Here Be Dragons

by Sharon Kay Penman

Hugh snorted. “And of course John will welcome you back with true Christian forgiveness in his heart! Just how long do you expect this papal ‘peace’ to last?”

  Fitz Walter rose unhurriedly to his feet. “Long enough to serve my purposes.” His eyes fell upon a large calico cat, curled up contentedly upon an empty footstool. He kicked the stool, dumped the startled animal into the fetid, sodden floor rushes.

  “You see,” he said. “Not even a cat lands on its feet every time.”

  Pope Innocent III to John, King of England:

  “Who but the Divine Spirit…directed and guided you, at once so prudently and so piously, to consult your own interests and provide for the Church? Lo! You now hold your kingdom by a more exalted and surer title than before…”

  On Ascension Eve, a large pavilion was set up on the Kentish downs, and there John celebrated Ascension Day with impressive pomp and grandeur. Trestle tables were lavishly laden with food; jugglers and minstrels entertained the crowds that flocked to the meadow, and the day rapidly took on the festive atmosphere of a fair or market day. At sunset the pavilion was taken down and John returned in triumph to the Knights Templar at Ewell. It was, for many, a day of bitter disappointment.

  It remained for Peter of Wakefield to serve as an object lesson for false prophets, would-be rebels. Five days later the aged hermit was escorted to Wareham in Dorset, where he was dragged to the gallows behind the sheriff’s horse, and there hanged.

  34

  Porchester, England

  January 1214

  As she rode through the Land Gate into the outer bailey of Porchester Castle, Eleanor heard the murmurs of the watching soldiers, heard herself identified as “the Breton wench,” as “the King’s captive niece.” None accorded her the titles that were hers by right, Duchess of Brittany and Countess of Richmond, the titles that had passed to her on the death of her brother Arthur.

  Upon her entrance into the keep, she was greeted warmly by her uncle’s wife, and although she sensed that Isabelle’s affection was a counterfeit coin, no more than good manners, she was grateful, nonetheless, for such a welcome. John saw to it that she had soft linen sheets, gowns of velvet and silk, dinner tables laden with fine wines, richly spiced venison, and fresh fish, but she was starved for friendship, for love.

  Following Isabelle up the stairwell into the solar, she knelt submissively before John, steeled herself for his kiss. August would mark the twelfth year of her comfortable confinement at Bristol Castle, and in all that time not once had John ever raised his voice to her. He did not have to; he could chill Eleanor to the depths of her being with his smile. She sometimes wondered if he knew how much she feared him, but she found it impossible to read those enigmatic hazel eyes.

  She recognized most of the men attending her uncle: her baseborn cousins Richard and Oliver Fitz Roy, the Earl of Pembroke, the swarthy Earl of Chester, who had for a brief time been her stepfather, for the old King Henry had compelled her mother to wed Chester after her father’s tournament death. But they had never lived as man and wife, and Eleanor had no childhood memories of Chester, knew he was indifferent to her fate. She had no champions at her uncle’s court, had none anywhere. Her brother and mother were dead, her friends silenced. She had a younger half-sister, Alice, child of her mother’s third marriage to a Poitevin nobleman, but Alice had wed a cousin of the French King, and they now ruled Brittany at Philip’s pleasure, had a vested interest in Eleanor’s continuing captivity. There was no one to speak for her, and well she knew it.

  “I’ve heard men call you ‘the pearl of Brittany,’ and now I know why.”

  The speaker was unknown to Eleanor, a dark, raffish-looking man with bold, appraising eyes that tracked the curves of her body with obvious intent. Eleanor felt her face grow hot; she was as flustered as a shy seventeen-year-old, for time had frozen for her on an August afternoon at Mirebeau, and at an age when other women had long since been wedded and bedded, she still knew no more of men and the world than would a young novice nun.

  The man seemed amused by her embarrassment. Before she could pull back, he caught her hand and brought it to his mouth. “Since your uncle the King swears I’m not to be trusted with any woman who has not taken holy vows, I doubt that he’ll introduce us. So I’d best do it myself. I am Reginald de Dammartin, Count of Boulogne. Welcome, my lady, to Porchester.”

  “And now that you’ve met her, you may bid her farewell,” John said dryly, thus sparing Eleanor the need to reply. Rising, he linked his arm in Eleanor’s, led her toward the window seat. “Come, Nell, sit here beside me so we may talk.”

  The familiar family name stung. So, too, did his protectiveness. He never teased her, never turned upon her the sarcasm, the mordant black humor that she’d so often seen him turn upon others. And Eleanor found his kindness harder to bear than cruelty.

  “Have you heard that I sail next week for La Rochelle?”

  Eleanor nodded. “Your daughter Joanna writes to me from time to time. She told me that you mean to regain Normandy and Poitou from the French King.”

  “You’ve heard from Joanna? Is she well?”

  Eleanor was surprised by the urgency of the query, but again she nodded. “Quite well, and thankful for the truce that exists between her husband and Your Grace.”

  John’s mouth thinned, for the truce with the Welsh Princes had not been of his choosing, had been brought about at the insistence of Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury. But he’d had just one terse letter from Joanna in the past twelvemonth, and he interrogated Eleanor now at some length, seeking reassurance that his daughter was truly well, that her prolonged silence was indicative only of Llewelyn’s rancor.

  Eleanor caught the undertones of unease, but she did not comprehend the cause. She wondered why he had sent for her. She wondered, too, if she would ever find the courage to confront him about her brother’s death, to demand that he tell her how Arthur had died.

  Satisfied at last that she had no more to tell him about Joanna, John said, “My brother Will has already sailed for Flanders, where he’ll be joined by Dammartin and my sister’s son Otto, the Holy Roman Emperor. For my part, I shall land at La Rochelle. Once I’ve secured Poitou and Anjou, we’ll be able to move against Philip on two fronts.”

  “God grant you victory, Uncle.” Why was he telling her this?

  Reginald de Dammartin sauntered over, held out a dripping wine cup to John. “When you begin husband-hunting for her, John, remember that I put in my bid first.”

  “I would, Reg,” John said and grinned. “But I think your wife might take it amiss.”

  Eleanor was dumbfounded. “Husband-hunting?” she echoed. “Uncle, what does he mean?”

  John did not reply at once, studying her over the rim of his cup. She shared Arthur’s coloring, he thought, but little else. Arthur had been too brittle to bend, but Nell was malleable clay; rebellion was not in her. “Well, you can hardly expect to rule Brittany without a husband to give you support and guidance, can you?”

  Eleanor seemed dazed; she could only stare at him in disbelief. “You…you mean to recognize my claim to the Breton throne?” No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the full implications of her question hit her; if he admitted she was the rightful heiress to Brittany, he was admitting, too, that Arthur was dead.

  John smiled. “Your claim is for certes superior to your half-sister’s,” he said, adroitly sidestepping the trap.

  She could still ensnare him, she knew. She need only ask: What of Arthur’s claim? But John’s gaze did not waver; his eyes held hers quite steadily, hypnotically.

  “Your sister and her husband have been French puppets; Philip pulled the strings and they danced at his whim. After I prevail against Philip, I shall want a more reliable regime in Brittany. Naturally, I thought of you, Nell.”

  Eleanor swallowed. She was not so innocent that she did not understand what was being offered and what was not. It might sound as if John was opening the door of her cage, but
she’d still be tethered to his will. If her sister was Philip’s puppet, she would be John’s.

  She laced her fingers together, sought without success to still their tremors. His advisers would govern in her name. He’d pick a husband for her, and she’d be given no say in it. But she’d have a measure of freedom. And she was still young enough to have children, to have the family she’d thought forever denied her. She closed her eyes, and Arthur’s name hovered on her lips, like an unspoken prayer.

  “Well?” John put his hand on her arm, felt her quiver at his touch. How fearful she was, as timid as a trapped doe. Her vulnerability stirred his pity, her lack of pluck his contempt. He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his eyes. “What say you, Nell? If I make you Duchess of Brittany, will I regret it?”

  “No, Uncle,” she whispered. “You’ll not regret it. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  On February 14, John landed at La Rochelle. Taking advantage of an early spring thaw, he moved into Isabelle’s Angoulême, and then the Limousin. When the de Lusignans scorned his offer of a truce, he led his army into Hugh de Lusignan’s county of La Marche. Philip had been forced to split his army, dispatching his son Louis against John while he headed north in an attempt to halt Will and Dammartin’s depredations in Flanders. But Louis was an overly cautious commander, and March gave way to April and then May, and it began to seem as if the lost Angevin empire was John’s for the taking.

  On Whitsun Eve, May 17, John captured the de Lusignan castle of Mervant. The next day he moved on to Vouvant, where Hugh’s uncle, Geoffrey de Lusignan, had taken refuge with his sons. Upon their refusal to yield, John’s men surrounded the castle, and the siege began.

  After filling in the moat with brushwood and dirt, they succeeded in setting fire to the wooden palisade, soon gained control of the outer bailey. John then ordered his siege engines brought up, and from dawn to dusk on Tuesday, the mangonels sent heavy rocks slamming against the castle walls and keep. While in La Rochelle, John had secured a relatively new siege weapon; called a trebuchet, it was a high-trajectory sling, larger and more accurate than the mangonels, and by Tuesday afternoon, this, too, was in operation, hurling enormous boulders and the dreaded Greek fire and even the rotting carcasses of dead horses into the inner bailey of the besieged castle. By nightfall, John’s soldiers were wagering upon the hour of the castle’s fall, and John’s was the sound sleep of a man already savoring the victory to come.

  After breaking his fast the next morning, John summoned the Earl of Chester and together they went to inspect the siege tower that had been completed soon after sunrise. Fashioned from tree trunks, it soared more than sixty feet into the sky. As John and Chester watched, hides doused in vinegar were tacked in place, and then, at John’s signal, the huge belfry began to roll slowly across the bailey.

  Up on the walls, the defenders were shooting flaming arrows, but they glanced off the hides, failed to ignite. Under cover of their shields, men clambered down, knocked off the belfry wheels, and then lowered its drawbridge, settling it against the castle wall. De Lusignan’s soldiers began to throw torches, but men were already scrambling across, leaping onto the wall. Others were emerging from the lower stories of the belfry, hastening to join their comrades on the drawbridge. The fighting was now hand-to-hand combat. Men grappled with each other, swearing and gouging and panting; some lost their footing and fell, or were pushed off the walls to their deaths. But as more and more men crossed the drawbridge, the castle’s defenders were forced to give ground. Already some of the attacking force had lowered thong ladders, were climbing down into the bailey.

  “Look!” John gave a jubilant shout, pointed. “Our men have the inner gatehouse; the portcullis is rising!”

  By noon the de Lusignans and their surviving men had walled themselves up in the keep, and John’s soldiers were readying themselves for the final assault. John had decided not to dig a tunnel to undermine the keep; while that was the surest method, it was also the slowest. “We’ll try the battering ram first,” he concluded, after a painstaking appraisal of the keep. “Remember, though, that I want the de Lusignans taken alive if possible. I promised myself I’d have the pleasure of hanging the whoresons,” he added, and his captains laughed.

  “Your Grace!” The Earl of Derby was gesturing. “A rider is coming in under a flag of truce, and damn me if he’s not wearing Hugh de Lusignan’s livery!”

  Within moments an exceedingly nervous youth was kneeling in the dirt before John. “Your Grace, my lord Count of La Marche most urgently requests a meeting with you. Will you grant him a safe-conduct so he might enter your camp?”

  “Indeed I will,” John said, and smiled. “Tell Hugh that if he makes haste, he’ll be in time for the hangings.”

  They met in John’s command tent within the hour. Hugh de Lusignan had not aged well in the twelve years since Mirebeau. His hair and beard were the shade of sea salt, his skin as splotched and sun-browned as well-worn leather, and his eyes put John in mind of his favorite peregrine falcon. But he came forward without apparent hesitation, knelt and said, “I thank Your Grace for seeing me. I think it time we talked.”

  “I offered to talk in March, as I recall. You said you’d sooner break bread with the Devil…or words to that effect.”

  “I was in the wrong,” Hugh said stonily. “I seek your pardon, seek peace between us.”

  So did John. He needed the powerful de Lusignan clan to make good his conquest of Poitou. But he took his time, let Hugh suffer the suspense until he finally nodded, said, “So it shall be, then.”

  Hugh’s eyes glittered. “I shall give you faithful service, my liege. Now…what of my uncle and cousins?”

  John smiled coolly. “I’d planned to hang them, Hugh,” he said pleasantly. “But if you can talk them into surrendering, I’ll pardon them…as proof of the friendship I now bear you.”

  Hugh sighed audibly. “Again, I thank Your Grace.”

  John signaled for wine. His ploy had worked even better than he’d expected; Hugh’s uncle had proven to be irresistible bait. He’d bought a truce with the lives of Geoffrey de Lusignan and his sons, a truce for today. But what of tomorrow? What was to keep Hugh from disavowing his oath once his kinsmen were safe? He needed more, needed some way to bind the de Lusignans to him, to entwine his fortunes inextricably with theirs. And after careful consideration, he thought he knew how to do just that.

  “There has been bad blood between us for far too long, Hugh. Let’s pledge a new beginning, bury our grievances here and now.”

  Hugh’s smile was sour. “Is that not what we are doing?”

  “I mean what I say, Hugh. But words are hollow. So I’ll give you living proof of my good faith—my daughter.”

  “Jesú!” Hugh sat back, staring at him. “Are you serious?”

  “Very serious. Isabelle and I have a daughter; you have a son. What better way to heal old hurts than to cleanse them in a bond of blood?”

  There was no need to say more. This time Hugh’s smile was genuine, even reached his eyes. He held his wine cup aloft. “To the wedding,” he said. “And to new beginnings.”

  Isabelle was growing bored. Rising, she glanced about the chamber. They’d come to Parthenay for John to accept oaths of homage from the de Lusignans, and to secure their precarious peace within the sanctity of marriage. That morning Hugh de Lusignan’s grown son and namesake had been betrothed to John and Isabelle’s young daughter Joanna.

  The little bride-to-be, still two months shy of her fourth birthday, had no comprehension of the ceremony that linked her life to Hugh de Lusignan, and she was now playing contentedly in a corner with a new doll. Across the chamber, Hugh de Lusignan and John were exchanging faintly barbed courtesies, while Eleanor was in animated conversation with Ralph de Lusignan and Hugh’s son. Isabelle could not help noticing the changes four months at John’s court had wrought in Eleanor. She’d shed much of her shyness; she was even flirting a little with Hugh’s handsome son.


  When she caught John’s eye, Isabelle blew him a playful kiss, and then moved toward the door. Wandering out into the gardens, she picked a bouquet of white violets, settled herself upon a turf seat in the shadow of a flowering peach tree. She felt no surprise when, after a few moments, she saw the younger de Lusignan coming toward her; she’d noticed the way his eyes followed her when he thought no one else was watching.

  “May I join you?”

  “Why not?” Isabelle reached for her flowers, cleared a space on the turf seat. “How did you get away from Eleanor? She’s rather taken with you, you know. When you’re there, she loses that air of martyred melancholy, becomes almost vivacious.”

  He grinned. “How sharp your claws, Madame! A man who was the vain sort might begin to wonder why.”

  To Isabelle’s surprise, she was not affronted. Mayhap it was his smile, she decided; it was disarming, boyishly endearing, appealingly at variance with the knowing blue eyes. She wondered how old he was—thirty-three, thirty-four?

  She laughed and, at his questioning look, said lightly, “I was just thinking that if fate had been different, I’d have been your stepmother!”

  Hugh laughed, too. “You’d have been wasted on my father.” Taking her hand in his own. “Just as you’ve been wasted on John.”

  “That is dangerous talk,” Isabelle said coolly. But she did not pull away.

  “But true.” He turned her hand over, tracked her life-line with his thumb. “You’re so very beautiful, far more beautiful than I remembered. How is it that John has not locked you away from the world? I’d have thought he’d sequester you behind the highest walls, veil you like a Saracen woman.”

  Isabelle opened her mouth to say John trusted her, that she’d never given him cause for jealousy. Instead she heard herself say softly, “Is that what you’d do if I were your woman, Hugh?”

  “If you were my woman…” he echoed, and for an unguarded moment the game-playing was forgotten. Isabelle was accustomed to court flirtations. She was both flattered and amused that men invariably found her so desirable, but it was never more than a harmless diversion; she never forgot where the boundary lines were drawn, had never been tempted to cross over. She was shaken now by what was happening with Hugh de Lusignan, shaken to realize that she was responding to this man’s smile, to his touch. She looked down at the lean, sun-browned fingers caressing her own, and then jerked her hand from his, forced a brittle smile.