“And Alais?”
John made an impatient sound. “I cannot marry her, she knows that—it’s been understood from the start. I’ve always respected her; never have I treated her like a whore, but she won’t see sense. She says that our child dying and the offer of marriage are holy signs that we shouldn’t cohabit…and nothing will convince her otherwise.”
William shook his head. “I am sorry,” he said, thinking of John and Alais a few years ago, and the envy he had felt for the aura of warmth and contentment surrounding them. Now that envy had become pity. “Perhaps given time…” He knew he was mouthing platitudes.
“Perhaps,” John agreed, but his expression was that of a soldier who had fought to a standstill and didn’t have the strength to go on. “What of yourself? Have you made a decision about your ward?” John’s glance flickered towards Heloise, who was playing at knucklebones with the squires.
William watched her too. Her hair was escaping its net and there was a smut of dirt on her cheek from some escapade or other. He loved her dearly but in the way that he would love a puppy; in the way he had once loved a princess named Marguerite. It was unbearable. “I doubt I’ll be inviting you to our wedding,” he said quietly.
“But surely even if she doesn’t suit, her lands do,” John said.
Since his brother was on the cusp of taking a bride for her dowry with no consideration for compatibility of character, William didn’t think it tactful to argue that particular point. “Yes,” he said, “and they are mine to administer as I see fit, whether I marry her or not.”
“They’d be more secure if you were to wed her.”
“Indeed, but I’d not be free to look further afield.”
“Ah,” John’s eyes narrowed astutely. “A taste isn’t enough. You’re ambitious for more.”
William tugged his ear lobe. John had hit close to the truth of his dilemma. Should he take what Henry had freely given, or hold out for what the Queen said was his due? “I cannot see me living out my years in this place,” he said after a moment, and was surprised to hear the note of impatience in his own voice.
John folded his arms. “Just make sure that you don’t overreach yourself,” he said darkly. “A handful of crumbs is better than no loaf at all—as you should well know by now.”
William took the royal writ the scribe had just finished reading to him and stared at it. The neat lines of brown-black writing were incomprehensible to him. William’s attempts at understanding and mastering the skill of literacy had left him with little more than ink-stained fingers and a deep frustration. No matter how many times his tutor had tried to beat the meaning of the symbols into his skull, his brain had stubbornly refused to make sense of them. He had long since accepted that what came naturally to some men was a mystery to others. Faced with besieging a castle, or getting the best out of a company of serjeants, William knew exactly what to do…and that was why he had received this summons. His stomach wallowed queasily, but outwardly his expression remained mild.
Harry Norreis was looking at him as expectantly as a hound waiting for a titbit. “You’re going to answer it, aren’t you?” he asked eagerly.
“No,” William said flatly. “I’m going to sit on my arse and do nothing.”
The comment was met with a look of horrified astonishment. William folded the parchment in four and grinned. “Of course I’m answering it, you dolt. Do you think I’d do anything else?” He glanced down at the letter which he had memorised as the scribe read it to him. It was a summons to join the King as soon as he could. King Philip of France had seized Henry’s fortress of Châteauroux. War was brewing up faster than summer lightning and Henry needed experienced, stalwart men to stand in the storm. “The King wants me to bring as many knights and experienced men as I can.” William clasped his shoulder. “You can start by passing on the news and mustering the men. I’ll need to talk to those here and send out fast riders to the rest. I want to be ready to leave by the morrow dawn.”
Heloise looked at William, her puppyish manner now decidedly hangdog. “I knew you would not stay,” she said with a drooping lower lip.
It was late at night and they were sitting in his private chamber, supposedly playing chess, but neither of them had taken a turn in a while. William’s mind was far away, already with the King, and Heloise’s had been glued to the thought of his imminent departure.
William toyed with a stubby ivory pawn, turning it between his fingers. “I cannot,” he said. “The King has need of me.”
“And it is what you have been waiting for.”
William looked across the board at her and adjusted the focus of his thoughts. “Yes,” he said.
“What of your duties in the north?”
“I have able deputies to leave in my stead.”
Her eyes filled with accusation. “So all you have been doing is marking time and milking the cow.”
He looked at her steadily until she dropped her gaze. “I have been doing both of those, but I am sorry if you believe that has been my entire purpose.” William leaned back in his curved chair and folded his arms. “When I take on a task I do my best and I don’t renege,” he said softly. “You will not suffer under my wardship, I swear to you.”
“I suppose you are thinking it a godsend that you did not marry me,” she said in a small voice.
William smiled. “I am thinking that it is a privilege to have you for my ward.” He took her hand in his. There were gold rings on two of her fingers, but carelessly worn, the claw setting on the one with a stone was damaged. She had been biting her nails again and there were grazes on her knuckles where one of the hound pups had chewed her hand. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it in the fashion of the court, and then he turned it over and kissed her palm and folded her fingers over the kiss. He had done it a hundred times before with different women, sometimes in flattery, occasionally as a prelude to more intimate embraces, and sometimes, like this, in a spirit of affection, compassion, and regret.
“You do not need to humour me,” she said with wounded dignity.
“I am not. I may dress words in courtly language, but you have my honesty.”
Heloise studied her hand, still folded over the courtesy of his kiss. “What of Denise de Châteauroux? Will she have your honesty too?”
