The Seal (35 page)

He thought of
his tenacity. How when he set his sights on Paris, he had managed in so short a
time to become the perfect addendum to the circle of royal lawyers so that even
Nogaret himself, his former teacher, had been astonished. Right from the start
de Plaisians had insinuated
himself
into Nogaret’s
affection, persuading the man that he was, and would remain, a loyal dog. One
could always do with a loyal dog in a court full of foxes.

From youth he
had known that flattery, diplomacy and persuasion, in the right portions, could
get a man anything – in and out of bed. And so it stood to reason that he
should be a natural talent for the practice of law. For the soft battles of the
boudoir were no less demanding than those he waged in court; they both required
a certain
cunning, intelligence, an articulate tongue,

impeccable
syntax, the ability to understand weaknesses and, of course, a
little cruelty.

He looked out to
the cold wet day and thought of the warm afternoon ensconced in the round, firm
assets of the Queen of Navarre, Marguerite, who was also, as it happened, the
young wife of Louis, the King’s eldest son. What a delicious afternoon it had
been! He had freed himself with the greatest difficulty from his duties at
court and had made his way to the hotel de Nesle feeling a great anticipation
since, some days before, he had received a note heavily scented from the queen
that had left him in no doubt of her intentions. The message was worded
cleverly; to make such a meeting possible she had stated her desire for counsel
in her affairs pertaining to the kingdom of Navarre. It would be, she said, a
surprise for her dear husband, who thought her uninterested. She was, the note
read, eager to be more involved in the running of the kingdom, as she wished,
most desperately, to do her duty by her subjects.

She will do her duty
, he
had thought when entering the sombre tower with its high narrow windows and
conical roof
, and quite possibly
excel
at it
.

He was ushered
to the queen’s apartment by a lady-in-waiting. Along the way he asked the girl
concerning her majesty’s health and the girl replied, ‘She is melancholy,
monsieur, her heart flutters like a bird’s, and I have tried to cheer her
spirits by reading to her. The doctor will call at any mo –’

Guillaume raised
a hand to stop the girl. ‘Yes, good.’ He looked at her, plump, firm, not too
pretty. ‘What have you been reading to her, mademoiselle?’

‘From a French
poet, monsieur, a love poem.’ The girl looked away, flushed.

‘Ahh . . .’ He
frowned, feigning displeasure. ‘That is not good, my dear, no more poems of
love . . . instead read to her of the martyrs. That would be far more
profitable study for a queen.’

The girl
curtsied awkwardly and led him to Marguerite’s chamber in silence.

She announced
the lawyer, lifted her liquid eyes to him briefly, parting her two lips just
so. For a moment he could see the moisture of her tongue against her teeth, and
then she left.

He had sensed
that she would be his for the choosing . . .
the queen and her maid
? A smile touched his lips.
Perhaps at the same time?

He turned his
gaze toward the bedroom and found Marguerite lying in her green-curtained bed
beneath a sumptuous red coverlet. The windows permitted a bright cheering
autumn light into the large, otherwise drab room, and on the fire a huge log
glowed red with embers. She lay motionless with her eyes closed, beautiful
without blemish, raven tresses loose about her olive neck, unusually flushed
about the face. At sixteen years of age, time had not yet assaulted her delightful,
sensual mouth, her pointed chin,
her
nubile body,
plump and delicious. Seeing her this way stirred his appetite and it was all he
could do to keep from pouncing on her like a blooded dog.

‘Oh,’ she
murmured, one slender hand idly touching her brow.

‘Your Majesty .
. .’ he said softly, glancing at the curves beneath the coverlet.

‘Who is it? Who?
Is it you, Physician? Oh,’ she sighed coolly. ‘I am too, too ill.’ She gestured
for him to come to her, her eyes still firmly shut.

‘No, it is
Guillaume de Plaisians, your Majesty,’ he answered, playing the little charade
for the benefit of the lady of the bedchamber who was hiding behind a curtain
in the shadows.

‘Oh Monsieur de
Plaisians! I am afraid I am no good to you at all! Feel my brow, it burns!’

‘No doubt,’ he
mumbled, wondering lustily what other parts were as warm.

‘And my heart .
. . it beats strangely.’ She opened her eyes and gazed into his . . . hazel,
clear, hungry. ‘Feel it, perhaps I shall die?’ She caught his hand in hers and
drew it to her breast. Guillaume felt those firm orbs only the slightest
distance from his touch and experienced an animal passion, that straining
toward intercourse, is not satisfied until it is satiated.

‘The fire is
hot,’ he said, musing on which way to take her first, ‘and the coverlet far too
heavy, your Majesty. These things have combined to cause you this distress . .
. I suggest your maid use less fuel in the hearth, and arrange for another
coverlet to cover you or the doctor shall have to resort to lancets.’

She sat up,
letting the coverlet fall away, revealing that there remained only a sheer
layer of fabric between Guillaume and his prize.

‘Permit me to
allow a little air in,’ he said after a good observation.

He walked to the
window and opened it. A rush of cool air entered the chamber.

‘I feel better
already.’ She gave him a capricious smile. ‘I think you are most
wise,
it is far too stuffy in here. I don’t believe I shall
need the doctor after all.’ She raised one brow and fluttered her lashes.
‘Marie? Marie!’

The dour old
woman surfaced only a little from behind the curtains.

‘Fetch me my
shawl! Come, Marie, it is only the royal lawyer come to arrange my affairs, be
an angel and go tell the doctor I have no need of him. It seems I am recovered.
It is a miracle!’ Her laugh was full-bodied and most comely.

When the article
had been placed around her shoulders and the maid with suspicious eyes had been
summarily dispatched, they were alone.

‘It is a shame
the doctor resides so far away at the royal palace. The poor woman will take
all day to get there,’ she said, pursing her lips and frowning. ‘But you must
tell me, monsieur, before we . . . get down to business, how goes the trial?’

‘Slow and
tedious, your Majesty.’ He inched closer, loosening his cloak. ‘Slow and
tedious.’

‘Yes, a most
monotonous affair . . . Do you know that Monsieur Jacques de Molay is
Isabella’s godfather?’ She patted the space beside her on the bed. ‘Who would
think of it? It seems like only yesterday I saw him at the funeral of our dear
Catherine of Valois, walking beside the pall and holding one of its cords. How
can one imagine that all the time . . . he was committing such unspeakable
crimes . . .’ She made a little shudder and continued. ‘Whatever the case, I
trust that what the King decides is most surely well decided, for what do I
know of men . . . my husband, monsieur . . . is not a man.’ She said this in a
voice that was lower and softer, her eyes shining like two olives.

‘It is a shame
to waste such womanliness on him.’ He brought his face to hers, only inches
from her lips, teasing her. ‘You are a rare pearl cast before a swine.’

She laughed. It
sent ripples of desire over his spine.

‘How well you
put things, monsieur! I would wager most men at court are lesser for being
compared to you . . .’

She smelt of
peaches.

‘You are most
kind,’ he answered, venturing to touch the quivers that strained upwards and
defied gravity.

‘Ahh . . .’ she
sighed, ‘yes . . . why only a few days ago . . .’ Her eyes rolled in her head
and returned to his. ‘I heard the King complimenting you. He said that you are
going to burn them all.’ She said this as though the thought of a burning
amplified the burning between her milky thighs.

The thought
excited him also, and he was suddenly lost in his robust immediacy and heard
nothing else. Quickly he removed the coverlet and placed his body atop her fine
and curvaceous one and allowed the vertigo of lust to take him to that world of
intense awareness, where in
a frenzy
he found himself
engulfed in her warmth.

When he had
reached the pinnacle of exhilaration, he had seen two things: the beautiful
woman beneath him, crying out with surprise and pleasure, and, in his mind’s
eye, Jacques de Molay, engulfed in flames.

He had left her
as he had found her, reciting poems.

Presently he put
her out of his mind as he came upon the door to the room behind the episcopal
hall. A guard stood barring the way.

De Plaisians
smiled at the man.

‘In the name of
the King I order you to allow me passage. I am assistant lawyer to Nogaret,
Royal Keeper of the Seals of France.’

The man
hesitated and looked straight ahead. ‘I have orders from the Archbishop of Narbonne
to allow no one . . .’

‘And . . .’ He
raised one brow. ‘Pray tell me, good man, are you a royal guard?’

The guard looked
around him as though he were waking from a deep sleep. He nodded that he was.

‘Whose orders,
then, do you follow?’

The man was
suddenly confounded.

‘What do you
say, guard?’

‘The . . .
King’s, monsieur . . .’

‘And you know
who it was that built this church?’

‘The King,
monsieur.’

‘Of course, and
is this not an inquiry conducted on royal grounds, instigated by royal command?
Your charge in this regard is clear then. If not, I shall be forced to call
upon the King’s own private guard to remind you of your duty to his Highness.’
He leant forward confidentially and whispered, ‘
Tell
me, my friend, what do you fear more: the possibility of eternal fire or the
promise of an earthly one?’ He spread his lips over perfect teeth.

The man
deliberated a moment, and moved directly to one side.

Thus de
Plaisians made his obtrusive entrance and, after finding a suitable position,
sat down among the notaries, junior priests, assistants and servants of the
inquiry, who were situated on wooden benches that flanked both sides of the
room.

De Plaisians
scrutinised the bishops in their opulent cloaks, in particular the Bishop of
Paris, whom he disliked intensely, for he considered the man’s intelligence to
be as blunt as a pig’s snout. He was seated on a throne, whose width barely
accommodated him, beside the presiding Archbishop of Narbonne.

The Archbishop
of Narbonne, Gilles Aicelin, saw him and nodded his head very slightly. He was
the godfather of Charles, the King’s son, and nephew of the last all-powerful
Keeper of the Seals, Pierre Flote. De Plaisian remembered how Gilles had
endorsed his words before Pope Clement at Poitiers, comparing the Templars to
the perverted Midianites, when only months before he had given up the royal seals
because he could not sanction the arrests. Many had thought the archbishop a
vacillating fool, but de Plaisians had understood the man’s dilemma: how could
a man who secretly coveted the papacy apply quill to paper before knowing the
temper of the cardinals whose support he nurtured? And again, how could he risk
losing the benefices that were hinged upon his Majesty’s goodwill? Gilles
Aicelin’s frail and capricious life had allowed him only one alternative: to
bow out gracefully, an act which signalled displeasure at Philip’s impatience
and lack of consultation with the Pope, but did nothing whatever to impede
Philip – no doubt he had hoped that his past acquiescence in the
kidnapping of Boniface and the poisoning of Benedict would be remembered.

The Templars
might imagine Gilles Aicelin to be their champion, a man whose thoughts fall
upon their cares, but if the archbishop ever has a thought in that vacuous
space between his ears, it is only for himself – he is his own darling.

This made a smile
rise to de Plaisian’s lips.

He looked
around, the other members he knew less well. There was Durant, the short,
terse, Bishop of Mende; Bonnet Bishop of Bayeux, whom he had met only once or
twice but whose foul, decaying breath had engraved itself on his memory. There
was de la Porte, Bishop of Limoges, whose wet eyes and full pouting mouth gave
him the look of a startled fish.
The good-looking apostolic
notary Matthew of Naples, renowned for his malodorous feet.
The obese and foul-tempered Archdeacon of Maguelonne, as well as the
Archdeacon of Trent, whose gaunt face promised the tortures of hell.
Nogaret was present, and beside him the Inquisitor General, William of Paris.

The hall was
cold. An icy draught chilled the bones despite cloaks and stockings. Before the
commissioners sat Jacques de Molay shivering, tired, weak, pathetic.

He had known the
Templar before the arrests. Then, de Molay’s heroic demeanour, his strength and
firm morality had irritated him – his power he had envied fiercely. Now
he did not even allow himself to feel pity, rather he felt a satisfying contempt,
for if the truth were known he had never liked the man. At the funeral of
Catherine of Valois he had commented to the Grand Master on the Order’s loss of
Acre; the man had answered with extreme sensibility that the Order had survived
Saladin, Baybars and Al-Ashraf, and that they would regain the Holy Land even
if it meant that every man would spill his blood for Christ. Moreover, he had
told him that only a lawyer would think otherwise, since lawyers were the
darlings of courts and knew nothing of the hardships of battle.