his pocket. The paper is faux parchment. Or perhaps it’s real. One of the many reasons Inès Picaut could never truly have been Family is that she can’t tell the difference. The seal is red wax, and breaks easily. Inside, the writing is in fountain pen, in a hand she knows.
Luc is telling you the truth. For your co-operation in his endeavour, we off er you fr eedom fr om your marital vows, on the terms of your choosing. This is our promise. Whatever you know of the Family, you know we never break our oath. Keep this paper. It will stand in court.
Landis Bress ard, Monday, 24 February 2014
She stares at it a long time. Her lawyer is afraid of Landis Bressard. Nothing has been said, but Picaut knows the smell of terror. She knows, too, that he will lose any confrontation that comes to court.
She says, ‘Say you get to be mayor, on a ticket of Bressard-flavoured rationality. At what point do the people of Orléans realize they are led by a family that makes the mafia look like a boy band and who thinks that the only problem with Hitler’s vision of the Third Reich was that he just didn’t have quite enough
conviction
to carry it off? Or do we wait until you’re in the Elysée Palace and then all of France discovers it?’
‘Inès …’ He pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘I know we have our differences, but I’m not … that. Do you honestly think Christelle Vivier’s vision is better? Or that of the men behind her? Troy Cordier makes me look like a bleeding liberal, I promise you.’
Christelle Vivier of the
Front National
is Luc’s main opponent in the mayoral race and Troy Cordier is her campaign manager. In truth, it’s hard to imagine anyone being further to the right. The difference is that everyone knows what Troy is and Picaut is not sure even she knows what Luc really is, only that it’s not what she wants him to be.
Luc drops his hands. He shrinks before her. ‘Please, Inès. I won’t win without you. And I honestly believe we are better than the Front.’
She holds up Landis’s note, a barrier between them. ‘I’ll take this to Ducat. If he tells me it has no legal standing, I’ll call a press conference and read it aloud. Your campaign will die on its feet.’
Ducat is no friend to the Family. In the past, this has been one more bone of contention. These last months, it has been his one saving grace.
‘Even Ducat won’t find holes in this, I promise you.’ Luc’s gaze is warm, friendly, conciliatory. ‘Just stand by me and smile. Be my kingmaker. We ask nothing more.’
She shakes his proffered hand.
CHAPTER NINE
P ATAY,
18 June 1429
IT IS ALMOST the solstice. A week has passed since the assault on Jargeau which saw the Maid fall from the walls and rise again, victorious. Tomas and Patrick Ogilvy break fast together by a small, hot fire in the heart of the Maid’s army.
Patrick Ogilvy says, ‘Claudine was a ward of the king. And her brother, too.’
‘Which king?’ This may be a foolish question, but Tomas is newly woken, and the greater part of his mind is on the landscape around him, on the lowering thorns on every side, on the dips and valleys that might hide scouts, on the reported presence of five thousand English men at arms in the land they’re about to ride through, and the likelihood of ambush sometime in the day.
In any case, even now, when someone says ‘king’ his mind goes to the English, warrior king, victor of Agincourt; Henry, fifth of the name, who may be dead, but was the king a man could fight for and not feel ashamed. That king would not have taken a whore as a ward, even if she wasn’t yet a whore.
Because Claudine, it transpires, is not only friendly with Jean-Pierre, the master gunner, she has spread her favours through the French army, at least before the Maid made such freedoms fewer. By happy chance, Patrick Ogilvy was one of her winter friends. It has taken many days of quiet, casual questions to get this far, but, this morning, on waking,
Luc is telling you the truth. For your co-operation in his endeavour, we off er you fr eedom fr om your marital vows, on the terms of your choosing. This is our promise. Whatever you know of the Family, you know we never break our oath. Keep this paper. It will stand in court.
Landis Bress ard, Monday, 24 February 2014
She stares at it a long time. Her lawyer is afraid of Landis Bressard. Nothing has been said, but Picaut knows the smell of terror. She knows, too, that he will lose any confrontation that comes to court.
She says, ‘Say you get to be mayor, on a ticket of Bressard-flavoured rationality. At what point do the people of Orléans realize they are led by a family that makes the mafia look like a boy band and who thinks that the only problem with Hitler’s vision of the Third Reich was that he just didn’t have quite enough
conviction
to carry it off? Or do we wait until you’re in the Elysée Palace and then all of France discovers it?’
‘Inès …’ He pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘I know we have our differences, but I’m not … that. Do you honestly think Christelle Vivier’s vision is better? Or that of the men behind her? Troy Cordier makes me look like a bleeding liberal, I promise you.’
Christelle Vivier of the
Front National
is Luc’s main opponent in the mayoral race and Troy Cordier is her campaign manager. In truth, it’s hard to imagine anyone being further to the right. The difference is that everyone knows what Troy is and Picaut is not sure even she knows what Luc really is, only that it’s not what she wants him to be.
Luc drops his hands. He shrinks before her. ‘Please, Inès. I won’t win without you. And I honestly believe we are better than the Front.’
She holds up Landis’s note, a barrier between them. ‘I’ll take this to Ducat. If he tells me it has no legal standing, I’ll call a press conference and read it aloud. Your campaign will die on its feet.’
Ducat is no friend to the Family. In the past, this has been one more bone of contention. These last months, it has been his one saving grace.
‘Even Ducat won’t find holes in this, I promise you.’ Luc’s gaze is warm, friendly, conciliatory. ‘Just stand by me and smile. Be my kingmaker. We ask nothing more.’
She shakes his proffered hand.
CHAPTER NINE
P ATAY,
18 June 1429
IT IS ALMOST the solstice. A week has passed since the assault on Jargeau which saw the Maid fall from the walls and rise again, victorious. Tomas and Patrick Ogilvy break fast together by a small, hot fire in the heart of the Maid’s army.
Patrick Ogilvy says, ‘Claudine was a ward of the king. And her brother, too.’
‘Which king?’ This may be a foolish question, but Tomas is newly woken, and the greater part of his mind is on the landscape around him, on the lowering thorns on every side, on the dips and valleys that might hide scouts, on the reported presence of five thousand English men at arms in the land they’re about to ride through, and the likelihood of ambush sometime in the day.
In any case, even now, when someone says ‘king’ his mind goes to the English, warrior king, victor of Agincourt; Henry, fifth of the name, who may be dead, but was the king a man could fight for and not feel ashamed. That king would not have taken a whore as a ward, even if she wasn’t yet a whore.
Because Claudine, it transpires, is not only friendly with Jean-Pierre, the master gunner, she has spread her favours through the French army, at least before the Maid made such freedoms fewer. By happy chance, Patrick Ogilvy was one of her winter friends. It has taken many days of quiet, casual questions to get this far, but, this morning, on waking,
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