The Rain Maiden

by Jill M Philips

  The King of France had a baby daughter.

  He had prayed earnestly for a son, but from the moment little Jacqueline-Marie was put into his arms, Philippe adored her. She was a black-eyed beauty, the image of her father’s Champagnois ancestors, and so tiny it was hard to believe she wouldn’t break apart in his embrace.

  He smiled down at Isabel, who lay pale and half-sleeping in the bed. She was too weary to return his smile but her eyes lighted with contentment and relief. Two days ago when the first of her pains had started Isabel had been afraid she wouldn’t live to see her first-born child draw breath. Now the pain was over and although she was exhausted by the ordeal, she felt no worse for having suffered the experience. The child was perfectly formed and she was well; and in time Isabel would get well too and regain all her strength. There was one regret. If only this child had been a boy.

  It seemed almost a waste of nine long, difficult months and the agony of childbirth to produce a girl, knowing she would have to do it all again, at least until she bore a son. Isabel thought of her own mother, giving birth year after year, and the image of it soured in her mind. Nine births in the space of fifteen years! Already Isabel had three brothers and a sister she had never seen. Was that the future that awaited her? The very thought depressed her to the point of tears.

  Weakly she reached up and fondled Philippe’s arm. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to give you a son.”

  She sounded genuinely apologetic and a ripple of tenderness for her spread over him. He took her hand and kissed it, his lips warm on her cool skin. “Don’t be sorry. I’ve never been so happy in all my life. You’ve given me a precious gift.” He smiled down into the face of his sleeping daughter. “There’s plenty of time for us to have a son.”

  Isabel rested back against the pillow and closed her eyes. “Yes,” she sighed, “plenty of time.”

  Philippe’s enthusiasm for his infant daughter did not wane as the weeks passed. Each day he could be found in the nursery, watching as his darling child was bathed and dressed by her nursemaids. The king’s counselors smiled indulgently as he reported to them daily of her progress: what a good child she was (she seldom cried), and wasn’t it amazing that she already recognized her father!

  Immediately upon his daughter’s birth, Philippe had decided that Isabel would nurse the child herself. The descendant of the proud Capet and Carolingian lines would not be suckled at the breasts of a common woman. To Isabel this process was a barely-tolerated interruption in her day, but Philippe saw it as something of a mystic rite. Whenever possible he arranged his own schedule so that he could be present, for what sight could be more beautiful than his adorable daughter feeding at Isabel’s flawless breasts? The business of kingship seemed infinitely tedious in comparison.

  The birth of the little princess had also caused a change in Philippe’s mother. Although Adele had anticipated her role of grandmother with displeasure, one look at the child had dissolved her apprehensions. Her own daughter was lost to her—vanished somewhere amid the splendors of the Byzantine court—and now Adele heaped love and attention upon Jacqueline-Marie with almost savage retaliation. The nursery had been arranged to the exact specifications laid down by the fastidious dowager queen, and this included directions that the room be decorated with the same tapestries and hangings that had clothed Philippe’s nursery.

  In the midst of all the fuss paid to the newborn child, Isabel felt somewhat ignored. She was more contented than she had been a year ago but that emotion was quickly ebbing into boredom. She wanted to love her baby the way Philippe did, but the feeling simply wouldn’t come. There were too many complications. Motherhood was drab and too demanding, and even her strongest perfume could not disguise the smell of milk that leaked from her nipples and spoiled her clothes.

  She ached for Philippe, but he seemed preoccupied and more interested in his daughter than his wife. And when he did return to Isabel’s bed, what then—another pregnancy? By God she would prevent that as long as she could! Nursing a baby was said to keep a woman from conceiving, or so she had heard. At least that was in her favor. And if it didn’t work, there were other methods.

  Isabel stared out the window at a steel-colored January sky and decided it might be time to arrange another meeting with Richilde.

  Early in 1185 Geoffrey Plantagenet came to Paris.

  His purpose was both social and political. Many letters had passed between him and Philippe in the eleven months since their meeting at St. Nazaire. Together they had plotted fortifications of certain border castles, discussed a future movement of their combined troops near Normandy, and the possibility of recruiting mercenaries from the north. These were only plans. It was too soon for either man to commit himself to any public action, and too dangerous. If Henry of England suspected that his son and Philippe Capet had any dealings between them, there would be hell to pay.

  Actually, circumstances had been very favorable for the conspirators in the past year. Henry was too preoccupied with his plan to get the Aquitaine away from Richard to waste time on worrying about a friendship between Philippe and Geoffrey. Although he had been upset last year when Isabel had mentioned such a thing, he had since forgotten it in the course of other problems.

  Henry was no longer master of his situation. His decision to take Richard’s lands was rash, unfair and, worst of all, foolish. He was determined to set his beloved son John against Richard, and he would stop at nothing to accomplish this.

  Richard was puzzled: what had he done wrong? He was serving his father’s interests loyally in Poitou and Aquitaine. His reward for this was suspicion, betrayal, and the steady resistance of his father to name him as heir to the throne, even though young Harry had been dead for more than a year.

  Matters grew more ticklish when in the summer of 1184 Henry had ordered John to take an army into Richard’s domains and fight him for them, though he gave his youngest son neither money nor the means to accomplish this. It had been an empty threat, the kind that Henry made too often these days.

  In June of that year Henry had returned to England, leaving John behind in Normandy. Geoffrey, who had thus far stayed clear of the controversy between his brothers, saw his chance at last. He convinced John that war against Richard was in both their best interests, and before very long the two of them had raised an army and invaded Poitou.

  It had not been a very long or very serious war. Richard had moved quickly, striking back with a ferocity that had earned for him the epithet of “Lionheart.” By November of 1184 a meagre peace had been struck between the brothers. John, who was always bored by war because it entailed too much hard work, was glad to call an end to it. Richard, too, for other reasons. During his involvement with the fighting, new troubles had broken out between the barons of the Aquitaine and his presence was needed there once again to settle the strife.

  Geoffrey’s losses had been heaviest: many shrines, castles, and churches in Brittany had been sacked by Richard’s forces. But he was happy in a way. Skillfully, and with wicked determination, he was clearing a path for himself. With Richard and their father at cross purposes, he could see his own star rising. John was still too young and inexperienced to be counted on. Henry knew it, though he denied it—and that left only Geoffrey. He was on the very brink of snatching the succession for himself.

  Fortified by this knowledge he made his way to Paris and the company of his newest friend and ally.

  “She’s adorable,” Geoffrey told Philippe as he rocked the baby in his arms, “though I must admit I am partial to girls. My own little Eleanor is nearly Jacquie’s age. You must come to Brittany some time soon and see her.” He looked over at his friend and smiled knowingly. “I do believe that fatherhood has worked some magic on you. You seem much happier than when I saw you last.”

  With a care that approached delicacy, Philippe took the child from Geoffrey and laid her in the cradle. A greyhaired nursemaid hustled to his side, covering the sleeping baby with a quilt. The king stood by, s
miling down at his daughter and gently fingering her fine, black hair. “Yes,” he sighed contentedly, “things are much better for me now in many ways. Baldwin of Hainault has joined me in my struggle against Philip d’Alsace and I have had assurance of an army from the emperor as well. When spring comes we will face Flanders in the field and put his braggart oaths to the test of battle. Then, if we defeat him, as I know we shall, I will finally get possession of those territories that should have been given over to my care two years ago.” He looked up. “And of course the messages from you have been most encouraging.” Geoffrey put an arm about Philippe’s shoulder. “I bring you news which may be more encouraging still.”

  “Good,” Philippe answered, “and we shall talk of it, but not here. Later, when we are alone … but first we must go down to dinner with my wife. Come.”

  Together they walked toward the door but Philippe turned back for one more look at his daughter. His face lighted with a quiet expression of joy. “She is the finest thing that has happened to me in this past year, or any other.”

  “I can see that,” Geoffrey smiled. He and Philippe left the room together.

  Isabel was laughing.

  The wine shimmered in her cup, reflecting a pale glow of pearls and peridots. She was dressed in light green silk, her hair woven into a braided coil atop her head. She was relaxed and looking lovelier than Philippe had ever seen her look before. And she was laughing.

  It was Geoffrey who had made the difference. All through dinner he had charmed her with his ribald riddles and witty conversation. He had the means to charm anyone, with his handsome looks and elegant manners and his subtle show of flattery. His brother Harry had been the same; so too was Richard if the tales of him were true.

  So enchanting, these sons of the English king. Poets and warriors both. Philippe picked at the food upon his plate and wondered how a man could learn to speak the words which softened the expression of a woman’s face. Isabel laughed and Philippe looked at her. She knew what he was thinking. He could read the answer in her eyes.

  That evening as the winter light faded into darkness, Philippe and Geoffrey rode away to the forest of Vincennes outside of Paris, where they spent the night alone in a woodsman’s hut.

  “You’re a lucky man,” Geoffrey mused as they reclined on the floor in front of a seething fire. “Isabel is exquisite, more beautiful than I remember her.” Squinting into the fire Geoffrey asked, “How do you tear yourself away from her?”

  “If memory serves me, your wife is not unattractive,” Philippe observed, tracing the line of Geoffrey’s beard with his finger.

  “That’s true,” he answered, nuzzling Philippe’s hand, “but Constance is a proud woman.”

  “Proud!” Philippe laughed. “Womanhood has never known such pride as Isabel possesses.”

  Geoffrey turned over on his stomach, propping his chin beneath a fist. “In Constance pride has turned her flesh to ice. I can’t believe the same is true of Isabel.”

  A thousand images wavered in his mind. Then Philippe sat up abruptly, knotting his hands between his knees. “No,” he admitted, “Isabel is different.”

  Heated by wine and fire and each other’s arms, the two men slept till dawn. When Philippe awoke the two-room hut was empty. He threw a foxfur mantle around his body and pulled on his boots and braies. Then he went outdoors and stood off to the side, pissing into the snow. He had just finished and was pulling his laces closed when he looked up and saw Geoffrey coming toward him, his arms filled with logs for firewood.

  They went inside together. “I’ve been chopping wood,” Geoffrey said proudly as he tossed the logs into the fire.

  “Hardly the work of a king’s son,” Philippe answered, trying to sound disparaging, but he was only teasing. It was always very hard for him to be light-hearted, even in such intimate circumstances as these.

  They tore bits from a loaf of bread and Geoffrey sliced the cheese with his dagger. By the time they sat down to eat their food and wash it down with goat’s milk, the wood was burning rapidly, though it hissed in places where the snow had left it wet.

  They talked of the summer wars and what had come of them, of a future plan for capturing Normandy when all the preparations had been made. All the signs looked good for them, as Geoffrey hastened to explain. “I can’t believe my own luck. Richard is digging a grave for himself and John grows more worthless every day.”

  Philippe stuck a piece of twig between his teeth and gnawed at it thoughtfully. “But he is still Henry’s favorite?”

  “Oh, yes,” Geoffrey answered quickly, and pulled the shell from a boiled egg, “but even Henry knows that John is just a child.”

  “Hardly a child,” Philippe disagreed. “He is very near my own age.”

  “In years,” Geoffrey laughed, “but in years only. John is the laziest person on earth. He wishes only to eat, drink, and chew on little girls. It’s about the only thing he and my father have in common.”

  “Common is right,” Philippe said, sounding self-righteous and disgusted. “But what about Richard? Why does Henry refuse to name him as the heir?”

  Geoffrey’s eyes were downcast but an insolent, knowing smile played across his lips. “It might well be that father is seriously looking elsewhere for a successor to the crown.”

  “John? But you said …”

  The smile grew into a self-satisfied grin. “Last November at West Minster palace, in front of both my brothers, Henry named me custos of Normandy in his absence.” His eyes gleamed, green and exaltant.

  A thrill surged in Philippe’s groin. “I can’t believe it,” he said, nearly breathless at his friend’s good fortune, and his own. “That sounds as if …”

  “As if the whole inheritance were about to be settled upon me?” Geoffrey asked with an uplifted eyebrow. “That’s it, I’m sure.”

  “Henry’s announcement must have made the Christmas court very interesting,” Philippe observed.

  Geoffrey laughed. “You should have seen what it was like. Mother was there, and my sister Matilda, both of them trying to look younger than they are. John came to celebrate his birthday, Christmas Eve, and ended by getting drunk and puking on the table. And throughout the whole time Richard and Henry watched each other like two hungry jackals over the Christmas pudding.”

  “And you?” Philippe asked. “What did you do to pass the time?”

  Geoffrey’s moist lips brushed against Philippe’s cheek in a kiss. He whispered something close to Philippe’s ear and Philippe laughed, his mouth wetting at the image. “We’re very close to having everything we want,” he said, and their lips met.

  They made love till the middle of the morning, then lounged by the fire till noon while outside the wind was stirring up the snow.

  “As long as I hold Normandy in my father’s name I shall have a lot of money in my keeping,” Geoffrey was saying to his friend. “Just think of the army I can raise! This is only the beginning for us.”

  Philippe rummaged in the satchel where the food was kept until he drew out something that sparkled in the light. “Here,” he said and slipped the ring on the middle finger of Geoffrey’s left hand. “This is to celebrate our friendship.” It was a silver ring edged with emeralds, and its center bore the king’s device in miniature. Geoffrey looked up with questions in his eyes. “This is your seal.”

  Philippe nodded. “I am creating you Seneschal of France. If I am going to keep your counsel you should occupy such a position.”

  A quick frown darted across Geoffrey’s brow. “But what about the members of the curia regis, and your barons? Won’t they wonder what is going on? And Henry—might this not hint to him that we have plans?”

  “Not if we tell no one of it for the time being,” Philippe answered. “It will be our secret until we are too strong to worry about anyone interfering with our aims.” He caressed Geoffrey’s cheek with the tips of his fingers. “We will have all that we want, in time. But we must be careful. In any case, I have to set
tle my quarrel with Philip d’Alsace before I can give attention to our matter. Then when Flanders has been shown I can’t be trifled with, you and I will take back all of England’s lands on the continent for ourselves.”

  The picture of such a triumph pleased Geoffrey well and delight glowed in his eyes. “There is nothing we cannot do together,” he vowed, and threw his arms around Philippe’s neck.

  Philippe laughed and hugged him back. “Amen to that,” he said.

  PRINCE JOHN was growing restless.

  He had recently turned eighteen, yet he had virtually nothing but the clothes on his back and a single horse to call his own. Henry had made a great boast about dividing up Richard’s inheritance and giving some of it to John, but as usual that had come to nothing. Just as the wars of the previous summer had come to nothing. That was fine for Geoffrey. He could afford to play at war. He had all the resources of Brittany at his disposal and for the time being he had Normandy as well.

  John had nothing, and it was so unfair. Since boyhood he had been the landless youngest son. He had been Henry’s favorite too, but what good was that if it brought no gifts or blessings with it? This business of a betrothal to Hadwisa of Gloucester was another problem. John had no wish to marry her. She was ugly, and too old for him. It was true she would bring a large dowry, but the thought of spending his life on some obscure country estate, cut off from the center of society and power, depressed him. What kind of future did that offer for the son of a king?

  Henry knew his son was dissatisfied and seized upon a means of pacifying him. Years ago John had been given the title “Lord of Ireland.” It was Henry’s way of threatening the rebellious Irish with his power. He had never expected John’s appointment to come to anything, but now he saw a chance. There had been fighting among the three great kings of Ireland this past year, and disunity among the Norman colonists. Hugh de Lacy had been Henry’s procurator in Ireland for ten years and the king had suspicions that de Lacy was more anxious to serve his own interests than those of England. What better excuse than to send young Johnny there to oversee this matter? Once Henry had set his mind to do this not one of his counselors could sway him from it, though many of them tried.