Chapter Fourteen
Fourteen
There was a new Young King and he was French.
The fourteen-year-old son of Louis of France, Philip the God-given, so called because he was born when his father had relinquished all hope of siring an heir, had been crowned at Reims on All Saints’ Day and a grand tourney was being held to mark the occasion.
All the magnates and lords who had attended the coronation had come to the field with their retinues.
Tents and striped pavilions were pitched as far as the eye could see.
The weather was cold but clear, the horizon a grainy haze and, as it had been dry recently, the ground was firm for the horses.
William glanced towards the recently risen sun and inhaled deeply. The smell of bread, bacon, and pottage wafted from numerous camp fires and the cookstall booths were doing brisk business as men stoked their bellies for the hard day’s fighting to come.
Adjusting his surcoat, Ancel emerged from William’s pavilion.
The garment was parti-coloured green and yellow with a red lion rampant snarling across the background—William’s chosen device.
There were several knights kitted out in this barding, their surcoats and shields proclaiming William’s blazon.
Like William and Ancel they were of English birth and provided for by the Young King from the expenses given to him as his father’s representative at young Philip’s coronation…
expenses that were vanishing faster than water down a piscina with the plug removed.
William admired his brother. “You look a veritable King’s Champion,” he said.
Ancel flashed him a nervous grin. “Let’s hope I perform like one.”
“I have no doubts on that score.” It was true.
Ancel had tourneyed throughout the summer at William’s side.
Nervous and uncertain at first, his skills had blossomed as his confidence had grown.
He was never going to dazzle, but he was a competent fighter, always aware of where others were and what they were doing.
Adam Yqueboeuf and Thomas de Coulances were passing and had overheard the brothers’ exchange. Yqueboeuf’s lips parted in a sneer. “You are the one reckoned to be Lancelot, Marshal, didn’t you know?”
William’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?” The antipathy between the men had increased of late, fuelled on William’s part by knowledge of what Yqueboeuf had said about Marguerite.
Yqueboeuf’s hostility stemmed from envy and the higher William rose at court, the more it festered.
He would not compare William to King Arthur’s best knight unless there was an insult in it somewhere.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? You deserve all the accolades that come your way, King’s Champion that you are.”
The knights went on their way. Out of hearing, de Coulances leaned towards Yqueboeuf and said something that caused both men to laugh and glance over their shoulders.
“Pity they’re not opposing us,” Ancel said, hands on hips.
“I’d enjoy choking them with their own teeth.
” He gave William a perceptive look. Only last night in Henry’s chamber, a troubadour had been retelling Chrétien de Troyes’ story of Lancelot, the greatest of King Arthur’s knights who had betrayed his lord by sleeping with his wife.
“Do you think they are insinuating that you and Queen Marguerite—”
William raised his hand to interrupt his brother in mid-sentence. “Say no more.” His features twisted with revulsion. “I will not countenance such filth.”
“No, but they might.”
“They have no grounds. I am never alone with the Queen. If I talk to her or dance with her at court, I don’t linger, and I don’t flirt with her either.”
“Gossip can destroy even the cleanest reputation,” Ancel pointed out.
William made an explosive sound through his pursed lips. “What else am I supposed to do? Everyone, including Marguerite and Henry, knows that I have a mistress and no desire to chase other women.”
Ancel shrugged. “It’s just wise to take care,” he said and then gave a rueful smile. “I know I’m teaching my grandmother to suck eggs.”
William looked wry. “And who’s to say you’re not right? I’ll think on the matter and take heed.” Slapping Ancel’s shoulder, he went to don his armour.
Although William did not dismiss the jealous mutterings of Adam Yqueboeuf and Thomas de Coulances, he set them to the back of his mind.
He had more immediate matters to concern him than their petty scheming.
Rhys brought William’s new stallion round from the horse lines to his tent.
Blancart had grown too long in the tooth for the tourneys and Count Philip of Flanders had bought him from William to run him at stud on one of his farms. Blancart’s replacement was a Lombardy stallion with a hide of ruby-gold satin and flaxen mane and tail.
Wigain had remarked that his coat resembled the gold bezants brought home by returning crusaders and thus the stallion had come by his name.
“He’s been warmed,” Rhys said cheerfully. “Put him through his paces myself. Sweet as a nut.”
William nodded his thanks, swung into the saddle, and rode to join the English knights who were assembling under his banner ready for the day’s sport.
He was pleased to note that every man had taken extra care with his appearance.
Harry Norreis, William’s herald, had plaited his horse’s mane with green and yellow ribbons and his bridle jingled with small silver bells.
“He looks like a jongleur’s beast,” William said with an amused shake of his head.
“And you look like a travelling player.”
“All the better to sing your praises!” As irrepressible as his shock of bright auburn hair, Norreis drew his sword and twirled it in the air like a juggler before revolving it back into the scabbard.
Suppressing his laughter, William turned to find a page from Queen Marguerite’s household waiting his attention.
“Sir William, the Queen requests that you carry her favour on the field to bring you good fortune,” he piped and presented William with a red silk strip to tie around his lance.
William had to accept the gift. To have refused would have caused hurt, insult, and more speculation.
Taking it would usually have meant nothing, but with the bad taste of rumour still in his mouth, he wondered if others would misconstrue what they saw.
“Tell the Queen that I thank her and I am proud to bear her token.” He tied the gaudy flutter of silk to the end of his lance.
The page bowed and ran off as the Young King arrived at the head of the two hundred Norman and Angevin knights he had employed for the occasion.
The serried ranks of red and gold were a magnificent, throat-catching sight.
Henry’s surcoat was blood-red silk and two lions snarled across his breast in glittering thread of gold with jet beads for eyes and rock crystal claws.
His swordbelt was decorated with enamelled lions, and his horse harness bore more of the lion badges across the brow-band, chest strap, and at each buckle point.
William was relieved to see an identical strip of silk to the one just bestowed on him fluttering from the haft of Henry’s lance.
At least Marguerite had had the good sense to gift her husband similarly.
Beyond the knights wearing the red and gold of Anjou were others in disparate hues whom he had attracted to his side at the last moment, and some smaller contingents, like William’s, who carried their own flags on the field but were fighting under Henry’s banner.
“Ready to take all comers with your doughty Englishmen, Marshal?” Henry teased.
There was mockery about the way he said “doughty Englishmen,” for the latter were perceived as being less civilised than their Norman and Angevin counterparts—drunken clods with only half a wit to share between all of them.
Such prejudices gave the English a gritty, brawling edge when it came to a fight for they were ready with a vengeance to prove their true worth.
“Never more so, sire.” William gave Henry an assured smile.
In the ranks behind the Young King, his gaze fell upon the partnership of Adam Yqueboeuf and Thomas de Coulances.
The latter gestured obscenely at William, who ignored the provocation, knowing that his indifference was more galling than a response.
The English, appropriately enough, had a word for men such as Yqueboeuf and Coulances: nithing.
It was what he called them in private. “The nithings.”
Other entourages were riding on to the tourney ground.
The Flemish under Philip, Count of Flanders and his brother Matthew of Boulogne, the men of Burgundy following their Duke, the Earl of Huntingdon with his Scots, the French in vast numbers, parading to honour their new Young King.
It was a brave and daunting sight and made William’s stomach wallow with anticipation while pride tightened his throat.
Henry must have felt it too, for there was a sparkle of tears in his eyes as he paused before taking his great helm from his squire and settling it over his arming cap.
“There will never be a greater moment than this in all our days of tourneying,” he said, his voice raw with emotion. “Never.”