A King's Ransom (76 page)

“I daresay you are right, John. But if I do that for you, there is something I want in return.”

John’s mouth was dry and he took a sip from the wine when she made no attempt to reach for the cup. “What is that?” he asked warily. “What do you want from me?”

“The truth. When I stopped you from leaving England for the French court two years ago, I thought we’d reached an understanding. I told you then that my first loyalty was to Richard, would always be to him. But if Richard did not sire a son, I wanted you as his heir, not Arthur, and I promised I would do what I could to make it happen. Why was that not enough for you, John?”

He did not hesitate, for he was clever enough to understand that what he’d done was indefensible. There was no way to whitewash his conniving with the French king, to deny that had they succeeded, Richard would have been entombed in some Godforsaken French dungeon, praying for death. It could not be rationalized or explained away as an aberration. All he had to offer was the truth, however brutal it was.

“For what it’s worth, I fully meant to hold to our understanding.”

“Why did you not, then?”

“Because Richard’s capture unbalanced the equation. I truly did not believe he’d ever come back, ever regain his freedom, not with the enemies he’s made. The crown was suddenly there for the taking and so I put in my bid.”

Eleanor bit her lip. She’d asked for honesty and she’d gotten it—utterly without shame, conscience, or contrition. How had she and Harry failed so badly? Why had they been unable to foster any brotherly feelings between their sons?

Her prolonged silence was beginning to seem ominous to John. “Well?” he said, when he could endure it no longer. “Will you intercede with Richard on my behalf?”

She gave him a look he could not interpret. “I already have.”

John’s relief was intense, but ephemeral. So this whole scene had been yet another of her damnable games. Why could she not have told him that at the outset? “Thank you,” he said, and even to his ears, it did not sound convincing.

It did not sound convincing to Eleanor, either, but she was not seeking gratitude. She knew how little gratitude meant in their world. “It will help,” she said, very dryly, “if you try to seem somewhat contrite. But do not waste your breath telling Richard how very sorry you are. He well knows that you are only sorry you failed.”

Suddenly impatient to have this over and done with, she turned toward the door, glancing over her shoulder when he did not follow. “Richard is below in the great hall. Now would be as good a time as any.”

“The great hall?” John echoed in dismay. He thought it penance enough to have to humble his pride before Richard, shrank from doing it before a hall full of hostile witnesses. He opened his mouth to protest, then caught himself. Like Richard, she judged others by standards that made no allowances for human frailties. Richard measured a man by his willingness to bleed, to risk his life upon the thrust of a sword. With his mother, the test was more subtle and more demanding. She might forgive deceit and betrayal, but not weakness. Above all, he knew she would expect a man to answer for the consequences of his actions.

“Lead the way,” he said, with a tight smile. “God forbid that we keep the king waiting.”

R
ICHARD WAS SEATED UPON
the dais at the far end of the hall, only half listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury, for his thoughts kept wandering to what was occurring in the solar above their heads. He looked up when his mother slid into the empty seat to his left and nodded. When a sudden silence fell, he knew his brother had entered the hall. The crowd moved aside hastily, clearing a path to the dais. Richard thought he’d been able to extinguish his anger, but the embers were still smoldering and as he watched while John made what must have been the longest walk of his life, he could feel the heat beginning to build again. As if sensing that, Eleanor reached over and rested her hand lightly on his arm. He covered her hand with his own, wordlessly assuring her that he would not be reneging upon his promise. He would pardon Johnny, for they shared the same blood. But Johnny was going to bleed a little of it first. He was entitled to that much.

“My liege.” Stopping before the dais, John slowly unbuckled his scabbard and laid it upon the steps. Then he knelt. “I can offer you no excuses. I can only ask for your forgiveness—even though I know I do not deserve it.”

Richard studied the younger man, noting the pulse beating in his throat, the sheen of perspiration on his forehead. When he thought John seemed about to jump out of his own skin, he rose to his feet. “Well, you’re here. That counts for something. And our lady mother would have me forgive you. That counts for a great deal. I suppose I should just be thankful that since you are so much given to treachery, you’re so reassuringly inept at it.” He waited for the laughter to subside, for the color to rush to John’s face. “You need not fear, John. A child is not punished if he listens to bad counsel. It is those who led you astray who will feel my wrath.” And he reached down, raising John to his feet.

The audience dutifully applauded and Richard took advantage of the clamor to pitch his voice for John’s ear only. “Your blood may have bought you a pardon, Johnny, but the price is higher for an earldom, higher than you can pay. I’ve no intention of restoring your titles and lands, not until I’m damned well sure that you’re deserving of them . . . if ever.”

As their eyes met, John nodded. “I understand,” he said tonelessly. “I shall remember your generosity, Brother. You may be sure of that.”

W
HILE HE COULD LIE
convincingly to others, John had rarely been able to lie to himself. He’d inherited too much of the Angevin sense of irony for that. Nor was righteous indignation an emotion indigenous to his temperamental terrain. So he knew he’d gotten off cheaply, given the gravity of his offenses. But that awareness did not soothe his injured pride. Richard’s patronizing pardon hurt more than an excoriating recital of his sins would have done, for it reminded him of his brother’s devastating response after being warned that he was plotting with Philippe to claim the English crown.
John is not the man to conquer a kingdom if there is anyone to offer the least resistance.
Did Richard truly believe that? Did his bishops and barons? Did they all see him as so worthless?

He’d endured the ordeal with what grace he could muster, ignoring the stares, even smiling when Richard magnanimously dispatched a large salmon swimming in gravy to his end of the table as a mark of royal favor. But as soon as he could, he escaped the hall for the comparative privacy of the manor gardens, grateful to be cloaked in darkness, away from prying eyes. Now that he need no longer fear imprisonment or exile for his betrayal, he was realizing what a rocky road lay ahead of him. How could he hope to regain Richard’s trust? Yet unless he did, he’d be the beggar at the feast. Moreover, it was not just Richard’s contempt that he must deal with. He’d seen the scorn in the eyes of the other men in the hall. Even if God struck Richard down on the morrow and he claimed the throne, how long could he rule if he was neither respected nor feared?

Far better to be judged evil than inept,
he thought, with a gleam of mordant humor, and then whirled at the sound of footsteps to find his sister standing several feet away. He’d not expected to see her at Lisieux and he’d not liked having her witness his public humiliation, for they’d gotten on well as children. With memories of his shame still so raw, his control finally cracked. “If you’ve come to offer pity, I do not want any!”

“Good, because I do not think you are deserving of any.”

They regarded each other in silence. He’d recognized her as soon as he’d seen her on the dais, even though it had been almost two decades. She’d been a beautiful child who’d grown into a beautiful woman, a woman who—like their mother and half of Christendom—thought Brother Richard could walk on water. His relationship with his family had always been a tenuous one, fraught with ambiguity and ambivalence. Even before disgrace and imprisonment had erased her from his life, his mother had been a glamorous stranger to him. His father had dominated his world, inspiring awe, admiration, and fear in the boy he’d once been. His brothers had been so much older than he—eleven, nine, and eight years—that they seemed to live on a distant shore, leaving him to cling to the small island of his father’s favor, an island ever in danger of being submerged by the raging Angevin sea. Only with Joanna was it not complicated—until she’d been sent off to wed the King of Sicily, thus depriving him of his only childhood ally.

“Eighteen years . . . We have a lot of catching up to do,” he said, striving to sound composed, even nonchalant. “I’ll go first. One marriage, no children born in wedlock, some born out of it, two betrayals, and one very public pardon.”

Joanna was not fooled by his flippant tone. “For me, it was marriage, motherhood, and widowhood.”

John surprised her then, by dropping his sardonic shield and giving her a glimpse of the brother she remembered. “I ought to have written to you when your son died, Joanna.”

“You were not yet fifteen, Johnny.”

“I still should have written.” He moved toward her then, stepping out of the shadows into the moonlight. “Why did you follow me into the garden?”

She thought it was strange to see her mother’s green-gold eyes in another face. “Do you remember what I would call you whenever we’d have a falling-out? Johnny-cat, because you were always poking about where you had no right to be.”

“I remember,” he said, with the barest hint of a smile. “I never liked it much.”

“I could not help thinking of that as I watched you and Richard in the great hall. The Saracens had a proverb about cats having seven lives. You offered up your seventh one in there, Johnny-cat. You do know that?”

“Christ, Joanna, of course I do!”

She ignored the flare-up of defensive anger. “Thank God you see that,” she said somberly. “I was afraid you would not. I know Richard and he will not forgive you again, Johnny. The next time you fall from grace will be your last. For your sake—for all our sakes—I hope you never forget that.”

She stepped closer then, kissing him on the cheek. Feeling as if she were bidding farewell to her childhood, she turned to go back to the great hall, leaving him alone in the garden. He stood there without moving, watching her walk away.

O
NE REASON
R
ICHARD HAD
been so impatient during his stay at Portsmouth was that he’d heard the French king was laying siege to Verneuil, a strategically placed castle that he could ill afford to lose. Confident that he’d be coming to their aid, the garrison had spurned Philippe’s demand for surrender, mocking him from the battlements and drawing an unflattering caricature of the French king on the castle walls. Richard meant to march on Verneuil as soon as he’d made peace with John, and on the day of his departure, he was pleased by the arrival of his infamous mercenary captain, Mercadier. Boasting a sinister scar that carved a jagged path from his cheekbone to his chin, twisting one corner of his mouth awry, with hungry hawk eyes that few could meet for long, this ice-blooded son of the south had earned a reputation for battlefield mayhem that rivaled some of the legends of the king he served. Richard was untroubled by Mercadier’s notoriety, caring only that he was utterly loyal and utterly fearless, and he welcomed the routier with enough warmth to worry the clerics, who were convinced that all routiers were godless men and Mercadier himself the spawn of Satan.