“Lead the way,” he said, with a tight smile. “God forbid that we keep the king waiting.”
RICHARD WAS SEATED UPON the dais at the far end of the hall, only half listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury, for his thoughts kept wandering to what was occurring in the solar above their heads. He looked up when his mother slid into the empty seat to his left and nodded. When a sudden silence fell, he knew his brother had entered the hall. The crowd moved aside hastily, clearing a path to the dais. Richard thought he’d been able to extinguish his anger, but the embers were still smoldering and as he watched while John made what must have been the longest walk of his life, he could feel the heat beginning to build again. As if sensing that, Eleanor reached over and rested her hand lightly on his arm. He covered her hand with his own, wordlessly assuring her that he would not be reneging upon his promise. He would pardon Johnny, for they shared the same blood. But Johnny was going to bleed a little of it first. He was entitled to that much.
“My liege.” Stopping before the dais, John slowly unbuckled his scabbard and laid it upon the steps. Then he knelt. “I can offer you no excuses. I can only ask for your forgiveness—even though I know I do not deserve it.”
Richard studied the younger man, noting the pulse beating in his throat, the sheen of perspiration on his forehead. When he thought John seemed about to jump out of his own skin, he rose to his feet. “Well, you’re here. That counts for something. And our lady mother would have me forgive you. That counts for a great deal. I suppose I should just be thankful that since you are so much given to treachery, you’re so reassuringly inept at it.” He waited for the laughter to subside, for the color to rush to John’s face. “You need not fear, John. A child is not punished if he listens to bad counsel. It is those who led you astray who will feel my wrath.” And he reached down, raising John to his feet.
The audience dutifully applauded and Richard took advantage of the clamor to pitch his voice for John’s ear only. “Your blood may have bought you a pardon, Johnny, but the price is higher for an earldom, higher than you can pay. I’ve no intention of restoring your titles and lands, not until I’m damned well sure that you’re deserving of them . . . if ever.”
As their eyes met, John nodded. “I understand,” he said tonelessly. “I shall remember your generosity, Brother. You may be sure of that.”
WHILE HE COULD LIE convincingly to others, John had rarely been able to lie to himself. He’d inherited too much of the Angevin sense of irony for that. Nor was righteous indignation an emotion indigenous to his temperamental terrain. So he knew he’d gotten off cheaply, given the gravity of his offenses. But that awareness did not soothe his injured pride. Richard’s patronizing pardon hurt more than an excoriating recital of his sins would have done, for it reminded him of his brother’s devastating response after being warned that he was plotting with Philippe to claim the English crown. John is not the man to conquer a kingdom if there is anyone to offer the least resistance. Did Richard truly believe that? Did his bishops and barons? Did they all see him as so worthless?
He’d endured the ordeal with what grace he could muster, ignoring the stares, even smiling when Richard magnanimously dispatched a large salmon swimming in gravy to his end of the table as a mark of royal favor. But as soon as he could, he escaped the hall for the comparative privacy of the manor gardens, grateful to be cloaked in darkness, away from prying eyes. Now that he need no longer fear imprisonment or exile for his betrayal, he was realizing what a rocky road lay ahead of him. How could he hope to regain Richard’s trust? Yet unless he did, he’d be the beggar at the feast. Moreover, it was not just Richard’s contempt that he must deal with. He’d seen the scorn in the eyes of the other men in the hall. Even if God struck Richard down on the morrow and he claimed the throne, how long could he rule if he was neither respected nor feared?
Far better to be judged evil than inept, he thought, with a gleam of mordant humor, and then whirled at the sound of footsteps to find his sister standing several feet away. He’d not expected to see her at Lisieux and he’d not liked having her witness his public humiliation, for they’d gotten on well as children. With memories of his shame still so raw, his control finally cracked. “If you’ve come to offer pity, I do not want any!”
“Good, because I do not think you are deserving of any.”
They regarded each other in silence. He’d recognized her as soon as he’d seen her on the dais, even though it had been almost two decades. She’d been a beautiful child who’d grown into a beautiful woman, a woman who—like their mother and half of Christendom—thought Brother Richard could walk on water. His relationship with his family had always been a tenuous one, fraught with ambiguity and ambivalence. Even before disgrace and imprisonment had erased her from his life, his mother had been a glamorous stranger to him. His father had dominated his world, inspiring awe, admiration, and fear in the boy he’d once been. His brothers had been so much older than he—eleven, nine, and eight years—that they seemed to live on a distant shore, leaving him to cling to the small island of his father’s favor, an island ever in danger of being submerged by the raging Angevin sea. Only with Joanna was it not complicated—until she’d been sent off to wed the King of Sicily, thus depriving him of his only childhood ally.
“Eighteen years . . . We have a lot of catching up to do,” he said, striving to sound composed, even nonchalant. “I’ll go first. One marriage, no children born in wedlock, some born out of it, two betrayals, and one very public pardon.”
Joanna was not fooled by his flippant tone. “For me, it was marriage, motherhood, and widowhood.”
John surprised her then, by dropping his sardonic shield and giving her a glimpse of the brother she remembered. “I ought to have written to you when your son died, Joanna.”
“You were not yet fifteen, Johnny.”
“I still should have written.” He moved toward her then, stepping out of the shadows into the moonlight. “Why did you follow me into the garden?”
She thought it was strange to see her mother’s green-gold eyes in another face. “Do you remember what I would call you whenever we’d have a falling-out? Johnny-cat, because you were always poking about where you had no right to be.”
“I remember,” he said, with the barest hint of a smile. “I never liked it much.”
“I could not help thinking of that as I watched you and Richard in the great hall. The Saracens had a proverb about cats having seven lives. You offered up your seventh one in there, Johnny-cat. You do know that?”
“Christ, Joanna, of course I do!”
She ignored the flare-up of defensive anger. “Thank God you see that,” she said somberly. “I was afraid you would not. I know Richard and he will not forgive you again, Johnny. The next time you fall from grace will be your last. For your sake—for all our sakes—I hope you never forget that.”
She stepped closer then, kissing him on the cheek. Feeling as if she were bidding farewell to her childhood, she turned to go back to the great hall, leaving him alone in the garden. He stood there without moving, watching her walk away.
ONE REASON RICHARD HAD been so impatient during his stay at Portsmouth was that he’d heard the French king was laying siege to Verneuil, a strategically placed castle that he could ill afford to lose. Confident that he’d be coming to their aid, the garrison had spurned Philippe’s demand for surrender, mocking him from the battlements and drawing an unflattering caricature of the French king on the castle walls. Richard meant to march on Verneuil as soon as he’d made peace with John, and on the day of his departure, he was pleased by the arrival of his infamous mercenary captain, Mercadier. Boasting a sinister scar that carved a jagged path from his cheekbone to his chin, twisting one corner of his mouth awry, with hungry hawk eyes that few could meet for long, this ice-blooded son of the south had earned a reputation for battlefield mayhem that rivaled some of the legends of the king he served. Richard was untroubled by Mercadier’s notoriety, caring only t
hat he was utterly loyal and utterly fearless, and he welcomed the routier with enough warmth to worry the clerics, who were convinced that all routiers were godless men and Mercadier himself the spawn of Satan.
Richard was giving final instructions to the knights who would escort Anna to Rouen, Eleanor to Fontevrault, and Joanna on to Poitiers, when he happened to catch an enigmatic exchange between André and Mercadier, André asking, “He is with you?” Seeing Richard’s curious look, André smiled slyly. “We have a surprise for you, sire,” he said. “He’s awaiting you out in the courtyard.”
Glancing around, Richard saw that others were in on André and Mercadier’s secret; even his son Philip was grinning. Richard’s first thought was that the Earl of Leicester had accompanied Mercadier, but he was not likely to be lurking outside. Vexed when André refused to tell him more, he bade farewell to the women, and then hastened from the great hall to see what his cousin was up to now.
He halted so abruptly that he was jostled by the men coming through the doorway after him. He never heard their embarrassed apologies, for he had eyes only for the dun stallion being held by a beaming groom. Taking the reins from the youth, Richard ran his hand caressingly over the horse’s pale gold withers, laughing when he was nudged by a warm muzzle.
“You remember me, do you?” he said and then swung up into the saddle. André was saying something about the horse transport being forced ashore in Sicily and eventually landing at Marseille, but Richard was not listening. He could feel the Cypriot destrier’s coiled energy, his eagerness to run, calling to mind memories of racing the wind and Saracens. “You’ll be chasing the French now, Fauvel,” he told the stallion, and when he gave the signal, Fauvel exploded into action, rocketing across the courtyard as if launched from a crossbow. The men laughed and applauded and then hurried toward their own mounts, for Richard and Fauvel would soon be out of sight.
FROM LISIEUX, Richard rode to Tuboeuf, just twelve miles from the siege of Verneuil. There he met a knight from the garrison who’d managed to slip away under cover of darkness to seek aid, for the French mangonels were pounding away relentlessly at the castle’s defenses. Richard at once dispatched a force of knights, men-at-arms, and crossbowmen to reinforce the garrison, then sent others to cut off Philippe’s supply lines. He was deeply grateful to God that the French king’s day of reckoning was coming so soon, but when he arrived at Verneuil with the bulk of his army on May 30, he discovered that Philippe was gone and the siege was over. He promised to reward the garrison lavishly, although his triumph was tarnished in his eyes by his enemy’s escape.
Captured French prisoners told a disjointed, confusing tale, claiming their king had suddenly left the siege two days earlier, leaving men behind to continue the assault upon the castle. But they were demoralized by their king’s departure and fled when they heard of Richard’s approach. Richard would later discover that Philippe had ridden off in a fury after learning what had befallen Évreux. Eager to demonstrate his newfound loyalty, John had returned to Évreux and easily gained admittance, for it was not yet known that he’d switched sides. He had no trouble taking control of the town; he beheaded many of the garrison and cast the rest into the castle dungeons. Outraged by his former ally’s betrayal, Philippe raced to Évreux, so intent upon making John pay for his treachery that he doomed his chances of taking Verneuil. He found that John had already gone, but he recaptured Évreux and since John was out of reach, he took his vengeance upon the town and its people, turning his men loose to pillage and rape, not even sparing churches; he was said to have fired the abbey of St Taurin himself.
This was not the first time that Philippe’s temper had gotten the better of him; he’d had the Peace Elm chopped down after a frustrating encounter with Henry and ordered his own siege engines destroyed after being outmaneuvered by the Earl of Leicester at Rouen. But even the French chroniclers were shocked by the charred ruins of Évreux, and as word spread of its fate, the people of Normandy and towns to the south felt a chill of fear. Wars were always brutal and the innocent and the defenseless were usually the ones to suffer. This war, though, promised to be bloodier than most, for the hatred that the French and English kings bore each other burned hotter than the fires that had consumed so much of Évreux.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
JUNE 1194
Poitiers, Poitou
Berengaria’s parents had been very happy together. It had been a marriage of state, of course, but they’d come to love each other and after Sancha died giving birth to Berengaria’s youngest sister, Blanca, Sancho had not wed again. Berengaria had been only nine when she lost her mother but her father and elder brother had kept Sancha alive for her by sharing their own memories. She’d realized that theirs was not a typical royal marriage, and she felt she’d entered her own marriage with realistic expectations. She’d have been content with mutual respect, while hoping, too, that affection would grow in her marital garden. But nothing had turned out as she’d imagined it would.
She’d been nervous about wedding Richard, knowing how drastically her world would change once she was his queen. And from their first meeting in Sicily, she’d been caught up in an Angevin riptide. Hers had been a sheltered upbringing and at first she’d been troubled that she enjoyed her betrothed’s kisses and caresses, fearing that she was being tempted by the serious sin of lust. But Joanna had proved to be a much better marriage counselor than Padre Domingo, her confessor, assuring her that what she felt was desire, not lust, and desire was part of the Almighty’s plan, for many believed that a woman could not conceive if she did not experience pleasure. And once they were wed, she’d discovered that she liked paying the marital debt, liked the intimacy and the closeness, liked having Richard’s undivided attention, which only seemed to happen in bed.
In these past weeks, she’d deliberately called up every memory of her marriage, trying desperately to discover a clue, something that would explain why things had suddenly gone so wrong. But she found no answers. Despite the dangers of their journey and the hardships of life in an army camp, she’d been happy most of the time. It was exciting being married to Richard. He dominated every gathering, always the center of attention. He was all that their world most admired—a man of prowess—and she was proud to be married to such a renowned battle commander, very honored to be wed to the savior of the Holy City. She’d believed he was content, too, with the bride he’d chosen for himself, and she was sure that they would have a more normal life once they returned to his domains, once she no longer had to fear that she’d become a widow ere she could truly become a wife. After they went home, she would be able to entertain his guests, dispense alms to those in need, hear petitions, manage the royal household, and fulfill a queen’s primary duty, which was to bear his children.
That had been the only snake in her Eden: her failure to conceive. With her usual candor, Joanna had reminded her that she’d not had many opportunities to share Richard’s bed in the midst of a war, and she knew that was true. Nor had Richard reproached her for it. In fact, the one time her flux had been so late that her hopes had soared, he’d even said that it might be safer if she did not become pregnant until they’d left the Holy Land, pointing out that it was not a kind country for infants, for women and children, for any man not born and bred there.
Even if she’d not become pregnant as quickly as she’d wanted, she’d remained confident that it would happen in God’s time. Her contentment with her new life and her new marriage had been shaken, though, toward the end of their stay in Outremer. She’d been shocked by Richard’s failure to retake Jerusalem. She did not think to question his military expertise and when he said it could not be done, she accepted that. Yet she grieved for the failure no less than his soldiers had, and she’d been bitterly disappointed that he refused to accept Saladin’s offer and visit Jerusalem’s sacred sites. When he finally admitted to her that he felt he did not deserve to see them, having failed to keep his vow, she’d been proud that he would not accep
t from the infidels what he could not win through God’s grace. But she’d still wept in secret for the Holy City that neither of them would see.
Was it possible that he’d sensed her disappointment? That he’d felt she was blaming him for his failure to liberate Jerusalem? But if that were so, surely he’d have said something? Or would he? She was beginning to wonder just how well she really knew him. When he’d been so close to dying at Jaffa, he’d not sent for her, and that had raised doubts she’d been unwilling to confront, even to acknowledge. She’d been able to convince herself that he’d kept her away because of the danger. Now, though, his decision took on more sinister significance. How often had he confided in her? Had he ever offered any intimacy that was not carnal? Yes, they were bound by the sacred vows of holy wedlock. But they were often two strangers sharing a bed.
Even so, none of her unhappy conjecturing explained why he would want to keep her at a distance all of a sudden. Joanna had been right; they’d parted on good terms. So what had come between them? If she’d done nothing to offend him, why was he delaying their reunion like this?
Berengaria was lonely, too, for Joanna had not yet returned, sending word that she would be staying at Fontevrault Abbey for a while. Berengaria did not begrudge her sister-in-law some time with her mother, but she missed Joanna very much; for three years, they’d seen each other daily. She did get a surprise visit in early June from her brother Sancho. He’d been ravaging the lands of the rebel lords Geoffrey de Rançon and the Count of Angoulême and was now on his way north to besiege Loches Castle with Richard. Berengaria was delighted to see Sancho. He brought welcome news of home, had stories to relate of her sisters Constanza and Blanca, and he also had word of their young brother Fernando, who’d written that he was being well treated at the imperial court.
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