A King's Ransom

  Also by Sharon Kay Penman

  THE HISTORICAL NOVELS

  The Sunne in Splendour

  Here Be Dragons

  Falls the Shadow

  The Reckoning

  When Christ and His Saints Slept

  Time and Chance

  Devil’s Brood

  Lionheart

  THE MEDIEVAL MYSTERIES

  The Queen’s Man

  Cruel as the Grave

  Dragon’s Lair

  Prince of Darkness

  A MARIAN WOOD BOOK

  Published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons

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  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Copyright © 2014 by Sharon Kay Penman

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Penman, Sharon Kay,

  A King’s Ransom/Sharon Kay Penman.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-698-16717-9

  1. Richard I, King of England, 1157–1199—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History—Richard I, 1189–1199—Fiction. 3. Historical fiction. 4. Biographical fiction. I. Title.

  PS3566.E474K56 2014 2013042663

  813'.54—dc23

  Maps by John Burgoyne

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  To Dr. John Phillips

  CONTENTS

  Also by Sharon Kay Penman

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters as of 1192

  Maps

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  As of 1192

  ROYAL HOUSE OF ENGLAND

  RICHARD (b. September 1157), King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Poitou and Anjou

  ELEANOR (b. 1124), his mother, Dowager Queen of England, widow of King Henry II, Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right

  BERENGARIA (b. c. 1170), Richard’s queen, wed in Cyprus in 1191, daughter of Sancho VI, King of Navarre

  JOHN (b. December 1166), Richard’s youngest brother, Count of Mortain

  JOANNA (b. October 1165), Richard’s youngest sister, widowed Queen of Sicily

  LEONORA (b. 1161), Richard’s younger sister, Queen of Castile

  HENRY (Hal) (1155–1183), Richard’s deceased elder brother

  GEOFFREY (1158–1186), Richard’s deceased younger brother, Duke of Brittany by his marriage to Constance of Brittany

  MATILDA (Tilda) (1156–1189), Richard’s deceased older sister, Duchess of Saxony and Bavaria by her marriage to Heinrich der Löwe, mother of Richenza, Henrik, Otto, and Wilhelm

  RICHENZA (b. 1171), Richard’s niece, wife of Jaufre, Count of Perche

  OTTO (b. 1177), Richard’s nephew

  WILHELM (b. 1184), Richard’s nephew

  PHILIP (b. 1181), Richard’s illegitimate son

  ENGLAND, NORMANDY, POITOU

  GEOFFREY (Geoff), Richard’s older half brother, Henry’s illegitimate son, Archbishop of York

  WILLIAM MARSHAL, one of Richard’s justiciars, wed to Isabel de Clare, Countess of Pembroke

  HUBERT WALTER, Bishop of Salisbury, accompanied Richard on crusade

  GUILLAUME DE LONGCHAMP, Bishop of Ely, Richard’s chancellor

  GAUTIER DE COUTANCES, Archbishop of Rouen

  ROBERT BEAUMONT, Earl of Leicester, accompanied Richard on crusade

  RANDOLPH DE BLUNDEVILLE, Earl of Chester, second husband of Constance, Duchess of Brittany

  ANDRÉ DE CHAUVIGNY, Lord of Châteauroux, Richard’s cousin, accompanied him on crusade; wed to heiress Denise de Deols

  MERCADIER, Richard’s notorious mercenary captain

  BRITTANY

  CONSTANCE, Duchess of Brittany, widow of Geoffrey, now wed to the Earl of Chester

  Her children by Geoffrey:

  ARTHUR and ELEANOR (Aenor)

  ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE

  PHILIPPE CAPET (b. 1165), King of France

  LOUIS CAPET, Philippe’s father, first husband of Eleanor, deceased

  MARGUERITE CAPET, Philippe’s half sister, widow of Richard’s brother Hal, now wed to Bela, King of Hungary

  MARIE, Countess of Champagne, half sister to Philippe and Richard, Eleanor’s daughter by Louis Capet, mother of Henri of Champagne

  HENRI, Count of Champagne, Marie’s son, Richard’s nephew, now wed to Isabella, Queen of Jerusalem

  ALYS CAPET, Philippe’s half sister, betrothed to Richard in childhood

  PHILIP DE DREUX, Bishop of Beauvais, Philippe’s cousin

  ROYAL HOUSE OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

  HEINRICH VON HOHENSTAUFEN (b. 1165), Holy Roman Emperor

  CONSTANCE DE HAUTEVILLE, his empress, daughter of a Sicilian king

  KONRAD VON HOHENSTAUFEN, Count of the Palatine, Heinrich’s uncle

  CONRAD, Duke of SWABIA, Heinrich’s younger brother

  OTTO, Count of BURGUNDY, Heinrich’s younger brother

  PHILIP, briefly the Bishop of Würzburg, later the Duke of Tuscany, Heinrich’s youngest brother

  GERMANY

  HEINRICH “DER LÖWE,” former Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, wed to Richard’s deceased sister, Matilda

  HENRIK, his eldest son

  OTTO, RICHENZA, and WILHELM, his other children, raised in England

  BONIFACE, Marquis of Montferrat, brother to the slain Conrad of Montferrat

  MARKWARD VON ANNWEILER, Heinrich’s seneschal

  COUNT DIETRICH VON HOCHSTADEN, Heinrich’s vassal

  LUDWIG, current Duke of Bavaria

&
nbsp; ALBERT, Bishop of Liege, assassinated that November

  SOON to be in rebellion against Heinrich:

  BRUNO, Archbishop of Cologne

  ADOLF VON ALTENA, his nephew, Provost of Cologne Cathedral

  KONRAD VON WITTELSBACH, Archbishop of Mainz

  HEINRICH, Duke of Brabant

  HEINRICH, Duke of Limburg

  OTTOKAR, Duke of Bohemia

  AUSTRIA

  LEOPOLD VON BABENBERG, Duke of Austria

  HELENA, his duchess

  FRIEDRICH, his eldest son

  LEOPOLD, his youngest son

  HADMAR VON KUENRING, Leopold’s ministerialis, castellan of Durnstein Castle

  CHAPTER ONE

  NOVEMBER 1192

  Off the Coast of Sicily

  They were dangerously close to the coast of North Africa, so the ship’s master had warned his crew to keep a sharp eye out for pirates. When the sailor perched up in the rigging shouted, men instinctively dropped hands to sword hilts, for they were battle-seasoned soldiers, returning home from Outremer after a three-year truce had been made with the Sultan of Egypt, Salah al-Din, known to the crusaders as Saladin. They crowded to the gunwales, but they saw no sails upon the horizon, only the slate-grey sea and a sky mottled with winter clouds.

  Finding no sign of pirates, the knights glanced toward the man standing in the prow of the ship. He would always attract more than his share of attention, for he was taller than most men, his hair and beard a striking shade of red-gold. But he was in need of a barber’s shears, and the costly wool mantle draped about his shoulders was frayed around the edges, stained with sweat and sea salt. While these weeks at sea had taken their toll, his hollowed cheekbones and pallor testified to his near-fatal bout with quartan fever. He might be almost invincible in hand-to-hand combat, but he’d not been able to stave off the deadly maladies and miasmas that stalked the Holy Land. Twice he’d come close to dying from sickness in Outremer, the fate of their crusade rising and falling with his every labored breath, for all knew they had no chance of prevailing without him—even the French lords, whose loathing for Saladin paled in comparison to the intensity of the hatred they felt for the Lionheart, Richard of England.

  The animosity between the kings of England and France had burned hotter than any Saracen flame. Unable to match Richard’s battlefield brilliance or utter fearlessness, Philippe Capet had broken the oath he’d sworn to God and abandoned the crusade after the fall of Acre, returning to France with his honor in tatters and his heart filled with bile. He soon began to conspire with Richard’s younger brother John, hoping to take advantage of the English king’s absence to lay claim to his domains in Normandy. When he learned of their treachery, Richard was desperate to get home, to save his kingdom while he still could. But he’d remained in Outremer, bound by a holy vow that fettered him more tightly than any chains could have done, and after he’d managed to retake the crusader city of Jaffa from a much larger Saracen army, Saladin was ready to discuss peace terms.

  Richard won some significant concessions. When he arrived in Outremer, the Kingdom of Jerusalem had consisted of the city of Tyre and a siege camp at Acre. When he departed sixteen months later, the kingdom stretched along the coast from Tyre to Jaffa, Saladin had lost the powerful stronghold of Ascalon, and Christian pilgrims could once again worship in the Holy City. But they had not reclaimed Jerusalem from the Saracens. The most sacred city in Christendom still flew the saffron banners of Saladin, and even before he’d left Outremer, Richard’s enemies were declaring the crusade a failure.

  What they did not know was that he, too, believed he had failed. He’d been one of the few to refuse to visit Jerusalem and pray at the Holy Sepulchre, confiding to his queen that he’d not earned that right. He’d promised the new ruler of Jerusalem, his nephew Henri of Champagne, that he would come back as soon as he’d dealt with the unscrupulous French king and his faithless brother. And on that October night as his ship headed out into the open sea and Acre receded into the distance, he’d whispered a fervent prayer that God would keep Outremer safe until he could return.

  The ship’s master was conducting a shouted dialogue with the lookout in the rigging, translating for the English king’s benefit. Turning toward his knights, Richard tersely informed them that a storm was nigh. A muted sound of dismay swept through their ranks, for most men were convinced it took more courage to set foot on the wet, pitching deck of the Holy Rood than it did to ride onto a hundred battlefields. So far they’d been lucky, not having encountered any of the fierce gales that made winter travel so hazardous. But they all had vivid memories of the violent storms that had battered the royal fleet on their way to Outremer, and many of them now hastily made the sign of the cross.

  It was said that sailors could predict bad weather in their very bones, and this one’s forecast was not long in proving true. The wind began to rise, catching the ship’s sails and rippling the dark surface of the sea with frothy whitecaps. Black clouds gathered along the horizon, and the day’s light was soon blotted out. The crewmen scrambled to obey their master’s commands, the helmsman hunched over the tiller like a priest at his altar as he struggled to keep the bow headed into the waves. The Bishop of Salisbury and some of the others sought the dubious shelter of their canvas tent. Richard remained on deck, for he always chose to face his foes head-on, and so his Welsh cousin Morgan ap Ranulf and the Flemish lord Baldwin de Bethune stayed loyally by his side, holding tight to the gunwale as the ship dropped down into troughs and battled its way up again. The ship’s master had told them that their local pilot said there was a safe harbor up the coast at Sciacca, and as they raced the storm, more and more men sought out the clerics on board, asking to be shriven of their sins while there was still time.

  By now the wind was howling like a wolf pack on the prowl. They’d reefed the sails, but the Holy Rood continued to heel dangerously. When they tried to lower them, one of the downhaul lines started to come loose. With courage that left even Richard dumbfounded, two sailors scrambled up into the rigging and somehow managed to reattach it. With both masts bare, their ship was still propelled by the force of the wind on the hull and rigging, but it no longer skimmed the waves like a bird about to take flight.

  Rain had begun to fall, needle-sharp against their skin; within moments, all on deck were drenched. They’d not be able to reach Sciacca, the master told Richard, shouting to be heard above the roaring of the wind, and were heading for a cove a few leagues below the town. The men on the Holy Rood had often faced down Death. Most had thought themselves doomed at Jaffa, caught outside the city walls by an army seven times the size of theirs. Richard had saved them, though, gaining a victory that should have been impossible. As joyful as they’d been by that miraculous reprieve, they felt even more grateful when their ship at last dropped anchor in a small inlet that offered shelter from the worst of the storm, for they feared death by drowning more than being slain by an enemy’s blade.

  They awakened at dawn to a Sicilian sunrise that tinted the sky a pale gold, the occasional cloud spangled in copper and bronze. With the prospect of a fair day for sailing, spirits rose and they made ready to break their fast with bread, cheese, and figs. But it was then that a warning yell came from the rigging, and they soon saw the lateen sails of two large galleys heading toward the cove. The ship’s master, a grizzled Pisan who’d lived most of his life on the deck of a ship, started to curse under his breath. Had they encountered pirate galleys in open water, they’d have had a good chance of outrunning them, but their sails had not yet been hoisted, making them a tempting target for sea rovers, who were now maneuvering to block the entrance to the bay.

  Richard had joined the older man at the gunwale, his gaze fixed upon the wind-whipped flags flying from the galley mastheads. And then he smiled. “Not pirates,” he announced to his watching men. “They are King Tancred’s galleys.” Turning to the master, he gave the order to run up the banner of the English Royal House. The galleys were close
enough now for them to see the reaction of the men aboard, the easing of tension as they realized the Holy Rood was not a threat. The largest of the ships was soon within hailing distance, and after getting confirmation that the King of England was indeed a passenger, they invited Richard to board their galley to confer with their lord, the Count of Conversano. He gladly accepted, hungry for news of his kingdom and his enemies, and, taking the Bishop of Salisbury and two Templar knights, he jumped into their longboat and was rowed across to the galley.

  Aboard the Holy Rood, there was relieved laughter; no man who’d taken part in Richard’s attack upon a huge Saracen ship off the coast of Tyre was eager to experience another sea battle. Morgan ap Ranulf helped himself to a chunk of bread smeared with honey and watched as his cousin the king boarded the galley and was given a respectful welcome. He was soon joined by a crusader comrade and friend, Warin Fitz Gerald, and obligingly broke off a piece of the loaf for the Norman knight as they joked who was more wretched, a knight on the deck of a ship or a sailor on horseback. Warin had a ribald sense of humor and he was soon speculating who would be unhappier, a virgin in a bawdy house or a whore in a nunnery. Morgan elbowed him in the ribs, reminding Warin of their mock pact not to speak of women whilst they were stranded on shipboard, having an itch but no way to scratch it.

  Such talk turned Morgan’s thoughts to the woman he loved, the Lady Mariam, who’d sailed from Acre on Michaelmas with the king’s sister, Joanna, widowed Queen of Sicily, and the king’s wife, Berengaria of Navarre. Surely they’d safely reached Sicily by now, intending to continue their journey overland, for Joanna was very susceptible to mal de mer; when she’d sailed for Sicily at age ten to wed William de Hauteville, she’d become so seasick that they’d been forced to land at Naples and travel the rest of the way on horseback. That homesick little child-bride was now a stunningly beautiful woman of twenty-seven, and Morgan, who was very fond of his cousin, wondered what fate would await her upon her return to Richard’s realm. She’d be a rare marital prize, and he hoped the English king would choose a man who was worthy of her.