A King's Ransom (40 page)

He gave Richard a quick, searching look. “I hope you do not mind, sire, that I told him about your past illnesses. I had to convince him that there was a genuine danger in keeping you here.”

“Hellfire, Guillaume, I’d not have cared if you’d told him I was a leper, not as long as it gets me out of this cesspit!”

“We know now that he truly does not seek your death. Of course, I pointed out that he had a great deal to lose were you to die at Trifels. Not only would there be no ransom, but his reputation would suffer irreparable damage once word got out that he’d sent you to the dreaded Trifels and thus caused your death. I also made sure to mention that I’d already dispatched couriers to the queen mother in England and to the Holy Father in Rome to let them know of your whereabouts. It had occurred to me that it was probably not wise to let Heinrich think I and I alone knew the secret of your incarceration here,” he said dryly, and Richard saluted him with an approving smile, thinking that Heinrich might finally have met his match.

“I then expressed concern that sooner or later, word would reach the rebels and they would make good use of your plight to gain new followers. Even some of those who’d attended the Imperial Diet in Speyer might be receptive to the call to rebellion, having found the English king innocent of all the charges brought against him. I said this with great regret, of course.”

“Of course.” It was clear to Richard that Longchamp was going to draw out this account of his triumph; he’d never suffered from false modesty. But he did not care if the chancellor boasted of his spectacular success for years to come; he’d well earned that right. Something about this did not ring true, though. He could understand Heinrich being alarmed to learn his prize prisoner had almost died; his every breath was worth one hundred thousand silver marks. Yet Heinrich could have given the command to treat him more gently or even to send him to a less notorious prison. To go from Trifels to the imperial court at Hagenau was a dizzying turn of Fortune’s wheel.

“What else did you tell him, Guillaume? What is missing so far from your narrative?”

Now it was Longchamp’s turn to smile approvingly. “I implied that it might be shortsighted to make a bitter enemy of the English king. Alliances are as shifting as the tides, after all, and the day could come when the Holy Roman Empire and England might want to make common cause against France.”

“Did you, indeed? And his response?”

“Oh, nothing was said outright. It was done by inference and insinuations. In other words, the lying language of diplomacy. You see, sire, I’ve made a study of our unholy emperor, and I’ve learned that he is not as keen on an alliance with the French as his father was. Heinrich has ambitions that go far beyond his own borders. He thinks in terms of what Germans call
‘Weltherrschaft,’
which we might translate as ‘world empire.’ The first step must be the conquest of the kingdom of Sicily, of course. But in time he’ll start to seek expansion elsewhere, and France would be a natural target.

“Speaking of France, I borrowed a page from your book, my liege.” Longchamp’s smile was the closest he’d ever come to a jubilant grin. “The Bishop of Speyer told me how you’d cleverly heaped the blame on the French at your trial, thus giving the emperor a face-saving way out of his predicament. So I told Heinrich that you knew the Bishop of Beauvais was the one responsible for your ill treatment. I told him, too, that I know you far better than Beauvais does, and you were not going to break. No matter how long you were held at Trifels, it was never going to happen.”

Richard said nothing, but color rose in his face as he stared down at the chains crumpled at his feet. Longchamp did not notice. “I also told Heinrich that I was authorized to negotiate on your behalf and I felt confident that we could reach terms that were mutually acceptable. I had to make him believe that it was in his own best interest to bring you back to court.”

“And you did. What you accomplished was truly remarkable, Guillaume. You outwitted a master spider and I will never forget that you were the one to free me from his web.”

Longchamp’s face glowed. “I did have help, sire, from a kind and noble lady.”

Richard’s eyebrows rose, for he knew that Longchamp had the typical cleric’s distrust of women, dismissing them as Daughters of Eve. “I would indeed hope that I have the Blessed Lady Mary on my side,” he said, for that was the only woman he could imagine being praised by his chancellor.

Longchamp nodded. “You also have the Empress Constance on your side,” he said, with the quiet pleasure of one making an astounding disclosure. “The emperor at first refused to see me and each day that he made me wait was one more day that you’d be trapped at Trifels. So I sought the empress out and she convinced Heinrich to meet with me.”

Richard was astonished. This would bear thinking about, but for now, all he wanted was to leave Trifels in the dust. Sixteen days in chains had sapped his strength, though. His muscles were weak and he was light-headed when he took his first steps. His wrists had been badly chafed by the manacles, tingling painfully as he rubbed them to restore the circulation. He’d been moving around gingerly as he’d listened to Longchamp and he finally felt ready to tackle the stairs. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, but he came to a halt as his gaze fell on the discarded chains. Reaching down for them, he balanced their heavy weight for a moment and then he whirled and slammed them into the wall. The guards looked startled; they did not object, though, as Richard hammered the manacles until the locking devices broke off. Only then did he fling them to the ground and turn away, leaving the cell without a backward glance.

R
ICHARD WAS SAVORING THE
warmth of the sun on his face. Trifels was more than a feared prison; it had also been one of the favorite residences of Heinrich’s father, with very comfortable royal quarters and a walled-in garden. Richard and his chancellor were there now, sitting on a wooden bench as his guards loitered nearby, looking bored. It had been decided to delay their departure for Hagenau until the morning, ostensibly because there were only a few hours of daylight remaining, actually to give Richard a little more time to regain his strength. He was eager to see Trifels receding into the distance, but for now he was content to breathe in fresh, untainted air and to watch fleecy clouds sweep like cresting waves across a sky as deep and blue as the Greek Sea.

“Think of all those poor devils caged up belowground,” he said pensively. “Is it true that if a man goes years without seeing the sun or sky, he becomes blind as a bat?”

Longchamp had no interest in prisoners other than his king and he shrugged. He’d never dreaded anything so much as what he must do now. “Sire . . . I must tell you about the events that resulted in my exile from England.”

Richard already knew. It had taken months for letters to reach him in the Holy Land, but eventually they did. Longchamp had been resisted from the first by men who scorned him for his low birth and misshapen body and arrogance, but it was his own misstep that would bring him down. Richard had commanded his brothers John and Geoff to stay out of England until his return, although he later relented at his mother’s urgings. Longchamp had not believed Geoff had been released from his oath, and when the archbishop landed at Dover, the castellan of the great castle, wed to Longchamp’s sister, had ordered his arrest. Geoff had taken refuge in St Martin’s priory, and after a standoff of several days, he’d been taken out by force and imprisoned in the castle. Longchamp himself had not been in Dover at the time, and when he’d heard, he’d ordered Geoff’s release. But by then, it was too late. People were horrified that an archbishop had been treated with such disrespect and the sanctuary violated, especially since it had been barely twenty years since the Archbishop of Canterbury had been slain in his own cathedral. The other bishops had united against Longchamp, John had proclaimed himself the champion of the half brother he’d always despised, and the chancellor’s belated attempts to placate his foes were for naught. Stripped of his high offices, he’d had to take refuge in the Tower of London, and his chancellorship came to an ignominious end.

For Longchamp, even worse was to come. He’d always shown considerable courage for a man so physically vulnerable, but he briefly lost his nerve and sought to flee England in defiance of the great council’s ban. Richard had heard several accounts of his disastrous escape attempt, one that he’d donned a monk’s habit and the most popular version—that he’d camouflaged himself in women’s clothing. But he’d been apprehended, his identity revealed, and the most virulent of his enemies, Hugh de Nonant, Bishop of Coventry, had circulated a scurrilous, hilarious letter that purported to describe Longchamp’s misadventures on a Dover beach, accosted by a lustful fisherman who’d taken the disguised chancellor for a whore.

Whatever the truth of these stories, Richard had no intention of making Longchamp humiliate himself by recounting any of them. “I already know what happened, Guillaume. I will not deny that you made some grave mistakes. Nor was I happy to learn of them, although I never doubted your loyalty. But you were not entirely to blame; there is plenty of that to go around. It is clear now that my brother Johnny had it in mind to sabotage your efforts from the outset. As for my brother Geoff . . . well, that one will be arguing with St Peter at Heaven’s gate.”

Richard reached out and patted the other man on the shoulder. “What’s past is past, and we need not speak of it again.” But instead of the relief he’d expected to see, Longchamp’s face showed only misery.

“Sire . . . there is more. I have long been slandered and defamed by my enemies. It is true I come from a modest background, but I am not the grandson of a serf, as the Bishop of Coventry claims; my father held a knight’s fee of Hugh de Lacy. Nor did I disregard the advice of my fellow justiciars or live as lavishly as they say. They scorned me as an ‘obscure foreigner’ and detested me for not being English, but their real grievance was that I was not meek and obsequious and that I dared to challenge my ‘betters.’ I do not deny I sought to advance my kin and I may have relied too much upon my fellow ‘foreigners,’ filling posts with men from my native Normandy.”

“I know of the complaints made against you,” Richard said, somewhat impatiently, for he saw no reason to dwell upon this now.

Longchamp’s cheeks had gone scarlet. “But you do not know of the worst accusations, my lord king, spread by that son of perdition, the Bishop of Coventry. I myself did not hear of them until recently. They are vile beyond belief. Hugh de Nonant and his lackeys say that . . . that I have committed the most grievous of sins: that I have taken young boys into my bed.”

He’d been staring down at his clenched hands as he spoke, but he forced himself to look up now, to meet Richard’s eyes. “My liege, I swear to you that these are wicked, despicable lies. I would never, never indulge in such a perversion, such a—”

“Enough!” Richard twisted around on the bench so he could look the other man full in the face. “See my hands,” he said, holding them out, palms up. “Do you see the blood of Conrad de Montferrat on them? Need I swear to you that I did not connive with Saladin to betray the Kingdom of Jerusalem? Well, you need not swear to me of your innocence, either. I know there is no truth to these charges, for I know you.”

Longchamp closed his eyes for a moment. Appalled by these accusations, which went far beyond any he’d ever anticipated, he’d found it mortifying even to give voice to them, but he’d felt honor-bound to let his king know that such rumors existed. “Thank you, my liege,” he said, so low that his words barely reached Richard’s ear.

“I agree that these charges are particularly foul, Guillaume, but you must bear this in mind—that they come from Hugh de Nonant. That in itself would cause men to doubt them, for his own sins are beyond reckoning. If even half of what is said of him is true, his only hope of gaining absolution will be to find a priest so drunken he’d shrive Lucifer himself. Few will believe him.” Richard knew better, of course; salacious gossip spread faster than any plague. But that was the only comfort he could think to offer.

Longchamp grasped at it like a drowning man, so desperate was he to believe none would give credence to the Bishop of Coventry’s slander. He even mustered up a wan smile at Richard’s barbed jest. “Sire . . . there is something else we need to discuss ere we return to the great hall. In my life, I have met many sinful men—greedy, envious, spiteful, overly proud.”

Richard cocked his head to the side, his smile quizzical. “If you are taking me to task for my own sins, it is not my fault that it has been so long since I’ve been shriven of them. And of the seven deadly sins, I refuse to claim more than three—wrath, pride, and lust.”

“I was not speaking of your sins, my liege. We all sin; it is in our nature. But I have met only two men whom I would judge as truly evil. One is that despicable wretch Hugh de Nonant. The other is Heinrich von Hohenstaufen.”

“I’d be the last one to dispute that. Where are you going with this, Guillaume?”