The Royal Succession (15 page)

PART TWO
ARTOIS AND THE CONCLAVE

1
. The arrival of Count Robert

A DOZEN horsemen, coming from Doullens and led by a giant in a blood-red surcoat, galloped through the village of Bouque-Maison and stopped on the highest point of the road. From there they had a view over a vast plateau of cornfields, intersected by valleys and beech-groves, and descending in terraces towards a crescent-shaped horizon of distant forests.

`This is where Artois begins, Monseigneur,' said one of the horsemen, the Sire Jean de Varennes, addressing the leader of the cavalcade.

`My county! My county at last!' said the giant. `Here is my own good earth that I have not trodden for fourteen years!'

The silence of midday lay over the sunlit fields. There was no sound but the breathing of the horses after their gallop and the murmur of bumble-bees drunken with heat.

Robert of Artois jumped briskly from his horse, throwing the reins to his valet Lormet, climbed the bank, treading down the grass, and entered the nearest field. His companions remained still, respecting the privacy of his joy. Robert strode hugely forward through the corn whose heavy golden ears waved, about his thighs. He caressed them with his hands as if they were the coat of some quiet horse or the fair hair of a mistress.

`My earth, my corn!' he repeated.

Suddenly he threw himself to the ground, stretched himself out, rolled wallowing wildly among the corn as if he wished to merge with it; he crammed ears of corn into his mouth, chewing them to find that milky flavour at the heart which they have a month before harvest; he did not notice that his lips were scratched with the beards of the wheat. He was drunk with the blue sky, the dry earth and the scent of crushed stalks, doing as much damage by himself as a herd of wild pig. He rose to his
feet, superb and rumpled. As he returned to his companions, he was brandishing a handful of corn. `Lormet,' he said to his valet, `unclasp my surcoat, unlace my
hauberk.'
21

When this had been done,
he slipped the corn beneath his shirt against his skin.

`I swear to God, Messeigneurs,' he said in a great voice, `that these ears of corn shall not leave my breast till I have reconquered my county to the last field, to the last tree. Now, forward into battle!'

He remounted his horse, dug in his heels, and set it into a gallop.

`Do you not think, Lormet,' he shouted into the wind of their passage, `that the earth here has a better sound beneath our horses' hooves?'

`Yes indeed, Monseigneur,' replied that tender-hearted killer who shared all his master's opinions and waited on him like a wet-nurse. `But your surcoat is loose in the wind; slow down a little so that I can do it up for you.'

They rode on thus for a moment. Then the plateau fell quickly away, and Robert saw a great mass of armed men awaiting him; they were drawn up in a field and glistened in the sun, an army of eighteen hundred knights come to greet him. He could never have believed that his partisans would come in such numbers to the meeting -place.

`Well done, Varennes! You've done good work, my friend,' cried Robert in astonishment.

When the knights of Artois recognized him there were shouts of acclamation from their ranks.

`Welcome to our Count Robert! Long life to our sweet lord!'

And the most eager set their horses towards him, their steel knee-pieces jostling, their lances waving like another field of corn.

'Ah, here's Caumont! Here's Souastre! I know you by your shields, my friends,' said Robert.

The knights' faces showed through the raised visors of their helms, running with sweat, but gay with their ardour for war. Many of them were but little coun
try lords, wearing ancient, old-
fashioned armour, inherited from father or great-uncle, and which they had themselves altered to their measure: work done in the manor house. Before night they would be galled by the joints and their bodies covered with bleeding sores; indeed they all carried with them in the
baggage of their valets of arms
a pot of
unguent prepared by their wives and strips of linen for bandages.

Before Robert's eyes was every pat
tern of military
fashion far the last century: every shape of helm and bassinet; some of the hauberks and great swords had been on the crusade. The provincial dandies had adorned t
heir helmets with feathers of
cocks
, pheasants or peacocks; golden
dragons decorated others, and a naked woman was bolted to one of them, which attracted much attention.

They had all freshly painted their short shields, which carried their armorial beatings in brilliant colours; their
coats-of-arms
were simple or complex according to their degree of nobility and the age of their House, the more simple designs being naturally those of the oldest families.

`This is Saint-Venant, this is Longvillers, this is Ned
onchel,' said Jean de Varennes,
presenting the knights to Robert.

`Your feal, Monseigneur, your, feal,' each one said as his name was called.

`Feal,
Nedonchel, feal Bailiencourt,
feal
Picquigny
replied Robert, as he passed in front of each in turn.

To some
of the young men,
sitting upright on their horses and proud to be wearing the harness of war for the first time, Robert promised that he would arm them knights himself if they behaved well in the imminent engagements.

He then decided to appoint two marshals at once, as was done for the royal army. He chose first the
Sire de Hautponlieu, who had b
een very active in gathering these unruly lords.

`And then I'll have, let's see, you, Beauval!' Robert announced. `The Regent has a Beaumont for a marshal; I shall have a Beauval.'

The little lords, who were partial to a pun or a play on words, laughingly acclaimed Jean de Beauval who had been thus selected because of his name.

`And now, Monseigneur Robert,' said Jean de Varennes,

`which road do you wish to take? Do we go first to Saint-Pol, or
straight to Arras? Artois is all yours, you have but to choose.' `Which road leads to Hesdin?'

`The one you're on, Monseigneur, which goes by Frevent.' `Very well, I wish to go first to the castle of my fathers.'

The knights looked a little uneasy. It was most unfortunate
that the Count of Artois should wish to go to Hesdin immediately on his arrival.

`The fact is, Monseigneur,' said Souastre, the knight who was
wearing the naked woman on his helmet, `the fact is that the castle is in no fit state to receive you.'

`What's that? Is it still occupied by the Sire de Brosse, whom my cousin the Hutin installed there?'

`No, no; we put Jean de Brosse to flight; but we also sacked the castle a little in the process.'

`Sacked it?' said Robert. `You have not burnt it down, I trust?'

`No, Monseigneur, no; the walls are perfectly sound.'

`But you've done a bit of pillaging, eh, my pretty gentlemen? Well, if that's all, you did well. All that belongs to that sow Mahaut, that slut Mahaut, that bitch Mahaut,_ is yours, Messeigneurs, and I make you a gift of it.'

How could they not love so generous a lord! Once again they roared long life to their noble Count Robert, and the army of the rebellion set out for Hesdin.

Towards the end of the afternoon they reached the fortified town of the Counts of Artois, with its fourteen towers, where the castle alone occupied the enormous expanse of some twelve acres.

What taxes, what labour and what sweat this fabulous building had cost the common people of the neighbourhood, though they had been told it was to protect them against the disasters of war! Wars had succeeded each other, but the protection seemed far from effective, and since armies
were always fighting for the
castle, the population preferred to go to ground in their cob-built houses, praying God that the avalanche might pass to one side.

There were few people in the streets to cheer their Seigneur Robert; the inhabitants, who had suffered enough during the sack the day before, were in hiding. A few of the more craven had come out to shout a little, but their acclamations were thin.

The approaches to the castle were not a pleasant sight; the royal garrison, hanged from the battlements, were beginning to stink a little of carrion. At the great gate, called the Porte des Poulets, the drawbridge had been lowered. Inside was a scene of
desolation; in the cellars wine was running from the broken vats; dead chickens were lying all over the place; from the stables came the sad lowing of unmilked cows; and on the bricks, which paved the interior courtyards, a rare luxury at the period, the story of the recent massacre could be read in great patches of dried blood.

The buildings that housed the apartments of the family of Artois consisted of fifty rooms, and none of them had been spared by Robert's good friends. Everything which had not been
taken away to adorn the neighbouring manors had been smashed on the spot.

From the chapel the great silver-gilt cross and the bus
t of Saint Louis, containing a
fragment of the King's bone and a few of his hairs, had disappeared. So had the gold chalice which Ferry de Picquigny had purloined. Later he sold it and it was discovered in a Paris shop. The twelve volumes of the library and the chessmen of jasper and chalcedony had been stolen. With Mahaut's dresses, dressing-gowns and linen, the little lords had provided handsome presents for their lady loves and had inexpensively prepared for themselves warm nights of gratitude. Even the kitchen, stores of pepper, ginger, saffron and cinnamon had been looted.
22

They walked over broken dishes and torn brocades; everywhere bedcurtains had been torn down, furniture hacked to pieces and tapestries destroyed. The leaders of the rebellion were somewhat abashed as they followed Robert, on his tour; but at every new discovery the giant burst out into such loud and sincere laughter that they soon felt cheered again.

In the hall of escutcheons Mahaut had arranged along the walls stone statues of the Counts and Countesses of Artois from their beginnings to herself. The faces were all a little alike, but the total effect was one of grandeur.

`Here,
Monseigneur,' declared Picquigny, who had somet
hing
of a bad conscience,
`we wished to touch nothing.'

`And you were wrong, my friend
,' replied Robert, `for I see
among these statues at least one head which displeases me ; Lormet! A mace!'

Taking the heavy mace from his valet, he whirled it three times round his head and brought it down with all his strength on Mahaut's face. The statue reeled on its base and the head, broken at the neck, was shivered on the flagstones.

`May the living head suffer the same fate when all the allies of Artois have well pissed on it!' cried Robert.

If you like breaking things, it's just a matter of making a start; the mace seemed to have a friendly weight in the scarlet-clothed giant's hand.

'Ah, my sow of an aunt, you robbed me of Artois because he who begot me ...'

And he sent the head flying from the statue of his father, Count Philippe.

`... was foolish enough to die before this one ...'

And he decapitated his grandfather, Count Robert II,

`... and I shall perhaps' live among these statues which you ordered, to do yourself an honour to which you had no right! Down with my ancestors! We shall begin all over again and not with stolen wealth.'

The walls trembled, the stone lay scattered about the floor. The barons of Artois had fallen silent, breathless at the spectacle of the monumental fury of this man who far surpassed them in the art of violence. How could they not give such a leader their passionate devotion!

When he had finished decapitating his family, Count Robert III threw his mace through a window-pane, and said, stretching himself: `Now we are ready to talk. Messires, my friends, my trusty companions, I desire that in each town, provostship and castellany which we deliver from the yoke of Mahaut and those damned Hirsons, all complaints against her should be noted down, and the register of her wickedness precisely kept, so that an exact tally of it may be sent to her son-in-law, Messire of the Closed Gates - for wherever he appears, that man, he encloses everything, towns, conclaves, the Treasury - to Messire Short
-
of-Sight, our good Lord Philippe the Myope,
23
who calls himself self Regent and for whose benefit we were deprived, fourteen years ago, of this county, in order that he might grow fat with Burgundy! May the beast die of it, his throat strangled with his own guts!'

Little Gerard Kierez, who was clever in all the chicanery of legal proceedings, and who had pleaded before the King the cause of the barons against Mahaut, then said: `There is a grave matter, Monseigneur, which is of interest not only to Artois, but to the whole kingdom, and perhaps the Regent might not be indifferent to knowing how his brother, Louis X, died.'

`By the living devil, Gerard, do you believe what I believe myself? Have you any proof that my aunt had an evil hand in that affair too?
'

'Proof, proof, Monseigneur, it's easy enough to talk of proof; but a strong suspicion certainly, which can be supported by evidence. I know a woman at Arras who calls herself Isabelle de Feriennes and her son, Jean, both sellers of magic potions, who supplied a certain Demoiselle d'Hirson, Beatrice...'

`One day I'll make you a present of that one,' said Robert. `I know her and, judging from her looks, she'd be a treat in bed! '

`The Feriennes gave her a good poison to kill deer for Madame Mahaut, not more than two weeks before the King died. What can serve for deer can serve also for a king.'

The barons' chuckles showed that they understood and appreciated this allusion.

`In any case it was a poison for the wearers of horns,' said Robert, outdoing him. `God keep my cuckold of a cousin's soul!'

The laughter grew louder.

`And it seems all the more likely, Messire Robert,' went on Kierez, `because the Dame de Feriennes was boasting last year that she compounded the philtre which reconciled Messire Phil
ippe, whom you call the Myope,
and
Madame Jeanne,
Mahaut's daughter . .
'