Note: some historians have suggested that Richard (I) the Lionheart, king of England, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou and Poitou, was homosexual or bisexual, but nobody knows for sure. This story develops on the idea that he was bisexual.
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Normandy, A.D. 1195
Gilles Ville-Neuve dared not resist the two armed guardsmen and their captain, Mercadier, when they came for him as he practiced at the pell. He was armed with a sword and buckler, but he dropped these weapons instantly when he was told he was being taken to see King Richard, whose guest he was in this castle.
Guest. A polite euphemism for hostage.
In Normandy, Richard's proper title was Duke, but he was also king of England and everyone knew him as such.
As Gilles and his escorts entered the castle keep, Gilles wondered what this could all be about, desperately hoping his father hadn't abandoned him. He had been the king's warrantor for the good behaviour of his father, Thierry de Ville-Neuve, for six years. In that time, he had seen the king but a few times, and never in private audience. Gilles stomach lurched at the possibilities. He dreaded the nature of this summons.
As the squire and his minders ascended the steps from the main hall into the royal chambers above, Gilles considered his rough appearance. Fresh from the practice field, he was hot and sweaty and he feared he was not presentable for his liege lord. There was no helping it. If the king sent men to collect him, he was wanted at once and a king was not to be kept waiting.
The living quarters were spacious and richly appointed. The only light came from a double window on one wall. The room was framed by stone walls covered in painted wall hangings depicting biblical scenes and the lives of saints in vivid colours. There was a bed with bolsters and cushions and embroidered coverings. A massive wardrobe with heavy doors, all garishly painted, would hold the liege lord's unimaginably large collection of fashionable clothing. King Richard's banner of three lions on a field of red hung over a stool occupied by the very man himself.
The guardsmen stood Gilles before the king, but Gilles had sense enough to take a knee before his lord and captor.
Richard Coeur de Lion himself was unmistakeable. Long-limbed, Gilles knew the king stood at six-and-a-half feet, head and shoulders above most men. Currently, he was seated in an x-framed stool ornamented with lion heads and feet. His reddish-blond hair flowed out from under a scarlet cap embroidered in gold. A well-trimmed beard framed the handsome, ruddy countenance. Ice-blue eyes stared at Gilles in shocking contrast to the rose-red tunic blazing over his chest. A mantle decorated with one of his devices, the half-moon and sunburst, repeated in silver, sat on his shoulders. His feet were covered in cloth of gold and he wore golden spurs. His sword was worn on a silver belt, and was likewise sheathed in a silver scabbard.
The monarch had a table at his elbow which was nearly buried in parchments: dispatches from the various sieges Richard was overseeing around Normandy, Anjou and Brittany. Richard was at war with Philippe-Auguste, king of France, who had conquered large portions of the king's heritage while Richard was a prisoner of the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany. Now Richard was free and determined to reverse those losses.
He picked one of the letters up and shook it at Gilles.
"Do you know what this is, boy?" King Richard asked.
"Your grace, I do not."
"It is the seneschal of Normandy's account of your father's response to his demand that he should temporarily relinquish his castle to ducal control for security against the encroachments of the French king."
Gilles' heart sank. He could only imagine. His father would never surrender his patrimony, not even for a temporary security measure. Not even to save his son's life.
Gilles imagined the king drawing that extraordinary sword and using it to personally carve him into chops before barking to Captain Mercadier to have the pieces put in a bag and catapulted over Lord Thierry's castle wall. There were precedents for such cruelty in the world.
"He was reminded that you are in our care as a hostage for his loyalty, but he replied he had the cock and balls to make more sons and better ones than you. And to cap off his disloyalty, he declared that he turned his allegiance now to King Philippe, whom he calls rightful lord of Normandy."
Gilles flushed with fury at his father's cold dismissal. He had five brothers. Gilles always feared his father considered him expendable. He had received word that his mother had died months ago. His brothers would not dare to defy the old man for their youngest sibling. There was nobody to temper his father's obstinacy.
"So, tell us," Richard bellowed. The rage of the Angevin was well-known and much to be feared. "What are we to do with you? What would you do in our place?"
Gilles did not know the king expected an answer from him until Mercadier gave him a hard slap on the back of the head. He reeled from the blow.
"Your grace, let me live and I will be your servant. I will give you the fealty for Ville-Neuve that my father denies you and I will give it to you over his own dead body. But allow me to serve you, and I shall take that castle from him and serve as your castellan against King Philippe, the Devil, and such another neighbour besides."
"You would turn against your father?"
"I would serve my duke and king."
Richard considered this. Gilles had no time to calculate his responses. It was well known that Richard prized loyalty highly, even in an enemy, but it was also a fact that he and his own father had quarrelled deeply both on and off the battlefield. Gilles gambled that the king might sympathize with another rebel son.
"Mercadier," the king said.
Gilles feared the worst. Would the blow come in this pristine chamber or would he be taken to the scaffold to be hanged or beheaded? Mercadier and his mercenaries were just the men for such a job.
"Leave us," King Richard told the mercenary.
Mercadier and the two guardsmen saluted the king and left the chamber. Gilles was stunned. Was the king considering his offer?
