The women were on their feet in the stands, watching the helm of their favourite knight and shouting encouragement. The stewards took careful note of the blows exchanged so as to determine the victors. The clangour of lances, stirrups and armour, of all the mass of steel was deafening; and the dust rose and screened the sun.
In the first charge four knights were thrown from their horses and some twenty broke their lances. In response to shouts emerging from the combatants’ visors, servants ran out with fresh lances for the disarmed and to pick up the unhorsed, who were struggling like so many crabs turned over on their backs. One of them had a broken leg and it took four men to carry him from the lists.
Mille de Noyers was sulky and, though a steward, was paying little attention to the performance. As far as he was concerned this was all a waste of time. He had to preside over the Exchequer, see that the decrees of Parliament were put into effect, and superintend the general administration of the kingdom. Yet, to please the King, he had to sit here and watch these yelling horsemen break their ash lances! He made no attempt to hide his feelings.
‘These tournaments cost too much; they’re an extravagance and the people disapprove of them,’ he was saying to his neighbours. ‘The King doesn’t hear what his subjects are saying in the towns and villages! When he goes by he merely sees people kneeling to kiss his feet; but I hear the reports of the bailiffs and the provosts. It’s all useless and arrogant expenditure! And while it’s going on, nothing gets done; Ordinances have been waiting to be signed for a fortnight; and Councils are held merely to decide who is to be King-at-Arms or Knight of Honour. The greatness of the kingdom is not measured by mock chivalry. King Philip the Fair knew it well and agreed with Pope Clement to forbid tournaments.’
The Constable Raoul de Brienne, shading his eyes with his hand the better to see the mêlée, replied: ‘Of course, you’re quite right up to a point, Messire, but you neglect one aspect of tournaments; they’re good training for war.’
‘What war?’ said Mille de Noyers. ‘Is anyone going to war with these wedding cakes on their heads, and scalloped sleeves two ells long? Ordinary jousting is good training for fighting. I agree; but a tourney like this, in which a knight no longer wears fighting armour nor carries the full weight, has lost its point. In fact, it does more harm than good, for our young squires, who have never seen service, are led to believe that this is what meeting a real enemy is like and that you attack only when you hear the cry of “Cut the cords!”’
Mille de Noyers could speak with authority, for he had been a marshal of the army at the time his brother-in-law, Gaucher de Châtillon, had been appointed Constable and this young Brienne was still sucking his thumb.
‘Nevertheless, it’s a good thing our lords should get to know each other for the crusade,’ said the Duke of Bourbon as if that settled the matter.
Mille de Noyers shrugged his shoulders. It well became the Duke, that notorious coward, to talk of a crusade!
Messire Mille was tired of conducting the affairs of France under a sovereign whom everyone considered admirable but whom he, with his long experience of power, knew to be largely incapable. It is bound to be wearisome to keep working for ends which no one approves, and Mille, who had begun his career at the Court of Burgundy, was sometimes tempted to return there. It was better to administer a duchy wisely than a kingdom foolishly, and Duke Eudes had been making overtures to him. He now looked for him in the mêlée and saw that he had been unhorsed by Robert of Artois. Mille de Noyers began to take an interest in the tourney again.
While Duke Eudes was being hoisted to his feet by his servants, Robert dismounted and offered to fight his adversary on foot. Mace and sword in hand, the two towers of steel, stumbling a little, advanced on each other and began showering each other with blows. Mille watched Robert of Artois carefully, prepared to disqualify him at the first foul. But Robert was keeping to the rules, using only the edge of his sword and hitting above the belt. He was hammering at the Duke of Burgundy’s helm with his mace and crushing the dragon that surmounted it. And though the mace weighed only a pound, the Duke seemed half stunned, for he was clearly finding some difficulty in defending himself and his sword was slashing the empty air rather than Robert. Suddenly, when trying to make a feint, Eudes of Burgundy lost his balance and fell over; Robert put his foot on his chest and the point of his sword at the lacings of his helm; and the Duke cried ‘Mercy!’ It was surrender and he had to leave the mêlée. Robert had himself hoisted into the saddle again and galloped proudly past the stands. An enthusiastic lady tore off her sleeve and Robert gathered it on the end of his lance.
‘Monseigneur Robert might really be a little less vainglorious these days,’ said Mille de Noyers.
‘Oh, the King protects him!’ said Raoul de Brienne.
‘Yes, but how long will it last?’ said Mille de Noyers. ‘Madame Mahaut seems to have died rather suddenly, and Madame Jeanne the Widow, too, for that matter. And then there’s that Beatrice d’Hirson, their lady-in-waiting, who has disappeared, and for whom her family have been searching in vain. The Duke of Burgundy will be wise to have his dishes tasted.’
‘You seem to have had a sudden change of heart about Robert. Only a year ago you were a great supporter of his.’
‘Last year I had not yet had to look into his case. I’ve just been conducting the second inquiry.’
‘Ah, here’s Messire of Hainaut going into the attack,’ said the Constable.
Jean of Hainaut, who was second-in-command to the King of Bohemia, was fighting with furious gallantry; there was not an important lord in the King of France’s team whom he did not challenge. It was already obvious that he would win the victor’s prize.
The tourney lasted a full hour, at the end of which the judges ordered the trumpets to be sounded, the barriers to be opened and the combatants to separate. A dozen knights and squires of Artois appeared however not to have heard the signal and were furiously attacking four Burgundy lords in a corner of the lists. Robert was not among them, but he had undoubtedly inspired the action; and the fight looked as if it might become a massacre. King Philippe VI was obliged to remove his helm and, much to everyone’s admiration, go bareheaded, so that he might be recognized, to separate the combatants.
Preceded by heralds and trumpets, the two teams formed up again to leave the lists in procession. Their armour was dented, their surcoats were in rags, the paint was peeling from their arms, their horses were lame and the housings torn. The result of the tourney was one man dead and several crippled for life. Apart from Messire Jean of Hainaut, who had won the Queen’s prize, everyone who had taken part received a present as a souvenir, a silver-gilt goblet, or a silver cup or bowl.
Back in their tents, of which the flaps were raised, the lords were being disarmed. Their faces were red, their hands were flayed by the joints in their gauntlets and their legs were bruised. Meanwhile they were talking over the tourney.
‘My helm was dented at the very start. That’s what put me off!’
‘If the Lord of Courgent had not come to your support, you’d have had it, my friend!’
‘Duke Eudes couldn’t stand up to Monseigneur Robert for long!’
‘Oh, yes, Brécy did very well, I must admit!’
Amid laughter, swearing and grunts of fatigue, the combatants went off to the baths that had been set up in a nearby barn. The tubs had been made ready and they got into them in order of precedence, princes, first, then barons, then knights, and last of all the squires. There was a general atmosphere of friendliness and good-fellowship resulting from physical competition, though a few stubborn resentments might have been detected.
Philippe VI and Robert of Artois were in neighbouring tubs.
‘A splendid tourney, a splendid tourney!’ Philippe was saying. ‘Ah, Brother, I must talk to you.’
‘Sire, my brother, I’m all ears.’
It was obvious that Philippe was upset by what he had to say. But could there be a better mo
ment to have a heart-to-heart talk with his cousin and brother-in-law, the friend of his youth and manhood, than now when they had been jousting together and the barn was full of shouting knights, clapping each other on the shoulder and splashing water, and the steam rising from the tubs seemed to isolate them?
‘Robert, your case is no good because your documents are forged.’
Robert raised his red hair and red cheeks above the edge of the tub.
‘No, my brother, they’re genuine!’
The King looked depressed.
‘Robert, I beseech you, don’t be obstinate about it. I’ve done as much as I can for you, and against the advice of many members of my family and my Council. I’ve agreed to give Artois to the Duchess of Burgundy only on the condition that your rights are reserved. I’ve insisted that Ferry de Picquigny, who’s devoted to you, should be appointed Governor. I’ve even offered to buy Artois from the Duchess so that it can be given to you.’
‘There’s no point in buying Artois from her since it’s already mine.’
At such intransigent obstinacy Philippe gave a sign of anger. He shouted to his servant: ‘Trousseau! Please bring me some more cold water.’
Then he went on: ‘It’s the parishes of Artois that refuse to pay the price to change masters; and what can I do? The Ordinance for the opening of your case has been waiting a month; and for a month I’ve been refusing to sign it, because I don’t want my brother to be confronted by a lot of low people who’ll sully him with mud which I’m not at all sure he’ll be able to wash off. We’re all fallible; there’s not one of us whose every action has always been praiseworthy. Your witnesses have been bribed or threatened; your notary has talked; the forgers are in jail and have admitted manufacturing the documents.’
‘They’re genuine,’ Robert repeated.
Philippe VI sighed. How difficult it was to save a man from himself!
‘I’m not saying, Robert, that you’re personally guilty. Nor am I saying, as others are, that you put your hand to these documents yourself. They were brought to you and you believed them to be genuine, but you were deceived.’
Robert sat in his tub and set his jaw.
‘It may even be,’ Philippe went on, ‘that my own sister, your wife, has deceived you. Women sometimes commit these deceits in the belief that they’re helping us. They’re deceitful by nature. Look at my own wife, who didn’t hesitate to purloin my seal.’
‘Yes, women are deceitful,’ Robert said angrily. ‘This whole affair is a women’s intrigue, organized between your wife and her sister-in-law of Burgundy. I don’t know these vile people whose extorted confessions are being put in evidence against me.’
‘I would also like to consider what they’re saying about the death of your aunt as mere calumny,’ Philippe went on, lowering his voice.
‘But she’d dined with you!’
‘Her daughter hadn’t when she died in forty-eight hours.’
‘I was not the only enemy they’d made during the course of their wicked lives,’ Robert replied in a tone of assumed indifference.
He got out of the tub and demanded towels to dry himself with. Philippe followed suit. They stood there face to face, naked, their skins pink, their bodies very hairy. Their servants were waiting a few yards away, with their dress clothes over their arms.
‘I’m waiting for your answer, Robert,’ the King said.
‘What answer?’
‘That you’ll agree to give up Artois, so that I can quash the whole business.’
‘And break the promise you made me before you ever became King? Sire, my brother, have you forgotten who got you your throne, rallied the peers to your support and won your sceptre for you?’
Philippe of Valois seized Robert’s wrist, looked him straight in the eyes and said: ‘If I had forgotten, Robert, do you think I’d be talking to you like this now? For the last time, give it up.’
‘Never,’ replied the giant, shaking his head.
‘You’re refusing your King?’
‘Yes, Sire, the King I made.’
Philippe let his hands fall.
‘If that’s the case,’ he said, ‘and you refuse to save your honour as a Peer, I shall have to look to my honour as a King!’
9.
The Tolomei
‘FORGIVE MY BEING UNABLE to rise to welcome you properly, Monseigneur,’ said Spinello Tolomei rather breathlessly as Robert of Artois was shown in.
The old banker was lying on a bed that had been placed in his private office; a light coverlet revealed the shape of his increasing stomach and narrowing chest. A week’s beard on his hollow cheeks looked like a deposit of salt; his mouth had gone blue and seemed to be gasping for air. Paris was stifling in the August afternoon, and the window, open on to the Rue des Lombards, lent no freshness to the room.
There was not much life left in Messer Tolomei’s body now, nor in the gaze of his single open eye, which seemed to look out on the world with a weary contempt, as if all the eighty years of his life had been nothing but useless effort.
Round the bed were standing four dark-skinned men, with thin lips and eyes bright as black olives; they were wearing sombre robes and had all assumed the tragic mien with which Italians greet the approach of death.
‘My cousins Tolomeo Tolomei, Andrea Tolomei, Giaccomo Tolomei,’ said the dying man by way of introduction. ‘And then here’s my nephew, Guccio Baglioni, whom of course you know.’
At thirty-five Guccio’s hair had already gone white at the temples.
‘They’ve come from Siena to see me die, and also for other matters,’ said the old banker slowly.
Robert of Artois, wearing travelling-clothes, was leaning a little forward in the chair they had brought up for him, and was gazing at the old man with the deceptive concentration so often to be seen on the faces of people obsessed by grave anxiety.
‘Monseigneur of Artois is a friend, I may presume to say so,’ Tolomei told his relations. ‘Anything that can be done for him must be done; he has often saved us in the past, and our present difficulties are none of his choosing.’
Since the Sienese counsins understood no French, Guccio quickly translated what his uncle had said. The cousins nodded their heads in concert, their expressions grave.
‘But if it’s money you require, Monseigneur, alas, alas, and despite all my devotion to you, there’s nothing we can do. You well know why …’
Spinello Tolomei was husbanding his strength and had no need to elaborate the situation. What good would it do to complain about the disastrous situation in which the Italian bankers had been placed during these last months?
In January the King had issued an edict threatening all Lombards with expulsion. This was nothing new; in every reign, when times were hard, the same threat had been held over them and they had been compelled to pay heavily all over again for their right of residence. To compensate their loss, the bankers had merely increased the rate of interest for a year. But this time the edict contained a far more serious clause: all debts owed the Italians by French lords were annulled; and the debtors were absolutely forbidden to pay, even if they had the desire and the ability. The royal sergeants-at-arms were mounting guard at the doors of the banks and turning away honest customers who came to pay their debts. The Italian bankers were naturally much concerned.
‘And it’s all because the nobility has run too far into debt with these fantastic festivals, these tournaments in which it wants to shine in front of the King. Even under Philip the Fair we were not treated like this.’
‘I did my best for you,’ Robert said.
‘I know, I know, Monseigneur. You have always stood up for our companies. But there it is; and you’re in no better favour than we are at the moment. We were hoping that things would come right in the end as they’ve always done before. But Macci dei Macci’s execution is the final blow!’
The old man stared out of the window and fell silent.
Macci dei Macci was one of the greatest Ita
lian financiers in France, and Philippe VI, on Robert’s advice, had appointed him to the Treasury at the beginning of his reign. And now he had been hanged without proper trial.
Guccio Baglioni said with latent anger in his voice: ‘He was a man who devoted all his time and intelligence to the service of the kingdom. He felt himself to be more French than if he had been born on the banks of the Seine; he even called himself Mache des Mache. Did he profit from his office more than the people who had him hanged? It’s always the Italians who are persecuted because they have no means of defending themselves!’
The Italian cousins were catching what they could of the conversation; at the name Macci dei Macci, they raised their eyebrows, closed their eyes and groaned in concert.
‘Tolomei,’ said Robert of Artois, ‘I have not come to borrow money from you, but to ask you to receive some from me.’
Weak though he was, at this statement Messer Tolomei almost sat up in surprise. The Sienese cousins re-opened their eyes, hardly daring to believe they had understood correctly.
‘Yes,’ went on Robert, ‘I want to give you all the cash I possess against letters of credit. I’m going. I’m leaving the kingdom.’
‘You, Monseigneur! Has your case gone as badly as that? Has judgement been made against you?’
‘It will be within the month. Do you know, banker, how this King treats me even though I’m married to his sister and he would never have been King except for me? He has sent his bailiff of Gisors to blow his horn at the doors of all my castles, at Conches, Beaumont and Orbec, to summon me before his seat of justice at Michaelmas! It’s a travesty of justice and the verdict is already decided against me. Philippe has laid all his hounds on me: Saint-Maure his wicked chancellor, Forget his thieving treasurer, Mathieu de Trye his marshal, and Mille de Noyers to give them a line. The very men who are all in alliance against you and have hanged your friend Mache des Mache! It’s the Wicked Queen, the lame woman, who has won. Burgundy has vilely gained the day. They’ve thrown my lawyers and my chaplain into jail, and tortured my witnesses to make them retract. Well, let them condemn me; I shan’t be there. They’ve stolen Artois from me, so let them blackguard me to their heart’s content. This kingdom no longer means anything to me, and its King is my enemy; I shall go abroad to do him all the harm I can. Tomorrow I’m going to Conches to send my horses, plate, jewels and arms to Bordeaux, where I shall put them on board a ship for England. They want to seize my body and my goods; but they shan’t take me anyway.’
The Lily and the Lion Page 22
