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       4

       The False Crusade

      

      ‘MONSEIGNEUR OF MORTIMER, I shall have great need of brave and gallant knights such as you for my crusade,’ declared Charles of Valois. ‘You will think me very vain to say my crusade when in truth it is Our Lord’s, but I must confess, and everyone will recognize the fact, that if this vast enterprise, the greatest and most glorious to which the Christian nations can be summoned, takes place, it will be because I shall have organized it with my own hands. And so, Monseigneur of Mortimer, I ask you straight out, and with that frankness you will learn to recognize as natural to me: will you join me?’

      Roger Mortimer sat up straight in his chair; he frowned a little and lowered his lids over his flint-coloured eyes. Was he being merely offered the command of a banner of twenty knights, like some little country noble or some soldier of fortune stranded here by the mischances of fate? The proposal was mere charity.

      It was the first time Mortimer had been received by the Count of Valois, who till now had always been busy with his duties in Council, or receiving foreign ambassadors, or travelling about the kingdom. But now, at last, Mortimer was face to face with the man who ruled France, who had that very day appointed one of his protégés, Jean de Cherchemont, as the new Chancellor,¹³ and on whom his own fate depended. For Mortimer’s situation, undoubtedly enviable for a man who had been condemned to prison for life, though painful for a great lord, was that of an exile who had nothing to offer and was reduced to begging and hoping.

      The interview was taking place in what had once been the King of Sicily’s palace, which Charles of Valois had received from his first father-in-law, Charles the Lame of Naples, as a wedding present. There were some dozen people in the great audience chamber, equerries, courtiers, secretaries, all talking quietly in little groups, frequently turning their eyes towards their master, who was giving audience, like a real sovereign, seated on a sort of throne surmounted by a canopy. Monseigneur of Valois was dressed in a long indoor robe of blue velvet, embroidered with lilies and capital V’s, which parted in front to show a fur lining. His hands were laden with rings; he wore his private seal, which was carved from a precious stone, hanging from his belt by a gold chain; and on his head was a velvet cap of maintenance held in place by a chased circlet of gold, a sort of undress crown. Among his entourage were his eldest son, Philippe of Valois, a strapping fellow with a long nose, who was leaning on the back of the throne, and his son-in-law, Robert of Artois, who was sitting on a stool, his huge red-leather boots stretched out in front of him. A tree-trunk was burning on the hearth near by.

      ‘Monseigneur,’ Mortimer said slowly, ‘if the help of a man who is first among the barons of the Welsh Marches, who has governed the Kingdom of Ireland and has commanded in a number of battles, can be of help to you, I willingly give you my aid in defence of Christianity, and my blood is at your service from this moment.’

      Valois realized that here was a proud man, who spoke of his fiefs in the Marches as if he still held them, and that he must treat him tactfully if he wished to make use of him.

      ‘I have the honour, my lord,’ he replied, ‘to see arrayed under the banner of the King of France, or rather mine, since it has been arranged that my nephew shall continue to govern the kingdom while I command the crusade, to see arrayed, I say, the leading sovereign princes of Europe: my cousin Jean of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, my brother-in-law Robert of Naples and Sicily, my cousin Alfonso of Spain, as well as the Republics of Genoa and Venice who, at the Holy Father’s request, will give us the support of their galleys. You will be in no bad company, my lord, and I shall see to it that everyone gives you the respect and honour due to the great lord you are. France, from which your ancestors sprung and which gave birth to your mother, will make sure that your deserts are better recognized than they appear to be in England.’

      Mortimer bowed in silence. Whatever this assurance might be worth, he would see that it came to more than mere words.

      ‘For it is fifty years and more,’ went on Monseigneur of Valois, ‘since anything of importance was done by Europe in the service of God; to be precise, since my grandfather Saint Louis who, if he won his way to Heaven by it, lost his life in the process. Encouraged by our absence, the Infidels have raised their heads and believe themselves masters everywhere; they ravage the coasts, pillage ships, hinder trade and, by their mere presence, profane the Holy Places. And what have we done? Year after year we have retreated from all our possessions and establishments; we have abandoned the castles we built and have neglected to defend the sacred rights we had acquired. And this has all happened as a result of the suppression of the Templars, of which my elder brother – peace to his soul, though in this I never approved him – was the instrument. But those times are past. At the beginning of this year, delegates from Lesser Armenia came to ask our help against the Turks. I give grateful thanks to my nephew, King Charles IV, for his understanding of the importance of this appeal and for giving his support to the steps I then took. Indeed, he now believes the idea to have been originally his. Anyway, it is most satisfactory that he should now have faith in it. And so, as soon as our own forces have been assembled, we shall go to attack the Saracens in their distant lands.’

      Robert of Artois, who was listening to this speech for the hundredth time, nodded his head as if much impressed, while secretly amused at the enthusiasm his father-in-law displayed in explaining the greatness of his cause. Robert was well aware of what lay behind all this. He knew that, though it was indeed the intention to attack the Turks, the Christians were to be jostled a little on the way; for the Emperor Andronicos Paleologos, who reigned in Byzantium, was not so far as one knew the champion of Mahomet. No doubt his Church was not altogether the true one, and it made the sign of the Cross a bit askew; nevertheless, it did make the sign of the Cross. But Monseigneur of Valois was still pursuing his idea of reconstructing to his own advantage the fabulous Empire of Constantinople, which extended not only over the Byzantine territories, but over Cyprus, Rhodes, Armenia, and all the old kingdoms of the Courtenays and the Lusignans. And when Count Charles arrived there with all his banners, Andronicos Paleologos, from what one heard, would not be able to put up much of a defence. Monseigneur of Valois’s head was full of the dreams of a Caesar.

      It was remarkable, also, that he always indulged in a system which consisted of asking for the maximum so as to obtain a little. In this way he had tried to exchange his command of the crusade and his pretensions to the throne of Constantinople against the little kingdom of Arles by the Rhône on condition that Viennois was added to it. He had negotiated with Jean of Luxemburg about this at the beginning of the year; but the transaction had come to nothing owing to the opposition of the Count of Savoy, and that of the King of Naples who, since he owned lands in Provence, had no wish to see his turbulent relative create an independent kingdom for himself on the borders of his states. So Monseigneur of Valois had resumed plans for the holy expedition with more enthusiasm than ever. It was clear that he would have to go in search of the sovereign crown, which had eluded his grasp in Spain, in Germany, and even in Arles, at the farther ends of the earth. But though Robert knew all these things it would have been unwise to mention them.

      ‘Of course, all the difficulties have not yet been overcome,’ went on Monseigneur of Valois. ‘We are still in negotiation with the Holy Father over the number of knights and how much they shall be paid. We want eight thousand knights and thirty thousand footmen, and each baron to receive twenty sols a day and each knight ten; seven sols and six deniers for the squires and two sols for the footmen. Pope John wants me to limit my army to four thousand knights and fifteen thousand footmen; he has, nevertheless, promised me twelve armed galleys. He has given us the tithe, but is looking askance at twelve hundred thousand livres a year, during the five years the crusade will last, which is the sum we are asking, and above all at the four hundred thousand livres the King of France requires for ancillary expenses.’

      ‘Of which three hundred thousand

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