The Autumn Throne (65 page)

From the camp there came a sudden shout, and then another, followed by yells of warning and alarm. As men ran to grab weapons, mounted soldiers in full mail galloped in among them, smashing down the tents, scattering the fires, and wreaking destruction and mayhem.

‘Dex ai le Roi! Dex ai le roi!’

The unmistakeable
war cry of the King rang out, and although Alienor’s eyes were blurred with age, she could make out John’s banner of blazing red and gold as his standard bearer waved it aloft.

Richenza joined her, hair dishevelled and eyes cloudy with slumber but wide with anxiety. ‘What is it? Are we under attack?’

‘They’ve come!’ Alienor exulted. ‘Richard got through, praise God!’ She made a sound halfway between a laugh and a gasp. ‘I said they would come did I not? We are rescued! I played for time and now the tables have turned!’

John’s troops had burst through the open town gateway and galloped through the deserted, half-charred settlement to the keep, through the broken defences and into the midst of Arthur’s men. Richard caught sight of his cousin in shirt and braies, a stunned expression on his face, the roast pigeon in his hand dripping grease into the dust. Two knights seized him, clubbed the food to the ground and pinned his arms up high behind his back. He yelled and kicked and fought until one of them struck his temple with a clenched fist, and he slumped between them, half senseless.

The besiegers were utterly caught out by the speed and surprise of the assault. The soldiers in the keep surged out to lend their assistance, and Arthur’s small army was crushed like a nut under a hammer.

Strengthened by the heat and swiftness of the moment Richard forgot his pain and exhaustion. He dismounted and ran to the keep, immediately coming up against a piled barricade of stone-filled mangers, tables and huge pieces of tree trunk at the foot of the stairs. He started dragging the barricades aside, and others joined him. From somewhere above on the twisting stairs came the sound of thumps, bangs, and then sloshing water.

Moments later, Guillaume of Poitiers appeared round the newel post, clinging for dear life to the wall, followed by two
compatriots, all taking similar care. By this time John had arrived and stood, hands on hips, looking askance at the goings-on.

‘It’s the soap, sire,’ said Guillaume of Poitiers.

‘Soap?’ John raised his brows.

‘The Queen ordered it to be tipped down the stairs. We’ve managed to sluice off the worst with the water we were storing, but it still needs more. Thank Christ you have come. We could not have held out more than a few hours.’

‘Grandmère was determined,’ Richard said with admiration.

‘Oh, your grandmother knows how to fight to the death,’ John said, casting his gaze heavenwards.

Gingerly he began to climb the steps, and Richard followed in his wake.

Alienor stood upright facing the open door as John negotiated the final steps and entered the chamber. He still wore his mail and was breathing heavily from his climb.

‘Thank God!’ She rushed to him. ‘Thank God you came in time!’

He took her hands and kissed her cheek.

‘We thought it would be much closer than this; we thought we would have to endure a day of assaults.’

Grimacing, he left her to take a towel from beside the laver and wipe the soles of his boots before tossing the cloth to Richard, who did the same. ‘Well then, it seems for once I exceeded your expectations, Mama.’

‘You often exceed my expectations,’ Alienor replied with asperity, ‘but I can truly say I have never been so pleased to see you as I am now.’ She turned to Richard. ‘And you are a hero! You must have ridden faster than the wind, and now to return with your father – that is indeed a feat. You look exhausted.’

He smiled at her, his features alight despite the dark shadows beneath his eyes. ‘I care not, because we were in time. I can sleep in a while.’

‘Well,
at least have some wine. I had the best barrels brought up here. If the keep was broached I had no intention of letting the rabble swill the good stuff.’ Her voice was bright, but it was brittle too. Like her grandson she was enduring by the power of her will and pure determination.

Richenza presented her uncle and cousin with goblets, and gently tugged Richard to the window seat and made him sit down.

John said, ‘Thanks to your summons we have captured Arthur and his accomplices Hugh de Lusignan and Savaric de Mauleon, among others.’ His eyes gleamed and there was a smug curl to his lips. ‘I could not have set a better trap if I had thought it up myself rather than it being happenstance. God has done me a great favour. Now Philippe will have to retreat because his pawn has been knocked from the board.’ He took a drink from his cup and gave her a sharp look, as if suddenly remembering something. ‘Even so, Mama, what were you doing here?’

‘I was travelling to Poitiers.’ She tensed, for she recognised that look on his face, and these days the tables had turned; she could no longer command him. ‘I thought it safer than Fontevraud when I heard Arthur was ravaging with an army.’

‘Two hundred knights is not an army,’ he said. ‘And since this has happened to you, it clearly was not a safer option than remaining at Fontevraud. You are too frail for this, Mama. I thought you had retired to a life of contemplation, but then I find you riding around like a nomad and desperately pleading for succour. What would have happened if Arthur had captured you?’

‘But he did not and instead you have captured him which is a happy outcome,’ she retorted. ‘Do not seek to scold me. Yes I am old, yes my body is failing, but my spirit is as fierce as it was on the day I married your father, and if I thought it best to go to Poitiers, it was my choice.’

John inclined his head. ‘I was concerned for you, that is all,’ he said silkily. ‘But now that Arthur and Hugh de Lusignan
are in my hands, I think it would be best if you returned to Fontevraud rather than continuing to Poitiers. No one will attack you now. As soon as Richard has recovered from his heroic rides, he will escort you back there.’

She thought about being contrary just to irritate him, but in truth, and in spite of her fighting words, after today’s ordeal all she wanted was the quiet of her chamber at the abbey, and gentle tending. However, she was not done yet.

‘Yes, you are right, and besides, I need to speak with Master D’Ortiz about the effigies.’

‘Good.’ John put down his cup and made to leave.

‘But first I want to see Arthur,’ Alienor said. ‘I want to see my grandson.’

John’s expression narrowed, but he shrugged. ‘As you will, Mama, although God knows why.’

‘Because all the time we were under threat of siege, my exchanges have been with his messenger. Now I want to put a face to the words I received from him.’

John had business to attend to and Alienor had to wait until the stairs had been thoroughly washed down so as to leave not a trace of the slick and slippery soap. An hour later John returned and brought her to the commander’s small chamber off the guard room where Arthur had been confined alone. He sported a black eye and his face wore a red flush of new bruises. From the way he was holding himself she suspected he had been kicked in the ribs too. Her grandson, who had threatened her and would have used her without mercy as his pawn. Now he was in John’s hands and a pawn himself. She saw a gangly adolescent, tall and thin with oily blemishes on his cheeks. His hair was a dirty blond and his eyes pale grey and watchful.

‘I hope you have learned your lesson from this,’ she said. ‘Now you see the consequences of your folly and what happens when you go against your kin. You need to change your ways. You must submit to your uncle the King and adhere to him, not Philippe of France.’

Arthur
scowled at her and she felt the hostility emanating from him in waves. He was sullen, a caged animal, and she had no patience with him.

‘Why should I?’ His voice grated in the space between boy and man. ‘My father was the older brother. The right is mine more than his.’

‘You have no choice. What use are such claims without the wherewithal to fulfil them? Swearing your allegiance and making your peace would benefit you far more than this childish defiance.’

He said nothing and turned his head away.

‘Charming, isn’t he?’ John remarked.

‘He is no ruler,’ she said scornfully, ‘nothing but a boy with a desire for entitlement.’ As John had once been himself. She pushed that thought aside. ‘What are you going to do with him?’

John shrugged. ‘I do not know, Mama. For now all that matters is that he is no longer free to make his mischief.’ A savage glint entered his eyes. ‘As far as his allies are concerned, I do not care if they rot in the deepest dungeons known to man.’

‘Have a care,’ Alienor warned. ‘Enemies in your power are tools to be used. Consider well whatever you do.’

‘Yes, Mama.’

She heard the impatience in his voice and felt tired. This was a triumph for him and she could sense it buoying him up in a dark and gloating kind of way. Henry had been like that at times, never Richard, whose dealings with his enemies had always been clean and astringent. Both sons were beyond her reach now in different ways.

The effort expended over the last few days had taken its toll and she had drunk her reserves to the dregs of her cup. All she wanted was to return to Fontevraud, retire from the world, and rest.

Alienor
looked at the cleric who had just been shown into her chamber. He was tall and thin with piercing dark eyes, long cheeks and a straight mouth, held in a tight line. He had presented her with a letter and now stood with hands folded before him as Richenza read it out to Alienor.

‘
We send to you Brother John de Valerant who has seen what is going forward with us and who will be able to tell you of our situation. Put faith in him respecting these things whereof he will inform you. Nevertheless the grace of God is with us even more than he can tell you
.’

‘What is your information?’ Alienor asked. ‘I take it that it cannot be committed to parchment.’

John de Valerant bowed. ‘Indeed, madam, the King considered the information would be best told to you rather than written. He bids me say that the succession is determined and cannot now be set aside. An agreement has been reached that cannot be undone. He bid me show you this as proof.’ He withdrew a ring from his pouch and handed it to her.

Alienor’s eyesight was not good but she could see that it was a personal seal ring, similar to the one Richard had once possessed, and set with a red intaglio. Her son Geoffrey had had one too. ‘To whom does this belong?’ she demanded.

‘To Arthur, Count of Brittany,’ de Valerant replied tonelessly. ‘I am to tell you that all is settled, and that the King is now confirmed in all of his lands. You have no further need to worry on this matter.’

Alienor looked down at the ring and wondered what John had done now. Something had clearly happened, presumably
to Arthur, and by design not accident, for if the latter de Valerant would have said so. She did not have the strength to go delving, and knew even if she did she would either not get to the truth or she would find out and wish forever she had not. From the careful tone of the cleric, whom she knew to be one of John’s spies, she suspected the worst. He would not tell her and there was no point in pushing him. The news was worthless except to build up a layer of acceptable fabrication. Since she had no energy to sort it out, she must look the other way.

She returned the ring to him and rubbed her hands together as if washing them. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I do not wish to keep this. You may go.’

He bowed and departed, clearly as eager to be free of her presence as she was for him to leave.

Richenza was biting her lip. ‘Grandmère, what did he mean?’

Alienor turned to her granddaughter. ‘I think you know perfectly well what he meant.’

Richenza looked stricken. ‘But what if—’

‘I do not wish to talk of the matter, and if you are the sensible young woman I think you are, you will not dwell on it,’ Alienor said firmly. ‘It is out of my hands. There is nothing I can do, especially for something that is already a fait accompli – nothing, that is, except pray for all concerned. If you cannot put it from your mind, then lock it away and do not speak of it. The world is a harsh place where terrible things happen every day. Be thankful for what grace we have.’ She gestured. ‘Come, help me up, I would walk in the garden.’

Alienor struggled up from her seat, Richenza aiding her one side, and her walking stick the other. She had always sworn she would never use one of these things, had stuck to that determination all the way until the winter after Mirebeau when at last she had capitulated when struggling to walk between her dwelling and the abbey. The alternative was to be carried and she would not tolerate that. Each day she tried
to walk a little way if the weather was kind, but it was becoming progressively more difficult. Her eyesight was failing too and she had to rely on Richenza and Belbel more and more. Each journey was one from seat to seat, respite to respite, but at least if she was concentrating on setting one foot in front of the other and keeping her balance it pushed their visitor and his news from her mind.