A King's Ransom (125 page)

Eleanor thought his assessment of the earl’s action was cynical but probably accurate. She wondered how long it would take John to rid himself of his own unwanted wife. Kings found it even easier than earls to find compliant bishops, and unlike Philippe and the unfortunate Ingeborg, John had legitimate grounds for invalidating his marriage: they were cousins. She was about to ask him if he’d given any thought to a foreign marital alliance when a servant entered the solar and murmured a few words in her ear. John had turned back to study the charters that were going to infuriate Philippe. He looked up, though, when he heard her cry out.

“A messenger has just ridden in from Joanna! She is on her way here, is only a few miles outside the town.” Eleanor was astonished and pleased, but she was aware, too, of a vague sense of foreboding that she could neither explain nor dismiss out of hand.

John did not share it. “That is good news,” he said with a smile. “She must surely be feeling much better if she’d undertake such a long journey.”

After a moment to reflect, Eleanor smiled, too, realizing he was right. Even though she’d not seen a case of morning sickness as severe as Joanna’s, it never lasted through the entire pregnancy. It was the constant vomiting that had made Joanna so weak; she’d soon have recovered once it stopped.

“Come,” she said. “Let’s find out more from Joanna’s knight and order a bedchamber made ready for her.”

A
S THEY ENTERED THE GREAT HALL,
John stopped in his tracks at the sight of Joanna’s messenger. While most of his brother’s vassals had accepted the inevitable and pledged their loyalty to him, there were a few who’d kept their distance. André de Chauvigny was one, and the man coming toward them was another.

“Well, if it is not Cousin Morgan. I’d assumed you must have gotten lost in the wilds of Wales.”

“My lord king,” Morgan said, dropping to one knee. But the obeisance seemed perfunctory to John. The Welshman’s gaze was already moving past him, seeking his mother.

Eleanor had halted, too, as soon as she saw Morgan’s face. “My daughter . . . ?”

Morgan courageously kept his eyes upon hers, resisting an overwhelming urge to look away as she realized the truth. “Madame . . . she is very ill,” he said softly, and those close enough to hear quieted, sensing that the queen was to be visited by yet more sorrow.

“
M
AMAN?”

“I am right here, dearest. Let your ladies settle you in bed and then we’ll talk.”

Once Morgan gently deposited Joanna upon the bed, he and her chaplain were ushered from the chamber. As soon as Beatrix and the other women began to undress her daughter, Eleanor took Mariam by the arm and propelled her toward a far corner. “Why did you bring her on such a journey when she is so obviously ill?”

Mariam did not resent the sharp tone, understanding that she was speaking to the mother, not the queen, a mother greatly shaken by her daughter’s frail appearance. “We tried to dissuade her, Madame. But she was insistent and . . . and we came to realize it was for the best that she seek you out. We’d expected her to regain her strength once the nausea no longer tormented her day and night. She did not. Instead, she grew weaker, until she feared that she’d not survive childbirth. Her need for you was great enough to justify the journey.”

Mariam had been speaking without emotion, almost as if relating the story of strangers. Now she faltered, tears welling in her eyes. “But once we were on the road, she got worse, not better. She knows her health is failing and she no longer believes you can vanquish the dangers of the birthing chamber, my lady. She . . . she is convinced that she will not live long enough to deliver her child. And I . . . When I look at her, I fear she is right.”

“No,” Eleanor said, and although she remembered to keep her voice low, it resonated with resolve, with a determination that recognized no higher authority than the Angevin royal will. “She is not going to die.”

But once Eleanor was seated on the bed beside her daughter, that certainty began to crumble, for Joanna did look as if her life could be measured in weeks, even days. She was painfully thin, her collarbones thrust into sudden prominence, her face almost gaunt. Her eyes were sunken back in her head, so darkly shadowed that they seemed surrounded by contusions. Her skin was as white and cold as falling snow; her lips, too, were pallid. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, her pulse so faint that Eleanor could barely find it when she pressed her fingers to Joanna’s wrist. Even her hair, always as brightly burnished as molten gold, was limp and lusterless, feeling like sun-dried straw. “I am dying, Maman,” she whispered, “and I am so afraid. . . .”

“I know you are, dearest. But your baby is not due for more than two months. There is time enough for you to recover, to get your strength back. I’ve already sent for Rouen’s best midwife, and my own physician will attend you. . . .”

She stopped then, for Joanna was shaking her head, closing her eyes as if even that small movement had exhausted her. Her hand tightened on Eleanor’s own; her fingers felt as fragile and delicate as the hollow bones of God’s fallen sparrow. “My sweet child, listen to me,” Eleanor said, with all the conviction at her command. “You are not going to die.”

“You do not understand. It is not death I fear so. . . . Maman, I am damned. When I die, I will be condemned to Hell.”

Eleanor was not easily shocked, yet her daughter had managed it. “My darling girl, why would you say that? Why would you think that?” When Joanna did not reply, she held that cold hand against her cheek, inadvertently triggering a troubling memory of doing that during her deathbed vigil for her son. “Joanna, you are making no sense. What sins could you have committed that would deserve eternal damnation?”

“The worst of sins. . . .”

Joanna said nothing more and Eleanor realized that she was ashamed to confess this “worst of sins” even to her mother. What could she possibly have done to believe God had turned His face away from her? “You can tell me anything, my darling. I would never judge you.” Feigning a smile, she said, “How could your sins be darker than mine, after all?”

Joanna turned her head aside on the pillow. “I hoped I would lose my baby. My own child. I was so sick, so sick. . . . I just could not take any more. . . .” She’d begun to sob, but softly, as if she did not even have the energy to grieve. “I actually prayed that it would happen. I know now that I was praying to the Devil, for God would never heed such a wicked prayer. . . .”

Eleanor gathered the younger woman into her arms. “Joanna, you must not judge yourself so harshly. You were ill, not in your right senses. The Almighty will understand that.”

“No, He will not. This was my child, Raimond’s son, but I would have sacrificed him if I could. I even thought about asking Mariam to get me pennyroyal or black hellebore. I could not do that to her, though, could not damn her, too. . . .”

Eleanor tightened her arms around her daughter. “God absolves us of our sins if we are truly contrite. He will forgive you.”

“I cannot forgive myself, Maman. So how could God forgive me? A mother’s first duty is to protect her child. I would have murdered mine if I could have. . . .”

“You are tormenting yourself needlessly. Since you are unable to believe me, I will send Abbot Luke of Turpenay to you. He accompanied me to Fontevrault, never left my side as I had to watch Richard die. He will hear your confession, lay a penance upon you for whatever sins you have committed, and then absolve you of them.”

“No priest can shrive me of such a sin. Contrition is not enough. There is only one way I can hope to escape eternal damnation, Maman. Two nights ago, she came to me in a dream, told me what I must do.”

“Who, Joanna? I do not understand.”

“The Blessed Lady Mary, Our Saviour’s mother. She said that God would forgive me only if I can take holy vows, can die as one of the sisters of Fontevrault.”

Eleanor knew the Church would not allow it. But when Joanna raised her head, her eyes filled with panic and pleading, and entreated her to make it happen, she heard herself promising that she would do her best, words that sounded as hollow as she felt. Her promise seemed to give Joanna her first measure of comfort, though, for she could feel some of the tension ebbing from her daughter’s shoulders. Lying back upon the bed, Joanna closed her eyes again, murmuring, “Thank you, Maman, thank you . . .”

Within moments, she slept. Eleanor brushed her hair back from her face, tucking the covers warmly around her, for she’d been shivering as if it were winter, not late August. Only then did Eleanor lean forward, dropping her head into her hands. How much more would the Almighty demand of her?

J
OHN DID NOT HAVE
many warm memories of his siblings. He did not remember his sisters Tilda and Leonora, who’d been sent off to wed foreign princes when he was very young. He’d not often seen his older brothers, and when he had, they’d either ignored him or teased him as mercilessly as older brothers had done since the dawn of time. It had been different with Joanna, his companion during their time at Fontevrault, and he’d missed her after her departure for Sicily. When they’d been reunited eighteen years later, though, he’d discovered that she was one for bearing grudges. She’d never forgiven him for conniving against Richard with the French king, and he’d come to resent her for it.

But he’d been genuinely shocked to be told that she was gravely ill, not expected to live. She was only a year older than he was, too young to die, and he suddenly found himself recalling the lively, mischievous girl who’d once been fond of her little brother. “There is no hope, then?”

Eleanor shook her head, almost imperceptibly. “My physician has examined her, as have the two best midwives in the city. All three reached the same conclusion—that she is in God’s hands.”

John knew that there was no love lost between doctors and midwives, so their unusual unanimity did not bode well for his stricken sister. He knew, too, that whenever some poor soul was consigned to God’s mercy, that one was not long for the world. “I am sorry,” he said, vaguely surprised by how much he meant it. Leaning back in his seat, he regarded his mother admiringly. She was the strong one in their family, not his father, nor his brothers. Her spine, like the finest swords, had been forged in fire. She kept her head high even as her heart bled. But then a dark thought intruded; did she blame God for taking Richard whilst sparing the son she did not love? He reached for the wine cup at his elbow, draining most of it in several deep swallows. Was he still yearning after a mother’s love, like a mewling babe in need of a teat? She’d done what mattered, traveling more than a thousand miles to win over her Poitevin vassals to his cause. And he was honest enough to admit that if not for her efforts, he might not have prevailed over that Breton brat.

“I shall pray for Joanna,” he said, because it was expected of him, not because he believed it would help his sister.

“There is more you can do for her, John. She is in need of money.”

Now that he was king, John was learning to dislike any sentence that mentioned money, for like as not, he’d be the one asked to pay it out. “She has a husband who is rich and indulges her every whim, Mother,” he reminded Eleanor, with a thin smile.