In a Dark Wood Wandering (67 page)

Silence reigns in the tower chamber of Pontefract. Never has it been so difficult to endure as in the days following Cousinot's visit. Once again the lonely tenant is restless: books cannot distract him, he cannot forget himself in the polishing of verses, he tries without success, by thinking and writing about Bonne, to regain the near contentment he felt before the Chancellor's arrival. His desires were the desires of love; his sorrow mostly regret for the happiness which had so quickly fled, and dread that he would experience this happiness no more. But despite the bittersweet memories, despite melancholy and fits of violent despair, life had never seemed to him to be intolerable. He had spent his days in stagnation; only effortless song moved him—and yet in spite of all this he had had a vague feeling of satisfaction. But now he cannot recover that blessed calm, that indifference to the world and its turbulence. He is forced to think constantly of what Cousinot had said. He is tormented by concern: anxiety for Bonne and the fate which has befallen her—the fate of an impoverished woman who must seek shelter in a convent; anxiety for Philippe and Dunois who have inherited the heavy threefold task of guarding the dukedom, collecting ransom, fulfilling feudal obligations; anxiety for the defenceless little girls in Blois, anxiety for the outraged and violated Kingdom of France. Since his earliest childhood, he had always punctiliously performed his religious devotions without, however, becoming emotionally involved in the significance of prayer and ritual. Year in, year out,
filled with reverence, he had attended the ceremonies, public and private, which play so great a part in the life of a Duke of Orléans: the flicker of candles, the smell of incense, the singing of the mass and the glow of gold and rich colors were somewhat intoxicating to a mind so amenable to beauty as his. He knows well the concentration of prayer, the emotion caused by the words of Our Lord—but it is only now in this period of his imprisonment that he becomes fully conscious of the suffering of Christ—he can experience now what was formerly only a vague notion.

Here in this chamber of Pontefract he offers prayers, morning, noon and evening, to the image of the crucified Christ which stands on a table before an open triptych of painted wood. For the first time he understands, in the deepest recesses of his heart, the meaning of the figure nailed to the Cross—the wounded, emaciated limbs, carved faithfully from ivory, contorted on the Cross in more than physical pain. The prisoner raises his eyes to the image and sees on the crucifix the dead of the battlefields, the tortured inhabitants of Soissons, Saint-Denis and all the other cities occupied and ravaged by soldiers; he sees the stiffening corpses of victims of cruel warfare—the dead children, the ravished women; he sees finally the image of the horrors he knows only from hearsay: the dry moats outside besieged Rouen where women, children and old people huddled together for days, half-naked under the open sky, driven out of the city gates by the starving garrison, hurled back by the besiegers, condemned to rot like garbage.

The courtly emblems recede for an instant; he cannot express in the elegant and melancholy language of the love couplets dedicated to Bonne, the sensations which now overcome him. The self-possession so carefully cultivated and assiduously maintained forsakes him as it did at the time of his mother's death, the rapine of Saint-Denis, the murders at Soissons, the desperate combat in the field of Agincourt. He paces restlessly back and forth; a thousand plans, a thousand thoughts, flash furiously through his brain. He wants to break out of this prison, to be free of the oppressive stone walls around him, at whatever cost. He wants to escape and, with his newly won insight and sense of responsibility, put himself in the service of his country, its defenceless King and ignorant Dauphin.

But the door, banded with iron hoops, remains firmly closed; the grating before the window does not budge, well-armed guards who understand no French replace each other on the small landing
before his door. From time to time the valet enters, or Waterton, or an officer of the watch; always the wind, the mice behind the wainscoting, the rain, the indeterminate sounds which are often heard in old walls. He knows that in this castle of Pontefract, King Richard died suddenly twenty years before, under mysterious circumstances—how? Why? He has heard the rumors; now that Henry reigns, the son of the usurper, no one dares to rake up these tales, but the memory hovers over Pontefract.

Suddenly he must recall the words which he overheard when he was a child; he hears his father's voice murmur about solitary confinement in darkness, of hunger, of massive brutal chains. Pontefract—Pontefract … the word once echoed over the ducal tables at Asnieres and Beaumont, in the quiet of Lady Valentine's bedchamber. A word like any other word to the child who listens casually; nothing more than a sound conveying a vague sense of menace. Now the prisoner thinks of his royal predecessor; was it perhaps here, on this spot, that Richard, weighed down with jangling chains, waited for the end? The Richard of whom he has heard from his first wife Isabelle … a man who, without pity, orders the peers of his kingdom to be summarily executed, but who, when he goes off to war, takes his leave with kisses and tears …

He tosses uneasily from one side to the other of his bed. Will it go with him as it once went with Richard? Do darkness, hunger and thirst await him too? Or perhaps an assassin's dagger—poisoned food? Doesn't King Henry know as well as he himself that it can take a very long time for the ransom to be collected—and would the Englishman release his captive even if he were offered the whole amount at once?

The weeks glide by, shrouded in gloom and uncertainty. Suddenly there is a perceptible change: Sir Robert Waterton, who until now has visited the prisoner daily for the sole purpose of inquiring dutifully after the latter's health, finding out if he has any feasible requests, and checking on the situation in general—Sir Robert Waterton one afternoon—and soon by chance every afternoon—pays a fairly prolonged visit. At first he makes a visible effort to throw off the cold, official demeanor of the warden, to become suddenly courteous and chatty. On these occasions he does not come in cuirass and coat of mail, but dresses as a courtier. The multi-colored garments make him look heavier and broader; it is obvious that he is uncomfortable in his long overgarment and velvet hat with scalloped
lappets, all brand-new and cut according to the latest French fashion. He still wears his red-brown hair long. He walks toward the prisoner, frowning, but with a forced smile. Two servants from Waterton's household carry wooden trays heaped with fruit, wine, and cake, and place these upon the table.

The young man who stands reading at his desk looks up with raised brows. Finally he accepts Waterton's invitation to take a seat; oddly, the knight has dropped his reserve. He no longer behaves toward his noble guest like a prison keeper, but like a host. The two discuss the weather, the hunt, horses and dogs, weapons—even, casually, books. Waterton does not like to read. They drink together and after a while a chessboard is fetched. The knight's game reflects his character: he is crude, without guile and purposefully deliberate. The prisoner, a skilled chess player since childhood, wins effortlessly again and again. In this way a considerable amount of time passes. Again Waterton visits the young man. They chat, drink and play chess, the knight behaving with forced joviality, the Duke with obvious mistrust beneath his cautious manner. Politics is not mentioned, although more than once the conversation seems to be tending in that direction. Waterton's clear anxiety to avoid that precise subject increases the prisoner's suspicion.

When for several weeks the knight has spent the late afternoon hours with him in this way, the prisoner knows with certainty that these visits have a definite purpose, that wine and friendly conversation are intended to pave the way … to what? Charles waits; from time to time he watches his warden attentively, trying to read something in the small greenish eyes which are sometimes fixed upon the chess pieces in almost childish desperation. At long last one day, Waterton begins to talk about the military situation in France in a tone which is too emphatically indifferent to be genuine. He gives an imposingly long list of names: the cities in Normandy and Picardy which are occupied by the English—some after siege, the most, however, after a pragmatic surrender by the citizens.

“The populace knows that King Henry permits no plunder, his soldiers are well-disciplined,” says Waterton. “The people can continue to cultivate their fields and carry on trade. They will quickly see that King Henry's government provides them with security and prosperity.”

Charles does not reply; he sits staring at his silver goblet, which
he turns slowly between his thumb and forefinger. Waterton continues.

“In any case it's senseless for the cities to offer resistance. Sooner or later they must lay down their arms; no one will be able to help them—not the government, not anyone acting in the name of the Dauphin and your—forgive me—
his
party. I doubt, for that matter, I doubt whether any auxiliary armies could check King Henry's advance. Our troops are exceptionally well-trained, and our methods of combat are different, better than those which are clung to on the continent.