Here Be Dragons - 1 (9 page)

50
Will choked on his cider, began to sputter. "Christ Jesus, John! You cannot mean that? You'd truly agree to wed Alais?"
"Why not?"
Will drew a strangled breath. "For one thing," he snapped, "you already do have a wife! Or did that somehow slip your mind?"
John drank to conceal a grin; his brother's ponderous attempts at sarcasm never failed to amuse him, but he did not want to offend Will by laughing outright. "Have you forgotten that Avisa is my second cousin? Or that we neglected to get a papal dispensation for our marriage? Nor need your heart bleed for Avisa, the abandoned wife. We may not agree on much, but we do share a deep and very mutual dislike."
"But Alais! She bedded with Papa for years and all know it, even bore him a stillborn son!"
John shrugged. "Being Papa's concubine does not make her any less Philip's sister, and if she's the price for Philip's support... at least we'd be keeping her in the family!"
"That's not amusing, John! How can you jest about betrayal and treason, a marriage all but incestuous?"
John set his cup down with a thud. "What would you have me do? It's been sixteen months since Richard named our dead brother Geoffrey's son as his heir, nine months since my lady mother coerced him into taking a Spanish wife.
Nine months, Will. For all I know, she could already be with child. What if she is, if she manages a miracle, keeps Richard in her bed long enough to give him a son?"
"Ah, John . . . you'd still be Count of Mortain, Earl of Gloucester, with an income of four thousand pounds a year. Can you not content yourself with that?"
John stared at him, and then gave a short, incredulous laugh. "God help you, Will, I truly think you're serious!"
Until that moment, Will had been slow to see the magnitude of his mistake. Had he really thought he could talk sense into John? All he'd done was to take on a share of the guilt, to compromise himself in the complicity of silence.
"Do not leave on the morrow, Will. Stay till week's end. How is your manor at
Kirton? This was a bad year for crops; if you're in need of money ..."
Will had no false pride, saw no reason to refuse aid from John, not when he had only the manors of Kirton and Appleby, and John had the revenues from six shires. He made a point, though, of not abusing John's generosity, never asking unless there was a specific need. "Thank you, lad, no. I do not"
"My lord!" A flustered servant stumbled into the chamber. "My lord, the Queen has just ridden into the bailey!"

51
John spilled his cider. "That cannot be! My mother is in Normandy."
"No, my lord, she's in the great hall."
"You both are wrong," a cool voice said from the doorway. "I'm out in the stairwell."
VVill jumped to his feet. He was very much in awe of John's mother, for
Eleanor of Aquitaine was more than the widow of one King, mother to another.
She was a creature rarer even than the unicorn, a woman who, all her life, had been a law unto herself, as Duchess of Aquitaine, then as Queen of France, and finally as Queen of England. She had in her past two failed royal marriages, a crusade, scandal and lovers, even a rebellion, for when Henry betrayed her, she'd incited their sons to civil War, had spent sixteen years in confinement as a result. But she'd won in the end, had outlived the husband who'd shut her away from the world, from her beloved Aquitaine. Moreover, she had somehow survived those bitter years with her soul unscarred, her spirit unbroken.
Upon regaining her freedom, she had, at age sixty-nine, journeyed to Navarre to fetch a bride for her favorite son, brought the girl across the Alps to
Richard in Sicily. She was now in her seventy-first year, and in the high, elegantly hollowed cheekbones, the posture that conceded nothing to age, and the slanting green-gold eyes, Will could still see traces of the great beauty she'd once been. He was both fascinated and repelled by this woman who'd dared to outrage every tenet of the code governing proper female behavior, but he was glad, nonetheless, to see her now, for she was the one person John might not dare to defy.
Will watched as John greeted her with guarded formality, did not mind in the least when she made it pleasantly yet perfectly plain that his presence was not required. In a contest of wills between John and his mother, he did not think John would prevail, indeed hoped he would not. But he did not care to be a witness to their confrontation; he suspected Eleanor's methods would be neither maternal nor merciful.
ELEANOR snapped her fingers and the last of the servants disappeared. As John handed her a goblet of mulled wine, she sipped in silence for some moments, then confirmed his worst fears. "I do hope you have not entangled poor Will in your intriguing, John. That would be rather unsporting, like spearing fish in a barrel."
"Should I know what that means, Madame?"
She leaned back against the settle cushions, eyed him reflectively.
Do you have any memories of Gwendolen, John? No, I see not. She was a young Welsh girl, nurse first to your sister Joanna and then to y°u. I liked her, found the Welsh to be much like my own Poitevins, a people passionate yet practical. There was one Welsh proverb in par-

52
ticular that Gwendolen was fond of quoting- 'Better a friend at court than gold on the finger.'" She smiled faintly, glanced down at her hands, at the jeweled fingers entwined loosely in her lap. "As you can see, I have gold rings in profusion. But I also have friends at court, John ... at the French court."
She waited, but John continued to look at her blankly, with the suggestion of a quizzical smile. "Why is it," he asked, "that I suddenly feel as if I've stumbled into the wrong conversation?"
"You do that very well, John. Honest bewilderment, with just the right touch of humor. I do not doubt your indignation will be equally impressive. And if you insist, we can play the game out to the end. I'll tell you exactly what my informants at the French court revealed, and you can deny any and all knowledge of Philip's intrigues. I'll confront you with the fact that I know you've coerced the constables of Wallingford, Berkshire, and Windsor to turn over the royal castles to you, and you can then concoct some perfectly innocent explanation for that
"But eventually, John, we'll get to the truth. It may well take all night, but we will, that I promise you. So why do you not make it easy on both of us? It has been a very long day. I'm tired, John, am asking you to keep this charade mercifully brief . . . for my sake if not your own."
John could not say with which precise word she hit a nerve; it may have been the tone as much as the content. But by the time she stopped speaking, he was rigid with rage. "For your sake? There was a time when I'd have done anything on God's earth for you, just to get you to acknowledge I was even alive! But now? You're too late, Mother, years too late!"
There was a sudden silence. John rose, retreated into the sheltering shadows beyond the hearth, but he could not escape her eyes, could feel them following him all the while. What had ever possessed him? Fool1 In lashing out like that, he'd only shown her where his defenses were weakest, most vulnerable to attack.
"What would you have me say, John?" she said at last. "That you are my flesh and blood, my last-born, that I care, care more than you know? It would be easy enough to say, and I admit I might be tempted ... if I thought you'd believe me."
"I would not," he said hastily, and she gave him an unexpected smile, a look of sardonic and surprising approval.
"Why should you? You were not yet six when Henry confined me in Salisbury
Tower, sixteen when next I saw you, twenty-one when Richard ordered my release. How could I love you? I do not even know you. You were ever Henry's, never mine."
I

53
"That's a he," John said bitterly "You never cared for me, never1 Mot from the day I was born You think I do not remember how it was7"
"You exaggerate," she said, but there was that in her voice which he'd never heard before, a faintly defensive note "Mayhap I did not have you with me as often as I should in those early years, I'll concede that I'll concede, too, that I could take no joy in a pregnancy at fortyfjve Why should I7 I had just found out about Henry and that Clifford slut He'd even dared to install her at
WoodstockWoodstock, my favorite manor1" She stopped abruptly, and John saw that she, too, had been goaded into saying that which she'd not meant to share
"It is a pretty fiction that mothers must love each child in equal measure a fiction, no more than that There is always a favorite With me, it was
Richard With Henry, it was you "
"No," John said, too quickly "I was not his favorite It was rather that I was the only son he had left Have ypu forgotten7 My brothers sided with you "
Again, John had the disquieting sense that he'd have done better to hold his tongue Eleanor's eyes were too probing, too knowing Cat's eyes, ever on the alert for movement in the grass, he thought uneasily, not reassured when she shrugged, said, "If that's how you'd rather remember it But I did not mean that as a reproach I do not, in truth, think less of you for having the common sense to abandon a ship once waves began to break over the bow Nor, after sixteen years shut away from the sun, am I likely to find tears to spare for
Henry Plantagenet "
Without warning, she came abruptly to her feet, crossed swiftly to John "But
Richardthat is another matter altogether, John Did you truly think I'd stand idly by whilst you plotted with Philip to usurp Richard's throne7"
When he sought to move away, she caught his arm "Of my children, I have ever loved Richard best, have never made a secret of it My first loyalties are to him, will always be to him But what you do not seem to realize is that they are then given to you You want to be Richard's heir Well, I, too, want that for you, am willing to do what I can to make it so "
She sounded sincere, but John knew how little that meant, neither of his parents had ever held veracity to be a virtue "Why7" he said wanly "The soul of sentiment you're not Mother "
She laughed "To your credit, neither are you I've always thought sentimentality to be one of the cardinal sins, second only to stupidity "
That afforded John a certain ironic amusement, for it was his private conviction that his brother Richard was decidedly stupid, in all but kill-

54
ing, at which he excelled. But he said nothing, let Eleanor lead him back to the settle.
"Richard's marriage is not working out. Unfortunately, the girl is as insipid as she is innocent, and so absurdly sweet-tempered that I suspect if you cut her, she'd bleed pure sugar. She and Richard . . . well, it's been like pairing a butterfly with a gerfalcon. I do not think it likely she'll give him a son."
"And if she does not, that leaves only me ... or Geoffrey's son. Richard prefers the boy; why do you not, Madame?"
"Arthur is not yet five; you're twenty and four. That in itself would be reason enough to favor you. And you are my son; that's another. Lastly, I
think you have it in you to be a better King than your past record would indicate. At least you're no fool, and most men are."
"Even if you do favor me over Arthur, what of it? Richard has already made his choice."
"No choice this side of the grave is irrevocable. Richard named Arthur as a means of keeping you in check whilst he was on crusade. Once he does return from the Holy Land, he may well reconsider, especially if I urge him to do so.
I'm sure you'll agree that if there be one voice he heeds, it is mine. If I
speak for you, he's like to listen. But it does cut both ways, John. If I
speak against you, he's apt to listen then, too. So it is up to you."
"What do you want me to do?"
"It is rather what I want you to refrain from doing. No intrigues with Philip.
No pleasure jaunts to Paris. No conniving with the Welsh or the Scots." She paused, hazel eyes holding his own. Satisfied with what she saw in them, she rose, stifling a yawn. "I expect a bedchamber has been made ready for me by now, so I'll bid you good night. I'm glad we did reach an understanding. But I
rather thought we would, Johnny."
"Do not call me that!" John said sharply, startling himself even more than
Eleanor. She stared at him, eyebrows arching, and he flushed.
"I'd almost forgotten," she said softly. "That was what Henry always called you, was it not?"
John said nothing, and she moved toward the door, where she paused, turned to face him. "If you should happen to suffer a change of heart in the night, John, decide that Philip's offer is a better gamble than mine ... I think it only fair to tell you that, on the same day you sailed for France, I would personally give the command to seize all your lands, castles, and manors in
England, confiscate them on behalf of the crown." And closing the door quietly behind her, she left him alone.

5
GWYNEDD, WALES
]anwry upj
J.HEY left Ha warden Castle in the early hours of a cloud-darkened dawn. A week of unrelenting rains had reduced the road to a mere memory, and as they headed west into Wales, they found themselves trudging through mud as thick and clinging as molasses. It spattered their legs and tunics, squished into their boots, made them fight for every footprint of ground gained. Exhaustion soon claimed Edwin; so, too, did disillusionment. Stumbling after his companions, blinded by gusts of wind-driven rain, chilled and utterly wretched, he could only wonder where the glory had gone.
All of his eighteen years had been passed in the Cheshire village of Aldford.
He had never even seen Chester, a mere five miles to the north. But three months ago his cousin Godfrey had come back to Aidford. Godfrey was a legend in their family, the youth who'd willingly abandoned home and hearth for the alien world waiting without. Godfrey was a solidarius, a man who fought for pay, and he told his awestruck kin that he was now being paid by no less a lord than Ralph de Montalt, Lord of Hawarden and Mold, Seneschal of Chester.
And then he told them why he'd come back: for Edwin.
There was no question of refusal; any village lad would have pledged his soul for such a chance. Much envied, Edwin had accompanied Godfrey back to
Hawarden, eager to learn about war and women and the world beckoning beyond
Aldford. But at Hawarden he'd found only long hours, loneliness, scant pleasure. Garrison guard duty was monotonous and dreary. But this was far worse, this was unmitigated misery, and as he tripped and sprawled into the mud, blistered and sore and soaked to the skin, Edwin wished fervently that he'd never even heard of Godfrey, that he'd never laid eyes upon Hawarden
Castle.
Of their mission, he knew only that the young knight they were