Chapter 21 – France in 1500
Charles is not sure what to make of his bride. The new dauphine of France is a young woman, with a rich dowry and impeccable linage. Infanta Isabella of Portugal is tall, fair, and dark haired with dark grey eyes. She’s lovely enough to break any young man’s heart. Nothing in her behaviour is unseemly, as she carries herself with poise and dignity. She greets everyone in court with politeness and listens to small talk with an attentive ear. She dances gracefully with all who ask her during feastings and dines with moderation at the high table. His mother is pleased with her, and his father enjoys the dowry that came with her. His four-year-old sister Marie adores her. So does the commoners, who cheered on her when she entered Paris and later after coming out on the steps of Notre-Dame cathedral. Isabella, or Isabelle as she now goes by, is flawless as far as everyone is concerned in the kingdom.
Charles finds her cold. Isabelle is as lovely as the night stars, but to him she’s just as remote. She smiles at him at times, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She talks to him at times, but there is no warmth in her voice. She accepts his small gifts and company, but he feels like he barely knows her. Their marriage had been consummated properly, but it had felt less like passionate experience, more clinical. Not like the stories he had read about during childhood. Sure, he boasts to his friends about “burying himself in the warm acres of Portugal” after his wedding night, but it’s a lie in a way. The virgin blood on the wedding sheets is the most he has gotten from his wife so far. Charles knows his first duty to Isabelle is to seed her womb with a prince and he hopes his wife conceives quickly. Perhaps a baby would melt the ice. At the least she can go to Chateau in Blois while the baby grows inside her.
Isabelle of Portugal, Dauphine of France
His mother counsels him to be kind to Isabelle, saying that a new land can take a long while to adjust to. To give her space and let things take their time. His father counsels him to be courteous and to visit her bed often. If he wants to indulge himself in passion, a mistress can be found in private. If he fathers a royal grandchild.
Charles sees the first glimmer of something other than glassy dignity five months after the marriage. An elaborate mass in the cathedral in Reims in early December seemed to move Isabelle in ways few things does. The music is beautiful, filling the whole cathedral with sounds. Charles watches her face light up when the winter sunlight filters through the multi-coloured rose window. For a moment there is a tear running down her pale cheek and Isabelle seems to exhale deeply, like letting something go from her chest. His gaze is transfixed upon her, so when her slim fingers drop to caress her lower stomach in a moment of unguarded relief, his whole world tilts completely of axis in a matter of seconds.
Suddenly Isabelle’s eyes find his own and for the first time his wife’s gaze is filled with something other then distance. It’s not warm exactly, but it something more than just coolness right now.
Author's Note: A rather short chapter here, but I neglected France in this tl since 1480. Ah, the complexities of a arranged marriages and two people who don't really know how to communicate with each others.