do. I would say he likes women. I agree with Durand, though; he is not sentimental. If I had to choose one word to describe him, it would be ‘capable.’”
“I heard,” Emma put in, “that he came back from the crusade a changed man. He was very ill whilst there, nigh unto death, and it left its mark. From what I’ve been told, he is more suspicious now, and his nerves are more ragged around the edges.”
“That is true enough,” Durand confirmed. “He goes nowhere without bodyguards. Wherever he was meeting with the Breton, you may be sure it was not at night in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents! John says he became convinced on crusade that Richard was plotting against his life. When his ally Conrad of Montferrat was slain by Assassins sent by the Old Man of the Mountain, Philippe suspected that Richard was behind it. Supposedly he was warned that Richard had connived with the Old Man, who’d dispatched four Assassins to kill him, too.”
Justin was shocked to hear of such vicious infighting among the crusaders. He’d imagined that men would put aside their rivalries in their joint quest to free Jerusalem from the infidels. Durand’s story made it sound as if they’d taken all their enmities and grudges with them to the Holy Land. “Who is the Old Man of the Mountain?”
“The leader of a Shi’ite sect who believe that murder is a legitimate tactic of war.” Durand’s mouth curved in a cynical smile. “In other words, they openly preach what other rulers merely practice.”
Now it was Claudine’s turn to be shocked. “No true Christian king would resort to murder, Durand!”
“I take it that means you do not believe Richard had a hand in Conrad’s killing?” Durand asked sarcastically.
Claudine and Justin answered as one, she crying, “Of course not!” and he demanding, “Surely you are not saying he did, Durand?”
“No-Richard is not one for planning that far ahead.”
Claudine seemed genuinely offended. “Richard is a man of extraordinary courage!”
“Courage is like charity,” Emma said dryly. “It covers a multitude of sins. When the Emperor of Cyprus surrendered to Richard on condition he not be put in irons, Richard agreed and then had shackles made of silver.”
Justin did not like the tone of this conversation any more than Claudine did. Richard was a celebrated crusader, whose deeds in the Holy Land had become the stuff of legend. He’d taken it as a matter of faith that Richard was a more honorable man than John, worthy of the sacrifices the English people had made to gain his freedom. He did not want to doubt his king, and he hastily changed the subject, calling their attention to the young woman just entering the garden, fair of face and clothed in costly silks.
“Is that the French queen?”
To his surprise, they all laughed. “What?” he asked, perplexed. “I do not see the humor in my question.”
“You truly do not know?” Claudine marveled. “So great was the scandal that half of Christendom was talking of nothing else-ah, but you were in Wales last summer! That explains why you did not hear.”
“Hear what?”
“The day after their wedding, Philippe disavowed Ingeborg and sent her off to a monastery, where she has been held ever since. Less than three months later, Philippe convened a council at Compiegne, where French bishops and lords dutifully declared the marriage was invalid because Ingeborg was related to Philippe’s first wife within the prohibited fourth degree.”
Justin was astonished. “If the marriage was dissolved, why is Ingeborg still being kept at the monastery? Why has she not been allowed to go back to Denmark?”
“Philippe would like nothing better than to rid himself of her,” Durand said, grinning. “But she claims their marriage is valid in the eyes of God and man, and is appealing to the Pope. What I find truly odd about the whole matter is that men say she is a beauty: eighteen years of age, tall and golden-haired. Now if she’d been a hag, I could better understand his skittishness!”
“It is very sad for her,” Claudine insisted, frowning at Durand. “She is a captive in a foreign country, surrounded by people who speak no Danish whilst she speaks no French. She has been badly treated, indeed. But for the life of me, I do not understand why she is being so stubborn about clinging to this hollow shell of a marriage.”
“Because,” Emma said coolly, “this ‘hollow shell of a marriage’ has made her Queen of France.”
Justin was too well-mannered to remind her that she did not value her own crown very highly, and Claudine shared Emma’s view that life in a remote, alien land like Wales was a form of penance, but Durand relished rushing in where angels feared to tread. Before he could pounce, however, Garnier came into view, obviously searching for them. Justin signaled to catch his eye and he veered in their direction. “Lord John is ready to depart,” he announced.
They were leaving the gardens when they encountered John himself, standing on the steps. At the sight of them, he waved his attendants aside and moved to meet them.
“Where the Devil have you been?” Not waiting for explanations, he continued on past them into the gardens. They looked at one another, shrugged, and followed after him. He’d stopped by the stone wall, was gazing out upon the river, silvered by sunlight. He did not turn as they approached, dropping pebbles down into the water.
“Well?” Durand blurted out, when they could stand the suspense no longer. “Did he admit the Breton is in his service?”
“No, but he did not deny it, either, and for Philippe, that qualifies as a confession. He acknowledged he has used the Breton in the past, and expressed dismay when I told him of the man’s crimes.”
“Is he willing to help us?” Justin asked, puzzled by John’s demeanor; it was obvious something was troubling him.
John nodded, flinging a pebble out into the swirling current. “We’ve come up with a plan to lure him out into the open. It seems the Breton has made a practice of finding informers all over Paris. Philippe says he has sources at the provost’s, at the hospitals, the gaols, even the Templars. It must have vexed him sorely when I moved out of the Temple into Petronilla’s dwelling.”
There was a faint splash as another stone broke the surface. “The provost is going to put the word out that an unknown man sought to enter the palace grounds. When he was stopped by the guards, he insisted he had to see ‘the king or the Count of Mortain,’ babbling wildly about plots and murder in an abbey. He was badly wounded, though, and died ere he could be questioned. It ought not to take long for word to reach the Breton. He is going to assume-to hope-it was Simon, but he’ll need to be sure. I’m wagering that he will come out of hiding to identify the body. And when he does, we’ll be waiting.”
They exchanged glances, encouraged, for the plan sounded promising. Eager to set it into motion, they waited impatiently as John continued to watch the ripples stirred up by his pebbles. It was Claudine who ended the impasse, saying softly and with more sympathy than Justin liked, “My lord John? What is amiss? Are you not pleased that this will soon be resolved?”
“Delighted beyond measure.” John threw away the last of the stones, just missing a low-flying bird. “Philippe told me,” he said, “that Richard was welcomed into London by huge, enthusiastic crowds, who were rejoicing as if it were the Second Coming of the Lord Christ.”
The sky was a misty pearl color, the sun cloaked in morning haze. Justin was standing on the porch of the parish church of the Holy Innocents, gazing out across the cemetery. It was early, but the gravediggers had already been busy; a body had been fished from the river the day before, and it was being buried in the common grave reserved for the poor and the unknown. Justin had seen few sights as sorrowful as this hasty, impromptu burial. The body had been sewn into a shroud and lowered into the grave, and the gravediggers were shoveling dirt over the remains, while trying to keep upwind, for the corpse was waterlogged and badly decomposed. Head bowed, a priest was uttering a prayer for the soul of this nameless, luckless stranger, unmourned but by God.
At the sound of a step behind him, Justin turned to see a Benedictine monk. Stifling a grin, he shook his head. “I never thought to see you in monk’s garb, Durand, no more than I’d look for a whore in a nunnery.”
“You do not exactly look like a lamb of God yourself, de Quincy. Let’s face it, neither of us make good monks. But it will be dark enough to fool the Breton, assuming all goes as planned.”
“You think it will not?”
“The Breton has the Devil’s own luck. And it is not heartening to have to rely upon that lunatic de Lusignan. That scatter-brain of his seems able to entertain only two thoughts at a time-getting laid and getting vengeance.”
