A door, hung like the walls with flowered tapestries, opened suddenly to admit two men: Jean Salaut, the Queen’s private secretary, and Arnaud Guillaume. Both knelt before Isabeau and the Regents. Arnaud Guillaume wore a stained, patched garment, something between a tabard and a cassock; with his long, filthy hair, his bony, emaciated face, he looked like one of the half-crazed anchorites who mortified themselves for the salvation of mankind. His fasts and flagellations, however, were undertaken with intentions far less than holy. Although he knelt, his demeanor was not in the least humble.
While the secretary addressed the Queen, Guillaume’s cold eyes traveled without a trace of timidity over the people in the room: the waiting Dukes who eyed him with extreme reserve, and Isabeau who, with apparent unconcern, was allowing the dog to play with her golden triptych.
“That is good, Maitre Salaut,” the Queen said. “You may go now.”
The secretary arose and, after the prescribed bows, backed to the door, which he shut noiselessly after him. There was a brief silence. The three Dukes stood motionless; the Queen did not stir. If it had not been for the panting dog which snapped playfully at the shiny toy in Isabeau’s lap, the royal group could have been painted against the colorful flowers and vines of the wall hangings. Finally, Bourbon spoke.
“You come from Guyenne?” Guillaume bowed his head in assent. “You call yourself a monk,” Bourbon continued. “To which order do you belong?”
The man raised his bright, icy eyes to the Queen.
“I thought I had been called here to cure the King,” he said, “not to be held accountable for a past which is of little significance.”
“This is an extremely impudent rascal,” Berry said half-aloud. He raised his perfumed gloves to his face. Philippe of Burgundy put his arms akimbo and set one leg on the step leading to the Queen’s chair.
“Then you believe you can cure the King,” he said curtly. “By what means? Think before you answer; there is no pardon here for frauds.”
“Your Grace has no need to be afraid of fraud,” Guillaume replied in his crude, hoarse voice. “I’m sure of my powers. Here in my breast, under my habit, I carry a book which gives me power over everything living — over the four elements and over all the substance and matter which they contain. Thanks to this book of wonders, I could be ruler of the planets — if I wanted that; I could alter their courses. Aren’t the astrologers saying that a comet has appeared which will bring a calamity to France, the death of men and beasts, drought and destruction of all the crops standing in the fields? I could call forth another comet from the heavens, a comet which no one knows about and no astrologer has ever seen — more powerful than the first, so powerful it could thrust the deadly one out of its orbit.”
“What sort of book is that?” asked the Duke of Berry inquisitively. The person of this filthy ascetic repelled him, but his curiosity had been aroused by the mention of the wonder book. Guillaume smiled slyly and pressed his crossed arms more tightly against his breast.
“The book is intended for a few eyes only,” he said. He made a cringing bow in Berry’s direction. “Besides, Your Grace would not be able to read the characters. The writing is older than mankind itself, older than Adam, the father of us all, who left us in original sin.”
Berry’s nostrils flared in contempt. He took a few steps toward Isabeau and spoke to her in an undertone. “I consider this the most revolting deception. Send this man away, Madame.”
“Or force him to show you what he is hiding under his habit,” Burgundy said impatiently. “You’ve used your whip well against less arrogant dogs.”
Berry threw him a cold, angry look. Long ago he had given up all hope of emulating his brother’s gift for administration. In the period before the King came of age, Berry’s all-too-obvious mismanagement of his assigned provinces had provoked Burgundy to criticize him sharply; later, Berry suspected, not without evidence, that his older brother had had a hand in the King’s removal of Languedoc from Berry’s control. He had never forgiven Philippe for that.
“I’m sure that you can hold your own in matters like that, Monseigneur,” Berry said, in his courtly, biting voice. “No one ever did me the impressive honor of calling me ‘the Bold’ because I managed to get a place at the table for myself with my fists.”
Bourbon raised his head quickly and Isabeau turned pale. The sorcerer, momentarily forgotten, suppressed a smile; he grasped Berry’s insinuation. The Duke of Burgundy’s enemies always claimed that he did not owe his soubriquet of “the Bold” to his valiant conduct on the battlefield of Poitiers, but to the public childish squabble for precedence between him and the late Duke of Anjou at the coronation feast of Charles VI.
The Queen, who had reason to fear a personal quarrel between the Regents, came hastily between the two of them.
“My lords, my uncles,” she said, “this is no time for discord. Maitre Guillaume has been recommended to me by highly-placed persons in whom I can place my trust. There are many people at the court who have consulted him with good results. What does it matter whether he lets us see his book? The important thing is the advice he can give us. Go on, speak further,” she said to Guillaume. “No one will force you to show the book. But bear in mind that you will need more than words to convince us.”
The ascetic cast a quick, malicious glance at her.
“Convince?” he muttered. “How can I prove what was disclosed to me in a state of grace? In the land of the blind, it is I alone who can see. Secret signs have revealed to me by God’s grace, that our King has been bewitched — within these walls the Devil and all the hellish powers have been conjured up to ruin His Majesty.”
“Enough, man, enough,” said Bourbon. “What are you saying? Have you any accusations to make against anyone? Can you name names?”
“Monseigneur, there is a man who watched for two days and two nights under the gallows at Montfaucon where a thief had been hanged. Do I need to tell you, my lord, what use the corpses of criminals are put to?”
Hastily Isabeau crossed herself. Parts of the bodies of the hanged were used for conjuration, a dreaded practice. “This man,” continued Guillaume, “I saw today in the palace.”
“How is that possible?” Burgundy asked smoothly. “The palace is not an open marketplace where anyone can come and go.”
“No, Monseigneur.” Guillaume bowed again, his arms crossed over his breast. “But he was not alone. He was in the company of the black astrologer, the southerner, about whom there has been much talk.”
“Salvia,” Burgundy said, raising his brows. “In the service of Orléans,” he added, throwing a glance at Isabeau. The Queen caught his look, but her own eyes remained cold and hard. “From Milan,” she amended in a flat voice. “Salvia of Milan, a trusted friend of Gian Galeazzo.” She stressed the last words to make it clear to Burgundy that she rejected any other association. The Duke shrugged and then bowed in agreement. “It is as Your Majesty wishes,” he said evenly.
During this exchange Bourbon stood staring at the ascetic with knitted brows; now he took a step toward Isabeau. “Now that we have established that this fellow is telling the truth, what measures must be taken here? The simplest thing would be to subject Salvia as well as the body snatcher to an interrogation.”
Guillaume’s eyes lit up. Isabeau made a hasty defensive gesture. “That seems unwise to me. We would be exposed. What we do here must not be aired in public.”
She gave a sign to Berry, who stood closest to the table. He dropped a silver ball into a dish provided for that purpose; the prolonged jingling sound summoned the secretary Salaut from an adjoining room. While Isabeau instructed the secretary to give Guillaume lodging in the palace and pay him a certain sum in advance, Burgundy continued to stand with his hands on his hips and one foot on the step of the chair, staring at the ascetic. He was not in the least interested in the continually changing series of doctors and their methods of treatment, although he gave the appearance of taking an active part in the discussions. This time, however, it was quite different: he suspected that in Arnaud Guillaume he had found a useful instrument at a bargain price. Guillaume bowed directly to him; he responded with a cold glance from under half closed lids. He was quite sure that Guillaume understood where his profit lay.