“Where has the duke deployed his forces?” “Where has the duke deployed his forces?”
Philippe de Commynes was uncomfortable and tried to hide it. Adopting the bland face of the successful courtier, he bowed deeply, mentally wriggling on this hook of his own making.
“Your Majesty, my master the duke has given me no knowledge beyond what is contained within the dispatches you hold.”
“Come, monsieur. Your master the duke, if he is a loyal subject of mine”—Louis fixed Philippe with a flesh-stripping glance—“cannot object to this innocent inquiry?”
Pointedly, he handed the velvet dispatch satchel embroidered with the arms of Burgundy to le Dain, the barber, who was standing beside the Presence chair.
Philippe cleared his throat nervously. “My master fears aggression from the English—from Earl Warwick, Your Majesty. That is well known.”
Louis said nothing, but his foot began to tap. That tapping filled all who witnessed it with dread. Philippe hurried on. “Recently, English privateers have harassed Flushing and Sluys, sinking many of the merchant fleet waiting for spring, and raided the coastal towns also, for trade goods. My master feels he must protect his people.”
“Yet His Majesty, King Louis, understands that the greatest concentration of the Burgundian troops is within Picardy. At a considerable distance from the sea and the ports you name.” The barber had spoken, oily smooth, on behalf of his master.
The neckband of Philippe de Commynes’s delicate undershirt was soaked; shortly the sweat seeping from his armpits would also stain the expensive silk of his jacket irrevocably—he could feel it running down his sides. Again he bowed, arms clamped tight to his sides to minimize the stink. The king raised his eyebrows; the man before him now resembled a water fowl, ducking for weed.
“Your Majesty, these are matters that…” Unhappily, de Commynes found words deserting him. Whatever he said, however he said it, would be seized upon greedily and torn apart by the ravening gossips of the French court—and the Burgundian court also, when they were reported back to the duke. He tried again. “Great King, perhaps I could beg an opportunity to speak privately? An indulgence, I know, but—”
“I am not a priest, Monsieur de Commynes, that I should hear confession in silence and darkness.”
The Burgundian envoy gulped; the king was abrupt and his tone freezing. But then Louis allowed his gaze to dwell on the supplicant for a moment and a curious expression softened his face. The barber, watching, narrowed his eyes. Gratitude? Could that be it?
“However, on this occasion…” The king gestured irritably for the Presence room to be cleared. “And you as well!” The king waved at le Dain. The barber was annoyed, and suspicious. What could this effete courtier have to say to Louis that was not suitable for him, the king’s chief advisor, to hear?
“Go, le Dain. This tries my patience!” The king half stood to enforce his will, then winced; his legs were still painful, though they were healing, slowly. “And send for the monk. I need him.”
Grudgingly, the barber backed out of the Presence chamber, furious that he’d been sent on an errand like an anonymous flunky. Nevertheless, his face wore the polite, cheerful mask of all those who served the king. In whatever capacity.
Outside the door, the barber scowled. Philippe de Commynes might think he had the king’s ear just because of the incident of the poison, but he, Olivier le Dain, would make sure he met with the Burgundian envoy before he was sent on his way home. Oh yes, he would see to that!
The Presence chamber settled into silence as the doors were closed on the courtiers, twittering and fluttering like a noisy pack of starlings. Now Philippe de Commynes had his wish: he was alone with the king. Would that this moment proved a blessing, not a curse.
“And so, Philippe, what is so secret that you could not say it before my advisors?”
“The English king, Your Majesty…” De Commynes saw an odd look pass over Louis’s face and interpreted it as anger. He was wrong. It was fear. “That is, the earl of March, the usurper of the English throne. He has met with my master.”
Louis swallowed the sudden rush of acid in his throat. And instantly regretted it. It burned all the way down to his gut; but that moment of pain distracted him from dread, rising like damp through his body. “When? And where?”
“A hunting lodge in the duke’s chase outside Brugge. About a week ago.”
“Were others there?”
“Only me, Your Majesty. And a lady. A friend of the earl’s.” The king snorted. “A friend of the earl’s? Nonsense. Men and women are not friends. Why was she there?”
Philippe was uncomfortable. He was playing for high stakes and in asking for this audience, he knew he had crossed the line. The duke would hear of it, of course—but having come this far, how could he retreat?
“I do not know, Lord King. I did not see her face, but I heard my master…” Why was that word so difficult to say, now? Perhaps because the duke was his master no longer. “I heard the duke…” Philippe looked Louis square in the eye and the king smiled at him, almost kindly. “I heard the duke refer to her as Lady Anne.”
Louis de Valois sat up straighter in his Presence chair. “Lady Anne de Bohun?”
Philippe was astonished, then humbled. Of course a king would know all there might be to know about his enemies, even the names of their companions. “I do not know her patronymic, sire. But she waited for the ki—the earl all night. And left with him in the morning, just at dawn.”
Louis grunted. They would return to the topic of this mysterious lady, but for now other information was more pressing. “I suppose it is too much to ask what your master, the duke”—an ironic smile directed at Philippe caused the young man to blush and drop his gaze—“and the earl of March spoke of?”
This was the moment. The moment when both men in that room knew that Louis de Valois had a new retainer as surely as if Philippe de Commynes had knelt and sworn fealty to this king of the French.
“They spoke alone, Your Majesty.” Slowly the young man raised his eyes and looked searchingly at the king. “But I heard what was said.” Louis smiled. Of course, he would not trust de Commynes in the time to come—why would he trust a man who was prepared to betray his own master?—yet he would encourage him. Assuredly, he would encourage Boothead as well.
“Intriguing, Philippe. What did they say?”
The young man knelt humbly at the foot of the dais and clasped his hands, almost as if praying. “The earl was seeking aid, Your Majesty. His brother-in-law, the duke, was reluctant to give it for fear of offending you, Lord King, and bringing ruin upon the dukedom. My mas—the duke is very torn, sire. Quite frankly, he cannot make up his mind where his allegiance should lie.”
The king had earlier swallowed his surprise that Edward Plantagenet had arrived at Brugge. The latest dispatches he’d had from the Low Countries had told him that the deposed English king was still loose but in the wilds of the region, a fugitive from Louis de Gruuthuse. But he believed what de Commynes told him; simply, the man had too much to lose by lying.
“Yet Charles has been trumpeting his support of Warwick for some time. He has even sent coin to support his cause—or so I’d understood.”
De Commynes shook his head confidently. “No, Your Majesty. He does not support the Earl Warwick, not truly. He’s buying time, that is all. Time to truly understand the situation in England; particularly, whether the magnates will give support to the earl of March should he return. When the duke sees the wind setting clearly, he will make up his mind. If Warwick succeeds in holding England, you have a powerful new ally—and naturally that will be the end of the duke’s ambitions to crush the might of France and create his own kingdom.”
The king said nothing, but sat thinking. Then he sighed. “Ah, who to trust. If kings—and dukes—knew the answer to that little question, we would all sleep so much better. My poor cousin Charles…” A gusty sigh followed, but the lipless smile gave the lie to the conventional words of compassion. “Yet, he must gamble one day soon or he’ll lose it all. All his territories, and such power as he currently has. I shall see to that myself. With great pleasure.”
Louis was talking to himself and, wisely, Philippe de Commynes kept still and silent, though his knees were aching on the unforgiving stone flags.
The king closed his eyes, the better to concentrate. “I wonder if he has the resources?” The words were out before the king could call them back.
“For what, Your Majesty?”
Louis’s eyes snapped open and bored into those of the younger man. “To give Edward what he needs to take back England. What is your opinion, monsieur?”
Philippe de Commynes swallowed hard before he answered. “The duke is stretched on several fronts, Your Majesty. And this winter has been hard. There is unrest within Burgundy. Food shortages, you understand.”
Each man knew what that meant. The French, when they removed territory, inevitably burned it out and took all that was edible back to their own lines. The Burgundians replied in kind. And all the while, the people suffered cruelly.
“Well then, we must stretch him further.”
The king stood with a vigor he had not felt for weeks, even months. Perhaps the monk was right. Perhaps this medicine was agreeable to the humors of his body. It was unlike Louis to feel so optimistic, so—what was it?—so cheerful.
“Here, my friend.” In passing, the king bent down and patted the head of his new vassal. “This is a very small token of what is to come if you serve me faithfully; as faithfully as you have today.” Into the nerveless fingers of Philippe de Commynes’s right hand the king pressed a ring of gilded silver in which was mounted a sapphire. It was small but the stone was unflawed and of a very pure blue and therefore valuable.
Overcome, Philippe bowed, snatched the hand of the king and kissed it. Louis smiled almost paternally and allowed the intimacy, then he strode toward the door of the Presence chamber, filled with new purpose.
At the door he paused and turned. “By the way, Philippe, what made you do it?”
The young man blushed like a girl, yet he spoke clearly. “My cousin, the duke, has not used me as a kinsman should.”
The king thought and then smiled. “Boothead! It’s the name, isn’t it? You hated the name!”
Tears of fury and humiliation stung the eyes of Philippe de Commynes but he managed a certain dignity in reply. “Sire, nothing will please me more than that I be permitted to serve your house. My own, plainly, does not require my loyalty or I would not be treated as I am. I am yours until death.”
Strange, thought Louis as he hauled open the doors of the chamber himself—to the great scandal of the door-wards. He almost sounds sincere.
And then he forgot Philippe de Commynes, his wounded pride, and even his own duel with the duke of Burgundy, in the delighted certainty that he, Louis de Valois, had found Edward Plan-tagenet’s weakness. If a woman could be the embodiment of Nemesis, it was she. And he knew just the man who would bring her down on her own ground, and Edward’s ambitions with her—since she so plainly distracted him from his duty.
Brother Agonistes had said the woman was a witch. Louis smiled his lipless smile. Witches didn’t exist, but the credulous believed in them. Well then, let them have one to play with.
“The monk! Where is the monk?”
“Here I am, brother King, what do you ask of me?”
Louis de Valois, king of France, clapped Agonistes on his back. “Brother, I have holy work for you to do. Work that God will give you strength to perform, though it may destroy your soul if you fail. Come with me, let us pray for strength. You will need it.” Louis smiled tenderly at the confused monk and graciously took the man’s hand in his own, dirty as it was, leading the holy fool toward the chapel where, normally, the king, and the king alone, worshipped.
“It concerns the Devil, my brother; the Devil and the flesh. The Devil in the flesh, indeed. And I believe you are God’s chosen instrument in this duel between the two.”
The monk found his tongue. “In what way, Your Majesty? How can that be so?”
The king stopped and turned to the monk, solemnly sketching a cross over the man’s head.
“Many years ago, a woman, an evil woman, destroyed your life with the lure of her corrupted body. Is that not so?”
Brother Agonistes paled visibly beneath the encrusted grime on his face. “Yes. I was cursed. Her beauty dragged me into a pit of despair; it became a dagger in the Devil’s hands.”
The king closed his eyes and nodded. It was as if he were listening to a voice far, far away. “And yet this woman lived on, unscathed, while you became a lost and wandering soul?”
Brother Agonistes nodded. It was true: the woman had lived and he had been damned, all these years, to a life of poverty and penance in expiation of his own tormented lust.
The king’s eyes opened very wide; they were unsettling coals in a skull-like head. “And if I told you that I know where this woman lives? That she wallows, even now, in her bed of sin with that adulterous usurper, the earl of March? He who was formerly called the king of England.”
Brother Agonistes felt dizzy. True, he had fasted for the last three days in preparation for the holy feast-day that would mark the birth of the Savior, but that did not explain the ringing in his ears, or the breathlessness that suddenly collapsed his chest.
“Brother, let us pray, you and I. For, as I said, I believe you to be God’s chosen instrument to smite these sinners down, both of them.” The king smiled, as cold as lakewater. “Come, let us seek His guidance. He has called us to execute His will here on Earth, and so that is what we shall do, Brother, together, as loving sons of a compassionate and all-seeing Father should.”
Before Brother Agonistes could reply, the king’s bony fingers had clamped around his fragile wrist and he was being towed along, unresisting, in Louis’s wake.
Was that sulfur he could smell? Yes, most assuredly it was. Sulfur, stronger than incense. Stronger than fear. But only just.