The letter proceeded to recount what Walter had just told us about Richard’s journey and ended:
‘Our dearly beloved cousin Leopold, Duke of Austria, captured the king in a disreputable house near Vienna. He is now in our power. We know this news will bring you great happiness.’
‘I’ll wager it will!’ exclaimed Hugh de Puiset, a small, shrill, bouncy man, who seemed rather too excitable to be a bishop. ‘He must be the happiest man in Christendom! And you will note that there is no acknowledgement, no mention at all in the letter that the Germans are breaking the Truce of God that protects all Christian knights who fought in Outremer. We must complain to His Holiness the Pope at once: the person of a knight taking part in a holy pilgrimage, or returning from one, and all his lands and property are sacrosanct! This is an outrage! Both Emperor Henry and Duke Leopold must be excommunicated at once!’
I thought of the Templars’ threat to Robin, and wondered how much an Emperor would care about being excommunicated; if Robin, a mere earl, could safely ignore it, was it much of a sanction for a great European monarch?
‘Well, yes, of course,’ said Walter slowly. ‘Excommunication — certainly, we are already working on His Holiness to achieve that. But will that threat alone bring King Richard safely back to us? I very much doubt it.’
‘The real problem is Philip of France,’ said Robin. Everyone in the room stared at him. It seemed an odd thing to say. But Walter de Coutances was smiling and nodding at my master, who continued talking into the amazed silence: ‘Both Henry and Leopold need silver, some would say they need it very badly. But King Philip’s treasury is well stocked; what Philip wants is land. He wants Normandy — in truth, he wants all of King Richard’s possessions on that side of the Channel. And this is his best chance to get it. Philip may well attempt to buy Richard from the Germans and then force our King to give up his lands across the sea.’
There was a pause while we digested Robin’s words.
‘Richard would never willingly cede any of his patrimony. Not a single acre. Never, not while he draws breath,’ said his mother stoutly.
‘And what of Prince John?’ asked Robin. ‘If Richard were dead, would he cede Normandy to Philip in exchange for the English crown?’
There was an uncomfortable silence, which no one appeared to want to break. John, too, was the son of Eleanor, and no one wished to offend her with a candid expression of their opinion of him.
‘Where is the Prince now, by the way?’ said Robin. He seemed to want to make a point of some sort.
The silence in that royal chamber was like a physical presence; an uncanny emptiness of noise. Finally, Archbishop Walter let out a long sigh and said: ‘He is in London at the moment, but we have information that he is making plans to pay a visit to Paris.’
‘Ah,’ said Robin.
Robin and Queen Eleanor and her counsellors met several times over the next few days, but feeling out of my depth surrounded by so many great and wise folk, and having little to contribute to the discussions, I begged Robin to excuse me from joining in their further deliberations. This left me kicking my heels in the echoing space of Westminster Hall, for Ghost was unable to put any weight on his lamed foot and I owned no other mount except an elderly mule, a pack animal unsuitable for riding. To counter my boredom, I set out to explore the area around Westminster — by boat.
I had made friends with a local waterman named Perkin, a snub-nosed, red-headed fellow of about my age who was the proud owner of a sixteen-foot skiff. I was not a good sailor and had unhappy memories of travelling by sea during the Great Pilgrimage, but being carried downstream on the current of the Thames was a wholly different and quite pleasurable experience. With Perkin manning the long steering oar, we would be wafted gently down around the bend in the river to the City of London. These journeys gave me a sense of serenity: alone on the water with my new friend, and nary a sound but the slap of waves against the sides of his skiff and the harsh cry of a seagull or perhaps the occasional friendly hail of a passing boatman, I felt all my cares slip away, washed downstream, along with Perkin and myself, by the grey-brown waters of the Thames. At that time, I found it a novel experience to see the city from the water, sweeping slowly past quays where merchants unloaded their wares, their cloths and spices, and crates of exotic fruit; floating gently past the high walls of grand townhouses, past markets with fishermen crying their catch of the day, right up to the half-built stone bridge where the current, squeezed between the tall arches, speeded up in the centre of the river and we were shot through the dark tunnel on a wave of green spume and laughter. I liked to look upwards at the vault of the bridge’s arches, and the chapel dedicated to St Thomas a Becket in the centre of the structure, as we were swept under it, until Perkin quietly informed me that some of the wooden buildings that jutted out of the side of the bridge were privies and that I must be wary of falling ordure. We would return, Perkin and myself hauling on an oar each, up the calmer side of the river near the southern bank, where the bridge had yet to be completed, past the bustling Augustinian Priory of Southwark and the wide foul-smelling mud flats and miniature forests of bulrushes, and then the long pull round the bend on the side of the open heathland of Lambeth moor and finally back across the river to Westminster.
One day, I took Goody with us in Perkin’s boat, thinking she might enjoy a day out away from the chattering women of the Queen’s court.
It was a disaster.
My feelings for Goody were muddled at that time. Having known her since she was a child, I tended to forget that she was now a young woman, and found myself treating her with the rough friendliness and condescension due to a younger sister. On that misty February morning, when I took her down to Perkin’s skiff and introduced her to the waterman, she seemed out of sorts, bad tempered and snappish, and I noticed that she had a very small spot on the end of her nose. Much later, it occurred to me that it might have been her time of the month. As I handed her into the boat she stumbled slightly and I had to catch her to stop her falling into the muddy shallows of the Thames. Accidentally, I swear on the bones of Christ, as I grabbed her body, I found myself clutching at her small hard breasts. When she was righted again, and safely on board, she slapped me, a hard stinging blow that left my head ringing. I was astounded, speechless. I had not meant to manhandle her in a lascivious way, I was merely trying to save her splashing into the filthy river water.
‘You keep your rough soldier’s hands to yourself, Alan Dale,’ she said tartly as she sat down and arranged her skirts around her in the prow of the skiff. ‘I’ve been warned about this sort of thing: men who come back from a war with only one thing on their minds. I don’t know what strumpets you encountered on your travels in the East, but you are in Christian lands now and here you may not so easily paw a lady for your pleasure.’
Perkin began laughing so hard he almost fell overboard. I flushed with sudden impotent rage and took my seat in the centre of the boat, silent, seething. At that moment, I could have happily picked her up and tossed her in the mud. Instead, I ground my teeth and looked out to the far Lambeth shore, pretending to study a heron that was flapping lazily along a stretch of marshland. I should have made a joke about it, or apologized, but instead we set off in an awkward, burning silence.
I had chosen a bad day for seeing the sights of London; as we glided along downstream, a low bank of fog began to roll in from the distant sea. Soon we could barely see beyond the end of the skiff, let alone make out the sights of the city, bar a few occasional glimpses through the drifting smoky grey mist.