Lionheart (14 page)

“Naturally,” John echoed, thinking that Richard’s sole measure of a man was his willingness to bleed. “So . . . you want to know what I think of Philippe?” His question was a delaying tactic, for he sensed that she was testing him, and he wanted to be sure that he did not disappoint. “I agree that Philippe is a cautious sort,” he said carefully, “but I do not know if that makes him craven. Most men are more familiar with fear than my brother. I do think Philippe is more dangerous than Richard does, for he is clever and ruthless and utterly single-minded. And he loathes Richard with the sort of passion that burns to the bone.”

“Indeed?” Eleanor studied her youngest son intently. He’d never shown much political acumen, unless deserting the losing side in his father’s last war qualified. The one time he’d been entrusted with authority, when Henry sent him to govern Ireland, he’d made an utter botch of it, allowing his young knights to mock and ridicule the Irish lords, spending money so lavishly that he’d been unable to pay his routiers, who’d then defected to the Irish. It was true he’d been just eighteen then. Of course Richard and Geoffrey had been leading successful campaigns in Aquitaine and Brittany at that age. But she wanted very much to believe that John was maturing, that he was capable of learning from his mistakes, for if he was another Hal, their dynasty might well be doomed.

“Why do you believe Philippe bears such a grudge against your brother? Richard has never had a serious falling-out with Philippe.”
Not yet,
she amended silently, thinking of Alys and Berengaria.

John was surprised that the question even needed to be asked. “Richard is all that Philippe is not,” he said candidly. “He overshadows most men without even trying. But kings do not expect to be overshadowed and take it rather badly. Philippe does not seem to me like one given to self-doubts. I think it grievously wounds his pride, though, that he will always be the moon to Richard’s sun. And now they are going off together to the Holy Land, where he must look forward to being eclipsed by Richard at every opportunity, knowing he cannot hope to compete with Richard’s battlefield heroics.” John flashed a sudden, sardonic smile. “I could almost pity poor Philippe, if only he did not have a stone where his heart ought to be.”

“I suspect there is much truth in what you say,” Eleanor said thoughtfully, although she could not help wondering if John could discern Philippe’s envy so easily because he shared it. But when she smiled, John decided that if this had indeed been a test, he’d passed it.

Just then there was a stir at the end of the hall and Henri of Champagne and his men entered. Eleanor was instantly alert, for Henri would not have ridden back after dark unless he’d found out something of importance. Richard had the same thought, for he was already moving to intercept the young count.

Henri offered a graceful obeisance. “My liege, Madame. I bring sad news from Dreux. Queen Isabelle died in childbed yesterday in Paris, after giving birth to stillborn twin sons.”

His revelation was met with an unnatural silence. For an uneasy moment, every woman of childbearing age found herself identifying with the young French queen, and every husband was reminded how dangerous childbirth could be. People began to make the sign of the cross, to murmur conventional expressions of piety and sympathy for the bereaved French king; some of them even meant it. A pall had settled over the hall, for Isabelle’s death was an unwelcome proof of their own mortality, of the Church’s insistent teachings that flesh was corrupt, the body but an empty husk for the soul, and death came for them all, even the highborn.

Richard joined Eleanor and John on the dais, and after a few moments, so did Richenza. Seeing how pale she was, Eleanor rose and slipped her arm around the girl’s slender waist. “That is so sad,” Richenza said, “so very sad. . . .”

“Yes, it is,” Eleanor agreed. “But you must not take Isabelle’s tragic death too much to heart, Richenza. There are some women who are more suited for the cloisters than the marriage bed, and Isabelle was one of them. Within five years, she had at least five pregnancies, only one of which produced a live baby, and Louis is said to be a sickly little lad. Another son died within hours, and she suffered several miscarriages, too. Most women do not have such difficulty in the birthing chamber. I had ten healthy children myself, after all. We have no reason to think that your pregnancy will not be as easy as mine were.”

Richard looked from his mother to his niece. “Are you with child, lass?”

Richenza blushed and nodded, marveling that her grandmother had somehow divined her secret, for she’d told no one but her husband so far. She found herself enfolded then in her uncle Richard’s arms as he offered her his hearty congratulations. John kissed her, too, and their pleasure helped to dispel the chill cast by the French queen’s death. Henri was waiting patiently to speak with Richard, but the king detoured to slap Richenza’s husband jovially on the back before joining his nephew. Richenza then hastened over to explain to Jaufre how the king knew of her pregnancy, for they’d agreed to keep it private until she’d passed the risky first months.

Glancing at her youngest son, Eleanor found herself thinking that she’d not been entirely honest with Richenza, for John’s birth had been a very difficult and dangerous one. He’d come early, on a snowy December night, soon after she’d confirmed Henry’s affair with Rosamund Clifford, a girl young enough to have been her daughter, and the bitter circumstances of his birth had kept her from bonding with him as she had with her other children. Years later, this would come to be one of her greatest regrets, but by then it was too late. Looking pensively at John now, she wondered if she’d been wrong about that. The mistakes she and Henry had made with Hal and Geoffrey could never be made right. But John was still alive. Was it truly too late?

ELEANOR HAD RETIRED for the night soon afterward, dismissing all of her ladies-in-waiting but Amaria, who’d served her so loyally during those long years of confinement. When she began to tell Amaria of the French queen’s death, she was surprised to find tears welling in her eyes. How fragile life was, how fleeting their days on earth, and how fickle was Death, claiming the young as often as the old, the healthy as often as the ailing, cruelly stealing away a baby’s first breath, a mother’s fading heartbeat. And if he showed so little mercy in the birthing chamber, what pity could he be expected to display on the bloody battlefields of Outremer?

Sensing Eleanor’s dark mood, Amaria did not try to engage her mistress in their usual nightly conversation. As she moved unobtrusively about the chamber, there was a sudden rap on the door, startling both women. Eleanor came quickly to her feet as soon as she saw her sons standing in the doorway, a premonition of trouble prickling down her spine.

After assuring Amaria that she need not withdraw, Richard crossed the chamber to his mother, with John trailing a few feet behind. “It was not the news of the French queen’s death that brought Henri back to Nonancourt tonight, Maman; that could have waited till the morrow. Whilst he was at Dreux, another courier arrived, bearing papal letters for Philippe and for me. After talking with the messenger, Henri took the liberty of opening my letter to confirm what the man said. He thought it best to confide its contents to me in private first, ere announcing it in the great hall. The King of Sicily is dead.”

Eleanor sat down upon the bed, biting her lip to keep from crying out at the unfairness of the Almighty. Was it not enough that Joanna had been denied the child she so desperately wanted? Must she lose her husband, too, be widowed at the age of twenty-four? “My poor girl . . .”

“I could scarcely credit the news,” Richard confessed. Like his mother, he ached for Joanna’s pain. However little love there’d been between him and his brothers, he’d always cared for his sisters, especially Joanna, the youngest, the family favorite. But he did not have the luxury of responding merely as a brother, for William de Hauteville’s unexpected death could have dire consequences for the king. William had offered Sicily’s ports and riches and its formidable fleet to aid in the recovery of Jerusalem. Losing him as an ally was a setback of monumental proportions. And the silence surrounding his death held sinister implications of its own.

“When did he die, Richard?” At his answer, she stared at him incredulously. “November eighteenth? And we are only hearing of it now?”

“I know,” he said. “It makes no sense. If a courier can travel from England to Rome in one month’s time, why would it take four months for us to receive news of such magnitude?”

“Well . . . the roads south of Rome are dreadful, little better than goat tracks in places,” Eleanor said, the memories of her Italian sojourn still vivid despite the passage of forty years. “And they were even more deplorable in Sicily. But why was the letter sent by the Pope? Why have we not heard from Joanna?”

“I was wondering that myself. Henri had the wit to bring the courier back to Nonancourt, and from him I learned that this was the second papal messenger. The first one mysteriously vanished en route. The Pope was too wary to commit his suspicions into writing, but he entrusted his man with a verbal message, too. He suspects that the Germans may have intercepted his first courier.”

John had so far been a silent witness. During his childhood, he’d been either ignored or bullied by his brothers, and he’d never been one to forgive and forget. His two oldest sisters had been sent off to foreign lands when he was too young to remember them, but Joanna had been his companion and playmate and fellow pupil at Fontevrault Abbey, and he’d missed her very much after her departure for Sicily. John’s family feelings were ambivalent at best, but not where Joanna was concerned, and he was genuinely distressed on her behalf.

“Germans?” he interjected before he could think better of it. “You mean the Holy Roman Emperor? I thought Frederick set out for the Holy Land months ago.”

“He did, Johnny,” Richard said with uncharacteristic patience. “But his eldest son remained in Germany and William’s death would be of great interest to Heinrich, for his wife is the rightful heiress to the Sicilian crown. The Pope says that Heinrich and Constance learned that William was dead not long after Christmas. He thinks Heinrich may have wanted to delay word reaching England until he’d been able to secure his claim to Sicily. I’d like it not if Sicily fell into Heinrich’s hands, no more than the Pope would, and Heinrich well knows it. If Heinrich seizes the Sicilian throne, how likely is it that he’d honor William’s promises of supplies and the use of his ports and ships?”

Eleanor understood Richard’s concern about losing his Sicilian alliance, but at the moment, her own concern was for her daughter. “Even if Heinrich did waylay the missing papal courier,” she pointed out, “that still does not explain why there has been no word from Joanna. I do not like her silence, Richard, not at all.”

Richard hesitated, but he’d never lied to her and was not about to start now. “I do not like it, either, Maman.”

John was cursing himself for not having paid more attention to Italian and German matters and vowed to remedy that in the future, for he was learning that knowledge was power. As much as he disliked revealing his ignorance, especially to Eleanor and Richard, his anxiety for Joanna prevailed over pride.

“You think, then, that Heinrich would have led an army into Italy as soon as he learned of William’s death. How would he treat Joanna?” Adding quickly, “He would have no reason to look kindly upon one of our family,” for he did not want them to think he was uninformed about the hostility between the Angevins and the House of Hohenstaufen, a political rivalry that had become personal when Henry wed his daughter Tilda to the Emperor Frederick’s most recalcitrant vassal, the Duke of Saxony.

It was Eleanor who addressed his concern. “Heinrich’s wife was very close to Joanna ere her marriage. Although from what I’ve heard about Heinrich, I have trouble imagining him as an uxorious husband.”

That masterly understatement earned her a smile from Richard. “It is by no means certain that Heinrich will prevail. The Sicilians quite sensibly are balking at the prospect of a German master, and the Pope says that several of William’s lords are advancing claims of their own to his crown.”

A silence greeted this revelation, as they considered what that might mean for Joanna. John at last gave voice to what they were all thinking. “So Joanna could be caught up in the midst of a war.”

“Yes,” Eleanor said reluctantly, “that could well explain why we’ve not heard from her.” It was only natural that she should fear for her soldier son’s life in faroff Outremer, a land convulsed by war. But how could she have been expected to see danger for her daughter, ruling over a sunlit island paradise? It would seem that the Almighty possessed a perverse sense of humor.

CHAPTER 7

JUNE 1190

Chinon, Touraine

The Count of Perche’s son had escorted his young wife to Chinon Castle so that she might spend time with her grandmother and bid her uncle farewell before Richard departed for the Holy Land. Jaufre and Richenza reached Chinon in midmonth. Three days later, Richard arrived with a large entourage of barons, knights, and bishops, after a successful mission into his southern domains to punish the Lord of Chis, a lawless vassal who’d been robbing pilgrims on their way to the Spanish shrine at Santiago de Compostela.

The next morning Jaufre found the English king holding informal court in the great hall. The men seemed in high spirits, their laughter wafting toward him even as he crossed the threshold. Richard was engaging in a good-natured argument with a young man who looked vaguely familiar to Jaufre; as he drew closer, he recognized the king’s Welsh cousin, Morgan ap Ranulf. Edging inconspicuously into the circle of men, he murmured a discreet query to another of Richard’s cousins, the Poitevin lord, André de Chauvigny. Morgan was boasting of the prowess of Welsh archers, André replied, sounding as skeptical as Richard looked.

“So you are saying that the arrows penetrated an oaken door that was four fingers thick?” Richard shook his head, grinning. “Why do I doubt that, Morgan?”

“Because you’re not Welsh,” Morgan shot back cheekily. “If you doubt me, my liege, you need only consult some of your Marcher barons. Ask the Lord of Brecon, William de Braose, to tell you what happened to one of his knights in a skirmish with the Welsh. He was struck with an arrow that pierced his hauberk and thigh, pinning him to his saddle. And when he swung his stallion around, a second arrow impaled him on the other leg!”

That evoked another wave of incredulous laughter. “And the reason why Welsh arrows have such magical power? Are they blessed by Merlin?”

Morgan took the teasing in stride. “No, my lord king. Welsh archers have no need for Merlin’s blessings as long as they are shooting Welsh bows, which are more deadly than crossbows, God’s Truth.”

“And why is that, Cousin?” Richard asked, no longer joking, for few subjects interested him more than weaponry. “The crossbows are baneful enough for the Pope to ban their use against all but infidels. What makes your Welsh bows so dangerous?”

“Welsh bows are nigh on a foot longer than the bows known in England or France.”

Some of the other men continued to joke about the “magical Welsh bows.” Richard was not one of them. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “that makes sense. The greater the length of the stave, the greater the force of the bow. So they have more power than the crossbows. What other advantages, Morgan?”

“An archer can shoot four or five arrows in the time that it will take a crossbowman to reset his weapon to shoot again. But they do have one great disadvantage, my lord. It does not take much skill to learn to shoot a crossbow, nor does it take much strength. That is not so for the Welsh bow, which needs much time and effort to master it.”

“A pity,” Richard said, for he had neither the time to hire some of those elite Welsh archers nor to teach other men their lethal skill. He’d have to make do with his contingent of crossbowmen. His gaze happened to alight then upon Jaufre of Perche. “I hope you’ve brought my niece with you?” Getting a confirmation, he welcomed the younger man with an easy smile. “So . . . are you planning to sail with us to the Holy Land?”

Jaufre hesitated, wishing he could do so. It ought to have been acceptable, for Richard was his uncle by marriage, after all. He knew better, though, knew that the French king would have seen it as an act of disloyalty, and while Richard was his kinsman by marriage, Philippe was his liege lord. “King Philippe requested that I accompany him, my lord,” he said, relieved when Richard did not seem offended. He’d leaped at the chance to wed the English monarch’s niece and blessed his luck from the moment he first laid eyes upon his bride-to-be, but he’d not anticipated how challenging it would be to keep both kings contented. Eager to change the subject, he said quickly, “What happened with the Lord of Chis? I’d wager he soon repented his crimes, no?”

“I daresay he did,” Richard agreed, “up until the moment when I hanged him.”

Jaufre blinked, not sure if the English king were jesting or not, for lords were rarely if ever held to the same standard of justice as those of lesser birth. But as he met Richard’s eyes, he saw that Richenza’s uncle was serious—dead serious—and he wondered if Saladin knew the mettle of the foe he’d soon be facing. He wondered, too, if Philippe knew.

THERE WERE FEW DAYS more perfect than a summer afternoon in the Loire Valley, and after their noontime dinner, Richard had chosen to savor its pleasures out in the castle gardens. He’d ordered chairs to be fetched for Eleanor, Richenza, and the Countess of Aumale, but he and Jaufre made themselves comfortable on the grassy mead, tossing a wineskin back and forth. The women were more decorous and sipped from silver-gilt wine cups, so ornate that Richard joked he ought to sell them, for when it came to financing his campaign, every denier counted. He had been surprised to find the Countess of Aumale in his mother’s household, but he bore her no grudge now that Hawisa had yielded to his will and wed William de Forz, and to show that bygones were bygones, he favored her with a smile, saying, “I have some good news for you, my lady. I am naming your husband as one of my fleet commanders.”

“An honor, indeed,” Hawisa said, for such a response was expected of a wife, even one who fervently hoped that her new husband would never return from the Holy Land. She was too shrewd to continue fighting a battle already lost, though, and shared such heretical thoughts with no one. “My liege . . . I recently received a troubling letter from my steward at Skipton-in-Craven, regarding the unrest in Yorkshire since the slaughter of the Jews in the city of York. Men are concerned that violence will break out again once you have left for Outremer. Can you assure me that measures have been taken to keep the King’s Peace?”

Her bluntness raised a royal eyebrow, but did not kindle the royal temper, for Richard was in a good mood now that the time for his crusade was finally nigh. Reminding himself that this irksome female was also a great landholder and she therefore had a legitimate concern, he said, “You may rest easy, my lady countess. As soon as I got word of the York massacre, I dispatched my chancellor to England to restore order and punish the guilty. Bishop Longchamp led an armed force to York, where he discovered that the culprits had fled into Scotland. He took strong measures, though, to make sure such an outrage will never happen again in my domains, dismissing the Yorkshire sheriff and the castellan, imposing heavy fines, and taking one hundred hostages from the city.”

“I am gladdened to hear that, my lord.” Hawisa still feared for England’s peace in Richard’s absence, but she knew better than to raise these doubts with the king. She could only hope that Longchamp’s swift action would put the fear of God into Yorkshire’s lawless and masterless men.

Jaufre glanced uneasily toward his wife, for he knew she’d not heard of the York massacre and he preferred to keep it that way, believing that a pregnant woman needed to be sheltered from strong emotions. Moreover, he did not trust Richard to give Richenza a suitably censored account of the York atrocity, for no son of Eleanor of Aquitaine could fully understand the fragility of the female sex. And as he feared, Richenza was quick to ask, “What happened in York, Uncle? Was the Jewry attacked?”

“That was the least of it, lass.” Richard sat up, scowling. “There are times when I think most men have less brains than God gave to sheep. I thought we’d quenched the fires after the London rioting, but apparently some embers still smoldered.”

“When was there rioting in London?”

“On my coronation day. You did not hear of that?”

“On your coronation day,” Richenza reminded him with a smile, “Jaufre and I were being married in Rouen.”

“Ah, yes, so you were.” Richard returned her smile, but it soon faded as he called up memories of the ugly incident that had marred what should have been a sacred event, the day when he’d been consecrated with the holy chrism, crowned as England’s king and God’s Anointed. “In the past when campaigns were proclaimed against the Saracens, they often stirred up hatred against the Jews, the ‘infidels in our midst,’ as I’ve heard them called. I’d hoped to avoid any such outbursts by forbidding Jews to attend my coronation. But two affluent Jews, Benedict and Josce of York made the journey anyway. They came bearing gifts in hopes of winning royal favor. Instead they unwittingly caused a riot. A crowd had gathered outside the palace gates, and some of them fell upon the Jews, began to beat and curse them. Josce was able to escape, but Benedict was grievously wounded and then terrorized into accepting baptism. The mob was now drunk with blood lust and they surged back into London, where they attacked any Jews they found, killing at least thirty, and setting the Jewry afire.”

Richenza was frowning. “It is shameful when men commit murder in God’s Name. Scriptures say plainly that Jews are not to be killed, ordering us to ‘Slay them not,’ for it is ordained that they will one day come to salvation through Our Lord Christ and bring about the Second Coming. Were you able to punish the guilty ones, Uncle?”

“We arrested some, hanged three, but it is almost impossible to identify members of a mob. The Archbishop of Canterbury and I interviewed the Jew Benedict, who recanted his conversion. The archbishop was wroth with him for that, unable to understand why he’d rather be ‘the Devil’s man instead of God’s,’ but a baptism done at knifepoint surely cannot please the Almighty. My main concern was making sure this did not happen elsewhere, and I sent writs throughout the realm, commanding my subjects to leave the Jews in peace. And indeed they did . . . as long as I remained in England. But after I crossed over to Normandy in December, trouble was not long in breaking out again.”

“Was that when the York Jews were attacked?”

“No, it began in East Anglia, at Lynn and Norwich, and then spread like the pox to Stamford, St Edmundsbury, and Lincoln. Men who’d taken the cross were eager to fight infidels, and the Jews were closer at hand than the Saracens. Drunken mobs were soon pillaging the Jewish quarters in those towns, forcing the Jews to take refuge in the royal castles.”

The echoes of anger in Richard’s voice did not surprise his audience, for the rioters had dared to disobey his royal writ and to threaten the King’s Peace. No king could tolerate such lawless defiance, especially one about to depart on crusade. “Eventually, the madness reached York.” By now Richard was on his feet, heedlessly trampling daisies underfoot as he paced. “But there it was different. At York, the mob was urged on by men of rank, men who owed money to the Jews. First they set a fire to distract the Watch, then broke into Benedict’s house, killed his family, and stripped it bare. Most of the city’s Jews fled to the royal castle for safety, but the mob continued to roam the streets. They attacked the house of the other moneylender, Josce, beat any Jews they found, and forced them to accept baptism. York had become a place without law, a city in my realm!” Richard’s voice cracked like a whip, sending several nesting birds fluttering from trees up into the sky.

By now Jaufre was squirming, unable to think of a way to spare his wife a ghastly story sure to trouble her soft heart, for he knew most women hated to hear of the deaths of children, even if they were infidels. Unaware of his husband’s discomfort, Richenza was regarding Richard with a puzzled expression. “But if the York Jews took shelter in the castle, why were they not safe from the mob?”

“Because the castellan left the castle and whilst he was gone, the fools panicked and decided they could not trust him. So when he returned, they overpowered the garrison and refused to let him back in.”

Jaufre was trying to catch the other man’s eye in hopes of sending a mute message, but Richard never noticed. “That was the first mistake. The second was made by the idiot castellan, who then panicked in his turn and summoned the sheriff of the shire. He was the one who made the third, fatal mistake, deciding to assault the castle and drive the Jews out.” Richard paused, using an extremely vivid obscenity to describe the sheriff, but since he habitually swore in
lenga romana
, only Eleanor understood. “The drunken louts happily joined in, of course, and by the time the sheriff realized how grievously he’d erred and tried to call the attack off, it was too late. By then the mob was utterly in control, spurred on by a demented hermit who’d convinced them they were doing God’s Work. The Jews managed to defend themselves for two days, but when siege engines were brought out, they realized they were doomed.”

Richard paused again, reliving the rage he’d felt upon hearing of the massacre in York. “Rather than be butchered by the mob, the Jews chose to die by their own hands. Husbands slit the throats of their wives and children, Josce being the first to slay his family. The men were then slain by Josce and their rabbi, what they call their priests. I’ve been told nigh on a hundred and fifty Jews took refuge in the castle, and most of them chose to die. By morning—the eve of Palm Sunday, it was, too—there were only a score or so still alive.”