The Passionate Brood by Margaret Campbell Barnes Read Free Book Online Page A

long. It’s high time you settled down with the man provided for you like your sisters before you.”
    The rare tears fell unheeded from her hazel-green eyes. “If I may not choose,” she begged, “at least find me someone who would care for the same sort of things! Someone—younger.”
    “There is my friend, Sholto of Navarre,” ventured Richard, who never could bear to see a woman cry.
    His father turned on him with all the pent-up aggravation caused by his quarrelling on the Continent. “Are you presuming to teach me my trade? You who, with your brothers, have turned Normandy and Aquitaine into a bear garden!” he raged. “How would an alliance with Navarre help to preserve the balance of power in Europe? You irresponsible young egoists see no further than your own petty piece of the pattern; while all my life I have been preventing bloodshed by balancing power, no more able to relax than some miserable juggler in full gaze of a fair.”
    The querulous note of a strong man ageing had crept into the King’s arresting voice. A few grey hairs had already begun to soften the aggressive colour of his hair from which his children had inherited only enough for beauty, and the energy it betokened had driven him so hard that both work and pleasure had begun to take their toll. “You think only of war, but diplomacy is the key to progress. And I ask you, where would diplomacy be without daughters?”
    He turned to the one still to be bartered, not unkindly, but as if he had forgotten her tears in the vortex of things that really mattered. “Get back to your mother, girl,” he ordered, “and tell her that if she cannot manage this wedding without any more fuss she may as well go back to Salisbury.”
    “Oh, no—not that. I will obey you,” promised Johanna.
    As soon as she was gone the King rounded sternly on his sons. His hot eyes glared at them, but subconsciously it was Eleanor whom he blamed. “And you two? What do you want?” he barked.
    “To be crowned now—in your lifetime—like Philip Capet,” said Henry.
    “Full control of my lands and revenues in Aquitaine so that I can afford to marry Ann,” demanded Richard, sliding off the trestle to join him.
    “Lands! Lands! Lands! Till there’s not a mouldering manor left for John.” Reluctantly, their father came back and sat in the chair Henry had vacated. “And all this insubordinate talk about marriage…One wants to marry and another won’t.” He slumped a little in the chair, and his favourite old hound flopped heavily at his feet. “I am getting on for fifty now, Henry, and weary of it.”
    “The more reason, Sir, why you should pass on some of the responsibility to me.” Henry spoke with cool restraint, but Richard was still raw from seeing Johanna hurt. “You sent me to fight for my possession of Aquitaine when I was no older than John,” he stormed, “and if you will not let me rule it independently and get married, by God’s beard, I will do homage to Louis of France!”
    The King leaned forward, his hands clenched so tightly on the arms of his chair that the strong, golden hairs on the backs of his hands seemed to bristle with rage. “So that’s how you spent your time abroad? Plotting with that young fop, Philip, against me?”
    Although the feudal laws were on his side, Richard had the grace to look ashamed. “Don’t I owe France fealty for it since I had it through my mother?” he argued.
    “And don’t you owe me some sort of reverence? How many times have I explained that with Ann in our hands still unmarried we can make better terms with France? You shall have her as soon as these disputes about her dowry are settled.”
    The King realised that Richard’s heritage was responsible for his continental outlook and he was making an effort to be friendly to his sons. After all, he never intended their conversations to be unpleasant. Sometimes he overheard scraps of talk when they were with their mother—thoughts tossed as