The Reckoning - 3 (9 page)

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understand why you grieve for Uncle Richard. Indeed, I am sorry, too, for his pain. He is a decent man, and I know he truly tried to help us after Evesham.
But please do not ask me to grieve for Hal. I cannot mourn him, Mama, for I
cannot forgive him. If he had kept faith, Papa and Harry might still be alive.
No, I can find no pity in my heart for Hal. I regret only that God gave him a crusader's death, for that is an honor he did not deserve."
j There was no easy way to do it. "No, Ellen, you do not underhandnot yet. Hal did not die in the Holy Land. He died in Italy."
Juliana's expression did not change; she continued to look puzzled and somewhat apprehensive. But Ellen's eyes widened; the mask cracked. "Italy,"
she echoed, and then, "Oh, Mama, no!"
Nell nodded grimly. "For reasons known but to God, he directed Hal to Viterbo.
There what you fear came to pass. As soon as your brothers learned of his presence, they . . . they seem to have gone stark mad. They burst into the church where Hal was hearing Mass, murdered him as he clung to the altar, and then Guy . . . Guy mutilated his body ere they escaped. Marguerite says they are believed to have taken refuge at Sovana, Count Ildebrandino's castle in"
Juliana gave a smothered sob; Ellen caught her arm as she swayed. "No, Juliana, it is not true! Guy . . . yes, for he's like one crazed when it comes to Papa's enemies. But not Bran, not a killing like that. Juliana, will you stop weeping and pay heed to what I say? It is a mistake, it has to be. You know what happened at Evesham, you know that Bran got to the battle too late, that he ... God help him, but he saw our father's head on a pike. I cannot even begin to imagine what the ride back to Kenilworth must have been like for him. But the day's horror was not yet done. When the castle garrison heard, they went mad. My uncle Richard was being held at Kenilworth as a hostage, and they attacked him, would have killed him right there in the bailey if not for
Bran. He stood over my uncle's body, sword drawn, and faced them down, just hours after seeing what Richard's allies had done to our father. Now you tell me, is that a man who'd murder during a Mass?"
But Juliana continued to sob softly. It was Nell who reached out to her daughter, laid her hand gently on Ellen's arm. Ellen's mouth trembled. "Tell her, Mama. Please tell her it's not true . . ." Pulling away when Nell slowly shook her head. "My God, Mama, how can you believe that of Bran?"
Nell did not flinch. "Because I know Bran's pain," she said quietly. "Because
I know that he has spent the last five years looking for a way to punish himself. And I very much fear that he found it at Viterbo."
Ellen could not speak. "What will happen to them?" she asked, once she was sure her voice would not betray her.

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"They have been outlawed, their lands forfeit, and they'll be excommunicated as soon as there is a new pope to do it, to damn them. Then no man will dare to help them ..." Nell leaned back against the altar. "Child, there is more.
Marguerite says suspicions have fallen upon Amaury, too."
"But why? Amaury was not at Viterbo . . . was he, Mama? Even if so, I'll never believe he took part in a church killing, never!"
"No, he was not in Viterbo. He was hundreds of miles away at Padua, had naught to do with the murder. But his blood alone convicts him in the eyes of some, and Marguerite says there has been talk of charging him with collusion." With an obvious effort, Nell pushed herself away from the altar, straightened her shoulders. "I must return to our bedchamber now, for I have a letter to write.
I do not know where I shall find the words, though. How do I tell my brother that I am sorry my sons murdered his?"
Ellen's breath broke on a shudder. "Mama, I am so sorry! You do not deserve this!"
Nell's mouth twisted. "If we got what we deserved in this life, Simon would be in Westminster and Henry in Hell. Look after Juliana, and Ellen ... do not despair. We'll get through this somehow. You are Plantagenet and de Montfort, and a sword made from that steel is too finely tempered to break."
Juliana sank to her knees, and Ellen knelt beside her, holding the other girl as she wept. Her own eyes were dry. She'd once cried easily: for a sorrowful song, a beggar's hunger, a homeless dog. Now she knew that tears availed for naught.
"Where will he go, Ellen? What will he do?
"I do not know."
Juliana shivered, crossed herself. "What greater sacrilege can there be than a killing in God's own House? Do you think God could ever forgive him?"
Ellen bit her lip. "It is not God's vengeance that they must fear now. It is my cousin's. Ned will follow them to Hades if need be."
THE ship carrying Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Leicester and Lancaster, second son of the English King, entered the port of Palermo at mid-day. Edmund was awed by his first sight of Sicily. He'd been told that it was a beautiful land, and he found it so: mountains soaring into infinity, harbors of translucent turquoise, a landscape on fire with flowers. He knew that it was a rich land, too, blessed with iron and salt mines, sugar cane, cotton. And as he looked upon this exotic island city, Edmund e" a sharp stab of regret, for it might have been his.

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Although he had little interest in the past, Edmund was well-verseH in the history of Sicily. He knew it had been settled by the Phoenician a thousand years before the birth of the Lord Christ, that it had bee conquered by the
Greeks, the Romans, the Saracens, and then th Normans. After the death of the
Emperor Frederick, his empire had split asunder, and the Pope sought English support for his feud with Frederick's son by offering the throne of Naples and
Sicily to Edmund then a lad of nine. Henry had been thrilled by the prospect of obtaining a crown for his younger son. But the English barons balked, unwilling to fight a war and drain the Exchequer in order to make Edmund ruler of a foreign realm.
It had been a bitter disappointment for Henry, just one more grievance to tally up against Simon de Montfort's account. But Edmund soon came to terms with his loss. It was not that difficult, for his was an equable, genial nature, not given to grudges. Moreover, he might lack a coronet, but he did not lack for lands; Henry had bestowed upon him Simon de Montfort's estates, and those of Lancaster as well. Young, healthy, with a doting father, an elder brother he adored, an heiress for his child-bride, and two earldoms, he was indeed blessed, but it was his saving grace that he knew iteven on this April afternoon in Palermo harbor, gazing upon palm trees and flowering mimosa and lemon groves, a sight sure to beguile anyone accustomed to the cool grey mists and recurrent rains of England.
Edmund had been told that his brother was staying at La Pavrah, a Norman palazzo a few miles southeast of Palermo. He was looking forward to his reunion with Edward, eager to fulfill his crusader's vow. But he was also somewhat apprehensive about his brother's frame of mind, for upon landing at
Naples, he'd been told of the murder in Viterbo.
Edmund had not been that well acquainted with Hal, who was ten years his senior. He was shocked, though, by the circumstances of his cousin's death, and he knew that Edward would not rest until the de Montforts paid a blood debt. His brother had a temper to rival the eruptions of Sicily's Mount Etna.
As little as he liked to admit it, he could see Edward, too, raging into a church in pursuit of an enemy/ blind to all but his own fury.
But no ... they said Hal had not resisted. Ned would not have struck down a defenseless man. A foe crossing swords with Ned had one chance of saving his life: surrender. In that, Guy de Montfort was utterly unlike Ned. Unlike his own father, for Edmund was sure that his uncle Simon would never have shed blood in a church. An ugly business, for certes. Poor Uncle Richard; it was his ill health that ha

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bringing Hal home. Sad, so sad. Well, at least Hal would be been , jnat was a certainty. He knew his brother.
aveng ^^ ^g ^ mogt magnificat palace Edmund had ever seen.
urrounded on three sides by a vast man-made lake that stretched
''w / t of Monte Grifone.The grounds were crisscrossed with fish-
A planted with oleanders and orange trees and cypress, and barges
P°" H eold and silver floated upon the waters of the lagoon. The resi-
H tial part of the palace encircled a large courtyard. The walls were of nt Spanish tile and white Parian marble. Red mosaics lined the tnways, an(j wherever Edmund's eye alighted, he saw cascading foun-
Lns strutting peacocks, and graceful arcades adorned with honey-
mb tracery. It was beautiful beyond compare, but in an alien, Arabic sort of way; Edmund had the uneasy sensation that a mosque would look more at home here than a chapel.
A tall, elegantly gowned woman was walking by one of the fountains. She smiled at sight of him, held out her hands in welcome. Edmund did not begrudge his brother the English crownnot often but he did occasionally envy him his wife, for not only was Eleanora an alluring beauty in the dark Spanish style, she was utterly devoted to Edward, pledged to him heart, body, and soul. The best proof of her devotion was that she had left their three small children behind in England, knowing she would not see them for years, rather than be separated from Edward. Of course that could just be common sense, Edmund acknowledged wryly. Ned might be a loving husband, but he was not always a faithful one.
Better to keep him close, lest temptation beckon. Kissing Eleanora's hand, he began to laugh, having belatedly become aware of her swelling silhouette.
"Ned did not tell me! When is the babe due?"
"Mid-summer, or so the midwife says. Eduardo tried to persuade me to remain here whilst he returns to the Holy Land. But I prevailed upon him, and we expect to sail for Acre within the fortnight." Eleanora had come to England as a child-bride of ten, but her voice still held echoes of her native Castile.
"Edmundo ... do you know?"
When he nodded, she sighed. "Never have I seen Eduardo so wroth," she confessed. "He is in council, making plans for his campaign against the infidel. Come, I shall take you to him." And linking her arm jn his, she led him across the courtyard toward a spacious south-west e Edmund was not surprised by the raised voices; his brother's strat-
8y sessions tended to be turbulent. The men with Edward were well-
Lu°Wn to him: Thomas de Clare, Erard de Valery, and William de
'gnan, Earl of Pembroke. The first was a friend, the younger and

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more amenable brother of the Earl of Gloucester. The second was a French knight who had the dubious distinction of having once saved Guy de Montfort's life. And the third was a kinsman, Henry's halfbrother and their uncle, a man detested by virtually every Englishman who'd had the bad fortune to cross paths with him.
They were all arguing with Edward, each in his own fashion Thomas reasoning, Erard joking, and William de Lusignan blustering
4 but Edmund knew none were likely to prevail. His brother might not ^et have a king's crown, but he did have a king's will. So imperial was his bearing, so regal and forceful his demeanor, that people sometimes forgot he was a king-in-waiting, forgot the frail, aging shadow who blocked Edward's emergence into the sun. It saddened Edmund that their father's last days should be so meaningless, that he should be reduced to the status of a caretaker king, or worse, a ghost lingering beyond his time. Despite his manifest failings as a monarch, Henry had been a loving father, and Edmund ached for his twilight impotence, while understanding why England yearned for Edward's reign.
Not that it had always been so. Edmund knew there'd been a time when men dreaded the day that Edward would be King. Edmund had no memories himself of his brother's lawless youth; he'd been just a child. But he'd heard the stories. Edward's escapades had gone far beyond the usual hell-raising expected of young men of rank. Galloping through villages at midnight, making enough clamor to awaken the dead. Appropriating wagons and abandoning them in cemeteries. Playing cat-and-mouse with the City Watch, getting drunk in
Southwark whorehouses. Edward had done it all. But then his games took on darker tones. The brawling was no longer in sport. There was an ugly incident at Wallingford Priory, where monks were beaten and wine casks looted. There were reports of women being molested. And then a young man who'd somehow incurred Edward's displeasure was cruelly mutilated by Edward's servants, at
Edward's command. And as these accounts were bruited about, people began to cross themselves and shiver at the thought of Edward wielding the manifold powers of kingship.
But such fears had beenfor the most partlaid to rest during those tumultuous months between the battle of Lewes, in which Simon de Montfort scored a stunning victory over the forces of the Crown, and the battle of Evesham. Held hostage while Simon vainly sought to win him as ally, Edward had contrived a daring escape, and brought Simon to bay after a campaign brilliant in conception, flawless in execution. Men had called Simon de Montfort the
"greatest soldier in Christendom." After Evesham, they began to say the same of Edward. It was Edmund's belief that the civil war had been for Edward a crucible, a trial by fire in which the sins of youth were burned away and his true

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manhood emerged from the ashes, as it was meant to be. For others, coward's renowned skill with a sword was enough; much could be overlooked in a battle commander of Edward's caliber.
As Edmund stepped forward, Edward was the first to glance up. "Well, now," he said, "if it is not the prodigal sheep!" The other men looked understandably baffled, for that was an old family joke, the result of Edmund's childish confusion between the biblical prodigal son and the proverbial lost sheep.
Edmund was not surprised that Edward had remembered; his memory was as sharp as his sword. He grinned, moved to embrace his brother.
Edward's bear hug took his breath. He was five feet, nine inches, the same height as their father, but Edward stood several fingers above six feet, so tall that men called him "longshanks." They were as unlike in appearance as they were in temperament. In childhood, Edward's hair had been as fair as
Edmund's, but it had later darkened, was now a brownish-black, although in full sunlight, his beard still showed redgold flecks. His eyes were a pale, clear blue like Henry's, and like Henry, one eyelid drooped drowsily. A slight speech impedimenta faint lisp which would have put another man at a distinct disadvantage, was in Edward an irrelevancy, so impressive was his physique, so dominant his personality. White teeth flashed now as he laughed, throwing his head back, enveloping Edmund in another exuberant hug.
"By God, lad, it's glad I am to see you! What word from England?"
"I have a casket full of letters for you. Mama is thriving, as ever. But Papa is still ailing, and so is Uncle Richard. When he hears about Hal, it's like to kill him, Ned."
"You know, then." Edward's voice was flat. "All of it?" Edmund nodded quickly, hoping thus to avert a gory reenactment of the crime. He would rather not dwell upon the brutal details of his cousin's death, although he was unwilling to admit this, lest the other men think him squeamish or soft. Edward had begun to pace back and forth, taking long, sweeping strides, every line of his body communicating his outrage. He had yet to notice his wife, who seemed content to wait until he did.
"What I cannot understand," Edward said suddenly, "is why Hal did not fight back. If it had been me . . ." He shook his head, then gave Edmund a look of such searing intensity that his brother was thankful ne was not the real recipient. "I would have bartered my very soul for a chance to cross swords with Guy de Montfort," he said, and none doubted him.
Moving to the window, Edward stood for some moments, staring
°ut at the silver-sheened lake. "I would that I could lead the hunt to ack them down. But my army awaits me at Acre. Charles has promised,