Book of the duchess: murder at Castle St Étienne

Number 1: Guillot le Bourreau attacks Castle Saint Étienne and murders Antony de Saint Étienne and his wife

The plot episode 1 (summarised from the text of Lorna's novel)

The incident portrayed in this picture took place in 1410, a quarter of a century before the main action of the story that unfolds in Lorna’s novel.

Henri III the Great ascended to the Duchy of Montvallon as ninth duke in 1381, following a series of deaths too fortunate to be unsuspicious.

For a number of jealous reasons, Henri III loathed his St Étienne cousins, not least Antony de St Étienne. Without a male heir, the duke was determined to do all that he could to prevent the duchy from passing into Antony's line. His greatest fear was that that Antony’s young son Michael would grow up and marry his only child Jacqueline, and thus legitimise a St Étienne claim to inherit the duchy as the 10th duke.

Henri III had a loyal servant called Giles Pierrepont, whom he first met met when a young mercenary solider. By now he was known as Guillot le Bourreau (‘Guillot the executioner’), having lied, bribed, kidnapped, betrayed and murdered his way across the duchy since his appointment to the service of Henri III.

The duke’s right hand man secretly shared his master’s hatred of the St Étiennes. This is because, since childhood, he knew that he was the abandoned illegitimate half-brother of Antony de St Étienne, and held a lifetime grudge against the uncaring family that had rejected his impoverished mother when he was a baby. Guillot was more than happy to play an active role in the ending the St Étienne line and any ambitions that Antony or his descendants might harbour for the dukedom.

Henri III’s first attempt to finish off the St Étienne family failed. He invited Antony, his wife, and son to the court in Vannes with a plan to murder them there and then. Suspecting such a plot, the couple left baby Michael at home at their castle in St Étienne. Henri III considered it pointless to do away with only parents - the child had to die too - so the visit passed peaceably.

Henri III had no inkling of Guillot’s connection to the St Étienne family, so was both surprised and delighted when Guillot volunteered to take personal responsibility for despatching Antony, his wife and child from this world. At his victims’ stronghold Guillot put husband and wife to the sword, set fire to the castle, burnt the family archives, and forged documents that furnished the 'evidence' that the couple were traitors who had been plotting all along to murder the 9th duke.

When Guillot returned to the court in Vannes in triumph, he lied to Henri III when he announced that the grisly deed was done. In truth, he had killed Antony and his wife, but he had no idea whether or not Michael had survived the attack on the castle.

Lorna’s remarks

This only seems fairly adequate and - in spite of the fact that only a bad workman blames his tools - the bad surface of the wall behind the heads of the combatants can be put down to the inadequate texture of paper, which will not absorb colours or washes of paint as the old type did.