Berengaria inclined her head. “Thank you, my lord,” she said softly, and then turned to present him to Bishop Guillaume. Richard already knew the bishop, who’d been elected to the See of Poitiers ten years ago, and their exchange was coolly civil, for they’d clashed over Church prerogatives when Richard was Count of Poitou. He turned then to Joanna, giving her a brotherly kiss on the cheek. She smiled at him, all the while hoping that the decorum of the public greeting between husband and wife was due to the presence of the bishop and the other clerics. But as she looked up searchingly into his face, she could not tell what he was thinking; his court mask was firmly in place.
Upon getting word that Richard would be arriving on the second Saturday in July, Berengaria had insisted upon arranging a formal reception for him, inviting Bishop Guillaume, the abbess of Ste Croix, the Abbot of St Hilaire de Grand, most of the city’s clerics, the Viscount of Thouars and his brother Guy, and even their quarrelsome neighbor Hugh de Lusignan. Joanna had noticed that Richard did not seem to enjoy these elaborate public gatherings as much as he once had, and she’d tried to convince Berengaria that Richard might prefer a quiet family dinner. But Berengaria had insisted that Richard be given a ceremonial welcome befitting his rank, leaving Joanna to worry that her sister-in-law was more nervous than joyful about her long-delayed reunion with her husband.
Trestle tables draped in white linen had been set up in Eleanor’s splendid great hall, laid with silver plate. The cooks had prepared an extravagant menu: a roasted peacock, its bones strutted, its skin and feathers then refitted to give the impression that it still lived; marrow tarts; venison stew; trout boiled in wine; sorrel soup; rice in almond milk; blancmange; Lombardy custard; salmon in jelly; red wine from Cahors and Bordeaux, and even the very costly Saint Pour?ain wine from Auvergne; and then sugared subtleties shaped like dragons and war galleys and Richard’s new coat of arms, for upon his return, he’d added two more royal lions to his standard.
Bishop Guillaume did not approve of such excess, although he politely said nothing, reminding himself that the English queen would make sure that her almoner distributed the leftover food to the poor. He could not resist chastising the English king, though, for having turned out the monks of St Martin’s at Tours, for he considered that a typical Angevin provocation. He thought Henry had been the worst offender, having the blood of the martyred Thomas of Canterbury on his hands, but Richard did not always show the proper respect for the Holy Church, either, and his harassment of the Tours monks was shameful in the bishop’s eyes—as was the presence amongst good Christians of Richard’s cutthroat captain, Mercadier, who was calmly enjoying his dinner at one of the side tables.
Richard felt that he’d been quite justified in punishing the monks for welcoming the French king. He meant to return their property once they’d learned a lesson in loyalty, but he had no intention of sharing that with Bishop Guillaume. He heard the bishop out with icy courtesy, though, for Berengaria was watching him imploringly, dark eyes filled with distress. He supposed he should have expected her to become the bishop’s devoted disciple, for her piety inclined her to give the benefit of every doubt to the Church. As likely as not, she’d even defend that inept fool on the papal throne.
He was determined to be on his good behavior and did his best to keep the conversation going, telling them that the Archbishop of Rouen was back from his stint as a hostage in Germany, news that pleased them all, especially the clerics. He revealed that his chancellor, Longchamp, was meeting with French envoys to discuss a truce, a reluctant but realistic acknowledgment that Normandy needed time to recover from the war that had been ravaging it for over a year, and this, too, was well received by his audience. And he entertained them by relating the story of a “fat fish” that had been stranded on the manor of the canons of St Paul’s. Whales were considered the property of the Crown, but Hubert Walter had ruled that this one belonged to the dean and chapter of St Paul’s, and Richard amused them by grumbling good-naturedly that his justiciar now owed him a whale, a debt that would not be easy to pay. He and André and his knights were the only ones who’d actually seen a whale and after they described the one they’d encountered as they sailed to Sicily, a lively discussion ensued about whether the “great fish” that swallowed Jonah in Scriptures had been a whale.