The Rain Maiden

by Jill M Philips

  These messages, bearing Philippe’s signet stamp and royal seal, were dispatched at once by special courier. The swift and decisive action somewhat abated his anger. It was obvious that since Flanders was bound by his word not to encroach upon the French king’s power, he was attempting intimidation by means of threats. But Philippe was hopeful. Perhaps the vital passage in the contract did not read so precisely as he would have preferred, but the outside parties called to mediate the situation would at once discern Flanders’s miscreancy and discredit him. It was only a matter of waiting.

  Assured of a judgment in his favor, Philippe turned his energies toward the business of his realm, never considering that he had misread Flanders’s capabilities and wit once again.

  … there is a chamber at the king’s residence in Winchester most beautifully decorated with many-colored pictures of various forms. By King Henry’s order a blank space had been left, where he afterwards caused to be depicted an eagle with four eaglets perched upon it, one on each wing, the third on its back tearing at the parent with talons and beak, whilst the fourth—no smaller than the others—sat upon its neck and waited to tear out the eagle’s eyes… .

  When some of his friends asked Henry what the picture was depicting in its meaning, Henry said: “They are my four sons, who will not cease persecuting me until my death. And the last-born, whom I now embrace with qualmless love, will inflict upon me the greatest peril of all . ..

  Gerald of Wales

  August, 1182

  Oh, my soul, wherefore art thou troubled, and why am I sorely vexed? Henry of England woke with the words on his lips. It was several moments before he traced the sentence to the works of Marcus Aurelius he had been reading the night before, though he could not connect them to the dream which had awakened him.

  The room congealed in darkness but for the sputtering remains of a fire in the grate. Morning would be late today. Through the uncurtained window he could scent the approach of a rain-sodden dawn. The imminent moisture radiated an ache all through his body. With care for his pain Henry settled into a sitting position on the bed and threw back the serge bedsheets. Beside him a warm female body moved, twisted over, and muttered his name sleepily.

  His mind was usually clear upon waking yet now for a moment he could not remember where he was or who lay beside him. Then in a flash of clarity he knew suddenly: he was at Argentan fortress in Normandy, and this girl beside him was a nameless trollop. In the pensive mood which he now entertained he would have welcomed the quiet, worshipful company of Alais Capet, but he had left her behind in London with John.

  Again the dream images reflected in his mind as tiny pieces of shattered glass giving back the light. A dim, dense forest suddenly pierced by a stream of fog-shrouded sunlight. Soft words. The image leapt in his mind. Eleanor. Ruby-lipped and shining, glossy raven hair tossed sassily in the wind. Eleanor. Radiantly beautiful, as he had first seen her, those many years ago. Eleanor. Green-eyed and glorious, trembling in his arms—sweet alabaster skin gleaming beneath his touch. Eleanor. In the years before ambition, jealousy and revenge had made her his enemy.

  He had not loved her for many years, yet the memory of her persisted in painful dichotomy: too much loveliness to be forgotten, too much wretchedness to be remembered. Stone poetry, blossoms spattered with blood. A thousand contradictions, a thousand consequences of their lives together. Now only memory remained.

  Memory, and a legacy of hate. The hate of his sons for him. Eleanor had wrought that; he had wrought hers. When had it all begun? They had loved each other once, he and Eleanor. It had been a marriage of convenience designed for gain and prosperity, yes—but oh, it had been so much more than that!

  Rosamunde. She too lingered in the veiled corridors of his memory. Sweet, unspoiled girl with none of Eleanor’s pride or villainy. Henry had loved her, basked happily in her quiet company. She had been dead for six years now, but a hundred troubadors’ songs remained to praise her. Legend had transfigured his Welsh mistress. Rosamunde had not been as beautiful as Eleanor, or as passionate. But her gentle sweetness had consoled him against his wife’s infuriating, demanding personality. Poor Rosamunde. All the years she had been his mistress she had waited with the patience of a child to become his wife. He had never actually spoken of marriage, but he had given her tacit reason to hope. She had given him children: two sons and a daughter. But finally—her fragile spirit weighted down with remorse for her sins—she had shut herself away in the chapter house of a nunnery, and there she had died. Since that time Henry had taken many women to his bed, but he had loved none of them.

  Unless he loved Alais. She too had borne him children, and she had been his most constant female companion since the death of Rosamunde. That she loved him was evident in her fierce refusals to marry Richard, though she had been promised to him for many years. Richard cared nothing for her: his tastes ran to fair-haired, pretty soldiers and poet-knights like Bertran de Born. Alais belonged exclusively to Henry (and to John, for the king was most generous to his youngest son), but he was weary of her. She was sweet and her adoration was a balm on his uneasy spirit. But she was meek and a mild, dutiful lover—and Henry was bored with her.

  He was nearing fifty but he had lost none of his virility and his appetite had increased. There was no shortage of willing girls who gladly spread their legs for the King of England, but Henry’s diverse tastes had found satisfaction only in Eleanor. They had not lived as man and wife for fifteen years, but he could not forget how she had felt in his arms. Even after he had ceased to love her, even after they had come to hate each other, Eleanor had offered him infinite sexual delights. Since her there had been hundreds, but none like her, none to excite him as only she had… .

  Restlessly Henry tossed in his bed as his mind turned to yet one more lost love—perhaps the greatest love of all—certainly his most tragic loss. Becket, his dearest friend, partner, and brother in the soul. Twelve years since that ghastly night in cold Canterbury Cathedral… . Henry closed his eyes against the awful remembrance which came too often now on dismal mornings before the sun was fully up. Becket. His tonsured head bloodied, his cantel shredded from sword blows. Becket! Henry thought of his own sons, all gone the way of corruption so prevalent today. They would never understand the purity of a chaste male love. Becket! The tears, which came too easily now, came once again… .

  THE KING OF FRANCE could heal. Everyone believed that.

  On holy days the poor who suffered from scrofula would press close to his bodyguard as he passed on his way into the cathedral to hear mass. According to the tradition of his office. Philippe-Auguste would give a fleeting touch of his hands to the unfortunate ones, or he would allow the fringe layer of spectators to touch the trailing folds of his cape. Many an ailing man proclaimed himself cured that night, for having observed the king, and partaken of his majesty.

  Whether or not they actually were cured is impossible to say. Yet no other prince on earth, not even the pope, could claim to heal and be believed. That power belonged only to the anointed of God. The King of the Franks—whoever he might be, saint or reprobate—was God’s anointed.

  It was October 1182, nearly three years since Philippe-Auguste had assumed the power of the crown, and what an amazingly full three years it had been, and how much change had taken place! Philippe—who was logical and intrepid and wise beyond comprehension—had made his share of early mistakes, but he had also learned from them.

  He had learned to strike a balance: He was neither too approachable, nor too humble. Of course, the royal dignity had to be protected, but Philippe managed to keep his rank unassailable and his person accessible at the same time.

  At seventeen his youth was still a drawback, but he gave himself the semblance of experience by using every bit of knowledge and instinct he owned. Philippe had a tidy, logical mind. He never forgot a fact that he could use to his advantage in debate or counsel. Yet the year just past had been full of revelations that he could not rule by intelli
gence alone. A royal demesne was only as secure as the ability of its king to preserve it. (Groups of knights were not armies in the sense that the term would later imply. They were aristocratic adventurers pledged to an individual code of honor. They responded to a monarch at their head, but only if he could lead them in the field.) Realizing his deficiencies as a horseman and soldier, Philippe had begun to submerse himself in the arts of war. Each morning he trained in the dusty jousting field behind the palace, riding lap after lap around the lists in full corselet, practicing dexterity with axe and sword.

  In administrative aspects of kingship he was in his element. Philippe was a more visible monarch than Louis had ever been, because he understood the value of keeping close watch over every inch of territory, and being known to do so. Within three years of his accession Philippe had already traveled the whole of France and her crown-associated territories. Since the Ile-de-France was hemmed in on all sides by potentially hostile neighbors (with the exception of crown-annexed Champagne), it was necessary for the king to pay frequent visits to his fortresses on the frontiers.

  Paris was his chief interest, however, and he doted over his capital with the fond concern of a lover. By 1182 the city had a population close to one hundred thousand inhabitants, and there was a constant influx of transients. Parisians were a diverse group: merchants and peasants, students and priests, vendors and builders, artisans and soldiers, craftsmen and shopkeepers, hawkers and laundresses, aristocrats and prostitutes. They made a vivid, pulsing city, the most heterogeneous population in Europe, and their fortunes and futures rested upon the broad shoulders of their young king.

  Philippe had done much to improve the appearance and the commerce of Paris. The road that ran from the palace to the other end of the lie de la Cite had been widened, to improve travel conditions, and recently Philippe had ordered it to be paved with stone. Hawkers and vendors now sold beneath a wooden awning which Philippe had caused to be built for them, so that all street merchants might traffic their wares in any weather. The slum area where the impoverished Jews had lived prior to their forced exile had been cleared, the houses taken down and replaced with a hotel dieu (hospital). Alongside it a row of wooden housing had been constructed to serve as lodgings for the students who flocked eagerly to the city. (These students were a questionable asset to the populace. Many of them were ill-bred and boisterous disturbers of the peace, who boldly stole fruit and vegetables from vendors, or called out obscene praises to any passing housemaid.)

  The cost of the city’s face-lifting was definitely not small, but a fund for this purpose had been established, aided partly by a token toll deposited by any individual crossing the Seine to the lie de la Cite from either bank by way of the Petit Pont or Grande Pont. Philippe had instituted this measure almost immediately upon his coronation. At first the thrifty Parisians had grumbled loudly. But since no one, even the king himself, was spared the cost of two deniers for each passage, they soon bore it stoutly enough.

  Rich or poor, the citizens of Paris were united by the example of their king. It was obvious to all that the business of kingship was no mere array of ritual to Philippe Capet. He worked at the job. Three times a week he held audiences in his presence chamber, meeting with common people as often as he entertained nobles. Unlike Louis, who had taken advice from the most ill-advisable sources, Philippe listened to everyone. He may have implemented few outside suggestions, but he extracted opinions from all. Philippe knew Paris in all its significators: commerce, philosophy, education, religion—they were the pulse of this great city which he had made his own. His shrewd intellect, his vision, the humility edged with a good deal of plain Frankish stubbornness and common sense—all this made him unquestionably the first truly French king.

  Philippe’s single remaining problem lay in satisfying the nobles and most especially his own family, but he had set upon a plan to remedy that. At first he had believed he could bypass their goodwill. He had since learned otherwise and it had been a costly and embarrassing lesson. Therefore, he had recently reorganized his curia regis, balancing it with selections of nobles and family members, both Capetian and Champagnois.

  This was no token honor. It had to be earned. No one served the king in high office merely because of family ties. Philippe had seen too well how Louis had failed by sharing out his sovereign rights among ambitious courtiers who claimed blood relationship as their sole qualification for service.

  There were very few of his family that Philippe cared to entrust with any real power. He’d found that by giving them carefully measured duties he could restrict their power while yet ensuring their loyalty. Adele had been helpful in dealing with his Champagnois uncles. Stephen and Theobold had remained distant from Paris, concentrating their energies upon their domains in the Loire Valley at their sister’s firm request. Adele’s pact of peace had humbled them considerably. William still sat at Rheims as bishop, but his relationship with Philippe had recently undergone a positive regeneration, and the king had come to see him as a friend rather than an adversary.

  Robert of Dreux and Peter of Courtenay, the two surviving Capet uncles, were aging and remained close to their own holdings. Two of Robert’s three sons had been consecrated bishops during Louis’s reign: Henry at Orleans and Philip at Beauvais. Their titles provided them with liberal authority in their districts, but Philippe closely monitored their power. The Count of Dreux’s remaining son, Robert II, was a typically sound-headed Capet whom the king found useful in matters of cost accounting and computation of tax revenues.

  The last-named Capetian cousin was Peter’s son Pierre, the young Count of Nevers (a territory he had inherited through a providential marriage). Pierre was only a few years older than Philippe and the king considered him callow and irresponsible. Pierre spent much of his time competing in tournaments, but his royal cousin did see fit to use him from time to time as a diplomatic messenger, since Pierre had a pleasing appearance and the tongue of a flatterer.

  Of the Champagnois uncles, only Theobold and the late Henri had heirs. Philippe thoroughly disliked Theobold’s sons, and he engaged them in only minor duties.

  There was one additional Champagnois cousin employed by the Crown. Though the death of his father had made young Henri of Champagne count of that domain and saddled him with enough responsibilities to warrant his attention, he was happy to remain at Paris, in the relatively mediocre position as keeper of the king’s personal accounts. Henri was the only Champagnois of his generation who personally liked the king, and he did not disdain the tiny token remuneration he was paid for his services. (It was true that no one grew rich in Philippe’s service. It could be said that in this he resembled his ancestor Hugh Capet, whose frugal administrative traits had seemed parsimonious in the wake of centuries of Merovingian and Carolingian splendor.)

  Henri of Champagne’s willingness to leave behind his wife and son and rich estates to subsist in Paris in a thankless and relatively minor position had little to do with either loyalty or humility. It had everything to do with Isabel.

  Three years ago Henri’s family, and hers, had instituted a betrothal between the two of them. At twenty, Henri had been reluctant at the thought. Isabel had been only nine at the time and the marriage would not take place for several years. He had even come to Valenciennes in December, 1179, to convince Baldwin that the match was impractical. But one look at Isabel had been enough to change Henri’s mind.

  She had smiled knowingly at his tongue-tied fascination, peering at him through eyes which promised every delight a man could conceive. Henri had gone happily back to Champagne, secure in the belief that this prodigious beauty would soon be his for the taking. Five months later, Isabel had become the bride of Philippe Capet.

  Henri had no end of fantasies about Isabel. Since all his work was done at the palace, he had the opportunity to watch her continuously: in corridors, at table, and in the archives library where she spent so much of her time. Somehow, such close proximity to Isabel satisfied a ce
rtain amount of Henri’s unfulfilled desire.

  Isabel liked him. He was pleasant and educated, and she could talk to him in ways she could never talk to Philippe, who cared little for conversation in any case. Many mornings Isabel came to the archives room to read, yet lingered to talk to Henri of philosophy and the arts.

  He was her ceaseless admirer, but he was the only one. After two and a half years in the capital, Isabel still lived in virtual self-imposed exile within the palace. The people of Paris hated her. When Isabel did appear in public the announcement of her name was always met with jeers and rude shouts. The Parisians hated her for her nationality alone; it was all they knew of her. Those who knew more ignored the fact that she knew Frankish history, literature, and spoke the language better than most French, including her husband.

  A recent source of antagonism against the French queen had been the highly-publicized gift to her of St. Clotilde’s pearls. Pierre la Chantre’s widely-circulated diatribe had galvanized angry opinion among many of the French bishops regarding Philippe’s all-too-cavalier act of adorning his wife with sacred relics. Unfortunately the greatest amount of their rancor was directed at Isabel rather than their king. The consensus of opinion was that if a son of the devout Louis Capet had committed such a sacrilege, it was the fault of the female who had inspired it. No one who looked like Isabel could be blameless.

  The stream of propaganda against her was endless. No one cared to know her, but everyone wanted to know about her. What the palace serving sluts didn’t babble freely in the marketplace each morning, Adele’s relatives gloatingly served up as dinner gossip to their aristocratic friends. Anything and everything Isabel did or said was fair game for malicious exaggeration or deliberate misinterpretation. Habits of the most unoffending caste became caprices. Casual remarks, reworded, became slanders. All of Paris seemed to know that she received a monthly allotment of 2,000 sous from her father; that she bathed daily in milk of almonds and crushed seed pearls; that she wore the finest silks, samites, furs and jewels. All that, they said, for a child—a foreigner! Didn’t it prove that she was greedy, extravagant, superficial, and thoroughly Flemish? Why didn’t she give to the poor? Have a French girl to wait upon her rather than a Flemish one? Visit hospitals? (She did give to the poor, but because it reflected favorably upon her it was never talked about. She kept only Edythe to wait on her because she trusted no one else. And if Isabel didn’t visit hospitals, it was not for lack of pity but because whenever she left the safety of the palace she was subjected to cat-calls, or worse—some of the bolder Parisians had been known to throw garbage at her.)