The girl had sprawled across the floor when she fell. Now she scrabbled about, trying to get to her feet, but she was not fast enough.
Richard leaned down, seized her by an upper arm, and hauled her up.
“Murderess!” he cried.
The girl’s eyes were wide and horrified, her mind numb, and she could do nothing but whimper as several men-at-arms strode across the chamber and seized her shoulders and arms.
Richard stood back.
“No!” the girl whispered, staring at de Vere. “It was not I—”
She got no further. Even as she began to speak, de Vere was closing the space between them with huge, angry strides, drawing his sword.
“Murderess!” he shouted, and drove the blade so hard into her belly that there was a horrifying ripping sound as the blade exited through her back.
The men-at-arms jumped aside, as much to avoid being splattered with blood as to avoid any further sword thrusts.
The girl made a sound that was half groan, half shriek, and her hands fluttered as if they wanted to catch at the sword… or perhaps as if she thought to beg de Vere’s mercy.
De Vere’s face twisted, and he put a hand to the girl’s shoulder and wrenched the sword free from her body.
For an instant, she remained on her feet, the blood from her belly wound streaming down over her plucked pubis and mingling with the dead king’s semen that had trickled down her inner thighs, then she toppled forward and crashed to the floor. She writhed about feebly, her hands clutching uselessly at the blood that now pumped from her belly, her breath ruckling in and out with her suffering.
Richard caught de Vere’s eye, and the older man leaned down, grabbed the girl’s hair to pull back her head, then cut her throat with two quick, economical slices of his sword.
He straightened, and looked at the men-at-arms. “She poisoned the French king with something she put in his wine,” he said.
“Perhaps she carried a pot of the vile poison in the clothes she wore,” Richard added.
One of the men-at-arms bent down to the flimsy shift, shook it out, then discarded it as he
walked to where the cloak lay. He searched about in its folds for only an instant before he turned back to the others, flushed with triumph as he waved about the small vial he’d found.
“A murderess true!” he said, and Richard and de Vere hid their grins and nodded soberly.
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LATER, WHEN both corpses had been removed—John’s to be washed and laid out in the state which befitted a king, and the girl’s to be tossed out for the crows to scavenge in the fields beyond Westminster—Richard and de Vere relaxed in the chamber.
As the corpses, so also had the bloodstains been removed.
Both men were in a fine mood. As Richard poured them some of the spiced wine they had been so frugal with earlier, de Vere carefully took the ewer that had contained the poisoned wine and poured its dregs over some of the hot coals in the hearth. Flames sizzled green and loathsome for an instant, then died away. De Vere smashed the earthenware ewer on the stones before the fire, then carefully scraped the shards into a chamber-pot. They could be disposed of in the morning. But for now … He rose and took the wine Richard held out for him. He held it up in a formal toast.
“To the King of France,” he said.
Richard laughed, profoundly relieved that de Vere’s plan had been so successful. King of
.France! Then his smile faded, and his brow furrowed.
“The French will accept the terms of the Treaty of Westminster, won’t they?” he said.
“Of course,” de Vere said. “And if they quibble, why! Hotspur is there to grind their whimperings into the mud.”
“Yes, yes,” Richard said, and again frowned at another worrisome thought. “But what if Parliament will not grant me the taxes I need to clear the crown’s debts and finance Hotspur’s expedition … as …”
“As our expedition, my dearest lord, to ensure the Irish accept my rule?”
“Of course, Rob! I will not forget your cause!”
De Vere smiled, and, putting his goblet down, placed his hands about Richard’s face. “The Parliament will not dare deny you,” de Vere whispered, his fingers gently stroking Richard’s smooth cheeks.
“Are you sure?” Richard whispered.
“Very sure,” de Vere murmured, and stepped close so he could lovingly kiss Richard’s mouth.
It was a very slow and deep kiss, and Richard moaned when de Vere lifted his face away.
“Don’t ever leave me, Robbie.”
“Never,” whispered de Vere, and slid one hand down to Richard’s genitals.
JOAN HAD lain awake for many hours listening to the evil as it whispered along the tendrils of wind that tapped outside the closed shutters. She did not know the details of the murder that had been done this night, but its conclusion had been all too clear to her.
St. Michael had said it would be thus.
Joan wept a little, and prayed for the dead king’s soul. But she could not be too sad, for she knew that John’s vile end meant that Charles could now come into his own.
Surely, once he knew that he was King of France, Charles would accept the responsibility that was his by right.
Joan rolled over and slid off the wooden bed, walking quietly to the door and looking into the outer chamber. There slept the midwife, Marie. Since the day of Joan’s examination at the hands of Isabeau de Bavière, Marie had become Joan’s companion. The midwife, her lovely face pleading, had begged Joan to accept her as a servant, but Joan had refused, saying she’d no need of servitude. But, Joan had added, she had every need for a womanly companion in this garrison of men, and Marie’s face had lit up.
Joan had her doubts about Marie—surely a woman with as lovely a face as Marie had would prove no more than a temptation for lust—but the midwife was as godly and devout a maid as Joan could have ever wished for. She’d become fond of Marie, and the two often prayed together in the mornings.
Joan frowned as she walked into the outer chamber and paused as she made sure Marie had not awoken. Marie was twisting about slightly on her bed. Only slightly, and still apparently remaining in a deep sleep, but with a subtle movement that Joan recognized as wantonness.
Of what did Mane dream?
Then Joan shivered, and looked about, for she thought she felt the Blessed St. Michael’s presence … but no … she must have imagined it. There was nothing in this room but herself
and the sleeping, dreaming Marie.
Joan moved toward the outer door, and then hesitated yet again, regarding Marie. The sense that St. Michael was close came over her once more, and then passed as quickly as it had previously.
Marie’s sleep quieted, and her breathing became deep and easy. Joan watched a few more minutes, but Marie now slept peacefully, and she felt no more the faint suggestion of St.
Michael’s presence.
Finally Joan let go her doubts, and thought of her purpose that night. She slipped into the corridor, closing the door on Marie’s dreams.
Charles needed to know that he was now the legitimate king.
IF JOAN had managed to quit her chamber without Marie knowing of it, her passage through the quiet chambers and halls of la Roche-Guyon did not go completely unobserved.
Catherine—who had also lain awake through the evil work of this night—pulled Philip from his slumber, and then led him, grumbling under his breath, to stare from the gallery of the great hall.
There they watched in silence as Joan padded through the hall far below them, walking to where the stairwell to Charles’ apartments rose at its far end.
“Why does she go to him?” Philip whispered once Joan had disappeared.
“There are many ways to experience sexual pleasure other than what is normal between a man and a woman,” Catherine said.
“As you know?” Philip said, turning to stare at her profile in the dark.
“As you have taught me,” she said, and he smiled at the suppressed laughter in her voice.
He looked back down, and his face sobered. “Aye, there are indeed many things which can be done … especially to a man by a compliant woman.”
There was a silence between them as both imagined what might even now be going on between Charles and Joan.
“To creep to a man’s chamber in the dead of night is hardly the action of a virgin,” Catherine murmured eventually.
“But you witnessed for yourself the smoothness of her flesh where normally cleaves that cleft all men lust for.”
“To creep to a man’s chamber in the dead of night is hardly the action of a virginal soul,”