Lords of the White Castle (15 page)

'I feel sorry for the lass,' Fulke said wryly, 'but I cannot help wondering if I am a dupe for doing so. I think if my mother had borne any girls, my sister would have been just like that.'

'Thank heaven for small mercies that she didn't, else you'd all be wound tightly round the wench's smallest finger,' Jean said prophetically.

Theobald Walter slowly became aware that he was being addressed. 'What?' he said to his brother.

Hubert gave an exasperated sigh. 'I said you could do worse than to consider le Vavasour's suggestion.'

They were sitting in Theobald's tent, drinking a final cup of wine before retiring. It was late, although before the hour of midnight matins. For the final time, Hubert was wearing the robes of office that marked him Archdeacon of York. On the morrow he would be consecrated Bishop of Salisbury and would don a mantle embroidered with thread of gold and the gilded mitre of his office.

'What, and sue for the hand of a twelve-year-old girl? Do you think I'm a depraved lecher?' Because Hubert's words had caught him on the raw, Theobald's tone rang with indignation.

'No, you lack-wit, sue for her lands!' Hubert snapped. 'She comes with a rich dowry and that's worth a moment of anyone's consideration, even someone as righteous as you! Edlington, Shipley, Hazelwood, Wragby! Whoever takes the girl to wife is going to inherit a fortune!'

Theobald eyed his brother with a feeling very close to distaste. Hubert might be a priest, but he was far from holy. His fiscal acumen was not just renowned, it was notorious. 'She is twelve years old,' he reiterated.

Hubert shrugged. 'What does that have to do with the colour of silver? By the time the daughter is, say, fourteen or fifteen and fit for breeding, you'll hardly be in your dotage, will you?'

Theobald waved his hand. 'Get out before I throw you out,' he snapped, but with impatience rather than acrimony. He was uncomfortably aware that from a family viewpoint, Hubert was speaking a lot of sense.

'I was leaving anyway.' Hubert levered himself to his feet and went to the tent flap, treading lightly for all his height and bulk. 'Think on it, Theo. It's a good offer and if you don't make wedding arrangements soon, you never will. Perhaps of the two of us, you should have been the priest.'

'I don't have the avarice for it,' Theobald growled.

Shaking his head but smiling, Hubert departed.

Theobald glared at the tent flap. The land would indeed be useful since it dovetailed with his own northern estates and interests. But did he really want a bride of twelve? Even fifteen seemed perilously young. Fulke had been fifteen when he had taken him on in the winter before they went to Ireland. He tried to imagine a girl of that age and grimaced. The image was too tempting and too appalling to bear. Leaping from the campstool, he took himself off to his narrow, solitary bed, its sheets made up with the tight precision of a pallet in a monastic cell.

CHAPTER 8

The gold silk of Fulke's surcoat was as nothing compared to the garments in which the great magnates and bishops were decked for the coronation. Vibrant hues of scarlet and blue, encrusted with jewels and embroidery, made the abbey floor glow like a living stained-glass window. So great was the quantity of seed pearls frosting Archbishop Baldwin's cope that it was a wonder he could walk.

Prince John was resplendent in a robe of blue wool the colour of a midnight sky. Small gemstones decorated throat and cuff and an enormous circular brooch of exquisitely worked gold fastened his sable-lined cloak. He looked every inch a prince, but all eyes were on Richard. Even clad in a tunic of plain russet wool, no one could mistake him for anything other than a king. The lack of adornment only emphasised his athletic build and the severe beauty of his bone structure.

With great ceremony, attendants stripped Richard of his tunic, shoes and chausses, to leave him standing in his shirt and braies. The lacings on the shirt were unfastened and the royal chest laid bare, revealing an expanse of virile, ruddy curls. Archbishop Baldwin anointed Richard's head, chest and hands with holy oil, thus conferring on him the divine sanction for his kingship.

The solemnity of the moment, the silence in the great vault of King Edward's abbey church, sent cold sparkles down Fulke's spine. From the expressions on the faces of those pressing around him, he knew they shared his sense of awe and wonder.

Following the anointing, Richard was dressed in the robes of kingship. A gown of purple silk replaced the russet tunic and instead of plain chausses there came a pair embroidered with tiny golden leopards.

Richard approached the altar and, lifting the crown in both hands, presented it to the Archbishop. Fulke exchanged a glance with his father who quirked a wry eyebrow at Richard's gesture of helping himself to the crown instead of waiting for Baldwin's sanction. The Archbishop maintained a dignified countenance, whatever his private thoughts on the matter. Smoothly he accepted the diadem and placed it upon Richard's brow, thereby binding Richard to his sacred position as ruler of England.

After the coronation came the banquet over which Marjorie and the other kitchen attendants had been slaving for the past three days. As in the abbey, there were no women present, even as servers. The wives and daughters of the men who had attended the crowning were gathered for their own feast in the Rufus Hall, presided over by Queen Eleanor.

Mindful of his knighting on the morrow and the fact that he had to keep vigil in the chapel overnight, Fulke drank sparingly of the wine even though it was excellent and plentiful. It would be a sacrilege to fall into a drunken slumber over his prayers. Even William, who was the most susceptible of the brothers to the pleasures of wine, managed to abstain.

Throughout the feast, nobles approached the high table, bearing gifts for the new King, among them Morys FitzRoger de Powys.

William went as rigid as a dog preparing to fight over a bone. 'How dare he?' he whispered, gripping the haft of his eating knife.

'Peace,' le Bran warned. 'It is his right as much as it is the right of any man present to bear gifts to the new King. Think you if we mar this feast with a brawl that Richard will regard us with favour?'

'But he will let him do homage for Whittington and it will never be ours!' William cried furiously.

'Hold your tongue!' le Brun hissed with equal fury. 'Now is neither the time nor the place. It galls me as much as it does you, but I swallow it. On the morrow, you become a knight. Make sure that you also become a man.'

William glowered but subsided with an angry slouch and flicked his eating knife to one side.

Fulke watched FitzRoger bow and return to his place. Whatever he had said to King Richard, he had not lingered to wheedle favours—probably wise while Coeur de Lion was beset on all sides by men vying for his attention and goodwill. The King was unlikely to remember one minor plea amongst the many.

While William continued to glower murderously at FitzRoger, Fulke's glance swept up the hall to the high dais and rested on Prince John who sat in a position of honour close to the King. Richard had been generous and given his younger brother Isabella of Gloucester to wife, thereby securing John's right to some very rich lands in the south-west, the Marches and the Midlands. John had every reason to look smug, although his expression still managed to contain a whisper of petulance. Then again, Isabella was known to be a raucous shrew with two chins and a smudge of dark hair on her upper lip. Since John's preference had always tended towards flaxen-haired girls with sharp hipbones and taut buttocks, Fulke doubted that the Prince's marriage bed was going to be a place of delight. John turned his head and his gaze encountered Fulke's. It was as if two blades had clashed together, naked steel striking sparks. Fulke held his ground for a moment then lowered his eyes as etiquette dictated. But not in submission. John made a comment out of the side of his mouth to his nearest companion and the man laughed. Fulke's fists clenched, much as William's had done at the sight of Morys FitzRoger. Carefully he relaxed them and told himself that John was not worth it. But unconsciously, a moment later, he raised his hand and ran his forefinger over the kink in his nose.

Maude le Vavasour sat beside her grandmother in the Rufus Hall and poked at the portion of porpoise on her trencher. It was supposed to be a great delicacy but Maude hated fish of any variety, even when it was surrounded in a sea of pretty green aspic with a decoration of whelk shells. The whelks still occupied their dwellings and silver pins had been provided to drag them out. Maude watched in revolted fascination as her grandmother pried one of the greyish-brown creatures from its lodging, dipped it in a bowl of piquant dressing, and conveyed it to her mouth.

After an interval of chewing, Mathilda dabbed her lips delicately with her linen napkin. 'Delicious,' she pronounced.

Maude shuddered. She wondered how long it would be before the sweetmeats were served. She was very partial to fruits steeped in honey and fried fig pastries, but such fare had not yet been forthcoming and the feast seemed to have gone on for ever.

Queen Eleanor and various noble ladies of the court occupied the high table. The bovine Isabella of Gloucester, recently betrothed to Prince John. Isabelle of Pembroke, William Marshal's half-Irish bride. Alais of France, supposedly soon to be married to King Richard, although her grandmother had muttered something on that score about pigs roosting in treetops. It was an interesting notion and Maude conjured with the image of a razor-backed hog swaying perilously to and fro in a high elm tree during a gale. You'd have to be careful walking underneath; squirrels and crows were bad enough. She almost giggled, but managed to turn the sound into a cough before she was reprimanded for unseemly behaviour.

Yesterday her grandmother had dealt her a severe scolding about her hoydenish ways, about staining her dress and behaving disgracefully in front of Lady FitzWarin and her sons. 'How will your father ever find you a decent husband if you are going to act in so shameful a manner?' she had demanded. 'If your poor mother could see you, it would make her weep!'

Maude pushed again at the thick slice of porpoise, all urge to laugh dissipating more swiftly than the heat from the congealing food. Her grandmother was trying to make her feel guilty, and succeeding, but beneath the chagrin, anger and resentment simmered. Her mother had always been weeping, either because she was unwell, or because life was too full of challenges and difficulties that she did not have the strength to meet.

Besides, Maude knew that Lady FitzWarin had been neither shocked nor disapproving. There had been a twinkle in her eyes and her mouth had twitched as she fought not to let her amusement show. She had also minimised the fuss over the stained gown, saying that it was a common hazard of childhood play, not an overwhelming disaster. Her grandmother said that Lady FitzWarin was just being polite, but Maude knew differently. Despite the wide age gap, she had recognised a kindred spirit.

Unfortunately, Lady FitzWarin and her younger sons were sitting at a trestle on the other side of the hall. Alain and Richard FitzWarin might be ignorant swine but their age was similar to her own and their company would have helped to alleviate the boredom of this interminable feast. At least people were not assessing them as if they were nags at a horse fair and deciding whether or not they were of good bloodstock. Maude had heard other women with sons whispering to Mathilda, enquiring about her granddaughter's age and dowry and disposition. Maude had stuck her tongue out at the last one, thereby earning herself a furious reproof and the threat of a beating.