Queen Of Four Kingdoms, The Read online

  ‘My lord and husband, this is a big step for me to take, especially on foreign soil, but if it is your will, I promise to make your values and loyalties my own as much as Aragon’s were.’ And he holds her, because he understands.

  Chapter Four

  They leave Paris in clear, crisp weather with glorious blue skies, heading south-west on horseback. Theirs is an impressive caravan, and it takes them a week to reach Orléans. Louis delights in showing Yolande this great city, second only to Paris in wealth and importance. They visit the vast Frankish cathedral, a magnificent building with tall towers and slender pointed arches.

  His duty done as her guide, their short visit over, he says: ‘Come, my darling, our boats are waiting and I long to show you my home and now yours.’ With that happy thought, they embark on Louis’ comfortable boat and travel downstream on the Loire. Her husband points out landmarks, fortresses, defensive towers, and tells her the names of the villages they pass, to greetings from all sides. Yolande sees only smiling faces; the people look well fed and content, going about their business tidily dressed and not in the usual rags of the peasantry in Aragon.

  They disembark at Les Ponts-de-Cé, not far from Angers, where Louis’ people meet them and take them to a large wooden inn by the river, smoke billowing from its two chimneys. In warm rooms they change out of their travelling clothes into formal attire, to make their official entry into Louis’ capital.

  Seeing how excited and happy his wife is to be arriving at her new home at last, Louis explains: ‘A page will carry my ducal crown on a cushion while I will leave my head bare so the people can see me.’ He is dressed in a beautiful suit of burgundy velvet with collar and cuffs of sable fur against the cold, a shining brooch of many colours at his throat – ‘A gift to my grandfather Charles V from an Ottoman sultan,’ he tells her proudly. To complement him – and she marks his approving look – Yolande wears a burgundy velvet tight-fitting short jacket, with a sable collar and cuffs like his, and a long skirt of burgundy velvet to hang down the side of her horse, also hemmed all around with sable. To keep her head warm, yet more sable turned like a crown around a burgundy velvet cap. On the side of it she pins a large golden topaz surrounded with diamonds, which gleams in the brown fur. Their horses are caparisoned in quilted ornamental ceremonial cloths almost to the ground, bearing the red and yellow colours of Anjou. Husband and wife smile approvingly at one another – he to reassure her, she full of admiration.

  For the short distance, they are preceded by a company of dashing Angevin knights riding four abreast, fully armed and carrying pennants. Soon they see people lining the road, the crowds becoming thicker as they near the city. They hear the high-pitched blast of silver trumpets – a fanfare of welcome – as they walk their horses slowly through a sea of smiling, waving, cheering citizens. Throughout the ceremonial entry, Louis and Yolande often glance at one another and smile. They do not need words at moments like this – they already know one another’s hearts and minds. Many emotions fill her breast: delight at the people’s warm reaction to her; excitement about the challenges ahead, the new life unfolding.

  After Louis has presented to her a long line of servants with a word about each, he leads her, followed by Ajax and Hector, around the great castle of Angers. Only now does she begin to appreciate the might of the House of Anjou. Angers is a massive, powerful fortress, almost a city in itself, rising majestically from huge rocks at the edge of the River Maine. Looking down, she can see a substantial parade area within its walls and many buildings. Not a talkative man by nature, Louis points out the seventeen enormous pepperpot towers high above them: ‘A castle strong and large enough to house an army, my darling,’ he tells her proudly. Never before has she seen anything to match its dramatic alternating horizontal stripes of what she later learns is black schist and white tuffeau stone – and the sheer scale of it overwhelms her.

  ‘Angers,’ explains Louis, squeezing her hand reassuringly, ‘is the most important fortress in all France.’ And Yolande can do nothing but nod in wide-eyed wonder.

  In contrast to its severe military exterior, once again, the luxurious and surprisingly comfortable interior – with the exception of the immense stone Great Hall – is due to the taste and elegance of her mother-in-law.

  To Yolande’s relief, Marie de Blois herself arrives at Angers not long afterwards, to teach her daughter-in-law how to become the absolute mistress of her great house.

  ‘Yolande, my dear, come, I will have you meet the people who run Angers in my absence. I hope they will serve you as well as they have served me,’ she says with her sweet smile as she presents the staff. ‘This is Vincenzo, my major-domo, who has been here since he was seven years old. He learnt everything from his father, who had the post before him.’ A tall man of about thirty years bows low before her and meets her eyes with his own honest pair. Yes, I will keep Vincenzo. His clear intelligence will prove most useful.

  ‘And this is Carlo, whose father and grandfather were both factors at Angers. They are a most experienced and loyal family.’ Carlo is another whose face Yolande likes instantly; she judges him to be intelligent and willing to serve her as his new mistress here. Another clever face. Yes, she is pleased with these two on sight.

  An idea is taking shape in her mind. Among her mother’s household, she remembered three servants who were more than that. With time and quiet observation, she came to know their extra duties. They would travel with her parents wherever they went, and sometimes one of them would be ‘lent’ by her mother to another important household for a period of time – to help train a new wife’s staff, or to fill in for an absent servant. With her sharp eyes and ears, Yolande soon understood that these three were also working in a different capacity. Yes, her gentle mother had them spying for her! One day, not long before she left Saragossa for her marriage, she asked her mother if this was true.

  ‘Dearest child, come and sit here with me quietly, because your question is a serious one and it concerns something I have wanted to talk to you about for some time.

  ‘You may be surprised that your mother, whom you look on as some kind of saint – yes, I know you think me without fault – could do such a thing as plant a spy in another household – even that of a friend.’ She looked at Yolande, her head tipped slightly to one side. ‘Now listen to me, and listen well. Life can be dangerous for anyone, whatever their station. But for a ruler, knowledge is the key to survival. He who knows wins! – never forget that. For this reason I have trained three loyal members of my staff to watch, to listen – and to report to me. I never even shared this with your father when he lived, although he had such people of his own. Find similar trustworthy individuals among your servants and you will be in a better position not only to survive, but to win!’ With that she smiled and left Yolande digesting the importance of her words. She made herself a promise then that she too would find trustworthy people to work for her. And, after all, she had brought Juana with her, whose eyes and ears had been well trained by her mother.

  Marie de Blois leads Yolande to the kitchens, where about thirty staff rush about preparing food. She sees several carcasses rotating over hot coals – sheep and lambs as well as fowl. There is a delicious smell of baking, and someone passes them with a barrow of apples from a larder.

  ‘The kitchens can feed an army, though luckily that does not happen too often,’ smiles Marie de Blois. ‘But we do entertain constantly when in residence and there are never fewer than fifty sitting down to dinner. This is Giacomo, my head chef and overseer of the kitchens. He came as a boy to learn from his father, and now his son works in the pantry just as he did.’ Yolande faces a round, beaming, red-faced man of about thirty-five, who snaps his fingers. Immediately a dish is brought with something freshly baked.

  ‘My lady, please do me the honour of tasting this small delicacy,’ he says, in an accent she can hardly understand.

  ‘Delicious! What is in the filling?’

  ‘Ah, madame’ – he see
ms to burst with happiness at her approval – ‘it is the liver of one of our special home-bred white geese. We force them to drink strong wine, and then the dogs chase them to make them run and the alcohol enters their bloodstream – especially the liver – before they meet their end.’ He draws a line with his finger across his throat with a toothless grin. ‘That and the almonds I grate finely into the mix!’ he adds proudly.

  ‘Poor goose. But perhaps it is better to die drunk than sober?’ Yolande asks Louis when they meet again, and he falls about laughing.

  ‘But we always give our fowl a good drink before a jolly chase, and then, chop! Just like I am going to do to you now . . .’ and he chases her around their bedroom with a small glass of something which, when he catches her, she finds is delicious and made from plums.

  ‘Is this what you give your geese?’ she asks, amazed, already feeling the effects of the strong spirit.

  ‘Yes, it is made by our local monks. Do you like it? They make wonderful spirits from the fruits I send to Anjou from our orchards in Provence.’

  Louis d’Anjou is known as a most hospitable duke and the chateau of Angers is constantly full of guests, as Yolande learns from her excellent major-domo Vincenzo, whom she watches carefully. Yes, I think he might just make a useful informer within my household – like my mother’s in Saragossa . . . Once their guests have retired after dinner and entertainments, she and Louis sit alone in the cosy sitting room between their bedrooms, comparing notes about the guests with just the dogs for company. This is their time, when they learn about one another, their cultures and childhoods.

  ‘You know,’ she tells Louis, ‘my father so loved music at his court, he would send his agents to entice the best musicians and poets from the courts of Europe to come to Aragon. What music we had, and how we would dance!’ And she shows him how they would twirl in their particular Spanish way, stamping her feet, clicking her fingers and moving her skirts to one side like a toreador baiting a bull.

  Louis is entranced. ‘Darling, do that again! Will you teach me?’

  She laughs. ‘No, that is how the ladies dance; for the men it’s like this’ – and she makes herself very straight and stamps her feet, which frightens the dogs and makes Louis roll on the bed holding his sides.

  ‘My mother knew of your French troubadours from Champagne, Picardy and Artois, and begged Papa to send for them as well. They taught us to play their instruments – I could play for you if you asked me very nicely?’ Only when he begs her does Yolande agree to play the guitar – which she does rather well. Sometimes when she sings, Hector and Ajax accompany her as she taught them, by howling, their long noses in the air, and the three of them make a terrible noise until she and Louis fall off their cushions, laughing like children.

  ‘Imagine, my mother sent our Catalan musicians to Flanders and even here to France to learn new songs, and they would return with their own special blend of exquisite sounds. As children we were allowed to join in and sing with them.’

  ‘And I can see how well your musicians taught your dogs to make their own special blend of exquisite sounds!’ says Louis, highly amused.

  At other times he sits spellbound as Yolande tells him about Barcelona’s fame as one of the most cultivated royal courts of Europe. ‘My mother used to tell us of her upbringing at the fabled court of Burgundy, and how it influenced our own at Saragossa. Can we visit your uncle Philippe in Burgundy one day?’

  Louis nods. ‘We will, I hope. However important our court at Anjou is, I know it is not as full of culture as my uncles’ courts at Berry and Burgundy. My father was always much more interested in his distant kingdom of Naples and Sicily, but his younger brothers filled their courts with the greatest treasures they could find, and live with a sophistication unequalled in Christendom.’

  It is during one of their fireside evenings together that Yolande gathers the courage to ask Louis the question she has been pondering ever since receiving his letter telling her he was coming home from Naples to marry her. She has often wondered whether he would have come if he had not lost his precious kingdom. Or would she have sat spinning and embroidering for years before he sent for her? What if his answer is not to her liking? She has tried so often, but finally she feels the moment is right to ask.

  ‘Tell me my darling . . .’ she begins with trepidation, then hesitates.

  ‘What is it?’ Louis fondles her hair.

  ‘Well, I have often wondered . . . I have wondered about your hopes of returning . . . with me . . . to rule one day in Naples.’ There. She has said it.

  Silence.

  Louis looks serious and throws another log on the fire. He does not reply at once. It is as if he has to work out the answer himself first, although he must have thought about it often. She bites her lip as he gets up and walks to the window, pours a tumbler of wine, returns slowly and sits.

  ‘Oh, my darling wife . . .’ He pauses and looks at his wine, and then his words come in a rush. ‘If only I could show you Naples: the great harbour that can hold hundreds of ships, and high above, the mighty volcano Vesuvius belching smoke.’ He looks up as if he can see it. ‘The vegetation in every direction, so green and lush; the pretty houses clustered up the mountain’s slope and around the harbour, painted in different pastel shades, each with its own portico growing grapes; the streets filled with laden donkeys; the animation of the locals, singing and talking loudly while they work – and most of all, the genuine welcome of the townspeople as they row out to greet me in countless small craft when my galleon appears, flying my flag as their king.’ He hardly draws breath. ‘Such voluble, kind, expressive people, full of laughter and gaiety, very different from the French of the north or our subjects in Provence. I have enormous respect for them, and love, yes, love. Of course I want to return with you one day.’ He stops, astonished at his own outburst, and taking her hand, he presses her palm to his lips.

  Yolande listens wide-eyed as this man she has come to adore talks about Naples as if he has lost a woman he loves passionately – to another. And he wants her back! She feels icy fingers touch her heart. Can I not make him happy here in his own land, where he has so much? she thinks. This must be my goal. To make Louis forget Naples unless he can have her back without cost or pain – and with me by his side!

  ‘Naples is not just a port city, you know – it is a large kingdom with landholdings stretching down to the heel of the Italian peninsula, all the way into Calabria and beyond into Sicily. You cannot imagine the glorious weather, the flowers, the animals.’ He sighs. ‘How I love it there.’ As he talks on, describing Roman ruins, caves along the shore with water clearer than glass, sunrises and sunsets seen from different sides of the bay, fish, orchards, vineyards, fields and forests – and more – Yolande realizes how much that is his true realm and the place where he has left his soul. Only now has she grasped the strength of Naples. His love of the kingdom will not fade easily.

  Chapter Five

  As Yolande follows her husband about his duties in his domains – meeting his representatives, joining the ladies of every town and village they visit, observing their children in the care of the clergy, surveying their livestock, their crops, orchards, vineyards, fisheries – she continues to absorb the complexities of his life. But it is the discreet presence of her mother-in-law, Marie de Blois, that makes her task of learning to manage such an enormous responsibility very much easier. All her life Yolande has lived in large castles, but until her marriage, she has never been involved in their administration. Each morning the two Duchesses of Anjou draw up lists of what needs to be done or learnt that week, whether domestic tasks or the demands of the countryside: harvests; fairs; roads to be repaired; villages to visit; parishes to attend; widows and abandoned children to be housed; rivers to be cleared of fallen trees; the breeding of horses, sheep and cattle; even of hounds for the hunt.

  Yolande has come to love Angers, that colossal fortress with its large reception rooms, the glorious series of tapestries of th
e Apocalypse commissioned by her father-in-law, their toiles painted by a master from Bruges. When she first commented on their beauty, Louis told her with pride, ‘Do you know, my darling, it took the best weavers in Paris five years to complete them. I do believe they are among the finest tapestries in France.’ She is intrigued by the intricacies of their design and workmanship, never tiring of walking along slowly beside them, tracing their story with one finger as she passes.

  Despite the chateau’s remarkable treasures – and there are many to appreciate and admire – her greatest delight lies elsewhere.

  ‘Louis, come, see this,’ she called to him in excitement on her first day. Louis came to stand by her side on the castle’s arched balcony, gazing down on to the lazy Loire snaking past the city’s feet. ‘Look! Look! From here I can see three rivers joining! Surely this is an astonishing sight!’ she exclaimed, wide-eyed.

  ‘Yes, my darling, they are the Maine, the Mayenne and the Loire,’ he told her, smiling at her pleasure.

  Of course he has known this view for years, but she can sit for hours, fascinated, watching the river traffic coming from all directions, learning to recognize the different types of crafts and their origins, even sometimes correctly guessing their cargo. The rivers bring not only produce to Angers; they also bring an endless stream of visitors and merchants, with wondrous goods acquired from all over the country, from the Mediterranean and even beyond.

  Soon Angers’ new duchess comes to understand that within this mighty city-chateau lies the source of the House of Anjou’s great pride. Only at Angers can she – or anyone – fully appreciate the tremendous power of this family. She has long heard of the ‘douceur Angevine’, spoken of softly and with wonder; now she understands what it means. Despite its granite-hard majesty, Angers manages somehow to incorporate in its surrounding countryside a unique tenderness, if countryside can be so described. Living here, Yolande believes it can.