Chapter One
The Abbey of St. Martial
Limoges, Aquitaine
Late February, 1196
Sir John FitzAlan drew a slow breath against the pain in his half-healed side. It was a pathetic way to buy time, but it gave him a moment to ponder the consequences of rejecting the reward offered by his king.
“I do not seek marriage, Sire. Let me serve you as I always have.”
Richard, King of England’s shoulders rose and fell with his own deliberate breath. His head dipped forward hiding his expression while his right hand rotated a silver goblet in the puddle created when a monk carelessly sloshed his wine. Richard’s lips had thinned at that, but he’d held his tongue; something of a miracle given his usual zeal for his prerogatives.
They sat alone in the Abbey’s refectory, in the flickering light of four stubby candles, amid the seeping cold of old stone walls. The monks, as usual, had been stingy with their resources, an act of petty defiance to their English king and to those who supported him.
Richard looked up at him with a grimace. The candlelight picked out threads of gray in his red-gold hair and glittered on the garnets sewn into the neck of his tunic. A spot of mud dimmed the sparkle of one gem. He stank, faintly, of horse.
“John.” Richard’s goblet stopped moving and royal eyes fixed him with sapphire intensity. “Surely you are not turning down a barony for fear of a wife? Eh?”
He offered a wry smile to the king he had served for most of his grown life; certainly long enough to know Richard had chosen the word fear on purpose.
“I took that bolt in my side, Sire, not my brains.” What else could he say?
A barony at last. Yet, he was strangely uneasy. Considered objectively, he ought to be wildly excited. Had Richard offered him Savignac ten, hell, even five years ago, he would have dropped to the floor to kiss the royal boot without thinking.
He knew better, now. Knew Richard better. Kings did not, dared not, give with an open hand. Royal gifts brought royal obligations. He would be trapped by land and title, tethered like a hound - to Richard, and to a woman he had never seen and had not chosen.
His near-mortal wound had cost him more than a brush with death. It had given Richard the opportunity to steal his freedom. With the stroke of a pen, he would become a baron, a vassal. The idea gave him the same vertiginous sense as climbing a siege ladder, knowing the higher he rose, the greater his peril. As lord of a mercenary company with new offers always at hand, he could choose his employer and so avoid the dangerous labyrinth of title and politics. Now he would have to negotiate it.
He looked up to see his king leaning back in the abbot’s high-backed chair, arms crossed, eyeing him grimly.
“Look here, old friend,” Richard said quietly, “this business with the wife. This isn’t about Amelie, is it?”
“That was a decade ago, Your Grace.” He used the formal address on purpose. The subject of his dead wife was not open for discussion.
Richard gave a quiet grunt. John wondered what his king actually thought about marriage, given the fruitless and from all appearances friendless, aspect of his own. Rumor had it England was quietly seeking a replacement queen.
Richard waited a beat, as though expecting further comment, then lifted one eyebrow. “We await your pleasure, sir,” he said, drawling his words in a demonstration of royal ennui.
There was no escape. Ready or not, he must take this chance or never see another. The war with King Philip of France could not last forever. France’s resources were drained, in no small part from the cost of paying private military companies like his. Where would he, or any of them, go if peace was declared? It would be back to the old ways, grubbing for booty in a foreign shit-hole, serving men who would waste his life on a whim. As for the wife, men would think him mad to reject a title because he didn't know the woman involved. You married and made the best of it, got the bitch pregnant, then took a mistress.
Most importantly, there was Richard himself. King or not, he was a dear friend who did not deserve to be hurt by the rejection of what was, after all, a truly fine gift.
He laid his long fingers on the battered table before him and made the best bow he could manage with the pain in his side. “Be it so, Sire. You have my consent, and my deepest gratitude.”
Richard gave a gracious inclination of his head, lowering his eyes, though not quickly enough to hide the flash of relief that gleamed there. “Very good. Lady Savignac’s ward provided her consent. I have a charter signed by the bishop. I will have someone bring it to you for your signature. Congratulations on your marriage.”
Of course Richard had the bloody charter all set and ready to go. He was too good a general to miss an opportunity for a quick strike.
The king rose to his feet, the heavy chair scraping on the stone floor. John braced himself for the painful effort of getting to his own feet.
“Sit still,” Richard commanded. He laid the knuckles of one hand on the table, leaning into it. “Look, if you don’t like the bloody woman you can lock her in a tower for all I care, but I need someone I can trust at Savignac, not a fat fool like Henri, the last husband. His only accomplishment was to have the grace to die and get out of my way.”
Richard straightened, staring down at him in that imperious way he had. “We are taking you out of here, John,” he announced. “We were lucky to get you here alive, but you are not recovering like you should. The monks have not done well by you.
Momentary anger sparked in Richard’s eyes but he added calmly enough, “They don’t like you.”
“Faugh, what have I done to the monks other than turn up a bloody mess on a horse litter?”
“You are lord of a mercenary company. Someone they consider excommunicate. That upsets them as it is,” Richard’s lips parted in the start of a sardonic smile. “Then it seems they consider you a whoremonger, a murderer, and possibly a heretic.” Richard’s smile warmed into a semblance of sincerity.
“I am not a cocking heretic. That’s bloody unfair, even coming from those mewling chanters.” He jerked a finger towards the refectory door. “What do they expect a younger son to do, if not fight for money? Besides, I was pardoned for all that by going on their Holy Crusade.” He managed to keep most of the bitterness out of his tone.
Richard gave a quiet snort. “And upon our return, you and I took up where we left off.” He held up one hand to prevent protest. “Which, in the monks’ minds, wiped out our pardon. Then there’s the matter of who pillaged the place a while back.”
“Bah,” John sneered, “that was sixteen years ago, when I worked for your brother, Henry. I don’t like robbing monasteries, but Henry never had money and I do like being paid.” He sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “The monks should have gotten over it a long time ago.”
“Something to think about, eh?” Richard said, his tone a bit tart.
John winced, not entirely from the pain of his wound. He looked gravely up at his king, now his liege lord. “You don’t see it, do you, Richard?”
“Eh? See what?” Richard’s eyes narrowed.
“I have spent most of my life buggering baronial authority, only to become baronial authority. Who will be there to plague me?”
Richard’s real smile flashed as he turned away to go to the refectory door. He stopped there, laying his hand on the latch. When he looked back, his expression was cool once again.
“Take your own advice, eh, John? The time has come to forget the past. Don’t you agree…my lord?”
As though his memories of Amelie, of victories and defeats, of friends lost in battle, could be shucked off like a dirty shirt. He bit back a hasty reply, but he needn’t have bothered. Richard had not waited for an answer; he had already disappeared into the darkened hallway.
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