The Greatest Knight (6 page)

A woman wearing a wine-coloured cloak detached herself from the crowd and began picking her way delicately across the churned ground towards him. An embroidered blue gown flashed through the opening of the cloak as she walked and her veil was edged with tiny gold beads. William had not seen her about the castle before but knew that several great lords had brought their wives to court for the Christmas feast. She had three boys in tow; the tallest one brown-haired and slender, striding confidently beside her. On her other side, also striding out, was a strikingly attractive lad with hair of auburn-blond and a fierce smile blazing across his face. The smallest of the three hurried along behind, dark-browed and a determined jut to his jaw. Looking beyond the woman, William took in the conroi of armed knights and a throng of richly clad ladies. A nurse was holding an infant that was squalling its head off at being restrained in her arms. Two little girls, one with dark hair, the other reddish-gold, clung to her skirts. There was an older, plump girl too, in a blue dress. A thick braid of bright brown hair tumbled over her right shoulder.

The woman reached William and looked up. Beneath arched dark brows, her eyes were the colour of woodland honey, neither brown nor gold. Her nose was thin, her cheekbones sharp, her mouth wide. Not a beautiful face in the aesthetic sense, but so filled with charisma that William’s senses reeled. He stared, and she gave him a smile that contained the brimming mischief of a girl and the allure of an experienced woman.

“Madam,” he croaked and, dismounting from Blancart, knelt at her feet and bowed his head. Even if his senses had been bludgeoned, his wits had not. From the moment his eyes had fallen upon her guards, he had known who she was.

“I pray you rise,” she said with a soft laugh. “I am accustomed to men falling at my feet, but I prefer to bring them to their knees by means other than my rank.”

Her voice, deep and husky, sent a ripple down William’s spine that reached all the way to his loins. She was old enough to be his mother, but there the resemblance ended. “Madam,” he said again, all his eloquence deserting him. As he stood, he caught her scent—a combination of winter spices and summer rose garden.

“My sons were admiring your prowess at the quintain,” she murmured, “and so was I.”

William reddened with pleasure and embarrassment. “Thank you, madam. I have not had the horse long and I work with him as much as I can.”

“You would not think it to look at the pair of you. You are…?”

“William Marshal, madam, nephew to my lord the Earl of Salisbury.”

Her smile grew less wide, although it remained. “Ah yes,” she said in response to the latter statement, but did not elaborate on whether the news was to William’s advantage or detriment.

“Can I ride him?” The bright-haired boy pointed to Blancart, his hand already reaching for the reins in a way that told William the child was confident and accustomed to getting his own way.

In spite of his awe for the boy’s mother, William shook his head and held him off. “He would run away with you…sir,” he replied. “He’s a difficult horse to handle.”

“I’ve ridden warhorses before.” The boy thrust out his lower lip. “My mother’s knights always let me ride theirs.”

“But you know your lady mother’s knights and their horses,” William replied. “You do not know me or mine.”

The older boy smirked at his brother, plainly delighted at William’s rebuff. “I’ve ridden destriers too,” he bragged, puffing out his chest.

“So have I,” piped up the youngest one, not to be outdone. “Lots of times.”

Their mother fought a smile. Her hand ruffled the red-haired child’s head in a tender gesture. “Enough,” she said. “Messire Marshal is right to deny you. A warhorse is no toy and skill like Messire Marshal’s does not come of the moment but is won by long hours of training.”

William looked at the upturned faces and remembered himself and his brothers as children watching their father and his knights at practice. He recalled the desire, the longing, the bright, starry feeling in the gut—and the frustration, and saw it mirrored in these three boys who could have been himself and John and Henry. “Perhaps another time,” he said. “I have a second stallion who is quieter than this fellow.”

“I don’t want to ride a quieter stallion,” the bright-haired boy declared, his fair skin flushing. “I want the best.”

“Richard.” Eleanor’s voice sounded a warning. “Where are your manners? You are no longer a small child, so do not act like one.”

“But I am a prince,” the boy replied, casting his mother an oblique look through long lashes, plainly testing the boundaries.

“Even more reason to mind your manners.”

“My father doesn’t.”

“Your father is not always the finest example of a prince,” she retorted waspishly.

“I only said I wanted the best.”

Eleanor’s lips twitched and William saw the glow of affection in her eyes. He suspected that this particular son could wrap her around his little finger.

“Blancart wasn’t the best to begin with,” William said. “In fact no one wanted him because he pulled too hard on the bridle. Sometimes you have to work long and hard to fashion the raw material into the best.”

The Queen tilted her head and gave William a feline stare. “And is that what you are, Messire Marshal?” she asked huskily. “The best?”

William cleared his throat. “I fear I am still very rough around the edges, madam.”

“And I fear that you are too modest. Deeds may speak more compellingly than words, but I believe that words have their place too. A man who has both is gifted indeed.” Inclining her head, she turned away to her waiting attendants and retainers. The boys followed her, both of the older ones looking over their shoulders, the red-haired one in particular with calculation in his blue-grey eyes. He hadn’t given up yet.

William placed his hand on Blancart’s withers and leaped to the saddle. There was a starry feeling in his gut just now, but it was more concerned with the Queen of England than his jousting. Why on earth, he wondered, would Henry want to flirt with mistresses when he was wed to a woman like that?

***

That night, Eleanor appeared formally in the hall with her husband. She and Henry sat side by side and performed their public duty as two halves of one whole. For once Henry’s dishabille had been tamed into order. His hair had seen the teeth of a comb and his new tunic of mulberry-coloured wool was immaculate—not a dog hair or torn cuff in sight. Eleanor wore mulberry too, the fabric looking as if it had been cut from the same bolt of cloth, and her own hair was bound in a net of jewelled gold. To watch them formally greeting the earls, barons, and bishops gathered for the occasion, no one would have guessed at the rift in their relationship.

In soft candle and torchlight, Eleanor looked much younger than her forty-five years. The colour of her gown enhanced her skin tones and brightened the tawny glint in her eyes. If William had been smitten by her that afternoon, now the feeling inside him grew until he was drunk on it. She drenched his senses and made rational thought difficult. Now he understood why his uncle Patrick had said that any man not smitten by the Queen of England would have to be made of stone—although she could certainly turn specific parts of a man’s anatomy to rock.

William had a place at one of the side trestles for the duration of the feast. His uncle Patrick sat at the high table in a place of honour close to King Henry’s right hand. A cloth of embroidered linen adorned the marble top and the places were set with platters and cups of silver gilt, green glass, and gold-embellished horn. The rock-crystal flagons were honoured for once by wine that was smooth and rich, for Eleanor had had fifty casks delivered from Poitou rather than trust to Henry’s notorious provision.

Where William sat, the tableware was more prosaic. The board was of wood, not marble, and the cloth bereft of embroidery. Instead of silver-gilt platters, the food was set upon thick trenchers of bread, but since this was the usual mode—indeed the cloth was a refinement—William felt no lack. The finery on the dais was the Queen’s doing too. Normally the King would drink out of the nearest vessel, which often as not was a wooden cup. Eleanor, however, appreciated and enjoyed a more sophisticated style. William watched her sip from a silver goblet, its base encrusted with amethysts. Salisbury spoke to her and she turned her head as gracefully as a swan to answer him.

William had learned the language and conventions of courtly love in the bower of de Tancarville’s wife, but until now it had all been lip service. The notion of being desperately in love with an unattainable lady far above his rank, of suffering unrequited pangs and of performing heroic deeds in order to receive a single indifferent glance from her eyes, had been a diverting whimsy; a game to play in the bower on a wet afternoon to please the women with no real heartache involved. Now, suddenly, he understood both the pleasure and the pain.

The formal feast ended, but the evening was not over. Eleanor retired to her chamber, summoning a select party to join her, including Patrick of Salisbury. Henry elected to stay in the hall, and although he and the Queen were civil to each other on parting, the air between them was glacial with unspoken words. As Salisbury followed in the Queen’s train, he crooked his finger at William. “Join me,” he commanded. “I need attendants.”

William’s eyes widened. “Join you, my lord?” Even as he questioned the words, he was rising to his feet, dusting crumbs from his tunic, and tugging the folds straight beneath his belt.

Salisbury’s eyelids crinkled with humour. “If you are to serve me in Poitou you must become acquainted with the Queen’s household.” He laid his hand on William’s shoulder. “Besides, you have a fine singing voice.” With a nod and a smile he moved on, leaving a bemused William to step free of the dining trestle and bow out of the King’s presence.

***

Although he was accustomed to the trappings of wealth, William was astounded by the transformation Eleanor’s arrival had wrought on apartments that this morning had been bare. Detailed embroideries in rich hues of red and gold blazed upon the walls while chained lamps hung from the roof beams and were augmented by candelabra alight with clear-burning beeswax candles. Oak benches strewn with plump cushions lined the sides of the room, as did several brightly painted coffers. Thick woollen curtains decorated with exquisite stitchwork and tassels of gold silk enclosed the Queen’s great bed. Heavy scents of incense and musk drugged the air. At a sideboard scaled with silverware, a squire poured wine into silver goblets. Eleanor herself sat on a curved chair near a brazier, attended by her women and surrounded by a cluster of devoted men, including Salisbury.

William took a cup of wine from the squire, but was hesitant to join the others for he was afraid that they would see how Eleanor quickened him, and laugh at his gaucheness. Instead, he wandered into the antechamber which was populated by a few stray courtiers and ladies of the chamber. Two minstrels leaned over their instruments—harp and lute—playing practice rills of notes. A nursemaid was jiggling a crotchety infant, trying without success to shush him. The child had a quiff of dark hair and bright hazel eyes, their amber hue intensified by the redness of his face as he bawled.

“He’s always crying.”

William glanced down at one of the boys he had met that afternoon and whom he now knew to be Prince Henry, the King’s eldest son. The lad was almost thirteen years old and well proportioned. His hair was the same deep brown as William’s own and his eyes the blue-grey of woodsmoke.

“He’s my brother.” The curl of the youth’s lip informed William that the Prince was not enthralled by the relationship. “His name’s John.”

“I too have a brother called John,” William said, “and one called Henry.”

The boy studied him with a frown while he decided if William was teasing him or speaking the truth. “Do you have one called Richard?” If there had been a grimace for John, there was a telling hostility in the way the boy said “Richard” and flicked his glance towards the main room where his flame-haired brother was sitting at their mother’s feet.

“No, just Ancel. I had two other brothers who died, but they were Walter and Gilbert.”

“One of my brothers died,” the boy said. “His name was William. He would have been my father’s heir if he had lived. Are you your father’s heir?”

William shook his head. “I have no lands to call my own, which is why I am in service to my uncle of Salisbury.”

“John has no lands either.” Prince Henry jutted his chin at the red-faced baby whose roars were beginning to make folk in the antechamber wince. He raised his voice. “I’m to have England and Normandy, Richard’s to have Aquitaine, and my father says Geoffrey’s going to get Brittany.”

The instinct was to move away from the source of the racket, but William gestured to the nurse, who was beginning to look as flustered as her wriggling charge, and plucked young John out of her arms. The noise ceased in mid-bawl, the wriggles stopped, and in a silence almost as loud as the din that had preceded it, the infant stared at William with eyes stretched in shock. William laughed, tossed the baby in the air, caught him, and tossed him again. A squeal erupted, this time of utter delight.

“He likes you,” Henry said, surprised. “John doesn’t usually like anyone.”

“Babies are just babies,” William replied. “My father used to do this to us…except in a wilder fashion, and my mother would be frantic at him.” He chuckled at the memory, although he must have been older than this, and it was probably his youngest brother Ancel he could recall being tossed and caught like a ball.