THE EARL (A HAMMER FOR PRINCES) (36 page)

"Walter," Alys said to the page. "Bring my lord Stafford some of our ale--cousin, you cannot serve men your sticky wines."

"Oh? Don't you like it?" Rohese turned toward Fulk.

"I'm sorry, my lady. No."

"What a pity. Giles detested it. My last husband. All men are alike."

Alys gave a shout of laughter. Rohese put her basket down and slid her stool away from the high loom. "I'll send for my clerk and write the letter now." With the keys and scissors jangling at her waist, she strode toward the door. The page Walter came back with a fresh cup and a swan's-neck ewer.

"Bring it here, Walter," Alys said, and rose. "I'll serve you, my lord. Tell me more of Thierry."

"I would rather not, my lady."

"Does he ever speak of me?"

"Once. I don't remember what he said, I'm sorry."

She poured the ale expertly, neatly, and brought it to him. When he had taken it, she picked up the cup of strawberry wine, bending to reach it, and murmured, "Take me to Stamford."

"No." Not yet, anyway. He took a long drink of ale.

"I knew you would not." She held out the winecup to the page. "Walter, take this down to the kitchen."

"My lady, I cannot leave the room."

Alys threw the cup at him. "Damn you, brat, take it away, I'll twist your ears off, wet breeches--" She charged him, and the page skittered out of the way, his hands over his ears.

"Let him alone," Fulk said. "That's your cousin's order not to leave you alone with men. Sit down and stop behaving like an ale-wife."

"Now there's strawberry wine on the Grail tapestry," she said. "I hate it here. I cannot ride, or even walk alone in the courtyard. She never leaves me alone. You must take me to Stamford."

"No."

"I can't bear it. I'll kill myself. I'll leap off the top of the tower. You must help me escape from here."

"God's bones. Leap off the tower. Only stop screaming."

She sat down, drew her braids over her shoulders, and stared at him. "Is it true what she says? Are all women covering up their hair now, like nuns, and wearing coifs?"

"All the women in France. I think it's an ugly style, myself. You have very pretty hair."

"I shall have to find linen for a coif. I thought she was telling me so to make me cover it." She smoothed her hair back from her temples with both hands. "Why are you being kind to me suddenly?"

"I have no reason to be otherwise. On the previous occasion, remember, I had something to gain by making you lose your temper."

"I don't believe you."

"As you wish, my lady." Rohese was coming in the door; he stood. Behind her was her clerk, a monk who was probably her confessor as well--she had many of the new habits of the continent. She sat down and motioned to the monk to sit nearby.

"Walter, bring that little table here. Brother Gervase is my confessor, my lord Stafford."

"My lord," the monk said, and made the sign of the Cross at Fulk. From his cassock, he took paper and a case of pens and ink. His fingers were ink-stained; he was very young, with a Norman accent and fine, fair hair.

"Now, write this, Gervase. 'To my lord Henry Fitz-Empress, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou--" She looked inquiringly at Fulk.

"Duke of Aquitaine," Fulk said. "King of England, if you want him to love you."

"Yes." She watched the monk write. "'Greeting from Rohese, Lady of Highfield. My lord, God's blessing on you and your works. I offer you'--Is that too abrupt?"

Fulk shook his head, smiling.

"'I offer you my hunting lodge of Oakwood, my lord, if you wish to hunt, and the forest around nit, which is full of game, and my packs of deerhounds and mastiffs. I am praying daily for the peace of England and the coming of her rightful king.'" She frowned.

"You lie," Alys said pleasantly.

"How can you know what my prayers are?"

"She lies," Alys said to Fulk.

"Is that sufficient? The letter." Rohese's eyes followed the monk's quick hands.

"Very good, my lady."

"It isn't grand enough--tell me more compliments to make him."

"More lies?" Alys said.

"But he has much to do, there's no need to make him struggle through too many words. Does he read?"

"Yes. He's a learned man, young as he is."

"Gervase, copy that out now, so that Stafford will have it when he leaves."

The monk mumbled something; he had written the rough draft on fouled paper, and he shuffled through the pile for a clean sheet. Fulk drank the rest of his ale.

"Do you like the ale, my lord?"

"It's excellent. I'm sure the wine is, too, lady, if I had the tongue for it."

"It is." Rohese glared at Alys. "All my friends enjoy it."

"All but one," Alys said. "How is your son, my lord?"

"Rannulf is dead, my lady."

Alys' gaze wavered and fell. "Oh," she said, so softly Fulk barely heard it. Rohese made the sign of the Cross.

"God rest his soul. And so soon after your countess died, too. I'll pray for him."

Fulk said nothing; he looked from her to Alys, who was staring at the floor and stroking the dog at her side. She looked up and caught his eyes and turned to Rohese.

"Could not Stafford have supper with us, cousin?"

"Of course. I was assuming that you meant to stay, Stafford--it's well into the afternoon already."

"I would like to, but I have to go back to Stamford. Later, I will, I promise you."

"I shall expect it. You must come to hunt with the prince. But stay for another drink of ale."

Alys leaped up. "I'll serve you, Fulk--my lord." She smiled at him tenderly.

Rohese jerked her stool close to the loom and picked up the bobbin. "Alys, you disgrace your family."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I making you jealous?"

"No!" Rohese's hands worked furiously. Fulk took the cup from Alys.

"Don't be vicious."

"She how she blushes." Alys went back to her chair and sat down. The monk was sanding the letter; Fulk drank the weak, pale ale, impatient for him to finish, so that he could go.

"What is she like, this lady of Highfield?" Prince Henry turned the letter over in his hand; he stood slouched a little so that the light of the candles fell on it.

"She is a second cousin of William Peverel's," Fulk said. He had ridden hard to Stamford, and his clothes were stained with dust and his own sweat and his horse's. "She's one of the few women I've met, though, who supported your mother the empress."

Prince Henry smiled. "Women rarely like my mother." He folded the letter and poked it into his wallet. "She must be gracious, then, to offer me this chance to hunt. I'll accept as soon as I can. Do you like to hunt? You must come, naturally. Sit, my lord."

Fulk sat down; Henry with a gesture sent his pages away and drew his own chair forward. "I am sorry Rannulf is dead. I liked him, I could depend on him. Is Hugh now your heir?"

"Rannulf has a son, only six months old. Geoffrey." The candles lit only a corner of the room, and in the darkness he could hear people moving around; he put his elbows on the arms of his chair. "De Bruyères die young, we get our sons early."

"We all die too young. What is this--" He looked at the letter. "Rohese? What is she like? Is she pretty?"

"Not especially. She's very French in her way of dress. She isn't young, either, she's buried two husbands and is looking for a third."

"You?" Henry sprawled back in his chair. "Are you thinking of marrying, my lord?"

Fulk shook his head. "If I do, I'll have a young wife, and a small one, with an empty head."

Henry laughed. "The ones who can convince you that their heads are empty are the dangerous ones." He put the letter down. The candlelight fell softly on his hair and left his face in shadow. "You have met my duchess, haven't you?"

"Twice, my lord."

"What do you think of her?"

"She's beautiful, of course, and lively." Fulk heard a noise behind him and turned, and a page came up. Henry waved him off before he could speak.

"Go on, my lord."

Fulk heard the page go to the door and out again, and the door shut with a thud. "She's hardly empty-headed. I think she has a temper like a cat's, and she won't be content with anything. She's reckless. I don't like that even in a man."

Henry shifted himself in his chair, and the light fell across his face. He was frowning. Fulk wondered briefly why Henry was keeping him here in pleasant conversation when obviously someone was waiting outside to see him.

"I don't know whether you are so frank from carelessness or honesty, my lord," Henry said, and called to a page to bring them wine.

"It's too much trouble to lie."

"Oh, well." Henry's face slid back into the shadows. "Chester and Leicester and Pembroke and Hereford and the bishop and whoever I have forgotten, all of them take such pains with me, then, that they must devote their lives to it, and you go to no trouble at all. How churlish of you not to put yourself to trouble for me, Stafford, I find it rebellious in you."

Fulk caught himself smiling. He said, "Chester would be shocked to hear you think he lies, my lord, he thinks that he alone ever knows the truth."

"All of them--they say the pious, proper things, they talk of Christian virtues with a loving air, and do the opposite, and don't seem to understand that the words mean nothing and the naked act alone is worth judging them by."

"The judge them by the naked act, my lord, and don't listen to what they say."

"I cannot allow men to lie and lie, and because they wish to, believe what they say."

The page came with two cups of wine. Fulk took one, the gold cool to his hands, chased and figured and set with little red stones.

"Did you talk to Chester, that day?" Henry said.

Fulk nodded. "The wine will conquer England, my lord.": He held a mouthful of it a moment on his tongue, swallowed it, and said, "We have never been able to grow decent wine grapes here."

"Then it came to nothing, the talk."

"I never listen to what Chester says, I watch what he does. It took me most of my first years' ruling to learn that."

The door opened, and the page came in again, a swift patter of feet on the wooden floor. Henry said, "Tell him he must wait a little."

"My lord, it's so late, he says--"

"Tell him to wait. No, Stafford, stay." Henry gestured to the page to leave. Leaning forward, his face in the light again, he said, "I find a philosopher behind that refusal to talk."

"I don't know why, my lord."

"This touches on something I've often thought of. Perhaps if we were not taught how things should be--" He lifted his hand and the rings on his fingers flashed in the candlelight. "If we did not expect order in everything, the world would fly into chaos. You know the legends of seers who go blind from the light of truth; might the truth, the real nature of things, be so terrible that we create lies to guard our minds against it?"

Fulk savored another mouthful of wine. "You have a marvelous fondness for such philosophy."

"Argue it away, then. Convince me otherwise."

"I'll think about it. I distrust abstractions, there seems to me more convenience than truth in them." Something the prince had said before came back to him. "Have you read Abelard."

"Yes. It stuns me that you have. Have you? Do you read much?"

"Charters, rulings of law, letters, such as I come on now and then. Sometimes a book comes into my hands."

"We should talk more often." Henry picked up Rohese's letter. "We shall hunt soon--I'll give you words, so that you can tell the lady of Highfield to expect us. I want to meet her." He smiled. "I'll tell you if you should marry her."

"Thank you, my lord." Fulk put down his cup, rose, and bowed. "Good night, my lord."

"Good night," The prince said. "How astonishing, that you have read Abelard. Have my page send in Pembroke."

Fulk choked back a laugh. He had been wondering who Henry wanted kept waiting. He went to the door and let himself out.

In the narrow room made by the landing of the stair, two pages and the Earl of Pembroke stood waiting; Pembroke was chewing his fingernails. He started forward.

"Fulk."

"The prince says he will see my lord Pembroke now," Fulk said to the page. "I'm sorry, Gilbert, we were talking philosophy, you must pardon us." He smiled up at Pembroke's bony face and went down the stairs. Prince Henry should not be allowed to keep a man like the Earl of Pembroke waiting on the stair, even before he was king, but the look on Pembroke's face made him laugh, all the same.

Thierry rode ahead of Fulk into Highfield Castle, just behind the prince; it had taken them all day to ride up from Stamford, and Thierry's curly russet hair was gray with dust. Fulk looked up at the castle wall, searching among the people gathered on the rampart on either side of the gatehouse, but he did not see Alys.