Here Be Dragons

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “Philip claims to have a letter that proves your complicity in this intrigue, a letter in your own hand.”

  “Oh, for the love of Christ! What better proof of my innocence could you ask for than that? If I were involved in some scheme to betray Richard, do you truly think I’d ever be so stupid as to incriminate myself in writing? Are you sure Philip does not have a convenient confession, too, that I somehow happened to sign and leave in his safekeeping?”

  Eleanor felt the first flickers of doubt. “Your denial has the ring of truth to it,” she said slowly. “But then your denials always do, John.”

  “If you and Richard believe this lunatic accusation, it can only be because you want to believe it, Madame. You yourself said it; five full years I’ve devoted to regaining Richard’s goodwill. Think you that I’ve enjoyed being at his beck and call, being subject to his erratic tempers, his every whim? Or that I’d gamble those five years on something so worthless as Philip’s word? Jesus God, Mother! What would I gain by intriguing with Philip? We both know he has no hope of ever defeating Richard on the field.”

  He was as angry as Eleanor had ever seen him, too angry for either artifice or discretion. His was not a defense calculated to endear, and would have found little favor with Richard. But there was an ice-blooded, unsparing honesty to it that was, to Eleanor, more persuasive than any indignant avowals of good faith. It was the very amorality of John’s argument that carried so much conviction. “You’re saying, then, that Philip was merely seeking to stir up trouble between you and Richard?”

  “And succeeding, from the sound of it. Know you where Richard is now? Will I find him still at Castle Gaillard?”

  Eleanor no longer doubted. There could be no better indication of John’s innocence than this, that he would willingly seek Richard out. When he was in the wrong, the last thing he ever wanted was to face his accusers, to confront those he’d betrayed.

  Eleanor’s relief was inexpressible. Her easy acceptance of John’s guilt had been prompted as much by fear as by her son’s dismal record of broken faith and betrayals, the fear that she had misjudged him, after all, that he was not the pragmatist she’d thought him to be. Had he indeed been intriguing with Philip, that would mean to Eleanor that his judgment was fatally and unforgivably flawed, flawed enough to taint any claim he might have had to the crown. That was a conclusion she shrank from, for it would signify the end of all her hopes for an Angevin dynasty, and that was the dream which had somehow sustained her even when she’d had nothing else to hold on to.

  She sat down abruptly in a cushioned chair. “Thank God,” she said simply, with enough feeling to soothe John’s sense of injury.

  “But of course I do accept your apologies, Mother,” he said, very dryly. Righteous indignation was not an emotion indigenous to his temperamental terrain; he had too much irony in his makeup to be able to cultivate moral outrage, and now that he no longer feared being called to account for a sin that truly was not his, he was beginning to see the perverse humor in his predicament. “‘Be not righteous overmuch,’” he quoted, and grinned. “But how can I help it? After all, how often have I been able to expose my conscience to your exacting eye…and lived to tell the tale?”

  Eleanor could not help herself, had to smile, too. “By what strange alchemy do you manage to make your vices sound so much like virtues?” She shook her head, gestured toward the table. “Fetch me pen and parchment. Better that I be the one to assure Richard of your innocence.”

  The ancient river port of Rennes was the capital of Brittany. It was, as well, the favorite residence of Arthur, the young Duke who bore the name of a fabled Celtic King and never doubted that one day he, too, would be a King.

  The April wind had suddenly shifted and servants were hastening to shutter the windows on the leeward side of the great hall. A juggler was making a manful attempt to entertain, but only Arthur was finding his antics amusing; the adults were far more interested in speculating upon the provocative presence of the man seated at Arthur’s right. John had arrived in Rennes at dusk the preceding day, bearing lavish gifts for his “dear nephew” and “sweet sister-by-marriage.” While all agreed that he must have an ulterior motive in mind, none could agree upon what it was, and after twenty-four hours of unbridled conjecture, rumors were rampant, the Breton court was in turmoil, and John was enjoying himself immensely.

  Growing bored now with the amateurish efforts of Arthur’s juggler, John appropriated a ruby ring from the prettiest of the women. Showing off the sleight of hand that never failed to delight his daughter, Joanna, he soon had an appreciative audience, and when he at last pretended to find the ring in the girl’s bodice, she blushed midst all the laughter, but then slanted him a long-lashed look of unmistakable invitation.

  “I want to learn how to do that trick, would have you teach me.” After a nudge from his mother, Arthur grudgingly added, “If you will, Uncle.”

  “It would give me great pleasure to lesson you, lad,” John said pleasantly. “On the morrow, shall we say?” Knowing that Arthur was a typical twelve-year-old in that what he wanted, he wanted at once.

  Arthur was not that much older than John’s son Richard, but the two cousins had nothing whatsoever in common beyond a blood bond. Richard was an unusually introspective youngster, conscientious and cautious, but quietly stubborn, too; John was fond of his youngest son, but he never knew what Richard was thinking. Arthur was Richard’s opposite in all particulars. Boisterous, cocky, imperious as only a cherished only son can be, Arthur was not accustomed to sharing the limelight, and he’d taken John’s unexpected arrival with exceedingly poor grace. He could not comprehend why he must welcome his only rival for the Angevin crown, and at first he’d not even made a pretense of civility. But the ruder he was, the more courteous John became, indulgently affectionate, playful, answering insult with an exaggerated solicitude that stopped just short of parody. Arthur was spoiled, but by no means stupid, and he was not long in realizing that John was getting much the best of these exchanges. He was too young, however, to understand that he was, in effect, making a fool of himself. Now he opened his mouth to protest, thought better of it, and lapsed into a sulky silence.

  But John had lost all interest in baiting the boy. A woman was approaching the dais. Making a graceful curtsy before Arthur, she then curtsied to John. She had utterly compelling eyes the shade of purest sapphire; she looked briefly into his face, and turned away. John waited a discreet interval, announced he was retiring for the night, and made an ostentatious departure for his own chambers.

  The gardens were deserted. Although early April, it was as if spring were being held in abeyance that year; the trees were barren, the grass still browned and sere. John hesitated, stepped off the path.

  She was waiting for him in the arbor, came quickly into his arms. He slid his hands under her mantle, kissed her mouth, her throat, and she sighed, pressed close against him.

  “I heard you’d come, but did not believe it. What devious game are you playing now, John? Why are you here?”

  “To see you again, why else?” John said, in part because he thought it was expected of him, and in part because he was curious to see if she was naïve enough to believe him.

  She laughed softly. “How gallant! But have you forgotten how well I know you, my love? Have you some specific troublemaking in mind, or are you merely seeking to muddy the waters?”

  “The latter,” John admitted; he, too, was laughing now. “Philip could find conspiracy in a convent of Cistercian nuns, and his favored pastime is jumping to conclusions. Need I tell you what dire plots he’ll read into my visit to Arthur’s court? And whilst Philip is convincing himself that Arthur and I must be up to no good, Arthur’s advisers are unable to sleep for worrying over what I’ve got in mind. It’s not often I’ve been able to sow so much discord with so little effort!”

  “I cannot blame you for wanting to give Philip some grief. My husband told me about the good turn he tried to do you. The
re were more than a few here in Rennes who were right disappointed that Philip’s ploy came to naught.”

  “That I do not doubt, sweetheart. It’s lucky, in truth, that Richard and I have such pure and perfect trust between us…is it not?” John began to kiss her again. “I hear your husband is in Nantes; how long will he be gone?”

  “A fortnight, at least. How long can you stay?”

  “Till the week’s end. Richard’s been besieging some godforsaken castle near Limoges; one of his vassals found a Roman treasure on his lands and was then idiotic enough to refuse when Richard claimed it all as his liege lord. Richard expects to need just a week to wreak utter havoc upon the poor fool’s lands, told me to meet him and our lady mother at Fontevrault Abbey for Easter. But ere I do, I want to pass some time in Rouen; I’ve a lass there most eager for the sight of me.”

  “Indeed?” Feigning anger, she dug her nails into the back of his hand. “If you think I came out into the cold to listen to you boast about your other bedmates…”

  “She’s my daughter, darling. I do not have her with me as often as I ought, but I do try. With my sons, it is different. Save for Richard, they’re old enough to fend for themselves. And, bastard or no, many would envy Richard. He’s highborn, after all; his mother is a Warenne. But Joanna is just seven, has no one but me. And now that I’ve satisfied you, when can you do the same for me? Can you come to me tonight?”

  “John, it’s so risky…” But after he devoted some moments to increasingly intimate persuasion, she sighed again, murmured, “Yes…yes, I will. But we dare not tarry here any longer; we might be seen.” She pulled away, set about rearranging her clothing, and then turned back, gave him one last kiss, biting his lip and taking his breath.

  John waited, giving her time to depart unseen. But as he emerged onto the garden path, a shrouded figure detached itself from the shadows, barred his way. The man was garbed all in black, his face hidden by a deep cowled hood. He was no apparition to encounter on a moonless night—a stark, spectral embodiment of the most irrational and elemental of mortal fears—and John recoiled violently.

  “My lord, I must talk with you.”

  John took a second look, recognized the habit and mantle of a Benedictine monk, and swore, fluently and with considerable feeling.

  The monk listened in stolid silence, and when John had exhausted every abusive possibility in an uncommonly extensive vocabulary, he repeated stubbornly, “We must talk, my lord.”

  But as the monk moved closer, John happened to glance down, saw the dusty boots protruding from the hem of the monk’s habit. For a moment he froze, and then jerked his sword free of its scabbard.

  “Indeed, we’ll talk. We’ll begin by you telling me who you are, in whose pay, and just why you went to so much trouble to find me alone like this. And Christ save you if I do not like your answers.”

  The man burst out laughing. “And I thought I made a truly admirable monk! What gave me away?” He reached up, pulled back his hood, and John swore again.

  “De Braose!” Slowly he lowered his sword. Suspicions were coming too fast for him to take them all in. “I thought you were at Châlus with my brother Richard.”

  “I was.” De Braose was fumbling at his belt. “Your mother the Queen bade me give you this, so you’d not doubt I came at her behest.”

  John stared down at the ring de Braose had pressed into his hand; it was indeed his mother’s. Sheathing his sword, he followed de Braose off the path.

  “My lord, you do not know how very lucky you are. Word has not gotten out yet. If it had, you’d not live to see the morrow.”

  John caught his breath. “Do you mean what I think you do?”

  William de Braose nodded. “I do…my liege.”

  “Richard…he’s dead?”

  De Braose nodded again. “He was near death when your lady mother commanded me to get to you, to warn you away from Rennes ere Arthur learns the crown is up for the taking. Too many of his men know my face, hence this monk’s cowl. I’ve men and horses waiting; they are at your disposal, my lord.”

  “I still cannot believe it. That it would happen like this, so sudden…”

  “You’re not alone in your disbelief, my lord. Your brother was so sure of victory that he had not even bothered to arm himself. He’d ridden out to inspect the siege’s progress with only a shield, took an arrow in his left shoulder. It was full dusk, and his men did not see him hit. He made no sound, turned and rode back to his tent, had his surgeon cut it out. He took the castle, ordered every living soul in it hanged—servants, women, children, all—sparing only the man who shot him, for God knows what fate. But the wound festered. When he realized it was like to be mortal, he pardoned his killer and sent for your mother the Queen.”

  “‘Near death,’ you said. Are you sure he could not recover?”

  De Braose’s mouth twitched in a grim smile. “My lord, I could scarce bear to enter the tent for the stench of rotting flesh.” He stiffened suddenly; so did John. But they’d heard only echoes on the wind, were still alone in the gardens. De Braose loosened his grip on his sword hilt. “I think it best, my lord, if you do not return to your chambers, make no farewells. If we leave now, we can put a good thirty miles between us and Rennes by dawn.”

  “Jesú, yes! My life would not be worth spit should this get out whilst I’m still in Brittany.” John gave an abrupt laugh, both exultant and unsteady. “But you have no idea, Will, what I’ll be passing up!”

  “You still have not asked it, what I expected to be the first question you’d put to me—if Richard named you as his heir.”

  “He did…did he not?”

  “Yes,” de Braose admitted, and John grinned.

  “You did say my lady mother was at his deathbed, no? Well, as soon as you told me that, there was no need to ask. For even if he had not named me, she would have told the world that he had!”

  A Woman was walking alone in the cloisters of Fontevrault Abbey, a frail, forlorn figure swathed in deep mourning. She turned at sound of John’s footsteps, and he recognized Berengaria, his brother’s neglected Queen.

  He’d gone out of his way to befriend her, motivated as much by a malicious desire to vex Richard as by pity for her plight, and now he found himself cast in an unfamiliar role, giver of comfort and solace.

  “Juan!” Berengaria held out her hands, gave him a shy, sisterly kiss, and burst into tears.

  “Calma, querida, calma.” That was, however, the extent of John’s Spanish, and he could do no more than pat her consolingly on the shoulder, wait for her to regain her rather uncertain grasp of French.

  “Forgive me,” she sobbed. “But it’s been so hard…so hard. I was at Beaufort-en-Valleé, would have gone to him at once, Juan. But I did not know, not till he was dead. He sent for his mother, but not for me. Not for me…”

  “But of course he would not! He was in great pain, querida. He knew you could never bear to see him suffer so, wanted to spare you that. Any husband would.”

  “Truly you think it so?” Fawn-brown eyes beseeched him to convince her. “If I could but believe…”

  Hugh of Avalon, Bishop of Lincoln, had followed John into the cloisters, reached them just in time to hear this exchange. His eyes softened, and he watched with approval as John gently disengaged himself from his sister-in-law’s tearful embrace. But no sooner were they alone on the cloister walkway than John shook his head, said wryly, “Damn me if those tears were not genuine. And yet she could count herself lucky that Richard even remembered her name from one day to the next! That girl is a born martyr if ever there was one. But, to be fair, there’s something to be said for Richard, too. All that Madonnalike purity and goodness would be enough to put any man off; who wants to bed a saint?”

  The Bishop jerked his head up, gave John a look of poorly concealed dislike. “Such talk is most unseemly, my lord,” he said, so stiffly that John laughed. He’d been almost continuously in the aged churchman’s company on the ride from Chin
on, and he was wearying of the Bishop’s homilies on virtue, his exhortations about sin and salvation; it was all too plain that he thought John’s soul to be in mortal peril, thought John to be the most ungodly of a family never noted for its piety; and John, who’d begun by good-naturedly seeking to placate, was now deliberately doing all he could to confirm the priest’s worst fears.

  “You seem to be laboring under a misconception, my lord Bishop,” he said cheerfully. “I mean to be crowned, not canonized.” But by then they were entering the abbey church, and he sobered abruptly, did not at once move into the sunlit stillness of the nave.

  Eleanor stood before the marble tombs of her husband and son, John’s father and brother. Her face was tearless, all but bloodless; her grieving was painful to look upon, but intensely private, had in it a fierce pride that conceded little, asked for even less.

  “Mother.” John stopped before her, hesitated, and kissed her on the cheek. He could discern the faintest stiffening of her body at his touch, an almost imperceptible pulling away, so slight he might have imagined it. Releasing her at once, he stepped back. For a long moment they looked at one another, and then he said, “I am sorry I could not get here in time for the funeral.”

  The others had tactfully withdrawn, giving them some degree of privacy, and he could risk asking, very low, “Did Richard truly name me?”

  “Yes…he did.” Eleanor glanced down at Richard’s tomb, back to her surviving son’s face. “But that alone will not make you King,” she said tonelessly. “You’re likely to have to fight for the crown, John. Whilst you’ll have no trouble winning acceptance in England and Normandy, the barons of Brittany, Maine, and Touraine will hold fast for Arthur. Already his partisans are moving on his behalf. We had word this morn that Angers has been taken in Arthur’s name, that Le Mans is likely to fall to his forces, too. Angers is not ten leagues from here, John.”