Henry, drawn from indolent comfort, listened to the kneeling man, his features impassive, but the wine in his hand rippled and a flush darkened the stubble edging his jaw.
His older brother Robert, sauntering glory-clad home from his crusade, had paused in Sicily to take to his bosom a wealthy young bride, one Sybil of Conversano, daughter of an Apulian count with strong Norman ties. The name did not really matter, nor the rank, but the girl’s considerable wealth would enable him to buy back his pawned duchy from Rufus and the marriage itself made the prospect of Robert’s heir an imminent possibility. Henry’s proximity to the crown was suddenly seen distantly across a smoky hall instead of glittering above his cupped hands.
Silence descended in the wake of the messenger’s news. No one looked at anyone else. And then Gilbert de Clare muttered something at his boots and Henry flicked him a sharp glance and warningly shook his head. ‘A toast,’ he said in a brittle voice and raised his cup. ‘To my brother and his bride, may they find safe harbour.’
Cups clinked. The toast was mumblingly repeated.
‘What will you do now?’ Earl Hugh folded his hands comfortably over his paunch, body slack, eyes as sharp as shards of blue glass.
Henry pursed his lips. A look flashed between himself and Gilbert de Clare. ‘Rufus won’t make me his heir,’ he said softly, ‘and Robert’s got the anvils and hammers to beget his own brood now. I suppose I needs must follow the example of my father.’
Chester waved a gnat away from his face. ‘If it’s civil war you’re suggesting, count me out,’ he said, tone still comfortable. ‘Got enough problems with the Welsh warring over who inherits what without looking down this end for trouble.’
‘Civil war?’ Henry’s eyes widened innocently. ‘No, who would back me?’
‘You have friends, sire,’ said Roger de Clare, voice low but full of fierce meaning.
‘It’s not friends I need, but opportunity and the right kind of backing … Would you give it to me, Guy?’ There was bitter mischief in his eyes.
‘A feudal oath is sacred unto death, my lord,’ Guyon said quietly after a moment. ‘It might cause me pain, but I’d shut my keeps to you.’
‘Precisely.’ Henry twisted a smile. ‘Excellent building material were it but mine. Can I offer you no inducements?’
Their eyes met and held. ‘Not even if you were related, my lord,’ Guyon said deliberately.
Henry stretched like a cat and his smile deepened.
‘I thought not. But supposing it came to a choice between myself and Robert? What then?’
‘Then I hope I would make the right choice,’ Guyon said, refusing to be drawn.
‘Where does your father fit into all this?’ enquired Earl Hugh politely.
‘No one handed him his meat on a platter, so he went out and shot his own deer.’
Judith decided that this conversation had sailed quite far enough into murky waters and deliberately let her cup slip from her fingers. Exclaiming in distress, she set about collecting the fragments and accidentally caught the finger-bowl with the trailing end of her sleeve, tipping it into Henry’s lap.
The Prince dragged a shocked breath over his larynx. Earl Hugh gave a great bellow of laughter, slapped his hand down on the table and drove a dagger of glass straight into his palm. Blood spurted. The bellow became a howl of pain. Judith grabbed a napkin from the table and sought to staunch thewound but, in her flustered haste, knocked over a candlestick and set fire to Gilbert de Clare’s sleeve.
Guyon, his eyes filled with hilarity, snatched the flagon and doused their guest with a great deal of enthusiasm and a very poor aim for a man who was so skilled a warrior. Gilbert’s hound snarled and tried to bite Guyon’s ankle and was kicked across the room to fetch up yelping against the wall. Pandemonium reigned. Stella Maris faltered, twanged and stopped. The minstrel sidled out of the room, de Clare’s abused dog snarling at his heels. Judith flapped around like a headless chicken, creating more chaos than she was clearing up, but at last, Chester’s wound was thoroughly, if clumsily, staunched with the napkin, she looked around at the wreckage with brimming eyes, then covered her face with her hands, muffling little sounds into them, her shoulders shaking.
Guyon flicked a look at his wife, spluttered and quickly bent to retrieve a dish from the floor while he mustered his control. ‘I suggest, madam, that you go and find some fresh garments for my lord Prince,’ he said in a choked voice.
Judith squeaked and fled. Gilbert de Clare saw an embarrassed husband struggling manfully to control his rage at the shortcomings of his foolish wife. Hugh of Chester in contrast saw a man striving to contain his mirth and banishing its giggling catalyst from his presence until he should be capable of controlling himself. He also saw why it had been done and, looking down at the wad of embroidered linen screwed ineptly round his cut and, knowing how her competent medical skill had saved Guyon’s life, concluded that Judith of Ravenstow would take some holding if she ever decided to take the bit between her teeth.
Judith re-emerged, biting her lower lip, her shoulders still displaying a disturbing tendency to tremble as she handedHenry tunic and chausses. Henry quirked his brows, not quite as befooled as his bland expression suggested.
‘Do not fret yourself, Lady Judith,’ he said magnanimously. ‘Accidents will happen.’
Gilbert de Clare coughed and, after a quick glance at Henry, pretended great interest in the rushes strewing the floor. Henry ignored him and changed into the garments. He and Guyon were of a similar breadth, but whereas Guyon measured around two yards in height, Henry fell a full six inches short of that mark and the chausses had to be extensively bound with cross-garters to take up the surplus material. Consequently, the evening ended in laughter and a deal of good-humoured jesting.
Henry swung to horse in the torchlit courtyard, his face open and smiling, black hair tumbling in an unruly shock over his broad forehead, grey eyes shining with the remnants of a good joke. ‘You are most fortunate in your wife, Guy.’ He glanced over his shoulder to where she stood outlined in the doorway. His tunic reached almost to his fingertips in the new style of the court women and the chausses, even with the bindings, were appallingly wrinkled.
‘I know, my lord,’ Guyon answered, smiling. ‘Although, as you have seen, most of her ploys have a sting in their tail.’
Henry chuckled. ‘To be expected when she is under the sign of the scorpion,’ he said.
Guyon looked up sharply.
