by Tania Bayard
He took his hands out of the sleeves of his habit and waved them in her face. ‘You must warn Alips about this, too. Tell her to stop spying on people!’
She didn’t know what to say. The monk had helped her save Alix de Clairy, arranging for an audience with the king and encouraging her to keep looking for the real murderer even when everything seemed hopeless. Now he was frightening her. She had wanted to ask him about the Viscount of Castelbon, but she didn’t dare. She nodded, said she was late for the queen, and left him sitting under the apple tree, fingering his prayer beads.
SIXTEEN
All reasonable people should cast away from themselves the sin of envy.
Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des Trois Vertus, 1405
She found the queen surrounded by her ladies, who were arguing about something.
‘What has happened?’ she asked Alips.
‘The playing cards the queen was planning to give the king have disappeared. They are accusing each other of having lost them.’
Marguerite de Germonville turned to Jeanne de la Tour, pointed a finger at her, and said, ‘You nearly dropped them once. Perhaps now you have misplaced them.’
Jeanne de la Tour recoiled at the sound of Marguerite’s loud voice, but she tossed her head indignantly and shuffled away. Then Marguerite bore down on Catherine de Villiers. ‘Perhaps they are hidden among the queen’s books.’ To which Catherine replied, ‘Playing cards are nothing like books. Place your accusations elsewhere.’
Symonne du Mesnil sidled up to Madame de Malicorne. Her voice wavered as she said, ‘I’m sure you were the last to have them.’
‘She must have had wine this morning,’ Alips whispered.
Guillaume the fool skipped over and said, ‘She should drink with the ducks.’
‘He means Symonne should drink water, not wine,’ the dwarf said.
Marguerite de Germonville, Jeanne de la Tour, and Catherine de Villiers agreed that Madame de Malicorne was the last to have the cards. ‘They accuse her because they are blinded by envy,’ Alips whispered. ‘They think the queen likes her best.’
The queen’s ladies should be above such pettiness, Christine thought.
Madame de Malicorne looked at Symonne du Mesnil scornfully. ‘I think it was you who had them. Perhaps you have hidden them somewhere.’ She held the queen’s baby, and she shifted him from one arm to the other, which made him cry. Guillaume took off his cap and made faces at the little prince, who stopped crying, reached out, and touched his bald head.
The fool said to the women, ‘Stop looking, and they will be found.’ He darted away and ran around the room, pretending to look for the lost cards under the big cushions, behind the tapestries, in the crystal goblets standing on a sideboard. Then he sat on the floor, held up his hands, and exclaimed, ‘Here they are,’ as though the cards had miraculously reappeared.
Christine was about to go back to her work, but the queen beckoned to her. As she knelt by the day bed, she saw that Isabeau had her hand over her mouth; she was trying to suppress a laugh.
‘Rise,’ the queen managed to blurt out. Then she whispered, ‘Alips says someone may be hiding the cards, to play a joke. She has told me that a person who hides something is a thief, and the children of this person will be poor and they will be liars, too.’ Then she became serious and said, ‘Other things are more important than the cards. Have you learned anything?’
Christine looked at the ladies-in-waiting, who were still arguing.
‘They know nothing,’ the queen said. She leaned back against her pillows and put her hand to her forehead. ‘I am very afraid for the king.’
Before she could say anything else, the Duchess of Burgundy charged into the room, the skirt of her black houppelande rustling and her heavy gold necklaces clattering. The ladies knelt and moved away, followed by Guillaume, who pretended to be herding them out.
Christine hurried back to her copying. After a while Alips came in.
‘Where do you suppose the cards are? Do you really think someone has hidden them?’ Christine asked her.
‘Of course not. I just said that to make the queen laugh.’
In the other room, the Duchess of Burgundy stood over the queen. She said, ‘I have heard that the playing cards have been lost. I hope you do not trouble yourself looking for them. Playing cards are evil, and the king should not have them.’
The queen looked at her defiantly. ‘They will be found. And I will give them to the king. They will help him become well.’
‘You are a foolish young woman. You and that Italian wife of the king’s brother. Neither of you knows what is proper here in France.’
‘She hates Valentina,’ Alips said. ‘Valentina holds a higher place at the court, and she never lets that presumptuous woman forget it.’
‘I’ve heard she’s started a rumor that Valentina is a sorceress. Does the queen know this?’
‘No. And I hope no one tells her. I’m certainly not going to.’
‘I’m glad,’ Christine said. ‘She has so much on her mind, with the king’s illness and all this dissention around her.’
‘It’s true. The queen is deeply distressed by many things, but most especially by the king’s condition. I don’t think his illness is a surprise to her, though. She was aware right from the moment they were married that all was not right. I could see it. She was very upset because he was so restless and didn’t often stay with her – just often enough to get her pregnant, it seemed to me. He wasn’t even there when her first child was born. There were many doctors and midwives, but no one who could ease her mind.’
‘Wasn’t her friend Catherine de Fastavarin with her?’
‘Sometimes. But the queen needed more than that. I hadn’t been here long, but she knew I would say something to distract her, so she called for me. I went into the childbed chamber. She was lying under a great green canopy, surrounded by green curtains. I’d never seen anything so splendid. There were gold and green velvet draperies covering the windows and dozens of candles for light. It was so hot, beads of perspiration covered her forehead. I told her the windows had to be kept closed so no evil spirits could get in before the churching and harm the baby. She seemed relieved to know that. Then I looked at the baby and said, “You have a boy. If you want him to have curly hair, wash his head in white wine and put a bryony root in his bath water.” She laughed like a little girl. “Where have you learned this?” she asked.
‘I didn’t want to tell her the old rag-picker who’d raised me was a witch, so I kept silent. She said, “It must have been your mother. From my mother too, I learned such things.”’
‘And then she lost the child,’ Christine said.
Alips nodded. ‘The next time I was with her, I knew something was wrong. She was out of her confinement, and she was holding the baby on her lap and gazing at him sadly. When she lifted him up for me to see, he lay listlessly in her arms. I lowered my eyes; I couldn’t bear to look at him, he was so sickly. Several weeks later, the little prince died.
‘When she was pregnant again, I tried to think of things to amuse her, to keep her from worrying. I told her that if someone put salt on her head while she was sleeping, she’d know when she woke up whether she’d have a boy or a girl.’
Christine laughed. ‘Did anyone do it?’
‘Oh, no. But no one could stop me from talking. One day I told her not to let anyone give her fish heads to eat or her baby would have a big pointed mouth. The ladies-in-waiting, especially Catherine de Fastavarin, were so angry I thought they would burst, but the queen laughed until she cried. Then she talked to me about similar beliefs her mother had taught her, and she became sad, because her mother had died when she was eleven.’
‘I’ve wondered about her family,’ Christine said.
‘She misses her father and her home in Bavaria. That’s why Catherine de Fastavarin is so dear to her. But she knows what Catherine is like, and she told me not to worry about all the bad things she says about me.
“I know those things are not true,” she said.’
There was a disturbance in the other room. The queen’s greyhound was sniffing around the duchess, who’d seated herself on one of the big cushions and was struggling to get up. Guillaume ran over and extended his hand. When the duchess waved him away, he did a backwards somersault and bumped into the dog, which nipped at his heels. Guillaume howled, pretending to be hurt. The queen stood up, grabbed the greyhound’s collar, and shook it. He cowered and looked up at her guiltily.
‘This is unworthy of a queen of France,’ the duchess cried. She called to one of her maids, who ran over and escorted her from the room.
The queen sat on the day bed and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking, and Christine knew she was laughing.
Alips was laughing, too. Then she looked solemn and said, ‘One of these days that woman will go too far. I think she already has.’
‘Is she the one you suspect of being responsible for the fire? That’s a dangerous thought!’
‘Don’t worry. I can take care of myself,’ the dwarf said.
SEVENTEEN
Any woman who has a mind is capable of accomplishing any task.
Christine de Pizan, Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, 1404–1405
Christine decided to go again to the balustrade overlooking the room where the wedding ball had been held, hoping to remember something more about the masquerade. When she looked down, she saw Henri Le Picart studying the floor. He bent over, picked up something shiny, and stood examining it. She drew back into the shadows, hoping he hadn’t seen her.
But he had. As she was leaving the palace courtyard, he came up to her. ‘You’re wondering what I was doing.’
She said nothing and tried to look uninterested.
Henri glanced at the entrance to the palace, saw the portier watching, and drew her out into the street. Then he held out his hand. In it was a golden spur, just like the one she’d seen in Klara’s jewelry coffer.
‘I found this on the floor of the ballroom, in a corner. The porters who cleared away the debris missed it. Are you familiar with these things?’
‘Not really.’
Henri’s black eyes flashed.
She didn’t dare not tell him what she knew. ‘Do you remember I asked you about Martin du Bois the other day?’
‘Did you find him?’
‘No. But I found his wife, or at least my mother did.’
‘Why was your mother looking for his wife?’
‘When she heard the husband had disappeared, she felt sorry for the young woman. She went to find her, and she brought her home.’
‘That’s very nice. But what does it have to do with the spur?’
At this, Christine was tempted to walk away. But Henri’s look stopped her.
‘We went to Martin’s house to get some of his wife’s clothes, and we found a spur she kept with her jewelry. It looked just like this one.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ Henri said.
Two noblemen in short cloaks and beaver hats came down the street. Henri slid the spur under his black cape. The men smiled and nodded to them as they passed. After they’d entered the courtyard, where they were accosted by Renaut, he took the spur out from under his cape and said, ‘This is an old spur, not like the ones worn by knights today.’
‘I don’t know anything about spurs.’
‘This spur has a single piece of metal to goad the horse. The spurs used today have spiked wheels. Does that suggest anything to you about who the owner of this spur might be?’
‘There are many older knights around. It could be one of them.’
‘It could, but it isn’t. As I’m sure you know, when the French troops destroyed the city of Courtrai, they went into the church and took away hundreds of pairs of golden spurs the Flemish had stripped from the feet of dead French knights in a battle that took place eighty years earlier. Martin du Bois was there, and he brought back two of those spurs. I believe this is one of them. The spur you found with his wife’s jewelry must be the other.’
Henri glanced around and saw coming toward them a man elegantly dressed in a red velvet jerkin, parti-colored hose, and a feathered cap. Again, he hid the spur under his cape. When the man seemed about to stop and speak with him, Henri waved him away. Then a group of men on horseback rode up to the king’s residence, and they, too, acknowledged Henri, nodding and smiling as they passed. Does he know everyone in Paris? Christine wondered.
‘What was the spur doing on the floor of the room where they had the masquerade?’ she asked.
‘That is the important question.’
‘You’re a friend of Martin du Bois, aren’t you?’
‘In a way. I don’t think he quite trusts me.’
Christine smiled. Everyone seemed to know Henri, but surely not everyone trusted him. She certainly didn’t. Nevertheless, she wanted to find out where Martin du Bois was, and she suspected Henri had the answer.
‘His wife told me Martin disappeared the night of the masquerade,’ she said. ‘The night the king almost died.’
‘There isn’t necessarily a connection between the masquerade and Martin’s disappearance.’
‘There might be. The Duke of Orléans didn’t start the fire. Somebody on the musicians’ balcony threw a lighted torch.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The queen’s dwarf saw it. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know who it was.’
Henri waited for her to go on.
‘And I saw a lighted torch that didn’t belong to the duke lying on the floor near the burning men.’
‘Surely you weren’t at the ball!’
‘I wasn’t exactly at the ball, but I saw what happened. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it sometime.’
Henri was gazing at her with a peculiar gleam in his eyes. She said, ‘I believe the torch on the floor was thrown at the king. Perhaps the golden spur was thrown at him, too. And Martin du Bois disappeared that night.’
‘Are you suggesting that Martin threw a lighted torch from the balcony?’
‘Don’t you think it could have been him? After all, you just implied that the golden spur you have in your hand is his. And I saw curious things in his house.’
‘What things?’
‘There’d been a fire, and there were blood stains on the floor.’
Henri started to laugh. ‘You’re developing a nice theory to prove that Martin du Bois is a murderer. But you’re wrong.’
Christine felt her face get red. ‘I suppose you think my theory can’t be right because I said it.’
‘You must admit, women aren’t good at solving problems like this.’
‘Have you forgotten, I solved the mystery of who poisoned Hugues de Précy. I and my friend Marion. Both of us women.’
‘And then you went running after the murderess, in the dark, all alone, and nearly got yourself killed.’
Such an infuriating man! But there was something compelling about him, and she couldn’t stop herself from asking, ‘Will you give some credence to my theory if I can prove that Martin du Bois was on the musicians’ balcony the night of the masquerade?’
‘Oh? How are you going to do that?’
‘One of the musicians, Bernart le Brun, may have seen him.’
‘Have you talked to Bernart?’
‘No. Someone didn’t want anyone to talk to him. He’s dead. Someone poisoned him. Marion and I are going to see his wife tomorrow to find out what she knows.’
‘I’d better come along.’
Christine took a step back. ‘We may be women, but I think we can handle this ourselves!’
‘Bernart le Brun’s house is on the rue aus Jugléeurs. I’ll meet you there.’ Before she could object, he’d walked away, and she could do nothing but go home and seethe with anger at his audacity.
Early the next morning, she went to the corner of the rue Saint-Martin and the rue aus Jugléeurs and found Marion, just as she knew she would. And farth
er down the street, Henri, waiting for them.
‘He’s coming with us,’ she said to Marion.
‘What do we need him for?’
‘I tried to discourage him. But perhaps it’s a good thing. Bernart’s wife may be more willing to talk to him than to either of us, because she’s sure to be intimidated by him.’
Henri said nothing, merely walked on ahead of them, his black cape blocking their view of the street. Rude, as always, Christine thought as she and Marion hurried after him.
The woman sitting in front of the dressmaker’s shop motioned for Marion to come over, but Marion just waved at her. As they passed the empty house, Christine asked, ‘Is this where you found the body?’
‘Yes. The door’s nailed shut now. But look, there on the cobblestones. You can still see the vomit.’
Several people looked apprehensively at Henri, but he paid no attention, just strode up to the last house on the street and went in without knocking. Bernart le Brun’s wife sat listlessly on a bench by a long work table, staring into space, paying no attention to the intruders. Strings, bows, scrolls, tuning pegs, files, chisels, knives, pots of glue, and vielles in various stages of construction covered the table, and the odor of wood shavings, varnish, and glue permeated the air. The woman had obviously been working, for she wore long oversleeves to protect her arms, and a nearly finished vielle dangled from her hand. She held the instrument so carelessly, Christine feared she would drop it. Henri took it from her and laid it carefully on the table. Then he spoke to her with more gentleness in his voice than Christine would have thought possible.
‘I’m very sorry about your husband, Nicole,’ he said.
The woman looked up at him and started to cry. ‘Bernart went out that day, and he never came back.’ She wiped her eyes with her apron.
‘It’s said he was poisoned. Do you know how that could have happened?’
‘There’s no poison here.’
‘Did he eat something unusual? Did you have any guests who brought food?’
