The King's Witch (43 page)

The issue of his sexual orientation remains a big argument and may be impossible to resolve, since the ideas of the twelfth century about such things are much different than ours. I’m more convinced by the evidence for rather than against his being what we call homosexual. Humphrey IV de Toron was viewed by his contemporaries as “not a knight” and “a boy who is almost a girl,” which seems less controversial. His contemporaries respected his wit and diplomatic ability, and Richard liked him and spent a lot of time with him. He died sometime after the end of the Third Crusade.

Henry of Champagne, who married Isabella and became king of Jerusalem, fell out a window in 1197 and broke his neck. Isabella soon married her fourth husband in ten years, Amalric of Lusignan, another of the tenacious upwardly mobile clan from Poitou that included King Guy and Hugh of Ascalon. Amalric became king of Cyprus, which he made into a coherent and stable realm. He and Isabella both died in 1205, and her daughter by Conrad of Montferrat, Maria of Montferrat, inherited their titles.

On Richard’s way home from the Crusade he fell into the hands of the Duke of Austria, who sold him to the emperor Henry VI, who freed him only on receipt of a ruinous ransom. Richard’s mother, Eleanor, raised it, thus beggaring England, not his brother Prince John, as Sir Walter Scott would have it; John did offer the emperor a sum of money not to let Richard go. Even in captivity Richard managed to make allies, and when he was finally free he quickly drove John off and recovered his property.

He spent almost none of his reign in England. The core of his power was in western and southern France, where he died in 1199, still fighting. His sister Johanna died only a few days later; they are both buried in Fontevraud Abbey with Eleanor.

Richard and Berengaria never had children, and the youngest of Eleanor’s children, Prince John, succeeded him. He was half the king his brother and his father had been, lost all his continental possessions to King Philip Augustus, and then was humiliatingly forced into signing the Magna Carta by his infuriated barons. Some generations on, another great Plantagenet king laid claim to those continental possessions again, beginning the Hundred Years’ War.

The private story is fiction. Edythe, or Deborah, and Rouquin are imagined people; Richard had a number of commanders, of whom Rouquin is a sort of distillation, most obviously of Mercadier, the great captain of mercenaries who served the Lionheart for most of his kingship.

In the twelfth century there were a number of types of medical practitioners, many of them women. The great medical school at Salerno accepted female students from its founding. Lest anybody think I am making a leap here with Edythe, please note that the personal physician to Louis IX of France on his disastrous Crusade was a woman.

The Crusades benefited the practice of physicians and hospitals, bringing ideas from the Byzantines and the Muslim world into the West; Galen, Maimonides, and Ibn Sina were the primary theorists. Most of the details in the story are drawn from the primary data. The medical practice strives to describe Galen’s humor theory, a lovely intellectual construct, part of the neoplatonic idea-world of the Middle Ages, like Ptolemy’s cosmos.

The name Plantagenet is parlous. It does not appear in written records before Edward I’s day, although it was Henry II’s father, Geoffrey, who first wore a sprig of broom in his hat—the
planta genet
—and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The alternative, the House of Anjou, has no magic in it. The greatest family of the Middle Ages deserves its flamboyant name.
J’adjust.

1.
Discuss the relationship between Edythe and Rouquin. They both feel like outcasts in their respective worlds—how does this affect their relationship? Do you think that, had they not been able to move outside of their regular worlds, they would have been able to connect the way they do?

 

 

 

2.
Did you enter into reading
The King’s Witch
with an understanding of the time period and of the reign of Richard the Lionheart? If not, did the author’s research into this time period help you develop a better understanding of the Crusades?

 

 

 

3.
How do you think Edythe’s background as a Jew, and her desire to learn more about her heritage, affect the decisions she makes throughout the course of the novel?

 

 

 

4.
On page 138, in regard to the Crusades, Rouquin states, “This isn’t about God, whatever Richard says. This is about power.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement, based on your own knowledge of the Crusades? Do you think other wars were fought for which the motivation may have been power instead of religion?

 

 

 

5.
Edythe decides to go with Richard to Jaffa in order to possibly learn more about her Jewish heritage, as well as to care for the injured soldiers. How does her journey compare to other religious pilgrimages?

 

 

 

6.
King Richard is believed by many historians to have been a homosexual. Do you think Richard’s relationship with Edythe is influenced by the fact that he’s a man not attracted to women, leaving him free to treat her as an equal ?

 

 

 

7.
Edythe is referred to as a witch by Richard’s men at various points throughout the course of the novel. Do you think that they truly believe that she is capable of witchcraft? In what ways do their reactions to her abilities to heal act as a precursor to later instances in history when people were persecuted as witches?

 

 

 

8.
Throughout the course of the novel, the Templars also play a significant role in trying to shape the outcome of the attack on Jerusalem and the installation of a new king. Why do you think Edythe seems to have an easier time standing up to them than Johanna does?

 

 

 

9.
Toward the beginning of the novel, Edythe meets an old beggar whose words haunt her throughout the novel. In what ways does the novel suggest that in war, no one wins?

 

 

 

10.
Why do you think Edythe chooses to go to Jerusalem and live the rest of her life as a Jewish woman, an arguably harder life than she would have had if she returned with Johanna to Eleanor’s court?

THE SECRET ELEANOR
THE KING’S WITCH