“No. No, I am sure he does not—” “My lady! My lady!”
Startled by the outcry, both Alaric and Servanne whirled toward the door, but at the sight of young Geoffrey’s flushed face, Friar’s hand slid discreetly away from the handle of the knife he wore concealed beneath his robes.
“Many pardons, my lady, my lord bishop … but I was dispatched to inform you Prince John has arrived! He is here, in the great hall, and my lord Wardieu requests your attendance there at once.”
Alaric looked deeply into Servanne’s eyes, holding steady for several long moments.
“Thank you, Geoffrey,” she said softly. “And thank you, my lord bishop, for all your kind words of comfort; you have given me much to contemplate over the next few days.”
Alaric set his jaw against the desire to respond, and instead, merely bowed his head and murmured a parting benediction.
19
Servanne de Briscourt, in the company of her late husband, had been presented to Prince John the previous summer, but like her original memory of the Baron de Gournay, his exact image was somewhat ragged about the edges. Yet she had no difficulty in picking John Lackland out from amongst the throng of knights and lords who formed his entourage. The Plantagenet bloodlines, known for producing fair-haired men and women of exceptional beauty, had erred in moulding John, the fifth son of Eleanor and Henry. His hair was black, with shiny tufts of it spreading down his neck and emerging from his wrists to darken the backs of his hands and knuckles. His face was leaning toward fleshiness, a result of his fondness for food, wine, and hedonistic excesses. A wide, smooth brow hinted at nobility, but the sharply pointed nose and black, sunken eyes gave credence to the charges of cruelty and obsessive behavior he was known for.
His hand, when it was extended to Servanne, was long and thin, the palm clammy and the nails gnawed back to the quick. It was rumoured he suffered fits of apoplexy, some lasting days on end when nothing and no one was safe in his presence. Conversely he could lapse into great periods of lethargy when he rarely left his bed or lifted so much as a hand to feed himself. If his moods were erratic, so too was his selection of knights who were regarded with favour from one day to the next. Held high in esteem in the first week, an unlucky knave could find himself thrown in irons the next and left to starve to death for whatever his crime, real or imagined, might have been.
There were few men he feared or respected. William Pembroke, the Marshal of England, was one of those men and possibly the only deterrent to John’s bleeding every last coin and copper from England’s peasantry. As it was, he increased taxes at every turn, pleading poverty and using the excuse of Richard’s crusading ventures to raise financing. As regent, he could and did levy taxes on everything from bread to breathing. His enemies he reduced to penniless vagrants; his friends—of whom there were few—were lavished with rewards and grew as wealthy and influential as John’s sense of paranoia would allow.
Servanne had, in the beginning, been both awed and flattered to learn the prince would be a guest at Bloodmoor for her wedding, naively assuming his presence would offer a certain decorum and prestige.
More recently—as recent as the few minutes she had taken out in the gallery to compose her racing pulsebeat—she had even toyed with a small hope the prince would respond to an appeal to intervene on her behalf and, if not rescind the betrothal agreement outright, at least postpone the formalities until her plea could be sent to Richard.
Her first sight of John Lackland shattered any idea of approaching him to ask a favour. His eyes had ravished her to the bare bone before her presentation had even commenced; his lascivious grin had told her precisely what manner of payment he would expect in return for the simplest request she might make of him.
Moreover, it had been John’s influence over his brother— who could not be troubled himself in arranging such matters —that had won Servanne de Briscourt and her considerable dowry for Lucien Wardieu. Several other suitors had put forth their bids for her hand; some had even been generous enough to cause the prince a second thought. But he had granted the prize to his champion, De Gournay, and there was little hope she could appeal to