A King's Ransom (63 page)

He’d just greeted the Abbot of Croyland when he noticed the man standing against the wall by the door, watching the commotion with the wry detachment of a spectator at a Christmas play. Weaving his way through the throng encircling him, Richard came to a halt in front of his cousin. “Why are you lurking in the shadows like this? You’ve always been the first into the breach.”

André shrugged. “I knew you’d ask why I’d want to make a journey to Germany, of all places, and in the dead of winter, too. I was trying to think of a convincing answer.”

“If you can come up with a good reason for visiting Germany, I’d be most interested in hearing it.”

They embraced, then, finding to their mutual embarrassment that they were both blinking back tears. André tried to steer them away from these emotional shoals and into the safer waters of sarcasm, banter, and flippancy by saying huskily, “See what happens when I’m not around to keep you out of trouble?”

“I’ll teach you to say ‘I told you so’ in German,” Richard promised and they laughed, relieved that they were on familiar ground again.

Eleanor had followed Richard, marveling, as always, at the male inability to speak the language of the heart. “One day I hope to understand why men see sentiment as the ultimate enemy,” she said dryly, “but I’ll not be holding my breath until it happens.” She was very pleased when Richard put his arm around her shoulders, for she needed the physical proof of his presence after so many months of fearing she would never see him again. “Richard, do you think Henrik’s marriage could be the reason why Heinrich has delayed your release?”

“I suppose it is possible, Maman. This could be his way of punishing me for it. Or he might simply like keeping me in suspense for a while longer. Heinrich enjoys other people’s pain. Or he could have an ugly surprise awaiting us.”

For a moment, Richard could not help thinking of Trifels Castle, and as he looked down into his mother’s face, he knew she was remembering Trifels, too. She’d aged visibly in the time they’d been apart, but he suspected it was this past year that had etched those lines in her forehead and smudged such dark shadows under her eyes. He’d always appreciated her strength and her resilience and her unerring ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. Now he regarded her with something approaching awe, having gotten a taste of what she’d endured as his father’s prisoner, not knowing if she’d ever regain her freedom. Little wonder that one of her first acts had been to issue an amnesty for those languishing in English prisons, saying she’d learned by experience that confinement was distasteful to mankind and liberty a most delightful refreshment to the spirit. Realizing that she’d been a prisoner, too, during the months he’d been in Heinrich’s power, he hugged her again, gently, for she seemed alarmingly fragile.

It never occurred to him to lie to her, though, or to offer false reassurances, and so he said, “Well, whatever Heinrich has in mind, we’ll find out on the morrow.”

C
ONSTANCE WAS NOT SURPRISED
when Heinrich sat up in bed; he never stayed the night after he’d claimed his marital rights. She was usually very glad to see him go, but now she reached out and touched his arm. “Heinrich . . . may I ask you something? Why did you delay the English king’s release? It has stirred much talk at court.”

“Has it?” He yawned, idly winding a strand of her long, blond hair around his hand. His natural instinct was for secrecy, but he saw no reason not to indulge her curiosity since all would know on the morrow. “I needed time to consider a new proposal by the French king and the Count of Mortain. They are desperate to keep Richard caged, so much so that they are offering a large sum of money to make that happen. They vow that if I will hold Richard for another eight months—past the campaigning season—Philippe will pay me fifty thousand silver marks and John thirty thousand. Or they will pay me a thousand pounds of silver for every month that he remains my prisoner. Or if I will agree either to turn him over to them or to imprison him for another year, they will match the full amount of Richard’s ransom, one hundred fifty thousand marks.”

Constance was thankful for the darkness that kept him from seeing her horror or her revulsion. When she was sure she could trust her voice, she said, “I do not understand. Why would you forfeit the English ransom, which is already here, in favor of mere promises of future payment?”

“That is the beauty of it. I would still get Richard’s ransom, for he’d be even more eager to pay for his freedom after another year of captivity. And I’d also have John and Philippe’s money, which I’d not have to share with Leopold. So you can see why this is a deal well worth considering.”

“What . . . what have you decided to do?”

“That will depend upon Richard. If he agrees to sweeten the ransom, all will go as planned. If he balks, I will give serious thought to accepting one of their offers, most likely holding him until Michaelmas. Although that thousand pounds of silver per month is tempting, I admit.”

Constance was speechless. As well as she’d thought she knew him, she was staggered by this. Did he truly believe that the English and French kings were mere pawns, to be moved around on the chessboard at his will? Did he not care that his duplicity would make his name a byword for the worst sort of treachery? “But I thought you wanted Richard as an ally.”

“Well, ‘ally’ is too strong a term. Let’s just say we have a shared interest in Philippe’s downfall. And that will not change even if I do hold him until Michaelmas, for however much he may resent me for it, his hatred for Philippe burns far hotter. He’ll have no choice but to make common cause with me against France.”

She said nothing, for there was no reasoning with a man who recognized no needs but his own. She did not doubt that God would eventually call him to account for his sins, but that day of divine reckoning could be years in the future. She felt sympathy for the English king. Even if he had recognized the usurper Tancred, he did not deserve what had happened to him in Germany. But her greatest fear was for her beloved homeland. She’d always known Heinrich would rule Sicily harshly. Until tonight, though, she’d not realized what a thin line separated arrogance from delusion. She could not remember their names, but she was sure there had been emperors in Ancient Rome who’d come to believe they were gods, not mortal men. What would happen to the Sicilians if they found themselves under the power of a madman?

She was so caught up in her misery that she did not even notice when Heinrich left. She lay awake as the hours dragged by till dawn, dreading the day to come and damning her nephew for dooming her to this Hell on earth, shackled to a husband she hated.

A
S SOON AS
R
ICHARD ENTERED
the great hall, he was surrounded by men eager to speak with him. Eleanor was surprised and impressed by the warmth of their welcome. Clearly Richard had done more than make allies amongst the rebel barons: he’d made friends, too. She already knew Adolf von Altena and Conrad von Wittelsbach, the Archbishop of Mainz. Richard had told her they were the two most powerful prelates in Germany, and it was comforting to know they both were so firmly on her son’s side. She was introduced to the dukes of Brabant and Limburg and to Simon, the seventeen-year-old Bishop-elect of Liege; she wondered how he felt about stepping into his murdered cousin’s shoes or becoming a prince of the Church at such an absurdly young age. But she had no time to talk with him, for the crowd was parting to admit the Marquis of Montferrat into the circle.

She’d met Boniface three years ago during her chance encounter at Lodi with Heinrich and Constance, and he greeted her as if they were old and dear friends. She’d liked him, for she’d always had an eye for a handsome, charming man, but what mattered now was that he greeted Richard so amicably, for his cordiality was in itself a rebuttal for any who might still suspect Richard of complicity in Conrad of Montferrat’s murder. Not even the most cynical of souls believed Boniface would embrace the English king if he harbored any doubts about his innocence; Boniface was known to be a more honorable man than his slain brother.

Boniface was one of Heinrich’s most important vassals and so she asked if he’d heard why the emperor had delayed Richard’s release. He seemed to think it was a minor matter, the delay most likely caused by the Imperial Diet just concluded at Wurzberg. He did have good news about that, he said cheerfully. The emperor had agreed to accept his cousin Agnes’s marriage to her grandson Henrik, and he had also promised to restore Henrik to royal favor. Eleanor hoped this was an omen that the day’s events would go well for them.

Richard had been talking with the Duke of Brabant, who was also in the dark about the reason for the postponement, but he stopped in midsentence and touched Eleanor’s arm warningly. She tensed, thinking that Heinrich had entered the hall. But the man approaching them was the Duke of Austria.

He greeted Richard with courtesy so correct it was almost painful, and when Richard introduced his mother, he bowed stiffly over her hand. Eleanor yearned to slap him with it, but she smiled instead, for she’d had decades of practice in hiding her real feelings. The conversation was awkward, for Leopold was obviously uncomfortable, and while Richard was polite, that was as far as he was willing to go. The Austrian duke made his escape as soon as he could, and as he walked hastily away, Richard said quietly to Eleanor, “Leopold is in a foul mood because he knows that when the hunt for scapegoats begins, it will occur in Austria, not Germany. Not only is Leopold sure to be excommunicated, he’ll be waiting years, mayhap decades, to get his full share of the ransom from Heinrich.”

They were speaking in the
lenga romana
of Aquitaine and, not having to worry about eavesdroppers, Eleanor felt free to ask whom he blamed more, Heinrich or Leopold. He answered so quickly that she knew he’d given this some thought. “Leopold had a legitimate grievance; I’ll admit that now. Not that it justified what he did. I still gave him the chance to end it honorably. I even offered to pay him a ransom. But he did not have the backbone to defy Heinrich, so he deserves all the misery that is coming his way. When it comes to tallying up sins, though, his are venial; Heinrich’s are mortal.”

She had no chance to respond, for the Archbishop of Salzburg was bearing down upon them, followed by a smiling man and two youths who looked to be about Otto’s age. Richard greeted the archbishop affably, but he showed such genuine pleasure at the sight of the others that Eleanor was startled when they were introduced to her as Hadmar von Kuenring, who’d been her son’s Austrian gaoler, and Friedrich and Leo von Babenberg. Watching the easy interaction between them, she felt grateful that Richard had not been surrounded at all times by hostility. It amused her, too, that the duke’s sons were obviously in thrall to the legend of the Lionheart; she was sure Leopold was not happy about that. She found both boys likable and she thought she’d have to write to Constance about this meeting, reassuring her that Friedrich had made a fine first impression. As little as she liked the Breton duchess, she’d sent too many of her own daughters away to alien lands to be utterly indifferent to Constance’s concerns for Aenor.

The atmosphere in the hall was so friendly that Eleanor had been lulled into a false sense of security, for it was almost as if it were a social occasion. That all changed with the blare of trumpets announcing the entrance of the Holy Roman Emperor. As soon as Heinrich strolled into the hall, Eleanor felt as if the temperature had dropped dramatically. But when Richard led her over, she favored Heinrich with a smile that did not even hint at her desire to see him bleeding his life away into the floor rushes at her feet. Heinrich acknowledged her with slightly wary courtesy, for he’d taken her measure at Lodi. His consort had trailed him into the hall, and Eleanor felt a sharp pang of pity for Constance de Hauteville. At their Lodi meeting, they’d recognized each other as kindred spirits, birds with clipped wings in a world in which only men were allowed to soar. Eleanor had sensed the other woman’s unhappiness and understood it as few others could, for she had trudged down the same road that Constance was now traveling. At Lodi, Constance had been armored in the icy aplomb of an imperial empress; today her shield was showing cracks, discernible only to a sharp eye like Eleanor’s. And as her gaze met that of Heinrich’s wife, Eleanor suddenly knew they were about to be ambushed.