ‘In spite of you, Uncle, there are those who affirm his accounts to be honest. Six of the lords appointed to make the examination are of that opinion; only your chancellor shares yours.’

  ‘Nephew, I implore you to wait. The man is deceiving us as he deceived your father,’ cried Valois.

  Bouville wished that he were not present.

  Louis gazed at his uncle with stubborn, malicious eyes.

  ‘I have told you that I need a Pope,’ he said, ‘and since my lords assure me that Marigny is honest …’

  As the other was about to make further objections, Louis rose to his feet and with great authority in his voice, but a certain failure of memory, said, ‘The King belongs to justice, in order to … in order to … in order to see that it triumphs.’

  And he signed the exoneration. Thus it was due to his disloyalty towards the King, if not to France, over the matter of the conclave, that Marigny owed the fact that his fidelity in financial administration was recognized.

  Valois left the room, wild with anger he could no longer have kept under control. ‘I would have done better,’ he thought, ‘to find him some girl twisted of body and hideous of face. He would be in no such hurry then. I’ve been tricked.’

  Louis X turned to Bouville.

  ‘Messire Hugues,’ he said, ‘let Messire de Marigny be summoned at once.’

  8

  A Letter’s Fate

  A GUST OF WIND SMOTE the narrow window, and Marguerite of Burgundy drew hastily back, as if the far heavens wished to strike her.

  Day was breaking uncertainly over the forest of Andelys. It was the hour when the first guard was mounted upon the battlements of Château-Gaillard. Nothing in the world can be more melancholy than some mornings of high wind in Normandy, when huge black clouds drive in from the west, bearing with them the promise of heavy rain. The tops of the trees are bowed like the curved spines of frightened, fleeing horses.

  Sergeant Lalaine came to unlock the door half-way up the staircase, which isolated the cells of the two Princesses; and Private Gros-Guillaume deposited two wooden bowls of steaming gruel upon the stool. He went out again, dragging his feet and without a word.

  ‘Blanche!’ called Marguerite, going to the spiral staircase.

  There was no answer.

  ‘Blanche!’ she cried again more loudly.

  The silence that followed filled her with despair. At last there was a rustling of a skirt in the staircase, and the sound of wooden clogs upon the steps. Blanche came in, staggering, worn out; in the room’s grey light her clear eyes seemed fixed in that expression of absent concentration which is common to the eyes of the mad.

  ‘Have you been able to sleep a little?’ Marguerite asked.

  Blanche did not reply but, going to the jug of water that stood near the bowls, she knelt and tipping the jug to her mouth, drank a long draught. For some time now she had performed the ordinary acts of living eccentrically.

  None of Bersumée’s furniture remained in the room. The Captain of the Fortress had taken it all back as soon as, two months before, he had received, by means of a somewhat bullying visit from Alain de Pareilles, Marigny’s order to keep to his original instructions. Gone was the worn tapestry that had been hung upon the walls for the pleasure and in honour of Monseigneur of Artois; gone was the table from which the imprisoned Queen had eaten in her cousin’s presence. A pallet, its mattress stuffed with husks of dried peas, had replaced the bed.

  But, since Marigny had let it be known that he was concerned for the survival of Madame Marguerite, Bersumée took care that the fire was kept alight, the blankets sufficiently warm and the food adequate at least in quantity.

  The two women sat down side by side upon the pallet, their bowls upon their knees.

  Blanche, making no use of her spoon, lapped up the buckwheat gruel straight from the bowl like a dog. Marguerite did not eat at all. She was warming her hands round the wooden bowl; this was the only good moment of her day, the last sensual pleasure that remained to her in her prison. She closed her eyes, utterly concentrated upon the miserable satisfaction of getting a little warmth into the palms of her hands.

  Suddenly Blanche rose to her feet and threw her bowl of gruel across the room. The gruel spilt upon the floor where it remained, turning sour, for a week.

  ‘What is the matter with you?’ asked Marguerite.

  ‘I shall throw myself downstairs, kill myself, and you will be here alone, alone!’ screamed Blanche. ‘Why did you refuse? I can’t go on, do you understand, I can’t go on. We shall never get out of here, never, because you didn’t consent. It’s your fault, it’s your fault, from the very start. But you’ll stay here alone, all alone.’

  She was going mad, or making herself mad, which is in itself a form of lunacy.

  To prisoners hope disappointed is worse than waiting. Blanche had thought that she was to go free through Robert of Artois’s visit. But nothing had happened, except that the amenities their cousin’s visit had obtained for them had been discontinued. From then on the change in Blanche had been terrifying. She had ceased to wash herself; she had grown thin; she alternated between moods of sudden fury and crises of weeping which left long furrows down her dirty cheeks. Unceasingly, she hurled reproaches at Marguerite, even accused her of having pushed her into the arms of Gautier d’Aunay out of sheer viciousness, and then angrily demanded that she should write to Paris accepting the proposal that had been made her. They had grown to hate each other.

  ‘All right, die then, since you have not the courage to fight!’ exclaimed Marguerite.

  ‘Fight for whom, for what? Fight against walls … Fight that you may be Queen? Because you still think you will be Queen, don’t you?’

  ‘But if I do accept, you fool, it is I who will go free, not you!’

  ‘Alone, alone, you’ll be alone!’ repeated Blanche, hearing nothing that was said to her.

  ‘Good! I want nothing better than to be alone!’ cried Marguerite.

  The last two months had also affected her more than the preceding half-year. As the days went by and nothing happened, she often thought that her refusal had been a mistake, that the weapon she thought was hers would turn out to be of no use to her.

  Blanche ran towards the staircase. ‘All right, let her break every bone in her body! I shall no longer have to hear her screams and groans! She won’t kill herself, but at least she’ll be taken away,’ Marguerite said to herself.

  Then, at the last moment, as Blanche reached the door, she cried, ‘Blanche!’

  She went to her and took her by the arm. For a moment they looked at each other, M
arguerite’s brilliant, questioning dark eyes gazing into the blue, bewildered eyes of Blanche. Then Marguerite said wearily, ‘All right, I’ll write the letter. I’ve come to the end of my tether too.’

  Leaning out into the staircase, she shouted, ‘Guards, summon Captain Bersumée.’

  Nothing answered her but the winter wind shaking the tiles upon the roofs.

  ‘You see,’ said Marguerite, shrugging her shoulders, ‘even when I want to do it … I shall ask to see Bersumée or the Chaplain when they bring us our dinner.’

  But Blanche ran down the stairs and started hammering on the lower door, screaming that she wanted to see the Captain. The archers of the guard interrupted their game of dice and one of them replied that he would be sent for.

  Bersumée arrived soon afterwards, his wolfskin cap pulled down to the solid line formed by his eyebrows. He listened to Marguerite’s request.

  Pens, parchment? What were they needed for? The prisoners had no right to communicate with anyone whatsoever, neither verbally nor in writing, those were the orders of Monseigneur de Marigny.

  ‘I must write to the King,’ said Marguerite.

  To the King? Well, that certainly set Bersumée a problem. Did ‘anyone whatsoever’ include the King?

  Marguerite spoke with such haughtiness and persuasion that, in the end, he weakened.

  ‘Very well, but be quick about it,’ she cried.

  It suddenly seemed to her that sending this letter, which she had refused to write for so long, was of desperate urgency.

  Since the Chaplain was absent that particular morning, Bersumée himself returned with writing materials which he had found in the sacristy.

  As she was about to begin the letter, Marguerite felt a last hesitation. It filled her with a sensation of panic. Never again, if by good fortune her case were to be reopened, could she plead not guilty or pretend that the brothers Aunay had made false confessions under torture. She would have deprived her daughter of every right to the crown.

  ‘Go on, go on!’ Blanche whispered in her ear.

  ‘Whatever happens, things could be no worse,’ murmured Marguerite.

  And she began to compose her renunciation.

  ‘I recognize and declare that my daughter Jeanne is not the child of the King, my husband. I recognize and declare that I have always refused my body to the said King, my husband, with the result that there never has been any physical relationship between us … As has been promised me, I await translation to a convent in Burgundy …’

  Bersumée, suspicious, stood beside her while she wrote; then, when she had finished, he took the letter and studied it for a moment, but it was only a pretence since he was unable to read.

  ‘This must reach Monseigneur of Artois as soon as possible,’ said Marguerite.

  ‘Oh, Madam, that alters matters. You said that it was for the King.’

  ‘To Monseigneur of Artois that he may remit it to the King!’ cried Marguerite. ‘My God, you’re a fool! Can’t you see what is written in the address?’

  ‘Oh, very well. But who is to deliver the letter?’

  ‘Good God, you of course!’

  ‘But I have no orders.’

  Their relations had seriously worsened of late. Marguerite no longer hesitated to tell Bersumée what she thought of him, while Bersumée treated her with contempt because she had not succeeded in regaining her freedom.

  He took all day to decide what to do. He asked the advice of the Chaplain, who was in any case aware that his pens had been taken from the sacristy. There was a variety of reasons for his doing so; it was generally said that Marigny had fallen into disgrace and even that the King intended to bring him to trial. One thing was sure: if Marigny continued to send instructions, he certainly no longer sent money, and Bersumée had received neither his own nor his men’s pay. It was a good opportunity to go and find out what was happening.

  The following morning, therefore, having put on his steel helmet and given Sergeant Lalaine, under pain of death, orders to permit no one whatever to enter or leave Château-Gaillard during his absence, Bersumée, having mounted his dappled half-bred percheron, took the road to Paris.

  He arrived in the middle of the afternoon of the following day. It was raining in torrents. Muddy to the eyes, Bersumée stopped at a tavern near the Louvre to fortify himself and reflect a little. All along the road his head had ached from anxiety. How was he to know whether he was doing the right thing or not, acting for or against his own promotion? And the dilemma was represented by two names: Artois and Marigny; Artois and Marigny. By infringing the orders of the latter, what did he stand to gain from the former?

  Providence looks after fools as it does drunkards. While Bersumée was warming his stomach before the fire, a great clap on his jerkin-clothed back put a stop to his meditations.

  It was Sergeant Quatre-Barbes, an old companion in arms, who had just come in and recognized him. They had not seen each other for six years. They embraced, stood back to look each other up and down, embraced again and loudly demanded wine to celebrate their meeting.

  Quatre-Barbes, a thin fellow with black teeth and a squint, was a Sergeant of the Company of Archers of the Louvre nearby. He was a regular at this tavern. Bersumée envied his living in Paris. Quatre-Barbes envied Bersumée his having been promoted more quickly than himself and his being now Captain of a Fortress. Everything therefore went well between them, since they envied each other’s lot!

  ‘Good God! Do you mean to say you guard Dame Marguerite? You old bastard, I bet you have a good time!’ cried Quatre-Barbes.

  From questioning each other they became confidential, then passed to the problems that so much concerned Bersumée. What truth was there in the rumour of Marigny’s disgrace? Quatre-Barbes must know, living as he did in the capital and more particularly in the Louvre, which was under the Rector-General’s control! It was thus that Bersumée learnt, much to his terror, that Monseigneur de Marigny had triumphed over the difficulties in his path, that three days earlier the King had recalled him and embraced him in the presence of several barons, while handing him his exoneration, and that he was now as powerful as ever.

  ‘If I were Marigny, I know very well what I should do,’ said Quatre-Barbes.

  ‘This damned letter’s put me in the hell of a mess,’ thought Bersumée.

  Wine liberates the tongue. Bersumée, taking care that no one near them should hear, admitted to his newly recovered friend why he was there and asked his advice.

  The Sergeant sat for a long moment with his nose in his mug, then replied. ‘In your place, I should go to the Palace and see Alain de Pareilles, who is your chief, and ask his advice. At least you’ll be covered.’

  The afternoon had gone in talking and drinking. Bersumée was a little drunk, and felt relieved that a decision had been made for him. But it was too late to go and present himself to the Captain-General of the Archers. Quatre-Barbes was not on guard that night. The two companions supped where they were; then the Sergeant, as was inevitable upon the arrival of an old friend from the country, led Bersumée to visit the prostitutes who, since the ordinance of Saint Louis, were congregated in the streets behind Notre-Dame, their hair dyed that they might be clearly distinguished from honest women.

  Thus Marguerite of Burgundy’s letter which, in principle, was to change the succession to the throne of France, remained the whole night sewn into Bersumée’s jerkin, upon a chest in a brothel.

  In the early morning Quatre-Barbes invited Bersumée to come and wash in his quarters in the Louvre; towards nine o’clock, brushed, clean and close-shaven, Bersumée presented himself at the guard-house of the Palace and had himself announced to Alain de Pareilles.

  The Captain of the Archers showed no hesitation whatever when Bersumée told him of the situation. He passed his fingers through his iron-grey hair, and asked, ‘From whom do you receive your instructions?’

  ‘From Monseigneur de Marigny, Messire.’

  ‘Who, over me, com
mands all the royal fortresses?’

  ‘Monseigneur de Marigny, Messire.’

  ‘To whom must you refer upon every question?’

  ‘To you, Messire.’

  ‘And above me?’

  ‘To Monseigneur de Marigny.’

  Bersumée felt that delightful sensation of protection, that resumption of childhood, that the good soldier knows in the presence of someone of higher rank than his own.

  ‘So,’ concluded Alain de Pareilles, ‘it is to Monseigneur de Marigny that you must deliver your letter. But take care to put it into his own hands.’

  Half an hour later, in the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, it was announced to Enguerrand de Marigny, who was working in his study with his secretaries, that a certain Captain Bersumée, coming from Messire de Pareilles, wished to see him.

  ‘Bersumée … Bersumée …’ said Enguerrand. ‘Ah yes, of course! That’s the fool in command at Château-Gaillard. I’ll see him.’

  And he indicated that he wished to be left alone.

  Extremely nervous at being shown in to the Rector of the kingdom, Bersumée took from his jerkin the letter addressed to Monseigneur of Artois. Since it was not sealed, Marigny read it at once with earnest attention, his face showing no expression whatever.

  ‘When was this written?’ he asked.

  ‘The day before yesterday, Monseigneur.’

  ‘You have done very well to bring it to me. I compliment you. Assure Madame Marguerite that her letter will be sent on to the right quarter. And if she should have a mind to write others, see that they take the same route. How is Madame Marguerite?’

  ‘As well as can be expected in prison, Monseigneur. But she certainly stands up to it better than Madame Blanche, whose mind appears to be somewhat deranged.’

  Marigny made a vague gesture which indicated that no one’s state of mind was of any significance in the affair.

  ‘Look after their bodily health; see that they are fed and warm.’

  ‘By the way, Monseigneur …’