“That I was leading you down the slippery slope to perdition,” William said wryly.
The tourney feast was a masculine affair and no women had been invited (beyond the ubiquitous dancing girls) for which William was thankful. He could not have dealt with the Queen and her ladies this night. Besides, after three days of some of the hardest jousting and feasting he had undertaken in a while, he was tired, his body telling him that he was no longer twenty years old. However, Henry showed every intention of roistering all night, albeit it with a select few. Partway into the feast, he suddenly declared that he had decided that only men named William were allowed to sit at his board, and ordered everyone else to leave. Anyone taking exception was helped on his way by a pair of hefty serjeants.
Ancel chuckled as he fastened his new cloak and, slapping William’s shoulder, left the bench. “At least you won’t have to suffer Yqueboeuf and the Coulances brothers for the rest of the night, eh?”
William made a face at him. Yqueboeuf glared murder at William as they left the Young King’s hall, obviously believing that the jest was William’s idea and deliberately aimed at excluding them from Henry’s company. William could do nothing about that. He directed a squire to pour wine into his cup and set about getting as drunk as his young lord. Gazing round the hall, he saw that it was far from empty because William was a favourite name amongst all ranks of the nobility. Henry had sent messengers out in search of more Williams to fill the empty benches.
“Now you’re one among many the same, Marshal,” Henry slurred, giving William a bruising nudge. “But I’m the only Henry.”
It was almost dawn when William and the knight William de Preaux hoisted the Young King between them and brought him semi-comatose from the disarray of the feast hall to his lodging chamber. William’s feet were unsteady, although he had a harder head for drink than Henry, and de Preaux was staggering too. A squire ran to open the chamber door and William heard the anxious murmur of the Young Queen’s maids, and then of Marguerite herself. She was wearing a thick, fur-lined bedrobe. Her hair lay over one shoulder in a heavy brown braid, and as the men tottered into the chamber, her eyes widened and she set one hand to her throat.
“He’s all right,” William said, “although he won’t think so when he wakens.” The two knights brought Henry to the bed and laid him face down, turning his head to one side so that he could breathe.
“I am glad that this is the last tourney of the year,” she said bitterly. “I do not think that I could bear another one.”
“You can’t bear anything,” Henry slurred, more aware than he appeared. “Least of all a living child.”
Marguerite made a small sound in her throat, but it never left her lips which were tightly compressed. William saw the misery in her eyes. “Madam, he is in his cups. He does not know what he is saying.”
“He knows exactly what he is saying and it is what he thinks when he is sober. It is what everyone else thinks too.” She turned away, her palm pressed over her mouth.
“Madam…” William held out a beseeching hand but she did not see it for her back was to him and facing the dark shadows in the room.
“Go,” she said in a trembling voice. “And thank you for seeing my husband to his bed.”
William and de Preaux bowed from the room. “I wouldn’t change places with either of them for an instant,” de Preaux said, shaking his head.
William said nothing. When the Queen had spoken, the cracks in her voice had run through his body. Pity and compassion welled within him. Poor lass, he thought, poor, poor lass, and wished that he had gone back to look for the silk favour she had given him in pride for his chivalry that morning.
Fifteen
Le Mans, Anjou, Autumn 1182
“You took your sweet time. I do not mind you travelling to tourneys, but you shouldn’t linger.” Henry’s voice was petulant as he received William into his chamber.
William bowed to the Young King. “Sire, the weather was foul and delayed us on the road.” He had been attending a tourney at Epernon to which Henry had chosen not to travel. Queen Marguerite looked up from the game of chess she was playing with one of her ladies, her expression warm with greeting, but hers was the only smile in the room. Adam Yqueboeuf and Thomas de Coulances lounged against pillars near Henry’s chair and regarded William sourly. Henry was glowering.
“I don’t suppose that while you were courting your own fame you heard any news of my beloved brother?”
“Which one, sire? I saw Lord Geoffrey jousting with the Breton team and spent an evening with him and the Count of Flanders. He seemed in good spirits.”
“I don’t give a whore’s slit about Geoffrey’s spirits,” Henry snarled. “I was speaking of Richard.”
“No, sire. If the lord Richard was mentioned, it was in passing. Should I have heard news of him?”
“While you’ve been breaking lances in sport and hiding from the rain, Richard’s been stealing my castles,” Henry said, scowling.
“Sire?” William’s first feeling was one of weary irritation, but he forced himself through it. This was his path and, for better or worse, he had to tread it.
“He’s fortified Clairvaux, which he knows full well is mine, and garrisoned it with his own men.” Henry ground his teeth. “Because it’s near his borders, he thinks he can take it and do with it as he pleases.”
William glanced briefly around. Baldwin de Béthune gave an infinitesimal shake of his head. Peter de Preaux was looking at his fingernails and Roger de Gaugi at the scuffed toes of his boots. “Have you spoken to your father about this, sire?” William asked.
“He won’t intervene,” Henry spat. “He’ll say it’s not worth bothering about. He treats me like a child while Richard does as he pleases in Aquitaine and steals whatever he wants from Anjou.” He stabbed his chest with his index finger. “I am the eldest, I’m the heir, I’m the one who has been crowned King and yet I have the least standing of all—apart from John and even he’s been promised Ireland as soon as he’s of age. All my father does is complain like an old miser about how much I cost him.” Henry’s expression grew pinched and narrow. “He doesn’t know the half of what I could cost him if I chose.”
William concealed a grimace. Henry was still ploughing the same furrow he had done as a youth of eighteen. Ten years later the bitterness and petulance were much uglier to behold. Lessons had been taught but not learned.
“It’s time I paid a visit to my brother-in-law,” Henry said softly. “At least he’s prepared to see things my way.”
