The King's Women

by Deryn Lake

  “Oh yes, she shall be Jehanne after her father’s mother.”

  “Her father,” repeated Alison, wondering yet again who the man might be.

  “Yes,” answered Yolande, her voice scarcely audible. “Her beautiful father who has given me part of himself. A child that I shall cherish always, albeit from afar as destiny has decreed.”

  Eight

  It was very strange. As Charles, Count of Ponthieu, had left the chapel of the Hotel St. Pol after hearing Mass and walked back to the Hotel du Petit-Musc, passing the aviaries teeming with rare and beautiful birds and the cages where the great beasts lay crouched, someone had brushed against him almost pushing him into the netting. A voice had whispered, “Jeanne Chamoisy, your former wet nurse, is coming to you with instructions which it is imperative you obey, Monsieur le Comte.”

  The child had wheeled round, frightened yet intrigued, but amongst all the people milling through the palace’s maze of walkways it was impossible to know which one had spoken to him.

  “Whatever is the matter?” called Lady du Mesnil over her shoulder. “Why are you lagging behind?”

  “I have a stone in my shoe,” Charles answered, and raising one leg removed his footwear and shook it. But while he did this he was thinking as quickly as any boy of nine could possibly do, wondering why the wet nurse, pensioned off now and living in a small establishment within the fortified walls of the palace, could possibly be giving him orders he must obey.

  It occurred to Charles at this point in his deliberations that the Count Bernard d’Armagnac might be trying to enlist his help to free the city of Paris from Burgundy’s iron fist, for civil war was still tearing France to shreds. Jean the Fearless, aided by soldiers sent from England, had kept the Armagnacs at bay only to discover that the English wouldn’t go now that his need for them was not so urgent. Charles had heard the whisper along with everyone else that the Goddams, as the English troops were commonly known, would never leave, were only waiting for Prince Hal to come to the throne of England and would then wage war.

  “Monsieur, come on” Jeanne du Mesnil called again. “I want you home and ready to receive a guest.”

  “Who?” asked Charles innocently.

  “Jeanne, your nurse, is coming to see you. Isn’t that good?”

  The boy’s spine tingled with apprehension. “Why is she coming?”

  “Really!” Lady du Mesnil replied sharply. “You know she visits you every month. Don’t you remember she was ill last week at the time of your birthday? Well, now she brings you your gift.”

  “How kind of her.”

  The answer came automatically but with it a strange leap of Charles’s nerves, a feeling of strain and power dizzily combined. Somewhere, in a part of his brain of which he had never before been aware, the child knew that something of vital significance would shortly occur.

  And he was not to be disappointed; within the folds of cloth that bound up his birthday present — a hand-carved toy windmill with sails that actually spun round — was a piece of folded parchment. Before Lady du Mesnil could catch sight of it Charles thrust it into his sleeve and, across the room, Jeanne Chamoisy raised her eyebrows in a question, to which the boy responded with a slight nod of his head. Whatever the solution to the mystery, he thought, this part of it was wonderfully intriguing and exciting.

  But much to his irritation, Charles had to wait several hours before he was able to read the mysterious parchment, first having to entertain Jeanne with wine and spiced cakes then, when she had gone, feigning extreme tiredness and begging to go to bed, all of which took up valuable time.

  “This is not like you,” said Lady du Mesnil, as he yawned. “You always grumble that you are being sent up too early.”

  “Tonight is different,” Charles answered grandly.

  Yet this pretended fatigue nearly ran him into difficulties as his governess, having tucked him in, went to take away the bedside candle.

  “Oh, Masher, please leave it,” the child pleaded anxiously.

  “Why? You don’t normally have a night light.”

  “I want to think for a while.”

  “Can’t you think in the dark?”

  The boy’s face split into an endearing smile and Lady du Mesnil weakened, wondering as she often had before why such a pleasant child should have been born so very plain of feature.

  “Why are you staring at me?” Charles’s candid eyes were searching her face. “You’re thinking that I’m hideous as a toad, aren’t you?”

  “Toads bear a gem in their crowns, did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t. What sort of gem?”

  “A glowing ruby. And that is what I was thinking; that you are a jewel. Now mull over your thoughts then go to sleep. Goodnight.”

  She bent over to kiss him and Charles once more feigned a yawn, feeling more devious and wicked than he ever had before, quite an exciting sensation in actual fact.

  “Goodnight Masher,” he answered in a sleepy voice.

  She was gone and he lay still, listening for the sound of her feet descending the stone staircase that led to the floor below then, when all was quiet, cautiously sitting up and looking round. On his little desk lay the boy’s Latin grammar into which he had thrust the mysterious parchment and, slipping out of bed silently, Charles padded across to it, opened the book at the centre and drew out the paper.

  On the outside of the letter, written in a thin tall hand, were the words, Tour Monsieur le Prince Charles, le Comte de Ponthieu’. Smiling with glee, thinking that he had never received such a thing in his life before, the boy broke the seal with stubby fingers.

  ‘Monsieur le Prince,’ he read, ‘I send you formal greetings and heartfelt wishes for a long and happy life, and beg that you will regard the contents of this using the political acumen of which you will one day be capable.

  ‘As you know, Monsieur, the Kingdom of France is now gravely threatened by civil strife, a strife which is destroying the realm. Yet, in the course of my studies, I have come to vital conclusions about this matter, which it is essential I impart to you without delay. Tomorrow, while Lady du Mesnil sleeps, Jeanne Chamoisy will come for you with the intention of bringing you to me. For the sake of poor France I request you to do so. Your servant, Nicolas Flamel.

  “Nicolas Flamel,” whispered Charles aloud, “the name means nothing.”

  But this only added to the mystery of the entire affair. A strange man had taken the trouble to write to him, a nine-year-old boy with no power and none foreseeable either, to enlist his help to save France. The whole thing smacked of lunacy and yet Charles felt certain that Jeanne Chamoisy, to whom he was bonded for ever by the fact she had fed him from her breast, would never involve him in anything which could do him the slightest harm. Taking the letter back to bed, the boy re-read it twice more, then blew out his candle, puzzling over the enigmatical phrase, ‘in the course of my studies’, until he fell asleep.

  It was just as they rejoined the mighty river Loire at Montgeoffroy, having left it at Blois and headed across country, that the bitter February wind, blowing harshly on this the last day of the month, first hinted at the sting of snow. Pulling their hoods down, the riders hastened their horses, while the two women in the drawn litters snuggled their fur coverlets to their chins. They had all of them left Anjou in the bitter weather of Christmas time and now the royal party was returning in conditions equally savage.

  ‘Snow!’ thought Yolande. ‘Is it destined that all the fateful events in my life should be associated with it?’ And though the sensible side of her nature told her such things were a mere coincidence, she could not help thinking that the earth had often been covered with white when matters of great importance had occurred.

  Her first glimpse of her future husband, when she had been taken to Saumur to meet both him and the woman who was to become her mother-in-law, had been when the beautiful countryside of Anjou was transformed by a covering of snow, glittering like diamonds in sunshine. Half-closin
g her eyes, Yolande remembered Duke Louis as he had looked on the day when she had seen him first: tall, well made, with the long Valois nose, and lips that could curl into a smile or just as easily look cruel and unrelenting, he had been formidable even as a very young man. And the years had done nothing to change that as lines had appeared and his features grown in strength, his personality in power.

  Her father, King Juan, had died when snow had come to the high peaks of Aragon and there had been a flukish flurry on Yolande’s own birth day in July. But, most importantly of all, in the snow-filled dawning of Christmas Day Jehanne had been born, and Yolande had held her daughter in her arms for the first time as she fed her.

  She felt now, thinking back on the events of the last three months, that she had loved that child more than any of her others as it had taken her flow, and she still loved it, all the more fiercely and deeply since the Duchess had been forced to part with her newborn daughter.

  Alison had been as good as her word and found a couple whose own child had been unable to take the first breath of life and had been buried unbaptised that same day. The woman, weeping and distraught when Madamoiselle du May had arrived, had put Jehanne straight to her breast and had become calm again.

  “They are going to put it about she is their own,” Alison had told Yolande on her return from delivering the infant to its foster parents.

  “Did they ask many questions?”

  “No, Madame. I simply said that I had given birth to a child I could not keep and would give them regular sums of money if they would adopt her.”

  “And will they be kind to her? Will they really love her?”

  “I think she came as a godsend to them. The mother was beside herself with grief. I think she half believes Jehanne is hers.”

  Yolande had wept, jealous almost that another woman looked upon her daughter as her child, yet at the same time telling herself this was the best possible outcome.

  “Please, Madame, do not distress yourself,” an apologetic little voice had said then. “I will stay behind and act as Jehanne’s guardian if that would make you happier.”

  Yolande had looked at Alison through gushing tears.

  “But how could you? Where would you live, what would you do?”

  Even that particularly naughty lady-in-waiting had had the good grace to go pink.

  “Ma Reine, the Duke of Lorraine has invited me to stay as his Maitresse en Titre. If you agree to it I would very much like to accept.”

  The Duchess had laughed and cried simultaneously. “I am amazed. How can it be? Where did you meet him?”

  Alison had smiled at her memories. “Madame, do you recall me telling you that a stranger rescued me from the snow on the night that Jehanne was born?”

  “Indeed I do.”

  “Well, it was he, the Duke. And a few days later he sent me a message asking if you were free of the plague and, if so, could I meet him when I next walked in the gardens. To be blunt, ma Reine, we loved one another straight away and he took possession of me shortly afterwards.”

  “How shortly?” Yolande had asked, still laughing as she wept.

  “An hour,” Alison had answered matter-of-factly.

  “Who am I to stand in your way?” the Duchess had replied, drying her eyes. “But if you stay you must promise to care for Jehanne and look after my other interests at the court.”

  “I swear it,” Alison had replied in her usual solemn and dramatic manner.

  ‘How neat,’ Yolande had thought looking at the girl’s contented face. ‘Jehanne needed a guardian, Alison longed for a wealthy man, and Duke Charles was desperate for some beauty in his life. Now, in one stroke, all three are catered for.’ Fate had indeed played its usual cunning game.

  Yolande smiled a little quizzically, guessing that in her litter Alison, who was returning home to take her leave of family and friends, was weeping over the temporary separation from the big handsome lazy nobleman who had fallen in love with her.

  ‘Poor Duke Charles,’ thought Yolande, ‘or should I say lucky Duke Charles?’

  For the head of the house of Lorraine had the misfortune to be married to Queen Isabeau’s cousin, Marguerite of Bavaria, a woman who seemed in permanent contest with the Queen over which one of them could get fatter. And now he had the lovely Alison for his mistress and nothing would ever be as bad again.

  ‘Happy ending,’ thought Yolande to herself, then added bitterly, ‘for some of us at least.’

  The royal travellers had parted with half their armed escort over an hour before, safely on home territory, needing an advance party to warn the inhabitants of the castle that the Regent would be arriving imminently. And now as they swept away from the Loire the remaining horsemen caught their first glimpse of the river Maine and a sudden distant view of the fortress standing proudly on the left bank. Simultaneously they put up a cheer and hearing them Yolande opened the curtains of her litter and looked out, her heartbeat suddenly racing as she saw again the castle of Angers.

  And then she noticed something which made her draw breath. Even at this considerable distance the Regent could see that a pennant flew from the flagpole, flipping and flailing in the snow-filled February wind. Yolande went pale at the full realisation of what that lively flag signified, for it was the sure sign that the Duke of Anjou was in residence and within the walls of the fortress awaited her arrival.

  It seemed odd to Charles at first that his governess should have fallen asleep so deeply and so very conveniently too.

  Immediately after their supper of cakes and ale, just the two of them as Catherine had gone to visit the daughter of one of the Queen’s ladies, a girl only a year older than herself, Lady du Mesnil had sat down in her favourite chair, closed her eyes — and that had been that. In what had seemed less than a minute she had been so soundly asleep that even though Charles had shaken her by the shoulder, fearing she might be ill, she had done nothing but snore more loudly.

  The boy had decided then, a little more cunning as he was these days, that something had been slipped into her wine — only he had drunk the ale — and, indeed, when he had poured some into a bowl and his hound had lapped it up, it, too, had fallen insensible.

  So this Flamel was obviously someone to be reckoned with, a man commanding a considerable sphere of influence, for only one of the servants could have drugged the governess’s wine. With a feeling of tremendous apprehension, Charles went down to the receiving hall to await Jeanne Chamoisy’s arrival.

  It was dusk when she came, admitted by the porter, and Charles saw that the nurse was carrying a fur-lined mantle and hood.

  “These are for you, Monsieur,” Jeanne said briskly. “Put them on. It is going to be very cold later.”

  Charles stayed where he was, small hands in fists. “What have you done to Lady du Mesnil?” he asked accusingly.

  “What do you mean? What is wrong with her?”

  “She has been drugged. I can’t wake her up.”

  “It is better that she sleeps deeply,” Jeanne answered soothingly.

  “That’s all very well, sleep is one thing, drugging is another.”

  The nurse gave Charles a penetrating look. “You are growing up, Monsieur. I think the Grand Master did right to send for you now.”

  The boy’s brows rose making him look so funny that it was all Jeanne could do to restrain herself from laughing.

  “Grand Master? Are you speaking of Nicolas Flamel, Madame?”

  “I am, Monsieur Charles. You are about to meet one of the most important men in the world.”

  “But what is he Grand Master of? Who is this man, Jeanne? I must know.”

  “Monsieur Flamel is an alchemist and philosopher, a wise man and a benefactor. More than that I am not allowed to say.”

  “Then I shall ask him for myself,” Charles answered determinedly, and with that took Jeanne’s hand and allowed her to put on his warm clothing before they left the Hotel and went on foot through the trellised rose garden, glistening
with frost on such a bitter night, then threaded their way amongst the trees of the orchard that grew close to the palace’s walls, finally coming to a halt at a tower which had a gatehouse perched on top of it. Now Charles understood Jeanne’s concern about the cold: they were journeying to Nicolas Flamel by way of the dark and icy river.

  A rowing boat was already lying to at the bottom of the three curving steps which led down to the water’s edge, and as they stepped aboard Charles thought, almost absently, that it was strange they had not been challenged by the porter. But then this was obviously to be a night of surprises as their oarsman, huddled against the wind and concealed by his layers of clothing, struck out boldly for the Left Bank.

  Charles made a wager with himself that the mysterious Grand Master lived somewhere near the University, deep in the heart of the Latin Quarter. Yet the house, when the boy finally came to it, was something of a shock. Grand Master or no, Charles had imagined that Nicolas Flamel would reside in some mean half-timbered place set in a dingy alley. But though he had been right about its proximity to the University, this house was large, with a sweeping courtyard in which a fountain played. Even in the flickering light of the torches that lit the entrance, Charles could see that this was the home of a very wealthy man indeed.

  The interior, too, confirmed this fact. Beautiful tapestries hung on the walls, wooden carvings embellished the hall, while the huge fireplace displayed a moulded overmantel of dancing figures, both male and female. Charles stole a quick look at Jeanne’s face and knew by her manner that she had been to this place before, that none of its grandeur was a surprise to her. But he was not prepared for her reaction when a man suddenly appeared at the top of the flight of stone stairs.

  “I pay you homage,” said Jeanne and made a reverence that would have been fitting for a man of the cloth.

  Charles stared in amazement as the alchemist came to half-way down the stairs. He had expected someone old, white haired, but this creature was ageless, spare and sinewy, the bones of the face distinct, the eyes that looked out of it so bright they seemed almost colourless.