Chapter Six
In the morning, the rest of the fleet arrived. There were now forty armed galleys and sixty other ships standing off Limassol. They were a brave sight, with their pennons flying at the mastheads and the rails lined with shields bearing the arms of Leicester and Salisbury, Ferrars and Pratelles, Chavigny and Mortimer. Joanna felt a surge of pride as she stood on the palace roof surveying them.
She was surprised to see Berengaria emerge onto the roof and come over to join her.
“Berengaria, what are you doing up here? Where’s Richard?”
The liveliness that had animated Berengaria while she was dancing the day before had left her. She looked pinched and tired and would not meet Joanna’s eyes. However, her voice was firm when she answered.
“Richard is going to meet Isaac. He wanted to take the army to pursue him, but the masters of the Hospitallers have persuaded him to agree to a conference.”
“But—today? I thought the feast was to last three days.”
“It was. Is. Richard told me to entertain his guests in his absence. But he has taken all his companions with him.”
Joanna stared at her, not knowing what to say. It was monstrous of Richard to leave her on their first wedded morning and in the midst of the celebrations. But she was a soldier’s wife now and they were on campaign, so she would have to resign herself to it. Joanna longed to ask her about the night, but did not know what to say. Berengaria was a private person. She never said much at any time and seldom spoke of herself. She stood now looking down into the square where the English were gathering.
Horses stamped and blew down their noses. Men called to each other and squires rushed about handing up shields, adjusting stirrups.
On the rooftop, the silence between the two women drew itself out. Joanna was sure they were both thinking of the same thing and knew it, but the silence had become an almost tangible barrier. There was no way to break it. She was aware of sadness in the droop of Berengaria’s shoulders.
Suddenly a trumpet sounded in the square below them and Richard rode into view. Berengaria leaned forward.
“There he is!” she exclaimed and her eyes followed him. There was a mixture of pride and wistfulness in her expression.
Richard was wearing his wedding coat. He evidently meant to impress Isaac. He was mounted on a tall, elegant, and mettlesome charger and his saddle glittered with gold and red spangles. On the front and back of the saddle two lions of gold reared up, facing each other with mouths stretched open in a roar. Richard was wearing golden spurs and the sword handle protruding from the silver scabbard flashed gold in the sunlight. His scarlet embroidered hat was on his head and he carried a staff in his right hand.
Berengaria sighed deeply as he turned his horse and led his men out of the city.
“I am afraid he is disappointed in me,” she said.
Then, as if she regretted saying as much, she turned quickly and left the roof. Joanna watched her go, a small, quiet figure, seeming compacted by her feeling of failure. Then she turned back to see Richard disappear up the distant streets, sitting high and tall on his Spanish charger, his scarlet hat a focal point for his followers.
* * *
Negotiating was not Richard’s style. At dinner that night, while all the company was celebrating the success of the meeting, Richard was restless and irritable. Joanna, sitting next to him, watched him drumming his fingers on the table top. From time to time, his hand would close around his knife as though it were a sword hilt and his right arm would move convulsively, as a dog’s paws twitch in dreaming.
“Fighting Isaac, brother?” Joanna asked, as a particularly noisy burst of laughter surged up to them from the hall below their high table.
Richard glanced sideways at her, then away down the hall and into some invisible distant vista. “Is it so obvious? You still know me well.” He turned to face her. “You remind me of Mother. She could always read my thoughts. Not to look at, of course—we’re Plantagenets, you and I—but you have her ways at times.”
Joanna knew he could pay her no higher compliment. She acknowledged it with a little smile and an inclination of the head.
“Do you think he will not honor the compact, then?” she asked, reverting to Isaac. The Emperor had that day agreed to swear fidelity in everything, to send five hundred knights to Jerusalem under Richard’s command, to give 3,500 marks in compensation, and to place all his castles and forts in the hands of Richard’s guards. King and Emperor had exchanged the kiss of peace.
“Honor? He may understand the word, but not the thing itself. No, he’ll break it like that”—he snapped his fingers—“if he thinks he can get away with it. He only agreed to save his skin. And I hope he breaks it before we leave, not after, so that I can deal with him myself.”
“Then why bother with the treaty at all? You could have attacked him today and finished it.”
“Attack while parleying?” His eyebrows went up. “I swear, Joanna, you have less sense of honor than that old traitor Isaac himself!”
He laughed uproariously, holding his cup up to be filled, and she laughed with him. Beyond Richard, she saw Berengaria watching them, a little anxious smile twisting her upper lip.
Richard was right, of course. The very next night Isaac fled, with all his men, to Famagusta. On the third night of their three-day wedding feast, Berengaria and Joanna sat on either side of Richard’s empty chair. The hall was more than half empty. Richard had taken his men to pursue Isaac.
For three days they waited. It was late May and the days were hot now. Joanna stared from the palace roof across the hills, rapidly turning straw-colored in the sun, and dreamed of galloping across them, but she knew she could not. Limassol was under heavy guard against surprise attacks by Isaac’s men and she could not leave the city, even with an escort. Other than that, she was content. She was comfortably lodged, well fed, and she had Berengaria’s company, and she did not worry about Richard. Richard was doing what he liked best and, for all the risks he took, he was invulnerable. She did worry a little about Berengaria. Berengaria was as calm and self-contained as ever but there was a tightness about her mouth and melancholy in her big, dark eyes. When Berthe started her bawdy stories, Berengaria would get up quietly and leave them.
“What’s the matter with her?” Berthe asked, staring after her. “You’d think a new bride would like to hear such stories. Could it be that your royal brother has been too rough and given her a dislike for it? I don’t imagine he’s a gentle lover, do you?”
“You go too far,” Joanna said angrily.” “Don’t ever speak of the King like that again.”
Richard might be Joanna’s brother but he was King of England and Berthe had no right to speak of him so disrespectfully. The thought of her father flashed into Joanna’s mind. He had been King of England, too, and the bawdy tales told of him were legion. She remembered her father and Alice, Richard’s betrothed. How her mother had hated Alice for that! But Richard was not like that. No bawdy tales circulated about him. He was the preux chevalier, always courteous to women, never familiar or coarse.
News of Richard came to them each day. The two armies had clashed before Nicosia and Isaac had shot poisoned arrows at Richard. Berengaria went pale and clutched her robe when she heard this. Joanna was disbelieving and angry. Poisoned arrows! The man had no honor at all. And then he had fled, on that same swift horse that Richard so admired. Isaac was a coward, a treacherous, despicable coward.
Ambassadors came to Richard from King Philip of France in Acre, noble ambassadors, the Bishop of Beauvais and Drogo de Mirle. They said that King Philip wanted Richard to abandon this petty fighting and go at once to Acre to help him in the siege, to stop fighting fellow Christians and remember that they had set out to fight infidels. The messenger who recounted this to them said he could not repeat Richard’s exact answer to the ambassadors as his words had not been fit for the ears of ladies, but the gist of it was that he would not leave Cyprus until he had dealt with Isaac who was not worthy to be considered a fellow Christian. Joanna laughed when she heard this. She had heard her father often enough when he flew into one of his Angevin rages and she could imagine the kind of thing that Richard must have said. She agreed with Richard. Isaac deserved to be punished.
To her surprise, it was not Richard, busy taking the city of Nicosia, but Guy of Lusignan who precipitated Isaac’s surrender. Guy captured the fort in which Isaac had installed his treasure and his only daughter on whom, the report said, her father’s life hung. When Isaac heard this, he sent ambassadors to sue for peace.
The campaign ended abruptly. Richard and his men came riding back to Limassol. The palace, which had been quiet in the last three days, was suddenly full of noise, shouting and laughter, the clatter of mailed boots on the marble floors, the clash of pots from the kitchens where a victory feast was being prepared, the banging of hammers on anvils from the armory next door where repairs were being made to dented helmets and mangled mail.
From the solar, all these sounds could be heard, and the neighing of horses and the rumble of carts in the streets below. Berengaria sat quietly, working on some garment she was embroidering for Richard, but her eyes followed his tall figure as he paced restlessly. Joanna stood, leaning against a table, watching her brother, too. Richard was in high spirits. He could not sit still, but strode up and down the solar as he talked to them, making the small room seem even smaller with his bulk and sheer physical energy.
“And the best of it is, I have his horse,” he crowed. “His horse, Joanna! There’s a horse for you! I’ve never seen a horse that could run like that one. I’ve renamed him—Fauvel. Do you like it? I think Isaac will not soon forget the day when he tried to match himself against the Lionheart! Emperor with impunity from heaven, forsooth! Do you remember that message he sent when I first came here? I’ve made him eat those words and eat the dust under my feet, too. He came and knelt before me—no, he prostrated himself, arms flung out, so”—here Richard flung out his own arms and wine splashed wildly from the cup in his hand. Joanna laughed delightedly. She loved to see Richard in these moments of triumph. “I wish you could have seen it. We had his daughter there and they fell on each other’s necks, howling like banshees, weeping and carrying on like damned infidels. Then he kneels to me, yes, the Emperor kneels to the King, tearing his clothes and watering the floor in front of me with his tears. ‘Great King,’ he says,”—here Richard took a draught of his wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand—“‘Great King, do not, I beg of you, I implore you, do not put me in iron chains! No iron chains, I beseech you!’” Richard adopted a high-pitched voice with a thick accent for this speech and Joanna rocked with laughter, hugging her ribs.
“I could have kicked him like the dog he is. Perhaps I should have. But no, I was very dignified, so that all might see the contrast between us. ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘I give you my word as King of England that you shall not be put in iron chains.’ How he fawned and kissed my toe, and that daughter of his, weeping and wailing and calling on Heaven to bless me for sparing that contemptible cur of a father of hers! ‘No,’ I said, ‘let him be put in chains of silver.’” He fell against the table, slapping his thigh, and his laughter rang out in the small room. “Silver chains! Sweet Jesu, you should have seen his face! ‘No iron chains, Great King.’ So I’ve had silver chains made for him!” Richard laughed so hard that the tears stood in his eyes and Joanna laughed with him.
“What of his daughter?” Berengaria asked, when they had recovered themselves.
“The daughter? I meant to tell you. I have brought her here to turn her over to you.”
“To me?” Berengaria sounded alarmed. “What am I to do with her?”
“Whatever you want. Educate her. Put her in your service. She’s all yours.”
“You’re taking her from her father?”
“Yes. He’s not fit to have charge of a Christian soul. You can train her up in the way she should go.”
“I’ll do my best, my lord,” Berengaria said meekly.
Richard seemed to look at her for the first time since his return. He straightened up and set his cup down with a thump.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said abruptly.
“N-now?” Berengaria stammered.
“Why not? Am I not good enough for you by daylight?”
Berengaria rose, her face and throat flushed suddenly vivid red, and she fumbled to fold her embroidery yarns. Richard strode across the room and took the frame from her hands and hurled it into the corner of the solar.
“Never mind the damned embroidery! Let’s go!”
Joanna watched them as he pushed Berengaria before him through the door. She understood that victory had excited him, and certainly it was his right. She made excuses for him in her own mind, but she was uneasy about the scene she had witnessed. Did Berengaria’s feelings count for nothing with him? Well, they were man and wife and what passed between them was no one else’s business.
She thought a little sadly of Erec in her favorite poem, Erec and Enide. Erec would not have treated Enide so. He always treated Enide honorably. Men spoke a lot of honor, but it was always between men. Was honor, were trust, fidelity, and allegiance, not possible between man and woman? Even her hero Roland, dying in Roncevaux, had thought of France, had thought of his men, had thought of his lord Charlemagne, but had never spared a thought for Aude waiting for him in Aix; Aude who had chosen to die rather than go on living without him. She was being unreasonable, she knew. That was the way it was and the way it was supposed to be. The woman devoted herself to the man and the man devoted himself to God, his King, and his lord, in that order. Why did she find it so hard to accept it? Why did she always have this sense of wanting something she could not have?
* * *
Beatrice was brought to them that evening. Joanna had expected a child and she was startled to find that Isaac’s daughter was a girl of fourteen or so. A very pretty girl, too, Joanna thought, although at present her expression was one of sullen defiance. The girl stood just inside the door with every muscle tensed as if to spring or to flee. She had a mass of unruly dark hair falling on her shoulders, heavy dark brows that were pulled together in a straight line and full, pouting lips. She looked warily at them from beneath long, thick lashes, first at Berengaria and then at Joanna. Her eyes widened in sudden hostility and her nostrils flared as she stared at Joanna. Proof enough, thought Joanna amusedly, of the resemblance between herself and Richard. Well, the child’s father had learned to fear Richard; now they would have to teach this child to respect Richard’s womenfolk.
“So. You have come to us to learn more Christian ways. This is the Queen of England. You could start by curtseying to her, if you have any manners at all.”
The girl neither moved nor spoke. She continued to stare sullenly.
“Answer when you’re spoken to,” Joanna said sharply.
“Wait a moment, Joanna. She probably doesn’t understand French. And we don’t speak Greek. Richard must find …”
She stopped abruptly. At the mention of Richard’s name, Beatrice had turned her head and spat violently on the floor. There was a moment’s shocked silence. Berengaria rose slowly to her feet.
“She understands Richard’s name, at all events,” Joanna said. “Tell them to take her away and whip her, Berengaria.”
“No,” Berengaria said thoughtfully. “I will not have her punished. Not this time. I know how hard it is to leave a father one loves very much.” The girl’s eyes turned to her. “Ah, you do understand, don’t you? Would you think the more of her, Joanna, if she switched loyalties so quickly? She is still loyal to her father and that shows a good heart. We must show ourselves worthy of her loyalty, too.”
Joanna raised her eyebrows and shrugged. She thought Berengaria’s kindness was misplaced. This girl would see it as softness and take advantage of her. “She’s your responsibility, Berengaria. Thank God Richard turned her over to you, not me. She looks like a trouble-maker to me.”
They sailed the next day. In one of his rapid decisions, Richard gave orders to the fleet to prepare to leave at once, now that Isaac was in chains and the island under control. Guy de Lusignan, for his part in the campaign, was given charge of Cyprus. The women’s slower dromon was to set sail first. Richard himself would follow in a day or two.
It was still early in the morning when they embarked. The water reflected the rays of the sun, still low on the horizon, and a slight pearly mist hung around Isaac’s palace. Joanna’s women stumbled and rubbed their eyes as they came up the gangplank. They had been up half the night, packing for this sudden departure.
Joanna stood by the rail. She was less excited this time than she had been when they set sail from Sicily three months before. She knew now how tedious and uncomfortable a long sea voyage could be. However, this time they had only a short distance to cover and it was only a matter of days before they would at last set foot in the Holy Land itself.
Her eyes narrowed suddenly. Berengaria was at the foot of the gangplank, with her women behind her and Beatrice among them. Surely Berengaria was to sail with Richard now that they were married?
“Berengaria,” she cried, going to meet her as Berengaria came on board, “are you to sail with us and not with Richard?”
“Richard wished it so,” Berengaria answered tiredly. “He said his galley had no provision for women and I should be safer here with you. No doubt he is right.”
Berengaria spoke bravely but Joanna could see the disappointment in her face. She had expected to accompany Richard as his Queen, but had been packed off with the women, servants, and baggage.
Joanna tried to encourage her as the ship pulled away from the harbor, by talking of Acre, of the glorious victories to come, of the prospect of seeing Jerusalem itself, but Berengaria was silent and subdued. After a while, Joanna gave up and stared around her. Further along the rail, in the stern of the ship, Beatrice stood gazing intently at the city and palace of Limassol. The wind blew her hair in all directions and Joanna could see tears running down her set and anguished face.
Forgetting immediately the dislike she had taken to Beatrice the day before, Joanna would have left the rail to go and speak to her, comfort her if she could. She was stopped by Berengaria’s hand on her arm.
“Let her alone, Joanna,” Berengaria said. “She would not want to see any of us just now. Least of all you, because you are of Richard’s blood and look so much like him. Let her weep now. I will go to her when Cyprus is no longer in sight.”
Berengaria turned back to the sea. Joanna hesitated a moment, then she caught sight of Berthe watching her at a little distance. Berthe grinned and beckoned and Joanna went to join her. Together they went forward to the bows and climbed the ladder to the forecastle. As the ship moved further into open sea, bigger waves rocked it and Berthe and Joanna started to laugh as they staggered about and clutched each other and then the rail. From this vantage point Joanna could see behind them the white-walled city of Limassol spread out against the burnt dry hills. A wake of white foam fanned out behind the ship and in the stern, two women stood apart, holding the rail, staring back at Cyprus. The wind whipped at the skirts and cloaks of Beatrice and Berengaria, but they stood motionless like statues, keeping their lonely vigil.
Berthe slipped her arm through Joanna’s and they looked forward again. The bow cleaved the glittering water and sent spray arching up against the ship, but it did not reach as high as the forecastle. Gulls spun away, screaming. Berthe leaned her head closer to Joanna’s and began to talk of the excitements awaiting them in Acre, the men, the new sights, the French army and King, the battles to be won, and, of course, all those men.