Chapter 2: And the Heads start rolling
Murder wasn’t the only sin Boudewijn V would commit in his lifetime. Despite his older age, he was still up for some good times, and he found it in Turdifa. Turdifa was a courtier in Bruges and whilst Boudewijn was learning the language of his hated liege, D’Oïl Vulgar, she picked up on him and without much subtlety made it clear that D’Oïl Vulgar is very much the language of love when it came to her. Boudewijn quickly took the bait and laid with her, turning her into his lover.
9 months later however, she birthed the fruit of their love and Boudewijn was quick to distance himself from her and the new bastard child. This decision would come to haunt him till his death.
When the Duke wasn’t learning D’Oïl Vulgar and laying with his new lover, he showed little sympathy for his heirs and their children when it came to finding a suitable marriage partner. Not love, not even alliances and the power it brought, but good genetics would decide who got to marry into the Van Vlaanderen dynasty. Even though genetics itself wasn’t a known concept, you knew you shouldn’t marry into your own family and close kin (unless they happened to be beautiful, a genius and herculean all at the same time but *cough* let us forget about that for the moment). A strong body, being beautiful but above all showing wit and cunning was something Boudewijn valued above all for his heirs and relatives, a trend that would become entrenched within the van Vlaanderen family and dynasty.
The first result of this remarkable strategy of marriage and strength of blood would be the marriage between himself and Rijeka. Boudewijn’s wife had died only a few months prior, and with the love between them having never existed, he didn’t mourn much. If anything he welcomes it, for he could now marry Rijeka, a fecund and Genius woman from Croatia. An expert in diplomacy, learning and known in the art of intrigue, she was the perfect wife for the aging Boudewijn.
She soon became pregnant of their first child, Daniel Boudewijnszoon who was lucky to inherit the Genius of his mother. Boudewijn would personally oversee his education in the arts of intrigue. That Boudewijn saw the potential in the newly born would be an understatement considering he made him count of Ypres before even turning 1! Of course he as the father held a good grip on the county in name of his son, but that was just a hindsight of course.
And then his mistake caught up to him. Turdifa, who had been captured by her husband Hereward, spilled the beans: she had slept with Boudewijn, and with it out in the open Boudewijn was now known to be an Adulterer. No bigger shame could befallen on him, at least in his mind. Worse of all, Turdifa was pregnant of a third bastard child.
The King of France saw an opportunity to worsen the image loss and imprisoned Turdifa as well after she was released from the prison of her husband. The king asked 10 coins to release her and subsequent bastard son once born but Boudewijn just scoffed and swept his arse with the letter. She could rot in the French king’s prison for all he cared. When their third child was born in a French dungeon, Boudewijn decided to cut ties and not recognize the new child as his, making him a bastard too.
Needless to say, his newly wed wife wasn’t too happy either with an adulterer as husband, but being so far from home, she had little choice but to stay. Their relationship would never recover. Despite already being a failure at his new marriage, he continued forging new ones for his relatives. He married his daughter off to Halfdan, a person with no titles but known to be a beautiful man.
Shortly after, Boudewijn finally learned D’Oïl Vulgar and immediately put it to use, by starting a plot to kill the pig that called himself King of France. Luckily for him, his granddaughter happened to be Queen of France and she seemed all but willing (with some financial stimulus) to aid him in killing her husband. It truly runs in the family. Before he ended up in a grave, he tried petitioning him one more time to get some benefit out of being his vassal, but his petition fell on deaf ears and he would feel no remorse now in killing him.
His own death however, felt nearer and nearer the more time passed by. He was nearing the age of 59 and his body was starting to fail him. If he wanted to kill the king before he himself passed away he would have to be quick. The order was given on the 11th of December 1081, and it went without a hitch. A lethal bite by a poisonous spider did the trick. Untraceable the spider crawled away, whilst the guards could do nothing but wait for their king to pass.
His son would ascend the throne a few days later as King Hugues II of France, aged 24. When Boudewijn payed his homage, it would be repaid not long after with the offer for him to become the King’s Spymaster. Boudewijn eagerly accepted. He was already plotting to use his new position to kill the new king, but his eagerness was what the king was after, and sensing what was up, he rescinded the position again just a few months after Boudewijn was appointed. If anything, it strengthened Boudewijn’s conviction that the Kings of France had to be dealt with.
Fortunately for him, the new Spymaster that the King had appointed was no more loyal than Boudewijn, and together with the counts of Touraine, Vermandois and Jaligny they killed Hugues II on the 31st of May 1083. The French Crown had suffered yet another blow.
Hugues would be succeeded by King Robert III “the Old”, not of the Capet dynasty but of the Bourgognes. He too would immediately come to be the target of Boudewijn. Ironically though, Robert honoured his nickname by dying before Boudewijn could kill him. Shortly after Hugues III would become King of France.
Hugues III would not find a spider in his bed from Boudewijn though. Even though Boudewijn had already been plotting to kill Hugues, he himself would end up getting killed by a mob in Bruges. And although it was obvious it was a plot by someone to get them riled up to kill him, nobody officially knew who it was that gave the order.
In the end it didn’t matter, for his descendants only needed a guess. They would continue what Boudewijn had started, and go even beyond that.
