The Rain Maiden

by Jill M Philips

  Richard nodded. Henry was right. It was time to resolve the differences between them. This new endeavor, upon which he had so greatly set his heart, required forgiveness. Also, his rejuvenated sense of religious zeal had caused Richard to question the worthiness of his relationship with Philippe. If he was going forth as a soldier of the cross, he wanted to cleanse himself of all past and present sins.

  He smiled tight-lipped at his father, and then impulsively the two men embraced. “We shall go together,” Henry whispered in his ear.

  The year 1187 was only three days gone when Sibylla and her little daughter left Paris to go back to Beaujeu. William had come to join them at the palace for Christmas, but there had been little festivity at the court this year. As she crossed over the Grande Pont, traveling south once more with her child and husband, Sibylla scarcely paused to look back.

  She knew that she was going to miss her sister, though Isabel was moody company these days. Perhaps it was the dreary environs of the Cite Palais, which had drained away all the lightheartedness of her spirit that Sibylla remembered so well from when they were children. She could understand it though; the palace was loathsome! Sibylla had come to hate it in her few months’ stay there. Poor Isabel. Banished to such a place in the midst of the grey and dirty city, while Sibylla lived on open land beneath a swell of green hills, surrounded by fresh air and miles of beautiful scenery. In comparison, Isabel was a prisoner.

  It was Philippe’s fault, too; Sibylla believed that.

  Choleric and rude-mannered, he had made Isabel unhappy. A few times Sibylla had said as much (or tried to) but not too often, because Isabel could turn instantly waspish and unpleasant when anyone spoke against her husband.

  How could she love such a brutish man? Barely a month after Louis’s birth Sibylla had noticed ugly bruises on Isabel’s arms and throat. The images they conjured were even uglier, and Sibylla shuddered just to think of it.

  What fortune for her that William was so kind!

  January, and still no word from Richard.

  Philippe was privately humiliated at his lover’s silence. Richard had taken the cross; Philippe knew that, of course. All the world knew by now how Jerusalem had fallen, and it had not taken long for word to circulate that Prince Richard had been among the first to answer Pope Gregory’s call for a new crusade.

  Like Henry, Philippe cast a chary eye upon this Holy War. It was fine to talk boldly of recapturing the Christian citadels, to dream of dipping a sword in Moslem blood. But such chivalric glory built no empires in the West, and that’s where Philippe’s concerns were centered.

  If this crusade fever went on for too much longer, Philippe was afraid that he would be pressed into taking the cross himself, and right now that was the last thing he was prepared to do. He was much more interested in acquiring Normandy. Normandy! It was what Philippe dreamed of; the return of Normandy to the royal demesne after nearly three hundred years of self-rule and association with England. There was far more glory to him in that than in scaling the highest tower walls of Acre!

  Still, pragmatic as he was, Philippe knew there was a possibility that he would have to go to the Holy Land, or at least promise to do so. He had been careful not to make any mention of that to Isabel. Philippe didn’t need to have the divinatory powers of a mystic to know how she would react to that. She was resentful if he left her for a month or more. But a year? Perhaps two? It didn’t bear thinking about, at least not now.

  Of course Philippe had no intention of going, not if he could help it. He had too much important and unfinished business in France. Philippe was a builder; for nine years he had labored to build an intricate mosaic of power. Carefully he had cultivated the French ties to crown-annexed Champagne while keeping its nobility (his relatives) from taking too much power for themselves. He had relaxed the tensions between France and Toulouse; beat back threats from Burgundy, and established his rights as suzerain in the territories given him by way of Isabel’s dowry.

  A tremendous pattern of success in nine years’ time.

  Now the ultimate challenge: to strip Henry Plantagenet of his power, and take away his continental domains. Philippe felt that he had already made substantial progress to these ends; he was unwilling to let his efforts be subverted by events taking place two thousand miles away.

  Philippe had always been ambitious. Now, with a son to plan for, he was even more anxious and determined to succeed in all his aims. His father had frittered away his power, involving himself in useless causes and rebellions that had brought him little more than a questionable measure of authority, and the ill-will of Henry Plantagenet.

  But Philippe was different. He wanted to secure each piece of land he could, incorporate every border fief into the whole of the royal demesne, so that when he died he could hand his son an empire even bigger than the one Charlemagne had ruled over.

  These were illustrious dreams, but Philippe was confident he could make them come true. He had every potential to do so. Fortune had been good to him, but much of Philippe’s success was due to his own determination to succeed.

  He had already considered betrothing Jacquie-Marie to the infant Arthur. That would give France a foothold in Brittany once more, now that Henry had seized it back by forcing Constance into marriage with one of his most undesirable lackeys, the Earl of Chester. There was a personal motive behind the idea of the betrothal too: a marriage between Philippe’s adored daughter and Geoffrey’s son would help to keep alive the memory of his sweet friend, and all they had meant to one another.

  It was yet too soon to arrange a marriage alliance for little Louis. Philippe didn’t wish to commit his heir to a promise that would likely be broken (given the political uncertainties of the time), long before the boy came of age to marry. But one thing was sure: Louis was going to have a different kind of life than Philippe had known. He would not be pushed aside, ignored, his schooling left to happenstance and the whims of ineffectual priests. Louis was going to have the finest tutors, the most comprehensive training in statecraft and war, and all the love and attention Philippe had been denied.

  These plans kept him occupied, but he could not keep his mind off Richard, and it was that concern which made Philippe so irritable as he sat at dinner with his wife and mother one cold evening in mid-January. One more day. He had decided to give Richard one more day to contact him in Paris; when that day was over Philippe would gather up his army and march on Normandy. That was sure to light a fire beneath both Richard and Henry and show them that Philippe Capet meant to take all he wanted.

  “More cream?” Adele held out a porringer to him.

  Philippe took it and poured a little of the cream on his pastry. Isabel and Adele exchanged a subtle glance, wondering who would be the first to say it. Philippe had been surly and unspeaking through the meal.

  “You aren’t feeling very friendly tonight, are you?” Adele asked her son. “You’ve hardly had a word to say to either of us.”

  He stirred his potage, then tasted it. “You and Isabel have been doing enough talking for ten people.”

  “Don’t be so nasty,” Isabel told him, and although she didn’t really want to say it she couldn’t help adding, “you always seemed to have enough to say at table when Richard was here with us.”

  He gave her a disdainful glare but said nothing.

  “Ah yes, Richard,” Adele said, laughing lightly. “He’s an odd sort.”

  “He has nice manners,” Isabel muttered, but her voice was edgy and sarcastic.

  “Nice manners, yes,” Adele agreed, “but so formidable.” She sneaked a quick look at Philippe, then turned back to Isabel. “I think what he needs is a woman’s legs around his back.”

  Caught by surprise at Adele’s humor, Isabel nearly choked on her food as she laughed enjoyably. “Be quiet, Mother,” Philippe snapped. He looked at Isabel. “You too.”

  “It’s true,” Adele replied, “it’s unmanly the way he shuns female company.” She allowed herself a secret
little smile. “He is nothing like his brother Geoffrey.”

  “Richard is my friend,” the king protested, “and I won’t have you saying filthy things about him.”

  Adele ignored him and looked at Isabel. “I do believe that Richard is very naive about women. I’m sure he thinks our breasts are just for holding up our dresses.”

  Both women laughed until Philippe silenced them by throwing his henap to the floor. “I told you to shut up!” he shouted. “My God, you talk like a pair of courtesans, both of you!”

  Isabel sobered in the face of her husband’s anger, but Adele still had her taunting face on. “Don’t be such a prig, my boy. I have a right to my own opinions.”

  “If you keep them quiet,” Philippe grumbled.

  Adele laughed gaily and went about cutting her meat. “Each time I come back to Paris,” she observed, “it seems to me your disposition has grown more sour.”

  Philippe wiped his mouth with a cloth. “I wonder you come back at all, Mother. You find so much to criticize here, and Champagne is so much nicer, you always say.”

  “It is,” Adele said, chewing her meat daintily, “but the men are better looking here in Paris.”

  Isabel gave her an indulgent smile, but Philippe seemed offended. “At your age I’d think such things would cease to be important considerations.”

  She pointed her knife at him. “The older you become the more important it is; for men and women. Just wait and see.”

  They all ate in silence for a while, then Philippe looked in Adele’s direction. “It would please me greatly if you managed to keep your liaisons private. I find it very humiliating to hear my mother’s illicit deeds talked about in the streets of the city, like some common slut.”

  Adele was about to reply but Isabel spoke first. “Philippe, you know very well how people like to gossip. It’s none of their business, or ours, what your mother does.”

  He was accustomed to Isabel’s objections but it infuriated him when she called him to account in front of anyone, particularly his mother. “I should have realized you’d take her part,” he fumed. “Women like you and mother tend to stick together.”

  “Explain that!” Adele said, nearly upsetting her wine as she lunged forward toward her son. “I won’t be slandered by you or any other man!”

  “You’re a slut, Mother, admit it.”

  “Philippe!” Isabel gasped.

  He pointed his finger at Adele. “You know very well what I am talking about. It was bad enough in the past when you consorted openly with men of high station, de Puiseaux and the rest, but you cannot expect me to condone Justin de Foix!”

  It was no surprise to her that he should say that. They’d had this argument several times in the last few weeks, since he had discovered that his mother’s most recent lover was a brawny young stonecutter half her age. Justin de Foix was handsome and arrogant, an itinerant artisan offering his services to many of the cathedral sites. Presently he was working at Notre Dame and that was where the dowager-queen had met him during one of her periodic inspections of the work.

  Usually their assignations took place at Adele’s chateau on the fringes of the city, but several times she had brought her lover to the palace and that made Philippe furious. He had never learned toleration for his mother’s habits, and the older she became the more problems her promiscuity created for him.

  “Justin de Foix is none of your concern,” she sniffed at Philippe. “I can take whatever man I wish to my bed and nothing you say can stop me!” She flung her henap to the floor and stood up, glaring at her son. “Mend your own ways before you talk that way to me again!”

  They could hear her jewelry clinking as she hastened from the room.

  Philippe watched as she went, then with a grunt he turned back to his wine.

  Isabel’s gaze was a soft light on his face, her voice almost a whisper. “Why did you have to say those things to her?”

  Yet another complaining female voice. Philippe turned to glower at his wife, but did not answer.

  He set out for Normandy on the following morning with a substantial army at his side, but they got no farther than the border when they were stopped. Henry’s troops were strewn across the entire frontier. Rather than engage with them, the French king gathered up his men and proceeded on to Gisors, where Henry Plantagenet was waiting for him.

  The two kings greeted one another with a show of courtesy, and then the familiar squabbling began. For three days they did nothing but argue over the betrothal contract between Richard and Alais, and whether or not the Vexin would be returned to the custody of France. In the midst of all this petty quarreling there suddenly appeared a man of peace. The Archbishop of Tyre had come to impress upon all the kings of Europe the dreadful plight of their Christian brethren in the East, and to ask for help. When he found Henry and Philippe involved in their peevish concerns, he preached them a pious sermon, which so moved the two monarchs that they blushed with shame at their selfishness.

  There was no escaping the inevitable. They bowed before the archbishop, kissed his ring, and together made their pledge to go forth in battle for the holy cause of Christ. Following their example, the Count of Flanders did likewise. Then a thousand knights came forward to take the same vow.

  It was a glorious spectacle: each man robing himself in a crusader’s cloak adorned with a cross—white for England, red for France, and green for the Flemings. They sang brave songs of heroes’ deeds, and raised their vivid banners toward the sky. By nightfall there was not one man in this assembly who had not declared himself for Christ and the crusade.

  Each man was caught up in the fervor of the moment, but for at least two of them it did not take long to secretly repent of the decision. Henry and Philippe had made their commitment in a mingled spirit of moral responsibility and political good sense, it was true, but they had also been manipulated by the archbishop to serve as an example for all of Christendom. The two men understood each other’s mind well enough to know that neither of them welcomed this crusade. Therefore they pledged to embark upon the expedition at Eastertide of the following year, both hoping for some intervening circumstance to postpone it.

  Henry sailed for England at the end of January.

  It was a relief to leave so many problems behind in France, though he quickly acquired new ones. At once he called his earls and barons together at Geddington, and with the assistance of Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, opened discussion on the matter of the crusade.

  The problems began when Henry announced exaction of the “Saladin tithe.” Each man would be taxed one-tenth of all his income and movable goods. The money would be named over to the crown in order to help finance the crusade. A similar tax would be levied in France and all other domains in Europe. It was the pope’s way of assuring ample financial support for the crusade in the event that public enthusiasm died out before the venture was commenced.

  Henry had called for many taxes during his reign but none so controversial as this. There was grumbling and dissent in every county where the king sent his men to collect the tax and it was not accomplished without violence. It was the same in France when Philippe announced the Saladin tithe in early February. This was the first time ever that men from all stations in life had been asked to pay so great an amount at one time, and for one cause. It was hardship, not lack of devotion, that made the subject controversial. Eventually both monarchs had to amend the tax, then abandon it altogether.

  In the midst of this trouble there were other complications. Hugh of Lincoln had involved himself in some dangerous politics while Henry was away. This was the case: the king’s chief forest justiciar had been persecuting certain members of the clergy for “having taken the king’s own game” from the royal woodlands. The charges were unprovable, but the justiciar, Geoffrey FitzPeter, continued to prevail upon the suspected men. Bishop Hugh looked into the evidence himself, found it wanting, and then promptly excommunicated the justiciar.

  It is easy to imagine
Henry’s reaction. His own edict, a remnant from his struggle with Thomas Becket, forbade that any of his officials be excommunicated without his knowledge. Geoffrey FitzPeter was the king’s close friend. Whatever he had done, no action—temporal or spiritual—should have been taken before Henry had been notified! Hugh of Lincoln had not only violated the Constitutions of Clarendon, he had very possibly made a new and serious enemy: the king himself.

  Hugh was summoned to Woodstock immediately.

  He came upon Henry in the forest, where the king was resting with his companions after a day of hunting. As usual he disdained ceremony, and sat upon the ground stitching a bandage for his hand. When Hugh approached the king looked up and saw him standing there, but went on with his sewing, pretending not to see.

  Hugh bore the king’s rudeness for a while, then sat himself down in the midst of the company. “How like your cousins of Falaise you are,” Hugh observed.

  Though the others present may not have understood his meaning, Henry knew well enough what he meant. The bishop was referring to some of the king’s ancestors: low-born leather workers of Falaise who had been related to William the Conqueror.

  Henry paused a moment to look down at the menial task he was engaged in, then, no longer able to pretend anger or indifference, he fell forward on his face, convulsed with laughter at the bishop’s gentle mocking.

  Later they talked more seriously of the matter that had brought Hugh there, and the bishop defended his actions against FitzPeter. When all the reasons had been told, Henry could see that Hugh had been honest in his judgment. The king made his own wishes known: Geoffrey FitzPeter was ordered to do penance. Since he was basically a good man, the justiciar submitted willingly. He was then forgiven for his misdeeds and the scourge of excommunication was lifted.