The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover

Chapter Thirty-Three

Baldwin was feeling distinctly waspish. It was partly Simon’s distant rudeness that had made him throw a whole livre tournois at the man as he stood and stalked from the room, ashamed of his friend, himself and his all too ready dislike for the man.After all, as Arnaud had pointed out so cogently, if he did not perform his function, some other man must do it. There wasno point in dislike of the functionary. It was the reality, whether he liked it or not, of the way of all societies.

To an extent, he recognised that his anger with Simon in that little alehouse had been a reflection of his anger at his ownfeelings. In his case, he knew that it had come from the knowledge that the man sitting there in front of him, drinking hisale, had been exactly the sort of man who would have tortured his comrades and hanged a number, or burned them at the stake.The thought was repellent. To be seated at the same table was worse: the idea that he could consort with one of the men whohad helped to destroy his friends and comrades was enough to bring a tear to his eye.

He waited outside for Simon, and couldn’t help but snap grumpily, ‘What makes you think that you have some right to questionhim? He gave us a lot of information that he need not. In some ways he condemned himself.’

‘Baldwin, look at the man. I wouldn’t trust a word he said.’

‘His comments about looking down on a man who takes life legally were close to the truth, weren’t they?’ Baldwin said. ‘I cannot think how many men I have ordered to be executed over the years, and yet I feel justified in despising himfor carrying out the orders of men like me! How can I be so hypocritical?’

‘It is easy. You and I can command a man’s life to be ended, and we can send men to the gallows, but the man who turns themoff the ladders to die does not need to enjoy the task. Did you see his face up at Montfaucon? He liked those corpses. Heis a sick man, Baldwin. His mind is warped and twisted. I trust him not at all.’

‘Before you make judgements about him, bear in mind that those who do such jobs will often be hardened. They have to be tocontinue causing such suffering. They drink themselves to oblivion before each execution, and then, afterwards, hope to forget.What you see as pleasure may be no more than a front to protect himself. A carapace that he uses to conceal his own horror.’

Simon looked at his friend. ‘You think so? I do not, and I have a good record of seeing into men’s hearts.’

‘Well, while we are here still, let us return to Robert de Chatillon to ask him, as Arnaud suggested. If he verifies Arnaud’sstory, perhaps that would also explain a little about Enguerrand’s death. If this guard felt that the orders coming from Enguerrandwere detrimental to the lady in the prison, and he did adore her, as Arnaud hinted, perhaps this fellow was following Enguerrandand killed him too?’

Robert de Chatillon was not gracious when he saw who it was who had returned. ‘Am I to have no peace today?’

‘Perhaps you will shortly,’ Baldwin said. He perched on the edge of a small table. ‘We have been talking to one of your men.’

‘My men? Who, one of the servants?’

‘No,’ Simon said. ‘The executioner. Arnaud.’

Robert twisted his face into a grimace. ‘What on earth did you want to talk to him for? I find the stench of noisome body fluidstends to follow him around a little too closely for my liking.’

That was a sentiment with which Simon concurred only too heartily, Baldwin knew, so he broke in quickly. ‘Arnaud made severalallegations: that Enguerrand de Foix was responsible for all the guards at the Château Gaillard, that there was a specificorder relating to the woman held there, that Arnaud himself persuaded de Foix to allow him to be responsible for carryingout this, um, order, and that there was a kind of mutiny there. Is it all true?’

‘You have hardly been specific enough for me to say whether it’s accurate or not. I can tell you this, though. The man Arnaudwas there. My comte did hire the guards for the castle, most of them from the south or somewhere. As to the orders about the- ah — lady … I do not know that you need to worry yourself about them.’

‘Is it true, then, that it was ordered that she should be raped?’

‘It is true,’ Robert said, fiddling with a pot of sand on his desk, ‘that proof was required that she had been guilty of adultery.Obviously it would be unthinkable that a queen could reign with our king if her honour was questionable.’

‘So it is true, then,’ Baldwin said coldly.

‘If you wish to think it so,’ Robert said. He would not meet Baldwin’s eye, and instead seemed to find the sand pot astonishinglyfascinating.

‘Is it also true that all the men were chosen by the Comte?’ Baldwin asked. There was something about this that made littlesense to him.

‘I believe he may have had a part in selecting them. I couldn’t say how far he was involved in the choice of the men.’

‘Who was, then? You?’

‘Me? Do I look the kind of man who would sink to choosing the guards for a castle dungeon? I may not be so senior a noblemanas you, sieur, but I have not sunk so low as to hand select staff for that sort of position.’

‘Then who did?’

‘I do not know. I have heard that it was Arnaud himself. Well, a man used to living amongst the dregs of society, it’s notsurprising.’

‘You are saying that your master, Comte Enguerrand de Foix, asked Arnaud to seek out the guards for the château, and thenused these miserable creatures to staff the place and guard the Queen? And then he ordered them to rape her so that her infidelitycould be in no doubt?’

‘I think that sums it up well enough.’

‘And the man who was killed when you were injured. Who was he?’

‘I only ever knew him as “le Vieux”. He was an old warrior who’d served in the King’s host a few times. It is said that itwas he who, with Arnaud, picked the men individually.’

‘But why should he be willing to do so?’ Simon asked. ‘What would it benefit the Comte to get together a band of men, andthen have them rape the Queen?’

‘Politics is a dangerous game,’ Baldwin said, watching Robert closely. ‘If the King asked him as a favour, you can all tooeasily imagine the eagerness with which the Comte would have set about his task. And Arnaud was surely a most enthusiastically. If the Comte had been asked to assist the King, he would have agreed in a hurry, just as any number of friends of KingEdward and the Despenser will rush to their aid, in the hope of great rewards to come. There is nothing surprising in that,surely. And yet the act itself was so shocking that …’

‘That the idea that it should ever come to light is deeply concerning,’ Robert said, still avoiding their gaze.

‘So the King would prefer never to hear that news of this has been spread about.’ Simon gave a twisted grin. ‘I can understandthat. It would be a little embarrassing for any man to have it known that he would willingly subject his own wife to multiplerapes, just to help him end the marriage.’

‘You think that the King entered on this scheme easily? My master was as reluctant as any noble knight would be to put thisplan into effect, but when a king is as desperate as Charles must be to produce an heir, what will he not do? What must henot do to be married and raising sons?’

‘Did your Comte meet the King himself?’

Baldwin’s question seemed to calm Robert a little. He shrugged and slumped back in his seat, wincing as his rib shifted. ‘No.It was his trusted adviser who suggested it. It was a good plot, after all. She was already guilty. We know that from theconfessions.’

‘This was the confessions of those who were accused of adultery with the two princesses?’ Baldwin said. ‘The D’Alnay brothers?They were tortured, I recall.’

‘Perhaps so. But the princesses both confessed too, and they were not tortured. No, the men were guilty, as were the women.There is no doubt about that. So Lady Blanche was already shown to have committed the offence. All the King wanted was tohave proof — after all, if the Pope was granted incontrovertible evidence that she was guilty of adultery, he could have noobjection to annulling the marriage. As did happen. The King and Blanche were divorced three years ago, and now she has beensent to Maubisson. She’s taken the veil.’

‘And the child?’ Simon asked with deceptive gentleness.

‘What of it?’

Baldwin thrust out an arm and gripped Simon’s forearm even as Simon began to move forward. He adored his children, and the thought that any man could consider the life of a childso unimportant as to merit little if any consideration was enough to drive him into an almost blind rage.

‘Robert,’ Baldwin said, ‘do you mean to tell me that all the guards were killed apart from these three — Arnaud, the old manwho is now dead, and the other fellow, the one who killed him?’

‘Yes. So I understand.’

‘That is intriguing,’ Baldwin said, ‘and a little alarming for you, of course.’

‘Why me?’

‘Well, this man called Jean, who killed your old guard at Poissy, is here today. He tried to kill Arnaud. It was our interventionwhich saved Arnaud’s life. But I do not understand all this. Arnaud told us that the guards were all killed by some fellowcalled Berengar. Yet now this other guard has turned up and is trying to kill the other men involved.’

‘What of it?’

‘Perhaps nothing, but I should be worried, if I were you. After all, the guards are all dead bar two, who seem keen to endthe lives of each other; the man who commanded this plot was Enguerrand, and he is dead. Perhaps all those who have had anyinvolvement in the plan are to be removed.’

‘Oh, that would only be-’

Robert was suddenly silent.

‘Only be whom? Perhaps only the guards, eh?’ Baldwin smiled wolfishly. ‘Aha! Yes! Arnaud picked the guards himself, didn’the? An executioner and a gaoler sent to select gaolers for a disgraced princess. Who better than the dregs of society? Afterall, it would be likely that one of them would try to rape her anyway, without any intervention. So much less embarrassing.And then, because they are all criminals from the gaols of France, they can be dispersed, returned to their gaols … oh, but that is not what you meant, is it?’ Baldwin’s tone hardened as he took in the full meaning of Robert’swords. ‘You meant that they could be removed permanently, didn’t you? They were never going to be released, were they, thesepoor devils who aided you so much. They were to be gaolers for a little while, until they conveniently raped Blanche for you,and then they could be removed and killed and forgotten. The King would not like it to become known that he had conspiredto have his wife treated in such a manner, after all. So he arranged it in a way that ensured that all evidence could laterbe destroyed. Isn’t that it?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Be very afraid, then. Because if Jean has learned or guessed this, your life will become worthless. He will seek you outand kill you too.’

Simon had been silent, but now he smiled kindly, and Robert thought for a moment that he was going to offer some comfort.But no.

‘It is worse than that, Robert. If Jean could guess that you would seek to kill all those in the castle, do you not thinkArnaud would also guess?’

‘He was to do it,’ Robert said scathingly. ‘You think he’d be worried? He is an executioner.’

‘Yes. And yet I wonder how long it would have been before he realised that of all those who were actively involved, one manwould still remain. Himself. And there is only one man alive who knows the full chain of command. You. For his own defence,if he is sensible, he must kill you. And I did think him very sensible.’

Jean had no idea who the two men had been, but he had cursed them roundly, their parents, their children to the third generation,and still his anger knew no bounds. Whatever may have happened, if only he had been able to kill Arnaud, he would have felt fulfilled.

He damned the day he was selected by the bastard. Down in Bishop Fournier’s gaol, where he had been installed after his spirited- overspirited — defence of the poor devils burned on their pyres, declaring them to have stronger religious faith than JacquesFournier himself. His words had been overheard by a zealous servant of Fournier, of course. There were spies everywhere inthose days. So Jean had been hauled off to gaol, and there he would have remained for months, if not years, had not Arnaudmade his surprising offer.

‘My master remembers you. Weren’t you with the host that travelled to the field of the Golden Spurs? To Courtrai?’

He agreed, nodding. ‘My father and brother died there in the service of the King and Comte Robert de Foix.’

‘That same comte’s son remembers you. He wishes to reward you. Be ready, and when I return, you will fly this coop.’

Jean had nodded, but did not believe him. He had seen the woman being left to die hideously on the pyre instead of being grantedthe kindness of a rope about her neck first. He did not trust Arnaud.

But the executioner had been as good as his word. When he came back, he carried a tunic and a new cloak, hood and cowl, togetherwith a good leather belt and a dagger. ‘Best I can do,’ he had explained apologetically, pointing to the roughly sewn starat the breast. The yellow star of a heretic.

Jean cared nothing. He grabbed the clothes and pulled them on, overjoyed to feel the weight of a dagger at his hip once more.Then, quietly, the two men walked out of the gaol, up the stairs, along a passageway, and finally out into the sunshine.

Arnaud walked like a man with the power to have a man sent to the gaol, and none of the guards troubled him. In the courtyard there were two horses waiting, and Arnaud went tothe first, a gentle-faced mare. He set his foot in the stirrup, and then hoisted himself upwards.

It had been the most embarrassing moment of Jean’s life, having to confess that he had never sat upon a horse.

Arnaud had soon introduced him to le Vieux, and Jean had thought the old man the perfect example of a lower-ranking man-at-armsin the King’s host. He even went so far as to run through his memories of men in the host he had accompanied to Courtrai,thinking that le Vieux must be a comrade-in-arms from that earlier war, but without success. No, le Vieux was just one ofthose men who was so archetypical of the kind of warrior the King sought to keep that he appeared familiar.

‘Another one, eh?’ he’d said as he caught sight of Jean and Arnaud. ‘What were you in gaol for?’

‘I said that two folks the bishop burned were better Christians than him.’

‘Do you still think that?’

Jean cast a sidelong glance at Arnaud. Merde! It was possible that the wrong thing said now could have him returned straight to gaol. But Arnaud must know what he hadbeen thrown in gaol for. There was little point trying to hide it. ‘Have you seen Bishop Fournier?’

Le Vieux stared at him for at least five beats of his heart, and then, to Jean’s relief, he began to chuckle, loud and long.‘You’ll do for me, boy.’

It had been the beginning of a companionable friendship, so Jean had thought. Le Vieux seemed to look on him as a slightlywayward apprentice. It didn’t matter that Jean was already almost thirty years old; in the opinion of the ancient warrior,he was a mere stripling. When there was any duty to be performed, le Vieux would help him with advice or would actually knuckledown and assist him. More than he would with any of the others, anyway. Men like Berengar he ignored. They didn’t deserve more than occasional comments or harsh bellows.And sometimes the threat of the lash.

He hadn’t been like that with Jean. Le Vieux seemed to think, after that first encounter, that there was more to Jean thanhe would have guessed. It must have been his defiant first comment. That and the fact that Jean had stood up to the bishop.There were not too many people who would repeat derogatory comments about a man like Jacques Fournier in front of him, andfewer still who would then challenge a man to deny them even after spending time in his gaol. That was what made le Vieuxand him get on: the way that Jean was prepared to stick to what he believed.

Le Vieux admired that. Possibly because he believed in nothing himself. Except the Comte de Foix, of course.