The Agincourt Bride. Joanna Hickson

and inexcusable, but she was the queen and I supposed there must be some rhyme or reason to it. I had heard much mention of the Duke of Burgundy and his boastful nickname Jean the Fearless, seen Michele’s anguish at the sudden talk of her marriage and gathered that Chartres was their destination, but that was the sum of it. I was as mystified as the children. Perhaps it was significant that we all avoided making mention of the screaming man.

      Once I’d tucked them up, cuddling each other in one truckle bed, I went to seek guidance from the governess and the tutor, but there was no sign of them. Significantly I found their chamber doors standing open and, on entering, the chests and guarderobes empty. Madame la Bonne and Monsieur le Clerc had packed up and gone and, on further investigation, so too had the latest donkeys, for their meagre bundles of belongings were also missing. I had not grasped then what I soon discovered; that having inherited Burgundy, Flanders and Artois on his father’s death the previous year, Jean the Fearless had now set his sights on France and was heading for Paris, scheming to rule in the mad king’s name through his son the dauphin, thus ousting the cosy regime of the queen and the Duke of Orleans.

      I felt completely out of my depth. Only hours before I had been a sleepy nursemaid in a sun-baked garden and now I was alone with two of the king’s children and with little notion of exactly what had happened to the others. Who could I turn to for advice? Would I be blamed for the disappearance of the three older children? Did anyone in authority even know they were missing? Was there anyone in authority still in the palace? It may sound odd, but I felt an urgent need to settle my feelings of panic with some pretence at normality, so I took my basket of mending and sat down in the window of the main nursery to catch the last of the daylight and await developments.

      Tired though they were, the little ones could not sleep and before long they appeared hand in hand, eyes enormous in solemn pinched faces. In their crumpled white chemises, they looked like the waifs of the wood from one of their favourite fairytales.

      ‘We are frightened, Mette. Please tell us a story,’ Catherine begged.

      My heart ached for them. Abandoning the garment I was mending, I opened my arms and pulled them both onto my lap. For a few moments we clung together and gazed out of the open window at the muddy, drought-shrivelled stretch of the Seine which had carried the other children away. The evening sun cast gloomy shadows down the tree-lined banks while across the river on the Île St Louis, weary peasants were stacking corn stooks at the end of a long day’s harvesting. There was a lump in my throat as I started the familiar tale of St Margaret and the dragon.

      I had just reached the part where the saint tames the fire-breathing beast by raising the Holy Cross when we were suddenly assailed by the sound of manic laughter, harsh and insistent and impossible to ignore. Who knew what new and weird delusion had stirred the poor mad king, now back in his oubliette, but the intrusion of his insane laughter into our cosy little world was like a leper’s clapper rattling in a hushed church. Both the children screwed up their faces and covered their ears with their hands, but after a minute Catherine took her hands away and asked, ‘Is that the man from the garden, Mette? Is that the king?’

      I shook my head, dismayed that she had obviously heard more than I thought of the minder’s words. ‘Who can tell, my little one? It is a nasty noise anyway. But we can run away from it. Come with me!’

      I gathered them up and swept them downstairs to Madame la Bonne’s abandoned chamber. Her big tester bed had heavy velvet curtains, which I drew closely around us. As we huddled together in the flickering light of an oil lamp, I made up a story pretending we were fugitives who had sought sanctuary in a secret chapel where only God could find us. The warmth and intimacy of the curtained bed with its feather pillows and fur-lined covers seemed to comfort them for, royal though they were, they had never experienced such luxury and at least the thick hangings deadened the noise from outside. There was no more mention of the manic laughter or the screaming man.

      I could find no comfort myself however. When the children had fallen asleep and the lamp had spluttered and died, I lay between them in the stifling darkness, wide-eyed and rigid with fear. Echoes of the king’s cackle summoned nightmare images of the tavern stories Jean-Michel had relayed, of winged demons sent flitting through the night by sorcerers. I imagined flocks of malevolent creatures clinging to the bed hangings, carrying the taint of madness on their breath and infecting the black shadows. Convinced that their very breath could send me mad, I buried myself in the bedclothes muttering a string of Aves. It was hours before I slept.

       5

      The terrors of the night were nothing compared with the horror of waking. Jerked out of sleep by a loud metallic clang, I opened my eyes just as the curtains were hauled back by an armoured figure brandishing a naked blade. My shrill scream was underscored by the panic-stricken wails of the children who instinctively dived behind me into the protective pile of Madame la Bonne’s pillows. I am not brave, but in that instant anger overcame my fear and I reared up like a spitting she-cat to confront our assailant. What a pathetic sight that must have been – rumpled linen versus burnished steel!

      ‘In here, my lord!’ yelled the anonymous intruder, his dagger aimed at my throat.

      I recoiled, clutching at the yawning neck of my chemise and demanding divine protection and information in one hoarse, garbled screech. ‘God save us – who are you – what do you want?’

      ‘Calm yourself, Madame,’ the man advised. ‘His grace of Burgundy would speak with you.’

      Even had I dared, there was no opportunity to protest that this was hardly a convenient moment to receive the noble duke, for in that instant an even more terrifying figure parted the curtains at the foot of the bed with a movement so violent it tore the hooks from their rail. His grace of Burgundy, framed in blood-red velvet. I let out another scream.

      Encased to the neck in black and gold armour, his presence loomed like an incarnation of the demons of the night. The very smell of him seemed to rob the air of life; not the natural odour of male sweat, but a sweet cloying scent, like rotting fruit. And his face matched his armour, dark in every way; expression grim, complexion swarthy, grey eyes deep-socketed, cheeks shadowed with several days’ growth of beard, black brows thick and bristling and a nose hooked like a meat-cleaver over a fleshy, purple mouth.

      ‘Where is the dauphin?’ this demon demanded, peering past me at the small legs and feet protruding from the pillows. ‘Who are you hiding there? Take a look, Deet.’

      The man with the dagger flung me roughly aside and hauled Catherine from her refuge. The brave little girl kicked and fought, but she was as powerless as a fly in a web. Cursing, the knight dumped her at arm’s length and reached for Charles, who immediately set up a scream of astonishing volume.

      ‘That is not the dauphin,’ observed the duke, raising his voice above the din and eyeing Charles with distaste. ‘Too small. You, Madame, tell me immediately, where is the dauphin? Deet, help her to think.’

      To my relief, I saw the dagger sheathed but then I felt my arm almost wrenched from my shoulder as I was dragged off the bed and thrown to the floor at the duke’s feet. The pain was no more fierce however than his basilisk glare. In that split second he seemed like evil incarnate and I did not believe that such an ogre could have the best interests of the royal children at heart, certainly not more than even the most neglectful mother, as the queen undoubtedly was. Inwardly I resolved to tell him nothing and, in any case, I was trembling with fear and tongue-tied.

      ‘Well?’ His gold-tipped metal foot tapped. ‘I know who you are, Madame, and your family is no friend to Burgundy, so it would be foolish to make me lose my temper.’

      It was suddenly clear to me that the duke had concluded that I was Madame la Bonne. It was an understandable mistake, given that I had been found in the governess’ quarters and even in her bed, but it was not an identity I wished to own to, especially in present circumstances.

      ‘I am not Madame la Bonne, sir,’ I hastened to reveal, panic restoring my voice. No wonder