Part 1 – episode 9.
The autumn came. I was back to work in Rambouillet. There was nervousness in the air. Somehow, the Charny had been regularly in the news the last weeks. They seemed to be good friends with the new English King Edmund. It made Benoît more and more nervous!. It was clear to him that the House of Charny tried to obtain a favorable position, by building up support from the English King. The meetings with Benoît became terrible. He was badly tempered, reacted angered on every word he did not wish to hear. He regularly scolded on his employees. He did not tolerate replies from anyone. He began to see enemies everywhere. The bad atmosphere spread through his staff in Rambouillet. Only Lisa remained undisturbed. According to her, the Charny House neither had a nubile candidate that would be accepted by the d’Archambaults, and the d’Archambaults were reluctant to an alliance with a bastard line either. According to her, Benoît focused too much on the wrong enemy, but it had even to her become difficult to convince him of that, she told me!
In December, something suddenly changed. Benoît had unexpectedly become calmer. He was back on speaking terms. He became very good tempered. At a reception in his offices in Paris, the week before Christmas, he held a very cheerful speech, even with spicy humor in it, definitely not his usual habit! He thanked everyone for the hard and good work during the past year. He was convinced that our hard work would pay off. Completely against his habit in, he even apologized, for his sometimes harsh and rude behavior during the previous months.
"You are a fantastic team, and together we will succeed and reach all our goals!" So he finished. During the reception he even came to me to thank me personally for my hard work and for the efforts that I had already made to the cause of the Artois. He thanked me for the 'two fantastic grandchildren' that I had given him, and for being such a devoted and good mother to them.
Remarkably, Lisa also had changed, but in the reverse sense. She spent more and longer time in Paris. On the Christmas reception I just mentioned, she seemed to avoid me and she neglected my attempts to contact her. In Rambouillet she avoided me either and she entrusted me less information than before. If we conversed, it remained mostly short and limited to essential business. I didn't know what was going on with Benoît, why he had become so optimistic, but I guessed that Lisa’s simultaneous bad mood change was rather a coincidence. It appeared to me as a typical behavior of a woman with a serious relationship problem. But, I barely knew anything about her private life. The day before Christmas, I tried to find out whether she had a relationship problem. She gave no straight answer, but suggested that it was indeed the case. I saw my suspicions confirmed, and I assumed it would pass eventually, as soon as she would have it settled.
The week between Christmas and New year, we spent in Cour-Cheverny. Together with Robert, his parents and the children. There, I saw Robert in one week time more than during the entire previous year. He and Benoît got most of the day at work, while I could be with the children, and I could take some rest. I avoided as much as possible the hustle and bustle of the work, and the visitors, who still came and went, even in Cour-Cheverny. I was especially with Lisa on my mind.
The day after New Year, Benoît and Robert left to Paris. I would stay in Cour-Cheverny until Sunday, and only then return to Rambouillet. In the course of Sunday, the nurses would already move to Rambouillet. I would follow with the children in the late afternoon or evening. But that Sunday morning, little Enguerrand was a little bit sick. It happened sometimes and I did not worry about it. During the day, I got a call from Lisa. She asked if I could pick her up in Vendôme, where she had stayed that weekend. She had already asked a few times (she never told what she did there and it was not my business). It meant that I would not take the autoroute, over Blois and Orléans, but the Routes Nationales over Blois, Vendôme, Châteaudun and Chartres, from where I would continue over the autoroute. It would be a little detour in time and in miles, but it were good, easy roads, with large stretches of dual carriageway in both directions. It would give Lisa and me the opportunity to talk undisturbed about things. It was certainly interesting, as Lisa would have to travel to Paris already the next day. I looked forward to it, because since her mood had changed, we did not had much opportunity to talk to each other.
But eventually, Enguerrand turned out to be really ill. He had fever. It was not worrying, but my mother in law and me decided to keep the children a week longer in Cour-Cheverny. The nurses had already postponed their departure to Rambouillet as a precaution. I would return to pick up the kids the next weekend. So, that evening, I would leave to Rambouillet alone. The meteo was expecting cold weather, clouded but calm and dry, with a possibility, however to icy roads, but only during the second part of the night. I could expect a relatively quiet drive. As I left it was already dark, what was normal that time of the year. As usual, I had to promise to my mother in law to call when I would arrive in Rambouillet.
In Vendôme, I picked up Lisa, at the usual location.
She got into the car.
"Oh! The children are not with you?"
She sounded quite surprised.
"No, Enguerrand is ill. He has fever. Therefore they both stay a week longer in Cour-Cheverny. My mother in law takes care of them. Why?"
"Oh, uh, ..; nothing, I had just looked forward to see them, therefore."
I took the road from Vendôme to Châteaudun. Our usual conversation stayed off, however. Lisa remained silent and she seemed rather nervous. Eventually I took the word myself.
"Lisa, is everything all right?"
"Why?"
"I told you already, you are so taciturn and standoffish to me, lately. Is something bothering you? "
"Oh, Yes, the hustle and bustle of work lately, ..."
"Anything else?"
"Well, I'm a bit troubled with myself, recently."
"Problems with a Monsieur Parfait?"
"Maybe. I am thinking. Wasn’t I better just married, and got kids? Will I ever have children? And with whom? Time keeps running, you know. And those dark days, while all those people cozily celebrate Christmas and new year with their family on their side, it makes my mind a little bit sad."
"This is why you crave that my kids would have been with me?"
"Something like that, Yes."
Then the conversation silenced. But she remained nervous.
"Lisa, do you have health problems?"
"No, absolutely not!"
We were silent again. I wanted to ask about that mysterious pronunciation of her actually several months ago, that ‘something would happen’. But suddenly she took the word herself.
"Aurore?"
"Yes?"
"Téméraire’, does that mean something to you?"
"Téméraire? Yes I have ever even seen that on a cover of a file, in Benoît’s office. I had asked him what that meant."
"And? What did he say?"
"He said Téméraire was part of the motto with which the Artois would defend their claims. It would be the motto of the Artois’ kingship: Téméraire-Hardi-Sans Peur ' ".
"Téméraire-Hardi-Sans Peur?"
"Yes, Benoît said people were working on it. Behind every word would be a vision that supported the claims of the Artois.”
“Did you read it? "
"No, I was not interested. I have just have told him that ' Téméraire ' and ' Hardi ' actually come pretty close in terms of meaning. But Benoît made it clear that they differ indeed. It was all still in concept, but he wanted it anyway as future motto. Why? "
"I just wondered."
"Lisa! Last summer, in Beaugency, remember, you told me that you had the premonition that something would happen. What did you mean that? "
Lisa appeared first to consider her words.
"That hunch, Yes. That I still have it, ... "
"But…?"
"I do not know ... You have surely heard, ' all will be well’, Benoît, said just before Christmas. He seems to be up to something, I think... "
"Lisa, I sometimes have the impression that I am not involved in many things. In the development of plans that anyway could strongly determine my life and that of my children."
"Me too, Aurore!"
I wondered what she meant by that? ‘Indeed, you are not involved in it’, or 'I also have the feeling that you are excluded from important things that concern you’?
We approached Châteaudun. It was quiet on the road. There was little traffic. It was something after eight pm, so I expected that at this rate, we would arrive around nine thirty in Rambouillet. I would have some time to relax afterwards. Open a bottle of wine or so.
There was only one car behind me. It had been following us several miles already. I had expected the driver would overhaul us, but he likely preferred to stay behind me. Probably the driver found it more comfortable to have a vehicle ahead of him, finding the way in the darkness on the unlighted road.
Suddenly I saw in my rear view mirror a flashing light. The car behind us also emitted a siren. "Police?" I said to myself.
In front of me, where the road widened on the approach of a roundabout, stood a policeman -or on closer view a member of the Gendarmerie Nationale - with a fluorescent jacket, waving a red torch lamp, indicating I had to stop in the side street on the right. There stood a Gendarmerie van with flashing lights too.
I followed his instructions and parked my car behind the van with the flashing light. The other police stopped behind me. A Gendarme came to the side window and I turned it open.
"The papers of your car, please, Madame?"
I gave him the papers. He looked at them with a torch. Meanwhile, there was also a Gendarme on the side of Lisa.
"Okay, can I now see your papers and your driving license please? And from the other lady as well?"
"Why?" asked Lisa.
"Just give them, Lisa!" I said.
I gave them our papers.
"Okay, ladies, can you now get off for an alcohol control please?"
"Me also?" asked Lisa.
"You too, Madame! You have a driver's license. If the driver would be under the influence, and you are not, then you can take over the wheel, after we have finished here. "
Lisa and I got off. They brought us to the van and asked us to get in along the side door of the cargo area. This cargo area turned out to be largely empty. Then the side door was closed behind us.
"You are both under arrest!"
"Under arrest? Why? "I asked surprised.
"For conspiracy against the King!"
"Conspiracy ... but?"
"Both of you, hands to the back please!"
It sounded compelling. They handcuffed both of us on the back.
"Go sit there! You are to be brought to a secure custody! "
Lisa and I sat down. By now the van started driving. Then we got both a blindfold.
The van apparently turned to the right, towards Châteaudun. Shortly afterwards we turned right again (they were bringing us to Paris?). But then we slowed down and turned right. We proceeded slowly and I had the impression we were driving in an area. My impression turned out to be correct, because we soon stopped. The side door was opened. We had to stand up and still blindfolded we were had to get out, walk over a tarmac-like surface and climb upstairs. Then we had to sit in a chair and we were clipped a safety belt around the waist. I suddenly realized that we were in an airplane. I wondered what it all had supposed to mean? A conspiracy against the King? One could interpret the claims of the Artois like that. But actually Benoît had never been trying to betray the King directly, or put up a conspiracy to take power. He was obviously doing a campaign concerning the legitimate claims of the Artois, but that was not directed against the person or the power of King Jacques himself. It had to do with a throne that would be vacant soon. But one never knew. Did the Artois get too dangerous for other pretenders, and had some of thm therefore fabricated a story of a conspiracy?
My suspicion that we were sitting in a plane, turned out to be correct. I heard on my right an engine startup, a turbo-prop judging from the sound. Then, an engine started on my left side. The aircraft started moving and shortly thereafter we took off. I wondered where they would bring me to it and what to expect.
And I wondered what was the meaning of the strange talking I heard around me.
(to be continued – end of part 1)