This astonishing news halted the quoits game and they clustered around him to hear more. Returning to the letter, Richard read rapidly and by the time he was done, he was grinning. “According to the emperor’s sources at the French court,” he said, careful to accord Heinrich the respect due his rank since there were Germans present, “Philippe privately contended that he’d not consummated the marriage, but he was reminded that nonconsummation alone is not enough for an annulment. His advisers must also have pointed out that if he made such a claim, people would naturally assume that he’d been unable to pay the marital debt.” Richard had been circumspect in his choice of words out of deference to the Bishop of Worms and the other clerics, but as he glanced up, he saw that there was no need for discretion. They were obviously as amused as his own men that the French king had gotten himself into such an improbable, embarrassing predicament.
Richard’s kindhearted chaplain, Anselm, felt pity for the repudiated bride and asked what would become of her now.
“Philippe had her taken from Amiens and she is being held at the monastery of St-Maur-des-Fossés near Paris. She is showing admirable spirit, balking at being sent back to Denmark like defective goods. She insists the marriage was indeed consummated and they are man and wife in the eyes of God and the Church. But the emperor’s spies—I mean his sources,” Richard corrected, with another grin, “say that Philippe plans to convene a council of bishops and barons to argue that the marriage is invalid because he and Ingeborg are related within the forbidden degree. Although that is not so, I’d wager the French bishops will pretend to believe it.” No longer smiling, he said, “And, of course, that bastard Beauvais is ready and willing to do Philippe’s bidding in this, for perjury is the least of his sins.”
There was no topic of conversation after that except the French king’s marital woes, and the jests got bawdier and cruder once the bishop and archdeacons departed. It was well known that Philippe had an aversion to horses, and men now joked that he must be particularly skittish at mounting mares. It was suggested that Philippe’s crown jewels were so meager that Ingeborg had been unable to find them, or that her first sight of a naked man may have stirred mirth instead of desire, especially if his flag was flying at half-mast. Warin speculated whether Philippe could have discovered she was not a maiden, and evoked loud laughter by adding, “Of course, would he have been able to tell?” Several wondered whether a lack of virginity could invalidate a marriage, and looked disappointed when Longchamp said it could not. But Morgan turned all heads in his direction when he said that it was one of the grounds for dissolution of a marriage under Welsh law.
In Wales, he explained, a marriage could be ended by mutual consent. Moreover, a husband could disavow his wife if she claimed to be a virgin and he learned on their wedding night that she was not, or if he found her in compromising circumstances with another man, or if her marriage portion fell short of what was promised. Longchamp and Anselm shook their heads disapprovingly, but the men enthusiastically embraced laws that made it easier to get rid of an unwanted wife, for the Church allowed a marriage to be dissolved only if an impediment had initially existed—consanguinity, a spiritual affinity, a coerced consent, or the inability to consummate the marriage through impotence.
They were shocked, though, when Morgan said that a Welsh wife could shed an unwanted husband, too, able to end the marriage if he contracted leprosy, if he had foul breath, if he was unfaithful three times, or if he was incapable in bed. That went against the natural order of things, confirming their suspicions that Wales was a wild, mysterious land with downright peculiar customs, although they liked Morgan well enough. But when Morgan told them about the Welsh test for impotence, which compelled the husband to spill his seed upon a clean white sheepskin, they shouted with laughter at the thought of Philippe enduring such a humiliating ordeal to prove his manhood.
Richard had not laughed so much in months. This had indeed been a day of surprises, he thought. The news that Adolf von Altena was the new Archbishop of Cologne was more important, of course. But there was such sweet satisfaction in Philippe’s plight. “The French king is now the laughingstock of Christendom,” he declared, “and best of all, it is his own doing.”
THAT EVENING, Richard was in his bedchamber with the men who now composed his inner circle: Longchamp, Fulk, Morgan, Guillain, Baldwin, Warin, and the de Préaux brothers. He was working on a song he called his “prison lament,” while they were chatting among themselves and Arne was glaring at Hans; the German youth was one of the servants Heinrich had provided and Arne greatly resented anyone but himself tending to his king’s needs.
“How does this sound?” Richard struck a chord on his harp as the others looked toward him. “Feeble the words, and faltering the tongue, wherewith a prisoner moans his doleful plight. Yet for his comfort, he may make a song. Friends have I many, but—”
He got no further, for just then the door burst open and Anselm rushed into the chamber. “My liege, I was just talking to Master Mauger,” he blurted out, naming one of Richard’s recent guests, the Archdeacon of évreux. “He is returning to Normandy at week’s end, and he says he’d be happy to continue on into Poitou and deliver letters to your queen and sister. By the time he gets there, they ought to have reached Poitiers.”
He beamed at Richard, but his smile faltered when Richard shook his head. “I’ve already written to them, giving letters to the courier they sent from Rome.”