Time: July 18, 1429
Location: The Archiepiscopal Palace of Reims · The Council Chamber
Lucas le Breton turned the page of the ledger. The sound of the dry parchment rasping against itself was loud in the silent room.
"The Second Article," Lucas announced, his voice flat.
The heavy oak doors opened.
It was not a soldier who entered. It was a man dressed in a tunic of fine Flemish wool, dyed a deep, expensive black. He wore no armor, yet he walked into the den of wolves with the steady confidence of a man who owns the debts of everyone in the room.
Jacques Cœur, the Royal Argentier. Behind him, two clerks struggled under the weight of heavy, leather-bound account books.
The nobles stiffened. For a merchant—a man of coins and cloth—to interrupt a Council of War was an aberration. But Charles did not look up. He pointed a finger at the large map spread across the table.
"Show them," Charles commanded.
Jacques Cœur bowed slightly, more to the map than to the men. He approached the table and placed a piece of charcoal on the parchment, right at the city of Gien on the Loire.
"In the language of merchants," Jacques began, his voice smooth and cultivated, "a designated market where goods must be stored and taxed is called an Estaple. In the King's register it will be written as l'estappe."
He drew a sharp black line connecting Gien to Auxerre, then to Troyes, then to Châlons, and finally to Reims. He circled each city.
"L'Estappe du Roi," Jacques declared. "The King's Depot."
"The concept is simple," Jacques continued, ignoring the skeptical looks of the Dukes. "We do not forage. We do not wander. We march from warehouse to warehouse."
He pointed to the Loire River.
"From the rear, barges bring grain and salted beef from Chinon and Tours to the central magazine at Orléans. From Orléans, we push it forward by wagon to the designated depots: the abbeys and market halls of Auxerre and Troyes."
"Wait."
The Count of Vendôme leaned forward, his brow furrowed. He looked at the line on the map, then at the King.
"You want to haul grain three hundred miles to feed an army in enemy territory?" Vendôme asked, incredulous. "Sire, this is madness. The land is full of food. The harvest is in the fields. God allows us to take from the enemy."
"God allows it," Charles said, cutting in. "But physics does not."
"It is not just about the cost, Sire," Vendôme pressed, his voice dropping to a lower, uglier register. "It is about the men."
The Count looked around the table, deciding to speak the dirty truth that everyone knew but no one admitted.
"You forbid them to loot? You forbid them to take a chicken from a peasant or a cask of wine from a cellar? Sire, do you think they march for a few coins a day you pay them? They march for the plunder."
Vendôme slammed a fist softly onto the table.
"If I cannot let them feed themselves, if I cannot let them take their prize... how do I leash the dogs? If I punish every man who steals a loaf of bread, who will be left to charge when the trumpet sounds?"
The room went quiet. Vendôme had stripped away the veneer of chivalry. This was the feudal reality: armies were mobs, and looting was the only way to keep the mob moving.
Charles looked at Vendôme. He did not blink.
"That is why you have been losing for a hundred years," Charles said softly.
He stood up, towering over the map.
"Looting takes time. If I unleash thirty thousand men to forage, they scatter like leaves. It takes four hours to disperse them, and four hours to whip them back into formation. That is eight hours of daylight lost. Every single day."
Charles leaned closer to Vendôme.
"I do not care about morality, Count. I care about speed. The Duke of Bedford is gathering a new army in the north. If I have depots, if my men eat from wagons and march while the English are still waking up, I gain ten miles a day. Ten miles is the difference between choosing the battlefield and being slaughtered on it."
"I do not need dogs, Vendôme," Charles said coldly. "I need a wolf pack. And wolves are fed by the alpha, so they can hunt the stag. Not the mouse."
Vendôme looked away, unable to hold the King's gaze. "But the cost..." he muttered. "The treasury is empty. We cannot buy all this grain."
"You do not need to buy it," Jacques Cœur interjected.
The merchant reached into his doublet and pulled out a small scroll, sealed with green wax. He slid it across the table.
"A Royal Receipt," Jacques explained. "We requisition the grain from the abbeys and the towns. We do not pay in gold. We pay in credit. This receipt will hold weight in next year's tax assessments."
Jacques smiled, a thin, shark-like smile.
"And for those seeking pardon... presenting these receipts will serve as favorable evidence when applying for Letters of Remission (Lettres de Rémission)."
Vendôme looked at the receipt, then at the map. He calculated. No gold from his own purse. A steady supply of fodder for his horses. And with the Provost-Marshal watching, the "leash" was no longer his problem.
But he could not simply bow. He was a Count of France.
"Very well," Vendôme grunted, his tone heavy with conditions. "I will accept the grain. But my own quartermasters will hold the keys to the wagons in my sector. I will not have my knights begging a merchant for their supper."
Charles nodded once. "Accepted. As long as the march does not stop."
The deal was struck. The Stomach was secured.
Charles turned his gaze from the map to the window, where Joan stood.
"You said the dog must be fed, Vendôme," Charles said quietly. "We have cataloged the grain. Now, we must catalog the rest of the beast."
He turned to the council.
"Now to the tail of the army."
"Do you remember, Jeanne, what you did at Blois?" Charles asked.
Joan looked up from the window. "I drove the loose women from the camp," she said. "I told them to go home or to marry."
"You drove away the sin," Charles corrected. "But you did not drive away the hands. You sanctified them."
He turned to the council.
"An army is a beast that needs washing, mending, and cooking. The women who remained—the lavandières (washerwomen), the cuisinières (cooks), the couturières (seamstresses)—they are the reason we do not die of typhus and rot."
Charles gestured to Lucas.
The clerk brought forward a wooden tray. On it lay a pile of dull, heavy brass tokens.
They were crude objects, stamped with a simple Fleur-de-lis and a serial number. Below the emblem were the words: MARQUE DES BAGAGES (Baggage Mark).
"From today," Charles announced, picking up one of the heavy tokens, "every registered woman of the camp—les femmes de la suite—will wear this."
He tossed the brass token onto the table. It spun and settled with a heavy clink.
"This is not a trinket," Charles said, his voice hardening. "It declares that the woman wearing it is entered in the King's Roll. She is under the King's Peace."
The nobles stared at the brass disc.
"In the past," Charles said, "a drunken archer could drag a laundress into the bushes and call it sport. No longer. To rape or rob a woman wearing the King's Mark is not a sin of the flesh. It is Sabotage of the Royal Host."
Charles looked toward the shadows in the corner.
"It falls under the jurisdiction of the King's Provost-Marshal. The penalty is without plea or appeal."
Joan stared at the brass token on the table. Her hand tightened around her banner. She had tried to save these women with prayer; the King was saving them by writing them into the ledger. It was cold. It was bureaucratic. And yet, looking at that piece of brass, she knew it was a shield stronger than any sermon.
"I have no objection," Joan whispered.
"Does anyone else?" Charles asked the room.
The nobles remained silent. Who would argue for the right to abuse a washerwoman when it was phrased as violating the King's Peace?
"Since there are no objections," Charles said, looking back at the map, "The L'Estappe du Roi is effective immediately."
He did not look up as he issued his orders.
"Lucas, find a cleric from the secretariat who is fluent in Canon Law and assign him to Jacques. Monastery granaries are often locked tight. Sometimes we need a man who can pry the doors open with Latin."
Lucas nodded, scratching the order into the ledger.
Charles turned his eyes to the darkness behind the tapestry.
"Magnus."
"Sire." The voice came from the gloom, low and ready.
"Select your first detachment. Twenty men. Place the Royal Standard on Jacques Cœur's lead wagon."
Charles's voice was calm, water-smooth, yet it carried the chill of deep winter.
"If a Mayor or an Abbot along the road claims he cannot read Jacques' ledger... let him read your sword."
"And regarding the women," Charles added. "Tell your men this: If anyone touches a woman wearing the King's Mark... make an example of him."
"It will be done," Magnus replied.
Charles leaned back in his chair. He tapped his fingers on the armrest. The nobles began to shift, preparing to stand, thinking the ordeal was finally over.
"Good," Charles said. "That wound is bound."
He looked at the weary faces around the long table. His eyes were relentless.
"Lucas," Charles commanded. "Turn the page. We move to the Third Article."