Richard got suddenly to his feet. “You know who I blame for his death, André? That craven, contemptible hellspawn, that spineless viper on the French throne. If not for him, I’d have been able to return to Outremer. With Saladin dead and no French to thwart our every move, Henri and I could have taken Jerusalem.”
“Yes,” André said, “I think you could have, Cousin.” He knew, though, that there was no comfort to be had in that belief. Watching as Richard stalked about the bailey, cursing every time he stumbled on a loose rock, he thought that it was not a good thing to hate as much as Richard now hated the French king. But it was even worse to be so angry with God.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
MARCH 1198
Le Mans, Anjou
Joanna paused in the doorway of the solar, savoring the tranquil scene that met her eyes. Her mother was seated in a window-seat with her granddaughter, Richenza. Berengaria was catching up with Anna, who’d chosen Joanna’s household over her own. Will Marshal’s Isabel was chatting with Denise and Hawisa and Loretta de Braose, the Earl of Leicester’s new wife, for Richard’s lords usually brought their wives to his Easter Court. There were a few exceptions. Joanna wondered if Johnny would even have recognized his wife, he’d seen her so rarely in the eight years since their wedding. The Earl of Chester was alone, of course, for it would have taken a sword to have gotten him and Constance into the same chamber. And Joanna’s sister-in-law, Ela, the Countess of Salisbury, was absent due to her youth; she was only eleven.
Joanna’s gaze moved toward Ela’s husband, her half brother William Longespée. Richard had arranged a brilliant marriage for him two years ago, one that had gained him an earldom, but Joanna had not met him until her arrival at Le Mans. Although he was taller than their father, she thought he looked the way Henry must have looked at twenty-one, for like their other half brother Geoff, and like Richard himself, William had inherited the Angevin high coloring. Her eyes shifted to her nephew and other brother. Otto, too, was tall and powerfully built. Did Johnny mind being surrounded by kinsmen who towered above him? Most of the men were clustered around Richard, but John was sitting apart, sipping from a gilded wine cup as he watched the others laughing and talking. Like a man observing a play, Joanna thought, not part of the performance. She felt that he deserved to be isolated, for she doubted that she’d ever forgive him for his betrayal of Richard. Yet she was not entirely deaf to the whisper urging pity, reminding her of the little boy who’d shared her life at Fontevrault Abbey so long ago.
A burst of laughter drew her attention back to the men. Raimond had just said something that they all found very amusing, and Joanna smiled, delighted that her husband and brother were getting along so well. This was the first time she’d been apart from their son and she missed Raimondet more than she’d have thought possible. He’d been too young, though, at nine months, to make a three-hundred-fifty-mile journey. Despite a yearning for Raimondet that was almost physical in its intensity, she was still glad to be at Richard’s Easter Court, and as she glanced about the solar, she thought how fortunate she was. The daughters and sisters of kings were usually wed to foreign princes, which meant lifelong exile from their homelands and families. That would have been her fate, too, if William had not died so unexpectedly, freeing her to return home and to find what had been denied her in Sicily—passion, love, and motherhood.
Eleanor looked up then, saw her standing in the doorway, and beckoned with a smile. Richenza graciously yielded her seat and Joanna slid onto it, leaning over to kiss her mother on the cheek. She was in her seventy-fourth year, an age few reached, but her spirit still burned as brightly as in her youth, even as the body enclosing that spirit fought a battle she was doomed to lose. To Joanna, she seemed no different than she had at their last meeting nine months ago, and that was a great relief, for she knew her mother’s days were trickling away as inexorably as the sand in an hourglass.
She was actually more troubled by her brother’s appearance. She’d not seen Richard for seventeen months, and she found herself thinking that he was showing the burdens of kingship more obviously these days. He’d not lost the weight he’d gained during his convalescence from his knee wound, and although he carried it better than most because of his height, it did age him. He seemed very tired to her, too, like a man who was starved for sleep, and once Richenza moved away, she said in a low voice, “Richard does not look well, Maman. Has he been ailing?”