Isabella, Queen Without a Conscience

by Rachel Bard

  “Isabella, I beg of you, even if you can’t be civil to me, don’t argue with the King. No matter how much we may disagree with his judgment, our only hope is to be submissive. I’ve already instructed young Hugh and Guy. Will you promise that you’ll join us in a contrite plea for mercy? A few tears wouldn’t be amiss. You can look so piteous and beautifully helpless when you weep.”

  I looked at him suspiciously. Was he joking? No, he was as serious as I’d ever seen him.

  “I will be contrite. I will weep. I will refrain from ranting and raving at the King. I know as well as you what’s at stake.” I bit back the angry words I longed to spit out at him. There’d be time for that later.

  “And please, Isabella, if the King asks if we have anything to say, let me be our spokesman. It will be hard for you to play the part of the dutiful wife but this is one time when you’ll have to pretend.”

  I nodded.

  The King took several parchments from his secretary, then looked out over the room. He raised a hand. Silence fell immediately. I heard the rustle of damask skirts being adjusted and, through the windows, the soft cooing of pigeons.

  “My counselors, my lords and ladies, my noble guests, welcome. We are here to bring a peaceful conclusion to the wars we have been waging against the rebels in our realm. We thank God for granting us the victory.” He bowed his head for a moment. Abbot Vital instantly bowed his head too. He almost quivered with his approval of such saintliness.

  “We have already received the submission of Renaud de Pons, lord of Saintonge. Today we will receive that of Hugh le Brun, Count of La Marche and of his wife and sons.”

  No matter how many times it happened, I flinched when I was referred to merely as Hugh’s wife. My back stiffened but otherwise I tried to look indifferent.

  The King beckoned to us. His expression was that of a stern but loving father who regrets that he must reprimand a wayward child. The four of us knelt before him.

  “Hugh de Lusignan, you have renounced your loyalty to your rightful lord and taken arms against us. You have incited others who owed us fealty to do the same. You have joined forces with our enemy, Henry of England. What say you to these charges?”

  Hugh spoke up in a strong but respectful voice. I wondered if he’d rehearsed his reply. He was unable to produce any tears but he put on a remarkably sorrowful face.

  “Sire, most honored King, I freely admit to the truth of what I am charged with. I have betrayed you most wickedly and presumptuously. I can only hope for your forgiveness. You are known and revered for your justice and mercy. I will comply with whatever punishment you deem fitting for such transgressions.”

  King Louis listened attentively to this groveling. I bowed my head so nobody could see how my cheeks had turned an angry red.

  Hugh went on. “I plead with you to bear no malice toward me, my wife and my sons, as we bear none toward you. I beg you to accept my promise to serve you loyally from this day forward.”

  I looked up to see the king fixing his gaze on me. “Isabella, Countess of Angoulême, have you anything to add to your husband’s submission?”

  “Nothing, my King.” I had no trouble summoning the requisite tears; they were already flowing. But they were tears of helpless fury, not penitence.

  He asked each of our sons the same question and received the same answer.

  “Then rise. Sir Hugh, you and yours are pardoned.”

  Some of the spectators must have thought this was an unnecessarily soft judgment. There was a good deal of murmured conversation and argument. The King ignored it. He asked Hugh to meet with him and his council in his own chamber to discuss the terms of the surrender.

  With my sons, I went back to our lodgings. They seemed stunned. They’d gone so sturdily into battle with assurance of victory. Guy wasn’t yet twenty. What a sorry finale to his first foray onto the battlefield!

  But with the optimism of youth, they rallied.

  “If he’s pardoned us, that must mean we won’t have to give up any of our possessions,” said Hugh. At twenty-one, he was already thinking of when he’d be Lord of Lusignan. “What do you think, mother?”

  “After this shameful day I don’t know what to think. We’ll have to wait and see. When your father comes back he’ll tell us how much of your and your sisters’ patrimony he’s given away.”

  Toward evening Hugh came in where we were waiting, bored but apprehensive, in the cramped chambers we’d been allotted. When I learned that the King’s brother Alphonse had been present at the discussions I was glad I hadn’t been invited. I doubted if I could have kept from lashing out at the man who had jilted my daughter and assumed my son Richard’s rightful title to Gascony.

  I’d never seen Hugh look so tired and dejected. He’d lost every trace of his customary good humor. He threw himself into a chair and made his dismal report without looking any of us in the face.

  First, Louis had demanded that the lords of Poitou and Saintonge who had previously been our vassals must renounce their fealty to us and swear to serve him. This would mean lost revenues for us. And the payments we’d received from the king to defend Poitou would end.

  Next, we were ordered to renounce our suzerainty over all the cities and fortresses that Louis’s armies had taken from us in the recent war. Hugh had to give up our three major strongholds in Lusignan, including the splendid castle of Crozant we’d so recently rebuilt. All in all we lost about a third of our territories. Some of them were to be garrisoned by French armies at our expense.

  “He did promise, though, that if after three years he was assured of our loyalty they’d revert to us.”

  “Three years!” said young Hugh. At his age, that seemed an impossibly long time.

  “So. We’ve lost lands and revenue. Our expenses will nevertheless increase. Is that the last of it, or have you brought even more disgrace on your family?” I couldn’t dredge up a morsel of pity for him.

  “His last demand was that I serve for three years in his army, at my expense, when he begins his assault on the Count of Toulouse and his other enemies in the south.”

  The words snapped out before I could think. “Then the sooner he begins, the better. We’ll be rid of you and your new master before the two of you can do us any more mischief!”

  I slumped in my chair and stared at the floor. I was drained of anger. I didn’t look up when I heard Hugh and the boys leave.

  How could I have imagined I saw signs of mercy and clemency in the King’s face? True, he had pardoned us. Then he had ruined us.

  The next morning we prepared for the homeward journey.

  “Will you come to Lusignan?” Hugh asked me.

  “No, I will go to Angoulême.”

  So he, with his sons, went to his ancestral home and I to mine, where we would, each in our own way, try to come to terms with this humiliation.

  Back in Angoulême I still felt the depression that had overcome me in Pons. I spent hours in my familiar, beloved chamber in the palace, looking out at the gardens and the barely-begun new tower. Heretofore, when I suffered a setback I began at once to think of ways to fight back. This time I felt helpless. Whether it was God’s will, as Abbot Vital suggested; or Hugh’s and Henry’s failure at the battle of Saintes; or the miserable cowardice of our supposed allies in Poitou; or King Louis’s vindictiveness—for whatever reason, the fortunes of the Lusignans and the Taillefers had sunk like a stone to the bottom of a well.

  Hugh and I had dared to think we could steer our own course, independent of the monarchs of France and England. We’d failed. In my weariness I was beginning to wonder if our marriage, our partnership, could survive this debacle.

  But I clung to one tenuous hope. Our children need not fail.

  For now, though, I wanted only to rest. Maybe my will to fight would come back.

  Abbot Vital sent word that he’d come see me a week after my return. He’d left Pons before King Louis had meted out his punishment to us, but he must have heard all the h
orrid details. Still, he didn’t bring it up nor did I. I liked the abbot because he never told me to fall on my knees and implore God’s forgiveness for my unspecified sins. Rather, he let me ramble on with my complaints and murmured his sympathy, interjecting the occasional wise platitude about submission, patience and forgiveness.

  I asked him to sit beside me before the fire where a servant had placed his usual comfortable chair and a cushioned footstool. I’d ordered a plate of his favorite honey-soaked figs and a goblet of sweet spiced wine. He beamed to see them and his round face looked even more like a jovial man-in-the-moon. The good abbot had a well-developed taste for the finer things of life.

  “Welcome, my lord abbot,” I said. “You’ve come at a good time. I need your counsel.”

  “If I can help in any way, you know I will try.” He ate a fig, then daintily wiped his fingers on a snowy napkin he produced from some cavity in his voluminous red habit.

  “I’m sure you can imagine how deeply I feel the misfortunes that have fallen upon my husband and me.”

  His response was a noncommittal “Mmmm” and a sip of wine.

  “But I’m not plotting revenge. I’m still trying to accept my fate. I feel now that I must find a quiet retreat where I can rest and think about what to do next.”

  “I can understand that. It would do you good to retire for a time to some tranquil spot, far from reminders of your worldly concerns. Might I suggest, my daughter, our own Abbey of La Couronne? It’s beyond the city walls, in as quiet a spot as you could find hereabouts. We’d be honored by your presence. We could lodge you comfortably. And my lady Queen, you’d be sure of a snug, dry sleeping chamber, thanks to the generosity of yourself and Sir Hugh.”

  I’d almost forgotten that Hugh and I had paid for the abbey’s new roof the year before.

  “An interesting suggestion. I’ll think about it. Thank you, father.”

  After he left I did think about it. Then suddenly in my mind’s eye I saw another abbey: Fontevraud.

  I believe I’d held the thought of Fontevraud as the ultimate refuge ever since John and I had stopped there to see Queen Eleanor. How long ago that was—forty years and more. Now perhaps the time had come.

  Chapter 59

  Hugh X

  1242-1243

  For two months after Pons we didn’t see each other or communicate. The bonds that had held our marriage together—bonds of mutual regard and shared ambition—had weakened under the weight of King Louis’s punishing judgments.

  I kept myself busy repairing and raising the castle walls and finishing another tower.

  “Tell me, Hugh, why are you so set on strengthening your fortress?” asked Etienne Delorme. “Lusignan Castle hasn’t been attacked for a hundred years. I doubt if it’s likely to be attacked any time soon in view of the peace that King Louis has enforced.”

  We were comfortably settled before the fire in my tower room. A jug of wine was mulling and chestnuts were roasting on the hearth. My friend Etienne was planning to retire from the bishopric of Poitiers and had come to supervise the readying of the house near his old church where he’d live.

  “It seems, my good bishop, that as one approaches sixty one gives a great deal of thought to the little time one may have left, and what one will leave behind for one’s children. After I finish my service for King Louis, I’m thinking I might join him if he goes on Crusade to the Holy Land. That was my father’s ambition at the end of his life, but he never got to Jerusalem. Perhaps I’ll be able to make that pilgrimage for him. Maybe like my father, I won’t come back again. So, to answer your question: before I leave, I want to make sure my son Hugh will inherit a strong, well-fortified castle. Just in case he has to defend it some day.”

  “Ah yes. You see war as the one constant in life. You are probably right. My seven decades of observing man and his foibles haven’t taught me any differently. But speaking of inheritances, children, and all that, I hear that Geoffrey de Rancon is casting about for a wife. I don’t know much about him except that his first wife has just died without producing a son. Isn’t your eldest daughter Isabella still available, or have you carelessly betrothed her to someone without seeking my advice?”

  “She is indeed available and at eighteen she should have been married off long ago. After the betrothal to Prince Alphonse was annulled we thought some of affiancing her next to Count Raymond of Toulouse. But that doesn’t seem like such a good idea now, since King Louis has ordered me to go to war against Raymond. Yes, Etienne, I salute you.” I sipped my wine. “This Geoffrey might serve very well. He’s one of Louis’s loyal vassals down in Saintonge. There’d be no harm in such an alliance and maybe some good. The girl is with her mother in Angoulême. I’ll look into it.”

  I was glad to have a plausible excuse to get in touch with my wife. The next day I sent a message explaining the proposal and asking her what she thought. I didn’t actually invite her to come to Lusignan but tried to make it plain that she would be welcome. To be sure, I’d enjoyed the peace of this respite without her. I was weary of our arguments and differences. Yet I sometimes missed the stir that she produced wherever she went. I missed the drama of wondering what she’d be up to next. I had to admit that Isabella was a stimulating presence.

  She replied that she thought it would be useful for her to come so we could discuss this and other matters. She’d leave at once.

  I didn’t know what to expect. Tantrums? Cold disdain? Efforts to enlist me in new plots and intrigues? I wasn’t prepared for the Isabella I found when I walked over to the Logis de la Reine.

  She was calm and withdrawn, though when she permitted me to kiss her she warmed just a bit and let me hold her close for a moment. She seemed to have forsaken any ostentation in her dress. Her gown was fine enough—she didn’t own any that weren’t—but she wore no jewels whatsoever. She’d pinned up her hair and covered her head with a white wimple. Without that crown of golden hair her face looked thinner, her features sharper. Her blue eyes were even bluer in such a pale face. Could it be that at fifty-seven Isabella had lost her vanity?

  “Hugh, before we even begin to talk, let me say this. I would prefer that we not go over the misfortunes that have fallen on us. We’d only end up quarreling about who was to blame. We need to devote ourselves now to the future—the future of our children.”

  “I agree completely.”

  I’d had a table prepared near the window where Isabella used to like to sit, looking out at the gardens. I sent for Pierre and asked him to bring us our meal. It was mid-afternoon, past my usual dinnertime.

  I raised my goblet and said, “Do try this fine red wine, Queen Isabella. See if you can guess where it came from.”

  She took a sip, then another, and laughed.

  “Indeed, it’s from our vines on the Charente. Is that vineyard still ours, Hugh?”

  “As far as I know, it is. Our lord King must have missed it when he was going after our possessions.”

  This was getting dangerously close to forbidden topics, so I urged her to try the pickled fish. I went at my own with gusto, then helped myself to roast mutton. Isabella ate sparingly. She wanted to get down to business.

  “Now Hugh, as to the betrothal of Isabella, I think we’d be very wise to propose it to Geoffrey de Rancon. He’s considerably older but certainly well endowed with lands and vassals. The poor girl is beginning to feel like an old maid, with both her younger sisters already betrothed.”

  “Good. I thought you’d agree. I’ll start the negotiations.”

  I munched on a thick slice of bread and looked at her, wondering whether it was safe to bring up the next subject. I decided to plunge ahead.

  “My dear, before we go on, let me tell you of a wicked tale that is being spread about. I’d like you to hear it from me before it comes to you from some mean gossip.”

  She put down her knife and sighed.

  “A wicked tale about me? Well, I’m used to that. What is it this time?”

  “It
has to do with an attempt to kill King Louis. Etienne Delorme told me that he’d heard it from several disreputable sources. He scoffed at it, but he said—rightfully, I believe—that we should be aware of the lies that are being told. It seems you are accused of hiring two men and sending them to poison the King while he was at Saintes. This would have been after you heard from me that our cause was lost, and just before you left for Pons. The cooks at the castle in Saintes where the King was staying caught the men in the act of pouring poison into the King’s meat and his wine. When they were apprehended they said you’d sent them.”

  “What!” The Isabella I knew so well was on fire again. “How dare they!” she screamed. She sprang to her feet and stood glaring at me and then at the servant who had come running at the shriek. He was new in my service and not familiar with her ways. When he saw that nobody had been stabbed or fallen in a fit he left in haste.

  “How dare they spread such a story? I would never, never do such a thing. I am not a murderess! Hugh, you know that! You know I am not a murderess.” She sank in tears to her seat. I tried to comfort her. I knelt beside her and put my arms around her. I told her I believed her, all right-minded people would laugh at the story, she was not to give it another thought.

  “If King Louis had suspected you he would certainly have said so when we met him at Pons. It’s his opinion that matters. The tales will die away, when people find something else to blather about.”

  She wiped her eyes. “I suppose so. But who would spread such a vile rumor? It must have been that prissy Jeanne de Toulouse, who snatched away the husband who’d been promised to our Isabella. I knew from the moment I saw her she was a trouble maker.” The anger threatened to take over again, but she sank back and looked at me helplessly. “Hugh, why are people so ready to believe the worst about me? I’m so tired of it all, so tired.”

  She did look tired. Tired and dejected. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Her hands were clutching her damp handkerchief.