The She Wolf of France (22 page)

How proud he had been of this authorization, which was given only to kings, to distribute his body as, saints were divided up into relics! He had insisted on being treated as a king even in the tomb. But now he was thinking of the Resurrection, the only hope left to those on the verge of the final step. If
the teachings of religion were
true, how
would the Resurrection affect
him? His entrails at Chaalis, his heart wherever
Mahaut de Saint-Pol
chose, and his body in the church in Paris, would he rise up before Catherine and Marguerite with an empty breast and a stomach filled with straw and sewn; up with hemp? There must be some other arrangement, something the human mind was
in
capable of conceiving. Would there be a press of bodies and eyes, like that which was now about his bed? What wild confusion there would be, if all ancestors and all descendants rose up together, and all murderers face to face with their victims, and all mistresses, and all the betrayed. Would Marigny rise up before him?

`Item, I leave to the Abbey of Chaalis sixty livres tournois to celebrate my birthday. ..'

Once again the napkin wiped his chin: For nearly a
quarter of an hour he detailed
all the churches, abbeys, and, pious foundations in his fiefs to which he desired to leave here a hundred livres, there fifty, there a hundred and twenty, and there a lily to embellish a shrine. The enumeration was monotonous, except to himself for whom: each name represented a steeple, a village, a town
o
f which for a few hours more, or even days perhaps, he would still be the Lord, and some particular and personal memory of it. The, thoughts of those present wandered, as th
ey did at mass when the service
was too long. Only Jeanne the Lame, who found it painful to stand for so long on her short leg, listened attentively. She was adding and calculating. At every figure she looked at her husband, Philippe of Valois, and her face, though far from naturally ugly, was made hideous by the
avarice of her thoughts. These legacies would all have to be paid out of their inheritance! Philippe was frowning too.

In the meantime, the English clan was standing by the windows and plotting again. Queen Isabella was anxious, though the concern on her face might have been thought due to the circumstances. In fact she was extremely worried. In the first place, because Mortimer was not there; and she never felt really safe, or indeed really alive, when he was not near her. And in the second, she felt that she was constantly watched and spied on by Stapledon, the Bishop of E
xeter, who had come unbidden to
Perray on the grounds that it was his duty to escort the young Duke of Aquitaine everywhere. This man, who was Edward's evil genius, was bound to cause disaster wherever he might be, or at the very least serious trouble. Isabella pulled Robert of Artois by the sleeve to make him bend his ear down to her.

`Beware of Exeter,' she whispered, `that thin Bishop standing over there biting his thumb. I'm very anxious, Cousin. My last letter from Orleton had
been opened
and the seal glued on again.

They could hear Charles of Valois' voice saying: `Item, I bequeath to my wife, the Countess, the ruby which my daughter of Blois gave me. Item, I bequeath to her the embroidered cloth which belonged to my mother, Queen Marie ...'

Though everyone's mind had wandered during the pious bequests, all eyes grew brighter now that it was a question of the jewels. The Countess of Blois raised her eyebrows and showed a certain disappointment. Her father might well have ret
urned to
her the ruby she had given him, instead of leaving it to his wife.

`Item, the reliquary of Saint Edward in my possession ...'

Hearing the name of Saint Edward, the young Prince Edward of England raised his long lashes and tried to catch his mother's eye. But no, the reliquary went also to Mahaut de Chatillon. And Isabella thought that Uncle Charles might well have left it to his great-nephew, who was present.

`Item, I leave to Philippe, my eldest son, a ruby and all my arms and harness, except a coat of mail which is of Acre work, and the sword with which the Lord of Harcourt fought, both of which I leave to Charles, my second son. Item, to my daughter of Burgundy, the wife of Philippe my son, the finest of all my emeralds.'

The lame woman's cheeks turned a little red, and she thanked him with an inclination of the head which seemed almost indecent, You could be sure that she would have the emeralds
examined by an expert jeweller to make certain which of them was the finest.

`Item, to Charles
my second son, all
my horses and palfreys, my gold chalice, a silver bowl and a missal.,

Charles of Alencon began stupidly weeping, as if he had only become aware of the fact that his father was dying, and of the sorrow he felt at it, at the very moment the dying man mentioned him by name.

`Item, I leave to Louis, my third son, all my silver plate .. '

The child clung to Mahaut de Chatillon's skirts; she tenderly stroked his forehead

`Item, I will and command that all that remains of my funeral trappings be, sold to pay for prayers for my soul. .. Item, that my war
drobe be distributed to my body servants ..
.'

There was a
discreet stir by the open windows and heads
leaned
out. Three litters were entering the courtyard of the manor, which had been strewn with straw to deaden the sound of horses' hooves. From a great litter, decorated with gilded carvings and curtains embroidered with representations of the castles of Artois, the huge
and monumental Countess Mahaut,
her hair now grey beneath her veil, alighted, as
did her daughter, the Dowager
Queen Jeanne of Burgundy, the widow of Philippe the Long. The Countess was also accompanied by
her chancellor, Canon Thierry
d'Hirson, and her lady-in-waiting, Beatrice, the Canon's niece. Mahaut had come from her Castle of Conflans, near Vincennes, which: she rarely left in these days which were so hostile to her.

The second litter, which was all white, was that of the Dowager Queen Clemence of Hungary, widow of Louis Hutin.

From the third and more modest litter, which had plain curtains of black leather, emerged with some difficulty, and assisted by only two servants, Messer Spinello Tolomei, Captain-General of the Lombard companies of Paris.

And so, through the corridors of the manor, came two former Queens of
F
rance, young women of the same age: they were both thirty-two and one had succeeded the other on the throne. They were dressed all in white, which was the custom for widowed queens. They were both fair and beautiful, particularly Queen Clemence, and indeed they looked rather like twin sisters. Behind them, a head and shoulders taller, came the redoubtable Countess Mahaut who, as everyone knew, though he lacked the courage to say so, had killed the husband of one of these queens so that the husband of the other might reign. And then, behind again,
dragging a leg, his stomach to the fore, his white hair sparse over his collar and the crow's feet of time on his cheeks, came old Tolomei, who had been involved, more or less closely, in every intrigue. And because age is in itself ennobling, because money is the real source of power in the world, because Monseigneur
o
f Valois could not in the past have married the Empress of Constantinople without him, and because without Tolomei the Court of France could not have sent Bouville to fetch Queen Clemence f
rom Naples,
nor, Robert of Artois have undertaken his lawsuits, nor married the daughter of the Count of Valois, and because without Tolomei the, Queen of England could not have been here with her son, the old Lombard, who had seen so much and learnt
so much and had kept so many secrets, was treated with that respect which is normally reserved only for princes.

Everyone moved aside and backed against the walls to free the doorway. Bouville trembled when Mahaut's skirts brushed against his stomach.

Isabella and Robert of, Artois looked at each other
questioningly. Did Tolomei's
and Mahaut's simultaneous arrival mean that the old Tuscan fox was working also for their adversaries? But Tolomei reassured his clients with a discreet smile. There was no more to their joint arrival than could be explained by the chances of the road.

Mahaut's entrance embarrassed everyone. It was as if the beams of the ceiling had suddenl
y become lower. Valois stopped
dictating when he saw his old giantess of an enemy appear, driving the two white widows before her, as if they were a couple of ewe lambs she was taking out to pasture. And then Valois saw Tolomei, and his unparalysed han
d, on which glittered the ruby
that was to pass to the finger of his eldest son, waved in front of his face as he said: `Marigny, Marigny ...'

Everyone thought his mind was wandering. But not at all; the sight of Tolomei had merely reminded him of their common enemy. Without the help of the Lombards, Valois could never have triumphed over the Coadjutor.

Then the huge Mahaut of Artois was heard to say: `God will forgive you, Charles, for your repentance is sincere.'

`The bitch!' said Robert of Artois, loud enough for those about him to hear. `She, of all people, dares to speak of remorse!'

Charles of Valois paid no attention to the Countess of Artois and signed to the Lombard to come near. The old Sienese went to the bedside, raised the paralysed hand and kissed it. But Valois did not feel the kiss.

`We are praying for your recovery, Monseigneur,' said Tolomei.

Recovery! It was the only word of comfort Valois had heard from any of these people for whom his death appeared to be no more than a formality! Recovery! Was the banker saying that merely out of kindness or did he really believe in it? They looked at each other and, in Tolomei's single open eye; that dark
and cunning eye, the dying man
saw something like an exp
ression of complicity. Here, at
last, was
one eye from which he
was not eliminated!

`Item, item,' went on Valois, levelling his forefinger at the secretary, `I will and command that all my debts be paid, by my children.'

This was indeed a splendid bequest he was making Tolomei with these words, a more valuable one than all the rubies and all the reliquaries. And Philippe, of Valois, Charles of Alencon, Jeanne the Lame and the Countess, of Blois
all
looked equally disconcerted. How right the Lombard had been to come!

`Item, to Aubert de Villepion, my chamberlain, the sum of two hundred livres tournois; to Jean de Cherchemont, who was my chancellor before being that of France,; a similar sum;; to Pierre de Montguillon, my equerry.

And now once more Monseigneur of Valois was in the thrall of that spirit of largesse which had cost him so dear throughout his life. Acting the prince to the last gasp, he was recompensing those who had served him. Two hundred or three hundred livres were not in themselves great sums but, when multiplied by forty or fifty and added to the pious bequests, all; the Pope's gold, which had already been considerably diminished, could not suffice. Nor would a year's revenues from the whole Valois apanage.
Charles clearly intended
to be prodigal even after his death.

Mahaut went over to the English group. She greeted Isabella with a glance in which gleamed an old hatred, smiled at the little Prince Edward as if she wanted to bite him, and at last looked at Robert.

`My dear nephew, how grievous this must be to you; he was a real father to you. . .' she said in a low voice.

`And it must be a terrible shock to you, Aunt,' he replied in the same tone. `After all, he is the same age as yourself, or very near it. You cannot have many more years to live

People were coming and going at the back of the room. Isabella suddenly noticed that the Bishop of Exeter had disappeared; or
rather that he was in process of disappearing, for she saw him going out through the door, with that proud, u
nctuous and gliding motion so
common among ecclesiastics when moving through a crowd; and he was in company with Canon d'Hirson, Mahaut's chancellor. And the giantess was also watching them going out together, and each woman realized that the other was aware of what was taking place.

Isabella was anxiously wondering. What could Stapledon, her enemy's envoy, have to say to the Countess' chancellor? And how did they know each other, since
Stapledon had arrived only yes
terday? It was perfectly clear that the English spies had been in contact with Mahaut. Indeed, it was only to be expected. 'She, has every reason to want to avenge herself on me and destroy me,' thought Isabella. `After all, I denounced her daughters. Oh, how I wish Roger were here! Why did I not insist on his coming?'

The two priests had found no difficulty in meeeting. Canon d'Hirson had had Edward's envoy pointed out to him.

`Reverendissimus sanctissimusque Exeteris episcopus?' he asked him. `Ego canonicus et comitissae Artesiensis cancellarius
sum.,*

*`Very reverend and most saintly Bishop of Exeter? I am a canon and Chancellor to the Countess of Artois.

They had been instructed to meet at the first opportunity. And this opportunity had arisen here. And now, sitting side by side in a window-embrasure at the end of a corridor, their beads in their hands, they conversed in Latin, as if they were making the responses to the prayers for the dying.

Canon d'Hirson had a copy of a very interesting letter addressed to Queen Isabella from a certain English Bishop who signed himself `O'. The letter had been stolen from an Italian businessman while he was sleeping in an inn in Artois. Bishop `O' advised the Queen not to come back for the present, but to gather as many partisans in France as she could, to assemble a thousand knights and land with them in England to chase out the Despensers and that wicked Bishop Stapledon. Thierry d'Hirson had the copy on him. Would Monseigneur Stapledon care to have it? A paper passed from the Canon's cloak to the Bishop, who cast an eye on it and recognized the clever, succinct style of Adam Orleton. If, he added, Roger Mortimer took command of this expedition, the whole English nobility would rally to him within a few days.

Bishop Stapledon gnawed at a corner of his thumb.

`Ille baro de Mortuo Mari concubines Isabellae reginae aperte est,'* said Thierry d'Hirson.