Since Staines was across the river from Runnymede, I couldn’t bear to attend this final phase of our charter; I would stay at Wanthwaite and guard Leith. Then Enoch convinced me that we would both be safer in Staines than in Wanthwaite, which was due for a sacking.
The bridge across the Thames at Staines was heavily manned. Royal guards in red protected the gate on the Windsor side; then one must pass a series of small towers along the riverfront, each with four knights, some in red, the same as the guards, some in black, meaning they were foreigners, according to Enoch. We stared at them from the market town, but only Langton dared ride past them, and even he was stopped twice.
Enoch put us in a church inn with other barons, and, as Bonel had done in Flanders, he placed me against the wall with Leith between him and me. Lice and spring fleas and rats gnawed at our mats; Enoch brought us a stray cat. Nothing could protect us from freshly oiled piles of armor, which fell on us twice.
During the day, I led Leith to a small grassy knoll above the river where she might play while I worked with a flat rock as my table. On the second day, Archbishop Langton found me there. “You were right, Lady Alix.”
I didn’ t like his tone. “About what, Your Eminence?”
“The king insists upon changes.”
I smiled as I took his list. This was an improvement over the former dismissal of the charter.
He walked away before I could ask if he’d heard from the pope—something we all wanted to know. If he had and the pope was negative, dare he go against Innocent III?
On reflection, I suspected that Langton was using the pope’s delay to mask John’s own decision against us. John didn’t want to grant any of our wishes, yet he wanted to appease the pope. If the pope backed us, John would have to comply; if not, it would give the king an easy excuse to condemn us. So long as he heard nothing, the king could dally.
I confessed my suspicions to Enoch when we took our usual stroll along the river. We glimpsed Windsor Castle in the distance.
“Why would the pope side with a madman? Why would Langton?”
“It doesna matter quhether the king be mad or sane,” said Enoch. “He be king.”
Which was true.
Yet I stared at the curve in the river; beyond that point lay Runnymede. And at that castle in the distance lay Theo. It seemed distant in time as well, and yet only yesterday.
When Langton took the final version of our charter to the king, he was gone four days. He came back, a drawn, trembling man: He had never seen the king truly angry before.
Other barons arrived; other chapters were added in a frenzy not to omit anything. We expanded to sixty demands. Langton sent to Canterbury for a larger leaf of vellum.
“This has far outgrown former charters. We’ll call it our Great Charter (Magna Carta).”
We didn’t get our next submission back at once; the king objected to chapter 16 (Nullus faciendum majus sercicium de deodo militus, nec de alio libero tenemento, quam inde velli); the king changed velli to debatur. A difference too subtle by far; was he simply stalling? Would he ever sign?
The king insisted we add a chapter at the beginning announcing the freedom of the English Church, and we saw the heavy hand of Langton, for John didn’t care a bean about the Church, except as it might help his cause. And had this truly been the king’s idea? I still didn’t know what “freedom” of the Church meant. That John and his progeny controlled the English Church instead of Rome? Or that Rome controlled it? Which was freedom?
We stopped at sixty-two chapters, all neatly numbered and as short as we could make them with clarity.
The king again turned them down.
We changed only one chapter, the one referring to fish weirs.
Then suddenly Enoch insisted on another chapter. “S’pose the king doesna do quhat he says? We mun ha’e sum way to enforce our charter.”
He was right; once John had signed our charter into law (if he did), the king had to conform to our demands! And Enoch had caught the weakness: The king might sign and yet refuse to obey; this was John.
A chapter was added giving the twenty-five barons who signed the right to enforce the law. I was amazed when the king didn’t object.
But he did amend chapter 1, about the freedom of the Church; we accepted his correction. The barons were elated that whatever his changes, he was accepting the principle of a charter!
Langton took another “final” document to Windsor with its corrections: The king now wanted to amend chapter 9, the one about widows being forced to remarry. We studied his objections and conceded his points where we thought they wouldn’t hurt.
He next attacked number 16 and I saw a pattern. He deliberately substituted vague terms where we had been exact: evil customs for illegal acts; the constant addition of ought instead of must; the vague use of freemen. Again I heard Richard’s voice: never underestimate his intelligence.
Yet intelligence is not the same thing as sanity; administrative skills are not the same as governance; editing is not the same as invention.
Nevertheless, the day came when King John accepted our Great Charter. He insisted that we relinquish our only copy, however, so that his scribes could copy it to conform to the king’s other royal papers. I stayed up all night making a second copy for us, in case the king lost his.
We waited while the scribes laboriously made their five copies. Now Langton perused King John’s official copy to be certain that nothing had been changed. Nothing had. We were ready.
No, one last request: All the barons who were to sign, as well as the king, were to read the final document carefully. And did they comprehend—for it was not explicitly stated—that this charter ended all hostilities between the king and his rebellious lords? For that was his sole reason for signing: to promote peace in his beloved realm. In short, he regarded it as a peace treaty.
We understood.
The date was set for June 15.
The day before June 15, six knights plunged into the Thames to take their yearly baths. Others spashed their faces, their armpits, their parts, and trimmed each others’ beards; all polished their armor. Few barons did likewise, for they were discussing the charter to the last moment. Finally, we formed a line to cross the bridge; Leith and I rode in the middle beside Enoch, who had argued persuasively that I deserved to witness the great occasion since I’d labored so faithfully. And since he truly believed that this was a momentous event in history, the most important in Leith’s lifetime, he insisted that she go, too. He promised to keep both of us out of sight.
I was very aware that I was riding with a small army, the very first time since I’d gone on the Crusade. Lord Robert fitzWalter led us, followed by the twenty-four other barons who’d agreed to sign in the presence of the king. We’d had as many as forty barons at first; many had dropped out from fear. Or they’d been bribed. I’d given Leith a honey teat with just a trace of the mandrake; she might see the ceremony, but I didn’t want her to draw the king’s attention our way.
Many natives rowed small skiffs on the Thames beside us; the sky was clear, the air balmy but not hot. New green leaves and grass dazzled the eye in every direction. Even burly, fully armed knights seemed small boys playing at war. Yet when we were forced to ride single file on the far side of the bridge—the king’s side—my heart thumped like a kettle. We had finally entered the devil’s domain; knights stationed at the small towers, foreigners all, stood with drawn swords. Peace might have been declared, but no one had told these swine.
Runnymede was poignantly familiar in early morning sunlight. Beams shot low through giant oaks; white-barked poplars trembled in an elusive breeze. Tables and benches were placed on a level grassy area on the Windsor side of the pond. Theo, Theo, I thought, as if his death had just occurred; I felt his presence here. Enoch led Leith and me up a small rise, where he placed us behind a clump of gooseberry bushes, allowing both cover and the ability to see. Leith was now asleep. Enoch rode back to the barons. Enoch had refused to s
ign the charter with the barons because he might be Scottish by law, but he stood in the center of their group.
This is the end for me, I thought. The only person whose life will change completely. I continued to muse: No, King John’s will. Then I looked at my sleeping little girl. And Leith’s. How ironic that I would lose both my children at Runnymede.
The faint bleat of wooden horns sounded in the distance. Six huge black stallions rode into view, accompanied by a host of knights guarding the prelates who rode with them; fourteen scribes followed, carrying five copies of our charter wrapped in scarlet silk, held high above their heads. When they were dismounted, a second fanfare announced Archbishop Langton in full Canterbury regalia; he was followed by a host of papal dignitaries, including two cardinals in the familiar red tunics. Once he was dismounted, Langton instantly conferred with the first group.
Finally, the horns blasted an unmistakable royal fanfare. My heart stopped. An army of white stallions mounted by knights in red paced slowly over the hill and down to the benches. And finally, at last, there was the king himself. Like the cardinals, he wore a full-length scarlet tunic. I crouched lower, my heart now a hammer. How odd, a lady rode pillion behind him, her arms clutched about his waist. Was it his daughter, Joanna? His queen? She turned a ghastly smile—the peasant girl in red! Odder still, both the girl and the king were covered with white worms! I moaned softly. The girl disappeared and the worms—real small creatures close by—devoured the gooseberries. The king’s scarlet cape trailed on the ground behind him. The cape was heavily embroidered with hounds tearing apart their prey. John’s head was burdened with a heavy helmet that might be real gold. He projected cold rage.
I’d never seen him truly angry before, not even in Fontevrault, where he’d played the vicious clown. Today he bristled with vitriol. The barons caught it, too—their fright was palpable. For the first time, I thought that Langton might be right about preferring the pope: This was the prince of darkness. He looked neither right nor left, spoke to no one.
Two knights helped him dismount; he took his place behind the table. His hands, heavily ringed, lay flat before him as a priest read our charter in sonorous tones.
The reading devoured most of the morning, during which the king moved not at all. Two legates then unrolled the five copies and two other legates affixed the Royal Seal to each one. A golden container of ink was placed before the king; he signed his name five times, after which twenty-five barons did the same. When the king rose, the barons came forward for the kiss of peace. John, still silent, stared at each one from his jewel-blue eyes; I thought he wouldn’t kiss Robert fitzWalter, but he did. Then, in a blaze of noon sun, all the royal parties turned to Windsor whence they’d come, this time the king first. I watched, fascinated in spite of myself; at least the girl in red had truly disappeared.
The king paused. For one terrible heartbeat, he gazed directly at my gooseberry bush. Our eyes met; he didn’t smile. In an instant, he rode on.
The barons began to talk to one another in a general melee of glee. Yet Lord Robert and Enoch remained somber. How could they be mirthful? After so many murderous years under this king? Who believed King John? How many felt, as I did, that he’d been memorizing their faces and names?
And he’d seen me.
16
The signing of Magna Carta signified that at last Enoch and I could resolve our marital difficulties. Therefore, I was surprised when he suggested that we show Leith London while we were so close.
“What a bonny idea, except . . .” Leith put her finger in my mouth.
“Ye doona want to?”
“Of course I do!” So we would discuss our annulment later. And I had my own reasons for visiting London.
“Quhat be ye up to, Alix?”
“Are you afraid I’ll still find the Crown Jewels?” I meant it as a jape, but I had to turn away. Theo, oh, Theo.
“Ye have ulterior motive.”
He was perceptive; I must be careful. Yet why shouldn’t he know?
Still, soothly Leith might never have such an opportunity again, certainly not with both of her parents.
“Luik ye, Leith, that be the biggest city in all the world!” Enoch pointed proudly over London’s city wall.
“No, Paris is,” I said.
“In France, maybe, boot I speak of England.”
“You said the world. Paris has at least a hundred thousand people, London only about thirty-five thousand.”
“Mun ye always be contrary?”
Leith pointed at the Thames. “River!”
“She knaws the Thames!” Enoch cried. “Be she nocht list?”
While his eyes glowed in pride and she flashed dimples, my heart broke. To lose my parents, Maisry, my friend Roderick, King Richard, my own Theo, even Bonel, though he still lived, now Enoch and Leith—would the list never end?
We went through Aldgate—the first time I hadn’t been frightened to enter London. Yet something terrible was amiss—at this late date, was I experiencing my mother’s second sight? I felt I was walking into a trap, John’s trap. He’d seen me at Runnymede, I knew he had. And on Dere Street during the assassination attempt. My fear grew. I was becoming tinty with fear, for if he’d seen me at the assassination attempt, wouldn’t he have acted? Yet I trembled; the uncanny trumps logic every time.
Enoch booked the same room we’d shared long ago when we’d first met, the room he’d shared with the Scots when we’d sought jewels; I, again, claimed the annex as my own. He seemed puzzled—the crawlspace to the annex was more suitable for Leith than for me.
“Leith would be frightened without you.” At that moment she gripped his lower lip and he forgot me.
The following morning, he called through the tunnel: Would I please hurry, he wanted to take Leith to see St. Paul’s Cathedral while the morning was cool. I called back that I had the flux; he should take her alone.
“Aye, sae do I!” he called back. “Too muckle celebration o’ our charter! Cum, we’ll splatter togeddir!”
“You go! My stomach is cold!”
“Ich doona belave ye, Alix!”
He started through the tunnel.
“You’ll be sorry if you come here!”
He backed out.
In a few heartbeats, I heard Leith’s voice outside.
I donned a plain brown smock, tied my head with the same material, and examined my saddlebag to be sure I had Bonel’s letter. No one saw me depart.
Turning away from the Thames, I followed a winding lane toward the rising sun, East London. The day waxed hot—sweat poured into my eyes, yet even at this hour my narrow path thronged with people. Many sidled sideways, all pushed, and I did the same. Then the arches above that joined houses cast black shadows, which helped at first, then became dark alleys; I concentrated on puddles of slime and avoided the ubiquitous hogs, for to slip was to become instant pig mash, but even upright I had to avoid packs of bone-thin snarling yellow dogs. Once I climbed up a pedestal with its statue long gone while hungry hounds attacked a baby pig. Continuing, I stepped over two dead humans, too noisome even for the dogs. Yet their faces were eaten away—like Theo’s. One old sow was finishing off an entire corpse.
The bell at St. Paul’s clinked—were Enoch and Leith in the vestuary?
I took out Bonel’s letter: “Jewelry Lane.” None of the black corridors branching left and right was marked. When my path ceased at a grimy wall, I turned around. Now moving slowly, I found smudges at eye level; one read “Jewry Lane.”
Did “Jewry” mean jewelry or Jews? A toothless hag shoved me with her basket; when I asked her, she said, “Both.”
Sidling sideways, I studied one locked wooden door after another; many had smeared names, one marked “Y. Berengarius.”
Y for Yossi? I knocked.
A peephole opened at once.
“Que voulez-vous?”
“Bonel!”
The peephole closed.
It opened again. “Vous tes une amie d
e M. Bonel?”
“Oui!”
The door opened; I stepped inside.
“Vous n’tes pas Juive!”
M. Berengarius definitely was Jewish with his telltale yarmulke. The room, though cramped, was spotless. Somewhere above, a chicken was boiling. I thrust Bonel’s letter into Yossi’s hand, then told him rapidly in French that Bonel had collected me as a hostage when King Richard was captured in Austria.
“So you’re English?” asked M. Berengarius.
I was. Then, skipping my amorous history, I said that Bonel had protected me for more than a year in the Rouen Commune, where I’d learned the art of gemstone cutting, and told him how he’d finally sent me back to England.
“Hostage? You must be noble.”
“A baroness,” I conceded.
“Aren’t you rich?”
“Things changed while I was away,” I said vaguely. “I need employment.”
“According to this letter, Bonel wants me to hire you.”
“Aye, Bonel said that you have a shop for cutting and design.”
He touched my cheek. “What is such a beautiful lady doing in trade?”
“I don’t plan to sell—Bonel said you did that.”
“Cutting gems is dirty work, sometimes dangerous.”
“I’m not afraid, M. Berengarius. Bonel knew that—he quoted Maimonides.”
“Wait here.”
He retired through a door behind him. Outside, someone fell heavily. The small Jew returned with an even smaller woman garbed in the familiar blue. She was Rebecca, his wife. Would I repeat to her how I knew Bonel?
When I described his experiences in York, her hand reached for mine.
The Jewish couple again retired through the back door, and this time they were gone so long that I despaired.
The Prince of Poison Page 24
