Here Be Dragons

by Sharon Kay Penman

  Joanna was shocked by her first sight of Hugh de Lusignan. A huge, shambling bear of a man, stout and greying, he seemed the least likely of mates for the exquisite Isabelle, and Joanna decided her grandmother was right. There was great risk in being born a swan.

  Both Hugh de Lusignan and his uncle seemed stunned by the sudden reversal of their fortunes. Shoved forward, shackled at the wrists, they knelt awkwardly before the dais, watching John warily, as if they still could not fully credit their own senses.

  If Hugh de Lusignan did not fulfill Joanna’s expectations, her cousin Arthur did. He truly looked like a Prince, she conceded grudgingly, taller already, at fifteen, than her father, with bright chestnut hair and blue eyes like his sister. He, however, showed none of her fear; unlike the de Lusignans, he refused to kneel, had to be forced by his guards.

  John continued to drink, measuring his nephew with thoughtful eyes. “Well?” he said at last. “Have you nothing to say to me?”

  “No,” Arthur said sullenly.

  “Do not be a fool, boy,” Hugh de Lusignan said, out of the corner of his mouth, and Arthur gave him a scornful look.

  “I am no boy. I am a belted knight, Duke of Brittany, Count of Richmond, rightful heir to the Angevin crown, and I ask no man’s pardon for seeking what is rightfully mine.”

  “Boldly spoken,” John said, very dryly. “That speech might sound more effective, however, if you were not fettered in irons, having just bungled an assault upon your own grandmother.”

  There was laughter at that, and Arthur flushed. “At least I was open and honest in my quest for the crown. Unlike you, Uncle, you who’d have sold his own brother to the Saracens if he could, who did betray his dying father—”

  “That is quite enough, Arthur!” Eleanor said sharply. “For all your posturings, you are very much a child, and I, for one, am weary of listening to you.”

  “So am I.” John’s voice was quite even, devoid of emotion. He raised his hand, and guards at once stepped forward, dragged Arthur from the hall. Eleanor ignored the struggles of her defiant grandson, kept her eyes riveted on John. Her husband’s most dubious legacy to his offspring was the wild Angevin temper; his sons were notorious for the violence of their rages. But she had learned that John was most dangerous when he did not shout or threaten, and she leaned forward, laid her hand upon his arm. As she feared, the muscles were corded, rigid with tension.

  “He’s a stupid, willful boy,” she said softly, “foolish and headstrong. But he is a boy, John…and blood kin.”

  John exhaled a breath too long held, slowly unclenched his fingers from the stem of his wine cup. “As you say, Madame, a foolish boy.”

  Hugh and Geoffrey de Lusignan still knelt stiffly before the dais, and John’s eyes now came to rest upon Hugh. Hugh’s face was streaked with sweat and grime, an unhealthy ashen grey; under John’s mocking gaze, color began to stain his cheekbones, the dull, blotched red of impotent rage. But he was forty-five, not fifteen, knew enough to hold his tongue.

  Geoffrey de Lusignan cleared his throat. “Your Grace, what mean you to do with us?”

  “What would you do if you were in my place?” John asked, saw the other man flinch. “So…as bad as that? I can see we’re going to have a great deal to talk about, and I’ll make time for it, you may be sure. But you’re luckier than you deserve, for you happen to be worth more to me alive than dead. If not, I’d have hanged you both higher than Haman, and might yet.”

  He signaled, did not bother to watch as his guards pushed the de Lusignans toward the door. Glancing about the hall, he beckoned to William de Braose. “Since you had the honor of taking my nephew prisoner, Will, you shall have the honor of looking after him. I hereby remand him into your custody.”

  De Braose did not appear surprised. “As it pleases Your Grace.”

  William des Roches, however, appeared distinctly taken aback. “But…but my liege!” He stepped forward, toward the dais. “You did assure me that the Duke of Brittany would be put into my keeping. Your Grace…you gave me your word!”

  “Did I?” John sounded quizzical. “I recall no such promise. Do you, Will?”

  “No, Your Grace,” William de Braose said blandly, and des Roches opened his mouth, shut it again. But he seized his first opportunity to speak to the Queen, drawing Eleanor aside as servants began to set up trestle tables, to prepare the hall for John’s victory dinner.

  “Madame, I did not lie; upon my oath, I did not.”

  “No one has accused you of lying, my lord.”

  “Your Grace…may I speak plainly? I did support your son against Arthur, have been his loyal subject. But I do understand the loyalties your grandson commands amongst many in Anjou, in Touraine, in Brittany. I sought to explain this to the King, to make him understand the risk, and he promised me I should have the care of his nephew. I do not think it wise to give the lad over to de Braose, Madame, in truth I do not.”

  Eleanor agreed with him, but she responded with so glacial a stare that des Roches’s warning froze in his throat; he swallowed, not daring to say more, realizing he’d already said too much.

  Joanna, hovering within earshot, wondered why Lord des Roches should be so concerned about Arthur. Each time she remembered the outrageous way he’d dared talk to her father, she felt anger stir anew. Arthur was arrogant and hateful, deserved to be punished for his malice. She hoped her father kept him close, for a long, long time. She did feel sorry, though, for Arthur’s sister, and pushing through to John’s side, she waited patiently till she caught his eye. He leaned down, listened as she whispered in his ear, then nodded. “If that be your wish, sweetheart, by all means.”

  Joanna did not wait, made her way across the hall, toward the girl sitting forlorn and forgotten in the window seat. Eleanor was staring down at her lap, twisting the ring John had given her. She did not look up, not until Joanna said, “Lady Eleanor? I am your cousin Joanna, the King’s daughter. My father wants you to dine with us, says you shall have a place of honor, as his kinswoman.”

  “That’s most kind of him,” Eleanor said tonelessly.

  Joanna had hoped to cheer Eleanor, was disappointed by the girl’s tepid response. “I know you are afraid. I was afraid, too, when I thought we’d be taken by your brother. But there’s no need to fear, in truth there’s not. My father does not blame you for what Arthur did, would not ever maltreat you. Please believe me, he would not.”

  Eleanor studied the child. “I do believe you, Cousin Joanna,” she said, and managed a wan smile, even as her eyes filled with tears. “But what of my brother? What of Arthur?”

  13

  Southampton, England

  April 1204

  Following a servant into the solar, Will found his sister-in-law conferring with her almoner. Isabelle was always friendly, but now she greeted Will with such unfeigned delight that he flushed with startled pleasure. He was not at ease with lovely women, and Isabelle’s beauty was particularly intimidating and ethereal to him. Try as he might, he could not imagine her afflicted with such ordinary, mundane ailments as chilblains, blisters, or cramps, could not envision her nose red with cold, her eyes swollen with sleep, her hair in uncombed, early-morning disarray—as he’d so often seen Ela, who was not glamorous or exotic, but reassuringly real.

  “John and I did break our Lenten fast by eating meat yesterday, and so today I’ve instructed our almoner to feed one hundred of the city’s poor,” Isabelle explained, linking her arm in Will’s and drawing him toward the privacy of a window recess. “How glad I am that you’ve come, Will. Have you seen John yet?”

  “No, I was told he’ll be hearing appeals from the shire courts for the rest of the day.”

  “You’ll sup with us, of course, and you must stay awhile with the court, Will. John has need of you, and so have I. I am relying upon you to cheer his spirits. He’s in a right foul temper, has been brooding for more than a fortnight about the fall of that wretched castle.”

  “Well, Castle G
aillard is of great defensive importance, guards the approach to Rouen…” Will began, quite willing to educate Isabelle in the finer points of military strategy.

  His efforts were wasted. Isabelle heard him out, but murmured only a tepidly polite, “How very interesting.” She glanced about to make sure all others were out of earshot. “Will…tell me in honesty. Is Normandy well and truly lost to John?”

  “We still hold Rouen and Falaise, Chinon Castle…” Will hedged. “But even if the tide continues to run against us, and Normandy, too, falls to Philip, you must not fear, lass. Angoulême, Gascony, and Poitou still hold fast for John.”

  He waited glumly for her to remind him, though, that Maine, Anjou, Brittany, and Touraine had all been lost to Philip within the past twelvemonth. He could recite the reasons why it had happened, a litany of ill luck, blunders, and betrayal. John’s chronic and crippling lack of funds. The disloyalty of his Norman barons, who thought it safer to defy a distant English King than a neighboring French one. John’s errors of judgment and his indecision, his unfortunate penchant for turning allies into enemies; William des Roches had ridden away from Mirebeau as a rebel. But to understand why Philip had prevailed was not to accept it, and Will did not want to discuss their disastrous Normandy campaign with anyone, least of all with his brother’s wife.

  Isabelle fidgeted with her rings; John might be short of money to pay his troops, but he still found the means to indulge his young Queen’s love of jewels. “I suppose,” she said, “that it was a great mistake for John to have ever let Hugh de Lusignan buy his freedom.”

  Will winced. When John had decided to set the de Lusignans at liberty, he’d encountered opposition from an unexpected source, his mother. Eleanor had been adamantly against the idea, insisting that the time to make peace with Hugh de Lusignan had been before John’s marriage to Isabelle, that it was now too late. Will had not agreed with her, unwilling to believe it was ever too late to right a wrong; while he cared not a whit for Hugh de Lusignan’s sense of injury, he hoped a conciliatory gesture on John’s part would favorably impress other Norman lords wavering in their loyalty. Convinced that they could keep Hugh in check by demanding hostages for his good faith, Will had added his voice to those arguing for release. Hugh and Geoffrey de Lusignan had been freed five months after their capture at Mirebeau, had at once joined William des Roches and the rebel barons of Brittany and Anjou, leaving Will a legacy of guilt out of all proportion to his small share of the responsibility.

  “The de Lusignans offered up such an extravagant sum for their freedom that John could not afford to turn it down,” he said defensively, “not with so pressing a need for money.”

  “I know; John explained it all to me at the time. But shall I tell you what I think, Will? That John was goaded as much by his mother’s opposition as he was swayed by the money. It’s said she can be right clever at getting men to do her bidding, but with John, she’s ever been brutally blunt. They had a fearful row about it, and I think that was when John truly made up his mind to set Hugh free, to prove to Eleanor that he was in the right.”

  Will stared at her, all at once seeing Isabelle with new insight. John had never been known for constancy, and Will’s expectations for his marriage were minimal. Greatly to his surprise, John’s passion for his girl-wife had not been slaked by possession; Isabelle was his constant companion and bedmate on his travels around his realm. Will had attributed Isabelle’s continuing bewitchment over his brother to her uncommon beauty. Now he suddenly wondered if he’d underestimated her.

  “I think,” he said slowly, “that you do content John so well because you do understand him so well,” stating the obvious with such a solemn sense of discovery that Isabelle had to stifle a giggle.

  “I doubt that anyone understands John all that well! But I do know when he is troubled. I truly think he’d not long mourn the loss of his continental domains in and of themselves. He has ever seen England as the heart of his inheritance, has oft told me how easy it is to safeguard an island kingdom, how difficult to defend a far-flung empire. But that empire was Richard’s, and so he cannot bear to let it go.” Isabelle leaned forward, put her hand on Will’s sleeve. “I would help him if I could, but I do not know how. I was so hoping that you did,” she said, giving Will a look of such irresistible appeal that he felt a lump rise in his throat.

  He’d wondered if Isabelle loved his brother, was pleased now to conclude that she did. And yet he felt a certain surprise, too. He had few illusions about John, knew what John had done and what he was capable of doing, but the bond of brotherhood was one to last from the cradle to the grave. The bond between husband and wife he believed to be more fragile. Women were known to be the lesser sex; Will thought they were also the purer sex, softer of heart and more innocent of mind than men. As Isabelle lay with John in their vast marital bed, was her sleep never disturbed by uneasy thoughts of Arthur?

  Will could not be sure, of course, that the rumors were true, that Arthur was dead. But his suspicions were strong enough to keep him from confronting his brother, from insisting that John tell him what he’d rather not know. It was not that he was shocked; while he would never have chosen himself to claim Arthur’s life, he recognized John’s right to do so. Treason warranted death. Scriptures said that plainly, said rebellion was as the sin of witchcraft. And Arthur had remained defiantly unrepentant. Will had been present when John confronted Arthur at Falaise in January 1203, had come away from that turbulent, ugly encounter with the grim realization that Arthur was doomed; if he would not bend, he’d have to be broken. The French King had been putting about lurid rumors for months, contending that Arthur had been murdered in a number of grisly ways—drowned, stabbed, blinded and castrated—rumors that found ready believers among Arthur’s Bretons, but few in England, where Arthur’s fate was a matter of supreme indifference. But that past Easter, John had paid a second visit to Arthur, then being held at Rouen Castle, and soon after, rumors again began to circulate that the sixteen-year-old Duke of Brittany had been put to death at his uncle’s command, some even said by John’s own hand. That last, Will dismissed as nonsense; he knew John too well, knew his brother had ever preferred to keep distance between himself and his darker misdeeds. Yet the sinister silence that descended over Rouen Castle after that Easter visit convinced Will that these rumors were well grounded in reality, and he could only wonder at John’s genius for self-sabotage. However deserved was Arthur’s death, it was still a drastic, draconian step to take, and even a political novice like Will understood that it had to be done in the fullest light of high noon—or not at all.

  “Will…why are you staring at me like that?”

  Will blinked, lost Arthur’s ghost in the deep blue of Isabelle’s eyes. She was truly a sweet lass, he thought, and not for the world would he see her lose her faith in John. “It gladdens my heart to know that you are happy in your marriage, and I shall indeed do what I can to ease John’s discontent.”

  “Why would I not be happy in my marriage?” Isabelle echoed, surprised. “John denies me nothing. Richard’s poor Berengaria might well have been invisible, for the notice people took of her. But when I enter a chamber, all conversation hushes, all eyes are upon me—because people know John cares whether I am content or not. Oh, I grant you he is not always an easy man to live with, has tempers and black moods and shadowy places in his soul where I cannot follow. But we’ll be wed four years come August, Will, and not once has my womb quickened with life. Yet not once has John ever reproached me for that. How many barren wives could say as much?”

  Will was both embarrassed and touched by the unexpected intimacy of this glimpse she’d just given him into her married life. “I am sure you’ll conceive in God’s time, lass,” he said awkwardly, and Isabelle smiled.

  “So am I,” she assured him, sounding faintly amused. “But it is kind of you to try to ease my mind. You are a good man, Will, you truly are. John…John is good to me,” said with just enough emphasis on the
last two words to tell Will that she was not so innocent as he’d first thought, as he’d like to believe. He looked at her, at the wide-set eyes utterly clear and untroubled by ghosts, at the mouth so soft and sweetened by laughter, and decided he must have misread her meaning.

  “You must not fret,” he said soothingly. “I’ll stay as long as John has need of me, I promise you.”

  “It is your move, John,” William de Braose prompted, sounding so smug that John gave him a cold stare before resuming his very deliberate study of the chessboard.

  Will shifted in his seat. He was a mediocre chess player at best, but even he could see that John had allowed himself to be maneuvered into an utterly untenable position. That realization gave Will almost as much exasperation as it did John, for Isabelle had not exaggerated; he’d rarely seen his brother in such a grim mood, a mood not likely to be improved by a loss to William de Braose. De Braose was as ungracious a winner as John was a loser. Already there was gleeful anticipation in his grin. He would win, then magnanimously waive payment of their wager stakes, gloating thinly guised as jest; Will had seen de Braose win before.

  Will had known de Braose for some ten years, for he was one of the few men who’d managed to be friendly with both Richard and John. Will had watched disapprovingly as de Braose insinuated his way into John’s inner circle, becoming, in time, one of John’s favorite carousing companions. He’d never lacked for confidence—as shy as a timber wolf, as scrupulous as a Barbary pirate—but Will had noted an increasing familiarity in his friendship with John, a familiarity that Will found offensive, that seemed to go beyond their mutual pursuit of what de Braose jokingly called “the three aitches…hunting, hawking, and ’horing.” A familiarity that Will had first noticed in the past year, in the weeks after John’s Eastertide visit to Rouen.

  Will was not alone in his critical appraisal of the chess game’s unhappy consequences. Joanna knew how her father hated to lose. Lord de Braose would revel in his victory, she knew, and Papa would be in ill humor for the rest of the night. It was not fair. Papa was so disquieted, much in need of distraction. Joanna thought it only just that he should be able to forget his troubles for a few hours. She knew suddenly what she must do, took a moment or so to nerve herself for it. Rising, she reached for a bowl of candied fruit, carried it across the chamber to John.