RICHARD WAS REGARDING THE DISH in front of him without enthusiasm and Morgan hid a smile, sure this was the first time he’d ever eaten boiled cabbage, which was unlikely to have made an appearance on the royal table. “Els is getting very motherly,” he said cheerfully, “for she insisted upon sharing some of the leftovers from her boys’ dinner. She told Arne we were much too thin and needed to eat more hearty fare. I daresay she’s right.” He knew from the way his clothes fit that he’d lost weight in these past few weeks and he thought his cousin looked downright gaunt. When Richard put the dish aside, Morgan hoped it was because he found the cabbage’s odor unappealing and not because of his fever. He had been taking the aqua vitae and herbs dutifully, even drinking the barley water, but Morgan knew what he really needed was a few more days of bed rest.
“Arne ought to be back from the town soon,” he assured Richard, “with food more to your liking.”
“That lad has been a blessing, for I do not know how we’d have fared without him. I will have to find a way to reward his loyalty. That goes for you, too, Cousin,” Richard said, with a quick smile. “I’d offer you an earldom if I did not fear you’d take it as an insult.”
Morgan grinned. “You’re joking, but King Henry did offer my father an earldom and he turned it down. It became a family jest, for he’d say that a Welshman with an English earldom was as unnatural as a bull with teats.” They both laughed at that and Morgan added lightly, “I had no choice but to accompany you, sire. I’d promised your sister that I’d not let you out of my sight and I feared her wrath far more than I fear Heinrich’s!”
“As well you should,” Richard agreed, with a grin of his own. “Joanna is a force to be reckoned with. She all but scorched my ears off when I told her I’d suggested to Saladin that we make peace by wedding her to his brother, al-Adil.”
Morgan had been about to take a swallow of ale, and nearly choked. “You did what?”
“Ah, I forgot you did not know about that. I still think it was one of my better ideas. It would have made al-Adil a king and so he had to be interested, for he was being offered both a crown and a beautiful bride. I was sure Saladin would refuse, and thought that might cause some rancor between the brothers. Joanna did not appreciate my diplomatic deviousness, though, and told me in no uncertain terms that she was not about to join a harim.” Richard was laughing now. “She reminded me that she grew to womanhood in Sicily, so she knew Muslims could have four wives. I then reminded her that she’d be a queen, so she’d have greater rank than al-Adil’s other wives, and she threw a cushion at me!”
Morgan was as amazed as he was amused. “I cannot believe you were able to keep this scheme so secret. Good God, think how the French would have reacted if word of it had gotten out!”
“That would have been awkward,” Richard conceded. “It was awkward, too, when Saladin accepted the proposal.”
Morgan’s jaw dropped. “He accepted it?”
“Yes, check and mate. I had to rewrite canon law, explaining that Joanna needed the Pope’s approval for such a marriage, being a widowed queen, and offered my niece in her stead if they were not willing to wait for the papal consent. Over dinner with al-Adil, I suggested that we could resolve the problem if he agreed to convert to Christianity, and he parried by proposing that Joanna become a Muslim.”
By now, Morgan was laughing so hard that he was on the verge of tears. “Passing strange,” he said, once he’d gotten his breath back, “that you got along so much better with your Saracen foes than with your French allies!”