The Heart of the Lion Read Free Page B

in his way that was. No doubt he sported merrily when she was far away but, as with Rosamund Clifford, he visited her in great amity over many years.’
    ‘My father is dead now, Mother; let us forget his habits. The fact remains that I’ll have none of Alice.’
    ‘She will have to go back to France. She will not like it. She has been in England for twenty-two years.’
    ‘Nevertheless she must go.’
    ‘Yet you will marry. It will be expected of you.’
    ‘I have a bride in mind. Berengaria, daughter of the King of Navarre, he whom they call Sancho the Wise. We know each other, for I met her when I was taken to her father’s court by her brother who is known as Sancho the Strong to distinguish him from his father. We have even talked of marriage but Alice of course stood in my way.’
    ‘That girl and your father have a lot to answer for. Though I doubt we should blame Alice; she is a feather in the wind blown this way and that.’
    ‘Then, by God’s mercy, let us blow her back to France.’
    ‘What will Philip say when he finds his sister sent back to him?’
    ‘What can he say of a sister who lived with the man who was to be her father-in-law and bore him a child?’ Richard clenched his fists and cried: ‘My God, when I think of his taking her from me, using her as he did and all the time deceiving me . . .’
    ‘It is done with. As you remind me, he is dead. He can do you no more harm. You are the King now, Richard. You can go with a good conscience to Berengaria.’
    ‘If there is to be a marriage this is the one I want. I feel firm friendship with Sancho. Remember it was he who pleaded with my father concerning you when I requested him to. It was due to him that your imprisonment was less rigorous than it might have been.’
    ‘Yes, I remember well the good he did me.’
    ‘For this reason and because I could trust no other with such a task I want you to go to the Court of Navarre and to bring Berengaria – not to me . . . for I cannot ask for her hand until I am seen to be free from Alice. But I wish her to be taken where she can wait until I am free.’
    ‘It shall be so,’ said Eleanor. ‘But first there must be your coronation. What of your brother John?’
    ‘I left him in Normandy. He was to sail from Barfleur. He hoped to land at Dover.’
    Eleanor nodded. ‘It will be well for him to be here.’ She looked steadily at Richard. ‘It is unfortunate that your father should have made so much of him. I could never understand why he did that.’
    ‘It was to spite me,’ retorted Richard vehemently. ‘You know how he hated me.’
    ‘I could never understand that in him either. You . . . all that a king should be, surely a son of whom any father should be proud . . .’ She laughed. ‘You always took my side against him, Richard. Even in those early nursery days. Perhaps you forfeited his goodwill in so doing.’
    ‘It seems so, but I have no qualms about John. He knows I have first claim to the crown. I shall give him honours, treat him with dignity and respect. He must understand that he can never be King except in the event of my failing to get an heir.’
    ‘Yes, we must make him realise that. It would seem to me that he finds greater interest in his dissolute companions than he would in governing a kingdom.’
    ‘’Tis better to keep him so. What of Ranulph de Glanville?’
    ‘I doubt not that he will serve you as he served your father.’
    ‘I like not one who was your jailer.’
    ‘A task which was forced on him. He could not disobey your father, you know.’
    ‘Yet a man who has humiliated you, my mother !’
    She smiled at him tenderly.
    ‘We must not allow such matters to cloud our judgements, my son. He has been in charge of the treasure vaults at Winchester. It would not be well that he should withhold any secrets of those vaults from you.’
    Richard narrowed his eyes. ‘I shall find it difficult to give my friendship to a man who acted so to you.’
    ‘I can forgive