The King Without a Kingdom (19 page)

The escort, too, was dying of hunger and thirst. John of Artois, Tancarville, the sergeants, all had their eyes on the platters of food. They were waiting for a gesture from the king, granting them at last permission to dine. As the gesture didn’t come, the Marshal of Audrehem tore off the leg of a capon that was lying around on a table and began to eat, standing up. Louis of Orléans gave an ill-humoured pout. His brother, really, showed far too little concern for those who served him. He sat down in the seat that Navarre had occupied a moment before, saying: ‘I make it my duty to keep you company, my brother.’

The king then, with a sort of disinterested benevolence, invited his relatives and barons to sit. And immediately they all sat down to eat up the leftovers of the feast, around the spattered tablecloths. Nobody worried about changing the silver platters. Everyone grabbed whatever appeared before them, the milk cake with the
confit de canard
, the fatted goose before the shellfish soup. They ate the cold remains of the fried fish. The archers stuffed themselves with slices of bread or ran off to the kitchens to get fed. The sergeants gulped down the wine in abandoned goblets.

The king, boots spread out under the table, remained shut off in a violent reverie. His anger was not appeased; it even seemed to be rekindled by the mounds of food. Yet he should have good reason to feel satisfied. He was in his role of dispenser of justice, the good king! He had finally claimed victory; he had a fine feat to have recorded by the clerks for the next assembly of the Order of the Star. ‘How Monseigneur King John defeated the traitors … he seized at the Castle of Bouvreuil …’ He suddenly showed surprise at the absence of the Norman knights and became worried. He was wary of them. What if they were off organizing an uprising, they might rouse the town to revolt, set the prisoners free? There he showed his true self, that clever man. First of all, driven by a fury he had long nursed, he rushed in without thinking; then he neglected to consolidate his actions; then he was subject to fantasies, always far-removed from reality, but no one could rid him of them. Now he saw Rouen in rebellion, as had been Arras a month earlier. He wanted the mayor to come. No more Mayor Mustel. ‘But he was here just a moment ago,’ said Nicolas Braque. The mayor was caught in the castle’s courtyard. He appeared before the king, still guzzling down food, white from indigestion. He heard himself order that the town’s gates be closed and that everyone should stay at home. Nobody was allowed to walk around town, bourgeois or villein, for any reason whatsoever. It was a state of siege, curfew in the middle of the day. Enemy soldiers wouldn’t have acted any differently.

Mustel summoned courage enough to show his outrage. The people of Rouen had done nothing to justify such measures … ‘Yes, they have! You refuse to pay aides, abiding by the exhortations of these evil folk that I came to confound. But, by Saint Denis, they will exhort you no more.’

As he watched the mayor withdraw, the dauphin must have thought with sadness how futile had been all his painstakingly pursued efforts to reconcile the Normans. Now he had everybody against him, nobility and bourgeoisie alike. Who could possibly think that he was not a party to this ambush? In truth, his father had given him a most unsavoury role.

And then the king asked that Guillaume … be summoned … ah! Guillaume what’s-his-name … it escapes me, yet I did know it … anyway, his King of the Ribald. And everybody understood that he had resolved to proceed with the immediate execution of the prisoners, without further delay.

‘For those who don’t know how to uphold chivalry, there is no reason to uphold their lives,’ said the king.

‘Indeed, my cousin John,’ approved John of Artois, that monument of stupidity.

I ask you, Archambaud, was it really chivalry to deck oneself out in battle attire to take unarmed men, and to use one’s own son as bait? Navarre, most probably, had quite a record of skulduggery, but does King John, beneath his magnificent exterior, really have much more honour in his soul?

G
UILLAUME À LA
C
AUCHE
… There you are, I remembered it. The name I was looking for; the King of the Ribald. His is a curious office, which originated from an institution of Philip II Augustus. He had set up a corps of sergeants for his close guard, all giants, that were called the
Ribaldi Regis
, the Ribald of the King. Inversion of the genitive or pun, the chief of this guard became
Rex Ribaldorum
. Nominally, he has command over sergeants such as Perrinet le Buffle amongst others; and it is he, who, every evening at suppertime, tours the royal household to see if all those who entered court but are not to sleep there, have indeed left. But above all, as I told you, I believe, he is responsible for keeping his eye on places of ill repute in every town where the king resides. That is to say, first and foremost, he regulates and inspects the brothels of Paris, which are not few and far between, not to mention the self-employed strumpets who work in the streets set aside for them. Same goes for the houses in which games of chance are played. All these places of evil are where one is most likely to unearth thieves, bag-snatchers, pickpockets, counterfeiters and assassins for hire; and to discover the vices of people, often in high places, who seem to have the most respectable of appearances.

So much so that the King of the Ribald has become the chief of a most peculiar police force. He has his spies almost everywhere. He maintains and supports a number of tavern vermin who supply him with information and evidence. If you want a traveller followed, his portmanteau searched, or to find out whom he meets with, you go to him. He is by no account a man loved, but a man feared. I am telling you about him for the day you will be in court. It is better to remain in his good books.

He earns a good living, as his charge is a lucrative one. Watching over the harlots, inspecting the hovels, is all good business. As well as his moneyed wages and the fringe benefits he gets in the royal household, he is paid a two pence weekly fee on all the brothels and all the women who work there. Now there is a fine tax, wouldn’t you say, and whose collection is less problematic than the gabelle. He also gets five pence from adulterous wives … well, from the known adulteresses. But at the same time it is he who recruits courtesans for the court’s usage. He is paid to keep his eyes open, but he is also paid to keep them shut. And it is he who, when the king is out riding, carries out his sentences or those of the Court of the Marshals of France. He sets the rulings on the tortures and executions; and in cases of the latter, the remains of the condemned come back to him, along with all they had upon their person at the time of their arrest. As it is not usually the crimes of small fry that provoke royal wrath, but rather of the powerful and the rich, the clothing and jewellery he collects from these corpses are not inconsiderable prizes.

For him the day of Rouen was a godsend. A king to behead, and five lords all at the same time! Never had a King of the Ribald, oh! not since Philip Augustus, known such good fortune. An unmatched opportunity to gain the sovereign’s esteem. And so he spared no pains. An execution is a spectacle … he had to find, with the help of the mayor, six carts, because the king demanded a cart per prisoner; that would make the cortège longer. So it came to pass. The carts sat waiting in the castle’s courtyard hitched up to large-hoofed Percherons. But now he had to find an executioner … the town’s executioner was not around, or there wasn’t one appointed at that time. The King of the Ribald hit upon an odd villain by the name of Bétrouve, Pierre Bétrouve … well, I remember that name you see, don’t ask me why … and had him taken out of the prison. Four deaths he had on his conscience, which seemed good preparation for the job he was to be entrusted with, in exchange for a letter of remission delivered by the king. He got off lightly, that Bétrouve. If there had been an executioner in town …

A priest also had to be found; but that is a rather less rare commodity, and they didn’t go to much trouble choosing one … the first Capuchin friar to turn up from the neighbouring monastery.

During these preparations, King John held a privy council meeting in the partially cleaned banqueting hall …

The weather is decidedly wet today. It will rain all day. Bah! We have good furs, hot coals in our warming pans, sugared almonds, hippocras
32
to reinvigorate us against the damp; we have enough to hold out until Auxerre. I am delighted at the prospect of seeing Auxerre again; that will bring back memories …

So the king held a meeting during which he was almost the only one to speak. His brother Orléans kept quiet; as did his son Anjou. Audrehem was sombre. The king could read on his advisors’ faces that even the most dogged advocates of the downfall of the King of Navarre would not approve of his being beheaded in such a way, without trial and as if in haste. It reminded everybody all too well of the execution of Raoul of Brienne, the former constable, decided on in a fit of anger, for reasons never elucidated, with which John’s reign had most inauspiciously begun.

Only Robert of Lorris, the first chamberlain, seemed willing to second the king in his desire for instant vengeance; but it was more platitude than conviction. He had experienced several months in disgrace, for having, in the eyes of the king, gone too far in supporting the Navarrese in the Treaty of Mantes. Lorris needed to prove his loyalty.

Nicolas Braque, who is most skilful and knows how to manoeuvre the king towards reason, created a diversion by talking of Friquet of Fricamps. He pronounced himself in favour of keeping him alive for the time being, in order to put him to the question in due form. Nobody can doubt that the Governor of Caen, suitably treated, would give up many an interesting secret. How could they know all the ramifications of the conspiracy if they kept none of the prisoners alive?

‘Yes, it is wisely thought through,’ said the king. ‘May Friquet be spared.’

Upon which Audrehem opened one of the windows and shouted to the King of the Ribald in the courtyard that five carts will be enough, confirming with a gesture of the hand, fingers spread wide: five. And one of the carts was sent back to the mayor.

‘If it is wise to keep Fricamps, it would be wiser still to keep his master,’ said the dauphin at that moment.

The first flush of emotion was behind him and he had regained his calm and his thoughtful air. His honour was at stake in the matter. He was trying in every possible way to save his brother-in-law. John II had asked John of Artois to repeat for everyone’s benefit what he knew about the plot. But ‘my cousin John’ had come across as less sure of himself before the council than before the king alone. Whispering denunciation in one person’s ear gives you an air of conviction. Said again out loud to ten people, and it loses force. After all, it was only a matter of hearsay. A former servant had seen … another had heard …

Even if, in the depths of his soul, the Duke of Normandy couldn’t help but give credence to the accusations being brought before him, the presumptions didn’t seem solid enough to him.

‘For my evil son-in-law, it seems to me that we know enough already,’ said the king.

‘No, my father, we hardly know a thing,’ replied the dauphin.

‘Charles, are you really so obtuse?’ said the king angrily. ‘Didn’t you hear that this evil relative, faithless and disreputable, this injurious beast, soon wanted to bleed us to death, first me, then you? For certain he wants to slay you too. Do you believe that after me you would have been a significant hindrance to the machinations of your good brother who not long ago tried to drag you to Germany, to oppose me? It is our place and our throne that he has his eye on, nothing less. Or are you still so smitten with him that you refuse to understand anything?’

Then the dauphin kept on with his defence, gaining assurance and determination: ‘I have very well understood, my father; but there is neither proof nor confession.’

‘And what proof do you want, Charles? The word of a loyal cousin isn’t enough for you? Will you wait until you are lying, desolate, in your own blood like my poor Charles of Spain, to have proof enough?’

The dauphin persevered. ‘These are strong presumptions, my father, that I cannot deny; but for the time being, nothing more. The presumption is not the crime.’

‘Presumption is crime for the king, whose duty is self-protection, to protect oneself,’ said John II, as red as a beetroot. ‘You don’t speak as a king, Charles, but as a university cleric hiding in a corner behind his big books.’

But young Charles stood firm. ‘If royal duty is to protect ourselves, as kings, let us not behead each other. Charles of Évreux was anointed and crowned to rule over Navarre. He is your son-in-law. Who will have respect for royalty if kings send each other to the executioner?’

‘Then he should never have begun his campaign against me,’ shouted the king.

At that point the Marshal Audrehem intervened to give his opinion. ‘Sire, in this case, it is you who, in the eyes of the world, will appear to have started it.’