A King's Ransom (39 page)

Richard struggled to sit up, for the chain had snagged on his blanket, limiting his range of motion. He still managed to touch the chancellor’s arm, needing the reassurance that Longchamp was flesh and blood, not another phantom spirit. “Guillaume? How are you here?”

Longchamp’s dark eyes shone with unshed tears. “God will punish them for this, sire,” he said, reaching over to untangle the chain. “After your brother drove me into exile, I retreated to Normandy, but as soon as I heard of your capture, I set out for Rome and then Germany. When I got to Speyer, Heinrich had already left for Hagenau and no one knew your whereabouts. The Bishop of Speyer privately confided what the guards had told him—that the emperor’s seneschal, Markward von Annweiler, had come at dawn for you. Bishop Otto insisted he’d had no part in it and did not know where you’d been taken. When I pressed him, though, he admitted it was most likely Trifels Castle.”

This was not what Richard wanted to know, but he’d been too busy trying to suppress a cough to interrupt. “No . . . I meant how did you get the burgrave to let you in to see me? How did you even manage to communicate with the man? He speaks no French, no Latin. . . .”

“I had Arnold translate for me, sire. Ere I set out, I hired a German-speaking guide.” Longchamp gestured toward the lanky redhead, who grinned in acknowledgment. “And the burgrave dared not refuse me. I told him that I am a papal legate as well as a consecrated bishop, and I swore a holy oath that if he did not admit me straightaway, I would excommunicate him then and there, cast his miserable soul out into eternal darkness.”

Longchamp started to rise then, no easy feat, for he’d been lame in both legs since birth. But he waved the guide away when Arnold offered a helping hand, for he was fiercely proud. Once he was on his feet, he swung around on the burgrave, black eyes blazing. “Tell him this is a disgrace and an outrage, Arnold. The life of the English king is precious to the Almighty, and to the emperor, too—worth one hundred thousand silver marks, to be exact. If the king dies at Trifels, the emperor forfeits any chance to collect that ransom. And if he dies in this fool’s custody, whom does he think will be blamed?”

He paused to let the guide translate, glaring at the burgrave
all the while. “Tell him that as terrible as the emperor’s wrath will be, how much greater will be the wrath of God. He will burn in the hottest pits of Hell for killing a man who took the cross, who fought for Christ in the Holy Land. All that the English king has suffered at his hands, he will suffer a thousandfold. Those cast into Hell are tortured by demons, drowned in rivers of boiling blood, trapped in lakes of fire. But as awful as these torments are, they are not the worst of the punishments inflicted upon the damned. The worst is that these doomed souls will never get to look upon the face of God.”

By now the burgrave was the color of curdled milk, and even Arnold had paled. “He says he loves God, does not want to burn in Hell. What must he do?”

“Tell him to fetch a doctor or an apothecary from that village below to treat the king’s fever and to do it now.”

“He . . . he says he does not think it is permitted, my lord, that it has never been done.”

“This has never been done, either!” Longchamp snapped, gesturing toward the chained man on the pallet. Limping toward the burgrave, he thrust his arm out, like a prophet of the Old Testament calling down celestial thunderbolts upon doomed sinners, and the burgrave retreated before him.

The guards were mesmerized by this extraordinary show, eyes round and mouths agape. When Longchamp began to spit out Latin imprecations, the German yielded and promised the apothecary would be sent for straightaway. And as he watched the huge, hulking burgrave wilt before his diminutive chancellor, Richard smiled for the first time since he’d been spirited away from Speyer to this isolated mountain citadel.

T
HE APOTHECARY WAS ELDERLY
and obviously nervous at being summoned to the castle, but he brought along a supply of herbs and instructed Arnold in how they were to be administered. Within hours, Richard’s cough began to ease and his throat no longer felt so sore. He thought it helped, too, to have been served his first decent meal since his arrival at Trifels, a bowl of hot soup and bread that was not stale. He was even given a flagon of wine, at Longchamp’s insistence. The apothecary’s sleeping draught was beginning to take effect, and he smiled drowsily at his chancellor. “I am truly gladdened by your visit. And I’ll take to my grave the memory of your turning that brawny burgrave into mush.”

The older man shifted uncomfortably, for he’d insisted upon sitting on the floor next to Richard’s pallet. “God has not forsaken you, my liege,” he said earnestly, even imploringly. “You must not despair, for I am going to get you out of here.”

Richard did not doubt the chancellor’s sincerity, merely his ability to conjure up a miracle. “You cannot intimidate the emperor the way you did the burgrave, Guillaume,” he said and yawned. “Heinrich would be right at home in Hell. . . .”

“Nevertheless, I will find a way, sire. I promise you that upon the surety of my soul.” Richard didn’t reply, his lashes drifting down to veil his eyes, and the even rhythm of his breathing soon told the chancellor that he slept. He planned to depart for the emperor’s court at Hagenau at first light, so he knew he ought to be abed himself. But he found it hard to leave. Although he’d browbeaten the burgrave into giving Richard a second blanket, he could still feel the cold night air seeping through those open arrow slits, and he removed his own mantle, tucking it securely around the sleeping man.

His had not been an easy life, in some ways made more challenging because his disabled body housed a first-rate brain. He’d been brutally taunted as far back as he could remember, for theirs was an age in which physical deformity was often seen as the outer manifestation of inner evil. He’d soon realized that he was far more intelligent than his tormentors, and from an early age, he’d determined to show them all. Burning to prove himself superior to fools with handsome faces, healthy bodies, and empty heads, he’d looked to the Church as his only avenue of escape. Having neither charm nor good looks nor family ties to recommend him, he’d had only his exceptional intellect to rely upon, and it eventually earned him a clerkship with the old king’s baseborn son, Geoff, and then a post in the chancery. His career would likely have stalled there if not for a chance encounter with Richard, then the young Duke of Aquitaine.

They could not have been more unlike—a prince blessed with the best their world had to offer and a puny misfit—but to Longchamp’s amazement, Richard had been indifferent to his physical frailty, able to penetrate his cripple’s guise and recognize the finely tempered steel of a blade-sharp mind. He had become Richard’s chancellor and, when Richard was crowned, England’s chancellor. Richard had elevated him to the bishopric of Ely, named him chief justiciar, secured for him a papal legateship, and entrusted his kingdom to Longchamp when he departed for the Holy Land.

Never had Longchamp’s ambitions soared so high; he’d even dared to dream of the ultimate prize, the archbishopric of Canterbury. He’d taken advantage of his newfound power to provide for his family, to humble the enemies who’d scorned him for so long, and to give justice to those who so rarely received it whilst safeguarding his king’s throne. But somewhere along that road, he’d lost his way. He’d antagonized men whose support he needed, let his disdain for the English and their Godforsaken isle show too nakedly, and then fallen into the trap set by the king’s brother, who was far cleverer than he’d first thought. During his months in exile, he’d done little but reassess and relive his dizzying fall from grace, concluding that ungodly pride had led him astray.

Even more than his personal humiliation, he’d grieved for having let down his king, the one man who’d shown faith in him. His loyalty to Richard had long been the lodestar of his life, almost spiritual in its selfless intensity, rooted almost as much in Richard’s acceptance of his physical flaws as in the tangible benefits of royal favor. It had not been tarnished by his disgrace; if anything, it burned all the brighter during the dark days of the past year. He yearned to make amends for his mistakes, knowing all the while that second chances were rarely given in this life, especially to those such as him. But he saw now that God had been more merciful than he’d dared hope.

“I failed you once, sire,” he said softly. “I will not fail you again.”

R
ICHARD KNEW BETTER THAN
to take his chancellor’s passionate promise as anything but what it was—a welcome expression of loyalty and outrage. But after Longchamp’s visit, he was in better spirits. He’d been touched to find the bishop’s mantle wrapped around him when he awakened the next day, and he was thankful for the timing of Longchamp’s arrival, sure that the apothecary’s potions had warded off a serious illness. Most important, the world would soon know that he’d been incarcerated in the emperor’s notorious stronghold. However many bodies had been buried at Trifels, his would not be one of them.

He’d lost track of the days, but once he learned that Longchamp had reached Trifels on the eighth day of his imprisonment, he determined to keep count. Each morning, he managed to mark the wall by rubbing the edge of one of his manacles against it; he refused to let himself think a time might come when he’d have filled up all of the space within reach of his chain. He occupied his hours by composing songs in his head, compiling lists of men who now owed him a blood debt, and trying to anticipate what exorbitant and outrageous demands were likely to be made of him when he was eventually summoned by the emperor. He did not think it would happen for some weeks, though. If that weasel Beauvais could be believed, Heinrich would want to give him enough time to become desperate and in utter despair.

He was taken by surprise, therefore, on the sixteenth day of his captivity when the door opened and Markward von Annweiler sauntered in, followed by the burgrave. Richard got quickly to his feet; by now he’d learned how to maneuver his tethered chain. He thought the seneschal seemed relaxed and at ease, but that would probably be the case even if he’d been given imperial orders to slit the English king’s throat.

“Well, now I have another reason not to forget you, my lord. You were the first king I’d ever escorted to Trifels and you are the first prisoner I’ve ever brought out.”

Richard’s reaction was great relief, for what could be worse than Trifels? “Where am I going?”

“To the imperial court at Hagenau. It seems that your chancellor has a golden tongue.” Markward glanced over his shoulder and as the burgrave moved aside, Richard saw Guillaume de Longchamp hobbling in behind them.

“My God, Guillaume,” he said incredulously, “you did it!”

Longchamp’s smiles were usually sparing, but now he was beaming, dark eyes shining.

Turning to the burgrave, he held his hand out expectantly. The German slapped a key into his palm and he limped toward the bed. “If I may, my liege?” Richard grinned and extended his wrists as his chancellor inserted the key into the first lock. When he was finally freed of the manacles and chains, he thought he’d never heard a sweeter sound than the clank of the fetters striking the floor at his feet.

Markward had watched placidly, content to obey his emperor’s commands, whatever they may be. “A bath is being heated,” he told Richard, “and your chancellor has brought new clothes for you. When you are ready, your guards will escort you to the great hall.”

As soon as Markward and the burgrave exited the chamber, Richard grabbed his little chancellor, lifted him up, and swung him around in an exuberant circle. “You truly did it!”

Longchamp actually blushed. “Sire, this is not seemly,” he protested, and Richard set him down, remembering one time when he’d playfully slapped the chancellor on the back and nearly knocked him off his feet.

“Sorry,” he said, laughing. “At least I did not kiss you! How did you do it, Guillaume? How did you change that hellspawn’s mind?”

“I told him that I’d found you gravely ill. I may have exaggerated somewhat, for I made it sound as if you were lingering at Death’s door. I told him, too, that he needed to know something the Bishop of Beauvais had kept from him—that you are susceptible to recurrent attacks of quartan fever, and you could well die if it happened whilst you were held a prisoner at Trifels.”