Her outcry had attracted attention. Seeing that they all were staring at her, Joanna sent an unspoken query winging her husband’s way, and when Raimond nodded, she said, “We were not going to announce it yet, but I see no reason to hold back. We have truly been blessed by the Almighty, for I am with child again.”
The response was predictable. Joanna was kissed by her mother, had the air squeezed out of her lungs by Richard’s exuberant hug, and was warmed by the genuine pleasure with which her news was received, while Raimond found himself fending off jests from the men, for two children in two years of marriage offered an opportunity for bawdy jokes that few of them could resist. Raimond took it good-naturedly, denying that he’d needed a love potion and insisting that, rumors to the contrary, he and his wife did not spend all of their time in bed.
Even though neither Joanna nor Raimond seemed perturbed by the teasing, Berengaria did not trust male humor and she did her best to keep the conversation from deteriorating still further by asking if they’d chosen a name for their baby.
“I leave that to Joanna,” Raimond said blithely. “I have to, since she says I am not to be trusted in such matters. I ask only that she not name any of our sons William, for it is bad form to call a child after a former husband.”
“Or a former wife,” Joanna shot back. “So we’ll be naming no daughters Ermessinde or Beatrice.” She added with a sly smile, “I’d also exclude the names of former concubines, but I fear we’d run out of female names if I did that.”
Her sally was greeted with laughter and several of the men looked at Raimond with renewed respect, for a long list of bedmates was a testament to a man’s virility, all the more so when it came from the man’s own wife. Berengaria could not imagine joking in public about Richard’s bedmates, or in private, either. But as she caught the look that passed between Joanna and Raimond, one that was both affectionate and smoldering, she felt the last of her misgivings fade away. She still did not understand how Joanna could be so happy with a man who took such pleasure in provoking the Holy Church, yet she no longer doubted that it was so. And it occurred to her that, as unhappy as Richard made her at times, she’d have been far more miserable had it been her fate to wed the Count of Toulouse.
WORD HAD SPREAD THROUGH the hall that Richard was expecting an important visitor, and speculation was running rife by the time noise out in the bailey heralded his arrival. There were loud gasps as he strode through the doorway. He was in his early thirties, as dark as a Barbary pirate, with a raffish charm and the confident smile of a man accustomed to making high-stakes gambles and winning them.
“The Count of Boulogne!”
There was no need to announce him, though, for Renaud de Dammartin was known on sight to many of them. He was as controversial in his way as Raimond de St Gilles, although for very different reasons. Renaud had been a childhood companion of the French king, a bold and talented battle commander who’d made an advantageous marriage to one of Philippe’s Dreux cousins. As a young man, his father had instructed him to serve the Angevin king, and he’d shown surprising loyalty to Henry, staying with him until his death at Chinon. He’d soon regained Philippe’s favor, though, and some said that what happened next was done at Philippe’s suggestion, or at the least, with his complicity. Renaud had put aside his Dreux wife and then abducted one of France’s greatest heiresses, Ida de Lorraine, the twice-widowed Countess of Boulogne, granddaughter of King Stephen and cousin of the Count of Flanders. By this forced marriage, Renaud became one of Philippe’s most powerful vassals—and so his appearance at Richard’s court created a sensation.
He was given a very enthusiastic reception by the men, who were excited by such a high-level defection. Moreover, Will Marshal, Morgan, Baldwin de Bethune, and several of the other knights greeted him as a comrade in arms, for those who’d shared Henry’s last days shared, too, a sense of solidarity similar to that found on the battlefield.