Green Jasper

by K. M. Grant

  “I’ll love Will always,” said Marissa defiantly, but she left the jewel where Ellie had placed it.

  “Love Will, by all means,” said Ellie, “but if you let love make you angry and miserable, you will lose everything. As for Hosanna’s brooch, well, Will’s right. You do deserve it. I can’t help feeling something when I look at it, Marissa, but that feeling, if we both try, need not always be as it is now.”

  The younger girl looked after Will, but she knew that she would never find what she hoped for in his eyes. She left Ellie, and as she crossed the drawbridge she glanced into the moat’s still waters, then down the hill to the grazing horses. When she eventually went back through the castle gate, she sat in Hosanna’s empty stable for a very long time.

  Ellie caught up with Will. “Green jasper,” she said wistfully. “Gavin gave it, the constable broke it, Hosanna found it, Kamil mended it, and you refastened it. What does it all mean, Will?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Ellie. Perhaps it means that faith is the only thing that lasts.” She knelt down, crumbling the earth, and he knelt beside her. “I must go and help organize Richard’s ransom gold,” he said. “I have told John that I will take it to Germany. It must be collected quickly, for we need to see our king back on English soil.”

  Ellie was quite still. “When the ransom is ready,” she said, “I will go with you.” Something flickered in Will’s heart. “You can’t stop me,” Ellie said. “Gavin paid a high price for my freedom.”

  “I don’t want to stop you,” Will replied. They got up and stood briefly silhouetted together in the afternoon sun.

  Then Ellie turned away and walked back, alone, to Gavin’s graveside, her necklace softly glowing against her neck. “Green jasper for faith, Gavin,” she whispered. “I shan’t forget.” And as if in answer, from over the valley, the abbey bell tolled.

  Author’s Note

  After the heat of the crusade in Blood Red Horse, in the prologue to Green Jasper we find ourselves in chilly Austria, witnessing a crucial meeting between young Kamil, now fleeing from Palestine as Saladin’s life ekes away through illness, and King Richard the Lionheart, now imprisoned in a castle high above the Danube. Fortunes have changed for our two mighty leaders and, as a result, life becomes very precarious for the de Granvilles of Hartslove.

  Essentially, the historical setting for Green Jasper is based upon England Without Richard, John T. Appleby’s memorably stinging title, which reminds us that, quite apart from the crusade, England was actually without Richard for all but six months of his ten-year reign. A kingdom without a visible king is a very unstable place, particularly when he has a brother like John.

  Prince, eventually King, John has had very bad historical press, not only from writers of his time like Roger of Wendover and Mathew Paris, but also from historians of our own times. He has, however, been at least partially rehabilitated by W. L. Warren, and it was to his King John that I turned for the fuller, more generous picture.

  In the epilogue to his book, Warren states that, throughout his reign, “John’s overriding objective was to rule his inheritance in peace: to be able to ride, like his father [Henry II] from the Cheviots to the Pyrenees, wearing his crown in undisputed majesty, receiving the homage of his vassals, doing justice.” This encouraged me to depict him not as a good man, but not as an irredeemably bad one either. For medieval rulers, concern for your kingdom, or your potential kingdom—one of Richard’s greatest failings was failing to provide an heir of his body—was a decent enough excuse for bad behavior. The end could usually justify the means. However, since the modern reader knows exactly where this leads, we probably have less sympathy for John’s blackmailing of Gavin than many of the Hartslove knights would have had. But “my” John is a man of his time. He is not just a petty tyrant; he has other things on his mind.

  Leaving John aside, could Kamil actually have come to England in search of his beloved red horse? Could he have met Richard? Could Richard have sent a note? The answer to all these questions is yes. In The Great Warbow, Dr. Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy tell us that the Franks employed Muslim troops “almost from the inception of the crusader states,” for though suspicious of their religion, Christians could not but admire their “superb fighting qualities.” According to the French Continuation of William of Tyre, edited by M. R. Morgan, Richard also hired Muslims for his domestic wars, bringing 120 back to France. France is but a short hop from England where mercenaries could easily find employment, so the sight of Muslim soldiers, while unusual, would not have been at all impossible. When Elric tells Will he has “seen one of those Saladins” as he calls them, he might very well have.

  As for Kamil’s meeting with Richard, both Amy Kelly’s excellent Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings and John Gillingham’s Richard the Lionheart show that the king’s captivity was not one of darkness and dungeons, but rather that he had visitors and even friends around him. Given his “man of business” clothes, Kamil would have passed through without much comment.

  For the ordinary lives of minor characters—for example, Elric’s parents—I read Eileen Power’s wonderful Medieval People. The chapter entitled “The Peasant Bodo” made me laugh out loud and was helpful with Old Nurse as well as with Ellie and Marissa. Having read Amy Kelly’s book, I was, of course, acutely conscious of having completely left out any reference to Ellie’s namesake, Queen Eleanor, the greatest woman of the twelfth century. But you may be glad to know that she at least gets a mention in the last book of the trilogy, Blaze of Silver, even though we never meet her. Despite the lack of Queen Eleanor as a character in my novel, Kelly’s book, with its wealth of research, turned out to be just as valuable as something like Pedersen’s Marriage Disputes in Medieval England. I just know there must have been many girls like Ellie willing to do their duty—more than willing, since they accepted the world order into which they had been born—but always with a faint hankering for something different. Ellie is no revolutionary. She does what I wish I could do more often, which is to try and see the best in things. By the end of Green Jasper, courtesy of the repellent Constable de Scabious, she has grown up a lot.

  A curious aside—it was only as I came to the end of Green Jasper that I realized something very important: that quite apart from the twelfth-century chronicles and secondary sources from which I drew so much inspiration and help, the book that actually influenced me most over this whole trilogy was nothing to do with crusades or castles at all. Anybody who has a day and a box of handkerchiefs to spare might like to read Peter Abelard by Helen Waddell. This book, which I have read many times now and which I was delighted to find my daughter weeping over recently, transformed my view of how you could write history. Waddell is an absolute master of her craft. Her prose strikes right into your heart. I almost didn’t mention this, since once you have read Waddell my own flaws are horribly evident. But that would have been dishonest and I don’t think Gavin or Will, Kamil or Ellie or, most of all, Hosanna, would approve of that kind of thing at all.

  LIST OF SOURCES

  for

  Green Jasper

  Appleby, John T. England Without Richard, 1189–1199. London: G. Bell, 1965.

  Chronica Rogeri de Wendover. London: Sumptibus Societatis, 1841–42.

  Coxe, H. O. Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Oxford Colleges. Salt Lake City: Wakefield, E.P. Publishers, 1972.

  Gillingham, John. Richard the Lionheart. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989.

  Kelly, Amy. Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950.

  Morgan, M. R., ed. La Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184–1197). Paris, 1982.

  Paris, Matthew. Chronica Major. Translated from the Latin by J. A. Giles. London: Bohn, 1852–1854.

  Pedersen, Frederik. Marriage Disputes in Medieval England. London: Hambledon and London, 2000.

  Power, Eileen. Medieval People. London: The Folio Society, 2000.

  Strickland, Matthew
, and Robert Hardy. The Great Warbow. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2005.

  Waddell, Helen. Peter Abelard. London: Constable & Co., 1933.

  Warren, W. L. King John. London: Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1978.

  2

  Hartslove, August 1193

  In the jousting field at Hartslove, everybody was laughing except Elric, Will Ravensgarth’s new squire, who was lying facedown amid the fallen leaves, biting his lip and trying not to cry. It was the fifth time that day he had fallen off Dargent, unbalanced by a lance that was too heavy for him but that he was determined to master. The bay horse waited patiently, as he had been taught, for his young rider to get up. He shook his head as Hal, Will’s previous squire, approached and hauled Elric to his feet.

  “Don’t let the lance drop once you have scored a hit,” Hal admonished, his freckled face full of kindly anxiety. “You let it swing about and in the end it pushes you off your own horse. The point is to unseat your opponent, you know.” Hal patted Dargent and the horse rubbed his head on his shoulder as Elric wiped his face, spreading the dirt until it hid the redness flushing his cheeks. Hal’s last remark about unseating his opponent had riled him. “I know what I’m supposed to be doing,” he muttered, “I’ll do it again.” He seized the stirrup to remount.

  Hal looked up at the rough stands erected on the side of the field and saw Will shake his head. Hal nodded back. “But not today, Elric,” he said, adding reassuringly, “it’s not a disgrace to fall off, you know. We’ve all done it. When the earl first got Hosanna he fell off dozens of times and he had been riding all his life. You’ve only been riding for just over six months. You can’t expect miracles.”

  Elric would not be comforted. “But everybody is here, looking. Listen to them laughing. They think I’m stupid. Not Marie, perhaps, because she’s nice, and not Mistress Ellie because she’s nice too, but that spiteful Marissa and that snooty Kamil, although it won’t show in his face because nothing ever does. And then Old Nurse—” The boy groaned. “Oh no! I know just what she’ll do. She’ll grab me, shove me in a bath, and plaster my bruises with one of her stinking potions so that everybody will point and hold their noses.”

  Hal tried not to smile. Elric had summed up everything entirely correctly. “Look,” he said, “while you ride Dargent back into the courtyard, I’ll get Marie”—Hal couldn’t help blushing himself at the thought of the sweet girl whose face made his legs turn to jelly—“to distract Old Nurse. You just make sure you are busy until supper. That shouldn’t be difficult. For a start, you can brush Hosanna and make him shine, for the earl sets off again tomorrow for Whitby to fetch another chunk of the king’s ransom money.” He gave Elric a leg up and Dargent tossed his head, preparing to gallop down the lists once more. Hal and Elric both laughed now. “Hold up, Dargent,” said Hal, “that’s enough for today.” The horse seemed disappointed but Hal was pleased to see how Elric soothed him until he could be ridden back up the field with a loose rein.

  Hal returned to the stands and Marie hurried to his side. “Is he hurt?” she asked. Marie always expected the worst.

  “Of course he’s not hurt,” Marissa said scornfully, and Hal wondered, not for the first time, how twins could be so different. Marie would never use such a tone of voice. Perhaps it was because of Marissa’s limp that she always sounded so bitter. Hal thought it had made her character limp, too. He ignored Marissa, plucked up his courage, and took Marie’s arm.

  “It’s his pride that’s hurt more than anything, I expect.” Will’s deep voice boomed out above those of the other knights standing about in groups. Hal jumped. Will sounded so like his dead father, whose voice had often boomed across this field in those carefree days before the crusade and before the terrible events earlier in the year that had resulted in the death of Will’s brother, Gavin.

  “That’s right, sir, just his pride.” Hal nodded.

  “He’s really very good when you think how little practice he’s had.” Ellie had left Kamil, who stood slightly apart, and joined the group around Will.

  Will was glad to have Ellie by his side. He smiled at her and when she smiled back, his heart sang. “We should get the joiner to make him a lighter lance, though, don’t you think, Ellie? Elric’s still so skinny. The lance is heavier than he is.” He handed Ellie a spare weapon and grinned when she rocked and nearly dropped it.

  “Well, he’s got to learn,” said Marissa tartly, resenting that the smiles and jokes passing between Will and Ellie were not including her. The only time she was truly happy now was when Will was teaching her to ride. Then, she had his undivided attention, and his praise made her glow as much as the ruby brooch she always wore.

  Ellie felt Marissa’s resentment and forced herself to look away from the brooch. It had once been hers, given to her by Will on hers and Gavin’s ill-fated wedding day, and she knew that Marissa wore it to annoy her. With difficulty, she stopped herself from scowling and reminded herself that, at eighteen, she had an unfair advantage. Marissa was still only fifteen and had been at Hartslove for just nine months. Old Nurse, who was the wisest woman in the castle, was always telling Ellie that she should not allow Marissa to irritate her, and Ellie tried, she really did. But Marissa drove her mad, particularly when she clung to Will’s side like a leech and even accentuated her limp, just to get Will’s sympathy. Ellie began to walk quickly back to the castle before she said something she would later regret. As was her habit, she stopped under the chestnut tree to tidy up Gavin’s grave and as she knelt to brush some early-falling leaves from the headstone, her sharp words faded. Gavin’s presence was still so strong. It was hard for her to think of him folded into the earth beneath and she could not imagine the day when she would be able to tend his grave without her heart feeling squeezed like an apple in a cider press. Her tears fell onto the stone and trickled down among the flowers.

  Gradually she became aware that Will was behind her. She said nothing at first, just dried her tears and tried to show how welcome he was. She knew that he still found his brother’s grave a difficult place to be. It upset Ellie dreadfully that Gavin and Will’s final parting had been so bitter. Often, from afar, Ellie would see Will here, sitting without moving for hours, with Hosanna grazing beside him. Sometimes the horse would rub his nose on the headstone as he relaxed in the shade, peacefully swishing the flies from his smooth coat. Then some of the lines on Will’s face would soften as he murmured to the red horse, leaning on him and touching the star between his eyes before caressing again and again Hosanna’s two crusading scars.

  That squeezed Ellie’s heart, too. She often thought how much Gavin would have liked to see his brother and Hosanna, peaceful and thoughtful in the sunshine. But she never said as much to Will, for part of Ellie’s terrible sadness was that it was she who had been at the center of the brothers’ last, most disastrous quarrel and it had set up an awkwardness between herself and Will, which she seemed powerless to dispel. She traced the letters on the stone with her finger:

  Gavin de Granville, Count of Hartslove

  and crusader

  died most bravely

  21st March 1193

  It was Will who broke the silence. “I’ve had a message from Prince John about King Richard’s ransom,” he said, watching Ellie’s finger but not kneeling down. “At least one hundred thousand silver marks will have been collected by the end of the year but Richard thinks it would be folly to risk the whole ransom in one baggage train. He suggests that Queen Eleanor, for all her great age, should take the bulk of it and I’m to take three wagons’ worth on a different route to Speyer. If there is a disaster at least one of us should get through.” Ellie got up. Will’s face was troubled. “I’m nervous, Ellie, because it seems that the German emperor’s going to make us responsible for the safety of the ransom until it gets to his border.” He put both hands on the headstone. “Every greedy prince in Christendom will know that there is a fortune on the move, yet the imperial guards only take it over when the danger is lowest.” H
is brow furrowed. “I wish there was a less risky way to get the silver to Speyer but if there is I can’t think of it.”

  Ellie observed him carefully. “If you are trying to put me off coming with you,” she said, “you won’t succeed. In fact, I don’t see how you can manage without me. People are bound to fall sick on the way—perhaps even you—and I’ve been studying about herbs and medicines so hard that I think I can deal with even more illnesses than Old Nurse.”

  “I know, Ellie. I know we need you.” Will found that he did not know what tone to use. Sometimes everything he said seemed to be wrong. He wanted Ellie to come to Speyer, not just because of her growing knowledge of doctoring but because he did not like to be without her. Yet the awkwardness that they both recognized got in the way of his ever telling her this. Will could hardly understand what had happened. How could Gavin now appear to be more of an obstacle than he had ever been when he was alive? Where once Will would have been confident of Ellie’s feelings toward him, now he was unsure. Perhaps when Ellie slipped her arm through his, it was not because she loved him but because he was the only de Granville left. The thought that he would never, now, be sure, tortured Will. What was more, sometimes he saw Kamil looking at Ellie in a way that made his scalp prickle. Was it Kamil who filled Ellie’s dreams? He did not dare to ask.

  When they got back to the castle, Hosanna was standing in the courtyard loosely tied to an iron ring. With patient good humor, he allowed Elric to wash his mane, then, when he thought things had taken long enough, delicately undid the rope and took a small piece of the boy’s jerkin between his teeth. Elric stretched his hand backward to tickle Hosanna’s lips until he let go. Will went at once to his horse’s head. “Ho there, Hosanna,” he said softly before looking over the chestnut withers at Kamil leaning against the wall. “We’ll leave for Whitby at dawn,” he told Kamil, trying not to betray any of his thoughts in his voice. “We need to count the ransom silver already there and collect more from towns farther north. Germany before Christmas! Are you ready?”