Lionheart (29 page)

All eyes were riveted upon them, the French dismayed to see one of their own in danger of being publicly humiliated, the English cheering their king on. But gradually the spectators fell silent, worried by the ferocity of the struggle, so utterly out of place in the midst of a bohort. It was the newly titled Earl of Leicester who sought to break the impasse. Impulsively spurring his stallion forward, he reined in beside Guillaume and reached out to grab the French knight. He had good intentions, wanting only to help his king. He did not know Richard that well, though. Those who did, winced.

“Get away!” Richard snarled. “This is between the two of us!” By now their exertion had begun to take a toll. Both men were flushed and panting, their chests heaving and their tunics soaked in sweat, their faces smeared with dust. After Leicester’s brutal rebuff, none dared to intervene. They could only hope that neither man would draw his sword and turn this bizarre duel of wills into a combat to the death.

“Yield, you misbegotten son of a whore!” Again and again Richard pulled with all of his considerable strength, but to no avail. The other man clung to his horse like a barnacle, refusing to admit defeat. At last Richard released his grip and drew back. Feeling as if his arm had been wrenched from its socket, Guillaume straightened up in the saddle, keeping his eyes warily upon the English king, for Richard’s fury showed no sign of abating. To the contrary, he was staring at Guillaume with such utter and implacable hatred that the Frenchman felt a chill, for now that the red haze of battle was subsiding, he was realizing how grievously his pride had led him astray.

He had no chance to offer an olive branch, though. “Get yourself from my sight,” Richard said, his words all the more alarming for the flat, measured tone in which they were uttered, “and take care never to come before me again. From now on, you are my enemy and there is no place for you in our army.”

Guillaume gasped, for that sounded ominously like a sentence of banishment. That was how the other men took it, too, and an uneasy silence fell, no one quite understanding how a friendly game with canes could end in an ultimatum and exile.

GUILLAUME DES BARRES was too edgy to sit and was pacing back and forth. When Jaufre walked over to offer a wine cup, he shook his head. “You think our king will be able to make him see reason?”

“I do,” Jaufre said, hiding his doubts with a display of hearty confidence. “Once Richard’s anger cools, he’ll see the unfairness of it.”

“But what if he does not?” This mournful query came from the window-seat where Mathieu de Montmorency was huddled, knees drawn up to his chest. Jaufre felt a twinge of pity, for the boy had been even more shaken than Guillaume by Richard’s threat. Jaufre had not liked this glimpse of Richard’s dark side, either, but unlike Mathieu, he’d never seen the English king as the living embodiment of the chivalric code. He was about to offer Mathieu the same assurances he’d just given Guillaume when the youth twisted sideways on the seat and leaned out the open window. “The king is back! But he looks so grim! Do you think that means . . .”

“He always looks grim, lad,” Jaufre said, thinking that Philippe doled out smiles the way a miser doled out coins. Within moments, Philippe strode into the hall. One glance at his narrowed eyes and thinned mouth told them that his mission had been a failure. He was trailed by the Duke of Burgundy, who shook his head and grimaced.

“He would not heed you, my liege?” Now that he was facing the worst, Guillaume’s nervousness had ebbed, and he sounded quite calm, his the sangfroid of a man who’d spent most of his life soldiering.

“No.” Philippe bit off the word so tersely that they could see the muscles clenching along his jawline. “He remains adamant, insisting that you be dismissed from my service. He dared to give orders to me, an anointed king and his liege lord!”

“So be it,” Guillaume said softly, and then raised his head, squaring his shoulders. “I will leave Messina as he demands, for I do not want to jeopardize our quest. Nothing matters more than the recovery of the Holy Land. But I will not abandon my vow. If I cannot accompany you to Outremer, my liege, I will go on my own.”

“No, you are going nowhere!” Philippe said sharply, and Guillaume looked to the other men for guidance.

Seeing that the Duke of Burgundy was not going to intercede, Jaufre suppressed a sigh. “Sire . . . Guillaume is right. Ours is a sacred quest, one that requires sacrifices.”

Philippe’s lip curled disdainfully. “Sacrifices? What sacrifices has Richard made?”

“Mayhap it was the wrong choice of words. I ought to have said ‘compromises.’ I am not defending Richard. He is in the wrong, not Guillaume. But he has been the one to compromise in the past.”

Philippe’s gaze was so piercing that Jaufre took an involuntary step backward. But farther than that he would not go. “You may not want to hear it, my lord king. It has to be said, though. After Richard seized Messina, you demanded that he lower his banners and replace them with yours. Even though you’d taken no part in the capture of the city, he agreed to fly the flags of the Templars and Hospitallers instead of his own. He compromised. And when he got that gold from Tancred, he gave you a third, even though you had no claim to Queen Joanna’s dower. Again, he compromised. Now . . . now it is your turn.”

To Jaufre’s relief, he got support then from an unexpected source—from Hugh of Burgundy. “As much as it pains me to say it, Cousin, Jaufre is right. You do need to compromise, however unjust Richard’s demand. Humor him for now, if that will keep the peace between you. Mark it down as a debt owed, one to be repaid when the time is right.”

Philippe did not have much regard for Jaufre’s opinion, suspicious of his marriage to Richard’s niece, but he did respect Hugh’s judgment. After a long, labored silence, he beckoned to Guillaume. “I will ask Tancred to give you shelter at Catania. But this I promise you—that when I sail for Outremer, you will sail with me.”

PHILIPPE’S ANGER BURNED all the hotter that Guillaume had behaved so honorably, offering no protests, no complaints about the injustice of the banishment. He was still fuming hours later when a messenger arrived, bearing a letter from Heinrich von Hohenstaufen. Breaking the seal, he scowled to see it was in Latin, for he had no knowledge of the language that was the voice of the Church, a verbal bridge linking the countries of Christendom. Rather than summoning a scribe or clerk, he handed the letter to his cousin. “You know Latin, Hugh. What does it say?”

Hugh scanned the contents, then looked up at the others in genuine surprise. “He says that Richard’s mother is in Italy! They crossed paths at Lodi last month.” After a moment to reflect, he said, “That is one mystery solved, then. At least now we know how Richard learned of Frederick Barbarossa’s death ere we did.”

Philippe shook his head impatiently. “That does not matter. What does is the reason for that witch’s presence in Italy. What could be important enough to justify such a long and difficult journey at her age?” He was looking at Hugh, but it was obvious to the others that he was no longer seeing the duke, his gaze turning inward. “Why did he send for her?” he muttered, as if to himself. “What is that swine up to now?”

AT ROME, Eleanor had another chance meeting, this time with Philip d’Alsace, the Count of Flanders, who’d also taken the cross and was on his way to Outremer. He decided to accompany them south to Naples, and as she watched Eleanor conversing composedly with the count, Berengaria could only marvel at the older woman’s self-possession, for Hawisa had confided that the queen had good reason to detest Philip. He’d been wed to Eleanor’s niece, her sister’s daughter, Hawisa revealed, and after some years of a childless marriage, he’d accused her of adultery. The man said to be her lover had been brutally murdered, but Philip had not divorced his wife; instead he’d compelled her to turn her inheritance, the rich county of Vermandois, over to him. According to Hawisa, many people felt the charges were false; the alleged lover’s brothers were so outraged that they’d rebelled. And yet Eleanor made sure that the count saw only the queen, never the angry aunt, still more proof to Berengaria that she was entering an alien world where statecraft seemed to matter more than family feelings or even the teachings of the Holy Church.

In Naples, Aliernus Cottone, the city’s
compalatius
, welcomed them effusively, hosting a lavish feast in their honor and turning one of Tancred’s castles over to them for the duration of their stay in his city, a stone fortress on a small island in the harbor. They then settled down to await the arrival of Richard’s ships. Now that she was within days of her reunion with her son, Eleanor’s spirits soared, but Hawisa’s plummeted, for she was not eager to see her new husband, William de Forz.

Berengaria’s emotions were more ambivalent; she was excited to meet Richard again, but she was nervous, too, now that her new life was about to begin, for she was starting to realize how much would be demanded of her as England’s queen.

RICHARD’S GALLEYS ENTERED the city harbor at nightfall. Richard had sent one of his admirals, William de Forz, and two of his kinsmen, André de Chauvigny and Morgan ap Ranulf, to escort his mother and betrothed to Messina. The men were tired, dirty, and hungry after their voyage, and they were grateful when Eleanor sent them off to their sleeping quarters, where baths and food awaited them. De Forz departed at once, insisting that his wife personally tend to his needs. André and Morgan soon followed, after giving Eleanor letters from Richard and Joanna.

Eleanor picked up an oil lamp and sat down to read the letters. But as she was about to break the seal on the first one, she glanced up and saw the forlorn look on Berengaria’s face. After spending more than three months together, she’d concluded that the girl would make a suitable wife for her son; her quiet courage and common sense were qualities he’d appreciate. She’d been pleased that Berengaria had shown no signs of the “neediness” that Richard had fretted about, but she could understand why the young woman was disappointed that there’d been no letter for her, and so she said, with a wry smile,

“Even the most intelligent of men can lack a woman’s perception or insight, child. That was surely true of Richard’s father, who had not a spark of romance in his soul. When we were first wed, he bestowed compliments so sparingly that I finally complained. He said he saw no point in flattery, for if a woman was a beauty, she already knew it, and if she was not, she’d know he lied.”