The She-Wolf (The Accursed Kings, Book 5) Read online

  It seemed to Valois as if they were plotting together over there, preparing a future from which he would also be eliminated.

  If he turned his head to the other side of the bed, it was to see standing there, upright, competent, like a woman who has seen many people die and is already a widow, Mahaut de Châtillon-Saint-Pol, his third wife. Gaucher de Châtillon, the old Constable, with his saurian head and his seventy-seven years, was in process of winning another victory; he was watching a man twenty years his junior die before him.

  Étienne de Mornay and Jean de Cherchemont, both former chancellors of Charles of Valois before becoming in turn Chancellors of France, Mille de Noyers, the lawyer and Master of the Exchequer, Robert Bertrand, the Knight of the Green Lion, and lately appointed a marshal, Brother Thomas de Bourges, his confessor, and Jean de Torpo, his physician, were all there to help him, each in accordance with his function. But who could help a man to die? Hugues de Bouville wiped away a tear. But for what was fat Bouville weeping if it were not for his own lost youth, the imminence of old age and the passing of his own life?

  Indeed, a dying prince was a poorer man than the poorest serf in his kingdom. For the poor serf had not to die in public; his wife and children could deceive him as to the imminence of death; he was surrounded by no pomp foretelling his end; nor was he obliged to draw up, when in extremis, the affidavit of his own demise. And indeed that was what they were all waiting for, all these high personages assembled. For what, after all, was a will but an avowal drawn up by oneself of one’s own death? It was a document concerned with other people’s futures. The secretary was waiting, his inkpot in place on his writing-board, his parchment and pen ready. So be it. He must begin, or rather finish. It was not so much the effort of mind that was so great but the effort of renouncement. A will should begin like a prayer.

  ‘In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost …’

  Charles of Valois had spoken. Everyone thought he was praying.

  ‘Write, friend,’ he said to the secretary. ‘Can’t you hear that I’m dictating? I, Charles …’

  He stopped, because it gave him a painful and frightening sensation to hear his own voice uttering his own name for the last time. Was not a name the very symbol of a man’s existence and of his individuality? Valois would have liked to stop there, because nothing else interested him any more. But there were all those eyes fixed on him. For the last time he must act, and for others from whom he already felt himself so profoundly separated.

  ‘I, Charles, son of the King of France, Count of Valois, Alençon, Chartres and Anjou, make known to all concerned that I, being sound in mind, though ill in body …’

  Though his utterance was slightly embarrassed and his tongue stumbled over certain words, often the simplest, his mental machinery, that had always been accustomed to formulate his wishes in words, apparently continued to function normally. But to the dying man it seemed as if he himself was his only audience. He was in the middle of a river; his voice was speaking to the bank he was leaving; he trembled at the thought of what would happen when he reached the farther side.

  ‘… and asking God’s mercy, while in fear and dread of His Judgment, I order by these presents the disposal of myself and my possessions, and make my last will and testament in the manner hereinafter written. In the first place I resign my soul into the keeping of our Lord Jesus Christ and His merciful Mother and all His Saints …’

  On a sign from the Countess of Hainaut the servant wiped away the saliva which was dribbling from the corner of his mouth. All private conversation had ceased and everyone was trying to avoid even the rustling of clothes. Those present seemed utterly astonished that this inert and feeble body, crippled by illness, should still be able to think so clearly and even be fastidious in the choice of language.

  Gaucher de Châtillon murmured to his neighbours: ‘He won’t die today.’

  Jean de Torpo, one of the physicians, shook his head doubtfully. In his opinion Monseigneur Charles would not see another dawn. But Gaucher went on: ‘I’ve seen many of them, I’ve seen many of them … I tell you there’s still life in that body …’

  The Countess of Hainaut put her finger to her lips and prayed the Constable to be silent; Gaucher was deaf and did not realize how loud he whispered.

  Valois continued his dictation: ‘I wish my body to be buried in the Church of the Minorites in Paris, between the tombs of my two first wives …’

  His eyes sought the face of his third wife, the living one, the future widow Mahaut de Châtillon. Three wives, and a whole life had been lived … And it was Catherine, the second, whom he had loved the most, perhaps because of her mythical crown of Constantinople. Catherine had been a beauty, well worthy to bear her legendary title. Valois was astonished that his unhappy body, half-paralysed and on the very verge of annihilation, should still retain a vague and diffused quivering of the old desires that transmitted life. And so he would lie beside her, beside the Empress, and on the other side he would have his first wife, the daughter of the King of Naples, both dust for such a long time now. How strange that the memory of a desire should remain when the body which was its object no longer exists! And what of the Resurrection? But there was his third wife, the wife he was looking at now, who had been a good companion to him too. He must leave her something.

  ‘Item, I desire my heart to be placed in the town and place which my wife Mahaut de Saint-Pol elects for her burial; and my entrails in the Abbey of Chaâlis, the right to divide my body having been granted me by a Bull of our Most Holy Father, the Pope …’ He hesitated in a vain endeavour to remember the date, and added: ‘… previously.’28

  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 Chaâlis, 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 incapable 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 Chaâlis 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 of 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 they 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 face 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 Exeter, 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’s 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 returned 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 Châtillon. 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 Alençon 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 Châtillon’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 wardrobe 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, Béatrice, 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 Clémence 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 France, 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 Clémence, 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 they 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 of 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 Clémence from 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 suddenly 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 hand, 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 expression 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 debt 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 Alençon, 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 appanage. 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, unctuous 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’s chancellor? And how did they know each other, since Stapledon had arrived only yesterday? 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?’