by Jack Whyte
André did not even dare attempt to answer, for he was afraid, yet far from convinced, that the Queen of Sicily had lost her sanity, and the thunder of his own pulse was deafening in his ears. He sat motionless, making no attempt to look at her, and she bent forward and took him by the wrist, tugging at him.
“André, look at me. Look at me, and listen! Look at me!”
He turned his eyes with painful slowness to look at her and found her frowning at him.
“Sweet Jesus,” she said, more to herself than to him. “You are even more innocent than I suspected. You are unfit to be permitted out alone and unguarded. André, listen to me, and if you have never heard anything before in your life to do with women, hear this.” She squeezed his wrist with both hands now, this time hard enough to cause pain, and he flinched and looked directly at her.
“Are you listening to me? Good. Now hear this, from a woman with no wish to deceive you and a Queen with no need to lie. Berengaria is yours for the taking. I am, too, but there is naught in it for me but pleasure. For you and Berengaria, on the other hand, there is much more at stake. You are to beget a son on her, an heir for Richard.”
As he made to leap to his feet, she leapt ahead of him and pushed him back down. “Listen, you stupid man! Do you think I would jest with you on such a matter? It is a fact. Richard has planned for this, and arranged it with great care, and there is nothing you or anyone else may do to alter it. He will, if need be, use the full power of his liege right to your fealty and order you directly to the task of doing it as duty, and if you refuse his wishes he will deal with you accordingly. Believe me, I know whereof I speak, and you know my brother well enough to know that he will not be crossed in anything he sets his mind to as he has in this. Richard has no fear of popes or bishops or prating priests, and there is no other monarch alive who could force his hand and make him change his mind.”
She checked herself, seeing the look in his eyes, then flicked her hand sideways, as if to clear such thoughts away, and resumed in a more gentle voice. “But none of this is anywhere near as bleak as I have made it sound, believe me. Nor would it be unpleasant in any degree, especially with regard to my sister Berengaria.” She spread her fingers wide and drew a deep breath. “Richard took Berengaria to his bed on their wedding night, witnessed by all who were required to be there to stand witness, but he made no attempt to couple with her. She is no virgin, nor was she expected to be one, but she is virgin to her husband, because Richard is a man’s man and that means his Queen will be no man’s woman, officially at least, for the remainder of her life.”
“That is scandalous! She was brought to Sicily to wed him by his mother. How could Eleanor not know about her son and his vices?”
Joanna looked at him wide eyed. “Who said she does not? Did I?”
“No, but—”
“There are no ‘buts,’ Sir André. My mother is no man’s fool and there is nothing she does not know about her sons … nor her daughters, for that matter. She knew what she was doing.”
“Then how could she do such a thing to this young woman?”
The naivety of his question brought a hard edge of impatience to Joanna’s voice. “She could do it because this young woman is her father’s daughter, bound to obey his wishes in this as in all other things. Her father is King of Navarre, and Eleanor’s son is King of England and ruler of an empire that includes Gascony. My mother arranged the perfect alliance, matching Richard with Berengaria, one of those brilliant instances of logic and initiative in political reality that have made my mother renowned throughout her life for her political acumen.
“Richard has tribulations uncounted in Gascony and no time to deal with them. The entire region is a rats’ nest of treasonous bandits. They call themselves landowners and noblemen, but they are no more than brigands who have no love for Aquitaine, and even less for my brother or for his House, whether it be called Plantagenet or Poitiers. And to the east of Gascony lies Toulouse, a foe to both Gascony and Richard. That single fact, that enmity between Toulouse and Gascony, is the sole thing holding back open rebellion by both powers against Richard’s lands and authority. But our farsighted mother has contrived to liquidate that threat.” She paused, collecting her thoughts, then resumed in a stronger voice. “The day he married Berengaria, Richard endowed her with title to all his lands and holdings in Gascony.” She saw St. Clair stiffen slightly with shock. “Gascony’s southern border is the northern border of those territories ruled by Berengaria’s father, Sancho. He is a sound and solid man, a strong King with a powerful and experienced army, kept in the field for years campaigning against the Muslim Moors in Granada, to the south of him. And now that his daughter holds title over Gascony, Sancho will work to ensure that Gascony and Navarre stand united against Toulouse, thereby taming the Gascon bandits in his daughter’s name and forming a firm cushion between Angevin Aquitaine and any threat from its eastern neighbors. You must admit, that is all logical. Will you not agree?”
St. Clair nodded. “Aye, it is, admirably so, but it does not—”
“Of course it does, Sir André. Royal duty and responsibility excuses anything necessary to the well-being of the kingdom. Berengaria has always accepted that. Besides, she is … complacent. That was the word my mother used in describing Berengaria’s ability to absorb what Richard would do to her—or would not do to her might be more accurate. My mother has always known what few men ever know, that any woman, no matter how neglected or abused, can, if she has the will and the desire, find solace for herself almost anywhere.
“But even so, my brother is not wholly without conscience. He told the child what their life would be like, before they slept on their wedding night, and he told her that he would not object were she to satisfy her needs discreetly with some man who could be relied upon to keep his silence.” Joanna paused dramatically. “And then he went even further. He told her that, should she get herself with child, he would accept the infant and claim it as his own. And then he selected you for the task.”
“What? Selected me—? No! No, that is impossible. It’s unthinkable. I refuse to believe it.”
“Why, in the name of God? Why, André? You know my brother. You know who and what he is. Why would you find this difficult to believe? I knew it weeks ago, from the way he thrust you into prominence every time we turned around.”
“But … But—” André reeled back in his chair. “That is infamous, madam! To suggest that the King would ever consider having anyone else, let alone me, sire a son for him! How could you even hint at such a thing, you who know him better than I do, when all the world knows him to be entirely capable of doing his own duty? Need I remind you that your brother has already fathered a son?”
“Ah! The famous little Philip, of course!” Joanna pulled herself up until her spine was straight, and looked into the flames, her face unreadable. “The little bastard prince. The French King’s bane … No, sir, you need not remind me of that fable. That child exists, but he is no more the son of Richard Plantagenet than I am. He is an illusion, an artifact created for the common people to perceive. But I would have thought that, even with your unworldly eyes, you would see through such a simple subterfuge.”
“Explain that, if you will.”
“I will. You asked me but a moment ago how I, who know him better than you, could even hint that my brother might be capable of such a thing. Well, I can hint at it without hesitation because I do know my brother far better than you ever could. He has decided upon you, in this, because he has already done the same thing once before, successfully, in the matter of the child from Cognac, young Philip Plantagenet.” She held up a hand, palm forward, to keep him quiet. “I pray you, think about that for a moment, before you spit at me for saying it. Think for just a moment.”
She began picking off points on the fingers of one hand. “Think about the obligations of kingship, André. The first and greatest of them is to sire an heir, to carry on the line securely, thus guaranteeing the safety
of the realm and its people. The people are the realm, any realm, and the king is dependent upon their goodwill. A king who fails to get an heir is intolerable, which is why so many royal marriages are brief. The queen bears the brunt of failure when the progeny are girls. When there are no progeny at all, she is declared barren and put aside. The king himself is never at fault—except when he can be proved sexually deviant to the extent that he cannot sire a child. Now that, I suggest to you, must be a chilling thought for a man of my brother’s nature and ambitions.”
Joanna allowed those words to hang in the air between them for several moments before she went on. “Richard, as I’m sure you already know, needs to be seen as a paragon—fearless and invincible in battle, ready to laugh and drink or wrestle and fight with anyone at the nod of a head or the wink of an eye. And he presents a hearty, smiling face to all the world when he plays the convivial King of England. But this is a King of England who shuns the company of women, who surrounds himself with comely and effete young men, and who has been rutting with the King of France since they were boys together, so that in France their dalliance and their constant, jealous squabbling long since became a matter of tired jest, and the knowledge of it threatened to spill out into the ken of the common folk of Aquitaine, Anjou, and other parts. It was the priests who put an end to that, of course. Richard might care nothing for what the common folk might think, but the Church knew better. And so a ruse was designed, to gull the people, not merely the people of Richard’s domains in France but the people of England, who would one day become Richard’s subjects.
“The yeomen of England, as they call themselves, require their kings to be heroic in bed as well as on the battlefield, and being heroic in bed, in that basic, low-born sense, involves the seduction of women and the coupling of breeding pairs. The lower classes, particularly in England, I am told, have no understanding of the true male brotherhood that Richard dreams of and espouses, or of the ineffable love between noble fighting men that was enjoyed by the likes of Alexander and Caesar. And so to set idle tongues at rest, certain advisers, shall we call them, deliberately planned an adventure for Richard with a young woman in Cognac—a region far enough removed from his usual haunts to serve the desired purpose admirably—with the resultant, widely remarked birth of a fine boy.”
“But he did it.”
Joanna almost smiled. “Did he? No, my dear André, I fear I must disappoint you there. Someone—I have no idea who—once said that a leopard cannot change its spots. My brother’s spots are equally unalterable. Why do you think this adventure was arranged so far away from home? Had Richard merely wished to bed a wench, he could have clicked his fingers, anywhere, and been surfeited with willing, panting women. But that was not the way it transpired. Certain people took great pains to find an eligible woman of good family, a young, impoverished widow, and made certain arrangements with her. The Duke would be seen with her in public, paying close and flattering attention to her for sufficient time to set tongues a-wagging. The gossips would grow busy, but the lady would be amply recompensed for any embarrassment she might suffer from that, and in the meantime, when the Duke was not around to disport himself with her in private, she would be notably entertained, albeit secretly, by a young knight of spotless blood and wondrously fine appearance and physique. When she became pregnant, as she surely would, the young knight would move on, content and more than amply paid for his services, and she would name Duke Richard as the father of her child. In return, Richard would reward her with gifts of buildings, lands, and money, and would happily acknowledge his paternity and name the child an heir to his estates. It worked out very well, for all concerned. The mother is now wealthy and independent, the smug matron of an acknowledged heir, and Richard has a living symbol of his virility, his sexuality, and his love of women, to parade before the crowds whenever he so wishes.”
“But what about the real father? Has Richard no fears that he might step forth one day and state his case?”
Joanna smiled again. “Would you, were you that man? What would he gain, other than to lose all he may hold at the time, including his head? Besides, the poor man died at the battle of Hattin.”
St. Clair sat deep in thought and gnawing gently on the inside of his lip. Eventually he looked up to face her. “I believe what you say, my lady. Your story has the ring of sound logic.” He fell silent again, gnawing and thinking, then straightened abruptly. “But even so, were all this proved true, I cannot yet see why the Duke—the King—would make me part of his design in repeating such a thing.”
“Come now, Sir André, you are too modest and it ill becomes you here. Think of it from my brother’s point of view. You are perfectly suited to his needs in this: young, dashing, dedicated, honorable, and bound to him by the laws of fealty and duty, besides which your bloodline is pure and your antecedents are flawless. Richard would be more than happy to see a son of the ancient house of St. Clair assuming his patrimony and his name with an unsullied bloodline. God knows he has professed himself sick beyond detestation with his own.”
St. Clair stared at her with wide, startled eyes. “What d’you mean by that?”
“Precisely what I said. Richard has said many times, and once in my own hearing, that his blood, the sacred, royal blood mixed from both our parents, has soured and befouled his entire life. What did he say, exactly? Let me think … Ah, yes, he said, ‘The blood flowing in my veins is a mixture brewed, stewed, and then spewed out in Hell, the same noxious, evil filth that animates my brother John, may he rot alive. Better that it should die out with me, wherever and whenever it does, and that fresh blood, uncurdled, should go on to rule in England after my death.’”
She waited a long time for his response. Something, a small stone or a resinous knot of wood, exploded in the heart of the fire, sending fragments leaping in several directions, but St. Clair seemed unaware of it. Finally, as though fearing he might never speak again, she prompted him. “Well?” she asked. “What do you think of that?”
He inhaled sharply and turned to look at her. “I find it unbelievable, yet all too credible. And … I find it frightening, above all else. But—” He stopped, and squeezed both hands tightly over his temples, his eyes clenched shut, and then he lowered his hands again. “I find all of this difficult to comprehend, my lady, in simplest truth. Am I truly to believe … Are you really saying that, if I choose to approach the Queen, she will lie with me, and neither she nor the King will be angered?”
“I am saying more than that, my friend. If you father a son upon her, he will be legitimized at birth and crowned King of England in due time. That I can promise you.”
St. Clair swallowed. “And if I … do this, this thing, as you suggest … will I then have access to you, too?”
The look she gave him then was open, wide eyed and serious, with no hint of amusement. “Of course you will. Did I not say so? It will fall to me to be your chaperone, the Queen’s senior companion, elder sister by marriage, and lady-in-waiting, present in her royal company at all times. I am a widow and a dowager, expected to be physically dried up and spent. But I am thirty-four years old and in the full flow of my womanhood. I have no need for undying love, nor for any bright-eyed, lovelorn eagerly panting young man to flatter me by pretending to swoon at my feet, but I have great need of straightforward carnal pleasure. Keep me smiling that way and I will be your dearest friend, my friend, for who would ever dream that you would rut with the Queen of England while she shared her bedchamber with the Queen of Sicily? You will live like the Sultan himself, in your own seraglio, with two crowned queens as your willing odalisques.”
“And … you say Berengaria knows of this?”
“She does. She has not quite decided to proceed, and she believes you know nothing yet, but she is … favorably inclined towards you already, and her eyes when she watches you are full of wondering.”
The silence grew and stretched again as André St. Clair fought to keep his face unreadable and to quell the sick
ness that was roiling in him, a sickness caused not by the prospect of having two royal mistresses but by the callow, callous, and absolute disregard for his honor that was being shown by Richard Plantagenet and his sister. Aware that he must speak and act with extreme caution in the time ahead, he sat silent again while counting his own heartbeats, and when his count reached twenty he sat up straight and cleared his throat.
“Well, lady,” he said. “I … I must think on this. I had … I had planned to do other, very different things with my life in the coming campaign. I am to join the Temple Knights … or I was, until this moment. Now I know not what I must do about that, other than sleeping on it and deciding what must first be done. For how will we achieve this … this condition you describe? It cannot begin to happen while I am yet a Temple novice. I will have to free myself—and fortunately I have not yet taken vows—and rededicate myself to your brother’s service. After that, I presume, things can be made to flow more smoothly.”
“Aye, that they can.” Joanna’s voice was barely louder than a breath as she leaned in towards him and pulled his face to her hungry mouth, covering his lips with hers. He shuddered and convulsed, suddenly quivering with a rampant lust he had been unaware of until that moment, and he had already begun moving over to her when someone coughed and snorted loudly in the middle cavern, startling them apart. André swung upright, drawing his sword and striding out into the other chamber, where he heard urine spattering against a wall as one of the men-at-arms, still more than half asleep, relieved himself. In the distance, beyond the outer chamber, the night was silent, the howling of the wind having finally abated.