“Just do your best,” William said in a muffled voice. “I don’t expect you to be a chirurgeon or a midwife, just a good blacksmith.” The tourney field had been full of knights determined to make their mark and the sport had been fast and very aggressive. William hadn’t found it difficult to raise his game up to and beyond the new level; indeed he had enjoyed the challenge, but he was paying for it now. The blows he had received had dented his helm so badly that it had become impossible to remove. He could breathe well enough but he couldn’t see and there was no way on God’s earth that the opening of the helm could accommodate the diameters of his skull.
Muttering to himself the smith set out with hammers, wrenches, and pincers to ease the opening sufficiently for it to clear William’s head. The angle at which William had to lay his head on the anvil was distinctly uncomfortable and the muscles in his neck and shoulders were on fire. The smell of sweated iron was metallic and unpleasant. He had often jokingly referred to his helm as a “cooking pot” but it didn’t seem quite so amusing now when he was at the mercy of the blacksmith’s skill. Twice the smith asked William to try and ease off the helm and twice the attempt failed, the second time almost ripping off William’s ears.
“Nearly,” panted the smith and told his apprentice to smear goose grease all around the battered rim of the helm. A few more wrenches, some more grunting and swearing, and at the third try, the helm finally yielded to coaxing and brutality. With gritted teeth, a grazed cranium, and very sore ears, a scarlet-faced William was at last able to take a gulp of fresh air. The mangled wreck of his helm did indeed resemble a cooking pot, but one that had been trampled by an ox. The smith was mopping his brow on a grubby square of linen. “Worst I’ve seen,” he declared. He held out his hands which had been steady while he worked, but were now trembling.
William praised his work fulsomely and promised a rich payment in silver. Looking further, he discovered that he had an audience—not just casual bystanders diverted by the spectacle, but two knights and a squire from the retinue of the Countess of Champagne, and Clara, her expression a mingling of consternation and laughter. The squire, who was more than anxious to be rid of the burden which he had now been carrying around for the best part of two hours, stepped up to William and bowed.
“What’s this?” Lifting the cloth, William eyed the great gleaming pike. It eyed him back.
“The prize for the most worthy knight in the tourney,” said one of the knights, adding drily, “To judge by the remains of your helm, the Countess has made the right decision to bestow the award on you. The wonder is that you are still in a fit state to accept it.”
William laughed. “I was beginning to think I’d be wearing that pot for the rest of my life. Certainly I would not have been able to do justice to this magnificent fish.” Actually, William wasn’t fond of pike, but was too diplomatic to say so, and anyway, it was the symbolism that mattered; he had been deemed deserving of the prize. Besides, once it was cooked and shared around, he need eat no more than a morsel to be polite. “Tell the Countess that I thank her for this gift,” he said. “It is generous of her, as is her judgement.”
“You could have been killed,” Clara said much later. In the small hours of the morning, the street was finally silent, the last carousers having tottered back to their lodgings. The pike had been steamed in a bath of herbs and almond milk, which had imparted a delicate flavour to the flesh, and all that remained were the head and the bones, now confined to the midden bucket.
William watched her lazily from the bed as she removed her belt and gown. Clad in shirt and chausses, his tunic discarded, he was lying on his stomach, his head pillowed on his bent forearms. There were red chaff marks on his throat, evidence of his earlier encounter with the now defunct helm. “There is always ‘could have,’” he said. “When I was five years old I was within a few words of being hanged from a gibbet. At Drincourt I had a lucky escape from a thatch gaff.” His voice softened. “I could have died of my wounds when my uncle Patrick was murdered, had you not come to my aid. All I have instead is the scar.”
Clara smiled, although the expression did not reach her eyes. “We all have scars,” she said as she lay down beside him in her chemise.
Taking her hand, he kissed the tips of her fingers. His lips brushed softly over her palm. He grazed his teeth along the inside of her wrist until she shivered, and then kissed his way up to her throat and mounted her.
“Oh William,” she whispered and it was as if there was a great hollow inside her, empty and brimming over at the same time. No matter how many times she said his name, or took him into her body, the hollow remained, and grew.
Their lovemaking was wild and sweet, and when they were finished and there was silence, William listened to the liquid notes of a nightingale torrenting the darkness outside the window. “Count Theobald offered me lands if I would agree to go and fight for him,” he said after a while.
“What did you answer?” She lay against him, her appetite sated but not satisfied. His arm remained around her and he tenderly stroked her hair. He had fine bedchamber etiquette; he knew the courtesies.
“That his offer was generous and that I was tempted, but that I already had a lord and my loyalty was to him.”
“And were you tempted—truly, or were you just being courteous?”
“No, I was attracted by his offer,” William admitted. “To have one’s own domain is the stuff of dreams to a landless man and Theobald of Blois would be a good lord to serve, but my family is beholden to the house of Anjou. I promised Queen Eleanor that I would do my best for young Henry—and for all his flaws, I love him.”
“He may be your King, but you are his master and his mentor in chivalry,” Clara said softly. “Perhaps you love him because he is dependent on you in a way that Theobald of Blois will never be. Henry rules you, but in your turn, you rule him.”
Her assessment was sufficiently astute to make him shrug uncomfortably.
“His wife is fond of you too,” she said, plucking at his chest hair. “The moment she sees you, her face lights up and she makes excuses to touch you.”
William laughed and shook his head in denial. “I have known her since she was a child. It is the fondness of familiarity and friendship. I have great affection for her too, but not in the way that a man loves a woman.”
Clara was not so sure, but she held her tongue. She thought that William probably wanted to see Marguerite in terms of a child and an old friend, but that the reality was more subtle and therefore dangerous. And she knew enough about the looks that women gave to men to know that William was definitely wrong about the Young Queen’s feelings.
“God’s bones, how long does it take for a baby to be born?” demanded Henry, collecting a lance and preparing to charge at the quintain. Earlier in the day he had been pacing the rooms of the French royal palace, but the walls had grown too small to contain his agitation and he had repaired outside to the tilting ground.
“Several days for a first one, so I understand,” William said. The midwives had already told Henry that, but the information appeared to have gone in one ear and out of the other.
Henry thundered down the tilt and struck the target a resounding blow. “It’s been two,” he said, trotting back to William. “And weeks before that shut up in confinement with her women and gossips. Christ, I’ll be glad when this whole palaver is over.”
William levelled his lance and fretted his stallion. “I imagine that the Queen will be glad too.” He took his own turn at the quintain, striking the shield with the smooth grace of instinct and long training. He had visited Marguerite on several occasions in the chamber where she had retired to spend the final month of her pregnancy. The room had been pungent with the smell of herbs and unguents; the atmosphere enclosed and anticipatory, as if the room itself were a large womb. Marguerite had appeared content enough on the surface, but he had seen the fear in her wide brown eyes as he took his leave after an evening in her company two days before the birth pangs began. He had carried that image with him ever since. She was trapped; she couldn’t take her leave. No one said that she was the daughter of a mother who had died giving birth, but everyone had been thinking it.
The men were leaving the field when a herald came running towards them, waving his arms. “Sire, my lord, the Queen is delivered of a son!” he cried, his face shining with the joy of the news he carried.
Henry shouted a thank you to God and whirled to William, grey eyes fierce with triumph. “Do you hear that, Marshal? A son! I have a son!” He fisted William’s arm hard enough to bruise, even through gambeson and tunic.
“That is great news, my lord!” William fisted him back, although without quite as much force. “How is the Queen?” he enquired of the messenger.
“The women say very tired but joyful, sir.”
