“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.”