The Iron King

‘Ah! Messire Edward,’ said Robert of Artois, ‘later on, when you’re a powerful prince, shall I dare remind you that I gave you a ride on my boot?’

‘Yes, Cousin,’ replied Isabella, ‘if you always show yourself to be our loyal friend. You may leave us now,’ she added.

The French ladies went, taking with them the infant, who, if fate pursued its normal course, would one day become Edward III of England.

Robert of Artois waited till the door was closed.

‘Well, Madam,’ he said, ‘to complete the admirable lessons you have given your son, you will soon be able to inform him that Marguerite of Burgundy, Queen of Navarre, future Queen of France, granddaughter of Saint Louis, is qualifying to be called by her people Marguerite the Whore.’

‘Really?’ asked Isabella. ‘Is what we suspected true then?’

‘Yes, Cousin. And not only in respect of Marguerite. It’s true for your two sisters-in-law as well.’

‘What? Both Jeanne and Blanche?’

‘As regards Blanche, I’m sure of it. Jeanne …’

Robert of Artois sketched a gesture of uncertainty with his hand.

‘She’s cleverer than the others,’ he added; ‘but I’ve every reason to believe that she’s as much of a whore.’

He paced up and down the room and then sat down again saying, ‘Your three brothers are cuckolds, Madam, as cuckold as any clodhopper!’

The Queen rose to her feet. Her cheeks showed signs of blushing.

‘If what you’re saying is sure, I won’t stand it,’ she said. ‘I won’t tolerate the shame, and that my family should become an object of derision.’

‘The barons of France won’t tolerate it either,’ said Artois.

‘Have you their names, the proof?’

Artois sighed heavily.

‘When you came to France last summer with your husband, to attend the festivities at which I had the honour to be dubbed knight with your brothers – for you know,’ he said, laughing, ‘they don’t stint me of honours that cost nothing – I told you of my suspicions and you told me yours. You asked me to watch and keep you informed. I’m your ally; I’ve done the one and I’ve come here to accomplish the other.’

‘Well, what have you discovered?’ Isabella asked impatiently.

‘In the first place that certain jewels have disappeared from the casket of your sweet, worthy and virtuous sister-in-law, Marguerite. Now, when a woman secretly parts with her jewels, it’s either to make presents to her lover or to bribe accomplices. That’s clear enough, don’t you agree?’

‘She can pretend to have given alms to the Church.’

‘Not always. Not, for instance, if a certain brooch has been exchanged with a Lombard merchant for a Damascus dagger.’

‘And have you discovered at whose belt that dagger hangs?’

‘Alas, no,’ Artois replied. ‘I’ve searched, but I’ve lost the scent. They’re clever bitches, as I’ve told you. I’ve never hunted stags in my forest of Conches that knew better how to conceal their line and take evasive action.’

Isabella looked disappointed. Stretching wide his arms Robert of Artois anticipated what she was going to say.

‘Wait, wait,’ he cried. ‘That is not all. The true, pure, chaste Marguerite has had an apartment furnished in the old tower of the Hôtel-de-Nesle, in order, so she says, to retire there to say her prayers. Curiously enough, however, she prays there on precisely those nights your brother Louis is away. The lights shine there pretty late. Her cousin Blanche, sometimes her cousin Jeanne, joins her there. Clever wenches! If either of them were questioned, she’s merely to reply, “What’s that? Of what are you accusing me? But I was with the other.” One woman at fault finds it difficult to defend herself. Three wicked harlots are a fortress. But listen; on those very nights Louis is away, on the nights the Tower of Nesle is lit up, there has been movement seen on that usually deserted stretch of river bank at the tower’s foot. Men have been seen coming from it, men who were certainly not dressed as monks and who, if they had been saying evensong, would have left by another door. The Court is silent, but the populace is beginning to chatter, since servants always start gossiping before their masters do.’

He spoke excitedly, gesticulating, walking up and down, shaking the floor, beating the air with great swirls of his cloak. Robert of Artois paraded his superabundant strength as a means of persuasion. He sought to convince with his muscles as well as with his words; he enclosed his interlocutor in a whirlwind; and the coarseness of his language, so much in keeping with his appearance, seemed proof of a rude good faith. Nevertheless, upon looking closer, one might well wonder whether all this commotion was not perhaps the showing-off of a mountebank, the playing of a part. A calculated, unremitting hatred glowed in the giant’s grey eyes; and the young Queen concentrated upon remaining mistress of herself.

‘Have you spoken of this to my father?’ she asked.

‘My good Cousin, you know King Philip better than I. He believes so firmly in the virtue of women that one would have to show him your sisters-in-law in bed with their lovers before he’d be willing to listen. Besides, I’m not in such good favour at Court since I lost my lawsuit.’

‘I know that you’ve been wronged, Cousin, and if it were in my power that wrong would be righted.’

Robert of Artois seized the Queen’s hand and placed his lips upon it in a surge of gratitude.

‘But precisely because of this lawsuit,’ Isabella said gently, ‘might one not think that your present actions are due to a desire for revenge?’

The giant bounded to his feet.

‘But of course I’m acting out of revenge, Madam!’

How disarming this big Robert was! You thought to lay a trap for him, to take him at a disadvantage, and he was as wide open with you as a window.

‘My inheritance of my County of Artois has been stolen from me,’ he cried, ‘that it might be given to my aunt, Mahaut of Burgundy – the bitch, the sow, may she die! May leprosy rot her mouth, and her breasts turn to carrion! And why did they do it? Because through trickery and intrigue, through oiling the palms of your father’s counsellors with hard cash, she succeeded in marrying off to your brothers her two sluts of daughters and that other slut, her cousin.’

He began mimicking an imaginary conversation between his aunt Mahaut, Countess of Burgundy and Artois, and King Philip the Fair.

‘My dear lord, my cousin, my gossip, supposing you married my dear little Jeanne to your son Louis? What, he doesn’t want her? He finds her rather sickly-looking? Well then, give him Margot, and Philip, he can have Jeanne, and my sweet Blanchette can marry your fine Charles. How delightful that they should all love each other! And then, if I’m given Artois which belonged to my late brother, my Franche-Comté of Burgundy will go to those girls. My nephew Robert? Give that dog some bone or other! The Castle of Conches and the County of Beaumont will do well enough for that boor! And I whisper malice in Nogaret’s ear, and send a thousand presents to Marigny … and then I marry one off, and then two, and then three. And no sooner are they married than the little bitches start plotting, sending each other notes, taking lovers, and set about betraying the throne of France. … Oh! if they were irreproachable, Madam, I’d hold my peace. But to behave so basely after having injured me so much, those Burgundy girls are going to learn what it costs, and I shall avenge myself on them for what their mother did to me.’

Isabella remained thoughtful during this outpouring. Artois went close to her and, lowering his voice, said, ‘They hate you.’

‘Though I don’t know why, it is true that as far as I am concerned, I never liked them from the start,’ Isabella replied.

‘You didn’t like them because they’re false, because they think of nothing but pleasure and have no sense of duty. But they hate you because they’re jealous of you.’

‘And yet my position is not a very enviable one,’ said Isabella sighing; ‘their lot seems to me far pleasanter than my own.’

‘You are a Queen, Madam; you are a Queen in heart and soul; your sisters-in-law may well wear crowns but they will never be queens. That is why they will always be your enemies.’

Isabella raised her beautiful blue eyes to her cousin and Artois sensed that this time he had struck the right note. Isabella was on his side once and for all.

‘Have you the names of the men with whom my sisters-in-law …?’ she asked.

She lacked the crudeness of her cousin and could not bring herself to utter certain words.

‘Do you not know them?’ she said. ‘Without their names I can do nothing. Get them, and I promise you that I shall come to Paris at once upon some pretext or other, and put an end to this disorder. How can I help you? Have you told my uncle Valois?’

She was once more decisive, precise and authoritative.

‘I took care not to,’ answered Artois. ‘Monseigneur of Valois is my most loyal patron and my greatest friend; but he is the exact opposite of your father. He’d go gossiping all over the place about what we want to keep quiet, he’d put them on their guard, and when the moment came when we were ready to catch the bawds out, we should find them as pure as nuns.’

‘Well, what do you suggest?’