The Accursed Kings Series Books 1-3: The Iron King, The Strangled Queen, The Poisoned Crown. Maurice Druon

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СКАЧАТЬ house.’

      ‘Yes,’ said the King, ‘yes …’

      A deep wrinkle, a very rare thing with him, showed upon his forehead.

      ‘Well, he is Marguerite’s, whom you have chosen to be one day Queen of France! As for Jeanne, she apparently has no lover, but this may merely be that she conceals the fact better than the others. At least it is known that she is a party to the pleasures of her sister and her cousin, that she covers the visits of the gallants to the Tower of Nesle, and appears to be adept at a profession which has a name all its own. And you may as well know that the whole Court talks of it, except you.’

      Philip the Fair raised a hand.

      ‘Your proofs, Isabella?’

      Isabella then told him about the purses.

      ‘You will find them at the belts of the brothers Aunay. I saw them myself upon the road. That is all I have to tell you.’

      Philip the Fair looked at his daughter. It seemed that under his very eyes she had changed both in face and character. She had brought her accusation without hesitation, without weakening, and there she sat, upright in her chair, tight-lipped, with something stern and icy at the back of her eyes. She had not spoken from wickedness or jealousy, but from justice. She was in truth his daughter.

      The King rose without replying. For a long moment he stood before the window, and still the long deep wrinkle showed upon his forehead.

      Isabella did not move, awaiting the consequences of what she had unleashed, ready to give further proof.

      ‘Come,’ the King said suddenly. ‘Let us go to them.’

      He opened the door, passed through a long dark corridor and pushed open a second door. Suddenly they were in the grip of the night wind, which made their full clothing flow out behind them.

      The three daughters-in-law had apartments in the other wing of the Castle of Maubuisson. From the tower, where the King’s study was, their apartments were reached by a covered rampart. A guard dozed by each loophole, short gusts of wind shook the slates. From below the smell of damp earth rose up to them.

      Without speaking, the King and his daughter followed the ramparts. Their feet rang out in time upon the stone, and every twenty yards an archer rose to his feet.

      When they came to the door of the Princesses’ apartments, Philip the Fair paused for a moment. He listened. Laughter and little cries of pleasure came from beyond the door. He looked at Isabella.

      ‘It is necessary,’ he said.

      Isabella nodded her head without replying, and Philip the Fair opened the door.

      Marguerite, Jeanne and Blanche uttered a cry of surprise and their laughter came to an abrupt end.

      They had been playing with marionettes and were amusing themselves by recapitulating a scene they had invented and which, produced by a master juggler, had much diverted them one day at Vincennes, but which had much irritated the King. The marionettes were made to resemble the principal personages of the Court. The little scene represented the King’s chamber, where he himself appeared sleeping in a bed covered with cloth of gold. Monseigneur of Valois knocked on the door and asked to speak to his brother. Hugues de Bouville, the Chamberlain, replied that the King could not receive him and had given instructions that no one was to disturb him. Monseigneur of Valois went away in a rage. Then the marionettes representing Louis of Navarre and his brother Charles knocked at the door in their turn. Bouville gave the same answer to the two sons of the King. At last, preceded by three sergeants-at-arms carrying maces, Enguerrand de Marigny presented himself; at once the door was opened wide and the Chamberlain said, ‘Monseigneur, you are welcome. The King much desires to speak with you.’

      This satire upon the habits of the Court had very much annoyed Philip the Fair, who had forbidden a repetition of the play. But the three young Princesses paid no attention, and secretly amused themselves with it all the more because it was forbidden.

      They varied the dialogue and improved upon it with new mockeries, particularly when they manipulated the marionettes which represented their husbands.

      When the King and Isabella came in, they felt like schoolgirls caught out.

      Marguerite quickly picked up a surcoat that lay on a chair and put it round her to hide her too-naked throat. Blanche smoothed back her hair which had become disarranged in simulating her uncle Valois in a rage.

      Jeanne, who remained calmer than the others, said vivaciously, ‘We have just finished, Sire; we have just this moment finished, and you might have heard it all without there being anything to wound you. We shall tidy it all away.’

      She clapped her hands.

      ‘Hallo, there! Beaumont, Comminges, my good women!’

      ‘There is no need to call your ladies,’ the King said curtly.

      He had barely noticed their game; it was at them he was looking. Eighteen, nineteen and a half, twenty-three; all three pretty, each in her different way. He had watched them grow taller and more beautiful since they had come, each at the age of about twelve or thirteen, to marry one of his sons. But they did not seem to have grown more intelligent than they had been in those days. They still played with marionettes like disobedient little girls. Was it possible that what Isabella said was true? Was it possible that so much feminine wickedness could exist in these beings who seemed to him still children? ‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘I know nothing of women.’

      ‘Where are your husbands?’ he asked.

      ‘In the fencing-school, Sire,’ said Jeanne.

      ‘Look, I have not come alone,’ he went on. ‘You often say that your sister-in-law does not love you. And yet I am told that she has given you each a really handsome present.’

      Isabella watched Marguerite’s and Blanche’s eyes fade, as if their brilliance had been doused.

      ‘Will you,’ Philip went on slowly, ‘show me the purses you received from England?’

      The silence that followed seemed to separate the world into two parts. On one side was Philip the Fair, Isabella, the Court, the barons, the kingdom; and on the other were the Iron King’s three daughters-in-law, on the point of entering a realm of appalling nightmare.

      ‘Well?’ said the King. ‘Why this silence?’

      He continued to look fixedly at them with his huge, unblinking eyes.

      ‘I have left mine in Paris,’ said Jeanne.

      ‘I too, I too,’ the others at once assented.

      Slowly Philip the Fair went towards the door that gave upon the corridor, and the wood of the floorboards could be heard creaking beneath his feet. Lividly pale, the three young women watched his every movement.

      No one looked at Isabella. She was leaning against the wall, at some distance from the hearth; her breath came quickly.

      Without looking round, the King said, ‘Since you have left your purses in Paris, we shall ask the young Aunays to fetch them at once.’

      He opened the door, called СКАЧАТЬ