Fortune Like the Moon (27 page)

Richard achieved his immediate goal; money flowed into his crusade fund like the great Thames through his new capital. But at what price?

*   *   *

Josse d’Acquin had duly reported back to the King concerning the deaths at Hawkenlye Abbey, although the King, understandably, perhaps, did not appear to remember who Josse was or what he was talking about; Josse happened to catch him during the time in mid-August when, freshly arrived in his new kingdom, he was re-acquainting himself with a country and a people he hadn’t seen since early childhood.

‘Hawkenlye?’ he had said, when, at long last, Josse had managed to shoulder his way to the front of the queue of men eager for the new King’s ear. ‘Hawkenlye? A dead nun?’

Josse reminded him of the salient facts. Down on one knee, head bent in respect, his words were drowned by the general commotion all around; Richard’s peripatetic court was settling itself into its new abode with characteristic, noisy exuberance.

He felt strong hands grasp his shoulders, and the King hauled him to his feet. ‘Stand up, man, and talk so that I can hear you!’ he bellowed impatiently. ‘What’s all this about released murderers?’

He recounted his story again, and this time light dawned on the King. ‘Ah, yes, the abbey full of women, where the miracle spring was discovered!’ he exclaimed. ‘Indeed, Sir John—’

‘Josse,’ Josse murmured.

‘I think I do recall…’ Richard frowned thunderously at Josse, as if trying to draw intelligence from him.

But, just then, Richard’s chief advisor, William de Longchamps, sidled up to the King and, standing on tiptoe, for he was a good head shorter than his sovereign, began to speak urgently and quietly in the King’s ear.

Josse waited for the King to dismiss him, tell him to wait his turn; there was already resentment of the favoured position occupied by Longchamps, who, people were saying, the King was going to appoint as Chancellor. And the man was the son of runaway serfs!

But Richard did not dismiss him. Instead, with a wave of the regal hand, he dismissed Josse.

Walking away, too irritated to show the fawning respect that the occasion demanded, Josse was surprised, on reaching the outer chamber, to feel a detaining hand on his arm.

It was William de Longchamps.

‘I know of your business here, Josse d’Acquin,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I will see to it that the King hears of your success.’

Josse was on the point of saying he’d manage very well on his own, without anyone’s help, when he reconsidered.

Would it do any harm, really, to have the support of the man tipped to be England’s next chancellor? No! Hardly!

And so what if the man wasn’t of noble birth? Looking down at him, Josse did have to admit that the man didn’t look a likely candidate for the dignity of high office. Still, he thought fairly, if any man were to trace his lineage back far enough, he’d probably come down to peasant origins.

And that included the King; hadn’t his illustrious forefather, William the Conqueror, been the bastard son of a tanner’s daughter?

‘I thank you, Sir,’ he said, making Longchamps a courteous bow. He hesitated; should he go on to tell Longchamps the outcome of his investigation? Yes, he decided. ‘I sensed all along that the first death was somehow a family matter,’ he began, ‘but—’

Longchamps put up a hand. ‘No need, Sir Josse, for this.’ He smiled faintly. ‘The tale is already known to me.’

‘How?’ Josse asked.

Longchamps seemed to grow suddenly taller; not by very much, but, in his case, every little helped. ‘My Lady the Queen told me,’ he said.

‘Queen Eleanor?’

‘Have we another queen?’ Longchamps said, somewhat wryly.

‘Oh. No, no.’ Queen Eleanor? Had she, bless her, troubled to follow up the matter? With everything else that must be on her mind at present, had she remembered this small provincial matter, unimportant, surely, as soon as it was clear that the perpetrator was not a prisoner released by her son’s clemency?

She had. She must have done.

‘I am indebted to Her Majesty,’ he said, bowing as deeply as if it were Eleanor herself who stood before him.

‘As are we all,’ murmured Longchamps, ‘as are we all.’

Then, with a curt nod in Josse’s general direction, he scurried off back to the King.

*   *   *

Josse had expected to hear no more from either Longchamps or the King. But he had been wrong.

A little while later, he received word that he was summoned to the new King’s coronation.

*   *   *

There were, Josse was wont to say afterwards, some distinctly odd aspects to the coronation of Richard I. Not that he was an expert on coronations, this being the only one he attended in his long life. But still, it made, he thought, a good opening to his oft-repeated account.

The first strange happening was that, for all that it was broad daylight, a bat was seen to come flapping and flitting into Westminster Abbey. Bold as you please, it did not content itself with a discreet circuit of the darkest recesses of the great building, but flew straight up the nave. Eventually, it found the sacred spot where the King-elect sat, stiff-backed, extravagantly robed, mystic symbols of monarchy in his hands. And there, around and around the noble brow, it continued to circle, until one of the presiding prelates came out of his pop-eyed trance and, flapping at the bat with his wide sleeves in a manner that threatened to make the small creature produce an unsavoury testimony to its fear, managed to shoo it away.

‘A bat!’ came the horrified whispers, buzzing around Josse like the gossiping of women at the well. ‘It’s an omen! A
terrible
omen!’

Against his will – damn it, the bat was just a wild animal, neither good nor evil! – Josse found himself thinking of the words of Leviticus:
all flying, creeping things, going about upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.

God had said that, of one of His own creatures! A thing of the night, of the dark, of secret places, and an abomination unto the Lord …

In the Abbey, there was a disjointed, quiet muttering, growing in volume, as, on all sides, men tried to mitigate the potency of this evil omen by a few repetitions of the Paternoster.

With which, despite his attempts at rationality, Josse joined in.

*   *   *

There was no special place for Queen Eleanor at the long Westminster Abbey ceremony; she did not go. Which was, Josse considered, the other peculiar thing about King Richard’s coronation.

They said she had refused to attend because she was in mourning for her husband, the dead King Henry.

In mourning?

Technically she was, Josse had to acknowledge; Henry had only died a couple of months ago. But everyone knew how the Queen had felt about him! Why, he’d had her shut up, a prisoner in her own house, for the last sixteen years! They
hated
each other, and, for her part, she must have been delighted to see the back of him.

And, as well, Eleanor had worked so relentlessly for her son’s sake. Why, it was said she hadn’t had a day’s rest for the last few weeks, so determined had she been to leave no stone unturned in her efforts to make England welcome the new King. Was it not unexpected, to say the least, for her not to attend what was, literally, her son’s crowning moment?

But, whatever the true reason was, Eleanor was not there.

Nor, Josse had noticed with growing amazement as he stared around the assembled multitude, was any other woman.

Richard’s coronation was attended only by men.

Well, he thought, rationalising again, it’s the men who hold the reins of power, why should Richard not summon them without their wives? And, perhaps, the King had thought that if his own mother declined to see him crowned, then no other woman in the realm ought to have that privilege.

Josse couldn’t help wondering what Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye would have said to
that.

*   *   *

A week or so after the coronation – it had taken almost that long to get rid of the hangover; one thing you could say for King Richard, he certainly knew how to throw a party – Josse made his way home to Acquin.

There would inevitably be a sense of anticlimax in returning to his rural backwater after the various excitements; he had known that, and had prepared himself for it. Or so he thought. Indeed, as he crossed the Aa river and set his tired horse’s head along the valley for home, he was actually looking forward to the peace.

The long, low roofs of the great courtyard appeared in the distance, the flint-slated tops of the watch towers on the two outer corners catching the rays of the westering sun and seeming to glisten. In the pastures either side of the little river, large cows grazed, the tearing sound of their mouths pulling on grass loud in the tranquillity. One or two groups of peasants, trudging heavy-footed homewards, nodded to him, some, recognising who he was, tugging a respectful forelock.

Home.

He encouraged his horse to a reluctant trot as he entered the tiny village that had sprung up around the spreading manor house. Past the church, along the track that led to the gates … and he was there.

The gates were closed; fair enough, it was almost dusk, and nobody knew he was coming. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a slight sense of rejection.

He leaned sideways in the saddle and thumped with his fist on the stout, iron-banded doors. ‘Open up! Open up, Acquin!’

After quite a lot more banging, a small aperture beside the gates opened, and he saw the cross face of his senior steward. ‘Whadyouwant?’ the man shouted, all in one word.

Then, seeing who it was, he reddened, muttered an apology, and closed the little window; very soon afterwards, the main doors opened. Between the one action and the other, Josse had heard him call out, in a tone not as full of joy as Josse might have expected, ‘It’s Sir Josse! The Master’s come home.’

They welcomed him warmly enough, his brothers, his brothers’ wives, his nephews, his nieces; at least, those among the children who were old enough welcomed him. The babies still at the breast took little notice. There being no fatted calf to hand, they fed him on tasty fowl and well-hung game, and his brother Yves broached a barrel of wine which he said he had been saving for just such a special occasion.

They listened politely to what Josse had to tell them of life with Richard Plantagenet, went ‘Ooh!’, ‘Aah!’ and ‘Fancy that!’ in all the right places, were suitably horrified at the deaths in the Abbey and were diplomatically reserved about the new King’s determination to bleed his new realm of all – possibly of more than – it could afford in order to go galloping off to the Holy Land and boot out the infidel.

But Josse noticed that, the moment he had finished describing some exciting piece of news, that would be that. He was lucky if he got one interested question before the talk turned to other matters. To the harvest. The field down by the river that always flooded when it rained hard. The spotted cow’s sickly calf. The prospects of a good autumn’s hunting. The second-youngest brother’s broken ankle, the senior sister-in-law’s mad mother, even, God help them, the priest’s haemorrhoids and the youngest-but-one baby’s spasmodically tarry stools.

And the last two topics over dinner!

I had forgotten, Josse thought to himself rather sadly as he settled down to sleep on the third night after his arrival. I had forgotten how small life is here in the country, how footling the preoccupations.

Then, fair-mindedly, he corrected himself. Small and footling, perhaps, but the preoccupations were not unimportant. Acquin was a big estate, and, as well he knew, it took the conscientious work of all four of his brothers to keep it running smoothly. And that – its running smoothly – was vital, not only to the wellbeing and the fortunes of the immediate household, but to the vast number of peasant families who depended on them.

And after all, Josse thought, it was my decision to leave. Nobody ousted me, it was my own choice to test out my luck at the court of the tempestuous Plantagenets. It’s hardly the fault of my poor family if, in terms of variety and excitement, life here at Acquin can’t compete.

When at last on that disturbed night he managed to sleep, he dreamt that Richard Plantagenet had sent him an enormous cross set with rubies and ordered him to escort Queen Eleanor to Fontevraud, where, once she had stepped down from her horse, she donned a white headdress and a black veil and turned into Abbess Helewise. Terrified at the prospect of breaking the news to Richard that his mother had turned into someone else, Josse had ridden his horse so fast down a hillside that it had grown wings, thrown him off, turned into a huge bat and flapped away.

He awoke sweating and slightly shaky. And with the very beginnings of a plan forming in his mind …

*   *   *

The plan took several months to implement. Josse excused the delay, privately, by telling himself it was only fair, having disrupted his family by his return, to stay a good long time and make it worth everyone’s while. To salve his conscience over being an intruder in his own home – although everyone tried very hard to make him feel that he wasn’t – he turned his hand to anything that he thought might help. But, it became clear, his brothers and their servants were, to a man, better than Josse at most of the tasks commonly demanded by life on a big country estate.

The fact that he could handle a sword better than all of them put together was, really, not a great deal of use.

Still, the boar hunting was exceptional, and there was a pretty young sister of one of his brothers’ wives who, having lost her husband to the ravages of smallpox too many years ago for it still to pain her, was only too ready for some flirtatious dalliance on a November evening, when the hangings rippled in the draughts and folk snuggled close together round the great flaming fire.

Christmas came and went.

Then, in February of the New Year of 1190, just when Josse was mentally gearing himself up to quit the family home and set off back to the King’s court, the message came.

His brother Yves, who had received the weary and soaked messenger, brought him up to Josse.