William kissed her. “I doubt such a creature exists,” he said.
The sailors and porters continued to stow the royal baggage aboard the vessels. Marguerite and her ladies came down to board theesnecca, their gowns butterfly-bright against the grey hues of the day. The birth and death of her infant son had changed the Young Queen. Gone was the plump, wide-eyed girl with her spontaneous displays of affection and ready smile. There was a new gravitas to Marguerite these days, and a watchful air, as if she were guarding herself against what the world had to offer by measuring what the payment would be.
She and Henry had separate bedchambers, although in fulfilment of duty they slept together on the days that were not proscribed by the Church. Thus far Marguerite had not conceived again and with Lent upon them, she and Henry were sleeping apart. William could see that beneath her fur-lined cloak she was hugging herself against the cold. He knew that she hated crossing the Narrow Sea, but she always endured the voyage with quiet fortitude.
Henry arrived shortly after his wife, his complexion flushed from the wine he had been drinking to fortify himself for the journey, and his manner ebullient. Sixty years ago the heir to the throne had drowned whilst crossing the Narrow Sea, but Henry considered that the death had paid his family’s price, so he was safe. Apart from a prayer before embarkation, he lived in the moment and didn’t think about it.
As the oarsmen rowed the ship out of the harbour, William watched Clara’s form diminish until it was eventually lost to sight, and then, with a sigh, he turned away to the body of the vessel.
“Three years,” Henry said, one hand braced against the mast. “I haven’t seen my father in three years.” His grimace wasn’t caused entirely by the bite of the brisk sea wind. “They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I doubt he’ll have mellowed any.”
“And you have, sire?” William asked.
Henry puffed out his breath. “If I have then he’ll see it as a weakness. But then he doesn’t think much of Richard and no one could accuse Richard of being mellow. At least it’s not for long. Come the tourney season, we’ll be back in Normandy.” He twitched his shoulders. “It’s always damp in England and the spring comes late. In Anjou the trees are in blossom when in London there’s still snow on the ground.”
“Then you can go skating on Moorgate Pond, my lord.”
Henry gave a bark of sour laughter. “And give my father a fit.”
“You could take your brother John.”
“Yes, and hope that the ice will crack under his feet. He was a brat when he was little and I doubt that time will have improved him. He’ll be a spotty, scratch-voiced youth by now.” He gave an irritable shake of his shoulders and drew up the hood of his cloak as a sudden rain squall deluged the vessel. “I dare say I’ll tolerate him just as long as my father has no more plans for carving him an inheritance out of my territories.”
Rain streamed down William’s face and dripped off his jaw. His hands were red and aching with the cold. The ship bucked in the freshening wind and lunged through the waves like a half-tamed horse. Clara would have been terrified; his own feelings were a mingling of fear and discomfort. Henry turned towards the canvas deck shelter where the Queen and her ladies had taken refuge from the biting wind and now the lash of the rain. Then he hesitated and looked over his shoulder at William.
“Marguerite thinks that she might be with child again,” he said.
“That is good news, sire.” William shifted his stance to steady his balance and felt the queasiness ofmal de merbegin to ripple through his stomach.
“Yes, if it’s true. Hopes have been raised before.” He continued on his way to the deck shelter, entered within, and dropped the flap.
Sighing, William retired to the well of the vessel where another canvas shelter for the men had been erected.
King Henry the elder rubbed his thigh and scowled. “Marshal, you do not know how fortunate you are.” His tone was resentful.
“Sire?” William said attentively. Three years had not been kind to his lord’s father. A few months after his tiny grandson’s death, he himself had been mortally sick of an infected leg, and his struggle to recovery had left its mark. The red-gold hair had dulled to dusty ginger and the grey-blue eyes were pouched and bloodshot. Then his beloved mistress, Rosamund de Clifford had died of a fever and the King had been distraught. Vestiges of his terrible grief still showed in new seams of care at brow and mouth corner.
King Henry smiled unpleasantly. “My son tells me that you compete in every tourney that comes your way—and some that do not, since you ride far and wide to seek them out.”
“Only with my lord’s permission, sire, and if he has no need of me.”
Henry grunted his disapproval. “The whelp doesn’t know what he needs, Messire Marshal. I said that you were fortunate because you have no lasting injuries to show for your frivolous life on the tourney field. I have never jousted, I consider the sport a debauched waste of time and silver, yet I am the one who is kicked so badly by a horse that I am constantly plagued by the wound.”
“I am sorry to hear that, sire.”
Henry eyed him darkly. “You’re polished, William, and shrewd, I’ll give you that. I can understand what that perfidious wife of mine saw in you, but, as she knows to her cost, it only takes one slip.”
“Sire?” William’s nape prickled as he sensed danger.
“You know what I mean,” Henry answered, narrow-eyed. “You have risen very smoothly on fortune’s wheel thus far, but all that can change in a moment.”
Prince John joined them. He had been talking amidst a group of fellow youths but with an unerring nose for conflict had quickened to his father’s side. His hair was as black as his mother’s must have been when she was young. A rash of adolescent spots flushed his brow and jaw and there was a smudge of dark down on his upper lip. He was of a slighter build than his brothers had been at that age, but William did not make the mistake of thinking John the runt of the litter. He was his father made over again but, in keeping with his colouring, more darkly rendered; and he was Eleanor also, but not her open, generous side.
“You have a great reputation, Marshal,” the lad said in a voice abrasive with the change to manhood.
“So your father has been telling me, Lord John,” William replied with a bow and a smile.
John responded with a smile of his own, white and vulpine. “Has he? He often speaks of your prowess. A pity that tourneys are banned in England, or I could watch you for myself.” He gave his father a teasing, knowing look.
