ELEANOR HAD BEEN EXPOSED to more bloodshed and violence than most women of her rank. She had accompanied her first husband on his disastrous crusade, had seen men die of cold and hunger, had heard the anguished moans of soldiers with wounds only God could heal. Her own life had been put at risk in wild storms at sea and she’d almost fallen into the hands of pirates in the pay of the Greek emperor. While wed to Henry, she’d been ambushed by their rebellious de Lusignan vassals, saved from capture only by the heroic sacrifice of the Earl of Salisbury and his young nephew Will Marshal, whose career of royal service had begun on that spring afternoon more than twenty-five years ago. But none of her past experience made it any easier for her as she awaited word from the siege of Nottingham.
The priory at Lenton was so close to the castle that its walls were visible in the distance. As the fighting raged, she’d stalked the confines of the guest chamber, unable to think of anything but that ongoing assault. She considered having Prior Alexander escort her into the town so she could watch the attack from the bell tower at St Mary’s Church, but soon realized that would be madness. She made do by sending her household knights back and forth to the siege camp for news, not drawing an easy breath until they told her that her son now held the outer bailey and the assault had ended when darkness fell.
She was very pleased the next evening when Richard and André stopped by for a brief visit. Not surprisingly, they made light of the castle attack, spent more time grumbling about the squabble between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York, Richard’s half brother Geoff. Hubert Walter had arrived that afternoon, having his archiepiscopal cross carried before him, and Geoff had taken offense at that, for Nottingham was in the province of York. When he protested, Hubert had replied that Canterbury had primacy over York and Geoff’s always volatile temper had erupted like the Greek fire they hoped to use against the rebel garrison.
“I had to command Geoff to let it be,” Richard said, shaking his head in remembered frustration. “How could my father not see how ill-suited Geoff was for a vocation in the Church? God’s legs, even I would make a better archbishop than Geoff!”
“He is not one to turn the other cheek,” Eleanor agreed wryly. “But then, neither was Thomas Becket.”
André grinned. “I doubt that even a martyr’s death could secure a sainthood for Geoff.”
“If he keeps acting like such an overweening arse, he might well get a martyr’s death,” Richard prophesied gloomily. “We are going to have to allot an entire day of the council to hear complaints against him. His monks loathe him almost as much as the monks of Coventry loathe that bastard Hugh de Nonant.”
Richard had told Eleanor that he meant to hold a great council once he’d taken Nottingham Castle, and this gave her the opening she needed. “Richard, we are going to have to decide what to do with John.”
“How about a stint as a galley slave?”
“He deserves no mercy,” she conceded, earning herself a sardonic half smile.
“But you want me to extend it to him nonetheless.”
She nodded and he said noncommittally, “I’ll think about it, Maman.”
If it had been up to André, John would have suffered the same fate as the sergeants dangling from the Nottingham gallows. But he realized now that John might well escape the punishment he so richly deserved, and that did not sit well with him. On the short ride back to the siege camp, he asked Richard if he would truly consider pardoning John, and when he got a shrug in response, he could not help exclaiming, “Christ Almighty, why?”
Richard was silent for a time, keeping his eyes on the road. “If my mother asks it of me, it would be hard to say no.”
“Why would she want John’s betrayal to be forgotten?”
“Forgiven,” Richard corrected, “not forgotten. He is still her son, André, and the same blood runs in his veins and mine. However little I may like it, it cannot be ignored.”
André tactfully let the matter drop. He still did not agree, but then he did not have to think dynastically, and for that, he was grateful. Upon their return to Nottingham, he looked toward the gallows and the bodies twisting slowly in the wind, a sight not even moonlight could soften, and it occurred to him that John had a history of letting other men pay his debts.