The truth of it brought tears of resentment to Adele’s eyes. She had given Louis the precious heir that Eleanor had been unable to provide. She had brought her shrewd and useful brothers into the position of steadfast political alliance with Louis, while his own stupid brothers merely fed upon the power of the crown. She had brought with her the rich, untroubled resources of Champagne and Blois, while the rewards of his first two marriages had ended in dissolution and death. Certainly those accomplishments should have merited his love.
But it was the same with all men, husband or no. All the men Adele had accumulated in her life, all the handsome lovers she had known during her marriage with Louis, and even since her widowhood (she looked across at Hughes), had only taken from her. They had been flattered at the attentions of a queen—eager to see what bedding a queen could earn them. They had given her nothing in return but momentary escape from frustration and loneliness. Anger at reality—inescapable—quickened into self-pity and depression. None of them had loved her … she was alone.
Hughes came to sit beside her, his arm resting lightly across her bare midriff. She curled her fingers tightly about his forearm, trying to smooth the wrinkles of fretfulness from her face because she knew they made her look unattractive and betrayed her age. A long and weary sigh dispelled some of her dissatisfaction, but she looked soberly up at her lover. “I’m so unhappy,” she confessed.
He bent and placed a kiss on her navel. Adele lay staring at his bowed head, at his fair-colored curling hair. She had always liked blond men. He snuggled his face close against her and absently she brought her hands up to his head, entwining slim fingers in his abundant hair. She laughed to herself, a laugh which only she could hear, but which she suspected any woman could easily appreciate. All men considered themselves to be stupendous lovers. And yet she, who had sampled so many, had never found even one who could halfway fulfill her expectations, or satisfy her own passionate needs.
He sat up. His eyes, so blue, regarded her seriously. Seeing that her mood was real (and surprised in his ignorant masculinity), he gathered her up in his arms and held her close to him. “And should you be unhappy, lovely lady, who has me beside you now?”
She let him hold her but did not respond. “You don’t understand. I’ll soon be forty. That is very old for a woman.”
Her unbound black hair was soft between his fingers as he stroked it. “You are the most beautiful, the most envied woman in France,” he told her.
Adele knew that he was trying to soften her unhappiness but she resented his inability to understand. She was grieving the loss of her youth, lamenting a love she had never known. His tenderness was only a momentary salve on a wound which was years old, and fatal.
Hughes felt her tears on his neck and he forced her chin up, looking quizzically into her face, surprised as always to find her harboring a real emotion. “You are unhappy,” he said, “but look, there is time enough for tears when I leave tomorrow.”
Adele’s quick mind pushed her depression away, forcing her senses into the light where she could examine them. She pulled back, easing his arms from around her, black eyes intent on his face. “You didn’t tell me you were leaving for Paris so soon! Why? My son won’t be back from Burgundy for at least ten days.”
“I know,” Hughes answered, “but there are some things I must accomplish before he returns. I don’t serve the king too well in your bed, my love.”
Her eyes narrowed in approaching anger, sensing deception. “And do you serve him better in tutoring his child-wife?”
Hughes looked closely at her. Adele’s rage was always just under the surface of her calm, a sleeping tiger easily roused. He tried to pacify her. “Why do you hate Isabel so much? She’s no threat to you, for pity sake.”
“Why do you like her so much?” she snapped. “I do hate her, that little minx. She and that clan of Flemish dissemblers. They are as much descended from Charlemagne as I am! Against my advice my husband became friendly with the Count of Flanders—and much to my disservice now! Flanders has always hated me, and he would do anything to usurp what influence I still have over my son.”
It was an argument which had no end, one which they’d had so many times and Hughes did not wish to re-enact it here and now. “Philip d’Alsace is no longer in league with your son against you,” he reminded her. “Why are you so outraged? I have heard whispers that Flanders has put honey to the ear of your brother Stephen and that even now the two of them sit in accord together at Sancerre.”
“Stephen knows better than to trust that vagabond!” Adele spat angrily, “and Flanders is a fool if he thinks otherwise!”
“Then your fears are groundless,” Hughes answered. “There is no longer a Flemish threat. Philippe has denied himself to them.”
“As long as that girl is his wife there is a threat!” she insisted. “If Philippe would throw off all Flemish influence, why should he keep Isabel as his wife?”
“She has done no wrong and she is no worry,” Hughes was quick to point out. “She is but a child, Adele. Why do you upset yourself so over her?”
“Anyone who looks as she does is never a child!” Adele flared with rage, jabbing at his shoulder with a pointed fingernail. “I hate that girl! And why must you spend so much time with her?”
“I don’t!” Hughes insisted, “except when she is in my charge. Sully and I prepare her lessons.”
Adele wasn’t even listening. “She flaunts herself. She even paints her eyes—at her age!”
“You were only now saying that she is no child,” Hughes reminded her.
“Shut up!” Adele shouted at him. “You don’t understand anything I say! Are you truly so stupid? How did you ever come to be singled out as a chancellor by my late husband? He had a quick enough mind, though God knows no judgment to speak of. My son too has brains, but lacks discretion. His friendship with Flanders, his marriage to Isabel prove that. I am the only one of this family who has the judgment to rule, yet I am nothing!”
He was trying his best to soothe her. “No one is disputing your abilities, your beauty—anything. Why are you so upset? I leave Champagne tomorrow, cannot we have a little time for ourselves in peace and pleasure?” He reached out for her and one hand closed over her breast, his thumb prodding the hardness of the nipple. But Adele was angry and she pushed his hand away. “That little bitch will always find a means of getting her way,” she complained. “The money my son spends on her is beyond all reason. And why? He’s so cheap with everyone else—but nothing is too good for her!” Her eyes narrowed into slits of suspicious black jade. “You can’t tell me that you haven’t noticed her.”
He had. “She is very beautiful, especially for one so very young,” Hughes admitted. “I’d have to be blind not to have noticed that. But for God’s sake, she’s eleven years old and Philippe’s wife. Why should I lust after a child when I have you—the most beautiful woman in Europe?”
Suddenly she despised him and turned her face away. “I do believe she has already seduced my son,” she grumbled.
“Your son is almost sixteen,” Hughes reminded her with a chuckle. “If he’s had her you can be sure it was of his own doing.”
With vehemence she slapped him hard across the face. “You are so ignorant!” she shrilled at him. “Thanks be to God for you that He gave you a handsome face, because that is all He gave you! You have the mind of a donkey! Can’t you understand me? I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about seduction! That little slut is exactly like her uncle—shrewd and manipulative instincts under layers of sweet charm.” She stopped suddenly, her eyes glinting. “Have you ever slept with her?”
Shocked beyond anger, Hughes leapt to his feet, staring down at her with tenuous forbearance. Shaking his head he answered, “I can’t believe what I am hearing.”
“Well, you better believe it,” she snapped at him, “because I don’t believe you!”
He stood looking at her, biting back his anger. He had seen Philippe in this un
hinged state many times, and the violent, emotional side of that young man’s nature had been inherited from this woman.
But she hadn’t finished. “Have you slept with her?”
He hated her for forcing him to such rage. “No!” he shouted into her face. “I have not! Are you insane?”
“Don’t hide behind words,” she brayed. “Have you had her? Have you touched her? Has she touched you? Have you wanted her? Have you? HAVE YOU?”
His hands were strong, the fingers digging into her shoulders as he shook her with a violence that surprised both of them. “Does that answer your question?” he rasped. “Does that convince you that I haven’t bedded an eleven-year-old girl?”
His violence had shaken her but her arrogance was unbroken. “Yes,” she finally answered. “I do believe you but only because I know you don’t have the balls for it. Don’t tell me she hasn’t flirted with you. She’s a perfect little whore hiding behind the shield of her youth. Greedy and sneaky like all the rest of her kind. Have you forgotten that she stole my necklace?”
“Are we going to go over that again?” he asked between his clenched teeth. “Lightning from heaven, I think I’ll vomit if I have to hear that tale of woe once more.”
Adele felt her anger flickering, fading into sadness and she tried to cling to it, to hold it as her defense against tears. She didn’t want to cry; God in heaven, she didn’t want to cry at this moment. “You don’t even try to understand me,” she wailed. “You call yourself my lover—yet I am nothing to you!” She twisted around, away from him, covering her face with her hands.
Tenderness and desire for her banished his anger. She was older than he, and not as beautiful as she had once been—and she could be the most venomous bitch alive. But she was lusty and vigorous, with none of the prim bloodlessness of his inhospitable wife. Hughes bent to press his cheek against her back, his arms surrounding her, his hands cupping her breasts. “I’m sorry Adele,” he whispered.
He could feel some of the tenseness drain from her as she relaxed against him, her hands pulling his arms tighter around her. “Don’t leave tomorrow,” she said softly. “Stay with me a few more days.”
“I will,” he promised, “and when I leave for Paris, come with me. Only please let’s not fight and harass each other.”
Adele twisted around on the bed, smothering her face in his shoulder while her hands pulled at his laces, untying them. She didn’t want words and apologies and promises now, she only wanted him. Seeing her eagerness Hughes ripped off his surcoat and thrust it to the floor. Adele tangled her arms about him and pulled him down upon her. “Hurry,” she whispered into his ear, “please hurry… .”
Cast off by Philippe Capet, reprimanded by Henry Plantagenet, and shunted aside with a condescending smile by Emperor Frederick, Philip d’Alsace rode south in early August of 1181, bypassing the city of Paris. His destination was Sancerre in the Loire Valley, and the chateau of Adele’s brother Stephen. He was the youngest of that family, the least important—politically. But Flanders, with canny intuition, had sensed a use for him and planned to accomplish an understanding between them with charm and promises of his own.
Stephen was quite carried away by the demeanor and presence of this handsome, noble lord from Flanders. He arranged a magnificent banquet in Philip’s honor, where the Count of Flanders was toasted and watched with shaded interest by several dozen barons and knights in Stephen’s service. The following afternoon, Stephen received Philip in private audience.
In a flowing amber bliaud stitched with golden thread, Handers strode across the rich Saracen carpets of Stephen’s audience chamber. There was a small balcony off the room and it was here where Flanders stood, looking out over the fair-shaded expanse of the surrounding gentle slopes and the blue-green Loire threading through it. All aspects of beauty were welcome to his eyes, and Flanders solaced his restless nature with the view for several minutes. He spoke absently to Stephen, who was sitting several feet away. “You do me a great honor to entertain me so lavishly. The banquet last night was a gracious gesture on your part.”
“It is you who do me the honor in visiting,” Stephen replied with unctuous charm. He was not without questions though, and was still pondering the reason for Flanders’s sudden appearance here in the south.
Philip turned from the terrace view and surveyed his host for a quiet moment. Handsome. Dark, like all the Champagnois. An older, more elegant version of Philippe Capet. Canny, but not quite so cunning. Certainly not a threat.
This was going to be easy.
“You are probably wondering at my purpose here,” Flanders said at last.
“I must admit to a little surprise when your message was brought,” Stephen countered, slender hands resting in his lap. “It has been some time since you anti I talked privately. Not since Louis’s death, in fact.”
“Yes, a very long time,” Philip answered a little too quickly. “But it seems to me we have some things worth discussing now.”
Circumspect and a little unsure of himself, Stephen regarded Philip with a dark, even stare while the slanting sunlight danced off the amethysts crowning his fingers.
Flanders let his most engaging smile spread across his face, while lifting an eyebrow as though in haughty self-condemnation. “I am not a man of many mistakes, Stephen. I am usually the most careful judge of character. But I made a sad and bitter mistake when I trusted your nephew.” He inclined his head slightly and just the proper tinge of cynicism underscored his final words. “He has betrayed me, Stephen.”
The Count of Sancerre was shrewder than Philip had measured and he knew that his guest was play-acting. But Stephen, with all his love for drama, sat back quietly in reluctant appreciation of Flanders’s talent. “Betrayed you?” he asked coldly. “Do you mean in the matter of your niece and his marriage to her?”
Did this elegant young nobleman know something that Philip did not? Flanders was caught off his guard for only a moment. If this was a scare tactic, a bluff, he wasn’t about to fall for it.
“No,” Philip answered decisively, “I didn’t mean that. The marriage itself has not been called into question. Philippe has no wish to dispense with his vow, why should he? My niece is by far the choicest morsel in Europe—though she is still a girl; still, a girl may work wonders as you may know. I am speaking of my own relationship with Philippe. I loved him dearly, thought of him in a special way, like a son.” Here his voice nearly broke in honest emotion. “Now he has decided my help and advice are no longer valuable to him.” A pause.
Stephen caught the irony in Philip’s voice. The Count of Flanders was able and decorous, but something must be awry or he would not be here as a suppliant. The silent moments passed.
In a cat-quick gesture Philip turned to Stephen. “I ask you, if Philippe feels this way, what is there for me to do? I have suffered great personal humiliation in this. Although I believe that we shall eventually mend our differences, I cannot allow a boy to undermine my own prestige. I must make him realize his error in pushing me aside. I must teach him a lesson. Can you help me?”
Stephen rose gracefully to his feet and went to stand at the balcony, his gaze taking in the view though he wasn’t really seeing it. He was of a pensive disposition, and for a long time he did not speak. Flanders was a cagey individual: one must deal carefully with him; not submit too eagerly, too completely, as a lover might submit to his first swain. Flanders was a man of so many charms. Surrendering to him was an easy thing, and possibly fatal.
So Stephen toyed with the signet ring on his middle finger, turning it over and over as his mind revolved in thought. So the mighty Philip d’Alsace was looking to him for some sort of political alliance—but on what security? Stephen’s interest was aroused; he was fairly panting with curiosity; but he too was a diplomat, and so he waited.
When the silence had stretched long enough to be embarrassing Philip softened his expression with a quiet, meaningful smile and repeated his last words. “Can you hel
p me?”
Stephen smoothed the folds of his purple velvet surcoat and looked Flanders straight in the face. “It all depends upon what you want from me,” he explained. “Quite frankly, Philip, I’m unsure of your motives. And more to the point, we are on opposite sides of this matter. What possible use can we be to one another?” Then he smiled. “You can understand my reluctance, surely.”
But the latitude of Flanders’s charm was immense. “We were on opposite sides, but no longer. I am offering myself to you as a comrade in arms. If the Champagnois seek to have control over Philippe, is it not wise for me to join with you and your family?”
Stephen’s dark eyes showed his puzzlement. “I cannot think what you have to offer us. My brothers, my sister and I are now his guardians, and you, quite frankly, have been removed from power within his circle.”
Flanders shrugged congenially and rested a hand on Stephen’s purple velvet shoulder. “I don’t mean to spark discord between us, but surely you must realize that you are the least viable among your family. I know how closely you are held in your sister’s heart, but it cannot have escaped your attention that she has since allied herself securely with Hughes de Puiseaux. Theobold, William and Henri your brothers are all more politically important than you are. So when I spoke of an alliance, I meant a joint understanding between the two of us.”
Stephen was genuinely confused now. “What kind of understanding?” he asked.
Flanders’ tongue was a dagger slicing the words. “A military understanding, my friend. Give me four weeks to move a thousand of my men here and place them on your southern border. I will outfit and equip them, but you must lodge them and give me equal right with as many men of yours. Our combined forces will be a signal to the young Capet that he cannot so easily dismiss us, as he betrayed me at Gisors.”
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