Paris: The Novel

factions were fighting in open war. The Duke of Burgundy courted the merchants of Paris, and soon the capital was under Burgundian control, while the mad king’s son, the dauphin, and the dispirited Armagnacs were pushed out to the Loire Valley and old Orléans.
    So perhaps it was inevitable that when yet another generation of greedy Plantagenets came, like hyenas, to see what they could tear from the bleeding body of France, the Burgundy faction did a deal with them. After all, England’s wool merchants were their business partners.
    They supported the Plantagenets’ bid for the throne of France.
    When the strange peasant girl Joan of Arc appeared with her sensational message—“The saints have told me that the dauphin is the trueking of France”—and gave the Armagnacs new spirit, the Burgundians were alarmed. When Joan and the Armagnacs drove the English back and crowned the dauphin in holy Reims, they were horrified.
    But then the Burgundians captured Joan of Arc, and sold her to the English—who had her judged a heretic and burned her at the stake.
    It had been in the first, magic moment, Guy de Cygne now explained, when Joan had arrived in the Loire Valley with her message from God, that his father had made a dangerous journey. Determined to play his part, he was ready to sell some more of his remaining land to equip himself for the fight. He tried to transact the business in Orléans, but the city was so depressed that he could get no takers. He knew a merchant in Paris, however, whom he could trust; also an old aunt he had not seen in years. Using the plausible story that he had come to see the old lady, he managed to get into the city, and sell his land. The merchant, who was a secret Armagnac himself, even promised that if de Cygne found the money within five years, he could have his land back.
    “Well pleased with this, and with a small chest of coins, my father passed a night in a tavern before leaving the city. There were Englishmen there, but to them, he was just another Frenchman. A party of Burgundian soldiers became suspicious of him, however. One of them knocked him on the head, and when he woke up, both his money and his horse were gone.”
    Guy de Cygne stopped and looked at Le Sourd. Had the story been a mistake? Many of the Parisians had preferred the Burgundian party and their merchants. Was he about to lose the sympathy of his host? Was he going to get his throat cut?
    He saw Le Sourd raise his hand. He reached for his sword. But the hand came down on his shoulder.
    “Damned Burgundians,” the big man roared. “If there’s one thing I hate more than an Englishman, it’s a Burgundian. So your father could not fight?” he asked.
    “Not armed and mounted as he wished. So he went on foot as a humble man-at-arms. He said it was his pilgrimage.”
    “Ah. Bravo, young man!” cried Le Sourd. “Magnificent!” He seized his goblet and raised it. “Let us drink to the Maid of Orléans,” he called, “to Joan of Arc and all who fought for her.”
    Guy de Cygne allowed himself to smile. It was all right. He’d taken a chance and it had paid off.
    For as it happened, though the stories about his ancestors had all beentrue, the one about his father was not. He’d made it up on the spur of the moment. The truth—that his father, as a young man, had stupidly gambled away some of his small inheritance—was hardly heroic. But the tale he had told was much better, and it amused him that this villainous rogue had believed it.
    When the toast had been drunk, his host turned to him in a manner that was almost solicitous.
    “So tell me, monsieur, have you come to Paris to serve our new king?” he inquired.
    It was only a year since King Louis XI of France had come to the throne. But it was already clear that the new king meant to make changes. Louis’s father had been content enough, thanks to Joan of Arc, to keep his battered kingdom. King Louis had made no secret of the fact that he wanted far more. Ambitious, cunning and ruthless, he intended to destroy all opposition, and raise France to glory, and he’d do whatever it took.
    And if Guy de Cygne’s family could have afforded armor and a fine warhorse, then this might have been an option. But they couldn’t, and their reason for sending him to Paris was more prosaic.
    “I have come here to meet my bride,” he answered, without enthusiasm.
    It was a friend of his father’s who’d arranged the business. The girl was from a rich