The Royal Succession (27 page)

`The Abbess! I demand to see the Mother Abbess!' he cried.

`Men may not enter the cloister.'

In the end they threatened to send for the sergeants of the watch.

Breathless, grey and drawn, Guccio returned to the Street of the Lombards.

`It's her brothers, her idiot brothers, who have taken her back!' he told Tolomei. `Oh, I've been away too long! That was a fine troth she pledged me, not to have lasted six months! These ladies of the nobility, so the romances say, wait ten years for their knight when he has gone on a crusade. But you don't wait for a Lombard! That's what it is, Uncle, that and nothing else. Read
the letter again! There's nothing in it but insults and contempt. They might have compelled her not to see me again, but not to give me a slap in the fac
e like this . After all, Uncle,
we are rich to the extent of tens of thousands of florins; the greatest barons come and implore us to pay their debts, the Pope himself took me for a counsellor during the whole Conclave, and now these country oafs dare spit on me from the height of their mud castle that could be knocked down with a shove of the shoulder! Those two mangy dogs have only to appear and their sister denies me. How wrong one can be to believe that a girl is different from her family!' With Guccio sorrow quickly turned to anger and his innate pride helped him to fight despair. He had stopped loving, but not suffering.

`I don't understand it at all,' said Tolomei distressed. `She seemed so much in love, so happy to be yours. I would never have believed it possible. I now see why Bouville seemed so embarrassed the other day. He clearly knew something. But he must have warned the brothers after my visit.
And yet, what with the letters
she wrote me, I don't understand it at all. Do you want me to see Bouville again?'

`I don't want anything. I don't want anything any more!' cried Guccio. `I've already too much importuned the great ones of the earth on behalf of that deceiving bitch. I even asked the Pope to protect her. In love, did you say? She merely cajoled you when she thought her own people would have no more to do with her
,
and she saw no other recourse but us. And yet, we were really married! For though she was not lacking in impatience to give herself to me, she would not do so without a priest's blessing. You tell me that she spent five days with Queen Clemence as wet nurse! Her head must have been turned at filling an office any chambermaid might have held in her place. I too have been close to the Queen, and helped her in another way! During the storm I saved her.'

His thoughts were no longer linked; he was incoherent with
anger; and walking up and down the room throwing his leg must have covered a quarter of a league.

`Perhaps if you went and saw the Queen...'

`Neither the Queen nor anyone else! Let Marie go back to her muddy hamlet, where the manure's up to your ankles. No doubt they've found her a husband, a fine husband like those squalid brothers of hers. Some hairy, stinking knight who'll bring up my child, the cuckold! If she came on her knees to me, I wouldn't have her now, do you hear, I wouldn't have her!'

'I think if: she came in at this moment, you'd talk in another tone,' said Tolomei gently. -

Guccio turned pale and covered his eyes with his hands. 'My beautiful Marie ...' He saw her in the room at Neauphle again; he saw her close to him; he could distinguish the golden lights in her dark blue eyes. How could such a betrayal have been concealed behind those eyes?

`I'm going away, Uncle.'

`Where to? Are you going back to Avignon?'

`I should cut a pretty figure there! I told everybody that I was coming back with my wife; I said she had every virtue. The Holy Father himself would be the first to ask me for news.'

`Boccaccio was telling me the other day that the Peruzzi are undoubtedly going to farm the taxes in the seneschalship of Carcassonne.'

`No! Neither Carcassonne nor Avignon.'

`Nor Paris, of course ...' said Tolomei sadly.

There comes a moment towards the evening of every man's life, however egotistical he may have been, when he feels weary of working for himself alone. The banker, having looked forward to the presence of a pretty niece and a happy family in his house, suddenly saw his own hopes disappear and in their place the prospect of a long and lonely old age.

`No, I must go,' said Guccio. `I want nothing more to do with France which grows fat on us and despises us because we are Italian. What has France given me, I ask you? A stiff leg, four months in the Hotel-Dieu, six weeks in a church, and to cap it all, this! I ought to have known that this country would be no use to me. Do you remember how the day after my arrival I very nearly knocked down King Philip the Fair in the street? It was a bad omen! Not to speak of my sea voyages, in which I twice nearly perished, and of all the time spent counting coppers for villeins in the muddy town of Neauphle, because I believed myself in love.'

`All the same, you'll take away one or two good memories,' said Tolomei.

`What need of memories have I at my age? I want to go back to my own town of Siena where there, is no lack of pretty girls, the prettiest girls in the world people say when I tell them I'm Si
enese. In any case they're not
such bitches as the girls here! My father sent me to you to learn; I think I've learnt enough.'

Tolomei opened his left eye; it was a little misty under the eyelid.

`You may be right,' he said. `Your sorrow will fade more quickly when you're far away. But regret, nothing, Guccio, It's no bad apprenticeship you've served. You have lived, travelled, learned the miseries of the poor and discovered the weaknesses of the great. You have been to the four Courts which dominate Europe, those of Paris, London, Naples and Avignon. There are not many people who have been shut up in a Conclave! You've been broken in to business. I shall give you your share; it's a handsome sum. Love has made you commit a few follies, and you're leaving a bastard behind you as does everyone who has travelled much . And you're still only twenty. When do you want to leave?'

`Tomorrow, zio Spinello, tomorrow if you don't mind. But I shall come back!' Guccio added in a furious voice.

`Indeed, I sincerely hope so, my boy! I hope you won't let your old uncle die without seeing you again!'

`I shall come back one day, and take away my child. For he is mine, after all, as much as he's the Cressays'. Why should I leave him to them? So that they may bring him up in their stables, like a mongrel hound? I'll take him away, do you hear, and that will be Marie's punishment. You know what they say in our country: the vengeance of a Tuscan.

A terrific uproar on the ground floor cut him short. The house with its wooden beams shook to its foundations as if a dozen drays had entered the courtyard. Doors banged.

Uncle and nephew went to the spiral staircase which seemed to be resounding to the noise of a cavalry charge. A voice was shouting: `Banker! Where are you, banker? I need some money.'

And Monseigneur Robert of Artois reached the top of the stairs.

Just look at me, my banker friend, I've this moment come out of prison!' he cried. `Would you believe it? My honey-sweet, my short-sighted cousin - the King, I mean, since it appears he is so - at last remembered that I was rotting in the jail he threw me into, and he has now freed me, the kind fellow!'

`Welcome, Monseigneur,' said Tolomei without much enthusiasm.

And he leaned forward to look down the stairs, still doubting that the hurricane could have been caused by one man alone.

Lowering his head so as not to bang it against the lintel of the door, the Count of Artois entered the banker's study and went to a looking-glass.

`By God! I look like a death's head" he said taking his face in
his hands. `Really, one might die of less! Just imagine it, for seven weeks I've only seen the day through a tiny window crossed with iron bars thick as a donkey's pizzle! Broth twice a day which looked like a colic before you even ate it. Luckily my Lormet had his own methods of supplying me with food, otherwise I should be dead by now. And the bed, if you can call it a bed! Because of my royal blood I was allowed a bed. I had to break the wood to be able to stretch out my legs! But have patience; my dear cousin will pay for it all.'

In fact, Robert had not lost an ounce of weight and prison had not affected his rock-like nerves. If his complexion was a little less high, his grey, flint-coloured eyes were shining more wickedly than ever.

`And a splendid freedom they've allowed me! "You're free, Monseigneur," ' the giant imitated the Governor of they Chatelet; "'but you may go no further than twenty leagues from Paris; but the office of the King's sergeant-at-arms must know where you are living; but the Captain of Evreux, if you go to your estates, must be informed!" In other words: "Stay here, Robert, walking the streets under the eyes of the watch, or go and moulder at Conches. But don't take a step towards Artois, and not a step towards Rheims! And above all, you're not wanted at
the coronation! You might well sing a psalm unpleasing to certain ears!" And they've chosen a good day on which to release
me. Neither too early, nor too late. The whole Court has left; there's no one at the palace, no one at Valois' house . He's abandoned me all right, that cousin has! And here I am in a dead city, without even a farthing in my purse for supper tonight or for a wench to serve my amorous mood! Seven weeks, you know, banker! But no, you can't understand; that sort of thing doesn't worry you any longer. But mind you, I whored enough in Artois while I was there to keep me quiet for a bit; and there must be a lot of little knaves on the way in those parts who'll never know that they'll be able to say "grandfather" when speaking of Philippe-Auguste. But I've discovered a strange thing that the doctors and philosophers, the rats, might think on: why should man be furnished with, a member which, the more work you give it, the more it asks to do?'

He laughed aloud, cracked an oak
en chair as he sat down on it,
and suddenly appeared to notice Guccio's presence.

`Well, young man, how are your love affairs going?' he asked, which meant no more, when he said it, than `good day'.

`My love affairs! You may well talk of them, Monseigneur!'

replied Guccio, somewhat annoyed at having been interrupted by a greater and noisier violence than his own.

Tolomei indicated to the Count of Artois with a look that the subject was untimely.

`What,' cried Artois with his usual tact, `has a fair one fo
rsaken you? Give me her address
at once that I may hasten there! Come, don't look so sad; all women are whores.'

`Yes, indeed, Monseigneur, every
one of them!'

`Well, let's sport with frank whores at least! Banker, I need money. A hundred livres. And I'll take your nephew out to supper with me, and make him forget his sorrow. A hundred' livres! Yes, I know, I know, I already owe you a lot and you think I shall never pay you; but you're wrong. You'll see Robert of Artois more powerful than ever. Philippe can pull his crown
down to his nose if he likes; it won't be long before I knock it off. Because I'm going to tell you
something worth more than a hun
dred livres, something which will be very useful to you in ju
dging who to lend money to. How is
regicide punished? Hanging, beheading, quartering? You'll, soon have the opportunity of witnessing a delightful spectacle: my fat Aunt Mahaut, naked as a whore, being pulled apart by four horses and her filthy guts spread out in the dust. And her niggling son-in-law'll keep her company! The pity of it is that they can't be executed twice. Because they've killed two, the villains! I said nothing while I was in the Chatelet; I didn't want someone to come and bleed me like a pig one fine night. But I've been keeping in touch with things. Lormet, my Lormet as always; he's a splendid fellow! But listen to me.'

After seven weeks of enforced silence, terrible talker that he was, he was catching up. And he drew breath only to talk the more.

`Listen to me carefully,' he went on. `One: Louis confiscates the County of Artois from Mahaut in order to give it back to me; Mahaut immediately has him poisoned. Two: Mahaut, to cover herself, assists Philippe to the Regency against Valois, who would have supported me in my rights. Three: Philippe gets his Law of Succession accepted which excludes women from the crown of France, but not from the inheritance of fiefs, of course! Four: having been confirmed as Regent, Philippe can raise an army to dislodge me from Artois, which I was on the point of completely regaining. Not being a fool, I came and surrendered by myself. But Queen Clemence is about to be brought to bed; they want a free hand; they shut me up in prison. Five: the Queen gives birth
to a son. No matter! They isolate Vincennes, hide the child from the barons, say that he won't live, fix things up with some
mid wife or wet-nurse
whom they frighten or bribe, and kill the second King. After which he goes off and gets crowned at Rheims. That, my friends, is how you obtain a crown. And all this so as not to give me back my county of Artois!'

At the word 'wet-nurse' Tolomei and Guccio exchanged a brief but anxious glance.

`These are things everyone believes,' went on Artois, `but which no one dares proclaim for want of proof. But I have the proof! I'm now going to produce a certain woman who furnished the poison. And then they'll have to make that Beatrice d'Hirson, who has served as the Devil's pander in this splendid game, sing a little by the application of the boot.'

`Fifty livres, Monseigneur; I can give you fifty livres.'

`Miser!'

`It's all I can do.'

`Very well. You'll then owe me the other fifty. Mahaut will pay you the lot, with interest.'

`Guccio,' said Tolomei, `come and help me count out fifty livres for Monseigneur.'

He retired with his nephew into the next room.

`Uncle,' murmured Guccio, `do you think there is any truth in what he said?'

`I don't know, my boy, I don't know; but I think you're quite right to leave. It might be a bad thing to get mixed up in this affair; it has a nasty smell. Bouville's strange manner, Marie's sudden flight ... Of course, one cannot take everything this madman says for gospel; but I've often noticed that, when it's a question of crime, he's never very far from the truth; he's an expert in it and scents it from afar. Remember the adultery of the princesses; it was he who exposed it, and he had already told us about it. As for your Marie,' said the banker, waving his fat hand in gesture of uncertainty, `she's perhaps less ingenuous and less frank than we believed. There's certainly some mystery here.'

`After her traitorous letter one can believe anything,' said Guccio, whose thoughts were straying all over the place.

`Believe nothing, seek nothing; leave. It's good advice.'

When Monseigneur of Artois had taken possession of the fifty livres, he would not be satisfied till Guccio agreed to take part in a little celebration he i
ntended to hold on the occasion
of his being freed. He needed a companion and would have got drunk with his horse rather than do so alone.