Canterbury Papers (16 page)

“Alaïs Capet, you will show this king of England more respect than you have shown the others.” In four quick strides, he was at my side. “I am not my father in his dotage, nor my lovesick brother Richard, for you to address me with such insolence.” With one angry movement, he yanked the bed curtains down, revealing me to the entire room. I looked past him and saw that there were four or five knights with him, all hanging back against the walls. Silently they watched their king.

My eyes came to rest on the pretty woman whose face I had seen on waking. Now she sat next to the bed, her hands loosely folded in her lap, a look of mildly questioning interest on her face. It was she who had helped me to sit upright and placed the pillows behind me. Once the curtains were drawn back, we could see each other fully. This must be John's new queen, Isabelle.

I returned to John. He stood, hands on his hips, looking down at me. My gaze scored him from head to foot. “You've acquired a new tailor since last I saw you,” I said. “You must have come into silver recently.”

I could see his brown eyes turn black, as they always did when he began a tantrum. One of the knights snorted and quickly covered it with a cough.

“I warn you, Alex,” John said, calling me by the English version of my name. He grabbed my arm, twisting the skin on it, an old child's trick to hurt without leaving bruise marks. “If I were you, I'd watch my words.”

“If I were you, I'd take the same advice.” I pulled my arm away as his fingers relaxed slightly. “I am not without the means to avenge wrongs done to me.” In his face I saw a flicker of the old fear that he used to show whenever I called his bluff as a child. But, being John, he pressed on with mindless courage.

“Sister, dear, you haven't asked me what I want with you.” He leaned over me, his forearms jammed on either side of my body, his garlic-laden breath dusting my face.

“No doubt you'll tell me when you're ready.” I folded my arms across my chest and rubbed the sore spot. I held his eyes without flinching.

As John tried to stare me down, he was betrayed by that old nervous tic in his right eye. It had always given his gaze a certain instability. As if he could read my thoughts, he flung himself away from me and paced back across the room. Several of the knights leaning against the wall shifted as John passed. Twice he turned his head to look at me, as if I were a bad dream that might disappear if he were lucky. Suddenly I had a vision of John in a meadow, a green meadow, walking to a makeshift table in the sunlight, turning around, just like this, looking back at a ring of murmuring men as if uncertain what to do. His confusion touched me. I shook my head slightly to clear the image.

“Do not dare to shake your head at me, Princess,” he bellowed from across the room.

“All right, John.” I spread my hands in an exaggerated gesture. “You win. I'll play your game. What is it that you want from me?”

He came toward me. “That's better,” he said. “Now, tell me straight: Where are the letters you were trying to steal at Canterbury?”

“What are you talking about? I wasn't trying to steal any letters. I was keeping a vigil at the altar of the martyr Becket. I was in the sanctuary of the church, John. Which you have violated.” I stabbed my finger forward in the air to make my points. “And not only the sanctuary of the cathedral but the very altar of the martyr. You should fear for your eternal salvation, King John.” I lowered my voice to a stage whisper.

“Bosh. I care not a fig for salvation.” He snapped his finger on the word “fig.” “When I'm ready, I'll have gold to bribe a bishop for my ticket into heaven.” He was standing again in front of my bed, his voice loud enough to impress his knights.

“Be careful, John,” I warned. “The bishop may cooperate, but God may not get the message. And I doubt the bishop will want to accompany you to clarify things.”

The knights stopped fidgeting in the background and moved as one slightly closer to our scene. They sensed that battle was joined. They would likely lay bets if they didn't think the king would notice.

“Where have you brought me, John?” I asked quietly as he moved closer.

“You are in the keep at Old Sarum.” So I
had
been here before! Well did I remember it. “This is the tower where King Henry kept my mother captive for sixteen long years. I thought you might enjoy the surroundings, since you were so close to her.” Honey dripped from his words.

As John intended (was he really as simple as I had thought? Mayhap I had underestimated him), the name of his father brought my thoughts into focus. My sharp intake of breath betrayed me.

“I'm not in the mood to trade family memories with you,” I muttered. The waves of nausea were starting again deep in my body. “And anyway, what did you care for your mother? Your father was the one who raised you. You didn't care a fig, as you are so fond of saying, for your mother
or
her captivity.”

“I cared more for my mother than you, who took to his bed so easily once she was his prisoner,” he hissed, leaning over me once again. I turned my face away.

“God's blood, John. Don't add hypocrisy to your blasphemy. Do you think I have no memory? I heard your raucous laughter at supper the night we returned to Clarendon Palace, after he locked your mother here in this very tower. I lost the stepmother of all my childhood years that day. My betrothed, your brother Richard, had just declared war on his father. I cried myself to sleep that night.” I turned my face back to look at him. “Even your father was somber. But you—you drank and laughed all night with the king's men.”

John's face paled, and he clasped his hands behind his back. I closed my eyes to escape the sight of him. But before either of us could continue, nature intervened. Suddenly billows rose from my deepest insides. “I need a basin. I'm sick.”

Isabelle suddenly sprang to life. “Ho!” she shouted at the knights. “Call the servants from the next room. Now!” Even in my extreme distress, I could tell that she was used to being obeyed. The knights departed swiftly,
en masse.
In minutes the servants were there with basins and water. Afterward I lay back on the cushions as they wiped my brow. Then, on some secret signal from Isabelle, they scattered as quickly as they had come, taking their basins and their comforting, cool cloths.

Isabelle stood next to John at the side of the bed. I saw her casual glance graze my withered hand. I quickly slid it under the bedcovers.

“Why were you trying to steal my mother's letters from Canterbury when my knights found you?” John was standing with feet apart, a hand on his sword, in the same threatening way he used to stand as a young man when he tried to intimidate the servants. “What is in those letters that you want?”

“I already told you, I was praying at the tomb of the martyr.” It was difficult to talk through my raw throat. I could feel sweat beading my brow.

“How amusing. But it won't work, Alex. I know what you are up to.”

“You've been misinformed, John.” Despite my weak state, I was determined not to let this man bully me. “I was making a pilgrimage.”

“You're a liar, Alex, as you were wont to be when it suited your convenience.”

“Or someone else has lied to you and you have been made a gull again, as
you
were wont always to be.”

The little white dog chose that moment to bark. John's reaction was swift and brutal. He turned and administered a vicious kick. The animal flew across the room and landed in an inert mass of curly white fur. It did not move.

“Christ above, John,” I whispered. “It was just a dumb animal.”

When his face turned back to mine a moment later, a smile spread across it. “You may want to reconsider cooperating with me, sister. I've always had such a bad temper.” The tic in his eye returned.

I looked at Isabelle, who sat beside the bed once again. She had tented her fingers, and they tapped noiselessly against each other. Her face registered no emotion.

I bit my lip and thought for a long moment of the danger facing me before I replied. “Perhaps Philippe understands fraternal love better than you do, John. What do you know of such things? I wonder what your brother Geoffrey would say about your notion of familial devotion if he were here. Or young Arthur.”

“You are not one to talk about loyalty,” John snapped.

“I have never betrayed those I loved.”

“What about my mother?”

“What about your father?” I countered in a whisper only he could hear. “Your beloved father who raised you?” His face contracted as if a hearth pot of hot soup had been overturned on him.

“You dare not—” He caught himself, but I saw instantly my advantage. I could hide my feelings about the past, but John could not.

“I dare not speak of your father?” I baited him. “Just because you betrayed him doesn't mean that I did. And”—I pushed myself up on my elbow toward him—“just because you failed to please him doesn't mean I failed.”

His hand shot out before Isabelle could act and caught my cheek in a slap that was more like a punch. It knocked me back against the pillows. I could feel the stinging imprint of John's seal ring on my face. My eyes were filled instantly, but it was small payment for the satisfaction I felt. I had found the touchstone. For John it was always jealousy.

The king turned away from me, his hand pressing his brow, and he moved out of my line of vision. I could hear the knights' low voices, talking to cover their embarrassment. Isabelle continued to observe John solemnly from her chair. Eventually her crisp voice broke the silence.

“John, if your goal is to get information from Alaïs, I don't think you are going about it in quite the right way.”

I struggled to sit up again and turned to face her. She was not two sword lengths away from me. When her clear, slightly elevated voice had rung out, the murmuring knights fell silent.

“I don't think we've been properly introduced,” I said. “I am the
Princesse
Alaïs of France. You must be the new queen of England.” I gestured to John, aware of the rising welt on my cheek. “You must forgive our little family fights.”

“I am Isabelle of Angoulême,” she said. “And I know well enough who you are.” She pinched her mouth for a moment, and then, unexpectedly, her thin lips curled upward in amusement. “You won't provoke me, Alaïs Capet. John may revert to childish actions around you, but you have no such power over me.”

“Then, since we seem to be the only adults involved here, perhaps you and I can manage the situation. Can you explain why I have been brought here?”

She had just opened her mouth to answer when John reappeared at the foot of the bed, this time with a goblet of Armagnac. I could smell the brandy on his breath from where I lay.

“I'll give you one more chance,” he blurted out after a deep draft, leaning on the carved bedpost. “You can tell me what you know, or you can resign yourself to starving in a damp tower in England.”

“John, follow my thoughts, please, if you can.” I spoke with immense care. “Suppose I did go to Canterbury to find your mother's letters. It's obvious I thought they were there. If I didn't have them on my person when your men took me, I didn't get them. Why think you I would know where they are now?”

“Because these letters are of more concern to you than to me. You want them as much as I do. And I know you, Alex. You will do anything to get what you want.”

His voice had the winter feel of Henry's when he was crossed. For the first time in this exchange, his words gave me pause. I recalled my drugged vision of the little boy in the snow, and I could feel my heartbeat hasten. I had to proceed carefully.

“I do not have a care about your mother's letters to Becket,” I said, feigning exasperation. “What is it about your family, that you all think I want to be involved in your intrigues? Why could I possibly want to put my hands on some musty old letters to the archbishop, written when I was barely a tot? I tell you I know nothing of them. Now, let me out of this absurd tower.” I struggled to put my feet over the edge of the high bed and stand to face John.

As I heaved myself to my feet, the room reeled and his face receded. I backed my leg against the bed to keep from falling. Suddenly Isabelle was there to support me. She gently pressed me to a sitting position on the edge of the bed and sat down beside me. My strength dissolving, I allowed it.

“Will you stop this bickering?” She spoke firmly, as if we were children. “If you are both interested in recovering the letters, should we not try to find them? Working together, as family ought to do?”

I quelled my astonishment and looked at her. I was not quite able to match her firm, rational tone when I spoke. “Of course. You are quite right, Isabelle. As a family. Now, can you explain why these letters to Becket are so almighty important?”

John made an aggressive noise, but Isabelle simply turned her back on him and faced me. She was silent for a moment, as if considering some decision. Then she began to speak in a low, comforting voice, as if I were a hysterical child. “It is thought that Eleanor wrote some letters years ago—important, personal letters. Letters to Thomas à Becket, as you say, and written at a time when Henry and the archbishop were quarreling.”

“I know this,” I said, gently easing aside her arm, which still encircled my waist with an alarming familiarity. I replaced it on her lap. “Eleanor told me. She is afraid the letters will be used to embarrass John, raising all the old rumors of Becket and the queen's intriguing behind Henry's back. Possibly raising issues of John's parentage.”

I thought I might have gone too far, but then I saw that John, in his relentless pacing, was out of earshot.

“Ah, but there is more. It's true that certain of these letters may have been addressed to Becket and may prove momentarily embarrassing. But it is rumored there are others of the queen's letters bundled with them, letters written later, while she was imprisoned here at Old Sarum.” Isabelle gestured. “Letters written in this very room, I understand, but never sent. Letters she entrusted to a monk to hide for her.”