For the King’s Favor (31 page)

“Well done, son!” Roger said as Hugh rejoined them. The boy flushed with pleasure. With a pang, Roger realised again how much he had grown during his absence. He was still a child, but looking towards adolescence rather than further years of boyhood. Roger had a squire set up the rings again, took a lance from an attendant, and rode to perform the same manoeuvres as Hugh. Partly it was to keep his own skills honed, but there was more to it than that. The act of coordinating hand, eye, and horse gave him pleasure and reminded him that somewhere among the burdens and responsibilities that had devolved upon his shoulders a young man’s blood still burned in his veins and there was joy to be taken in the small pleasures of life.

He had been home a week, and although he had been kept busy with the estate, overseeing the building of the keep and working on the matter of the ransom, there were brief moments like this when he was able to relax. It was a luxury to wake up in a bed with a feather mattress and Ida at his side. To have her company at mealtimes and in the evening, curled against him with her sewing, or singing with him for pleasure and entertainment. There was the luxury too of physical contact. He was no slave to lust and fornication the way some men were, but bedding his wife—and being bedded—was a delight he had sorely missed. His children were a pleasure too. Their antics amused him and their liveliness had the same effect as this ride down the tilt. They made the blood sing in his veins. It gave him a protective pang to have his smallest daughter curl in his lap, enfolded in his fur-lined cloak, and fall asleep there. Such unconditional trust and love. His own father had never experienced such a privilege; indeed would have recoiled at the very notion of taking a child on to his knee, and it mingled Roger’s pleasure with a sharpening of sadness.

He caught the three rings on the tip of the lance and returned to the group at a bouncing canter, basking a little in the adulation in his son’s eyes.

As he was dismounting, the enormous white gander from the poultry yard flapped across the sward, pursuing several squawking, agitated hens. Neck outstretched, honking and hissing, he attacked with full aggression to protect his territory.

“Watch out, sir,” warned the groom who had come to take Roger’s horse. “He went for the master mason last week because he thought he was threatening his females.” The groom jerked his head in the direction of the four drab brown geese plucking at clumps of grass against the wall of a storage hut.

Roger gave a snort of amusement and watched the gander bustle the hens across the yard. Several of the stupid creatures flustered themselves into the water trough, where they flapped and clucked in panic while the gander continued to threaten. Roger began to splutter. The rest of his men were holding their midriffs and laughing as a florid woman emerged from the kitchens, sleeves rolled up and a large ladle in her hand.

“Trouble now,” choked Anketil. “Here comes Wulfwyn.”

She marched towards the chaos, her face a furious shade of red. “You’ll not be laughing, my fine lords, when there are no chickens for the pot or eggs for the table!” she cried, not in the least set down by any consideration of rank. “This will put them off laying for a month!” She glared at Roger as if the situation was his fault, which only brought tears to his eyes.

Reaching the trough, Wulfwyn plucked the bedraggled chickens out of the water, seized the gander round the neck in a grapple hold, pinned its wings, tucked it under her arm, and stumped off in high dudgeon, muttering about the stupidity of all males. The hens tottered about round the base of the trough, flouncing their feathers and complaining, while the men wiped their eyes and tried to recover.

“She won’t wring its neck,” Hugh piped up. “It’s her pet. She loves it and talks to it all of the time, even if it’s mostly scolding.”

“Like having a man around then,” Anketil remarked.

Hugh shook his head. “She says it’s better than a man. It protects her and it doesn’t want to futter her every time she gets into bed.”

Everyone burst out laughing again, staggering and holding on to each other. Hugh reddened and grinned. Roger gave him a good-natured cuff. “What have you been learning in my absence?” he demanded.

Hugh shrugged, his complexion brighter than ever. “It’s what she said, and in front of everyone.”

“Sounds like wishful thinking to me,” Anketil chuckled. “No man in his right mind would want to bed with that harridan. Even if he did, who’d want to risk being pecked in his stones?”

“It might be worth it for a good breakfast,” opined Thomas of Heacham, who was a renowned trencherman.

“Come off it, man, you’d be the breakfast!”

The jests and banter, the camaraderie, gave Roger a warm feeling. He was amused to see Hugh lapping it up like a hungry adolescent pup. It was good for the boy to learn the lessons of interaction with the kinds of men on whom he would have to depend when his time came to rule. There were boundaries, of course, as was right and proper, but a good leader of men, a good lord, knew where to set them and when to be fluid.

As the men were recovering from their mirth, a messenger arrived at a hard gallop, dismounting even as he drew rein. Seeing Roger, he strode over to him, knelt, and handed him a packet. Roger knew the messenger for one belonging to Chancellor Longchamp. “Geoffrey, isn’t it?” He gestured to him to stand up.

“Yes, my lord.” The man removed his cap in deference revealing a head of grizzled curls. He looked anxious. Roger glanced at the packet, which bore Longchamp’s seal, the King’s, and that of Queen Eleanor. Taking his knife, he broke open the document and studied the contents. As he read, he began to frown and at one particular line, his glance flickered to his son.

“Trouble?” asked Anketil. The men were no longer smiling. Longchamp’s messenger wiped a hand over his sweating face. Roger glanced at him too and gave him leave to stable his horse and claim a drink in the kitchen. It wasn’t his fault he was the bearer of the tidings, but Roger almost hoped that the gander was still on guard duty around Wulfwyn.

“Whenever is the Bishop of Ely not trouble?” Roger said grimly. “I am summoned to a council at Saint Albans to discuss the King’s ransom.” He looked again at his son and his face felt stiff. “Oliver, gather everyone together. I need to read this again and speak to the Countess, and then I have to decide what to do.”

***

Ida sat in the upper room of the solar by the open window, with the spring sun spilling across her lap and the shirt she was stitching for Roger. She could have had one of the seamstresses do it, but she preferred to sew it herself because then he would be wearing her work against his skin wherever he went. The first intimation she had of trouble was when Roger thrust open the chamber door and strode into the room. A slight waft of horse and hard exercise accompanied him, but his mood was not the one of vibrant well-being she expected to see after such sport. And then she saw the parchment in his hand and a hole opened up inside her.

“What is it?” she asked. A week; they had had a week. Was that all they were going to be granted?

He came and sat opposite her in the window seat where they had fed each other morsels of toasted bread dripping with butter on their first night here in intimate, firelit darkness. “William Longchamp has returned,” he growled. “Landed at Ipswich of all places—my own port. He’s called a meeting at Saint Albans a week hence.”

Dismay coursed through her. Despite his banishment, Longchamp had tried last year to set foot in England and been warned off. She could not believe that he would make another attempt—and apparently succeed. “A meeting about what?”

“This comes with the sanction of the King. Richard has put him in charge of raising the ransom and having it brought to Emperor Henry in Germany.” Roger looked at the document in his hand as if it were a piece of rotting flesh. “Once the first seventy thousand has been paid Richard can go free, but the Emperor demands hostages as a guarantee of good faith.”

Suddenly alarmed, Ida sat up straight. “What are you saying?”

He was silent for several heartbeats, then he said, “Longchamp has ordered me to stand as one of the hostages as well as Richard de Clare and the Bishops of Rochester and Chichester. He’s demanded that men give their sons as hostages too—including Hugh.”

Ida’s hands flew to her mouth in shock. “He can’t do that!”

“He’s asked for one of Eleanor’s grandsons too.”

“You can’t give him up, not Hugh!” She felt sick.

“I don’t intend to,” Roger said with grim determination. “It’s all part of the negotiation. They ask for more and seem reasonable when they accept less. By all means, let Longchamp have me. I am not ten years old and I can look after myself. But I will not yield our son.”

His words barely reduced Ida’s anxiety. Standing in defiance had its own perils, and even if he protected Hugh, he was putting himself forward as a shield and a sacrifice. “But you will still have to go to Germany?”

“In all likelihood.” Roger turned his gaze to the window, avoiding hers.

Ida thrust her hands under the sewing so he wouldn’t see them shaking. Germany! It might as well be Jerusalem. “When do you leave?” she asked in a thready voice.

He folded the parchment and stuffed it through his belt. “It’ll have to be the morrow. I don’t have much time.”

She felt as if she had been punched. “I had better pack your baggage,” she heard herself say. “You’ll be needing your court clothes and several changes of linens…I…” She swallowed. “I thought I would have longer to finish your shirt…” She looked down at the soft bleached linen under her hands and blinked. A tear splashed on to the fabric and made a transparent blot. Another summer gone. Another season from the prime of life.

“Ida…” He stretched across the embrasure space and took her hands in his. “It is my duty…”

“Yes,” she said stiffly. “I would not have you go away at all, but I know my own duty” She disengaged from him and taking up the shirt began to stitch again, erratically. The seam wobbled and she pricked herself, staining the clean white fabric with her blood.

“Leave it,” Roger said. “It does not matter. I have shirts aplenty.”

“But it does matter,” she cried, feeling fierce and angry and raw with pain. “Perhaps not to you; to a man a shirt is a shirt. But to the wife who has sewn it and cried over it and bled upon it, it is so much greater than—than a duty.” She jerked to her feet. When he put out his hand to her, she held out her own to stop him. “No,” she said. “I need to compose myself…Let me be.”

She removed to the bedchamber and drew the curtain across. There was a gathering pressure of tears behind her eyes and she knew she had to give vent to the storm in order to come through to the other side, cried-out to numbness and seemingly calm.

Roger followed her, clashing the curtain aside and then back into place. “If I could stay, I would,” he said and hearing the irritation in his voice, she flinched. “But when I swore fealty to Richard, I promised my body to serve him in tasks such as this and what would I be if I did not uphold my oath to him? All the weeping in the world will not make a difference.”

“I know,” Ida said wretchedly. “But at least I can choose whether to weep or not.”

He reached her, turned her round and pulled her roughly into his arms. “And you think that when I leave on the morrow I want to carry the memory of your tears with me?”

“Perhaps I need you to carry that memory,” she said, striking out through her pain.

They stood in each other’s space, their breathing suspended. Ida thought he was going to turn from her and stride out. A part of her wished he would and make her misery complete, but instead his grip tightened and he kissed her hard and she responded, so that they exhaled into each other. “I will tell you the kind of memory I want to carry,” he said. “Indeed, I will show you.” And lifting her in his arms he carried her to their bed.

***

In the early morning, the dawn still at the stage of grey twilight, Ida watched Roger ride away from Framlingham with his entourage of knights, squires, and clerics, the sumpter horses piled with baggage. He wasn’t taking a cart because he said it would slow him down. Hugh stood proudly beside her, his head up and his hands gripped in manly fashion around his belt, although she knew that within the hour he would be a boy again, playing camp ball, or racing his pony against his friends.

Ida was unable to smile, but she raised her hand to answer Roger’s salute of farewell. She couldn’t see the expression on his face as he rode away, but she could feel its intensity, holding her to the memory of the hour they had spent in the bedchamber yesterday afternoon and all the things that had gone unspoken but not unsaid in the intimate language of touch. He wasn’t smiling either. What they both had for the moment was the kind of grim balance needed for walking along a narrow rope with sharp knives either side, some of their own making.

As the last horse trotted out of Framlingham’s gates, Wulfwyn’s gander flurried across the yard in its wake, hissing and honking, as if chasing out intruders. Normally such a comical sight would have caused great amusement among the onlookers, but today no one laughed.

Sandwich, August 1193

A heavy squall had turned the waves to grey and marbled them with white striations of foam. Water slapped against the strakes and exploded in small starbursts of salty spray. It wasn’t stormy weather in the true sense of the word but Roger knew it was going to be a cold, wet crossing and those who suffered from the seasickness would be puking in a couple of hours. He was not particularly afflicted that way unless the swell was really heavy.

A youth arrived and stood near Roger, staring at the newly equipped and provisioned ship. His shoulders rose and fell with his rapid breathing and he had the alert look of a highly strung gazehound. At almost fourteen years old, William FitzRoy was a squire in the household of the justiciar Geoffrey FitzPeter—or he had been until called upon to fulfil the role of hostage for the payment of his half-brother’s ransom.

The youth was wearing a tunic of gorgeous brazil-dyed red wool dotted with silver jetons. A silver disc brooch secured his fur-lined cloak at his shoulder and his feet were shod in shoes of soft red leather that Roger admired but thought impractical. His own garments were serviceable, robust items that would withstand the vagaries of travel, and his boots were tough cowhide, heavily waxed to repel rain and sea.

Roger was extremely glad that Ida was ignorant of the youth’s presence as one of the hostages, because he knew that awareness would have undone her. His own leave-taking had been difficult enough for her, and the way she had reacted to Longchamp’s demand that Hugh be surrendered had led him not to tell her that William was on the hostage list. What she did not know could not harm her.

“We should board,” Roger said.

With a stiff nod, the youth advanced to the gangplank. He walked with his head high, an imperious expression on his face, and ignored those around him. Roger realised the lad was trying to conceal his apprehension, but knew his own sons and daughters would never behave thus. They had been raised to have manners to all, no matter their rank, because that was the true sign of nobility. The youth acted as if his own nobility would be soiled by interacting with those of lesser degree.

Roger had been intending to invite William to meet his mother and half-siblings, but there were always more important matters to claim his attention concerned with government and the judiciary. There had been neither time nor opportunity to arrange the visit, especially when he was so ambivalent about the matter. It was easier to say “some day” rather than committing himself.

Glancing beyond the harbour mouth as he stepped on to the decking, Roger saw that out to sea the rain was a thick grey veil. “We’re in for a wet crossing,” he told the youth as he joined him inside the deck shelter. “Do you have any stouter footwear in your baggage?”

William frowned. “I have my riding boots,” he said, but there was a curl to his lip, revealing what he thought about exchanging his fine red shoes for such mundane footwear.

“Then I suggest you put them on if you want to save what you’re wearing for the Emperor’s court. Sea water will do to your boots what salt will do to a slug.” Roger shrugged. “Not that it matters to me. I’m dry shod and intend to remain so. Depends if you value being a fop above being a good soldier.”

William flushed. He thrust out his foot and Roger could see him deliberating between retaining his sartorial appearance or swallowing his pride and opting for practicality. Roger pretended to turn away, but continued to observe him, because the youth’s decision would be a reflection on his character and give an indication of how he might be handled.

Finally, the lad heaved a sigh and, calling for his manservant, set about changing the soft red goatskin for plain cowhide boots. Roger said nothing, allowing him pride of space, but vowed he would have William FitzRoy drinking ale out of a wooden cup yet.

As the tide turned from its zenith, the sailors cast off the mooring ropes and set sail for the open sea. The youth left the shelter to watch the activity, returning only as the rain grew heavier and the wind began to gust. His waxed riding boots were saturated but, by unspoken mutual agreement, nothing was said on the matter.

The ship toiled through the swell like a powerful horse plodding against the wind. Roger settled down on the floor of the deck shelter, which had been covered by oiled canvas and a thick layer of sheepskins. The knights passed around the wine costrels and Roger’s cook provided bread, cheese, and portions of cold roast fowl. William ate and drank with them, but continued to look finicky, as if the rustic food was not really good enough, but would have to do. Roger bit his tongue and bore with the behaviour. It was like training a young horse that someone else with different ways had started to break in. He included the youth in the conversation, neither deferring to him nor setting him down.

Anketil produced a leather merels board from his pack and a set of bone counters. Roger partnered him and the men played the best of three games while the ship creaked around them and her keel knifed the cold channel waters. Roger lost the first one and won the second two. “Do you play?” he asked William, who had been watching the game intently.

He received a wary shrug. “Sometimes.”

Roger gestured him to take Anketil’s place. “Come then, let’s test your mettle.”

The youth sat down, folded his legs, and placed his pile of counters in the dip of tunic over his lap. A look of concentration crossed his face as they began to play. He was quick and intelligent and understood the strategy very well. As the game progressed and he became absorbed, his posture relaxed and his guard dropped. Engrossed in studying the youth rather than the game, Roger went down to defeat the first time. A gleam filled the youngster’s eyes, which reminded Roger so much of Ida that it sent a jolt through him. He made himself concentrate on the second game and this time he won. The third game was closely contested but, despite William’s sharp wits, Roger had a far-seeing ability and the experience to anticipate several moves ahead, so that eventually he triumphed. The lad accepted his defeat without rancour and Roger thought it a good sign, because such behaviour revealed that William had absorbed the less pompous side of courtliness too. The boy had a strong competitive streak, but there was no acrimony.

As the rain eased to a soft drizzle, William left the deck shelter to go and watch the sailors at their work.

“Good sea-legs on him,” Anketil said with judicious approval as Roger handed the merels board across to two others who desired to play.

Roger smiled inside his mouth. Anketil came from a seafaring family and the remark was a compliment of the highest order. “He’ll do,” he said, folding his arms. “I’ve been intending to have him stay with us—reunite him with his mother and introduce him to his brothers and sisters, but the opportunity has never been right.” He glanced out through the gap in the canvas flap to the grey sky and sea and the rise and fall of the ship breasting the waves. William was watching a sailor adjusting one of the yards and his focus was direct and absolute. Roger could almost see him sucking in the detail and making it a part of his knowledge. That particular intensity was all Henry’s. “I suppose the opportunity will never be right.”

“You mean you won’t?” Surprise filled Anketil’s blue stare.

Roger shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll do it as soon as I may when we return. I’ve put it off for far too long already.”

***

In the heat of the August afternoon, Ida was glad to accept a cup of stream-cooled buttermilk from Alditha, one of the village spinsters. Ida’s escort had tethered their mounts to the willow trees by the stream at the foot of the woman’s garth and had settled in the shade to wait.

Ida sat on a bench inside the woman’s house. A small fire burned in the central hearth and an earthenware pot of mutton and vegetable stew simmered gently on the stones. One of the main reasons for Ida’s visit, Alditha’s week-old daughter, slumbered in a willow basket on the table, her little limbs bound in swaddling.

“You are generous, my lady,” said Alditha, who was plainly touched and delighted by Ida’s gift of a dress length of sage-green wool.

“I am glad you like it.” Ida smiled. “I thought I would bring it now so you have time to make it up for your churching. A woman should always have a new dress for the occasion.” She had brought an ivory teething ring for the infant too, tied on a fine piece of blue silk ribbon. Alditha was a skilled spinster who could turn combed fleece and flax into strong, even yarn with efficient speed. The birth of her daughter had curtailed her output, although she did have her mother on hand to help with the baby and her other two children. By visiting and bringing gifts, Ida was keeping an eye on the part of the earldom’s economy she could influence, and doing what she could to maintain the goodwill and hard work. With Roger a hostage, she was determined to help raise the King’s ransom payment as swiftly as she could.

On hearing that the first levy had not raised sufficient funds and thus a second was in progress, she had emptied her jewel casket of every ring, brooch, jewel, and buckle. She had stripped her sideboard of the silver cups and platters, had taken the hangings from the walls and the fine silk coverlet from the bed. She had replaced the gold strap ends on her best belt with carved bone plaques, and had made do and mended wherever possible. Her mother-in-law had done the same at Dovercourt. Everywhere that the Bigod patronage ran, demands had been made.

“I do not suppose my Goldwin will be home for the churching,” Alditha said wistfully.

Ida hesitated, then shook her head. “I think it will be a little longer than that. The Earl wrote to me from Antwerp to say they had had a wet but calm sea crossing.”

Alditha nodded and looked knowledgeable, although Antwerp was no more than a name to her, as it was to Ida.

The baby woke and began to grizzle. Alditha lifted her from her basket and put her to her breast. A regretful note entered her voice. “I only wish that Goldwin could see her now. Men don’t set the same store by new babies as women do, especially when it’s not their first, but I would have liked him to be here all the same.”

Ida knew too well how Alditha felt. She and Roger had been wed for almost twelve years, but she could not bring herself to weigh the time they had spent together against the time apart because she knew what the scales would show. Watching the baby suckle, she could almost feel the tug in her own breasts and loins. She suspected that the poignant, anguished farewell she and Roger had made in their bedchamber would show its own result come the spring. She had been queasy for several mornings and her breasts were tender and full. Time enough to sow seed, she thought, and then, task accomplished, move on to other pastures.

She thanked Alditha for the buttermilk and took her leave, saying she would have some fleeces sent for spinning from those she had kept back from the wool clip to be worked on the demesne.

At the castle, the masons were toiling in the sun, many of them shirtless, although still wearing their bonnets and hats. She wondered if it was hot where Roger was. What was he doing now? How was he faring? She tried to picture him, but all she could see was one of his hats, broad-brimmed, pulled low, concealing his face. It was not the image she desired, but no other would come to her.

Entering the hall, she heard squeals of glee coming from the corner, and saw the children clustered around someone sitting on a bench. Closer inspection revealed Alexander of Ipswich, Roger’s harbour master. He had rolled up his shirtsleeve and was showing the children a spectacular whirlwind-shaped scar on his forearm.

Noticing her mother, Marguerite ran to her and tugged her over to Master Alexander. “Look, Mama! Look where a dragon’s breathed on him!”

“A dragon?” Ida laughed and shook her head.

“Aye, my mother-in-law,” Alexander said with a wink, although he directed the latter at the children so as not to be disrespectful to Ida. “Go on, touch it, I dare you!” He extended his arm to Marguerite, who shied away with a squeal. “If you do, you’re allowed to make a wish.”

“You said last time it was a burn from a lantern in a storm at sea,” Hugh challenged him.

“Ah.” Alexander touched the side of his nose with his forefinger. “You know that the seas change with the weather and the tides with the moon?”

Hugh nodded.

“So do stories. Never the same twice.”

Hugh folded his arms. “Then how do you know what’s true and what isn’t?”

Alexander continued to rub his nose. “Well, that’s the thing. Sometimes the truth changes too. You have to decide what you believe when others tell you things and come to your own truth.” He gave Hugh a narrow white grin. “So you have to decide whether this was caused by a lantern, or a dragon’s breath, and whether my wife’s mother is one of those creatures. Then again, perhaps it happened in a fight with pirates off the coast of Barbary when I went to the Holy Land…but that’s another story for another day when the tides have turned, hmm?”

With great daring, Marguerite set her forefinger to the scar, then with a little shriek leaped away.

“Did you make your wish?” Alexander asked.

Marguerite gave a solemn nod.

“Don’t say what it is, or it won’t work,” he warned, wagging his forefinger, then pressing it to his lips.

“What if it doesn’t come true?” Marguerite wanted to know.

“Then the tide turned while you weren’t looking.” With a smile, he clapped his hands and shooed the children off to their nurses. They went with dragging reluctance. Hugh, very much the man, remained behind, but sat down quietly on the bench beside the quay master.

Ida suppressed the urge to ask how he had really come by the fearsome scar, knowing she was as susceptible to tales as the children. Alexander rolled down his shirtsleeve, tugged his emerald-green tunic straight, and rose in a belated bow. “Countess.”

“What brings you to Framlingham?”

“Barrels of herring, goods from the Norman estates, and timbers for the castle,” he said. “They were bound here so I thought I would escort them myself and see how matters stood with the building work. It is useful now and again to escape from one world into another, do you not think?”