CONSTANCE DE HAUTEVILLE HAD celebrated her forty-fourth birthday on All Soul’s Day, but she knew it would be her last. She was dying. She’d been ill for months, and not even the doctors of the famed medical school in Salerno had been able to offer either hope or relief from the pain. She’d been very bitter at first, for she’d had little more than a year of freedom, a year to rule Sicily, to rid her kingdom of the Germans, to have her son with her—a privilege that Heinrich had denied her, for he’d given Friedrich into the care of the Duchess of Spoleto soon after his birth. One year, one month, and twenty-seven days to have been a queen, a mother, and, God be praised, a widow. Not enough time. Not nearly enough.
She’d faced it as she’d faced every crisis in her life, without flinching, without self-pity or panic. What mattered was her son, still a month shy of his fourth birthday. She’d done all she could. She’d exiled Markward von Annweiler, who’d been made Duke of Ravenna and Romagna by Heinrich. In May, she’d had Friedrich crowned as King of Sicily, letting Otto and Heinrich’s brother Philip fight over the imperial crown. And she’d turned to the only man powerful enough to protect her son, the new Pope, Innocent III. In her last will and testament, she’d named Innocent as Friedrich’s guardian until he came of age. Now, in what she knew to be her last hours, she could only pray that it would be enough: that her son would be kept safe, his rights defended by the Church, and that he would not forget her too quickly.
JOHN HAD NOT ATTENDED his brother’s Christmas Court at Domfront, for now that Otto was no longer a rival, he did not feel so much pressure to please Richard. But a summons from his mother was not to be ignored. As soon as he was ushered into her private quarters at Fontevrault Abbey, he sensed that something was wrong. She was alone, and although a fire was burning in the hearth, the chamber seemed very cold to him.
“So you’ve come. I was not sure you would.”
“Of course I came. You sent for me, did you not?” John’s smile faded. “What is amiss? Why do you look at me like that?”
“As if you do not know!” Eleanor had stood motionless by the hearth as John crossed the chamber. But as soon as he moved within range, she took two quick steps forward and struck him across the mouth. “You fool! You utter fool!”
John gasped, grabbed her wrist when she raised her hand as if to strike him again. “Christ Jesus, Mother, what is the matter with you? Why should you be wroth with me?”
“Why, indeed? Betrayal is as natural to you as breathing. More fool I, for imagining it could ever be otherwise!” Eleanor jerked her wrist free, began to pace. “More than four years without a misstep, four years of fidelity. You showed Richard that you were not as worthless as he once thought, that you could do more than intrigue and plot and scheme. All for naught. Name of God, why? What demon possessed you to throw it all away?”
“I do not know what you are talking about. Just what am I supposed to have done?”
“Oh, enough! We know. Philippe betrayed you, and how ironic is that? He sent Richard a message that you’d been plotting against him again, that you’d offered an alliance with the French Crown.”
“And Richard believed this? You believed it?” John was incredulous. “I am not surprised that Richard is so quick to suspect the worst of me. But you, Madame . . . God’s truth, I’d have expected better of you!”
“Philippe claims to have a letter that proves your complicity in this intrigue, a letter in your own hand.”
“Oh, for the love of Christ! What better proof of my innocence could you ask for than that? If I were involved in some scheme to betray Richard, do you truly think I’d ever be so stupid as to incriminate myself in writing?”
Eleanor felt the first flickers of doubt. “Your denial has the ring of truth to it. But then your denials always do, John.”
“If you and Richard believed this lunatic accusation, it can only be because you wanted to believe it, Madame. You yourself said it—I’ve devoted years to regaining Richard’s goodwill. You think I enjoyed being at his beck and call, enduring the scorn of his friends, knowing he’d have chosen Arthur if the Bretons had not been such fools? Or that I’d gamble those four years on something so worthless as Philippe’s word? Christ on the Cross, Mother! What would I gain by intriguing with Philippe? We both know he has no hope of ever defeating Richard on the field!”
He was as angry as Eleanor had ever seen him, too angry for either artifice or discretion. His was not a defense calculated to endear. But there was a cold-blooded, unsparing honesty to it that was, to Eleanor, more persuasive than any indignant avowals of good faith. It was the very amorality of John’s argument that carried so much conviction.
“Where is Richard now? Is he still at Domfront?”