Alys Clare - The Tavern in the Morning

And she a child of sixteen!

Was it true? Was Henry of England truly the father of Joanna’s son?

Josse leaned forward and took hold of de Courtenay by the shoulders. Tightening his fingers till they dug deep into the sinewy flesh — he could sense de Courtenay brace himself against the pain — Josse said, ‘If I ever discover that you are lying to me, and that Joanna’s son is not the child of Henry Plantagenet, then, so help me, I shall find you and kill you.’

De Courtenay met his eyes. You could not, Josse had to admit, fault his courage. ‘It is the truth,’ he said simply. ‘Believe me, I led her to his bed. I was there when he took her.’

Josse almost killed him there and then. Digging in his fingers still further, eliciting a faint moan from de Courtenay, he said, ‘She was a child, man! Your own kin! And you sacrificed her to an old man’s lust!’

‘He’d had his eye on her from the moment she arrived,’ de Courtenay panted. ‘If it hadn’t been me, then somebody else would have fetched her to him. Aaagh! And I thought — aaaagh! ’

Josse slackened his grip a fraction. ‘You thought you might as well gain the glory,’ he finished. ‘Attract a little of the royal benevolence for yourself. Eh?’

‘Why not?’ de Courtenay countered. ‘And he was grateful — you had to give the old King that, he never forgot when you’d done him a favour.’

‘And, not content with that, you then gave your beautiful niece to an old goat who used her like a whore throughout her marriage,’ Josse breathed. ‘Why Brittany, de Courtenay? Why send her so far afield?’

De Courtenay was looking at him strangely, an expression of calculation mixing with the pain in his face. ‘You’ve spoken to her,’ he said softly. ‘Great God, but you know all about this from her! Don’t you?’

Josse tightened his hands again and de Courtenay screamed in agony. ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ he said. ‘Why dispatch her to Brittany?’

De Courtenay’s face was dead-white. ‘Because I wanted everyone to forget about her,’ he said, gritting his teeth. ‘To forget she’d been at court, to forget, if they’d ever known it, that she’d slept with the King. To be ignorant — aaagh! — of the fact that she was pregnant when she wed de Lehon.’

Josse was nodding his understanding. ‘So that nobody but you and she would know that the boy was King Henry’s son. So that you could keep that precious piece of information secret. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

Josse relaxed his grip. Instantly de Courtenay curled in on himself, nursing his shoulders with the opposite hands.

‘And,’ Josse went on, thinking out loud, ‘now that Joanna is a widow, you think to persuade her to join you in whatever you are plotting and-’

‘You don’t see it, do you?’ de Courtenay said, his voice husky. ‘You don’t understand why I want the child now. ’

‘Now that his father — his adoptive father — is dead. No, I can’t say that I do.’

De Courtenay gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘It has nothing to do with de Lehon,’ he said. ‘Forget about him, everyone else has, he was a terrible old man. Think more widely, sir knight. Think, if you are able, of court circles.’

Court. The old King dead, King Richard away in Outremer, Prince John putting it about that he might not come back and dropping heavy hints that he would make a better King than his absent brother. But, despite his progressions around the land, failing to win popular support.

‘Who,’ de Courtenay prompted, ‘stands to be King if Richard does not return?’

‘Prince John believes it should be him, but-’

‘But Richard instructed that Arthur of Brittany be confirmed as his heir. Yet who in England wants to be ruled by a four-year-old baby, with a Breton mother into the bargain?’

‘Well, I-’

De Courtenay was kneeling up in front of Josse now, face alight. ‘Don’t you see what a pearl we have, Sir Josse, very nearly within our grasp? If I can only find him, what a prize! Eh?’

‘You mean Ninian,’ Josse whispered.

‘Ninian? Is that what she calls him? Well, we can soon change that — William, perhaps, or Geoffrey, and we’ll tack on a FitzHenry, heaven knows the lad’s entitled to it. Then we’ll present him. Look, we’ll say, King Henry’s true son, of the blood royal, conceived at Windsor, with witnesses to prove it!’

‘Prove it?’ Panicked, Josse lit on the one thing that was at all approachable. ‘How so?’

‘There were more than just the King, Joanna and I in that bed,’ de Courtenay murmured. ‘And I already have assured myself of their support. In return for what I have sworn to pay them, they will attest to the dates and identify Joanna. The child’s date of birth is on record. Anybody who can do simple addition can work out the rest for himself.’

‘And there’s the eyes,’ Josse muttered. ‘I knew I recognised those brilliant blue eyes.’

‘Ah, all to the good!’ de Courtenay cried. ‘A family resemblance was almost too much to hope for.’

Joanna, oh, Joanna, Josse was thinking, this was why you were on the run. Not escaping from de Courtenay for your own sake, as I thought, but for Ninian’s. Because you could not stand by and see your precious child made a pawn in a desperate power game. A pawn who, if de Courtenay were to miss his footing for an instant, would be swiftly and silently disposed of. Never to be heard of or seen again.

That’s why she let me bring her here! he realised in a flash. Why she agreed to the plan to lodge Ninian at Hawkenlye, while she laid a false trail elsewhere! That was why, of course, she asked those strange questions. Was New Winnowlands far off the beaten track? Could somebody find it if they were determined? I, poor fool that I was, believed it was because she feared for her own safety, feared that de Courtenay would find her. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

She wanted de Courtenay to find her.

Because, all the while he was pursuing her, it meant that Ninian was safe.

Feeling sick, he realised that she had used him. Oh, aye, she had her reasons — he had never doubted the power of mother-love — but, remembering those passionate nights with her, he felt as if she had just spat on him.

He raised his head and saw that de Courtenay was watching him, with what looked remarkably like compassion.

‘She can be very charming,’ he said. ‘It runs in the family. She quite won the old King’s heart that Christmas. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, he’d have given her anything she asked. Only she was too proud.’

‘She-’ Josse’s voice broke. He began again. ‘She would never agree to her son being put forward, being paraded openly as Henry’s son.’

‘No, I fear you are right,’ de Courtenay admitted. ‘But then it is not crucial to have her agreement. If I can only find the boy, tell him who he is and spirit him away to where I have friends and supporters waiting, then Joanna swiftly becomes irrelevant.’

‘You-’ Josse started. Then he made himself stop. Better, surely, to let de Courtenay continue. At least then Josse would know what he was planning to do.

‘Join us!’ de Courtenay said eagerly. ‘What a future we could have, Sir Josse! You could say, quite reasonably, that as a loyal follower of King Richard, you were keen to do what was best for the realm he left behind, and what better, from Richard’s point of view, than a new start? God knows, he detested all the kin he knew about, why not crown one he’d never met? It could scarce be worse!’

‘Aye, aye,’ Josse said, ‘you may be right. And we could win popular support, think you?’

‘Of course!’ de Courtenay said confidently. ‘The people are so fickle, so shallow of thought, they’ll believe anything if it’s presented to them plausibly enough. And, in all conscience, they won’t take readily to either John or Arthur of Brittany.’