Wigain handed the parchment to Henry. “A messenger came from the Archbishop of Canterbury, but chose not to stay, sire. I…we…He said that we’ve been excommunicated.”
There was a horrified silence in the chamber. Henry cursed, set down his wine, checked the seal, and slit it with his eating knife. Unrolling the vellum, he rapidly scanned what was written. Then he gave a shaken laugh and placed the corner of the message into the flame of the nearest candle. “Peace, Wigain. Go and say your prayers tonight. You’re still in a state of grace. The good Archbishop and the rest of those crows in Caen have only excommunicated those who would come between myself and my father making peace. They haven’t named anyone; it’s an empty threat.” He held the vellum while it charred into smoke and when the flames came near his pinched fingers, he dropped the final scrap to the floor and ground out the fire with his boot. He looked across at William. “It’s a ploy by my father to try and separate me from my supporters. He’ll try every trick he knows to bring me to heel, but it won’t work. I can’t see the Count of Burgundy running in fear, can you?”
“Perhaps it is a sign that the Church is uneasy at what you are doing,” William said sombrely. “They don’t know about Rocamadour yet, but they will know by now what happened at Saint Martial.”
Henry snorted down his nose. “Don’t push me on to that treadmill again. My father’s behind this, otherwise why involve the Archbishop of Canterbury? What’s wrong, Marshal? Scared for your soul?”
“Yes,” William admitted curtly and, making his excuses, went to check on his stallion, which had earlier cast a shoe. He knew that they were desperate for money and that the recent raid would only keep them solvent for a short while. Soon they would have to go out and rob another shrine or raid a town and he was not sure that he could continue to do it.
The farrier had seen to Bezant’s cast shoe and William had the destrier saddled up. He rode to a nearby field to school the horse, using heels and hands to make him trot out and draw in; to rear and back-kick; to charge flat out: all the tricks of the tourney field. William wished he was back there now. Usually a bout of practice with the stallion would relax William if he felt tense or unsettled, but today his edginess remained. Quitting the field, he went to the village church to pray but even here there was no peace. God would not forgive him for being a party to the robbing of the shrine at Rocamadour. There was going to be a payment; he knew there was. Henry thought that because he was a king’s son, he had impunity, but there was no impunity before God. Every ill deed committed on earth was marked for punishment in the afterlife. William stared at the cross shining on the altar until the gold dazzled and his vision made a second, darker image beside the first. When he had lisped his promise to King Stephen in a campaign tent thirty years ago, he had had no inkling that such an oath would lead him into peril for his soul.
It was gone midnight when the Young King retired to bed. His steps were unsteady with drink and his gaze wandered like a guttering candle. Accustomed to seeing Henry in such a state, William set his shoulder beneath his arm and helped him to his chamber. Henry flopped on to the bed and his squire set about removing his boots and loosening his clothes.
“Marshal, stay,” Henry said as William made to leave the room and seek his own pallet.
William hesitated, turned, and retraced his steps. Henry looked up at him, glassy-eyed. “Stay with me until I sleep,” he said. “I trust no one else.”
A pang arrowed through William at the words. What a poisoned chalice trust was, he thought, both for those who poured the wine and those who drank it. Unfolding a stool that was leaning against Henry’s coffer, he sat down at the bedside.
Henry’s lids wavered as he struggled to lift them. “My father won’t let go. He’s an old man. He should give me a chance to prove myself. I could rule if he would let me.” His hand raised and flopped on the coverlet. “I am going to go on pilgrimage, Marshal,” he slurred, “all the way to Jerusalem…I mean it…” His voice tailed off to an incoherent mutter and he began to snore. William drew the coverlet over him as if tending to a child. In a way perhaps he was, for although Henry had grown older, he had not matured and all his life was lived in the superficial glitter of the moment.
“Leave the bed curtains,” he said, as the squire made to close them. “And let the candle burn on. I will sleep across the door tonight. Stay within call.”
The youth looked surprised, but bowed acknowledgement. Quietly, William unfastened his belt, removed his surcoat, and, dragging a pallet from a pile in the corner, lay across the doorway, his sword close to hand. He felt uneasy, in the same way that his horses would twitch and shiver on the eve of a bad storm. Something was gathering that he was powerless to prevent. He told himself that it was no more than the disquiet caused by their stripping of the shrine at Rocamadour, that it would pass, but the hair continued to tingle at his nape. It was almost a relief when a thunderstorm did roll overhead in the small hours of the morning, for he was able to attribute his edginess to that. He fell asleep as the rumbles rolled away into the distance, leaving behind the steady, soporific sound of falling rain.
It was still raining at dawn and Henry woke to a devilish headache and a roiling gut. He rose late and, with a green face, declined the fresh bread and honey that the others were devouring to break their fast. No one thought much of it then, for several other knights of the mesnie, including Lusignan, had over-imbibed the previous night and were similarly affected. William’s own appetite was subdued but still present and he ate the thick heel of a loaf, liberally dipped in the honey dish. Henry turned away, his throat working, and staggered to the slop bowl in his chamber. Moments later, they heard him retching. A few of the knights chuckled and exchanged knowing, sympathetic glances.
Henry chose to remain in Martel that day, playing desultory games of dice and chess, rubbing his forehead, shivering, dashing now and again for the chamberpot. William saw to the patrols and set the knights to practising their lance work. By late afternoon, when William returned to the chamber, Henry was hot with fever and his bowels had turned to liquid. The chuckles had ceased and the knowing glances were now worried.
“It’s the vengeance of Saint Amadour,” muttered Peter de Preaux, crossing himself.
“It’s no such thing,” William snapped, although that thought was to the fore of his own mind. “Everyone’s suffered from the belly gripes at one time or another. They’ll pass.”
They didn’t. By the next morning the vomiting had ceased, but Henry was still flushed with fever and didn’t want to eat; his motions were liquid and bloody; and he was suffering from bouts of severe abdominal pain. No one else had been afflicted and the men lounged uneasily in the hall below the main chamber, mending equipment, sharpening swords, talking in low whispers. There were several squabbles in the mercenary camp and a vicious knife fight that ended in one man losing an ear. Some of the hired men slipped away, but others who were owed more wages than they could afford to lose stayed close to the lodging and watched the doors and windows with hawklike intensity.
The following day there was no improvement and it became plain to everyone, including Henry, that he might die. “Send for my father,” he groaned to William. “Tell him that I am mortally sick. Tell him that it’s true—that I’m not crying wolf.” He was lying in his bed, the curtains drawn back to admit the daylight and the shutters wide to expel the fetid aromas from the chamber. His cheekbones blazed like red stars but otherwise his complexion was waxen, and there was terror in his eyes.
William nodded. “Wigain’s already written the letter,” he said. “All it wants is your seal. I have summoned the Bishop of Cahors also.”
Henry pointed to the casket where his seal was stored. “Take it and be swift about it. I do not know how much time I have. I—” He broke off with a cry as his body was racked by an agonising spasm. William caught and braced him and helped him to the commode. The effluence from the Young King’s bowels was pure red, and William could feel the heat of his body burning through the nightshirt.
When it was over, William carried him back to the bed and directed the squires to wipe Henry down with cool cloths. Henry gasped and threw his head back on the bolster, his hair sweat-soaked and plastered to his skull. “Make haste to my father.” He seized William’s wrist in a febrile grip. “And bring my chaplain to me. I must vouchsafe my soul.”
“Sire.” William rose and Henry reluctantly released his grip, leaving pale imprints on William’s tanned wrists.
“You were right,” Henry whispered. “I shouldn’t have robbed Saint Amadour’s shrine.”
William wordlessly shook his head and wondered when the rest of them would be struck down, for although the pillage had been Henry’s decision, they were all guilty.
He saw the message sealed and handed it back to Wigain. “Take the grey courser, it’s the swiftest,” he said.
Wigain looked down at the packet in his hands. “Is he going to die?”
“That is in the hands of God,” William replied and as he spoke the words thought that he already knew the answer. He gave Wigain a push. “Make haste. Lord Henry desires to see his father…”
…before it is too late. The words hung unspoken between them like an invisible wraith. Wigain gave a swift nod and ran towards the stables, light as a youth on his feet. William watched him, then trod as heavily as a man with lead boots back into the lodging house.
In the grey light of dawn, William was pacing the yard of the house, breathing for a moment air untainted by the stenches of the sick room. Henry had barely slept and the gripes had been unremitting in their severity. Yesterday’s glimmer of hope had waned with the moon and not risen with the sun. That Henry was still lucid, despite all, and still had the strength for speech, were testaments to will power and the endurance of a young and well-nourished body, although now he resembled a cadaver, gaunt and sucked dry. They were going to lose him and William was numb.
