Enraged both by the manner in which her husband hoarded power to himself and his continued affair with Rosamund de Clifford, Queen Eleanor had encouraged the conflagration. Let her husband keep their youngest son and the bastards begotten on his whores. She had the sons that mattered: angry, fickle Henry; Richard, bright and sharp as a sword blade; Geoffrey, the deep thinker.
“How loyal are you?” she had asked William as he prepared to accompany the Young King to Chinon after the most recent argument between father and son. Her tawny eyes had been fierce as they sought his face.
“Madam, I swore my oath to your son,” he had answered. “And it will hold unto death. I know of no other way.”
“Then I love you for your chivalry. You must realise what is coming.”
He had nodded. “I hope that it can be avoided, but if it comes to sword upon sword, I will defend my lord to the last breath in my body.”
She had given him her hand to kiss, but as he bowed over it, she had angled his head with her other hand and instead, pressed her mouth to his—a hard, firm kiss, with lips closed, one of gratitude and salute, but bold nonetheless. “May God reward you,” she said. “Certainly if it is ever within my gift, I will give you riches.”
As he had fought to recover his equilibrium in the wake of such a gesture, the young Queen Marguerite had emerged from the women’s chambers to bid him farewell too. Aping her mother-in-law, she had kissed him, but on the cheek instead, and given him a piece of boiled loaf sugar for the journey, for she set much store by such small tokens and gifts and had a loving, generous heart.
“Everything is going to be all right?” she had asked, her soft brown eyes filled with anxiety.
“Yes, my Queen,” he had murmured, choosing platitude above uncertain truth. “Everything is going to be all right.”
Now “everything” hung in the balance and William knew which side the scales were weighted. Young Henry and his father might have different characters, but in stubbornness they were alike.
William set about currying his stallion and soon the teeth of the comb were clogged with harsh white hairs, for Blancart was beginning to moult his winter coat. As William was plucking them out on the side of his hand and casting them into the straw, Prince Henry strode into the stables.
“What are you doing?” Henry’s tone was high-pitched and incredulous. “Why are you skulking in here when you have squires and grooms to do such tasks?” He was breathing hard and flushed with temper.
“Sire, I would ask nothing of a squire or groom that I would not be prepared to do myself,” William replied in a level tone. “A knight should be able to turn his hand to anything.”
“Then turn it to your sword,” Henry snapped, “and resaddle your horse. We’re leaving.”
“Now, sire?”
“Now!” Henry snarled. “While the gates are still open. The talking is over. What happens next is on my father’s head, not mine.”
William’s heart sank but he received the news without surprise. The signs had been there to read since November. Sometimes the only way to cure a festering wound was to drain it, not lay on more bandages.
“Where are we going, sire?” asked Baldwin.
“To my father-by-marriage,” Henry said. “To Chartres.”
The stables flurried with activity as horses were swiftly harnessed. Men grabbed their weapons and stuffed belongings into their baggage rolls. William formed up the Young King’s conroi and they left Chinon at a rapid trot. Only a few of Henry’s clerical servants rode among the party, Wigain one of them, his legs banging against the flanks of his fat dappled cob. The others, including Henry’s chamberlain, usher, and chancellor, chose to remain in Chinon with the King, thus adding more hurt to Henry’s grievance with his father. The administrative servants were all obviously in his pay and their loyalties had never been given to their young lord.
Tears of rage brightened Henry’s eyes. “He wouldn’t listen,” he fumed to William, his voice cracking with emotion as they rode. “He didn’t want to hear. Is what I’m asking so much?”
“No, sire, it is not,” William replied.
“My mother agrees with me.” He cuffed his eyes impatiently. “She says that she will do all in her power to thwart him. He’s not going to ride roughshod over us all.”
For a while, they concentrated on putting distance between themselves and Chinon, the knights grim, the servants who had chosen to come absorbed in their effort to keep up. William sent outriders to the front and rear, the space between his shoulder blades prickling.
“He won’t chase yet,” Henry said bitterly. “He doesn’t believe that I will really leave him. He thinks that this is just a fit of pique, that I’m a petulant boy who’ll come running back to him because it’s cold outside without my cloak. He doesn’t realise that there are others ready and willing to offer me fur-lined mantles and all the comfort I want. He is the one who is out in the cold.”
The brightness of Henry’s tears gave way to a different sheen, one that was vindictive and glittering with ambition. “My mother is going to get Geoffrey and Richard away to safety and then she’ll join us. We have allies only waiting the word to rise against him…in England too. The Earls of Leicester and Norfolk are with us, and the King of Scots and his brother.”
Although he felt an initial shock at the revelation, William had been expecting something of the sort. Recently a steady trickle of messengers had been visiting the Young King’s chambers, some at very unsociable hours. William could not read and wasn’t a party to what their letters contained, but he had seen the way their contents set the Young King on edge and, even if he couldn’t understand the written word, he well recognised many of the seals, including those of Leicester and Norfolk. There had been clandestine meetings with Eleanor too, to which he had not been a party, but of which he was well aware. Filled with misgiving, he kept pace with his young lord but wondered how this could end without all sides losing.
They reached Argentan, a blood-red sunset turning the trees to black behind them and the keep’s great walls punching towards the dying light. The porter hurried to admit them, and the constable came in haste, taken by surprise at the sudden appearance of the Young King and his conroi. Servants were sent running to the kitchens and the laundry chests and a chamber was swiftly prepared. Questions filled the man’s gaze, although he asked none and the look on Henry’s face kept the constable’s lips sealed except for the remark that it was always a pleasure to receive the King’s eldest son.
“I hope that you’ll remember those words,” Henry said, looking round. “I’m expecting the arrival of some of my wife’s kin. I want them welcomed and brought to me the instant they ride in.”
“Yes, sire. May I enquire how many?”
