I greeted him with a disingenuous kiss, which he answered with a clutch and a groan. “My beautiful lady! I had thought I might never embrace you again.”
“Dear Thibaut, you know I can never stay away from you for long,” I lied. And lied. And lied. Already skilled in the art of deceiving Thibaut—a simple task with such a simple subject—I regained his loyalty as easily as if my words were table scraps and he a starving dog.
“But I thought—after my deed—”
“Shhh!” I placed a gloved finger gently on his lips. “Promise me that you will never speak of that again. I would not see one hair on your head harmed because of me.”
“So you do admit—”
“Shhh! Yes, cousin, I accept the blame for everything. I should not have plied you with promises and flattered you with falsehoods.”
“Falsehoods?” he squeaked.
“Dear Thibaut, can you ever forgive me? As much as I wanted to return your love, I could not—not in the same measure.” I summoned tears to my eyes. “How often have I thought that, could I only do so, I should be the happiest woman in the world. For there is no finer man anywhere.”
“Of course I forgive you!” His face pinkened with sympathy. “And of course, you need not apologize about that”—my finger to my own lips now—“misunderstanding.”
“I blame myself entirely for it,” I said. Then, in a whisper, “I beg you never to speak of it again, not even to me, not even to
yourself—
unless you wish to see your Blanche dangling with a broken neck on the gibbet of Montfaucon.”
“Hanged at Montfaucon? No, lady, never!” He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped the beads of sweat popping on his brow. And then, Thibaut’s affections—and his large, well-equipped army—restored to me, I summoned Romano. What a great error that nearly turned out to be! My cousin poked out his lower lip like a giant baby and glowered at the legate, his arms folded over his chest, until Romano at last invented a headache and left us alone. Then, after I’d ordered wine and roast pigeons for Thibaut, we began negotiations, if they can be called that. Having boasted to Pierre that I would do his bidding—the reason, no doubt, Pierre had sent him—my cousin betrayed him utterly by agreeing to every one of my conditions.
He returned to Mauclerc the next morning with a contrived report that hundreds of additional troops had joined my camp. We were preparing, he said, to sweep like a tornado across Thouars unless he capitulated—which Pierre did. Never had a battle been so bloodlessly fought, or so easily won, the chroniclers proclaimed. Easily won, yes, if you think it is easy to disguise revulsion and hatred with sweet words and kisses. Oh, the things I have done for France.
Such pleasure it gave me to see Pierre de Dreux and Hugh de Lusignan kneel at the feet of my son! I had to resist the urge to kick the soft dirt into their faces as they bent their heads to kiss his ring. It would have been a far kinder act than throwing them into the jail, which was what I really wanted to do. Admonished by Romano’s cautionary gaze, however, I feigned forgiveness. Romano had already shown me the power of mercy. At his suggestion I had released the treasonous Count of Flanders after ten years’ imprisonment—and he, in return, had sent troops to Loudun in my support. His wife, Johanna, who had hated me when we were girls, embraced me as though we were loving sisters and declared herself mistaken for thinking me “insufferably vain and self-centered.” As tall as a man and horse-faced, she had always been, understandably, jealous of my graceful good looks.
Now my task was to win the devotion of the rebels. As they knelt to kiss Louis’s ring, I beamed every speck of warmth that I could muster while Hugh’s scheming wife, Isabella, King Henry’s mother, stood nearby tossing me haughty sneers. No doubt she’d plotted this entire coup, craving my throne for herself. Otherwise why would she refuse to pay homage to Louis? “I am a queen, and bend my knee to no one,” she said. We would see about that.
We rode home in high spirits, tossing coins to the folk who came out to cheer our success. The way our faces shone with pride, one might have thought we’d conquered Jerusalem for the pope, but privately I worried. I’d seen Pierre exchange devious glances with Isabella after he kissed Louis’s ring. Forced allegiance makes for an inconstant friend. He would try again to oust me, I knew.
Yet my heart felt as light as a song. Let Pierre and his malcontents plot and scheme and attack all they wished! We were invincible. After the news spread of our success at Loudun, the grateful merchants and mayors of Melun, Sens, Bourge, and Orléans fêted us as we passed through each town. For Pierre to control France would be disaster for them, they said. Everyone knew he’d taxed Brittany’s bishops so severely that the pope of Rome excommunicated him. Then, undaunted, he’d refused to grant a self-governance charter to the town of Rennes, saying that the land was Brittany’s and that, as their “duke” (the title of count, apparently, not being prestigious enough) he had the right to make villeins of them all.
“We are traders, not knights or foot soldiers, and would be loath to leave our shops for battles we are ill-prepared to fight,” the mayor of Orléans told me. “We hope, my lady, that you will honor the agreements made by King Philip Augustus, and grant us the freedom to govern ourselves. In exchange, we offer you our loyalty and love as well as a portion of our profits.”
At the Cité Palace, Romano and I discussed the townsmen’s concerns with Guérin. “Many a villein and not a few knights have balked when pressed to fight, not wanting to leave the comforts of home,” the old monk said. “Why should these merchants be allowed to escape their duty?”
“Villeins are good for little else besides tilling the soil and manning the battlefield,” Romano said. “And fighting is a knight’s sole task. As our towns prosper, however, so does our kingdom. If their merchants wish to devote their energies to trade, why resist, especially if they are offering fees in lieu of military service?”
I agreed with Romano, but wondered if a compromise could be found between the two positions. “What if England invades? The townspeople would lose as much as the barons, if not more. If they won’t fight for us when we need them, should they expect our protection?”
Louis came into the chancellery then, a wax tablet in his hand and a stricken expression on his face. “Read this, Mama,” he said, thrusting the tablet at me.
What kind of king clings to his mother’s apron strings?
the message etched on the tablet read. It bore no signature, but I knew the work of Pierre Mauclerc.
I burst into laughter. “By God’s head, did we ever fear these petulant little boys?” I handed the tablet to Romano. He laughed, too, and told Louis to reply that the mighty Blanche de Castille wears an “apron” of chain mail with strings long enough to hang a man. Guérin shook his head. “We should not treat these taunts lightly,” he said.
“Disregarding their slander will only embolden them,” he said. “You ought to arrest Pierre de Dreux for treason, my lady.”
I was loath to do so. The House of Dreux’s influence reached throughout the realm and into the Holy Roman Empire—to the Emperor Frederick II himself. Only a few barons supported me now, and that number would further decline if I dealt harshly with Pierre. Even Robert Gâteblé might abandon me.
“If ridicule is the worst Pierre can do, then I am far from worried,” I said airily. How could I fail, with Romano by my side? When Louis and Guérin had gone, leaving us to ourselves, I said as much to him.
“Then you will not mind my letter to our new pope, asking for permanent assignment to France,” he said. “I told him that, as a weak woman, you must have my help or the kingdom might be torn apart.” His wink—as if his words were untrue—made me laugh. Romano, in Paris for good! Was it any wonder that, at the sound of the pipe, I danced him around the room?
A week later, Hugh of Lusignan sent his own message to Louis.
The lady Blanche, your mother, ought not to rule so great a thing as the realm of France, for it is not meet that a woman do such things.
Unlike the first missive, this was no prank: It bore the signatures of Pierre and six other barons. And now they called me “Queen” no longer, but merely “lady.” The rebels had not abandoned their plan to oust me but had merely shifted strategies. Guérin was right: the time had come for action.
“The only way to counter this ridicule is to present the king as his own man, in spite of his young age,” he said.
The time to do so was at hand. We were even now planning to tour the castles of the realm, during which many of our subjects would see Louis for the first time. “We shall let Louis lead the tour, to show all the world that he is in command,” I said.
“Even better, my lady, would be to let him go alone,” Guérin said. “Without his mother, I mean.”
I hesitated. Send my boy into the hostile world unguarded? Guérin took offense. “Have I earned your mistrust? I protected him well, I thought, on the journey home from Loudun. Do you think I wouldn’t do so now?”
He had a point. After our victory, Louis had preferred to lead his army directly home to Paris rather than linger in the towns with Romano and me. I had worried then, too, that rebels disappointed with our peace treaty might try to attack Louis—but Guérin had convinced me that my son would be safe. Perhaps I needed to release the strings binding me to him, and not the other way around.
I bid him farewell with a lump in my throat—how very like his father he appeared now, taller and self-assured—but he avoided my kiss, clearly affected by the rebels’ chiding. I felt an ache in my breast, as if he had walked out through a door in my heart and left it open to the cold winds—but I quickly dismissed it. Louis was as much a part of me as my own soul. He would return soon enough.
Imagine my distress a few weeks later, then, to hear that he was in danger. Two messengers burst into the great hall with the news: Louis and his knights and servants had fled the previous evening to the castle at Montlhéry, fearing for their lives. Pierre and Hugh, somehow hearing of his tour—had they planted spies in my court as well?—had gathered a large army at Corbeil to entrap him.
How I refrained from tearing the hair from my head I will never know. “Thanks be to God for protecting the king, and to you for your haste in bringing us this news,” I said in a voice as still as a stopped heart. I ordered baths and a meal for the messengers, then walked to my chambers as if in a dream, suppressing the urge to
run to him, go now, hurry before it is too late.
My people needed strength from their queen, not womanly weakness. In that moment, I forgave my mother everything.
Romano
. But he was not here. Instead, I walked into my chambers to find Mincia laying out a new gown of gray-blue silk for the fête planned that evening in Louis’s honor. I had ordered the dress a week ago especially for this occasion. I snatched it up, crumpling the delicate fabric, and pressed it to my weeping eyes. The last time I’d planned a surprise welcome for someone, he’d never returned home.
“My lady!” Mincia, the dear soul, my companion of nearly thirty years, pulled the tunic gently from my hands and handed it to Eudeline, then wrapped her arms around me. Together we sat on the bed’s edge as I told her the news.
“Thank you, Holy Mother!” she cried. Her eyes shone. “The Virgin has answered my prayers. Since the king departed I have begged her daily to watch over him, and now behold: she has alerted him to this trap. Fear not, my lady. She will keep King Louis safe.”
“Or, more likely, Montlhéry will do so.” Its five towers made it the most fortified castle in France. Mincia said nothing, but I could discern her thoughts behind her frown.
You used to be pious. What has happened?
“So many trials, and all undeserved,” I said with a sigh.
“Remember Job, my lady. His trials strengthened his faith, as ours may do for us.”
“Indeed, Mincia, I now have more faith than ever before—in my own abilities.”
As much as I longed to do so, I could not cancel the fête. Already guests were arriving from as far away as Flanders and Toulouse. To raise an alarm would only lend credence to the rebels’ claims that I was weak and emotional, being female, and therefore unfit to rule. Maintaining calm in the face of this crisis was my best course of action. I could send no aid to Louis, anyway, until I mustered an army large enough to beat back the stubborn rebels. I hoped some of our guests—the provost of Paris, for instance, and Robert Gâteblé—might provide ideas and intelligence for doing so.
Romano, too, would be here tonight, returned from his meeting with Pope Gregory in Rome. I was eager to learn what, if anything, had transpired. Had the pope granted his request?
Please, God, give me Romano, at least.
I’d come to depend on my cardinal. Without him now, I felt as if my every decision were a guess, and every happy result mere good fortune.
That night, the musicians played cheerful tunes, as I had requested. News of Louis’s endangerment would have spread by now, and I wanted to convey confidence that we would prevail. Banners and ribbons trailed gold and blue, the colors of France, from the rafters. Irises gathered wild from the banks of the Seine filled the hall with fragrance. The meal was served
en confusion,
all courses presented at once: spring green salad with mustard dressing, roasted eel,
tourtes parmeriennes
—Louis’s favorite, a gold-leaf-covered pastry castle with turrets of chicken legs—thirty dishes in all, wafting mouthwatering aromas that kept my 150 guests so occupied that no one noticed the paleness of my cheek—or the brittleness of my laugh as I waited for Romano, who should have arrived by now.
Where is he?
A minstrel sang Thibaut’s latest
chanson
—of unrequited love and heartbreak, a new theme—as, from his seat at my table, my cousin gazed at me with the eyes of a kicked puppy. I forbade myself to stare at Romano’s empty place beside him. Where could he be? I could not even send anyone out in search of him, for the highways on this moonless night teemed with robbers and cutthroats.