“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. . . .”