“My lord, you should know that he is ailing,” William said.
Richard snorted down his nose. “He always ails when he cannot get his own way. You know as well as I do the spell that John works on him and that he has always loved me the least of his sons.”
William looked at the choler flushing Richard’s pale complexion. Men who had known his grandsire, Geoffrey le Bel of Anjou, said there was a strong resemblance. The latter had been goldenly handsome, volatile, and possessed of an acerbic intelligence. William could often see Eleanor in Richard too. There was the same determination to be the centre of attention. “I do not believe that he will deny you your rightful inheritance, my lord,” he said diplomatically.
“Has he told you outright that he will not?”
“No, my lord. Nor will he do so to any man, yourself included, while he is backed into a corner.”
Richard tightened his lips. “In what way is he ailing?” he asked suspiciously.
“A gripe of the belly. His physician is with him now.”
“Hah! I warrant it’s a surfeit of his own bile.” Richard pierced William with a bright grey stare. “Why do you stay with him, Marshal?”
“Because I gave him my oath when I returned from pilgrimage, and once given, only death can revoke it.”
“Yours or his?”
William said nothing and Richard’s expression became pitying. “I commend your loyalty,” he said, “but you were a fool to give it to him when you could have given it elsewhere—and for more than empty promises.”
William bit the inside of his lip, determined not to respond to Richard’s words. If you could avoid it, you never showed your opponent that he had hit home. “I owe him my fealty. I am a simple man, and I live by simple tenets.”
“You’re not simple, Marshal. You’ve more layers than a blade of pattern-hammered steel.”
“No, lord Richard. I am plain, unadorned iron, and true.”
“Sharp too…” With a smile and a shake of his head, Richard poured the lees of his cup into the floor rushes. “Tell my father that I am leaving, and that unless he agrees to my terms—which are not unreasonable—we will be at war, and he will not win.”
“My lord, please, will you not wait and reconsider?”
Richard looked hard at William. “No,” he said. “Let my father do the reconsidering.”
Rain slammed against the shutters as a full-blown autumn storm hurled the last of the leaves from the trees. Outside the sky was a scudding mass of ash-grey and charcoal clouds. Inside Henry’s chamber the beeswax candles fluttered in the draughts from ill-fitting shutters and braziers had been kindled to heat the room. Bundled up in a fur-lined cloak, Henry sat on his bed, a cup of hot wine between his hands. His stomach gripes had abated somewhat, but one of his attendants had told William that there had been blood in the King’s motions. “So, Richard has gone with the King of France,” Henry said to the men gathered in his chamber. “My sons destroy me and they destroy themselves. What am I to do?”
Aware that there were men of higher rank in the room, William hesitated, but when no one spoke, he stepped into the silence. “Sire, you should send after him and ask him to return. There is much that still needs to be said, and better in words than on the edge of a sword.”
Henry raised yellowed eyes and William saw in them both hope and despair. “And if he doesn’t turn back?”
“Then at least you will have tried.”
Henry flicked a weary hand at William. “Then go; see what you can do. Take Bertrand de Verdun and bid my son return to me.”
“Sire.” William bowed from the room.
He had his fastest courser saddled up and he and de Verdun rode hard in Richard’s wake. But Richard had been riding hard too. William and de Verdun arrived in Amboise at midday only to find that Richard had spent the previous night there and ridden out at first light.
“You’ll not catch him,” Richard’s steward said. “My lord is long gone and deliberately so. There is no point in you riding on.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” William said, but he was dismayed. Their horses were spent and with Richard and his mesnie having passed through Amboise so recently, fresh mounts were unlikely to be found.
The steward folded his arms and shrugged. “The lord Richard spent the night with his clerics and scribes. Over two hundred letters have been sent out to his supporters bidding them come to his aid. Soon there will be war in earnest. You are too late…” He gave them a pitying look. “Lord Richard was eager to dictate the letters and there was no hesitation in him. I am sorry.”
William smoothed his hand over his mount’s sweat-caked neck. “So am I,” he said grimly.
Twenty-nine
The war began and lasted throughout the winter and early spring, with skirmishes up and down the border. Several of King Henry’s castles fell into the hands of Richard and Philip. Negotiations came to nothing and the antagonism and bitterness increased on both sides. Henry’s health continued to deteriorate until he could barely ride his horse. His stocky frame diminished and wrinkled until he resembled a half-empty sack, and all the former energy and vigour was concentrated into one small, sharp flame, fed only by a determination not to let Richard win. Like a wounded fox heading for a bolt hole, Henry turned for Le Mans, the place of his birth, and prepared to defend it against his son and the King of France.
