The Rebel Princess

by Judith Koll Healey

  “I, too, saw her attention. She scarce bothered to hide it. I thought perhaps the attraction of the cup might simply be the flash of its jewels and gold.”

  “No, not true for Constance,” he said. “Gold has never been her weakness. Look at the way she presents herself at my court. Her clothes are so frumpy I even ordered the queen to find out if she had need of new ones.” He paused, frowning. “Which the queen probably never did, being occupied with her own appearance to an appalling degree.”

  “But if she has need of funds to help Raymond?” I prodded gently, bringing him back to our topic. “Constance might think of stealing something so valuable for the ready money it could supply.”

  His quick shake of the head dismissed the idea even before he spoke. “That makes no sense. It is Raymond’s cup. He could have sold it if he needed gold. She must know that. Besides, I am convinced Raymond does not lack for silver and gold. He has control of the shipping ports in the south, or at least his vassels do. No, I cannot image Constance considering a theft.”

  Philippe tossed his knife onto the table as a child might who tired of a toy. “As for gold and silver, I’m the one in need. You can see it even in my treasured objects.” He pointed with his knife to a small statue set on the cedar table next to my chair. I picked it up and turned it in my hands. It was a peculiar cross shape, with a ring around its center, almost like a halo carried too far.

  “It’s called a Celtic cross,” Philippe offered. “The design is from Brittany, and quite ancient. The icon is fashioned in gold but set in a base of silver, an odd combination to be sure. Agnes had it made for me just before she left.”

  There was a pause, and I did not fill it. I was always saddened when Philippe mentioned his beloved Agnes. The pope had forced him to give up his second marriage, made for love, and resume his first marriage with the dour Dane Ingeborg. Agnes had retired to the south, but Philippe still pined for her. He and his present queen cordially detested one another.

  Then he resumed his thoughts. “I had given orders in the court that the use of gold for jewels and display be curtailed. The artisan who made this object dared not complete it in gold, as he had already used his allotment for that year.”

  “I did not hear of this order,” I said, puzzled.

  Philippe rose and began pacing as he talked, forcing me to look up from the short chair on which I sat. His steps were cushioned by the Smyrna carpets he had brought back from the Crusades. But still he moved swiftly. His words floated back to me over his shoulder.

  “My dear sister, you so seldom ask for jewels to be made that the court jeweler probably thought not to bother informing you of the ruling.”

  “But what does such an action accomplish?”

  The king rang the tapestry bellpull near his writing table, and took a cushioned chair near his hearth. He motioned to me to sit opposite him, on a carved bench with a back and deep, goose-down embroidered pillows. I relinquished the low chair happily but with effort, feeling the pull in my back as I rose.

  The king appeared not to notice my stiff movement as I walked to the bench near his hearth and sank into the welcoming softness. Instead he answered my question.

  “We cannot afford to make even small treasures out of pure gold. We have need of all gold in our treasury. These sporadic battles in the west with John of England are draining me.”

  “Was Raymond negotiating to trade gold for your agreement to leave him alone?” I seized upon this practical idea as I settled myself.

  “No.” My brother gave a short, ironic bark that might pass for a laugh. “Would that he had made such an offer. But Raymond doesn’t have enough political sensibility to offer bribes.” The king looked up as a servant entered in response to his call.

  “Bring us some sweetmeats and figs,” he ordered quickly, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing his ankles. “And some bread also if it is out of the oven.” He knew the schedule of the royal kitchens, I thought with some amusement. But then my brother had ever been fond of taking his meals at odd hours, especially when he was locked in discussions with his councilors.

  When the servant had bowed and backed out of the room, my brother gave his attention to our conversation.

  “But let us discuss this notice just delivered,” he said, reaching for it at the table by his side where he had tossed it earlier. He flapped it open again and perused it, then threw it into my lap with an expert toss. “What could it mean by impugning the loyalty of my family, do you think?” He watched me with a keen expression. I could not fathom his thoughts, but I had a sudden moment of disquiet.

  “What meaning, indeed?” I answered with some heat. “The royal family is you, the queen, little Louis, and myself. Think you someone questions my fealty to my own brother?”

  “How now, Sister,” Philippe said, in what passed for a soothing tone from him. “My trust in you is well known in this court and beyond. No one would dare to suggest such a thing.”

  I wondered if he would say the same about the Danish queen, but decided against voicing the question. And little Louis had reached only four years, scarce old enough to foment treason. I tried for some lightness.

  “Let me see. The writer mentions Toulouse. Perhaps our cousin Raymond intends to steal the oriflamme from the altar at St. Denis.”

  “No,” Philippe responded solemnly, “Raymond wouldn’t do that. Possessing the flag of our royal house would not make him king of France and it would only succeed in annoying me no end, which he can ill afford to do at the present.”

  I looked at him and he held my glance for a moment, before breaking into a full grin, restoring humor to our exchange and calming my worries of his suspicion.

  “But let us talk now of other matters, the reason I asked you here this morning.” Philippe made his fingers into a tent, and tapped his lips. His black eyes, almond shaped as were all the Capets’ in my memory, narrowed. I held his gaze without flinching. “I told you I have suspicions that there are agents of John of England here at my court.”

  “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 v
oice.

  “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.”