The Heart of the Lion - Plaidy Jean (читать книги бесплатно полностью без регистрации сокращений txt) 📗

Philip had often been an uncomfortable companion. They were too intimate for hypocrisy. Richard’s was the simpler mind; he was direct, he saw good and bad distinctly. Philip was analytical, intellectual, subtle, seeing many aspects of one question. Their characters were opposing and yet they were a complement to each other.

Talking to Philip Richard realised that he did indeed seek military glory. He wanted to recover the Holy Land for Christianity but he yearned most to go into battle and win great honours there.

Philip watched him slyly. There were plans to be made; they had a great deal to talk of.

They rode out together; they hunted as they had done when Richard was at Philip’s court, a beloved hostage.

They swore friendship. They would defend each other’s realms and share any gains that came their way during their crusade. They would be as brothers.

‘This pleases me,’ said Philip. ‘How I have missed you!’

They made plans to meet at Messina. But there was work to be done first. Richard must travel through Normandy to inspire more men to follow him and support him with their worldly goods; but they lingered awhile, neither anxious to cut short this interlude. Richard was less sure of his feelings towards Philip than Philip was towards him. In Philip’s eyes Richard was physically perfect. He greatly admired the long Norman limbs, the grace of movement, the blonde good looks, the vitality which was not impaired even by the recurrent attacks of fever. He loved this man and yet at times he hated him. They were friends but theirs was too passionate a relationship to be peaceful. By the very nature of their positions they must be enemies. It was inconceivable that a king of England who was also a duke of Normandy could be regarded with anything but suspicion by a king of France. Normandy was a thorn in the side of all kings of France. It was the secret dream of every king who loved France to bring back Normandy to the crown. How could it be otherwise? The land had been filched from them by the pirate Norsemen and, although that had happened many years before, Normandy to the French would never be anything but theirs. And since William the Conqueror had brought the crown of England to add to the dukedom of Normandy there had seemed less hope of bringing the latter back to France.

Philip, the realist, was well aware that whatever his personal feelings for Richard he must always work against him. When Henry Plantagenet was alive he had had to reconcile himself to the knowledge that there would never be a conquest of Normandy. It was different now that Richard was king.

Richard – beloved friend – would be no match for him. He knew it well. Richard should never have agreed to go off and leave his kingdom so soon after acquiring it. Did he not see mean little John straining to get at it? Richard might be the greatest warrior of his age, but what sort of statesman was he? True he would leave his mother to govern for him and she was still a force to be reckoned with.

How different we are, thought Philip. There he is, my friend and enemy Richard, the strong, the brave and the foolish. He longs to be known as the greatest soldier in Christendom; he may well be that. But a king must be more than a great soldier. He is too simple-hearted, too direct. Oh, Richard Oui et Non, rulers have to prevaricate, to dissemble. It is necessary in this life, my dear friend.

He himself was subtle and ambitious . . . oh very ambitious. They had not understood him when he was a boy. They had thought him weak and peevish. Perhaps he had been before there had come to him that revelation of what it meant to be a ruler and a ruler of France. From then on he had developed a calm, a subtlety; he refrained from giving voice to his thoughts. He was discreet and sedate. Richard had often been impatient with him, little understanding that when he appeared to be indifferent his mind was working fast and he was seeing into the future perhaps years ahead.

As they played chess together, Philip deliberately brought up the subject of Alice.

‘I doubt not your marriage to my sister will take place ere long.’

‘There is much to be done before I can think of marriage,’ replied Richard.

‘You are no longer a young man.’

‘I am young enough.’

‘My sister is not young either.’

‘Your sister is no longer a virgin.’

‘Thanks to your father.’

Richard was relieved. He hated subterfuge. He believed that now Philip knew the position he would understand why there could not be a marriage.

‘Two are involved in such games,’ he said.

‘Children are sometimes lured into them and can scarcely be blamed.’

‘The fact remains that she is no longer fit to be my bride.’

‘The sister of the King of France not fit for the King of England!’

‘Not when she has been whoring with his father.’

‘You talk like a peasant, Richard. This is a matter of royal birth not of morals.’

‘With me it is a moral issue.’

‘Oh, come, have you always led so blameless a life? We will forget Alice’s indiscretions and those of your father. The marriage will take place before we set out.’

Richard had grown pale. ‘I cannot marry Alice.’

‘Oh, you will honour your bonds,’ said Philip. ‘Forget not that you are betrothed.’

‘You will release me from the betrothal. I know you will.’

‘Do you know me, Richard? How well do you know me? Everyone is not so straightforward as you. Let us shelve this unfortunate matter of your marriage. See, I have put you in check.’

And so they talked together, often fiercely, often banteringly; and to both of them the coming crusade was enticing and exciting because the other would share it.

They parted, Richard to make his journey through Normandy, Philip to make further preparation for departure. They would meet at Messina and from there begin together their journey to the Holy Land.

Eleanor felt young again since she had stepped into freedom. All those years a prisoner! How dared Henry treat her so! But she could laugh at him now, and hers was the last laugh. He was dead, mouldering in his tomb – a king who had once made men tremble – now nothing but dust and ashes while she, nearly twelve years his senior, as he had been fond of reminding her, was preparing to embark on a journey to bring her son’s bride to him.

She could not resist going to see Alice before she left. She was irritated to notice that meek adaptability which had made Alice such a desirable mistress in Henry’s eyes had now helped her to adjust herself to her new conditions. Surely she must rail against the fact that she, who was once the pampered darling of an indulgent lover, was now the prisoner of his wife. But no, Alice went her placid way, choosing her silken skeins and plying her needle.

‘How fares it?’ asked Eleanor.

‘I am well, my lady,’ answered Alice.

‘So I see. I have come to say farewell to you. I am about to set out on a journey. I am bringing King Richard’s bride to him.’

‘How can that be?’ asked Alice mildly.

‘In the simplest manner. I am going to Navarre. He has long loved the elegant and beautiful Berengaria.’

‘He cannot marry her,’ said Alice.

‘So you have become our ruler to tell the King what he may or may not do?’

‘It is not I who tell him. It is the law. He is betrothed to me.’

‘And you, missing a lover, can scarcely wait to put another in his place?’

‘None could be in his place,’ said Alice simply.

‘Why not? Richard is a king also.’

‘It was not of his rank that I was thinking.’

‘Oh? Henry was incomparable was he? He was coarse and lusty, yes. Remember we shared him. So I know him as well as you do.’

‘Sometimes I think,’ said Alice, ‘that none knew him as I did.’

Eleanor was impatient. She had come here to discomfit Alice, not to listen to praise of the dead.