Chapter 5 #2
Her voice continued to twitter and he shut it out, watching the lad, willing him not to make a mistake and bring both himself and the horse to grief.
It was an act of God rather than any human design that Henry stayed on Blancart’s back as the stallion thundered towards the quintain post. Henry’s eyes were squeezed shut and his seat in the saddle was appalling.
The stallion’s new-shod hooves churned clods of turf and his tail was swishing with that mingling of eagerness and irritation that William recognised with foreboding.
By rights, Henry should have missed the ring entirely, but the miracle continued as with more than his lifetime’s share of divine providence he succeeded in spearing the withy ring and riding on.
As the stallion turned away from the tilt, Henry’s eyes opened and a beatific expression spread across his face.
Features ablaze with triumph, he sought Richard in the crowd—a victor gloating at the vanquished.
William started forward and Henry’s attention turned.
Fear and defiance constricted the elation, but it didn’t vanish entirely.
The lad fixed William with an imperious stare, which William ignored.
He would kneel to the King and the Queen and yield deference to the royal children in a formal situation.
But this wasn’t a formal situation and young Henry had just broken the code of chivalry and needed teaching a lesson.
However, before he could reach horse and boy and secure them both, Blancart gave an irritated buck.
Henry was flung backwards, his spine striking the hard wood of the cantle.
He dropped the lance, grabbed the reins in panic, and yanked on them.
The stallion went wild, twisting, kicking, plunging.
Prince Henry tried to hold on but he stood no chance for he was straddling a whirlwind.
The inevitable moment arrived when he lost his grip, sailed from the saddle, and hit the ground with a breath-jarring thud.
Blancart bolted, punctuating his gallop with a series of violent bucks and kicks.
Salisbury ran to the Prince who was bleeding from the nose and mouth.
William chased after the agitated stallion and managed to seize the trailing rein before the horse could put his hoof through the loop, fall, and break a leg.
Speaking firmly and slowly, standing side on, William slid his hands up the rein until he was close enough to grip the cheek strap.
He laid his palm to the sweating, trembling neck, grabbed a fistful of mane, and swung into the saddle.
Blancart shuddered, but with a familiar solid weight across his back rather than a child’s flimsiness, he steadied.
Using knees and thighs, putting no pressure on the reins, William rode over to the fallen prince, his heart filled with dread.
“Christ, let him be all right,” he prayed, crossing himself.
A crowd had gathered around the boy, including the senior royal nurse, Hodierna, who was weeping and wringing her hands.
Salisbury looked up as William arrived. Henry was sitting up, hugging his body, his face twisted with pain. Closer now, William could see that the blood in his mouth was from a bitten lip and the nosebleed had already stopped.
“Bruised ribs, I would say,” Salisbury said. “He bounced well. Is the horse all right?”
“Hard to tell, my lord. It hasn’t done his temper much good.” William rubbed his hand reassuringly along Blancart’s neck and crest and felt the horse shiver under his touch.
“Stop panicking, woman, he’s not dead,” Salisbury snapped at Hodierna as she continued to wail. He gripped Henry’s shoulder and squeezed hard. “What do you think you were doing?”
The boy gasped. His eyes were glassy with the tears he would not let fall. “I wanted to ride a real destrier. Richard said I couldn’t do it, but I did.” He raised his chin, suddenly defiant.
“And might have died. If that horse is injured through your stupidity, you will owe Messire William the price of its tending or replacement. A King’s heir or not, you’re a young fool!”
Henry compressed his lips. Clearly in pain, he rose to his feet and gingerly turned, clutching his ribs, to face William. “I am sorry, Messire Marshal. He is such a fine horse that I could not help myself.”
“Then you have much to learn about self-discipline,” growled Salisbury.
William’s heart was still pounding in reaction to the incident, but something about the lad’s manner, the look in the eyes, the set of the mouth, softened his anger.
He understood the emotions: the need to prove oneself before one’s peers and siblings; the need itself when one was thirteen and raised among sharp swords and valuable horses.
“Lord Henry has learned from his prank the painful way,” William said with a warning look at the boy.
“I don’t think he’ll be attempting it again? ”
Henry stared at William through his fringe and mutely shook his head.
Salisbury grunted and looked severe. “You’re getting off lightly,” he told Henry.
“Best go and get your bruises seen to.” He gave the boy to Hodierna, which was in itself something of a humiliation, for Henry saw himself as being almost too old for a nurse these days, especially one who was making as much fuss as an old hen.
The Earl dispersed the crowd with a wave of his arm, but with a sudden lunge caught Richard back by the scruff.
“You saw what happened to your brother,” he warned, shaking him like a terrier with a rat. “Don’t ever think of doing the same.”
“I won’t.” Richard put his hands together like an angel. However as soon as Salisbury released him he added cheekily, “For a start, I wouldn’t fall off.” He was gone in a duck and a rapid flash of heels.
Salisbury dug his fingers through his hair. “Young devil,” he muttered, but there was reluctant humour in his eyes.
“You let him off lightly too,” William said.
“True,” Salisbury replied, “but they’ve still got to run the gauntlet of their mother, and there’ll be no mercy from her.”
“Lame,” announced the groom with the relish of the eternal pessimist proven right. “Said yesterday afternoon that foreleg looked dicey.”
William laid one hand to Blancart’s shoulder, and ran it firmly down the affected leg. The knee was hot to the touch and the destrier flinched and shied with a grunt of pain.
“Strained it good and proper, the lad has,” the groom continued.
In this instance, the “lad” referred to was Prince Henry, not the stallion.
“Horse’ll not be carrying you anywhere for a sennight at least. I’ll get a poultice put on it straight away but…
” He clucked his tongue, shook his head, and rumpled his hair. “A sennight,” he repeated.
William cursed. The stable yard was busy as Salisbury’s knights mounted up and prepared to escort the Queen to a neighbouring castle. Eleanor had not yet arrived, but the moment she did, the troop would depart and Salisbury would only have sharp words for laggards.
Beckoning to his squire, William collected his bridle and saddle from the tack room at the side of the stables and set about harnessing his second destrier.
Fortunately, Fauvel was as dozy as a gelding and saddling him only took half as long as it did with Blancart.
William buckled the bridle and fastened the breast-band while his squire cinched the girths.
By the time he led Fauvel out to join the escort, the Queen was just entering the yard with two of her women.
Eleanor wore a riding gown of blue wool and a light cloak of leaf-green edged with silver braid and fastened with a magnificent cloisonné clasp.
Silver spurs glinted at her heels. Her bright gaze settled briefly on William and Fauvel before she nodded to Salisbury.
“The Princes are not accompanying you, madam?” the Earl enquired as he boosted her into the saddle of a dappled Barbary mare.
“No,” she said, “they are not, although perhaps I should have made Henry ride with us and suffer in the saddle for yesterday’s folly. As it is, I have allowed my sons the pleasure of a day’s extra tuition in Latin and on the subject of the responsibilities of kings.”
Salisbury gave a laconic grin. “I am sure they will benefit, madam.”
“Then you are more certain than their mother,” Eleanor replied with exasperation.
The company rode out into the bright spring morning.
Initially William was morose at having to ride his second destrier, but the fine weather and the festive atmosphere soon lightened his humour.
He was the only man wearing his hauberk.
The other knights had brought their mail and weapons, but carried them on sumpter horses or rolled behind their saddles—as William would have done had he not been testing the fit of the repaired garment.
“If my son has caused injury to your stallion by his prank, then I will have him reimburse you,” Eleanor said, joining William as the party rode along a rutted cart track.
Sunlight dappled through the new leaves, the hawthorn sprays were in bud, and the breeze was as warm as a lover’s breath.
Hidden amongst the trees a cuckoo sent its throaty call in search of a mate.
“In truth, madam, I believe that he has paid his debt,” William answered. “I doubt he will be as hasty to repeat the trick. My groom tells me that Blancart will need to be rested for a week, but that there is no lasting harm.”
“You are generous.” Eleanor’s smile curled her mouth corners in a way that shortened William’s breath. Three months on from the Christmas feast at Argentan, he had grown more accustomed to Eleanor’s powerful sexual charisma, but her flirting still caused him to be deliciously disturbed.
“Madam, if you had spoken to me earlier, I might have been less amiable,” he admitted ruefully.
“But you are not one to hold grudges, William?”
He shook his head. “Not over trifles, madam.”