was my brother-in-law. Listen to me as you would have listened to him, had God spared him. The hand that struck down Louis may intend pursuing its vengeance on you and on the child you carry. I cannot leave you here, in the middle of the forest, at the mercy of the machinations of the wicked, and I shall be easy only when you are living close to me.’
For the last hour Valois had been trying to persuade Clémence to return to the Palace of the Cité, because he had decided to go there himself. It formed part of his plan for assuming the regency and facing the Council of Peers with the accomplished fact. Whoever was master in the Palace had the trappings of power. But to install himself there on his own might look as if he were usurping it by force. If, on the other hand, he entered the Cité in his niece’s wake, as her nearest relative and protector, no one could oppose it. The Queen’s condition was, at this moment, the best pledge of respect and the most effective instrument of government.
Clémence turned her head, as if to ask for help, towards a third person who was standing silently a few paces from her, his hands crossed on the hilt of a long sword, as he listened to the conversation.
‘Bouville, what should I do?’ she murmured.
Hugues de Bouville, ex-Grand Chamberlain to Philip the Fair, had been appointed Curator of the Stomach by the first Council which had followed on the death of the Hutin. This good man, now growing stout and grey, but still extremely alert, who had been an exemplary royal servant for thirty years, took his new duties most seriously, if not tragically. He had formed a corps of carefully picked gentlemen, who mounted guard in detachments of twenty-four over the Queen’s door. He himself had donned his armour and, in the heat of June, large drops of sweat were running down under his coat of mail. The walls, the courtyards, indeed the whole perimeter of Vincennes, were stuffed with archers. Every kitchen-hand was constantly escorted by a sergeant-at-arms. Even the ladies-in-waiting were searched before entering the royal apartments. Never had a human life been guarded so closely as that which slumbered in the womb of the Queen of France.
In theory Bouville shared his duties with the old Sire de Joinville, who had been appointed Second Curator; the latter had been selected because he happened to be in Paris where he had come to draw, as he did twice a year, with the fussy punctuality of an old man, the income from the endowments conferred on him in three successive reigns, and in particular when Saint Louis was canonized. But the Hereditary Seneschal of Champagne was now ninety-two years old; he was practically the doyen of the high French nobility. He was half-blind and this last journey from his Château de Wassy in the Haute-Marne had tired him out. He spent most of his time dozing in the company of his two white-bearded equerries, so that all the duties had to be performed by Bouville alone.
For Queen Clémence, Bouville was linked with all her happiest memories. He had been the ambassador who had come to ask her hand in marriage and had escorted her from Naples; he was her utterly devoted confidant and probably the only true friend she had at the French Court. Bouville had perfectly understood that Clémence did not wish to leave Vincennes.
‘Monseigneur,’ he said to Valois, ‘I can better assure the safety of the Queen in this manor with its close, surrounding walls than in the great Palace of the Cité, open to all comers. And if you are worried about the Countess Mahaut being near, I can inform you, for I am kept in touch with everything that goes on in the neighbourhood, that Madame Mahaut’s wagons are at this moment being loaded for Paris.’
Valois was considerably annoyed by the air of importance Bouville had assumed since he had become Curator, and by his insistence on remaining there, stuck to his sword, by the Queen’s side.
‘Monsieur Hugues,’ he said haughtily, ‘your duty is to watch over the stomach, not to decide where the royal family shall reside, nor to defend the whole kingdom on your own.’
Not in the least perturbed, Bouville replied: ‘I must also remind you, Monseigneur, that the Queen cannot appear in public until forty days have elapsed since her bereavement.’
‘I know the custom as well as you do, my good man! Who said that the Queen would show herself in public? She shall travel in a closed coach. Really, Niece,’ Valois cried, turning to Clémence, ‘anyone would think that I was trying to send you to the country of the Great Khan, and that Vincennes was two thousand leagues from Paris!’
‘You must understand, Uncle,’ Clémence replied weakly, ‘that living at Vincennes is my last gift from Louis. He gave me this house, in there, and you were present’ – she fluttered her hand towards the room in which Louis X had died – ‘that I might live in it. It seems to me that he has not really departed. You must understand that it’s here that we had …’
But Monseigneur of Valois could not understand the claims of memory or the imaginings of sorrow.
‘Your husband, for whom we pray, my dear Niece, belongs henceforth to the kingdom’s past. But you carry its future. By exposing your life, you expose that of your child. Louis, who sees you from on high, would never forgive you.’
The shot went home, and Clémence sank back in her chair without another word.
But Bouville declared that he could decide nothing without the agreement of the Sire de Joinville, and sent someone to look for him. They waited several minutes. Then the door opened, and they waited again. At last, dressed in a long robe such as had been worn at the time of the Crusade, trembling in every limb, his skin mottled and like the bark of a tree, his eyes with their faded irises watering, Saint Louis’s last companion-at-arms entered, dragging his feet, supported by his equerries, who tottered almost as much as he did. He was given a seat with all the respect to which he was entitled, and Valois began to explain his intentions about the Queen. The old man listened, solemnly nodding his head, obviously delighted still to have some part to play. When Valois had finished, the Seneschal fell into a meditation they were careful not to disturb; they waited for the oracle to speak. Suddenly he asked: ‘But where is the King then?’
Valois looked crestfallen. So much useless trouble, and when time pressed! Did the Seneschal still understand what was said to him?
‘But the King is dead, Messire de Joinville,’ he replied, ‘and we buried him this morning. You know that you have been appointed Curator.’
The Seneschal frowned and seemed to be making a great effort to recollect. Indeed, failure of memory was no new thing with him; when he was nearly eighty and dictating his famous Memoirs, he had not realized that towards the end of the second part he was repeating almost word for word what he had already said in the first.
‘Yes, our young Sire Louis,’ he said at last. ‘He is dead. It was to himself that I presented my great book. Do you know that this is the fourth king I have seen die?’
He announced this as if it were an exploit in itself.
‘Then, if the King is dead, the Queen is Regent,’ he declared.
Monseigneur of Valois turned purple in the face. He had had appointed as Curators a senile idiot and a mediocrity, believing he could manage them as he wished; but he was hoist with his own petard, for it was they who were creating his worst difficulties.
‘The Queen is not Regent, Messire Seneschal; she is pregnant,’ he cried. ‘She cannot in any circumstances be Regent until it is known whether she will give birth to a king! Look at her condition, see if she is in a fit state to carry out the duties of the kingdom!’
‘You know that I see very little,’ replied the old man.
With her hand to her forehead, Clémence merely thought: ‘When will they stop? When will they leave me in peace?’
