A King's Ransom

by Sharon Kay Penman

  Being chained up did not even rid him of the guards. There were only a few now and they squatted in the shadows, passing the time by telling jokes, or so he assumed, since they laughed often. But their continued presence salted his wounds, for he’d not been alone for even a few moments since his capture on December 21, not once free from prying, inquisitive eyes.

  In midmorning, sounds from the inner bailey floated up through the arrow slits. By listening intently, Richard concluded that Markward von Annweiler was departing, doubtless returning to report to the emperor that he was securely caged at Trifels. He felt no relief, though, that the ministerialis was gone. Now he was surrounded by men who spoke not a word of French or Latin, unable to communicate with any of them.

  The hours dragged by. Richard passed the time by recalling every memory of the past thirteen days, beginning with his first meeting with Heinrich in the chapter house. There must be a pattern, something he’d missed. Heinrich was not a man to act on impulse. He’d proved that by pretending to accept the verdict of the Imperial Diet. So what did he want? What did he hope to gain by this betrayal? Did he think he could strike a new deal with a man desperate enough to pay any price to escape Trifels? Or had he concluded that there was nothing to be gained now that he’d been outwitted and outmaneuvered at Speyer? Richard could still hear that cool, dispassionate voice. If you do not agree, then you’re of no value to me, and I have no reason to keep you alive. Had he been sent to Trifels to break his spirit? Or to suffer for daring to make a fool of Heinrich before his own court? He did not know the answer, but he would be given it by day’s end, and from an unexpected source.

  He’d been served another scanty supper, a cup of weak ale, more bread and cheese, when the door opened and the burgrave entered, followed by several men carrying torches. The sudden brightness caused Richard to avert his gaze, for once night had fallen, his cell quickly filled with shadows. When his eyes had adjusted to the glare of those flames, he found himself looking into the face of Philip de Dreux, Bishop of Beauvais.

  The bishop was grinning. “Have I ever seen a sight so sweet? No, I think not. You’re looking rather bedraggled, Lionheart, and it’s only been two days. Imagine what a pitiful state you’ll be in after you’ve enjoyed the emperor’s hospitality for a month or two.”

  Richard got slowly to his feet. “I have you to thank for this, Beauvais?”

  “I would love to be able to claim all the credit. But the emperor already had it in mind to send you here. He did not like how easily you beguiled his vassals and decided that you’d cause less trouble at Trifels. I agreed, of course. I explained, though, that it was not enough to keep you secluded, for you’re stubborn, Lucifer proud, and badly in need of a few lessons in humility. Heinrich does not want you dead, if that be any comfort. He wants you broken, and time spent at Trifels usually breaks men like twigs. When you’re ready to beg him for your freedom, then he may be willing to talk about new terms. As for me, I hope you hold out for a while. It gives me great pleasure to think of you cold, hungry, dirty, and fettered like a common felon.”

  “You are a dead man, Beauvais, I swear it!”

  The bishop laughed. “I am quaking in my boots; can you tell? You still do not see, do you, Richard? Heinrich would sell you to the Caliph of Baghdad if the price was right. Yes, he wants you to be miserable during your stay at Trifels, but he wants the money even more. You think your mother and friends will empty England’s coffers to rescue you, and I daresay you’re right. But hatred is a far more powerful force than love, and my cousin Philippe hates you as much as I do. He was not happy to learn that Heinrich and Leopold had agreed upon terms for your release at Würzburg without giving him a chance to put in a bid of his own. I am going back to Paris on the morrow to deliver the good news that he now has another chance. Whatever the English can offer, he will match it and more, and not just for the pleasure of seeing you rot in a French dungeon. He is no fool and knows full well that it will be a lot easier to take Normandy and Anjou away from your brother than from you. So it is safe to say that he is greatly motivated to outbid your doting mother. Think on that during those nights when sleep will not come.”

  He waited to see if Richard would respond, and then signaled to the burgrave to open the door. “Farewell, my lord Lionheart,” he said mockingly. “May the next time we meet be in Paris. And if you think these accommodations are lacking, wait until you see what awaits you in the royal dungeons of the French king.”

  RICHARD THOUGHT HE’D HIT his lowest point while having to endure the bishop’s taunting. But the next day he began to cough and it got steadily worse. He was soon sure that he was running a fever, for the chamber no longer seemed as cold. He was already helpless in the hands of his enemies. If he was being punished for past sins, was that not enough? Must he sicken now, too, stricken with the chills and fever that had laid him low in the past? In the past, though, he’d been amongst friends and had doctors to tend to him. Even then he’d almost died of quartan fever at Jaffa. How long would it take for Death to claim him in this frigid, barren cell? Mayhap in time he’d come to see Death as an ally, but not yet. He was not ready to concede defeat, willing to suffer far greater deprivations than this to thwart those misbegotten, conniving caitiffs on the German and French thrones. Whatever he may have done to displease the Lord God, surely he was more deserving of Christ’s mercy than Heinrich and Philippe.

  RICHARD HAD BEEN TROUBLED for hours by coughing fits, but he’d finally fallen asleep after midnight. He was not sure what awakened him, for at first he heard only the snoring of his guards and the keening of the wind. Shivering, he reached again for his blanket and mantle. It was then that he heard it, a voice close at hand, telling him to wake up. The words were in French and the voice was very familiar. He sat up so abruptly that his chain jerked him backward. Peering into the darkness beyond his bed, he thought he could discern a figure standing a few feet away. For once, he was utterly at a loss. Feeling like a fool, he said dubiously, “Are you a ghost?”

  The laughter was hoarse and raspy and familiar, too. “You’d think I’d have better things to do in the afterlife than haunt my ungrateful son, would you not? Yet here I am.”

  “No,” Richard said, “you are not here.”

  “And you are not in a German dungeon,” Henry shot back. “Let’s assume that I got a safe conduct from Purgatory. I have something to tell you and for once I want you to heed what I say. Let’s begin with that bastard Beauvais. Even a blind pig can turn up an acorn occasionally and he was right when he called you stubborn. That stubbornness will be your undoing if you do not start recognizing your new reality.”

  “And this reality involves chatting with a ghost?” Richard said dryly. “Well, why not? What should I be doing, then?”

  “Start by admitting what you most fear.”

  Richard forgot that this had to be a dream. “I fear nothing!”

  His father laughed again. “If that were true, your mother would be an even worse wife than I thought, for no blood son of mine could be such a fool. We both know what you most fear, Richard—what any man with half a brain would fear—that you could be turned over to the tender mercies of the French king.”

  He paused, as if daring Richard to deny it. “Say what you will of that German vulture, he is motivated by sheer greed. I daresay he is enjoying this chance to humiliate you, for you do have a rare gift for making enemies. But we’re still dealing with basic greed, which is why the French king is so much more dangerous. Philippe hates you with the only spark of passion ever to inflame that shriveled soul of his. Oh, he would also like to put Johnny on your throne, realizing that Johnny is much easier prey than you. I confess to being grievously disappointed in that lad.”

  “So am I,” Richard said, having discovered that he was actually enjoying his eerie, improbable conversation with this sardonic spirit.

  “But it is Philippe’s poisonous jealousy that would doom you. You do know what will happen if he ever gets you i
n his power, Richard? You’ll never see the light of day again and when death comes, you’ll welcome it.”

  “Of course I know that! But in case you’ve not noticed, I do not have much control over events these days.”

  “You have more control than you know, lad. Make the most of it. Do whatever it takes to keep Heinrich from selling you to the French.”

  “Even if that means swallowing every last shred of my pride?” Richard demanded, with sudden bitterness.

  “Yes, damn you, yes! You owe this to me, Richard. Save my empire. Do not let my life’s work become dust on the wind. Do not let Philippe and Johnny destroy it all.” It was very quiet after that. When Henry finally spoke again, the raw passion was gone from his voice, as was the ironic, detached amusement. “There is something else you need to remember whenever this new reality of yours becomes more than you think you can bear. You cannot gain revenge from the grave. Trust me on this; I know.”

  Richard did not respond at once, for a fettered memory had just been set free—the last words his father had ever spoken to him. Compelled by Philippe to give his rebel son the kiss of peace, he’d done so, and then growled, God grant that I live long enough to avenge myself upon you! It was only then that Richard had realized Henry was truly dying.

  “When I found myself a prisoner at Dürnstein, knowing I was facing a trial at Heinrich’s court, charged with crimes I’d never committed, I began to think that mayhap I was being punished for other sins. At the time, I did not consider them sins. I thought I was justified in defending my birthright and my mother. Now . . . I am not so sure. Is this why God has turned His face away from me? Because of my sins against you?”

  Richard waited tensely for Henry’s answer. It never came. There was only silence.

  THE NEXT MORNING, the dream was still so vivid that it unsettled Richard, for he remembered hallucinating at Jaffa in the throes of fever, convinced that Philippe and his brothers John and Geoffrey were at his sickbed. Could he be hallucinating again? He was not on fire with fever, though, and he took comfort from that, deciding it was only a dream, nothing more.

  He had another bad day, for his coughing was now so persistent that he sometimes felt as if he were strangling. He finally gained a brief surcease in midafternoon when he fell asleep. But when he awoke, his fear of hallucinations came flooding back as he stared at the three men by his bed. The burgrave did not look as stoic as before; he was flushed and clearly ill at ease. A rail-thin youth with red hair, freckles, and a friendly gap-toothed smile was at the burgrave’s side. And kneeling by the pallet was a man small and misshapen, cursed with a receding chin, flat nose, and crippled legs, so plain that his enemies cruelly called him “dwarf” and “imp” and “gargoyle,” England’s disgraced chancellor, Guillaume de Longchamp.

  Richard struggled to sit up, for the chain had snagged on his blanket, limiting his range of motion. He still managed to touch the chancellor’s arm, needing the reassurance that Longchamp was flesh and blood, not another phantom spirit. “Guillaume? How are you here?”

  Longchamp’s dark eyes shone with unshed tears. “God will punish them for this, sire,” he said, reaching over to untangle the chain. “After your brother drove me into exile, I retreated to Normandy, but as soon as I heard of your capture, I set out for Rome and then Germany. When I got to Speyer, Heinrich had already left for Hagenau and no one knew your whereabouts. The Bishop of Speyer privately confided what the guards had told him—that the emperor’s seneschal, Markward von Annweiler, had come at dawn for you. Bishop Otto insisted he’d had no part in it and did not know where you’d been taken. When I pressed him, though, he admitted it was most likely Trifels Castle.”

  This was not what Richard wanted to know, but he’d been too busy trying to suppress a cough to interrupt. “No . . . I meant how did you get the burgrave to let you in to see me? How did you even manage to communicate with the man? He speaks no French, no Latin. . . .”

  “I had Arnold translate for me, sire. Ere I set out, I hired a German-speaking guide.” Longchamp gestured toward the lanky redhead, who grinned in acknowledgment. “And the burgrave dared not refuse me. I told him that I am a papal legate as well as a consecrated bishop, and I swore a holy oath that if he did not admit me straightaway, I would excommunicate him then and there, cast his miserable soul out into eternal darkness.”

  Longchamp started to rise then, no easy feat, for he’d been lame in both legs since birth. But he waved the guide away when Arnold offered a helping hand, for he was fiercely proud. Once he was on his feet, he swung around on the burgrave, black eyes blazing. “Tell him this is a disgrace and an outrage, Arnold. The life of the English king is precious to the Almighty, and to the emperor, too—worth one hundred thousand silver marks, to be exact. If the king dies at Trifels, the emperor forfeits any chance to collect that ransom. And if he dies in this fool’s custody, whom does he think will be blamed?”

  He paused to let the guide translate, glaring at the burgrave all the while. “Tell him that as terrible as the emperor’s wrath will be, how much greater will be the wrath of God. He will burn in the hottest pits of Hell for killing a man who took the cross, who fought for Christ in the Holy Land. All that the English king has suffered at his hands, he will suffer a thousandfold. Those cast into Hell are tortured by demons, drowned in rivers of boiling blood, trapped in lakes of fire. But as awful as these torments are, they are not the worst of the punishments inflicted upon the damned. The worst is that these doomed souls will never get to look upon the face of God.”

  By now the burgrave was the color of curdled milk, and even Arnold had paled. “He says he loves God, does not want to burn in Hell. What must he do?”

  “Tell him to fetch a doctor or an apothecary from that village below to treat the king’s fever and to do it now.”

  “He . . . he says he does not think it is permitted, my lord, that it has never been done.”

  “This has never been done, either!” Longchamp snapped, gesturing toward the chained man on the pallet. Limping toward the burgrave, he thrust his arm out, like a prophet of the Old Testament calling down celestial thunderbolts upon doomed sinners, and the burgrave retreated before him.

  The guards were mesmerized by this extraordinary show, eyes round and mouths agape. When Longchamp began to spit out Latin imprecations, the German yielded and promised the apothecary would be sent for straightaway. And as he watched the huge, hulking burgrave wilt before his diminutive chancellor, Richard smiled for the first time since he’d been spirited away from Speyer to this isolated mountain citadel.

  THE APOTHECARY WAS ELDERLY and obviously nervous at being summoned to the castle, but he brought along a supply of herbs and instructed Arnold in how they were to be administered. Within hours, Richard’s cough began to ease and his throat no longer felt so sore. He thought it helped, too, to have been served his first decent meal since his arrival at Trifels, a bowl of hot soup and bread that was not stale. He was even given a flagon of wine, at Longchamp’s insistence. The apothecary’s sleeping draught was beginning to take effect, and he smiled drowsily at his chancellor. “I am truly gladdened by your visit. And I’ll take to my grave the memory of your turning that brawny burgrave into mush.”

  The older man shifted uncomfortably, for he’d insisted upon sitting on the floor next to Richard’s pallet. “God has not forsaken you, my liege,” he said earnestly, even imploringly. “You must not despair, for I am going to get you out of here.”

  Richard did not doubt the chancellor’s sincerity, merely his ability to conjure up a miracle. “You cannot intimidate the emperor the way you did the burgrave, Guillaume,” he said and yawned. “Heinrich would be right at home in Hell. . . .”

  “Nevertheless, I will find a way, sire. I promise you that upon the surety of my soul.” Richard didn’t reply, his lashes drifting down to veil his eyes, and the even rhythm of his breathing soon told the chancellor that he slept. He planned to depart for the emperor’s court at Hagenau at
first light, so he knew he ought to be abed himself. But he found it hard to leave. Although he’d browbeaten the burgrave into giving Richard a second blanket, he could still feel the cold night air seeping through those open arrow slits, and he removed his own mantle, tucking it securely around the sleeping man.

  His had not been an easy life, in some ways made more challenging because his disabled body housed a first-rate brain. He’d been brutally taunted as far back as he could remember, for theirs was an age in which physical deformity was often seen as the outer manifestation of inner evil. He’d soon realized that he was far more intelligent than his tormentors, and from an early age, he’d determined to show them all. Burning to prove himself superior to fools with handsome faces, healthy bodies, and empty heads, he’d looked to the Church as his only avenue of escape. Having neither charm nor good looks nor family ties to recommend him, he’d had only his exceptional intellect to rely upon, and it eventually earned him a clerkship with the old king’s baseborn son, Geoff, and then a post in the chancery. His career would likely have stalled there if not for a chance encounter with Richard, then the young Duke of Aquitaine.

  They could not have been more unlike—a prince blessed with the best their world had to offer and a puny misfit—but to Longchamp’s amazement, Richard had been indifferent to his physical frailty, able to penetrate his cripple’s guise and recognize the finely tempered steel of a blade-sharp mind. He had become Richard’s chancellor and, when Richard was crowned, England’s chancellor. Richard had elevated him to the bishopric of Ely, named him chief justiciar, secured for him a papal legateship, and entrusted his kingdom to Longchamp when he departed for the Holy Land.

  Never had Longchamp’s ambitions soared so high; he’d even dared to dream of the ultimate prize, the archbishopric of Canterbury. He’d taken advantage of his newfound power to provide for his family, to humble the enemies who’d scorned him for so long, and to give justice to those who so rarely received it whilst safeguarding his king’s throne. But somewhere along that road, he’d lost his way. He’d antagonized men whose support he needed, let his disdain for the English and their Godforsaken isle show too nakedly, and then fallen into the trap set by the king’s brother, who was far cleverer than he’d first thought. During his months in exile, he’d done little but reassess and relive his dizzying fall from grace, concluding that ungodly pride had led him astray.