The Strangled Queen (21 page)

Panic-stricken and stubbo
rn, The Hutin always came back
to Marigny as the only possible solution. He was walking uncertainly to and fro in the barn; white feathers
stuck to
his shoes.

"Nephew," said Charles of Valois suddenly, "I have twice in
my life been the widower of admirable women. It's a great injustice that you should not be the widower of a shameless one."

"Yes, yes!" cried The Hutin. "Oh yes! If only Marguerite were to die! "

Suddenly he stopped walking to and fro, looked at his uncle, and the two men stood quite still
for a moment, their eyes fixed
upon each other's.

The winter was a cold one, prisons are not healthy places for women," went on Charles of Valois, "and it is a long time now since Marigny informed us of Marguerite's state of health. I am astonished that she has been able to stand the treatment she has received. Perhaps Marigny is concealing from you
how ill
she is, how near to death?"

There was once more silence between them.
Valois's words matched
The Hutin's most secret desires; but he would never have dared to be the first to express them. An accomplice was proposing himself who would relieve him of everything, even of speech, even of thought.'

"You have promised me, Nephew, that yo
u would surrender Marigny to me
the day you have a Pope," said Valois.

"I can give you him just as
well, Uncle, the day
I become a widower," replied The Hutin.

Valois passed his ringed hands across his large cheeks and went on in a low voice, "You must give me Marigny first, because he commands all the fortresses and forbids entry into ChateauGaillard.''

"Very well," replied Louis X. "He forfeits my protection. You can tell Chancellor, de Mornay, to give me any orders you think proper for signature."

That very night, after the supper hour, when Enguerrand de Marigny was alone and preparing the memorandum he intended handing the King, demanding the right to challenge, that is to say the right to demand single combat with any person who dared maintain that he was a traitor or a perjuror, Hugues de Bouville came to see him. The old
Grand Chamberlain of Philip the
Fair seemed a prey to conflicting emotions, and his message seemed to be weighing upon him.

"Enguerrand," he said, "do not sleep, in your own house tonight, they intend to arrest you; I know it from a sure source."

He again addressed Marigny familiarly in the second person, as he had done when his old friend had begun life in his household as an equerry.

"They won't dare," replied Marigny.. "And who will come
to
arrest me, I ask you? Alain de Pareilles? Alain would never accept such an order. He would be more likely to withstand a
siege in in
the
house with his archers than allow a hair of m
y head to be touched."

"You are wrong not to believe me, Enguerrand, and you have made a mistake, also, I assure you, in acting as you have these last months. When you are placed as we are, to act against the King, whatever the King may be like, is
to act against oneself.
And I, too, am in process of acting ' against the King at this moment out of the
friendship I
bear you and because I wish to save you."

The fat man was sincerely unhappy. His goodwill was touching. A loyal servant of the sovereign, a faithful friend, an, official of integrity,' respecting both the laws of God and those of the kingdom, how was it, animated as he was by such honest sentiments, that his voice lacked authority?

'
What - I have come to tell you, Enguerrand, he went on, "I have from Monseigneur Philippe of Poitiers who is your only supporter at this hour. Monseigneur of Poitiers wishes to place some distance between you and the barons whose anger you
have aroused. He
has counselled his brother to send you to g
overn some distant land, Cyprus
for example."

"Cyprus?" cried Marigny. "What, allow myself to be shut up in an island in the far seas, when I have governed: th
e whole kingdom of France? Am I
to be exiled there? I shall continue to walk the streets of Paris as a master, or I shall die in them."

Bouville sadly shook his black-and-white locks.'

"Believe me," he repeated, "do not sleep at home tonight. Whatever may happen, I at least will not have to reproach myself with having failed to warn you."

As soon as Bouville had gone, Enguerrand went and discussed the visit with his wife and his sister-in-law, Dame de Chanteloup; The two women were also of the opinion that it would be wise to leave at once for one of the Norman provinces and then, from
there, if the danger became obvious, go to a port and take refuge with the King of England, who was devoted to Marigny.

But Enguerrand flew into a rage.

"Good God," he cried, "have I no one
but women and eunuchs about me!
"

And then he went to bed as usual. He stroked his favourite dog, was undressed by his valet, watched him wind up the weight of the clock, still a rare poss
ession in those days, for which
he had paid a great sum. He turned over in his mind the last phrases of his memorandum, which he intended finishing the following morning, then went to the window, drew aside the curtain and gazed out at the roofs of the dark city. The night watch were passing down the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Germain, repeating every twenty Paces in their, mechanical voice's "This is the watch! I
t is midnight - Sleep in peace!
"

As usual they were a quarter of an hour late by the clock.

Enguerrand was woken up at dawn by a loud noise of trampling in his courtyard, and by a. knocking on, his door. A panic-stricken equerry came to warn him that the archers were
below. He sent for his clothes
dressed hurriedly and, at the top of the stairs, ran into his wife and son who were hurrying to him.

"You were right, Jeanne, he said to his wife, kissing her forehead; "I have never listened to you sufficiently in the whole of my life. You must leave this very day with Louis.
"

"I would have gone with
you, Enguerrand, but now I cannot leave the place where you will be
made
to

suffer."

"King Louis is my godfather," said Louis de
Marigny; "I shall go at once
to Vincennes."

"Your godfather is weak-minded and the crown sits rather loose upon his head," replied Marigny angrily.

Then, as it was dark upon, the staircase, he cried, "Hi there, footmen. Bring lights! Light up!

And when his servants had
come running, he descended the staircase surrounded by their, torches like a king.

The courtyard
was swarming with men-at-arms. In
the doorway a tall figure in
a coat of mail was etched sh
arply against the grey of early
morning.

"
How could you have consented to this, Pareilles? How could you have dared?
"
said Marigny, spreading wide his hands.

"I am not Alain de P
areilles," replied the officer. Messire de
Pareilles is no longer in, command of the archers.

He moved aside to let a thin man in a dark cloak come forward. It was Chancellor
Etienne de Mornay. As eight
years earlier Nogaret had come in person to arrest the Grand Master of the Templars, Mornay - came in person today to arrest the Rector of the kingdom.

"Messire
Enguerrand," he said "I pray you to
follow me to
the Louvre where I have orders to imprison you."

At the same hour the majority of the great middle-class
justiciars of
the preceding reign, Raoul de Presles, Michel de
Bourdenai, Guillaume Dubois, Geoffroy de Briancon, Nicole Le
Loquetier, Pierre d'Or
gemont, were arrested at their, houses and
taken to various prisons some to be put to

torture, while a detachment was sent to Chalons to arrest Bishop Pierre
de Latille, the
friend of Philip the Fair's youth, the man whom he had so much wished to see during his last hours.

With them the Iron King's whole reign was put in thrall.

4. The Night Without a Dawn

WHEN in the middle of the night;, Marguerite of Burgundy heard
the drawbridge lowered at Chateau-Gaillard, and a sound of horses' hooves in the courtyards, she did not at first believe that these noises were real. She had
waited so long
- dreamed of this moment ever since, through the letter she had sent to the Count
of Artois, she had accepted her disgrace and consented to
the

abrogation of all her rights, both for herself and for her daughter, in exchange for the promised freedom which never came!

Ten weeks had gone by ten weeks of silence more destructive than hunger, more exhausting than cold, more degrading than vermin, more testing than loneliness. Despair had entered into

Marguerite's soul, had affected her nerves and weakened her body. These last days she no longer moved from her bed, a prey to a fever which caused her acute depression. Her only movement was to take the beaker of w
ater placed on the floor beside
her and raise it to her lips. Her eyes wide open to the shadows of the tower, she passed the hours listening to the too-rapid beating of her own heart; and then, if her fever abated, if her forehead became momentarily cool, if her heartbeats rel
axed their rhythm, she suddenly
sat up, screaming, with the appalling feeling that she was on the point of dea
th. The silence was filled with
non
-
existent sounds; the shadows were peopled with tragic memories which were spiritual rather than physical. Her reason was giving
way under the delirium of insomnia. Philippe d'Aunay, handso
me Philippe, was not altogether
dead; he stood beside her,
his legs broken, his body bleeding
; she held out her arms to him,
unable to seize him. Nevertheless, lying there as she did, he seemed to be leading her along the path which leads from this world to, God though she was no longer awar
e of the world, nor able to see
God. And this intolerable progress seemed to stretch out before her to infinity, to the Day of judgment; perhaps indeed this was purgatory.

Blanche! " she cried. "Blanche ! Here they are! ''

Locks, bolts, and the hinges' of doors were creaking in
reality at the bottom of the tower; numerous footsteps sounded on the stone treads of the stairs.

"Blanche! Do you hear them?"

But Marg
uerite's weakened
voice could not reach her cousi
n through the heavy door which,
at night, separated the two storeys of their
prison.

The light of a single candle dazzled the imprisoned Queen. Men were crowding through the doorway in numbers Marguerite could not compute; she saw only the giant in the red cloak, his clear, eyes and his
silver' dagger, as he came
towards her.

"Robert!" she murmured.
"Robert, you have come at last!
"

Behind the Count of Artois a soldier was carrying a chair on his head
-
which he placed by Marguerite's bed.

"Well, well, Cousin,"' said Robert, sitting down. "You do not
appear, to be in a very good state of health, and from what I can see and
hear you are suffering from."

"From everything," said Marguerite. "I no longer know, whether I am dead or alive."

"It was time I
came
. Everything will soon be over;
you'll
see. I have good news for you;
your-enemies are destroyed. Are you strong enough to write? "

"I don't know," said Marguerite.

Artois telling g them to bring the light
nearer, gazed attentively
at the ravaged, haggard face, with
its thin lips, its sunken, too
bright dark eyes, the hair plastered by fever across the prominent brow.

"Perhaps You
-
can at least manage to dictate the letter the King wants. Chaplain!" he called, snapping his fingers.

A white robe with above it a blue, shaven crown came out of the shadows.

"Has my marriage been annulled?" asked Marguerite.

"How can it have been, Cousin, since you refused to do what you
were asked?
"

"I have not refused," she said. "I accepted . I accepted everything. I don't understand you any more. I don't know what you are talking about."

"
Fetch a jug of wine to give her
strength," said Artois, turning
his head.

Someone left the room and his steps could be heard upon the stairs.

"You must make an effort Cousin," went on Artois. "This is the moment when you must accept what I am going to say."

"But I wrote to you, Robert;
I wrote to you so that you might tell, Louis everyth
ing you asked, that my daughter
was not his..."

The world seemed to spin round her.

"When?" asked Robert.

"Ten weeks ago, ten weeks in which I have waited for you to free me.

"To whom did you give the letter?

"To Bersumee
of course."

And suddenly Marguerite tho
ught, panic-stricken, "Did I
really write? It's appalling, I can no longer remember. I can no longer remember anything.

"Ask Blanche," she murmured.

But at that moment there was, a great noise at her side; Robert of Artois had risen to his feet, he had seized someone and was shaking him by the collar, shouting at the top of his voice. How his shouts reverberated in Marguerite's ears and echoed in her head

"But I took it, Monseigneur. I took it
myself," replied Bersumee in a
terrified voice.

"
Where did you take it? To whom
did you give it?"

"Let me go, Monseigneur,
let me go, you're throttling me
- I gave the letter to Monseigneur de Marigny. That was the order I received."

There was the dull sound of a body hitting the wall.

"Is my name Marigny? When you are given a letter for me, must you give it to someone else?"

"He promised me, Monseigneur, that he would send it to you."

"Fellow, I'll settle your account later," said Artois. Then, turning back to Marguerite, he said, "I nev
er received your letter, Cousin
- Marigny must have kept it."

"Oh,
well!
" she, said.

She was
almost
reassured. At l
east she knew now that she had
written the letter.

At that
moment Sergeant Lalaine came in
carrying the jug of wine: Robert of Artois watched Marguerite drink it.

"
It might, really, ha
ve been easier if I had brought
poison," he thought; "it was st
upid not to have thought of it..
she could have taken it in this ...
it's a pity, a pity I
didn't know. Now it's too late; moreover, in her present state she cannot in any case have many days to live."

He felt detached, almost sad. There was no battle to fight any more. There he sat, massive, his-hands on his thighs, surrounded, by soldiers armed to the
teeth, before the pallet upon which a young woman l
ay in a state of exhaustion. Had he been able to hate her enough when she was Queen of Navarre and heiress to the throne of France? Had he not done everything he could to
destroy her, travelling here and the
re, intriguing, spending money,
combining against her in the English Court as well as the Court of France? He had hated her when she was powerful; he had desired her when she was beautiful. Even last winter, power
ful baron that h
e was, she had still dominated him though she was no more than a miserable prisoner. Now the Count of Artois found that his triumph had led him further than he wished to go. The mission with which he had been charged by Valois, beca
use he could trust no one else,
was somewhat against the grain. He felt no pity, only the
indifference of disgust, and a
bitter weariness. So much force brought against a sick defenceless
wasted body! Hate died in Robert because it no longer had an object which could measure up to his strength.

An
d indeed he sincerely regrette
d that the letter abstracted by
Marigny had never reached him. Marguerite would have been shut up in a, convent. It couldn't be helped; it was too late; the dice were thrown and things must be as they must.

"You see, Cousin," he said, "to what extent Marigny is your enemy and how he has plotted ev
erything from the start. If it
were not for him, you would never have been accused, nor would your husband, Louis, have treated you in this fashion. Marigny has done everything he could, since Louis became King, to keep you here, as he has done everything to bring about the destruction of the kingdom. But today, as you have heard, the wicked man has been arrested and I have come to hear your grievances against
him
so that both the King's justice and your pardon maybe hastened on."

"What must I say?
" asked Marguerite.

She had raised her hand to her neck because the wine, she had drunk made her heart beat still faster, and she felt as if her b
reast were about to burst open.

"I shall dictate on your behalf to the Chaplain," said Robert; "I know what you must say."

Th
e Chaplain sat on the floor, the writing-tablet upon
his
knees,, the candle beside him illuminating the three faces from below.

"Sire, my
Husband," began Robert slowly so that he would not forget any of the text composed by Charles' of Valois, "I am dying
of sorrow and sickness. I pray you to accord me your pardon, for if you do not do so quickly, I feel that I have but a little time to live and that my soul is taking wings from my body. Everything
that has happened is the fault of Messire de Marigny, who wished ;

to destroy me in your estimation and in that of the late King by a denunciation whose falsity I swear, and who by appalling treatment has
..."

A moment, Monseigneur," said the Chaplain.

He had taken his scraper in his hand to smooth a roughness on the parchment.

"..
reduced, me,
"
continued Robert, "to the miserable condition in which I now am. Everything thing is due to that wicked man. I pray you once again to save me from the condition in which I am, and I assure you that I have never ceased to be your obedient wife under the will of God."

Marguerite raised herself a little
on her pallet She
could not understand by what extraordinary contradiction it was now intended after a year in prison
, to make her appear innocent.

But Cousin," she asked what of the confessions
that
have been asked of me?

"They are no longer necessary, Cousin replied Robert, and what you will sign now cancels everything else."

What Charles of Valois needed at this time was the multiplication of every possible false accusation against Enguerrand. This one was of that nature and had moreover the advantage of white-washing, in appearance at least, the King's honour, and above all of getting the Queen to announce her own death. Clearly Monseigneur of Valois was a man of considerable imagination!

"And Blanche," she asked, "what is to happen to' her? Has anyone thought of Blanche? "

"You need have no anxiety,"' said Robert. "Everything possible will be done for her."

And Marguerite
wrote her name at the bottom of the parchment.

Robert of Artois; then rose and leant over her. Upon a signal from him the others had retired to the end of the room. The giant placed his hand on Marguerite's shoulders, close to her neck.