Chapter 10 #2
“You say that after what happened last year?” John’s voice filled with scorn.
“England, Normandy and Anjou in flames, not to mention Poitou. The King and his sons at each other’s throats and the Earl of Leicester landing an army of Flemings in Norfolk?
Christ, you might want to dance in the mouth of hell, but I want to live to see my son grow up.
I had to stop Ancel from riding off to join the Young King’s party,” he added darkly.
“He was in his hot blood and ready to cross the sea and seek you out. I told him you’d not thank him and that finding a place in a lord’s mesnie isn’t just a matter of riding up and offering one’s sword.
I managed to command his loyalty, but he doesn’t like me for it.
He’s at Wexcombe with Mother, letting the dust settle. ”
William felt sympathy, for both John and for Ancel: one having to give orders; the other forced to obey them; and neither benefiting.
“I would take Ancel if I could, but I cannot afford to at the moment.” William plucked at his rich tunic.
“I may look prosperous to you, but I am beholden to my lord for the clothes I wear, the horse I ride, and the food in my mouth. However fine my equipment, when it comes to the crux, I am still a hearth knight.”
“But an exalted one.”
William twitched his shoulders, acknowledging the fact while making little of it.
Unable to contain their restlessness indoors, the brothers went out of the castle and walked around the walls where they had played as children.
Today, other small boys were engaged in a boisterous game of chase in the May sunshine, their laughter adding a layer to the echo of memory.
William remembered mock sword fights on the sward: what it felt like to win; what it felt like to lose.
“So in truth, and ignoring the rumours,” John said, “what sort of king will Prince Henry make? You are his tutor. What do you know of him?”
William gnawed his thumbnail and considered.
“He is not like his father,” he said slowly, “except perhaps he has the same determination to get his own way. If money trickles through his hands like water down a drain, it is indeed because he enjoys spending it and being generous to those in his service. He believes it increases his standing to be seen to have an open door and to scatter largesse as if silver were of no more account than ears of wheat.”
John’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Well, that accords with the rumours,” he said.
William paused to look up at the high, narrow windows.
There was a gallery at the top of the tower and someone had hung several shirts over the rail to dry.
“He is still growing. You can argue that his father was a man before he was sixteen years old, but he matured early and from necessity. My lord is clever and sharp; he knows how to make people love him. The rest will come.”
“Despite that remark about being the greater king because he is the son of a king, not the son of a count?”
William sighed. Henry’s “witticism” seemed set to endure.
Everyone had heard of it and he was growing sick of fending off adverse comments.
“He was younger then and drunk on wine and excitement. He has more control these days. I do not know why he gets the reputation for being the one who’s too clever with his words.
Geoffrey is just as bad and Richard’s tongue is so sharp he can make men bleed. ”
“But Richard is Duke of Aquitaine and unlikely to be our king,” John said. “He’s little known in England and Normandy—just another royal whelp…”
“…and Eleanor’s favourite,” William reminded his brother, but John was not persuaded.
“She is locked away in Salisbury and, as matters stand, unlikely to be given her freedom for a long time.”
William conceded the point with a brief nod. “Perhaps not, but for the moment Richard is his brother’s heir and the Queen has had the major hand in raising him. Richard is the child of her soul in the same way that John is King Henry’s.”
His brother looked alarmed and William’s lips twitched. Men professed to love Eleanor, but it was an adoration tinged with fear and more than a hint of “God forbid.” Perhaps they were right to be fearful, but William had long gone beyond that.
“Then I wish the Young King the wherewithal to grow up and mature,” John said. “What of his wife? Does she show any signs of breeding?”
“You would have to ask her women about that,” William said neutrally.
He could have told his brother that the marriage between Henry and Marguerite had only lately been consummated and that the couple were dutiful rather than passionate when it came to sharing a bed.
However, William considered the matter personal and, being protective of Marguerite and his lord, said nothing.
John took the hint, although he made a jest of wondering whether the Young King would have his own heir crowned in his lifetime.
“I doubt it,” William said with a humourless smile. “Would you?”
John looked over his shoulder towards the castle doorway and Alais who was dandling the baby in her arms. “Probably not,” he said.
The following day William took his leave of John, and although their parting was cordial enough, the brothers were relieved to say farewell.
John, no matter how he tried to hide it, was jealous of William’s meteoric rise at court.
To have a younger brother in the daily company of kings and queens, magnates and archbishops chafed his own sense of self-worth.
Nor did he approve of William’s extravagant lifestyle, although part of that disapproval was because he desired such for himself but would not admit it.
For his part, William was fond of John but found him staid and insular—although those traits would probably have been worse had he not had Alais and their infant son to lift him out of his rut.
In spite of the stigma of having borne John a child out of wedlock and being his mistress, Alais seemed soft and content.
It was that very contentment, the sight of her cuddling her son on her knee in a shaft of evening sunlight and smiling back at John that had given William his own moment of envy.
He wasn’t ready to settle down—might never be, and it might never happen—but seeing that moment of quiet pleasure was like standing in the winter snow and looking through a window at a torchlit golden feast to which he was a witness, but not a guest.
As he put distance between himself and Hamstead, William’s envy evaporated and he brightened, glad to be on the road again, a knight errant with a glittering future before him.
He paused at Wexcombe to visit his mother and Ancel, promising the latter that as soon as there was a place for him, he would take him on, rode on to Bradenstoke to pay his respects at his father’s tomb, and then turned away from filial and domestic duty towards his other life.
Loyalty, gratitude, and a deep affection brought him first to Salisbury and Eleanor.
***
The Queen’s chamber was more suited to that of a nun than a queen and her position as her husband’s prisoner was unequivocal.
The walls were devoid of hangings and her opulent bed coverings had been replaced by plain blankets.
Instead of her beautiful flagons and goblets, there were heavy jugs and cups fashioned of crude local pottery.
The painted coffers were gone and the usual pile of books was missing, although her chessboard stood rather forlornly on a plain wooden chest in the embrasure.
Eleanor herself sat near the open shutters, some sewing in her lap.
When William was ushered into the room, she rose to her feet, her face brightening with pleasure.
“William!” She came towards him, her hand outstretched and slightly trembling.
He knelt and kissed her fingers, which were still adorned with a wealth of gold rings.
Henry hadn’t taken those from her at least.
“Oh, it is so good to see you; you cannot know!” She raised him to his feet and when their eyes met, William saw the new lines of suffering and experience dredging her face.
The fine bone structure would always guarantee her beauty, and her eyes were still the same slanting bright gold, but the years did not sit as lightly as before.
“Madam, you look well,” he said. It was the truth. Despite her tribulation, there remained a glamour about her, like the gilding on the wing of a dark butterfly.
“Do I?” She gave a sceptical laugh. “Well, I don’t feel it.
Jesu, even nuns have more freedom than I do.
My gaolers think it a great concession to allow me to dine in the great hall or receive a visitor every once in a while.
” She glanced towards the castellan who had followed William into the room.
He was looking uncomfortably at the ceiling, but still standing close enough to hear every word.
“I am deeply sorry, madam.”
“Hah, so am I…to be caged at least. For the rest, not even the pincers of hell will wring a confession of remorse from my lips.” She clapped her hand at a maid and gestured her to pour wine.
“From Poitou,” she said. “Henry may have given me cracked old cups to drink from, but at least I’m granted the boon of wine from my own province.
” Her eyes narrowed. “I would not drink his even if I were dying of thirst.”
Knowing the King’s wine, William didn’t blame her. He took the cup from the maid and saluted Eleanor. The castellan too was grudgingly furnished with wine, but not invited to join the conversation.
“So,” she said brightly, “tell me of the world outside.”
William saw through the smile in her voice to the desolation beneath.
To be shut away here on a frugal income, her visitors closely vetted and not encouraged, must be soul-destroying to the vivacious and intellectually hungry Eleanor.
She loved to shine in company and to feed upon the dazzle she created.
Indeed, she craved company for its own sake.
He set out to entertain her with tales of the latest doings at court; the scandals; the political manoeuvring.
He made her laugh and for a while forget her circumstances, and he gave her news of her sons.
Here too he kept his tone light. Aware of the constable’s stretched ears, he said nothing that could be passed back to the King and used to his or Eleanor’s detriment.
She was circumspect too but bade him greet her sons and tell them that they were held in her heart and her prayers.
“As you are held in mine, madam.” He kissed her hand again. When he looked beyond her fingers, still fine, still manicured, but scattered with the brown mottles of age, and into her eyes, he saw that they were shimmering with tears.
William took his leave with a troubled and heavy spirit. He wished he could ransom Eleanor the way that she had once ransomed him. All he could do was watch out for her eldest son, who was in his charge, and do his best to honour that position of trust.
At Hamstead, John had said with a curl of his lip that Eleanor’s plight was of her own making, but William had answered that rebellion was surely never in her mind when she had married Henry of Anjou and that her husband was as much to blame.
It was the march of years and the slow, dark spiral into disillusion that had brought her to an edge and then tumbled her over it.
How did one guard against that, he wondered?
How did one hold on to one’s loyalty when love was dead and fidelity betrayed?
Perhaps one did so because it was the only light in the void and to let go was to fall for eternity.
He shivered at his thoughts and clapping his heels to his palfrey’s flanks picked up the pace.