A King's Ransom

by Sharon Kay Penman

  Eleanor accomplished what she’d hoped to do, for the mood lightened considerably after that. As a troubadour came forward to entertain, she was assuring the bishop that she and William de St Mère-Eglise would act quickly to inform the Christchurch monks of Richard’s wishes for the archbishopric. Remembering Richard’s wry comment about his father’s command to the monks of Winchester, ordering them to hold a free election to elect only the candidate of his choice, Hubert related this story and Eleanor laughed heartily, saying she remembered that well. Hubert thought it was a sign of healing that she could find amusement and pleasure in memories of the man who’d held her prisoner for sixteen years.

  It was William Briwerre who first saw the newcomer being escorted into the hall by the queen’s steward. His travel-stained clothing indicated he was a courier and the fact that he’d not bothered to clean up before seeking Eleanor was significant in itself. As he drew nearer, Briwerre recognized him as one of the queen’s men—utterly devoted to her, elusive, and at home in the shadows. “Madame,” Briwerre said, but she’d already taken notice of her agent’s approach.

  “My lady,” he said, kneeling. “Forgive me for interrupting your meal, but I have news you need to hear.”

  Eleanor regarded him calmly, while her hands clenched in her lap under the table. She’d dispatched him with a message for the seneschal of Normandy. But he ought not to have been back so soon. Nor did she see any sign of a letter. She hesitated, wondering if she should hear his news in private, then decided against it. Whatever was happening in Normandy, they all needed to know. Gesturing for him to rise, she said, “Tell me what you’ve learned, Justin. Did you meet with the seneschal?”

  “No, Madame, I could not.” He moved closer to the dais, his eyes never leaving her face. “I was unable to enter Rouen, for it is under siege by the French king and the Count of Flanders.”

  A shocked silence followed. No one spoke, for there was no need to say what was in all their minds—that if Rouen, the capital city of Normandy, fell to the French king, it could be a death blow to Richard’s control of his duchy.

  THE FRENCH KING WAS in high spirits, which he evinced by smiling from time to time. Philippe Capet’s enemies claimed he had no sense of humor at all. This was not true, but it was somewhat feeble from lack of exercise. Philippe’s view of the world was a sober one, which he attributed to his early accession to the French throne, at age fifteen. It had affected his education, too, for he had never mastered Latin and felt sensitive about that lack, all the more so because his nemesis, the English king, spoke it fluently. He had no false vanity and he knew he would always be eclipsed by Richard on the battlefield. He was quite competent when it came to siege warfare, though, for it played to his strengths, requiring a strategic sense and patience. And on this mild April afternoon before the walls of Rouen, he was already anticipating victory.

  So far the month had been a blessed one for the twenty-seven-year-old French monarch. He saw Gisors Castle as a golden key, one that would open all of Normandy to him. Two days ago, the Bishop of Beauvais had returned from Germany, and when Philippe heard that the English king had been cast into a Trifels dungeon, he’d seen his enemy’s suffering as divine retribution. Now, with a second chance to outbid the Lionheart’s elderly mother, he was convinced that John would soon be on the English throne. And on the day that happened, he knew the accursed Angevin empire would be doomed.

  His command tent was crowded, even though it was large enough to hold more than a hundred men. Trestle tables had been set up for a midday meal, draped with white linen and set with silver flagons and wine cups, and the dishes served were hot, savory, and worthy of a king. The wine in particular was of high quality, for Philippe enjoyed wine and hoped the time would come when he could lay claim to the famed vineyards of Aquitaine. Raising his cup, he said loudly, “Let us drink to Rouen’s fall!”

  The toast was enthusiastically echoed by the others in the tent, most of them of high birth, men eager for the booty such a campaign promised. Baldwin, the Count of Flanders and father of the French king’s deceased queen, who’d died tragically in childbirth, was seated in the place of honor on Philippe’s right, and the king’s cousin, the Bishop of Beauvais, was sitting on his left. After the first course had been served, the bishop entertained his fellow diners by describing the sorry state of the English king, claiming Richard had begged him to intercede with the Holy Roman Emperor. Those who knew the Lionheart personally thought that rather unlikely, but Beauvais’s account found favor with most of them, and there was much laughter when the bishop related the shameful circumstances of the English king’s capture, saying he’d been found in a wretched inn little better than a bawdy house, where he’d sought to evade detection by pretending to be a kitchen scullion.

  Not everyone found the bishop’s stories amusing. Jaufre, the Count of Perche, never looked up from his plate, trying to ignore the curious stares cast his way, for all knew that he was wed to the English king’s niece and his loyalties were therefore suspect. Staring down at the mutton stew, he found himself remembering his wife’s tearful farewell. He’d done his best to make Richenza understand that he had no choice, that he had to obey Philippe’s summons, reminding her that Philippe was his cousin and his king, reminding her, too, that he’d come back from the Holy Land deeply in debt and the Count of Mortain had promised to grant him Moulins and Bonsmoulins once he gained the English crown. Richenza had not been convinced, but Jaufre understood that women were emotional creatures and he knew she loved her uncle, having grown to womanhood at the English court. So he’d sought to be patient with her foolishness, especially now that she thought she might be breeding again; she’d already given him a son, born during his time in the Holy Land. He truly believed that he’d made the only decision he could. So why did it feel so wrong here in the French king’s command tent?

  Jaufre was not the only one to be discomfited by the Bishop of Beauvais’s malice. Mathieu, the Seigneur of Montmorency, was hard put to hide his disgust. He hated Beauvais, unable to forgive him for forbidding the French from going to the aid of Jaffa. He never doubted that Beauvais and the Duke of Burgundy had cared more about denying the English king victory than defeating the infidels. And he’d reluctantly come to believe that was true for Philippe, too.

  Mathieu had been just sixteen when he’d departed with his king for Outremer. He’d taken the cross with a youthful mixture of enthusiasm and piety and had been stunned when Philippe abandoned their holy war to return to France. Mathieu had not gone back with him, choosing to remain and honor his vow. In the Holy Land, he’d developed a deep admiration for the English king, the man who’d stayed whilst Philippe had fled. He had answered the French king’s summons because Philippe was his liege lord, but he knew what they were doing was wrong and he feared that God would not forgive them for making war upon a crusader-king. As he glanced around the tent now, he felt alienated and alone, fettered by honor to obey a man he no longer respected.

  “Do you think the town will surrender?”

  Mathieu turned toward his seatmate, fourteen-year-old Guillaume, Count of Ponthieu. The boy had accompanied his uncle Hughes, the Count of St Pol, and he was so excited to be at a siege that he put Mathieu in mind of a kettle on the boil. Guillaume’s father had died at Acre, and when Guillaume found out that Mathieu had been at Acre, too, the youngster was never willingly far from Mathieu’s side. His uncle Hughes did not say much about his time in the Holy Land, he’d complained, and he was delighted that Mathieu was more forthcoming.

  “Yes, I do think Rouen will yield to the king,” Mathieu said, wishing he could take pleasure in that looming victory. At least some good might come out of this shameless assault, for Philippe’s half sister, the Lady Alys, was being held in Rouen’s great castle. Mathieu felt sorry for the French princess, a marriage pawn who’d become a prisoner. She’d been betrothed to King Richard when they both were children, but the old king had kept finding excuses to put off the wedding. S
ince Richard had no interest in wedding Alys, who’d initially been given a paltry marriage portion, he’d raised no objections. When he became king, he agreed to marry her upon his return from the Holy Land, but that had been a ploy to make sure Philippe honored his own crusader’s vow. He’d actually had no intention of making Alys his wife and had arranged for his mother to bring the woman he did want to wed to him in Sicily.

  Mathieu still remembered the confrontation between the two kings in a chapel in Messina. He’d listened, amazed, as Philippe accused Richard of bad faith, only to have the English king come back with a devastating response. He could not marry Alys, he’d said coolly, for she was rumored to have been his father’s concubine and even to have borne him a child. When he proved that these rumors had been known at the French court, Philippe had been compelled to release him from the plight-troth, adding one more grudge to his hoard of grievances against the English king.

  Mathieu did not know if the rumors were true, but it did not matter much. Whether King Henry had shamelessly seduced the girl who was his ward and his own son’s betrothed or whether she was the innocent victim of vile gossip, the result was the same. Her honor was besmirched and her value on the marriage market plummeted. At least she would regain her freedom once Rouen fell to the French army. Not that Mathieu expected a warm homecoming for her. By now he had no illusions about the man who was his liege lord, and he was sure that Philippe saw Alys not as his sister, a flesh-and-blood woman who’d been ill used, but as an embarrassment to be disposed of quietly and quickly, most likely in a convenient nunnery. He still thought it was better to be a nun, even an unwilling one, than a hostage.

  “So we will not get to fight?” Guillaume sounded so disappointed that Mathieu had to smile, feeling much older and more experienced than this eager, raw stripling. He was about to assure the boy that they might get to launch an assault upon the walls when Gautier, the French king’s chamberlain, hastened into the tent. Leaning over, he whispered a few words to Philippe and the message was clearly a welcome one, for the French king actually grinned.

  “Well,” he said, “it looks as if Rouen will be ours by nightfall, for they are seeking to parley.”

  AS HE WATCHED THE approaching riders, Philippe was already savoring the sweet taste of triumph, for the city gates remained open, a sure sign that surrender was imminent. They were flying the white flag of truce, but a second banner caught the wind, too. He assumed it was the banner of the seneschal of Normandy, William Fitz Ralph, but then it unfurled and Philippe’s smile vanished. As others recognized the coat of arms, there were muttered exclamations and curses. Young Guillaume tugged at the arm of his new friend, asking Mathieu what was wrong. Mathieu had no chance to respond, for Philippe was already striding forward to meet the emissaries from Rouen.

  He nodded in response to the seneschal’s greeting, but all of his attention was on the second rider. He was young and, even on horseback, it was obvious he was of small stature; he was also all too familiar to the French king.

  “I was not aware that you were in Rouen, Leicester.”

  The earl smiled. “When I heard you might be stopping by, my lord king, I made haste to get here, eager to pay my respects. When did we last meet? Ah yes . . . it was at Acre. Did you have an easy trip back to your own lands? Such a pity your health would not permit you to remain. My king did the best he could in your absence. I daresay you’ve heard of his victories at Arsuf and Jaffa and—”

  “This is not a social occasion, my lord earl!” Philippe glared at the other man, but he was irked with himself, too, for taking the bait. Unfazed by the rebuke, Leicester was acknowledging the men who’d fought with him in the Holy Land, blithely calling out greetings to the Count of St Pol, the Count of Perche, and Mathieu de Montmorency, but passing over the Bishop of Beauvais and his brother, the Count of Dreux, as if they were invisible. Philippe noted with displeasure that Jaufre and Mathieu were obviously discomfited and even St Pol looked somewhat uncomfortable.

  “I am sure you have heard that the Count of Mortain met with me in Paris,” Philippe said curtly, “where he did homage to me for this duchy and the other lands that are his by right as Duke of Normandy and England’s king.”

  Leicester’s eyebrows shot upward in a gesture all too reminiscent to Philippe of the English king. “Just as you confused Acre with Jerusalem, my lord, you seem to have confused the Count of Mortain with England’s true king, who is currently enjoying the hospitality of your ally, the Emperor Heinrich.”

  “You are not a fool, Leicester, and only a fool would believe that Richard is ever coming back. John is to be your king, whether you like it or not. And as his liege lord, I have every right to enter Rouen. If you try to keep me out, you will greatly regret it. I have twenty-four trebuchets and—”

  “Sire, you have been grievously misinformed! We have no intention of denying you entry to Rouen. Do we, my lord?” Leicester turned toward the seneschal, who nodded vigorously in agreement.

  Philippe glanced from one to the other. “You are saying you surrender, then?”

  “No, my lord king. I am saying that you are welcome to enter Rouen at any time you choose.” Leicester flashed again the smile that Philippe was finding more and more irritating by the moment. “Look for yourself. The gates are open, are they not?”

  Philippe scowled, angry but suddenly uncertain, too. “What sort of game is this, Leicester?”

  “No game, my lord. I am inviting you into the city. I can safely say that it would please King Richard greatly to know that you were in Rouen.”

  Philippe could hear murmurings behind him as word spread among his men. His gaze shifted from the earl to those city gates, open and enticing in the bright April sunlight. Leicester was regarding him quizzically. Seeing that the French king was not going to respond, he made a gracious gesture of obeisance and then turned his stallion, calling back over his shoulder, “We’ll be awaiting you, my liege!”

  The seneschal spurred his horse to catch up with the earl, not drawing an easy breath until they had galloped through the gates. When he would have signaled for them to be shut, Leicester quickly countermanded him. “No, leave them open!”

  William Fitz Ralph looked searchingly at the younger man. He’d thought the earl’s plan was mad, but he’d been swayed by Leicester’s rank and by the fact that he was one of the genuine heroes of the crusade. “Are you sure this will succeed, my lord?”

  Leicester glanced back at the French army camp, which seemed to be in some disarray now, raised voices floating to them on the afternoon air. “I know Philippe Capet,” he said. “I know how his mind works. He sees shadows at midnight and inhales suspicions the way the rest of us breathe in air. Nor is he one to lead the charge. Can you imagine our king or his lord father ever relying upon bodyguards? Philippe goes nowhere without them. Moreover, Queen Eleanor’s spy sent her word that Philippe actually swallowed the rubbish Beauvais fed him, believing that our king hired Saracen Assassins to seek him out in Paris and murder him. Does this sound like a man who’d dare to venture into Rouen after I’d made him think he would be riding into a trap?”

  “No, it does not,” the seneschal admitted. “But even if he does not dare to accept your invitation, what is to keep him from sending his troops through those gates?”

  “Pride. The fact that I called him out in front of his entire army. If he does not accept my dare, he loses face, and no commander can afford that. He does not have enough soldiers to surround the city, was relying upon threats to frighten the citizens into surrendering. Once he has had a chance to think it over, he will lead his men in search of easier quarry than Rouen.”

  The seneschal looked at the French army, all too visible through the open gates. Praying that the earl’s bluff would work, he said, “I hope you are right, my lord.”

  He was not close enough to hear Leicester say, very softly, “I hope I am, too.”

  WATCHING FROM THE TOWN walls, they could sometimes hear angry shouting waftin
g from the French king’s command tent. Clearly there was dissension in the ranks, and the citizens of Rouen took heart from that. Leicester had gone to have a quick supper at a nearby cook-shop when he was hurriedly summoned by the seneschal. His heart pounding and his pulse racing, he took the steps up to the ramparts two at a time.

  “Look!” William Fitz Ralph was grinning widely. “They are breaking camp, moving out! You did it, my lord earl!”

  Leicester found himself mobbed by jubilant men and extricated himself with some difficulty before he could join Fitz Ralph at the wall. The seneschal was staring toward the west, shading his eyes against the glare of the dying sun. “What are those fires, though? What are they burning?”

  When they realized what was happening—that the French king was burning his own siege engines—the men burst into amazed, raucous laughter as Leicester explained that Philippe had been guilty of such impulsive, angry acts before. For many years, the English and French kings had met to discuss their differences at an ancient tree known as the “peace elm.” But after one frustrating session with King Henry, Philippe had instructed his men to chop the elm down. Hanging over the walls, the city’s defenders hooted and yelled at the retreating French, but cried out in real outrage when they saw that their enemies were rolling kegs of wine toward the Seine and pouring it into the river rather than leave it for them.

  The hero of the hour exchanged triumphant smiles with the seneschal. “Now,” he said, “now we close the gates!”

  DAME MARTHE WAS GROWING frantic for she’d searched much of the castle without finding her mistress. While the Lady Alys was kept under discreet surveillance, she was not strictly guarded, the castellan treating her more as a guest than what she really was—a hostage. Marthe supposed she could have slipped out through a postern gate, but where would she have gone? Marthe had served Alys since she’d been sent to the English court at age nine, and could not have loved her more if she’d been Marthe’s own child. That love did not blind her to her lady’s nature, though. Alys was sweet and good-hearted and trusting, yet she lacked spirit, had nothing in her of the rebel. She would never have run away, never even have ventured out into the city on her own, no more than a bird bred in captivity would dare to leave the security of its cage.