ST MALO, BRITTANY

They came together on a damp December evening in a pirate’s den. That was how she would one day describe this night to her son, Constance decided. The men of St Malo were legendary as sea wolves, prideful and bold, and so were the men gathered in this drafty, unheated chapter house. Torches flared from wall sconces, casting smoky shadows upon the cold stone walls, upon their intent, expectant faces. Several of them already knew what she would say; the “unholy trinity,” as she liked to call them, three of the duchy’s most powerful lords, knew. So did their host, an affable gambler with a corsair’s nerve and a bishop’s miter. As for the others, they’d embraced the aim, needed only to be apprised of the means.

Turning toward the man hovering by the door, Constance beckoned him forward. He came slowly, as if reluctant to leave the shadows, and it occurred to her that she’d rarely seen him in the full light of day. Although a man of God, he had the polished manners of a courtier, and he bent over her hand, murmuring “My lady duchess” as if offering a benediction.

Constance did not like him very much, this unctuous instrument of her enemy’s doom, and she withdrew her fingers as soon as his lips grazed her skin. She felt no gratitude; he’d been very well paid, after all. In truth, she found herself scorning him for the very betrayal that would serve her son so well. Loyalty was the currency of kingship and he’d already proven that he dealt in counterfeits.

“This is Robert, a canon from St Etienne’s Cathedral in Toulouse.” She did not introduce the lords or Bishop Pierre. When she nodded, Robert produced a parchment sheet. All eyes were upon him as he unrolled it and carefully removed the silk seal-bags, revealing plaited cords and tags impressed with green wax, coated with varnish. Savoring the suspense, Constance held the letter out to the closest of her barons, Andre de Vitre.

Andre was already familiar with the letter, but he made a show of reading it as if for the first time. Rising from his seat in a gesture of respect for Raoul de Fougeres’s years and stature, he passed the letter to the older man. Raoul read without comment, offered it to Alain de Dinan. One by one, they read the letter, studying those dangling wax seals with the exaggerated care due a holy relic. Only after the letter had made a circuit of the chapter house and was once more in Constance’s hands did the questions begin to flow. Did Her Grace believe the seals were genuine? Who else knew of this letter? And how had it come into the possession of Canon Robert?

“Does it truly matter?” she challenged. ”This letter is evidence of a foul crime, a mortal sin. Once its contents become known, it will give the Holy Church a potent weapon to use against the ungodly heresies that have taken root in Toulouse. And it will be of great interest to the king of the French and to the Lionheart.”

Richard Coeur de Lion. England’s charismatic crusader-king, celebrated throughout Christendom for his courage, his bravura deeds on the bloody battlefields of the Holy Land, his mastery of the arts of war. But in Constance’s mouth, the admiring sobriquet became a sardonic epithet, for her loathing of her Angevin in-laws burned to the very bone.

“This letter will draw as much blood as any dagger thrust,” she said, “and I will not pretend that does not give me pleasure. But there is far more at stake than past wrongs and unhealed grievances.” She paused, and for the first time that night, they saw her smile. “With this, we shall make my son England’s king.”
 

Copyright©Sharon Kay Penman