“In my heart I pray not, but he has grown hard and bitter of late. He is angry with his father, but whether he would deliberately shoot at him from the keep walls…” Rannulf spread his hands. “All I can say is that he did not give such an order in my hearing and I hope he did not give it in anyone else’s either. Were I to guess at the truth I would say that the arrow-shot was an unfortunate mistake and the ill treatment of the heralds an over-zealous interpretation of an order given by Yqueboeuf.”
William winced at the name. Rannulf’s expression held a spark of gratification. “Farci showed his true mettle by deserting,” he said. “He used the excuse that he had never officially sworn allegiance to our lord. Yqueboeuf tried to prevent him from leaving and during their argument it emerged that there had been a conspiracy against you with Yqueboeuf the instigator. Farci insisted that he had been a dupe. Henry turned on Yqueboeuf and would have cloven him with his sword had not the others stopped him. Needless to say, Yqueboeuf and Farci are no longer in his service; neither are the de Coulances brothers. Henry’s lacking a marshal and he wants you to return with all haste.”
William drank his wine and listened to the growl of the wind. “The Count of Flanders has gifted me some house rents in Saint-Omer, and offered me more if I will cleave to him. Robert of Béthune wants me to wed his daughter. The Counts of Champagne and Burgundy have made me lucrative propositions. What would you do in my place? Return to a lord who has broken faith with you and shamed your honour before the entire court, or accept the offers of men who respect you and whom you in turn respect?”
Rannulf chose to interpret William’s question as a rhetorical one rather than undertake the difficulty of answering it. “What price are you asking Henry for your return?” he said warily.
“You don’t put a price on loyalty,” William answered. “I ought to refuse him out of hand, but I cannot do it. It doesn’t matter how faithless he is, I made my promise to him…and to his mother the Queen. The rest counts for nothing in the balance.” He heaved a deep sigh. “There is no choice for my honour save to return to his service as soon as I may.” He held up a forefinger as Rannulf’s tired features brightened. “But first I want guarantees, including one from his father.” Finishing his wine, he pushed his cup aside. “I want an acknowledgement of my loyalty, not in coin but in letters patent so that they will last for longer than the moment of their speaking.”
Marguerite stared at her reflection in the silver-bordered hand mirror that the maid held up for her inspection. She wasn’t vain, but today she was pleased with what she saw. Her eyes were bright, her skin was clear, and she was no longer the drawn and distraught creature who had arrived at her brother’s court, sent home by her husband in peremptory fashion. Ostensibly Henry had packed her off to Paris to be safe from the growing dissent between him, his father, and brothers, but Marguerite knew that really it was a convenient excuse to be rid of her. Their relationship had soured to the point where even being in each other’s company was too great a strain. The rumours about her were constant and Henry had done little to prevent them and, she thought, he probably more than half believed them.
Her half-brother Philip was not yet twenty years old, but mature for his age. Unlike Henry, he weighed all things carefully before he acted. He was prepared to listen to Marguerite’s version of the tale—and, knowing his brother-in-law and William Marshal, to draw his own conclusions.
She had her maids dress her in a gown of green silk brocade, its gores embroidered with gold. Her belt was decorated with Syrian bezants that she had once intended as a gift for William Marshal because of the name of his favourite destrier. She had been going to have them riveted on to a breast strap for the stallion, but that had been before the autumn picnic and its terrible repercussions. Now she arranged the belt with poignant care and thought about lessons hard learned.
A steward arrived to summon her to the dinner table. Since it was still Lent, Marguerite could well guess the fare awaiting her palate. Fish stew if she was fortunate, perhaps enlivened by mussels and oysters. Not eel, she prayed. Her husband’s household had always been awash in lampreys and the faintest whiff of them when she was pregnant had been enough to make her violently sick. Even now by association they disgusted her.
Entering the great hall, she accepted the bows and obeisance of her brother’s knights and retainers as her due. Philip’s court was more organised and formal than the Angevin one. In time it would come to irritate her, but for the moment she found its rituals calming. And then she caught sight of William Marshal and her lights plummeted to her loins. He was seated at the high table with his cousin, Rotrou of Perche, and he was engaged in urbane, smiling conversation as if the past few months had never been. Aware that all eyes, including her brother’s, were upon her progress, Marguerite approached the dais as if William Marshal was no more to her than a chance-come guest.
She managed to smile and greet him with the formal warmth expected of the King’s sister to a welcome visitor. He responded appropriately with a polite curve of his lips and the bland gaze of a courtier.
“Marshal is returning to the service of your husband,” said Philip. “I am sending him with letters of recommendation that all may know the King of France has every faith in his good character.” He made the announcement in a raised voice so that all on the dais could hear and take note. When William murmured words of gratitude, Philip gave him a measured look. “I speak as I find. If I thought your honour blemished, I would not be entertaining you at my board; nor would my sister be here.”
Marguerite took her place with her brother one side of her and William on the other. Her hand shook as she raised her goblet to her lips and took the first sip of wine.
“I have been to the shrine of the Magi in Cologne, madam,” William said conversationally. He launched into a description of his journey complete with small anecdotes and verbal sketches of his encounters along the way. All Marguerite had to do was nod and murmur in the appropriate places. Freed of the encumbrance of having to make conversation, she recovered her composure. Her hands ceased to tremble and she was able to make a passable show of eating the salmon cooked in wine that was the centrepiece of the meal.
“I am glad that you are returning to my husband’s service.” She tried to match his conversational tone of voice and didn’t quite succeed. “He needs you.”
“So I am told, madam.”
She lowered her voice “As you can see, he has no need of me.”
“He must move quickly, madam, and he would not want you to fall into the hands of his father or Richard. You are safer here. Once the dust has settled…”
“Yes,” she said, “once the dust has settled…” and then she gave a little shake of her head. “Sometimes you look over your shoulder and see that it was caused by a great fall of rubble across the road and you cannot go back.”
He gave her a thoughtful look. “If you have others to bring with you, sometimes you must turn and find a way round,” he said.
“Perhaps I do not want to.”
William gave a smile. “I didn’t say finding a way round would be easy.”
She resisted the urge to fold her arms across her body. To witnesses, this was supposed to be an innocuous conversation. “Do you want to go back?”
“Does the salmon not return against the current?” he replied and she saw pain flicker briefly in his eyes.
Their discussion ended there, for Philip demanded William’s attention with a question about tourneys. Perhaps it was fortuitous, perhaps deliberate. She sensed William’s relief at diverting from such murky waters and realised that she too was relieved. There was no point in her own turning back for there was nothing to go back for. She and Henry were separated by the stones in the road and neither of them had the inclination to dig a way through.
William had been afforded sleeping space in the great hall, at the end nearer the dais, away from draughts, and granted a modicum of privacy by a heavy curtain. He smiled to himself, thinking of his early years with Guillaume de Tancarville and his often cold and frequently disturbed bed near the door. As he took his blanket from his saddlebag, he checked again that King Philip’s letter of recommendation to Henry was tucked down against the worn, scuffed leather—his safe conduct back into the society that had shunned him.
He was spreading the blanket over his pallet when the sound of a throat being cleared on the other side of the curtain made him turn. Parting the hanging, his heart sank as he looked at Marguerite’s squire of the chamber. If she had sent an invitation to her apartments, he knew that he would have to be curt and decline it. The youth bowed and held out a pouch of embroidered silk, pulled tight with drawstrings of gold silk cord.
“What’s this?” William hesitated to take it from him.
“Queen Marguerite said to tell you that she wishes you Godspeed on the morrow and that she hopes you will accept this as a leaving gift in the spirit it is intended.”
William took the pouch from the youth’s hand, opened the drawstrings and tipped out a coiled-up braid belt—the one Marguerite had been wearing at table tonight. Gold beads bordered the edges and down the centre were riveted coins of Byzantine gold. It was the kind of token a lady might bestow on her champion on the tourney field…or her lover.
