Alys Clare: Ashes of the Elements

The christening had taken place over a month ago. Thinking back, it made Josse realise how long he had been staying with his family.

‘I think I shall return to England soon,’ he said. ‘If I delay much longer, travelling will become steadily more uncomfortable.’ Wet roads that became like quagmires, and the ever present threat of autumnal gales in the Channel, were not an attractive prospect.

‘You won’t stay for Christmas?’ Marie asked.

Christmas! Good Lord, that was two months away! ‘No,’ Josse said vehemently. Then, since that was hardly courteous, added, ‘Tempted though I am, Marie ma cherie, I really want to be back in my own home well before that.’

She shot him an understanding look. She could, he was well aware, have made a far fuller response, but all she said was, ‘Very well.’

* * *

The country to which Josse returned, in a rare spell of warm, fine weather in the late autumn of 1191, was a land which had already begun to suffer from having an absentee king.

A land whose people were starting to feel uneasy. Or, at least, those of its inhabitants whose daily round took them to places where they heard the gossip that filtered down from the country’s centres of power.

Josse met a merchant on the boat that took him from France to England, and, within minutes of striking up a conversation, the man was complaining.

‘Mixed news from Outremer, so they’re saying in high places,’ the merchant remarked. ‘And we’ll all have to pay for it, I shouldn’t wonder, in the end. Victories and setbacks, so I was told.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Josse responded neutrally.

‘Aye.’ The merchant, leaning against the deck rail, shifted his position and made himself more comfortable. There was a brisk wind blowing from the south-west, right up the Channel, and the ship was bouncing like a lively horse. ‘Our King Richard, God bless him, thought to make a bigger difference than he actually managed, so I’ve been led to believe.’ He sniffed, hawked and spat over the rail. ‘Seems Acre’s still holding out tight against our Holy Christian army.’

Josse wondered where the man had acquired his information. Even a merchant with contacts throughout court circles surely had no magical way of divining what was going on half a world away. Did he? Yet, Josse had to admit, what the man said sounded unpleasantly likely.

‘King Richard is a great soldier and a fine leader of men,’ he replied, trying not to sound as if he were disapproving; the voyage across the Channel would be long and probably uncomfortable, and a decent bit of gossip would certainly help to pass the time. It wouldn’t do to give his sole fellow passenger the brush-off so soon after setting sail.

‘Aye, aye, I’m not saying he isn’t,’ the merchant said impatiently. ‘Still, there’s other things for a king to do, isn’t there?’ He gave Josse a sly look. ‘Other duties, if you take my meaning.’

Josse was quite sure he did. ‘You speak of the King’s marriage?’

‘Aye, I do that. Some exotic beauty, they say, from a hot southern land where oranges fall off the tree into your hand, where the sun burns a man’s skin to black, and where the women are wild-blooded and passionate.’ He swallowed, recovered himself and said more calmly, ‘Least, that’s what I heard. Lucky old King Richard, I say.’

Josse decided it was unlikely the man had ever travelled to Navarre. The lurid description of that country’s people didn’t accord at all with what Josse knew of them. ‘Queen Berengaria is said to be one of the beauties of the age,’ he observed.

‘Well, they say that about every lass ever crowned queen,’ the merchant said. ‘Still let’s hope for our good King Richard’s sake that they’re right this time, eh?’

‘Indeed,’ Josse mumured.

There was a brief and fairly companionable silence. Then the merchant reached down into a large pack at his feet, drew out a flask and, removing its stopper, offered it to Josse. He accepted gratefully — it was getting cold out on deck, and the wind was carrying spiteful drifts of hard, icy raindrops — drank, and felt the pleasant warmth of spirits flow down his throat.

‘Thank you,’ he said, returning it to the merchant, who took a rather larger sip.

‘To the King and the Queen,’ the merchant said, raising his flask. He shot Josse a look. ‘And to the fruit of their marriage bed.’

Josse said, with deep sincerity, ‘Amen.’

‘Been out of England long?’ the merchant asked presently.

‘Hm? Oh, a few weeks.’

‘You’ll not know what the King’s brother’s up to, then,’ the merchant said, the sudden glint in his eyes suggesting he was looking forward to enlightening this innocent stranger.

‘You speak of Prince John?’

‘Aye, I do.’

‘What has he done?’

The merchant chuckled. ‘Seems he’s made up his mind the King’s never coming back,’ he said. ‘Thick as thieves with that half-brother of his, Geoffrey, the one they made Archbishop of York, although for the life of me I never knew a man less suited to high church office, that I didn’t.’

‘They’re plotting, Prince John and the Archbishop?’ This was worrying news. ‘I understood that the King had banished his half-brother Geoffrey, banned him from ever setting foot in England again?’

‘Aye, he did, and a sensible move it was. Mind, he made the same ruling about Prince John, only his lady mother, the Queen Eleanor, persuaded him to relent.’ He gave a faint sigh. ‘Far be it for me to question the great and the good, but I do wonder what the dear Queen had in mind, bless her heart. Still, mother love knows no reason, does it, sir?’ Josse agreed that it probably didn’t. ‘Archbishop Geoffrey now, he came back even without being told he could — seems he put it about that it was ridiculous, him being archbishop of a city in a country he wasn’t allowed to live in!’

Yes, Josse thought, it was absurd. But, in the light of this new and disturbing information, how right King Richard had been, to try to keep his meddlesome, dangerous brothers out of his kingdom. Especially when he was so far away.

He was just about to ask the merchant to elaborate on what Geoffrey and John were up to when the merchant said, ‘Mind you, the King himself slipped up over that weasel Longchamp.’

‘His regent? Why, what’s he been doing?’

‘Pride’s gone to his head and lodged there, tight as a boot in a muddy ditch. Walks about with a sneer on his face, he does, like there’s a constant bad smell under his nose. Probably is, come to think of it.’ The merchant laughed briefly, and Josse joined in. ‘Our dear Prince John’s not the only one as finds him pompous and stuffed up with airs and graces.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Josse said lamely.

The merchant laughed again, a short bark that caused an answering squawk in a seagull hovering nearby. ‘You’ll not have heard what happened between them, Longchamp and Archbishop Geoffrey, when Geoffrey sneaked back into England? Stop me if you have, but it makes a good tale.’

‘I haven’t,’ Josse agreed. ‘Go ahead.’

The merchant shifted his position again, bracing one foot against the ship’s increasing motion. ‘Well, it was like this. When the Archbishop arrived at Dover, Longchamp’s men were waiting for him, and, being good and faithful King’s men, they didn’t hesitate in applying their absent King’s ruling.’ He grinned. ‘With more zeal than King Richard might have wished, I dare say, they seized Archbishop Geoffrey and flung him into Dover jail.’

‘A fine way to treat an archbishop,’ Josse said, with mock disapproval.

‘Aye, you’re right there! And Prince John, he didn’t hesitate to use it for his own advantage. Pretending to be outraged, he summoned all them bishops and justices and what-have-you to Reading, and persuaded them that Longchamp had no business being so high-handed with the half-brother of the King, and should be called to account straight away, and kicked out of office as soon as possible.’