believed I was barren. Now I know better. So it may be that one day I’ll want more children. Not yet, though!” She smiled ruefully. “Not until my memories of the birthing chamber have gotten much dimmer.”
Justin’s memories of Aline’s birth were traumatic, too, even from the other side of the birthing chamber door. “We’ve never talked like this, have we? You think we can be friends, Claudine, after being lovers?”
“Why not?” Her dimples flashed as she added impishly, “In the best of all worlds, we could be both. I had plenty of time during my pregnancy to learn which herbal potions are most effective in preventing conception!”
He shared her laughter, but he was wary of succumbing to her charms, for there was no potion for the restoration of trust. “I do not think I am ready to get my heart broken again, thank you,” he said, mingling honesty with humor.
She pretended to pout. “Coward. Who knew the queen’s man was so easily affrighted?” An odd expression crossed her face then, as she heard her own words. “‘The queen’s man,’” she repeated slowly. “Jesu, could it be?”
“What is it, Claudine?” he asked, both puzzled and curious, and she leaned toward him, her dark eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Justin, I had the most outlandish idea! It makes perfect sense, though. I think I know why the Breton killed Arzhela.”
John had retired early to bed, though not to sleep. He was dozing in the afterglow of his lovemaking with Ursula when there was a commotion in his bedchamber. Recognizing the voices of Justin, Durand, and his squire, he jerked the bed hangings aside.
“I am sorry, my lord,” the squire cried. “I told them you were abed, but they paid me no heed!”
John’s gaze flicked from Durand to Justin. He was irked by the intrusion, but he remembered that the last time Durand had burst into his bedchamber uninvited he’d been bearing an urgent warning from the French king. “What is it? What could not wait till the morrow?”
“We think we know why the Breton murdered the Lady Arzhela and tried to have you slain.”
John was wide awake now and, knowing that he’d not be able to get back to sleep, decided he might as well be up and about. “Meet me in the solar,” he directed the men, and then instructed his squire to fetch his clothes. Ursula was sleeping peacefully, and he felt a dart of envy, for his nights were never as restful as hers. Even as a boy, sleep had not come easily, a fickle bitch that teased and tantalized and hovered just out of reach.
By the time John entered the solar, a fire had been lit in the hearth and wine flagons set out. Dropping down into a high-backed chair, he regarded them with open skepticism. “Well? Enlighten me.”
“You’ve been telling us all along that the Breton would not have silenced Arzhela out of fear of your retribution. I think you were right, my lord. The Breton was acting out of fear, but not of you. The man he feared was his master, the French king.”
John blinked. He opened his mouth to dismiss Justin’s claim as ludicrous, only to realize it wasn’t. “Go on,” he said tensely. “Tell me more.”
“It was Claudine’s idea. She called me ‘the queen’s man’ and a spark flared in the back of her brain. What if the Breton was ‘the king’s man’? It would explain everything!”
John was already beginning to see flaws in that theory. “I grant you that the Breton could well be working for Philippe. But you are forgetting the pact Philippe and I made in January. In return for French support, I agreed to cede much of Normandy. That accord gave him a vested interest in my kingship. Philippe wants to see me on the English throne as much as I do. He’d not have forged that letter.”
“I agree, my lord. The forgery was not Philippe’s doing. It was the Breton’s, and set in motion before your deal with the French king. Simon de Lusignan said as much, that the Breton came to him with the scheme months ago. When the Breton cast out the bait for Duchess Constance, you and Philippe were at odds, blaming each other for King Richard’s impending release. Then you mended your rift and made that pact. But it was too late for the Breton to stop what he’d started. They already had the letter.”
John’s eyes cut from Justin to Durand. “You agree with this?”
“I do, my lord. The Breton could only hope that his part would never come to light. But then Cousin Simon blabbed to his bedmate, and the Breton found out about it. He seems to have panicked, which is interesting in and of itself, showing us how much he thought was at stake. He killed Arzhela to keep her quiet, fearing that she’d confide in you. And that you, in your rage, would confide in your ally, the French king.”
“But it started to go wrong for him,” Justin said, “for mayhap the first time ever. Suddenly he had a lunatic on his hands, intent upon avenging the Lady Arzhela. When he failed to kill Simon, he was driven to truly desperate straits. If he could not find Simon to silence him, he could seek to make sure that you never heard Simon’s confession.”
John was quiet, staring into the leaping hearth flames, which had taken on the shade of molten gold. “That would explain something else,” he said at last. “If he is no longer offering his services to the highest bidder, has pledged himself as the French king’s man, then his insistence upon concealing his identity from the Bretons makes sense.”
They hadn’t thought of that. “Would he agree to such an exclusive arrangement, my lord?” Justin asked, and John smiled mirthlessly.
“Philippe would have demanded no less. I do not find it easy to give my trust, but compared to Philippe, I am as simple and naive as any country virgin. He would have expected the Breton to serve his interests and his alone.”
“So, you agree with us, then?”
John nodded. “There has always been a piece missing from this puzzle. I never expected, though, that Claudine would be the one to find it!”
Rising, John began to pace the solar, moving from darkness to light and back to darkness again. They watched him in silence for a time, and then Justin asked quietly, “What would you have us do, my lord?”
John turned to face them. “It is time,” he said, “to pay a visit to my dear friend, the French king.”
CHAPTER 23
March 1194
PARIS, FRANCE
The royal gardens of the French king jutted out into the River Seine like the prow of a ship. They would be magnificent in high summer, with raised flower beds of peonies, poppies, and Madonna lilies, trellised bowers of roses and honeysuckle, and well-pruned fruit trees. Now it was only mid-March. The day was mild, though, and it had seemed like a good place to await John’s return.
Justin and Durand were seated on the stone wall overlooking the river, Emma and Claudine on a nearby turf bench. A few other people sauntered along the pebbled paths; several young women were gathered in a bower, listening to one of them read from a leather-bound book; a man in cleric’s garb was playing ball with a spaniel. None of them were familiar to Justin, who’d never been to the French court before. He was disappointed that he’d not get to see the French king, for he was developing a healthy curiosity about Philippe.
He knew Philippe’s age-twenty-eight-and his pedigree-only son of Queen Eleanor’s first husband, Louis Capet. He knew Philippe had assumed power in his teens, had already lost one wife in childbirth, and had wed a Danish princess that past summer. And he knew Philippe had clashed bitterly with Richard in the Holy Land, returning to France as an avowed enemy of the Lionheart. But the man himself remained a mystery.
After learning that Claudine and Durand had met the French king, he’d begun fishing for insights into Philippe’s character. Durand had not been overly impressed by Philippe, but Justin doubted that he’d have been impressed if the holy martyr St Thomas had risen up from his tomb at Canterbury. “Shrewd, pious, implacable, and fretful,” was his concise verdict.
Claudine’s observations were more detailed. “He does not ever curse,” she reported, with the amazement of one coming from the profane court of the Plantagenets. “He has a liking for wine. He is not fond of horses and disapproves of tournaments. He is quick to anger, not as quick to forgive. He does not have John’s perverse sense of humor, which is probably for the best! For certes, he does not possess Richard’s fearlessness, but then, few men
