And she took off her purse which Gautier accepted with an easy grace since his brother had already done so.
Marguerite gave Philippe a look which said, ‘Didn’t I tell you so?’
Philippe smiled at her. ‘How astonishing Marguerite is,’ he thought.
He could never make her out or understand her. Was she the same woman who that morning had been cruel, teasing, perfidious, who had played with him as she might have turned a pheasant on a spit, and who now, having given him a present worth a hundred and fifty pounds, lay in his arms, submissive, tender, almost quivering?
‘I believe the reason I love you so much,’ he murmured, ‘is because I don’t understand you.’
No compliment could have given Marguerite greater pleasure. She thanked Philippe by burying her lips in his neck. Suddenly she disengaged herself and stood listening. Then she cried, ‘Do you hear them? The Templars. They’re being led out to the stake.’
Bright-eyed, her face alive with a sinister curiosity, she dragged Philippe to the window, a high funnel-shaped loophole built in the thickness of the wall, and opened the casement.
The loud murmuring of the crowd flowed into the room.
‘Blanche, Gautier, come and look!’ said Marguerite.
But Blanche replied in a happy, quavering voice, ‘Oh! no, I’m much too happy where I am.’
Between the two princesses and their lovers all shame had long since vanished. It was their custom to enjoy all the pleasures of love in each other’s presence. If Blanche on occasion turned her eyes away, and hid her nakedness in the shadowy corners of the room, Marguerite derived an added pleasure from watching others making love, as she did from being watched herself.
But at the moment, glued to the window, she was spellbound by the spectacle of what was taking place in the middle of the Seine. There, on the Island of the Jews, a hundred archers, drawn up in a circle, held lighted torches in their hands; and the flames of the torches, flaring in the wind, formed a central pool of light in which could clearly be seen the huge pile of faggots and the assistant-executioners clambering over it and stacking heaps of logs. On the near side of the archers, the island, which normally was nothing but a field where cows and goats grazed, was covered with people; while a fleet of boats upon the river carried others who wished to watch the execution.
Coming from the right bank, a larger boat than the rest, carrying standing men-at-arms, had just come alongside the island. Two tall grey figures disembarked from it. They wore curious hats and were preceded by a monk bearing a cross. The murmuring of the crowd became a clamour. Almost at the same instant lights went on in the great loggia in the water-tower which stood on the point of the palace garden. Shadows emerged from the darkness of the loggia, and suddenly the clamouring of the crowd ceased. The King and his Council had taken their places.
Marguerite burst out laughing, a long, piercing, endless laugh.
‘Why are you laughing?’ Philippe asked.
‘Because Louis is over there,’ she said. ‘And if it were daylight, he would be able to see me.’
Her eyes were bright; her black curls danced above the curve of her brow. With a rapid movement she pulled her dress from her beautiful amber shoulders, and let her clothes fall to the ground, standing quite naked, as if she wished to set at defiance the husband she detested across the intervening distance of the night. She took Philippe’s hands and drew them to her hips.
At the far end of the room Blanche and Gautier were lying close in a confused embrace. Blanche’s body had a pearly lustre.
Away in the centre of the river the clamour had begun again. The Templars were being bound to the pyre which was soon to be set alight.
Marguerite shivered in the night air and drew nearer the fire. For a moment she gazed into the hearth, exposing herself to the heat of the burning wood till its caress became intolerable. The flames threw dancing lights upon her skin.
‘They’re going to burn, they’re going to be grilled,’ she said in a hoarse, breathless voice, ‘while we …’
Her eye sought in the heart of the fire infernal visions to excite her pleasure.
Abruptly she turned to face Philippe and gave herself to him, standing, as the nymphs in the legend gave themselves to the fauns.
The fire cast their huge shadow across the wall and up to the beams in the roof.
‘I Summon to the Tribunal of Heaven …’
ONLY A NARROW CHANNEL separated the palace garden from the Island of Jews. The pyre had been arranged so as to face the royal loggia; from his place Philip the Fair had a perfect view.
Spectators were still arriving in great numbers upon both banks of the river, and the island itself had almost disappeared beneath the crowd. The ferrymen had made a fortune tonight.
But the archers had been well disposed, and police agents mingled with the crowd. Pickets of men-at-arms had been posted on the bridges and upon all the roads leading to the Seine. There was nothing to fear.
‘Marigny, you may compliment the Provost,’ said the King to the Coadjutor who was standing by him.
The excitement, which in the morning had given rise to fears of revolution, had turned to holiday mood, a sort of outlandish gaiety, a tragic show offered by the King to his capital. There was an atmosphere of the fair-ground over all. Tramps mingled with townsfolk who had brought their families with them, painted and powdered prostitutes had come from the alleys behind Notre-Dame where they exercised their profession. Guttersnipes wove their way between people’s legs to the front rows. A few Jews, standing in close, fearful groups, yellow badges upon their coats, had come to watch the execution which, for once, was not of one of their number.
Beautiful ladies in furred surcoats, in search of violent emotion, clung to their gallants, uttering little nervous cries.
It was turning chilly, and the wind blew in short gusts. The glow of the torches threw red lights upon the rippling surface of the river.
Messire Alain de Pareilles, the visor of his helmet raised, sat his horse in front of his archers, looking as bored as ever.
The pyre stood higher than a man’s head; the chief executioner and his assistants, clothed in red and wearing hoods, were busying themselves about the pyre, aligning logs, preparing reserve faggots, with the precision of careful professionals.
Upon the summit of the pyre the Grand Master of the Templars and the Preceptor of Normandy were bound to stakes, side by side, facing the royal loggia. Upon their heads had been placed the infamous paper mitres which marked them as heretics. The wind played in their beards.
A monk, the same that Marguerite had seen from the Tower of Nesle, held up to them a great Cross while making the last exhortations. The crowd about him fell silent to hear what he said.
‘In a moment you will appear before God,’ cried the monk. ‘There is still time to confess your faults and to repent. I adjure you to do so for the last time.’
Above him, the condemned men, motionless between earth and sky, as if already detached from life, answered nothing. Their eyes, gazing down upon him, reflected utter contempt.
‘They refuse to confess; they have not repented,’ the crowd could be heard muttering.
The silence grew more profound, more dense. The monk had fallen to his knees and was murmuring prayers. The