The Greatest Knight (11 page)

“And there was I thinking from the chivalrous way you behave towards women that you were a romantic soul who believed in wedding for love alone,” Baldwin mocked.

William curled his lip at Baldwin’s jesting to show that he thought it in poor taste. “That won’t comfort an empty belly,” he replied. “Should I ever marry, I would hope to love my wife for herself as well as her lands, but if I’m being practical, it won’t happen. Hearth knights like us seldom take wives or have the opportunity to settle down and beget sons and daughters.”

“And that disturbs you?” Baldwin eyed him curiously for it was not often that William allowed a glimpse beneath his good-natured composure.

William frowned. “Not for the moment, but it might when I’m older. Does it not disturb you?”

Baldwin shook his head. “We take what we’re given and make the best of it. Even without lands there is nothing to prevent a man from taking a mistress…or a wife, save perhaps his ambition in the second case. The right offer has to come along.”

“Then, like my brother, I must be an ambitious man,” William said with a smile. “And I have seen no woman yet with whom I am tempted to share a bed beyond a night…except perhaps the Queen,” he added with self-mockery. “And that’s not a temptation that’s ever likely to be fulfilled.”

“One to dream about though,” Baldwin said.

“Dreaming’s best. You can’t get into trouble for dreaming, and it costs less.”

“Indeed,” Baldwin laughed. “I wonder how Wigain and Walter are enjoying their bath!”

***

Westminster’s great hall was packed to the rafters with nobility celebrating the coronation of the royal heir. Now two King Henrys, their crowns identical, sat side by side on the raised dais beneath a banner of snarling red and gold leopards. Queen Eleanor, wife to one and mother to the other, wore her crown too and everyone’s garments shone with the gleam of silk and glittered with gemstones and thread of gold. William thought that it was like looking upon a river as it flashed with coins of dazzled light at sunset. He too was a part of the majestic flow in his court tunic of blue silk with red linen undergown. As a bodyguard to the Young King, he wore his sword in the hall and his scabbard was laced to his ceremonial swordbelt of embossed and gilded leather. The one he usually wore, wrinkled and polished with constant use, was stored in his baggage roll awaiting the end of the formal festivities.

Although William was on duty, he had still managed to sample many of the courses of the coronation feast. He had decided that swan was overrated, that cooking a peacock did not improve it, but that the chicken pasties and spiced almond wafers were delicious, as were the honeyed, fried pork trotters.

A stocky young priest joined him, his brown fringe neatly clipped and his river-grey eyes bright with pleasure. “The crowning went well, don’t you think?” he asked, his smile pursed and smug.

William turned to his younger brother. Henry had taken his monastic vows and was forging an ecclesiastical career in the service of Roger de Pont L’Évêque, Archbishop of York. “Indeed,” William said. “Everyone played their part.”

“The Archbishop was magnificent.” Henry’s voice was belligerent. He folded his arms and stood firmly planted as if to resist a buffet, his posture very reminiscent of their deceased uncle Patrick.

“Yes, he was,” William agreed. Even had he thought otherwise, he would have been diplomatic for his brother’s sake. The Archbishop of York had performed the crowning because Thomas Becket of Canterbury was currently in exile at the French court, having quarrelled with King Henry over several issues of Church and State. Most of the barons thought that the quarrel was Becket’s fault for being so stubborn and determined to thwart Henry’s will at every turn. The senior churchmen were divided as to who should take the blame—Henry or Becket—but all agreed that it was a great pity that Becket, who had been the Prince’s boyhood tutor, was not here to crown his pupil. Roger of York had filled Becket’s empty space but such a choice had always been bound to cause dissent, especially amongst the Canterbury faction who had been heard to mutter that it wasn’t a “real” coronation.

William had small interest in the dispute for it impinged little on his daily life. Prince Henry had other tutors now and his days with Becket had already been finished when William had entered Eleanor’s service.

“You’ve heard the grumbles from the French?” his brother asked.

William nodded. “They expected the Princess Marguerite to be crowned beside the Prince and they are bound to be angered that she has not.” He frowned, remembering Marguerite’s bewilderment at being left behind in Normandy. The gift of a gold circlet and a new gown had not consoled her, for the child cared little for such things; he felt sorry for her.

“I’ve heard that she is to be crowned at a later date,” his brother said. “The King seems to think that Becket won’t be able to resist the opportunity to officiate and that it’ll bring him to heel.”

“I’ve heard that too,” William said neutrally. The King wanted to push the argument with Becket aside like detritus into a midden pit. William had the notion that King Henry’s midden pit was already overflowing, and that a cautious man would do well to watch his boots and know when to leap.

“York performed the first ceremony; that will always stand, no matter what Becket and Canterbury do.”

William murmured agreement and looked towards the dais. King Henry had taken a flagon and napkin from a passing attendant. His face full of pride, a smile on his lips, he proceeded to fill the cup of his newly crowned heir. “It is a great and sacred occasion when a king is crowned!” he announced in ringing tones for everyone to hear. “I want all gathered here to mark this auspicious day for the house of Anjou and for my son!”

His words provoked roars of approbation from the gathering. Lacking cups in which to toast the speech, William and his brother raised their arms in the air and shouted the salute. Henry turned to his heir. His voice remained loud to include the company and it was bright with jest. “Few of you will ever have seen one king wait upon another, but you witness it now.”

A dutiful chuckle circulated around the trestles. Graceful as a young stag, Prince Henry stood to acknowledge his father’s words and lifted his cup. His crown gleamed at his brow: a wide gold band pronged with fleurs-de-lis and set with sapphires, rubies, and pearls. “Indeed it is”—he acknowledged his father with a bow and a quicksilver smile—“but less unusual to see the son of a count wait upon the son of a king.” The riposte might have been amusing in the private chamber but in the great hall it caused a collective gasp.

The good humour left his father’s face, which slowly reddened—always a sign of impending rage, but on this occasion he held it in check and retained his smile, even if it was more a baring of teeth than the genuine expression. “Clever,” he half snarled, wagging his forefinger, “very clever, boy. Now all you need is the wisdom to go with your wit.” There was emphasis on the word “boy.”

William exhaled softly through his teeth, thinking that young Henry was fortunate not to have had that cup of wine dashed in his face. “Jesu,” he muttered softly to his brother, “if we had spoken to our own father thus, he’d have whipped our backside to the bone.”

“Yes, but none of us would have offered him such disrespect in the first place,” Henry Marshal said. He looked at William. “Are you certain that it’s a good idea to seek your fortune in his service?”

William heaved a sigh. “It’s like today’s coronation, brother,” he said. “We are stuck with it for better or for worse.” Unconsciously he squared his shoulders as if bracing to meet a foe in battle. The Prince’s crass comment had swept out from the dais and was spreading towards the far end of the hall with the speed of rampant bindweed through a field, as could be attested by the uneasy laughter and whispered conversation. Somewhere, he knew, Walter Map and his ilk would be making notes and writing it down for posterity, God help everyone.

Eight

Southampton, November 1172

Rhys ap Madoc, a mercenary archer from Gwent, drew the string of his longbow back to the ear, marking a point of reference with his knuckle to the last molar in his upper jaw, his gaze never wavering from the target of stuffed straw. When he loosed the arrow, it flew as straight as a saint’s word to God into the target centre. Before William could draw breath to speak, a second arrow was winging to split the first. The archer swore at the damage done to the flight, but there was a satisfied gleam in his dark brown eyes.

“You’ll do.” William strove to sound nonchalant, as if he saw such talent every day. He was actually in search of a new groom, but he wasn’t going to cavil if that groom also happened to be deadly with a bow and a handy soldier into the bargain. “Go and find yourself a billet in the guardroom for now. Tell Master Ailward that I sent you.”

“Yes, sir.” The man touched the tip of his greasy leather cap and would have departed, had not William called him back, for his curiosity had been whetted. “You say you were with Richard de Clare of Striguil?” William thought of the red-haired lord to whom he had briefly spoken in the Southwark bathhouse two years ago. De Clare had made good on his promise; had carved his fortune out of the green Irish turf and taken to wife Aoife, daughter of Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster.

“Yes, sir, I was, but my wife’s Norman and she was homesick. She’s not one to complain but I could tell she was miserable, and a man doesn’t need misery at his hearth. Besides, I’m not a man to baulk at a fight, but there was never any respite. I knew sooner or later I’d wind up dead in a bog or bleaching my bones on some riverbank.”

“And what makes you think that you won’t bleach your bones in my service?” William asked with a grim smile.

The Welshman gave a philosophical shrug. “I might do that, sir, but I reckon there’s more chance of surviving in your retinue long enough to enjoy my married state.”

William dismissed Rhys and watched him jog towards the guardroom. He wished Richard de Clare well of his marriage to the Princess Aoife. Men who had not been to Ireland listened to tales of its green-grey mistiness, its savage bearded chieftains, its place at the edge of the world and shuddered into their wine. William, though, had always felt drawn towards the country by his natural sense of adventure. Had he been a penniless younger son without prospects, he might have accepted a taste of life in de Clare’s service—and perhaps an Irish wife. From what he had heard, de Clare had already had a child out of Princess Aoife, a daughter, and the lady was breeding again.

His smile was ironic as he thought of what the archer had said about living a strife-torn life in Ireland. William’s existence might not be as fraught with daily danger, but that did not mean it was peaceful. Then again, such storms as beset Prince Henry’s household would probably pass over the head of a groom.

As William entered Southampton Castle’s great hall, Adam, one of the clerks, scuttled past him, pieces of a broken wax tablet in his hand. The look he cast at William glittered with venom. Glancing back at him in speculation, William continued into the room. Plainly spoiling for a fight, the Young King was pacing the rush-strewn floor, his grey eyes stormy and his chin, with its new sprouting of beard, belligerent. His fourteen-year-old wife was sitting over her needlework frame but she wasn’t sewing and her lips were pressed firmly together. She was a queen now, having finally been given her own coronation three months ago at Winchester: nowhere near as grand as her husband’s, but it served its purpose, which was to mollify her father.

“Is there trouble, my lord?” William enquired. He noticed that a trestle had been set up to one side of the room. The London merchant Richard FitzReinier, who supplied many of the Prince’s requirements, was rolling up assorted bolts of fine cloth, aided by a nervous-looking assistant.

“Not of my making,” Henry snapped.

William wandered over to the mercer’s trestle, noting that the fabrics were mostly wool, softly teased and napped, and in muted jewel colours—the most expensive sort. There was some silk too, including a small bolt of the staggeringly costly imperial purple. FitzReinier flicked William a swift look from under his brows and gave an infinitesimal shake of his head.

“My father gives me a crown like tossing a bauble to a little child, and expects it to be enough,” Henry snapped. He picked up the inkhorn that the clerk had left behind in his eagerness to be out of the room and ran his thumb over the ridges.

William marked the presence of Adam Yqueboeuf and the brothers Thomas and Hugh de Coulances, whose strategy was to agree with everything that Henry said and butter him with flattery. The Young King was no fool, but his head was easily turned by praise and other men’s visions of the status he ought to command. “Your father thought long and hard about your coronation,” William remarked in a tone that was deliberately mild and conversational.

“He only did it because he was afraid of the country falling into anarchy if he should die suddenly. He wanted to secure the succession.”

William cocked an eyebrow. “Surely it is to your benefit as well as his?”

Henry scowled. “What use is a crown without the power behind it? He says I have to learn how to govern before he’ll slacken the reins, but how can I do that when he won’t give me the responsibility? When he was my age, he was leading armies!”

Henry had a point, William thought. The King desired him to be recognised as his heir, but refused to relinquish one iota of control to let him test his wings. At seventeen years old, Henry stood on the verge of manhood and it was dangerous to continue treating him as a juvenile.

“It’s humiliating to have to answer to him for every penny I spend,” Henry complained. “Am I supposed to clad myself in rags and freeze in the winter cold?” He gestured toward FitzReinier and his lad. “That idiot clerk Adam was beside me checking every ell of cloth I ordered, and now he’ll tell my father who will complain that I spend too much. I am a crowned king, a duke, and a count, and it’s all dross!” He hurled the inkhorn at the wall. It broke upon the plasterwork, splattering the limewash with blots and drips of oakgall brown.

“You are attending his Christmas court,” William said. “Speak to him and tell him of your discontent.”

“He won’t listen. He never listens,” Henry flashed. “Why do you think my mother no longer dwells with him? She hates him. Everyone hates him except his English whore and that’s only because her brains are between her legs. Everyone knows that he was to blame for Becket’s murder. It doesn’t matter that the Pope has absolved him and he’s done penance and promised money for a crusade. He’ll always be stained by the shame of the blood spilled on Canterbury’s altar.”

William winced. The memory of that time was one he would rather put behind him. The King had grown furious at Becket’s stubborn refusal to come to terms over the matter of clerical reform. A royal tirade against the Archbishop had been misinterpreted and four knights eager to secure the royal favour had ridden to Canterbury and murdered Thomas Becket on the steps of the altar. The dead Archbishop had become more popular and revered than the living one had ever been. His bloodied clothing, his hair shirt, his soiled, filthy braies were stored in a locked chest by the monks of the cathedral and periodically brought out to be soused in Holy Water. The cloudy results were then sold to an increasing number of pilgrims as a cure-all. Becket had been truculent when alive but dead he was more successful by far and had perhaps created more ills than his diluted essence would ever alleviate. There was a growing feeling of unease and discontent among the people of England, and here was a smooth-browed young man with fine looks and charm and a crown on his head. William knew how volatile the situation could become.

“You could govern better than him, sir,” said Adam Yqueboeuf. “The magnates and barons love you, and so do the people. You should make your father listen to you, not just ‘speak’ to him.”

William sent Yqueboeuf a quelling look to which the latter responded with a sneer. “And how would he do that? Threaten his father with force? Bring about the strife that the coronation was supposed to avoid?”

“Anyone would think you were on my father’s side,” Henry said irritably. “You’re like an old woman sometimes.”

“And does chivalry not tell you to respect old women, sire?”

Henry’s scowl slowly gave way to reluctant humour. “That depends on whether or not they are senile,” he retorted. “Are you senile, William?”

“I hope that I still have some reason left in my skull, sire. I am in your service, not your father’s, and my loyalty first and foremost is to you.”

Henry chewed his thumbnail. “I do respect my father—I have a care for old men as well as old women.” He paused to give his sycophants time to guffaw their appreciation. “But he must respect me too. I am no longer a child and I won’t be treated like one.” His lips thinned mulishly. “I will speak to him at the Christmas feast, but he had better listen.”

William said nothing because there was no point. Henry was too high on his pride to pay heed to other than his own desires. Turning away, William studied the bolts of fabric, now tidied on the trestle, noting that the purple silk had been set to one side, together with some fine linen chansil and a glorious gold and blue wool brocade.

“You know what will please,” William murmured sardonically to the merchant.

FitzReinier shrugged. “My business would fail if I did not,” he said. “The Young King wanted to see my choicest wares and it is my place to satisfy his need, not pander to his clerks.”

William smiled. “Or perhaps to encourage his hunger.”

FitzReinier returned the smile and clicked his fingers at his assistant. “If you’re interested in silk but don’t have the means for purple, I have some remnants of green and yellow that would make a surcoat…at a very attractive price,” he added with delicate mischief.

***

A short while later, William stood on the dockside, marvelling at FitzReinier’s skill in persuading otherwise sane and sensible men to part with their silver. He was now the owner of some green and yellow silk that he didn’t really need, not to mention several ells of red wool for a tunic. He could hardly cavil at Prince Henry’s extravagance when he was incapable of controlling his own.

Irritated and slightly bemused by his own folly, he watched porters load the furniture of Prince Henry’s household on to the royal
esnecca
. The vessel was sleek and narrow, built to knife through the water and carry her passengers at speed across the expanse of sea separating England from Normandy. Brightly painted shields lined her strake and the leopards of Anjou fluttered from her mast. Men were busily erecting a deck shelter near her stern so that Marguerite and her ladies would have some protection from the flying spray and sharp sea wind. The young royal couple was bound for the French court to visit Marguerite’s father, King Louis, and then for an Angevin family gathering at Chinon.

William strolled along the dockside, past the moored fishing vessels and two men mending nets by a brazier, their knuckles chapped and red with cold. William’s new groom Rhys was standing with a group of soldiers, his bow stave horizontal across his shoulders and his arms propped over its length. Beyond them, a rider and his attendants were picking their way along the crowded wharf. William’s gaze narrowed. “John?” His stomach lurched as if he were already on board ship, his first thought being that something had happened at home to bring his brother chasing down to Southampton. Ancel was with him too. His worry was compounded by John’s strained expression, and did not diminish even when his brother found a smile as he dismounted.

“I hoped I would catch you before you sailed,” John said as they clasped each other in a brief embrace.

“What’s your news?” William turned from John to greet Ancel. The youth had grown again and his narrow frame was filling out with adult muscle. He wore a sword at his hip too, which meant that he was now sufficiently accomplished to use one. “It’s surely not just brotherly love that brings you to Southampton?”

“That if you will,” John replied with bluff unease, “but business too.” A caustic note entered his voice. “I’m the King’s Marshal you know; I don’t spend all my time mouldering like a rustic. I’ve letters for the King to be taken on ship and matters to discuss with the constable.”

“Matters not for my ears?” Reassured that the news from home was plainly not that dire, and imparting it not John’s sole purpose for being in Southampton, William relaxed and found a mocking smile.

John chose not to return it, his own expression officious and fussy. “Not that you’ve an imprudent tongue, I know you better than that; but the King’s business is the King’s business.”

“And we’re both loyal to the last drop in the flagon,” William said. “It’s cold here, and going to be even colder than a witch’s tit once at sea. We can at least be warm while we talk.” He indicated the alehouse standing back from the dockside, lazy smoke twirling from its louvres. “Unless you want to go straight to the castle?” His voice lacked enthusiasm. He had come from there to escape the tense atmosphere and FitzReinier’s depredations on his purse.

John gave him a speculative glance. “No, the alehouse will do.”

***

The establishment was already busy with sailors and passengers waiting to embark and who, like William and his brothers, were here to warm and fortify themselves in the interim. The brothers sat down at a trestle in a corner of the room and a woman brought them a pitcher of straw-coloured English wine, a basket of freshly baked bread, and another of raisin and chicken pasties. William eyed the food, his stomach rumbling. The pity was that anything he ate, he’d likely lose five miles out to sea. He didn’t know which was worse, puking on an empty stomach or a full one. John was staring at the food too, but as if he were faced by platters of logs and sawdust. Only Ancel set to with a will.