The Greatest Knight (12 page)

William took a swallow of the wine which was dry and tart, but not sour. John echoed him, and then looked across his cup. “You might as well know,” he said with a grimace, “Alais is with child.”

William stared at his brother for a long moment. “You couldn’t keep your hands off her, could you?” he said with quiet disgust.

John reddened. “It wasn’t like that.” He plucked a loaf out of the basket and set about reducing it to crumbs with vicious digs of his thumbnail.

“Then what was it like? I think you were just biding your time.”

“I didn’t come here for you to judge me. God knows, you’re no innocent yourself.”

“I don’t recall that I’ve ever seduced one of my mother’s ladies, or any young virgins of the chamber,” William retorted. He took one of the raisin and chicken pasties, deciding that he was going to eat and be damned.

“Christ!” John twisted the loaf in two. “I knew you’d react like a mealy-mouthed priest. I don’t know why I thought that you might understand.”

“I do understand,” William said acidly. “I saw it in your eyes when I returned from de Tancarville’s household, and again when we were in London for Prince Henry’s crowning. You have ruined her—unless of course you are going to offer her the position of Lady Marshal and ruin yourself instead.”

“I didn’t seduce her; she came to me of her own free will. It was mutual.”

“It’s true,” Ancel said between rotations of his jaw. “She did.” He poured more wine into his cup.

The red in John’s face darkened. “She wanted to learn to fly a hawk to the lure,” he said. “I offered to teach her, and whatever you might think of me, it started off as no more than that. I held back…I…”

“But she is with child.” William cocked a knowing eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like ‘holding back.’”

“I’m not made of stone,” John flared. “She’s a woman grown with a mind of her own. Whatever you think, I didn’t drag her into the woods and commit rape.” He pushed his hands through his hair. “Ach, done is done, and no going back. She will want for nothing and neither will our child. Christ, it happens all the time. Old King Henry begot two sons before he was wed. His grandsire had more than a score. If it hasn’t happened to you then you’ve been fortunate. Don’t tell me you live like a monk.”

William started on his second raisin pasty. “No, I’m careful,” he said between rotations of his jaw. “But then I’m in no position to support a wife or a mistress and raise children.”

“Yes, well, pulling out doesn’t always work.”

William swallowed. “I suppose Mother roasted you both over a slow fìre?” he said after a moment.

Ancel grinned. “She made hell seem cold by comparison,” he volunteered and received a hard nudge from John.

“She made her displeasure known,” John said stiffly, “but we have come to an understanding. Providing Alais and I are not brazen about our relationship, she is willing to accept it.”

“And when you take a wife?”

John sucked a hard breath over his teeth. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I just wanted to tell you that you are going to be an uncle and I hope you’ll wish us well and take an interest in the child.”

It would have been pitiless to continue pointing out the trials that John and Alais were going to face. John must know them very well and, as John said, in truth, who was he to judge? There but for the grace of God…Relaxing, William refilled his cup and raised it in toast. “I’ll be glad to do both,” he said. “If you are pleased, then I am pleased for you too.”

John’s smile was as sour as sloes as he clinked his cup to William’s. “So you should be,” he said, “since it means that in law you will still be my heir.”

Nine

Chinon, Anjou, March 1173

Spring was late coming to the Loire valley. An icy, rain-laden wind blustered outside the thick walls of the keep at Chinon, threatening to blow the new pale blossom from the cherry trees and spitefully assaulting the daffodils and celandines blooming tentatively in sheltered corners of the ward.

It wasn’t just the weather that was making the winter bitter and delaying the spring, William thought as he and Baldwin de Béthune exercised their horses, taking the opportunity to practise the fighting skills they might soon need. The destriers’ hooves churned the tilting ground to mud as the knights pounded down the line to the quintain. As usual, a crowd had gathered to watch, including Wigain, who was standing with Will Blund, the Young King’s usher and Richard Barre, the keeper of his seal. William suspected that their presence here in the chilly March morning was an attempt to forget for a moment the storm that was brewing within the walls behind them. William punched the shield on the quintain with his lance, causing the cross bar to whip round at speed. Ducking to avoid the sandbag on the other end, he cantered on and drew rein to watch Baldwin do the same. On a normal day, Prince Henry would have been out with them, training under William’s guidance, but this was not a normal day, and without a miracle, unlikely to turn into one. William slapped Blancart’s neck and trotted the stallion back to the start of the tilt.

Baldwin joined him. “We shouldn’t tire the horses.” The neutrality of his tone was more eloquent than his words.

“One more time,” William said, “lest we need to be as sharp as our lances.”

As they ran a final tilt, more knights arrived on the field, plainly with the same intention as William and Baldwin, but these were King Henry’s men and suddenly the atmosphere was tense. William relaxed his grip on the lance, but held it in such a way that it could be readied on the instant. The tip was blunt for it was only a practice weapon, but he knew how to make it effective should the need arise. The knights circled each other warily, but no one wanted to make the first move and Baldwin and William were able to leave the field unchallenged. Nevertheless, the tension was like a thread strung tight and vibrating with strain.

“This is their last chance to resolve their dispute,” Baldwin said as they trotted into the stableyard and dismounted.

He was stating the obvious but William didn’t stop him for the same thought burdened his own mind. “I pray that they do,” he said. “I do not want to see father and son at each other’s throats, nor do I want to fight men that I know and respect with weapons
à outrance
.”He thought of the field they had just left; the looks exchanged; the wariness. He didn’t want to, but he would, because he had given his oath. He waved away Rhys when the small Welshman came to take Blancart’s bridle. “I’ll see to him myself,” he said, leading the stallion towards his stall. Baldwin hesitated for a moment, not quite as keen as William to stable his own horse when servants existed for that purpose, but then he shrugged and followed suit. He suspected that William was deliberately eking out the time spent out of their young lord’s presence. As matters stood, a warhorse was a deal more predictable.

“While the King refuses to give our lord the freedom to make his own decisions and rule his own lands, there’s bound to be trouble,” Baldwin said. “His father will never give up those lands while he lives, and he’ll do with them as he chooses, even down to dividing them further and giving a portion to his youngest son.”

William grunted as he unbuckled the girths and lifted the saddle on to a support tree. What Baldwin said was true, but it wasn’t palatable. After crossing the Narrow Sea in November, Henry and Marguerite had sojourned with her father, King Louis of France. Louis had been only too glad to breathe on the glowing coals of his son-in-law’s discontent. By the time Henry left the French court for his father’s Christmas gathering at Chinon, the fire was burning steadily. It might have been damped down by a placation of additional funds to support the Young King’s extravagant ways and by giving him a few charters to authorise to make him feel as if he were involved in government, had not the issue of John’s inheritance suddenly fanned the flames to white heat. Not only was Henry’s father refusing to give Henry any responsibility to accompany his crowned status, he was intending to remove chunks of his patrimony and bestow it on Prince John.

Enraged both by the manner in which her husband hoarded power to himself and his continued affair with Rosamund de Clifford, Queen Eleanor had encouraged the conflagration. Let her husband keep their youngest son and the bastards begotten on his whores. She had the sons that mattered: angry, fickle Henry; Richard, bright and sharp as a sword blade; Geoffrey, the deep thinker.

“How loyal are you?” she had asked William as he prepared to accompany the Young King to Chinon after the most recent argument between father and son. Her tawny eyes had been fierce as they sought his face.

“Madam, I swore my oath to your son,” he had answered. “And it will hold unto death. I know of no other way.”

“Then I love you for your chivalry. You must realise what is coming.”

He had nodded. “I hope that it can be avoided, but if it comes to sword upon sword, I will defend my lord to the last breath in my body.”

She had given him her hand to kiss, but as he bowed over it, she had angled his head with her other hand and instead, pressed her mouth to his—a hard, firm kiss, with lips closed, one of gratitude and salute, but bold nonetheless. “May God reward you,” she said. “Certainly if it is ever within my gift, I will give you riches.”

As he had fought to recover his equilibrium in the wake of such a gesture, the young Queen Marguerite had emerged from the women’s chambers to bid him farewell too. Aping her mother-in-law, she had kissed him, but on the cheek instead, and given him a piece of boiled loaf sugar for the journey, for she set much store by such small tokens and gifts and had a loving, generous heart.

“Everything is going to be all right?” she had asked, her soft brown eyes filled with anxiety.

“Yes, my Queen,” he had murmured, choosing platitude above uncertain truth. “Everything is going to be all right.”

Now “everything” hung in the balance and William knew which side the scales were weighted. Young Henry and his father might have different characters, but in stubbornness they were alike.

William set about currying his stallion and soon the teeth of the comb were clogged with harsh white hairs, for Blancart was beginning to moult his winter coat. As William was plucking them out on the side of his hand and casting them into the straw, Prince Henry strode into the stables.

“What are you doing?” Henry’s tone was high-pitched and incredulous. “Why are you skulking in here when you have squires and grooms to do such tasks?” He was breathing hard and flushed with temper.

“Sire, I would ask nothing of a squire or groom that I would not be prepared to do myself,” William replied in a level tone. “A knight should be able to turn his hand to anything.”

“Then turn it to your sword,” Henry snapped, “and resaddle your horse. We’re leaving.”

“Now, sire?”

“Now!” Henry snarled. “While the gates are still open. The talking is over. What happens next is on my father’s head, not mine.”

William’s heart sank but he received the news without surprise. The signs had been there to read since November. Sometimes the only way to cure a festering wound was to drain it, not lay on more bandages.

“Where are we going, sire?” asked Baldwin.

“To my father-by-marriage,” Henry said. “To Chartres.”

The stables flurried with activity as horses were swiftly harnessed. Men grabbed their weapons and stuffed belongings into their baggage rolls. William formed up the Young King’s conroi and they left Chinon at a rapid trot. Only a few of Henry’s clerical servants rode among the party, Wigain one of them, his legs banging against the flanks of his fat dappled cob. The others, including Henry’s chamberlain, usher, and chancellor, chose to remain in Chinon with the King, thus adding more hurt to Henry’s grievance with his father. The administrative servants were all obviously in his pay and their loyalties had never been given to their young lord.

Tears of rage brightened Henry’s eyes. “He wouldn’t listen,” he fumed to William, his voice cracking with emotion as they rode. “He didn’t want to hear. Is what I’m asking so much?”

“No, sire, it is not,” William replied.

“My mother agrees with me.” He cuffed his eyes impatiently. “She says that she will do all in her power to thwart him. He’s not going to ride roughshod over us all.”

For a while, they concentrated on putting distance between themselves and Chinon, the knights grim, the servants who had chosen to come absorbed in their effort to keep up. William sent outriders to the front and rear, the space between his shoulder blades prickling.

“He won’t chase yet,” Henry said bitterly. “He doesn’t believe that I will really leave him. He thinks that this is just a fit of pique, that I’m a petulant boy who’ll come running back to him because it’s cold outside without my cloak. He doesn’t realise that there are others ready and willing to offer me fur-lined mantles and all the comfort I want. He is the one who is out in the cold.”

The brightness of Henry’s tears gave way to a different sheen, one that was vindictive and glittering with ambition. “My mother is going to get Geoffrey and Richard away to safety and then she’ll join us. We have allies only waiting the word to rise against him…in England too. The Earls of Leicester and Norfolk are with us, and the King of Scots and his brother.”

Although he felt an initial shock at the revelation, William had been expecting something of the sort. Recently a steady trickle of messengers had been visiting the Young King’s chambers, some at very unsociable hours. William could not read and wasn’t a party to what their letters contained, but he had seen the way their contents set the Young King on edge and, even if he couldn’t understand the written word, he well recognised many of the seals, including those of Leicester and Norfolk. There had been clandestine meetings with Eleanor too, to which he had not been a party, but of which he was well aware. Filled with misgiving, he kept pace with his young lord but wondered how this could end without all sides losing.

They reached Argentan, a blood-red sunset turning the trees to black behind them and the keep’s great walls punching towards the dying light. The porter hurried to admit them, and the constable came in haste, taken by surprise at the sudden appearance of the Young King and his conroi. Servants were sent running to the kitchens and the laundry chests and a chamber was swiftly prepared. Questions filled the man’s gaze, although he asked none and the look on Henry’s face kept the constable’s lips sealed except for the remark that it was always a pleasure to receive the King’s eldest son.

“I hope that you’ll remember those words,” Henry said, looking round. “I’m expecting the arrival of some of my wife’s kin. I want them welcomed and brought to me the instant they ride in.”

“Yes, sire. May I enquire how many?”

Henry shrugged. “Probably half a dozen and their retinues.”

The constable blenched, partly at the notion of having to cater for another host at short notice, partly at the fact they would be French and thus the natural adversaries of Normandy—even if they were Henry’s kin by marriage.

“They won’t be staying and neither will I,” Henry snapped. “You need not concern yourself on that score.”

He retired to the room that had been rapidly prepared for him and, touching the linen bedsheets, made a face. “Cold as a witch’s arse,” he said and turned to warm his hands at one of the braziers that had been kindled in an effort to banish the dank chill from the room. Having departed Chinon at speed, Henry was without the usual comforts of his baggage train—the hangings, the candelabra, his own sheets and bedcovers, silver-gilt cups and platters, and had perforce to use the equipment supplied by his host.

William set out his own kit by the side of his pallet and drew his sword to check the blade for nicks and rust. It was a comforting ritual; something to ground him when the terrain underfoot was shifting like grains of sand on a dry beach. The detail that Henry was expecting members of the French court had surprised him. The steps of the dance had quickened, and if he didn’t want to fall by the wayside, he would have to pick up the pace at once.

Dismissing the constable’s servants with a flick of his fingers, Henry paced over to William. “Marshal, I have a boon to ask of you,” he said.

William sheathed his sword and propped his scabbard against the wall. Close now, he could see the smudged shadows under the Young King’s eyes and the sheen of sweat in the hollow of his throat. In spite of his misgivings, William was swept by a wave of tender concern. “You have no need to seek boons of me, sire,” he said, opening his hands. “Anything you command of me I will perform to the best of my honour and ability.”

Henry nodded. “I know that, but this is not a command and I ask out of friendship and respect.”

William could have said that it made no difference, that a request from Henry was as good as an order, but it would have been ungracious; and the way the young man spoke the words, the look of uncertainty on his face, the combination of reckless courage and charm, made William realise why, even through the exasperation, irritation, and impatience, he had taken an oath to stand beside him unto death. Therefore he remained silent, his expression solemn and filled with waiting.