CHAPTER 20
Fortress of Angoulême, Angoumois, August 1200
Three days before her wedding to Hugh de Lusignan’s seventeen-year-old son, Isabelle d’Angoulême was informed that she was to marry instead a man nearly thrice her age. That man, whom she was about to meet, would make her the Duchess of Normandy and the Queen of England. With her father, mother, and her two ladies accompanying her, Isabelle curtsied and offered her greetings to the visitors in a sweet, childish voice. As if in a trance, John Plantagenet reached out for the girl’s hand. He let her up, but forgot to let her go.
Whatever his irreproachable wife might have thought, Lasalle had never considered twelve-year-old girls worth a second glance. This one was—and John Plantagenet thought so too. Guérin de Lasalle was witnessing the King of England falling in love with Isabelle d’Angoulême right before his eyes.
Lasalle cleared his throat, and loudly. John dropped the girl’s hand. Count Aylmer and Countess Alice surrounded their daughter and her husband-to-be. Lasalle thought it best to wait out the rest of that episode in the inner bailey. He wished he had never heard of Aliénor of Aquitaine, Juliana de Charnais, or Tillières. He wished he was in outre-mer, facing the entire Saracen army. He wished he was not sharing a mistress with the King of England—and Armand de Lusignan.
A fortnight ago, after their return from Dreux, he and his men had left behind Rivefort and its lady, the latter fighting tears of joy. They were brought on as much by her husband’s departure as by his announcement that she was free to move about the viscounty. The news rendered Sister Eustace speechless, a condition into which he had not maneuvered her very often. Juliana de Charnais would probably talk a lot in bed, too. They left at dawn with the girl at the hall’s door, armored in her nun’s wimple and a pair of garden clogs, heralding to the world her determination to reclaim her post as the mistress of Rivefort. That was why he had put Rannulf de Brissard in charge of it: Unlike Peyrac, Brissard was loyal and unlikely to be swayed by female tantrums.
The only soul sorry to see them leave was Mathea, who had slipped out of her bed and past Mistress Hermine. Lasalle bent down carefully on account of his bound-up ribs, a memento of Dreux, for Mathea to give him a peck on the cheek. But demoiselle Mathea reserved her tears for Jehan de Vaudreuil, who patted her head and promised to bring her and her sister a gift. The lady Paulette apparently slept very soundly and therefore missed their departure.
Several leagues short of Fontevraud, Aliénor of Aquitaine’s messenger had intercepted them with an order to wait in camp. They did, and soon found themselves hosts of the king-duke and his company of young gallants.
John of the English looked nothing like his famous brother, standing a head shorter than the Lionheart—and Lasalle. The king-duke seemed to resent that. He stomped around the camp, the chape of his scabbard scraping the ground. His manners made men and horses nervous, and he knew it. Lasalle did notice, however, that John resembled his mother. That was not a good sign. And then there was Anne.
She came up behind him and tapped her riding crop on his shoulder, a smile of victory on her lips. He touched the string of gold droplets adorning Anne’s ear as if she were offering them up for pawn.
Anne knocked his hand away, her smile vanishing. “You peasant. He is a king, and you are—”
Before Anne could think of another insult, John’s equerry interrupted their reunion. Lasalle kissed Anne’s hand and took his leave to find John by the horses. He bowed. John frowned in displeasure and set off through the camp, talking rapidly, expecting Lasalle to follow as if he were one of the royal hounds. He obliged and quickly learned that John Plantagenet seemed to know everything there was to know about Lasalle’s immediate past—courtesy, he suspected, of John’s mother and Anne de Valence. John informed him that he bore no grudge for Tillières; in fact, he was anxious to receive Lasalle’s fealty and homage for it. It had all become worrisome.
And so, in front of his tent and the duke’s companions, Lasalle gave his oaths to John Plantagenet for the viscounty of Tillières, the castellancy of Rivefort, and the wife who brought them to him. Anne sat there smiling, rosary beads trickling through her fingers. Lasalle expected that Anne had little time to pray since she had joined John’s entourage. After exchanging a vassal’s promise of loyalty and a liege’s pledge of protection along with the requisite kiss of peace, John beckoned Lasalle to follow him. Inside the tent, the true reason for John’s insistence to receive his pledge became clear.
John Plantagenet sought the Viscount of Tillières’s aid in absconding with the Count d’Angoulême’s daughter, who was affianced to the young Hugh de Lusignan, for the purposes of marrying the girl himself.
Lasalle must have looked perfectly stupefied. When John stopped laughing, he settled himself in a camp chair and rattled off a plan. Somewhere in the middle, Lasalle was assured that as his reward he would receive royal support for the annulment of his marriage.
“Well, Viscount,” John demanded impatiently, “what do you think of it?”
Lasalle’s ribs throbbed mercilessly. As a result, he did not handle himself well. “I commit my own crimes, sire. I don’t commit them on someone else’s behalf.”
John Plantagenet stood up. “I find your moral qualms surprising, Viscount.”
“As you wish, my lord.” Lasalle thought it prudent to bow, and did.
“By the holy rood,” John began menacingly, “you are too clever by half. Mother told me you might balk, but she said that you would obey in the end. Or are you going to force me to order something appropriately painful and lingering for you?” John paused. “Like a protracted spell in your matrimony. I heard that she is ugly and old!” Pleased with himself, John laughed uproariously.
This was a battle Lasalle could not hope to win, no more than he could have won it against John Plantagenet’s mother. After all, it was Aliénor of Aquitaine he was fighting.
“Well, what do you have to say for yourself, Viscount?”
“I am your faithful vassal, sire,” Lasalle said and bowed. In truth, he contemplated regicide.