The Rebel Princess (3 page)
“So you said.” I waited for more information, or a clue as to where the king was taking our conversation. After a moment of silence I prompted: “Have you information that points to a particular person?”
He regarded me for a long moment. “Who else is in our royal family besides those you have named?”
I shrugged. “Our father’s brother, Duke Robert. But he resides in Orleans. And his sisters, Charlotte, abbess of Fontevraud, and Constance, dowager countess of Toulouse…” My voice trailed off.
“Exactly,” Philippe said, watching the growing look of enlightenment spreading across my face. “Constance, mother of Raymond of Toulouse.”
“Why would Constance engage in treason with John of England? Or for that matter, occupy herself with events in Toulouse? She has been in Paris for more than two decades, ever since she left Raymond’s father. Surely, if she were disloyal, she would have acted before this.” I thought again of mentioning the letter I had received that morning from Joanna, but immediately discarded the idea. Not yet.
At that moment, a sharp scratching on the door caused Philippe to call a distracted command for entry. A servant appeared with a tray piled high with fresh bread, grapes, and oranges from Hispania. The king gestured toward the low table in front of my bench. He then beckoned the servant and gave him another order in a low voice.
I looked around the room. There was a musk smell pervading this chamber, a scent that no woman could claim. I was certain Philippe’s wives never came here. He must bed the royal consorts in their own
chambers, and his mistresses in theirs. These days, with Ingeborg back at court and the beloved Agnes banished, I doubted he was much engaged in connubial activity.
As I was musing over these indiscreet thoughts, the door closed behind the clerk and my brother rose and strode to one of his long oak side tables. “Cider or burgundy?” he questioned, as he held a pitcher up.
“Cider, at this hour,” I said, in my best elder-sister voice.
“Well enough for you,” he muttered. “I need to fortify myself against a long and difficult day.” He poured from a silver pitcher into one glass, and from an earthenware pitcher into the other.
“First apples from Normandy this autumn,” he said, grinning, as he handed me the cup. He sank once more into the welcoming cushions of the royal carved armchair, and added, “And last grapes from Burgundy,” as he lifted his own cup.
“And now let us return to the topic of Constance,” I nudged.
“Constance, yes.” He frowned as he spoke. “News of a set of suspicious meetings held by our aunt has reached my ears. They may relate to Toulouse and heretics or to information leaked to John of England, or perhaps both.”
“I cannot imagine any such connection. Aunt Constance is such a mouse here at court. I scarce recall she is even here. I would be hard put to see any mystery surrounding her.”
“Let me remind you that ‘Aunt Constance’ is still dowager countess of Toulouse,” Philippe said firmly. He shook his head. “Her son is at the center of the present turbulence between the south and Rome. Mouse, perhaps, but possibly an active one, involved in intrigue to protect her offspring.”
“The count’s mother she may be,” I said, “but rumor has it her marriage to his father was most unhappy.”
“Ah, well, a mother’s love and all of that.” Philippe waved his
hand in dismissal. Then he rose again and began pacing the length of the long chamber, tossing his black hair out of his eyes. My gaze followed him as I sipped my cider. “Nevertheless, her meetings are secret, discovered by de la Ronde’s men quite by accident. Why would she keep them so private if there was no intrigue about them?”
“A secret assignation? Aunt Constance?” The image of the stubby figure of our elderly aunt rose before me and a giggle escaped before I could stop it. I leaned back against the bench cushions and drew my legs under me, preparing to hear another chapter on our royal family saga that my brother so loved to embellish.
“Not that kind of assignation,” Philippe said dryly. “My agents tell me that she has journeyed twice to Créteil, an hour’s ride from our court. The coachman who drove her has reported, under…um…earnest questioning, that there she met two men in the common rooms of a small inn, had the coachman wait for more than an hour each time, and then came directly back to Paris.”
“And you are wondering what could be the purpose of such meetings?” I was puzzled. We rarely saw my aunt, though she lived in the drafty wing of the palace just next to my own suite. She was of a naturally withdrawing nature, and so unhappy over the events that had occurred when she was married to the fifth count of Toulouse that she never spoke of her years there. “It may only be that Constance has a sense her son Raymond is in danger. Everyone says the pope’s patience is running thin over the count’s failure to deal with the heretics. Have you thought that she only seeks news from the south of her son’s well-being?”
“Then why all the secrecy?” He paused and spread his hands in question, then brought them together in a definitive clap. “If John has established agents in my very own court, I cannot afford to sleep. Anyone can be suspect in selling state information. Constance may be doing this to obtain gold to send to her son.”
“But you said Raymond had no need of—” I began, but he went
on, overriding my protestations.
“And there are more disturbing developments surrounding this that make me increasingly suspicious.”
“Such as?” I felt a frisson of interest as I plucked an apple from the bowl on the small table near me. As I began to munch, I realized how hungry I was. I had only taken a few bites of the breakfast Mignonne had set before me. Perhaps the promise of a new mystery was reviving my appetite. I rose and began to wander the room, finally lighting on the corner of Philippe’s large oak writing table as a good place to sit. I shoved aside a stack of scrolls that skittered onto the floor.
Philippe had ceased his restless pacing and stood facing me, his arms folded across his chest. “When I returned from Blois, I carried a message for Constance from her son. Last Sunday, after Mass, I sent de La Ronde to Constance’s chambers with the note from Raymond. He returned to me and reported that her maids said she had just departed for a meeting in Créteil. That it had to do with ‘affairs of state.’ ‘Affairs of state’!” he repeated in high dudgeon, flinging his arms outward. “Whose state, I wonder? The only state here is Ours!”
I closed my eyes momentarily and sighed. When Philippe reverted to the royal “We” in his speech, speaking in his mode of kingship, he often became unreasonable. It was usually a sign that he felt a threat from some quarter, for at other times he was often the most informal of rulers.
He walked to the window and back, apparently to calm himself, then continued. “So I ordered de la Ronde to send two of my best grooms packing after her. They were able to follow her because she was silly enough to use a court carriage for the journey. The trail was easily found.”
He stood over me, scowling, one hand behind his back, the other raised in admonition in my direction. “Only one of my grooms returned. I don’t like losing men, even varlets. It’s unseemly that the king’s men should be ill-used.”
“Well, I wasn’t responsible. Stop shaking your finger at me.” I set my goblet down on his writing table. A man dead under suspicious circumstances. Now he had my full attention. “What were the particulars of events at the inn, as you know them?”
“My men arrived shortly after her carriage. They split at the inn, after assuring themselves that Constance was safely inside and her coachman drinking in the common rooms. All this according to the man who survived, who gave this report.” Philippe moved toward the table on which I was perched, and glanced down at a roll of parchment, tapping his finger on it, then made a grimace and brushed his hand dismissively across the paper where it lay.
“Who gave you that report? Etienne Chastellain?” I reached to pick up the vellum, but my hand fell short.
Philippe shook his head. “As I said earlier, for the present I trust only de la Ronde. Chastellain knows nothing of this.” He tossed the scroll onto my lap and continued his story, planting the knuckles of one fist firmly on the table and the other hand on his hip. “The report of the survivor says that one of my fellows crept close to the window on the side of the building where the common rooms were, and from whence he could hear the voices of Constance and at least three men closeted with her. While the one man was watching, the other went round the back, to see how many horses the visitors had, for they didn’t know the number of men and feared for their survival if a fight erupted.”
“What does de la Ronde say happened next?” I fingered the report but did not unroll it, concentrating on Philippe’s face as much as his words. As if my artist’s eye could discern what he thought was most important about what he was telling me.
My brother turned away as he replied. “Well, when the first man didn’t rejoin his comrade minutes later, as agreed, the other fellow eventually went to investigate. He found his partner lying on the
ground under the window, with his throat slit. The survivor hotfooted it out of there back to where they had hidden their horses. He was shaken badly, I can tell you.” The king had resumed his chair and now stared balefully across the room at me. I moved back toward him, my fingers gently cradling the rolled vellum. After taking the chair opposite him, I shook the scroll open.
“What did your man see?” I asked the question absently as I scanned the report, laying it open on the low table in front of us when I had finished.
“My man said they spoke a strange dialect. He could make out some words, but not many. It seemed to be a tongue related to ours, but still foreign. The men kept saying ‘
oc
’ rather than ‘
oïl
’ when they were nodding yes.”
“The langue d’oc,” I murmured. “The speech of the Occitan region. I learned it at the court of Eleanor when we were children in Poitiers.”
“And that fact led me to the conclusion that Constance was meeting secretly with someone from her son’s county.” Philippe ploughed on, unwilling to be distracted in his thoughts by a lesson in lingua franca. “But not necessarily sent by Raymond. He may have known nothing of this, else why send a note through me to her? If the enovys were his, he could have sent a message through them at this meeting.”
“Or he used that as a ploy to assure you would have no suspicions about her,” I promptly replied, but he shook his head.
“The count loves finery and opulence. And he needs my help too greatly at present to antagonize me by murdering my servants. No, this has something to do with Constance alone.”
I stretched my arms upward and clasped my hands behind my head for a moment to relieve my back. “And he certainly would not order such an action after you have just taken the trouble to meet with him in Blois, not a fortnight past.”
“That makes these events all the more mysterious.” Philippe leaned his head on the back of his chair and stared upward, as if seeking answers from the heavens. “So the question is: Who from the south was present at these meetings, and why?”
The king took a long draught from his own goblet and slammed it impatiently on top of de la Ronde’s report, causing some of the burgundy to spill over and make splotches like blood on the white paper. I watched them pool.
“Call for a remedy for that tooth, Brother,” I said absently.
“Not now.” He dismissed my suggestion with a curt wave of his hand. The conversation lulled as he seemed to collect himself. “The business at hand is more important.”
“Well, Your Majesty,” I said, “this seems to be a serious affair.”
Philippe nodded brusquely, his square chin jutting forward. He moved to the edge of his chair, leaning toward me with an air of intensity. His elbows rested on his knees and his strong hands dangled between his legs, their jeweled rings snapping in the reflection of the candlelight. “There are links to these events—the note warning me about a family member, Constance’s attention to the chalice at St. Denis, and the murder of my varlet. She is up to something and I’ll warrant her son knows nothing about it. I want your help, Alaïs. We need to smoke out any treachery at our court. Those meetings were so secret someone had to die for them.”
I
left my brother’s chambers that morning with the promise that I would help him discover the secrets that lay behind the mysterious actions of our aunt, Constance. In truth, I knew not how I would do this, but I had confidence that an opportunity would present itself where I might inquire of her, without raising suspicion, about her son and his lands. Perhaps I could make a casual comment about receiving a letter from Joanna, and convey her best wishes to her good-mother (though not the part where my friend instructed me to keep Constance safely in Paris to ensure Raymond’s continued good humor!).
Several days passed uneventfully, and my aunt was nowhere to be seen. I was beginning to believe I would have to create an excuse to visit her chambers, when certain events pushed all thought of Constance and the murder from my mind.
The following Friday the court came alive. It was the day before the last tourney of autumn, a grand event that drew knights and nobles from far and wide. The castle had been humming for days with preparations for the many visitors. It was on that morning that I had one of my rare premonitions, a “visitation” as William called my visions. My sleep had been fitfull all night, and toward dawn I started suddenly, sitting upright as if to defend myself. My active dreams had returned, those vivid pageants that came to me from time to time with warnings lodged in their peculiar images. This time I had seen gryphons flying about a room, and an elderly man who insisted that I help capture them and restore them to the glass bowl.
I sat still for a moment, remaining under the spell of those fabulous creatures. I considered whence they might have come, how I had encountered them before. But I could not remember.
Suddenly, without warning, a flash of light flooded the room. I was aware of a throbbing in my head, and felt my palms dampen with fear. I was frightened, wished to flee yet was powerless to resist. I dared not even lie back against my pillows.
The outline of a room was revealed, dimly at first as if there were a lifting fog. I felt the warm air of the south wafting over me and slowly, emerging from the brightness, an oval of thirteen standing men took form. Ten were dressed alike in scarlet robes with wide-brimmed hats of the same color perched on their heads while the other three wore only white. Two figures stood at the head of the oval, like the clasp on a necklace. All faces were turned toward them. In front of each man was a lighted taper, standing in a black wrought-iron holder reaching up from the floor. These candles were like sentinels, forming an inner ring to the circle. The flames licked the air with a smoky hunger.
I peered at the leaders, fascinated in spite of myself. One stood tall with his white hair flowing away from his bronze face, the aristocratic nose marking him as the figure from my gryphon dream. He was wearing the papal tiara, a white, beehive-shaped crown trimmed
in gold and jewels, so tall that it would diminish a lesser man. But it only added to this amazing man’s force.
The man next to him was unfamiliar, never before seen in my dreams or my visitations. He was robed in white, too, but in a simple style, in the white wool robe of the Cistercian order. His cowl was pulled forward.
As I watched, a tall, slender figure gradually took shape on the other side of this monk. His face became visible and my heart nearly stopped. It was Francis, garbed as a Cistercian, standing silently with a look of wonder on his face.
Suddenly the mysterious monk pushed back his cowl and revealed his face. It was long and fleshy with a chin that jutted out, as if to invite battle. His eyes glittered and the reflection of light off his brow threw into relief the ruddy tone of his face, a contrast to the deep tan of the man beside him and to my son. He had a focused, rapacious expression and I shuddered when he casually placed his hand on Francis’s shoulder.
Then the bronze-faced man swung a bell up once, strongly, and at the sound and with one accord all of the scarlet-robed men pulled the tapers from their holders, turned them upside down and plunged them into the dust with a final and vicious gesture of annihilation. The vision darkened and I fell back into my pillows.
I lay there with my eyes closed for some time, captive to the echoes of the bell sound that had triggered the final eclipse of light. That sound seemed to recur in concert with a pulsing inside my head. Eventually both the sound and the throb receded and I was left to such peace as I could muster. I slept again, dreamless this time.
And so my servants found me some hours later. Mignonne, who alone knew of my visitations, made excuses to the others for my dazed state, and fed me watered wine, which revived me. After that, I was able to take some brown bread and fruit sweetened with honey. And I came more into myself.
I spent the morning quietly in my chambers, declining to join the king for his noonday dinner when he sent a note to summon me. I made an excuse of illness, although the ache in my head had ceased after I partook of some nourishment. Instead, I sat at my table, now reading some of the poetry from the south that I loved, now working in a desultory fashion at my charcoal and vellum, trying to draw the form of the fabulous birds who had flown around the room of my dreams.
After I had little success with that task I found myself drawing what I could remember of the scene where the red-robed men plunged their tapers into the sand. I was captivated by the memory of the man with the flowing white hair, and the other man beside him, the one with the fleshy, venal face. Yes, his face was easy to recall. I had it in a couple of strokes. I looked at what I had drawn and was both attracted and repulsed by it. It was a face interested in power, and earthly pleasures. It was the face of strength, and perhaps the face of a killer. But why had this face been sent to me? And what place had Francis in the company of such men? And who or what was to be extinguished? For that was the clear meaning of their ceremony.
I rose and walked to the window for air, tossing the drawings under other scrolls so that Mignonne would not see them when she came in with my bath. My small black cat, Minuit, rubbed against my leg, but I was in no mood for play. I waited. Suddenly a strong urge rose, an inner voice commanding me to leave my chamber.
What moved me I cannot say. These restless feelings sometimes came over me. I accepted these callings just as I accepted that my left hand had been withered from birth, and that I was specially marked in some way. Some said I had the gift of second sight. Not as a witch, as sometimes the Parisian court whispered, but still there were things about myself even I did not understand. Odd dreams, visions, inner movements that gave me direction, such as the one I felt now to go to the highest point of the castle. My feet flew along the hall to the tower
at the end, and I climbed the steps quickly, rather more like a girl than the woman I was.
I emerged at the top onto the stone parapet just in time to see a bizarre picture spread before me. Looking down, I gazed upon an extended, winding human snake outlined against the distant meadows. I leaned out between the crenellations to better observe.
The line looked for a moment like a long, colorful, mythical serpent created for the amusement of onlookers at a festival, but soon the flags carried in the front became visible, and the many wagons bringing up the rear rolled into view. The serpent broadened and the moving tableau was defined as an ordinary company of knights and their entourage. With all the adjacent baggage and the many foot soldiers and attendants, it was clearly the train of someone very important.
“You have recovered from your malady?” The deep, rather hoarse voice at my shoulder startled me. Philippe had come upon me with no warning. He stood so close I could sense the heat from his climb up the stairwell. I looked at him, but he remained staring straight ahead at the advancing group, frowning and pursing his lips. I saw he did not expect an answer to his question, for he continued: “So they called you to come, as well.”
“No,” I said, “no one summoned me.”
“Another of your premonitions?” he asked, his brows rising slightly. He didn’t take his eyes from the colored autumn fields on the west bank across the Seine, and I turned back to watch with him.
“Yes, I suppose you could say that. Who comes below?”
“It’s too early to see for certain,” Philippe answered, and for the first time I detected a light note in his voice. “But I suspect we will see the pennants bearing the insignia of the Templars among those in the front rank.”
“Philippe”—my heart stuttered in joyful surprise—“William is in this train!”
“So said the advance courier who arrived sweating like a drenched bird only an hour past.”
“But why did you not tell me immediately?” A storm of feelings was taking me over, my anger at William for his absence in conflict with my rising joy to see him again. And the happiness that now, finally, I could tell my son the truth about his blood bond to me. I clutched the iron ring attached to the stone rim and leaned farther out, determined to get a better view. “It’s been eight long months. I should have prepared.”
“Softly, my sister.” Philippe took my arm and pulled me slowly away from the edge. “How could we explain to the grand master of the Templars in England that his dearest love fell over the parapet in plain sight of her beloved’s train and within reach of her own brother’s hand? That incident could start a war!”
“Philippe!” I turned to face him again, only to see him grinning like a schoolboy. Philippe never mentioned my seven-year liaison with the Templar Grand Master William of Caen. What could possess him to show wit about it now?
But he only shrugged and tossed the locks of his dark hair back from his forehead. “Well, all the court talks of you and the Lord William. I suppose we can acknowledge it when you and I are in private.”
“Oh, the court again,” I said, pressing my fingers to my temples in mock-fury. “Always the court and their endless chatter.”
“How now, Sister.” Philippe took my hand lightly in his own. “Do not distress yourself. If my courtiers speak of you at all, it is with kindness and with some awe. After all, a man as famous and handsome as the Lord William will draw attention, even if you in your retiring manner do not seek it.”
I shook my head, but I could not allow the mention of the silly court to distract me now from the startling news: William, coming home at last! I cast my gaze back to the brilliantly colored train and was astonished to see the group’s speedy progress. The front riders
were now quite close to the bridges of the Île de la Cité. The colors were coming into view, and I could make out four distinct flags.
“I see the Templars’ flag now, the white with the red cross, and the brilliant blue—that would be William’s house. But there are two I don’t recognize.”
Philippe squinted against the late afternoon sun, shading his eyes with his hand. “You would not. They are seldom seen in Paris. This pair of flags signals little good. They represent the pope of Rome and the abbey of Cîteaux. They announce the two monks I told you of, those who come to persuade me to war.”
“Cîteaux, the Cistercian abbey?” My eyes closed as I saw once again the sinister white-robed Cistercian monk of my visitation, and my son Francis standing next to him. “You did not say they were Cistercians.”
“The leader is called Arnaud Amaury. He is abbot of Cîteaux. The other, the lesser in power I think, is named Pierre of Castelnau.” My brother continued to watch the advancing party, even as he spoke. “Why the interest? Have you heard these names before?”
I shook my head, for in truth Joanna had not mentioned the names of the monks. But there was no doubt in my mind. These were the two bent on mischief in the lands of Toulouse. “Mere curiosity, Brother. Nothing more.” I paused. “And why does William ride with their party?”
Philippe sighed and turned toward me, casting a baleful glance in my direction.
“God himself only knows, but the sense of the letter delivered only an hour past from William’s advance courier is that he met the monks’ party just north of Poitiers and made it his business to travel with them to Paris. No doubt he intended to garner information on the journey, under the pretense that they were both coming to our court to discuss the same problem…”
“Namely, the heretics in the south,” I interjected. He nodded, and
turned away again, saying no more.
I knew better than to press the subject, and waited a moment, watching the progress of the colorful snake as it made its way across the bridge onto our little island. When next the king spoke, his tone became more agreeable.
“I did not ask you when we met: Have you had news from William recently?”
“I’ve not had anything since Whitsun. Last December the pope promised to release William from his Templar vows so that we might marry after he performed one final mission. When I agreed to this, I did not know that final mission would take the rest of his natural life! I will be glad of heart to see his diplomacy end soon.” I didn’t bother to keep the irritation from my voice.
Philippe motioned to me as he moved toward the opening of the narrow stairwell that led down the turret. I followed him, as the passage was too narrow to accommodate both of us. He kept talking over his shoulder as we descended. The steps were so steep and rough that I nearly tripped when a small cat ran across my path. They were slippery as well, and I had need of the iron rings in the wall from time to time to steady myself. The moss growing on the walls added to the gloom.
“William has confided in me his plan to marry you and return to Ponthieu as soon as he concludes his present business.” He paused, one jeweled, slippered foot rotating on the white stone step, and turned upward to me. His voice held an uncharacteristic softness as he continued: “I told him he had my permission and my blessing.” I was oddly moved, for the second time in this interview, by my brother’s affection. I placed my hand on his shoulder, which he touched briefly before continuing his descent.
“When did you have this conversation, Brother?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.
The king, never one to show emotion for long, resumed his brisk
tone. “William was with me when I met with Count Raymond in Blois these few weeks past.”