Shield of Three Lions (38 page)

“We must flower or wither,” the king agreed dryly.

“Unfortunately.” She nodded. “Who would have dreamed then that the next time we met I would be the disinherited widow of a whoremonger king. I was only a bride of twelve, and you were nineteen.”

Nineteen! And I was now twelve….

“You have changed more than I have, Joanna,” the king said, smiling back at her. “You are a beautiful woman and a queen. Yet methinks you still behave like a child.”

Instantly her face twisted in Angevin wrath, again exactly like his, and her voice rasped. “You dare to speak to me so? When I’ve suffered disinheritance, imprisonment and worse?”

The king continued to smile. “Suffered? Or permitted? How could you allow that freakish Tancred to steal your gold? Are you so naive that you do not make proper arrangements for a treasure?”

She whirled and struck our trestle with her palm. “Give me wine.”

I was closest and dared not disobey. I poured wine into a silver goblet and offered it to her trembling hand.

“I believe,” she said with controlled sarcasm to her brother, “that you must look to yourself if you would fix blame for the loss of my
old. If you had not tarried on your journey had not permitted the King of France to arrive before you, I might have been a free woman and kept my gold as well.”

Richards face was now grim. “You confirm what I suspected. That French traitor! Conspiring with Tancred to thwart the Crusade. And stealing! By God, I’ll pound his balls to powder! My word, Joan. This is Richard speaking.”

He put his arms around her and she returned his embrace.

“I believe I like you, brother.”

He gazed into her eyes like a lover. “If the times didn’t dictate otherwise …”

Bitter bile shriveled my tongue as I watched this tender scene between brother and sister, and I hated Joanna despite her charms. She had no right to stroke and kiss the king in that manner when he was her brother. No wonder the Church is so strict toward consanguinity when such women be abroad. And why hadn’t Richard looked at me? Was he so dazzled by his enticing sister that he’d forgot what he’d said on the Far? He was going to defy his family’s curse about pleasure in children, a mysterious curse, but I understood that he loved me, aye, more than he cared for this
sister.

Voices below signaled the arrival of the French company and Richard stepped back, then came to our trestle for a quick swallow of wine. Sir Gilbert handed him his goblet, and when the king smiled briefly at me, I forgave all. He took his place beside Queen Joanna.

King Philip entered the salle alone and without ceremony, tossing a comment to an unseen functionary in the hall. As I had noted in Vézelay, he was wiry in build, about ten years younger than Richard. I now recognized in his light splenetic voice and royal bearing the same arrogance that Richard carried: both men were kings to the tips of their long pointed boots. I also realized that whatever Philip lacked in grace or size, he made up with an incisive intelligence. There was an assurance in the set of his lips, a penetrating grasp in his steady eyes—albeit one was milky—a positive cadence in his speech.

King Richard knelt to make obeisance.

“Rise, brother, and tell me your …”

His voice faltered and Richard looked up, puzzled. King Philip was gazing at Joanna. There was a long silence and the English king slowly rose again. What had happened? Did the French king suffer from some strange malady such as Richard had?

No, the cause of his paralysis was the beauteous queen. I too studied her, much alarmed. She must be a witch, though she looked nothing like Fat Giselle, and I had good reason to be terrified of witches. I peered at her hands to see if she held an amulet, at her lips to see if she breathed out a spell, but there was nothing.

“I would like … who are you … I want …” Philip gasped unintelligibly, his face waxy pale.

Richards brows shot up and he lifted his sisters delicate hand for presentation. “I would like to present our Liege Lord, Philip, King of France. Philip, this is my sister, the dowager Queen of Sicily.”

Philip leaned to the hand rapturously as brother and sister exchanged meaningful looks over his head, and I realized I had just witnessed a man falling in love. ’Twas exactly as the verses and songs described: Cupid had shot a bolt through his eye and enchanted him forthwith. Yet Joanna must be credited with the miracle as well. Again I wondered what she had done and studied her. Was it something I might learn?

The French king stood, stammered out a few ecstatic syllables.

“We are delighted,” Richard answered when he paused. “This is the sort of greeting we had expected when we arrived.”

King Philip reluctantly turned from Joanna to her brother, and both his expression and words changed to their original coldness.

“We could hardly welcome an invasion, Richard. You have entered Messina like an occupying force. Your men raid, rob and worse. Just before I came, I was told of a poor woman called Emma who was raped by your knights this morning in full view of a dozen witnesses.”

Richard pursed grim lips. “Not knights, but hungry foot soldiers. Nor did they rape. They demanded the bread which they had just bought. Emma and her brothers refused to give it to them. My men are hungry, Philip.”

“Yes, so King Tancred understands,” Philip replied acidly. “Hungry for gold.”

Richard’s skin blotched as it had in Marseilles. “If you refer to Joanna’s gold, Philip, we are hungry for justice. That gold was her wedding dower.”

Joanna bit her lower lip and entered the fray. “I beg you, My Liege, to return my dower. Otherwise, I may not wed again.”

Philip lapsed into his former state.

“You will wed again, I assure you. Your beauty, grace, utter enchantment … You are … I myself would …”

Richards face became speculative.

“My sister is indeed a wondrous queen. Nevertheless, the point remains: give her her gold.”

Joanna shot him a warning look which he seemed not to heed.

“By depriving her, you deprive all of us. The queen has pledged her dower to me for our journey.”

“What, pledged?” Joanna cried in open amazement.

“For you?”
Philip dropped the queens hand.

Even I was dumbfounded. Richard might be a great warrior-king, but he was no diplomat. Why hadn’t he kept his plans for the gold a secret? I would never tell Enoch what I really intended.

Philip’s bedazzled smile had turned to a grimace. “In which case, I too shall receive half her dowry, as we agreed in Vézelay Share and share alike.”

“Of plunder,” Richard retorted wrathfully. “I’ll see you in Hell before I let you touch one denier of our gold.”

Our
gold!
Benedicite
, Richard was no better than Enoch. A pox on all brothers and their greed. To take
all
of Joanna’s dowry and fight over it with the French king, as if she didn’t deserve a coin. I adored the king, aye, and he was like my own father, and I was jealous of Joanna; yet she was a woman and so was I!

“Richard, I did not …” Joanna blazed, but he stopped her with a peremptory hand. His Angevin temper had now taken over.

“I wrote to Pope Clement,” he continued to Philip, “and reported that you had broken fealty here in Messina. I demanded your excommunication.”

“I wrote a similar letter from Vézelay,” Philip fired back, “demanding
your
excommunication. You have clearly broken your holy pledge to wed my sister Alais.”

Richard bared his teeth in a travesty of a smile. “Did you also tell him
why
I broke my promise?”

Enthralled by this hint of a dark secret, I eagerly awaited King Philips reply. I waited in vain. He pressed his lips like white worms under water, and Richard had won.

But Queen Joanna wasn’t finished. She placed her hand on Philips arm. “Enough of threats and pleadings. My Lord, I trust your honor and know you will not fail me.”

He managed to keep his voice steady in reply. “My Lady Queen, by my royal office which I hold with God’s will, I promise that your dower shall be delivered forthwith.
Teste me ipso.”

She rewarded him with a long significant smile, and the atmosphere became less charged.

Richard waved a hand in our direction. “Sir Gilbert, Alex, wine and refreshments if you please.”

As we served, they spoke of other things, mostly the prevailing winds, for King Philip was most eager to sail to Acre in the Holy Land. I hovered close to the queen, sniffing her sweet sandalwood. I could easily see why King Philip had been so smitten, and Richard too,
Deus juva me.
In a short time, the French king begged to be excused and took his leave, warmly from the queen, hardly at all from her brother.

“Holy St. Martin,” Joanna gasped when he’d left. “Eleanor would have been proud of me tonight. In order to
produce, try
to
induce;
if that fails,
seduce.
Such did I learn at the queen’s knee. Here, boy, refresh me.”

I took the proffered cup, glancing at Sir Gilbert, and handed wine to the queen.

“Why, what a pretty imp,” she remarked, gazing on me. “But so young. Hardly weaned, I’d say. How old are you, lad?”

I always had to think. “Nine, Your Highness.”

“A babe. Richard, best get this bait out of Messina before the sharks feed. He’s the kind of tender morsel that starts a riot in this city.”

The king ruffled my hair. “I’ve made it my special task to guard young Alex myself.”

“Oh?” Her brows shot up in a perfect parody of the king’s. “Fortunate Alex.”

But he was already thinking of other things.

“The sweet opiate of your person appears more effective than my threats with Philip. What say you to ruling France?”

Joanna rolled her wine in her cup and smiled wickedly

“I’ll say aye if you will. A double wedding, I with Philip, you with Alais.”

“Joanna, I mean it. What say you to Philip? He’ll make you the most powerful woman in Europe.”

I held my breath; ’twas the first time I’d actually witnessed the dispensation of a royal lady.

“Thank you for such unexpected largesse, but I think not. ’Tis not my pleasure to spread my legs for a pasty Cyclops to secure your Vexin. Especially when you can pump sweet Alais at the same well.”

“Who speaks of pleasure, Joan? Our aim is security along the Norman border, for which the Vexin is essential.”

Her mouth tightened and her words came with asperity, recalling Sister Petronilla to my ear. “Your aim, not mine, for I care nothing for that swampy plain. When I was twelve, my father sent me to rule William’s harem in Palermo; I went, because a king held my dower. Now I’m older and have my own dowry and I’ll decide.”

“Your confidence outrides your horse,” drawled Richard. “’Twill be my gold.”

Joanna smiled broadly and clasped her hands behind her brother’s neck, then leaned backward to gaze on him. “But Richard is not Henry and will give me what is my due. Let’s strike a bargain: you may have my gold and more,
as a loan;
in return, you’ll get me dispensation to accompany you on your Crusade; reimburse me in full when we return to Europe; then find me a lusty stud to fill my womb. What say you?”

“God’s balls!” Richard stamped a foot and laughed. “You are my own sweet sister. You offer me a headache in exchange for the world,
yet deflate argument by implying that to do else would be like Henry. Well, ’tis done. Let’s to Jerusalem, Joan!”

And she leaped to his waiting arms.

With that embrace I was back to my first emotion: jealousy which twisted my heart to a lemon peel. I hated the odious forward queen, didn’t want her on our Crusade. Hadn’t Richard said that no women were permitted? He might be a great king but tonight he’d proved himself a mere man as well.
Produce, induce, seduce!
How clever she was to disarm her victim by showing her claws, for she’d conquered Richard as surely as she’d conquered Philip. And unwittingly taught me a lesson as well, though I knew not how I might apply it.

They parted finally, smiled with nauseating tenderness and left without a backward glance. No sooner was the door closed than I felt a sting across my cheek and almost fell with the blow!

“How dare you strike me!” I screamed at Sir Gilbert and would have hit him back except that he held my arms.

“You served the English queen!” he panted. “After I told you to serve only the French!”

“She asked me, you fool! I’m going to tell the king that you hit me! He’ll have you punished, see if he doesn’t.”

He let go of my arms. “You do that, and I’ll tell the king what I know about
you.”

Stricken, I searched his yellow eyes for a clue and suddenly remembered how he’d clutched my crotch in Vézelay.
He must know that I was a girl.
What else could it be? I ran from the room.

“His poison be venal, bairn. Did ye knaw that Sir Eduard just departed fer England?” Enoch said later when I’d related the scene.

“No! Why?”

“I canna tell ye the particulars, but this Sir Gilbert kapes pages coming and going lak sinners to the priest. The king’s household be Gilbert’s ane private court.”

“Do you think I should tell the king?”

Enoch knotted his brows. “Certes ye shouldna be whipping boy to the king’s slubberdegullian, but ye must time yer complaint. Fram what ye said, the king has mighty problems here in Messina.” He
thought further. “Wait till ye have better opportunity, that’s my advice.”