The Prince of Darkness (14 page)

She would prance naked before the young girls who were in attendance on her and demand to know if she was not a little more grown up than she had been the day before. She compared herself with them and demanded to know if they had lovers. Those who had, found favour with her; she would give them ribbons with which to adorn their hair before she sent them off for a tryst; and payment for these favours meant that she wanted a detailed description of everything that had taken place.

She was their adored little mistress; she was unlike any other they had served.

‘What a wife you will make my lord Hugh, my lady,’ they declared.

‘Yes, yes,’ she cried impatiently. ‘But it is all waiting and I am ready now.’

She was obsessed by the subject. She told the girls that Hugh would be so mad for her that he would insist on the marriage taking place without delay.

They laughed and said that would not be difficult. He was halfway to that state already and they swore it was only because he feared to offend her parents that he did not insist on the wedding.

Each day she contrived to be with Hugh; her eyes would light up at the sight of him and she would throw herself into his arms which was not very decorous, but he seemed to forget that. She would clasp him tightly about the neck and press her face against his.

‘Is it not wonderful, Hugh, that you and I will one day be married?’

‘I never wanted anything so much,’ he told her earnestly.

‘Do you wish I were not so young?’

‘I think you are perfect as you are.’

‘But wouldn’t I be more perfect if I were of an age to marry?’

‘One cannot improve on perfection,’ he reminded her.

She believed that her very youth was part of her attraction to him. In one way he didn’t want her to grow up. He wanted to keep her as she was – pure, he thought, unsullied by the world which meant she had not yet coupled with a man. That he desired her, she had no doubt; and yet he wanted her to stay as she was.

How contradictory! Perhaps she had something yet to learn of the ways of men.

This was the state of affairs at the time of the encounter in the forest. She could not forget the man who had looked at her so intently. That he thought she was beautiful was obvious, but that was a common enough reaction. There had been something more than that. No one had had quite that effect on her before. She knew instinctively that had she been alone at the time, perhaps the daughter of a woodcutter or a forester, he would not have hesitated for one moment. He would have seized her on the spot. She was aware of an overwhelming sensuality in this man which Hugh lacked; it was a quality – or perhaps one should say a vice – which she understood perfectly because she now knew that she possessed it herself. She had wished – though fleetingly – during those first moments in the forest, that she had been a humble cottage girl.

That man had desired her in a way Hugh never had and the experiences she would have had with him would be different from any she could share with Hugh.

He was not handsome as Hugh was. Hugh was tall, square-shouldered, with a strong jaw and keen eyes; he was a fighter. This man was different. He was not very tall; she calculated that he could not be more than five feet five inches. There were many men who were no taller but she was comparing him with Hugh. He lacked the nobility which she had admired in Hugh; his mouth was sensual; his eyes a little wild; he was dark and swarthy – no, not handsome by any means. But he was a king – King of England, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou … he was a very important man, far more so than Hugh who had had to leap from his horse and show that he was in the presence of one who was far above him.

King of England! And how he had looked at her! Hugh had never looked like that, even in those moments when she
embraced him and thrust herself against him outwardly artless, inwardly artful, he had never looked quite like that.

She had sat there on her horse, her blue hood – the colour of speedwell flowers and so good for bringing out the blue of her eyes, falling from her hair, her cape flowing about her – a lovely picture she knew.

How he had looked at her! As no one ever had before.

Then he had ridden away. Hugh had been silent and she could not lure him from his mood with all her wiles.

‘Tell me about that man,’ she demanded.

‘He is John of England,’ answered Hugh.

‘And Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou.’

‘He has many titles.’

‘He is not exactly well favoured.’

‘He has an evil reputation.’

‘How so?’

‘He has done that which would be beyond your understanding.’

‘You mean … with women?’

‘And others.’

‘He has been cruel in war?’

‘He is to be feared,’ answered Hugh. ‘A man would think twice before he offended him.’

They were silent as they rode back to the castle. All interest in the hunt had left them both.

Isabella dreamed that she met John alone in the forest; in her dreams she saw his face coming closer and closer – hungry, demanding, lascivious.

She awoke in fear and wished that she had gone on dreaming.

I shall never see him again, she thought, and did not know whether she was glad or sorry.

She thought of Hugh, so handsome, so strong. He would be a good kind husband and she would have no difficulty in having her way with him. She smiled to herself to realise how she would rule him.

Why could he not see that it was time they married?

She told her women of the encounter with King John. They whispered of him. Such stories they had heard of him! When he was young he had gone to Ireland. He had had to leave, though; he spent his time jeering at the natives and raping their women.

She listened avidly.

‘Had I been alone in the forest when I met him …’ she began.

They shrieked in horror and silenced her.

‘You would never be allowed out alone, my lady; and even King John would have to respect your rank.’

She was silent imagining it.

The girls marvelled at the obtuseness of those about her and in particular Count Hugh.

Didn’t they see it was time the Lady Isabella was married? True, she was young, but girls such as she was needed to be married young.

Chapter VI

A
n embassy had arrived from Portugal. John received it with outward eagerness. He was greatly amused to note how excited its members were at the prospect of a union between the two countries.

And rightly so. The daughter of the King of Portugal to be Queen of England, or so they thought! How mistaken they were going to be! And the expense of entertaining them and that of sending a return party to Portugal was well worth the satisfaction he got from the affair. It was good too that he should be so sought after; it showed that he was feared, and to be feared was to be respected.

The King of England was free to marry; such news would send a quiver of excitement among ambitious men with marriageable daughters. How envious they would be of the King of Portugal … for a while.

‘My lord,’ he cried, ‘what pleasure it gives me to receive you here. I believe the King’s daughter will be an admirable wife to me. I long for the day when I shall receive her here, so let us arrange these matters without delay. I will send an embassy to Portugal that negotiations may go ahead with all speed.’

The embassy prepared to return to Portugal accompanied by those members of John’s entourage who would complete the settlements so that in a short time the marriage could take place.

In the meantime John sent for William Marshal that he might speak with him on matters in Aquitaine which were causing him some dismay.

Queen Eleanor had recently returned from Spain where she had travelled to collect her granddaughter Blanche. The journey to Spain had been arduous but she had found great pleasure in being reunited with her namesake, her daughter Eleanor, Queen of Castile. They had been delighted to relinquish young Blanche to her care for the child’s marriage with the heir of the King of France would indeed be a glorious one.

Blanche was a pretty child and an obedient one; she would make a good wife, thought Eleanor, and she believed Philip would be pleased with her. But how she had felt the rigours of the journey! The rheumatic pains in her limbs had increased and crippled her and she felt angry with the passing years which had taken her youth with them. During that journey she often thought of the one she had experienced with Louis, her first husband, when she had been young and desirable and very desirous. Long-ago days! So much had happened since then. She would not want to go back and live it all again; but she wanted to cast off the stiffness of her limbs and she wanted to rid herself of this perpetual tiredness.

It was a difficult journey. She relied so much on Mercadier who was in charge of her escort; she had always liked the man because he had so admired Richard and during the journey they talked continually of her best-loved son; she would sing Richard’s songs to him and accompany them on her lute.
Mercadier had as many memories of Richard and had stories to tell her of him which she had never heard before.

She said to him: ‘Oh, my good friend, you do not know how you have relieved this journey of much of its tedium. When you talk to me of Richard I feel young again. I can see him so clearly as a child in my nursery. He always defended me – no matter who came against me, and I remember an occasion when he ran to the King, his father, his fists clenched, and pummelled him because he thought he had treated me unfairly. That was the sort of son he was to me then and always.’

Mercadier would tell her of some exploit in battle and they would be sad together.

And then one day – it was the week which began with Easter, when they were resting in Bordeaux – Mercadier had gone out into the streets but he did not return.

She felt sick, old and tired when they brought the news to her. He was a swaggering man, a typical mercenary to whom soldiering was his livelihood and the meaning of life. He had become involved in a brawl with a knight who served another mercenary captain. They had drunk together, boasted together and quarrelled together; and that was the end of Mercadier. In the heat of the quarrel his opponent drew his sword an instant before Mercadier did. He was bleeding to death on the cobbles of an inn yard.

‘My old friends are dying all round me,’ cried Eleanor. ‘It is so sad to grow old.’

She had not heart for the journey. She would see her granddaughter married, and return to Fontevraud and there live out the rest of her days which could not be many and she was not displeased by the thought.

John had met her at Bordeaux where Philip and Louis had
joined them and the two young people had been married. It was a touching ceremony. Blanche was so pretty and showed every sign of becoming a beautiful woman and Louis was a boy of noble bearing.

The married pair returned to the Court of France with Philip and there was amity between the kings of France and England.

‘There is nothing,’ said Eleanor, ‘that cements friendship between countries as much as a royal marriage. I am too old for these jaunts now. I shall go back to the abbey to rest a while.’