Reaching the lodge, he took his leave of Wigain and entered alone. News of his arrival had flown before him; the door guards stood aside to let him pass and the usher welcomed him within a long room, lined by benches, its walls decorated with brightly painted shields and the skulls of boar and deer. William stood for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust to the gloom after the spring brightness of the courtyard.
“Messire Marshal.”
William turned to face a striking fair-haired youth whose voice had but recently broken to judge from the way it strained between the first and second word. The lad bowed. “I am to take you to the Queen. She bid me say that you are most welcome.”
William nodded gravely in response and followed the youth. Eleanor still had an eye to a likely young man, he thought with amusement. Her apartments lay behind the main lodging and as her good-looking page led him through the door, the scented heat of the room reached out to William like a warm hand. Eleanor always complained that the northern climate was too chill for her thin southern blood and braziers burned in every corner of the room. The perfume of cinnamon and frankincense was sensual and familiar and overran his mind with a smoke of memories.
“William!” Eleanor hastened towards him, one hand extended in greeting, the other holding the embroidered hem of her crimson wool gown above the floor rushes.
“Madam.” Kneeling, he kissed her hand.
“Oh, it is good to see you!” Eleanor’s voice still travelled down his spine. Even at two and sixty and her husband’s prisoner, she had retained the ability to bring men to their knees, either broken or adoring.
“And you, madam, are a pleasing sight for travel-weary eyes,” William responded gallantly. “Of all the fair women I saw between here and Jerusalem, there were none to match the Queen of England.”
She laughed and, removing her hand from his possession, gestured him to his feet. “Ever the flatterer. Raoul, wine for Sir William.” A swift snap of her fingers sent the page hurrying to his duty.
“Madam, it is the truth. You will only ever receive truth from me.”
Eleanor looked pleased. “Then I must believe you, for even my beloved husband says that William Marshal does not know how to tell a lie.”
William took the cup from the page. The wine was the same hue as Eleanor’s gown and he studied it suspiciously.
“It’s all right to drink,” she assured him. “It is mine and for my use only. I refuse to touch the vinegar that my husband forces everyone else to swallow.”
William responded with a genuine grin. “Then in that case, madam, to your health,” he toasted her, and took a swallow. The taste was like her voice, rich, smooth, disturbing, and until this moment he hadn’t realised how much he had missed it.
Eleanor turned from him and resumed her chair behind a broad tapestry frame that was long enough for two of her women to work upon also. “Jerusalem,” she said and indicated that he should sit on a foldstool facing her. “Tell me.”
William drank his wine in which there were no lees, and by and by accepted a second cup and told her what she wanted to know, but kept many things to himself. It was her son’s dying vow that he had borne on his own shoulders to the Holy Sepulchre and seen fulfilled; she was entitled to know about that, and about the colour and taste of the land that she had once seen during her first marriage when she was the young Queen of France. He gave her too a small ampoule of rock crystal, containing waters from the river Jordan. But on other matters, such as the pall cloths he had purchased, he was reticent and Eleanor did not press him.
“You are changed, William,” Eleanor said softly, “but perhaps that is not surprising.”
He shrugged. “I shed my old life in Jerusalem, madam.”
“No more jousts and tourneys?” Her voice was teasing, but not the concentration of her stare.
“No,” he said. He had drunk his second cup to the dregs and was beginning to feel light-headed. He needed food and rest. It was not wise to have a wine-wild tongue in Queen Eleanor’s presence.
“Then what else will you do?”
He smiled. “Find a good woman and settle down.”
Eleanor narrowed her eyes at him, then gave her throaty laugh. “Well, that will be a quest and a half, but I can hardly see you carving out that role for yourself, whether you are changed or not. You’re a courtier, William, a knight, a soldier, a commander. The day you settle down is the day that you are buried. I still know you better than you know yourself.”
“Likely you do, madam,” he said graciously. “But of late I have thought of quiet days and nights with a wife at my side and sons at my feet.”
Eleanor pursed her lips and picked up her needle. “That shows you how much you know of marriage,” she said, and her amusement was now tinged with asperity, “…and that you must have ridden around with your eyes closed for the last twenty years.” She gave him a shrewd look. “I do not know how well informed your travels have been, but Marguerite is no longer at Philip’s court. She wed King Bela of Hungary last year.”
The thought of Marguerite sent a pang of emotion through William like sudden pressure on a healing wound. “I hope that she finds happiness in the match,” he said, realising that he would probably never see her again.
“Oh yes,” Eleanor said acerbically, “there is always hope.” His face must have given something away, for her expression softened slightly. “It was a good match,” she said, “better than either of mine have been.”
William was spared from answering as a knock on the chamber door heralded his summons to the presence of the King, who had returned from his hunting trip. As he rose to leave and bent over Eleanor’s hand in farewell, she said, “Be careful what you wish for, William, for you might receive it.”
“I hope so, madam,” he said with a rueful smile.
Eleanor watched him bow from the room, still graceful as a cat despite his travel-tiredness.
