For the King’s Favor (23 page)

Ida wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. “No sire; only the experience of what the right man can accomplish if given the chance.”

“The right woman too, if she puts her mind to it,” Henry replied. “And that can be a dangerous thing on occasion—as many a husband has had cause to rue.” He made to move on, but Ida’s inhalation as if to speak made him stop and turn back, one eyebrow raised.

“I wanted to say I was sorry about Geoffrey,” she said. “I grieve for your loss.”

Henry’s expression softened. “Ida, you have a kind heart and I am glad for it. Pray for me.” He touched her cheek and moved on, and, as he did so, he gently ruffled his youngest son’s dark brown hair.

***

Arriving home at the house on Friday Street, Ida swept Hugh into her arms as he ran to greet her, then kissed him all over his face until he wriggled to be put down. She did the same to Marie, then leaned over the cradle, kissed her fingers, and pressed them to the baby’s cheek. Hugh looked at her askance out of big blue eyes, shadowed by a tumble of blond curls. He resembled his older brother not in the least—save perhaps in his coordination and precocious dexterity—although in Hugh’s case that graceful fluidity of muscle was of Roger’s bequeathing.

Roger had been quiet and tight-lipped on the way home, but now he removed his hat and plopped it on Hugh’s head. Then he sat down on the bench near the glowing logs in the hearth and took his son on his knee. “Have you been a good boy?” he asked.

Hugh sucked his underlip, pondering, then nodded vigorously. He bounced on Roger’s knee and swung his legs. The brim of the hat came down almost over his short little nose.

“I’m glad to hear it, because I have a present for you. Guess which hand.” Roger held out both fists, tightly clenched. Hugh screwed up his face and tapped the left one. Ida suspected it was because Roger was wearing an ornate gold ring on that hand and Hugh liked the decoration on the bevels.

Roger opened his hand and showed Hugh his empty palm. “No,” he said. “Guess again!” Hugh tapped the right and wriggled in anticipation, but that one too was bare. Roger feigned astonishment. “I know I had it a moment ago.” He looked seriously at Hugh, tilting up the scarlet hat brim to peer into his son’s face. “Are you sure you haven’t got it? Is it under there?”

Hugh removed the hat and peered inside. “No, Papa,” he said solemnly.

Roger cupped his chin. “What’s that behind you then?”

Hugh looked round over his shoulder but there was nothing. When he looked back to say so, Roger was holding the carved image of a knight on a horse. The knight’s shield was painted red and yellow, as was his surcoat and striped lance. Hugh’s eyes widened with delight, especially when he discovered that the knight and the lance were detachable.

Ida was fascinated. “Where did you get that?”

“Herluin the groom carves them and I asked him to make one for Hugh.” Roger avoided her gaze as he spoke. Lifting the child off his knee he said, “Go and fetch your other knights and we’ll play at jousts.”

Ida pressed her lips together. It was obvious something was wrong with Roger and equally obvious that he was not going to say anything in front of Hugh and the servants.

As Roger played with Hugh, Marie toddled over and demanded to sit in his lap. He made room for her, his arm slipping around her narrow little body. In the course of the game, he wove the children a story about a king, a lady, and a brave knight, and how the knight had to rescue the lady from the king, who wanted to imprison her. As Ida listened, she began to shiver. She had removed her cloak when they arrived home, but now she donned it again and rubbed her hands together, but the cold she felt came from within.

“Did the knight kill the king?” Hugh wanted to know.

“No,” Roger said, “because it would have been dishonourable, and the knight valued his honour and he had sworn a vow to uphold his sovereign.”

“But he saved the lady?”

“I don’t know if he did.” Roger’s gaze fixed on Ida but she could not meet it and had to look away. “That’s for another day’s telling. Time for supper and bed now.”

***

“The King has asked me to sit on the Bench at Westminster and judge his cases,” Roger said as he and Ida returned to the fire after overseeing the children’s prayers and kissing them goodnight. Hugh had insisted that his new knight and horse be placed on the floor at the bedside facing the door to guard him. “He also says he will consider restoring to me the third penny of the shire.”

Ida looked at him, trying to gauge his mood. Such news should be cause for celebration, but he still looked grim. “Is that not a good thing?” she asked.

“I thought so at first, but now I begin to wonder what the price will be.”

“What do you mean?”

Roger’s mouth twisted. “I saw the way Henry looked at you today. He’d still have you in his bed if he thought he could get away with it. And the way you looked back at him…”

Ida was appalled. “That is foolish talk!”

He flicked her a dark look. “Is it?”

She felt sick. “You think he gives you this as a bribe to look away while he makes sport with me? Have you so little trust in me? Do you follow a man whom you believe would do this?” Trembling with fury and hurt, she faced him. “Once in another life I was the King’s mistress, yes. Once I bore him a child. If you saw something in his behaviour towards me, it was of that time long ago and for a girl who no longer exists. He is growing old. If I feel anything for him, it is sorrow. Two of his sons are dead. What must that do to a father?”

“Since he barely knew them, I don’t know,” Roger said tautly.

Ida seldom quarrelled with her husband, but that was because mostly he was even-handed and good-natured and she adored him. She also knew how different her life might have been without him. He had indeed rescued her from the King. Knowing her good fortune, she had always been the one to back down, in order to avoid confrontation and travel a smooth road. But now all she could see were stones stretching to the horizon, and she thought her back would break. Rising to her feet, she went to the stairs that led up to the sleeping loft. With her foot on the first rung, she paused and turned. “He knew them well enough to grieve for them,” she said. “I heard that much at court and I saw it in his face. Since the day I set eyes on you when you came to him to plead your inheritance, I have been yours. May God strike me dead if I ever stray in word, or deed, or thought.” She swallowed and sought for composure. “And now I am for my bed because in truth I am sick to my core.”

Roger let her go, then uttered a curse to the silence created by her leaving. He raked his hands through his hair. He knew he was not being rational. He had a reputation for being calm and balanced—a force for reason in every situation, a man whom little could faze, but this was different and his judgement was flawed. The sight of Ida and Henry standing side by side had filled him with corrosive jealousy. He was furious at Henry for still daring to look at her in that way. He was angry at Ida for feeling compassionate towards Henry, and it churned him up inside to see the way she stared at the boy Henry had fathered on her with her heart in her eyes. He had no difficulty watching her mother Hugh or the girls. If she bore him another son, he would have no qualms about the affection she bestowed there either, but that was because his children were part of himself. He was their father—had begotten them on her body in love, in pleasure and duty. When he saw her looking at her first child with such longing, he could not help but imagine her and Henry together and envisage those same emotions flowing between them. He dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and groaned. He had wanted to talk to her about coming to dwell in London, about what sitting on the Bench and judging cases would entail, but had well and truly made a pig’s ear of the situation.

Heaving a sigh, he left his wine and the fire and followed Ida to the bedchamber. She had left the lantern burning on the shelf so he could see to undress. She had removed her gown but still wore her chemise and her braid was a dark rope against the pale linen pillows. Roger sat down on his side of the bed. He hated the feeling of distance. Perhaps he should speak to his chaplain on the matter, but even as the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. This was something that he needed to resolve himself and he doubted that a celibate priest was going to be of much use.

He tugged at his boots. He was wearing thick socks inside them because of the cold and they were difficult to remove. Usually Ida would have been swift to help him, but her back remained turned, and he had no intention of summoning a servant to the task. Finally, after much struggling and cursing, he succeeded in pulling them off. Then he had to unfasten the ties on his hose. Ida’s fingers were always more dextrous at the task than his, and often her care would lead to other, pleasurable intimacies. Fumbling with the knots, he thought it no wonder that little boys wore smocks for so long and that old men stank of piss.

Behind him, he heard the sound of a suppressed sniffle and felt the mattress shake. Having managed the last knot, Roger folded his hose and set them on the coffer. Staring at the garments, he listened to Ida trying to weep in silence and not succeeding. He had never been able to bear a woman’s tears, and the sound of hers was like the pain created by salt in a wound. He lay down, rolled over to her, and gathering her in his arms, kissed her neck and her cold, wet cheek. “Ah, my love, I’m sorry. Don’t cry, don’t. You will unman me.”

For a moment, she resisted him, then suddenly shuddered and turned into his arms with a sob. “I won’t go to court tomorrow if you wish it,” she said.

Roger grimaced against her temple and inhaled the soft jasmine scent of her hair. He didn’t wish it, but playing the ogre would only make matters worse. “Do you wish it, wife?”

She gave a loud sniff and wiped her face on the back of her hand. “I am making your shirt damp,” she said with watery apology.

“No matter. It won’t need washing so soon.”

“I…I do wish it,” she said. “It is important for me to mingle with the wives and daughters of the other barons there. I have to make friendships and connections as much as you do. It is a woman’s duty to grease the wheels that move the cart.” She pressed closer to him and he let his hand drift down to her waist. The scent of her hair, her closeness was making him hard. He made himself concentrate on what she was saying, and knew there was sense in it—but if only sense were all.

“The King has shown you favour,” she continued, “and now you must build upon it. But if I do not have your trust…” Her words trailed off because she did not need to say the rest.

Roger closed his eyes. “Ida,” he said softly, “I think you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. You restore to me feelings I thought gone for ever and you give me others I did not know I had. Even if I am being a fool, I fear to lose those feelings. I fear to lose you.”

She inhaled to speak and he sensed her denial and reassurance, but he stopped her with a long kiss, and when he drew away said, “Indeed, perhaps I do trust you, and I don’t trust myself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My father was not kind to women,” he said bleakly. “My mother hated him for his petty cruelties and so did my stepmother. I have no love for Gundreda, but I saw what she endured at his hands, and I swore I would never treat a woman the way my father treated his wives. It came from his own lack and, at the end, I pitied him. He couldn’t make them give him affection, he didn’t know how, and so he commanded obedience with force.” Roger rubbed his thumb over her face, tracing her delicate bone structure. “I want to lock you up in a box as I would a precious ring, and at the same time I want to show you off with pride, but I fear you will be stolen from me and I will see you being worn on someone else’s finger. I wonder how Henry feels, seeing the bare mark where once he wore you. I know how I would feel.”

Ida took his hand from her face and gently bit down on his thumb. “Henry is not you,” she said. “He has a new mistress—several, in fact, and he always did have many women at once. I hold no allure for him any more, except in memory, because I’m no longer the innocent girl who first appealed to him. I’m older, wiser…and stronger. And after what he did…” Her voice cracked. She leaned over him and kissed him on the mouth. He knew she was seeking comfort in the physical. It was easier than thinking, ten times easier.

“Mama…Mama…” His voice croaky with sleep, Hugh tottered into their chamber, flushed, disorientated, rubbing his eyes. “I saw a bear, a big black bear with teeth! I don’t like it!” he whimpered. Ida and Roger broke apart and Roger bent his arm across his eyes whilst Ida hastened to put her arms around the child and comfort him.

“Hush now, hush now. It’s a bad dream, nothing more. You saw a dancing bear in the market and it’s still in your mind. Nothing will hurt you. We won’t let it.”

Hugh was hopping from foot to foot, revealing that much of his discomfort was due to a full bladder. Ida found the chamberpot and lifted his smock. Hugh’s aim was a trifle erratic, but most of it went where it was intended.

Roger lowered his arm and looked at Ida and his son. In the light from the night candle and from further away, Roger could see how blotchy Ida’s face was, how swollen her eyes. She had been crying really hard and it sent a fresh pang of guilt through him.

When Hugh had finished, Ida took him by the hand back to his bed, but he balked and rubbed his eyes, still whimpering about the bear. He was shivering too as the night air chilled his body. Ida picked him up in her arms and brought him into their own bed, placing him between her and Roger within the warm cocoon of sheets and blankets. “There are no bears,” she said again gently. “You’re safe.” Hugh snuggled down and his shivering stopped. His eyelids drooped, his thumb went into his mouth, and soon he was asleep, his hair an angelic golden gleam on the pillow, and his small body barely mounding the bedclothes. Roger thought that Henry would never have allowed such a thing. It might be common for peasants and rustics who only had one bed, but not for a man of rank. He couldn’t see Henry having that kind of patience—or tenderness either. “Go to court tomorrow,” he said quietly. “Make the connections you need to make. I give you the key to the box. Do not lose or mislay it.”