In a Dark Wood Wandering (5 page)

Her eyes, which she so seldom raised to his, were green: the grass in spring-time could not be greener, thought Louis, consumed by passion. The desire to possess Maret—her pet name—dominated him completely, so overwhelmingly that he had resorted to what was for him so revolting a measure as the ring which he held in the palm of his hand. This amulet, worn on a chain on the naked body, could not help but make the conquest easy for him.

The Duke of Burgundy, about to depart from Saint-Pol with his attendants to return to his own dwelling, was interrupted by some gentlemen from Isabeau's retinue who delivered the request to him that he visit the Queen before he left. Accompanied by some trusted friends, the Duke went with Isabeau's messengers; he found the Queen in one of the vast gloomy halls which had once served as a reception and meeting room, but was now seldom used.

Isabeau preferred the castle of Vincennes; if she had to reside at Saint-Pol she stayed mostly in her own apartments which, although not spacious, were comfortably furnished. However, there were too many eyes and ears there—a confidential conversation was impossible; greater security was offered by these deserted salons in the old section of the palace.

The Queen sat near the hearth. The projecting mantelpiece was decorated to the ceiling with immense sculptures in relief: twelve heraldic beasts and the figures of prophets in pleated robes. Along the walls hung somber tapestries depicting hunting scenes. Some wax candles burned on a table before Isabeau. The silk damask of her clothing and her jewels glowed crimson and violet in the candleflames and the light of the setting sun which streamed in through the windows behind her. In a dark corner of the room the Duke
saw a few court ladies and other members of Isabeau's retinue; he ordered his own followers to remain near the door and approached the Queen. He knelt before her despite the stiffness of his limbs. He attached great importance to the conventions and was particularly punctilious about the expression of all due marks of respect. Not the difference in age between Isabeau and himself, not the fact that they tolerated each other only out of self-interest, nor that he was essentially the more powerful of the two, could prevent him from the performance of these ceremonies. Three times he allowed himself to be encouraged by the Queen to rise, before he stood up.

Isabeau, who usually enjoyed Burgundy's voluntary—although purely formal—self-abasement, was in no mood for compliments. She was frowning and her full lips were pursed; with her that was always a sure sign of annoyance. She sat erect with her hands on the arms of her chair. She had put aside her robes of state and so, despite the fact that her garments had been cleverly altered by her seamstress, it could no longer remain a secret that she was pregnant again as a result of the rapprochement between herself and the King during Charles' short period of relative lucidity in the spring. There was a general sentiment that a second son was needed; the Dauphin was weak and frail. Isabeau had already lost two children who had suffered from the same lack of vitality. That she, with her strong healthy body, apparently was not capable of giving the country a robust heir was a disappointment and a source of amazement to many people. But the sickly blood of the most recent generation of France's royal House seemed to be predominant.

The Duke of Burgundy waited. The candlelight seemed to emphasize the sharpness of his features; the shadows lay deep around his nose and in his eyesockets. He held his mouth rigidly closed; Isabeau knew that only carefully tested and rehearsed words passed those lips. She had become accustomed, during the years when Charles was underage and Burgundy acted as his guardian, and now again during his renewed regency—which actually amounted to single-handed control of the government—to look for double, even triple, meanings behind the Duke's words. Despite the fact that she considered him to be dangerous, she had a great deal of admiration for him. She recognized the similarity between them: like him, she was intent on working to her own advantage, on safeguarding her own position, on amassing gold and property, and on building
power for herself. And she knew now that it was he whom she had to thank, in the main, for her marriage. His own children were married to members of the Bavarian royal house, whose possessions in the Netherlands Burgundy craved. Nothing could be more precious to him than a stronger bond between France and Bavaria. Isabeau had found that she could learn a great deal from him. Already she knew how to keep secret any plans of hers which ran counter to his. Now she concealed her growing desire for power behind a show of docility.

“The King is not well,” she said abruptly, without preamble. Her manner of speech was unique in that court: she had never completely lost her foreign accent and had the habit of using short sentences, coming right to the point without the fashionable flowery circumlocutions and paraphrases.

“Madame, I regret the incident in the apartments of the Duchess of Orléans,” said Burgundy in a low voice, without looking at her. “The King must, indeed, be far from well to demonstrate publicly an inclination which—”

“Be still!” Isabeau cried. A dark flush spread over her face. The Duke of Burgundy fell silent; the released arrow quivered in the target.

“How is he now?” Isabeau asked after a moment. “You brought him back to his chambers? What is he doing?”

“The King is resting for a while. He was extremely excited.” Burgundy's tone was, as usual, unruffled. “I believe that the physicians do not find it advisable for him to appear at the christening feast.”

“That's absurd!” Isabeau tossed her head; the pear-shaped pearls trembled in her ears. “Why can't he come to the table? A meal is less tiring than going to church. I do not want them to bring food to his chamber,” she announced with sudden brusqueness.

The Duke looked at her directly for the first time, and raised his eyebrows. “What objection can you possibly have to that?” he asked. Isabeau glanced toward her courtiers who stood talking in low voices in the farthest corner of the darkening room. She did not answer at once but stared, her face averted, at the fire, while she toyed with an ornament which the King had sent her when they were first married and he was staying in the south of France: a small golden triptych with a tiny mirror in the back.

“The King is bewitched,” she said finally, leaning toward him.
Burgundy's eyes did not change expression; only his mouth showed a trace of satisfaction.

“Madame, may I ask on what grounds you base your opinion?”

“Someone came to me—a man from Guyenne—his name is Arnaud Guillaume,” replied the Queen without looking at the impassive face opposite her.

“Came to Your Majesty?” The Duke's lips barely moved. Isabeau felt the reproof. She raised her head defiantly. “I had him brought—I had heard about him,” she said shortly. “He believes he can protect the King against sinister influences. He knows all about magic …”

“Magic?” repeated Philippe. Isabeau shrugged. She let the gold triptych drop into her lap and looked at him almost defiantly. “What else helps against sorcery?” she asked haughtily. “We see all the time how little comes from the measures of the learned physicians. The King no longer recognizes me.” She lowered her eyes and fell silent.

The Duke of Burgundy maintained the silence. A new fruit had ripened on the tree which he had so carefully planted.

“Maitre Guillaume says,” Isabeau continued, “that those who bewitched the King are concentrating all their energies to prevent his recovery.”

“Why should anyone—” the Duke stressed the last word. “—cast a spell upon the King? Does the King have enemies then, Madame?”

Isabeau looked into his eyes. “
I
have enemies,” she said. “They bewitch the King in order to remove
my
influence on him. There are those who want to use him for their own purposes. You know that, Monseigneur. The Duchess of Orléans …”

Burgundy raised his hand.

“Madame, my Queen,” he said evenly, “is there any reason to mention names between us? We both know that a highly-placed man at the court dabbles in politics …”

“I don't mean that,” the Queen replied hastily. She was fond of Louis d'Orléans. She found it in her interest to protect her brother-in-law. On her mother's side Isabeau came from the Visconti family, to which Valentine also belonged. But since Gian Galeazzo had come to power in Milan and damaged the interests of her Bavarian kinsmen, mutual forbearance had chilled to mutual enmity. “Before his marriage there was no talk of political dabbling,” she said significantly. The Duke smiled. Isabeau continued more vehemently.
“Surely everyone knows how the tyrant of Milan came to power—the poisoner Gian Galeazzo!”

“Madame.” Philippe knelt before her again. “It might be well to allow this Maitre Guillaume the opportunity to do what he can. The King is in a really pitiable plight. He has broken his glass goblets because he was displeased by Your Majesty's coat of arms.”

“The arms of Wittelsbach?” asked Isabeau fiercely. “But all the tableware bears my coat of arms next to the King's. He himself gave the order to have it engraved.”

Burgundy bowed his head. “The King did not recognize the coat of arms. He trampled on the splinters—he defiled them.”

Isabeau stood up so suddenly that her long sleeves brushed against his face. She folded her arms over her protruding stomach and choked with rage. Philippe arose also and made a gesture as if to support her. But the Queen quickly composed herself.

“Arnaud Guillaume is in the palace,” she said tensely. “I can have him summoned. We should speak to him as soon as possible.”

“In the presence of my lords Berry and Bourbon,” added Philippe, involving his fellow Regents in the affair with ceremonial modesty. “I shall see that they are told.”

“In my apartments, then,” said the Queen, who was still trembling. “It's too cold here.”

The Duke of Burgundy struck a silver cymbal which stood upon the table next to the candlesticks. The group of ladies moved forward, preceded by the Comtesse d'Eu, Isabeau's mistress of ceremonies, who placed a mantle about the Queen's shoulders.

Isabeau walked slowly from the hall, leaning on Philippe's arm. Torchbearers appeared at the door. The Queen's red train and Burgundy's long violet sleeves seemed to flow into each other, variations of one color. The retinue of courtiers followed them at a leisurely pace.

The room in which the Queen and the Regents met resembled a bower: the tapestries that hung along the walls were so thickly embroidered with flowers and leafy tendrils that their blue background was barely visible. Isabeau sat under a canopy. A greyhound crouched before the old Duke of Bourbon, who urged it to show off its tricks. The Queen looked on with an absent smile. Burgundy
and his brother, the Duke of Berry, stood at a table which held some books. They were examining a breviary which had been commissioned not long before by Isabeau. Both men were bibliophiles, especially Berry, who spent vast sums of money on books. His castle of Bicetre contained countless art treasures; painters, writers and sculptors made pilgrimages to his court where they were hospitably received and where their work was paid for with annual allowances and life-long annuities.

Philippe too had been busy for some years putting together a library of ecclesiastical, didactic and historical documents which he had found in his Burgundian and Flemish residences. His motivation, however, was different. While his late brother Charles V had been interested primarily in acquiring knowledge, and Berry was an aesthete, the Duke of Burgundy believed that a ruler must be a Maecenas if he wanted to see himself and his deeds glorified in the art of his time.

Berry held the Queen's breviary up to the candlelight to get a better look at one of the miniatures. He was sixty-five years old, corpulent, with the somewhat slack features of one who had indulged too abundantly in the good things of the earth; there were bags under his eyes and the drooping flesh of his chin and cheeks was an unhealthy color. He wore his hair cut short like Philippe's, but his was curled. The cloak which enveloped his shapeless body was of green and gold brocade, trimmed with marten fur. The Oriental pomades with which he liked to be regularly massaged surrounded him with a penetrating aroma.

His brother looked with disapproval at the thick, beringed fingers turning the pages. Philippe's austere appearance caused Berry, by contrast, to look almost like a gaudy parrot. The Duke of Burgundy cherished a secret contempt for his brother, who had no aspirations beyond the collecting of books and curiosities and the beautification of Bicetre where he spent most of his time with his wife, who was almost fifty years younger than he.

“Look, look,” said Berry keenly. “These initials have been overlaid with gold leaf. By God, there is no handsomer script anywhere! Oh yes, I concede that its production was demanding—the cost of time and paper. But what nobility of form!” He held the book out at arm's length; the candlelight glinted on the golden ornaments between the blue-and-green-painted vines which framed the text. His small sharp eyes sparkled; he clicked his tongue a few times in
admiration and closed the book. Burgundy took it from him and examined the clasps mounted on the leather covers.

“I must say, Madame, the book is magnificent.” Berry went up to Isabeau and stood before her. “I congratulate you. I must have the man too—who is it? Hennecart? Beautiful work—superb work! But at the first opportunity I'll let you see a few pages from my new breviary. Maitre Paul of Limburg and his brother are illuminating the calendar. I don't exaggerate when I call it a miracle. One would swear that the flowers could actually be plucked from the grass and that in the next moment the crows would come flying up out of the snow. The initials are especially beautiful—like these here—but in vermilion—”

“Actually, where is that man now?” Burgundy broke testily into the flood of his brother's words. He put the book back on the table. The workmanship of the clasps was exceptionally exquisite, and they were mounted with cabochon garnets and pearls. He didn't doubt that it had cost the Queen a considerable amount of money.