by Tania Bayard
‘I don’t understand. What has happened to my husband?’
‘You know very well. Your husband is dead. You poisoned him.’
‘I did not!’
The jailer looked up from his books. Short and bald, he had not at first seemed threatening, but now he twisted his face into a nasty grimace and repeated, ‘Arrested for the murder of her husband.’
‘No!’ She tried to shake off the hands of the sergeants, but they grasped her arms more tightly than before.
‘Take her away,’ the jailer said. The sergeants dragged her to a tiny room and locked her in. After they had left, a fat guard opened the door and set a beaker of water on the floor.
The room was pitch black, alive with mysterious rustling noises in the corners, but Alix had never been afraid of the dark or of sounds in the night. She sat on the floor and held her head in her hands. I did not kill Hugues, she said to herself. Sometimes I wanted to. But I did not.
She repeated this over and over until she fell into a troubled sleep.
Sometime later she awoke, trembling, her bones aching. At first she didn’t know where she was, but then she realized she was lying on the hard floor of the prison. The cold sent waves of pain through her body. There was nothing to protect her or warm her, for all she wore was a silver brocaded gown Hugues had bought for her to wear to the ball. She couldn’t see anything in the dark, but she knew the gown was in tatters.
Perhaps it was the gown that started all the trouble, she thought. Hugues had refused to go to the banquet, but after supper he’d said they would go to the ball. Then he was in a hurry, and he became angry because she wasn’t dressed.
It had taken her time to get ready, and it was late when they arrived at the palace. She remembered how surprised she’d been when Hugues told her to go in and find the ballroom by herself. She could picture the courtyard – footmen with glistening faces holding burning torches, shadows dancing against the walls of the palace, lights sparkling in the glazed windows. She remembered the portier opening the door and a footman taking her mantle. She’d walked quickly through the entrance hall and the great gallery and stepped out into the inner courtyard, where she could hear the king’s lions roaring in the distance. She remembered hastening along the corridor leading to the great hall where the ball was held, and how she’d listened for the music. But all she’d heard were screams and the shouts and cries of people who came running toward her. She’d tried to step out of the way, but she’d been swept up in the crowd, lifted off her feet, and carried back through the palace. She could still feel the people pressing against her, nearly smothering her, and she remembered how frightened she’d been and how, out in the street, she’d tried to run. But that was all she remembered. The next thing she knew, she was lying on the ground and the palace guards were leaning over her.
If Hugues had stayed with me, I would have been safe, she thought. Yes, he was unkind to me. Sometimes I wanted to kill him. But I didn’t.
In the morning, shortly after the bells of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie sounded prime and the faint light of dawn crept into her cell through a narrow barred window, guards appeared and took her to a room so dimly lit she could barely discern men dressed in black sitting on benches, staring at her. Exhausted from the ordeal of the night before and from lack of food and sleep, she swayed and nearly fell. The guards ordered her to stand tall before Monseigneur le Prévôt and his officials.
One of the men – she thought he must be the provost, because his seat was higher than the others – asked whether she understood the charge against her. ‘Yes, but it is not true,’ she said softly.
‘You would do better to confess.’
‘I am innocent.’
‘Your husband was poisoned. The flask containing the poison was under your hand. How do you explain that?’
‘I cannot explain it, I remember so little of what happened that night.’ The solemn men sitting before her looked at each other and sighed. ‘Then tell us what you do remember,’ the provost said.
She looked down at her torn gown. Ashamed, she drew the shreds of cloth together so her legs would be covered. If any of the men who sat before her took note of this, they didn’t show it.
‘We were late,’ she began.
‘There is no need to tell us that,’ the provost said. ‘Simply tell us how you came to be lying next to your husband’s body with the empty flask beneath your hand.’
‘I cannot tell you how it happened. I only know that I did not poison him.’
The provost and his officials looked at each other. They don’t believe me, she thought. She couldn’t catch her breath. She swayed, and the guards caught her as she fell.
The provost shook his head and announced that they would learn nothing more from her that day. ‘The next time, we’ll have something to make her confess,’ he said as the guards lifted her and carried her away to the dungeon.
FIFTEEN
Slander is like a sword that kills the man who throws it as well as the man at whom it’s aimed.
Christine de Pizan,
Le Dit de la Rose, 1402
Christine slept badly, dreaming of men enveloped in flames, stretching out their burning hands to set her on fire, too. She forced herself awake and then lay in bed thinking about Alix de Clairy and all the horrors she would be experiencing at the Châtelet. When a pungent smell drifted up the stairs, she finally rose, dressed, and went down to the kitchen, where she found her mother seated at the table, holding Lisabetta in her lap and leaning openmouthed over a large bowl filled with sodden sage leaves and hot water.
‘That won’t help, Mama,’ Christine said. ‘Why don’t you have that tooth taken out?’
‘It does help,’ Francesca sniffed. She pointed to a kettle sitting on a trivet over the fire. ‘You could help, too, Cristina. Get me that.’
‘Where’s Georgette?’ Christine asked as she picked up the kettle and poured more boiling water into the bowl. A cloud of steam rose, and she had to back away.
‘She took the children to school and she has not returned. The lazy girl probably stopped somewhere to talk to her friends. I need her to go to the market.’
Christine disliked shopping, but she wanted to get out of the house. ‘I’ll go,’ she said.
Francesca laughed. ‘You?’
‘Why is that so funny, Mama? What do you want?’
‘Ribs of beef. We will have them for dinner. I suppose you can manage that.’
The air was damp and heavy as Christine walked toward the market. The street vendors watched the sky for rain as they cried their wares. ‘I have good cheese, good cheese of Brie,’ chanted a toothless old woman she’d seen gossiping with Francesca. ‘Where’s your mother, Christine?’ she lisped. ‘Does a little bad weather keep her at home?’ The woman broke off a piece of hard cheese and handed it to her.
A candle seller approached, singing the praises of cotton wicks ‘so fine they give light as good as that of the stars.’ It sounded so poetic, Christine bought one of his tapers; only after he’d walked away did she realize that she’d paid far too much for it. But she forgot about the candle seller when a waferer offered her a sample from his basket. The aroma of ginger and honey cheered her, and she couldn’t resist buying two. She ate them both, and then bought some almond cakes from a third vendor, who’d watched her purchasing the candle and the wafers. After that, she hurried to the butcher, where she bought the beef her mother wanted – without haggling over the price, as Francesca would have done – and started for home.
At the corner of the rue Tiron, she was startled to see Marion, who rushed up and cried, ‘I’ve been waiting for you, Lady Christine!’ Her purple cloak was open to show off a peacock-green cotte with flowers embroidered down the front – no doubt another example of her handiwork, Christine thought. She also wore a belt with a large gold buckle.
‘Aren’t you afraid you’ll be arrested?’ Christine asked, pointing to the belt.
Marion closed the cloak, which w
as lined with fur, and like the rest of her clothes, off limits to prostitutes. She stared at Christine, her brown eyes wide with mock fear. ‘I didn’t steal it.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t. You know what would happen if you got caught.’
‘You’re right, I do. My friend Colette swiped a few écus from a scurvy old monk, and now she’s in prison.’ Marion’s eyes filled with tears. The punishment for prostitutes convicted of theft was burial alive. Then she remembered what she was about. ‘I have something important to tell you, Lady Christine. Too bad you aren’t sitting down.’
‘Can it be so shocking?’
‘It is. I saw who murdered Hugues de Précy. It wasn’t Alix de Clairy.’
Christine grabbed her arm. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I was outside the palace.’
‘Prostitutes aren’t supposed to be out in the street after dark!’
‘It was still light when I went there; I wanted to see all the people in their fancy clothes come to the ball. After they’d all gone in, I went across the street to the queen’s stables and played dice with the stable boys. When I left, it was night. There was a full moon, though, and I could see everything.’ She thrust out a hip, put her hand on it, and took a few mincing steps.
‘What are you doing?’ Christine asked impatiently.
‘Showing you Hugues de Précy coming to the ball, wearing those stupid poulaines.’
‘He came so late? Was his wife with him?’
‘Yes. She had on a white dress and a blue mantle. She looked beautiful, but Hugues didn’t care. He gave her a shove. He was carrying a big package, and he nearly dropped it.’
‘Package? What was it?’
‘I couldn’t see. But he made her go into the palace by herself. Then he had to put the package down.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he met someone in a black cloak who gave him a flask, and he had to put the package down so he could take a drink.’
‘This isn’t making much sense, Marion.’
‘It will when I tell you what came next.’
‘So get on with it.’
‘After Hugues drank from the flask, he fell down. Then a lot of people ran out of the palace.’
Christine shuddered, remembering she had been one of those people. Marion looked at her strangely. ‘Do you know something about this?’
‘No, no. Go on with your story.’
‘Alix de Clairy was with them. She’d forgotten her blue mantle, and her white dress was all glittery in the moonlight. Something made her trip, and she fell down beside her husband. Nobody else noticed; they were all too anxious to get away. After they had all gone, the person in the black cloak put something under her hand and took the package. I don’t know what happened after that, because I realized that there was a fire, and I ran away too. So you see, Alix de Clairy didn’t poison her husband. The person in the black cloak did.’
‘And made it look as if Alix had done it!’ Christine cried. ‘You must go to the Châtelet and tell the provost.’
‘Where are your wits? That saintly old man would never listen to me.’
She’s right, Christine thought. She believed Marion’s story, but the provost of Paris, Jean de Folleville, would not, and even if he did, a statement by a prostitute would have no legal standing.
‘Do you know who the person in the black cloak was?’
‘No. The cloak had a hood, and I couldn’t see the face.’ Marion thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps it was the Italian. The one who’s married to the king’s brother. She’s got lots of poisons.’
Poor Valentina Visconti, Christine thought. There were rumors the Duke of Orléans’s Italian wife had brought powerful poisons from her home in Milan and given them to her husband so he could murder his brother and take his place as king. Christine resented the assumption that Italians walked around with poisons tucked into their sleeves. ‘The poison didn’t have to come from Italy,’ she said. ‘It was wolfsbane, and it grows right here in France. It acts very quickly, according to my mother.’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t the Italian. The person I saw was too tall anyway. But the Italian could have given the poison to her husband so he could do it.’
‘Why do you think it might have been the duke?’
‘The duke didn’t like Hugues. He was jealous because he was so friendly with the king.’ Marion considered this for a while, and then clapped her hand to her head. ‘That’s not right. The duke couldn’t have done it. He was at the party, setting them all on fire.’ She cocked her head and shook her finger at Christine. ‘People say he started the fire on purpose, you know. He’s always trying to harm the king.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘My friend Colette. The one who robbed the old monk. The monk told her about a friend of his who helped the duke turn his sword into an evil charm to use against the king. They got the Devil to curse the sword, and then they cut a hanged man down from the gallows and stuffed the sword up his …’
‘That’s enough, Marion.’ Christine had already heard the disgusting story from her mother, along with a host of other stories about Louis’s association with magicians and sorcerers, and she didn’t want to hear it again. ‘We’re talking about poison, not charms.’
‘I’m only trying to help.’
‘You are helping. What you saw proves Alix de Clairy didn’t poison her husband.’
‘I know. And I can’t do anything about it. Just think of her in the prison. I know what they do to people in there – my friends tell me. It shouldn’t happen to such a pretty little lady, especially when she’s not even guilty. Can’t you do something to save her?’
Perhaps I could go to the provost, Christine thought. But he wouldn’t believe me either, since I got the information from Marion.
Marion was looking at her with tears in her eyes. ‘You could go to the king. You know him, don’t you?’
Christine had to smile. Just because her family had lived at the court when she was a child didn’t mean she and the king were friends. Quite otherwise. There were good reasons why her mother warned her constantly about the court; it was a treacherous place. If she involved herself in Alix’s troubles, she’d probably lose her chances of getting any more work there. But that would be the least of it. She could imperil her life and perhaps the lives of her children and her mother, too.
Nevertheless, she said, ‘I’ll try to think of something.’
‘You’d better do it quickly.’ Marion turned and ran down the path to the brothel.
But I have no idea what to do, Christine said to herself as she walked on, so lost in her thoughts, she nearly collided with three courtiers on their way to the Hôtel Saint-Pol. She let them go ahead and followed, listening to them discuss Hugues de Précy’s murder.
‘There’s no doubt his wife poisoned him,’ said one. He was a tall man wearing a blue cloak and a small hat with a large peacock feather that flopped to one side and threatened to fall over his face.
‘How do you know that?’ asked a slender man in an ermine-trimmed green cloak who bounced along with quick little steps, like a nervous palfrey.
‘Because she’s a witch, or so I’ve heard.’
‘Of course. She’s a witch. She should be put to death immediately.’
‘But she hasn’t had a trial yet!’ exclaimed a stout little personage swathed in furs who had to run to keep up with the others.
‘There will have to be a trial,’ the man in the green cloak assured the others. ‘But she won’t be able to save herself.’
The man in the blue cloak took off his feathered hat and waved it about. ‘I tell you, my friends, she’s like all women, capable of every kind of evil!’
‘You’re slandering Alix de Clairy, and all women, without even knowing what you’re talking about. I hope your words come back to haunt you,’ Christine whispered, as she watched them strut toward the palace.
SIXTEEN
Some tasks are beyond women because of their deli
cate bodies. But when women set out to do something, they are smarter and shrewder than men.
Christine de Pizan,
Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, 1404–1405
Christine sat on a bench by the fire and watched her mother and Georgette prepare the ribs of beef for dinner. The girl stood on one side of the worktable, wielding a large knife like a weapon as she sliced carrots and brushed stray pieces onto the floor. Francesca sat across from her, her eyes tearing as she chopped onions. Goblin stood at attention under the table, waiting for something to fall.
‘You do not look well, Cristina,’ Francesca said. ‘I was wrong to send you to the market so early in the morning.’
‘I’m thinking about that poor young woman in the dungeon at the Châtelet.’
‘That is where she should be, if she murdered her husband. They say she is a witch.’
‘I know her. She’s not a witch.’
‘Then why did she give the queen a mandrake?’
‘Because she thought it would help the king. You must believe me, Mama. She’s a good person.’
‘People are not always what they seem.’
Christine thought about what Marion had told her, and despaired. What could she do with the information? She couldn’t take it to the provost. Or to the king.
‘I think I’ll go and talk to Alix de Clairy,’ she said. ‘I might learn something that would prove she is innocent.’
‘You can’t go into the Châtelet!’
‘Why not?’
‘You must have some sense, Cristina. The prison is a terrible place. The air is very bad. You will be ill again.’ Francesca brought the knife down hard on an onion, and some pieces flew to the floor. Goblin sniffed them and turned away. ‘And besides, you need a letter from the provost to visit someone there.’
