Son of the Morning (85 page)

‘You my regent? Am I not ready to rule in my own right?’ Charles twitched and inclined his head like a cat who sees a ball of wool move.

‘I am queen, Charles. I’m not quite ready to give that up yet.’

Charles twitched again. ‘But I am chosen of God.’

Joan shooed her ladies out of the room. Then she put her hand on her son’s head and whispered into his ear. ‘Yes, you are. But your descent, you see, is through me, not your father. It is me who would have to die for you to become king and, as you see, I am very much alive.’

‘So how can they stop you from going to your own kingdom?’

‘There are still questions about what happened to the angels. If they suspect your father is dead, we will be prisoners here. We must get to Navarre and consider our options.’

Charles stood and stretched. ‘Does this mean we are free to ally with England?’

‘We need to be more subtle than that, Charles. England has armies of devils now. The French angels still cower in their shrines after the death of Jegudiel. There is a chance England could win once the truce finishes.’

‘France at peace?’

‘Yes. A disaster. Remember, we are seeking no victors, just a grinding stalemate – a cup of gall for Philip. We will think clearly about where to place our favour and we will be able to think more clearly away from this court. They have no hold on us now your father is dead!’

Charles moved to the window and looked out over Paris. It had been his home for a long time now, the sprawling, smoky, stinking, beautiful town. He loved the way the low sun hung on the shoulder of the spire of the great church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, how the long shadows stretched towards him like arms welcoming him in to the church of the parish of the kings of France. Was it so much to ask, just to be lord and master of all this, the greatest king on earth? Of course not. It was his right. He drove some uncharitable and sacrilegious thoughts about God from his mind.

‘Will the angel speak to me?’

‘Once you are crowned king, it must.’

‘It may reject me as the child of a devil.’

‘You are of royal blood. You will be crowned. That will be enough for the angel.’

They left the palace without taking goodbyes, without calling attention. By the time King Philip realised they were gone, Charles and Joan were aboard their ship,
St Maria
, heading for home, their retinue making their way as best they could. The sailors on the
St Maria
had never known it so free of rats – the prince brought his full entourage of cats with him.

It was a fair summer with a light wind and an easy sea and within two weeks they were docking at Bilbao – proudly flying their flags marking them as allies of the Castillian overlords. From there it was a race across country to Pamplona, scouts running ahead of them to announce the heir apparent’s arrival.

Charles and his mother rode rather than travelled by carriage, the quicker to be there. Still progress was slow – Charles was limited to plodding, calm horses, more spirited animals having refused to carry him on their backs since his journeys in the cloak.

The royal coach and entourage met them five leagues from Pamplona and Charles and his mother changed into their real finery at a monastery just outside the city. Charles wore blue silk, his mother a great dress of crimson satin and they rode into the city in their gold and bloodstone coach, four white horses as outriders, four more behind with the king’s personal bodyguard marching behind them – red and yellow plumes bright beneath the southern sun.

‘Will they receive us?’ said Charles.

‘They must. The people may have heard rumours about your, er, appetites and your climbing, but they will come to heel. They owe you a duty of loyalty no matter what you breakfast on.’

‘They will come to heel or be brought to heel,’ said Charles.

They entered the city’s gates in a blaze of trumpets, the creamy white stone of the town brilliant in the sun. People were on the roadside and Charles looked out at them, these strange brown men and women he had been born to rule. On his knee a fine grey Persian looked out too.

A loud miaow burst from the crowd and laughter rippled along the hedgerows.

Charles turned back to his mother. ‘There are rumours. Perhaps they suspect the truth of my parenthood?’

Joan grabbed Charles by his velvet tunic, shook him and stared into his face. ‘You are your father’s son. Remember that, never tell yourself anything else. And you
are
king of Navarre. When the angel speaks to you, people will see.’

The carriage drew to a stop outside the magnificent cathedral that rose as a symbol of what his ancestors could achieve, what they owed to God and God to them. The people of Bilbao had come out onto the streets – many out of curiosity as much as loyalty. The curiosity was two-fold. They had heard the king had been cursed, but they also wanted a good look at the man, however feline, who was likely to be leading them to war some time soon.

Still, the crowd was not huge. Charles’ father had been a good king but there were those rumours about his son. The people of Navarre knew that, when you come to look at a king, there is a chance the king might look at you. This was all very well if you were an ambitious merchant or minor noble looking for preferment but not if you were a shopkeeper who wanted a quiet life.

Joan got out of the carriage first, drawing a gasp from the crowd as her jewels burned under the Navarrese sun, her golden Capetian hair bright as a flame. She put out her hand to the carriage and prodded Count Ramon in the back.

He shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Charles, son of Philip III of Navarre, has come to claim his inheritance. Bow down before your new king!’

Charles crossed himself and stepped from the carriage, as haughty a look as possible etched on his face. He carried a blackwood cane topped with silver and wore an extravagant purple hat. The crowd drew in its breath as the cats spilled from the coach behind him – Joan had tried to get the boy to leave them but he would not. Count Ramon, as an encouragement to correct behaviour, ordered his guards to attention and this had the desired effect. The people began to clap and cheer. Charles waved a gracious hand and set off for the church.

‘It’s going well!’ said Joan, ‘very well.’

‘All hail, King Moggie! Catch us a royal mouse, your majesty!’ A drunken voice called out and the crowd teetered on the edge of hilarity although no one dared to laugh.

Charles stopped and turned to look at the source of the comment. His cats all seemed to look too.

‘Bring that fellow to me!’ said Charles.

The guards waded in to the crowd and brought out a red-faced man who was drunk enough to make no apology for what he had said. Charles looked him up and down, though mainly up as the man was a good head taller than him and it was difficult to look him in the eye.

‘Put him on his knees.’

A guard pushed the butt of a polearm into the back of the man’s knee, forcing him to the ground.

‘A sou for the man’s wit!’ said Charles. Count Ramon at his side reached into his purse and gave the drunk a coin. The man grinned idiotically and held up the coin for all to see. The crowd clapped and cheered at the generosity.

‘And your sword for his impudence, Count Ramon.’

The drunk came to a quick realisation of the danger of his situation and started to beg but it was no good – Count Ramon had drawn and put a good blow into the man’s neck. Two more swipes and the head was off, the queen stepping back to avoid the gush of blood, scarlet on the white dust of the road, the cats leaping in to lap at it.

‘Do we have any more wits among us?’ shouted Charles. If there were, they had the wit to be silent. ‘Let it not be said I am not fair!’ The crowd now broke into nervous applause and Charles’ procession moved on.

‘You did well, my son, you did well. I often counselled your father he should be rougher with these peasants.’

Charles bowed his head. ‘We’ll bring the country to obedience,’ he said. ‘My father has been soft for too long.’

He walked up the steps of the cathedral, his entourage trailing behind him, his mother in front of him, walking irritatingly slowly. He had never thought it before but realised now the woman was always, in some manner or another, in his way. He passed through the doors of the cathedral into the crystal light. As Joan came in, the light deepened, the air sparkled. The angel had come to greet the queen. Already the service had begun, the priests swinging their incense, singing their songs of praise. Nobles, who had been waiting rather longer than they would have liked, thronged the space in their best cloth – cloth of gold, of silver, jewels sparkling in the burgeoning light, flashing green, blue, red, white and amber as the angel inhabited them for an instant before moving on.

The aristocrats were eager to meet Joan and the new king but equally eager to get out of the cathedral to find a seat to rest their aching legs. People were introduced to him but his mother waved them away. ‘Afterwards, afterwards,’ she said, ‘first the angel must receive him.’ One man had a silver cage and in it a little bird that jingled when you shook it. The prince found it fascinating and would dearly have loved to have played with it but then the light changed and deepened; it was a firelight, now the green light of the sun through trees, now the noon light of an idle summer’s day.

Charles watched as the angel sparkled from the long thin windows that cut their way into the massive walls with a light like sun on ice, like the most perfect winter day.

It had the form of a shining man, bearing a flaming sword and it floated at the highest point of the ceiling. Charles felt a leap of nervousness in his stomach. His father had forbidden the angel to speak to him. Would it speak, would it speak? The light from the windows split and twined. Odd thoughts were in his head – they were braids of light, streams, rivers. He was finding it hard to think, as he always had in the presence of angels.

He felt a longing in it. It was bound to this place but wanted somewhere more beautiful.

No wonder it had not deigned to make sense to his father. The old cathedral had stood for three hundred years. It was a dusty slab of a place. They should knock it down and rebuild something beautiful and fine, of tapering pillars and fields of blue glass, not this jumped-up castle keep.

He made his way up to the altar, the smoke curling through the light. It struck Charles as a clichéd effect. In the cathedral he would build, he would unearth a true beauty, not rely on these ancient tricks.

‘Welcome to her majesty, Queen Joan, queen of Navarre and Charles, her noble heir!’ shouted a herald.

Trumpets sounded and Charles walked forward. ‘Will you speak to me, angel, will you speak?’ he murmured.

‘Let me talk to it, Charles,’ said his mother. Charles sensed the disapproval coming from the light. It was most odd. He felt a deep connection to this angel. He could deal with it, he was sure.

A verse from the Bible whispered in his ear. ‘I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.’ This was clearly an old-fashioned sort of angel, the sort Charles felt might suit him very well.

His mother was still speaking. She was always speaking. What this angel needed was someone who understood it. It respected hierarchy, it respected the God-given rights of men over women; it would respect him as king and resented having to communicate with someone who should, by rights, be troubling herself with embroidery, not the fate of nations.

His mother lacked vision. England was ruled by devils – devils that loved God. Charles was clearly a devil, or had devil blood. He should be in charge of devils. If he was a devil, he should side with devils. And yet Philip had prevented him from meeting those at The Temple and now his mother would not side with England. The French angel had said Charles would never ascend the throne of France. But what about England? With the right alliances, the right deceit, the perfect moment of treachery, he could have the English throne.

And yet, and yet, he would bring his angel to the field against the English. More could be done from inside the French camp as a false ally, than from outside, as an obvious enemy.

He put his hand out to the shining air. ‘Jophiel,’ he spoke the angel’s name, ‘who drove Adam and Eve from Eden.’

‘Charles,’ said the angel, ‘King.’

‘You see!’ shouted Joan, ‘the angel approves him. Charles of Navarre! Ordained by God!’

She seized his hand and held it aloft, the nobles clapped and beat their feet against the floor and the cats howled in approval.

7

‘Your work with Despenser is progressing.’

‘Yes, majesty.’

Osbert had joined the king at the abbey of St Denis – beneath the sparkling light that was the nearest to a manifestation of the archangel Michael that had been seen since Jegudiel had been killed.

The pardoner was serious and severe, dressed in his court sorcerer’s apparel of scarlet cloak and blue hood. There had never been an official uniform for a court sorcerer before – largely because the priests had resisted anyone being appointed to such a role. The spectacular success Osbert had enjoyed in raising Despenser and his attendant devils, however, had brought him a great deal of kudos within the palace, though Philip was notoriously nervous of his new infernal allies. The king saw Osbert whenever the pardoner requested it – largely because he consistently expected some disaster and sought the magician’s reassurance that none such had occurred. Osbert had suggested St Denis as a meeting place to whet the king’s appetite. The Oriflamme lay there on the altar – in plain sight but untouchable under the angel’s protection. Well, Osbert had hope of a way round that.

‘And you think you can find this Antichrist?’

‘I think we have a way, yes. But I fear …’

‘What?’

‘It is indiscreet of me to say.’

‘I command it. Friends, cousins, stand back a little.’

The great throng that was with Philip – sixty or seventy nobles and servants in varying degrees of splendour, retreated out of earshot.