The Battle of the Queens

by Jean Plaidy

  ‘But he cannot prove this.’

  Joanna raised her hands in a gesture of despair. He tells many tales of the Holy City and his adventures there. He swears he is the Count of Flanders.’

  ‘But you, his daughter, must know.’

  ‘I do know. He is not my father.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘My lady, there are many who believe this, and some accept it because they do not love me and resent being ruled by a woman. Many people are rallying round him. They are accepting him and rejecting me.’

  Blanche thought: Yes, I can understand you would be a stern ruler. Just perhaps, but perhaps somewhat harsh. And the people of Flanders are not fond of you so they would replace you by this man even if he is an impostor.

  ‘Well?’ said Blanche.

  ‘I want your help, my lady, and that of the King.’

  ‘How far has the matter gone?’ asked Blanche.

  ‘Very far, I fear. You see, my lady, there are unscrupulous men in Flanders.’

  ‘Not only in Flanders,’ replied Blanche grimly.

  ‘These men see a chance of enriching themselves,’ went on Joanna, ‘for to gain their support this man is giving them land and titles and promising them easy living.’

  ‘Has he, do you think, really deceived them?’

  ‘I am not sure. He has a certain look of my father but he is shorter by two inches and again and again he shows clearly that he is a trickster.’

  ‘What can I or the King do for you?’

  ‘You might ask him to court. You might question him. I believe that he would be less arrogant in your presence. If he were asked certain questions he would most assuredly give the wrong answers.’

  ‘Have you asked him these questions?’

  ‘I have and he has not satisfied me, but it is believed that I so enjoy ruling Flanders that I will do anything to stop his taking authority from me.’

  Blanche considered. Ferdinand was in fact Louis’s uncle for he was a brother of Isabella of Hainault and she knew that Louis had a strong feeling for his mother’s family. He often talked of Isabella – whom young Louis was said to resemble – although he had never known her. He had heard that she was both beautiful and gentle and he was very regretful that she had died two years after he was born and he could not remember her. He would want to help if he could; and she was certain that now the plight of Ferdinand would be brought to his notice he would want to release him.

  Blanche said that she would send a messenger to Louis and let him know what was happening in Flanders and in the meantime she and Joanna would put their heads together and try to work out some plan for putting the impostor to the test.

  It was Blanche who suggested that they send for Sybil of Beaujeu, who was the sister of the true Count of Flanders; surely she who had been brought up with her brother would know whether this man was really Count Baldwin or an impostor.

  It seemed an excellent idea.

  ‘I should like the disclosure to be made in the presence of you and the King,’ said Joanna.

  ‘We shall see if that is possible,’ replied Blanche.

  Louis was not sorry to receive the message. He had little feeling for war. It had been different when the towns had fallen easily to him, but now that Henry had sent his young brother and the Earl of Salisbury against him he was glad of a respite.

  He sent back a message to the effect that he would be at Péronne and that Blanche and Joanna might meet him there. He had then sent a message to Sybil asking her to come to him there and a similar message to the man who called himself the Count of Flanders.

  The latter came with all haste for he believed that the King’s summons was for him to do homage to him as his liege lord which he would only ask for if he believed him to be the true Count.

  Blanche was delighted to have Louis with her again. She suspected that she was pregnant and when she told Louis he was delighted.

  He confessed to her that he had always felt a sympathy with the stamping out of heresy and that he had long considered the Albigensian movement to be a dangerous one.

  ‘Moreover,’ he added, ‘I have heard that the King of England is planning to send over a large army, which is what I expected he would do. He is going to make an attempt to regain what he has lost. I fear a long and wretched war, Blanche.’

  ‘Yet you would go to war against the Albigensians.’

  ‘That is a holy war. The Albigensians are not a well-equipped army. Depend upon it, this war will not be nearly so deadly nor so costly as war against England.’

  ‘The Albigensians are a people fighting for their beliefs, Louis. Such people are apt to be fierce fighters.’

  ‘I know it, but if I take up the Cross and go against the Albigensians, the Pope will forbid the English to make war on me.’

  ‘You mean that war against the Albigensians is more to your taste than war against the English.’

  ‘I want no war,’ said Louis, ‘but if war there must be I had rather it was a holy war.’

  Blanche made no attempt to dissuade him, but she was deeply concerned for she thought he had aged considerably during the last campaign and indeed looked exhausted.

  She could almost welcome this controversy over the Count of Flanders to give him some respite and with Sybil de Beaujeu they discussed how best to tackle the matter.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said Sybil, ‘I will ask him a few questions which only my brother would know.’

  When the man calling himself the Count arrived at Péronne, Sybil admitted that he bore a strong resemblance to her brother, although Baldwin had never been so arrogant. His over royal manner, she declared to Blanche, betrayed him; and she was almost certain that he was an impostor.

  It did not take her long to discover the truth. For when the man heard that he was to be brought face to face with Sybil he was clearly disturbed. He found the questions she fired at him quite disconcerting and he declared that he was in no mood to be treated so discourteously by his sister and he would answer no questions that night, but in the morning he would answer all the questions to her satisfaction and he would ask that first of all he might be granted the courtesy of a bed and his supper.

  The end was in sight for the bogus Count. The next morning it was discovered that he had fled during the night. The game was up. Although he could pose as the adult Baldwin – having probably been on a crusade to the Holy Land and possibly in Baldwin’s company for he had scars on his body to show the people and these could certainly have been inflicted by a Saracen sword – he had no knowledge of Baldwin’s childhood.

  Joanna was delighted. The impostor was eager to get as far away as possible from Flanders. He was later discovered and brought to the Countess Joanna who had no compunction in having him publicly hanged.

  So the affair was satisfactorily settled from the Countess’s point of view and at least it had given Louis a short respite from the wars.

  Blanche who had been expecting a child gave birth to a girl. After five boys it was pleasant to have a girl but when Louis suggested the child should be called Isabella she felt an immediate revulsion because she was reminded of Isabella de Lusignan, the woman whom she hated more than any other.

  Isabella was a royal name. Louis had wanted it, and when she had said that she did not care for it he had immediately remarked that it was because it reminded her of the Queen Mother of England.

  He smiled at her almost teasingly. ‘You hate her, don’t you? Why? She’s a very attractive woman.’

  How could she explain that it was not because of her attractiveness that she hated Isabella? Yes, hated her, for hate was not too strong a word to describe her feelings. How could she explain that some premonition warned her and she disliked being reminded of her?

  A sensible woman such as Blanche of Castile, Queen of France, must not have odd fancies.

  ‘What nonsense,’ she said lightly. ‘I do not dislike the name so much. Isabella. Yes, it’s a pretty name … a worthy name. Let us call her Isabella if
it is what you wish.’

  ‘It is the name of my mother,’ said Louis quietly.

  ‘Then you wish it and it shall be.’

  So the little girl was Isabella after all.

  Before Louis left Blanche was once more pregnant.

  Thibaud of Champagne was sighing over the poem he was writing. He was prepared to spend his life in sighing, for the lady he loved was unattainable and his poet’s heart told him that her desirability was in a measure enhanced by the fact that she was out of his reach.

  There he was – not unhandsome in spite of too much weight, about which he had been teased all his life. Perhaps that was why he had turned to the pen. He could write glowing verse of his longings, his aspiration in the field of love, and find great satisfaction therein, for he was beginning to be recognised as one of the finest poets of his day.

  Surely this must impress the Queen who had been brought up in a cultivated court. Her parents had loved the troubadours and had always encouraged them. And he was a royal troubadour, Thibaud le Chansonnier. He was eager for that not to be forgotten. His great grandfather Louis VII was the King’s grandfather. Just a little twist of fate and he might have been King. If his great grandmother Eleanor of Aquitaine had borne a son … instead of a daughter … well, it would not have been Louis who was on the throne but Thibaud, and Blanche of Castile might have been his bride instead of Louis’s.

  What bliss that would have been. And because Fate had been unkind Louis was her husband; it was Louis’s children she bore, the children of France – and he was merely Thibaud, the troubadour Count of Champagne.

  So he must sing his songs and he had made of Blanche an ideal and she being the woman she was had shown him so clearly that there was never a hope of her becoming his mistress. She liked his songs though. What woman would not enjoy hearing herself so honoured?

  Adoring Blanche he had come to despise Louis as being entirely unworthy of her. Louis had always been a weakling, physically. His father had feared for his health. Of course he was just and lacked the cruelty of so many men; there was no doubt that he had certain good points but even if he could be an acceptable king, he was not worthy to be Blanche’s husband.

  And while he sat at his table, murmuring to himself the words he was turning over in his mind, a messenger arrived with a command from the King.

  Louis reminded him that he was his vassal and that as such he could be called to serve the King in battle for forty days and forty nights. He was therefore ordered to join the King’s army without delay, bringing with him his men at arms, for the King was laying siege to the town of Avignon in the fight against the Albigensians.

  Thibaud felt a burning resentment. He had no desire to go to war. He was not out of sympathy with the Albigensians. They had been foolish perhaps in trying to pit themselves against Rome, but he was all in favour of the easy comfortable life they had so enjoyed. Raymond of Toulouse was a man of culture and a friend of his. Raymond was more interested in music, literature and discussion than in war.

  And he, Thibaud the Troubadour, was being asked – nay, commanded – to leave the comfort of his castle and go to war.

  And he must … because he was a vassal of the King and the King commanded him.

  With something less than a good grace Thibaud set out for Avignon, but as he rode along he sang one of his latest compositions, the subject of which was the beauty of a lady whom he could not get out of his mind – and all knew that that lady was Blanche the Queen.

  He would have liked to sing of a rare passion between them which both admitted to in secret, but it was not true and might even be considered treason. He could imagine those cold blue eyes on him if he hinted at such a relationship between them. She would banish him from court and he would never see her again. So he had to be careful.

  So to Avignon – that rich and beautiful town which owed its prosperity to its clever trading and the peace it enjoyed with the neighbouring Counts of Toulouse. The people of Avignon shared a desire with those of Toulouse to live in peace and comfort, they loved music and welcomed the troubadours of Toulouse and with them shared the new ideas and found great pleasure in discussing them. Avignon was not going to give in easily.

  Thibaud arrived in a mood of discontent which was certainly not dispersed by the sight of the grey walls of the town which looked impregnable and the soldiers encamped outside them weary and disillusioned for they had come expecting a quick victory.

  When Thibaud went to the King to inform him of his coming and to pay his respects, he was shocked by the sight of Louis whose skin was yellowish and his eyes bloodshot; he was a sick man, concluded Thibaud.

  He asked after the King’s health and received a short reply that there was nothing wrong with it.

  An opinion I do not share, Sire, was Thibaud’s inward comment, but he bowed his head and said he was glad to hear that was so.

  ‘The town has some strong defences,’ Thibaud ventured.

  ‘That’s so,’ replied Louis. ‘But I shall take it … no matter how long I stay here.’

  Thibaud thought: A vassal owes his lord but forty days and forty nights. I am not prepared to stay here longer.

  They studied each other – the Queen’s husband and the poet who declared his love for her in his verses. My verses will outlast you, my lord, thought Thibaud.

  ‘I am glad you came,’ said Louis. ‘It reached my ears that you were reluctant to do so and had you disobeyed me I should have been obliged to take measures against you.’

  ‘My lord, I came to your command. I have sworn allegiance, and when you call me to battle I owe you forty days and nights of my service.’

  ‘I should have been forced to make an example of you, Thibaud,’ the King warned him, ‘by laying waste the lands of Champagne.’

  Thibaud thought: You would have found stout resistance, my lord, and you are in no position to wage war against those who would do you no harm if you left them in peace. You have mighty enemies. The English will soon be at your throat. You need friends, Louis, not enemies. You poor creature. Her husband. I know I am over fat, too fond of good food and wine; but for all that I am more of a man than you are.

  He said: ‘It is not good, my lord, for there to be dissension in your own ranks. So I am here to fight with you in a cause which has no great concern for me.’

  The King dismissed him and Thibaud left his camp to mingle with others of his kind who had been called to honour their vows. He was not surprised that many of them expressed a similar discontent. They were ready enough to fight for their lands; they would have gone into battle against the English; but even though this war had the backing of Rome and they were said to win Heaven’s forgiveness by taking part in it, their hearts were not in it.

  ‘Forty days and forty nights – well I dare swear it can be endured,’ said Thibaud.

  ‘Do you think the siege will be over by then?’ was the reply. ‘They have food and ammunition within those walls to hold out for a year.’

  Thibaud shrugged his shoulders. ‘But I, my friend, have given a vow to serve only forty days and nights.’

  The weary siege went on. The people of Avignon were truculent, believing that in time their friends of Toulouse would arrive to save them.

  The heat was intense; men were dying of disease and Louis ordered that their bodies be disposed of by throwing them into the river. It was not the best of burying grounds but at least it was better than having rotten corpses lying around.

  His own deteriorating health was noticed.

  ‘My God,’ said Philip Hurepel, ‘the King looks sick unto death.’

  Philip Hurepel was disturbed. He was fond of the King as well as being a loyal servant. They shared the same father for Philip Hurepel was the son of Philip Augustus by Agnes, the wife he had taken after he had declared himself divorced from Ingeburga. The Pope had declared Philip Hurepel legitimate as a concession to his mother, but it was not everyone who accepted him as such. However, Philip Hurepel had never show
n any desire to assert his right. He was a Prince of France and loved by Louis; in return he gave his affection and loyalty.

  He discussed the King’s condition with a group of friends, among them Thibaud.

  ‘The King has fits of shivering which I like not,’ he said. ‘I fear they are a symptom of something worse. He finds it hard to keep himself warm. I have told them to put furs on the bed. But no matter if he be weighed down with furs he is still cold.’

  ‘What he wants,’ said Thibaud, ‘is a woman in his bed to keep him warm.’

  Philip Hurepel looked with distaste at the troubadour.

  ‘As a poet,’ he retorted, ‘your thoughts leap to such matters. The King has ever turned his back on such amusements.’

  ‘’Tis an old custom,’ said Thibaud. ‘I merely mention it. When an old man cannot keep warm at nights there is only one remedy. I have seen it work again and again.’

  ‘Such talk is disloyalty to the King,’ said Philip sternly.

  ‘Thibaud is right,’ put in the Count of Blois. ‘A naked girl of sixteen years … that is what he needs.’

  Philip ran his hand through his shock of hair which his father had remarked on and from which he had acquired his nickname. ‘Louis would be furious,’ he said.

  ‘He would have to admit that the remedy proved to be a cure.’

  ‘I have been close to the King for many years,’ said Philip, ‘and never have I known him to take a strange woman to his bed.’

  Thibaud folded his hands together and raised his eyes. ‘Our King is a saint,’ he said with a hint of mockery in his voice. There was a great deal of mischief in Thibaud. The King was ill – sick of a fever. It might well be that he was a little delirious. What would he do if he awoke in the night and found a naked girl in his bed? Would he think it was the incomparable Blanche?

  He had ever been faithful to his queen. He loved her; but so did Thibaud. Perhaps they had different ways of loving. Thibaud was romantic; he had to admit he enjoyed this saga of unrequited love. Louis would never indulge in such fantasy. Why should he? He had the reality.