A King's Ransom

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “You mean he wed the daughter of the murdered viscount, the one believed to have been slain by Count Raimond’s father? Good heavens!”

  “They are a practical lot, these southerners. Raimond’s sister married into the Trencavel family, too. The idea was to patch up a peace between Toulouse and the Trencavel viscounts. Raimond and Beatrice have had only one child, a daughter, whom he named Constance after his mother.” Sancha smiled wryly. “This did not please Raimond’s father very much. He treated Constance so badly that she finally left him and fled to the court of her brother, the French king—the one who was once wed to your mother. It was a great scandal, for Constance was with child at the time, later giving birth to another son in Paris. She adamantly refused to return to Toulouse, dying a few years ago.”

  “How old was Raimond when his mother sought refuge in France?” Joanna asked, and Sancha paused to consider the question.

  “Raimond is close in age to your brother Richard, so he’d have been about ten at the time.”

  “So he never saw her again? How sad.” Joanna found herself approving of at least one thing Count Raimond had done; naming his daughter after his mother honored her memory while expressing his disapproval of her maltreatment. “Does he have as many base-born children as the cardinal claims?”

  “I know of only three, a son and two daughters. Alfonso says he was quick to acknowledge them and provides generously for them, too, which is to his credit, for not all men bother to look after their bastards.”

  So far, Joanna had heard nothing particularly damning about Raimond de St Gilles from Sancha, for most of the men in her social class kept mistresses and had children born out of wedlock; her father had sired several of his own. “What of the cardinal’s other accusation, that he is a heretic? Do you believe it?”

  “No . . . Alfonso insists he is not a Cathar.”

  Joanna caught the dubious note in the other woman’s voice and prodded. “But . . . ?”

  “It is just that he is strangely indulgent when it comes to the religious faith of others. He actually seems to think that it is none of his concern, that their beliefs are between them and God!”

  Berengaria had been listening in silence, but at that, she shook her head, saying that to tolerate heresy was surely to encourage it. Joanna had a more nuanced view, for she’d come of age in Sicily, where Arabic was one of the official languages, her husband had been served by Saracen physicians and astrologers, and Jews were not segregated from society as they were in other Christian countries. She did not argue with Berengaria, though, not wanting to shock her with yet another example of Angevin insouciance; she knew that she and Richard had often disconcerted his sheltered Spanish wife with their candor and irreverent humor. But even if she could acquit Raimond de St Gilles of the most serious charge against him—heresy—he was still not to be trusted, for her House and his had been enemies for as long as she could remember, and she liked being in his debt no more than her sister-in-law did. There was nothing either of them could do about it, though.

  THERE WAS SO MUCH TENSION over Raimond de St Gilles’s impending arrival that Mariam joked privately to Joanna, “It is as if we are expecting the Antichrist.” Joanna smiled sourly, for her sense of humor seemed to have decamped as soon as she’d learned of Alfonso’s double cross, as that was how she saw his surprise. Soon afterward, she found herself seated on the dais with Alfonso, Sancha, and Berengaria, awaiting the Antichrist’s entrance.

  There was a stir as he entered the hall, for he was accompanied by a rising troubadour star, Raimon de Miraval. Joanna never noticed the troubadour, though, for she saw only Raimond de St Gilles. He was taller than average, with a lean build and the easy grace of a man comfortable in his own body. She had never seen hair so dark—as glossy and black as a raven’s wing—or eyes so blue, all the more striking because his face was so deeply tanned by the southern sun. He was clean-shaven, with sharply sculptured cheekbones and a well-shaped, sensual mouth that curved slightly at the corners, as if he were suppressing a smile. He was not as conventionally handsome as her brothers or her husband, but as she watched him approach the dais, Joanna’s breath caught in her throat, for the first time understanding what the troubadours meant when they sang of “a fire in the blood.”

  He knelt respectfully before Alfonso, saying smoothly, “As always, it gladdens my eyes to see you and your lovely lady, my liege.” Joanna bit her lip; naturally the wretched man would sound like one of God’s fallen angels. Low-pitched, with a slight huskiness, it was a voice meant for hot summer nights and honeyed wine and those sweet sins that paved the road to Hell.

  Rising, Raimond gallantly kissed Sancha’s hand, and as Alfonso introduced him to the others, he acknowledged Cardinal Melior’s frigid greeting with elaborate courtesy that held undertones of mockery. He seemed sincere, though, when he kissed Berengaria’s hand and offered his sympathies for her husband’s misfortunes, saying that it was shameful to hold captive a man who’d taken the cross. Surprised, Berengaria favored him with a warm smile that faltered when she remembered this amiable, attractive man was suspect in the eyes of Holy Church.

  “My lady Joanna.” Bowing gracefully, Raimond reached for her hand and Joanna felt a physical frisson at the touch of his fingers upon hers. His breath was hot on her skin and his kiss burned like a brand. She recoiled, jerking her hand from his, a gesture that was as involuntary as it was ill-mannered. She blushed deeply then, embarrassed by her own bad behavior. One of Raimond’s dark brows arched, ever so slightly, but he did not otherwise acknowledge her rudeness, continuing to regard her with a smile. Joanna sank back in her chair, no longer meeting his gaze. Never had she reacted to a man’s presence like this and, as flustered as she was by her body’s treacherous betrayal, what was even worse was that she was convinced Raimond de St Gilles was fully aware of the forbidden feelings causing her such distress.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  AUGUST 1193

  Arles, Provence

  Joanna had presided over one of the most sophisticated courts in Christendom, learning at an early age to submerge the woman in the queen. Moreover, she was accustomed to attracting male attention and was an accomplished flirt. But much to her chagrin, she felt like a raw, green girl in the presence of Raimond de St Gilles. Suddenly tongue-tied and ill at ease, she could not banter with him as she’d done with men since she was fifteen. Because she was so disquieted, she barely managed icy civility, and her anger with herself intensified her discomfiture. She took some small measure of comfort that she was not the only one behaving badly in Raimond’s company. The worldly, elegant cardinal who’d accompanied them from Rome had become a man smoldering with anger; his courtesy was grudgingly given and he always seemed to be biting his tongue to keep from bursting out with accusations and recriminations. But he and Joanna were the only holdouts against the count’s easy charm.

  Anna and Alicia had been smitten at once. Joanna kept a hawk’s eye on the girls, but she reluctantly admitted that Raimond had so far handled their infatuation very deftly, neither laughing at their clumsy attempts at flirtation nor encouraging them. To Joanna’s vexation, he and Mariam had acted as if they were kindred spirits from their first meeting, and by the time they parted from Alfonso and Sancha at Arles, he’d also won over Dame Beatrix. Even Berengaria’s straitlaced Spanish ladies were not immune to that smile and seductive voice; they expressed proper horror at his heretical views, but Joanna noticed that they watched him surreptitiously from the corners of their eyes and blushed whenever he glanced their way.

  Joanna realized that she was just as guilty as Berengaria’s women, for although she kept her distance from Count Raimond, she could not keep her eyes from seeking him out. He was a chameleon, she concluded disapprovingly, changing his colors to match his audience. With the bewitched girls, he was gravely gallant. With the forthright Beatrix, he was respectful. He flirted shamelessly with Mariam, but not with Berengaria. With her, he employed a more subtle approach, asking her t
o tell him of Richard’s exploits in the Holy Land. Joanna was sure he did not give a flying fig for Richard or his triumphs, but Berengaria’s pride in her husband prevailed over her initial wariness, and Joanna was sure that she frequently forgot this was a man suspected of the most serious of sins.

  Raimond seemed determined to make their journey as pleasurable as possible. In Arles, he’d taken them to see the ancient Roman amphitheater and the Baths of Constantine. From Arles, they’d traveled to St Gilles, the count’s birthplace, and he’d entertained them with stories of that celebrated saint, a hermit who’d lived for years in the forest near Nîmes with only a red deer for company. When the king’s hunters had pursued the hind, he’d tried to save her and had been wounded himself by a hunter’s arrow. The king had been so impressed by the recluse that he’d built a great abbey for him, named in his honor, which was now the first stop for those making the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Gilles was the patron saint of cripples, Raimond told the women, as well as the saint of lepers, beggars, and Christ’s poor. But when he added that St Gilles had never eaten the flesh of animals, consuming only vegetables and fruits, Cardinal Melior stiffened and excused himself. He later told Joanna and Berengaria that the Cathars also refused to eat meat and accused Raimond of deliberately baiting him with the story of this gentle saint. Even to Joanna, who was actively looking for reasons to find fault with Raimond, that seemed to be a stretch, and she and Berengaria agreed that they would try to keep the count and the cardinal apart whenever possible, for they had hundreds of miles still to go.

  After leaving St Gilles, they stopped next at Montpelier, before continuing on to the walled town of Béziers. Although its viscount, Roger Trencavel, was not present, they were warmly welcomed by the citizens. Cardinal Melior still insisted that they limit their stay to a single night, for Béziers was said to be a haven for heretics. From Béziers, they rode west to Narbonne. When Eleanor and Berengaria had traveled from Navarre to join Richard in Sicily three years earlier, the Lady Ermengard, the Viscountess of Narbonne, had entertained them lavishly during their stay in her city, and Berengaria had been impressed by Ermengard, a woman who’d ruled without a man for more than fifty years. She was shocked now to discover that Ermengard had been deposed and forced to flee Narbonne by her own nephew, Pedro de Lara. Neither she nor Joanna was comfortable accepting the hospitality of the usurper viscount, but Pedro was insistent that they pass a few days as his guests. So was Cardinal Melior, for he wanted to meet with the Archbishop of Narbonne, and they soon found themselves settled into the riverside palace that had once been Ermengard’s.

  JOANNA AND BERENGARIA HOPED to be able to depart Narbonne by the week’s end, but then Mariam suffered a mishap on an excursion with Raimond to visit the suburb across the river known as the Bourg. Joanna had declined to accompany them, then found herself watching from a palace window as they headed toward the old Roman bridge. They were back sooner than she’d expected, the women fluttering about like brightly colored butterflies and Mariam’s face white with pain as Raimond carried her into the palace and then up the stairs to the bedchamber she was sharing with Joanna. Mariam insisted they were all making much ado over nothing, but once Joanna shooed the others from the chamber, she saw that the ankle was badly swollen.

  She’d fallen, Berengaria explained, whilst they were strolling through the market and a shoat escaped its pen, creating a panic. Mariam had twisted her ankle as she pulled Anna out of harm’s way. But Count Raimond had taken charge, Berengaria assured Joanna, stopping the crowd from beating the pig’s owner, a country youth overwhelmed by his misfortune, and offering a reward to the one who recaptured the runaway swine. Since they’d not taken their horses in the crowded city streets, he’d carried Mariam back to the palace, much to Anna and Alicia’s envy. With a smile, Berengaria predicted that Anna was likely to have a mishap of her own the next time they were out and about in the city, claiming she could not walk so the count must carry her, too.

  Joanna had to laugh at that, for she could easily see Anna pulling such a stunt. She thought Mariam’s ankle was sprained, a diagnosis confirmed by the viscount’s physician. He ordered her to stay off her feet for a few days and Mariam, still protesting she was fine, reluctantly drank the potion of herbs provided by a local apothecary, finally falling into a fitful doze. Joanna had sat with her all afternoon, but once she was sure Mariam was sleeping, she joined the others in the great hall.

  Archbishop Berenguer of Narbonne was in a serious discussion with Cardinal Melior and Viscount Pedro, while across the hall, Raimond was joking with the troubadours Raimon de Miraval and Peire Vidal, who’d decided to accompany them as far as Carcassonne. They’d promised to perform that evening, and Joanna was sorry that Mariam would have to miss it. Spotting Berengaria and Beatrix seated in a window-seat, she headed in their direction. Richard’s queen was working on a delicate embroidery; she was a fine needlewoman and had tried to improve Joanna’s skill during their time in the Holy Land, to no avail. Under Berengaria’s patient tutelage, Joanna had been able to recall the lenga romana of Aquitaine and Navarre, for she’d lost much of it while living in Sicily. But she still wielded a needle as if it were a weapon, Berengaria gently chided, finally agreeing that needlework would never be one of Joanna’s talents.

  Looking up with a smile, Berengaria was pleased to hear that Mariam was sleeping. “Count Raimond sent one of his men to the new market for fruit to tempt Mariam’s appetite. He truly seems concerned on her behalf.” She paused and then said pensively, “I know the cardinal says he is a wicked sinner, but . . . I am no longer so sure of that. He has a good heart, Joanna.”

  “A veritable saint,” Joanna scoffed, for she did not want to listen as Berengaria extolled the count’s manifold virtues; it was bad enough that Mariam insisted upon singing that song.

  “No, he is not a saint.” Joanna was never sure if Berengaria was truly oblivious to sarcasm or simply chose to ignore it. “I am saying I do not believe he is a sinner beyond redemption. I’ve seen too many examples of his kindness. He never passes a beggar on the street without giving alms. He offered a greeting and a coin to that poor leper we encountered on the road from Béziers, when the rest of us averted our eyes. Whenever he is recognized, people flock to him, and he is always courteous even with the least of them. He says Emperor Heinrich was wrong to hold Richard captive and he sounds sincere. He was willing to take us to the old market yesterday to buy some of the scarlet silks that Narbonne is famous for, and whilst we were there, we saw two louts tossing a kitten up into the air as if it were a camp ball. It was such needless cruelty that I decided to ask the count to put a stop to it. But I did not have to ask, Joanna. He noticed on his own; how many men would have done that? Mayhap if a dog were being beaten, but who pays attention if it is a cat being maltreated? He did, though. When I thanked him, he just laughed and made light of it, but it was a kind act.”

  “So he is good to beggars and lepers and stray cats,” Joanna said, knowing she sounded petty, but unable to help herself. “That hardly gives him a safe conduct into Heaven.”

  “He is kind to children, too. Did you see what happened when we arrived in Narbonne? Remember how all those boys ran alongside him, shouting, “Count Raimond!” the way they always do for Richard? He laughed and tossed coins to them. But one little lad, younger than the others, had been unable to keep up, and he’d stumbled and fallen. He was sitting there in the street, crying, when the count glanced back and saw his plight. Joanna, he turned his stallion around and, reaching down, he pulled the boy up behind him. You should have seen that child’s face. He’ll never forget the day he rode with Count Raimond through the city streets to the palace, and the other boys will not, either.”

  Joanna had seen Raimond go back for the little boy, but hadn’t understood why. She was sorry now that she did, for it was so much easier to dislike the man if his good deeds were not being called to her attention daily by Mariam and Berengaria. “Tell me this, then,�
� she said, with such unwonted sharpness that both Berengaria and Beatrix blinked in surprise. “If he truly has such a good heart, how is it that he is so tempted by heresy?”

  Berengaria’s gaze wavered and color rose in her face. She looked so unhappy at being caught defending a heretic that Joanna felt a stab of remorse. But before she could make amends, her sister-in-law put aside her sewing and rose to her feet. “That is indeed a valid question,” she said, “and it is one I shall put to the count. If I have been led astray by his good manners and my wish to believe the best of others, better I know it now.”

  As they stared at her, she turned and started across the hall toward Raimond. When Beatrix asked if she’d really do that, Joanna jumped to her feet. “I do not know,” she admitted, “but I want to hear what he says if she does.” And she hastened after Berengaria, with Beatrix just a few steps behind her.

  As Berengaria approached, Raimond broke away from the troubadours and moved to meet her, a smile lighting his face. The smile disappeared as soon as she began to speak, though. For a moment, he looked utterly astonished, but he burst out laughing just as Joanna reached them. Those blue-sky eyes caught and held Joanna’s green ones, and again she had the uneasy sense that he knew exactly why she was so aloof, occasionally even rude. He turned back then to Berengaria, saying with sudden earnestness, “I’ve often been asked this and I’ve always given the same answer. No, I am not a Cathar. Cardinal Melior does not believe me. I hope that you will, my lady.”

  Berengaria’s dark eyes searched his face intently. “I want to believe you. But I do not understand why you are so tolerant of these ungodly, wicked men. Can you explain that to me, my lord count?”