by Judith Tarr
His sister was sitting under it, at ease as if she belonged there. Instead of the nun’s habit she usually affected, she was dressed in a white gown under a blue mantle.
It had been a while since Henry had seen her, but she had not changed at all. She had looked the same for as long as he could remember: slender, tall, beautiful in a way that was not cold but neither did it invite a man to ravish her. Henry could not imagine her as anyone’s wife or lover—and he had a very good imagination.
It struck him rather strangely on this morning of May, that she was older than William, but she did not look even as old as Henry. She was ageless, like one of the Old Things.
“Good morning,” Henry said with what he thought was remarkable composure.
She raised a brow. “So it is,” she said. “You look a little thunderstruck. I gather the Abbess Christina was more than you bargained for.”
Of course she would know where Henry had been. Cecilia made it her business to know everything. “You’ve met her,” Henry said. It was not a question.
“Often,” said Cecilia. “I was mistress of novices under her for half a dozen years.”
That set Henry back on his heels. He took time to sit on the grass near her, setting the napkin of cakes between them. Her eyes lit at the sight of them. She helped herself to a berry tart, biting into it with an expression of unself-conscious bliss.
“So,” he said as she licked crumbs from her fingers. “How did you do it? Why weren’t you eaten alive?”
Her eyes narrowed. “She’s that bad?”
“She sucks the soul out of a man,” Henry said. “I was warded, and I nearly couldn’t stand it.”
She frowned. “As strong as that? Gods; she must be drawing the old queen’s malice. I never thought—” She glanced at him as if she had suddenly remembered he was there. “If I had known, I would never have let you go there.”
“I’m not a child,” Henry said testily. “I don’t need you looking after me.”
“Certainly,” she said. “But I was remiss, and I owe you an apology. I should have come before, and spared you that.”
“Why?” Henry demanded. “What are you up to? Do you know where the princess is?”
“She is safe,” Cecilia said. “Much safer than she would have been in Wilton.”
“Clearly,” said Henry. “Where is she, then?”
“Do you need to know?”
“I want to know.”
“Ah,” she said.
She was being deliberately maddening. Henry refused—with considerable effort—to let her bait him. “Edgar’s trying to marry her off to William. You know how much chance there is of that—but she’s a valuable commodity. Especially if she hasn’t actually taken vows.”
“Vows would be a difficulty, yes,” Cecilia said with suspicious neutrality.
“So she hasn’t taken them,” said Henry. “But if she’s been living in sin with a lord of the Otherworld, or has put on armor and a man’s face and gone to fight in the Crusade—”
Cecilia laughed. Henry glowered, which only made her laugh the more. It was a long while before she could say, “Have no fear, little brother. The lady of Scots is as safe as she can be, and whatever sins she may have committed, none of them will bring her to harm.”
“You don’t reassure me,” Henry muttered.
“No? I did mean to. Your young king has nothing to be afraid of, though he’ll not find his sister here or anywhere else he may be allowed to look. When the time is right, she’ll come where she is needed.”
“You want me to tell him that,” Henry said. “Why not tell him yourself?”
“Because,” she said, “he knows you.”
“But what can I tell him? That my sister the sorceress is hiding her away in a place where no man can go, and he’s to be patient and put up with it?”
She shrugged. “If that’s what he’ll listen to, then yes. If not, you’ll find another way.”
“Not unless you tell me the truth. Where is she? What have you done with her?”
“If you don’t already know that,” she said, “I’m not the one to tell you. Patience, child. You’ll know it all in time.”
Henry opened his mouth to declare that he wanted to know it now, but her expression stopped him. She knew exactly what he was thinking; and she was laughing at him.
There was an instant’s warning: a flicker, a shift. By the time Henry moved, it was too late. She was gone.
He struck the wall with his fist. She would have laughed at that, too, and called him child again. He refused to care. She had left him with a duty he was too royal a fool to shirk.
Her voice came out of air, sounding faint but very clear. “Do you trust me?”
No! he should have cried, but that would have been false. However sorely she tried his patience, he did trust her—or at least, he believed her. If she said the princess was safe, then it was true. Whatever else Cecilia was prone to, she never lied. She might obscure the truth in some delusion that she was protecting him, but that was as far as she would go.
CHAPTER 37
The French were at it again—provoking William into taking the whole kingdom and setting it to rights. This time it was an irruption in Le Mans: the Count of Maine was sacking it, for mockery of William’s claims to the city.
The news came to William a fortnight after Pentecost. He had had a bellyful of courts and clerkery, and had been thinking to rest his mind with a good hunt. But war was a far better diversion.
He rose up from his dinner and went straight to the stable. People were yattering at him, bleating about preparations, arrangements, armies. He laughed at that. “I’ll have an army. All I have to do is ride—and my men will follow me.”
That set them to squawking like a flock of broody hens. He did not stay to listen. His horse was ready—and sure enough, there were twenty men struggling into armor and yelling for sumpter mules. “Never mind that!” he said to them. “God will provide. To horse, now. Ride!”
It was glorious, that ride to the sea, galloping into the teeth of a storm. And a ship was waiting, as William had known there would be.
The sea was high, the waves tossing, but William grinned into the spray. God loved him. The ship’s captain did not, but William showed him a judicious handspan of swordblade and an edged smile. “Did you ever hear of a king whom the sea dared destroy? No? Well then. God may rule the heavens, but the sea is mine—and I say it will carry us across.”
The captain crossed himself at this royal blasphemy, but he had only a sea-knife and the knights who surrounded him had an arsenal of weaponry. He cursed and spat, but he gave way.
William had expected nothing else. The crew, by God’s grace, were obedient to their captain; they readied the ship to sail, while William’s men found places to stow themselves and what baggage they had.
Not the horses—this was not a horse-transport. The beasts would have to stay in England. They would find fresh mounts when they came across the sea.
“I’ll see to them,” said Robin FitzHaimo. He had been at William’s side from start to finish of this ride—but now he met William’s glare with unruffled calm.
William should not have been surprised. Robin was a Guardian, one of the sorcerers who claimed to keep the isle safe from untoward magic. He was not supposed to leave the bounds of Britain. But that had not kept him there before. “What’s stopping you now?” William demanded.
“I’m needed here,” Robin said.
William checked for an instant. “Something bad?”
“Nothing that need keep you,” said Robin. “Go on, rescue Le Mans. The count will raze it to the ground if you don’t.”
“Come with me,” William said. “Britain can spare you for a month or two.”
“Not now,” said Robin. He smiled, but there was no moving him. He set hands on William’s shoulders and touched forehead to forehead. “Be safe. And be careful. Watch your back—and be wary of strangers. Not every man who courts you will wi
sh you well.”
“Now there’s a lesson I learned when you were in swaddling bands,” William said. “I’ll come back to you—and you’ll wonder why you ever stopped to fret.”
“You’ll come back,” Robin said. “Come back safe—and come back alone. Any friend you make on this journey, he’ll bring you ill luck.”
“What,” said William, grinning, “jealous of a man I haven’t even met? Don’t be. There’s no one like you in the world.”
“Be sure you remember that,” Robin said.
William shook his head at the foolishness of the man, and slid out of his clasp. The captain was calling, in no very patient mood.
Even a king had to defer to the master of his ship. William darted in quickly, snatched a kiss to remember Robin by, and left him standing on the shore, whipped by the wind, with the horses in a docile line behind him.
War was war: mostly ugly, often tedious, and at times no one could even be sure who had won. William got Le Mans back, but the bloody Count of Maine dived for a bolthole that was more trouble than it was worth to pry him out of.
That was a sour victory, but William decided to take it. He would rather have had the whole of Maine and the rest of France, too—but that would come in time. William had to be patient, that was all.
It had not been a bad little war, he decided as summer rolled toward autumn. The apples were ripening in the orchards of Normandy; honey was rich in the comb, and the sheep and cattle were fat. England was waiting, but Normandy wanted a bit of him, a dispute here and a squabble there, and the touch of a ruler’s hand.
He found he welcomed that. It was easy work, and less tedious than some. People were reasonably pleasant, too. Priests in Normandy were not as straitlaced as their brethren in England, or else they were better at keeping their thoughts to themselves.
There had been a boy in Le Mans—a young knight, supple and delightfully inventive—but he was the head of his family, and it needed him to oversee the harvest in their demesne. William could have commanded him to stay and sent a seneschal in his place. But when the time came, he let the boy go.
He regretted that for a night or two, but he had to admit, sleep was a useful thing. Maybe he was growing old. Young enthusiasm was losing its allure.
He missed Robin: familiar presence, familiar calm, the gift of sharing silence. Robin always knew what he needed and how to give it to him. There were no rough edges.
Yes, he thought as he led his escort down the old Roman road between Aumale and Amiens, in war and kingship he was as strong as he had ever been—but when it came to lovers, he wanted his comfort.
Time to go back to England, where that comfort was. He almost turned then and there and rode for the sea, but there were people waiting in Amiens. He could give it a day or two, finish what needed finishing, then go.
A town and castle stood where two of the old roads met, not far from Amiens. The town’s name was Poix; its lord was highly regarded in these parts, but William did not recall having met him. No doubt he should, sooner or later.
Maybe he would summon the man to Amiens. A king could never have too many allies.
Some distance outside of Poix, William paused by a little river to rest and water the horses. On one side of the road, a wood stretched away in green gloom. On the other, fields and orchards rolled toward the horizon. The river ran alongside the road on the forest side before curving away under the trees.
Old Romans had camped here. William could just make out the shape of one of their earthen walls—and the sense in him that was never quite under control recognized those walls for what they were. He could almost see the gleam of helmets and hear the tramp of feet.
They were long gone. William’s knights and men-at-arms dismounted, stretching and groaning. Some went off to see what fruit was left in the orchards. Those came back in a little while with a sackful of apples and pears, enough for them all.
William bit into a pear that tasted the way sunlight felt. Juice ran down his beard. He fed the core to his horse and bent to wash his face in the river.
As he knelt there with water running from his cheeks and chin and the sweetness of the fruit still vivid on his tongue, his ears caught a distant belling. As it came clearer, he recognized the baying of hounds, then beneath it the pounding of hooves.
Someone was hunting in the wood. The hunt seemed to be coming toward him. He considered pulling his escort out of its way, but the hunters would not cross the river, surely. It was shallow but swift, and its bed was stony: not impossible to ford, but not easy, either.
He saw the quarry first: a stag with a wide spread of antlers, leaping through the underbrush. It was a marvel how it kept from tangling itself in the branches of the trees. Then behind the stag, William saw the hounds, and after them the huntsmen winding their horns and baying with the hounds.
The stag ran straight for the river. Either it was too blind with panic to see the small army on the other side, or it preferred dismounted men and idle horses to a pack of hounds in full cry.
It paused on the bank, gathering to leap. Its wild dark eye looked straight into William’s. Just as it left the ground, soaring over the water, an arrow appeared as if enchanted, plunging deep into its heart.
The stag hung in the air. Death took it there; it dropped. Almost too late, William scrambled back from the water. The stag’s body fell heavily where he had been. The broad tines of its antlers pierced the soft ground; one hind hoof, flailing, brushed William’s cheek.
He felt the sting of a cut. His hand, lifting quickly, came away stained with blood.
“Good God, sire!” said the captain of his guard. “If you hadn’t moved, it would have fallen right on top of you.”
So it would have—and the antlers would have sunk into his body instead of the earth. William found that he was shaking—not with fear but with a kind of crazy elation. Did not God love him? Was he not born lucky?
He looked up, grinning crazily, into a row of shocked faces. The hunt had tangled on the far side of the river, hounds milling and baying, men reining in their horses hard before they fell over one another. Only one in front, with a bow still in his hand, seemed to have kept his wits about him.
Young, William thought, though by no means a boy. If he had Viking blood, he did not show it: he was wiry and dark, with curling black hair and wide black eyes, and a nose that could have come straight from old Rome.
“Messire!” he called across the river. His voice was clear and rather high, with a strong music in it. “Your pardon, I beg you. I didn’t see you. Are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing,” William said. The cut was shallow and had bled out quickly. All that was left was the sting.
“Take the deer at least, messire,” said the young lord, “as recompense.”
“Surely,” said William, “if you’ll come across and share it with us. We’re on our way to Amiens.”
“Poix is closer, messire,” the young lord said, “and it’s mine. May I offer you my hospitality?”
William might not have been inclined to delay, but if this was the lord of Poix, then God had delivered him into William’s hand. It was worth a drop or two of blood and a night in his castle, with fresh venison to sweeten it.
Maybe there was more sweetening than that, too. The dark eyes reminded William of the stag’s, but where those had been purely wild, these softened on him.
Ah, so, William thought. Indeed. He stood back as the hunters crossed the river, picking their way with care. None of them attempted the stag’s leap.
When they were all on the nearer side, their lord sprang from his horse and dropped to one knee in front of William. “Messire,” he said. “Walter Tirel at your service—and humbly, after what he nearly did.”
William pulled him to his feet. “It’s nothing,” he said again. “I accept your service—and your hospitality. My name is William; I come from England.”
Walter Tirel tried to kneel again, but William held him too strongly. “Maje
sty! I should have known—I should have recognized—”
“No more apologies,” William said. His tone was mild, and he smiled, but the young lord shut his mouth with a snap.
He was well trained, and well mannered, too. He not only did as he was told; he did it with lightness and grace. William had been wary, thinking him too obsequious by half, but that proved baseless. He was polite, that was all; it was a shock to be out hunting in all innocence, and find oneself face-to-face with a king.
They gutted and dressed the stag and loaded it on one of the horses, rounded up the hounds and set off down the road to Poix. Walter Tirel’s men were as lively as he was, but William found they did not wear on him as the boy in Le Mans had. They made him laugh; better yet, they made him feel young again.
It was a fine feast. Walter Tirel had a lady, it seemed, but she was safely stowed on her own manor, with two sons fostered out and a third coming.
“She does her duty,” Walter Tirel said over wine, when the last of the venison had gone to feed the dogs, and the rest of the feast had been taken out for the poor.
Night had fallen some while since. Most of their combined escort had gone to bed in the hall, or fallen asleep where they sat. King and count had gone up to the solar, where a sleepy page kept their cups filled, and half a dozen hounds sprawled across the floor.
William was half inclined to join them, but the chair he was in was comfortable, and the wine was good: strong and sweet. Walter Tirel sipped at his own cup, eyes on the flames in the small hearth. Autumn was coming, though the day had been summer-warm: there was enough of a chill in the air that the fire was welcome.
“She’s a good wife,” he said. “Quiet. Easy to talk to. Mind you I fought it when the marriage was arranged, but her dowry was too good to miss. I’m not sorry I gave in.”
He was easy to talk to, too, William thought. Amazingly so, considering they had only met a few hours ago. It could have been disturbing, but William found it remarkably comfortable. This was meant. There was a blessing on it.