Suddenly they were clinging to each other, laughing between their kisses.
“To think that I might have married Ann!”
“And that I might have let them give me to Philip or someone…And never known that marriage could be like this. It has been unendurable, this waiting—”
But Berengaria held him off a little longer, knowing intuitively that once she had given him everything he would never be so utterly hers again. “Tell me some more about our next coronation,” she coaxed. “We’ve had so little time to talk about our own affairs.”
Richard obeyed reluctantly, settling his head more comfortably against her knee. “The men will shout themselves hoarse, I suppose, because you are beautiful.” He began intoning the words as if they were a rather boring sort of saga. “And the women will bring you their troubles because you are kind—”
“And the children?” asked Berengaria, bending to smooth out the cross lines from his firm, freshly shaven face.
He looked up and laughed immediately. “Oh, they will strew flowers before your feet because they are adorable anyhow.”
“I shall like that.”
“And we shall go in a state barge to Westminster,” he went on, warming to his theme.
“What is this West-min-stair?” interrupted Berengaria, wanting to picture it all just as he did.
“Just a little riverside village near London. Not big like Paris or Pamplona. But Edward the Confessor built an abbey there. The man who willed his Saxon crown away to my grandfather, you know.”
“Or William of Normandy said he did,” corrected Berengaria, whose history lessons had been less biased.
“Well, anyhow, it’s a beautiful abbey. I shall be insuperably proud when you walk up that exquisite nave with the priests chanting at the High Altar and all the people cheering and the bells ringing.”
Berengaria shifted his head from her lap and stood up. Through the open window she could see her honeymoon island sleeping under the stars. Only the shepherds seemed to be awake, huddled over little wood fires in the fields beyond the land gate. The call of their reed pipes came softly through the scented night. “But in our hearts we shall both be thinking of Cyprus,” she said.
“Our private lives which we have managed to keep for each other after all.” With one of those lithe movements so surprising in a man of his height, Richard was beside her.
She turned in glad surprise. “You remember my saying that?”
“I remember everything,” he assured her.
“My telling you that it didn’t matter whom I married? That we were just political puppets. And my bitterness. After I had met you—” Because they were so crazily in love it mattered supremely that he should share the memory of its beginning.
Richard shook her gently. “Didn’t I tell you, despondent woman, that there would be some decent princes—like me?”
“I admired your modesty, of course,” laughed Berengaria, her voice low with happiness. “But I never really believed I should get one.” From the lovely security of his arm she watched the leaping flames light up the emblems of England and Navarre on the coverlet of the bed. Richard’s blood-red leopards and her own silver hearts and stag. Somehow Eleanor’s embroidery seemed to make a reality of their love affair, turning it into the accomplished union of two great dynasties, whose offspring might write their deeds across the face of Europe. It seemed to weight the rapture of their love with responsibility—to make it less their own—and for a moment Berengaria was afraid.
But Richard caught her to his heart. “Do you believe now—and now?” he demanded exultantly, between the passion of his kisses.
“I believe in the goodness of God!” breathed Berengaria, yielding to the urgency she loved. “And to think that the poor scriveners of history will coldly record that in eleven-ninety-one Richard I of England married Berengaria of Navarre!”
But Richard was scarcely listening or heard only the beat of his own blood. He reached up and threw the last torch to the hearth. It hissed into the heart of the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. By their light he unfastened the silver lamé wrap and Berengaria smiled up at him from the sable mantle of her hair. “God’s heart, how beautiful you are!” he cried, lifting her in his strong arms to her lawful place upon the Plantagenet bed.
Part VI
The Holy Land
Chapter Twenty
Berengaria’s honeymoon lasted for only a week. For seven days Richard held up his crusade and forgot everything in the world but her. They rode together to the snow-capped mountains where goats and peasants cared nothing for their rank, and rested in valleys where bright-green lizards scuttled between the sun-baked rocks. He teased and worshipped her by turns, and she made him talk about Oxford and how he sometimes hated himself for the way he had quarrelled with his father, and about Henry and Robin and Hodierna until she knew him, the way women must, right backwards to his boyhood. They were utterly sufficient to each other, and because they were war-time lovers each moment was precious with the poignancy of parting. “Whatever happens, this one short week will have spoiled us both for any lesser loves,” Berengaria consoled herself, when it was over.
That last evening at Limassol she felt as if she were deliberately releasing him from her enchantment and giving him back to his world. He seemed to have forgotten his grief for Robin in the manifest happiness of a man possessing both the woman and the work he loves. During their brief honeymoon he had discussed with her the advisability of leaving Guy de Lusignon in charge of Cyprus until Jerusalem should be retaken, and all that last afternoon she had willingly played her part in the formal ceremony of handing over the island. Immediately after a hasty supper Richard was off to the harbour with Mercadier preparing for embarkation and Berengaria loyally slipped away. Having married a public hero she must school herself to share him. But when they were up in her rooms packing Yvette, glancing down at the busy quay, exclaimed: “Just look at the Cypriot princess hanging about barefoot like any peasant!”
Berengaria’s heart warmed to the antipathy in her voice, but she treated the youthful criticism much as she used to treat the uncharitable remarks of Isabella and Henrietta. “If we lived in this climate and had such lovely feet I expect we should want to go barefoot too,” she said, moving to the window.
And Johanna, sorting out some gay Syrian embroideries, remarked good-naturedly, “With her mother dead and her father in prison, Ida is little better than an orphan. I expect she is waiting to say ‘good-bye’ to Richard.”
She evidently was. She lurked in the shadow of the harbour wall until he left Mercadier and waylaid him as he came up the slipway alone. Berengaria saw her sudden tears, her feigned start of surprise, and the appealing gesture of her clutching hands. She couldn’t hear what either of them said, of course, but she saw Richard bend to comfort the girl. “How can men be fooled by that baby stuff after the way she danced!” she marvelled. She watched them cross the quay, dodging the burdens of the laden sailors. Ida was all vivacity now, laughing back at him as they climbed a flight of slippery stone steps. Berengaria noticed with annoyance that she had managed to get a sprig of broom from somewhere or other and saw her reach up to stick it in his helmet for luck. Richard seemed inordinately pleased and kissed her for it before they were lost to sight beneath the arched gateway of the citadel. It was all so open and natural, and yet Berengaria was aware of a horrible stab of jealousy.
“Would you like me to arrange for some family of good repute to look after Ida Comnenos after we are gone?” she asked that night when Richard had come to bed.
“No need,” he answered, in a matter-of-fact sort of way, “I’ve decided to take her along.”
Berengaria sat up in the wide bed and stared at him incredulously. “But surely Guy de Lusignon will keep an eye on her,” she said.
“Both, I fancy!” Richard unbuckled his sword belt and threw it across the end of the bed with a short, significant laugh.
“Whatever do you mean?” protes
ted Berengaria.
“I oughtn’t to have made her dance that night. Of course, the poor child didn’t actually say he’d been pestering her—”
“Of course not. She just brought you a bit of planta genista and pawed you and cried—”
Richard looked up in bewilderment from the chausse he was bending to unlace. He had never before heard that sharp note in Berengaria’s voice. It was the nearest they had ever come to a quarrel and he hadn’t an idea what it was about.
“At least she might have managed this ‘whither thou goest I go’ business without dragging poor Guy into it!” The new Queen of England thumped a pillow and lay down again. Did the conceited little hussy really imagine both kings admired her? Actually, if the King of Jerusalem had shown signs of admiring anybody it had been herself. Berengaria pulled herself up with shamed amusement. “Mother of God, what’s the use of being an educated woman if loving a man makes one think like a fish-wife?”
She let Richard finish undressing in silence but when he had stamped out the torches and taken her in his arms she turned her face from his kisses. “Richard, must you bring that girl?” she begged, with persistent foreboding.
“Who—Ida?” By the light of a rising moon Richard was amusing himself making a pattern of her dark hair on the pillow. “You look like an angry Medusa!” he teased, spreading it in snake-like waves, above her heart-shaped little face. But Berengaria was not to be fondled out of her answer. “I’ll see she isn’t any bother,” promised Richard. “But if I leave any of the Comnenos tribe at large here, de Lusignon will probably have more bother with the natives. You see, sweet, I can’t afford to leave much of a garrison.” He was so obviously indifferent to the girl’s charms that Berengaria snuggled luxuriously against his shoulder and went to sleep calling herself a fool.
They sailed next morning and in six months news of the fall of Acre was ringing round the Christian world. The name of Richard Cœur de Lion was on all men’s lips. For although Philip of France and Leopold of Austria and the rest had done the spade work, everybody knew it was he who had brought genius to the enterprise. By capturing a heavily armed supply ship vital to the beleaguered garrison he reminded them that, besides Angevin anger and Plantagenet pride, the blood of Norse pirates ran in his veins. The sight of his victorious fleet must have been like wine to the jaded crusaders blockading Acre, and his personal courage and tireless enthusiasm certainly inspired a more vigorous and concerted attack.
During those months of hard and brilliant fighting Berengaria saw little of him except in the company of other men or when he was too tired to talk. He spared neither himself nor her. He would clank into their tent, bloodstained and begrimed, and almost before Blondel could unharness him he would fling himself across the bed and sleep. Sometimes, when things went well, he would make love to her—fiercely, exultantly, unaware that although her body responded ardently her mind was still recoiling from the bloodstains. If she knew that Richard was leading some fresh attack the long, grilling days of suspense drained her of any emotion at all, so that living up to the cheerful confidence of the two Plantagenets was all effort and pretence. She would stand at the tent door watching for Richard’s conspicuous figure among the crowd of armed men and horses that milled about the walls of Acre, knowing that only some sort of miracle could defend his recklessness. Or she would go and try to cheer the wounded, all the time cowering from the sound of men’s approaching feet lest they should be bringing him back to her dead. She knew that his men had orders never to let her stray within range of the enemy’s bows, but it was the arrows that rained round him she feared.
“But, beloved, don’t you remember I bear a charmed life?” he would say laughingly to comfort her whenever she begged him to be more careful. And he came back to her unscathed from such bloody encounters that by the end of the siege she had almost come to believe in Robin’s witch.
When at last he went down with fever Berengaria was almost thankful, thinking she would be able to nurse him and keep him safely to herself. But long before he was well enough to sit a horse he had himself carried on a litter to direct the sappers and the battering-rams. And just as he ignored a mounting temperature he had singleness of purpose enough to ignore the jealousy of Leopold and Philip. Inevitably he dominated every scene, unconsciously dwarfing other men. Some of them hated him for it. Most of them would have followed him to hell. For there was a glamour about Richard in those days which was almost like a visible flame.
The war-weary army of occupation, only longing to get back to their homes in Europe, had naturally welcomed any driving force likely to curtail the interminable siege. And men of his own expeditionary force who had leaned across each other’s shoulders to listen at Berengaria’s wedding feast saw the campaign of the dinner knives coming true before their eyes and felt the solid comfort of supplies from Famagusta warming their bellies for the fight. Acre, the first of Richard’s key ports, had fallen. Haifa was their next objective. Then Jaffa, the port of Jerusalem itself.
Chapter Twenty-One
As soon as the crusaders had actually taken possession of Acre the European women were able to spend the cooler parts of the day sitting on the walls. There was more air up there and they were glad to get away from the stifling streets where gaunt olive-skinned women and their half-starved children wrung poor Berengaria’s heart. “If only this dreadful hammering would stop!” she sighed, moving further into the shade of a little crenellated watch tower as the pitiless sun began to climb.
“But Richard must repair the fortifications,” said Johanna, letting a bandage she was rolling trail in the dust. There was dust everywhere, and flies and heat, but it didn’t seem to affect her. She had the Plantagenet vitality that throve on discomforts.
Berengaria looked out over the endless plain ridged here and there with grey-green vineyards. Behind her on the western side of the town their ships lay motionless, mirrored in a molten sea, while immediately below her the men mending the main land gate shouted to each other in an unintelligible medley of Norman and Saxon which was beginning to become a language. Berengaria sighed again, wondering if she ever would be able to understand them.
Johanna gave her a quick, anxious glance. She noticed that her pallor lacked the inward glow that used to warm it.
“At least you need not worry about Richard now,” she said comfortingly. “You know he’s down there outside the walls having the time of his life showing them all what a marvellous mason he would have made.”
“But those poor wounded—”
“The Hospitallers will look after them.”
“But they are my people now, and it takes a woman—not sexless monks—to sew comfortable bandages and talk to them about their children and picture their homes. Some of them suffer so horribly—Richard says the Saracens are using poisoned arrows now.”
“He ought not to let you visit the wounded. He’s so used to that sort of thing he doesn’t realise how it affects you. Robin’s just as tough but he would have thought—” Johanna stopped abruptly. She was trying hard to forget Robin these days. She tumbled the last of her ineptly rolled bandages into a basket and sauntered across to the battlements. Sick nursing bored her anyway. All her kindnesses were gay, spontaneous, and consistent with her own immense enjoyment of life. She did not know the kind of queen Berengaria meant to be. Besides, she could hear Raymond talking to someone round a bend of the wall. “Well, don’t wear yourself out,” she said. “There’s Ida eating sweetmeats further along the city wall. She’d probably like to be asked to do something. One can’t help feeling sorry for her—a hostage away from home.”
“Yvette is still further from her home,” observed Berengaria, tearing some of her best head veils into strips for dressings.
But freedom was the breath of life to Johanna, so she had to champion the Cypriot girl. “But don’t you see, Yvette is free? She’s in the middle of her first love affair. She has congenial work, and she adores you.”
Berengaria looked up,
surprised by her vehemence. “Judging by the way Ida hangs about Richard, her life scarcely seems devoid of emotional interest,” she remarked dryly.
But Johanna wasn’t listening. Raymond and Blondel had suddenly appeared round the corner of the watch tower swathed in masons’ aprons, their faces white with dust. “You look like a couple of death cart men!” she told them unkindly.
“I feel like one of the corpses!” groaned Raymond, sitting on some fallen masonry to mop his forehead. “If anyone had told me I’d be talked into leading a repair squad in this climate! But what else can we do when Richard himself is showing archers how to hew stones? For God’s sake, someone, send for a drink!”
“The King has issued orders that everyone, irrespective of rank, is to work six hours a day mending the walls before we go,” announced Blondel, letting a basket of tools slide gratefully from his sweating shoulder.
Johanna sent a page scurrying for wine, and Berengaria put away her work with a strained sort of smile. “A few weeks ago you were risking your lives to destroy the walls,” she reminded them. “That is where war is such waste!”
“Waste!” exclaimed Raymond indignantly, through an inadequate handkerchief with which Johanna was endeavouring to remove some of the grime from his sunburnt face. “My dear Berengaria, how can you talk of your husband’s achievement like that? It was the rest of the crowd who were wasting time out here all winter, and along comes Richard and takes the town almost as soon as he lands!”
Passionate Brood Page 18
