The Battle of the Queens (33 page)

‘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.

It was no use trying to arrange something with Hurepel. He would just tug his bristly head and say the King would be horrified.

But why not? It was a well tried custom.

He talked to Blois and Count Archibald of Bourbon who was a great friend of the King and was very worried about his state of health.

It was a chance, Thibaud pointed out. It could do no harm.

It was amazing how easy it was to persuade them. They were men who took amorous adventuring as part of life; the King’s abstention had always made him seem a little odd and Thibaud knew that the men who indulged in what might be called a little vice, liked others to share in it too. Nothing could be more depressing for a man who enjoyed the occasional peccadillo to be with one who never did, but continued to live in virtue and was a pattern of morality.

Even the King’s best friends would like to see him commit one little act of indiscretion; and it could always be covered up by the assertion that the girl was put there just to keep him warm.

Thibaud found the girl. She was barely sixteen, plump, smooth-skinned and experienced.

All she had to do was slip into a bed and warm up the poor man who lay there, really very sick, and she might use whatever method she considered best. She must understand that all they wished was to warm the man, for he shivered with cold and there was nothing else which could keep him warm.

Louis lay between sleeping and waking – the dreadful shivering fits taking possession of him periodically.

‘I am so cold,’ he had complained, and more rugs had been found; their weight was heavy but it could not get him warm.

He wished that he was in his castle with Blanche. He thanked God for Blanche and young Louis and the rest of his family. It was only three years since he had been crowned a king – and he feared not a great one. He hated war and he constantly prayed that he could bring peace to France, but it seemed that God had decided differently. Philip had been so confident when John had come to the throne that soon the English would be driven out of France and the reason for this perpetual strife would be over. But it had not been completed. That was the trouble. If John had lived a little longer, he could have become King of England …

But it was no use. It had not happened that way.

He was aware of whispering voices in his room and he closed his eyes, having no desire to speak to anyone. He merely wished to lie still.

They were at his bedside.

Someone was in his bed. He roused himself. He was looking at a naked girl.

He must be in a delirium. But why should he dream of a naked girl? He had never desired naked girls. He was not a man to indulge in erotic dreams.

He cried out: ‘What means this?’ The shock of seeing the young woman had shaken off the lassitude brought on by his state. Standing by his bed, watching him, were several of his men. He recognised the Count of Blois and Thibaud of Champagne.

‘My lord,’ said a voice soothingly, and he recognised that of Archibald of Bourbon. ‘We but thought to bring some warmth into your bed.’

‘Who is this woman?’

The poor girl looked crestfallen.

‘She is one who will know how to keep you warm, Sire,’ said Thibaud quietly.

A dislike of the man rose within Louis.

He raised himself. ‘Who dared bring in this woman?’

‘Sire,’ began Thibaud.

‘You, my lord,’ said Louis coldly. ‘Take her away. I have never yet defiled my marriage bed nor will I do so now. You mistake much, my lords, if you think I am of your kind. I shall remember this.’

The girl stared from Louis to the men about the bed in bewilderment.

Archibald signed to her to go. When she had left he began to explain: ‘My lord, we feared for you. Your body was so cold and we could think of no way to comfort you.’

‘Leave me,’ said Louis, ‘and if ever one of you again attempts to dishonour me, remember this: you will incur my deepest displeasure.’

They slunk out, Thibaud inwardly convulsed with laughter, but the others deeply disturbed.

The affair seemed to have some effect on Louis, for he recovered from his bout of illness and the next day left his bed.

He looked very ill however and was deeply depressed by what he found in the camp. The heat was trying; the flies and insects an added affliction; nothing seemed to go right for his army and it was hard to believe that God was on their side. They had made an attempt to scale the walls at their weakest point; they had managed to throw a bridge across the river to the castle walls but this had collapsed and several hundred men had been thrown into the river. Many of them had been drowned, many more injured. It was a tale of disaster.

As he inspected his camp he came upon Thibaud of Champagne and he felt extremely uneasy, remembering that scene in the bedroom when he had awakened to what he had thought must be delirium to rind the naked girl in his bed and the Count of Champagne watching him in a manner he could only describe as sardonic.

This was the poet who dared write verses about Blanche. He told the world in his songs how he longed to make her his mistress. It was too much even for the most lenient and peace-loving King to accept. Blanche – thank God – was a virtuous woman. She had been as faithful to him as he had been to her. She had shrugged aside the impertinence of Thibaud but what would her reaction be if he told her the fellow had tried to put a naked girl into his bed?

Dislike for the man overcame him and it showed in his manner.

Thibaud was inclined to be truculent. He had had enough of Avignon. The siege was nowhere near over. He would like to remind Louis that he also was royal, a descendant from Louis his grandfather and the renowned Eleanor of Acquitaine. Why should such as he have to take orders from a cousin? – for their relationship was something like that.

‘They continue to hold out, Sire,’ said Thibaud, who should have waited for the King to address him. ‘If you ask my opinion, they’re good for many more weeks yet.’

‘I did not ask your opinion,’ replied Louis coldly.

‘Ah, then I withdraw it, my lord.’ The ironic bow. The gleam in the eyes, the mischief. He was thinking of that naked girl.

Whatever could have possessed Blois and Bourbon to do such a thing? They might have known what his feelings would be. They had been urged on by this man who had too great an opinion of himself and who had dared to cast eyes on Blanche.

‘We shall stay here,’ went on Louis, ‘no matter how long the people of Avignon hold out.’

‘Your vassals, my lord, owe you but forty days and forty nights.’

‘My vassals, sir, owe me their complete loyalty.’

‘They vowed but forty days and forty nights. That was in their oath. I have been here thirty-six and my time of service is coming to an end.’

‘Yet you will stay here until we have the town.’

‘I promised forty days and the nights that follow them, Sire.’

‘You will not leave us nevertheless. If you did, I would raze Champagne.’

‘You will find strong resistance, my lord, if you attempted to do that.’

‘Yet I will not suffer traitors about me.’

Thibauld smiled that insolent smile which angered the King even more than his words.

‘I am sure you will consider such an act well before you undertake it,’ said Louis. ‘It could bring great misfortune to you.’

Then he passed on.

The news spread through the camp. Thibaud is preparing to leave.

Philip Hurepel remonstrated with him.

‘You must not go now,’ he protested. ‘They cannot hold out much longer. The King will be your enemy for as long as he lives if you desert him now.’

‘I have served my forty days. Why should I stay longer?’

‘Because if all deserted him now it would mean defeat for him.’

‘What rejoicing there would be in Avignon.’

‘Be sensible, Thibaud.’

‘I am weary of this siege. I promised the King forty days and nights and I have given them to him.’

‘If you go you will regret it’

‘You think only of your brother, Philip.’

‘Is he not your kinsman too?’

‘’Tis a fact he rarely remembers.’

Others came to him and pointed out the folly of leaving. There were some who scorned him for suggesting such a course of action. Thibaud was surprised how many supported the King when they were all weary of the siege and were certain that the besiegers were in a more sorry state than the besieged.

Thibaud realised that opinion was against him. He knew that the King must in time subdue the town; he knew that if he left now it would be remembered against him and could bring him harm. And yet he could not resist the impulse.

Louis was unworthy of Blanche and Thibaud longed to be her lover and he would never feel completely happy with any other woman because he had set himself this unattainable ideal. And Louis had been married to her without effort – simply because he had been heir to the throne.

He had to fight Louis. It was against his impulsive, reckless, not always logical nature not to do so.

It was dark when he gathered his knights together and prepared to slip away.

‘You will regret this,’ Philip Hurepel told him angrily.

‘I have met my dues. I will give nothing to Louis.’

‘You fool,’ said Philip.

‘You loyal brother,’ mocked Thibaud. ‘Who can tell how much my desertion will cost me and what the rewards of your loyalty will be? Adieu, Hurepel. I doubt not we shall meet again ere long.’

Then Thibaud and his company rode back to Champagne.