“Then what was it like? I think you were just biding your time.”
“I didn’t come here for you to judge me. God knows, you’re no innocent yourself.”
“I don’t recall that I’ve ever seduced one of my mother’s ladies, or any young virgins of the chamber,” William retorted. He took one of the raisin and chicken pasties, deciding that he was going to eat and be damned.
“Christ!” John twisted the loaf in two. “I knew you’d react like a mealy-mouthed priest. I don’t know why I thought that you might understand.”
“I do understand,” William said acidly. “I saw it in your eyes when I returned from de Tancarville’s household, and again when we were in London for Prince Henry’s crowning. You have ruined her—unless of course you are going to offer her the position of Lady Marshal and ruin yourself instead.”
“I didn’t seduce her; she came to me of her own free will. It was mutual.”
“It’s true,” Ancel said between rotations of his jaw. “She did.” He poured more wine into his cup.
The red in John’s face darkened. “She wanted to learn to fly a hawk to the lure,” he said. “I offered to teach her, and whatever you might think of me, it started off as no more than that. I held back…I…”
“But she is with child.” William cocked a knowing eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like ‘holding back.’”
“I’m not made of stone,” John flared. “She’s a woman grown with a mind of her own. Whatever you think, I didn’t drag her into the woods and commit rape.” He pushed his hands through his hair. “Ach, done is done, and no going back. She will want for nothing and neither will our child. Christ, it happens all the time. Old King Henry begot two sons before he was wed. His grandsire had more than a score. If it hasn’t happened to you then you’ve been fortunate. Don’t tell me you live like a monk.”
William started on his second raisin pasty. “No, I’m careful,” he said between rotations of his jaw. “But then I’m in no position to support a wife or a mistress and raise children.”
“Yes, well, pulling out doesn’t always work.”
William swallowed. “I suppose Mother roasted you both over a slow fìre?” he said after a moment.
Ancel grinned. “She made hell seem cold by comparison,” he volunteered and received a hard nudge from John.
“She made her displeasure known,” John said stiffly, “but we have come to an understanding. Providing Alais and I are not brazen about our relationship, she is willing to accept it.”
“And when you take a wife?”
John sucked a hard breath over his teeth. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I just wanted to tell you that you are going to be an uncle and I hope you’ll wish us well and take an interest in the child.”
It would have been pitiless to continue pointing out the trials that John and Alais were going to face. John must know them very well and, as John said, in truth, who was he to judge? There but for the grace of God…Relaxing, William refilled his cup and raised it in toast. “I’ll be glad to do both,” he said. “If you are pleased, then I am pleased for you too.”
John’s smile was as sour as sloes as he clinked his cup to William’s. “So you should be,” he said, “since it means that in law you will still be my heir.”
Nine
Chinon, Anjou, March 1173
Spring was late coming to the Loire valley. An icy, rain-laden wind blustered outside the thick walls of the keep at Chinon, threatening to blow the new pale blossom from the cherry trees and spitefully assaulting the daffodils and celandines blooming tentatively in sheltered corners of the ward.
It wasn’t just the weather that was making the winter bitter and delaying the spring, William thought as he and Baldwin de Béthune exercised their horses, taking the opportunity to practise the fighting skills they might soon need. The destriers’ hooves churned the tilting ground to mud as the knights pounded down the line to the quintain. As usual, a crowd had gathered to watch, including Wigain, who was standing with Will Blund, the Young King’s usher and Richard Barre, the keeper of his seal. William suspected that their presence here in the chilly March morning was an attempt to forget for a moment the storm that was brewing within the walls behind them. William punched the shield on the quintain with his lance, causing the cross bar to whip round at speed. Ducking to avoid the sandbag on the other end, he cantered on and drew rein to watch Baldwin do the same. On a normal day, Prince Henry would have been out with them, training under William’s guidance, but this was not a normal day, and without a miracle, unlikely to turn into one. William slapped Blancart’s neck and trotted the stallion back to the start of the tilt.
Baldwin joined him. “We shouldn’t tire the horses.” The neutrality of his tone was more eloquent than his words.
“One more time,” William said, “lest we need to be as sharp as our lances.”
As they ran a final tilt, more knights arrived on the field, plainly with the same intention as William and Baldwin, but these were King Henry’s men and suddenly the atmosphere was tense. William relaxed his grip on the lance, but held it in such a way that it could be readied on the instant. The tip was blunt for it was only a practice weapon, but he knew how to make it effective should the need arise. The knights circled each other warily, but no one wanted to make the first move and Baldwin and William were able to leave the field unchallenged. Nevertheless, the tension was like a thread strung tight and vibrating with strain.
“This is their last chance to resolve their dispute,” Baldwin said as they trotted into the stableyard and dismounted.
He was stating the obvious but William didn’t stop him for the same thought burdened his own mind. “I pray that they do,” he said. “I do not want to see father and son at each other’s throats, nor do I want to fight men that I know and respect with weaponsà outrance.”He thought of the field they had just left; the looks exchanged; the wariness. He didn’t want to, but he would, because he had given his oath. He waved away Rhys when the small Welshman came to take Blancart’s bridle. “I’ll see to him myself,” he said, leading the stallion towards his stall. Baldwin hesitated for a moment, not quite as keen as William to stable his own horse when servants existed for that purpose, but then he shrugged and followed suit. He suspected that William was deliberately eking out the time spent out of their young lord’s presence. As matters stood, a warhorse was a deal more predictable.
“While the King refuses to give our lord the freedom to make his own decisions and rule his own lands, there’s bound to be trouble,” Baldwin said. “His father will never give up those lands while he lives, and he’ll do with them as he chooses, even down to dividing them further and giving a portion to his youngest son.”
William grunted as he unbuckled the girths and lifted the saddle on to a support tree. What Baldwin said was true, but it wasn’t palatable. After crossing the Narrow Sea in November, Henry and Marguerite had sojourned with her father, King Louis of France. Louis had been only too glad to breathe on the glowing coals of his son-in-law’s discontent. By the time Henry left the French court for his father’s Christmas gathering at Chinon, the fire was burning steadily. It might have been damped down by a placation of additional funds to support the Young King’s extravagant ways and by giving him a few charters to authorise to make him feel as if he were involved in government, had not the issue of John’s inheritance suddenly fanned the flames to white heat. Not only was Henry’s father refusing to give Henry any responsibility to accompany his crowned status, he was intending to remove chunks of his patrimony and bestow it on Prince John.
