Chapter 12 #2
“You could have been killed,” Clara said much later.
In the small hours of the morning, the street was finally silent, the last carousers having tottered back to their lodgings.
The pike had been steamed in a bath of herbs and almond milk, which had imparted a delicate flavour to the flesh, and all that remained were the head and the bones, now confined to the midden bucket.
William watched her lazily from the bed as she removed her belt and gown.
Clad in shirt and chausses, his tunic discarded, he was lying on his stomach, his head pillowed on his bent forearms. There were red chaff marks on his throat, evidence of his earlier encounter with the now defunct helm.
“There is always ‘could have,’” he said.
“When I was five years old I was within a few words of being hanged from a gibbet. At Drincourt I had a lucky escape from a thatch gaff.” His voice softened.
“I could have died of my wounds when my uncle Patrick was murdered, had you not come to my aid. All I have instead is the scar.”
Clara smiled, although the expression did not reach her eyes. “We all have scars,” she said as she lay down beside him in her chemise.
Taking her hand, he kissed the tips of her fingers. His lips brushed softly over her palm. He grazed his teeth along the inside of her wrist until she shivered, and then kissed his way up to her throat and mounted her.
“Oh William,” she whispered and it was as if there was a great hollow inside her, empty and brimming over at the same time. No matter how many times she said his name, or took him into her body, the hollow remained, and grew.
Their lovemaking was wild and sweet, and when they were finished and there was silence, William listened to the liquid notes of a nightingale torrenting the darkness outside the window. “Count Theobald offered me lands if I would agree to go and fight for him,” he said after a while.
“What did you answer?” She lay against him, her appetite sated but not satisfied. His arm remained around her and he tenderly stroked her hair. He had fine bedchamber etiquette; he knew the courtesies.
“That his offer was generous and that I was tempted, but that I already had a lord and my loyalty was to him.”
“And were you tempted—truly, or were you just being courteous?”
“No, I was attracted by his offer,” William admitted.
“To have one’s own domain is the stuff of dreams to a landless man and Theobald of Blois would be a good lord to serve, but my family is beholden to the house of Anjou.
I promised Queen Eleanor that I would do my best for young Henry—and for all his flaws, I love him. ”
“He may be your King, but you are his master and his mentor in chivalry,” Clara said softly. “Perhaps you love him because he is dependent on you in a way that Theobald of Blois will never be. Henry rules you, but in your turn, you rule him.”
Her assessment was sufficiently astute to make him shrug uncomfortably.
“His wife is fond of you too,” she said, plucking at his chest hair. “The moment she sees you, her face lights up and she makes excuses to touch you.”
William laughed and shook his head in denial. “I have known her since she was a child. It is the fondness of familiarity and friendship. I have great affection for her too, but not in the way that a man loves a woman.”
Clara was not so sure, but she held her tongue.
She thought that William probably wanted to see Marguerite in terms of a child and an old friend, but that the reality was more subtle and therefore dangerous.
And she knew enough about the looks that women gave to men to know that William was definitely wrong about the Young Queen’s feelings.
“God’s bones, how long does it take for a baby to be born?
” demanded Henry, collecting a lance and preparing to charge at the quintain.
Earlier in the day he had been pacing the rooms of the French royal palace, but the walls had grown too small to contain his agitation and he had repaired outside to the tilting ground.
“Several days for a first one, so I understand,” William said. The midwives had already told Henry that, but the information appeared to have gone in one ear and out of the other.
Henry thundered down the tilt and struck the target a resounding blow. “It’s been two,” he said, trotting back to William. “And weeks before that shut up in confinement with her women and gossips. Christ, I’ll be glad when this whole palaver is over.”
William levelled his lance and fretted his stallion.
“I imagine that the Queen will be glad too.” He took his own turn at the quintain, striking the shield with the smooth grace of instinct and long training.
He had visited Marguerite on several occasions in the chamber where she had retired to spend the final month of her pregnancy.
The room had been pungent with the smell of herbs and unguents; the atmosphere enclosed and anticipatory, as if the room itself were a large womb.
Marguerite had appeared content enough on the surface, but he had seen the fear in her wide brown eyes as he took his leave after an evening in her company two days before the birth pangs began.
He had carried that image with him ever since.
She was trapped; she couldn’t take her leave.
No one said that she was the daughter of a mother who had died giving birth, but everyone had been thinking it.
The men were leaving the field when a herald came running towards them, waving his arms. “Sire, my lord, the Queen is delivered of a son!” he cried, his face shining with the joy of the news he carried.
Henry shouted a thank you to God and whirled to William, grey eyes fierce with triumph. “Do you hear that, Marshal? A son! I have a son!” He fisted William’s arm hard enough to bruise, even through gambeson and tunic.
“That is great news, my lord!” William fisted him back, although without quite as much force. “How is the Queen?” he enquired of the messenger.
“The women say very tired but joyful, sir.”
“I must see him!” Henry’s expression was incandescent as he spurred for the stables, pulling up in the yard so fast that the horse skidded on its haunches.
Flinging from its back, he ran into the palace.
William followed at a more sedate pace, a burden lifting from his mind.
Marguerite had survived the ordeal and the sight of his young lord’s energy and eagerness gave him hope that everything might yet turn out for the best.
“The heir to England and Normandy now has an heir of his own,” said Baldwin de Béthune, riding up beside William, his lips parted in a white grin. “That’ll change him.”
William smiled agreement. He had seen the difference the birth of little Jack had made to his brother…a difference that perhaps he would never know and, through his pleasure, he felt a twinge of regret.
Marguerite gazed at the baby sleeping in her arms. He had been tightly bound in swaddling so that he resembled a little parcelled-up fly in a spider’s larder.
His eyes were closed and the tiny lashes glittered as if dusted with gold.
Delicate blue shadows lay beneath them and his skin had the pale hue of lavender flowers.
His breathing was so silent that she could hardly hear it, or feel it confined within the shroud-like layers of swaddling.
“William,” she whispered his name to herself and the speaking of it warmed the cold place in her heart.
He had been named for his three times great-grandfather, the Norman duke who had conquered England, and for Henry’s small brother who had died whilst still an infant and who would have been the “Young King” had he lived.
But there was another named William in their lives too, whose presence perhaps mattered more.
She thought of the joy on her husband’s face as he entered the birthing chamber, his pride as he held his newborn son, and the way that he had shown the child to all in the room in the same way that he would enthuse over a new piece of harness or jousting equipment.
It was the first time in their marriage that he had shown such a spark when it had a direct connection to her.
It had made her feel sad and overwhelmed with happiness at the same time.
The new Prince had been taken from the room and briefly shown to the other members of their household.
She had wanted to ask Henry what William Marshal had thought, but she had been asleep when Henry returned the baby and he had not stayed, but departed to celebrate the birth of his heir with his mesnie.
She fancied that if she strained her ears she would hear them in the hall, raising toasts, celebrating her achievement by fêting Henry for all he was worth.
With a soft rustle of movement a midwife parted the half-closed bed curtains. The wet nurse who had been engaged to suckle the baby stood a little behind her. “Is our princeling ready for a feed yet?” The midwife held out her arms for the baby. “He should be by now.”
Awkwardly, Marguerite gathered his little body and handed him to the midwife, who cradled him gently across to the wet nurse.
The women exchanged glances. “What is it, what’s wrong?
” Alarmed, Marguerite pulled herself upright on the bolsters and felt the hot trickle of blood between her thighs. “Please…”
“Nothing, madam, calm yourself, nothing is wrong. Your son is just tired after his hard passage into the world. Come now.”