Enoch raised his brows to me: Did I remember this Langton from our years on the Petit Pont?
I remained silent, though I thought maybe I did.
“Thankee fer this information, Sir Guy,” Enoch said courteously. “Ich wish the pope weil, fer I like that this Langton taught law.”
Sir Guy lowered his voice. “I have a message from Lord Robert in Normandy. Lord Robert wants to find a noncombative solution to our problems, if possible—he knows your ideas. He thinks Stephen Langton might help us.”
Enoch stiffened. “’Tis nocht a religious problem.”
“Nevertheless, Lord Robert thinks Pope Innocent may be our only hope.”
“At quhat price? The barons canna pay! They nocht be King Philip!”
“They might if Cardinal Langton can find a legal way to restrain King John.”
Enoch studied the knight thoughtfully. “Be this Lord Eustace’s idea as weil?”
“So I was told.”
To depend on Eustace!
Sir Guy grew stern. “The cardinal will be traveling through northern England in a few weeks.”
“Close to Wanthwaite?” I asked, understanding for the first time the knight’s mission.
“Yes. He wants to meet your Brotherhood here.”
Enoch nodded curtly, though he had obvious reservations.
“I’ll ride back when I have the exact date.”
After the knight had left, Enoch sighed. “Ich doona lak dealin’ wi’ the Church. Even yif the pope and this Langton con help, quhat be their price?”
When I visited Dunsmere two days later, the church bells rang as always when villagers straggled to Mass. Was Father William ignorant about the interdict? Edwina said that burials, marriages, and christenings were also taking place as always. I suggested to Enoch that we have Leith baptized before word reached the priest.
Sir Guy returned on a sunny April day to tell us that Stephen Langton was now close by with a company of priests. He would be here soon; we should have our arguments ready. Yet May and June passed into July and still there was no sign of our visitor.
Then one lazy afternoon in early July I took Leith to the green to make clover chains. By now she could toddle, and she laughed more than she screamed. Bees buzzed around her clover, but she was not afraid, nor did they sting her.
Like Theo, she was a good baby insofar as she ate well, slept well, and didn’t sicken. Both seemed extensions of me, for our bodies curled around each other most naturally. Yet they’d had different fathers, and that showed as well. Theo had been a straight, imperious little boy—even when in the womb—and gave orders to all around him. Leith achieved her goals slantwise, by weeping or dimpling or cooing or turning her head upside down to seduce her victim. Both were intelligent; both had sanguine dispositions. To give Leith credit, however, she seemed faster to talk.
The greatest difference, of course, was that Theo was dead, Leith very alive.
“Redbird!” she now cried.
I followed her finger: yes, a redbird, a cardinal to be exact! I counted the men in the train behind him, for I would have to offer them hospitality: twelve priests, like the apostles, except that half of them wore small tight hats. And the one in front wore a patch over one eye.
Bonel! It was Bonel!
12
“Tak Leith to the labyrinth!” Enoch’s pike pricked my neck.
I pushed it away. “You’ve drawn blood!”
“Do ich ha’e to ask twice?” The pike dug deeper.
“It’s Cardinal Langton! Don’t you remember what Sir Guy told us?”
“Ich remember that yer parents war killed by routiers posing as priests!” He paused. “Ond sum o’ those men doona even luik lak priests.”
Though not in full armor, Enoch carried his pike and his quiver of arrows; he mounted his bay stallion. Behind him, his knights were lined at the privet hedge.
“I know it’s Cardinal Langton, Enoch! I recognize one of his followers!” Bonel was with Cardinal Langton, though probably not a follower. I suspected, by their long beards and twisted hair, that the other Jews were rabbis.
“Quhich one?”
“The one with an eye patch. Bonel, the Jew, you remember . . .”
“The Jew quhat stole ye, aye.” He lowered his pike. “To the labyrinth!”
The stable was already crowded with silent women and children. Leith cooed in excitement, whether at the labyrinth or my pounding heart I didn’t know. I’d never expected to see Bonel again. Memories flooded back: his body sheltering mine on the flats of Flanders, his black figure waving goodbye, Mistress Eglantine . . . No doubt Cardinal Langton’s men would soon convince Enoch of their credentials, but what were Bonel’s credentials? What was he doing here? Had he been responsible for setting the meeting at Wanthwaite? The labyrinth door groaned open.
“It’s all right! You can come out now!” Thorketil called.
Pushing Leith into Gruoth’s arms, I walked hastily to the courtyard, where the prelates stood by their horses, talking in Latin to one another, though I could see no Jews. Nor could I find Bonel.
In the center of the Great Hall, the cardinal, resplendent in his scarlet robes despite a hump on his shoulders, slaked his thirst, metheir after methier. I gave him only a cursory glance: medium height, saturnine, the smell of sanctity. Searching for Bonel among the priests (the rabbis were still gone), I sidled into the kitchen. Where was he? Did we have to greet in front of Enoch? Yet why not? What had either of us done to be ashamed of? Hadn’t he risked his very life to save Theo and me? Had he ever made demands? Yet why would he travel so far north to a small insignificant castle if not to see me? Why, for that matter, would he come to England at all? Though he’d said that his favorite port was Boulogne, he’d often forsworn our entire country because of York. Yet there was that kiss—not goodbye, he had said. Yet why shouldn’t he kiss me goodbye? Because he was a Jew? Jews and Christians are the same species, not dogs and cats. Yet most mysterious, what was his connection to the great Christian, Cardinal Langton?
I went back to the Great Hall to greet that cardinal, finally, myself. He paid absolutely no heed to my presence at all, as if I were a bothersome fly—yet even a fly deserves a slap. His deep voice rumbled with authority as he spoke of the meaning of faith over acts. According to Sir Guy, he was here because of Lord Robert and Lord Eustace, men I had good reason to distrust. Sir Guy claimed that this renowned legal expert, Langton, would help us find a noncombatant solution to our problems with King John. The knights sounded like Enoch, and a pox on the whole lot. Even with all the evidence and experience, they still didn’t understand John’s character. Might as well pass a law forbidding snakes to suck eggs. No wonder I doubted their judgment. Hadn’t they assured Enoch that the assassination would work? That he would escape with them to Normandy? That catastrophe had exposed Leith and me—what else?
Not for the first time, I pictured Leith being raped and tossed into our moat. I suppose I should be happy to have Stephen Langton’s help—if he could help.
Yet why the Jews? Why Bonel?
I pushed my way into the crowd of men in the Great Hall, where I took care that everyone was served. Bonel simply was not in the Great Hall, so I returned to the courtyard. Still no Bonel.
Edwina caught my sleeve. “Help me lay these mats in the chapel and schoolroom, would ye?”
The two of us worked quickly to transform the rooms into hospitality areas. Bonel found me there.
“Alix!” He stood in the doorway of my former schoolroom.
“Greeting, Bonel!”
He studied my person while I studied his. Handsome, exotic.
“I’d forgotten how beautiful you are.” He smiled. “Or perhaps I’ve never seen you completely happy before?”
“I was happy in Rouen,” I protested, “happier than I am here.”
His cheeks flushed.
Edwina looked at both of us and left.
“You’re tired,” I said hastily. “No, more than
tired, you’re worried.”
“True on both counts.”
“What brings you here, Bonel?”
“Ever the gracious hostess!” He laughed. “As you remember, I’m presbyter for the English Jews; the Jews of Bristol summoned me for help.”
“This isn’t Bristol. Why Wanthwaite?”
“Cardinal Langton is going with me to Bristol, and he was visiting the archbishop of York.”
I waved a dismissive hand.
He continued in a low voice. “To see you. Satisfied?”
The moment throbbed.
“I’m glad.”
Both of us spoke at once. He insisted that I continue.
“Tell me about Bristol. I haven’t seen you so upset since you told me about your escape from York.”
“A number of Jews in Bristol . . .”
Enoch burst into the schoolroom. He studied Bonel’s yarmulke, then his eye patch. “Be this the Jew quhat tuik ye to be concubine fer the king?”
“Yes,” Bonel admitted quickly.
“A Jewish pimpereau.”
“A what?”
“I doona knaw the Hebrew word; pimpereau be French fer summun quhat gaddirs women to service rich men fer a price. Quhat did King Richard pay ye?”
Bonel, though tall and muscular, was not armed, or one of them would surely have been dead. He glared at Enoch. “You’re a bastard, milord, utterly unworthy of the prize you have.”
“Ye want to buy her? I’ll sell her chape! I nade money.”
Bonel left abruptly for the Great Hall.
Enoch turned to me. “Ye ha’e a woodly effect on men, I’ll gi’e ye that.”
“And you have a woodly effect on women,” I said. “All of us get away from you as soon as we can—except your beloved Fiona!”
I ran after Bonel.
“Do ye intend to git away?” Enoch called after me.
Bonel took my arm just inside the Great Hall. “Where’s Theo? Is he as happy here as you are?”
“I pray that he is; he’s buried at Windsor.”
“Buried!” Bonel’s good eye filled. “Oh, Alix, I’m so sorry!” He pulled me to a corner. “Where and when can we talk alone? I have to know . . .”
“Tonight, just after the moon rises. I’ll meet you in the cheese house.”
“Which is where?”
“You passed it just after you crossed the moat. A small structure shaped like a tower.”
I walked rapidly into the kitchen. When I was composed, I carried more methiers of foaming ale to refresh the riders not yet served. Bonel was now conferring with a prelate in the corner; with difficulty, I turned my attention to the cardinal. I studied Stephen Langton, dazzling in his regalia, but it wasn’t his position that attracted me. I’d seen him before on the Petit Pont—belatedly, I remembered one afternoon at the back of his class—and knew him to be a dull pedant, albeit well informed. He certainly couldn’t compare to Master Malcolm, our special instructor from Scotland, a humane and original thinker. Be as it may, this man was our hope, not Master Malcolm. He carried his prestige as cardinal with supreme condescension, diminishing his followers to sycophants. His scarlet robes ballooned in a large aureal around his person; his gold headpiece above his long narrow face made him a holy icon, not his pronouncements, which were as trite as I remembered. Past middle age, he had weary eyes under heavy brows, which emanated authority; he was a close friend to the pope. Speaking in Latin, he patiently answered questions of the eager sycophants around him.
He must have heard about me and King Richard, for he carefully avoided looking at me. Then Edwina offered him ale and I changed my mind, for he ignored her as well. The cardinal despised all women!
It was too late in the day to even consider an official meeting with him, which was just as well, for (the cardinal informed us) a few barons in the area would join us tomorrow. Meantime, Enoch talked to him about the university in Paris in his Scottish brogue, which the cardinal courteously seemed not to understand.
I waited for the night.
The moon rose early. I edged sideways along the narrow shadow where Scots snored on the floor of the Great Hall. My skirt brushed Edward’s nose, bringing on a fit of sneezing, but he didn’t wake. Enoch was up in his room, Deo gratias. Once outside, I still crept close to the walls. Finally, I opened the door to the cheese house.
Into Bonel’s arms. We stood absolutely still, our hearts racing. I didn’t think, only felt; then I did think about what I felt, which was that I was no longer alone.
“Tell me about Theo,” he whispered.
I began with the shipwreck that had detoured my trip to Wanthwaite, instead of going to London . . .
“It’s my fault!” Bonel cried. “My fault entirely! If you knew how I prayed that you had picked up Theo before Lady Matilda was caught!”
“So you know!”
“Everyone knows.”
I reminded him of how stalwart Vikings were supposed to be, how my own shipmates had confirmed that the Drage was the best coastal ship afloat.
“But there was a storm, sleet—remember? Even for Vikings, it was a dangerous sea!”
“How do you know about Lady Matilda?” I changed the subject.
“She and her husband were important nobles in Normandy. The whole duchy talks of nothing else. And Theo, oh God, Theo.”
We fell quiet, remembering.
Then I resumed my sad recital.
“Enoch is married to someone else?” he interrupted.
“Yes. He followed me to London because I made the woodly excuse of Richard’s leaving me the Crown Jewels . . .”
“They went to Otto!”
“I know. I even quoted Maimonides.”
“Richard should have left you something.”
I told him of the London fire, Enoch’s insistence that he be included in my riches, Hereford, Bagnor Manor, the Cistercian abbey, the revelation about Arthur of Brittany.
I interrupted myself. “He was our snag on the Seine, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“A warning.”
“Oh God, surely that had nothing to do with Theo!” he cried. “And I couldn’t tell you . . . the fishermen were terrified.”
“So they knew?” And it had everything to do with Theo, because he was with Lady Matilda.
“It was pretty obvious. He still wore his Brittany tunic with royal markings and . . . he was black and blue around the face. Then Rouen filled with rumors—the king beat him to death in a drunken rage. Pretty hard to keep an event like that secret.”
“What about Queen Eleanor? Did she know?”
“I can’t be certain; she died soon after we saw her, you know.”
I didn’t know—I suspected.
“Obviously, Lady Matilda had learned about Arthur from her husband,” I said. “And despite her flight and caution, it brought her own demise. We’re in the grip of a madman, Bonel.”
“I can’t argue. Oh God, Theo! He never hurt anyone!”
We still stood with our arms around each other, and—despite our melancholy subject—our hearts continued to race. It was getting dangerous.
Bonel recognized it, too. “Is there someplace we can sit? This may be a long conversation.”
We found two cheese barrels.
We continued to discuss the de Braose tragedy, for both of us were thinking about Theo.
“At Runnymede, Enoch must have guessed, or perhaps even earlier. I became comatose and . . .” I fell silent. “It seems impossible that the queen would permit her own son to murder either Arthur or Theo.”
“I feel at fault.”
“You? Nonsense! Without you, I . . .”
“No! No! You don’t know my culpability. Someone informed on you, remember? I should have guessed!”
His anguished tone stopped my protest.
“Esther betrayed you, Alix.” His voice shook.
“Esther?” For one moment my mind was blank—who was Esther? Then I remembered: Bonel’s fiance. “Betra
yed me? When?” I started to add why and stopped myself.
“I’m not certain. I learned it from the priest who baptized Theo.”
“That long ago? Did the priest tell the king?”
“I’m afraid not. As a matter of fact, when the priest proved discreet, she went higher herself.”
“Did she go to King John?” My heart thumped.
“She may have; I have no direct proof except . . .”
“Except what?”
“The queen thought he’d been informed. That’s why she moved so quickly.”
I wondered if Queen Eleanor and Lady Matilda had exchanged information. Well, both were dead; I would never know.
“Why did Esther hate Theo?” I couldn’t hold back tears. “She hardly even saw him, to my knowledge. Did I do something?”
“For a perceptive woman, you’re obtuse at times, aren’t you? She was jealous, just plain jealous.”
“She was very beautiful.”
“Jealous because of my attentions to you. I should have guessed, though I doubt if it would have made any difference. I didn’t break with her, but I kept postponing our nuptials. She knew why.” He made a sound. “Everyone knew except you.”
“Oh Bonel, I knew.” I spoke haltingly. “I’m ashamed . . . I suppose I thought it wouldn’t hurt since I’m not Jewish.”
“You’re female, that was enough.”
“Enough for her to tell King John? To murder me? And Theo . . .” I shuddered. “I’m glad you didn’t marry her. Or—are you going to?”
“I’d kill her if I could find her.”
The irony hit me violently: ironic that I’d struggled to reach Bonel for safety, only to be betrayed by his closest friend; ironic that the queen had put Theo into the care of Lady Matilda de Braose, the only woman in all England the king was determined to destroy.
Fortune’s wheel. You can’t escape your fate.
I buried my face in Bonel’s shoulder. “Help me, please; I want to die before the king finds me. I can’t escape any more than Theo could, oh please . . .”
The Prince of Poison Page 18
