“Good, because I do not think you are deserving of any.”
They regarded each other in silence. He’d recognized her as soon as he’d seen her on the dais, even though it had been almost two decades. She’d been a beautiful child who’d grown into a beautiful woman, a woman who—like their mother and half of Christendom—thought Brother Richard could walk on water. His relationship with his family had always been a tenuous one, fraught with ambiguity and ambivalence. Even before disgrace and imprisonment had erased her from his life, his mother had been a glamorous stranger to him. His father had dominated his world, inspiring awe, admiration, and fear in the boy he’d once been. His brothers had been so much older than he—eleven, nine, and eight years—that they seemed to live on a distant shore, leaving him to cling to the small island of his father’s favor, an island ever in danger of being submerged by the raging Angevin sea. Only with Joanna was it not complicated—until she’d been sent off to wed the King of Sicily, thus depriving him of his only childhood ally.
“Eighteen years . . . We have a lot of catching up to do,” he said, striving to sound composed, even nonchalant. “I’ll go first. One marriage, no children born in wedlock, some born out of it, two betrayals, and one very public pardon.”
Joanna was not fooled by his flippant tone. “For me, it was marriage, motherhood, and widowhood.”
John surprised her then, by dropping his sardonic shield and giving her a glimpse of the brother she remembered. “I ought to have written to you when your son died, Joanna.”
“You were not yet fifteen, Johnny.”
“I still should have written.” He moved toward her then, stepping out of the shadows into the moonlight. “Why did you follow me into the garden?”
She thought it was strange to see her mother’s green-gold eyes in another face. “Do you remember what I would call you whenever we’d have a falling-out? Johnny-cat, because you were always poking about where you had no right to be.”
“I remember,” he said, with the barest hint of a smile. “I never liked it much.”
“I could not help thinking of that as I watched you and Richard in the great hall. The Saracens had a proverb about cats having seven lives. You offered up your seventh one in there, Johnny-cat. You do know that?”
“Christ, Joanna, of course I do!”
She ignored the flare-up of defensive anger. “Thank God you see that,” she said somberly. “I was afraid you would not. I know Richard and he will not forgive you again, Johnny. The next time you fall from grace will be your last. For your sake—for all our sakes—I hope you never forget that.”
She stepped closer then, kissing him on the cheek. Feeling as if she were bidding farewell to her childhood, she turned to go back to the great hall, leaving him alone in the garden. He stood there without moving, watching her walk away.
ONE REASON RICHARD HAD been so impatient during his stay at Portsmouth was that he’d heard the French king was laying siege to Verneuil, a strategically placed castle that he could ill afford to lose. Confident that he’d be coming to their aid, the garrison had spurned Philippe’s demand for surrender, mocking him from the battlements and drawing an unflattering caricature of the French king on the castle walls. Richard meant to march on Verneuil as soon as he’d made peace with John, and on the day of his departure, he was pleased by the arrival of his infamous mercenary captain, Mercadier. Boasting a sinister scar that carved a jagged path from his cheekbone to his chin, twisting one corner of his mouth awry, with hungry hawk eyes that few could meet for long, this ice-blooded son of the south had earned a reputation for battlefield mayhem that rivaled some of the legends of the king he served. Richard was untroubled by Mercadier’s notoriety, caring only that he was utterly loyal and utterly fearless, and he welcomed the routier with enough warmth to worry the clerics, who were convinced that all routiers were godless men and Mercadier himself the spawn of Satan.
Richard was giving final instructions to the knights who would escort Anna to Rouen, Eleanor to Fontevrault, and Joanna on to Poitiers, when he happened to catch an enigmatic exchange between André and Mercadier, André asking, “He is with you?” Seeing Richard’s curious look, André smiled slyly. “We have a surprise for you, sire,” he said. “He’s awaiting you out in the courtyard.”