Here Be Dragons

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “I daresay others might think this a rather peculiar conversation for a woman to be having with her daughter’s betrothed!”

  He did not return her smile. “I’ll settle for the daughter if I must,” he said softly, “but I’d rather have the mother.”

  When their eyes met again, Isabelle found she could not look away. “I’m afraid the mother is already spoken for, Hugh,” she murmured, taking refuge in flippancy, while longing to reach out, to trace the curve of his mouth with her fingers. She fought the urge, kept her hands tightly clasped in her lap, and then a shadow fell between them, and she turned, saw her husband standing several feet away.

  “John!” Isabelle was on her feet before she could realize that she’d have done better to remain sitting. Hugh’s reaction was just as instinctive; he, too, sprang up, backed away from Isabelle. Isabelle recovered her poise first, summoned a dazzling smile. “John, love, your ears must be burning, for we were just talking about you!”

  To her relief, John returned her smile. She moved hastily to his side, linked her arm through his. “I remember you telling me your sister used to call you Johnny-cat. Now I can understand why; you approached us as quietly as any cat could, made no sound at all!” She was talking too much and too fast, but she could not help herself. She was suddenly panicked at the prospect of silence, and she chattered on brightly and aimlessly for several moments, while Hugh shifted uneasily, and John listened with an indulgent smile. After an interminable time, Hugh mumbled an excuse, made a swift departure. Only then, alone in the garden with John, did Isabelle begin to relax.

  “So you were talking about me? What were you saying, Isabelle?”

  “Oh…nothing out of the ordinary, love. We talked about Joanna, the betrothal, and—” Isabelle cried out as John grasped her wrist, jerked her roughly toward him.

  John had been neither surprised nor perturbed when he saw Hugh de Lusignan rise, follow Isabelle out into the gardens. He was gratified, not threatened, by the awareness that other men desired his wife, that they envied him so. It was not jealousy or unease that had motivated him to join them, but rather a sense of prideful possession; he enjoyed claiming Isabelle as his before a man so obviously bewitched by his beautiful wife.

  The shock was all the greater, therefore, for being so unexpected. It was not the sight of Isabelle and Hugh sitting together under the peach tree that jolted him so; it was the look on his wife’s face. It was not the look of a woman engaging in an innocent flirtation; it was a look of yearning, a look both erotic and intimate, the look a woman would give her lover.

  He tightened his grip on her wrist. “Tell me, Isabelle. What was de Lusignan saying to you?”

  “John, you’re hurting me!”

  “Tell me!”

  The pain was radiating upward from wrist to elbow; tears filled her eyes. “All right! I’ll tell you. He was flirting with me, that’s all. No more, I swear it!”

  He released her so abruptly that she staggered backward, sank down on the turf seat, cradling her wrist. She’d always been scornful of women who cringed before abusive husbands, wondering how they could be so lacking in pride. But she had never been hurt before, had never been subjected to violence of any kind. Now she wept soundlessly, flinching as he stepped toward her. “Why are you so angry? Men always flirt with me; it means nothing. You know that, John, have never minded before.”

  “Mayhap I should have.”

  Isabelle forgot her pain in a sudden surge of fear. “My God, John, what are you saying? Surely you do not think I’ve been unfaithful to you? Never, John, never—I swear on our children’s very lives! You must believe me!”

  “Must I? Why? Why should you not have betrayed me, too? Why should you be any different from the others?”

  Isabelle was terrified. “I would never betray you, never. John, I swear it. I’d have to be an utter fool to take such a risk!”

  She saw his mouth twist, and realized she’d blundered; that was not what he wanted to hear. He was turning away, and she stumbled to her feet. “Oh, listen to me, please. There has never been any man but you. John, I love you, I do!”

  “Do you, Isabelle?”

  “How can you doubt it? I’ve been your wife for fourteen years; when have I ever failed you? I’ve shared your bed and your troubles, and I’ve given you three children.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand, choked back a sob. “And…and there’s something I have not yet told you. I was waiting till I was sure, but…John, I think I am with child again.”

  John did not react as she’d hoped. He gave her a cold, measuring look, a look that frightened her even more, and then said, very evenly, “Is it mine?”

  Isabelle gasped. Tears streaked her face, smeared the kohl outlining her eyes. She sobbed again, caught his sleeve. “How can you ask that? How?”

  Neither of them had heard the approaching footsteps, and they spun about as Hugh de Lusignan coughed. “Your Grace, do forgive me. I did not realize you and your lady were quarreling. I am indeed sorry for the intrusion.” The words were properly remorseful, and Hugh ducked his head as if embarrassed. But he was a poor actor. John had seen how he stared at Isabelle, knew that Hugh hated him not just for that long-ago affront to his pride. His grievance was a festering, thwarted passion; he’d wanted Isabelle in his bed, he still wanted her, and could not hide the poisoned pleasure their quarreling gave him, his envenomed satisfaction that there seemed to be a snake in John’s Eden.

  Behind Hugh, John now saw Hugh’s wife, Matilda, the wife he’d taken as substitute solace for Isabelle’s loss. She was Isabelle’s first cousin, but she’d not been blessed with Isabelle’s beauty, was not a woman to make Hugh forget what could have been his, Isabelle and Angoulême. John drew a deep, deliberate breath as Isabelle said in a muffled voice, “We were not quarreling.”

  “There is no need to lie, Isabelle. We can be honest with Hugh.” John’s smile felt wooden, utterly artificial, but the words came of their own volition, even carried conviction. “We were indeed arguing, and I fear it was my fault. You see, Hugh, Isabelle just told me she is with child again. Naturally, I was delighted. But had I known of her condition, I’d never have allowed her to come with me to Parthenay, would have insisted she remain in La Rochelle, and I was disturbed that she did not tell me sooner.”

  The sudden fragrance of damask rose told John that Isabelle was now standing just behind him. He turned, slid his arm around her waist. She murmured, “You are sweet, love, to worry about me, but in truth there’s no need.” John could feel the tension in her body, but her voice had steadied, and now she smiled defiantly at Hugh, asked, “Are you not going to congratulate us, Hugh?”

  “Indeed.” Hugh’s voice was toneless. “May God grant you a son, Madame.”

  When Hugh and Matilda withdrew, John at once released Isabelle, turned away from her. At the far end of the gardens was a large fishpond or stew, shaded by ancient yew trees. He walked toward it, stood for a time staring down at the sluggishly moving carp. His rage had ebbed away; he felt only emptiness, only a dulled sense of disbelief, of loss.

  His faith in Isabelle’s fidelity was born of circumstance: her extreme youth and innocence at the time of their marriage. As she matured into womanhood, he’d been her guide and mentor, shaping her thoughts and fantasies to fit his own needs. She was more than his wife, she was his creation, utterly unlike the other women in his life, and when she’d said she loved him, he’d taken it as his just due, had never thought to doubt her. Not until the moment he came upon her and the young de Lusignan seated on a turf bench and suddenly saw her not as his, but as a beautiful, passionate woman of twenty-six, a woman with a husband more than twenty years older than she.

  “John.” Isabelle had followed him. Stopping a few feet away, she pleaded, “John, please, we have to talk. You have to tell me if you truly meant what you said, if you truly doubt that this babe be yours.”

  John had picked up a handful of pebbles. Now he let them drop, one by one,
watched the pond’s peaceful surface fragment, rippling outward in ever-widening circles. “No,” he said at last, “I did not mean it. I know the babe is mine.”

  Isabelle had not realized she’d been holding her breath. “Thank God,” she sighed, utterly without irony. Her fear had been too great to allow her now the indulgence of resentment or outraged innocence, not when she thought of Eleanor’s sixteen bitter years as Henry’s prisoner, of Ingeborg’s twelve wretched years in Étampes Castle, of the sinister silence that seemed to fall whenever mention was made of Maude de Braose and her disappearance into a Windsor dungeon.

  “If the babe is a girl,” John said, after some moments of strained silence, “we’ll name her Isabelle.”

  Isabelle smiled wanly. “I should like that.” Her fingers encircled her wrist, lingered over the darkening bruises, and then she moved toward him, into his arms.

  “Promise me, John, that you’ll never again doubt my love for you.”

  “I want to believe you,” he confessed. She seemed about to speak; as her lips parted, he brought his mouth down on hers. “If I thought you’d ever taken another man to your bed, Isabelle…”

  “I love you, only you.” Her voice was husky, beguilingly soft. But her lashes had swept downward, veiling her eyes, her thoughts, and John felt a throb of fear. How would he ever know if she was lying or not? How could he ever be sure?

  The dawn sky on Wednesday, July 2, was a sun-glazed, boundless blue in which a solitary eagle soared high above John’s siege encampment at Roche-au-Moine. As men rolled, yawning, from their blankets, they gazed upward, took the eagle’s flight as a good omen, for all knew that the eagle was king amongst birds, that old King Henry of blessed memory had ofttimes spoken of his sons as his eaglets. The sudden appearance of a golden eagle over the King’s camp could only mean that he would prevail against the French King’s son, that the day’s victory would be theirs.

  For a fortnight now, John had been besieging the castle of Roche-au-Moine, just a few miles to the north of Angers. Barricaded within its keep was William des Roches, Philip’s Seneschal for Anjou, the same William des Roches who’d turned against John after Mirebeau. John’s campaign had met with unqualified success to date; he’d won over the de Lusignans, captured castles and the strategic city of Angers, and his army had been swelled by the ranks of the Poitevin barons. When word came that Philip’s son Louis was hastening north to des Roches’s rescue, he chose not to lift the siege, chose instead to meet the French forces on the field of battle.

  His scouts had reported that the French were approaching from the southeast, and the men now staring up at the circling eagle knew that battle was likely to be joined under that cloudless summer sky, that some among them would never see another dawning day. They were much heartened, therefore, when the eagle swooped lower, hovered for a moment above the tent of the English King.

  Within, John was trapped in a dream of familiar horror, in which the very real fears of day merged with the secret terrors of the night, and he found himself naked and defenseless before his enemies, abandoned even by God.

  “My liege?”

  His eyes flew open; he looked up into the frightened face of a young squire. The boy backed away from the bed. “Forgive me, my liege, but you cried out…”

  “No matter, Simon, no matter.” As John started to sit up, he found he was entangled in the bedcovers. He signaled for wine, wiped the sweat from his face with the corner of the sheet. He wondered if his servants gossiped among themselves, swapped stories of the King’s troubled dreams, knew they did. Rumor was a servant’s coinage, lavishly spent.

  He could hear voices beyond the inner partition, the excited, uneasy laughter of men girding themselves for battle. He shared their unease, but not their excitement, for he had no love of war, no lust for battle glory. He had never been able to comprehend what perverse pleasure his brother Richard found on the battlefield, and when he fought, it was only because he could get what he wanted no other way.

  The squire was back, offering bread sopped in wine. “An eagle alighted upon your tent this morn, lord, in sight of all!”

  “Did it indeed?” John grinned, and the lingering darkness of his dream fled before the sunlight flooding his tent. “When Louis sent me his challenge, Simon, I replied that the sooner he came to Roche-au-Moine, the sooner he’d regret it. Today I shall make good my promise.” And while there was a touch of bravado in that, it was also the pragmatic assessment of a battle commander who had picked the site, made the enemy come to him, and knew that numerical superiority was his.

  The Earl of Chester was waiting for John, shared his breakfast as John was being armed.

  “I understand couriers arrived with letters last night. Did Your. Grace hear from Flanders, from your brother Salisbury and Dammartin?”

  John shook his head. “I regret not, can only assume that they are still waiting for Otto and the Rhineland Princes to join forces with them. I did hear from England, though.”

  “From Pembroke?”

  The Earl of Pembroke had remained behind in England; he and Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, now John’s Justiciar, had been entrusted with the government. Now John shook his head again. “No, the last letter I had from Pembroke spoke of his suspicions that Fitz Walter and de Vesci were stirring up trouble with the malcontent barons of the North. No surprise, that; when they refused to take part in our campaign, we knew they’d try to take advantage of my absence from the kingdom. But I think Pembroke and Winchester will hold them in check until I can return to deal with them myself. No, the letter was from my son.”

  Chester had developed a regard for Richard, and he smiled. “I know Your Grace wanted him to look to your interests in England, but I confess I’d have liked to have him with us today. He’s a good lad, can be relied upon to keep a cool head.”

  John smiled, too. “That he can. Well, he’ll be joining us next month, after his marriage to the little Chilham heiress.” His squires had pulled his hauberk over a padded tunic, and were buckling his scabbard. “The truth, Ranulf. What are our chances?”

  Chester could not recall John ever calling him by his Christian name. “Well, I’d not trade places with Louis for the surety of my soul!” he said, and John laughed. He was reaching for a wine cup when the shouting began.

  “The King, where’s the King?”

  John yanked the partition aside just as the Earl of Derby burst into the tent. “Your Grace, you’ll not believe it, what Thouars and the barons are doing—”

  “Stop babbling and tell me, then!”

  “The Poitevin barons, they’re pulling out, my lord, deserting us!”

  “Oh, Christ…” For a moment John froze, unable to distinguish between daylight horrors and those of his dream. And then he shouldered Derby aside, ducked under the tent flap.

  Men were clustered around the tent; they moved aside, quickly cleared a path. The Poitevins were already mounted, preparing to depart. John recognized Aimery, Viscount of Thouars, began to move toward him. They knew each other well; Thouars had long swung like a weathercock in a high wind, pledging fealty to John or Philip as circumstances seemed to dictate. He did not look defiant now, just uncomfortable, and before John could speak, he blurted out, “We were willing to join you in laying siege to Roche-au-Moine, but not to fight the French. That was never our agreement. Philip is our liege lord, too; we owe him—”

  “You lying bastard! You’ve known for a fortnight that I meant to do battle with Louis, and you said nothing, raised no objections. No, you waited, waited till the day of the battle. Tell me, how much did the French pay you, Aimery? Did you get your thirty pieces of silver?”

  Thouars flushed, began to bluster, but John was no longer listening. Even as he’d raged at Thouars, as embittered accusations and invective took shape upon his tongue, an inner voice sounded an instinctive warning. Something was very wrong. Thouars was unscrupulous and unreliable, but he was also weak-willed, shrank from confrontation. He’d hav
e fled in the dark of night, on his own would never have found the courage for this diabolically timed desertion. John’s eyes slid past Thouars, searched the faces of the others. And then he saw the de Lusignans, then he understood. His eyes locked with Hugh’s. Hugh smiled and then leaned over, spat into the dust.

  “You English have a proverb I’ve always fancied, John, the one that says revenge is a dish best eaten cold.”

  John jerked his sword from its scabbard. “You craven, cocksucking whoreson! God rot you, but you’ll pay for this, I swear you will, if it takes me till Judgment Day!”

  Hugh laughed. “Ah, but today is Judgment Day—for you. Good luck with the French.”

  With that, the de Lusignans spurred their mounts, signaled to their men. The other Poitevin barons followed, galloping out of the encampment to the jeers and taunts of the outraged English.

  Chester came forward, stopped beside John. He waited, and after a time, John said softly, “And I gave him my daughter, my Joanna…”

  “Your Grace!” The Earl of Derby was shoving his way toward them. “Your Grace, what mean you to do? The French will be upon us, and how can we fight now? We’ve just lost half our army!”

  John turned, and then sheathed his sword. “We cannot fight. Give the command to retreat. Tell my captains to head for the Loire.”

  “But what of our siege weapons, the mangonels and trebuchet? What of our tents, your baggage carts, your—”

  “Leave them.” John’s voice was without emotion, utterly flat, but Derby did not dare to argue. One look at John’s face and he spun about, began to shout orders. The anger of their soldiers was now giving way to alarm, to the first stirrings of panic. Men began to run for their horses, and those who had no mounts began to scuffle with those who did. A few took advantage of the pandemonium to loot the tents of their commanders. Tempers flared, brawling broke out, and John’s captains tried in vain to maintain some semblance of order. But the men had only one thought now, to flee before the French army arrived.