Crown of the Realm (A White Knight Adventure Book 2)
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Authors: Jude Chapman
Crown of the Realm
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A White Knight Adventure ~ Book 2
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Jude Chapman
Crown of the Realm
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Copyright © 201
4 by Jude Chapman
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Weatherly Books
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Table of Contents
RICHARD COEUR DE
LION
held aloft a goblet of rock crystal, its surface beaded lustrous as pearls.
Bedecked in a pellice of brocaded
silk, deepest green to offset the reddish-blonde hues of his mane, the king was a striking man, having inherited the striking beauty of his mother and the stocky build of his father. With bulging gray eyes and a stern expression, he surveyed the great hall of Nonancourt Castle. Hushed into profound silence, the kind of silence that accompanies reverence and anticipation but mostly fear, the retinues of two kings awaited the authoritative tone of his baritone voice.
Thus having full command of his audience, Richard spoke.
“To Philippe, the fair king of France, my brother and dear cousin.” Amidst panoply and ritual, the new king of England was fêting the time-tested king of France. Not only were his words respectful but literal truths, since these two leaders of two mighty kingdoms were in fact cousins to the fifth degree.
Eight years younger than the
thirty-two-year-old fledgling king of England, Philippe Capét had been ruling his kingdom for nearly ten years, his long-standing position of absolute power reflected in his vainglorious expression. Philippe continued holding his goblet aloft. When at last he spoke, the tenor of his voice was almost that of a young boy, since boy he was, as well as pale and emaciated, a stark contrast to the arresting good looks of his cousin. “To Richard, king of England, my brother and dear cousin.”
Ironically, the king of England was not English. To trace Richard’s ascendancy to the English crown,
historians had to go back nearly three-hundred years. Even then, they would not find themselves in England but in Normandy, on lands ceded to them by the then-king of France to Richard’s ancestors, the Viking raiders of the north. From there, a circuitous route would lead the French-speaking Norsemen across lands and seas, collecting fiefdoms like sweetmeats, slaying any who stood in their way, and mobilizing forces to eventually invade England in the year 1066, when they took the English Crown by force, sword, blood, and guts.
Alais Capét, the daughter of King Louis VII of France and Constance of Castile, lingered close to her brother. Bred of the same father but of different mothers, the contrast of bloodlines showed. While Alais retained her
beauty at the advanced age of thirty, her younger brother by six years was thin, stringy of hair, and gaunt. To look at Philippe was not to look at a warrior king but at a once sickly youth grown to manhood. He had his compensations. What he lacked in handsomeness and physical strength, he made up for in cunning and guile.
The gamesmanship played between the kings of France and England were revered, time-honored
, and buried in the very ground over which Richard and Philippe stood. The continental lands Richard claimed as part of his empire were once French, or near enough that Philippe considered them so. Just forty years ago, Richard’s father, Henry of Anjou, looked to hold a modest portion of lands inherited from his father Geoffrey and his mother Matilda. The borders encompassing Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine were respectable though not formidable. But when Henry married the castoff queen of Philippe’s father, his empire became larger than all of France.
Because of the enmity that had gone before, Philippe wanted no less than the entire Gallic continent.
But damned if Richard would let his distant cousin claim so much as a single hectare. If truth were told, as it often was by both noblemen and common men, the kings clung tenaciously to their disagreements out of spite and jealousy. Because if they did not have each other to outfox and humiliate, they would have to find other more worthy opponents. And since no other men were as challenging as these two, they clung to each other as bear to tiger.
Whether today Richard was ally or tomorrow Philippe was enemy was difficult to predict for both courts, but on this day the kings had come together for a higher purpose then their petty differences. More than three years had elapsed since Saladin, the sultan of Egypt and leader of the infidel Saracens, captured Jerusalem. Not long thereafter
, both kings took the cross. Though several more months were bound to trip by before Richard and Philippe embarked on their journey to the Holy Land, they were at last taking up that promised cross and preparing for the greatest pilgrimage afforded man or king. They agreed to meet in Vézelay in July. All they need do today—on this 5
th
day of March in the year of Our Lord 1190— was to seal a bargain of peace.
Moments before, the accord was struc
k. The words—written down and signed by the hand of each king—were also spoken in the presence of their nobles.
“
Moi Philippe,
roi des Français, envers Richard, mon ami et mon fidèle vassal
,” King Philippe had attested.
“
Moi Richard, roi des Anglais, envers Philippe, mon seigneur et mon ami
,” Richard had likewise attested.
Each proclaimed a treaty between equals
, two sovereigns at the helm of two mighty kingdoms and also between lord and vassal, for the lands Richard held on the continent was by leave of his liege lord Philippe, the king of France. The pledge was made. The kiss of peace was exchanged. The covenant was sealed. The gamesmanship resumed.
Philippe spoke up. “And what of the future of my sister, the
beautiful Alais?”
His burnished hair the only crown he need ever wear, Richard considered the goblet in his hand and the ruby-red liquid
only half-drained. “Nothing has changed.”
The king’s brothers
—John comte of Mortaigne and Geoffrey archbishop of York—flanked Richard two respectful steps to the rear.
“Nothing, as you say, has changed for twenty years
,” Philippe said. “She languishes. Her womb grows dry. Her patience fritters away. As does mine. She hears rumors, as do I, that the king of England actively seeks a bride elsewhere. Time and again, I have asked both you and your father to consummate our agreement. Time and again, I have been rebuffed with empty reassurances. If this marriage cannot be consummated, and soon, I will take my sister back to France, along with the Vexin and Gisors, which rightfully belong to France. As does Alais.”
The a
gitation suffered by those who witnessed this tug of war between sworn enemies and reluctant compatriots descended into watchful silence. If it weren’t serious business, the exchange would have been laughable.
“But
…” Philippe brandished a magnanimous hand. “If that does not satisfy, we have a feast awaiting and our pick of bishops. Pick one. Any one. And let us end this day with connubial bliss.” He scratched his sparse beard. “To be sealed with a kiss,” he speculated. And further speculated, “Sanctified by blood.” And smiled at mischievous thoughts. “Finalized with an heir nine months hence.” And with false reverence, finally added, “God willing.”
At which point t
he assemblage tittered behind shielding hands while crossing their chests athwart and murmuring, “
Amen
.”
“
Alais is most majestic this day, is she not?”
The bride-to-be wore a
lustrous gown of gold embroidered with threads of silver and set off with a necklace crafted of fire and ice. In contrast to the radiance pulsating from attire that could have fed an entire village for a year, her sapphire eyes were dull with indifference and a tad of trepidation.
“Shall we make
a royal wedding this day? Or if that is not suitable, the morrow? Or a week from now, if that proves more convenient.”
“We needn’t make haste,” Richard said
in a level tone.
“Haste is not the word I
would choose after twenty years of courtship.”
“Let me assure the king
… all is well … nothing has changed.”
“That,
cher ami
, above all else, is what our dear sister fears.”
“I keep her in my charge, is that not pledge enough
? If I had other plans, wouldn’t I send her home, disgraced and disbarred?”
Alais shifted her gaze between the two kings, each a master at the game, and waited patiently, her complexion more wan than
usual.
“
Non
,” Philippe said at last, “
non
, your arguments will not suffice.”
Richard swirled the wine in his goblet. “
If I vow to make Alais wife and queen after returning from Holy Crusade … will that suffice?”
Philippe considered, bowed
, and stepped back, a gesture of accord.
In measured cadence, a shrill voice said, “It will
not
suffice.” Alais sidestepped her brother and boldly faced Richard. “Make me your queen this day or send me back to my brother the king on the morrow.” Reflecting her distress, a single braid of dark ermine hair swayed at her back.
In the blistering hall of Nonancourt, torches blooming every few paces along the walls, Richard Plantagenêt
—by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou and Poitou—looked as if the opulent regalia befitting his exalted rank no longer fit his frame. His manner was cold even while his betrothed boiled with anger. “Patience, my dear Alais, is a virtue for woman.”
“
Woman, you say! Relegated to the standing of a woman? Why, if that is what I am, and I have no reason to deny, for what you see before you
is
a woman, then I am esteemed no better than one of your horses.”
“Indeed,
ma demoiselle
, I disagree. A horse is worth ten-fold the worth of any woman.”
“Richard!”
The king turned graciously toward
la reine douairière
. “Excepting the queen, my mother and …,”—his eyes drifted back to Alais— “your noble self, dear lady.”
“By all means,” said Alais. “But as I have lived in your father’s household since the age of ten with the express purpose of joining in holy matrimony your noble self
; and since your father the king reiterated his promise many a time to my father; and since you yourself assured my brother of your intent before you took the crown of England, you owe me slightly more consideration than you afford your horses.”
Raising an eyebrow in the direction of his exasperated mother,
Richard twirled a weighty sapphire ring around his finger.
“
And yet,” Alais said on a sigh, “you were coronated without a queen at your side. While I was forced to watch as one observer among many.”
“At my mother’s side.”
“Only due to her munificence.” Alais bowed to the queen. “You have insulted me by your indifference, not once but many times over, while I have remained true and uncomplaining.”
“In my father’s bed,”
Richard said softly, almost inaudibly.
“A vicious rumor spread by vicious men
!”
The king’s
statement, boldly said in the company of highborn ladies and gentlemen, irked the princess, mostly because it was undoubtedly true. While the witnesses to her humiliation murmured knowingly among themselves, the ignoble lady burned with pique, making her curiously delectable so that given the opportunity, any man—whether scoundrel or lord, though perhaps not king—would have taken her into his bed forthwith, witnesses and all.
She mustered
a posture of dignity, what little was left her, and said, “I am constant by the queen’s side as her dutiful daughter. Would she treat me so if I shared her husband’s bed?”
“Indeed not,” Richard said, “since she stopped sharing her bed with her husband
years ago.”
“
And now you try
my
patience, Richard dear,” Eleanor said equably. “Little do you now or ever knew the cohabitation arrangements between your father and myself—”
He started to protest.
“—Even though he kept me prisoner those many years. For it is known that jail cells and turret towers and chambers sealed by locks and keys and guards can be opened, and that they hold all manner of comfortable sleeping arrangements.”
It was the king’s turn to
be humiliated.
His
intended took the opportunity to drive home her point, her face no longer inflamed and her spine straight and true. “Indeed, I love your mother the queen as my own dear departed mother. Yet the years have slipped by. I say again, make me your queen this day, or send me back to my brother the king on the morrow. And the Vexin with it, which is the sole reason you hold me. For it isn’t affection,” she spit out.
“My dear sister …,” Richard began.
“Pray, leave off calling me sister when ‘queen’ is what I wish to be.”
“You have every fine virtue of a future queen save patience. Is it not better to wait until my return from crusade than marry now and find yourself a grieving widow?”
“What? Has an ill omen visited the king in his sleep? They say,” she said, sweeping her hands outward, “an assassin runs amuck within these very walls.”
