The Prince of Darkness (16 page)

The song had finished.

‘I trust it pleased you, my lord,’ she said.

‘I have rarely been so pleased,’ he answered her.

’Tis true, he thought. And she is excited. What passion is in that exquisite little body, just begging to be awakened. My task, good Hugh, not yours. This child shall be my bedmate … and soon, for I shall go mad if there is too much waiting. I want her now while she is twelve years old, untouched and yet eager to be. What a combination of pleasure awaits me.

Her parents would be here the following day. He would have a proposition to make with them.

Others sang. They bored him. He watched Isabella. Every now and then their eyes met; he would smile at her and there would be her answering response.

How irksome the waiting was.

He retired for the night and she went to her bedchamber. She scarcely slept. She was thinking of him all the night.

The next day she walked in the gardens of the castle with her attendants. She looked up and saw him at a window, watching her. She shivered afresh even though it was warm and sunny.

When she went up the stone staircase to her apartment he was waiting there, close to the door. No one else was in sight.

‘Isabella,’ he whispered.

‘My lord!’

He held out his hand and she put hers into it. Then she was seized and held against him. As his hands caressed her body she began to tremble.

‘You excite me,’ he said, ‘as I never was excited before. Do I excite you?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ she answered.

He kissed her then again and again. She was gasping but making no attempt to protest or escape.

‘You are warm-hearted,’ he said. ‘I sense it. You long to experience the sweets of life.’

‘Oh yes, my lord,’ she murmured.

‘As yet no man has known you.’ Then he laughed and whispered: ‘’Twill not be for long. There’s joy in store for you.’

‘My lord, I hear someone on the stair.’

‘Do you then?’ he answered. ‘So part we must … and you are for me, forget it not.’

‘I am betrothed to Hugh,’ she answered.

‘Remember this. It is the custom of kings to have their way, sweetheart. And this king is more determined to have his than most.’

He released her then and she ran to her room. She looked at the patches on her skin where he had kissed her.

She knew that something very exciting was about to happen.

Her parents arrived the next day. How delighted they were to see her!

Her mother wished to know if she were happy in the Lusignan household.

‘Very happy, Mother,’ she said. ‘Everyone is kind to me.’

‘And you are behaving as we would wish, daughter?’

‘I think so, Mother.’

Her father embraced her.

‘The Lusignans are delighted with you,’ he told her. ‘Hugh told me so. You are a good child.’

‘Yes, Father. The King of England is here.’

‘It is for that reason that we owe this visit.’

‘Yes, Hugh told me.’

‘Have you been allowed to see the King?’

‘Yes. I sat beside him at supper. Then I sang to him. He was most gracious.’

‘That is well. I hope you were not too forward.’

‘The King did not seem to think so.’

Her parents looked at her apartment and spoke to the young girls who attended her. The Countess wanted to assure herself that they were suitable to wait on her daughter.

Then they went down to the hall where several other heads of noble families were assembled that they might do homage to the King their suzerain.

When the ceremony was completed John said he would like to walk in the gardens and he invited the Count and Countess of Angoulême to walk with him.

He said that he was delighted by the friendship between their house and that of the Lusignans. ‘It is always good,’ he commented, ‘to see these family feuds ended.’

‘It was an excellent idea to unite the families through the betrothal of Hugh the Brown and our daughter,’ agreed the Count.

‘Ah, your daughter. She is enchanting.’

The Countess smiled. ‘She has been admired for her beauty ever since she was more or less a baby.’

‘She’s a little enchantress. I tell you this; she has cast a spell over me.’

The parents smiled fondly but John’s next words quickly dispersed their smiles.

‘So much so,’ said John, ‘that I want her for myself and I shall not rest until she is mine.’

The Count and Countess appeared to have been struck dumb for they could not find the words to express their shock and amazement.

John said: ‘You are overcome by the honour I would do you. Your daughter is the most enchanting child I ever saw. She is ready for marriage. I never saw one so ripe and ready for the plucking. My dear Count and Countess, you will bless the day I sent for you to come to the Lusignan stronghold. For there I saw your daughter and the moment I clapped eyes on her – which was at a previous meeting in the forest – I was in love with her. I want her and I will have her and you will give her to me with the utmost joy.’

It was the Count who spoke first. It seemed to him that the King had gone mad. He had heard stories of his terrible rages, how he struck people or anything that was in his way, animate or inanimate, how he threw himself about and would do himself a damage if there was no one else on whom he could inflict his fury. This must be a prelude to madness.

But now he appeared to be calm enough. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I want Isabella. So much do I want her that I am prepared to face anything and anyone to get her. She is to be the Queen of England. What think you of that, my lord Count?’

‘’Tis a great honour, my lord, but she is betrothed to Hugh the Brown.’

‘Hugh the Brown! The petty Count of Lusignan! I am offering your daughter a crown. Duchess of Normandy, Countess of Anjou, Queen of England. You are no fool, Count.’

‘It is honour beyond our dreams,’ said the Countess.

‘My lady, you know a good prospect when you see it. I am so enamoured of your daughter that I will risk anything to get her, for no sooner did I see her than I knew I must have her.’

‘She is but a child, my lord, as yet.’

‘She is no ordinary child. There is a woman in that adorable immature body. My woman.’

‘Isabella has always been much admired. We know that she is possessed of exceptional beauty. You honour us greatly, but her betrothal—’

‘Bah! It shall be as nothing. You will take her away with you this day … back to Angoulême. I will come with you and there I will marry her without delay.’

‘The Lusignans would never permit her to go.’

‘Do you have to ask their permission as to what you do for your own daughter?’

‘In the circumstances we should have to. My lord, your admiration for her has been noted and we are in the heart of Lusignan country. It seems certain that they would never permit us to take her today.’

John was silent for a while.

Then he said: ‘I have it. We will go from here this day leaving Isabella here. Then in a week you will ask the Lusignans if they will permit your daughter to visit you for a few days. You have been with her and you miss her very much. They cannot object to parents wishing to have a visit from their daughter.’

‘And then, my lord?’

‘I shall come to Angoulême and there I will marry Isabella. As you know, I am free to do so. Then instead of being the Countess of La Marche, your daughter will be the Queen of England. Come, good Count and Countess, you will find it far more profitable to ally yourself with the House of Anjou and royal Plantagenet than with the Lusignans. Your daughter would never forgive you if you attempt to spoil her chances.’

‘It is my daughter of whom I think,’ said the Countess. ‘She is a child. She has grown accustomed to Hugh de Lusignan, and she is reconciled to the fact that she is to marry him.’

‘You’ll find your daughter is happy with the change.’ He laughed aloud. ‘I can promise you that.’

Then they went into the castle together and the Count and Countess of Angoulême told their host that they must leave. There were matters claiming their attention in Angoulême.

They said farewell to their daughter and left.

The next day the King left the castle and rode off in the opposite direction.

He had taken a brief farewell of Isabella. She had stood before him in the hall and suddenly he had lifted her from her feet and kissed her mouth. He had whispered: ‘Soon we shall meet again.’

Then he put her down, and in an aside to those standing by, he said that he found children enchanting. As though, she thought, momentarily angry, she were but a child to be petted. But she remembered his words and the brief embrace they had had on the previous day and she knew that he was acting for those watchers.

He rode away and she was with the crowd who stood at the castle gates watching; then she had gone up to a turret to see the last of the cavalcade.

The castle seemed very dull when the guests had departed. Had he really meant it when he had said they would soon meet again?

Everyone in the castle seemed to be talking about him. She went down to the kitchens to listen to the talk there. Servants knew so much.

She heard how he had been called John Lackland by his father when he was born because there were so many elder brothers to share out the King’s possessions. He had been to Ireland where he had shocked the natives with his wild behaviour. He had several illegitimate children. His weakness was women and he could never have enough of them. Had they noticed his clothes? All those jewels! His father had never cared for fine clothes; he had the hands of a lackey for he refused to wear gloves; and he ate standing up so that none would have known he was a king. John was different. He was always dressed in fine clothes and jewels. He always wanted everyone to have no doubt from the moment they saw him that he was the King.

The visit was the most exciting the household had ever known. King Richard had been very friendly with the family because of the crusades; now it was good to think that King John was on such excellent terms with them.

But listening to talk of him was poor consolation for his presence.

And what would happen now? He would go away and forget her. Would he? The way he had looked at her and held her surely had meant something. But then he liked all women.

The days passed. Nothing very amusing happened.

Shortly after the King’s departure Hugh had to go away to settle some revolt on the borders of his territory. He said farewell to Isabella and kissed her tenderly.

‘Soon,’ he told her, ‘we shall marry. I begin to think that in spite of your tender years we might go through the ceremony. As for the consummation …’

He did not finish and she did not seek to remind him as she had on other occasions that she was not so young as they all presumed her to be.

‘My brother Ralph will take over my position in the castle. He says his first duty will be to protect you.’

She watched Hugh ride away rather sadly for in spite of the impression John had made on her she was still deeply attracted by Hugh. In fact it had occurred to her to wish that Hugh were the King. What a fine king he would have made!

A few days after Hugh’s departure came a message from the Count and Countess of Angoulême. They missed their daughter and they wondered if Hugh would allow her to pay them a short visit.

Hugh being away, Ralph could see no reason why he should not grant Isabella’s parents what they asked.

Within a few days, surrounded by a considerable entourage, Isabella was riding to Angoulême.