Anna wondered sometimes if Joanna and Berengaria knew of Mariam’s trysts with Morgan. She was sure Berengaria would not approve, for Richard’s queen adhered to a strict Spanish code of morality that made her seem older to Anna than her twenty-three years. Anna had been a bit bedazzled by Berengaria’s husband, and she’d adopted the Saracen name for him—Malik Ric—because she knew it amused him. She did not think Berengaria was the best mate for such a man. She still liked Berengaria, though, for she had a good heart. Isaac Comnenus’s daughter knew better than most how rare true kindness was in their world.
But it was Joanna whom Anna had come to love: Joanna, who was beautiful and worldly and had a mind and will of her own. She knew how to savor life’s daily pleasures, too, and that was a lesson Anna had been eager to learn, for there had been little laughter at the Cypriot court, where her father had suspected mirth and stifled joy, fearful of losing his tenuous and illegal hold on power. So when her stepmother had chosen to stay in her native Sicily upon their arrival in Messina that past November, Anna had elected to remain with Joanna and Berengaria as they continued their journey on to the domains of the English king.
The game with Alicia forgotten, Anna found herself watching the other women in the hall. Berengaria was working on a delicate embroidery, as were most of the ladies-in-waiting, while Joanna read aloud to them from a book called The History of the Kings of Britain; Anna had heard Joanna say it had been written by an Augustinian canon named Geoffrey of Monmouth, but his name meant nothing to her. The book did not seem to be holding Joanna’s attention, for she would occasionally pause, staring off into space before rousing herself to resume reading. Anna could not remember the last time she’d heard anyone laugh. It was almost as if this had become a house of mourning.
Alicia waited patiently for her friend to turn back to the game board. When it did not happen, she said softly, “I pray every day for King Richard’s safe return.” She’d meant to comfort, knowing how worried Anna was, how worried they all were, but Anna took it amiss and scowled.
“Of course Malik Ric is safe! How can you even doubt it?”
Anna’s voice had carried and the adults in the hall glanced her way. None commented upon her passionate outcry, though, for the subject of the king’s safety was a very sensitive one and certainly not to be discussed in the hearing of Richard’s queen and sister. An uncomfortable silence fell, but they were accustomed to such fraught moments by now. The normal rhythms of a royal household had been utterly disrupted by the gradual, reluctant realization that the king was missing and could well be dead.
Berengaria smiled sadly as she watched Anna scold Alicia for her “lack of faith.” Beside her, Joanna had given up any pretense of reading, the book lying open on her lap. She knew the bleak path that her sister-in-law’s thoughts were following, for hers were keeping pace, both of them desperate for word of Richard’s whereabouts. They never spoke of their apprehension, though, for they’d entered into a conspiracy of silence, acting as if there were no cause for concern, as if they could vanquish their dread by refusing to acknowledge it. They had done this once before, when they’d been stranded off the coast of Cyprus after the royal fleet had been scattered in a storm and Isaac Comnenus was threatening to take them ashore by force. Not once during that ordeal had either woman voiced her fear that Richard’s galley might have gone down in that Good Friday storm, and their faith had been rewarded when Richard had arrived just hours before Isaac’s ultimatum was to expire. But that had been only a week, albeit an endless one. Now it was more than two months since there’d been any sightings reported of the English king.
Groping for a safe topic of conversation, one that would not inadvertently lure them into discussing her husband’s disappearance, Berengaria returned to their earlier discussion of the crime that was the talk of Rome—the shameful murder of the Bishop of Liege and the bloody footprints that seemed to lead right to Emperor Heinrich’s throne. “I wish I could say I do not believe Heinrich capable of such a godless act, but I cannot, Joanna. There was something about the man that I found chilling. I feel heartsick for his wife. What will she do when the Holy Father casts Heinrich into eternal darkness? All Christians are duty bound to shun an excommunicate. But how can Constance do that? Do you think the Church will make allowances for her plight?”
Joanna cared deeply for Constance de Hauteville, who’d done so much to comfort her as she struggled to adapt to her new life in Sicily, and she hated to think of the misery that Constance had found in her marriage to Heinrich von Hohenstaufen. “I’ve never thought about how the wife of an excommunicate would cope,” she admitted. “Fortunately, Constance will be spared that, for the Pope is not going to excommunicate Heinrich. My father was not excommunicated when Thomas Becket was slain, and the Church’s outrage was even greater over his killing than the Bishop of Liege’s murder.”
“Yes, but Pope Alexander believed your lord father when he swore he’d never meant for those knights to act upon his heedless, angry words. The Holy Father knew him to be a good man at heart, one who truly mourned the archbishop’s death. Can Pope Celestine say as much about Emperor Heinrich?”
“Mayhap not, but it will not matter. Whatever the Pope’s suspicions about Heinrich’s involvement in the crime, he has no proof.” And he’d likely not act even if he had a confession written by Heinrich in his own blood. Joanna kept that cynical viewpoint to herself, though, for she was touched by her sister-in-law’s innocent trust that justice would always prevail, be it in the papal curia or the king’s court.
Berengaria was prepared to argue further. She knew, of course, that all churchmen were not pure and incorruptible. Some of them were truly loathsome individuals, their holy vows notwithstanding. She frowned then, thinking of her husband’s enemy, the Bishop of Beauvais. But when the Church was confronted with such a shocking crime, the spilling of a bishop’s blood, surely sordid political considerations would not prevent the guilty from being brought to judgment. Before she could continue, there was a stir at the end of the hall.
When she saw the tall, dignified figure being escorted toward them, Joanna jumped to her feet. “My lord bishop! How the sight of you gladdens our eyes!” She hastened forward to welcome Hubert Walter, with Berengaria just a step behind, for they’d both become quite fond of the Bishop of Salisbury during their time in the Holy Land. Joanna appreciated his pragmatism, Berengaria had been grateful for the spiritual support he’d given her when Richard seemed likely to die of the lethal malady called Arnaldia, and they both valued the bishop’s unwavering loyalty to the English king.
Once greetings were exchanged and they were seated by the center hearth with wine and wafers on the way, Joanna was able to ask the question that had been hovering on her tongue from the moment she’d seen him entering the hall. “My lord bishop, when we left Acre, you were planning to sail with Richard. What changed your mind?”
“I did sail with the king, at least as far as Sicily. He insisted then that I disembark, for we’d learned that he was not going to be able to land at Marseille, and he said he wanted me to get to the Pope ere his enemies did, and then to hasten to England to help his lady mother and the justiciars rein in his brother. I arrived in the city last night and went to the papal palace this morning to pay my respects to the Holy Father. It was only then that I was told you were still in Rome, my lady.”
“After listening to my sister-in-law’s stories about their January crossing of the Alps,” Joanna said, with a fond glance at Berengaria, “we decided to wait till the alpine routes were more passable in the spring. She said at one point the women had to be slid down the mountain slope on ox hides!”
Berengaria smiled at the memory, which was easier to do now that it was part of her past. Accepting a wine cup from a servant, she waited until the bishop had been served before saying quietly, “I realize you’ve heard nothing about my lord husband, for you’d have told us at once. But you can ease my mind on one matter. He’d not fully recovere
d from the quartan fever when we sailed from Acre. Was he well when you parted from him in November?”
Hubert stalled for time by reaching for a wafer he had no intention of eating. While he might normally have dreaded female hysteria, he knew both women well enough to be sure they’d not lose control. Knowing how devastated they’d be, though, by what he had to tell them, he wished he could delay the moment of truth even longer. “He was fit when I last saw him, Madame,” he said, glad that he could at least assure Richard’s wife of that much. “But I do have news of the king. Whilst I was still with the Pope, a courier arrived with an urgent message from the Archbishop of Cologne. I deeply regret that I must be the bearer of such ill tidings. King Richard was captured near Vienna by the Duke of Austria and, according to the archbishop, he will soon be turned over to the Emperor Heinrich.”
Joanna had tensed with his first words of warning, and she thought she was braced for whatever he had to reveal. Now she discovered it was not so, for his news struck her like a physical blow. All the air seemed to have been expelled from her lungs and she found herself struggling for breath. When she glanced toward her sister-in-law, she suffered a second shock, for Berengaria was gazing raptly at the bishop as if he were one of God’s own angels, her face glowing.
“Gracias a Dios!” She turned toward Joanna then, her smile radiant. “He is alive, Joanna, he is alive!”
“And a prisoner of the German emperor!”
“Not for long, though. The Holy Father will never tolerate such an outrageous breach of Church law. He will force Heinrich to release Richard and to make amends for daring to defy the Church and for treating a king, a man who fought for God in the Holy Land, with such disrespect.” Berengaria reached over, covering Joanna’s hand with her own. “I can confess now,” she said, “how fearful I was. I kept remembering those savage storms, how the sea seethed and raged, how the gales were said to be even more violent during the winter . . . but I ought to have had more faith. The Almighty would never abandon Richard.”
Joanna had opened her mouth, but she caught her words before they could escape. By now all in the hall had gathered around them as word spread, and Hubert related what little he knew—that Richard’s ship had been driven onto the Istrian coast during a storm and he had apparently been trying to reach his nephew’s lands in Saxony. “If he got as far as Vienna, he almost made it, too, for he’d have been safe once he’d crossed into Moravia. What I do not understand is why he had so few men with him. According to the archbishop, less than twenty, and only three with him when he was finally caught.”
That horrified Joanna almost as much as the news of Richard’s capture, for she had a vivid imagination and could envision all too well what those desperate weeks on the run must have been like for her brother. Mariam had drawn near and took advantage of the sudden silence to ask Bishop Hubert if the Archbishop of Cologne’s messenger had known the names of those twenty men. When he shook his head, she said nothing, but she soon slipped unobtrusively from the hall, her passing noted only by Joanna, who knew she was terrified for Morgan’s safety. She loved Mariam as a sister and was very fond of her cousin Morgan, but for now she could think of no one but Richard, facing the greatest danger of his life.
Berengaria withdrew as soon as she could politely do so, and as she exited the hall with her ladies, Joanna was sure she was going to the nearby church of Santa Maria in Capitolo to give thanks for Richard’s deliverance. Anna had accompanied her, as eager as Berengaria to believe the worst of Richard’s ordeal was over, taking Alicia with her.
Their household knights began to break up into smaller groups to discuss this momentous news and what its ramifications would be. Finally Joanna found herself alone with Hubert Walter and Stephen de Turnham, the English lord who’d been entrusted by Richard with the safety of his women on their homeward journey. From the corner of her eye, she saw Beatrix hovering nearby, as she’d done for every crisis of Joanna’s twenty-seven years, and she was grateful that she’d be able to turn to Beatrix for support, knowing Mariam, so often her mainstay, would be thinking only of Morgan. And she could expect no help from her sister-in-law, not as long as Berengaria clung to her belief that the Pope could bring a man like Heinrich to heel like a cowed dog.
She took her time, choosing her words with care, for she did not want to offend Hubert Walter, who was, after all, a prelate of the Church. “I fear I do not have as much confidence as my sister by marriage in the Holy Father’s ability to influence the emperor.”
“The Pope is indeed outraged, Madame, as are all at the Holy See. But if I may speak candidly, I very much doubt that he will dare to use the Church’s most powerful weapon against Heinrich, and nothing less than excommunication and anathema will compel the emperor to set the king free.”
Joanna rallied then, for to give in utterly to despair would be to fail Richard in his time of need. “Heinrich will seek to ransom Richard, as any common bandit would do. Whatever he demands, we will raise it. My mother will see to that.” Forcing a smile, she said, “And I would back her against Heinrich any day of the week.”
They smiled, too, as desperate as she for hope. But then the bishop showed Joanna just how much their world had changed by saying that it would be best if she and Berengaria remained in Rome indefinitely. It was too dangerous to pass close to the territories of the empire, for if they fell into Heinrich’s hands, he could use their captivity to force further concessions from Richard. “We must not labor under the delusion that we are dealing with a man of honor,” he said grimly. “There is nothing he will not do to enhance his own power, and we forget at our peril that he is utterly unfettered by scruples or moral boundaries.”
Joanna bit her lip, knowing he spoke the truth. She found herself imagining what it must be like for Richard, at the mercy of such a man, and she could not suppress a shiver. So caught up was she in her own dark thoughts that she did not at first hear Hubert’s question and he had to repeat himself. “I am sorry, my lord. You were saying something about letters?”
“I will be leaving Rome by week’s end. I thought that you and Queen Berengaria might wish to give me letters to deliver.”
“Letters . . . for my mother? Of course.”
“No, letters for the king. I am not going back to England. I am going to Germany.”
Joanna felt tears stinging her eyes. “Bless you for that.”
He reached over and patted her hand. “You must never forget that there are men beyond counting who’d willingly offer up their own lives for the king.”
“For certes, any man who ever fought beside him,” Stephen de Turnham interjected.
Joanna smiled at them both, but her smile was as fleeting as that moment of hope. “Richard also has enemies beyond counting,” she said, thinking of the French king and her own brother.
“Yes, he does,” the bishop agreed, paying her the compliment of giving her the same brutal truth he’d have given to a man. “And now that they think he may have been dealt a mortal blow, the vultures will be circling.”
Joanna’s head came up, green eyes narrowing. “Let them. No vulture can bring down a lion.” But the men knew better than that, and so did she.
THE WELSH STRONGHOLD OF CARDIFF was over a hundred years old, built on the site of an ancient Roman fort. It had once been the prison of a king’s brother; for thirty years, the Duke of Normandy had languished there at the command of the first King Henry. That was not a comforting thought to the current king’s brother John, Count of Mortain, and he reminded himself that Cardiff was his now, come to him by his marriage to the wealthy Gloucester heiress.
Pushing away from the table and an interrupted chess game with one of his knights, Sir Durand de Curzon, John moved restlessly about the chamber before going to the window and unlatching the shutters. The storm continued unabated, rain slanting sideways, turning the inner bailey into a muddy quagmire, while the wind tested the castle defenses like an enemy army probing for weaknesses. John watched for a while
longer before saying sulkily, “Does the sun never shine in this accursed country?”
His audience had no interest in discussing the weather. His mistress yawned and stretched like a sleek, pampered cat. Although it was midmorning, she was still abed. Sitting up, she let the sheet dip, giving Durand de Curzon a partial glimpse of her breasts. He was sure it was deliberate. He’d seen more beautiful women than Ursula, but never one who radiated such raw, smoldering sexuality. He doubted that even the most celibate of priests could look upon that wanton red mouth, those smoky grey eyes, that mane of lustrous flaxen hair, and that lush, ripe body without feeling the throb of forbidden desire. Hellfire and damnation, the woman was a walking, breathing mortal sin.
Feeling his eyes upon her, Ursula regarded him with indifference that he wanted to believe was feigned. But he would not have lain with her even had she been willing. As long as John was bedding her, she was off-limits, for there was too much at stake to risk it upon a tumble with a wench, no matter how enticing her carnal charms. Still, though, she bothered him, like an itch he could not scratch. He could not decide if she was the ultimate cynic, disillusioned and jaded, or simply dull-witted. Even with John, she seemed remarkably nonchalant. A royal concubine usually stroked her lover’s pride as lovingly as his cock, hanging upon his every word as if they were as precious as pearls, laughing at all his jests, doing her best to make him believe she saw him as irresistible and clever and vigorous as he invariably saw himself. Not Ursula, though. Durand had never heard her compliment John, nor did she seem enthralled by his conversation, and his sardonic jests were as likely to earn an eye roll from her as an appreciative, sultry giggle. That John tolerated this dubious behavior only enhanced Durand’s certainty that the woman must be scorching hot in bed.
John was still grumbling about the foul Welsh weather and Durand could no longer ignore him. He had many duties as a knight in John’s household, some perfectly proper, others too dark to confess to any priest, but he was also expected to amuse his lord when called upon, to help John banish boredom, even if it meant playing endless games of chess or hazard or listening to John’s musings about life, women, and how unfairly he’d been treated by his father. John was very defensive about his relationship with Henry, occasionally boring Durand almost to tears as he explained why he’d had no choice but to abandon his dying father and why anyone in his place would have done the same thing. Durand knew that few others saw this side of John, for John was not a man who easily gave his trust. But he’d begun to share some of his secrets with Durand, confident that they would be kept. What he did not know was that Durand had secrets of his own.