The Summer Queen

18

Champagne, Summer 1142

Louis took a mouthful of wine, swilled it round his mouth and leaned over his destrier’s withers to spit it out. If he had swallowed it, he would have been sick. He had been unwell with belly gripes for several days, but not so much that he was unable to ride, and his invasion and destruction of Champagne had continued apace. He had crossed borders both geographical and moral. Ever since the monks of Bourges had elected their own archbishop against his wishes, his frustration and fury had been gathering inside him, adding to the morass already festering there. All the bewilderment of a small boy taken from his nurse and given to the Church to be raised with the rigid discipline of the rod. All the hurt caused by the disapproval of his cold and rigid mother, who thought him second-best and not good enough. All the rage at the perfidy and lies of people he trusted. His skull felt as if it were full of dark red fleece. He had frightening dreams of demons grasping his feet and pulling him down into the abyss while he scrabbled for purchase at the chasm’s smooth edge. Even sleeping with candles burning did not afford him enough light and he had taken to having a chaplain and a Templar knight keep vigil at his bedside all night.

Between the daily marches through Champagne, Louis spent his time on his knees praying to God, but his mind remained a fog and the only way God showed himself was by granting him victory after victory as he progressed along the valley of the Marne. His army encountered no resistance and they plundered and looted as they rode, trampling the vines, burning the fields, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Each town Louis took and ravaged was a triumphant blow upon the backs of Count Theobald and the monks of Bourges. He felt as if he were striking back for the honour of his family and all the old slights visited on his house by the Counts of Champagne. He had ridden so far from the path that he had lost his bearings, his only compass that of knowing he was a king with a divine right to rule, and everyone must bow their heads to his yoke.

Ahead of his army lay the town of Vitry, close upon the River Saulx. The inhabitants had fashioned makeshift barriers out of tree stumps and overturned carts and had shored up the walls with rubble as best they could, but they were helpless in the face of the attack that Louis ordered his mercenaries to launch on them.

The assault was fierce and vicious. Fire blossomed along the rooflines and took hold in barns, swiftly spreading from house to house, fanned by a hot summer wind. Louis reined in his stallion on a high vantage point and watched his troops wreak destruction. Battle cries and the clash and scrape of weapons rose amid gouts of smoke and twists of flame. A dull ache throbbed at his temples and the leaden sensation in his belly made him feel as if all the foulness inside him was going to spew out in a glistening dark mass. He imagined that his mail shirt was a burden of sin, weighting his body.

His brother Robert joined him, sitting easily in the saddle but holding his destrier on a tight rein. The sun glittered on his hauberk and helm, reflecting polished stars of fire. ‘The way the wind is veering, there will be naught left of the town come morning.’

‘Theobald of Champagne has brought it on himself,’ Louis replied grimly.

Robert shrugged. ‘But I do wonder what we are bringing down on ourselves by this.’

A grim silence stretched between the brothers. Abruptly Louis reined away from Robert and rode back to the tent that his attendants had set up to provide respite and shade while Vitry was devoured.

The canvas dissipated some of the sun’s punishing strength. Louis dismissed everyone and knelt to pray at his small personal altar. The cold gold and marble concealing various saintly relics gave him a momentary respite from the pounding red darkness inside his mind. Bernard of Clairvaux had warned him that God could stop the breath of kings and he was intensely conscious of each inhalation, and of the weight of his hauberk, his coat of sins. He counted his prayer beads through his fingers, trying to find calm in the cool, smooth agates, while he recited the Lord’s Prayer.

The tent flaps flurried open and Robert ducked inside. ‘The church is on fire,’ he said. ‘Most of the townspeople are inside, including the women and children.’

Louis stared at him and as comprehension dawned, so did the horror. While the monks of Bourges deserved all that came their way, the wider Church was still the house of God. Even if he was laying waste to Theobald’s lands, it was with the expectation that the people would have opportunity to flee or seek refuge. ‘I gave no such order.’ He jerked to his feet.

‘It was wind-borne from the houses.’

‘Well, give the people space to flee.’ Louis had removed his swordbelt to pray, but now he buckled it on again. ‘Tell the men to stand back.’

‘It is too late for that, brother.’

Feeling sick, Louis followed Robert from the tent back to the vantage point. The church was indeed ablaze: the roof, the walls, everything. The wind had veered and the flames surged towards heaven like the ravenous tongues of a thousand demons. No one could survive such a conflagration.

‘Douse it,’ Louis commanded. Emotion twitched across his face like raindrops in a pool. ‘Organise buckets from the river.’ He fancied he could feel his mail shirt becoming as hot as a griddle and see the flamelight dancing on weapons, leaving an indelible stain.

Robert eyed him askance. ‘It will be like a child trying to quench a bonfire by pissing on it. We won’t be able to get near.’

‘Just do it!’

Robert turned away and began snapping orders. Louis called for his horse, and the moment his squire brought the sweating grey from the lines, he grabbed the reins and swung into the saddle. His men scrambled to follow as he galloped down the path and entered the town. Around him the dwellings were ablaze and drifts of choking smoke obscured his vision. He rode through arches of fire. Ragged whips of flame swept out at him, as if striving to drag him in and devour him. His stallion baulked and began to plunge until it was all Louis could do to stay in the saddle and he was forced to pull back. The wellheads and buckets had been destroyed by fire and, even with access to the river, the church and its occupants were doomed.

Louis returned to camp with his head thrown back and tears streaming down his reddened cheeks. His eyebrows were singed, a raw stinging burn shone on the back of his hand like a stigma and his mind was a red conflagration.

He spent the night kneeling at his altar and refused to let anyone tend his injuries. In the pale light of dawn with smoke rising from the ashes and mist curling off the river, he visited the smouldering ruins of the church: a pyre for more than a thousand men, women and children. Although the fire had died, the charred timbers were still too hot to touch. From the corner of his eye, although he tried not to look, he could see twisted, blackened shapes sticking up like the limbs of bogwood trees rising out of a swamp. The stench of burned flesh, timber and stone made him gag. Falling to his knees in the hot cinders, he wept, and in between sobs raised his voice to God in remorse and fear. His rage towards Theobald of Champagne and the monks of Bourges only intensified, however, because this desecration was entirely their fault.