A King's Ransom (48 page)

Richard had no doubts that Heinrich knew full well what he’d gain. This challenge was meant to see how he’d respond, how candid he was willing to be. He took another sip of wine, thinking that words were his weapons now.

“Of course I expect to benefit. Had I claimed I was acting from pure benevolence or Christian charity, then Count Dietrich would have cause for concern.” To his surprise, he caught an expression on Heinrich’s face that looked like genuine amusement. It quickly passed, but he took it as proof that he was on the right road. “If I do this for you, I hope you’ll conclude that the empire’s interests are better served by an alliance with England and not France.”

“And cancel that planned meeting with the French king at Vaucouleurs?”

With any other man, Richard would have demanded that as a quid pro quo before he’d ever have agreed to act on Heinrich’s behalf. But an imperial promise would mean nothing, not when it was no more substantial than morning mist. Relying upon Heinrich’s good faith was a fool’s quest, yet he had no choice. “Vaucouleurs is a long way to ride if there is nothing to be gained at journey’s end,” he said with a shrug.

“Indeed it is,” Heinrich agreed, his blasé tone belied by the eyes studying Richard with a hawk’s unblinking intensity. “So you would have me believe that you truly do desire an alliance with the empire? If so, you have a most forgiving nature, my lord king of the English.”

“No,” Richard said, with deliberate coldness, “I do not. What I do have, my lord emperor, is the ability to separate the sheep from the goats. You have not given me reason to think kindly of you. Under other circumstances, I’d be nursing a grudge till my last mortal breath. But the grievances I have against you are no match for the wrongs done me by that Judas on the French throne.”

“Yes, you made it rather clear at Speyer that you’ve no fondness for Philippe Capet. But even so—”

“You do not know the half of it! His treachery began well before we reached the Holy Land. When I seized Messina after the citizens rioted, Philippe offered to fight with Tancred against the English. I saw his letter myself. Yet even as he was betraying me behind my back, he was insisting that the French flag be flown over Messina once it was taken so he could share in the spoils. He then dared to demand half of my sister’s dowry!”

Richard rose to his feet so quickly that his guards reacted with alarm, hands dropping to sword hilts. “Then in Outremer, he did all he could to make sure our holy war would end in failure. He abandoned the Almighty and his own allies and would have taken the French army with him had they not valued their oaths more than he did. But the Bishop of Beauvais and the Duke of Burgundy did his dirty work for him, sabotaging me at every turn, whilst Philippe tried to get the Pope to absolve him of his promise not to attack my lands as long as I was in the Holy Land. Last year he would have invaded Normandy if his lords had not balked. For those crimes alone, I’d see the bastard burn in Hell for a thousand years!”

It was a great relief to let his rage blaze up like this, to be able to speak the absolute truth for the first time in months. “And that only takes us through God’s Year, 1192,” he said bitterly. “Since then, Philippe and his lapdog Beauvais have done their best to destroy my reputation and my honor, with remarkable success. He has seduced my lack-witted brother into treason and even as we speak, a French army is laying waste to my duchy of Normandy. And as if that were not enough, he is now pressuring you to hand me over so he can cast me into a Paris dungeon. He’d not even have the decency to make my death a quick one. No, he’d want me to suffer . . . and all for what? Because I am twice the man that sniveling, cockless milksop could ever hope to be!”

They’d all been riveted by his outburst and when he finally paused for breath, Markward and Conrad grinned and applauded, while Heinrich summoned up another of his chilly smiles, saying dryly, “You really do not like the man, do you?”

“Can you blame me?” Richard reclaimed his seat and finished his wine in several gulps. His face was still flushed and his breathing uneven, for he’d not feigned his anger. To convince Heinrich, he knew he’d have to show passion that none could doubt, hatred hot enough to make it credible that he could overlook these months of captivity and humiliation, even Trifels Castle. For it was not enough that Heinrich agreed to let him try to make peace with the rebels. Even success would not be enough. Ending the rebellion was no guarantee of his safety, not with a man who knew no more of gratitude than he did of honor. Heinrich had to believe that his long-term interests lay with England, not France.

Heinrich signaled for a servant to refill Richard’s wine cup. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll set up a meeting for you with the rebels.”

“You will need to offer genuine concessions,” Richard warned. “You must make it worth their while to end the rebellion. Are you willing to do that?” Dietrich frowned, obviously not liking that he dared to speak so bluntly to the emperor. But he could display the silver-tongued eloquence of God’s own angels and it would count for naught if Heinrich would not offer terms the rebels could accept.

Heinrich did not reply at once. “Yes, I am willing,” he said at last. “I want this over and done with.” He smiled then, again without humor. “If you can make this happen . . . Well, let’s just say that you hold your fate now in your own hands.”

Richard smiled, too, for although it was clearly meant as a threat, it was not one to unnerve him. He’d held his fate in his own hands every time he’d ridden out onto a battlefield.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MAY 1193

Frankfurt, Germany

I
t took over a fortnight to make the arrangements for the peace conference, as the rebels insisted that the emperor provide hostages as guarantees of their safety. It was eventually agreed upon that Richard would meet them at the imperial palace in Frankfurt while Heinrich took up residence at the castle of Hanau, ten miles away. Accompanied by his clerk, Fulk de Poitiers, his chaplain, Anselm, and his ever-present guards, Richard reached the riverside city on the last day of May. Several hours later a commotion in the inner court indicated the arrival of the rebel lords. Soon afterward, his door flew open and before the guards could react, his nephew burst into the chamber and embraced him exuberantly.

“Uncle, how glad I am to see you!”

Richard was very glad to see Henrik, too. It had been three years since they’d last met and the young man had matured considerably in that time. No longer a gangling clean-shaven youth of seventeen, he was several inches taller and now boasted a well-trimmed golden beard, for he was the only one of Tilda’s children to inherit her fair coloring. He’d returned to Saxony with his parents when their exile ended, but he’d spent enough time in the Angevin domains to form close ties with his mother’s family. He at once launched into an indignant attack upon Richard’s gaoler, assuring him that most Germans were shamed by the emperor’s outrageous maltreatment of a man under the protection of Holy Church.

“What of your father, lad? Is he here, too?”

“No, he refused to come. He said he’d sooner sup with the Devil than talk peace with a Hohenstaufen.”

Richard’s brother-in-law known as Der Löwe—the lion—had once been the most powerful of all the German lords, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, a force to be reckoned with. But his feuding with the Hohenstaufens had proved catastrophic for his House. He’d been disgraced, exiled, and stripped of his titles and duchies. Richard could understand his bitterness. It did not make sense to him, though, for Heinrich der Löwe to hold out if all of his allies made peace with their hated enemy.

Henrik apparently didn’t think so, either, for he said with a sigh, “I tried to convince him that he should at least hear what the emperor is offering. He was not willing to listen—to Heinrich or to me.” His smile was rueful. “He has yet another grievance against the emperor now. I’ve been plight-trothed since childhood to Heinrich’s first cousin. Agnes is the only child of Heinrich’s uncle Konrad, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, so it was a brilliant match, and when he lost his duchies, my father took consolation from that, often saying that at least he did not have to worry about my future. Well, the marriage was forbidden by Heinrich, who wants to wed Agnes to Duke Ludwig of Bavaria. I admit I was very disappointed. Not only is Agnes a great heiress, she has a smile like a sunrise and we’ve always gotten along very well. But my father took it harder than I did. He hates the Hohenstaufens even more than you do, Uncle.”

“No one hates them more than I do,” Richard protested, with such mock outrage that Henrik laughed. “Does your father know you’ve come to the peace conference?”

Henrik nodded. “He knows that I am here only to see you. I’ll not be able to join the others if you are able to cobble together a peace. I have to stand with him, even if it is not what I’d rather do.” Relieved when Richard indicated he understood, Henrik straddled a chair, impatiently pushing aside the fair hair slanting across a sky-blue eye. “Uncle Richard . . . I have something to tell you, and you’ll not like it. I had a letter from my sister, confessing that her husband took part in the French king’s invasion of Normandy.” Seeing Richard’s mouth tighten, he said quickly, “Richenza says Jaufre felt he had no choice since Philippe is his king, but she is greatly distressed about it. When I write to her, what should I tell her?”

“Say I do not blame
her
,” Richard said, with enough emphasis on the pronoun to tell Henrik that Jaufre was not so lucky. Richard was not truly surprised by Jaufre’s defection, but it still stung, all the more because he was sure there would be others.

Henrik confirmed that now by giving him the names of several other barons who’d joined the French campaign, including two who’d fought beside him in the Holy Land. “And that is not the worst of it, Uncle. Richenza says that you lost Gisors Castle. The castellan betrayed your trust and surrendered it to the French king.”

Richard had been expecting some defections, but not this. He slumped back in his chair, not sure whom he loathed more at that moment, the disloyal lickspittle who’d yielded up Gisors, the French king, who was as shameless as he was craven, or that hellspawn Heinrich.

Henrik hated being the bearer of ill tidings and so he’d deliberately held back Richenza’s welcome news till the last, hoping the good would ease the rancid taste of the bad. “But the French king suffered a severe setback when he besieged Rouen, Uncle. The Earl of Leicester not only stopped him from seizing the city, he made a fool of Philippe in the bargain by opening the gates and challenging him to enter—if he dared. He did not and slunk away with his tail between his legs!”

Henrik’s strategy worked; Richard roared with laughter. “What I’d not have given to see that!” He shared then with his nephew some stories of the Earl of Leicester’s heroics in the Holy Land, and he was in much better spirits when the summons came to meet the German lords in the great hall. Rising, he beckoned to his guards as if he still had the right of command, silently vowing to show Philippe that, even as a prisoner, he was capable of thwarting the French king’s treachery.

A
LL OF THE
G
ERMAN
rebels except Richard’s brother-in-law were present, but the leaders were clearly the Dukes of Brabant, Limburg, and Bohemia, and the Archbishops of Cologne and Mainz. Richard was predisposed to mistrust Heinrich of Limburg, for he’d not followed through on his vow to fight in the Holy Land, but he felt an immediate rapport with Limburg’s nephew Heinrich of Brabant, and he was very pleased to see the Archbishop of Cologne’s nephew Adolf von Altena; he’d been impressed by the cathedral prior’s forthrightness and courage during his trial at Speyer. As he exchanged courtesies with Duke Ottokar of Bohemia, the irony of meeting under these circumstances was not lost upon him, for he’d initially hoped to find safety in Moravia, the duchy of Ottokar’s brother. That was only five months ago, but it seemed as if it were part of the distant past, so much had happened since then.

Once they were seated at a long trestle table in the palace solar, Richard offered the services of his clerk, Fulk, as a scribe, and his chaplain opened the meeting with a prayer. He was encouraged that they’d been willing at least to hear him out. He knew, though, that he would need all of the eloquence at his command to convince them that they ought to make peace with a man they detested and distrusted.