CHAPTER FORTY

In the heat of the afternoon, when everything was ready but the mounting and riding, Richard retreated to his tent. He would not linger there for long; it was hot and close, and the air was slightly sweeter outside under his canopy. But if he would rest—and truly he should, for God and Saint Morpheus knew when he would sleep again—then he must do it out of sight of his army.

A page wielded a fan, which helped somewhat with the heat. Richard stripped and lay naked on his cot. The breeze from the fan cooled the sweat on his skin. A curtain of gauze kept out the myriad stinging flies and some of the dust. It was almost pleasant, and surprisingly restful.

As he lay there with his arm over his eyes, he heard a soft footstep and an even softer shuffle, then a swift scamper as the page took advantage of the reprieve. Richard lay motionless, barely breathing. He had recognized the step; now he caught a hint of musk, which Blondel the singer was girlishly fond of.

Blondel plied the fan for a little while, nearly long enough for Richard to fall asleep. Then, softly, he began to stroke Richard’s hair.

Richard sighed and lowered his arm, turning to fix the singer with a hard stare. “Trying to worm your way back into favor, then?” he said.

Blondel flushed, then paled. “Will you ever forgive me?”

“If you ever honestly repent,” Richard said, “I might.”

“I do repent,” said Blondel. “Before God, sire, that is the truth.”

“Ah,” Richard said, “but what is it that you’re sorry for? You’d as soon cut my Saracen’s throat as look at him. Jealousy is flattering, boy, but a little of it goes a very long way.”

Blondel’s face was a tumult of emotions: anger, grief, guilt, fear. “I can’t help it, my lord,” he said. “I love you too much.”

“Yes,” said Richard. “You do.”

Blondel gasped. Richard felt no pity for him. It was only just. Jealousy had nearly cost him a loyal and useful servant. Blondel would not indulge in it again, if he hoped to remain in Richard’s favor.

Slowly Blondel drew back. Just as he would have moved out of reach, Richard caught his hand. He froze. Richard drew him in.

Then Richard also froze. Something had changed: a dimming of the sunlight that slanted through the open tent flap, a shift in the currents of the air. Blondel’s musk was strong in his nostrils, but another scent crept through it, a scent as familiar as his own skin. Attar of roses.

Wherever his mother went, that fragrance followed her. A priest had told him once when he was very young, that the odor of sanctity was the scent of roses. He had asked, not entirely innocently, “Does that mean my mother is a saint?” The priest had sputtered and gobbled most satisfactorily.

A shadow came in with the scent, drifting through the flap and the veil. It was a shape of darkness, barely substantial, perhaps not really there at all; but his mother’s presence imbued it with a certain shiver of terror.

The shadow halted just out of reach. It had no face, only darkness, but the tilt of its head was unmistakably Eleanor’s. So too the voice, although it seemed dim and faint, as if it came from very far away. “Tell your boy to leave,” it said. “This is between the two of us.”

Richard bent his head toward Blondel, who crouched staring like a rabbit in a noose. The singer needed no further encouragement. He dropped the fan and fled.

The queen’s shadow sat on the stool that he had vacated. It was eerie to watch it move as she moved: her gestures, her peculiarities of gait and posture. Richard kept it in the corner of his eye: it was less disconcerting. “I suppose you’re here to help me conquer Jerusalem,” he said.

“I have helped you,” his mother said. “The sultan is dead. Now I would thank you to give me the thing you wear about your neck.”

“No,” said Richard. “It was given to me on condition that I keep it and give it to no one.”

The shadow stiffened. “You have no faintest conception of what it is or how to wield it.”

That was true, but he was not about to admit it. “I know enough to understand that it should stay where it was given. The former owner might come calling for it.”

“Yes,” said his mother, “and he’ll blast you where you stand. I have the means to resist him.”

“Do you? You’re that strong, are you? Or have you had help? Have you made another of your bargains with the Devil, Mother?”

The shadow did not stir, not even a fraction, but Richard fought an almost uncontrollable impulse to dive for shelter. Much was bruited about of the black temper of Anjou, but the white-hot passion of Aquitaine was no less potent.

It could not sway him to her will—not now, not with the Seal of Solomon about his neck. Nor did her words, though they were cruel enough to cut. “You stubborn child! You’ll destroy us all with your foolishness.”

“I come by it honestly,” he said.

“Give me the Seal,” said Eleanor.

“No,” said Richard.

Her shadow contorted with frustration, twisting and deforming like a column of smoke in a sudden wind. Richard watched, fascinated. He knew little of magic and would have been glad to know less, but this much he knew: things of power came with strictures, rules that could not be violated except at great cost. If she had been able simply to take this thing, she would have.

It was an unusual sensation, to hold power over his mother. He found that he enjoyed it a great deal. “I’ll make you a promise,” he said. “When I’m done with this thing, when I’m free to give it as a gift, you’ll have it. It won’t be long now. We’re on our way to Jerusalem.”

“You’ll lose the Seal,” she said. “You’ll lose everything.”

“Maybe,” said Richard. “Maybe not. However that may be, I’m not giving the Seal to you until the war is over.” He rose. “Now if you don’t mind, I have a battle to fight.”

He discovered that he was holding his breath. It was never the wisest choice to defy his mother, and yet it griped his belly to think of giving the Seal to her. Maybe he could not use its power, but some deep part of him did not want his mother to wield it, either. Even to take Jerusalem. Even to destroy the Old Man of the Mountain.

In her own person she might have been able to overwhelm him. In that form, her only power over him was in his memory of old fear. He was a man now, a warrior and a king. He faced his fear; he fell upon it and conquered it.

She gave way. This was not the end of it, he knew very well. But if she let him be until he took Jerusalem, he would be reasonably content.

For a long while after her shadow faded into the hot and dusty air, he sat on his bed and tried not to shake. For all his bold pretenses, he was still to a degree the small and headstrong boy who had looked on his mother in absolute adoration. She was all that was wonderful and powerful and terrible, and his place in the world was to bow at her feet.

He thrust himself up, banishing the memory with a hawk and a spit and, for good measure, a quick sign of the cross. Then he bellowed for his servants. “God’s arse! Have you all gone to sleep? We have a war to win!”