The Lion and the Leopard

by Mary Ellen Johnson

  Unbidden, Richard reached up to touch the eyes, mouth, face of Jesus Christ—and the next moment, fainted into Father Francis's arms.

  * * *

  Richard found himself in the middle of a huge circular praetorian. A dark-haired man clothed in purple and holding a reed in his hand stood before him. A caplet of thorns rested atop his bowed head. The thorns were inches long and obviously needle sharp for blood trickled from where the points pierced the man's scalp.

  A group of Roman soldiers swarmed around the prisoner—laughing, genuflecting, taunting him. One said, "Praise to you, O mighty King" and struck him across the bridge of his nose.

  Richard asked a burly centurion, "Who is he?"

  "The Christus. The fool calls himself King of the Jews."

  "King of the Jews, is he?" The title enraged Richard. "He looks little enough like king to me." Stepping forward, he jerked the reed from Jesus' hand and whipped it across his eyes. "Hail, Almighty King!"

  The Christ's face was bruised and bleeding. His nose was swollen; his right eyelid torn; the left side of his cheek and chin twice the size of his right. Blood from the spiked crown slid down his face and into his sweat-drenched hair. The sight of that broken visage aroused in Richard an unreasoning rage.

  Stepping forward, the burly Roman ripped off the prisoner's purple cloak.

  Naked, Jesus stood before them. Judging from his powerful build, this king had not lounged in lavish palaces surrounded by servants who did his every bidding. Here was a man of the earth, a common man—how dare he presume himself to be king of anything?

  A second centurion came forward, bearing a flagrum that he wielded with sadistic relish, manipulating it so that with a simple twisting motion the metal-tipped thongs curled around both Jesus' front and back. Like magic, large flecks of blood appeared. Jesus gasped.

  The ritual was repeated until his backside was peppered in a hundred different places. Jesus' lone outward reaction was an involuntarily hunch of the shoulders or a spasmodic jerk away from the source of pain.

  Such meek acceptance maddened Richard.

  "Give me the flagrum! I'll show this king what royal blood looks like!"

  Iron balls caressed Jesus' flesh, licked across his chest, tearing the skin, danced about his muscular biceps, along his buttocks and thighs and hissed about his ankles like a snake. A black anger surged through Richard. He wanted to beat Christ until his flesh hung in ribbons and he begged for mercy.

  Only the interference of the burly centurion stayed Richard's hand. "We're not to finish him yet. Save some fun for the people."

  * * *

  Richard stood in the forefront of a large crowd, all of whom were gazing expectantly down a narrow winding street. A circle of centurions moved toward them, pushing, shoving, calling, "Make way!"

  Richard glimpsed an exhausted Jesus staggering neath the weight of a thick wooden crossbeam to which his arms had been tied. People yelled and cursed and shook their fists. Some spit in Jesus' face; others struck him with stones.

  "Bastard!" they screamed. "Liar!"

  "Blasphemer!"

  Richard's voice numbered among the loudest.

  The centurions used their shields and the flats of their swords to keep back the press. Slipping past, a merchant ran up to Jesus and thumped a wooden cane down upon his head, driving the thorns more deeply into his skull. A hacking sob escaped Jesus' lips. He shuddered and appeared to swoon. As he half lay, half knelt on the filthy paving stones, the crowd stilled.

  His raw back, his head wounds swarmed with fat black flies.

  "Is he dead?" the merchant asked. Others shifted position, suddenly uneasy. A low growl of thunder echoed in the distance. Across the sky ugly clouds began to block the eerie, orange-colored sun. Streaks of red smeared the horizon. For the first time Richard noticed that his under shirt was drenched with sweat.

  "Look, he's moving!"

  Slowly, Jesus raised his head to face the crowd. Among the blood and sweat and dirt that smeared his grotesquely disfigured face, Richard saw tears.

  Thunder rumbled and rolled, closer now. A sudden flash of lightning illuminated the scene, seeming to freeze them all together in this moment of time. Then the rabble erupted, screaming, clawing and clutching, trying to rip Jesus to pieces. The Romans beat them back and urged the prisoner on with a frantic cursing.

  "Crucify him!" the people screamed.

  They approached Golgotha's summit. Jesus stumbled again. Drawing his sword Richard ran forward and using its flat, beat the soles of his feet.

  "Cry, Bastard!" he screamed in Christ's ear. "Who will save you now?"

  A centurion grabbed his arm. "That's enough. If you kill him off now, you'll spoil the crowd's pleasure."

  Jesus looked as if he might not even reach the summit. His breath came in shallow gasps; his entire body shook with fatigue.

  "He needs help," said the burly Roman who'd been involved in the earlier flogging. "Help him, Richard. Help him carry his cross."

  "I'd sooner carry the devil's own pitchfork." With a parting kick to Jesus' ribcage, Richard returned to the crowd.

  * * *

  "Come along, O Mighty King. Your throne awaits."

  Two soldiers jerked Jesus to the ground and stretched him taut across the wooden beam. Grabbing a hammer, Richard pounded a thick pointed spike into the soft spot in Christ's left wrist. And then into the right. Blood spurted everywhere, even onto his face.

  "No man can lose so much blood," he taunted Jesus. "Maybe you are God. Maybe you can manufacture your own blood!"

  With rude, irregular jerks, the Romans drew Christ up the waiting pole. Slapping Jesus' left foot over his right, Richard plunged a long spike into the flesh, which easily gave way for no bones marred the way.

  A great shudder ran through Christ. He was crucified now, his cross brutally silhouetted against the stormy sky. Where the sun had previously been lingered a sinister glow. Lightning jumped and skidded toward earth. The crowd swarmed like angry bees around Jesus, who seemed oblivious to all save his private torment.

  A cold wind sprang up. Lightning cracked and flashed; deep rolls of thunder erupted from the bowels of the earth, causing it to shake.

  "My God, my God," Jesus suddenly cried out. "Why have you forsaken me?" He collapsed. His head drooped forward. No breath stirred his lungs.

  A centurion shouted, "He's dead."

  The words infuriated Richard. Grabbing a spear from a nearby soldier he ran to the cross. As he raised the weapon to Christ's side, Jesus opened his eyes and looked him full in the face.

  Richard froze. He felt his heart race from his body, felt something cold and dead within spring to life. Never had he seen such eyes—eyes that held, not pain now but love and compassion beyond all human comprehension. Jesus looked down and seemed to smile. Through cracked and swollen lips he whispered Richard's name.

  Richard stepped closer. "What is it, Lord? What would you tell me?"

  Spasms shook Christ's body. Blood ran from his nose, the corner of his mouth.

  "I die for you, Richard." Jesus whispered. "I die for you."

  Chapter 34

  Westminster Palace

  Roger Mortimer stalked into the painted chamber at the Palace of Westminster. Queen Isabella was seated in a window seat, around which had been executed large, boldly colored figures of the Virtues. Her two daughters snuggled against her, listening to her recite the ballad of "The Clerk and the Mermaid."

  "Madam, I have unpleasant news," Mortimer bellowed. The chamber door slammed against the wall with the force of his entrance. The sound cracked like a whip along the cavernous ceiling causing the queen's ladies to scurry for any available exit. No longer did Mortimer maintain even the most perfunctory facade concerning his personal relationship with Isabella—whether in happy times or sour.

  Joan and Eleanor's nurses grabbed their charges and scooted the girls toward a door.

  "What is it? What has happened?"

  "Your husband has esca
ped from Berkeley Castle!"

  "What?" Isabella hands automatically pressed against her heart. "'Tis impossible. We had him moved there because Henry Leicester feared just this sort of occurrence at Kenilworth. You told me Berkeley would be safer."

  "Safer than what?" Like a panther scenting new blood, Mortimer paced the long narrow room. "Fools everywhere scheme for the idiot's release. We could not take him north because even God would not dare trust the northern lords to properly watch him, and that damnable earl of Mar is seeking a Scottish rescue. You yourself said we could not risk London's Tower. The mob would either tear the whoreson to pieces or re-crown him king."

  Isabella struggled to maintain her temper. She did not dare chastise Mortimer, especially when in such a brutal mood, but she misliked his ugliness concerning her husband. Though the queen loved Roger beyond the bounds of reason, she sometimes missed Edward's less volatile nature. At least she had never had cause to fear her husband's temper.

  "I realize that since the deposition there's been a certain shift in public opinion, but is that not to be expected? Our people still love me and my son." She could not add her lover to the equation.

  "I care not a whit for whom they love or their opinion, public or private. I only care that your milksop of a husband has escaped." He shook his fist at an imaginary foe. "When I find those responsible I will string them all up."

  "What are you doing to find him?"

  "My men are scouring Gloucestershire. They'll not get far." Mortimer planted his feet in a truculent stance. "Your husband is getting to be a tiresome waste of time." When Roger was angry he always referred to Edward as her husband. "We are going to have to seek a more permanent manner of dealing with him."

  Spinning on his heel he left the room.

  Rising from her seat, Isabella moved absently about the chamber, finally coming to rest beside the bed that dominated the room. Henry III had commissioned his artists to paint the coronation of Edward the Confessor. Isabella had often lain in the Painted Chamber with her husband. As Edward slept beside her, she had silently bemoaned her lot, and despairing of sleep, counted the surrounding sea of faces dancing like demons in the flickering rush lights.

  'Tis strange, she thought, sinking down upon the counterpane. I still count the faces.

  Staring blindly into the distance, Isabella fiddled with a row of gold buttons upon her sleeve. She knew, for the sake of her son's reign and her and Mortimer's power, that Edward must be recaptured. Since the deposition, six months past, enemy voices had become increasingly strident. Some even dared maintain that her son's entire reign was illegal. Her husband had been deposed by a Parliament that was invalid, troublemakers declared, because it had been held apart from the presence and authority of the king, who had refused to travel to London.

  Without young king Edward's presence, Parliament had no authority to meet, let alone depose a reigning monarch. Nor was there any known law by which a king could be tried and disposed. "God alone can punish a king," some of the braver clerics had declared.

  When she'd questioned Mortimer he'd merely waved the debate aside. "The voice of people is the voice of God—in this matter at least."

  Isabella did not dare question him further. Mortimer hated her to nag or appear weak and uncertain so she often affected a coldness she did not feel. Only once, since their return to England, had he even seen her weep. When Parliament had met to officially depose Edward, terrible things had been said about him. Outside the mob had clamored for his deposition—even his death—and inside prelates and peers had cried "Let it be done!"

  Isabella had openly cried when Prince Edward had refused to take the crown unless his father willingly abdicated. Mortimer had mistaken her tears for frustration over her son's intransigence, but she had cried because of the hatred ruling Parliament—and all of it directed toward her helpless husband, who must step aside, in unnatural fashion, and allow his son to sit on a throne that should rightfully remain his until death. Isabella's hatred had evaporated with Nephew Hugh's execution. She had none left to nurture.

  Tears slipped along the bridge of her nose, dropping onto her full pleated skirt. Bishop Orleton, one of Edward's chief antagonists, had been among those who had traveled to Kenilworth to inform the king of Parliament's wishes. When she could not sleep, Isabella replayed that scene in her mind as clearly as if she'd personally witnessed it.

  Bishop Orleton, he who had preached many seditious sermons and helped engineer the Despensers' downfall, had reported it all to her and Mortimer in loving detail. Isabella's outward indifference had nearly cracked when Orleton had described how, after listening to a list of the crimes for which he faced abdication, Edward had fainted—only to be cruelly propped up by Henry of Leicester and the Bishop of Winchester.

  After Orleton had finished with his diatribe Edward had said, "I am in your hands. You must do what seems right."

  Then William Trussell, who had condemned both the Despensers, had broken fealty with Edward for all his subjects.

  "I account you as a private person, without any manner of royal dignity." The white staff of office had been broken—as it was customarily done upon the death or deposition of a royal master.

  "I am aware that for my many sins I am thus punished," said Edward. "Have compassion on me."

  When Orleton had related this to Mortimer, both men had laughed. Roger had mimicked Edward's words and Isabella had longed to flee the room.

  Edward Caernarvon had ended his humiliation by saying, "Much as I grieve at having incurred the ill will of the people, I am glad they have chosen my oldest son to be their king."

  In defeat her husband had shown himself surprisingly dignified and gracious. Defeat showed well a man's character—as did victory. She thought of Mortimer's actions since his ascendancy. Criticism of him was becoming increasingly commonplace. Some even dared say he was proving as greedy as the Despensers.

  "'Tis not so," she whispered.

  But Mortimer had indeed showered himself with lands, honors, wardships, titles, and offices—yet his ambition remained unsated. On the day of Edward III's coronation four of the baron's sons had also been knighted, and among other acts, Mortimer had confiscated land once belonging to the dead favorites.

  Isabella's son was not proving himself always so easily manipulated, however, and she sometimes sensed behind the polite facade his dislike of Mortimer. She also sensed that Edward III possessed more of his grandfather's strengths than his father's weaknesses.

  The queen's thoughts had come full circle, back to her husband. "You are no match for Mortimer," she whispered. "Enjoy your freedom, my husband, for it will be brief."

  * * *

  In August, 1327, Maria Rendell heard wondrous news. Richard of Sussex had ridden to Berkeley Castle, where the deposed king was incarcerated, and turned himself over to the keeper there. Maria had never allowed herself to believe in the possibility of her lover's death and constantly supplicated a God who, she was certain, had turned away His face.

  The news was the one happy occurrence in nine difficult months. Driven by guilt, Maria had tried to make up to her children for the months of separation. Tom was continuing his apprenticeship at Deerhurst, but Phillip had sent him home at Eastertime, and Blanche she saw daily. It was never enough—not the stories she told her daughter, the walks they took in the cherry orchard, the hawking parties upon which she accompanied Tom, or the pair of staghounds she'd given him. She had abandoned Blanche, and at the very least, humiliated Tom. Always she sensed their unspoken accusations, as well as the disapproval of everyone with whom she came in contact. She had failed as both mother and wife, and she didn't know how to remedy her acts.

  'Twould be so much easier if I could make my heart love neither Phillip nor Richard. Then I would not care that my husband will not see me, or that my lord might momentarily suffer a traitor's death.

  But even though her insides sometimes felt hollow as a dried-out gourd, she could not long detach her emotions.
>
  When she wasn't tormented by worries about Richard's safety, she yearned for Phillip, for some sort of stable home life. Though Phillip had not started annulment proceedings, neither had he contacted her, save concerning her son or to send for Blanche. Maria longed to somehow re-fit the shattered pieces of her life, but had no idea how even to begin nor how to reconcile her love of Richard with her need for her husband and children.

  I will lose them both, Phillip through divorce and Richard through death. I will end up alone, and 'twill be what I deserve.

  Chapter 35

  Berkeley Castle

  Berkeley Castle, which had been owned by the Berkeley family since the 11th century, nestled amidst a woods in the southern part of Gloucestershire. From its turrets Bristol Channel could be viewed and the hazy waters of the River Severn. The castle's proximity to the channel made rescue attempts by water a constant threat. As fall approached, rumors abounded that yet another plan was being hatched to free Edward Caernarvon and his half-brother. Roger Mortimer sent out spies to ascertain the truth behind the rumors. Increasingly he cursed his royal prisoners, who, even while in captivity and stripped of their power, plagued him.

  The Templar monastery, where Christ's shroud was kept, was also located in Gloucestershire. As Richard had contemplated his return to the outside world, he'd known his continued presence constituted a threat. The monastery was not so secluded that it could not be found. What if the shroud fell into Mortimer's hands? That possibility, plus Richard's desire to tie up the loose ends of his life, had caused him to surrender himself at Berkeley Castle.

  Richard's quarters were small and none too clean, but he counted himself content. Meditation and prayer took up much of his time and while his warden, Thomas Berkeley, was married to Mortimer's daughter, he was nevertheless kind.