Chapter 6 #2
Falling to his knees, William bowed his head. “Thank God.” His voice cracked as he fought not to weep. “Tell me that you are here to ransom me?”
“Indeed, my son, that is my purpose.” The priest’s tone was gentle with compassion. “Queen Eleanor has redeemed your price in full. On the morrow you are free to leave.”
The words were the sweetest that William had ever heard.
The lump in his throat made speech impossible.
Father André set his hand to William’s sleeve and gently raised him to his feet.
“Although not as free as you might choose,” the priest added with a smile.
“The Queen desires words with you on your return.”
William stepped into the steaming bathtub and hissed at the scalding heat.
A swift command from the lady Clara hastened a serving girl to the tub with an extra half-pail of cold water.
Now that he had been ransomed and was no longer a prisoner, the laws of hospitality declared that he must be treated as a guest—perhaps not a welcome one, but the courtesies still had to be observed.
Since Eleanor herself had paid his ransom, William’s importance had suddenly risen dramatically and neither the Lusignans nor Amalric were about to return him to her clad in filthy rags and looking like a scabrous beggar.
He had been brought to the domestic chambers above the hall and the women instructed to tend him and find him fresh raiment.
The bathwater was already turning a scummy grey.
Clara brought a jar of soap and some stavesacre lotion to deal with the lice.
Sitting on a stool to the side of the tub she set about ministering to him, efficiently barbering off his beard and cutting his hair before rubbing the pungent stavesacre lotion into his scalp.
William was embarrassed. “You do not need to do this, my lady, I can see to these things myself.”
Her lips curved in a half-smile. “I do not need to, but I wish to.”
“May I look a gift horse in the mouth and ask why?”
She slowed kneading his scalp. “Because I was angered and ashamed by the way they treated you,” she said. “I do not like to see suffering. I would have done more for you if I could, that first time.”
“I am very grateful, my lady, for what you did do.”
“It was little enough.” Her breathing hesitated, but when he tried to look round, she tipped a jug of water over his hair to sluice it clean.
She provided him with clean garments from the chest containing clothing that had been made as gifts for the household knights.
The linen shirt was a little too short but fitted well across the shoulders; the braies could be made to fit any waist by adjusting the drawstring tie; and she found some good woollen hose for him that were sufficiently long in the leg.
When she enquired if his wound needed dressing, he answered swiftly that it did not.
The thought of her long, slim fingers anywhere north of his knees sent a flood of heat to his groin.
If she caught his turmoil, she was sufficiently tactful to ignore it and presented him with a tunic of green linen, a light woollen cloak and a leather hood.
“My lady, you have my thanks,” he said as, finally, clean and spruce for the first time in four months, he prepared to go down to the hall and take his place among the knights instead of in the piss corner.
“If ever there is anything I can do to repay you, then you need only send word and I am at your service.”
Mischief lit a gleam in her dark eyes. “Anything?” she said, and then laughed. “Thank you, messire; I will bear it in mind. For the moment, you can best repay me by staying alive lest I should need you to fulfil your promise.”
He bowed over the hand she extended to him. “I will do my best, my lady,” he said.
When William entered the Queen’s chambers in Poitiers, he was immediately struck by the familiar scents of cedar and sandalwood and by the opulent shades that Eleanor so loved: crimson and purple and gold.
He drew a deep, savouring breath; he was home.
Eleanor had been standing near the window talking to Guillaume de Tancarville but, on seeing William, she ceased the conversation and hastened across the chamber.
Somewhat stiffly, William knelt and bowed his head. Clara had shorn his hair close to his scalp to help rid him of the remainder of the lice and the air was cold on the back of his neck.
“William, God save you!” Eleanor stooped, took his hands and raised him to his feet, her tawny eyes full of concern. “You’re as thin as a lance, and I was told that you had been grievously injured.”
“A spear in the thigh; it is almost healed, madam,” William replied, not wanting to dwell on his injury. “I am for ever in your debt for ransoming me.”
Eleanor shook her head. “There will be no talk of debt unless it is on my part. You and your uncle sacrificed yourselves for my freedom and I can never repay that. Patrick of Salisbury was my husband’s man, and did his bidding first, but he was honourable and courteous and I grieve his death.
His murderers will be brought to justice, I promise you that.
” Behind Eleanor, de Tancarville made a sound of concurrence.
“Yes, madam,” William agreed, his mouth twisting.
He had sworn an oath on his sword on the matter.
Until the Lusignan brothers had taught him the meaning of hatred, he had harboured strong grudges against no man.
Now he had that burden and it was as if something light had been taken from him and replaced with a hot lead weight.
“You have no lord now, William.” Eleanor drew him further into the room and bade him sit on a cushioned bench. He did so gratefully for his leg was paining him and he had yet to regain his stamina.
“No, madam.” William glanced at Guillaume de Tancarville, who was watching him with an enigmatic smile on his lips.
William had half expected the Chamberlain to invite him to rejoin his household, but the older man remained silent.
“It is the tourney season, and I still have Blancart. I can make my way in the world.”
De Tancarville’s smile deepened. “Are you sure about that? You seem to have an unfortunate skill for losing destriers and putting yourself in jeopardy.”
“I would have done the same for you, my lord, were you in my uncle’s place,” William replied with quiet dignity, thereby wiping the humour from de Tancarville’s face.
“I’m sorry, lad. I should not have jested. Perhaps it’s because I know more about your future than you do. You won’t need to ride the tourney roads or accept a place in my mesnie.”
“My lord?” William gave him a baffled look; Eleanor shot him an irritated one, as if de Tancarville had given too much away.
“What my lord Tancarville is saying in his clumsy fashion is that I am offering you a place among my own household guard,” Eleanor said.
“I will furnish you with whatever you need in the way of clothing and equipment…and horses should the need arise,” she added with a twitch of her lips.
“It is more than charity. I would be a fool of the greatest order not to take you into my service. My children adore you, we have missed your company, and you have proven your loyalty and valour to the edge of death.”
Her compliments washed over William’s head in a hot wave and he felt his face burning with pleasure and embarrassment.
“Lost for words?” she teased, her voice throaty with laughter.
William swallowed. “I have often dreamed of such a post but I never thought…” He shook his head.
“It is an ill wind,” he said and suddenly a sweeping feeling of loss and sadness overtook his euphoria.
He put his right hand over his face, striving to hold himself together.
He had managed it for four months under the most difficult of circumstances.
He wouldn’t break now, not in front of the Queen.
“William, I understand,” Eleanor said in a gentler voice than was her wont. “Take what time you need and report to me as soon as you are ready. Speak to my steward. He will see that you are provided with anything you lack. Go to.” She gave him a gentle push.
“Madam.” William bowed from her presence.
On the threshold, just as he was almost free, Princess Marguerite came skipping into the chamber with her nurse.
Her face lit up when she saw William. Producing the puppy that had been tucked under her arm, she thrust it at him.
“This is Diamond,” she announced. “She’s my new dog. I’m glad you’re back.”
“So am I.” William dutifully tussled the pup’s silky ears. It opened its little jaws and nipped his finger with its milk teeth. The word “rat” came to mind but he kept it to himself.
“Are you crying?” Marguerite asked, some of the pleasure leaving her face as she prepared to pucker her chin in sympathy.
William’s nostrils filled with the smell of the pup—a mingling of mild urine and baby fur.
“No, Princess,” he lied, forcing the shield of his control to remain even though it was damaged beyond repair.
“I have a cold, that is all.” Suddenly he was very glad that it was only Marguerite on the stairs and not Eleanor’s demanding, boisterous sons.
Holding on to the storm had its price. Like summer lightning, it flickered on the horizon, clouding his head, building painful pressure behind his eyes, refusing to break because he had stopped the natural order of things.
He avoided as many folk as he could, replying in monosyllables to those who attempted to speak to him.
He came to the church of Saint Hilaire shortly after vespers with the sun mellowing at his left shoulder and casting long shadows over a landscape wearing the dusty, faded green of midsummer.
He had thought of nothing as he walked, because that had been the easiest thing to do—exist in his own company with a blank mind.
It took him a moment to respond to the porter on duty and the words fumbled out of him as if he had been drinking, causing the monk to look at him with disapproval.
William drew himself together and in a firmer voice repeated who he was and why he had come.
The porter summoned another monk to lead William to Patrick of Salisbury’s tomb.
Their footsteps echoed in the vault of the nave and the evening light spun through the arches and gilded the walls and floor in soothing, quiet gold.
In silence the monk indicated the tomb, currently devoid of embellishment save for a pall of red silk fringed with gold, candles burning in sockets at each corner of the cover.
The formal effigy was still in the process of being carved.
William nodded his thanks and knelt beside the tomb.
The monk’s footsteps whispered away, leaving William to his vigil.
As the sun set, blue dusk followed by deep night covered the church in successive layers.
Shrine lamps glimmered in the darkness and candles made pools of light.
William heard the monks at their compline service and then again at matins.
A deep hush fell, as profound as the darkness between the islands of light.
Alone, William leaned his forehead against the shroud and willed himself to weep for the proud man struck down from behind, but the tears would not come.
Somewhere between Eleanor’s chamber and the church, they had dried up and the storm had rumbled off to some fasthold at the back of his mind.