But the chancellor did not respond to the king’s jovial nudge. He said soberly, “It is worth much, sire, to have peace along the border. And Rhys ap Llewellyn is no man to trifle with.”
“How do you know this?” demanded Joumont, leaning forward across the table. “Second sight?”
“My scouts tell me.”
“Your scouts? Not the king’s?”
“My scouts, yes. For all I do is for the king’s benefit, and even my scouts, paid for by my own benefices, are at the king’s service.”
Joumont’s lips turned up in a disdainful curl, and he shrugged his slim shoulders. Turning away, he began a spirited conversation with the man on his right.
Gwyn’s ears had picked up the moment she heard Flambard’s news. The Lord of the Western Marches had to be Welsh, and perhaps he could tell her something of her mother’s country, particularly whether her grandfather, Prince Madoc of Port Madoc, still lived.
“So,” said the king, “the Welshman comes to us. Does he plan to surrender to us?”
“I think not,” said Flambard, “not unless we make it easy for him.”
Gwyn stirred, ready to refute any idea that a Welsh tribal chieftain would surrender, at least without a fight. But Maud’s hand on her wrist, clamped tightly as a trap, prevented her from speaking.
Flambard, careless of who heard him, went on to say, “The Welsh are naught but savages. I have said it before, and I will maintain it against all corners. The Welsh do not fight like gentlemen. They fade away when you charge after them, and then they attack like dogs on the flank.”
Falsworth spoke for the first time. Gwyn remembered him as one of the three in the forest, but she had not seen him since. Now he spoke boldly, if a little recklessly, “You speak, sir, as though you had experience.”
Joumont, perhaps jealous, deftly inserted his own opinion into the conversation. “Flambard perhaps has learned from our brother knight, FitzOmer. What say you, Reginald, to leading another expedition into the Western Marches?”
Gwyn noticed then for the first time the man betrothed to sweet Jeanne. Not above middle height, nor as broad in the shoulder as either of the royal brothers, FitzOmer gave a strong impression of powerful sinew and muscle. But looking into his face, she felt her heart sink into her toes. Swarthy of visage, as are all men who live much in the open, his dark eyes held a flat, opaque look, and she fancied she saw a shadow moving deep in them, disturbing, sinister.
My Cymric blood, she told herself impatiently — it sees things where there is nothing!
FitzOmer spoke, clearing his throat first as though to give the words time to form themselves. A man of action he clearly conveyed, and not a man of mere words. “I run away from nothing,” he said civilly, “as all who note the scars on my cheeks can see.”
“The Lord of the Western Marches,” said the king, coming strongly to Ranulf’s support, “is seeking an ally here at Winchester. And I shall see that he is not disappointed. For, think you, I shall give him Ludlow Castle. If he can hold that against the border raiders, then I shall be pleased to accept his submission as my own vassal.”
“Ludlow Castle?” exclaimed Henry. “That is a Norman stronghold. You wish to put it into the hands of the Welsh?”
William turned a cold eye on his youngest brother. “You teach me diplomacy, brother? I must pay more attention to you, I see.” The words held a double-edged meaning, and Henry’s anger crimsoned his cheeks. He held his tongue with a visible effort. Flambard broke in.
“But Roger de Lacy built the castle, and he will not want to turn it over.”
William snorted again. “What difference does that make? I think a sojourn abroad will do his pride some benefit.”
And, of course, in William’s mind it made no difference at all. He had the curious notion that all England was his own private property, to do with as he chose. While his high-handed methods of dealing with what he considered his own property were aided and abetted by his ministers, notably Flambard, yet there were many men, whose fathers had served with the Great William and won their land fairly according to the usage of the times, who were not willing to turn all of their property over to William’s son, to do with as he wished.
William was conscious of the muttering among his magnates, but in characteristic fashion he cared nothing at all. He was the king, and that was all that mattered!
But Henry, daringly, persisted. He moved closer to his brother and said in an undertone, “Is it wise to flout your barons? It is not well to make a dangerous enemy where none is needed.”
William eyed him, a cold look in his eyes. “My barons, come what may, will do as I bid. Roger de Lacy did a service for my father, and he was rewarded. But he holds Ludlow Castle at my pleasure, and his reaction will be interesting, but not relevant.”
“If you will not heed my advice …” Henry let the words dangle in the air.
“As you see,” William agreed. “One protest from Roger de Lacy and he will find Jerusalem more to his liking than my realm. Besides,” he added, a sly smile touching his lips as he glanced at his chancellor, “I wish to cement our alliance with the great Lord of the Western Marches, and what better way than to trust him with our border?”
Henry, realizing he had gone almost too far, shrugged his shoulders and came back to sit next to Gwyn. Wisely, lest William think he was brooding over the snub, Henry spoke with animation to Gwyn. “The court is going out on a hunt tomorrow, and I should like you to come along. Countess Maud, will you add your persuasion to mine? We must get you ladies out of that round tower and into the fresh air. I think the Lady Gwyn is too pale, and the fresh air will do her good.”
“It does not need Lady Maud’s persuasion to influence me,” said Gwyn with a smile. “I would enjoy a hunt very much. It has been a long time since I rode after the deer. Where would we go?”
“The stag are running over toward Ringwood,” Henry suggested.
FitzOmer had moved in their direction and overheard Henry’s suggestion about the hunt. “I wonder, Lady Maud,” he said, “whether or not young Jeanne de Guilbert might make one of the party?”
Countess Maud looked at him with scarcely concealed dislike. “The child is overly young to endure such a long, rugged day,” she told him.
“But I should like to see her start upon the life she will live one day,” persisted FitzOmer. “She cannot begin sooner to enjoy the hunt.”
Gwyn scarcely paid heed to the exchange between Jeanne’s betrothed husband and Countess Maud. She had moved ahead by Henry’s side, on their way out of the dining hall, as they settled the details of the next day’s hunt.
The next day they left shortly after sunup on their way north from Winchester into the New Forest. The New Forest was just what its name implied. It had formerly been peopled with small villages and local Saxons who let their pigs forage in the beech woods, and who raised a small amount of grain. But the first William had declared that the broad expanse of rough forest and common land was subject to his forest laws, and he stocked it with game to live and multiply so that in due course there would be sport fit for a royal huntsman. William never let a day pass without riding out into the forest.
The day was fine and Gwyn enjoyed the unaccustomed release from the quiet life she had lived since she came to Countess Maud. Behind her, with Brian as squire, rode Jeanne, prattling happily and innocently as she exclaimed happily over every novel sight.
They left the forestland and crossed narrow glades to rise up to the heath, following the well-worn game trails, and then, topping the rise, descended again into the dusky forest.
Gwyn thought she could hear the voice of Wolf, Rainault’s great hound, just as she had heard it in the clearing in the forest the day when the Saxon girl, and not some great antlered deer, was the prey. Her hands faltered on the reins for a moment, and her horse, feeling her uncertainty, stumbled. Instantly Henry was at her side, reaching out a hand to steady her in the saddle. “Trouble?” he asked gently. His eye
s were warm on her, and she smiled at him.
“It was only that I remembered the other day,” she said. “I would have been in such sad condition had you not come along.”
Whatever Henry might have said then was lost in the sudden noise of the hounds ahead. Almost as one person, the entire hunting party leaped forward, anxious to be in at the kill. Gwyn, with Henry at her side, found herself carried along with the enthusiasm that stirred all those around her. Gwyn glanced over her shoulder and saw the little girl Jeanne following fast, bouncing up and down in her saddle, much too large for her. Gwyn also noticed that FitzOmer, whose bride the girl would be when he came back from the Crusades, was keeping a careful eye on her. He rode almost knee to knee with the girl. Gwyn relaxed, realizing that he would take good care of her.
The entire hunting party burst into the clearing where William had the great boar at bay. Whatever William’s failings, lack of courage was not one of them. He got down from his horse and advanced toward the furious, foaming beast, with only his short boar spear in his hand. The hunting party gathered around, forming a circle around the two combatants, cheering on their king, with never a kind word for the prey. The shouting of the men and the barking of the dogs maddened the boar, and he made little charges, his beady red eyes glaring in his dark face. One sally caught one of the rasher dogs unaware, and the boar’s sharp tusks dug a great red gash in the side of the dog.
Gwyn suddenly wondered what thoughts went through the mind of the boar, goaded by the shouts of over a hundred people, worried by persistent hounds, and fighting for his life.
The torn hound howled keenly, and sensing victory, the boar caught the bleeding dog on his sharp, red-tipped tusks and tossed him viciously out of the way.
The other dogs backed away, clearing a circle for king and boar to duel to the death — the boar’s death, for no other outcome was possible.
The tumult was so intense that very few noticed what else was happening. Joumont, taking good care not to get too close to the scene of danger, had eyes only for his sovereign. From his height on top of the horse he had a good view of what was happening ahead of him, but he failed to guard his rear.
Gwyn thought she was the only one who saw Falsworth, his hand on his sword hilt, edge closer to Joumont. Taking one last furtive look around the circle, to see that everyone was intent upon the battle being played out before them, man against beast, Falsworth flicked his sword out of the scabbard as quickly as a serpent’s tongue. With a lightning-swift movement, the sword bit into the leg of Joumont’s horse, and the sword was replaced in the scabbard before anyone else noticed. Gwyn thought she was the only witness of this dastardly treachery on the part of Falsworth, but she raised her eyes to Henry and saw that he was watching her with a knowing look in his eyes.
Falsworth edged his horse backward and joined the throng, unnoticed. The whole incident had taken no more than a minute. When the injury reached the horse’s brain, he reared, neighing furiously; the sound died away in an agonized squeal. The hamstrung horse fell, Joumont beneath him. But William, intent upon the boar facing him, never gave sign that he heard the tumult.
The sharp crack of bone breaking stunned the suddenly hushed crowd. Joumont paled, his ashen lips open on a scream that never came. FitzHamon and Gilbert de Clare gestured to their attendants, and by dint of force the body of the mortally wounded horse, shuddering in its last agony, was tugged away so that other hands could pull Joumont from under him.
The king’s favorite lay, unheeded by his monarch, supine on the long grass, his right leg bent at a painfully unnatural angle.
The horse gasped his last, on the far edge of the thicket, and the foresters moved to shield him from the ladies of the court.
After it was all over, Gwyn said to Henry quietly, “Aren’t you going to say something about this? You saw Falsworth do it as well as I did.”
Henry smiled, a smile with no amusement in it, and his eyes were cold as he answered, “Let them kill each other off. It will be no loss to anyone.”
Gwyn fell silent. Soon the boar was dispatched and William returned the boar spear, still dripping blood, to his scabbard, mounted his horse, and set off for the castle.
Gwyn had been so intent upon the scene that she had forgotten about Jeanne. The girl had fallen to the ground in all the excitement. Ahead of them on the way back to Winchester, FitzOmer cradled the girl in his arms. Brian, released from his duties as the girl’s squire, fell back to ride with Gwyn.
Jealously, he said, “Where is your prince?”
Gwyn said steadily, “He is not my prince, any more than he is your prince.”
Brian muttered, “You seem very friendly with him. Probably he has turned your head, so that you pay no attention to more menial people such as I.”
Gwyn, still too upset over the hamstringing incident she had witnessed, spoke sharply. “Nonsense, Brian. You have such a vivid imagination, you had best turn to writing romances.”
Brian persisted. “I have heard things, Gwyn.”
“Such as?”
“That Prince Henry has an eye on you — and you are hoping for a royal marriage. And they say that the king will not allow his brother to wed except where he chooses.”
“Prince Henry does not wish to marry me,” Gwyn denied. But, she thought, suppose he did? Do I want him as a husband? She remembered the strange flooding warmth that swelled in her when she rode in his arms, that first day.
“You’re blushing,” stated Brian flatly. “You’re in love with him — that cruel, greedy, violent man! Gwyn, you are like all the rest. If a man comes to you with blood on his hands, it bothers you not a whit!”
Gwyn was surprised at the fierceness of his attack on her. Striving for a light touch, she added, “Just so it is blood of stag or boar, I care not!”
She spurred her horse into a gallop and soon caught up with the head of the train going back to Winchester. She left Brian far behind and decided to forget the entire incident she had seen. Falsworth had an overweening ambition to become King William’s favorite in place of Joumont. It was a vicious court, there was no question about that, and she longed for the day she would be able to leave it. Still, she had enough caution left to wish to know more about any marriage William might plan for her. She could, for instance, fall into the hands of one like Falsworth, or even FitzOmer.
But the day’s hunt, and its victorious ending over the enormous boar, was forgotten when they arrived at the castle and found that messengers from the continent had come up the Itchen River from Southampton to the landing stage at the Winchester town wall. The river itself, now as it had been from time immemorial, was the principal means of travel in this part of England. The tide swept ships up the bay well inland, and then boats could easily ascend the river as far as Winchester. The river furnished fish, eels, and salmon for the court and brought news from the continent. This time the messengers themselves spoke of an embassy to come. William, upon seeing a strange boat tied up at the pier, whipped his horse into a frenzy and galloped into the fortification. He bawled, “Where are they? Do they come from my brother?”
Flambard, who had galloped home ahead of the slow-moving court, turned from the monk who led the newcomers. “Sire, I beg you, do not tell the world you fear your brother’s return,” he urged in a whisper. “There are those who could make mischief from this.”
William glared at his chancellor. “The world already knows I do not fear man at all, and God only a little. But I live in daily expectation that my brother Robert will fall victim to a Turk’s arrow, and I have plans to set forth on foot, in that — unhappy — event.”
Ranulf Flambard nodded wisely. “I assure you, sire, that we will have swift news if Count Robert dies. But these messengers are not from the Holy Land. It is much worse.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “They are from His Holiness the Pope.”
William’s gaze turned stony. “Money, I suppose. Well, I’ll have to find enough coin to silence him, but where, I don’t know.
Ranulf?”
“I have a plan or two,” said Ranulf. “But the messenger begs an audience with you, sire, as soon as possible.”
“I’ll see him later,” said William gruffly and strode off to the tower.
Flambard’s face was a study in dismay, for he clearly thought little of his sovereign’s open aggravation at the idea that word might come from his brother. Count Robert of Normandy, brother of the king, and a poor administrator, had borrowed money from William to pay for his traveling on crusade to the Holy Land. The catch was that the money William lent his brother was not his own. The sum belonged to the Pope, who had made William a loan for the purpose. As security William held a mortgage, so to speak, on his brother’s lands in Normandy. William lived in fear that Robert would come back from the Crusades, wealthy in pocket, and redeem his fief. And William did not want to give it up. Besides that there was an added danger in the Pope’s loan, for the Pope could at any time demand return of the money he had lent, and William was not prepared to give that up either.
Flambard clearly disliked the idea of William’s displaying his innermost fears to all who could look. But he had practically no influence over his sovereign’s unguarded tongue.
At dinner that night Gwyn found the news from the Holy Land was all good. The crusaders had taken Antioch after a long siege, and now the way was open to Jerusalem. The Holy City itself would be next to fall to the arms of the crusaders.
But William was not as elated over the news as he might have been, for he also learned that his brother Count Robert was still alive. And while William, prodded by his minister, expressed a pious relief that his brother was unhurt, it was clearly false. For Robert had signed a pact with William that whoever died first, without heir, left his lands to the other.
*
After a few days, Henry decided that he would arrange an outing for Gwyn, Countess Maud, Jeanne, and as an afterthought Brian. Brian’s position in the household was not clear. Maud kept giving him errands much as to an upper servant, scolding him always for not being more manly and not wishing to get his spurs, and vowing she did not know what she had ever done to get such a son as Brian. Brian moved on the fringe of the court life and seemed content at least for now to worship Gwyn from a distance. He needed much soothing all the time, Gwyn realized, and she was glad for the chance to ride out with Henry and some of his friends and to let someone else entertain Brian for a few hours.
Crown of Passion Page 9