young Philip Plantagenet.” She held up a hand, palm forward, to keep him quiet. “I pray you, think about that for a moment, before you spit at me for saying it. Think for just a moment.”
She began picking off points on the fingers of one hand. “Think about the obligations of kingship, Andre. The first and greatest of them is to sire an heir, to carry on the line securely, thus guaranteeing the safety of the realm and its people. The people
Joanna allowed those words to hang in the air between them for several moments before she went on. “Richard, as I’m sure you already know, needs to be seen as a paragon—fearless and invincible in battle, ready to laugh and drink or wrestle and fight with anyone at the nod of a head or the wink of an eye. And he presents a hearty, smiling face to all the world when he plays the convivial King of England. But this is a King of England who shuns the company of women, who surrounds himself with comely and effete young men, and who has been rutting with the King of France since they were boys together, so that in France their dalliance and their constant, jealous squabbling long since became a matter of tired jest, and the knowledge of it threatened to spill out into the ken of the common folk of Aquitaine, Anjou, and other parts. It was the priests who put an end to that, of course. Richard might care nothing for what the common folk might think, but the Church knew better. And so a ruse was designed, to gull the people, not merely the people of Richard’s domains in France but the people of England, who would one day become Richard’s subjects.
“The yeomen of England, as they call themselves, require their kings to be heroic in bed as well as on the battlefield, and being heroic in bed, in that basic, low-born sense, involves the seduction of women and the coupling of breeding pairs. The lower classes, particularly in England, I am told, have no understanding of the true male brotherhood that Richard dreams of and espouses, or of the ineffable love between noble fighting men that was enjoyed by the likes of Alexander and Caesar. And so to set idle tongues at rest, certain advisers, shall we call them, deliberately planned an adventure for Richard with a young woman in Cognac—a region far enough removed from his usual haunts to serve the desired purpose admirably—with the resultant, widely remarked birth of a fine boy.”
“But he did it.”
Joanna almost smiled. “Did he? No, my dear Andre, I fear I must disappoint you there. Someone—I have no idea who—once said that a leopard cannot change its spots. My brother’s spots are equally unalterable. Why do you think this adventure was arranged so far away from home? Had Richard merely wished to bed a wench, he could have clicked his fingers, anywhere, and been surfeited with willing, panting women. But that was not the way it transpired. Certain people took great pains to find an eligible woman of good family, a young, impoverished widow, and made certain arrangements with her. The Duke would be seen with her in public, paying close and flattering attention to her for sufficient time to set tongues a-wagging. The gossips would grow busy, but the lady would be amply recompensed for any embarrassment she might suffer from that, and in the meantime, when the Duke was not around to disport himself with her in private, she would be notably entertained, albeit secretly, by a young knight of spotless blood and wondrously fine appearance and physique. When she became pregnant, as she surely would, the young knight would move on, content and more than amply paid for his services, and she would name Duke Richard as the father of her child. In return, Richard would reward her with gifts of buildings, lands, and money, and would happily acknowledge his paternity and name the child an heir to his estates. It worked out very well, for all concerned. The mother is now wealthy and independent, the smug matron of an acknowledged heir, and Richard has a living symbol of his virility, his sexuality, and his love of women, to parade before the crowds whenever he so wishes.”
“But what about the real father? Has Richard no fears that he might step forth one day and state his case?”
Joanna smiled again. “Would you, were you that man? What would he gain, other than to lose all he may hold at the time, including his head? Besides, the poor man died at the battle of Hattin.”
St. Clair sat deep in thought and gnawing gently on the inside of his lip. Eventually he looked up to face her. “I believe what you say, my lady. Your story has the ring of sound logic.” He fell silent again, gnawing and thinking, then straightened abruptly. “But even so, were all this proved true, I cannot yet see why the Duke—the King— would make me part of his design in repeating such a thing.”
“Come now, Sir Andre, you are too modest and it ill becomes you here. Think of it from my brother’s point of view. You are perfectly suited to his needs in this: young, dashing, dedicated, honorable, and bound to him by the laws of fealty and duty, besides which your bloodline is pure and your antecedents are flawless. Richard would be more than happy to see a son of the ancient house of St. Clair assuming his patrimony and his name with an unsullied bloodline. God knows he has professed himself sick beyond detestation with his own.”
St. Clair stared at her with wide, startled eyes. “What d’you mean by that?”
“Precisely what I said. Richard has said many times, and once in my own hearing, that his blood, the sacred, royal blood mixed from both our parents, has soured and befouled his entire life. What did he say, exactly? Let me think … Ah, yes, he said, ‘The blood flowing in my veins is a mixture brewed, stewed, and then spewed out in Hell, the same noxious, evil filth that animates my brother John, may he rot alive. Better that it should die out with me, wherever and whenever it does, and that fresh blood, uncurdled, should go on to rule in England after my death.’”
She waited a long time for his response. Something, a small stone or a resinous knot of wood, exploded in the heart of the fire, sending fragments leaping in several directions, but St. Clair seemed unaware of it. Finally, as though fearing he might never speak again, she prompted him. “Well?” she asked. “What do you think of that?”
He inhaled sharply and turned to look at her. “I find it unbelievable, yet all too credible. And … I find it frightening, above all else. But—” He stopped, and squeezed both hands tightly over his temples, his eyes clenched shut, and then he lowered his hands again. “I find all of this difficult to comprehend, my lady, in simplest truth. Am I truly to believe … Are you really saying that, if I choose to approach the Queen, she will lie with me, and neither she nor the King will be angered?”
“I am saying more than that, my friend. If you father a son upon her, he will be legitimized at birth and crowned King of England in due time. That I can promise you.”
St. Clair swallowed. “And if I … do this, this
The look she gave him then was open, wide eyed and serious, with no hint of amusement. “Of course you will. Did I not say so? It will fall to me to be your chaperone, the Queen’s senior companion, elder sister by marriage, and lady-in-waiting, present in her royal company at all times. I am a widow and a dowager, expected to be physically dried up and spent. But I am thirty-four years old and in the full flow of my womanhood. I have no need for undying love, nor for any bright-eyed, lovelorn eagerly panting young man to flatter me by pretending to swoon at my feet, but I have great need of straightforward carnal pleasure. Keep me smiling that way and I will be your dearest friend, my friend, for who would ever dream that you would rut with the Queen of England while she shared her bedchamber with the Queen of Sicily? You will live like the Sultan himself, in your own seraglio, with two crowned queens as your willing odalisques.”
“And … you say Berengaria knows of this?”
“She does. She has not quite decided to proceed, and she believes you know nothing yet, but she is … favorably inclined towards you already, and her eyes when she watches you are full of wondering.”
The silence grew and stretched again as Andre St. Clair fought to keep his face unreadable and to quell the sickness that was roiling in him, a sickness caused not by the prospect of having two royal mistresses but by the callow, callous, and absolute disregard for his honor that was being shown by Richard Plantagenet and his sister. Aware that he must speak and act with extreme caution in the time ahead, he sat silent again while counting his own heartbeats, and when his count reached twenty he sat up straight and cleared his throat.
“Well, lady,” he said. “I … I must think on this. I had … I had planned to do other, very different things with my life in the coming campaign. I am to join the Temple Knights … or I was, until this moment. Now I know not what I must do about that, other than sleeping on it and deciding what must first be done. For how will we achieve
