The Accursed Kings Series Books 1-3: The Iron King, the Strangled Queen, the Poisoned Crown

by Maurice Druon

  It was drawn up in pretty wide terms: ‘I require all my bailies, seneschals and provosts to give aid and assistance …’ Guccio counted on being able to use it for a long time to come.

  ‘On the King’s service!’ said Guccio.

  At the sight of the royal seal the Provost’s sergeant immediately became courteous and zealous, running to open the doors.

  ‘You will feed my horse,’ Guccio ordered.

  People over whom you have once had the advantage nearly always consider themselves defeated in advance when they find themselves in your presence again. However difficult they may wish to be, it is no use; water always flows in the same direction. This was the situation between Master Portefruit and Guccio.

  His flesh quivering like brawn, his mind in a state of some anxiety, the Provost came to greet his visitor. Reading the safe-conduct, ‘I require all my bailies …’ did nothing to decrease his anxiety. What could this young Lombard’s secret business be? Was he come to make inquiries, to inspect? Philip the Fair had in the past had these mysterious agents who, under cover of some other business, traversed the kingdom, making their reports, then suddenly a head would fall, a prison door open.

  ‘Ah, Messire Portefruit, before going any further I wish to inform you,’ said Guccio, ‘that I have made no mention in high places of the matter of the Cressay succession duty, which brought about our meeting a year ago. I looked upon it as a mistake. This to ally your anxiety.’

  It was indeed an admirable method of reassuring the Provost! It was to tell him clearly and at once: ‘I am reminding you that I caught you out in flagrant dishonesty, and that I can make it known whenever I wish.’

  The Provost’s fat moonlike face paled a little, except for the birthmark, violet and prominent, which grew disgustingly at the corner of his forehead. His eyes were small and yellow. The man must have had some liver disease.

  ‘I am grateful to you, Messire Baglioni, for the view you take,’ he replied. ‘It was indeed all a mistake. Besides, I have had the accounts erased.’

  ‘Did they need erasing?’ remarked Guccio.

  The other realized that he had uttered a dangerous folly. Decidedly this young Lombard had the gift of confusing him.

  ‘I was just about to sit down to dinner,’ he said, in order to change the subject as quickly as possible; ‘will you do me the honour of joining me?’

  He was beginning to show himself obsequious. Dignity impelled Guccio to refuse; but cunning suggested his acceptance; people never give themselves away so easily as at dinner. Besides, Guccio had eaten nothing and come far since morning. So, having left Neauphle in order to kill the Provost, he found himself sitting comfortably next to him and using his dagger only to carve a beautifully roasted sucking-pig submerged in exquisitely thick, golden gravy.

  The Provost’s doing himself so well in the middle of a starving countryside was utterly scandalous. ‘When I think,’ Guccio said to himself, ‘when I think that I came here to find food for Marie and that it is I who am doing the eating!’ Every mouthful increased his hatred of Portefruit; and as the other, thinking to conciliate his visitor, had his finest provisions and rarest wines brought out, Guccio, at each bumper he was forced to accept, repeated to himself, ‘I’ll pay him out for all this, the pig! I’ll see that he swings for it.’

  Never was a meal eaten so hungrily and with such little advantage to him who offered it. Guccio missed no opportunity of putting his host ill at ease.

  ‘I am told that you have acquired certain falcons, Master Portefruit?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Have you the right to hunt then, like nobles?’

  The other choked in his goblet.

  ‘I hunt with the nobles of the neighbourhood, when they are kind enough to ask me,’ he replied quickly.

  He tried once more to change the subject, and added, in order to say something, ‘You appear to travel a lot, Messire Baglioni?’

  ‘Indeed, a good deal,’ replied Guccio off-handedly. ‘I have just come back from Italy where I was upon the King’s business to the Queen of Naples.’

  Portefruit remembered that at their first meeting Guccio had just returned from a mission to the Queen of England. Certainly this young man seemed to be much employed on expeditions to queens; he must be very powerful. Moreover, he somehow always managed to know the things one would have preferred to keep quiet.

  ‘Master Portefruit, the clerks of the branch of my uncle’s bank at Neauphle are reduced to great misery. I have found them ill from hunger, and they assure me that they can buy nothing,’ declared Guccio suddenly. (And the Provost realized that they were coming to the object of the visit.) ‘How do you explain that in a country ravaged by famine you impose tithes in kind, taking and seizing everything there is left to eat?’

  ‘Oh, Messire Baglioni, this is a very serious matter for me and an extremely painful one, I promise you. But I must obey orders from Paris. I have to send three wagon-loads of food every week, as do all the other provosts hereabouts, because Monseigneur de Marigny is afraid of a rising and wishes to keep the capital quiet. As usual it is the countryside that suffers.’

  ‘And when your sergeants-at-Arms collect sufficient to fill three wagons, they manage at the same time to fill a fourth and you keep that one for yourself.’

  The Provost felt considerable distress. How very painful the dinner was turning out to be. He wondered whether he would manage to digest it properly!

  ‘Never, Messire Baglioni, never! What will you think next?’

  ‘Out with it, Provost! Where does all this come from?’ cried Guccio indicating the spread before them. ‘I know very well that these hams do not grow in your herbaceous borders. Nor do your Sergeants-at-Arms wax as fat as they are merely by licking the lilies on their staves!’

  ‘Had I realized,’ thought Portefruit, ‘I would not have entertained him so well.’

  ‘The fact is, don’t you see,’ he replied, ‘that if order is to be maintained in the kingdom it is essential that those employed to watch over it should be properly fed.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Guccio, ‘certainly. You are speaking with great good sense. A man such as you, upon whom such important duties devolve, must obviously not reason like the common people, nor indeed act as they do.’

  Suddenly he had become approving, friendly and appeared to accept his host’s point of view entirely. Unconsciously he was imitating Monseigneur Robert of Artois, whom he had seen several times and whose manners had made a considerable impression on him. He almost went so far as to slap the Provost on the back. The other, who had drunk a good deal to give himself courage, fell into the trap.

  ‘It’s exactly the same with the taxes, isn’t it?’ went on Guccio.

  ‘The taxes?’ repeated the Provost.

  ‘Yes, of course! You farm them, don’t you? Naturally you have to live and pay your agents. So obviously you have to raise more than you hand over to the Treasury. What do you do about it? You double the tax, isn’t that so? As far as I know, that is what every provost does.’

  ‘More or less,’ said Portefruit candidly, since he believed that he was dealing, if not with an accomplice, at least with someone in the know. ‘We are obliged to, of course. You must know that in order to obtain my position I had to grease the palm of one of Marigny’s secretaries.’

  ‘Really, a secretary of Marigny’s?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, and I continue to give him something on every Saint Nicholas’s Day. I have to share, too, with my receiver, without mentioning what the bailie, my superior, takes off me. So, when all is said and done …’

  ‘There does not remain all that much for you, I see … So, Provost, you are going to help me, as it is your duty to do, and I will propose a deal by which you will lose nothing. I must feed my clerks. Every week you will deliver to them salt, flour, beans, honey, and either fresh or dried meat which they need merely to exist, and for which they will pay at the highest Paris prices with a bonus of threepence in the pound. I am even prepared to give you
fifty pounds in advance,’ he said, shaking his purse till it rang.

  The sound of the gold overcame the Provost’s caution. He bargained a little, merely for bargaining’s sake, and arranged the weights and quantities with Guccio, who calculated everything double in order to supply the Cressay family.

  Since Guccio wanted to take some provisions away with him at once, the Provost led him into his larder which resembled a merchant’s warehouse.

  Now that he had made a deal, what point was there in further concealment? In fact he was not altogether displeased to have someone at last to whom he could show with impunity his wealth of foodstuffs, of which he was most certainly more vain than of his administrative titles. If he had become a provost through ambition, his real aptitudes were more suited to the business of a grocer. With his round face, his snub nose, and his short arms, he went to and fro among his casks of lentils and peas, sniffed his cheeses, and let his eyes rest caressingly upon his strings of sausages. Having just spent two hours dining, he looked as if he were already hungry again.

  ‘The fellow deserves to be raided with clubs and pitchforks,’ thought Guccio. A servant prepared a large parcel of victuals which, enveloped in a cloth to cover them, Guccio attached to his saddle.

  ‘And if by any chance,’ said the Provost, showing him out, ‘you should happen to go short yourself in Paris, I might as occasion offers be able to send you a wagon-load.’

  ‘I’ll think about it, Provost. Besides, you will not have to wait long to see me again. And in the meantime you may rest assured that I shall speak of you as you deserve.’

  Thereupon Guccio left for Neauphle, and went to the bank where the clerks, when they heard his news, overwhelmed him with gratitude.

  ‘And so,’ said Guccio, ‘every week someone will come from Cressay or you will arrange to take there, when night has fallen, half of what the Provost sends you. My uncle takes a great interest in that family, who stand better at Court than one might expect from appearances; take care that they lack for nothing.’

  ‘Are they to pay cash or is it to be debited to them?’ asked the manager.

  ‘You will keep a separate account which I shall deal with myself.’

  Ten minutes later Guccio arrived at the manor, triumphantly brandishing his parcel of provisions. When he went to her room and unpacked his acquisitions, Marie had tears in her eyes.

  ‘Guccio, one might think you were a magician,’ she cried.

  ‘I would do much more to see you regain your strength, and for the joy of earning your love. You will receive as much again every week. Believe me,’ he added smiling, ‘it’s less difficult than finding a cardinal in Avignon.’

  This reminded him that he had not come to Cressay only to flirt. As they were alone, he took the opportunity of asking Marie if the casket he had left in her care the autumn before was still in the same place in the chapel.

  ‘You will find it where we left it,’ she replied. ‘My greatest anxiety was that I would die without knowing what to do with it.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it any more; I am going to take it back with me. And for God’s sake, if you love me, think no more of dying!’

  ‘Not any more now,’ she said, smiling.

  Having assured her that he would return more often, he left her biting delightedly into dried plums.

  Having gone down into the Great Hall, he told Dame Eliabel that he had brought back wonderful relics from Italy, that they were most efficacious, and that he wished to pray over them alone in the chapel so as to obtain Marie’s recovery. The widow was astonished that so devoted, clever and busy a young man should at the same time be so pious. Clearly, he had every good quality.

  Having obtained the key, Guccio went and shut himself up in the chapel; there he went behind the little altar, found without difficulty the hinged stone and, searching among the sainted bones, whoever’s they were, recovered the leaden casket which contained the receipt signed by Archbishop Marigny. ‘Here’s a good relic to cure the kingdom with,’ he said to himself.

  He replaced the stone and went out, wearing a somewhat sanctimonious expression.

  Having received the thanks and embraces of the lady of the manor and her two sons, he at once set out upon the road to Paris.

  Overcome with fatigue, he was compelled to sleep a few hours in the small village of Versailles. The next day he arrived back at his uncle’s, to whom he told everything or, at least, nearly everything; that is, he did not much elaborate upon the steps he had taken on behalf of the Cressays, but he described the family and the actions of the Provost with such violence and indignation that the banker was surprised.

  ‘I hope you have brought back the Archbishop’s receipt?’ asked Tolomei.

  ‘Certainly, Uncle,’ replied Guccio, handing him the leaden casket.

  ‘Are you really telling me,’ went on Tolomei, ‘that this provost told you himself that he raises double taxes, of which he gives part to a secretary of Marigny’s? Do you know which one?’

  ‘I could find out. Portefruit believes now that I am a great friend of his.’

  ‘And he says that the other provosts do the same?’

  ‘Without hesitation. Isn’t it a disgrace? They make of hunger an infamous trade and they guzzle like pigs while the population starves round them. Oughtn’t the King to be told?’

  Tolomei’s left eye, the one that was never seen, had suddenly opened, and his whole face took on a different expression, at once ironical and somewhat alarming. At the same time the banker rubbed his plump and pointed hands together.

  ‘Excellent! This is very good news you bring me, my little Guccio; very good news indeed,’ he said smiling.

  2

  Vincennes

  THE MODERN MAN, WHEN he tries to imagine the Middle Ages, generally believes that he must make a terrific imaginative effort. The Middle Ages seem to him a dark period, lost in the mists of time, an era of the world upon which the sun never shone and in which lived a race of alien human beings, a society radically different from the one we know. But, indeed, we only have to look about us at our own world and read our newspapers every morning; the Middle Ages lie at our very door; they persist beside us today, and not only in a few monumental remains; they lie beyond the sea which borders our coasts, within a few hours’ flying; they form part of what is still called the French Empire, and present our twentieth-century statesmen with problems they are unable to resolve.

  Several Mohammedan countries in North Africa and the Middle East are precisely in a period of fourteenth-century development and can show us, in a number of respects, a reflection of what the European medieval world was like. Similar towns, their houses piled one upon another, narrow swarming streets, enclosing a few sumptuous palaces; the same extremes of appalling misery among the poor and of opulence among great lords; the same story-tellers at the corners of the streets, propagating both myths and news; the same population, nine-tenths illiterate, submitting through long years to oppression and then suddenly rebelling violently in murderous panic; the same influence of religious conscience upon public affairs; the same fanaticism; the same intrigues among the powerful; the same hate among rival factions; the same plots so curiously ravelled that their solution lies only in the spilling of blood! The conclaves of the Middle Ages must have closely resembled the present discussions among Moslem doctors of law. The dynastic dramas which marked the end of the direct line of the Capets correspond to the dynastic dramas which today disturb the Arab countries; and the thread of this story will be better understood if we say that it could be defined as a merciless battle between the Pasha of Valois and the Grand Vizier Marigny. The only difference is that the European countries of the Middle Ages were not fields of expansion for the interests of nations better equipped with technical methods and arms. After the fall of the Roman Empire colonialism was dead, at least in our part of the world.

  ‘We haven’t been able to meet him face to face but, good heavens, we’ll take him in the flank,’ the
banker Tolomei had said in speaking of Marigny after the latter had returned to favour.

  When Guccio had told him of the actions of the Provost of Montfort-l’Amaury, Tolomei reflected for two whole days; then, on the third, having put on his fur coat, his hat and cape, since it was raining cats and dogs that afternoon, he went to Valois’s house. He found the King’s uncle and his cousin Artois somewhat disconsolate, bitter in their talk, taking their defeat badly and dreaming of revenge.

  ‘Messeigneurs,’ said Tolomei, ‘during these last weeks your actions have been such that, if you owned a bank or a business, you would have had to go into liquidation.’

  He could permit himself this tone: he was owed ten thousand pounds, and the other two accepted his reprimand without replying.

  ‘You didn’t ask my advice,’ went on Tolomei, ‘so I didn’t offer it to you. But I could have warned you that a man as powerful as Enguerrand would not dip his fingers into the King’s coffers. If he has embezzled, it will be in some other way.’

  Then, addressing himself directly to the Count of Valois, he said, ‘I have given you a great deal of money, Monseigneur Charles, so that you might raise yourself in the King’s confidence; you should return me that money at once.’

  ‘You shall have it, Messire Tolomei,’ cried Valois.

  ‘When? I should not have the audacity, Monseigneur, to doubt your word. I am certain of my debt; but still, I must know by what means it will be repaid me; and moreover, it is no longer you who have charge of the Treasury, but Marigny once more.’

  ‘And how do you suggest that we can make an end of the foul pig?’ said Robert of Artois. ‘We are as interested in doing so as you can be, believe me, and if you have any better ideas than ours, we’ll be grateful for them.’