William was shaken with laughter. It was good to have the approval of Gilbert and Amicia, and he thought in later years he would remember the days of his courtship as days of laughter.
CHAPTER EIGHT
At Easter the King wore his crown at Westminster and Queen Eleanor sat beside him. William and Gilbert rode in with the Countess Amicia and the Lady Isabel, and at the first opportunity William sought out his friend Will. Will FitzHenry had gained renown himself, grown so tall and with such long arms that he had been nicknamed Longsword and was considered a great man at the jousting. He and his chancellor brother accompanied the King everywhere these days and as he and William stood talking together in the hall, cups of ale in their hands, William told him frankly what he wanted.
‘You aim high,’ Will said, ‘but not too high, by God. You have earned all that and more.’
‘But will the King think so? He may remember – other things.’
Will shrugged. ‘He is unpredictable, as always, but I’ll wager my new percheron that he receives you favourably. He always admires brave deeds and we have heard a great deal about your doings. Apart from that – but I’ll say no more,’ Will finished. ‘I’ll go to him now on your behalf.’
‘Say only that I want to pay homage to him after so long away. Let me see if the moment is right for the other matter.’
It was before supper that same evening that William was summoned to the King’s chamber and he was surprised at the speed with which his request for an interview had been granted. He found the King in his bedchamber, alone except for Geoffrey the chancellor and his body servant. He was wearing only shirt and hose and about to have a fine gown of purple velvet flung over his head. At a motion from his hand, the servant paused and William knelt.
‘Well, Sir William,’ Henry looked down at him, ‘so you are returned to us. There’s scarce been a week we’ve not had some knight or chapman telling us tales of you. Is it true that you once dispatched twelve Saracens single-handed when they ambushed you?’
‘Fourteen, your grace.’ William saw no point in being modest about a matter that still afforded him grim satisfaction. ‘But I did have my squire with me and they were not Sallah-ed-din’s best men.’
Henry laughed and motioned to his servant to finish dressing him while he questioned William keenly about Syria, about the climate, the requirements of troops who were to fight there, talking of his own proposed expedition with the French King. ‘Half my age, of course,’ he said crisply, ‘but by Jesu, there’s fight enough left in me yet and experience can teach the young a few tricks, eh? Now tell me,’ he went on in his usual brisk manner, asking penetrating questions until he remembered he had not yet bidden William to rise. He said abruptly. ‘Why have you come to me? I need not ask if you carried out your commission?’
‘No, your grace.’ William told him of the Holy Sepulchre, the stone tomb, and his son’s Cross lying briefly upon it, the prayers offered for his soul.
Henry’s business-like manner had faded, an intense weariness creeping over him, ‘He made a better business of dying than living. Two sons I have lost and both died at enmity with me – even Richard will turn against me again if it suits him. Bastards, all of them.’ He flung an arm impulsively round Geoffrey’s shoulders. ‘Here are my true sons, he and his brother.’
‘And John, your grace?’ William asked the question cautiously.
‘Ah, John –’ a softer expression crossed the King’s face. ‘John is young and makes mistakes but he is loyal to me. He loves me as none of the others did, though God knows I loved Henry as I have loved no one else on this earth. He cost me much suffering, he emptied my money chests, but I would he had lived to cost me more. You loved him too,’ he paused, his eyes fixed sombrely on William, ‘and for that I forgive you much. I forgive Bertran de Born for the same reason. He wrote a lament for Henry – no man rejoices in these bitter days … now he is fallen to the great lord Death – and bitter days they were.’ He seemed to brace himself. ‘But past, William, and I am glad to see you again. What do you want of me?’
‘To renew my homage to you, sire.’ William held up his hands, palms together, but for a moment he knew swift fear. Henry would pardon him, he was sure of that now, but what if he should refuse the further request. What reason had he indeed to grant it? He thought of Isabel, waiting in the bower with the Queen, as nervous as he was. All his hope of her lay in the will, the whim perhaps of this man here, unpredictable as Will Longsword said, but just and sometimes generous.
The short strong hands were set about his. ‘Come back into my service then, William Marshal, and into my household. I have a place about me for a man such as you, and for what you did for my son, for journeying so far to obey his dying wish, I would give you some recompense.’ He raised William to his feet. ‘You have no lands of your own; is that perhaps something you wish for?’
‘I would have land, yes, your grace, but there is something more than that, though land is concerned.’ As always, William thought, Henry would appreciate plain speaking, and he went on, ‘I would ask a greater gift, one you may not wish to bestow on me.’
The King raised his sandy brows. ‘Oh? What is it you want that is so serious a matter?’
‘The Lady Isabel de Clare for my wife.’
He had taken Henry entirely by surprise. The King sat down on the edge of the bed and glanced at his bastard son who was equally astonished, Will not having confided in him. Henry set his elbows on his knees and surveyed William, his eyes narrowing. ‘You would be Earl of Pembroke, lord of Leinster, as well of Longueville in Normandy? You ask a great deal, William, and the girl is little more than a child.’
‘Fifteen, sire, of marriageable age – and I would ask for her if she had no dowry at all.’
Henry stared at him and for a moment William saw the whole business hang in the balance. Mother of God, he prayed, let me have her!
Then the King burst into a great guffaw. ‘William, you have been snared by a pretty face! Jesu, I thought you’d end your days a bachelor. And she –’
‘I think she will not be unwilling,’ William put in hastily and the King looked even more surprised.
‘I was not considering that; the girl will do as I bid her. I was merely thinking I might have got her a younger, richer husband –’
‘I know I have little to offer.’ William was aware that his voice sounded stiff, that what pride was in him resented the words he had to speak.
‘– but not a better man,’ Henry finished as if William had not interrupted. ‘You shall have the girl. You have earned your earldom and if your marriage bed brings you love as well, I’m glad of it. Most of us find there are a few thorns in it as well.’ He saw the swift light in the face opposite him. ‘Well, well, go and find her and tell her what I have said. I will set the clerks to drawing up the documents,’ and as he waved William to the door he added in a low voice, ‘I pray God you will have more joy in your sons than I have had in mine.’
The preparations for the Crusade went ahead. Henry held a great council at Geddington in Northamptonshire where the Archbishop of Canterbury preached a fiery sermon exhorting all men to join the King in his holy war. The Jews were forced to contribute handsomely, and taxes were levied up and down the country. There was much grumbling and Will Longsword said, ‘What a lot of grasping fellows they must be who could deny their fat purses for Our Lord’s cause.’ To which William replied that it was not only the fat purses that were being emptied, every man down to the meanest serf was taxed to the limit.
They were both to go with the King and for William the prospect of the coming journey was tempered with a certain reservation. The King was too busy to hurry forward the necessary settlement and when William broached the subject of his marriage all he got was a broad smile, a crude joke and an injunction to exercise patience.
But Isabel was to be his, that was all that mattered, though it seemed hard at his age to be faced with the prospect of having to wait at least two, may
be more, years for her. For God knew how long this great army assembling on both sides of the channel would take to journey to Palestine, drive out the infidel and journey home again, and it was with a graver face than usual that he set about his own preparations, buying new gear, setting up his squires John and Walter. The thought that on his marriage day he would receive an earldom and other lordships was of less importance, though he could not but be gratified that at last he would stand on equal footing with such men as Geoffrey of Mandeville and Randulph de Blundevill.
Hubert Walter, the clerk who had brought John d’Erleigh to him, was now Dean of York and in his cool way seemed pleased, wishing William well and promising him his prayers. A cold, competent fellow, William thought, but one who would be a loyal friend, and he had a liking for the man’s honesty.
And then all the plans, the preparations, were cast into the shadow by news from France. William was summoned to the King’s great chamber in the palace of Westminster to find Henry pacing furiously. Will was there and the chancellor and Gilbert de Clare and several other barons, all as precipitously ordered into the King’s presence.
He had a letter in his hand and his face was mottled with rage. ‘By God’s Wounds!’ he swore. ‘Is nothing to be honoured, no trust sacred? You there –’ he threw the letter to a clerk, ‘read it to us again, that we may all hear it.’
The clerk read carefully, meticulously, his very slowness adding to the King’s impatience. It seemed that the old quarrel had broken out again between Duke Richard and the Count of Toulouse over a matter of some Poitevin merchants that the Count had seized. He had them blinded and castrated, apparently in revenge for some incursion of Richard’s, and the Duke, furious, promptly invaded Toulouse with no reference to its overlord, the French King. Philip at once broke the truce agreed upon when they had all taken the Cross, and he marched south, seizing Angevin castles as he went, burning crops, slaying King Henry’s subjects, while he sent a second army storming into Normandy.
The clerk laid the letter down with a shaking hand and retreated behind his table. His royal master’s face was purple with tiny suffused veins, his eyes bulging. He had a pair of gloves in his hand and he stuffed one into his mouth, tearing at the fingers with his teeth in a paroxysm of rage. Then as the gathered barons exchanged glances, he flung the gloves down and with one gesture swept letter, pens and inks from the table to fall into a heap on the floor, the ink running over the scattered parchments
‘God hear me!’ he bellowed. ‘I will tame them both! Richard and Philip shall learn who is the man still! Whelps both of them to be beaten, by God! We leave at once.’
‘Sire,’ the Earl of Clare began tentatively. ‘It is five o’clock, near the supper hour.’ Gilbert did not relish the thought of a snatched piece of fowl eaten on horseback. ‘Surely in the morning –’
Henry showed his teeth. ‘Fill your belly if you must, but a summer evening’s light will get me far on my way and the laggards must catch me up.’
William and Isabel had only a few moments in which to say farewell. She was crushed in his arms, trying not to cry, her happiness at their betrothal lost in this present misery.
‘I will come back,’ he said, one hand stroking her hair: ‘Beloved, I will return, I promise you.’
‘You cannot say that.’ She raised her head to look up at him. ‘You will fight the French King and Duke Richard and then you will go with King Henry to the Holy Land and I will not see you for years – if you come back at all. I can’t bear it – I can’t bear it.’
‘Dear love,’ he said, ‘I have been fighting since I was a boy with barely a scratch on me to show for it. I know how to care for myself. Only trust me and if we have to wait, pray that it may not be for too long.’ But over her head he gave a little sigh. It might be hard to be patient at fifteen but it was even harder when one felt the years slipping away, the lost and empty years, before he might have her for his own. Nor, despite his words, did he delude himself that men did not die in battle, or in that hot disease-ridden land where fever and dysentery were as much enemies to the men of the west as Sallah-ed-din and his heathen hordes.
She flung up her arms about his neck, reaching up to him: ‘If we were only wed now, if I could only come with you –’
There was no answer to that. Queen Eleanor would care for her, he knew that, but this parting was tearing from him the heart he had not known until so recently that he possessed. He bent his head, his mouth on hers, twisting the fair plaits in his hands, her small body pressed against his.
A moment later he was walking away from her and he did not turn to look back.
King Henry was ill, had been ill for months with a disease the doctors seemed unable to cure. He groaned with pain, clasping his hands over his belly; sometimes he vomited and the dark colour of it caused his doctors to shake their heads. He was lying on his bed, sweating and restless, in the castle of Saumur in the early days of the January after he had left England, when William Marshal and Bertrand de Verdun came to him.
‘Well?’ he asked in a weak voice utterly unlike his normal tones. ‘What did my son have to say?’
‘My lord.’ William came to the bed. ‘We could not overtake Duke Richard. We learned at Amboise that he has issued letters summoning all his men to his standard. He means war.’
The King groaned out loud. ‘God, why am I so punished?’ He paused and looked from one to the other. ‘Why does my son love the French King more than his own father? Tell me – ’
Bertrand de Verdun, a man of few words, glanced at his companion and motioned to him to tell the tale. Verdun had experienced Plantagenet rage before and though this man was sick there was no saying what he would do when the devil was roused in him.
‘Sire,’ William began, ‘he has ever gone his own way, you know that. And this time –’ he broke off. What was there to say, what crumb of comfort for an ageing, deserted father? He thought of all that Henry had achieved: the stable government in England, wise laws administered on the whole justly by well chosen public servants, a rule that was hard but fair; whereas Richard, though he was a disciplinarian, sought his own military glory and his own independence first. Yet in a sense William understood the frustration that drove the Duke to distraction.
It was a difficult situation they had returned to last June. Henry’s armies held the French at bay in Normandy and at length in the autumn a conference was called, mainly because the Counts of Blois and Flanders refused to aid King Philip while he broke the truce agreed on for the period of the Crusade. Richard, ostensibly joining his father, suddenly submitted the matter of Toulouse to the French King without reference to his father, who was justifiably angry. The Duke demanded yet again the hand of Princess Alice and again Henry temporized. Richard made an ugly innuendo, Philip turned the argument to his own account, and Richard in a blatant about-face did homage to him for his lands. Faced by such treachery, Henry agreed to a further truce and was stunned to see his son leave arm-in-arm with Philip. It was then that he sent Marshal and de Verdun to see what Richard meant by his desertion. And they had returned with no answer to that question.
A miserable Christmas feast passed at Saumur. Henry recovered a little but was in a bad temper and glowered throughout. Even Princess Alice, still in her place beside him, could not take the gloom from his face. William ate in silence and thought of Isabel.
‘God save us,’ Gilbert de Clare said, ‘I’m fond enough of the wench but who would have thought William would lose his head over her?’
‘You will lose his friendship if you say that to him,’ Will Longsword told him and Gilbert was somewhat relieved when a few days later the King sent him on a mission to England.
Prince John made some pretence of enjoying the twelve days of feasting but there was a crafty look in his face that made William suspicious, and he wondered why the Prince’s knights appeared to be in a constant state of alertness. He was hardly surprised therefore when John requested permission to visit his Norman castles
. The King granted it and John rode away northwards. Soon after there were other conspicuously empty seats as other lords found reason to visit their domains.
Spring came with the failure of all negotiations. French troops broke the Norman borders and swept down into Maine. Henry was at Le Mans, his own town, his birthplace. To the west the Bretons had joined Richard who was menacing him from the south and, hemmed in on all sides, in grim danger, with a mere six or seven hundred knights left to him, the old Lion roused himself once more.
A dusty man-at-arms rode in to say that the French army was advancing but he knew nothing of the numbers. Henry, busy about the fortifications, sent William out to reconnoitre. William left the castle without his heavy mail and wearing only a sword at his side; he took John with him and two other knights only. It was early on the morning of Sunday the eleventh of June and as they slipped out of the town William could only think of the Young King who had died in his arms on this day six years ago. Soon the bells would be ringing for Mass and in every church prayers would be offered for the soul of the King’s dead son.
At the gates the four of them dismounted and went out on foot, William leading the way northwards along the bank of the river Huisne. The mist was thick, the sun not yet breaking through, and for a while there was silence, the water sluggish, only the occasional scuffle of a water rat or the sound of a duck quacking lazily broke the stillness. None of them spoke and as they went William wondered what the Young King would have done in the face of this present conflict. Looking back now from a distance he realised with sorrow and some cynicism that the younger Henry could not have been relied on to jump either way. Urged on by unscrupulous tale-bearers, the Plantagenet brood had come to believe they were descended from the Devil and could behave as sons of evil. William crossed himself, offered up a brief prayer for his dead master’s soul and concentrated on the business in hand.
A Pride of Kings (The Plantagenets Book 1) Page 11