Isabeau had sat down too; she turned to whisper to Louis d’Orléans, who stood behind her. The Duke of Burgundy finally decided to put an end to this painful waiting. He took off his hat and approached the bed. He had been Charles’ guardian and the real ruler of France in the first years of the kingship. Now he had completely regained the power which had been threatened when the King, full-grown, had chosen other advisors. He bent down and spoke to Charles as though he were speaking to a child, with his stern impenetrable face close to the King’s.
“Sire, my King, it is time.”
“So soon?” the King asked impatiently. He had taken off his rings and set them on the edge of Valentine’s bed. Now he picked them up one by one and dropped them into the Duchess’s lap. “For the child — from his godfather,” he said with a smothered laugh as he arose. “Valentine, dear Valentine, don’t forget to come and visit me tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.”
He kissed her on both cheeks, stroking the damp braids on either side of her forehead. The Duke of Burgundy drew him away. The King looked back. “Be sure to remember,” he muttered. The courtiers stepped aside to make way for him. Isabeau took leave of her sister-in-law, but her kiss was no more than a fleeting touch with pursed lips; her eyes remained cold. The ladies-in-waiting picked up the Queen’s train.
The old Duke of Bourbon, Charles’ uncle on his mother’s side, took Isabeau’s hand and led her out of the room; the court followed. Even before the anteroom door had closed, Valentine fell backward upon the pillows. The heat in the lying-in chamber was unbearable, but custom forbade anyone to let in fresh air before the mother had taken her first walk to church. Not the Dame de Maucouvent nor any of the other women could unlace the Duchess’s bodice to make her breathing easier because Louis d’Orléans, who had stayed behind in the room, came and sat on the edge of the bed. The women withdrew to the hearthfire.
“Well, my darling,” said Louis, smiling. He stooped to pick up his wife’s handkerchief from the floor. “Our brother the King has been quite generous today.” He took the rings which lay scattered over the bed and looked at them carefully, one by one; finally, he slipped one onto his index finger. “How are you feeling today? You look tired.”
“I am tired,” answered the Duchess. She did not open her eyes.
There was a brief silence. Louis looked down at his wife’s face, which had an ivory tint in the green reflection of the bedcurtains. In a sudden rush of warmth and pity, he reached for her hand which lay weakly, half-open, on the coverlet. She turned her head slightly toward him and her narrow lips curved into a smile — a gentle smile, not without melancholy.
“Maître Darien brought me our new son’s horoscope this morning,” Louis went on. “He says the child was born under a lucky star.”
Valentine’s smile deepened. Her husband rose to his feet.
“Adieu, Valentine.” He pressed her cold fingers. “You should sleep well now.” He stepped easily from the dais, tossed his right sleeve over his shoulder, saluted the women and left the room.
The Duchess beckoned. The Dame de Maucouvent came quickly forward and removed the heavy crown from her head.
Louis d’Orléans went directly to the armory, a room adjacent to the library. That portion of the palace of Saint-Pol which he and his household occupied was no less sumptuous and was, in fact, more elegantly furnished than the apartments of the royal family. The armory reflected, in a small way, the opulence with which the Duke liked to surround himself. A Flemish tapestry depicting the crowning of Our Lady covered two walls with the colors of semiprecious stones: dull green, rust red and the dark yellow of old amber. Facing the arched window hung racks of Louis’ weapon collection: daggers with wrought-gold sheaths, swords from Lyon, Saracen blades, the hilts engraved with heraldic devices and set with gems, the scabbards covered with gold and enamel.
Three men stood talking before the fire; they turned when Louis entered. They were Marshal Boucicaut and Messires Mahieu de Moras and Jean de Bueil, noblemen of the Duke’s retinue with whom he was on very friendly terms. They bowed and came toward him.
“Well, gentlemen,” Louis said; he flung his gloves onto a chest. “You were able to see the King today.”
De Bueil strode to a table where there were some tankards and goblets of chased silver — part of Valentine’s dowry — and at a nod from the Duke poured out wine.
“The King is undoubtedly mad,” said de Moras, fixing his eyes upon Louis with a trace of a smile on his heavily scarred face. “To whom do you want us to drink, Monseigneur?”
“To the King — that goes without saying.” Louis sat down and raised the goblet to his lips with both hands. “I don’t want you to misinterpret my words — not for anything.”
“Monseigneur of Burgundy is not present,” said Jean de Bueil with a significant look. Louis frowned.
“I’ve noticed that seems to make little difference,” he remarked, sipping the wine slowly. “My uncle hears everything, even things which I never said and which I never had any intention of saying. Things which I don’t even think,” he added. “For Monseigneur of Burgundy, Satan himself couldn’t be any more evil than I.” He began to laugh and set the beaker down.
“It’s a good thing that he can’t hear you speak so lightly of the Enemy,” said de Moras. “I doubt that would help your reputation much — in the inns and the marketplace …”
“I’ve heard it said that men suspect you of sorcery, my lord,” said Jean de Bueil; at Louis’ nod he refilled the goblets. “You have brought astrologers from Lombardy …”
Louis interrupted him with a gesture. “I know that. Don’t they say too that my father-in-law, the Lord of Milan, has signed a pact with the Devil? The learned gentlemen of the Sorbonne are behind this; they hate me so much that they would even learn sorcery if with that they could cause me to vanish from the earth. My father-in-law is anything but pious, and perhaps he does know more about the Devil than is good for him. But I vastly prefer him to the bellowing clerics who can only expel wind.”
Marshal Boucicaut looked up quickly. “Monseigneur,” he said earnestly, “talk like that can give rise to misunderstanding. Everyone who knows you knows that you are a devout Christian.”
“You are not abreast of the times,” Louis said sarcastically. “If you were, you would know that things are not what they appear to be. Do you know what the common people call the chapel of Orléans? The Monument to Misrule’ … my misrule, do you understand? Building it was the penalty I paid for my sins. And don’t forget above all that this spring I set fire to the King — to say nothing of the six noble gentlemen who did not come off as well as he did.”
“You can mock, Monseigneur,” said Boucicaut coolly, “because you know that with us your words are in safekeeping. But you must remember as well as I do how the people behaved the day after the unfortunate accident.”
“They came by the hundreds to Saint-Pol to see the King himself and to curse us,” Louis said, the ironic smile still on his lips. “They would have torn the Duchess and me to pieces if a single hair on his head had been scorched. The people think a great deal of the King.”