Read an Excerpt

Crown in Candlelight

The History Press

THE MURDERERS

France, 1405–10

    The Queen: Yet again, methinks,
    Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,
    Is coming towards me; and my inward soul
    With nothing trembles: at something it grieves
    More than with parting from my lord the king.

Shakespeare, Richard II, ACT II, SC. II

The seabird was flying east, warned inland by the storm in his cool, hasty blood. From the mouth of the Seine he had come, over the plain of Normandy and the spires of Elbeuf and Evreux. He had dipped in salute to the convent tower at Poissy; he had wheeled briefly southwards toward the distant glitter of Chartres. Now his flight brought him to Paris, over the pepper-pot turrets of the inner and outer walls and down to the Cité for a brief landing at La Grève, where the fishermen were berthed from a trip between Mantes and Corbeil, and on the little strand he filched a beakful of the catch. Feathers luminous in the watery sun, he rose again to fly on inland over the Île Notre Dame and the Île aux Vaches, dropping lower over the Porte au Blé. Below he saw a cone-shaped turret and an alcove with a wide stone sill, a temporary resting place. He swept down in one final arc and landed at an east window of the Hôtel de St Paul. Through the glass the tearful eyes of a princess regarded him.

She had been weeping for most of the day, but at four years old was young enough to be distracted by the bird's appearance. Katherine, youngest daughter of the House of Valois, peered closely at the blanched feathers, the small topaz eye. She edged along the stone window-seat and saw him through coloured panes in a pattern of lozenges and scrolls. He was a blue bird, a green-red bird and, where a pane was broken, white again, under a breeze that ruffled his breast and dried a tear on her cheek. She cried because she was hungry. Yesterday had been a sickening void making her dream of food — hot soup, honey pears, the costly white bonbons eaten somewhere long ago — an unforgettable sweetness linked with a name, a face, a perfumed presence long unfelt. She was cold too; she tucked her dirty bare feet beneath her and the breeze nipped her through her ragged dress. She wondered whether it would be possible to catch and tame the big bird, put a jewelled bonnet on its head, like the bird that Belle had carried when they were last together. Isabelle. Belle. Hers was the name of all sweetness. 'God keep you, little sister,' she had said. To Katherine, the six months of their separation was a lifetime, infected with constant hunger and fear. Because fear lodged in this palace, in the dark place at the bottom of the stairs where the stone monster leaned from his niche; every crevice of the unswept rooms and galleries; in the little towers and the places beneath the fortress. And even if one were allowed outside, there was the ambience of past terrors, mysterious ones.

Looking east she could see the Bastille, its gate set in the Enceinte Philip-Augustus, the outer wall erected two hundred years earlier to strengthen Paris. Below it the carved and pinnacled Porte St Antoine looked almost insignificant, not to be compared with the town's royal gateway with its reminder of St Denis's martyrdom. Once, passing from Troyes into Paris, she had looked up at the headless saint between his escort of Bishops. Denis had walked from the place of his execution on the hill of Montmartre carrying his severed head in his hands, all the way to Catulliacum. Belle had told her: 'Little sister, wherever he trod, a flower sprang up!'

Near the Bastille, beyond the spires of the Temple, was the scaffold of Montfaucon, decked daily with the forms of felons hanging in the wind. Below those gallows Philip-Augustus had watched his heretics burn in the red flame, long before Katherine's birth. This, she had been told, was all part of life, as she opened the proffered breviary illuminated by representations of the fire, the knife, the rope. These images had faded however, leaving wariness. The real terror was here, in the palace, in the next turret, an unspeakable pit of despair.

The seabird stood still outside the window, with its implacable sideways stare. Katherine knelt upright, a tall child with great dark eyes and the long strong nose of Valois. Beneath a dingy kerchief her fine dark hair was clotted with filth. The bird turned to launch itself in flight. She whispered: 'Don't go ...' while the moment's pleasure equated with lost joy and again she remembered Belle. Even in the far misty days when Belle had wept constantly there had been a place for Katherine on Belle's lap. She gazed at the bird fervently, while behind her shadows fanned into the room and the sun's last warmth departed.

Through the early autumn sky she heard the Célestins bell across the square, calling the nuns to Vespers. All over Paris people would be sitting down to table; the bourgeoisie of La Ville to the north, the nobles and merchants of La Cité within the inner wall, the students of L'Université in the south. Beyond the outer enceinte the harvesters would be coming back from the vineyards, already gnawing a wheel of cheese or a crust. Katherine clasped her empty belly. Life had not always been like this. She had dim recollections of a table gleaming with silver, of hot food, of Belle's brocade sleeve under her forehead. And a jongleur singing, laughing because she yawned. That had not been in this place, perhaps not even in Paris. Her father had been there, his hands smelling of lemon flowers and jasmine. Her sisters Marie, Michelle, Joanna, and her brothers Louis, Charles and Jean had been there too. The feast of St Denis. And her mother ... here fear closed up her mind.

The door behind her opened with a groan of damp and neglect. A figure came listlessly in and joined her at the window. This princess was six years old, as pinched and pale as her sister. She was naked under a worn woollen gown. Katherine pointed, smiling eagerly, to the window.

'Look at the big bird, Michelle!'

When Katherine smiled all her defects vanished. Her dark eyes gleamed like washed fruit; two dimples appeared as if loving fingers squeezed her chin, and the prominent nose diminished. She was beautiful.

'I see nothing,' said Michelle.

The sill was empty. There were only grey pinnacled towers and the gibbet etched against the dusky sky. In the shadows of the room something swift moved and vanished.

'A rat!'

'Yes. Louis caught one this morning. He's going to teach it tricks.'

They sat silently together then, the familiars of fear and penury, two of the five female heirs of the House of Valois, that great dynasty stretching beyond Charles the Count, son of Saint Louis, through Philip the Sixth, down from John the Good to Charles the Fifth, who had secured Paris by building an inner wall about the city. Charles, brother to three powerful Dukes; Louis of Anjou, John of Berry, Philip of Burgundy. The children sat shivering, close, while lice crept in their hair and under their garments; the daughters of Charles the Sixth, King of France. Charles le Fou! Dirty, cold and hungry, these were the offspring of a lunatic's marriage with Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, who last night had lain at the Louvre Palace and who now rode through Paris towards them, full of her customary spleen and mischief. And Michelle had her own premonitory thoughts.

'There was a strange man in the kitchen, and a horse in the yard. The man was kissing Jeanette. She was pleased. She gave me an apple. Here's your half.' She produced a brown object from her pocket. 'I'm sorry, Kéti. It's not very nice.'

Queen Isabeau had sent this amorous courier on beforehand to ensure that there was some wine in St Paul; for life for her without wine was unthinkable. It was three months since she had ridden off on one of her periodic scheming forays.

'They were talking about Madame our mother,' said Michelle uneasily. Katherine's eyes dilated, and she dropped the half-eaten fruit on the dirty floor.

'I wish we were with Marie at Poissy,' said Michelle, trembling. 'The nuns there are kind. Dame Alphonse said I had an angel's face, and that she would pray for our safety.'

'Why?' said Katherine.

'I'm not sure ... and she promised a novena for our poor father's malady.' She began to cry. 'I wish he were well again!' Katherine wept too. They were greeted suddenly by the Dauphin Louis, who thrust into the room with all the swagger of his eight years.

'Ho!' he cried. 'Why are you grizzling? Look! He's almost tamed!' From his threadbare bosom he hauled a small brown rat, holding it expertly by the tail. Fascinated, the little girls stopped crying. The rat arched and snapped impotently.

'I shall call him Bosredon,' Louis announced. 'After mother's paramour.' His pointed face with its small stubborn mouth and Valois nose was bland with hatred. 'And I shall train him to go for people's throats. And when I am king I shall have Bosredon — and my uncle of Orléans — strangled. Up there!' He waved to where the scaffold of Montfaucon showed black against the dying day. Katherine sidled close and touched the rat's back, jumping back as the animal writhed.

'He's soft, like Beppo.' The fluffy white dog had lain beside her gilded chestnut-wood cradle, long since broken for kindling against the chill of St Paul. He was dead or abandoned, gone anyway like all beautiful things. Like Belle, who had returned from England what seemed so long ago, who had adored her and disappeared again. Joanna was married and in Brittany, Marie a postulant nun. But Belle, wherever she now was, seemed to have existed only in Katherine's heart.

Louis gathered the rat up and thrust it back inside his shirt. He was in good spirits. He had been in the stables, learning new swear words, and in the kitchen, where Jeanette, the pantry-maid whose sometime favourite he was, turned a blind eye to his pilfering. Not that there was much to pilfer; the palace was as bereft as a long-besieged castle, its few servants as thin and threadbare as the royal children.

'There, Monsieur Bosredon!' Louis patted the writhing bulge. 'You shall tear out their throats ... when I am king! Aiee! he has sharp teeth! Shall I cut off his head? For his great treachery?'

The sisters were silent as the small figure, warlike, mouthed oaths and accusations, legacy of the ear at the door, the witness of awful scenes between his elders. He swore, spat on the floor, declaimed the fate of whoremongers and traitors. Once I am king, when I am king. All kings raved; he roared louder until Michelle put her hands to her ears.

'Oh, Louis! What if you are never king?'

She had broken the spell. The Dauphin paled.

'I say you will never be king,' Michelle said.

Louis moved forward and struck his sister in her meagre chest. She fell back; he wrenched the rat from his bosom and held, it, chittering and squirming, near her face. He cursed her, often-heard and barely-understood words. Whore, wanton, thief, beggar. She slapped his mouth and he screamed in temper. Weirdly answering from the adjoining turret came a dreadful gurgling groan of terror and grief. Louis's face looked suddenly like that of a little old man. The rat jumped from his hand and skittered to safety. Michelle covered her face. And Katherine began to run dementedly about the room. The quarrel might never have been; Michelle and Louis crept close.

'Will they come for us?'

'It is only our poor father,' said Louis bravely.

Katherine reached the door, which opened suddenly. She fell against the greasy apron of a servant; a woman whose lustreless eyes looked at her disagreeably.

'You must come, it's time.' Roughly uncaring that she addressed the Valois blood royal, and truculent from the lack of wages for the past three months. She thought: mad Charles's litter, all of them, his and that bitch's whose capers leave me with scarcely a crust or a thread. Rancour sharpened her voice.

'Come, all of you! To say goodnight!'

She chivvied them into the passage outside. Louis went bravely ahead, whispering: 'Only to say goodnight ...' like a charm to ward off devils. They went in dusk through a stone bay, past pillars warted with treacherously smiling gargoyles to the turret of despair. There were two columns built into an ogee-shaped arch surrounding the great oak door, and these were decorated with stone carvings: fish, fruit, a hippopotamus devouring grapes. From a column's lowest abutment a stone eagle jutted, with spread wings. As another frightful groan shuddered through the closed door, Katherine darted from the woman's side. She threw her arms about the cold stone bird, and clung.

'Come!' Hands, hurting, prised at her fingers. Katherine gripped. fast, while the woman's impatience became wrath.

'God's life, Amélie! Can't you see she's terrified?'

From shadows a figure stepped, a tall woman with a round peasant face unskilfully painted. Beneath plucked brows her light eyes were dispassionate. She had attempted finery; full breasts swelled the bodice of a worn red velvet gown. A tawdry necklace of amber was wound about her short neck. Odette de Champdivers had been the King's mistress longer than she could remember, his consort both in splendour and present grief Like all the others at St Paul, she was depleted and downcast, yet she remained with him, resigned, sometimes hopeful. She came between Katherine and the raging servant.

'Leave her,' she said. 'Come, princesse, it's your duty.'

She did not speak kindly but her nonchalance was reassuring. Katherine let go the pillar.

'Only for a moment,' said Odette. 'Seeing you may do your father good.'

As she spoke, four men, ragged, bearded, came running along the passage. On their heads they bore a large tin tub. They were grinning. 'Bath night!' they cried, and rushed at the great oak door. They went in, the last remaining body-servants of King Charles, picked and paid for by the malice of Queen Isabeau, men for whom torment of others was sport. Odette said reflectively: 'We have chosen a bad moment!' and looked down at Katherine, without tenderness but as one might contemplate the last chattel of value in a ransacked town.

'The Devil have my soul if I'm not sick of all this,' said the serving-woman.

'Leave here, then,' said Odette.

'And you, Demoiselle? Will you do likewise?'

'Perhaps.' And perhaps not, she thought, for he has been cured before, by bleeding, by clysters. Why not again? And should that monstrous Queen return and find him well ... I would stay if only to witness that!

'Go on,' she said, and followed the children into the King's chamber. A choking stench assailed them, the product of a body and mind vilely sick. On a decrepit bed in the centre of the bare room the King clutched a filthy sheet to his naked body. He had not been shaved for days and the stubble on his pale face looked like grime. His large dark eyes were filled with unspeakable horrors. Yet there was still the evanescent youthful beauty that had been wildly squandered during his life with Isabeau and their shared debaucheries. Charles had been instilled with the credo that he came of a line of saints. Depravity made a bad bedfellow to these maxims. Sinner and saint battled in him; the price was paid with madness. The serving-men gathered about his bed. Rearing wildly, the King cried out and soiled himself. He saw their broken-toothed faces, the bath, now brimming. The water looked cold, sinister, like his wife's last smile before she rode away leaving him raving and weeping. He saw in the doorway Odette and Amélie and the children, all elongated, wavering, as if he saw them through a mullion pane. He began to shiver; with difficulty he raised his hands close to his eyes. It was as he had feared; they were crystal, the long curved fingernails fragile mirrors, and his limbs ... Sacré Dieu! the same ... He shrank from the men.

'Do not touch me! I am made of glass!'

'Come on, monsieur,' they said, winking at one another. 'We must make you pretty again. Your lady wife commands it.'

'I have no wife! I am Georges Dubois! He has neither wife nor children!'

Georges Dubois, long dead, was a sin remembered; the young gypsy brought by Isabeau to seduce him. How she had laughed, watching them together! Georges identity remained, a fitting token of guilt, of remorse.

One of the men took his arm, and he screamed. Into his vision, small and apparently menacing, came his youngest daughter..

'Kiss your father,' someone said.

Katherine was held aloft in air thick with the reek of ordure and agony. She slid downward towards the pallor and the staring eyes. She took the glacial hand with its talons and. set her lips to it. Unknowingly she drew upon her all his sorrows; they merged with her own unaccomplished years. Then in Odette's arms she was borne away, while Louis and Michelle knelt before the King. The servants were handling him. Over and over he cried: 'I am made of glass!'

---

Excerpted from Crown in Candlelight by Rosemary Hawley Jarman. Copyright © 2013 Rosemary Hawley Jarman. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---