Son of the Morning (8 page)
‘Let me look at the boy.’
Philip smiled as broadly as someone gritting his teeth for a physician to examine. Joan of Navarre did the same, both wanting the crowd to see their ‘joy’.
She gestured to her lady-in-waiting and the lady reached down the steps that went up from the barge to lift little Charles on to the quay. The boy looked around him with wide eyes. He looked at Prince John, at King Philip, at Philip’s wife, Joan of Burgundy, at the ranks of dukes and knights. Then he burst into tears.
‘I’m afraid he has none of his father’s steel,’ said the Queen of Navarre, ‘he is not the heir I hoped for.’
‘You are too unkind,’ said the French queen. ‘Come to me, boy, I have some sugar for you.’
Charles allowed himself to be comforted and led forward to the queen. One of her ladies-in-waiting put a few crystals into the boy’s hand and he swallowed them. Then he smiled, bowed deeply and said loudly.
‘Thank you, ma’am. Mama is never so generous.’
The whole French court laughed and the queen bent to gently pinch the boy’s cheek.
‘My Joan has a way with children,’ said King Philip.
‘Well, she’s welcome to his company if she wants it,’ said the Queen of Navarre.
‘Perhaps we can forgo the homage for the moment,’ said Philip, ‘the child’s bow says enough for the people. Come, we have prepared a feast for you and tomorrow we have a few days of tournaments.’
‘I shall delight to see Prince John triumph in the lists.’
The king just snorted and turned to climb the steps to his palace. Joan knew that Prince John was a sickly man who had never been known to take part in a tournament, preferring to spend his days with poets and minstrels. She thought of Edward, the English king across the sea. Now
he
was a famous warrior and someone who might support her claim to the throne. He was a dragon in a tournament, a proper king. France against England was dominant. France against Navarre would triumph easily. But against England and Navarre? Still not enough. There were the Flemings, and the Holy Roman Empire. Yet still not sufficient while Philip could call on his angels. The Navarrese angel had not made sense in a generation, beyond saying that it feared the attack of the Caliphate with whatever strange spirits it could conjure.
Joan climbed the steps after the king, giving one last wave to the crowd. This adulation, this acknowledgement from the ordinary people, was her birthright.
They stepped into the splendid interior of the Great Hall, its gilded columns bending like trees into the canopy of the ceiling, everything inlaid with gold or painted in beautiful reds and glittering greens. The floor alone was a marvel, scrubbed to sparkling, tiled in elaborate motifs of stags, birds and horses, all intertwined in golden branches. Along the walls, courtiers bowed in greeting.
Joan walked on, following Philip and his Joan down the corridor towards the door to the Great Hall. The woman limped terribly and if that wasn’t a message from God about the rights and wrongs of the disputed succession, the queen of Navarre would be at a loss to say what was.
The doors opened to reveal the enormous dining room, with tables around the walls and several in the centre glittering with the scales of so many fish it resembled a treasure hoard. The main table had a magnificent display – swirls of bream were laid out along the edges, with more rare and expensive fish arranged to form an ocean wave of crashing colour, crowned by a dolphin, artfully stuffed and mounted so that it seemed to leap from the table.
Joan now saw why the king’s messengers had asked her to wait at the mouth of the Seine for a day. If she’d arrived on a Tuesday, the usurper Philip would have had to go to the expense of providing meat. On a Wednesday, with meat prohibited by the church, he could stage the banquet for half the price.
She took her place at the royal couple’s right hand, as did her son, but her noblemen and ladies were escorted to the left of the table, away from her. And, worse, there was a seat for John between her and the king. She hadn’t considered that. She was going to be in the oaf’s company all the way through the meal. She quickly swapped places with her son. Now he could talk to John throughout the dinner.
The best people of France assembled on the top table – visiting nobles and courtiers. A sour note was struck by the presence of some wealthy merchants towards the edges of the table, something Joan could not approve. France was not in hock to them and, even if it were, their place was to hand out money not to sit with their lords and imagine themselves as mighty. They might dress their wives in jewels and ermine, in contravention of all natural law and the law of God, but they needed reminding that God had set them a place lower and separate from that of noble men. Near to the servants was the best idea – though no servants were eating in the hall. It had become the practice at the French court under Philip for the servants to eat in the lower dining room on the ground floor of the palace. She thought this a bad idea. Lords should eat in the sight of those serving men who weren’t employed at the feast. The low men needed to see their betters living highly, to compare the magnificent dishes served to the royals with their own poor provision. What low man could think himself as good as a king when his lord dined on sturgeon and salmon in serving after serving while he ground his teeth down on coarse bread and mackerel?
Dinners were a way of visibly reinforcing divisions, of displaying the wealth of the lord in attendance, of reminding people of their place and, crucially, the importance of holding their tongues. Tucked away in the bowels of the palace, they could easily talk badly about their superiors, undermining respect and God’s order.
Prince John was led to his seat, smiling to the crowd but clicking his fingers at a servant to fill his cup instantly. John’s wife Bonne sat on the left side of the French queen, heavily pregnant. She was older than John – twenty-two to his seventeen – and was dark and beautiful, dressed in exquisitely tasteful clothes. The queen of Navarre had often wondered what a trial it must be to have to lie with the oaf Prince. But, to her surprise, the two had seemed well matched, content to spend all day together mooning at poets and minstrels.
All were assembled and a priest said grace. Then the hall erupted with servants rushing to hand out the dishes. Each trencher was brought before the king, Joan, John and – owing to her rearrangement of the seating – little Charles before it got to her. She put her hand to her mouth as she realised that in her irritation with John, she’d exposed her boy to danger by shifting him near to the prince. That was strictly her place. The only reason for putting the boy there – other than to interpose him between her and Prince John – was if she regarded him as having a claim to the French throne and thus being above her.
Philip had noticed what had gone on and was looking at the boy with something approaching dismay in his eyes. Joan couldn’t very well change places with the child, and to have him on her knee would confess a tenderness for him that she wanted to disguise.
John smiled at him. ‘Look at you in your high seat. Just one inconvenient prince away from the king’s chair.’
‘Mama says I shall never be king here, so I should never listen to those who say that I should.’
John’s smile became broader. ‘That’s very wise of your mother.’
‘It’s not about wisdom,’ said Joan, ‘it’s about honouring a treaty. We’ve given our word before witnesses. All ambition ceased on the day it was signed.’
John laughed. ‘Indeed, my father says that if you had any true intent on the throne, you’d disguise it better, rather than being such an ill-tempered shrew. What do you say, little one, is your mother ill-tempered?’
Joan cut in. ‘You will find me mild here, Prince. And I’m sure the tournaments of the coming days will improve my humour. You may carry my token in battle.’
John said nothing, just bit at his cup. The little boy looked up at him, apparently in awe.
‘When I grow older I shall think it silly to waste my effort in sport,’ said Charles, ‘I shall fight my enemies, not my friends!’
John chuckled at the boy and ruffled his hair. ‘What an extraordinary little fellow,’ he said, ‘well said, sir, well said! I will carry your favour, madam, gladly. But when I am riding through Westminster with Edward’s head in my hand. When I bestir myself it will be for the kingdom in war, not some lady’s pleasure at a tournament. Here little boy, you may sip from my cup.’
John passed the boy his big goblet of wine and Charles guzzled at it.
‘Better to play chess,’ said Charles.
‘Indeed, indeed. The game of kings. Though don’t play any games against old King Philip there. Cathedrals have been built while he makes up his mind on a move. No wonder he always wins – his opponent’ll do anything just to end it.’
‘You’re so funny!’ said Charles, ‘Do you know any rhymes, uncle? Mama will never tell me rhymes, but I do love them so.’
‘Well, now, I do,’ said John. And then he was off, ‘To market, to market, to buy a plum bun, home again, home again, market is done!’, ‘Cock a doodle do, my dame has lost her shoe!’ and countless others, getting the boy to repeat them. He sat with the child on his knee through all fifteen courses, lifting his wine cup to Charles’s lips, seemingly delighted with him. Eventually, the boy began to loll and gape – the wine having made him quite drunk. ‘Come on, little man,’ said John, ‘give us a rhyme!’ Charles tried to repeat the rhymes but his speech was slurred and he kept forgetting them, or adding rude words to the hilarity of the prince.
‘Enough,’ said Joan.
‘Oh, surely not, ma’am. Is there anything in the world as funny as a drunk five year old? I ask you, ma’am, is there? Oh, you should let me ply him with wine every day.’
‘He is not here to be your court fool. I shall make sure his guardians see that you do not.’
‘Shall I see the angel?’ Charles’s head was lolling.
‘What a good idea. Father, what says we take the little boy to the Sainte-Chapelle to see if the angel will receive him?’
Philip’s face was tight. ‘Absolutely not. Particularly not in that condition. No!’
John too was angry. ‘You deny me all amusement!’ he said. ‘Imagine what the child would make of it in this state – it would be such a funny sight.’
‘You can amuse me at the lists tomorrow if you like. My son should be out there, putting these Navarrese in their place with sword and lance, not playing nursemaid.’
John shrugged off his father’s contempt. ‘As you like. You’re probably scared it’ll appear for him and not for you,’ he said. He turned to the boy and cuddled him.
‘Uncle, you are so kind!’ said Charles and threw up across the table.
‘Oh, isn’t that the funniest thing, the very funniest thing!’ shouted John, clapping wildly. Then he beckoned to a servant. ‘Clear it up then.’
Joan of Navarre called her ladies to her. ‘Put the boy to bed,’ she said, ‘give him water and sing to him if he wants you to.’
The child was lifted and carried from the halls. She turned to Philip, leaning across John. ‘What did I tell you?’ she said. ‘The child’s an idiot. A complete idiot.’
Philip stood up. ‘I’ll take my leave now,’ he said, ‘the festivities are at an end.’
His trumpets sounded, his wife took his arm and he swept out of the Great Hall by the doors behind him. Up, thought Joan, towards the Sainte-Chapelle, where the angel was.
Dowzabel moved backward, catching his heel on the rim of the crater and falling to sit looking at the glowing figure. He felt his heart come into his mouth. A demon, from Free Hell! Come to liberate the poor and throw down the high men!
The priest held up something in his hand – a lock of hair. He was warning the creature, Dow could tell, though he didn’t seem very confident he could act on his warning. His legs were stiff and straight, rooted as if to allow them any movement at all would risk them running away of their own will.
‘Obey me demon! Obey me! By the names I have uttered, by the command of Holy God.’
‘The hair of St Bernard of Clairvaux,’ said the figure, ‘a holy saint. But I am not afraid of that, priest. I have made saints – death at the teeth of a demon being a sure route to the blessings of the three-faced God. Their barbers’ cuttings do not bother me greatly.’
The priest screamed something at the demon in the secret tongue his sort used for their mass.
‘My name? My name is Paimon. By your conjuration you may command that of me. Why do you call me and then threaten me? You have done Free Hell a service in opening the first gate.’
Every time the creature spoke, Dowzabel had the feeling as if he had walked past an open oven door. Blasts of heat seemed to come from its mouth. In his frozen condition, Dowzabel almost welcomed them.
The little dark man in the gold chain whispered into the priest’s ear and the priest, still holding up the lock of hair addressed the demon.
‘Is the gate of Hell open?’ The priest now spoke in English.
‘It is; others would come through, seeking forms, seeking ways to be in this Eden.’ He sniffed heavily. ‘How sweet the air to one who has lived among the fumes of sulphur.’
Dowzabel looked around him. Coils of smoke rose from the ground, writhing like snakes and rubbing themselves against some invisible shield. It was as if they were trapped in a giant bubble they could not escape, its perimeter the circle’s edge.
‘Will you serve us? We need help against the angels of France,’ said Bardi.
‘Oh Signor Bardi, I am but a little demon. An angel would eat me whole. For greater aid you need to open more gates.’
‘Where are the keys?’ Edwin’s eyes shone like a miser’s before a pile of gold.
‘All lost. There are friends of ours in this world, some whom God did not manage to imprison when he overthrew our lord. They have looked for eons and not found them. Jehovah hid them well. I cannot see, not with these poor eyes of coal and ash.’
‘Then can England be saved?’ The one called Bardi was as wild as the priest.
‘Can it be lost?’
‘Very easily,’ said fat Pole.
‘Then it can be saved. Just let me from this circle and we may discuss it.’