The cost of acting out heroic war games
was measured in blood
as well as money.
Showing contempt for the defenders of the besieged castle by standing in front of them without armour,
a lone archer's bolt found the join between Richard's neck and his shoulder.
The wound turned gangrenous.
Within ten days,
the Lionheart was dead,
a triumph of daredevil romance over common sense.
His body was laid in a tomb at the foot of his father's, in Anjou.
The heart of the Lionheart was taken
to the great cathedral at Rouen in Normandy,
which seems fitting,
since this city was always more of a capital to Richard than London.
His brother John, who succeeded him,
was buried in England,
mostly in Worcester Cathedral,
because the Monks of Craxton Abbey
had taken care to steal away his entrails,
making John in death, as he'd been in life,
one is attempted to say,
gutless.