Crown in Candlelight Read online

  ‘Adieu, Madame, Adieu, until we meet again!’

  She would have shed tears as he kissed her again and again, yet even at twelve years old, something told her: you are a woman, a wife and a queen. It was he who had wept. But now grief dragged at her, killing the sunlit grace of the Sainte-Chapelle; and because she was still and for ever ‘Madame’, with the vein of adamantine which had sustained her over the years, she composed herself; ascending the Palais staircase with Katherine, passing by the royal apartments. She could hear her father’s voice; he was conferring with his ministers, sounding entirely rational, strong. For how long would it last? She dared not think about it. The royal chapel was designed exclusively for those of the blood; Odette drew back. Two large figures, male and female, flanked the Chapel door; above them was a formidable angel with a book.

  ‘Who are they?’ said Katherine.

  ‘Adam and Eve, before their fall. Now, walk as the nuns taught you. Head held up, eyes downcast. My good girl! she said lovingly.

  Doux Jésus, the English shall not have her! Sooner my own heart’s blood … Fury stung her. Wrong to come to this most holy place with wrath and vengeance. She stood, letting the hatred burn and cleanse and evaporate.

  Emissaries had come from England to Compiègne, daring to ask for her hand in marriage with the Prince of Wales, Bolingbroke’s son, and some of the French councillors had acceded, swayed by the thought of the lost dowry, but she had sworn in their hearing to destroy herself, for better the ultimate heresy than a union with the son of Richard’s murderer. And now it was Katherine whose life and fortunes were weighed in this alliance, whose destiny could be dictated … God send my father well for ever, for when he is himself, he must be totally against this vile design …

  ‘Belle, why can’t Jacquot come with us?’

  The little dog was sitting at the foot of the monumental staircase.

  ‘Call him, then.’

  Katherine clapped her hands and Jacquot came, scrambling, slipping upwards, like a ball of flax,

  ‘Dogs have souls,’ said Isabelle.

  Mathe. She remembered him well; a stern wolfhound as big as a yearling calf. She and Richard had ridden in the forests of Windsor and Eltham with Mathe loping beside them. At night he would lie by the bed, watchful (although there was nothing to watch but affection), ready to tear the life from intruders. Would that Mathe had been at Pontefract! But then he was already forsworn.

  ‘Henry of Lancaster came into the chamber and desired the king’s abdication. Richard gave up the crown and took it back again, only to relinquish it again. You recall how the dog was wont to place his paws about King Richard’s neck then roll and bare his belly in subservience to the sovereign? When Bolingbroke came that last time, the dog rose and embraced his neck and abased himself. He knew.’

  She had forgotten who had told her.

  They thought I was too young to love him! they said he married me, a child, so that his body could ever be faithful to the beloved dead Anne of Bohemia. But my childish love encompassed Anne’s and drowned it as the sea drowns a river. No, my Dickon. Your murderers shall never have my sweet sister, not while I live.

  Like its lower counterpart, the royal chapel comprised a single nave of four bays and a seven-sided apse. Light streamed through the rose window, striking the free-standing clusters of colonnettes with their statues of saints and the low wall with its three-cusped blind arcades. The figures of St Louis and Jeanne de Bourbon were frozenly forbidding, he with his orb and sceptre, she with stone blossoms on her marble gown. Yet when the light poured in they were redeemed by breathtaking colour that lay equally upon their rigid forms and those of Isabelle and Katherine; the brilliant apple-green of chrysoprase, the sober milk of chalcedony, the rich dried blood of sardonyx flushing to cardinal red, then mellowing to garnet and rose, and brightening in the crown of Christ to gold. As a cloud darkened the window, red dominated: blood, wine, cerise, filling the shapes of the robe, the crown, all the men and beasts lovingly limned within the glass. Then the sun came again to light not only the pigeon’s-breast texture of the opaline Caen stone but the primary colour of window and chapel in a final glory. Red, the red of sunsets and claret, a comforting, loving red, as if one stood inside a ruby. The upraised faces of the two princesses were rosy under it and the little dog’s fur warmed like a peach.

  Isabelle pointed to the altar, where candles burned, lighting the gems on a square reliquary.

  ‘Look!’ The most holy things are here.’

  The relics of the Passion, pledged to St Louis by Baldwin of Constantinople.

  Katherine, totally happy, cuddled Jacquot under her arm. The chapel was almost deserted. Suddenly from the shadowed apse a voice arose, almost inhuman in its purity, joined by another, crisp as a tenor reed, followed by the fauxbourdon of deeper voices weaving a skein of praise.

  Magnificat anima mea Dominum

  Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo …

  King Charles’s singing-boys, thanking God for his sustained deliverance. Isabelle shivered under memory. At Windsor before that ill-starred Irish expedition, she and Richard had heard Mass together. The voices coiled and soared, a fount of pain and beauty. Adieu, Madame! Adieu, until we meet again!

  She bent her head and wept, while a single treble wound upwards, seeking the apogee of glory. Again, memory racked her. Master Maudelyn, the chaplain who had so resembled Richard (some said he was a bastard son of the House), had been brought to her in the midst of her grief, dressed like Richard, a spur for a doomed rebellion. He had stood, his back to a sunlit window and she had run to him, finding a counterfeit Richard, strange flesh, an alien scent. Perhaps poor Mathe had been likewise confused when he embraced the murderer.

  Weeping, she went to where the candles burned. She took the largest of the unlit candles and dipped it in the flame of another and set it burning with the rest. She knelt and Katherine pressed against her. From a stall behind, Charles of Orléans watched them. Disobedient, he had followed, now suffered and could not keep silent. Quietly he came to kneel beside Isabelle.

  He said with difficulty: ‘There is still love, Madame.’

  ‘Is there?’ she whispered violently. ‘Do you love me, Charles of Orléans? Or do you merely follow your father’s grand design, that step nearer the throne of France?’

  She had hurt him desperately, but he answered calmly enough. ‘If you only knew. My heart could swallow yours up.’ He caught her hand, holding it hard on his velvet doublet. ‘Feel it beat! For your peace I would have that heart brought bleeding from my body and laid before you.’

  He had his arm about Katherine and the dog was licking his hand. Isabelle said suddenly: ‘Charles … I’m in your father’s debt.’ She looked at Katherine. ‘Louis of Orléans, for all his faults, saved my sister’s life.’

  ‘He’s loyal to you.’

  She smiled bitterly ‘Did you know that he is with my mother again at Tours?’

  He bowed his head, and she rose, drying her cheeks. ‘Come, Kéti. I cannot pray today.’

  ‘Is there hope?’ he said desperately, following her down the nave. She was encircled by the rosy light and he thought: I would pursue her to the earth’s end, even if it were not my father’s wish. For her I would give up all hope of heaven save that of being with her. He felt the male pride of his own flesh, little dreaming that that same flesh had power to wound and kill the most beloved. He looked at her sleek unbound maiden’s hair, and secretly praised King Richard’s death.

  ‘Come, Katherine,’ said Isabelle. ‘Bring Jacquot. He’s thirsty.’

  ‘Oh, Belle!’ said Katherine suddenly ‘I love you!’ Isabelle bent to hold her close.

  ‘Then love me, little one. For love is the only candle in this dark old world.’

  She glanced up at Charles, who stood silent, daring to hope, while behind them the sunlit window made an endless permutation of colour, the blood-red, the garnet and the gold, and the sobbing anthem rose to find an end in
peace.

  Isabeau, at Tours, was uneasy. During the past two years her court had been much depleted; her finest hangings, plate and jewels had been removed to Paris at the King’s command. Even Colard de Laon’s paintings were now closely guarded in the Louvre, and the little artist had, most disloyally she thought, attached himself to the household of Jean sans Peur, and lived there in great estate.

  Two of her adherents, however, were unfaltering. Louis of Orléans knelt beside her now with the flagon of Gascon wine ready and a familiar expression on his face that was compounded of disdain, lust, and abject loyalty that he was powerless to betray. She kept him dangling still, giving him half-promises of favours physical and political, allowing him a sight of her body when he came to bid goodnight, but as often taunting him, calling him weak, mad, like his brother—although Charles, to her chagrin, remained whole, with the kingdom firmly under his hand.

  The other blood-servant she owned was Louis Bosredon, after whom the Dauphin had once named a rat. Bosredon’s love-making had a brutality that stirred her jaded palate, and she used him to drive the gentler Louis wild with jealousy. Once in mischief she had invited both of them to her bed.

  She and her brother had spied on them from behind a screen. Keen sport; for she knew the predilection of Louis of Orléans. A little womanly, a little warped. Louis Bosredon was entirely man and tempered like one. His fury had excelled at Louis’s timid overtures. Only barely had she and her brother prevented outright murder that night.

  It was useful to have them at one another’s throats. Each striving to outdo the other to her will. She pictured Bosredon’s sensual face, his wicked laughing eyes. Only he dared mock her with impunity. And now he had not returned from Paris. She had sent him there to learn what he could of the King’s affairs, and had expected him back at Tours days ago. She began angrily to think in terms of his disaffection. Also, she missed him. She took the refilled goblet impatiently from Orléans.

  ‘You would not care if he never returned!’

  ‘Who, highness?’ he said, too innocently.

  She sighed furiously and rose to pace about, more anxious than she cared to reveal.

  ‘I would have trusted him with my life,’ she murmured. ‘Louis, Louis,’ striking her fists against the sides of the gown.

  ‘My queen?’

  ‘Ah, fool!’ She spoke so viciously that he wondered: why do I, a royal Duke, stay to suffer this abuse? Why did I rejoice when she finally forgave me for ruining her schemes for Milan and for condoning the match between Charles and Isabelle? Why do I neglect my own wife, my quiet Violante? In the hope that one day this wicked woman will be kind to me? His heart stirred, and with that unholy passion came again the old reasonless precognition of disaster.

  ‘It’s late,’ he said.

  ‘I shall not retire,’ she answered, still treading the tiles. ‘None of us will sleep tonight. He will come!’

  She does the upstart honour. He bit his thumbnail savagely. Isabeau seated herself again.

  ‘Entertain me.’

  A page brought Louis a gittern and he drew an elegant thread of music from the strings.

  La plus belle et doulce figure,

  La plus noble gente faiture,

  C’est ma chiere dame et mestresse,

  Bon an, bon jour, joye et liesse,

  Li doinst dieux et bone aventure!

  Moved by the music, he believed that his lady was all that the song said: soft and kind. Only when he looked up at her did he know himself deluded.

  ‘That’s Grenon’s work!’ She scowled. ‘I would rather not hear the songs of Burgundy.’

  She was on her feet again, murmuring and frowning. Louis sang an Italian ditty and the servants dozed on their feet, like horses. Twice Isabeau sent to ask if there had been messages from Bosredon, and her frown grew tighter. The hours hobbled by. In the last shred of night Louis slept, to be awakened by the Queen kicking at his leg with her spurred boot.

  ‘We ride to Paris! If Bosredon has forgotten his duty to me, I shall take pleasure in reminding him.’

  Within minutes horses and an escort were ready. Stiff with weariness, Louis mounted and followed the Queen. Four days’ ride! and if he knew Isabeau, she would do it in three. He was not looking forward to meeting King Charles and he wondered how much he remembered of the cruel baiting in which he, Louis, had taken part. Skirting Orléans, he saw distantly his own manor, castles, churches, farms, his own fief with peasants toiling there. Somewhere in one of those misted towers was his wife, the patient pale Violante. Bearing and raising his children, uncomplaining of his adventures and thus enhancing his guilt. He thought of her with sudden sad regret, and rode fast through the county of Blois, trying not to look behind.

  Charles of France was well at ease. Nothing could alarm him now. He felt as if all his dormant wits had renewed themselves, bright, like fine old armour carefully stored. Standing firm amid a swirl of diminished anxieties, he was a worthy successor to St Louis, to Philip-Augustus. His dangerous calm was ruthless. He knew through his agents that Isabeau would come to Paris. He could anticipate her every scheme. From his high plane of megalomania he saw her powerless beneath his will. He did not recognize his grand euphoria as the fragile thing it was. Thoughts of revenge made him grin like a schoolboy and kick his heels against the silk step of his dais.

  He moved between palace and château-fort, and had again taken up his quarters in the Palais. From his raised throne he could see through a window the mast-tips of river craft and the bastions of the Grand Châtelet, crammed with treasure and prisoners, most of them Isabeau’s adherents, victims of his recent purge. From above he could hear the sound of choristers in the royal chapel. Jean sans Peur was in there, listening, praying. Yes, Burgundy was under the King’s roof, cousinly and subservient, daring no harm. Charles sighed contentedly, as he sat beneath the banners of Damascus cloth embroidered with lifesize birds and beasts. His amiable gaze moved over the three young people kneeling before him.

  ‘Be pleased to rise, my dears,’ he said.

  Isabelle got up, her hand still firmly held by Charles of Orléans.

  ‘And you, my prince, come closer to me.’

  The Dauphin Louis mounted the dais. His robe was heavily embossed with gems and his pointed ermine-trimmed sleeves dragged on the ground. Lately he had cultivated a certain smile—more of a sneer; it sat on his soft mouth like that of a wicked old man.

  ‘Isabelle,’ said the King, ‘soon you will marry.’

  ‘Sire.’

  ‘You will bear fine princes.’

  ‘And,’ burst out the Dauphin, ‘I will make every one a chevalier of honour … when I am king!’

  Charles continued to smile. ‘Yes, but not for many years. And you, my lord of Orléans, will you cherish our jewel?’

  The youth said fervently: ‘I shall love her as Our Lord loved the world.’

  His fingers clenched tighter on Isabelle’s and she gave a hiss of pain. The King looked up at the sparkling banners. On one of them was a pelican, blood on its breast, from which its young fed.

  ‘They drink their mother’s life,’ said the King, and for an instant his eyes became opaque. Then he shook himself like a dog from a river, saying forcefully:

  ‘Yes, you will be happy. I’ll give you great estate. Better, eh, Belle, than marrying the English prince?’

  ‘Rather death,’ said Isabelle softly.

  ‘Did you know that Henry of Lancaster sent word that he was willing to abdicate the English throne should you wed his son, so think of that, Belle! You can sway kingdoms! He laughed a little too high, too long.

  ‘Sire,’ said Charles of Orléans, ‘is it true that Henry seeks to invade us, being so thwarted?’

  ‘All threats and wind. Henry Bolingbroke is sickly, leprous, finished. As for Harry his son …’

  ‘A coxcomb,’ said Isabelle viciously. ‘Who leches with men and women both. Who chases the matchless spirit of Glyn Dwr through Wales and calls it war! Yet who
dares to aspire to my hand and my sister … even Marie, a bride of Christ! Michelle, Katherine … I know all about him—brawling with his brothers in the London stews …’

  ‘But surely, Madame,’ said Charles of Orléans, still holding her hand, ‘he was with King Richard in Ireland.’

  She nodded and swallowed her anger. That morning she had made confession, revealing matters which took aback even the royal chaplain, inured to sin.

  ‘Father, when the usurper Bolingbroke was at Windsor, I ordered that a spiked poisoned instrument be placed in his bed. I confess this because I am weary and sick of murder and would lead a good life. I am to marry again. I must go to my marriage clean.’

  She wept, and the chaplain, hating the sound of her grief, said: ‘Go then, and renounce your hatred. Wish ill to none. Sin no more. Be penitent.’

  But, she still thought, there had been such dangerous glory in it! Such disappointment when the chamberers annonced their find with cries of horror. Already she had bidden her retinue tear off Bolingbroke’s badge and replace it with Richard’s White Hart. The glory was gone. Murder brought only madness. She returned the anxious pressure of Charles’s hand.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘King Richard liked Prince Harry well.’

  Jean sans Peur entered, full of bonhomie, with a large entourage, including Colard de Laon, merry, with a gout of red paint on his pointed shoe.

  ‘Ma foi! God Himself dwells in that chapel aloft! I feel the presence of our mighty ancestors!’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the King. ‘And were they not swift to root out the ills from our house?’

  Jean sans Peur nodded. His long Valois nose had already sniffed out the King’s mood and his heavy eyes glinted. Gladly he anticipated whatever gave the King this gay brittle confidence. There was not long to wait. The outer door shuddered under a violent knocking.