Her arms were around him, fond and comforting. “I didn’t realize—I didn’t know how it was for you. All this time, Philippe, I’ve been thinking only of myself, of how difficult things were for me, when you carry such great burdens. Forgive me …”
“Oh Isabel,” and her name caught in his throat, “I need you so much—help me.”
Her kiss was tender, loving, trying to communicate all her feelings of sympathy toward him and her own need of closeness and protection. Gently she urged him back down on the bed, smoothing the pillow under his head, looking down into his face with compassion and concern. “What did you mean about your father shutting you out?” she asked.
He sighed with weariness, remembering, wanting to forget.
“He loved you, surely.”
Philippe took hold of her hand. “Isabel, my father prayed all of his adult life for a son, waiting through three marriages and what he called ‘a superfluity of daughters’ to have one. When I was born it was like a reward from heaven. But soon afterwards he lost interest in me. When I was growing up Sully pled with him often to have me consecrated as the heir apparent, but time after time Louis refused.”
Isabel looked at him with questioning eyes. “But why?”
“He was jealous. It sounds foolish, I know. But somehow, realizing that I was the one who would come after him—having to accept that my beginning represented his end—he came to hate me. He shunted me off to the country: I spent most of my early years there, with few advantages, little education, and no schooling at all in the social graces. I was treated no better than a child of petty nobility. My mother was to blame too. Oh she was proud to have been the one to bear Louis his first and only son—but solely for her own prestige. I was never anything more to either of them than a means to an end, a representation of personal triumph.”
Isabel had never known anything but love and tenderness from her parents and she winced in actual pain at his words. She understood now—that hot luminous flame burning in his soul; it made him vulnerable, and knowing it, he protected himself with pretended coldness.
She bent over him, her hair nearly covering him. kissing his face and feeling the wetness of silent tears on his cheeks. Her affection touched him, touched him very deeply. He had opened himself to her completely, something painful; something he had never done before, not even to Harry.
He craved her gentleness, the sweetness of her that was mingled with a beauty and passion both exotic and alarming. Holding her he felt desire gnawing at his loins, and this time it was he who guided her hands to the stern of his ardor. She kissed him where he was hers now, utterly and completely, and whispered, “I’ve never seen anything so glorious, so beautiful, so auguste. Now it is mine too. See how it stands beneath my touch, how it loves me?” Then her hands and her mouth were full with him, and in a moment he was dissolving in her warmth.
She rested closer against his abdomen while his hands still clutched tightly about her neck. “You’re so beautiful, so beautiful Isabel,” he gasped. “I want you so much. Why do you have to be so damn young?”
She kissed the inside of his thigh. “I won’t always be. But I want to be something to you now—even if this is the only way. You give yourself to Harry Plantagenet, why not to me?”
He sounded surprised. “How did you know about Harry?”
“My uncle …”
Philippe was quiet for a while. The fire had gone out; he could feel the beads of sweat prickle on his skin and he shivered. “I love Harry,” he finally said. “I have for a long time.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she assured him. But she had tasted him now and was greedy for some promise. “Only, tell me that you didn’t mean what you said to me before.”
“What did I say?” and his voice sounded slow and sleepy. “I don’t remember.”
“That you wanted to send me away.”
“I’d never do that, not after tonight,” he murmured, just before he slept.
Philippe awoke to the touch of her hand against his cheek. “I should go back to my room now.”
“Wait,” he muttered, and raising up, leaning toward the floor where his clothes lay, extracting something from the folds of his surcoat. He straightened up, and slipped a chain about her neck. At the end dangled a silver thing and he held it up for her to see. “This is for you, the ring of the Druid priestess found while excavating at Notre Dame. It’s beautiful, and I kept it. Now it is yours.”
Isabel brought it to her lips and kissed it. “It’s so lovely,” she breathed, flooded with feeling. “Is it really mine?”
“Always . ..”
The deeper meaning had not escaped her. “A pagan relic to symbolize a Christian marriage,” she mused. “I should feel shame. Instead I only feel. …” She reached to kiss him, and he buried his face willingly in the luxuriant tangle of her hair.
END PART I
PART II
Autumn, 1180
THE FIRST HINT of Philip d’Alsace’s break from the Capetian fold was his absence from King Louis’s funeral. Philippe Capet had not been troubled. He knew Flanders well enough to suspect that his pride was still smarting from their summer dispute, but otherwise he read nothing into Flanders’s withdrawal to the north.
Philippe had blocked d’Alsace and the Champagnois as well. Though the royal relatives still bore some attentive watching there was nothing to fear from the Count of Flanders now. So he thought.
Philippe Capet was wrong. Flanders, temporarily diverted by the young king’s spurt of independence, was not idle. As always, Philip d’Alsace had a plan, and he didn’t hesitate to mobilize his intentions.
At the time of Louis’s death, Flanders had made his first move toward realigning the position of his dubious power. From Ghent he made an unannounced journey eighty-five miles east to the city of Aix-la-Chapelle (seat of the Holy Roman Empire). There he arranged a secret meeting with Emperor Frederick I of Hohenstaufen, who was called Barbarossa. The county of Flanders was an imperial fiefdom (though not a crucial one in the Emperor’s sight). As usual the Count of Flanders had overestimated his own political magnitude.
The plan which he detailed to Frederick was typically egocentric. A great alliance of the Flemish fiefs with the Empire, together in sturdy aggregation against the king of France. Frederick was not an impatient or insensitive man and he was personally friendly with Philip d’Alsace. But he was busy and distracted, outlining yet another proposed expedition into Italy (his sixth since 1152). And Frederick had no quarrel with France. His relations with Louis had been formal and stable; there was no reason for him to cause trouble with the late monarch’s son. Philip of Flanders eagerly explained: the boy had betrayed him after promising an allegiance with the Flemish; he had acceded to Henry II’s will and reinstated the powers of Champagne and Blois.
Frederick listened. He stroked his red beard and shook his head, politely but firmly refusing Flanders’s request. The secret interview ended with an embrace between the two men. but inwardly Flanders was fuming.
What to do now? Back in Ghent, closeted in the highest turret of his tower, Flanders paced the floor in solitude. While icy sleet froze the landscape outside, his brain burned with the intensity of his purpose. There was a way. There had to be one! He was not yet forty. Was his life in international politics over? Had his influence seen its last? Would he spend the remainder of his life in the eclipse of Philippe Capet? Not so long as he breathed!
On the third night of his solitary vigil the idea came to him. He had seen no one, taken no food, no wine since his return to Ghent. He was weak and tired from the difficult journey to and from Aix-la-Chapelle, faint from lack of nourishment. Yet the emptiness and the solitude and the concentration had licked his senses into a brilliant flame burning brightly at the core of his mind. He would beat Philippe Capet at his own game, outwit him from the inside. And on that very night, he began to plot his deliverance… .
Henry of England kept Christmas at Le Mans that year. It was a favorite
place for him; his birthplace, the burial ground of his father Geoffrey of Anjou; where he himself had deigned to be entombed when that day came.
It had been a relatively quiet autumn on the continent. Both Poitou and Brittany had been peaceful, with no major uprisings. But Henry had been listening to some disturbing rumors. The Count of Flanders seemed to be stirring up trouble again. Henry had heard whispers of a clandestine meeting between the count and the emperor. No fear there. Frederick would never back one of Philip’s political brainstorms. Still, if he was looking about for means of expanding his influence, Flanders wouldn’t be easily disengaged. Henry meant to signal his opposition to any continental incursion by the Flemish count. Shortly after Christmas, Henry ordered the general assize of arms, whereby all feudal tenants would demonstrate their military preparedness: arms, equipment, horses. All landowners of major estates were required to equip their vassals and provide a count thereof.
The word of this was passed to Philip of Flanders late in January of 1181. The significance was clear enough; he promptly gave a similar order to his vassals. In Paris Philippe Capet shook his head in puzzlement, but he marshalled his own men to arms. He could not be sure what game of bluff was going on between Flanders and the English king, he could only guess. At this point, he trusted neither of them.
Somewhere deep in her soul, Isabel had found her salvation. Fear of her own failure was an inherent and intangible motivation, fear of rejection was her most secret and terrible dread. She did not so much fear losing Philippe. Even if she ever came to love him, he could not take the place of her father or uncle. To a Fleming, blood-ties were the strongest bonds on earth—cosmic chains, the Life Force, the very center of the soul. Yet survival rated close behind, and Isabel was struggling to survive.
Her emotions were ambivalent. She would have given the heart from out of her body to be at home in Mons with her family, but she could not. and she knew it; so she could only hold on to what she had now. The only way she could do that was to take charge of her life and keep it. For the time being she had Philippe’s unwavering attention, but she was not fooled. That could vanish at any time. Like Isabel, he was lonely, and that fact worked to her advantage. Apart from his nightly (and often daily) visits, she seldom saw him, but during those private times together, the influence Isabel exerted over him was considerable. And yet Isabel was far too realistic, even at her age, to think that such an influence constituted control over her young husband.
It was a dangerous game she was playing. Her father had warned her to cultivate a shield of innocence; she had betrayed that almost immediately. It must have been very evident to Philippe that his child-wife was far from innocent. but he said nothing of it to her. Perhaps he was afraid of all that she might be able to tell him.
And so, with Philippe and Philip d’Alsace still very much at odds, the entire security of the Flemish alliance with the French rested upon Isabel’s precocious sexual awareness. As for Philippe, he was bedeviled by his young wife. Five months had passed since she had first come to his room that chilly October night. He had never done more than kiss her; never seen her anything but fully clothed. Yet she worked wonders upon him. She frightened him even as she excited his interest. Her sexual talents were incredible: she knew things that he did not know and Philippe did not know how she knew them. She loved exploring his body, and he never demurred. Isabel was an unknown quotient to him and his flesh loved her even though he did not.
Sometimes in company he would watch her when she was not aware of his scrutiny. Distracted by dinner conversation, annoyed by visitors or his family, her sea-colored eyes would take on a dreamy quality, her full bottom lip drooping prettily in boredom. Then, sensing his study of her, she would raise her head and her eyes would focus fully on him for a few seconds. Her moist lips would part slightly and the expression in her eyes would tease him with their secret. Then her lids would droop again, the lashes sweeping her flawless cheeks. Philippe, who knew nothing of feminine charms, was shattered to his very soul… .
Isabel was lonely but her unhappiness was a little less acute. In the afternoons she busied herself studying under the firm tutelage of de Puiseaux, and reading Sully’s many translations. Her role was limited, there was little society in which she could participate. Yet the sparse court provided her at least with a chance for quiet and reflection she had not known in busy Hainault.
Despite her dismal surroundings, Isabel had all the fine trappings of a queen. She had a marvelous array of clothes: loose-fitting gauze dishabilles and free-flowing chainses of silk in the Flemish style. Since November Philippe had provided her with a liberal monthly allowance, and many gifts of jewelry (this time of his own procuring, not borrowed from the coffers of Adele).
The palace gardens gave Isabel great pleasure. She often kept to the secluded grove of oaks and apple trees at the northwest side, where she brooded or dozed or sang softly to herself. Then there was the avenue of trees. Sully had pointed out every one of them to her: the junipers whose limbs netted above forming a secluded bower—beyond that the alders, the silver limes and birches, the yews and rowans. There were also the flower gardens whose multitudinous blossoms included such an array of flowers that there was never a time when the palace garden was not in bloom: narcissus, white jasmyn, marigolds, bluebells, acacia, violets, lilies, poppies, and witch hazel. There were roses of every kind: gallica, damask, apothecary, and Christmas roses. To the far end of the flowers and nearly fronting the south side of the Seine was the royal herbarium, little used (except by Sully) since the days when Eleanor of Aquitaine had lived at the Cite Palais. Isabel, who had learned the art of perfume making from her mother, used the herbarium for that chore. Sully had promised to instruct her in the medicinal uses of herbs.
Her life had leveled off to a not unpleasant stretch of days and nights. The reality of her situation fanned her pride a little. For a time, directly after coming to Paris, it had looked as though all was lost, that events were beyond Isabel’s ability to control them. But the Franco-Flemish alliance still held, even though her uncle and Philippe were no longer political brothers. For that—and all the rewards it promised—her kinsmen and other interested parties could thank her!
DOWAGER QUEEN ADELE lay upon her silk-strewn bed watching Hughes de Puiseaux pull on his clothes. He was only partially in her thoughts. She was musing that she had never found a man who could satisfy her.
Vexed by the close heat of the room she flung away the sheet that covered her and breathed a sigh of irritation. Hughes gave a glance toward her recumbent form and smiled. Adele smiled back, indifferent, detached.
She wondered why in all things that mattered men were so incomprehensibly stupid, unable to discern a woman’s thoughts or her feelings. Only a few minutes ago he had lain, hot and eager on her breast, taking his pleasure the way a drunk took his wine, with no consideration for her enjoyment.
At first she had appreciated his attentions. He was younger than she, and extraordinarily handsome—an irresistible trap for a vain, prepossessing woman like Adele. A pleasing face and figure had always been the uppermost consideration when she chose a lover. Now she was bored with handsome men. They were self-centered and usually overconfident about their sexual abilities.
Through a veil of memory she saw Louis. In so many respects he had been a good man; she could have married worse. He had been attractive too, though well into his years; at the time of their marriage, nineteen-year-old Adele was half his age. No doubt he’d been a satisfactory lover in his youth, but by the time Adele had come to his bed, urgency to father a son had made him sexually obnoxious, and his frequent bouts of impotence hadn’t added any charm to the situation.
Adele had endured much: all the tasteless superstitions—the endless prayers that preceded every coupling; the numberless unguents, lotion, elixirs and poultices which Louis had applied with the most heart-rending expectation; the omnipresent priests and other members of the clergy praying over Louis’s limp cock with the fe
rvor of Christ raising the dead. By the age of forty-four, Louis had lost all confidence in his manhood.
An ironic smile curved Adele’s lips. He’d certainly looked like a man. Shy Louis had been the bearer of the most gigantic male member Adele had ever seen. It was legend throughout Europe that the Capets had the biggest cocks in Christendom. Poor Louis. All that massive physical splendor and no son to show for it. Poor Adele. After four fruitless years of trying to implant a son within her, Louis no longer tried to pretend affection or desire for his wife. Their bed became a battleground, Adele beseiged by him night after night. Then finally—success, and following an anxiety-ridden eight and one-half months’ pregnancy, Adele had given birth to the long-awaited Capet heir on the night of August 25, 1165.
Louis’s interest in Adele had waned considerably after that, though a few years later she had conceived with him again—this time a daughter, Agnes, who in the year of her father’s death had been sent off to Byzantium, betrothed to the future Emperor.
Following his wife’s second and last conception. Louis had been overtaken by permanent impotence, easing into unmanned old age while Adele discreetly looked for pleasure elsewhere. Louis’s court was large and accommodating—there were plenty of appealing men about. Louis had known of her adulteries, but she had been careful not to humiliate him, so he had pretended not to notice. He had been well schooled for tolerance by his first marriage.
In this clammy, uncomfortable heat of the present, Adele lay wondering whether or not she had ever loved Louis. It didn’t matter now; but perhaps it did, a little. She tried to recall their first meeting—how handsome he had been, his fair hair (gold touched by silver) shimmering in the sun. He’d been kind too, in the early days before his assaults on her. She supposed that she had loved him, if only a little bit. But she knew that he had never loved her. Louis had loved once—only once—and his love for Eleanor had only died with him.
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