to exercise on the little Pré-aux-Clercs near by. He watched the porters delivering sides of meat and baskets of vegetables.
The Hôtel-de-Nesle consisted of two distinct buildings: the Hôtel proper, which was of recent construction, and the tower erected under Philippe-Auguste, at the period when the town wall passed that way, in order to make a counterpart to the Tower of the Louvre on the left bank of the Seine. Six years earlier, Philip the Fair had bought the whole site from the Count Aumary de Nesle, and had granted it as a residence to his eldest son, the King of Navarre.9
Until then the tower had been used as a guardroom or garrison. It was Marguerite who had had it furnished as a retreat in which to meditate, or so she said, upon her Books of Hours above the flowing river. She declared that she needed solitude, and since she was known to be eccentric, Louis of Navarre had not been unduly surprised. In reality, she had desired this amenity merely for the purpose of receiving the good-looking Aunay the more easily.
For the latter, this had been a source of unparalleled pride. For him alone a Queen had turned a fortress into a love-nest.
And then, when his elder brother Gautier d’Aunay had become the lover of Blanche, the tower had also become the secret meeting-place of the new couple. The pretext had been easily conceived: Blanche merely came to visit her cousin and sister-in-law; and Marguerite had no wish but to be obliging.
But now, at this actual moment, as Philippe looked out upon the huge sombre tower, with its conical roof and high, narrow windows, overlooking the river, he could not help wondering whether other men had not shared those furtive embraces and tumultuous nights. Even to those who thought they knew her best, Marguerite was so unaccountable! And these last five days without a sign from her, when every circumstance lent itself to a meeting, were they not proof?
A door opened and a lady-in-waiting asked Philippe to follow her. His lips were dry and he felt a constriction about the heart, but he was determined not to let himself be put off this time. He walked down a long corridor and then the lady-in-waiting disappeared, while Philippe entered a low-ceilinged room, crowded with furniture, impregnated with that heady scent he knew so well, essence of jasmin brought by merchants from the Orient.
It took Philippe a moment to accustom himself to the twilight and heat of the room. A tree-trunk was smouldering above a heap of tinder-wood upon the great hearth.
‘Madam …’ he said.
A voice came from the end of the room, a rather hoarse and sleepy voice.
‘Come over here, Messire.’
Was Marguerite alone? Was she daring to receive him in her room, without witnesses, when the King of Navarre might be in the vicinity?
He felt at once relieved and disappointed: the Queen of Navarre was not alone. She was reclining upon her bed, while an elderly woman-of-the-bedchamber, half-hidden by the curtain, was engaged in polishing her toe-nails.
Philippe went forward and in a courtly tone, which was at variance with his expression, announced that the Countess of Poitiers had sent him to ask after the Queen of Navarre, remit her compliments and deliver a present.
Marguerite listened without moving. Her beautiful naked arms were folded beneath her head and her eyes were half closed.
She was small, black-haired and olive-skinned. It was said that she had the most beautiful body in the world, and she was well aware of it.
Philippe looked at her round, sensual mouth, her short chin, her half-naked throat, and her plump, elegant legs revealed by the woman-of-the-bedchamber.
‘Put the present on the table, I’ll look at it in a moment,’ said Marguerite.
She stretched and yawned. Philippe saw her pink tongue, the roof of her mouth and her little white teeth. She yawned like a cat.
As yet, she had not once turned her eyes in his direction. He made an effort to keep himself under control. The woman-of-the-bedchamber looked covertly at Philippe in curiosity. He thought that his anger must be too apparent. He had never seen this particular duenna before. Was she newly in Marguerite’s service?
‘Am I to take back a reply to the Countess?’ he asked.
‘Oh!’ cried Marguerite, sitting up, ‘you’re hurting me, woman.’
The woman murmured an excuse. Marguerite at last consented to look in Philippe’s direction. She had beautiful dark, velvety eyes, which seemed to caress everyone and everything they looked upon.
‘Tell my sister-in-law of Poitiers …’ she said.
Philippe had moved to escape being observed by the woman-of-the-bedchamber. With a quick gesture of his hand he signed to Marguerite to send the old lady away. But Marguerite appeared not to understand; she smiled, but not in Philippe’s direction; she seemed to be smiling into the void.
‘On the other hand, perhaps not,’ she went on. ‘I’ll write her a letter for you to give her.’
Then, to the woman-of-the-bedchamber, she said, ‘That will do for the present. I must dress. Go and prepare my clothes.’
The old woman went into the next room but left the door open. Philippe realised that she was watching him.
Marguerite got up and, as she passed him, whispered almost without opening her lips, ‘I love you.’
‘Why haven’t I seen you for five days?’ he asked as quietly.
‘Oh, how pretty it is,’ she cried, unpacking the girdle. ‘What good taste Jeanne has, and how I love her present!’
‘Why haven’t I seen you?’ Philippe repeated in a low voice.
‘It’s the very thing to go with my new purse,’ Marguerite went on. ‘Messire d’Aunay, can you spare the time to wait while I write a word of thanks?’
She sat down at the table, took a goose’s quill and a piece of paper10 and signalled Philippe to draw near.
She wrote so that he could read the word over her shoulder: ‘Prudence.’
Then to the woman in attendance, who could be heard in the neighbouring room, she cried: ‘Madame de Comminges, will you fetch my daughter? I haven’t given her a kiss all morning.’
The woman went out.
‘You’re lying,’ said Philippe. ‘Prudence is a good pretext for getting rid of one lover in order to receive others.’
She was not altogether lying. It is always towards the end of an affair, when lovers either begin to quarrel or get bored with each other, that they betray themselves to those about them, and that the world takes for something new what is in fact upon the point of coming to an end. Had Marguerite said something careless? Had Philippe’s ill-temper been noted beyond the narrow world of Blanche and Jeanne? She felt absolutely certain of the porter and the chambermaid of the tower. They were two servants she had brought from Burgundy and whom she terrified with threats upon the one hand, and rewarded handsomely upon the other. But could one ever be certain? She felt that she was vaguely suspected. The King of Navarre had made several allusions to her success, husband’s jokes which did not quite ring true. And then there was this new woman-of-the-bedchamber, Madame de Comminges, who had been forced upon her a few days ago in response to a recommendation from Monseigneur Charles of Valois. She was always trailing about in her widow’s weeds. Marguerite felt herself less ready to take risks than in the past.
‘You know, you’re a bore,’ she said. ‘I love you and you never stop scolding me.’
‘Well, I shall have no opportunity to be a bore tonight,’ Philippe replied. ‘The King told us himself that there was to be no Council, so you’ll have all the time in the world to reassure your husband.’
From her expression Philippe could have guessed, had he not been so angry, that from that quarter at any rate he had nothing to fear.
‘And I shall go and visit the whores!’ he said.
‘All