The Heart of the Lion (9 page)

She could not resist going to see Alice before she left. She was irritated to notice that meek adaptability which had made Alice such a desirable mistress in Henry’s eyes had now helped her to adjust herself to her new conditions. Surely she must rail against the fact that she, who was once the pampered darling of an indulgent lover, was now the prisoner of his wife. But no, Alice went her placid way, choosing her silken skeins and plying her needle.

‘How fares it?’ asked Eleanor.

‘I am well, my lady,’ answered Alice.

‘So I see. I have come to say farewell to you. I am about to set out on a journey. I am bringing King Richard’s bride to him.’

‘How can that be?’ asked Alice mildly.

‘In the simplest manner. I am going to Navarre. He has long loved the elegant and beautiful Berengaria.’

‘He cannot marry her,’ said Alice.

‘So you have become our ruler to tell the King what he may or may not do?’

‘It is not I who tell him. It is the law. He is betrothed to me.’

‘And you, missing a lover, can scarcely wait to put another in his place?’

‘None could be in his place,’ said Alice simply.

‘Why not? Richard is a king also.’

‘It was not of his rank that I was thinking.’

‘Oh? Henry was incomparable was he? He was coarse and lusty, yes. Remember we shared him. So I know him as well as you do.’

‘Sometimes I think,’ said Alice, ‘that none knew him as I did.’

Eleanor was impatient. She had come here to discomfit Alice, not to listen to praise of the dead.

‘Your position is unenviable, Alice,’ she said. ‘I think you should prepare yourself. Life will not go on as it is now. The vital question will not be whether you are to use pink or blue silk but how you will explain your conduct to your brother, and discover what will be said to the world when it is known that King Richard will have none of you and has chosen to marry elsewhere.’

‘That is for Richard to say. He is the one who will have to answer to my brother.’

‘Think you so? Well, mayhap I should leave you in your ignorance. Your conduct with my late husband will no longer be a secret. All the world will know of your games. They will laugh in secret at you, and your brother will be hard put to it to find a husband for you.’

‘I seek no husband,’ said Alice.

‘Have you then had your fill of men after knowing Henry so well?’

‘I know that there will never be another like him.’

‘Then I will leave you with your dreams of the past for those of the future must be nightmares.’

She came away angrily. Oddly enough the triumph seemed Alice’s.

It was good to ride through the countryside to the sea. The crossing was smooth. A good augury. She began her progress down to Navarre. She was fêted at the castles at which she stopped as the beloved mother of the King of England who was on good terms with the King of France.

She had forgotten how exciting it was to be setting out on an adventure, to be treated with great honour, and above all to be free.

Oh, how dared you, Henry, she thought; and she was sorry that he was dead, for how could one be revenged on the dead? Just a little savour had gone out of her life with his passing. How often she had raged against him, made plans for his downfall. How she had exulted when she heard that his sons were marching against him. It was her hatred of Henry which had made her prison tolerable. Now he was gone. She missed him.

At last she came to the Court of Navarre.

The King, known as the Wise – and he certainly believed now that he had been wise in keeping his daughter Berengaria for this great marriage – received her with great honours. When Richard had first come to his court and shown a preference for Berengaria he had been but the son of a great king with an elder brother who had appeared to be strong and healthy and whom no one would have suspected would die young. Moreover Richard and his father had not been on good terms. Yet Sancho was not known as the Wise for nothing. He had resisted offers for the hand of his elder daughter and how right he had been, for at last King Richard’s mother had come to claim her. It was true the waiting had been long. Berengaria was past twenty-six and it might have been wondered whether she would ever find a husband. But now those doubts were over. Or were they? There still remained the shadowy figure of Princess Alice of France.

Eleanor was delighted with the appearance of Berengaria. She was indeed beautiful and the manner in which she wore her clothes could only be described as elegant.

Eleanor embraced the girl and told her that Richard was eagerly awaiting her coming. ‘He would trust no one but me to bring you to him,’ said Eleanor. ‘I know how he will rejoice when he sees you.’

I hope he will, thought Eleanor. It seems he has little interest in women, but surely such a pleasant bride as Berengaria will captivate him.

There was feasting in the great hall to celebrate the arrival of the Dowager Queen of England; and she was able to delight them all with playing on the lute and her singing.

How good it was to be among Provençals, for although Sancho was descended from the Spanish the language spoken here and the manners were of Provence. This delight in music, this enchanting custom of honouring the poets and musicians filled her with nostalgia and she longed to be in her beloved Aquitaine.

She was delighted to meet Berengaria’s brother, known as Sancho the Strong, of whom one of the musicians had sung telling of his victory over the Moors. He had defeated the Miramolin and with his battle-axe had severed the chains which guarded the Infidel’s camp. Ever after he had been known as The Strong for it was the custom in Navarre to attach a descriptive adjective to the names of the rulers. Berengaria might well have been Berengaria the Elegant, thought Eleanor.

She warmed to the girl. They had much in common, such as their love of fine clothes and the ability to wear them to advantage as well as a passionate interest in music and poetry. Perhaps there the similarity ended for Berengaria was by no means forceful. She would be a loving and uncomplaining wife, thought Eleanor, and doubtless she would need to be, for Richard would not be a very attentive husband.

It was pleasant to walk in the gardens with her daughter-inlaw-to-be and to talk with her and hear how she had first seen Richard years ago.

‘So it will not be like going to a husband whom I have never met,’ she said, ‘though it was more than ten years ago when my brother brought him here. I have never forgotten the occasion. My father had staged a tournament in Richard’s honour. I can see it now – the pennants stirred by the breeze and the trumpets sounding as he rode out. There was no mistaking him. No one was as tall, as noble-looking as Richard. I had never seen anyone like him.’

‘And you loved him from that day,’ added Eleanor.

‘I have never ceased to think of him. As you know the custom is for a knight to ride for his lady and wear something of hers and to my joy I saw that in his helm he had placed a small glove of mine which I recognised at once by its jewelled border. He was riding for me that day.’

‘Charming,’ commented Eleanor.

‘I shall never forget how he rode to the dais where I sat with my parents and my brother and sister Blanche. He bowed to me and I threw a rose to him. He kissed it and held it against his heart. It is a day which will live for ever in my memory.’

‘You must have thought he would never come for you.’

‘I did not think he could while his father lived. I knew too that he was betrothed to the Princess Alice.’

‘That marriage will never take place.’

‘It gave my father much cause for concern. I know that there have been times when he has been on the point of arranging another marriage for me. It seemed that I would never have a husband.’

‘And now you are to have the most glorious of them all.’

‘There is still Alice.’

‘Alice is of no account.’

‘Can that be said of the sister of the King of France?’

‘My dear daughter, when you know your husband better you will understand that he can say anything of anyone and make it come to pass.’

‘That must be so, for my father will allow me to leave with you, which he would never do if there were any doubts.’

‘There are no doubts,’ said Eleanor firmly. ‘You will leave with me for Sicily. There we will await the arrival of the King’s fleet and there I doubt not the marriage ceremony will take place. My daughter Joanna who is the Queen of Sicily will welcome us and I am delighted at the prospect of seeing my child again. Poor Joanna is now a widow, for her husband the King died last November. I doubt not she will be in need of comfort and will wish to discuss her future with Richard.’

The years of captivity had by no means diminished Eleanor’s powerful personality and she could still give an impression that her will would be law. Thus she completely dispersed any qualms Berengaria or her father felt over the anomalous situation concerning Alice.

In due course Eleanor with Berengaria and her attendants left Navarre and made the difficult journey across Italy to Naples. The ships which Eleanor had commissioned were waiting there to take them to Sicily, but before they had time to put to sea a messenger arrived with disquieting news.

There was trouble in Sicily. Queen Joanna had been dethroned. They would be unwise to attempt the journey there and King Richard wished them to sojourn in Brindisi until he came to them.

Chafing against delay, asking herself whether there was indeed trouble in Sicily or whether Richard was finding it difficult to break his contract with Alice, Eleanor could do nothing but accept the delay and wait until it could be resolved.

Chapter III

JOANNA

I
n the castle at Palermo, Queen Joanna of Sicily was asking herself what would become of her. In the last few months her future had become threatening and she could not know what would happen to her from one day to another. She, the honoured Queen, daughter of Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine, once beloved of a doting husband now found herself virtually a prisoner.

Who would have believed while William lived that his cousin Tancred could have behaved in such a villainous manner? She had always known Tancred was ambitious – what man was not? And Tancred was a bastard and they always seemed to have an even greater love of power than their legitimate relations. He had seemed loyal but, as soon as William was dead, his true character had emerged and because she had opposed him, here she was a prisoner.

She was not a woman to accept such treatment lightly. She was after all a descendant of the great Conqueror himself; if her father had been alive Tancred would never have dared behave as he did; but in July her father had died and in November of the same year her husband had followed him to the grave. So she had lost two powerful protectors within a few months.

She was twenty-five years of age and comely. She had lived fully those twenty-five years. She had learned to stand on her own feet as members of the royal family must. She scarcely knew her family. She had caught glimpses of her brothers now and then, and it had been comforting to know of their existence. Her father had been a power throughout Europe. Now she felt bereft and lonely.