LANCASTER CASTLE, LANCASHIRE
MONDAY, 27TH DAY OF JANUARY
“YES IT’S ALL VERY interesting,” John explained, “I just don’t understand why we’re currently talking instead of having sex.”
He poured all his considerable talent into keeping a straight face. One hand folded delicately over the other atop the smooth stone tabletop, and John looked both of his visitors in the face earnestly. Each opened his mouth, gaped at the other, closed it again, and repeated.
“I am not certain I understand you,” one of the Frenchmen finally answered.
“Having sex,” John replied, and reached across to the platter of fruits and cheeses in the center of the table. “If we don’t have sex now, I won’t be hungry again by dinner. We might as well do both.”
He popped a grape in his mouth, and the two Frenchmen inhaled.
“Perhaps they misunderstand?” John turned and addressed his host, the ever-prickly Roger de Montbegon, who stood dutifully nearby. “What’s the French word for it, Baron?”
“Manger, Your Grace,” he replied, thankfully wise to the game.
“Manger!” John snapped his fingers. “You should manger, while we speak.”
Both visitors practically melted with relief, and reached out for an item to eat. “I am so sorry,” one of them frowned, “I thought you said … having sex.”
“Yes, that’s what we call it here,” John answered. “I think perhaps your English is not as good as you think, friends. Very well, now that we’re all having sex together, what were you saying?”
John knew perfectly well what they wanted. They had been petitioning an audience with him for a month, which had launched a round of John’s favorite sport of ignoring important things. He’d already made them sail all the way to Lancaster just to meet with him, admittedly with the hopes that the river Lune would be frozen and prevent them from docking.
He’d long discovered that Frenchmen came in only two shapes—walrus or rat. Both of these were walruses, with bulbous noses and untamed whiskers, to say nothing of their teeth. They brought flowery words and painted eyebrows and black promises. King Philip of France wanted to take advantage of England’s misfortune by filling its absent throne with as much of his own influence as he could.
And he wanted the name of that influence to be King John.
“England will waste away trying to purchase Richard back,” the first walrus explained, slapping his flipper on the table. “Philip would hate to see your great country wither away so. England needs a king, and I think there is no knowing when Austria will release Richard, if ever.”
“How dare you!” John mocked offense. “There’s no need for such coarse language!”
“I—” The second walrus looked to the first. “Coarse language?”
The first barked, “What did I say?”
“Well I shall hardly repeat it.” John widened his eyes. “Honestly, who tutored you?”
They had come to woo him, and John was so very intimately familiar with the hoops a wooer will leap through to stay in favor. He would have made a finer point on how they should study their English if they meant to do business beyond their borders, but his brother was the King of England … and his English was ten times worse than any walrus.
When they continued, every word was impossibly deliberate, lest they misspeak again. “Philip wishes to support you, in Richard’s absence, for England’s stability.”
“Well.” John pretended to think on it. “We would have to have an orgy first.”
They went wide-eyed again.
“A meeting, that is. You’ve never heard the word orgy before, really? We’d need to have an orgy, I can’t make that kind of a decision without my brother present. We’ll have to wait until he’s back.”
“That’s not … I think perhaps we have not explained ourselves properly.”
“Oh! There is that word again!” John recoiled. Admittedly, think was already a foul enough word when used by most people, but doubly so by these two. “You’re mispronouncing it quite embarrassingly. You’re saying think, which means … well, something inappropriate! The proper word is fuck.”
Even Roger de Montbegon had to stifle a laugh at that.
“I apologize, Your Grace,” the man said, slowly. “As I said … I … I fuck you misunderstand us.”
This had just become John’s favorite day.
The first walrus fidgeted, likely due to some fish stuck in his flesh rolls that he might be saving for later, so the second took his turn. “King Richard was betrothed to Philip’s sister, the Countess of Vexin, before he so rudely took a wife in Cypress. Philip now extends that same offer to you.”
At that, John could honestly balk. He was used to the regency throwing daughters at him, which was just the most delightful side effect of being a prince. But the Countess of Vexin was not half as attractive as her title sounded. King Philip’s sister Alys was already over forty years old, and if John was purchasing a new mount he’d prefer a young filly over a broken and beaten plowhorse. So here he fell back to his usual excuse. “Oh, I’m married already, and I love her very deeply, whatever her name might be.”
The first man cocked his head. “Isabella?”
“No, a human, actually.”
“What?”
“As I said, I will fuck on this.” John stood, forcing both dignitaries to match him. “I will fuck on this long and hard. Thank you for this orgy, gentlemen, it has been good having sex with you both.”
Eventually they left, the crisp staccato of their heels echoing in the chamber. Lancaster Castle was full of crisscrossing black-and-white stripes—the sigil of the High Sheriff of Lancashire, Richard de Vernon—which apparently confused their already befuddled walrus bodies as they searched incorrectly for an exit. The conversation wasn’t over, John knew. They would not return to Paris without trying several more tactics. They’d abandon the marriage proposal and offer him lands instead. When he refused those, it would be ships and money. Then they might start getting creative. After that … after that, they would offer trouble.
“Thank you for watching, Roger,” John said, when at last they were gone. “Sometimes I just need an audience, you know. Entertaining myself becomes increasingly redundant as I grow older.”
“Do you fear at all they may be right?” the baron asked, hunting for a treat from the table’s platter.
“Well of course they’re right,” he said, hopping from his chair. The far side of the vaulted chamber had a doorway that opened to a balcony, he knew, which looked down upon the Lune below—and it was times like this when he wanted to see as much of the world as his eyes could hold. “But King Philip is being right for the wrong reasons. He wants to fund my ascension to the throne? I fuck not. You tell me—what sort of favor will he eventually ask in exchange?”
“Something hideous,” de Montbegon answered, accurately.
“Indeed.” John opened the door, felt the wicked chill of the outside slap him in the face, and closed it again. “I’d rather have nothing than to owe what I have to someone else.”
“And if Richard does not return?”
That was a nightmare scenario. “I am fortunately immune to flattery. Philip does not mean to endorse me, he means to endorse civil war.”
If Richard died, the throne could go either to John, or to Geoffrey’s son, Arthur Plantagenet. Though Geoffrey died before ever being king, he was the eldest of John’s brothers and his bloodline was strongest. But Arthur was five years old, and a ward of King Philip. The barons of England would rightfully see Arthur as Philip’s puppet, and half would revolt—by supporting John instead. Then, there would be an awful lot of fighting about it. Which would very much interfere with John’s plans of wasting his life drinking wine with young fillies.
Whereas if John accepted Philip’s offer and took the crown himself, it would be seen as a coup. He’d be quickly killed by someone he once thought loyal, and nobody would complain when Arthur became King—puppet or not.
“Richard is much better than me at most things, but I really wish I had taught him a bit about fucking.”
De Montbegon laughed. “Thinking?”
“No, actual fucking. If he’d just tried a woman out once or twice—just for the novelty of it—we wouldn’t have to worry about who becomes king after him.”
“He is married.”
“Not by choice. My mother shipped a woman off at him when he left for the Crusades, demanding that he marry her, specifically to avoid something like this. But unless she’s a very strange breed of woman who has a man’s mouth between her legs instead of the usual bits, then no—I doubt my brother’s tried making an heir with her.”
The tightening of the baron’s face said he’d rather be at his home in Hornby than continue that conversation. John abetted him by opening the balcony door again, wincing at the brisk air, and closing it behind him.
The world in front of him was one without King Richard, and that very much needed to change—and soon. From this vantage he could see the river docks where the French ship had moored. After another few days of antagonizing his guests, that vessel would leave without even a fraction of what it had come for. John did not know what King Philip’s response would be, but he had no doubt it would have more teeth than four tusks.
And for the first time since losing his virginity, John had absolutely no idea what to do.