He shook his head. “No, for once I am not abed late.”
“How is your leg?”
He rubbed his hand along his thigh. “Improving. It still twinges, but that might just be old age setting in.” The latter was spoken with a self-deprecating grin. “It’s a fine day—do you want to ride out and picnic in the forest?”
“I would like that.” She shaded her eyes on the palm of her hand. “I had not realised how skilled a horseman you were.”
William inclined his head. “It’s a while since I’ve practised,” he said. “I’ve grown a little rusty since my tourney days.” He slapped the destrier’s golden hide. “Fortunately Bezant hasn’t forgotten, and it’ll be a while before my squires are ready to challenge us.” He winked at Jean and Jack.
Isabelle returned to the keep to don a gown more suitable for riding. William exchanged his destrier for his black palfrey, his saddle pack laden with a rushwork basket and two costrels of wine. The squires accompanied them, but rode well back out of earshot. By the way the youths sat their mounts, heads up, spines proud, Isabelle could tell that they were pretending to be serious knights on a sortie and it made her smile. She wondered if she should lift her chin and try to look like an imperious noble lady, but since there was no one to see, save her husband and squires, it seemed a little foolish.
“I am sorry if I have been poor company for you thus far,” William said as they rode along the side of a field and entered broad, sun-dappled woodland. “If I were your age I would not be thankful to be buried in the middle of nowhere with a husband who spends most of his life asleep.”
“It is true that you do sleep a lot,” she said with a judicious wrinkle of her nose, “but my mother always said that sleep was good for healing, and I think you have been in much need of that.”
“More than you know,” he said softly.
She gave him a swift glance but he was staring ahead along the path. “I think I do know,” she ventured. “Oh, not the details,” she added quickly as he looked surprised, “but the very reason that you do not speak of them suggests that they are too sore to touch. You talk of light things and matters that you think will entertain a young wife…and they do, but I cannot be your consort without knowing more.”
There was a long hesitation, filled with the clop of hooves, the creak of harness, and the voices of the squires arguing a jousting point. Then he sighed. “If I have not bared my life to you, it is because I did not want to burden you with its weight until I knew how much you were capable of carrying.”
“How will you know unless you try me?” she asked. “How willIknow?”
His smile was bleak. “Perhaps I was trying to break you in gently.”
“Like one of your horses?”
Genuine humour lit in his eyes. “If so, I don’t seem to be doing very well, do I?” He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then he shook his head and laughed. “When I was a very young knight, I was given a horse that would not tolerate one of these bridles.” He indicated his mount’s harness. “I had to fashion one especially for him, and even then I only rode him by his tolerance, not my mastery. His name was Blancart and he was unsurpassed.” He gave her a considering look. “Whatever you want to know, ask it of me and I will do my best to answer…and if I don’t then you will know that it is ground I choose to tread with no one at all.”
Isabelle gnawed her lower lip. “Is that to be my new bridle?”
“No, let it be the yoke that joins us from now on.”
Isabelle frowned at him, wondering how far he was humouring her. His expression was difficult to read, but learn to read it she must. “Ah,” she said, “like a team of oxen then.”
“Just so,” he answered seriously. “But hopefully not as ponderous nor as dumb.” Their eyes met and held, and suddenly she saw the humour deepening the creases at the corners of his and she giggled.
They rode along the banks of the River Mole, which twisted through the woodlands and pastures belonging to the demesne, and finally halted to rest their mounts and eat their food where a fringe of willows dropped over the brows of the bank. An otter plopped and swam downstream away from them. On the far bank, two swans and a clutch of half a dozen cygnets preened on a large, untidy nest of dead reeds. Fish made lazy rings out in mid-stream.
“What happened to your destrier?” she asked as the squires hobbled the horses to graze and William tied strings to the wine costrels and dropped them into the lazily flowing water to keep cool. “The one that wouldn’t tolerate a bridle.”
“He eventually retired to grass with a herd of Flemish mares belonging to the Count of Flanders.” William sat down beside her. “There are several young stallions on the tourney circuit that claim him as their sire. My brother John has a couple of brood mares that are of his getting too.”
“You have said little about your brother,” she murmured.
With a slight shrug he investigated the contents of the basket and produced a roasted fowl wrapped in a linen cloth, a small loaf, and some raisin tarts. “That is because there is little to say. We are of the same blood and we will watch each other’s backs, but we are not close. You’ll meet him soon enough because he’ll come to court when King Richard arrives. He holds the official position of the King’s Marshal and he’s been Prince John’s seneschal for two years now. And he’ll want to see his son.” He glanced over his shoulder at his squires who had sat down beside the horses to eat their food.
Isabelle glanced also. “His mother will want to see him too, I warrant.”
“Yes.” William said. He hesitated. “The boy’s not his heir, but his bastard, and there’s a daughter too. Alais has been John’s mistress for a long time.” He divided the chicken neatly into portions with his hunting knife, wiping the blade on the linen and his hands on the grass. “Alais is no whore,” he added emphatically, “and I am fond of her.”
Isabelle took note of the warning in his tone. “The Irish and the Welsh are more flexible about such matters. You will not find me disparaging or judging a woman I have not met,” she reassured him, using a napkin to lift one of the chicken pieces. Damask immediately came to claim her share. She hesitated. “Madam FitzReinier said that you had a mistress for a long time…but that your ways parted.”
For a moment Isabelle thought that she had crossed the line on to ground that he would not share, but then he set the chicken aside, rested his hands on his knees, and sighed. “Her name was Clara and she once saved my life. We rode the tourney circuit together when I was a young knight, but she grew weary of the amount of time I had to spend at court, time I couldn’t give to her, and yes, we parted.”
“You had no children?”
“She was barren—which was both a blessing and a pity.”
