A King's Ransom

by Sharon Kay Penman

  It was obvious to her that Guy had been singed by the same flame. He was still holding her close, his body offering her flattering proof that he desired the woman, not just the duchess. “When,” he asked throatily, “can we wed? I’d say the sooner, the better!”

  One of John’s spies later reported on their garden encounter, and upon being told that he’d seen Constance and Guy laughing together as if they were lovers, not political pawns, John frowned, for that was not what he’d expected to hear.

  THE PEACE BETWEEN UNCLE and nephew was to be short-lived, not even lasting a day and night. John deeply offended the thin-skinned Viscount of Thouars by suddenly taking Chinon Castle and the seneschalship of Anjou away from him. While the Bretons did not yet know John intended to bestow it upon his new vassal, Guillaume des Roches, their mistrust of John was so strong that they saw sinister significance in this move. When Arthur was then warned that John intended to ensure his good faith by holding him prisoner, they found it easy to believe, and the young duke, his mother, her new husband-to-be, his disgruntled brother, and most of the Breton lords left Le Mans abruptly for the greater safety of Angers. Philippe was quite happy to fish in these troubled waters again and Arthur was soon back in Paris. John had succeeded in luring Guillaume des Roches away from the Bretons, yet he’d missed his last chance to remove Arthur from the French king’s influence. Despite her flight to Angers, Constance honored her promise and wed Guy de Thouars, although John considered that small consolation for his failure to deny Philippe such a dangerous weapon.

  DENISE ENTERED THEIR BEDCHAMBER at Châteauroux with a lighter step, for she hoped she was bringing a guest to pierce the dark cloud that had been hovering over their lives since Richard’s death. In time, she was confident God would heal the wound, but for now André’s pain was so raw that she could not look upon it without flinching.

  André was sharpening his sword on a whetstone, and did not glance up at the sound of the opening door; it was as if even his natural curiosity had withered, leaving nothing but apathy and indifference.

  “You have a visitor,” she said. “Sir Morgan ap Ranulf has just ridden in. Shall I send him up?” And she took heart when he nodded. He continued to concentrate upon honing the blade, not putting the weapon aside until Denise ushered Morgan into the chamber. “I’ll send a servant up with wine,” she said, and got only a distracted nod in return.

  Morgan sat down beside André in the window-seat. “I came to bid you farewell,” he said, “for I see no place for me in John’s realm.”

  “What . . . you’re not looking forward to serving your new king?”

  Morgan smiled sadly, for André’s sarcasm was as betraying as another man’s tears. “John is not my king, will never be my king.”

  “Where will you go, Morgan? Back to Wales, I suppose.”

  “No . . . there is no place for me there, either, not anymore. My father left his Welsh lands to my brother and his English manors to me. I am selling them, as well as the Norman estates that Richard gave me. And once that is done, Mariam and I are moving to Sicily.”

  André’s brown eyes showed their first spark of interest. “Good for you, Cousin,” he said, although they were not actually kinsmen, for his blood ties to Richard had come through Eleanor and Morgan’s through Henry. “I wish you well and Godspeed. I daresay you’ll hear about it eventually, but at least you’ll not have to watch as John loses the empire that was his father’s lifework, the empire that Richard died defending. I can only hope that it does not happen whilst his mother still lives.”

  Morgan did not dispute André’s dark vision, for he shared it. His heart bled for the other man, for André and Denise’s lands were in Berry, which meant that he must choose between drinking hemlock or wolfsbane, doing homage either to John or to Philippe. In October he’d accepted the French king as his liege lord, and Morgan knew he’d sooner have pledged his fealty to Lucifer himself. He did not offer sympathy, for André neither expected nor wanted it. Instead, he said, “I am taking Arne with us. He needs a new beginning, too.”

  André summoned up his first real smile. “It gladdens me to hear that.” He made an effort then to shake off his lethargy, for he owed Morgan that much. “Stay the night,” he said, “and we’ll find some battles to refight over dinner. But on the morrow, take your woman and Arne and do not look back, Morgan. The world as we knew it died at Châlus.”

  ELEANOR RETURNED TO Fontevrault Abbey on a day of glimmering grey mist and wintry drizzle. While her entourage continued on to her own quarters on the abbey grounds, she was warmly received by the Abbess Mathilde, Prioress Aliza, and her granddaughter Alix, now a novice nun. They offered their sympathies for the death of her daughter, telling her that Lady Joanna’s desire to take holy vows on her deathbed had brought great honor to their order.

  Eleanor inclined her head. “It gave her comfort in her last hours.” She said no more than that and they said no more, either, for her grieving was painful to look upon, but intensely private, shielded from the world by a fierce pride that conceded little, asked for even less. When they told her how happy they were to have her back at their abbey, she inclined her head again.

  “I regret that I cannot stay for long. My son and the French king are meeting after Christmas, hoping to make a lasting peace by the marriage of Philippe’s son to my granddaughter, and I have agreed to go to Castile to fetch her.”

  If she had any qualms about making such a long, dangerous, winter journey across the Pyrenees at her advanced age, she gave no indication of it, and the nuns knew better than to admit their own misgivings. Instead, they expressed their pleasure that her granddaughter should one day become Queen of France.

  Thank God Almighty that Philippe is so entangled in his own marital web, caught between the queen he does not want and the concubine the Church will not recognize. Eleanor would have found it difficult to consent to a marriage between her daughter’s child and a man she’d not have trusted with one of her greyhounds. Whilst she knew little about twelve-year-old Louis, at least he was not his father. She did not share these thoughts with the nuns, of course, and echoed their polite wishes that this marriage might end the war, even though she knew that there would be no lasting peace between the kingdoms of England and France as long as Philippe Capet drew breath.

  She soon rose, expressing the desire to visit the church ere returning to her own chambers, pausing at the door to say, “Two of my daughter’s ladies have accompanied me. Dame Beatrix and Dame Alicia served Joanna faithfully in life and they wish to take holy vows as she did. They are both of gentle birth, Beatrix the daughter and widow of knights and Alicia the sister of a Templar.” The abbess and prioress quickly assured her that they would gladly welcome the countess’s ladies. She’d expected such cooperation, for their abbey was now the royal sepulchre for the Angevin dynasty.

  THE RAIN WAS HEAVIER now and puddles were forming on the walkway. Silver droplets clung to bare tree branches, glistened like scattered seed pearls in the wilted, wet grass, but the rain felt cold against her skin. She drew her mantle more closely, remembering the superstition that it was lucky when it rained on the day of a funeral, as if Heaven itself were weeping for the deceased. It had not rained when her son and daughter were buried within the span of five months. She’d wept even if Heaven had not, shedding her tears behind closed doors in those endless hours ere the dawn.

  The church was empty and her footsteps echoed loudly upon the tiled floor as she moved up the nave. Smoldering torches in wall recesses did not keep the shadows at bay, but she had no fear of the dark.

  “I did all I could to gain him the crown, Harry,” she said softly, glancing toward the nuns’ choir, where her husband and son’s tombs lay. “But it will be up to John to hold on to it.”

  When she paused, the only sound that came to her was the soft patter of rain upon the roof. Fool. Did she think she’d hear voices from the grave? There were no places to sit, only prayer cushions scattered about the floor,
and she suddenly felt very tired. She leaned against the altar, thinking that the Almighty would not begrudge her aching bones the support.

  “When I return from Castile, Harry, I shall arrange for Joanna’s reburial. It was her dying wish that she be buried with you and Richard. I shall have effigies made for you all, and one for myself. I doubt that I can rely upon John to have it done after I die. He loved Richard not and cannot admit his guilt over betraying you, not even to himself.”

  It did not seem strange to her, talking to the husband who’d been her gaoler. They’d been married for thirty-seven years, had loved and fought and lusted after empires and each other. And they’d buried too many children.

  “Just two left, Harry,” she whispered. “Lives cut short ere their time. But living too long is a cruelty, too. I know that losing Hal well-nigh broke your heart. At least you were not there as he drew his last breath; at least you were spared that. There is no greater pain than to watch your child die.”

  She slowly sank to her knees before the altar. But she did not pray. She wept for her dead.

  EPILOGUE

  APRIL 1204

  Fontevrault Abbey, Anjou

  SHE WAS BURNING WITH FEVER, but she welcomed it, eager to shed the body that had become her enemy. It would be soon now, for she was slipping her moorings, one by one, tethered by gossamer threads that trembled with each labored breath she drew. Gradually she became aware that she was no longer alone. She opened her eyes, but she saw only swirling shadows, candles that glimmered like distant stars in the dark.

  “God’s bones, woman, how much longer are you going to make us wait?”

  She’d not heard that voice, once so familiar, for nigh on sixteen years. “Harry?” she whispered, suddenly uncertain.

  “Of course it is me,” he said, sounding surprised and faintly defensive. “Who else? Do not tell me you expected that milksop Louis to keep vigil at your deathbed?”

  “I am not sure I expected you to keep vigil, either, Harry,” she confessed.

  “Well, if you make me wait much longer, I’ll be off,” he warned. “You are nigh on eighty, Eleanor. Are you going to outlive Methuselah from sheer contrariness?”

  “Will you stop badgering her? You can see, Maman, that eternity has not improved his temper any.”

  “Richard?” Tears blurred her eyes, tears of joy. She sensed others were there, too, beloved ghosts so long gone from her life, torn from her heart. Her sins had been many, but she’d atoned for them, endured her Purgatory and Hell here on earth. There was nothing to fear. The sudden silence alarmed her, though. Surely they’d wait for her? “Richard? Harry? Do not go! Stay with me. . . .”

  “We are here,” came the reassuring answer. “We are here.”

  RICHENZA SLIPPED QUIETLY INTO the chamber, holding a candle aloft. At her wordless query, Dame Amaria shook her head, saying that the queen had not regained consciousness. “But she was talking, my lady.”

  “She’s done that before,” Richenza said sadly. She yearned for some last lucid moments with her grandmother, but Eleanor’s fevered murmurings were incoherent, not meant for them.

  “This was different, my lady. She said ‘Harry’ and ‘Richard’ so very clearly. It was . . . it was as if she were speaking to them, that they were right here in the chamber with us. The doctor insists it was the fever, but I do not think so. See for yourself, my lady.”

  Richenza turned toward the bed and her eyes widened. It had been a long time since her grandmother had looked as she did now—at peace. It was as if all the pain and grief of her last years had been erased, and the candlelight was kind, hinting at the great beauty she’d once been in the sculptured hollows of her cheekbones and the flushed color restored by fever. Leaning over, Richenza took the dying woman’s hand.

  “Granddame?” Eleanor did not respond, but Richenza was suddenly sure she was listening to other voices, for the corners of her mouth were curving in what could have been a smile.

  AFTERWORD

  JOHN’S HISTORY IS WELL KNOWN, of course. His kingship was not a successful one. He lost Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Richard’s “fair daughter,” Château Gaillard, and when he died in November 1216, he was fighting for his survival, abandoned by two-thirds of his barons, with a French army on English soil. However, he is always great fun to write about.

  Berengaria never married again and struggled in vain to obtain her dower payments from John. She was treated more fairly by the French king, and Philippe bestowed the city of Le Mans upon her in return for her surrender of her dower lands in Normandy. During her long widowhood, she was known as the Lady of Le Mans, and she devoted herself to works of piety, proving to be a generous patron of the Church. She founded the Cistercian abbey of l’Epau near Le Mans, and she was buried there after her death on December 23, 1230. Although several safe conducts were issued to her, there is no evidence that she ever utilized them, and she remains the only Queen of England never to set foot on English soil.

  Richard’s son Philip seems to have died young, for the last mention of him occurs in 1201. The usually reliable chronicler Roger de Hoveden reported that Philip killed the Viscount of Limoges to avenge his father’s death. Viscount Aimar did die in 1199, but historians tend to discount the story because it was not reported anywhere else. Since Roger de Hoveden would not have invented it, there must have been a rumor to this effect, which is interesting in and of itself, for rumors shed light on medieval public opinion. It is sometimes reported that Richard had a second illegitimate son, Fulk, but this has not been documented.

  Raimond de St Gilles’s subsequent history is a tragic one, for he would find himself caught up in the Albigensian Crusade, one of the darker chapters in the history of the Church. I will discuss his fate in greater detail in the Author’s Note. The year after Joanna’s death, he wed Anna, the Damsel of Cyprus. I was not surprised by this, as Anna was said to be very attached to Joanna and people grieving for a loved one often turn to each other for comfort. Whatever their reasons for the marriage, it did not last long—less than two years. We do not know the grounds for their annulment, but in 1204, Raimond wed again, this time a political match with Leonora, the sister of the King of Aragon, who would survive him. I should mention here that Raimond had five wives, not the six that many historians have given him. The confusion can be traced to the chronicler of Historia Albigensis, who reported that Raimond had wed “la damsel de Chypre.” She would later be misidentified as Bourgogne, the daughter of the King of Cyprus at that time, Amaury de Lusignan. There is no evidence that Bourgogne ever left the Holy Land, where she wed Gauthier de Montbeliard, the constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. There are historians who are well aware of this mistake, but it is surprising—and depressing—that so many others simply report the Bourgogne marriage like so many sheep, most likely because Raimond’s marriages were peripheral to the subject they were writing about and so they did not do the in-depth research that would have revealed the error.

  Raimond was a man with his share of flaws, but what caused his downfall was a sin that we would consider a virtue—he was genuinely tolerant and was unwilling to persecute his subjects for their religious beliefs. He would pay a high price for that tolerance, would be publicly whipped, betrayed by men willing to violate canon law to entrap him, and then excommunicated. He died on August 2, 1222, at age sixty-six. He’d spent the morning on the threshold of a church as the sympathetic priests within raised their voices so he could hear the celebration of the Mass. He passed out from the heat and apparently then suffered a stroke. He had sought absolution repeatedly in the years since his excommunication, but it was always denied him, as it was now by the prior of St Severin’s. The Hospitallers showed more mercy and accepted the dying man into their Order. The Church’s enmity did not soften, though, and he was denied the last Sacraments, denied a Christian burial in consecrated ground. This would be a source of deep grief to his son, who tried desperately to get the Church to relent. The promise of mercy to his fathe
r was used as bait to force him into making greater concessions, but the promises were never honored, and Raimond’s unburied coffin rested for years in the commandery of the Hospitallers in Toulouse, where it was eventually discovered that his body had been devoured by rats.

  His son, the seventh Count of Toulouse, knew nothing but war from his twelfth year. He could not have remembered the mother who’d died when he was only two, but Raimond seems to have kept her memory alive for him, as he showed himself to be devoted to that memory, often mentioning her in his charters, naming his daughter Joanna, and asking to be buried beside her at Fontevrault Abbey when he died in 1249, at age fifty-two. His daughter had been compelled to wed the brother of the French king, and when their marriage was childless, Toulouse was swallowed up by the French Crown.

  Very little is known of Raimond and Joanna’s daughter, born in 1198. Most historians only mention the son born in 1197 and the son who did not survive. Others know there was a daughter, but claim her name was Mary or even Wilhelmina. That it was Joanna is proven by the necrology of Vaissy Abbey in Auvergne, which records that on May 28, 1255, died “Johana, filia Raymundi comitis et Reginae Johannae.” She was the second wife of Bernard III, Seigneur de la Tour, and had two daughters and three sons.

  André de Chauvigny made another trip to Rome in April 1202, and Pope Innocent was more sympathetic than Celestine, ruling that André and Denise had been married for more than a dozen years, had five children by then, and there was no valid reason for challenging their marriage. Sadly, André was one of the men seized by John in his one great military triumph, when he captured Arthur and the leading Breton lords at the siege of Mirebeau in August 1202. John refused to ransom André and he was dead before the year was out. Some of the prisoners were said to have been starved to death and it has been suggested that he was one of them; he’d have been about fifty-two. Denise was then pregnant with their sixth child. She married again in 1205 to the Count of Sancerre, but died herself in 1207, when she was only thirty-five.