A King's Ransom (118 page)

Before Eleanor could respond, Dame Amaria appeared in the doorway. “A messenger has just ridden in from the king, Madame. He says he must speak with you straightaway.”

“Send him in, then,” Eleanor directed. The man ushered into the chamber soon afterward was one she knew and liked—one of Richard’s household knights—but her smile splintered at her first glimpse of his stricken face.

“Madame, your son . . .” He sank to one knee before her, holding out the letter with a hand that shook. “He has been grievously wounded, and he . . . he bids you come to him at Châlus.”

There were horrified gasps from the other women, but for Eleanor, there was no surprise, only an eerie sense of familiarity about this moment. It was as if she’d always known she would one day be standing here like this, listening to someone tell her that her son was dying. She swayed slightly and the prioress and Amaria moved quickly to offer support, but she shook their hands off. “Is there . . .” She swallowed convulsively. “Is there no hope?”

He did not know which was cruelest—to offer false hope or to strip away every last shred of hope. “He . . . he is in a bad way, my lady.”

Eleanor closed her eyes for a moment and then she raised her head, straightening the shoulders that felt too frail to bear this latest burden. “I will be ready to ride within the hour.”

A
NDRÉ DID NOT BELIEVE
Richard was dying. Despite the gravity of the message, he refused to accept it. On the hundred-mile ride between Châteauroux and Châlus, he thought of little else, convincing himself that his cousin would recover, as he always had in the past. But his faith in Richard’s powers of recuperation did not keep him from setting as fast a pace as possible. By changing horses, he managed to cover the distance in just two and a half days, a speed that royal couriers might well have envied, reaching Châlus before sunset on the first Friday in April.

Upon his arrival at the siege camp, he took heart from the air of calm; surely there would be panic and confusion if the king were really dying. But soldiers were going about their tasks as if nothing were amiss. The trebuchets were pounding away at the castle walls, sending up swirling dust and rubble with each strike, and some of Mercadier’s men were erecting a gallows. When André asked for Richard, he was told that the king had set up quarters in the village and he was soon following a sergeant through the gathering dusk. Richard had always been careless of protocol, priding himself in being accessible to any soldiers who needed to speak with him. Now men-at-arms were stationed at the door of a small stone house and André was told that he must be given permission to enter.

Waiting as one of the guards disappeared inside, André felt sweat begin to trickle down his spine, cold and clammy. When the door opened again, he found himself facing Richard’s cousin, and Morgan looked so heartsick that there was no need for words. Grasping André’s arm, he pulled the other man inside and, as their eyes met, he slowly shook his head.

Standing before the bedchamber, André was suddenly afraid to go any farther, dreading what he now knew he’d find behind that door. What struck him first was the stench, one he was all too familiar with: the battlefield stink of rotting flesh, putrid wounds, and approaching death. The chamber was dimly lit by oil lamps. Arne was slumped in a corner and gazed up at André, a man he knew well, without a hint of recognition. Guillain de l’Etang rose as André entered. So did the Abbot of Le Pin.

“He’s been sleeping, God be praised,” he said in a low voice. “That is the only respite he gets from the pain. . . .”

André took the abbot’s seat beside the bed. Richard seemed to have aged ten years in the weeks since they’d last met. Pain had etched deep grooves around his mouth and his hollowed cheekbones showed he’d lost an alarming amount of weight in the week since he’d been wounded. His face was so bloodless that André thought it was like gazing down at a carven marble effigy, drained of all life and color. But his body offered tragic testimony to the mortality of men: the skin on his chest was swollen, blistered, and turning black; his shoulder poultice oozing a foul-smelling pus. André was never to know how long he sat there, watching the rapid rise and fall of that rib cage, almost as if he were willing every breath into the other man’s lungs. But then Richard’s lashes flickered.

“André . . .” His voice was a husky whisper, this man who’d been able to shout down the wind, and André had to lean closer to catch his words. “A favor . . .”

“Anything . . .” André’s own words came out as a croak and he had to repeat himself. “Anything . . .”

“No saying ‘I told you so,’ Cousin. . . .”

André could not speak, his throat having closed off, and he could only nod.

“I sent for my mother, hope she’s hurrying. . . .” Richard glanced toward a wine flagon by the bed and André poured with a shaking hand, tilting the cup to Richard’s lips. “We’ve tried to keep it quiet . . . giving Johnny time to get away. . . .” His eyes looked badly bruised and had a glazed, feverish sheen, but he seemed quite lucid to André. His words were halting, though, with long pauses as he fought for breath. “You know where . . . where that damned fool is? Brittany . . .”

“That damned fool,” André echoed, not even knowing what he said.

“If the Bretons hear first, Johnny’ll have . . . have shortest reign in history. . . .”

“My liege?” The abbot had come to stand beside André. “I am confident your lady mother will soon be here. Are you sure you do not want us to send for your queen?”

“Too late. . . .”

The abbot apparently knew that was true, for he did not argue. “Is there a message you’d have me deliver to her, sire?”

Richard’s lashes swept down, veiling his eyes. “That I am . . . sorry . . .” When he asked for wine again, André hastily obliged. The abbot had stepped away from the bed and his next words were pitched just for André’s ear. “Women . . . always think men owe them apologies for something. . . .”

André nodded again, and somehow managed to keep his voice steady as he said, “True enough. Apologies, like charity, cover a multitude of sins.”

After that, they were silent for a time. André could tell whenever the pain got worse; Richard would shut his eyes, shudder, and bite down on his lower lip until it bled, so determined was he to stifle any groans or cries. Watching his suffering was as difficult as anything André had ever done, but he meant to keep vigil as long as Richard could get air into his laboring lungs.

“Fauvel . . . He’s yours, Cousin. Do not . . . not let Johnny steal him. . . .”

“No . . .” André knew by now what was expected of him, what Richard wanted as his life ebbed away, one waning heartbeat at a time. “So you entrust your kingdom to John, but not your horse?”

A ghost of a smile found the corner of Richard’s mouth. “Kingdoms come and go. . . . A stallion like Fauvel is special. . . .” He winced then, turning his head aside as if seeking the shadows that held sway beyond the smoldering lamplight. “André . . . give Argento and my sword. . . .”

“Your son?”

“Yes . . . for Philip . . .” It was little enough to leave the lad. Had he only been born in wedlock . . . Richard had never experienced the sort of severe pain he’d endured since the
gangraena
had struck, but there was an odd sort of mercy to it, for it kept him from dwelling upon what lay ahead for his Angevin empire. With Johnny at the helm, how long ere he ran the ship up onto the rocks? Yet Arthur would have turned the tiller over to Philippe straightaway. At least Johnny would not be the French king’s puppet. . . . At least he’d not be that.

T
HE MAN SHOVED ROUGHLY
over the threshold was frightened, but defiant, his the courage of utter despair. There was so much hatred in the chamber that he could barely breathe; the very air seemed seared with its heat. Mercadier’s men thrust him forward, one of them seizing the chance to kick him in the ribs as they forced him to his knees. He darted a quick glance over his shoulder, saw nothing but hostile faces; even a man clad in the bleached robes of the White Monks was regarding him with accusing eyes. Raising his head, then, he stared challengingly at the man in the bed. It was no small feat to slay a king, especially this one. Did it count for less that he’d not known he was aiming at the Lionheart?

Richard turned to another man standing close by, saying something too low to be heard, then waited as pillows were propped behind him so that he could look upon the prisoner. Death was not only in the chamber with them, it was perched on the edge of the bed. But when he spoke, his fading whisper was belied by the intensity of his gaze. “Your name?”

“Sir Peire Basile of Pouyades.”

“A knight?”

“I am,” he said proudly, but no more than that, for he’d vowed he’d not beg for his life. That would serve for naught, only bring shame to his name, his family.

Richard regarded him for what felt like several centuries. “Your life is . . . forfeit, you think. . . . You’re wrong. . . . I bear . . . bear no grudge. You . . . are free to go, Peire Basile. . . .”

The other men were no less stunned than the crossbowman and there was an immediate outcry. Only André was not shocked by Richard’s astonishing act of clemency. The audience for this last act of his cousin’s play was reacting as he would have expected them to do. He found approval on the faces of Morgan, Guy, and the abbot, for the former worshipped at the Church of the Chivalric Faith and the churchman had often preached the divine virtues of forgiveness. But William de Braose, Guillain, and Richard’s seneschal were not at all happy with this reprieve, and Mercadier looked utterly outraged.

Peire Basile would later wish he’d said something, anything. But shock and disbelief had stolen his powers of speech, and before he could recover, his guards had dragged him to his feet and pushed him toward the door. André quickly gestured for the others to follow, for he knew Richard had no interest in hearing them debate his decision.
Yet one more mystery for the ages,
he thought, gazing down at the dying man. Men would long wonder what he’d have done had he survived this wound. Would Peire Basile have lived or died then? André honestly did not know, for Richard was capable both of great magnanimity and the utmost ruthlessness.

Arne had gone over to close the door after the last of the men departed. André was amused, yet touched, too, by the conflicted expression on the squire’s face—pride that his king had spared his slayer’s life like one of the knights in a troubadour’s tale, but disappointment that the man would also be spared earthly punishment for a crime so great.

Leaning over the bed then, André murmured, “Well done, Cousin. You burnished the Lionheart’s legend whilst earning yourself some much-needed credit with the Almighty.”

Richard did not seem to have heard, for he did not open his eyes, nor did he speak. But André thought he caught the hint of a smile.

E
LEANOR WAS TERRIFIED
that she would not arrive in time. A horse litter was too slow, so despite her age, she rode a fast mare. But although she pushed her body to the utmost and beyond, managing as much as twenty-five miles from dawn till dusk, it still took over five and a half days to cover the one hundred forty miles of eternity stretching between Fontevrault Abbey and Châlus. The nights were the worst, for she slept only in snatches, and when she did dream, her son was in great danger—sometimes in a German dungeon, sometimes at the Châlus siege camp—and she could not help him.