The Greatest Knight (18 page)

“You should sleep,” she murmured.

He sighed hard. “Yes, I should, but I don’t know if I can.” He took her hand and looked down at their linked fingers. “It was bad,” he said. “I stood in vigil with Henry last night, as did all the knights of his mesnie.” His throat worked. “The coffin was no bigger than a reliquary box. The Queen…” He shook his head. “The Queen has taken it ill. She was sleeping when the child died and she thinks that in some way it is her fault.” His mouth twisted as he remembered her pale, tear-tracked face.

“I prayed for her at mass this morning—and for the child and the Young King too,” Clara said. “The churches have been tolling a knell the day long.” She laid her palm against her own flat stomach. “I grieve that my womb is barren, but sometimes I think that it is a blessing too. It is easier to mourn the children I will never have than see them taken away in the hour of their birth.”

William lay down on the bed and she joined him, although it was full daylight. Waiting for him to return, she had kept her own vigil and she was tired, although not with the same exhaustion that William felt. “There is time for them to have other sons,” she said.

“That is what her women have been telling her, and what the Bishop of Rouen said to my lord.” He closed his eyes, and behind his lids saw Henry’s fury at the Bishop’s words. Not because they came too soon on the heels of tragedy, but because they were a reminder of a duty that Henry would have sooner forgone. He had little interest in his wife’s bed to begin with, and could see no point in mating with her if the result was to be failure. “It makes sense,” William said without lifting his lids, “but there’s not a lot of that about at the moment. The best I can do for Henry is take him to the next tourney and hope to ride his demons out of him.”

“And his wife?”

He pulled Clara into his arms, seeking comfort. “Time, I suppose, and gentle handling, but how much she will have of either, I do not know.”

Thirteen

Port of Wissant, Artois, February 1179

"No, I am certain,” Clara said, shaking her head. Her warm complexion was pale as she stood beside William on the wharfside and watched the ships tossing at their mooring ropes like new-caught wild horses. “I will go to the ends of the earth for you, but only if I do not have to cross water.”

William could understand her reluctance because he hated sea crossings himself, but her fear went much deeper than his did. Until yesterday when the Young King’s court arrived in Wissant to prepare for the crossing, Clara had never seen the sea, and the sight of its grey-green vastness spreading to meet the low clouds on the horizon had terrified her almost out of her wits.

His reassurances about the crossing had fallen on deaf ears, partly because he was being too hearty to compensate for his own fears and partly because Clara didn’t want to listen. Nor did she want to see England. From hearsay it was a cold, misty land filled with surly peasants and a dour aristocracy who viewed anyone from Poitou as soft, pampered, and tainted with heresy. That William was English, as were several of the Young King’s household, had not allayed her fears. There were always exceptions and much of William’s life had been spent away from his native island. She was afraid, too, of meeting his family. On the tourney circuit she was accepted and respected as the mistress of the best knight on the field. But there were no tourneys in England, none of the dazzle and glamour that made for a relaxed acceptance of mistresses, troubadours, and dancing girls. Even the fact that William’s older brother had a mistress and a bastard child had not reassured her. She was as adamant about England as she was about the sea.

“I cannot,” she repeated with a shudder, her gaze on the milky-green waves slapping against the harbour side.

William made an exasperated sound in his throat, drew her roughly to his side, and hugged her. “I would never put my courser at a hedge too high for him to jump,” he said. “I won’t push you.”

She blinked on tears, her eyes stinging from the cold, salt wind. “Just don’t be too hasty to find another mount while you’re in England,” she said with a tremulous laugh. “One that can jump higher.”

William kissed her. “I doubt such a creature exists,” he said.

The sailors and porters continued to stow the royal baggage aboard the vessels. Marguerite and her ladies came down to board the
esnecca
, their gowns butterfly-bright against the grey hues of the day. The birth and death of her infant son had changed the Young Queen. Gone was the plump, wide-eyed girl with her spontaneous displays of affection and ready smile. There was a new gravitas to Marguerite these days, and a watchful air, as if she were guarding herself against what the world had to offer by measuring what the payment would be.

She and Henry had separate bedchambers, although in fulfilment of duty they slept together on the days that were not proscribed by the Church. Thus far Marguerite had not conceived again and with Lent upon them, she and Henry were sleeping apart. William could see that beneath her fur-lined cloak she was hugging herself against the cold. He knew that she hated crossing the Narrow Sea, but she always endured the voyage with quiet fortitude.

Henry arrived shortly after his wife, his complexion flushed from the wine he had been drinking to fortify himself for the journey, and his manner ebullient. Sixty years ago the heir to the throne had drowned whilst crossing the Narrow Sea, but Henry considered that the death had paid his family’s price, so he was safe. Apart from a prayer before embarkation, he lived in the moment and didn’t think about it.

As the oarsmen rowed the ship out of the harbour, William watched Clara’s form diminish until it was eventually lost to sight, and then, with a sigh, he turned away to the body of the vessel.

“Three years,” Henry said, one hand braced against the mast. “I haven’t seen my father in three years.” His grimace wasn’t caused entirely by the bite of the brisk sea wind. “They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I doubt he’ll have mellowed any.”

“And you have, sire?” William asked.

Henry puffed out his breath. “If I have then he’ll see it as a weakness. But then he doesn’t think much of Richard and no one could accuse Richard of being mellow. At least it’s not for long. Come the tourney season, we’ll be back in Normandy.” He twitched his shoulders. “It’s always damp in England and the spring comes late. In Anjou the trees are in blossom when in London there’s still snow on the ground.”

“Then you can go skating on Moorgate Pond, my lord.”

Henry gave a bark of sour laughter. “And give my father a fit.”

“You could take your brother John.”

“Yes, and hope that the ice will crack under his feet. He was a brat when he was little and I doubt that time will have improved him. He’ll be a spotty, scratch-voiced youth by now.” He gave an irritable shake of his shoulders and drew up the hood of his cloak as a sudden rain squall deluged the vessel. “I dare say I’ll tolerate him just as long as my father has no more plans for carving him an inheritance out of my territories.”

Rain streamed down William’s face and dripped off his jaw. His hands were red and aching with the cold. The ship bucked in the freshening wind and lunged through the waves like a half-tamed horse. Clara would have been terrified; his own feelings were a mingling of fear and discomfort. Henry turned towards the canvas deck shelter where the Queen and her ladies had taken refuge from the biting wind and now the lash of the rain. Then he hesitated and looked over his shoulder at William.

“Marguerite thinks that she might be with child again,” he said.

“That is good news, sire.” William shifted his stance to steady his balance and felt the queasiness of
mal de mer
begin to ripple through his stomach.

“Yes, if it’s true. Hopes have been raised before.” He continued on his way to the deck shelter, entered within, and dropped the flap.

Sighing, William retired to the well of the vessel where another canvas shelter for the men had been erected.

***

King Henry the elder rubbed his thigh and scowled. “Marshal, you do not know how fortunate you are.” His tone was resentful.

“Sire?” William said attentively. Three years had not been kind to his lord’s father. A few months after his tiny grandson’s death, he himself had been mortally sick of an infected leg, and his struggle to recovery had left its mark. The red-gold hair had dulled to dusty ginger and the grey-blue eyes were pouched and bloodshot. Then his beloved mistress, Rosamund de Clifford had died of a fever and the King had been distraught. Vestiges of his terrible grief still showed in new seams of care at brow and mouth corner.

King Henry smiled unpleasantly. “My son tells me that you compete in every tourney that comes your way—and some that do not, since you ride far and wide to seek them out.”

“Only with my lord’s permission, sire, and if he has no need of me.”

Henry grunted his disapproval. “The whelp doesn’t know what he needs, Messire Marshal. I said that you were fortunate because you have no lasting injuries to show for your frivolous life on the tourney field. I have never jousted, I consider the sport a debauched waste of time and silver, yet I am the one who is kicked so badly by a horse that I am constantly plagued by the wound.”

“I am sorry to hear that, sire.”

Henry eyed him darkly. “You’re polished, William, and shrewd, I’ll give you that. I can understand what that perfidious wife of mine saw in you, but, as she knows to her cost, it only takes one slip.”

“Sire?” William’s nape prickled as he sensed danger.

“You know what I mean,” Henry answered, narrow-eyed. “You have risen very smoothly on fortune’s wheel thus far, but all that can change in a moment.”

Prince John joined them. He had been talking amidst a group of fellow youths but with an unerring nose for conflict had quickened to his father’s side. His hair was as black as his mother’s must have been when she was young. A rash of adolescent spots flushed his brow and jaw and there was a smudge of dark down on his upper lip. He was of a slighter build than his brothers had been at that age, but William did not make the mistake of thinking John the runt of the litter. He was his father made over again but, in keeping with his colouring, more darkly rendered; and he was Eleanor also, but not her open, generous side.

“You have a great reputation, Marshal,” the lad said in a voice abrasive with the change to manhood.

“So your father has been telling me, Lord John,” William replied with a bow and a smile.

John responded with a smile of his own, white and vulpine. “Has he? He often speaks of your prowess. A pity that tourneys are banned in England, or I could watch you for myself.” He gave his father a teasing, knowing look.

The King ruffled John’s hair. “I have enough sons bedazzled by the folly and profligacy of the tourney. I thought you at least had more sense.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to tourney myself,” John said with a scornful gesture that echoed his father’s tone, “but it might be interesting to lay wagers on the outcome. My brother’s kitchen clerk has a pile of winnings the size of a dung heap thanks to Marshal.”

The King raised a sardonic eyebrow. “It seems that everyone gets rich except for me. I pay for the horses, the armour, the fine clothes, the food, the minstrels, the petty hangers-on. Do you know how many times your brother’s clerks come to me with demands for more funds because he and his mesnie have spent in a month what I have given them to last the year? Even with revenues of his own, he cannot live within his means.” Although he was addressing John, his gaze bored accusingly into William. “Indeed,” he continued, “I hear that certain knights encourage my son to spend beyond his means.”

William said nothing. It was pointless to fuel the confrontation and he was already standing on precarious ground. He had no doubt that someone had been feeding rumours to the King. No man was keen to challenge William on the tourney field where his skills made him supreme, but at court there were many who were prepared to put a knife in his back and clamber over his falling body to advance their ambitions.

“Have a care, Marshal,” the King said, his tone ambiguous. “You are not above taking a fall.” Still rubbing his leg, Henry moved on. John hesitated, then followed his sire, but he cast a glance over his shoulder and gave William a smile that was as dangerous as his father’s words had been.

William breathed out hard, pushing the tension from his body. He felt as if he had just been through a bruising bout on the tourney ground and emerged intact—but by the skin of his teeth; certainly not as the victor. He had thought himself adept at weaving his way through the dark undergrowth of the court, but plainly he was not adept enough. Perhaps it was time to retreat from the field for a while and refurbish his armour.

***

“William, I love you!” Alais threw her arms around his neck and smacked kisses enthusiastically on either cheek.

“It’s nothing,” he chuckled. “Call it payment for my board and lodging.”

“I wouldn’t call a silk wimple and gold hair pins nothing!” Sitting down again, Alais spread her fingers beneath the gossamer blue silk. “It’s beautiful.”

“So are you.”

Alais gave him a severe look, marred by the twitch of a smile and a deepening of pink in her cheeks. “You flatter me.”

“Not in the least. My brother doesn’t know how fortunate he is.”

“You can stop playing the courtier with my woman,” growled John Marshal, his humour tinged with annoyance. “Go and find one of your own.”

William hesitated. The world of the court made one do that—think long before speaking and then measure every word with caution. “I can’t take the praise for the choice of veil,” he said. “That was made by…a good friend.”

Alais raised an eyebrow. The corresponding mouth corner curved too. “Not a man, I hazard.”

William shook his head and smiled. “Her name is Clara,” he said, “and she rescued me once.”

Alais was determinedly eager to know more; John was amused and smugly prepared to wreak vengeance. “You can’t be holier than thou now, can you?” he derided as William told them as little as he could get away with. After all the lectures you gave to me on the matter of mistresses…”

William bit his tongue on the reply that it was different for him and Clara. He did not have an obligation to wed to enhance the Marshal line, and Clara’s barren womb meant there would never be offspring. “There are shades of difference,” he said diplomatically, “but I agree that I can no longer lecture you from the moral high ground.”

“You should have brought her with you.”

“I would have done, but she hates crossing water and she is a woman of the troubadour lands. If it rains, she mopes.” His smile was forced and the subject was rapidly dropped for other ones. John was troubled about the King’s irascibility towards his son’s extravagances and what it might mean for his followers.

“He is looking for a scapegoat,” John warned. “Everyone knows that you are the Young King’s right hand and his favourite. His father’s well informed, and not all of it is to your glory.”

“Men will say what they want,” William answered tersely. “What am I supposed to do? Lose a few bouts at the tourney? Snarl at my lord when he asks me a question? Fart in the hall?” He made a swift motion with his fist. There was a burning sensation in his gut. The anger he was usually so good at damping down flickered like dragon fire.