“Ah, Madame,” said Margaretha, with emphasis, “a clever wife can alwavs influence her husband. We all saw how the King turned to you before the illness overcame him. Your Majesty undoubtedly knows how to charm the King.” She paused a moment and then continued. “It seems to me that your Majesty can begin by ordering that the door be unbolted which separates your apartments from the King’s.”
Isabeau sprang from her chair. The Duchess of Burgundy saw that she had said enough; she backed from the room, curtseying deeply once again.
In the course of the day the weather changed. The sky clouded over; a heavy mist began almost imperceptibly to cover the dazzling blue of the sky. Within a few hours it became dark; the summer lightning darted over the hills. The reapers worked hastily to haul the sheaves inside the barns until they were halted by the rain which tumbled down in torrents; earth and sky became indistinguishable from each other. The crash of thunder echoed incessantly from the walls and high towers of Saint-Pol.
The great reception rooms were crowded. The hundreds of nobles who were sojourning in the palace to honor the English envoys and had been driven from the gardens and fives courts by the storm, were seeking amusement in cards and dice. Louis d’Orléans had managed to shake off his despondency; he was in a boisterous mood and moved from table to table, joking loudly with the players.
The rain squalls whipped through the inner courtyards, a wet mist blew through the windows and corridors as far as the great halls. Torchlight flickered on the walls. Orléans was offered a place at each gaming table as he approached it, but he waved his glove, watched the game for a short while and then moved on, humming to himself.
In a side room Jean de Nevers sat with friends, playing dice at a table strewn with gold pieces. A crowd of spectators — members of de Nevers’ suite — stood around the table.
“Ah, cousin,” Louis cried loudly, pushing his way through, “I see that you are seriously occupied, raising money for your crusade against the Turks. How many tents and lances have you assembled by gambling today?”
Jean de Nevers looked up. He could not bring himself to smile.
“You need not tell me how good the wine was,” he replied sarcastically. “Your breath tells me that already, cousin, and in any case your infantile behavior does not lie. Not that I begrudge you the drink,” he continued quickly, when he saw that Louis, still laughing, was about to move away. “You can raise your spirits with food and wine. You do not need to fight.”
“Ah la …” Orléans said slowly, in the same jocular tone. “It is not my fault, my dear cousin, that we have never measured our strength in a duel …”
Jean began to get up, but his friend Philippe de Bar, who sat beside him, put his hand on his arm. Jean curled his lip.
“It may interest you to know,” he said, “that everyone who has a name and can hold a weapon has declared himself ready to come with me. But no doubt you knew that already. Your old friend, the Sire de Coucy, who has served you so well in Lombardy, will have brought you the news.”
‘The Sire de Coucy is too busy organizing your crusade, cousin.” Louis tossed his glove in the air and caught it. “It is a wearisome job to recruit soldiers and arm them, even for an experienced general — one who has no time for games or idle chit-chat.”
Nevers flushed darkly; he clenched his fist on the table in an effort to control himself.
“Well, that depends,” he said in a voice choking with anger. “There are reports that there is much merriment at the court of your father-in-law, Gian Galeazzo, although he sends auxiliary troops to the Turks.”
It became suddenly very quiet around the gaming table. The rain clattered against the roofs and the thunder crackled and boomed. The side room was crowded with spectators; it was the first time since the banquet in the abbey of Saint-Denis that my lords of Orléans and Nevers had publicly betrayed their enmity. Louis stood motionless, the glove in his upraised hand. He was no longer smiling.
“If I did not know, cousin, that spreading slander had become second nature to you, I would perhaps in all seriousness take up arms for my father-in-law,” he said, forcing himself to speak calmly, despite the wine he had drunk. The dark, piercing eyes of Jean de Nevers were fixed upon him; the others waited for him to lose his self-control. For a moment Orléans was tempted to throw his glove into that face distorted with hatred and contempt. Only in combat between the two of them could they give vent to their mutual feelings. Louis knew that Burgundy’s son would like nothing better than to attack him — especially if the challenge for the fight between kinsmen came from Orléans himself — but Louis would not permit this just yet. It would be particularly ill-advised at this moment to engage in a public brawl with the House of Burgundy. He contented himself, therefore, with shoving his glove into his belt and announcing to the bystanders with a smile:
“My lords, things will have come to a sorry pass when we can no longer joke with one another at the court of the King of France. Perhaps you would have taken it better, cousin, if I had begun by asking you whether you had squandered your tents and lances.”
He saluted Nevers and left the room with a nod and a cheerful word for everyone who spoke to him. But he was filled with shame and anger; he craved more wine and the boisterous excitement which could be bought in many of the public houses of Paris. He sought out among the players a few intimate friends who usually accompanied him on his nocturnal expeditions through the city, and beckoned to them to follow him.
Isabeau sat beside the King. The burning candles illuminated the parchment covered with close writing, that lay on the table. The King, already exceedingly weary after a day of conversations and receptions, and upset by the storm, squinted nervously at the papers which Isabeau had put before him; here he could see with his own eyes what it cost the Treasury to maintain the Queen’s palaces, estates and properties, what money she was forced to pay out for clothing and entertainment, what gifts she had given to kinsmen and household on New Year’s Day, on the occasions of fetes and holy days.
“I do not do this to upset you, Sire,” she said. Her tone was soft but business-like. “I do not like troubling you with numbers and lists, but the Audit Office must make a decision about my income. I have been waiting almost two years now for an adjustment. First they assigned me a number of estates which are too remote from one another. To collect taxes I would need an army of officials. Now they tell me again that I shall receive more lands when Queen Blanche dies. But that must be codified somehow. I have no real assurance. I have my household and my children to feed and to clothe. It is an impossible situation that I must beg the Audit Office for every livre.”
Isabeau spoke hody. She had brought up the subject as soon as she was left alone with her husband. The King looked at her blooming young Isabeau always ready for laughter and kisses, with no interest in anything resembling official documents and numbers. The plump, bejeweled woman who sat facing him bore no resemblance to the Isabeau to whom he had once sent a golden triptych as a token of his love. Her dark brown eyes were hard; they looked at him without tenderness. They were alone together for the first time in a year and a half, and she spoke of revenue, territories — gold, gold, gold!
“I shall instruct the Audit Office to setde the matter at once,” the King said wearily, shoving the papers away from him. “And to fix the annuity which you will be paid upon my death, Madame.” He turned his head to listen to the crackling of the storm. “How it rains,” he continued nervously. “Could the flood have started like this in Noah’s day? We don’t deserve a better fate.”