Joanna (71 page)

“He does not like the sixty-first article,” Salisbury said, his voice distant.

“But Geoffrey,” Adam cried, leaping in where his elders were too cautious to tread, “how else can there be surety that the king will keep the other articles? If the sixty-first article was not written in, Magna Carta would be as worthless as all John’s other promises. OhI beg your pardon, my lord.” Like his mother, Adam blushed readily, and he retired into his goblet of wine in some confusion.

“In any case, the barons would so believe,” Salisbury remarked.

Ian turned and stared at him. His lips parted, then he swallowed. He had not been alone with his friend since he had returned from France. Salisbury knew John for what he was, Ian realized.

“I think the king intends to abide by the agreement,” Ian said hearteningly. “I am not sure I agree wholeheartedly with the sixty-first article, but it will serve to stimulate John’s memory if he should sometimes forget. It is not meant to be used, only”

Geoffrey looked from one face to another. “I hope to God you are right,” he said less violently, “But I tell you, I do not believe it. To me, the fact that John signed a charter with such an article in it says one thing onlyhe has a way to overturn the agreement.”

Salisbury said nothing. He looked down at the wine in the goblet between his hands. Ian looked at him, looked back at Geoffrey who drew breath sharply but continued doggedly.

“And if any of you thinks signing any charter or any ten charters will silence Vesci and Fitz Walter, you are either deluding yourselves or are much stupider than I have ever believed. That article is there only to give them the
right
to prosecute this rebellion.” His face set and bitter, Geoffrey walked to the tableshort step, long stepand seized the last goblet. “I will drink to peace, but I tell you, gentlemen, you had better look to your weapons for what is coming is real war.”  
p.

On June 19, the barons of England, rebel and loyal alike, repeated their oath of homage to the king. Geoffrey swore with the others and then asked leave to go, which was readily granted. Since Alinor was at Roselynde, Joanna rode out and met Geoffrey at Hemel. She soon came to the conclusion that she had better have stayed at home. His mood was black as night, and nothing she did seemed able to lighten it. Often, even when they made love, instead of falling asleep after a few drowsy, loving words, Geoffrey would get out of bed and paceshort step, long step; short step, long step.

If Joanna asked what troubled him, he usually came back to bed and pretended to sleep, but one day he turned on her, snarling, “You wanted me to hate warwell, you have your desire. I hate it!”

After that, Joanna asked no more questions, believing that Geoffrey’s sufferings had marked his spirit as well as his body. She found to her own amazement that she did not despise his fear. Love encompasses all things. She was only agonized because she could offer him no comfort. She prayed for peace with a fervency that her own fear had never brought to her. Her voice trembled with tenderness when she spoke to her husband and she said “beloved” to him with her heart on her lips. That, which he had so dearly desired, brought no light to Geoffrey’s eyes. Perhaps the love, naked at last, made him look more haunted.

Joanna’s prayers were not answered. The news was hesitantly good at first. John really seemed to be trying to right the injustices brought to his attention and keep the letter of Magna Carta. But soon the rumors turned as ugly as Geoffrey’s scowl. The hard core of rebel barons began in July by   displaying open insolence to the king and went on in August by refusing to leave London or to allow John and his men to enter the city. Geoffrey made no comment on the news. He gave his time to drilling his men-at-arms in the techniques of battle and to refining and completing his mastery over the three gray war stallions that Alinor had given him to replace his own lost destriers.

He did this with a bleak, grim intensity that wrung Joanna’s heart. Geoffrey had always enjoyed every aspect of the art of war and, in particular, he loved training horses. Now, nothing seemed to give him pleasure. Certainly the news that he had even been right about John’s intention of overturning Magna Carta drew no spark from him. They learned of that in September, although the first hint of it came at the end of August with a letter from the pope that strictly enjoined the barons to obey the king and give him his due in whatever he demanded.

Appalled by this intrusion into what he believed could still be worked into a basis for a permanent peace between the king and his vassals, Langton set off for Rome to explain the situation to Innocent in person. On the way he found he was too late. Even before Magna Carta had been signed, John had written to appeal to his overlord, the Holy Father, to annul the agreement forced upon him by his disloyal subjects. The letter that fulfilled John’s wish met Langton before he crossed the Alps.

That was all that was necessary. When this information burst upon them, the rebels cried aloud of betrayal and flew to arms. They took Rochester, a key point. The same letter that Salisbury wrote to give this news also requested that Geoffrey come with about one hundred men, but no vassals. The king would not call levies, Salisbury wrote, being too much in doubt as to the loyalty of his subjects. He would use mercenaries. With a face of stone and dead eyes, Geoffrey went to make ready.

If Joanna had felt fear for her husband before, it was nothing to what she felt now. It was useless to beg Geoffrey to refuse. From his looks and his manner, Joanna could only   conclude that his fear had bred a self-loathing and that he went out to seek death as the only cure for his inability to face life. Near mad, Joanna wrote to Adam, spilling out her grief and terror and pleading for help. Perhaps Adam could think of some reason or some device accepted as honorable by men to prevent Geoffrey from joining his father. She confessed all except the core of the problem. It was impossible for her to admit to another maneven to Adamthat Geoffrey was afraid.

The answer she had to her letter nearly tipped her right over the edge. “Be at ease,” Adam wrote, “I will not let any ill befall Geoffrey. I will go also and guard him.”

That was all. Adam had learned to read and write and cipher as his mother insisted, but he still did not love the work and kept his missives down to the bare essentials. Frequently, as in this case, he even omitted a few essentials, such as where and when he planned to meet Geoffrey. Joanna had no idea where to send a letter to stop him. It was useless to write to Salisbury. By the time Adam came to him, he would have committed himself to Geoffrey and nothing any woman said would affect any of them.

Instead of helping Geoffrey, Joanna thought, she had endangered Adam. Obviously, Adam believed that she feared Geoffrey’s injuries would make him awkward. He would not realize that Geoffrey was seeking death. He would follow where Geoffrey led without thinking of danger and they would both be killed. At that point, a flicker of sanity returned. However Geoffrey felt, he would never lead Adam into disaster. Joanna’s heart stopped pounding in her throat. Perhaps she had not done so ill after all. Caring for Adam’s safety might teach Geoffrey to live with himself; in fact, Adam might even accomplish Geoffrey’s cure. It was very hard to resist that gay and loving nature.

Those were comforting thoughts to which to cling, and a sudden spate of activity also helped dull Joanna’s terror. Geoffrey had hardly left when Alinor wrote asking Joanna to return to Roselynde if it was possible for her. Ian was going north again. Joanna wrote to her husband at once and received an immediate reply with his permission and the information that Adam had arrived safe and well in time to enjoy the assault upon and reconquest of Rochester. Now, he said, they were encamped near London doing nothing.

After that, Geoffrey did not write again, although Joanna sent a messenger when she was settled in Roselynde. She could only assume that Adam had been unable to conceal his reason for appearing where he had not been invited. Geoffrey was probably so furious at her interference that he thought silence preferable to what he would be driven to say if he took pen in hand to write.

This did not grieve Joanna much. It gave her something interesting to think about. She could plan ways of assuaging Geoffrey’s anger and, on the whole, it was better to think of him in a rage than heavy with unspoken and unspeakable misery. She had plenty of time for thought. December passed and then January. Alinor wrote that Ian’s lands in the northwest were quiet, but that they had heard the king was in the northeast burning and pillaging. She did not know the truth for as yet they had only rumor from a few common serfs who swore they had escaped after everyone else was dead. Of course, runaway serfs would say anything, but Alinor was afraid there was truth in this. Joanna did not pay much attention to that. She assumed Geoffrey was with his father and she knew there was no fighting around London.

Besides, Joanna had some disquieting rumors of her own to worry about. Soon after she arrived in Roselynde, she learned from a merchant who docked ship in the harbor that the rebels had appealed to Philip and Louis to invade England and depose John. Thus far it seemed that Philip was disinclined to listen. The king of France had a clear memory of the reaction to a threat of invasion in 1212. It was said also that Philip realized that John had become something special to the popea jewel in his crown, like a prodigal returned to the fold. If Philip moved to invade England, papal anathemas would soon be flying around his head. However, Louis felt differently; he was certainly interested.

As late as February, Louis had done no more about this interest than send a small contingent of knights who soon became a laughingstock. They sat in the rebel stronghold of   London and complained because it was necessary to drink beerthe wine had run out. Toward the end of that month, the most dismal of winter, when freezing rain lashed the battlements and the breakers roared on the beach and exploded against the rocks of the low cliff, a ship struggled into Roselynde harbor, near sunk. They had put out from Le Havre when the weather seemed to be fairing up, intending only to run a little way along the coast and the storm had come up suddenly and swept them away.

The master of the ship, brought up to Roselynde keep, told Joanna without the slightest hesitation that Louis had convinced his father to support him and was gathering ships and men. He would come in the spring, in April or May, the master said, smiling. It was so very apparent that he expected Joanna to greet this news with pleasure that she made an effort to do so. It seemed that the French were now convinced that England would welcome them with open arms. Philip had letters containing oaths and promises from more than half the barons that they would join his son and make him king if only Louis would come. This was a far cry from the promises of one single lord, even a powerful one, and Philip now felt it was worth a chance.

Joanna listened until she was sure the man had no more to tell. Since he was not a regular trader in Roselynde port, had never been there before, she ordered that he and the crew be put to death, the ship and cargo impounded. She sent word of what she had heard to Alinor and to Geoffrey. By now she had given up hope of receiving any reply, so she was surprised when her returned messenger handed her a letter from Salisbury in the first week of March. Her father-by-marriage thanked her for the information, although he had heard it from other sources. He had taken the liberty of reading her letter, he explained, since he did not know exactly where Geoffrey was at the moment and he feared, because the letter was sent to his camp, that there was some emergency that required immediate response. Salisbury had sent his own messenger on with her letter to Geoffrey, but it might be some time before the man caught up with his son.

Unbelievingly, Joanna reread what was written. She   knew Salisbury was not well skilled in reading or writing. Could he have written the wrong words by mistake? That was a brief reaction to disbelief. Joanna knew Salisbury had not written the letter himself. It was a fine clerkly hand, free of blots, waverings, and blotches. What could he mean? Where was Geoffrey? Where
was
Adam? Could Geoffrey have been so angry that, when his father gave him leave to go, he went to Hemel or some other keep rather than join her? In that case, Adam must be back upon his own lands. She would write and ask Adam where Geoffrey was.

Another rereading of Salisbury’s letter eliminated that notion. He said he did not know “exactly where Geoffrey was at the moment” and that it might take the messenger “some time to catch up with Geoffrey.” That could only mean that Geoffrey was moving around quickly. Where? Why? She forced a little calm on herself by insisting over and over that it must be some business of Salisbury’s Geoffrey was engaged upon. She read the letter yet again. It must be. There was no hint of anxiety in what Salisbury said. That was ridiculous. Salisbury would never permit such a feeling to show; he had long training in hiding such nuances from Ela.

Before Joanna could drive herself distracted, she had a response to her news about the possibility of invasion from her mother. Alinor had had positive confirmation from other sources. Louis would come. It was now useless for her and Ian to remain in the north. What John had done between York and Berwick had so frightened and sickened Ian’s men that it was useless to talk to them any more. The vassals would initiate no troublethat was sure. They would sit quiet if they could. However, if Louis came into the area, they would not resist him. Much as they loved Ian, nothing could now hold them for the king. Thus, it seemed best for Ian to come south and fight Louis there. A few weeks more they would stay to tie up all the loose ends of the administration; then they would return to Roselynde. Joanna could expect them about the middle of April.

Meanwhile, there was much to be done, Alinor continued. Joanna must go first to Portsmouth and see what preparations were being made in the king’s stronghold   against the invasion. Then Roselynde must be stuffed and garnished. They should be able, counting on fish from the sea, to hold out for a year of siege. There must be pitch and tar and oil for the walls. There must be stones and leathers and timbers for the catapults. There must be shafts and feathers for arrows, metal of all sizes for swords, arrow heads, bolts for crossbows, axes, pikes, rings for mail, bands for helmets. There must be hides for shields and corselets for the, men and for all other uses for leather. And there must be food, and food, and food.