The Plantagenet Prelude - Plaidy Jean (книги серия книги читать бесплатно полностью .TXT) 📗

‘It is not exactly one of the labours of Hercules.’

‘I would it were that I might show my devotion.’

‘You should take care. I might set you some impossible task one day.’

‘Nothing could strain me more than to be near you and not allowed to love you.’

‘You do not speak like the prospective bridegroom of another woman.’

‘Bridegroom!’ He was alert. ‘My lady, alas I am married.’

‘To a lady of whom I gather you are not desperately enamoured.’

‘She is my wife. When I am in the presence of the irresistible I must perforce succumb.’

‘Are you referring to me or to my sister?’

‘You know my feeling. I am not alone in my adoration.’

‘And Petronelle? You are in love with her?’

‘She resembles you. What more can I say?’

‘That if you were free you would agree to marry her?’

‘With all my heart.’

‘I do not ask if you would be a faithful husband to her. I know the futility of that. She has a fancy for you.’

‘I would I were free.’

‘You could be if there were a blood tie between you and your wife.’

‘I know not...’

‘You are obtuse, Count. There are always blood ties between families of our blood. So much inter-marrying through the centuries means that if we search back far enough we can find the connection.’

‘If this could be found...’

‘If! It can be found. It must be found. You have seduced my sister. For all I know she may already be with child. You are responsible. Forget not that she is the sister of the Queen. Would you marry her?’

‘If just cause could be found that I am not already married.’

‘Then found it shall be,’ said the Queen firmly. She was smiling to herself. Certainly Petronelle must marry her seducer; and how amusing that Raoul’s wife was the sister of her enemy Theobald. This would teach that family to flout the King and Queen.

It was disconcerting. Count Theobald was not the only baron who ignored the King’s summons. It should have been clear that the country was in no mood to go to war over Toulouse. The only enthusiasm came from the Queen and that which she imparted to her docile husband.

Eleonore rode out of Paris beside her husband ready for the siege which would bring Toulouse into their hands.

Eleonore was busy with plans; she had already traced the relation between Raoul and his wife. If one went back far enough there were always blood ties. She had set the bishops working on it and they knew that if they did not find what she wished them to they would incur her displeasure.

Louis had really very little heart for war. He hated death, nor did he wish to punish his people. When he had been victorious at Orleans he had granted his rebellious subjects what they had asked for, and had stopped what he considered the cruel law of cutting off people’s fingers if they did not pay their debts. Of what use was that, he had demanded, when they need their hands intact to work to pay off their debts?

The thought of innocent people’s suffering worried him; but what could he do? Eleonore insisted that Toulouse was hers and therefore his, and she could not forget the insolence of Theobald of Champagne.

‘Are we going to allow our subjects to treat us thus?’ she had demanded. ‘If so we are no rulers.’

He had had to agree with her; he always had to agree with her. So here he was marching on Toulouse.

Into the rich country they went. Louis’s spirits were revived. Of course he would like to add these fertile provinces to his kingdom. Eleonore’s eyes glowed. He wondered whether it was the sight of the land which made them so bright and eager, or the fulfilment of revenge. She was so sure that ere long Toulouse would be theirs. She would have subdued not only the Count of Toulouse who had refused to hand back that to which he had no right, but also the insolent Theobald. And when he heard that his sister was to be divorced from the Count of Vermandois he would be doubly humiliated!

He would see what it meant to defy the Queen of France – and so would others. It would be a lesson.

Alas, for Louis and Eleonore. Toulouse was well defended, and it soon became clear to Louis that even those who had rallied to his banner had no heart for the fight.

As he encamped outside the castle occupied by Raymond Saint-Gilles, group after group of his followers reminded him that they had agreed to fight with him for only a specified time. Time was running out and they must return to their estates.

Louis was disturbed.

‘Command them to stay!’ cried Eleonore.

But Louis had given his word. He was not a man to break that. He must stand out against Eleonore for the sake of his honour.

Thus it was the King found himself before the castle with scarcely any supporters, and it was either a case of retreat or ignominious defeat. As it was he must retire in humiliation.

There was nothing for it but to return to Paris and shelve the conquest of Toulouse, until the King and Queen could find some means of bringing it to the Crown.

Such a situation was galling to the Queen. She imagined Saint-Gilles and Theobald of Champagne sneering at the royal ineptitude.

She must be revenged and the first blow should be struck through Theobald’s sister. Her bishops had found that there was a blood relationship between Raoul and his wife.

Therefore the marriage was no true marriage and Raoul was free to marry again.

‘It is a good thing,’ said the Queen to the King, ‘that your cousin should marry with my sister.’

The Count of Champagne was amazed one day to see his sister with a few of her attendants ride into the courtyard of his castle. He hastened down to meet her.

‘Why Eleonore,’ he cried, ‘what brings you here?’

For a moment she could not answer him. She threw herself into his arms and clung to him.

‘I did not know where to go.’

‘Where is your husband?’

‘I have no husband.’

‘Come into the castle,’ said Theobald. ‘Tell me what this means. Raoul is dead?’

‘Nay,’ she answered. ‘It is simply that he is no longer my husband.’

‘But this makes nonsense. You were married to him. I myself attended the ceremony. Come, sister, you must calm yourself.’

He took her to his private chamber and she poured out her story. A blood tie had been discovered that meant her marriage to Raoul was not valid. She was not married to Raoul; had never been married and the ceremony she had gone through with Raoul was no true one at all. Moreover Raoul had married someone else. There had been a grand wedding and the King and Queen had attended.

‘Who was the bride?’ asked Theobald blankly.

‘The lady Petronelle.’

‘What! The Queen’s sister?’

‘Indeed yes, the Queen’s sister.’

‘This is monstrous. It is a plot.’

Eleonore nodded sadly.

Theobald was furious. It was not only the dishonour to his sister that he raged against; it was an insult to his family.

The Queen had arranged this he knew. She had insisted that the bishops prove the marriage invalid and they had done so on pain of her displeasure. And why had she contrived this? To be revenged on him. Because he had refused to support her and the King over the annexation of Toulouse, she had arranged for his sister’s dishonour.

‘I will not endure this,’ he said. ‘This day I will send a messenger to Rome. I shall put my case before the Pope and it will be proved that this was a plot to discredit me through you, sister.’

‘And you think the Pope will not agree to the dissolution of the marriage?’

‘How can he? The reasons put forward are groundless. I will make Raoul take you back. I will prove that his marriage to Petronelle was no marriage. She will be the one to suffer dishonour, not you, my sister.’

‘Raoul was eager to go to his new wife, I know.’

‘He will be begging to come back to you when I have the Pope’s word.’ Theobald was not a man to delay when action was necessary.