He would, William thought. It was in Philip’s interest to keep the Angevin family fighting itself.
“Philip doesn’t know how fortunate he is,” Henry continued. “His father’s in the grave and he doesn’t have any brothers trying to steal his patrimony. He can do as he pleases.”
“Yes, but he has difficult relatives on his borders,” William answered.
Henry laughed but wasn’t distracted from his purpose. “I’ve ordered the baggage wains to be readied,” he said. “We’re leaving on the morrow.”
“Sire.” William bowed and went to greet Marguerite who indicated that he should take her lady’s place at the chessboard. William had not been going to stay, but could not refuse without seeming churlish. She enquired after his success at the tourney and he regaled her with a few incidents to oblige.
“And now my husband travels to the Île-de-France,” she said when they had dispensed with the preliminaries. She glanced towards Henry. Yqueboeuf and de Coulances had joined him and the three of them were sniggering together like adolescent youths. Her lips compressed. “I fear that a storm is coming.”
“Like the one before when he rebelled against his father?”
Marguerite moved a pawn two spaces. “I do not know. He doesn’t talk to me. He never has, but even less now since we—” She broke off and looked down at the chessboard. “He is so eaten up with what he thinks he should have that he doesn’t see what he’s got. His resentment frightens me—for his sake.” She looked at William. “Stop him if you can. You still have his ear. You can still reach him.” She laid her hand on his sleeve.
William was not so sure of that. He was no longer the young knight on the white stallion, dazzling Henry’s childhood imagination. A charge at the quintain and a clean lift of the ring on to the point of a lance were not enough to secure the Young King’s respect and attention these days, and he had little inclination to jump through the hoops of fire that were required. “I’ll do what I can,” he said, placing a reassuring hand over hers. As he rose from the bench, Adam Yqueboeuf was watching him and Marguerite with calculating eyes. Without taking his gaze from them, he leaned to murmur to de Coulances and a couple of other knights.
Despite the uneasy political situation and the sense of impending danger, William enjoyed the Île-de-France. King Philip was seventeen years old and although there were as many internal politics and power struggles at his court as there were at those of his Angevin relatives, the young man was weathering them well. Like Henry he had a strong sense of his own importance, but it was more focused. He knew what he wanted and had both the steel and the patience in his backbone that augured well for him obtaining it. A streak of ruthlessness too, William noticed, that put him more in mind of Henry’s brother Richard, and he also had some of the low cunning of John. Yet he was still a likeable youth, and malleable to a degree. He enjoyed Young Henry’s company, the way that one might enjoy a grand feast or the spectacle of a menagerie. It was a diversion from mundane business—a momentary distraction.
Marguerite’s mood lightened once she was “home.” Although she had been raised at the Angevin court, handed over to Queen Eleanor’s household when scarcely out of swaddling, these were still her people and Philip was her half-brother. She rediscovered her smile and when the court came together of an evening she joined the dancing and stayed to watch the entertainments. William took part also, throwing himself into the round of pleasure with an enthusiasm born of a premonition that soon the dance must stop, and when it did, there would be no dancing for a very long time. He kept his martial skills honed by training on the tilting ground with French knights and spent evenings in their company, swapping tall tales until the candles burned low. He and Ancel had kin at the French court. Rotrou, Count of Perche, was their cousin through the Salisbury side of the family and they spent much time in his company. Taking to Ancel’s convivial nature and competence with a blade, Rotrou offered Ancel a place in his own mesnie.
“Will you give me your leave?” Ancel asked William as they dismounted in the stable yard after a day’s hunting with the court.
William shrugged. “You are your own man. You have no need to ask me.”
“But you gave me the opportunity and you are my brother…”
“And Rotrou is our cousin and Count of Perche. Jesu, take your chance and fly.” William thumped Ancel’s shoulder. “As matters stand, you are probably better off in Rotrou’s household. Go on. Seize your life and your chances in both hands. It’s what I did.” He braced himself as Ancel engulfed him in an ebullient hug.
“You won’t regret this!”
“I will if you don’t let me breathe!” William laughed. Shaking his head, he watched Ancel hand his horse to a groom and then hasten off to find the knights of Rotrou’s mesnie. The humour remained on William’s face but his lips closed and a slight sadness entered his eyes. The age gap between him and Ancel was six years, but just now it felt like a generation. Somewhere he had lost the optimism and vitality that Ancel still carried with him like a pouch of new-minted coins. “I’m getting old,” he sighed to Rhys.
The groom looked him up and down and made a rude sound through his pursed lips. “I’ll believe it when I see it, sir,” he said. “You still run rings round all the youngsters on the tourney field.”
William smiled. “That’s just experience.”
Rhys picked up William’s bridle to clean and rubbed his thumb over one of the enamelled green and yellow badges at the brow-band. “A lot to be said for experience, so my wife tells me.”
“Does she now?”
“Aye, sir, and she should know. With respect, I’m a few years older than yourself…and I’m not ready to claim my dotage just yet, in bed or out of it.”
William looked at his sturdy, dark-eyed groom and felt his spirits lighten. “No, Rhys, you’re right,” he said. “A man shouldn’t claim his dotage until he’s well and truly earned it through a baggage roll stuffed with living. I’ll do my best not to let you down.”
Rhys cocked an eyebrow at him and, with a loud laugh, William gave him two silver pennies. “Buy something for your wife,” he said, and went out into the gathering autumn dusk.
“I never see you these days,” Clara pouted when he found a moment to visit the hostelry where he had lodged her for the duration of their stay in Paris. “I might as well not be here for all the attention you pay.”
William shrugged. “It’s not like the tourneys,” he said. “I have to attend on the Young King and I have other duties. I thought you would like Paris and the markets. Have you enough silver?”
“It’s not money that I want.”
William’s sigh was not the right response, for she turned her back on him and flounced into the main room. “I suppose you have dined at court too, so you won’t want to eat with me.”
“Clara…” He looked at the trestle set up in the room, laid with an exquisitely embroidered cloth—her work while she waited for him. There was a bowl of fresh bread, and a platter of stuffed mushrooms—one of his favourite dishes. He noticed that she was wearing her blue gown, the one stitched with seed pearls, and was filled with guilt.
“No,” he said, “I didn’t dine at court.” It wasn’t quite true. He had eaten a mountain of cheese wafers whilst playing dice with Henry and several members of his mesnie. Then there had been the dates stuffed with almonds and the small forcemeat pies placed at his elbow during a recitation of the romance of Tristan and Iseult by one of Marguerite’s ladies. He removed his cloak and hung it on the wall peg. “I would bring you with me if I could but…”
