“Well, actually, there is a chance that they might make a genuine truce in light of the word from Spain.” Seeing that she hadn’t yet heard, he smiled, for it was always enjoyable to be the bearer of momentous news. He did not consider it all that alarming himself, but he knew that others did, and he quickly explained that the Caliph of Morocco had invaded the Spanish kingdoms and her son-in-law, the King of Castile, had suffered a great defeat at the battle of Alarcos. English and French prelates at once set up a clamor, arguing that Christian kings ought not to be fighting each other now that Spain was endangered by infidel Saracens.
“Richard was willing to heed them,” he said, sounding faintly surprised. That was no surprise at all to Eleanor, for she well knew how guilty Richard felt that his war with the French was keeping him from honoring his sworn oath to return to the Holy Land and wrest Jerusalem from Saladin’s sons.
“I doubt that Philippe gives a fig for the fate of Castile,” John continued, “but he has come under intense pressure from the French Church and he is already in papal disgrace over the Ingeborg scandal. Nor does he want to seem less concerned about the infidel threat than Richard. So ‘peace talks’ are being held this week, and I hear that the bishops are pushing for a marriage between Philippe’s son, Louis, and Aenor, who is conveniently available again since she did not have to wed Leopold’s son. But it remains to be seen how long any such peace will last. Brother Richard will never rest until he reclaims every single castle that he lost to Philippe during his imprisonment, and Philippe . . . Well, that one lusts after Normandy the way other men lust after women.”
Eleanor agreed. Any peace between Richard and Philippe would be fleeting at best. Yet a marriage that would one day make Aenor Queen of France was not a bad match. Even Constance might be satisfied with that. Meanwhile, she vowed to write that day to her daughter in far-off Castile. But what troubled her even more than the Saracen invasion of Spain was Heinrich’s arrogant intrusion again into her son’s life.
That evening she went alone to the abbey church. Kneeling before the altar, she offered up prayers for the souls of her husband and the children claimed by Death before their time. And then she prayed that God would punish the German emperor as he deserved, prayed that he would suffer as Leopold had suffered. She did not doubt that her confessor would consider such a prayer to be blasphemous, for she knew what Scriptures said about forgiveness: If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. She knew what Jesus had said when Peter asked how often he must forgive his brother who’d sinned against him: I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven. But Scriptures also said, As wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. And who was as wicked as a man who’d dared to lay hands upon a king who’d taken the cross?
TO THE SURPRISE OF MANY, Richard and Philippe’s envoys agreed upon a peace, contingent upon the marriage of Philippe’s eight-year-old son and Richard’s eleven-year-old niece. As Richard had to consult with his ally the German emperor, a truce was declared until November 8, at which time the treaty would be finalized. One immediate result of the truce was the return of the Lady Alys to the custody of her brother, the French king, twenty-six years after she’d been sent to Henry’s court at the age of nine.
PHILIPPE HAD OFTEN WISHED he’d been an only child, for his sisters had brought him nothing but vexation. Marie and Alix had been much older than he, tainted by Eleanor’s blood; Marie had even allied herself with his enemies in the early years of his reign. His youngest sister, Agnes, had been sent to Constantinople to wed the Greek emperor’s son at age eight; her eleven-year-old husband succeeded to the throne later that year, only to be overthrown and murdered by an ambitious cousin, who’d then forced Agnes to wed him. While Philippe had sympathized with her misfortunes, there was nothing he could do for her. But her maltreatment would later prove to be a source of embarrassment, for he knew men compared his lack of action with Richard’s rescue of his sister Joanna in Sicily, and he was convinced that Richard had deliberately made so much of Joanna’s plight just to make him look bad.