Taken aback, Josse said, ‘Because she is both an orphan and a widow, and likely to be wealthy. And, since you are not, as you say, her uncle, but her cousin, there is no reason why you should not try to acquire your dispensation and marry her.’
The surprise on de Courtenay’s face had to be genuine. He echoed faintly, ‘Marry her?’ and then, to Josse’s consternation, burst out laughing.
‘Do you deny that you have been posing as her uncle?’ Josse demanded, puzzled and irritated by the laughter.
‘No, no, I don’t deny it.’ A fresh chuckle burst from de Courtenay. ‘I never can get these complicated strands of family ties straight. I’ve always felt like Joanna’s uncle, that’s for sure.’ He was looking intently at Josse, no longer laughing. ‘But, uncle or cousin, you must believe me, Sir Josse, when I assure you I have no thought to marry her. Once, maybe, when she was virginal and unsullied, I might have, although even then I had — No.’
There was a silence. Josse, fighting to control his rage — when she was virgin and unsullied, indeed! And who was responsible for the ending of that innocent state? — wanted very much to slam his fist into de Courtenay’s pensive face.
Eventually, mastering himself, he said, ‘So what do you want with her?’
De Courtenay looked up. ‘I have not, Sir Josse, been entirely frank with you,’ he said. ‘I have spoken all along as if Joanna were alone, whereas in fact that is not true.’
‘Indeed?’ Josse said coldly.
‘Indeed. She has a son, a boy of seven years. I do not know his name — I have never met him — but I do know of his existence.’
Of course you do, Josse wanted to say. It was Joanna’s pregnancy with that very child which led to you arranging for her the hell on earth that was her marriage to Thorald de Lehon.
He managed to keep the accusation back. ‘What of it?’ he said instead.
De Courtenay seemed to be thinking. ‘Joanna was married to a man named Thorald de Lehon,’ he said, ‘but the child was not his.’ He looked up at Josse, his face expressionless. ‘The boy was conceived at court, in Windsor, during the Christmas festivities of the year 1184.’
‘Ah, Christmas at court,’ Josse said, putting on a smile as if happily reminiscing. ‘Fun and games under the Lord of Misrule, eh?’
‘Quite so,’ de Courtenay agreed. ‘You’ll recall, Sir Josse, how it is? How we all tend to forget ourselves in the celebrations, when we’ve been dancing all evening and have had more to drink than is wise?’
‘Oh, aye.’
‘Especially — ’ de Courtenay was leaning closer now, watching Josse for any nuance of reaction — ‘when there is such a clear lead given from the top.’
‘From the top?’ Josse tried to work out what de Courtenay was implying. Then, remembering Joanna speaking of the old King and his numerous mistresses, he nodded. ‘Aye. King Henry, they do say, enjoyed the company of many women. Rosamund Clifford, the princess Alais, and-’
‘And?’ de Courtenay prompted.
Josse shrugged. ‘Any number of other passing fancies, I dare say.’ He was beginning to have a dreadful suspicion. ‘And, where the King leads, his sons will follow,’ he murmured, horrified at his own tentative conclusion yet, at the same time, appreciating how very possible it was.
‘His sons?’ de Courtenay said.
Josse was picturing Ninian’s brilliant blue eyes. Why on earth had he not realised sooner? Not Joanna’s eyes, not inherited from his mother.
Blue eyes, the like of which Josse had been so sure he’d seen once before.
In the face of the boy’s father.
‘I speak,’ he said softly, ‘of King Richard.’
De Courtenay stared at him. ‘Do you?’
‘Aye.’
De Courtenay leaned back on his elbow again. ‘Are you often at court, Sir Josse?’
‘Infrequently.’
‘Yet they speak of you as a King’s man.’
‘I have had the honour to serve King Richard and I await any further instruction he should care to give me.’ Good God, but if Josse were right about this …
‘But you do not attend your King at court,’ de Courtenay was persisting.
‘No. Not often.’
‘Then,’ the voice was low now, ‘you will not know how our blessed King Richard used to comport himself during such festivities as the Christmas season. He was not a man to dance and to carouse, Sir Josse, not once he had put in the appearance which court etiquette demanded of him. Do you know what our beloved King was wont to do then, as soon as he could make himself scarce?’
Josse shook his head. He was intent on what de Courtenay was saying — how, indeed, could he not be! — but, at the same time, he was wondering, with a grim feeling of foreboding, why the man insisted on speaking of his King in the past tense.
‘King Richard preferred to retire to his room with his men and play at mock battles,’ de Courtenay said. ‘I have it on the best authority that his favourite was a re-enactment of the battle of Jericho, and that he himself would blow the trumpet that brought down the city walls.’
Josse said firmly, ‘I don’t believe you.’
De Courtenay shrugged. ‘Please yourself. It is of no import. But what you must rid yourself of, Sir Josse, is any idea of King Richard summoning pretty young maidens to his bedchamber and seducing them. He was never, I do assure you, that sort of man.’
‘I-’ Josse couldn’t think how to go on. De Courtenay’s words had the ring of truth, that was the problem; what little Josse knew of King Richard made him believe his sovereign far more likely to prefer discussing ancient battle tactics to deflowering virgins.
But if not Richard, then who?
‘I believe Prince John was at court that Christmas,’ he began, hating himself for the questioning tone.
‘Why do you speak of the sons,’ de Courtenay murmured, ‘when there was then so much life and vigour still in the father?’
It took a moment or two for it to sink in.
The father.
Henry Plantagenet, Richard’s father, the man who had passed down to this son, too, those bright blue eyes. Strong and bull-headed ruler of England for thirty-five years, and, at a generous estimate, some fifty or more years old that Christmas when Joanna’s son was conceived.
And she a child of sixteen!
Was it true? Was Henry of England truly the father of Joanna’s son?
Josse leaned forward and took hold of de Courtenay by the shoulders. Tightening his fingers till they dug deep into the sinewy flesh — he could sense de Courtenay brace himself against the pain — Josse said, ‘If I ever discover that you are lying to me, and that Joanna’s son is not the child of Henry Plantagenet, then, so help me, I shall find you and kill you.’
De Courtenay met his eyes. You could not, Josse had to admit, fault his courage. ‘It is the truth,’ he said simply. ‘Believe me, I led her to his bed. I was there when he took her.’
Josse almost killed him there and then. Digging in his fingers still further, eliciting a faint moan from de Courtenay, he said, ‘She was a child, man! Your own kin! And you sacrificed her to an old man’s lust!’
‘He’d had his eye on her from the moment she arrived,’ de Courtenay panted. ‘If it hadn’t been me, then somebody else would have fetched her to him. Aaagh! And I thought — aaaagh!’
Josse slackened his grip a fraction. ‘You thought you might as well gain the glory,’ he finished. ‘Attract a little of the royal benevolence for yourself. Eh?’
‘Why not?’ de Courtenay countered. ‘And he was grateful — you had to give the old King that, he never forgot when you’d done him a favour.’
‘And, not content with that, you then gave your beautiful niece to an old goat who used her like a whore throughout her marriage,’ Josse breathed. ‘Why Brittany, de Courtenay? Why send her so far afield?’