A King's Ransom (110 page)

Joanna’s gaze moved toward Ela’s husband, her half brother William Longespée. Richard had arranged a brilliant marriage for him two years ago, one that had gained him an earldom, but Joanna had not met him until her arrival at Le Mans. Although he was taller than their father, she thought he looked the way Henry must have looked at twenty-one, for like their other half brother Geoff, and like Richard himself, William had inherited the Angevin high coloring. Her eyes shifted to her nephew and other brother. Otto, too, was tall and powerfully built. Did Johnny mind being surrounded by kinsmen who towered above him? Most of the men were clustered around Richard, but John was sitting apart, sipping from a gilded wine cup as he watched the others laughing and talking. Like a man observing a play, Joanna thought, not part of the performance. She felt that he deserved to be isolated, for she doubted that she’d ever forgive him for his betrayal of Richard. Yet she was not entirely deaf to the whisper urging pity, reminding her of the little boy who’d shared her life at Fontevrault Abbey so long ago.

A burst of laughter drew her attention back to the men. Raimond had just said something that they all found very amusing, and Joanna smiled, delighted that her husband and brother were getting along so well. This was the first time she’d been apart from their son and she missed Raimondet more than she’d have thought possible. He’d been too young, though, at nine months, to make a three-hundred-fifty-mile journey. Despite a yearning for Raimondet that was almost physical in its intensity, she was still glad to be at Richard’s Easter Court, and as she glanced about the solar, she thought how fortunate she was. The daughters and sisters of kings were usually wed to foreign princes, which meant lifelong exile from their homelands and families. That would have been her fate, too, if William had not died so unexpectedly, freeing her to return home and to find what had been denied her in Sicily—passion, love, and motherhood.

Eleanor looked up then, saw her standing in the doorway, and beckoned with a smile. Richenza graciously yielded her seat and Joanna slid onto it, leaning over to kiss her mother on the cheek. She was in her seventy-fourth year, an age few reached, but her spirit still burned as brightly as in her youth, even as the body enclosing that spirit fought a battle she was doomed to lose. To Joanna, she seemed no different than she had at their last meeting nine months ago, and that was a great relief, for she knew her mother’s days were trickling away as inexorably as the sand in an hourglass.

She was actually more troubled by her brother’s appearance. She’d not seen Richard for seventeen months, and she found herself thinking that he was showing the burdens of kingship more obviously these days. He’d not lost the weight he’d gained during his convalescence from his knee wound, and although he carried it better than most because of his height, it did age him. He seemed very tired to her, too, like a man who was starved for sleep, and once Richenza moved away, she said in a low voice, “Richard does not look well, Maman. Has he been ailing?”

“He is constantly on the move, Joanna,” Eleanor said, just as quietly, “rarely spending two nights under the same roof. Like Harry, he pushes himself mercilessly, making demands upon his body that flesh and blood cannot always meet. Harry was not always at war; there were periods of peace during his reign. But Richard has lived under a state of siege since regaining his freedom.”

“I would be hard-pressed to say which of those despicable demon spawn I loathe the most, Maman—Heinrich or Philippe. Raimond says that is like choosing between an adder and a viper, and I daresay he’s right.”

“I would choose Heinrich,” Eleanor said, her eyes taking on the cold glitter of emerald ice, “for if not for his treachery, Philippe would never have been able to pose such a threat to Normandy. Richard has won back almost all that was lost during his captivity, but it has not been easy. Four years of constant warfare can wear a man down, even Richard.”

They were interrupted then by a servant offering wine. Watching her mother, Joanna realized that motherhood stretched from the cradle to the grave, that fear for a grown son was just as sharp as concern for a toddler. Upon their arrival last night, they’d been greeted with news of death. The elderly Pope had finally gone to face his own Judgment Day, and the new Holy Father, Innocent III, was more than fifty years younger, far bolder and more energetic, making them wonder what might have happened had he been on the papal throne at the time of Richard’s capture. But the other death was personal. Eleanor’s daughter by the French king, Marie, the Countess of Champagne, had died on March 11, at age fifty-three. Her sister Alix, the Countess of Blois, had died the year before, but it was Marie’s death that brought grief to the Angevin court, for she’d been quite close to Richard, who’d dedicated his prison lament to her during his German captivity. Joanna had hoped that she’d one day get to meet Marie and she knew her mother had also hoped for a reunion with the daughter she’d not seen since her marriage to Louis had ended.

“I am so sorry, Maman,” she said; no more than that, but Eleanor understood.

“Marie sorrowed greatly for Henri, just as I mourn for her. It is a hard thing to lose a child, as you well know, dearest. I did not expect to outlive six of my children. I can only be thankful that I still have you and Richard and Leonora. . . .” She paused then, her gaze resting for a long moment upon her youngest before saying, “. . . and John.”

Even though she’d made John’s name sound like an afterthought, Joanna did not doubt she’d fight to gain the crown for him should Richard die without a legitimate heir, as now seemed more and more likely. She understood why her mother would prefer Johnny over Arthur, still residing at the French court, but she wondered if she’d prefer him to her other grandson. Otto was like Richard in many ways—courageous in battle, reckless at times, impulsive, sharing a love of troubadours and music and poetry. But Joanna thought he lacked the political shrewdness Richard had inherited from their father. Johnny was cleverer than Otto. Yet he was also less trustworthy, caring naught for honor or moral boundaries. Which were the greater flaws in a king? She was about to raise that question with Eleanor when a servant entered the solar and murmured a few words in Richard’s ear.

“We have a surprise guest soon to arrive,” he announced, deflecting their curiosity with an enigmatic smile and a shrug. He’d gotten to his feet and the others did the same, seeing that he intended to return to the great hall.

Joanna had risen, too, but before she could follow after Eleanor, she was intercepted by her sister-in-law. Drawing her back into the window-seat, Berengaria said softly, “I must ask your forgiveness for not being with you during your lying-in.”

Joanna knew full well why Berengaria had not attended Raimondet’s birth, and she said swiftly, not wanting the younger woman to have to offer an excuse that would salvage her pride but prick her conscience, “There is no need to say more, and for certes, no need to make apologies. You are as dear to me as any sister could be, Berengaria. Do you not know that by now?”

“You are no less dear to me,” Berengaria said, grateful beyond measure that Joanna had not been hurt or offended by her absence. “And this I promise you, Joanna . . . that I will be present for the birth of your next child.”

Joanna smiled. “In that case, sweet sister, I would suggest you keep August free.”

Berengaria’s brown eyes widened. “So soon?” she exclaimed, and then, fearing that Joanna might take her words amiss, she hastily embraced the other woman, kissing her on both cheeks and declaring, “I am so very happy for you!”

Her outcry had attracted attention. Seeing that they all were staring at her, Joanna sent an unspoken query winging her husband’s way, and when Raimond nodded, she said, “We were not going to announce it yet, but I see no reason to hold back. We have truly been blessed by the Almighty, for I am with child again.”

The response was predictable. Joanna was kissed by her mother, had the air squeezed out of her lungs by Richard’s exuberant hug, and was warmed by the genuine pleasure with which her news was received, while Raimond found himself fending off jests from the men, for two children in two years of marriage offered an opportunity for bawdy jokes that few of them could resist. Raimond took it good-naturedly, denying that he’d needed a love potion and insisting that, rumors to the contrary, he and his wife did not spend all of their time in bed.

Even though neither Joanna nor Raimond seemed perturbed by the teasing, Berengaria did not trust male humor and she did her best to keep the conversation from deteriorating still further by asking if they’d chosen a name for their baby.

“I leave that to Joanna,” Raimond said blithely. “I have to, since she says I am not to be trusted in such matters. I ask only that she not name any of our sons William, for it is bad form to call a child after a former husband.”

“Or a former wife,” Joanna shot back. “So we’ll be naming no daughters Ermessinde or Beatrice.” She added with a sly smile, “I’d also exclude the names of former concubines, but I fear we’d run out of female names if I did that.”

Her sally was greeted with laughter and several of the men looked at Raimond with renewed respect, for a long list of bedmates was a testament to a man’s virility, all the more so when it came from the man’s own wife. Berengaria could not imagine joking in public about Richard’s bedmates, or in private, either. But as she caught the look that passed between Joanna and Raimond, one that was both affectionate and smoldering, she felt the last of her misgivings fade away. She still did not understand how Joanna could be so happy with a man who took such pleasure in provoking the Holy Church, yet she no longer doubted that it was so. And it occurred to her that, as unhappy as Richard made her at times, she’d have been far more miserable had it been her fate to wed the Count of Toulouse.

W
ORD HAD SPREAD THROUGH
the hall that Richard was expecting an important visitor, and speculation was running rife by the time noise out in the bailey heralded his arrival. There were loud gasps as he strode through the doorway. He was in his early thirties, as dark as a Barbary pirate, with a raffish charm and the confident smile of a man accustomed to making high-stakes gambles and winning them.

“The Count of Boulogne!”

There was no need to announce him, though, for Renaud de Dammartin was known on sight to many of them. He was as controversial in his way as Raimond de St Gilles, although for very different reasons. Renaud had been a childhood companion of the French king, a bold and talented battle commander who’d made an advantageous marriage to one of Philippe’s Dreux cousins. As a young man, his father had instructed him to serve the Angevin king, and he’d shown surprising loyalty to Henry, staying with him until his death at Chinon. He’d soon regained Philippe’s favor, though, and some said that what happened next was done at Philippe’s suggestion, or at the least, with his complicity. Renaud had put aside his Dreux wife and then abducted one of France’s greatest heiresses, Ida de Lorraine, the twice-widowed Countess of Boulogne, granddaughter of King Stephen and cousin of the Count of Flanders. By this forced marriage, Renaud became one of Philippe’s most powerful vassals—and so his appearance at Richard’s court created a sensation.

He was given a very enthusiastic reception by the men, who were excited by such a high-level defection. Moreover, Will Marshal, Morgan, Baldwin de Bethune, and several of the other knights greeted him as a comrade in arms, for those who’d shared Henry’s last days shared, too, a sense of solidarity similar to that found on the battlefield.

The reaction of the women was different, for many of them were great heiresses in their own right. After the annulment of her marriage to the French king, Eleanor had nearly been ambushed and abducted twice by lords eager to gain Aquitaine by forcing her into marriage. Joanna had feared that this would be her fate during her confinement in Sicily. Denise and Hawisa and Isabel Marshal did not need much imagination to envision themselves in Ida de Lorraine’s plight had they been less fortunate. Berengaria was repelled, both by the act and the man himself. But she’d learned by now that a queen could not indulge her emotions, and she joined Eleanor and Joanna in dutifully making Richard’s valuable new ally welcome.

Renaud was the guest of honor at dinner and the entertainment that followed. He had an eye for beauty and made his admiration for Joanna rather obvious, to Raimond’s equally obvious amusement; he had every confidence that his wife was fully capable of dealing with Renaud de Dammartin. Joanna enjoyed flirting and marriage had not changed that, but she was not going to engage in that pleasant pastime with a man who saw a wife as a possession to be acquired by any means possible. Far from a fool, Renaud soon realized that the Countess of Toulouse’s flawless courtesy held the faintest hint of mockery, and that made her all the more desirable, for he loved a challenge. He’d merely been amusing himself, though. He would not only admit he was reckless, he took pride in it. However, he was not mad enough to attempt a serious seduction of the sister of his new liege lord, the English king.