by Norah Lofts
Then Berengaria said that we could not stay in Rome any longer. We must move nearer the centre of things. So we packed and proceeded to Le Mans in Maine where Sir Stephen, his errand in Rouen completed, had found us comfortable accommodation on his way back. There Young Sancho left us; and there we settled down, well within range of every story concerning Richard’s fate which rumour chose to spread.
They were so varied and so colourful, those stories, that if I had not been concerned for Blondel nor felt pitiful towards Joanna and Berengaria I should have taken delight in them. Richard, they said, had never taken ship from Acre at all; he had turned back to Damascus and joined Saladin and together they were setting out to repeat Alexander the Great’s conquest of India. All along Richard had preferred Saladin to any of his Christian allies, hadn’t he? And hadn’t Saladin sent him presents?
Richard had joined the Templars. Some obscure shipmaster had come forward with a story of carrying a mysterious passenger, “taller than ordinary and of overbearing manner,” to Malta. And Richard, whoever else he had insulted during the campaign, had always treated the Grand Master of the Knights Templar with deference, hadn’t he? And hadn’t he always been a monk at heart? Look at his behaviour to his wife; when she was within a stone’s throw he had held off, celibate, in his tent.
Richard had been seen in England; in Sherwood where an outlaw named Robin Hood held sway. An archer who had lost his right arm at Acre and returned home and joined the outlaws because he was starving and was the kind of person to whom Hood’s charity extended had seen and recognised him. And wasn’t that reasonable? The outlaws were the body who defied Count John, Longchamp and Geoffrey of York alike. With their help Richard intended to retake his kingdom.
Richard was in Normandy. A milkmaid in Caen had looked up from her milking and seen a tall stranger with a red-gold beard who had begged a drink of milk. She had given him not only the milk—he had a compelling eye, she said—but the manchet of bread and the onion which comprised her noonday piece. He had promised her a manor in return and said, “England was once conquered from Normandy and, by God’s eyes, she shall be retaken therefrom.”
Wasn’t that a feasible story? Wasn’t that just how Richard would speak?
People who too readily believed each story did so, I thought, because they didn’t make allowances for the enormous upspringing, overwhelming power of imagination in common, downtrodden people. Every one of these stories originated at a low level, from people who had held their hands to a candle and imagined themselves warm, had thawed a bacon rind and crust and imagined a feast. I had walked amongst and talked to the poor in Pamplona, in Sicily, Messina, Acre and Rome and I knew why the poor are given to easy credulity, gossip and superstition. If poor people ever looked things straight in the face they would cut their throats from sheer despair; they don’t; they pretend, they decorate, they imagine, they believe. They make the best Christians simply because they believe. And they believe because they must. The shipmaster who landed a man who didn’t tell his business, the archer who saw a recruit to the outlaws, the milkmaid who gave a stranger a drink of milk—they chose to believe that they saw Richard. And, if the thought of the world had tended towards the second coming of Christ instead of towards the mysterious whereabouts of Richard Plantagenet, what they saw would have been a divine being with a halo, not a mere king.
But to whom, now that Blondel had gone, could I say such things? He would have understood, would have delighted in the flight of fancy, but now I was surrounded by the realists, the flat-footed seekers after fact, the most easily deceived of all men.
So I held my tongue, only repeating what I knew and pursuing my own worrying—what had happened to Blondel? until the situation took another turn.
It began with a young groom scrambling up outside our window and thrusting his tousled head through the aperture and shouting excitedly, ‘My lady, they’re saying in the town that the King has been found.’
‘Where? Where?’ we cried, for as often as the stories had come in, as often as they had been disproved, hope and the absence of any certainty as to Richard’s fate had lingered; though it weakened with every passing day. The young groom had nothing to add to his announcement. ‘Run and find out,’ Berengaria said, ‘and come back as soon as you hear anything more.’
Nothing fresh was learned all that day. I went out myself and listened and gossiped and asked questions. The King was found, thanks be to God! And that was all anyone knew.
‘Count Raymond will be back this evening, straight from Rouen,’ Joanna reminded us.
The betrothed couple were passing through a trying period. The marriage had been more or less arranged between themselves, and with Richard’s careless consent, before we had left Acre. But though Richard, who loved his sister in his way and could forgive anything in a good crusader—which Egidio was—had overlooked the fact his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the count’s father, lord of Toulouse, were bitter enemies. Eleanor actually had a claim of some validity to the count’s territory and had more than once made attempts to take possession of it. Joanna, backed by Richard’s consent to the marriage, could have ignored her mother’s feelings in the matter but that was not her way. She wanted everything to be amicable and pleasant. She had written to her mother from Acre and again, several times, from Rome. Eleanor, desperately trying to hold England for Richard, desperately disappointed by the crusade’s failure, was in a chastened mood, in no mind to take another fight in hand. She would, she wrote back, give her consent to the marriage; she would even not renounce her claim to the lands but pass them on to her daughter (a typically Eleanor Aquitainian arrangement!), provided that she approved of the young man himself. Egidio would have gone to London. He would have gone to Baghdad—barefoot, if needful—so much in love was he; but Eleanor repudiated that notion. Presently, she wrote, she would be in Rouen, Richard would be in Rouen and the whole family could gather and discuss this matter. Then there came the news of Richard’s disappearance and Joanna herself thrust away all idea of the wedding. This was no time for such thoughts. Egidio agreed. But time passed; what would have been the period of mourning, had we been quite certain of Richard’s death, ended. Egidio stayed with us and Berengaria and I were as tactful as possible, humouring the lovers, leaving them often alone. But it was an irksome situation. Then Eleanor—now more than ever distraught by the way affairs were going—did arrive in Rouen and there was a suggestion that we should all move on to that city. It came to nothing. Rouen was very crowded; emissaries, ambassadors must be accommodated; we were well placed in Le Mans, were we not?
‘And it would hurt her,’ Joanna said, ‘to see me, her useless daughter, safe and sound, while Richard—’ She burst into her ready tears.
But Egidio had grown impatient. By this time the stories had come in, dozens of conflicting tales, credited and then proved false and one day he had said, ‘We have our lives to live when all is said and done.’ So he had dressed himself in his best, chosen his retainers, kissed Joanna heartily and ridden off to Rouen to seek Eleanor’s approval. ‘And if she doesn’t like me I shall merely regret her bad taste in men and come back and marry you out of hand,’ he had said cheerfully.
The news of Richard’s new appearance reached Le Mans just at the moment when Egidio was expected back. Between the two excitements Joanna was almost demented.
Egidio was late in returning, so we dismissed everybody and sat up by ourselves with food waiting on the side table and the necessities for mulled wine ready to hand for the night was very chilly.
When at last he arrived his ordinarily pleasant face was set in sulky lines and he had, I think, been drinking. His manner, as we all rushed forward clamouring for news, was at odds with his usual courtesy. Pushing us aside, he strode to the fire and held out his stiff hands, then swung round.
‘So the tale has travelled this far.’
‘Just the bare news,’ Joanna said. ‘We were hoping—’
‘Your mother,’ he
burst out angrily, ‘couldn’t spare a moment even to see me. She was closeted all day, writing letters to the Pope!’ A fine contempt flavoured the last words. At that moment he was a rather pampered small boy whom some adult, busy with some ridiculous adult concern, had brushed aside.
‘Oh dear,’ said Joanna, tactfully pretending to a disappointment which at the moment she could not feel because her mind was engaged with the other subject. ‘Still, oh, my lord, if this good news is true, we can have Richard at our wedding and that would be more than we dared hope. Tell us, is it true?’
‘My honey-sweet love,’ the count said, snatching up the cold fowl from the side table and pulling off a leg which he proceeded to gnaw and champ as he talked, ‘How could it be true? There was the shipmaster, wasn’t there, who saw the King in Malta and the archer who recognised him in Sherwood Forest and the milkmaid to whom he spoke in Caen? This time it is a lute player who “lost” his master outside Vienna, couldn’t look for him thoroughly because he was ill and then thought he’d better plod back to Rouen and just mention the matter—’
‘Oh!’ I exclaimed. ‘Then it could be true. There was a lute player—and the belt found in Vienna.’
‘There you are,’ the count said, pointing the chicken bone at me accusingly. ‘It’s the credulity of people that encourages these tales.’ He was so angry because Eleanor had failed to give him her attention that he choose to overlook the fact that it was he who had brought home for us the stories about Malta and Sherwood and half a dozen more and had shared our excitement and speculations. This new story had rendered his errand vain, therefore he would have none of it. ‘Consider, Lady Anna, the things which make this story unbelievable. In the first place, the young man asserts that he set out with Richard to travel overland. Now everyone knows—and the Bishop of Salisbury gives his oath—that Richard embarked for a sea voyage from Acre to Dover. The minstrel, like all the rest of them, is inspired by a crazy desire for notice; and of course, being a professional spinner of tales, he embroiders his with several pleasing little touches which were lacking in the others. “I lost him at Eedburg near Vienna.” How, can you tell me, does one “lose” a man the size of Richard Plantagenet? Not in a fight, not from sickness, oh no, just lost like a pin in the grass.’ He threw the chicken bone into the fire. ‘What I detest and deplore about these tales,’ he said more gravely, ‘is their effect on people to whom Richard was dear.’ His eyes traveled from Joanna to Berengaria. ‘They keep open a wound that should have been healing now. Richard, God rest his soul in peace, was shipwrecked and drowned; he should be mourned and Masses said for his soul and—’
And forgotten! I thought. The broken threads knitted up again into the implacable pattern of life and young men who wanted to marry young women should be properly received and listened to. I looked at Berengaria; after all, we were talking of her husband, of the man she had desperately loved once, even though…
She was breathing pantingly; I could see her breast palpitating unevenly under her bodice.
‘If Blondel says he lost Richard near Vienna, Richard was lost near Vienna, Count Egidio,’ she gasped out. ‘I know Blondel went with him from Acre and I have known Blondel very well for a long time and never known him to tell a lie. Or seek notice. He went with Richard to Jerusalem and every courier that came back brought us letters—as Anna can testify—precise and honest and never once concerned with his own exploits. What is more, he promised me long ago that he would take care of Richard for me; and if he “lost” him we can be quite certain that some kind of treachery was at work.’ Apart from a slight breathlessness, her voice was controlled and when she moved from us towards the side table where the cold viands stood, she moved so smoothly and quietly that I imagined she was about to offer Egidio more to eat or help herself to wine. Instead she picked up the big silver bell which we used to summon the pages and shook it so vigorously that the sound pealed through the whole house.
‘I’m going to Rouen,’ she said, setting the bell down. ‘If many people think as you do, Count Egidio—and I have no doubt they will, after so many false stories—I must go and do my utmost to prove to them that this one is true. And I must see Blondel and hear the whole story from his own lips.’
‘I will come with you,’ I cried, for she had spoken the very words I had in mind.
‘I shall ride hard,’ she said warningly.
‘And I.’
Joanna stood looking from one to the other of us.
‘I can’t stay here alone. Had I—shall I—’ She looked at the count. She did not wish to leave him; on the other hand, he had only just come back and could hardly be expected to ride out again that night.
‘Count Egidio will escort us, of course,’ Berengaria said sweetly and I swear even I could not tell whether she spoke in innocence or guile. ‘It is the King’s business we ride on.’ She turned to the sleepy page who, smoothing his tousled hair, appeared in the doorway and gave him his orders. Daughter of a long line of kings, wife to a king, at that moment she was fit mate for a king; magnificently wearing the ornament of glass and tin as though it were priceless.
IV
I was shocked by the change in Eleanor. Often enough in Pamplona, Brindisi and in Messina I had been astonished by the way in which she had retained not only her vitality of body, her vigour of mind, but her looks. She had come out to Navarre straight from sixteen years’ retirement, virtual imprsonment in Winchester, and sometimes it seemed to me that those sixteen years had been a preservative like the wax a good housewife rubs into eggshells to keep them fresh through the winter. She had emerged with energy unimpaired, wits undimmed and the looks of a much younger woman. Now she looked her full age and more. Her handsome, firmly fleshed face had shrunken and in shrinking had fallen into heavy harassed lines; the colour had gone from it and here and there, around her mouth, in the hollow temples and eye sockets, an ugly brown pigmentation spread a stain. Her plentiful hair was now completely white and seemed too heavy, too lifeless to be manageable and she had contracted a nervous habit of pushing her hands through it.
But the old fire still burned undiminished.
Despite all the hard pressure to which Berengaria had subjected us, the journey from Le Mans to Rouen had taken almost three days; by the time we arrived the new story was seven or eight days old and Eleanor had not been idle. Letters to the Pope, letters to the Emperor, Henry the Stern, letters to Leopold of Austria were speeding on their way.
Before we had laid aside our mire-encrusted cloaks or warmed our hands Eleanor was telling us of the steps she had taken towards Richard’s release. They included one of the true, typical Aquitainian touches, the kind of crafty opportunism which in the past had gained Eleanor her name, the “She-wolf.”
‘I told Leopold quite frankly that if he gave me his aid now I would give him my granddaughter, my namesake Eleanor, whom they call the Pearl of Brittany, to be his wife. In Acre he often spoke of her to me; he saw her once in Bruges and when he talked the lust showed in his eyes. And I told him plainly then that I had lived long enough to realise the folly—and the wrong—of these forced, arranged matches. I said that I should always support the little wench’s own choice—within the right degrees. He used to squirm at that, knowing full well that no girl with good sight and the freedom to choose would choose to marry him! But all that is altered now and if he will exert himself—he has great influence on the Emperor—I am prepared to sacrifice the girl. She is young; she will outlive him with any luck, and then—like you, Joanna—she can marry the man she favours.’
Joanna, who had married the man her father had chosen for her, and Berengaria, who had been prepared to die rather than marry Isaac of Cyprus, were both, now that they knew that Eleanor had accepted Blondel’s story and taken action, prepared to be diverted by this mention of matrimonial arrangements. Dropping their mired cloaks, kicking off their wet shoes, they pressed about the fire, asking questions about the Pearl of Brittany, calculating the force of the bribe Eleanor
had offered.
‘But of what value,’ I felt myself bound to ask, ‘is a bribe to the archduke when we do not even know where Richard is being held? Suppose he is out of Leopold’s jurisdiction or the Emperor’s? There are a number of German princes and all, I understand, very independent and absolute in their own domains.’
‘That,’ said Eleanor, swinging around to face me, ‘is the heart of the matter. We don’t know. We know that he disappeared at Eedburg, a little place near Vienna; but who took him, and why and where he is now, there is no telling.’ She pushed her hands through her hair. ‘It is the uncertainty… And Richard in prison would fret like an eagle caged. Still, the Pope, if he will act—all Christendom minds him; and Leopold, well bribed, could act if he held him or he knew that the Emperor did. What more could I do?’
I did not say it but I remembered what I had once heard, that many German princes gave only lip service to the Pope. Half of them weren’t even Christian, though they chose to be regarded, for mundane reasons, as part of Christendom. The vast, loosely-knit body over which Henry the Stern held nominal sway and which was called the Empire was composed of some very old, varying elements. More than a thousand years had passed since Attila and his Huns had swept over Europe; they had been fought, defeated, absorbed and forgotten; in places, save for the wanton destruction they had wrought, they had left little mark. But in parts of what they called the Empire the Huns had remained, a hard core of alien culture; immensely brave, unconquerably tribal, curiously indulgent to women, children, horses and hounds, merciless to their enemies and given to the worship of strange gods. There was a place called Gastein, for example, where they worshiped the “spirit” of a great waterfall which came tumbling down from the mountains through a narrow gorge. And every Midsummer Day a young girl, the prettiest unpockmarked virgin in the district, was thrown into its boiling torrent; and for the next twelve months her family was honoured, regarded as holy, so materially favoured that there was a great deal of competition when it came to selecting the victim. The Pope wouldn’t approve of that! And a papal letter, sent to such a community, wouldn’t have much effect. Nor in the province of Tulzburg where a curious form of cannibalism still survived and one ate with great ceremony certain bits of the body of a dead enemy who had showed courage, in the belief that thus his courage entered into one.