“Does Prince John know about this?” Isabelle looked anxiously at her husband. This could well be disastrous for them. As a royal sub-justiciar, William was supposed to support Longchamp, but it was already proving difficult. To defend the haughty Bishop as regent would be beyond swallowing. Yet refusing to do so was treason.
“He must do by now,” William said. “The same messengers will have gone to him. He’ll be putting his castellans on alert and stocking his castles to defy Longchamp even as we speak. God knows what’s to be done.”
Isabelle thought about Madam FitzReinier’s comment that they would be caught like a grain between two millstones. There had to be a way of pegging Longchamp’s ambition while still keeping Prince John sweet. “Perhaps a woman’s touch is what is needed,” she said after a moment.
“Meaning?” William asked.
“The Queen,” Isabelle said. “She has no love for William Longchamp and Richard will listen to her. He trusts her advice and she may be able to sway his opinion. She won’t want to see her family dominions ruled by a pederast priest on behalf of a three-year-old. If the sub-justiciars send their letters to her, rather than straight to Richard, she may be able to intervene and make him more disposed to listen.”
William looked at her, and the frown between his brows lessened. “That’s a sound notion, my love—a woman’s touch indeed.”
Isabelle flushed at his praise. The tense atmosphere that had entered the room with the men eased a little. An attendant brought two silver-gilt platters heaped with pastry wafers and gingerbread, and flagons of hot, sweet wine. William gave one of the wafers to Will to maul with his new teeth and set him back down on the floor.
Between them, they drafted a letter to Queen Eleanor. William summoned his scribes and had them write fair copies to the other justiciars, whose approval and additions would be sought before the message was sent. Another letter went to William’s brother John who was attending on Prince John. “For what good it will do,” William said as he pressed his seal into the soft red wax. “My brother is the Prince’s man first and he won’t have the strength or inclination to rein him back.”
FitzReinier cleared his throat. “If you had to decide between the Prince and Longchamp, what choice would you make?”
“The right one, I hope,” William said, his gaze on his infant son.
William had known Walter of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen, for most of his adult life, although their acquaintance had only deepened over the last few years. Walter, like William, was of English birth, a stocky red-faced Cornishman with a fluffy white tonsure and benign mien masking a will of iron. His nephew was married to Heloise of Kendal and he and William were natural allies. The Archbishop had set out on crusade with the King, but had turned back at Cyprus with a slew of royal orders including a remit to aid in the governing of England that gave him authority over Longchamp.
Sitting in council with him and the other sub-justiciars at Westminster, William digested the letters that de Coutances had just read out. “So this means,” William said slowly, “that if Longchamp ignores our advice and guidance and stirs up trouble, we have the authority to override him and depose him from office?”
“That is indeed the case, my lord,” replied the Archbishop with a dry smile. “My brief and yours”—here he included all the sub-justiciars in his glance—“is to steer a path between the rocks of the various factions and keep the ship intact for the King’s return. Providing my lord Longchamp consults with us and is governed by our advice, he is to be allowed to conduct his business as he sees fit—as long as he is within the law. These letters are not to be shown to him or used unless it becomes necessary. Should the chancellor come to hear of them in a premature way, it is possible that he might seek to take countermeasures. Do I make myself clear?”
“Eminently, my lord,” said Geoffrey FitzPeter. “I speak for us all when I say that no one will breathe a word of this, but I do not think we will have to keep these letters secret for long.”
“That remains to be seen,” said de Coutances. He flicked a warning glance around his fellow justiciars. “We need to act swiftly if it does, but not in the haste of men desiring to precipitate a quarrel. We must stay within the law.”
His words were met with muted murmurs of assent.
“We are only grateful and relieved that the King has sent you to us,” said Geoffrey FitzPeter. “God knows we would have been struggling without you.”
De Coutances’s smile was dry. “Your thanks should go to Queen Eleanor,” he said. “It was her word above all others that persuaded the King he had to act.” His small, shrewd eyes fixed knowingly on William. “It was a good thing that your messages reached her on the road.”
William returned the smile. “Yes,” he said, “it was.”
De Coutances shuffled the parchments on the trestle before him and neatened them together. “I have more news for you to digest, and celebrate,” he said and, folding his hands on top of the parchments, proceeded to tell them.
Following the council, William had his barge rowed upriver to his manor at Caversham where Isabelle was awaiting him, together with a modicum of peace and quiet—if the bustle of a large baronial household could be called peace and quiet. There were letters to be dictated, messengers to send on their way, supplicants and vassals to see, household officers and knights of the mesnie to consult. However, they could wait a few hours. First, he needed to refresh himself and talk matters over with his wife.
Clad only in shirt and braies, he lay on their bed in the solar chamber, his head pillowed in her lap against the swell of her belly. She had conceived again in January, was just entering her sixth month of pregnancy, and was as stately as the swans gliding on the river beyond the manor house. Glittering motes of dust hung in the sunlight crossing the foot of the bed. Their son was tumbling on the floor with an infant of a similar age belonging to one of the knights and watched over by a vigilant nurse. He had given Isabelle the news concerning the success of her letters to Queen Eleanor and had taken pleasure and pride in the gleam of satisfaction it brought to her eyes. “I know men who don’t give a fig for the opinions of their wives, but they are the poorer for such blindness,” he said.
“Ah, but if you disagreed with my opinion, you wouldn’t follow it,” she answered with a knowing smile. “You’d tell me to mind my distaff and you would go your own way.”
“I’d tell you no such thing,” William said indignantly, “even if I did go my own way…but that’s not going to happen. We both want the best for Striguil and our children. Don’t you want to hear the rest of de Coutances’s news?”
She gave his hair a tug, not enough to hurt, but sufficient as a warning. In truth, he had the right of it when he said that they both wanted the best for their lands and their offspring. And he did seek her opinions and include her in every aspect of their rule. No one was in any doubt that she was the Countess of Striguil. On the documents to which he set his seal, he never styled himself an earl and still used the small oval seal of his knighthood. It amused—even exasperated—her sometimes that he took only what was his by right and refused the extra trappings that he could have possessed without anyone cavilling, least of all her. “Tell me, what news?”
“By now King Richard will be a married man. Eleanor was on the road bringing Berengaria, daughter of King Sancho of Navarre, to Cyprus for their wedding.”
Isabelle’s mouth opened to ask a question and remained like that for several moments. “Jesu!” she said at last. “Why? Were there any plans before he left?”
“Not that I know of, although his mother might have had them, and Richard himself keeps his inner thoughts and schemes well hidden. I suppose there are reasons to do with Aquitaine and Poitou that made sense to take a Navarrese bride. I do not think he was ever going to marry Alys of France. Richard has ever looked to the south rather than the north.”
Isabelle resumed stroking his hair. “So it is likely that the King will soon beget an heir,” she said thoughtfully.
“Certainly if God is good. It didn’t take us long.” William spoke with conviction and hoped that the rumours concerning the King’s predilections were like most court gossip: untrue.
