The Rain Maiden

by Jill M Philips

  Henri drained the cup and set it down. “I know,” he said.

  By his decision to leave the Holy Land, Philippe Capet had lost the respect of nearly every man among the crusading force. The lone exception was Conrad of Montferrat, who had become his closest friend and frequent bedmate since the estrangement with Richard.

  It was Conrad who assured him Richard’s story of Louis’s illness was a lie; Conrad who handled the cache of paperwork which had to be dealt with before the king left Acre. Philippe was glad of his help and his companionship.

  There was a final meeting with Richard, for there were certain things to be decided, among them the question of who would hold title to the crown of Jerusalem. Richard and Philippe convened a court to hear the claims of both Conrad and Guy. At last a ruling was made in favor of both men. Guy de Lusignan would keep the title of king until his death, at which time Conrad would succeed. Guy’s claim was based upon his marriage to the late queen Sibylla; Conrad’s on the basis of his recent marriage to her eighteen-year-old half sister Isabella. Both Guy and Conrad were satisfied with the way the matter was disposed of.

  And so it was over, except for a few incidental ceremonies.

  Philippe was asked to swear upon a casket full of holy relics that he would do nothing to disturb Richard’s lands in France nor make any attempt to seize his territorial domains. Richard knew from past experience how little an oath meant to the French king, yet there was nothing he could do but believe his word, and hope all would be well.

  For his own part. Philippe turned over the entire contingent of his army to Richard. This included some ten thousand knights and over twenty thousand infantry; also their horses, weapons, and grain stores. He was given one-third of his portion from the surrender settlement, which Richard advanced to him in gold (since he had yet to receive payment from the Moslems). The full amount was scheduled to be sent to Philippe in Paris before the close of the year. And that was it.

  There was no formal parting, not even a goodbye.

  On the last day of July 1191, Philippe and a small group of his personal bodyguard simply rode out of Acre by way of the north gate. Conrad of Montferrat traveled with them as far as Tyre, and Philippe lingered there a few days, to summon all his health and strength for the return voyage to Brindisi. From there he would make his way overland across Italy and France, homeward. Philippe hoped to reach Paris before Christmas.

  Tyre was a relaxing interlude. Conrad and the king parted as friends, pledging to keep faith with one another. They both wished for Richard’s downfall, and their minds were full of subtle methods of conspiracy. For himself, Philippe was already planning an invasion of the Aquitaine upon his return to France. But for now it was enough to simply dream of seeing Paris again.

  He and Conrad exchanged fond kisses. “Goodbye my friend,” the king said, “throughout my stay here, you were the only one to show me any loyalty.”

  Conrad nodded humbly. “I was happy to serve you in every way. You did much in my behalf.” They kissed again.

  It was August 5th as Philippe’s entourage set sail from Tyre.

  There were tears in the king’s eyes as he watched the blurred line of the coast recede. His business in this terrible place was done!

  END PART VI

  EPILOGUE

  Autumn, 1192

  RICHARD lingered in the East for another fourteen months.

  He won splendid victories at Arsuf and Jaffa, and twice he was able to bring his armies within five miles of Jerusalem. But that was as close as they got. Richard stood atop a hill outside of the Holy City, his face covered by a shield. He had said that if he could not take Jerusalem, he did not wish to even glimpse it.

  In the end he signed a covenant with Saladin, which allowed the right of pilgrimage for Christians to come and worship at the church of the Holy Sepulchre. This was a profound achievement, but not the glorious victory Richard had envisioned.

  He was sorely discouraged.

  The army had lost heart. The same men who had fought so valiantly before the walls of Acre had since given themselves up to the riotous pleasures of debauchery. Why should they fight the Infidel when it was so much more satisfying to drink Saracen wine and taste the caresses of these mysterious Eastern women?

  Desertions were commonplace. There was no honor anymore.

  Richard grieved for the attitude of his men. They had fought so hard, sacrificed so much and now it seemed as though they didn’t even remember what it had all been for. They clamored like children to take Jerusalem: it was Holy Sepulchre or die! For what was the use of fighting other battles in other cities when it was the holy place they had come to free? If Richard would not lead them there, then the soldiers were content to loll in the brothels and taverns of Acre and Ascalon.

  Richard grew ill with his vexation. How could he make the men understand? The army was too small now, too weak to attempt capture of a city so well secured by the enemy as Jerusalem. A battle now would give the crusaders a worse defeat than they had known at the Horns of Hattin, when Guy de Lusignan had all but annihilated his army by his own foolishness. Disillusioned and heartsick, Richard made his pact with the ailing Saladin—and commenced preparations for a return to England.

  His great adventure had come to an end.

  Many things had come to pass since Philippe Capet had taken his leave more than a year before. Guy de Lusignan had retired to Cyprus to reign as king there, and Conrad of Montferrat had been named King of Jerusalem by acclamation. Then unexpectedly, Conrad was set upon and killed by a group of Moslem fanatics. The throne of Jerusalem was left empty, and young Queen Isabella was a widow with the eight-month makings of a child in her belly.

  And that was how Henri of Champagne became King of Jerusalem.

  Richard had sent him to Tyre to halt the rioting that had resulted from the news of Conrad’s death, and Isabella fell in love with the handsome Champagnois on sight. She begged him to marry her and promised him the crown. Richard was consulted, gave consent, and so within a week of Conrad’s murder, Count Henri and the pregnant widow were married. Isabella was young and beautiful and not without charm; it was an easy thing to be husband to her, as Conrad had discovered. Henri couid not love her; his love lay cold beneath the stones of Notre Dame. But this other queen pleased him well, in herself, and all she brought to him.

  So when Richard made his plans to leave Syria he delegated the newly crowned Henri as his replacement. He was a worthy administrator and a great soldier; he would keep peace in the places which the Christians had won. Henri was a man of dignity and honor, a fine example to the troops who served him. But he was not Richard—no man was—and with the Lionheart’s departure for England, the Third Crusade was ended.

  Richard had lived more intensely these past two years than ever before in his career; it was for this kind of life he had been born. But he could no longer ignore the disturbing rumors from the West. Letters from Eleanor confirmed the dangers. There had been minor skirmishes with the French on the Norman border, a few uprisings in the Aquitaine; so far she had been able to keep the incidents from getting out of hand. But recently an ominous and too-familiar cordiality had sprung up between Prince John and Philippe Capet. How serious the friendship was, Eleanor could not be sure, but she did not know how much longer she could contain it.

  So Richard put his wife and sister on a ship bound for the coast of Italy and promised to join them in a few weeks. He could not have guessed it would be much, much longer.

  In Paris, as the year 1192 drew to its close. Philippe passed the first anniversary of his return to the city. Christmas was quiet, spent in the company of Adele, Edythe and his children. How proud he was of the three children he had made; fatherhood was the greatest joy he knew. Jacquie-Marie was now a little beauty of eight, not so much younger than Isabel had been when he’d married her. She had spirit, and loved to play at boys’ games more than her brother did.

  Sweet little Louis! He had nearly died while Philippe was in
the East, so Richard’s cruel story had been true after all. Adele and Sully had brought holy relics from Chartres and St. Denis to heal the boy. Ironically, Louis had been cured of his fever on the very day his father’s army struck the fatal blow against the walls of Acre.

  Philippe was delighted with the son Edythe had borne. Pierre was a darling baby who had his father’s dark hair and coloring; a healthy child. Philippe only wished Louis was as robust. He had Isabel’s delicacy and tendency to catch colds and fever. Only last month the boy had been bedridden for a week with illness. Philippe worried endlessly about him.

  And there were other worries to contend with.

  If rumors could be believed, Richard was on his way back to England. What had happened to the pledge of three years’ service in the Holy Land? The vow to take Jerusalem? Philippe’s appraisal of the whole crusade was cynical and bitter. While news of Richard’s triumphs had made their way back to Europe, so had tales of his atrocities: the ruthless slaughter of children, the beheading of some three thousand Moslem hostages on the barren plain outside of Acre.

  Now he was coming back, and the French king was not pleased. He had anticipated a longer period of time in which to frustrate the borders of the Angevin domains. The crafty Eleanor had blocked his every attempt to snatch a piece of land here and there from the Plantagenets. But if Richard was returning soon, Philippe was uncertain of what to do. Unwilling to forsake his plans of an armed invasion of Normandy, he was still too cautious to pursue it in the wake of Richard’s arrival. Philippe did not want to risk a confrontation with his arch-enemy on the battlefield.

  He feared Richard, even from afar. Ever since his homecoming, Philippe had allowed his natural pessimism to get the best of him. He took extreme care for his personal safety, going about with a full bodyguard of thirty men; keeping soldiers on watch outside his room at night. He had his food and wine tasted before every meal, and nearly always slept uneasily. These precautions were taken in order to thwart attempts by the assassins that Philippe was certain Richard would send from the East to poison him, or run his body through with a sword.

  He was anxious, always nervous.

  And then inexplicably, a miracle. In the early days of January, 1193—a letter came to the Cite Palais from Emperor Henry VI, Barbarossa’s son and successor; it was in his own hand. Philippe’s interest turned to eagerness as he read. The words seemed to leap off the paper at him. His breath went rapid and his hands shook in excitement.

  It was a sign, an omen. God was on the side of France.

  Cyprus was Richard’s last safe harbor, and he dallied there a while with his good friend Guy de Lusignan before putting out to sea. Luck was not with him, for once again his fleet was scattered by a violent storm, and after being twice shipwrecked, the king’s vessel was driven up onto the Dalmatian coast.

  At this point Richard began to make his way overland, disguised as an ordinary pilgrim, returning from the East. It was necessary for him to conceal his identity from the Byzantines whom he had so offended during his earlier stays on Sicily and Cyprus. Capture for the purpose of ransoming was a common threat to any monarch traveling without the protection of his army. Richard knew this and hid himself as best he could.

  But it was futile for this tall, majestic man whose bearing and appearance proclaimed royalty, to attempt anonymity for very long. Richard got only as far as Vienna before his deception was uncovered. Immediately he was taken prisoner, and turned over to the custody of the Duke of Austria.

  Leopold had not forgotten the incident of the dung pots.

  He shut Richard up in a drafty fortress on the Danube and sent news of his illustrious captive to Ratisbon, where Henry VI was holding Christmas court. The emperor’s joy matched his cousin’s. The King of England was no friend of his.

  And so Richard was kept locked away while the duke and the emperor haggled over his custody with all the dignity of fishwives in a market stall. They both knew what prestige there was in holding such a valuable prisoner, and what reward could be gotten for his release. Another giddy prospect was the money which could be had from sources who did not wish to see Richard Plantagenet set free.

  Henry pondered that, then wrote his letter to the French king.

  The news of Richard’s capture raced through Europe like a river and in it John could see the promise of his own liberation. So far, he had been very careful in his dealings with the King of France—hinting only in the vaguest terms that he might be willing to fall in with Philippe’s conspiracy against the absent Richard. As long as his older brother could appear at any time to demand an accounting, he’d been afraid to commit himself to any scheme.

  But now fortune was whispering in John’s ear.

  Richard might never return! He could die in prison or be held indefinitely by his vindictive captors. Even if a hefty ransom was agreed to, there was no guarantee it could be raised in a land impoverished by the measures which Richard had initiated to support his crusade.

  So England was without a king—until another could be found.

  By the end of February correspondence between John and Philippe had increased to three or four letters a week. The messages were filled with talk of friendship, but did not neglect discussion of Normandy and the retrieval of the Vexin. Finally John was invited to come to Paris.

  He did not refuse.

  Philippe was growing weary of Sibylla.

  Two summers ago on the banks of the Rhone he had promised to make her his mistress when he came back from Syria, and two days after his arrival in Paris she was in his bed once more. From that time hardly a week passed without at least one meeting between them. The gossip of the marketplace was that the king spent more nights at Gonesse than at the Cite Palais.

  Sibylla was no fit substitute for Isabel—no woman was—but she was the closest he could find. She had the same blood, the same breasts, the same brazen Flemish pride. Many were the times he had loathed Isabel for that pride, but the natural sweetness of her temperament had made even her worst moods bearable.

  But Sibylla was a shrew.

  She demanded without Isabel’s grace, sulked without Isabel’s charm. And although she claimed to be happy only when she was with Philippe, she inevitably spoiled their meetings with her temper and her incessant carping.

  Her primary complaint was Edythe. How jealous she was of the lame serving girl who had borne a healthy son to the king! Sibylla knew that Edythe still lived at the Cite Palais, that she was the one Philippe lay with when he was not with her. How could he bed anyone so ugly? How could he possibly desire her?

  Sibylla wanted a child by him. Philippe did not want one from her. Because of that he seldom left his seed in her. It was one thing for them to be lovers; he felt no shame in that. But to make a child with the sister of his dead wife was something that he could not conscience and God would not forgive.

  Sibylla was equally unforgiving. “Why can’t I come to live with you in Paris?” she asked him one night in early March as they lay together in bed.

  It was cold; they could hear the wind blowing outside. Philippe pulled her closer into his arms and silenced her complaining with a kiss. “I’ve explained that to you a dozen times,” he sighed. “It would look sluttish to have my dead wife’s sister living under my roof.”

  She licked at the scars upon his chest, then smiled up at him. “You are king. A little gossip cannot touch you.”

  He grabbed her by the arm and shook her roughly. “Idiot! I don’t care about the mutterings of tavern bitches and bath house whores. But I cannot risk criticism from the Church; not now when I’m just about to move on Normandy.”

  Normandy, always Normandy!

  “But I’m so lonely when you aren’t with me,” she wailed.

  “Then you must teach yourself restraint,” he said and bent to kiss her lips.

  She settled in his arms and closed her eyes, trying to convince herself that he belonged to her, trying to banish the image of her sister. She and Philippe rare
ly spoke of Isabel, but the memory was always there—scented and mysterious—between them.

  It was Isabel he really wanted; Sibylla knew that. It was her face he saw, her body that he fondled. He dreamed of a dead woman while Sibylla lay, warm and living in his arms! It was cruel, and it was her own fault. She gave him every chance to hurt her, because even that was better than not having him at all.

  Sibylla reached to stroke his face. It was such a handsome face, though he had never quite managed to lose the haggard look he had brought back from the Holy Land. There was disillusionment in his expression, and something behind his eyes had already begun to look old. He was thinner too, and much of his hair was gone. But his body was stronger and more beautiful than before, laced with the scars of his achievements in the East.

  “You’re perfect,” she murmured, “so perfect… .”

  Philippe took up a handful of her soft hair, examining its rich brown color that was striped with gold in candlelight. She was a sweet little trinket, but many times he wanted to be rid of her; it was a relationship fraught with difficulties. Sibylla was jealous, obsessive—a bitch. But she was the only woman who halfway reminded him of Isabel, and because of that, he needed her.

  “Sibylla,” he began, “you must try not to love me so much.”

  There was a note of apology in his voice but she would not let him finish. She kissed his throat over and over. “You might just as well ask me to open up my veins and let every drop of blood spill out.”

  He rolled Sibylla over on her back and sprawled over her. “I warned you,” he whispered.

  And she whispered back, “Someday you will love me, Philippe. I know you will.”

  No, not her; not anyone.

  He felt the muscles in her belly leap as he pushed her thighs apart. Her sweet sable nest was already edged with tiny drops of wetness and he stroked it gently. He loved the look of hunger in her eyes, the tenseness in her face. Once she had been an arrogant little prude, but Philippe had made her a woman. And now she could never get enough of him. At this moment that was excitement enough.