‘I pray so, and perhaps his uncle’s ability to weather storms?’
Guy snorted with dark amusement as she returned Iohan to his nurse.
‘How is Cecily?’ William asked.
‘Recovering,’ Joanna said, not wanting to make an issue of the matter while they had a guest. ‘She takes too much on herself.’
She drew Guy to their fireside. He sat down, stretched out his legs and sighed as he accepted a cup of wine.
‘You do not know how many times I thought of this when we were in the stinking hell hole of Damietta,’ he said. ‘No man in his right mind would go there.’ He looked at William. ‘I hear you and Henry have taken the cross.’
‘Yes,’ William said, ‘but I do not know when it will happen – there is money to raise and matters to be settled at home. What about you? What will you do now?’
Guy gave a laconic shrug. ‘Return to the Limousin and deal with business for Henry there and in Gascony. I find myself embarrassed for funds and equipment, so it will depend what our brother can spare from his coffers. I expect there will be the usual complaints – that the King is enriching foreigners at the expense of true English men and doling out money he does not have.’
‘It is no jesting matter.’ William sent him a warning look. ‘There is always animosity from certain quarters.’
Guy drank his wine and looked at William across the goblet rim. ‘Are you still tourneying?’
‘When they are not being banned.’ William looked at Joanna, whose lips were pursed. ‘It is where a great deal of that animosity is put on display, but it won’t stop me.’
‘I do not know how anyone would stop you,’ Guy said. ‘You were the youngest and always dogged our heels no matter what obstacles we put in your way. You would confront us with bloodied knees and a tear-stained face but your fists would be up with fire in your soul.’ He turned on the bench towards Joanna. ‘He never gives up.’
‘So I have noticed,’ she said ruefully.
‘Aymer is to become Bishop of Winchester – when he completes his studies,’ William said.
‘Hah! Landlord of the Southwark stews.’ Guy chuckled. ‘Do you think he will give special prices in the bathhouses to friends and relatives?’
‘You will have to ask him.’ William decided it was best if he stopped looking at Joanna for her reactions.
‘I shall do so at the earliest opportunity.’ Guy stroked his beard. ‘I hear Boniface of Canterbury has been stirring up trouble. Nothing like his name. “Sour-face” suits him better.’
‘He’s been visiting monasteries and demanding money with menaces mainly,’ William said. ‘Reform is necessary, but the Archbishop is keen to see that all dues are paid and everyone bows to his authority. I suspect he and Aymer will disagree on how far it should go.’
Guy shrugged, and finished his wine. ‘Well, it is all to play for. My own path is to gather funds and return to affairs in the Limousin. I need to speak with Geoffrey too.’ He rose to take his leave. ‘Do not be so swift to ride to Outremer, little brother. The climate, the landscape, the people will take their toll and suck you dry. Stay home for now and mind domestic business.’ He winked at Joanna. ‘Your wife will love you much better if you do.’
Joanna carried little Agnes to the window and looked out on a beautiful summer’s day. Heavy dark-green leaves clothed the trees, and the sky was the same blue as the stripes on William’s shield.
She had just returned from her churching ceremony, forty days after her daughter’s birth. This time the carrying and the labour had been smooth and easy, the pain nothing like the excruciating twists when Iohan was born. Soon she would hand Agnes to her nurse and go to preside over the celebratory feast, but she had wanted a moment’s breathing space alone with her daughter.
‘There you are.’
William entered the room and came to slip his arm around her waist, now slender again. Tonight, they would share a bed for the first time since Agnes’s birth and she was melting with need for him – and from his looks and touches, that desire was mutual.
He kissed the side of her neck under her wimple. ‘I wish it was already tonight,’ he whispered, ‘but we should join our guests before they come looking for us – and before I yield to temptation.’ He gently adjusted the enamelled gold neck pendant he had given her as a churching gift to go with her new blue silk gown.
‘I suppose we should,’ she said, giving him a coy look, then drew back to give Agnes to her wet nurse.
They joined their guests in Hertford’s great hall. Joanna sat in the place of honour at the dais table under a silk canopy painted with the arms of Valence and Munchensy. William’s brother Aymer had ridden over from Oxford and John de Warenne was here too with Aliza.
Aymer, although busy with his theological studies in Oxford, was finding time for more secular pursuits. Joanna had heard rumours about his fondness for wine and gambling, not to mention composing scurrilous verses about the Archbishop of Canterbury and some of the Queen’s uncles. As Bishop Elect of Winchester he was landlord of the brothels on the Southwark side of the Thames, and she knew that Elias, Jacomin and several of William’s knights had availed themselves of the services, charging their pleasure to the Bishop’s account.
Despite her exasperation, Joanna was fond of Aymer. A few moments earlier, before Iohan’s nurse had carried him off to bed, Aymer had been jogging his little nephew on his knee, totally absorbed in the moment, playful and good-natured. However, now he was lasciviously eyeing several of the younger women at the feast and had just winked at one in particular while smoothing his forefinger either side of his mouth, before catching Joanna’s outraged eye.
‘Aymer, I trust to your good manners,’ she said.
‘Mea culpa.’ He gave her one of his devastating smiles. ‘I swear I am the soul of discretion.’
