The Queen From Provence - Plaidy Jean. Страница 73

Edward was thoughtful.

‘There is trouble in Gascony. My father will need help. Henry, I am going to ask you something. Will you go home. Tend to your father. I know he loves you as he loves no other. I have seen his eyes light up at the sight of you. We have a capability for loving our families, we Plantagenets. Perhaps it is because my grandfather was so ill-treated by his sons and there is much to make up for. Henry, I have a feeling that you should go back.’

‘Perhaps you too, Edward. This is an unexpected setback.’

‘Nay. I am determined to stay. I shall go on. I have made my vow and I shall keep it. You are young. You will have time yet. At this moment I feel that you must go back, Henry.’

Henry was thoughtful. He was greatly concerned about his father. He had known for some time that he had been ill; but of late his weakness had grown.

‘I will go,’ he decided, and the cousins took an affectionate farewell of each other. Edward went on to Palestine while Henry sailed away to the Mediterranean coast.

Henry had been sad to leave Edward but, as he travelled through Italy in the entourage of the King of France, he felt a great need to see his father.

He feared that Richard might die before he could reach him. Because of the strong bond between them he could not now stop thinking of his father. It seemed to him that his father was trying to reach him, that death was hovering and he wanted to see him while there was yet time.

As he rode Henry was going over memories of the times they had spent together. Richard had loved him, he knew, more than anyone else. He had had a certain passion for his wives – Sanchia had greatly attracted him for a while and it was the same with Beatrice. It must at one time have been so with his mother. But that was before he could remember. He fancied, looking back, that as a child he knew how his mother longed for his father to come to them, and how when he did come, although he showed the utmost affection for his son, he wanted to get away. And then later they had become great friends. They had fought together at Lewes; they had been the prisoners of Simon de Montfort.

Henry often thought of Simon. There was a great man who had dreamed of bringing justice to England. It was a pity that men like Simon de Montfort must die on the battlefield.

He knew that his two sons – Simon the younger and Guy – were now in Italy. They were exiled from England but Guy had married the only child of Count Aldobrandino Rosso dell’ Anguillara and had been made governor of Tuscany by Charles of Anjou. His brother Simon had joined him in Italy, so they could not now be far away.

He wondered whether he could see them, in which case he might bring about some reconciliation between them and the King and Edward.

He was sure that Edward would be ready to forget the trouble between them. After all they were his cousins. The King and Queen, whatever their faults, were not vindictive. King Henry was a man who liked to live in peace.

The thought excited Henry. As the party came into the town of Viterbo he decided that he would do all he could to find his cousins and, when he had, he would try to persuade them that they must bear no more resentment for the brutal murder of their father.

All enmity must be forgotten.

He was sure that the King and his son Edward would be prepared to let bygones be bygones.

It was Lent. The time for repentance and forgiveness.

Tomorrow he would go to church and pray for success.

As the party rode into the town of Viterbo two men were watching from a window of an alehouse.

They had come to this place in disguise for they wished to discover whether a certain man – whom they had reason to believe was a member of that party – was in fact of it.

They talked in low tones.

‘He is bound to be there. I know he left Edward and he would naturally return through Italy with the King’s party. The time is at hand, brother.’

Guy de Montfort nodded. ‘Never fear, Simon, his time is at hand.’

Simon de Montfort said: ‘I can see it still… that ribald crowd. And aloft they held his head. They jeered … they shouted obscenities … and when I think of him … that great man …’

Guy said: ‘Rest assured he shall not escape.’ His eyes glinted with an almost demoniac light. He had always been more bloodthirsty than his brother. He was thinking of those days in the royal courtyards when Henry of Cornwall had, with Edward, been a leader of them all. He had had a great influence on Edward and among all the boys was his greatest friend.

‘He was so virtuous,’ said Guy. ‘He was always right. Noble Henry! Ere long it will be a different story.’

‘I have heard that our father was murdered after Henry of Cornwall and his father were taken prisoner.’

‘It matters not. It was his men who did this foul deed and he must answer for it. Look. Who is that coming into the street?’

‘By God. Truth, it is he.’

Guy caught his brother’s arm. ‘So he is here then. Now all we have to do is wait for our moment.’

There was so much Henry wished to ask of God. His father’s health was uppermost; the success of Edward in the Holy Land; the continued peace at home; his future happiness with his beautiful bride.

In the early morning of that Friday which was to be fatal for him, Henry made his way to the church of San Silvestro. He had dismissed his attendants for he wished to be completely alone. He was in a strange mood that morning.

He knelt at the high altar. There was a deep silence about him and he felt suddenly at peace.

And as he knelt there the church door was thrown open. He did not turn even when the clatter of boots on the flagged floor broke the silence.

Suddenly he heard his name and turning he saw Guy de Montfort with his brother Simon at the head of a group of armed men.

‘This is the end for you!’ shouted Guy. ‘You shall not escape now.’

Henry saw murder in his cousin’s eyes. He began: ‘Guy …’

Guy de Montfort laughed harshly. ‘This is for what was done to my father.’

He lifted his sword. Henry clung to the altar and the sword all but cut off his fingers. Henry staggered to his feet.

‘Cousin …’ he cried. ‘Cousins … Have mercy … I did not harm your father …’

‘Nay. Nay,’ cried Guy, his eyes alight with demoniac glee. ‘He died did he not? Come. What are we waiting for?’

He lifted his sword. Simon was beside him. Henry fell fainting to the floor, his blood spattering the altar.

The de Montfort brothers looked at the dying man.

‘We have avenged our father,’ said Guy.

‘Nay, sir,’ spoke up one of his band. ‘Your father was not so respectfully dispatched.’

‘You speak the truth,’ cried Guy. ‘Come, what was done to my great father shall be done to this man.’

It was the signal. They dragged him from the church; they stripped him of his clothes. Then the gruesome work of mutilation was begun.

Richard of Cornwall, King of the Romans, was sick and weary. The lethargy which had dogged him all his life had increased. Looking back over his life he could not feel very pleased with it. He had rarely succeeded in what he undertook. The task of ruling the Roman Empire had proved beyond his strength and ability. He was married now to a beautiful woman but somehow she only served to call attention to the fact that he had grown old and feeble.

His brother Henry had been more fortunate. Henry could face disaster, pass through it, and behave as though it had never happened. He had always known this trait in his brother and despised it. Now he began to think that it was a virtue. He himself had had three wives. Isabella, Sanchia and Beatrice … all exceptionally beautiful women, yet none of them had really satisfied him.