Chapter 39
Thirty-nine
Queen Eleanor bit her lip in agitation and, hugging her ermine-lined cloak around her body, moved to warm her hands at one of several braziers heating the room.
The weather had turned bitterly cold and even at midday, hoar frost rimed doors and lintels.
Water butts and horse troughs were solid ice and the outside air was like a knife in the lungs.
Many of the barons and magnates were gathered in the great Rufus Hall, but the Queen had retired to her apartments early, bringing only a select few guests with her, William and Isabelle among them.
“Another crusader ship has put in to port without news of Richard,” Eleanor muttered to William as he joined her at the brazier. “I am beginning to worry for him.”
“There is still time yet, madam,” William said.
Her reproachful look told him that she judged him guilty of mouthing platitudes.
“There should have been word or sight by now. We know he sailed from Acre in October and that his galley came safely into Brindisi, but we have heard nothing since. How long did it take you to travel back from Jerusalem, William?”
He twitched his shoulders. “Less than two months, but that is not a time carved in stone for all men.”
“Richard would not dally. He knows the trouble that Philip of France will cause in his absence and he also knows that there are matters in England to resolve.” She shivered and washed her hands together.
“Yesterday my youngest son told me that I should prepare myself to hear that Richard is dead…but I won’t.
I refuse to do that.” She swallowed, the tendons in her throat taut with strain.
“He is the child of my heart. I would know if he were dead. John would usurp his place in an instant. I know that he’s stuffing his castles to the rafters.
I know that word has gone out to his castellans to prepare for him to become a king…
” Her eyes narrowed. “I have given my full consent to John being Richard’s heir, but that is all—his heir, and until I know for certain that Richard is dead, I will not countenance any attempt by John to take the crown.
” She studied William. “We have been friends through thick and thin.”
“Yes, madam,” William said gently. “And I have known your sons since they were infants and children.”
She smiled bleakly. “And watched them grow into men and squander the promise…”
He gave a wordless shrug that was open to interpretation.
“I have relied on you in the past, and you know how much you owe me.” Her tawny glance flickered to Isabelle who was talking to Walter of Coutances. “Your lands, your wife.”
William drew himself up. “My loyalty is not dependent on gifts and largesse,” he said stiffly.
Eleanor quickly laid her hand on his sleeve.
“Of course not. I never meant to imply that it was and I am sorry if I have offended you. Worry makes my tongue clumsy. Even though your brother is John’s man and you are John’s vassal for your Leinster lands, I do not doubt your fidelity…
and I truly mean that…It is just that it would comfort an old woman to hear you say that come hell or high water you will stand up for Richard.
” Her fingers gripped. Looking down at them he saw how the shanks of her rings were loose on her bones and how her skin was mottled.
If Richard was dead, he thought, it would kill her, but while she yet believed he lived, the fire in her was like a hot coal.
He gave her a knowing look. “Not that old, madam,” he said, “but I would not deny you comfort. You have my word. Come hell or high water, I will stand up for Richard while he lives—as I stood for King Henry your husband and for the Young King your son.” Before all the company he placed his hands in hers and knelt to her like a vassal to a feudal lord.
Eleanor’s eyes grew moist. She stooped, kissed William on either cheek, then lightly on the mouth and raised him to his feet. “The point is made and taken,” she said. “You are right. I am not, after all, that old.”
A frozen silver-blue dusk was falling over the city as William and Isabelle returned to their riverside lodging, both in pensive mood following the gathering in the Queen’s chamber.
If news of Richard did not come soon, there were going to be changes and shifts in the power at court.
They had to be prepared to acknowledge Prince John as King, but it would not be an easy transition.
“My lord, my lady, you have a visitor,” his usher said as he bowed William and Isabelle into the main room.
William raised his brow. There was never a time when he didn’t have visitors, but for his usher to mention the detail, it had to be personal.
And then his gaze lit on his brother’s former mistress and her daughter who were warming themselves by the hearth.
They had but recently arrived, for they still wore their cloaks and their faces were red from the cold.
Alais was talking animatedly to a man sitting beside her, and he was smiling and paying her close attention.
Seeing William enter, she laid her hand lightly on the man’s sleeve, then, leaving him, hurried over, drawing her daughter with her.
“Alais,” William said with genuine pleasure, kissing her on either cheek, and then Sybilla, who was slender as a young deer with glossy dark braids and wide eyes of clear grey-green. “Holy Mother, you’ve grown up!”
“Almost ten years old,” Alais said with a smile that was affectionate and a little sad. “She’ll be a woman all too soon.”
“Mama!” Sybilla wrinkled her nose.
Alais dipped a curtsey to Isabelle, who greeted her as William had done with kisses on the cheek, but there was a certain reserve between the women.
Owing to the ambivalent circumstances of her position in the Marshal family, Alais was awkward with Isabelle.
Being more familiar with Aline, John Marshal’s young wife, Isabelle’s attitude towards Alais was cool and restrained.
“What brings you to London?” William asked once he had brought Alais and Sybilla to the private chamber and seen them furnished with hot wine and a platter of date pastries.
“My son brings me,” said Alais with a smiling glance towards William’s squires.
“I did not think you would mind me paying a visit, and I have a gift for him to celebrate the season. I’m also here to visit the markets.
As you say, Sybilla is growing and she needs to be clothed.
” She flushed and lowered her voice. “John has sent us money and bid us use it as we require.”
“You do know that if you lack for anything you can come to me,” William said quietly.
Alais accepted the offer with a dignified tilt of her head. “I know that, and thank you, but you are already doing enough in raising my son to knighthood, and truly, there is nothing we need. John is generous…perhaps more generous than I deserve.”
“Or perhaps not generous enough. Do not set yourself at naught,” William said, and received a poignant, grateful smile in response. “Have you seen him of late?”
She studied her hands. “He came to Hamstead after Michaelmas with money for us…I think he regards us as part of his accounting much of the time, and I think he has regrets—as I do. But you cannot dwell in the past, can you?” She raised her chin bravely.
“He’s at Marlborough for the Christmas season with his wife—and caught up in matters concerning Prince John, so I understand.
” She gave William a curious look. “There have been rumours about King Richard…that he is missing.”
William felt Isabelle stiffen at his side. “Rumours are all they are,” Isabelle said with a bland smile. “He is expected any day and the Queen has every confidence in his return.”
“Of course…I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” Alais said, reddening. “It’s just that I overheard the talk in the cloth market.”
“There is always talk in the cloth market, most of it not worth a wisp of latrine hay,” Isabelle said.
Although she had not intended it, her words made Alais appear like a foolish chattering housewife.
William tactfully eased the awkward moment by leaving Alais and Sybilla alone with his nephew who was the reason for their visit, and returned with Isabelle to the noisy hall to give them some private moments.
“Who was that knight talking to you?” Isabelle nudged William.
They were lying in bed, the curtains drawn closed, secluding them from the other sleepers in the room.
They had recently made muffled, surreptitious love and she had been drifting into slumber when the memory caught her and pulled her back to the shore of consciousness.
“A lot of knights talked to me tonight,” he mumbled.
“The one with the dark curly hair. He was sitting at the fire with Alais and Sybilla and he was with them when we arrived back from the palace.”
“Guillaume de Colleville. His second cousin Thomas is in my retinue.” He yawned and turned over, dragging the bedclothes with him. Isabelle promptly dragged her portion back.
“Is he in search of a position?”
“No, he has lands in his own right,” William replied in a sleep-blurred voice. “Just claiming a night’s hospitality on his way to other business.”
“Does he have a wife?”
“Not that I know of…and probably sleeps the better for it,” he growled.
Isabelle took the hint and fell silent. She curled herself against William’s spine. The warmth of the bed and the heat from his body gradually lulled her back into drowsiness but she had plenty of food for thought.