Maurice Druon - The Poisoned Crown

‘Where are you taking that wine?’ the King asked the wagoners who were floundering in the clay.

‘To Monseigneur the Count of Artois, Sire,’ one of them replied.

The Hutin looked at them for a moment with his huge pale eyes, shook his head and turned away without another word.

‘As I was saying, Sire,’ Gaucher continued, ‘we may still have some wine to drink today, but don’t count on it for tomorrow. Oh, I should have given you more insistent counsel. I was of the opinion that we should have stopped earlier, establishing ourselves on high ground rather than advancing into this morass. Both my cousin of Valois 7and yourself insisted that we should advance and I feared to be taken for a coward and that my age would be blamed if I stopped the army moving forward. I was wrong.’

Charles of Valois was about to reply when the King asked, ‘And the Flemings?’

‘They’re opposite us, on the other side of the river, in as great numbers as we and no more happy, I should think, though they are nearer their supplies, and are maintained by the people of their towns and villages. If the flood waters should diminish tomorrow, they’ll be better prepared to attack us than we shall be to fall on them.’

Charles of Valois shrugged his shoulders.

‘Come now, Gaucher, the rain’s depressed your spirits,’ he said. ‘You’re not going to make me believe that a good cavalry charge won’t account for that rabble of weavers. They’ve only got to see our lines of breastplates and our forest of lances to be off like a flock of sparrows.’

The Count was superb in his surcoat of gold-embroidered silk which he wore over his coat of mail and in spite of the mud that covered him; indeed, he looked more kingly than the King himself.

‘You make it quite clear, Charles,’ the Constable replied, ‘that you were not at Courtrai thirteen years ago. You were then fighting in Italy, not for France but for the Pope. But I’ve seen that rabble, as you call it, destroy our knights when they acted too precipitately.’

‘That was doubtless because I was not there,’ said Valois with his own peculiar conceit. ‘This time I am.’

The Chancellor de Mornay whispered into the ear of the young Count de la Marche, ‘It won’t be long before the sparks are flying between your uncle and the Constable; whenever they’re together one can set fire to the tinder without having to strike a light.’

‘Rain, rain!’ cried Louis X angrily. ‘Is everything always to be against me?’

Uncertain health, a clever but overbearing father whose authority had crushed him, an unfaithful wife who had scoffed at him, an empty treasury, impatient vassals always ready to rebel, a famine in the first winter of his reign, a storm which threatened the life of his second wife – beneath what disastrous conjunction of the planets, which the astrologers had not dared reveal to him, must he have been born, that he should meet with adversity in every decision, every enterprise, and end by being conquered, not even nobly in battle, but by the water and mud in which he had engulfed his army.

At this moment there was announced a delegation of the barons of Champagne, with the Chevalier Etienne de Saint-Phalle at their head, desiring an immediate revision of the Charter of Privileges which had been accorded them in the month of May; they threatened to leave the army if they did not receive satisfaction.

‘They’ve chosen a good day!’ cried the King.

Three hundred yards away, Sire Jean de Longwy, in his own tent, was conversing with a singular personage who was dressed half as a monk and half as a soldier.

‘The news you bring me from Spain is good, Brother Everard,’ said Jean de Longwy, ‘and I am glad to hear that our brothers of Castille and Aragon have resumed their Commanderies. They are better off than we, who must continue to act in silence.’

Jean de Longwy, short of stature and heavy-jowled, was the nephew of the Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, of whom he considered himself the heir and successor. He had vowed to avenge the blood of his uncle and to re-habilitate his memory. The premature death of Philip the Fair, which fulfilled the famous triple curse, had not quenched his hate; he had transferred it to the Iron King’s heirs, Louis X, Philippe of Poiters, and Charles de la Marche. Longwy caused the Crown all the trouble he could; he was one of the leaders of the baronial leagues; and at the same time he was busily and secretly reconstructing the order of the Knights Templar, by means of a network of agents who maintained contact between the fugitive brothers.

‘I long for the King of France’s defeat,’ he went on, ‘and I am only present with the army in the hope of seeing him killed by a sword-thrust, and his brothers too.’

Thin, ungainly, his dark eyes set close together, Everard, a former Knight Templar, whose foot was deformed by the tortures he had undergone, replied, ‘I hope your prayers are answered, Messire Jean, if possible by God, and if not by the devil.’

The clandestine Grand Master 8suddenly raised the tent-flap to make sure that no one was spying on them, and dispatched on some duty two grooms who were doing no more than shelter from the rain beneath the pent-roof of the tent. Then, turning back to Everard, he said, ‘We have nothing to hope for from the Crown of France. Only a new Pope could re-establish the Order, and restore to us our Commanderies here and overseas. Ah, what a wonderful day that would be, Brother Everard!’

For a moment or two both men dreamed. The destruction of the Order dated only from eight years before, its condemnation from still less, and it was barely more than a year since Jacques de Molay had died at the stake. All their memories were fresh, their hopes alive. Longwy and Everard could see themselves donning once more the long white cloaks with their black crosses, the golden spurs, exercising the ancient privileges and indulging once again in great commercial activities.

‘Very well, Brother Everard,’ Longwy went on, ‘you will now go to Bar-sur-Aube, where the Count de Bar’s chaplain, who is well disposed towards us, will give you a position as a clerk so that you need no longer live in concealment. Then you will go to Avignon, from where I am informed that Cardinal Duèze, who was a creature of Clement V’s, has once again a considerable chance of being elected. This we must prevent at all costs. Find Cardinal Caetani – if he is not at Avignon, he will not be far away – who is nephew of the unfortunate Pope Boniface and is also resolved to avenge the memory of his uncle.’

‘I guarantee he’ll receive me well, when he hears that I have already assisted his vengeance by helping to send Nogaret out feet first. You’re creating a league of nephews!’

‘That’s exactly it, Everard. So see Caetani and tell him that our brothers in Spain and England, and all those in France in whose name I speak, have chosen and desired him in their hearts as Pope and are ready to support him, not only with prayers, but by every means in their power. Put yourself under his orders for whatever he may require of you. And, while you’re there, see also Brother Jean du Pré who’s in those parts at the moment and may be of great help to you. And don’t fail to learn during the journey if there be any of our old Brothers in the neighbourhood. Try to organize them into little companies, and get them to take the oath you know. That’s all, Brother; this safe-conduct, which names you Chaplain-Brother of my “banner”, will help you to leave the camp without being asked awkward questions.’

He handed the ex-Templar a document and the latter slipped it under the leather jerkin which covered his rough serge robe down to the thighs; then the two men embraced. Everard put on his steel helmet and left, his back bent, his walk limping beneath the rain.