“Ten years old,” said Salisbury “and a handful, but he shows promise. Already he excels at arms practice and he’s a good scholar too. He’s going to be a capable ruler for Aquitaine and Poitou, but first he has to grow into the role and we have to buy him that time.” He flashed William a vulpine smile. “Your sword won’t sleep in your scabbard once we arrive there.” He watched William touch his hilt for reassurance and chuckled. “Don’t worry, you’ll have the pleasures of the Norman court and the Christmas feast at Argentan to break you in before we reach Poitou. After that, a pitched battle will seem easy by comparison, I promise you.” He was silent for a moment then asked, “Have you ever met the Queen?”
“No, my lord, although I have heard tell of her beauty.”
“And the tales are not wrong. I would tell you to guard your heart, but it would be a useless warning. She will take it anyway and all other women will lack savour after that.”
His nephew’s gaze flickered to him and then away to study the moon-white sail.
Salisbury smiled. “What is it?”
“I was going to ask if you were smitten, my lord, but then I thought you might consider me impertinent.”
Salisbury threw back his head and laughed. “I do, and ignorant too, but I will tell you anyway. Any man who is not smitten would have to be made of stone, and even then, the resisting would crack him down the middle.”
William hesitated then said, “King Henry must be made of stone then, for the rumour is that he has forsaken the Queen for a mistress.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“My mother told me when I first came home. She said that it was a scandal that the King should be so openly consorting with the daughter of Sir Walter de Clifford and fêting her with all manner of gifts.”
Salisbury sighed. “I fear it is more than rumour. The King has taken the Clifford girl to his bed and to his bosom. He’s always had occasional whores but they have never lasted longer than a week, but this is different. He’s as smitten as a mooncalf and de Clifford’s daughter is no common harlot. He’s given her a household of her own and pays her serious court while shunning his wife, and for that, Eleanor will never forgive him. It’s half the reason she’s returning to Poitou after Christmas.” He studied the sky. “It’s calm out here tonight, nephew, but there are stormy waters ahead.”
William swiftly settled into life at King Henry’s court. In many ways it was similar to the time he had spent in the Tancarville mesnie with the same constant bustle of officials and messengers, clerks, priests, soldiers, servants, and hordes of supplicants, their pouches draining of silver as they sought to bribe their way through ushers and stewards to the King’s ear. William was still a small grain in a great mill. His sleeping quarters remained little more than a straw pallet either on the floor of the great hall, outside Salisbury’s chamber, or sometimes in a tent pitched on spare ground in the bailey of whatever castle the court was currently occupying.
Unlike de Tancarville’s orderly household, where William had trained, the royal court functioned in an atmosphere of organised chaos and the food was atrocious. Henry’s impatient palate was not a gourmet’s. As far as he was concerned, bread was bread and if a trifle burned or somewhat gritty, it didn’t matter. Complaints were met with raised eyebrows and short shrift. In Henry’s lexicon, fit for a king was fit for everyone else. The same went for his household wine, which had a reputation throughout his lands. “Like drinking mud,” Salisbury warned William. The Earl had prudently brought his own supply and a servant who knew how to care for it.
Henry was also impatient with ceremony and careless of his clothes. They were always rumpled and there was usually a thread dangling where some of the seed pearl embroidery had torn loose, or been snagged by a dog’s paw. Henry forgot to pass messages on to his ushers and stewards, or he would change his mind after having done so with the result that the court would be ready to move on a morning when the King was still lazing abed, or caught napping while the King sprang to the saddle and hastened off at dawn.
“They say the Angevins come from the Devil!” the Bishop of Winchester spluttered one rainy morning when this had happened for the third time in a row and he was trying to mount his circling, braying mule. “I can believe it, because following the King around is like being at the court of hell, and God in his mercy alone knows if we’ll all have beds tonight!”
The great lords and bishops would send outriders ahead to secure sleeping space and stabling and fodder and there were often undignified squabbles over the most unsavoury of hovels. William learned to take it all in his stride. His genial, easy-going nature meant that he counted having to bed down with his horse less of an earth-shattering disaster than it was to others more tender of their dignity.
The court came to Argentan for the Christmas feast and a great gathering of vassals from all parts of the Angevin lands. The Queen was due to arrive any day with the children, and the servants hastily prepared quarters to house them. Rooms were swept and fires laid. New rushes were strewn on the floors and sweetened with herbs and dried flowers. The damp December cold was further kept at bay by braziers placed in the draughty areas near window splays and doors. Seldom noticing the heat or cold unless they were extremes, Henry cared little for such touches, but with small children expected, additional warmth was a necessity.
On the day the Queen arrived, William was schooling Blancart in the tiltyard. Bleached winter sunshine lit the day, but imparted no warmth. William’s breath smoked in the air and mingled with the stallion’s as he leaned over to pat its muscular arched neck. Mindful of the horse’s tender mouth, he had further adjusted the bit and rode with the lightest of curbs.
Collecting a lance from the stack at the end of the tiltyard, William turned the destrier to face the field and the quintain. A squire was standing beside the upright pole and cross bar and at William’s signal he hooked a small circle of woven reeds on to the end of the latter. William nudged Blancart into a short, bouncing canter and the stallion’s ears twitched and then pricked as he settled to his task. William encouraged Blancart with thighs and heels and the stallion increased speed, galloping in a straight, smooth line. William hooked the ring neatly on to the end of his lance and rode round to the start again, by which time the squire had placed a second, smaller ring on the end of the post.
William continued tilting at the ring, using the smallest diameter garlands and rowing them down the shaft of his lance with each successful pass. He was aware in his peripheral vision that he had an audience, but the sight of knights at their training was always guaranteed to draw spectators and his concentration was such that he paid little heed. However, as he drew rein and slipped the rings down his spear into the squire’s hands, he happened to glance across and noticed that the numbers were unusually large.
A woman wearing a wine-coloured cloak detached herself from the crowd and began picking her way delicately across the churned ground towards him. An embroidered blue gown flashed through the opening of the cloak as she walked and her veil was edged with tiny gold beads. William had not seen her about the castle before but knew that several great lords had brought their wives to court for the Christmas feast. She had three boys in tow; the tallest one brown-haired and slender, striding confidently beside her. On her other side, also striding out, was a strikingly attractive lad with hair of auburn-blond and a fierce smile blazing across his face. The smallest of the three hurried along behind, dark-browed and a determined jut to his jaw. Looking beyond the woman, William took in the conroi of armed knights and a throng of richly clad ladies. A nurse was holding an infant that was squalling its head off at being restrained in her arms. Two little girls, one with dark hair, the other reddish-gold, clung to her skirts. There was an older, plump girl too, in a blue dress. A thick braid of bright brown hair tumbled over her right shoulder.
The woman reached William and looked up. Beneath arched dark brows, her eyes were the colour of woodland honey, neither brown nor gold. Her nose was thin, her cheekbones sharp, her mouth wide. Not a beautiful face in the aesthetic sense, but so filled with charisma that William’s senses reeled. He stared, and she gave him a smile that contained the brimming mischief of a girl and the allure of an experienced woman.
“Madam,” he croaked and, dismounting from Blancart, knelt at her feet and bowed his head. Even if his senses had been bludgeoned, his wits had not. From the moment his eyes had fallen upon her guards, he had known who she was.
“I pray you rise,” she said with a soft laugh. “I am accustomed to men falling at my feet, but I prefer to bring them to their knees by means other than my rank.”
Her voice, deep and husky, sent a ripple down William’s spine that reached all the way to his loins. She was old enough to be his mother, but there the resemblance ended. “Madam,” he said again, all his eloquence deserting him. As he stood, he caught her scent—a combination of winter spices and summer rose garden.
“My sons were admiring your prowess at the quintain,” she murmured, “and so was I.”
William reddened with pleasure and embarrassment. “Thank you, madam. I have not had the horse long and I work with him as much as I can.”
“You would not think it to look at the pair of you. You are…?”
“William Marshal, madam, nephew to my lord the Earl of Salisbury.”
Her smile grew less wide, although it remained. “Ah yes,” she said in response to the latter statement, but did not elaborate on whether the news was to William’s advantage or detriment.
