Lionheart A Novel

Chapter 6

MARCH 1190

Dreux Castle, France





It was customary for the kings of England and France to hold their conclaves out in the open to preclude treachery; a favorite site had been the Peace Elm near Gisors, until Philippe had lost his temper after an unproductive encounter with Henry and ordered the tree cut down. But because Richard and Philippe were purportedly allies, united in a sacred quest to recover Jerusalem, they’d chosen Dreux Castle for their meeting, a French fortress just eight miles from Richard’s stronghold at Nonancourt. Henri, the young Count of Champagne, was glad of it, for the sixteenth had been stormy, not a day to be huddled in a muddy field at the mercy of slashing March winds.

The great hall was crowded with dignitaries—barons of the two kings and princes of the church. Richard and Philippe had formally sworn to serve each other faithfully and to defend the other’s lands as if they were his own. Their lords also agreed to honor the peace, and the prelates then vowed to excommunicate any man who broke this covenant.

But there were still issues to be hammered out, and Richard, Philippe, and their most trusted advisers were seated at a long trestle table in the center of the hall, discussing those matters with tight smiles and barbed courtesy. Henri was watching them with keen interest, for he was uniquely bound to both kings. When he was in a mischievous mood, Henri liked to boast of his convoluted family tree, explaining that his mother, Countess Marie, was the child of Queen Eleanor’s first marriage to Louis of France, and thus a half-sister to Richard on her maternal side and half-sister to Philippe on the paternal side. Moreover, Henri would continue gleefully, his father was the brother of Philippe’s mother, thus making him nephew to Philippe twice over. By then his listeners’ heads would be spinning and Henri would be laughing so hard he rarely got to reveal that his mother and his aunt Alix were sisters by blood and marriage, for they’d wed brothers, his father and his uncle Thibault, who were therefore also brothers and brothers-in-law. Or what Henri considered the greatest oddity of all, that his grandfather had been both father-in-law and brother-in-law to the same men, for Louis had wed his two daughters by Eleanor to the brothers of his third wife, Philippe’s mother.

Not only was Henri blood-kin to Philippe, the French king was his liege lord; he held Champagne from the French Crown. And he and Philippe were of an age, twenty-three and twenty-four, respectively. But Henri had ridden into Dreux in Richard’s entourage, not Philippe’s, even though he knew the French king would not be pleased by his presence in the enemy camp. Henri was young enough, though, to delight in tweaking the lion’s tail. And he enjoyed his uncle Richard’s company, whereas his idea of Purgatory was more than an hour alone with his uncle Philippe, for they had nothing whatsoever in common as far as Henri could tell.

Like most young men, Henri loved the hunt, tournaments, horses, gambling, troubadour songs, wine, women, and war. Philippe was bored by hunting, had banned tournaments in France, disliked horses and only rode the most docile mounts, never gambled or swore, cared nothing for music, and saw war as the means to an end, not as a way to test his manhood. He did like wine and women, although he’d been wed since he was fifteen, and if he strayed from his queen’s marital bed, he was discreet about it. Moreover, Philippe was of a nervous disposition; he was known to flinch at sudden loud noises and was rarely without bodyguards. Henri much preferred spending time with Richard, who swore like a sailor, loved spirited stallions, wrote both courtly and bawdy poetry, had done his share of youthful carousing, and gloried in the challenges of the battlefield.

Above all, Henri admired Richard for being one of the first to take the cross. Philippe was a reluctant crusader, and that alone was enough to damn him in the eyes of his nephew, for Henri’s own father had taken the cross twice. He’d participated in the disastrous second crusade led by Louis of France, and then made another pilgrimage to the Holy Land with the Count of Flanders; on his way home, he’d been captured and held for ransom, dying soon after his release, his health broken by that stint in a Turkish prison. Henri had been fourteen at the time, and he saw the coming crusade as a sacred quest to honor his father’s memory.

Richard and Philippe were exchanging gritted-teeth smiles, and it looked to Henri as if they’d be at this for the foreseeable future. He was turning away to find a wine bearer when he was waylaid by his uncle Thibault. “It is one thing to go hunting or drinking with Richard, Henri. But when you rode into Dreux at his side, you risked stirring up suspicions about where your true loyalties lie. Please tell me you are not now planning to travel with him to the Holy Land.”

Henri had adored his father, his uncle not so much. But Thibault was the head of the House of Blois and Henri had been raised to respect his elders. So instead of responding as he’d have liked—telling Thibault that he and Philippe could both piss in a leaking pot—he said mildly, “You need not fret, Uncle. I still intend to accompany you and my uncle Etienne and the Count of Clermont.” That had been an easy decision, for they’d be able to depart after Easter, whilst he thought they might see the Second Coming ere Richard and Philippe finally got under way. “I know it is no easy task to transport an army,” he conceded. “Richard told me that he had to order fifty thousand horseshoes from an iron mine in Devon and he expects to bring at least ten thousand horses.” Henri shook his head, marveling at the magnitude of such an undertaking. “Fortunately, it is much easier for us; we need only hire ships in Marseille and, God willing, we’ll reach Tyre ere it falls to the Saracens.”

Henri stopped, seeing that his uncle was not listening. Following Thibault’s gaze, he saw that Philippe was no longer at the table, nowhere in the hall, and the English did not look very happy. What now? he wondered, and headed toward Richard to find out what was going on.

Richard didn’t know much more than Henri, though, saying that Philippe had been called away by the castle steward. “I am guessing a courier has ridden in,” he said, “but I cannot see what would be important enough to interrupt these discussions. Unless we get these matters settled, we’ll have to delay our departure yet again. We’ve lost enough time as it is. It has been over two years since I took the cross, Henri, two years!”

Richard signaled to a wine bearer, and Henri stayed to commiserate with Richard and Will Marshal and Hubert Walter, the newly named Bishop of Salisbury, who’d be accompanying Richard to the Holy Land. But the longer Philippe was gone, the more impatient Richard became, and by the time the French king finally returned to the hall, the English king’s temper, never dormant, was beginning to smolder. Striding over to confront Philippe, he said, with pointed politeness, “Are you ready to resume our talks now, my lord?”

“No, I am not. We’ll have to address these matters at a later time.”

Richard’s mouth tightened. But his protest never left his lips, for he was becoming aware that something was not quite right with Philippe. The younger man had a naturally ruddy complexion, but now his face had taken on a sickly ashen hue, and his voice sounded oddly hoarse, as if his words had been forced from a throat swollen and raw. “Are you ailing?” Richard asked abruptly, dispensing with court etiquette, but Philippe merely looked at him stonily.

“We are done here,” he said curtly. “We’ll meet at Vézelay in July as previously agreed upon. Any remaining matters can be resolved then.” And to the astonishment of Richard and the others within earshot, he then turned on his heel without another word and walked away.

No one knew what to make of this, and speculative murmurs swept the hall. Richard was angry, but puzzled, too. Drawing Henri aside, he said quietly, “If he is playing some damnable game to delay our departure yet again, he’ll regret it. Can you find out what he’s up to, Henri?”

“If I have to sneak into his chapel and overhear his confession,” Henri promised cheerfully, and when Richard departed soon afterward, the Count of Champagne remained behind in Dreux, eagerly embracing this new role—that of royal spy.



MOST PEOPLE ARRANGED their lives around the cycles of the sun, rising at dawn and going to bed once darkness descended, for candles and lamps were expensive, and few could afford the vast numbers of tapers, torches, and rushlights needed to keep night at bay. As kings did not have that concern, Richard and Eleanor felt free to follow their own inner clocks. After a late supper upon his return to Nonancourt, Richard was holding court in the great hall. A minstrel and musicians had entertained, followed by a jape in which a motley-clad fool juggled balls and knives, accompanied by a small dog that danced on her hind legs, turned cartwheels, and balanced on a beam set between wooden trestles.

Richard had enjoyed the minstrel’s songs, but he soon lost interest in the antics of the fool and his dog, and withdrew to a window-seat for a low-voiced conversation with his chancellor and Will Marshal. From her seat upon the dais, Eleanor glanced his way from time to time, knowing he was trying to anticipate any crisis that might arise in his absence. The coordination of a crusade of this size was more than daunting. While lords and knights would provide their own weapons and armor, infantrymen would have to be outfitted. The army would need horses and fodder, crossbow bolts, beans and cheese and salt and dried meat, blankets, wine, barrels of silver pennies for expenses abroad, medical supplies—the list was endless. Richard was doing what no other crusading king had dared—assembling and equipping his own fleet of more than a hundred ships, and the cost of these ships and wages for the crews was likely to reach fourteen thousand pounds, more than half the royal revenue from England. Richard had raised huge sums by methods that sometimes verged upon extortion, dismissing all his sheriffs and making them buy their posts back, levying heavy fines, offering town charters, forest rights, earldoms, lordships, and bishoprics for cash, recognizing Scotland’s independence in return for ten thousand marks. Men joked, some bitterly, that it was a wonder he’d not taken bids on the very air the English breathed, and Richard himself had jested that he’d have sold London if only he could have found a buyer.

Eleanor was uneasy about such massive expenditures, wondering how the royal treasury could ever be replenished, for she’d been spared the crusading fever that had infected her son and so many others. But she took comfort in Richard’s strategic sense, his impressive grasp of logistics. Her French husband’s crusade had been a catastrophe of inept organization and shortsighted mistakes. If Richard must do this, she wanted the odds to be in his favor, and she was grateful that he seemed to be so adept at comprehensive planning.

She was dreading his departure as she’d dreaded few events in her life, well aware that he’d be wagering with Death on a daily basis. And each morning she would awaken not knowing if he’d survived another day in that earthly Hell. Could the Almighty take yet another of her sons? She knew the answer to that, knew the cemeteries of Christendom were filled with the children of grieving mothers. And if Richard was slain on a distant, desert battlefield, the empire his father had forged at such great personal cost might well die with him.

“Grandame?” Richenza had reached out to touch her hand, concerned by the faraway look in her grandmother’s eyes, sure that whatever Eleanor was seeing, it was not the great hall at Nonancourt Castle. Relieved when Eleanor blinked and then summoned up a smile, she asked if it would be permissible to seek out Alys, a forlorn figure hovering on the edge of the festivities.

“She looks so lonely, Grandame,” she said forthrightly. She knew, of course, that Alys would never be her uncle Richard’s queen. So, too, did everyone else at court and they preferred to keep Alys at a distance, either because they found her presence uncomfortable or because they did not want to risk royal disfavor. It had not been so awkward, Richenza thought, whilst the Lady Denise, the Duchess of Brittany, and Isabel Marshal had been present, for they’d been Alys’s friends. But Constance and her Breton lords had ridden off that morn, having gotten permission from Richard to visit her daughter in Rouen; Denise and André had departed, too, and Isabel was absent from the hall tonight, suffering from the queasiness of early pregnancy. Now that Alys was alone with her ladies-in-waiting, Richenza could not stand by and watch her be politely shunned for no sin of her own.

Eleanor glanced toward Alys, then back at her granddaughter. “Of course you may, child. You need not seek my permission to perform a kindness,” she assured the girl, thinking that it would be best for all concerned, including Alys, when she was settled at Rouen Castle. “Richenza . . . first tell your uncle John that I wish to speak with him.”

Richenza fulfilled her errand with her usual dispatch, and John was soon approaching the dais, looking pleased but wary, too. Once he’d seated himself beside her, Eleanor said, pitching her voice for his ear alone, “You were at Dreux this afternoon. What do you think happened?” When he admitted that he did not know, she divulged the real reason why she’d summoned him. “I have never met the French king,” she said regretfully, “so I have to rely upon the opinions of others. Richard believes Philippe to be a coward, so that naturally colors his judgment.”

“Naturally,” John echoed, thinking that Richard’s sole measure of a man was his willingness to bleed. “So . . . you want to know what I think of Philippe?” His question was a delaying tactic, for he sensed that she was testing him, and he wanted to be sure that he did not disappoint. “I agree that Philippe is a cautious sort,” he said carefully, “but I do not know if that makes him craven. Most men are more familiar with fear than my brother. I do think Philippe is more dangerous than Richard does, for he is clever and ruthless and utterly single-minded. And he loathes Richard with the sort of passion that burns to the bone.”

“Indeed?” Eleanor studied her youngest son intently. He’d never shown much political acumen, unless deserting the losing side in his father’s last war qualified. The one time he’d been entrusted with authority, when Henry sent him to govern Ireland, he’d made an utter botch of it, allowing his young knights to mock and ridicule the Irish lords, spending money so lavishly that he’d been unable to pay his routiers, who’d then defected to the Irish. It was true he’d been just eighteen then. Of course Richard and Geoffrey had been leading successful campaigns in Aquitaine and Brittany at that age. But she wanted very much to believe that John was maturing, that he was capable of learning from his mistakes, for if he was another Hal, their dynasty might well be doomed.

“Why do you believe Philippe bears such a grudge against your brother? Richard has never had a serious falling-out with Philippe.” Not yet, she amended silently, thinking of Alys and Berengaria.

John was surprised that the question even needed to be asked. “Richard is all that Philippe is not,” he said candidly. “He overshadows most men without even trying. But kings do not expect to be overshadowed and take it rather badly. Philippe does not seem to me like one given to self-doubts. I think it grievously wounds his pride, though, that he will always be the moon to Richard’s sun. And now they are going off together to the Holy Land, where he must look forward to being eclipsed by Richard at every opportunity, knowing he cannot hope to compete with Richard’s battlefield heroics.” John flashed a sudden, sardonic smile. “I could almost pity poor Philippe, if only he did not have a stone where his heart ought to be.”

“I suspect there is much truth in what you say,” Eleanor said thoughtfully, although she could not help wondering if John could discern Philippe’s envy so easily because he shared it. But when she smiled, John decided that if this had indeed been a test, he’d passed it.

Just then there was a stir at the end of the hall and Henri of Champagne and his men entered. Eleanor was instantly alert, for Henri would not have ridden back after dark unless he’d found out something of importance. Richard had the same thought, for he was already moving to intercept the young count.

Henri offered a graceful obeisance. “My liege, Madame. I bring sad news from Dreux. Queen Isabelle died in childbed yesterday in Paris, after giving birth to stillborn twin sons.”

His revelation was met with an unnatural silence. For an uneasy moment, every woman of childbearing age found herself identifying with the young French queen, and every husband was reminded how dangerous childbirth could be. People began to make the sign of the cross, to murmur conventional expressions of piety and sympathy for the bereaved French king; some of them even meant it. A pall had settled over the hall, for Isabelle’s death was an unwelcome proof of their own mortality, of the Church’s insistent teachings that flesh was corrupt, the body but an empty husk for the soul, and death came for them all, even the highborn.

Richard joined Eleanor and John on the dais, and after a few moments, so did Richenza. Seeing how pale she was, Eleanor rose and slipped her arm around the girl’s slender waist. “That is so sad,” Richenza said, “so very sad. . . .”

“Yes, it is,” Eleanor agreed. “But you must not take Isabelle’s tragic death too much to heart, Richenza. There are some women who are more suited for the cloisters than the marriage bed, and Isabelle was one of them. Within five years, she had at least five pregnancies, only one of which produced a live baby, and Louis is said to be a sickly little lad. Another son died within hours, and she suffered several miscarriages, too. Most women do not have such difficulty in the birthing chamber. I had ten healthy children myself, after all. We have no reason to think that your pregnancy will not be as easy as mine were.”

Richard looked from his mother to his niece. “Are you with child, lass?”

Richenza blushed and nodded, marveling that her grandmother had somehow divined her secret, for she’d told no one but her husband so far. She found herself enfolded then in her uncle Richard’s arms as he offered her his hearty congratulations. John kissed her, too, and their pleasure helped to dispel the chill cast by the French queen’s death. Henri was waiting patiently to speak with Richard, but the king detoured to slap Richenza’s husband jovially on the back before joining his nephew. Richenza then hastened over to explain to Jaufre how the king knew of her pregnancy, for they’d agreed to keep it private until she’d passed the risky first months.

Glancing at her youngest son, Eleanor found herself thinking that she’d not been entirely honest with Richenza, for John’s birth had been a very difficult and dangerous one. He’d come early, on a snowy December night, soon after she’d confirmed Henry’s affair with Rosamund Clifford, a girl young enough to have been her daughter, and the bitter circumstances of his birth had kept her from bonding with him as she had with her other children. Years later, this would come to be one of her greatest regrets, but by then it was too late. Looking pensively at John now, she wondered if she’d been wrong about that. The mistakes she and Henry had made with Hal and Geoffrey could never be made right. But John was still alive. Was it truly too late?



ELEANOR HAD RETIRED for the night soon afterward, dismissing all of her ladies-in-waiting but Amaria, who’d served her so loyally during those long years of confinement. When she began to tell Amaria of the French queen’s death, she was surprised to find tears welling in her eyes. How fragile life was, how fleeting their days on earth, and how fickle was Death, claiming the young as often as the old, the healthy as often as the ailing, cruelly stealing away a baby’s first breath, a mother’s fading heartbeat. And if he showed so little mercy in the birthing chamber, what pity could he be expected to display on the bloody battlefields of Outremer?

Sensing Eleanor’s dark mood, Amaria did not try to engage her mistress in their usual nightly conversation. As she moved unobtrusively about the chamber, there was a sudden rap on the door, startling both women. Eleanor came quickly to her feet as soon as she saw her sons standing in the doorway, a premonition of trouble prickling down her spine.

After assuring Amaria that she need not withdraw, Richard crossed the chamber to his mother, with John trailing a few feet behind. “It was not the news of the French queen’s death that brought Henri back to Nonancourt tonight, Maman; that could have waited till the morrow. Whilst he was at Dreux, another courier arrived, bearing papal letters for Philippe and for me. After talking with the messenger, Henri took the liberty of opening my letter to confirm what the man said. He thought it best to confide its contents to me in private first, ere announcing it in the great hall. The King of Sicily is dead.”

Eleanor sat down upon the bed, biting her lip to keep from crying out at the unfairness of the Almighty. Was it not enough that Joanna had been denied the child she so desperately wanted? Must she lose her husband, too, be widowed at the age of twenty-four? “My poor girl . . .”

“I could scarcely credit the news,” Richard confessed. Like his mother, he ached for Joanna’s pain. However little love there’d been between him and his brothers, he’d always cared for his sisters, especially Joanna, the youngest, the family favorite. But he did not have the luxury of responding merely as a brother, for William de Hauteville’s unexpected death could have dire consequences for the king. William had offered Sicily’s ports and riches and its formidable fleet to aid in the recovery of Jerusalem. Losing him as an ally was a setback of monumental proportions. And the silence surrounding his death held sinister implications of its own.

“When did he die, Richard?” At his answer, she stared at him incredulously. “November eighteenth? And we are only hearing of it now?”

“I know,” he said. “It makes no sense. If a courier can travel from England to Rome in one month’s time, why would it take four months for us to receive news of such magnitude?”

“Well . . . the roads south of Rome are dreadful, little better than goat tracks in places,” Eleanor said, the memories of her Italian sojourn still vivid despite the passage of forty years. “And they were even more deplorable in Sicily. But why was the letter sent by the Pope? Why have we not heard from Joanna?”

“I was wondering that myself. Henri had the wit to bring the courier back to Nonancourt, and from him I learned that this was the second papal messenger. The first one mysteriously vanished en route. The Pope was too wary to commit his suspicions into writing, but he entrusted his man with a verbal message, too. He suspects that the Germans may have intercepted his first courier.”

John had so far been a silent witness. During his childhood, he’d been either ignored or bullied by his brothers, and he’d never been one to forgive and forget. His two oldest sisters had been sent off to foreign lands when he was too young to remember them, but Joanna had been his companion and playmate and fellow pupil at Fontevrault Abbey, and he’d missed her very much after her departure for Sicily. John’s family feelings were ambivalent at best, but not where Joanna was concerned, and he was genuinely distressed on her behalf.

“Germans?” he interjected before he could think better of it. “You mean the Holy Roman Emperor? I thought Frederick set out for the Holy Land months ago.”

“He did, Johnny,” Richard said with uncharacteristic patience. “But his eldest son remained in Germany and William’s death would be of great interest to Heinrich, for his wife is the rightful heiress to the Sicilian crown. The Pope says that Heinrich and Constance learned that William was dead not long after Christmas. He thinks Heinrich may have wanted to delay word reaching England until he’d been able to secure his claim to Sicily. I’d like it not if Sicily fell into Heinrich’s hands, no more than the Pope would, and Heinrich well knows it. If Heinrich seizes the Sicilian throne, how likely is it that he’d honor William’s promises of supplies and the use of his ports and ships?”

Eleanor understood Richard’s concern about losing his Sicilian alliance, but at the moment, her own concern was for her daughter. “Even if Heinrich did waylay the missing papal courier,” she pointed out, “that still does not explain why there has been no word from Joanna. I do not like her silence, Richard, not at all.”

Richard hesitated, but he’d never lied to her and was not about to start now. “I do not like it, either, Maman.”

John was cursing himself for not having paid more attention to Italian and German matters and vowed to remedy that in the future, for he was learning that knowledge was power. As much as he disliked revealing his ignorance, especially to Eleanor and Richard, his anxiety for Joanna prevailed over pride.

“You think, then, that Heinrich would have led an army into Italy as soon as he learned of William’s death. How would he treat Joanna?” Adding quickly, “He would have no reason to look kindly upon one of our family,” for he did not want them to think he was uninformed about the hostility between the Angevins and the House of Hohenstaufen, a political rivalry that had become personal when Henry wed his daughter Tilda to the Emperor Frederick’s most recalcitrant vassal, the Duke of Saxony.

It was Eleanor who addressed his concern. “Heinrich’s wife was very close to Joanna ere her marriage. Although from what I’ve heard about Heinrich, I have trouble imagining him as an uxorious husband.”

That masterly understatement earned her a smile from Richard. “It is by no means certain that Heinrich will prevail. The Sicilians quite sensibly are balking at the prospect of a German master, and the Pope says that several of William’s lords are advancing claims of their own to his crown.”

A silence greeted this revelation, as they considered what that might mean for Joanna. John at last gave voice to what they were all thinking. “So Joanna could be caught up in the midst of a war.”

“Yes,” Eleanor said reluctantly, “that could well explain why we’ve not heard from her.” It was only natural that she should fear for her soldier son’s life in faroff Outremer, a land convulsed by war. But how could she have been expected to see danger for her daughter, ruling over a sunlit island paradise? It would seem that the Almighty possessed a perverse sense of humor.