It seemed to many that Heinrich had Lucifer’s own luck that year; the vast ransom he’d extorted from the English king had financed his invasion of Sicily and Tancred’s death had made his victory inevitable. Then, to the astonishment of most of Christendom, Heinrich’s forty-year-old wife, long thought to be barren, became pregnant, and as Heinrich planned his coronation in Palermo, Constance prepared for her lying-in in the small Italian town of Jesi.
But if Heinrich’s touch seemed to be golden in that year of God’s grace, 1194, the Duke of Austria’s fortunes continued to plummet. That June, Pope Celestine had ordered Leopold to return his hostages to the English king, to repay his share of the ransom, and then to go to the Holy Land in expiation of his sins, spending the same amount of time in the service of Christ as King Richard had been held in captivity. When Leopold defiantly refused to accept any of these terms, the Pope ordered the Archbishop of Verona to excommunicate the Austrian duke and to place his duchy under Interdict.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
DECEMBER 1194
Chinon Castle, Touraine
Richard had a playful competition going with his mother as to which of them had the most effective spy. Eleanor insisted none could surpass Durand de Curzon, whom she’d implanted in John’s household to keep track of her wayward son. But Richard was sure that there was no one better than the man who called himself Luc and had served the English Crown faithfully for more than twenty years, continuing to serve Richard after Henry’s death. When he was told now that a man was seeking an audience and heard the code word that identified Luc, he abruptly interrupted the council and then hastened from the great hall for a private word with his spy.
As his absence dragged on, the men in the hall grew restless. Guillaume de Longchamp attempted to discuss Church matters with the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Lincoln, but Archbishop Gautier continued to snub the chancellor at every opportunity, and he made a conspicuous show of rising and moving away. Longchamp could only fume. He’d clashed with the Bishop of Lincoln, too, but Bishop Hugh at least accorded him the courtesy one prelate owed another. Thanking the Almighty that he need never set foot again on Richard’s benighted island kingdom, Longchamp was making polite conversation with the other bishop when a loud burst of laughter caused him to frown.
Gathered by the open hearth, the Viscount of Thouars, Hugh de Lusignan, and William de Forz, the Count of Aumale, had been exchanging bawdy jests about the unlikely pregnancy of Heinrich’s empress. Viscount Aimery’s brother Guy had been listening in growing discomfort, but he’d so far held his peace. Guy was protective of women, so much so that his brother had dubbed him “the veritable soul of chivalry,” which was not meant as a compliment. He did not think it right to mock a woman who’d soon be facing the dangers of the birthing chamber at the advanced age of forty. But as a younger brother, he’d gotten into the habit of deferring to Aimery, and he knew that if he objected now, he’d become the target of their ridicule instead of Constance. After a particularly crass comment by the Count of Aumale, Guy edged away when he saw that they’d attracted the disapproving attention of the Bishop of Ely, not wanting to be judged by the company he kept.
“Such comments are highly unseemly, my lords,” Longchamp said coldly. He did not like women, but he made a few exceptions—for his own kin, for the king’s remarkable mother, and for the Empress Constance.
The men were not at all discomfited by his rebuke. “What did we say that was not true, my lord bishop?” Aimery grinned. “We were merely marveling that a barren woman could suddenly and miraculously conceive.” But when Count William compared Constance’s womb to a “withered pear,” Longchamp felt a flare of real anger.
“If you’d bothered to learn Scriptures, you’d know that Sarah, the wife of Abraham, gave birth to a son decades after her childbearing years were over. If it is God’s Will, a woman can conceive at any age.”
That quieted Aimery and Hugh de Lusignan, but William de Forz did not like to be scolded by a cripple. That bishop’s miter does not make you a man, you misshapen dwarf, he thought indignantly. Aloud, he said skeptically, “Well, if the empress is indeed with child, that will rank as one of God’s greatest miracles.”
Longchamp reached for a more dangerous weapon than a clerical reprimand. “You’d do well, my lord count, to remember that the Empress Constance is very dear to Queen Joanna, the king’s beloved sister.”