He’d fought them, to no avail, for he was greatly outnumbered. Pinning him down, they had fastened heavy shackles on his ankles and manacled his wrists, tethering the chains to a wall hook. Even then, he’d continued to resist until his head had slammed into the rough concrete floor. As the memories of that chaotic, frantic struggle came flooding back, he attempted to sit up, but his head was spinning again. He was finding it difficult to get enough air into his lungs and he was sickened by the stench. God alone knew how many prisoners had been entombed here, the confined space stinking of urine, feces, sweat, and fear. As the full horror of his new reality sank in, he tried to stave off panic, but he felt as if the walls were closing in on him.
It was then that he heard the sound of a key turning in the lock, and the darkness was pierced by a dazzling blaze of torchlight. Just as it had happened at Trifels, the Bishop of Beauvais was standing there, laughing down at him. But this time there was no hope of reprieve, no ransom to be paid.
“I wanted to reassure you that Philippe will not be putting you to death, Richard. Oh, he thought about it. But I convinced him this way was better. Whenever he has a bad day, he need only remind himself that you’re having a far worse one.” The bishop grinned. “I think he liked that idea. Whenever I’m in Paris, I certainly intend to stop by to see how you’re doing.”
He paused deliberately. “Nothing to say, Lionheart? Well, you listen whilst I talk, then. On the way over here, I was thinking of all that you’ll never experience again. You’ll never see the sky again or feel the sun on your face. You’ll never mount a stallion again—or a woman. You’ll not hear the sound of the wind or rain or the music you like so much. No more songs to write, no more battles to fight. The only voice you’ll hear will be your own. As the years go by, you’ll be forgotten—even by your friends. And when you finally do die, you’ll die unshriven of your sins, so you’ll burn for aye in Hell.”
“Then I’ll see you there, you craven son of a poxed whore!” Richard lunged to the end of his chain, calling the other man a cankered, maggot-ridden swine, a contemptible coward, a godless renegade, a gutless milksop, and a treacherous viper, impressing the guards with his raging, embittered invective. Beauvais merely laughed.
Gesturing to the oil lamp, he said, “Take that with us, for he’ll not be needing it.” He halted at the door, just as he’d done at Trifels. “We’ll feed you enough to keep you alive. I daresay you could survive for years; other prisoners have. But you might be one of the luckier ones, Lionheart. Mayhap you’ll go mad down here in the dark.”
With the loss of all light, Richard was blind, utterly alone in this icy, suffocating blackness. Overwhelmed by despair, he cried out, but no one could hear him, not even God. He was buried alive. He yanked desperately at his chains until his wrists were cut and bleeding, until hands gripped his shoulders and a voice entreated him to be still.
He jerked upright, his heart pounding, pulse racing, so shaken that he did not at once recognize his surroundings. He was in an unfamiliar bedchamber, but it was a bedchamber. Weak with relief, he sank back against the pillow. A young woman was cowering in the far corner of the bed, her eyes wide, blood trickling down her cheek. His new squire, Robert, was standing, frozen, several feet away, but Arne was leaning over him, saying soothingly that it was a dream, just a bad dream.
Richard knew that by now. The dream had been so real, though, that he could still feel the heavy manacles clamping his wrists; he thought he could even smell the foulness of that accursed oubliette. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply until his brain communicated to his body that he was at Nottingham Castle, not in a Paris dungeon. When he opened them again, Arne was still there, this time holding out a cup of wine. Richard drained it in several swallows and, without needing to be told, Arne produced a flagon and refilled it to the brim. As their eyes met, the same thought was in both their minds—the nights at Speyer and Worms when the boy had awakened screaming, sure that he was about to be burned with a red-hot poker.
Arne had opened the bed hangings when responding to Richard’s nightmare. Now he closed them again, but left a space so that the bed would not be cocooned in darkness, for after his own struggles with night terrors, he’d craved light. He then withdrew to his own bed on the opposite side of the chamber, giving Robert a shove when he still stood there gaping.
Richard drank again, more slowly this time, watching the glowing embers as the fire in the hearth burned low. Glancing over at the girl, he pointed to the bloodied scratch under her eye. “Did I do that?”