Artois hit the table with his fist, and the whole room shook.
‘Enough of this bargaining, Tolomei,’ he cried. ‘I have told you that we cannot wait. Give me your petition, and I promise to get it signed; but give me the other parchment at the same time. We are on the same side and for once you must trust me.’
Tolomei, his hands crossed upon his stomach, sighed.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘sometimes one has to take a risk; but really, Monseigneur, I personally don’t like it.’
And he gave the Count of Artois, with the Lombard’s petition, the leaden casket that Guccio had brought back from Cressay. Then he grew afraid and for many days was sick of his fear.
An hour later, at the Episcopal Palace, which was next door to Notre-Dame, the Counts of Valois and Artois entered noisily into the presence of Archbishop Jean de Marigny.
In an audience chamber with a vaulted roof, perfumed with incense, the young prelate extended his ring for them to kiss. Valois pretended not to have noticed the gesture, while Artois raised the Archbishop’s fingers to his lips with such an air of impudence that one might have thought he was about to throw the whole hand over his shoulder.
‘Monseigneur Jean,’ said Charles of Valois, ‘the time has come when you must tell us by what means you and your brother have managed to oppose so strongly the election of Cardinal Duèze at Avignon, so that the conclave resembles nothing more than a collection of phantoms.’
‘But I count for nothing in the matter, Monseigneur, for nothing at all,’ replied Jean de Marigny, growing pale but maintaining the unction in his voice. ‘I am sure that my brother is acting for the best to help the King, and as for me, I give what help I can, though the conclave depends upon the cardinals’ wishes and not upon ours.’
‘Very well!’ cried Artois, ‘if that is how things are, if Christianity can manage without a Pope, the Episcopal See of Sens and of Paris can doubtless manage without an Archbishop!’
‘I don’t understand you, Monseigneur Robert,’ said Jean de Marigny, ‘except that your words are threatening a Minister of God.’
‘Was it God by any chance, Messire Archbishop, who commanded you to embezzle certain of the Templars’ possessions which should have reverted to the Treasury, and do you think that the King, who is also God’s representative upon earth, can tolerate a dishonest prelate upon the Cathedral throne of his capital city? Do you recognize this?’ concluded Artois, pushing the document given him by Tolomei under the Archbishop’s nose.
‘It’s a forgery!’ cried the Archbishop.
‘If it’s a forgery,’ replied Robert of Artois, ‘let justice be done quickly. Bring a case before the King so that the forger may be discovered!’
‘The majesty of the Church would have nothing to gain by it.’
‘And you everything to lose, I think, Monseigneur.’
The Archbishop had sat down in a great chair and was gazing at the walls as if seeking a means of escape. He was caught in a trap, and felt his courage wavering. ‘They will stop at nothing,’ he said to himself; ‘it really is a pity that all should be ruined merely for the two thousand pounds of which I was in need.’ He felt the sweat starting beneath his violet vestments, and saw his whole life destroyed because of a deed already more than a year old, whose profits had already been dissipated.
‘Monseigneur Jean,’ said Charles of Valois, ‘you are still young, and you have a great future before you in the affairs not only of the Church but of the kingdom. What you have done’ (he took the parchment from Robert of Artois’s hand) ‘is an excusable folly at a time when all morality is in decline, and you acted, I imagine, under the influence of evil example. It would be a great pity that this fault, which merely concerns money, should blight the dignity of your fame or shorten your days. For, if by mischance this document were to be seen by the King, in spite of the pain we should all feel, it would lead you to the cloister … or to the stake. My opinion, Monseigneur, is that you are doing the kingdom a great deal more harm by lending your help to your brother’s policies against the wishes of the King. If you are prepared to denounce this second error of yours, we shall hold you acquitted of the first.’
‘What do you ask of me?’ said the Archbishop.
‘Abandon your brother’s party, which is no longer worth anything,’ said Valois, ‘and come and confess to King Louis what you know of the wicked instructions you have received about the conclave.’
The prelate had feet of clay. He owed his elevation merely to his brother; he had been given a mitre and the most important episcopal throne in France that he might condemn the Templars, when most of the bishops refused the invitation and declined to sit in judgement. But he had panicked in front of Notre-Dame upon the day of Jacques de Molay’s execution. At ordinary times he appeared strong; but he was a coward in the hour of crisis. His fear was such that it did not even give him time to think of his brother to whom he owed everything; he thought of no one but himself and entered easily upon the role of Cain to which he must have been destined since his birth. His treachery was to assure him a long life of honours under four successive kings.
‘You have shown me the way of conscience,’ he said, ‘and I am ready, Monseigneur of Valois, to redeem my error in the way you suggest. I would merely be grateful if you would give me back that parchment.’
‘Certainly,’ said the Count of Valois, giving him the document. ‘It is sufficient that the Count of Artois and myself have seen it; our evidence will be believed by the whole kingdom. You will accompany us to Vincennes at once; there is a horse ready for you below.’
The Archbishop sent for his cloak, his embroidered gloves and his hat, and went slowly, majestically, downstairs in front of the two lords.
‘I have never seen,’ murmured Robert of Artois to Valois, ‘anyone grovel with such haughtiness.’
Every king, every man, has his pleasures, which more than any other action he performs reveal the profound tendencies of his nature. King Louis X had no liking for hunting or fencing or tournaments. From childhood he had enjoyed the game of tennis which was played with leather balls; but above all he enjoyed, when he was in the country, finding some barn or grain-store where, bow in hand, he could shoot doves on the wing as an equerry released them one by one from a basket.
He was engaged in this cruel sport when his uncle and his cousin brought the Archbishop to him. The floor of the barn was littered with feathers and splashes of blood. A dove, nailed by a wing to a beam, was fluttering and screeching; others, better shot, lay on the ground, their thin claws folded and contracted upon their breasts. The Hutin exclaimed with joy each time one of his arrows pierced a victim.
‘Another!’ he called to the equerry, who opened the lid of the basket.
The bird flying in circles gained height; Louis drew his bow and if the arrow, missing its target, blunted itself upon the wall, he swore at the equerry for having carelessly released the dove at the wrong moment.
‘Nephew,’ said Charles of Valois, ‘you seem to be more skilful today than ever, but if you wouldn’t mind interrupting your exploits for a moment, I wish to talk to you about those grave matters we discussed.’
‘Well, what is it now?’ said The Hutin impatiently.
His brow was damp with sweat and he was excited by his sport. He saw the Archbishop, and signed to the equerry to leave the barn.
‘Well, Monseigneur, is it true that you are preventing me from having a Pope?’
‘Alas, Sire,’ said Jean de Marigny, ‘I have come to reveal certain things which I thought were done at your orders and which I am much pained to learn are in fact contrary to your wishes.’
Thereupon, with the greatest appearance of good faith in the world, and a certain unctuous emphasis in his tone of voice, he told the King of all the manoeuvres Enguerrand de Marigny had employed to prevent a meeting of the conclave and to raise obstacles to the election of Jacques Duèze.
‘However hard it may be, Sire,’ he concluded, ‘to have to d
enounce the wicked actions of my brother, it is still harder for me to see him acting against the interests of the kingdom. I do not hold him in any particular consideration merely because he is a member of my family, since, when you have a vocation such as mine, you have no real family but in God and the King.’
‘Really, the scoundrel almost brings tears to one’s eyes,’ thought Robert of Artois. ‘The rascal knows how to use his tongue!’
A forgotten dove had perched on the edge of a window. The Hutin loosed an arrow, piercing the bird and breaking the window.
‘Well, and where do I stand now?’ he cried, turning sharply about.
Robert of Artois quickly led the Archbishop away and Valois remained alone with the King.
‘Yes, where do I stand?’ he repeated. ‘I am betrayed on every side; people promise things and don’t perform them. We are in the middle of April, the summer is but six weeks away, and you remember, Uncle, that Madame of Hungary said, “before summer”. Will you succeed in making me a Pope within the next six weeks?’
‘Speaking in all honesty, I no longer believe it can be done, Nephew.’
‘Well then, you see how things are! What’s going to happen to me?’
‘I have advised you often enough since the winter to get rid of Marigny.’
‘But since that wasn’t done, wouldn’t it be better to summon Enguerrand, reprimand him, threaten him and order him to act on the other tack? Isn’t he the only man we can use?’
Panic-stricken and stubborn, The Hutin always came back to Marigny as the only possible solution. He was walking uncertainly to and fro in the barn; white feathers stuck to his shoes.
‘Nephew,’ said Charles of Valois suddenly, ‘I have twice in my life been the widower of admirable women. It’s a great injustice that you should not be the widower of a shameless one.’
‘Yes, yes!’ cried The Hutin. ‘Oh yes! If only Marguerite were to die!’
Suddenly he stopped walking to and fro, looked at his uncle, and the two men stood quite still for a moment, their eyes fixed upon each other’s.
‘The winter was a cold one, prisons are not healthy places for women,’ went on Charles of Valois, ‘and it is a long time now since Marigny informed us of Marguerite’s state of health. I am astonished that she has been able to stand the treatment she has received. Perhaps Marigny is concealing from you how ill she is, how near to death?’
There was once more silence between them. Valois’s words matched The Hutin’s most secret desires; but he would never have dared to be the first to express them. An accomplice was proposing himself who would relieve him of everything, even of speech, even of thought.
‘You have promised me, Nephew, that you would surrender Marigny to me the day you have a Pope,’ said Valois.
‘I can give you him just as well, Uncle, the day I become a widower,’ replied The Hutin.
Valois passed his ringed hands across his large cheeks and went on in a low voice, ‘You must give me Marigny first, because he commands all the fortresses and forbids entry into Château-Gaillard.’
‘Very well,’ replied Louis X. ‘He forfeits my protection. You can tell Chancellor de Mornay to give me any orders you think proper for signature.’
That very night, after the supper hour, when Enguerrand de Marigny was alone and preparing the memorandum he intended handing the King, demanding the right to challenge, that is to say the right to demand single combat with any person who dared maintain that he was a traitor or a perjuror, Hugues de Bouville came to see him. The old Grand Chamberlain of Philip the Fair seemed a prey to conflicting emotions, and his message seemed to be weighing upon him.
‘Enguerrand,’ he said, ‘do not sleep in your own house tonight, they intend to arrest you; I know it from a sure source.’
He again addressed Marigny familiarly in the second person as he had done when his old friend had begun life in his household as an equerry.
‘They won’t dare,’ replied Marigny. ‘And who will come to arrest me, I ask you? Alain de Pareilles? Alain would never accept such an order. He would be more likely to withstand a siege in my house with his archers than allow a hair of my head to be touched.’
‘You are wrong not to believe me, Enguerrand, and you have made a mistake also, I assure you, in acting as you have these last months. When you are placed as we are, to act against the King, whatever the King may be like, is to act against oneself. And I, too, am in process of acting against the King at this moment out of the friendship I bear you and because I wish to save you.’
The fat man was sincerely unhappy. His goodwill was touching. A loyal servant of the sovereign, a faithful friend, an official of integrity, respecting both the laws of God and those of the kingdom, how was it, animated as he was by such honest sentiments, that his voice lacked authority?
‘What I have come to tell you, Enguerrand,’ he went on, ‘I have from Monseigneur Philippe of Poitiers who is your only supporter at this hour. Monseigneur of Poitiers wishes to place some distance between you and the barons whose anger you have aroused. He has counselled his brother to send you to govern some distant land, Cyprus for example.’
‘Cyprus?’ cried Marigny. ‘What, allow myself to be shut up in an island in the far seas, when I have governed the whole kingdom of France? Am I to be exiled there? I shall continue to walk the streets of Paris as a master, or I shall die in them.’
Bouville sadly shook his black-and-white locks.
‘Believe me,’ he repeated, ‘do not sleep at home tonight. Whatever may happen, I at least will not have to reproach myself with having failed to warn you.’
As soon as Bouville had gone, Enguerrand went and discussed the visit with his wife and his sister-in-law, Dame de Chanteloup. The two women were also of the opinion that it would be wise to leave at once for one of the Norman provinces and then, from there, if the danger became obvious, go to a port and take refuge with the King of England, who was devoted to Marigny.
But Enguerrand flew into a rage.
‘Good God,’ he cried, ‘have I no one but women and eunuchs about me!’
And then he went to bed as usual. He stroked his favourite dog, was undressed by his valet, watched him wind up the weight of the clock, still a rare possession in those days, for which he had paid a great sum. He turned over in his mind the last phrases of his memorandum, which he intended finishing the following morning, then went to the window, drew aside the curtain and gazed out at the roofs of the dark city. The night watch were passing down the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, repeating every twenty paces, in their mechanical voices, ‘This is the watch! … It is midnight … Sleep in peace! …’
As usual they were a quarter of an hour late by the clock.
Enguerrand was woken up at dawn by a loud noise of trampling in his courtyard, and by a knocking on his door. A panic-stricken equerry came to warn him that the archers were below. He sent for his clothes, dressed hurriedly and, at the top of the stairs, ran into his wife and son who were hurrying to him.
‘You were right, Jeanne,’ he said to his wife, kissing her forehead; ‘I have never listened to you sufficiently in the whole of my life. You must leave this very day with Louis.’
‘I would have gone with you, Enguerrand, but now I cannot leave the place where you will be made to suffer.’
‘King Louis is my godfather,’ said Louis de Marigny; ‘I shall go at once to Vincennes.’
‘Your godfather is weak-minded and the crown sits rather loose upon his head,’ replied Marigny angrily.
Then, as it was dark upon the staircase, he cried, ‘Hi there, footmen. Bring lights! Light up!’
And when his servants had come running, he descended the staircase surrounded by their torches like a king.
The courtyard was swarming with men-at-arms. In the doorway a tall figure in a coat of mail was etched sharply against the grey of early morning.
‘How could you have consented to this, Pareilles? How could you have dared?’ said Marigny, spre
ading wide his hands.
‘I am not Alain de Pareilles,’ replied the officer. ‘Messire de Pareilles is no longer in command of the archers.’
He moved aside to let a thin man in a dark cloak come forward. It was Chancellor Etienne de Mornay. As eight years earlier Nogaret had come in person to arrest the Grand Master of the Templars, Mornay came in person today to arrest the Rector of the kingdom.
‘Messire Enguerrand,’ he said, ‘I pray you to follow me to the Louvre where I have orders to imprison you.’
At the same hour the majority of the great middle-class justiciars of the preceding reign, Raoul de Presles, Michel de Bourdenai, Guillaume Dubois, Geoffrey de Briançon, Nicole Le Loquetier, Pierre d’Orgemont, were arrested at their houses and taken to various prisons, some to be put to torture, while a detachment was sent to Châlons to arrest Bishop Pierre de Latille, the friend of Philip the Fair’s youth, the man whom he had so much wished to see during his last hours.
With them the Iron King’s whole reign was put in thrall.
4
The Night Without a Dawn
WHEN, IN THE MIDDLE of the night, Marguerite of Burgundy heard the drawbridge lowered at Château-Gaillard, and a sound of horses’ hooves in the courtyards, she did not at first believe that these noises were real. She had waited so long, dreamed of this moment ever since, through the letter she had sent to the Count of Artois, she had accepted her disgrace and consented to the abrogation of all her rights, both for herself and for her daughter, in exchange for the promised freedom which never came!
Ten weeks had gone by, ten weeks of silence, more destructive than hunger, more exhausting than cold, more degrading than vermin, more testing than loneliness. Despair had entered into Marguerite’s soul, had affected her nerves and weakened her body. These last days she no longer moved from her bed, a prey to a fever which caused her acute depression. Her only movement was to take the beaker of water placed on the floor beside her and raise it to her lips. Her eyes wide open to the shadows of the tower, she passed the hours listening to the too-rapid beating of her own heart; and then, if her fever abated, if her forehead became momentarily cool, if her heartbeats relaxed their rhythm, she suddenly sat up, screaming, with the appalling feeling that she was on the point of death. The silence was filled with nonexistent sounds; the shadows were peopled with tragic memories which were spiritual rather than physical. Her reason was giving way under the delirium of insomnia. Philippe d’Aunay, the handsome Philippe, was not altogether dead; he stood beside her, his legs broken, his body bleeding; she held out her arms to him, unable to seize him. Nevertheless, lying there as she did, he seemed to be leading her along the path which leads from this world to God, though she was no longer aware of the world, nor able to see God. And this intolerable progress seemed to stretch out before her to infinity, to the Day of Judgement; perhaps indeed this was purgatory.
The Accursed Kings Series Books 1-3: The Iron King, the Strangled Queen, the Poisoned Crown Page 19