The Dream Maker (20 page)

I let Marc intervene on my behalf, and extended these outings to purely carnal adventures with peasant girls. They behaved very naturally in my company. I attained my greatest victory and the certainty of greatest pleasure when, completely forgetting my fortune and connections, they joked with me as with a comrade. Wiser for my misadventure with Christine, I sought only pleasure and amusement, and no longer invested in any of the illusions of love.

I left all this regretfully, fully aware that soon a page would be turned that would make another man of me, and for a long time.

Orléans was in turmoil with the crowd of delegates gathered for the States-General. I found the king on the second floor of a large building opposite the cathedral. The changes in him were striking. He seemed to have cast off the solitude that had surprised me during our previous meetings. The first time, it was an absolute solitude, in the obscurity of an empty hall; the second time, it was the pathetic isolation of a man encircled by an invasive, obsequious yet hostile court. In Orléans, there were none of the persons of rank I had seen in Compiègne. They disliked the atmosphere of the States-General, redolent with the vapors of the common people, the burghers, and the petty nobility. And the mistrust which had come between the king and the princes incited them to stay on their estates, to prepare, perhaps, to confront him. Or at least that is what I thought the moment I noticed their absence.

Yet the king was not alone by any means. The court still buzzed around him, but it was composed of new people. These were younger men, less bellicose, and most of them were burghers by birth. They did not wear that expression of aggression, indignation, and scorn which the great lords deemed indispensable if they were to demonstrate their difference from the rest of the human race. The atmosphere that reigned in the king's rooms was lighter, happier. I would not have been able to say how I could sense this change, but it was clearly perceptible. Far from looking at me as if I were an intruder, the men I met on my way to the audience greeted me amiably. They were dressed in civilian clothing, with none of the symbols of military or ecclesiastical rank that the great lords never failed to display. As a result, it was impossible to know what anyone did. It was like a gathering of friends who refrained from imposing any reminder of their position or duties on others.

The attitude of these men toward the king resembled my own feelings with regard to him: neither servile submission, nor a desire to dominate in the manner of the great lords. The king reigned over them through his weakness and inspired in them the same urge to serve and protect which I myself had felt at our first meeting in Bourges. I had observed the sovereign's conduct with others, and that enabled me to better understand my own reactions in his regard. His lopsided walk, the hesitant, awkward movements of his long arms, the expression of painful weariness on his face—his entire attitude might be interpreted as a call for help. When one of the men in his entourage pulled out an armchair for him, it was not an obsequious assault; rather, the gesture was a sign of sincere pity, a charitable eagerness, of the kind one feels when responding to the shouts of the drowning by holding out a board for them to cling to.

What was new for me was that as I observed these reactions in others it became blindingly clear to me how much the king enjoyed provoking them. To be sure, he was by no means vigorous or serene by nature. But with a bit of effort, he could have proven himself respectably average with regard to his physical capabilities and sangfroid. I was convinced now that it was through choice that he had decided not to compensate for his flaws but rather to accentuate them. Convinced he would not be able to reign with force and authority, he had chosen the rigorous option of striving to do so through weakness and indecision. In themselves, such traits of character were unimportant. However, I immediately saw the inherent danger. His pretensions to fragility and the appearance of fear so knowingly cultivated on his face stemmed from a constant effort. Charles put as much energy into seeming weak as others did to maintain their reputation of invincible strength. This meant two things, equally dangerous. First of all, he was not fooled by the attentiveness shown him. He knew how artificial its origins were, and could conceive of nothing but scorn for the men on whom he imposed an image of himself that was so contrary to the truth. Secondly, in order to remain in character and ensure his constant respect of such a restrictive vow, he had to exert extraordinary resolve. Anyone who can be so cruel to himself is bound to be equally cruel to others. He had shown in the past—by having his favorites eliminated, by covering in disgrace the very people who had served him most loyally—that he was capable of the most unexpected changes of heart. Naturally, he had passed them off as acts of weakness, letting others think that he lacked the energy to oppose those who plotted against him. Now I was certain that in fact he had conceived of them himself. I no longer doubted that it was as dangerous to serve him as to navigate among shoals. In spite of everything, the day I arrived in Orléans, when at last he turned his weary blue-eyed gaze to me, and called to me, holding out his hands, I hurried over, utterly disarmed, already eager to obey his will, as helpless as all the others in the presence of such weakness, although I was the last man to believe in it . . .

The king had me sit near him. He introduced a few people to me. Most of them were the new stewards to his reign, men with whom I would share for years the daily duties of affairs of state. And they certainly already knew this, but I did not. I saw only a succession of new faces and names that were still unfamiliar to me. The only one whom I recognized was Pierre de Brézé, who was already renowned in his youth as Joan of Arc's comrade-in-arms, the right-hand man of the former constable. Rumor accused him of having belonged to the little group that had abducted the king's counselor, La Trémoille, a sensual and amoral man. I immediately liked Brézé for his simplicity. No doubt he looked younger than he actually was. He was slim, and only his strong joints—in particular his wrists, scarcely noticeable above his long square hands—denoted the warrior. I recognized in him an eagerness to serve, a pride in defending the weak, and a propensity to defy the powerful, which must have made him easy prey for the king.

Suddenly, the king stood up, and before walking on he grabbed my arm to take me with him. I was startled by the familiarity of his gesture. At the same time, just when I might have thought that by clinging to me the king was giving yet another proof of his weakness, I felt his fingers squeeze my elbow like a vice. Limping and swaying, he dragged me to one side. We took a staircase with worn steps and came out at the back of the building into a service courtyard. Two chained dogs leapt up on seeing us. The king had me sit on a stone bench in the shade of a fig tree. He seemed to enjoy watching the huge hounds struggling against their chains, trying to attack us. The chain broke their momentum and they dropped to their paws, tongues slavering. Their barking, the clanging of their chains, their threatening fangs all seemed to amuse the king and even excite some cruel, brutal strain in him. At the opposite end of the small courtyard two washerwomen, arms bared, were struggling with piles of laundry. Charles stared straight at them, and the sight of the dogs had filled his eyes with a brutal desire. The poor girls looked down and concentrated on their work, giving the king the spectacle of their outstretched rumps and tensed muscles. It is no exaggeration to say that I felt my presence was inconvenient.

The king, however, did count on my presence. However much pleasure he might have derived from contemplating the scenes around him, he maintained sufficient self-control to go on speaking to me gently and questioning me like a sovereign. I would have innumerable opportunities in the years to follow to explore the paradoxes of his tormented nature: even today I still wonder if I truly hate him. At the time, I went no further than to think in passing that it might simply be unwise to love him.

“France is a pigsty, Cœur. What say you?”

He sniggered.

“There is a great deal to be done, sire,” I said, loudly enough to make myself heard over the barking dogs.

The king nodded.

“Everything. We are going to do everything, believe me.”

The mastiffs grew calmer on hearing our voices. To my astonishment, I saw that the king was tapping his feet, urging them to continue.

“The States-General are asking me to rid the country of the
écorcheurs.
It is a good initiative, what say you?”

“Yes, that would be useful.”

“Of course, they did not come up with this on their own. I suggested it to them. But now that they have requested it, I shall be obliged to go through with it. Too bad for our dear princes, who will have to do without their mercenaries . . . ”

One of the dogs, exhausted by rage, dropped heavily to the ground and howled in pain. Charles slapped his thighs as he shot ever bawdier looks in the direction of the washerwomen. I had heard a great deal about the king's sensuality, his propensity to accumulate mistresses of all backgrounds. I found it hard to grasp that such nervous weakness could also harbor this carnal appetite. Witnessing this disturbing scene, I understood that the king's tormented nature could lead him to both a terrified immobility, where he shook with the tics he affected in the presence of princes, and a lubricious excitement where violence rivaled vice, as in the behavior he was displaying before me at that moment.

“I am going to reform the Council,” he continued. “They will no longer reign in my stead, of that I can assure you.”

“They” meant the princes, I understood as much. There was nothing to say. I nodded.

“They have begun uniting against me. Last year, I had my way with them. But they will start again, and this time my son will be sufficiently scatterbrained and ambitious to join them. It does not matter, I shall break them.”

A thought occurred to me, which I banished instantly. Noise and violence were Charles's everyday world. While my dreams were calm and spacious, his must be possessed, full of brutality and hatred. The tics that deformed him when he remained still were surely echoes of the storms ravaging his mind. This was why he felt so at ease amidst the barking hounds. However intense their howling might be, it probably never attained the intensity of the howling he heard inside. I was drifting away on these thoughts when he suddenly turned to me.

“We will need a great deal of money, Cœur. Much more than the small profits the mint could ever bring. Do you understand why I have appointed you steward to the Argenterie?”

My plan was to explain to him how the Argenterie and my own enterprise could complement each other. My discussions with Guillaume de Varye had convinced me that with our network of suppliers on the one hand, and orders from the realm on the other, centralized at the Argenterie, we could build an intensely powerful enterprise. But everything we professionals had laboriously imagined, Charles had already seen distinctly long before.

I had not been sure whether he had listened to me during our first meetings or not. Now I saw that not only had he listened, but he had drawn conclusions that far exceeded in boldness anything the men in his entourage might have been capable of conceiving. Thus, just as my pity was beginning to yield to other feelings, where a diffuse fearfulness prevailed, admiration leapt ahead and showed me why I was bound forever to this strange and fascinating king.

“First of all, I appointed you steward so that you could examine everything discreetly and make your plans. Have you done so?”

“Yes, sire.”

“In that case, as of today I appoint you Argentier. The good man who currently holds that office will not be pleased, but that is his problem. He did not want to exercise it; he viewed it as a distinction that flattered his honor. As do they all, from finance to the things of war: they do not serve. They serve themselves. All of that is going to change.”

I felt like crying out for joy. For I could see that this sudden conclusion would be a point of departure for everything to follow. It's absurd to say this, and perhaps you will not believe me. My spirits soared, as if I had suddenly taken flight. I was filled with great serenity; I was far away from the dogs, the washerwomen, the States-General, and even the king. I could see the caravans altering their route and turning for France. My country would become the center of the world, richer, more prosperous, more enviable than Damascus.

I hardly know how this conversation ended. I think someone came to fetch the king. He left the courtyard skimming the perimeter of the dogs' chains; their jaws were snapping not an inch away from the sovereign's legs. I could hear his laughter as he went up the echoing stairway. I was dead to my first life, and now as I watched the sun filtering through the thick downy leaves of the fig tree I felt like a newborn opening its eyes onto a new light.

 

*

 

In the sun of Chios my skin has turned brown. Elvira came back from Easter Mass this morning full of joy. On this Greek island that knows no winter, Christmas is hardly a festivity. Resurrection, however, sets hearts ablaze.

During the long nights we spend without sleeping, Elvira has taught me a few words of Greek. These seeds may have fallen on a mind long fallow, but they have caused some very old seeds to sprout, seeds planted long ago by our teacher of catechism at the Sainte-Chapelle in Bourges, so that now I am beginning to understand and express myself.

Only two days ago, I would have said that this was happiness. Alas, yesterday everything changed in an instant.

At the end of the morning, while Elvira was at the market fetching our weekly supply of lemons and garlic, a man came to the house. Fortunately, I saw him from a distance. I had just enough time to hide under the roof where Elvira dries the herbs she picks from the hillside. The man walked around the house. He called out to see if anyone was at home. I was slightly reassured to hear him speaking Greek, because my pursuers, whoever they are, have no reason to know the language. But he might also be an accomplice, recruited on the spot.