Wars of the Roses 01 - Stormbird

by Conn Iggulden

  Margaret sensed the slug was coming to the end of his tirade.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said humbly.

  ‘What?’ he demanded, his voice rising. ‘What do you mean, “Yes, sir”? Have you even been listening?’ Spots of colour bloomed on his white cheeks as his temper flared. ‘Just get out!’ he snapped. ‘I don’t want to see your face unless I call for you, do you understand? I have better things to do today than teach you the manners you obviously lack. Running wild! When the king is gone, I will consider some punishment you won’t forget so easily. Go! Get out!’

  Margaret fled, red-faced and trembling. She passed her brother Louis in the corridor outside and for once he looked sympathetic.

  ‘John’s looking for you in the banqueting hall,’ he murmured. ‘If you want to avoid him, I’d go round by the kitchen.’

  Margaret shrugged. Louis thought he was clever, but she knew him too well. John would be in the kitchen, or close by, that much was obvious. They would not be able to put her in a cauldron, not with so many staff preparing a king’s feast, but no doubt her brother would have thought of something equally unpleasant. With dignity, Margaret walked rather than ran, struggling with tears she could hardly understand. It didn’t matter to her that the slug was angry; why would it? She resolved to find her mother, somewhere at the centre of the bustle and noise that had been quiet just a few days before. Where had all the servants come from? There was no money for them and nothing left to sell.

  By sunset, her brothers had given up their hunt, to dress for the feast. The population of Saumur Castle had increased even more as King Charles sent his own staff ahead. As well as the cooks hired from noble houses and the local village, there were now master chefs checking every stage of the preparation and half a dozen men in black cloth examining every room for spies or assassins. For once, her father said nothing as his guards were questioned and organized by the king’s men. The local villages all knew by then that there would be a royal visit. As darkness fell, with swallows wheeling and darting through the sky, the farmers had come in from their crofts and fields with their families. They stood on the verges of the road to Saumur, craning their necks to catch the first glimpse of royalty. The men removed their hats as the king passed, waving them in the air and cheering.

  King Charles’s arrival had not been as impressive as Margaret thought it would be. She’d watched from the tower window as a small group of horsemen came riding along the road from the south. There had been no more than twenty of them, clustered around a slender, dark-haired figure wearing a pale blue cloak. The king did not stop to acknowledge the peasants, as far as she could see. Margaret wondered if he thought the world was filled with cheering people, as if they were part of the landscape, like trees or rivers.

  As the royal group rode through the main gate, Margaret had leaned out of the open window to watch. The king had seemed rather ordinary to her as he dismounted in the courtyard and handed his reins to a servant. His men were hard-faced and serious, more than one looking around with an expression of distaste. Margaret resented them immediately. She had watched her father come out and bow to the king before they went inside. René’s voice carried up to the windows, loud and coarse. He tried too hard, Margaret thought. A man like the king would surely be weary of flattery.

  The feast was a misery, with Margaret and Yolande banished to the far end of a long table, wearing stiff dresses that smelled of camphor and cedarwood and were far too precious to stain. Her brothers sat further up the table, turning their heads to the king like travellers facing a good inn fire. As the oldest, John even attempted conversation, though his efforts were so stilted and formal that they made Margaret want to giggle. The atmosphere was unbearably stuffy and of course her sister Yolande pinched her under the table to make her cry out and shame herself. Margaret poked her with a fork from a set of dining silver she had never seen before.

  She knew she was not allowed to speak; her mother Isabelle had been quite clear about that. So she sat in silence as the wine flowed and the king favoured her father or John with an occasional smile between courses.

  Margaret thought King Charles was too thin and long-nosed to be handsome. His eyes were small black beads and his eyebrows were thin lines, almost as if they had been plucked. She’d hoped he would be a man of panache and charisma, or at least wearing a crown of some kind. Instead, the king fiddled nervously with food that obviously didn’t please him and merely raised the corners of his lips when he attempted to smile.

  Her father filled the silences with stories and reminiscences of court, keeping up a stream of inane chatter that made Margaret embarrassed for him. The only excitement had come when her father’s waving hands had knocked over a cup of wine, but the servants moved in swiftly and made it all vanish. Margaret could read the king’s boredom, even if Lord René couldn’t. She picked at each course, wondering at the cost of it all. The hall was lit with expensive fresh tapers and even white candles, which were usually only brought out at Christmas. She supposed the costs would mean months of hardship to come, when the king had gone. She tried to enjoy it all, but the sight of her father’s long head bobbing in laughter just made her angry. Margaret sipped her cider, hoping they would become aware of her disapproval and perhaps even abashed. It was a fine thought, that they would look up and see the stern girl, then glance at plates heaped with food they would scarcely touch before the next course came. She knew that King Charles had met Joan of Arc and she longed to ask the man about her.

  At the king’s side, her aunt Marie listened to René with a disapproving expression much like Margaret’s own. Again and again, Margaret saw her aunt’s gaze drift to her mother’s throat, where no jewels lay. That was one thing René had not been able to borrow for the dinner. Her mother’s jewels had all gone to finance his failed campaigns. As the king’s wife, Marie wore a splendid set of rubies that dripped right down between her bosoms. Margaret tried not to stare, but they were meant to attract attention, weren’t they? She would have thought a married woman would not want men to stare at her bosoms in such a way, but apparently she did. Marie and René had grown up in Saumur and Margaret saw her aunt’s assessing eye flicker from the bare ears and throat of her mother to the enormous tapestries hanging along the walls. Margaret wondered if she would recognize any of them. Like the servants, they were borrowed or leased for a few days only. She could almost hear her aunt’s thoughts clicking away like a little abacus. Her mother always said Marie had a hard heart, but she had won a king with it and all the luxury of his life.

  Not for the first time, Margaret wondered what could have brought King Charles to Saumur Castle. She knew there would be no serious talk during the dinner, perhaps not even until the king had rested or hunted the following day. Margaret resolved to visit the balcony above the upper hall when she was allowed to go to bed. Her father took honoured guests in there to enjoy the great fire and a selection of his better wines. At the thought, she leaned closer to Yolande, just as the girl was trying to tweak her bare arm in pure mischief.

  ‘I’ll twist your ear and make you shriek if you do, Yolande,’ she muttered.

  Her sister pulled her hand back sharply from where it had been creeping over the table. At fifteen, Yolande was perhaps her closest companion, though of late she had taken on the airs and graces of a young woman, telling Margaret pompously that she couldn’t play childish games any more. Yolande had even given her a beautiful painted doll, spoiling the gift with a dismissive comment on baby things she no longer needed.

  ‘Will you come up the back stairs with me after the feast, to listen at the balcony? By the Crow Room.’

  Yolande considered, tilting her head slightly as she weighed her exciting new sense of adulthood against her desire to see the king speak to their father in private.

  ‘For a little while, perhaps. I know you get frightened in the dark.’

  ‘That’s you, Yolande, and you know it. I’m not afraid of spiders either, even the big ones. You’ll com
e, then?’

  Margaret could sense her mother’s disapproving stare turned on her and she applied herself to some cut fruit on a bed of ice. The slender pieces were half-frozen and delicious and she could hardly remember when a meal had finished with such fine things.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Yolande whispered.

  Margaret reached out and rested her hand on her sister’s, knowing better than to risk her mother’s wrath with another word. Her father was telling some tedious story about one of his tenant farmers and the king chuckled, sending a ripple of laughter down the table. The meal had surely been a success, but Margaret knew he hadn’t come to Saumur for wine and food. With her head low, she looked up the table at the king of France. He looked so very ordinary, but John, Louis and Nicholas were apparently fascinated by him, ignoring their food at the slightest comment from his royal lips. Margaret smiled to herself, knowing she would mock them for it in the morning. It would pay them back for hunting her like a little fox.

  3

  The Crow Room was silent as Margaret moved across it in bare feet. She’d spent part of the previous summer sketching the floor in charcoal on the back of an old map, marking each groaning joint or board with tiny crosses. The light from the fire in the upper hall spilled up over the balcony and she crossed it like a dancer, taking exaggerated steps in a pattern that matched the one she saw in her memory. The crows remained silent and she reached the balcony in triumph, turning back to gesture to Yolande.

  Lit by flickering gold and shadow, her sister gestured in frustration, but she had caught the same illicit excitement and crept out across the polished boards, wincing with Margaret as they groaned under her. The two girls froze at every sound, but their father and the king were oblivious. The fire huffed and crackled, and an old house always moved and shifted in the night. René of Anjou didn’t look up as Yolande settled herself beside her sister and peered down through the upright wooden balusters on to the scene below.

  The upper hall had survived the stripping of Saumur almost intact. Perhaps because it remained the heart and centre of the family seat, its tapestries and oak furniture had been safe from the men of Paris. The fireplace was big enough for a grown man to walk into without dipping his head. A log the size of a small couch burned merrily there, heating black iron pokers laid across it until the tips glowed gold. King Charles sat in a huge padded chair drawn close to the flames, while her father stood and fussed with cups and bottles. Margaret watched in fascination as René plunged one of the pokers into a goblet of wine for his king, sending up a hiss of steam and sweetening the air. She could smell cloves and cinnamon and her mouth quirked as she imagined the taste of it. The heat did not reach as far as her hiding place, unfortunately. The stones of the castle sucked warmth away, especially at night. Margaret shivered as she sat there with her legs curled up to one side, ready to dart away from the light if her father looked up.

  Both men had changed their clothes, she saw. Her father wore a quilted sleeping robe over loose trousers and felt shoes. In the flickering light she thought it made him look like a sorcerer, gesturing with steam and fire over the cups. The king wore a heavy garment of some shimmering material, belted at his waist. The fanciful idea pleased her, that she was witness to some arcane rite between magic workers. Her father’s unctuous tones shattered the illusion.

  ‘You have brought them to this position, Your Majesty, no other. If you had not secured Orléans and strengthened the army into the force it has become, they would not be pleading for a truce now. This is a sign of our strength and their weakness. They have come to us, Your Majesty, as supplicants. It is all to your glory and the glory of France.’

  ‘Perhaps, René, perhaps you are right. Yet they are cunning and clever, like Jews almost. If I were dying of thirst and an Englishman offered me a cup of water, I would hesitate and look for the advantage it brought him. My father was more trusting, and they repaid his goodwill with deceit.’

  ‘Your Majesty, I agree with you. I hope I am never so trusting as to shake the hand of an English lord without checking my pockets afterwards! Yet we have the report of your ambassador. He said their king hardly spoke to him at all and he was rushed in and out of the royal presence as if the room was on fire. This Henry is not the man his father was, or he would have renewed their wanton destruction years ago. I believe this is an offer made from weakness – and in that weakness, we can regain lands lost to us. For Anjou, Your Majesty, but also for France. Can we afford to ignore such an opportunity?’

  ‘That is exactly why I suspect a trap,’ King Charles said sourly, sipping his hot wine and breathing in the steam. ‘Oh, I can well believe they want a French princess to improve their polluted line further, to bless it with better blood. I have seen two sisters given over to English hands, René. My father was … inconstant in his final years. I am certain he did not fully understand the danger of giving Isabelle to their King Richard, or my beloved Catherine to the English butcher. Is it so surprising that they now claim my own throne, my own inheritance? The impudence, René! The boy Henry is a man of two halves: one angel, one devil. To think I have an English king as my nephew! The saints must laugh, or weep – I don’t know.’

  The king drained his cup, his long nose dipping into the vessel. He made a face as he reached the dregs and wiped a purple line from his lips with his sleeve. He gestured idly, lost in thought as Margaret’s father refilled the cup and brought another poker out of the rack in the fire.

  ‘I do not want to strengthen their claim with one more drop of French blood, Lord Anjou. Will you have me disinherit my own children for a foreign king? And for what? Little Anjou? Maine? A truce? I would rather gather my army and kick them black and blue until they fall into the sea. That is the answer I want to give, not a truce. Where is the honour in that? Where is the dignity while they sell wheat and salt peas in Calais and polish their boots on French tables? It is not to be borne, René.’

  Above, Margaret watched her father’s expression change, unseen by the gloomy king. René was thinking hard, choosing his words with great care. She knew her mother had been feeding him oil and senna pods for his constipation, one legacy of his imprisonment he seemed to have brought home with him. The heavy white face was flushed with wine or the heat from the fire and he did look congested, she thought, a man stuffed full of something unpleasant. Her dislike only deepened and, against reason, she hoped he would be disappointed, whatever it was he wanted.

  ‘Your Majesty, I am at your command in all things. If you say it is to be war, I will have the army march against the English in spring. Perhaps we will have the luck of Orléans once again.’

  ‘Or perhaps the luck of Agincourt,’ King Charles replied, his voice sour. For a moment, his arm jerked, as if he was considering throwing his cup into the fire. He controlled himself with a visible effort. ‘If I could be certain of victory, I would raise the flags tomorrow, I swear it.’ He brooded for a time, staring into the flames as they shifted and flickered. ‘Yet I have seen them fight, the English. I remember those red-faced, shouting animals roaring in triumph. They have no culture, but their men are savage. You know, René. You have seen them, those ham-hocks with their swords and bows, those great fat blunderers who know nothing but slaughter.’ He waved a hand in irritation at dark memories, but Margaret’s father dared to interrupt before the king could ruin all his hopes and plans.

  ‘What a triumph it would be to take back a quarter of their land in France without even a battle, Your Majesty! For a mere promise of truce and a marriage, we will win more than anyone has in a decade or longer against them. They have no lion of England any longer and we would have denied them the heart of France.’

  King Charles snorted.

  ‘You are too obvious, René. I see very well that you want your family lands returned to you. The benefit is clear to your line. Less so to mine!’

  ‘Your Majesty, I cannot disagree. You see clearer and further than I could ever do. Yet I can serve you better with the wealth
of Anjou and Maine in my hands. I can repay my debts to the Crown with those rents, Your Majesty. Our gain is their loss and even an acre of France is worth a little risk, I am certain.’ He warmed to his theme, seeing the king’s grudging approval. ‘An acre of France returned is worth a great deal, Your Majesty, still more when it is returned from the old enemy. That is a victory, whether it is brought about by French negotiation or French blood. Your lords will see only that you have won land back from the English.’

  The king sighed to himself, setting his cup down on the stone floor to rub his eyes.

  ‘Your daughter will be an English queen, of course, if I agree to this. I take it she is of sound character?’

  ‘Your Majesty, she is the very soul of demure nobility. It can only strengthen your position to have a loyal member of my family in the English court.’

  ‘Yes … there is that,’ Charles said. ‘But it is close to incestuous, René, is it not? King Henry is already my nephew. Your daughters are my nieces. I would have to apply to the Pope for special dispensation – and that has its costs, at least if we want it granted within the decade.’

  René smiled at the signs of progress. He knew the English would send to Rome for the dispensation if he demanded it. He was also aware that his king was bargaining for a tithe in exchange for his agreement. The fact that Saumur’s treasure rooms were filled with empty sacks and spiders bothered him not at all. He could borrow more, from the Jews.

  ‘My lord, it would be an honour to meet those costs, of course. I sense we are very close to a solution.’

  Slowly, Charles dipped his head, his mouth working as if he had found a morsel in his back teeth.

  ‘Very well, I will be guided by you in this, René. You will be lord of Anjou and Maine once more. I trust you will be suitably grateful.’