He was napping in a shaft of afternoon sun that had slanted into the stables when he was jostled by a prodding foot. Opening his eyes, he saw his captors grinning down at him and he was instantly awake, edgy and alert. There was a new face among them, vaguely familiar.. one of Guy de Lusignan’s knights, a swaggering, scarred man named Talvas who’d been in the thick of the fighting on the Poitiers Road. Will hadn’t seen him since early April and he felt an instinctive prickle of unease, for he’d gotten the impression that Talvas was only too willing to dirty his hands on his lord’s behalf.
Talvas was grinning, which unnerved Will even more. “I know how much you’re going to miss us all, lad, but we’ve come to a parting of the ways.”
Will got slowly to his feet. “Are you going to let me go, then?” he asked with heavy sarcasm. To his astonishment, Talvas nodded.
“Yes… as soon as the hostages can be exchanged.”
“What hostages?” Will demanded, no longer trying to hide his perplexity.
“Since trust is in such scant supply these days, making payment of your ransom was only slightly less complicated than laying plans for a new crusade. Each side had to agree to offer hostages, who are to be released concurrently as soon as you are freed and the money paid over.”
Will stared at him, incredulous, still too wary for joy. “How much was I worth?”
Talvas made a hand gesture that was, oddly, both playful and obscene. “Thirty pounds.”
Will was dumbfounded. “Are you telling me that Countess Ela paid thirty pounds for my release?”
Talvas gave him a quizzical look. “You have been kept in the dark, haven’t you, lad? The Countess of Salisbury was not the one to ransom you. It was the English queen.”
The Great Hall at Poitiers was packed with people, so eager to see that they were treading upon one another’s shoes and trailing hems, elbows digging into ribs, necks craning to watch Sir William Marshal welcomed by the queen. Eleanor smiled as he knelt before her on the dais, then beckoned him to rise and come forward.
Will had practiced his speech dozens of times on the ride to Poitiers. Now every polished phrase flew right out of his head and he could only stammer like a green lad, thanking the queen in a rush of incoherent, intense gratitude.
Eleanor mercifully put an end to his babblings and then subjected him to a scrutiny that missed neither the gaunt hollows under his cheekbones nor the stiffness in his step. “I would have you see my physician straightaway,” she decreed, in tones that would brook no refusal for she well knew how loath most men were to consult leeches. “Once he assures me that you are indeed on the mend, you may take some time to visit your family in England if you so wish. I shall expect you back by summer’s end, where a position will be waiting for you in my household.”
If Will had been sputtering before, he was now stricken dumb. Eleanor leaned forward in her seat, saying quietly, “Did you truly think I would forget how you offered up your life for mine? I forget neither friends nor foes, Will, and I always pay my debts.”
“Madame… you… you owe me nothing! It was my honor and my duty to be of service to you,” Will insisted, regaining some of his poise.
She would have to provide him with another destrier and armor. Eleanor decided to put that task in Jordan’s capable hands. Will’s eyes were shining suspiciously, rapt upon her face. She’d been right in her assessment of him. Royal favor was the chosen coin of their realm and this young knight was shrewd enough to appreciate his great good fortune, upright enough not to hold it too cheaply. Courage, loyalty, good sense, and a wicked way with a sword-attributes worth far more than thirty pounds.
“If you want to repay me, Will,” she said, “I ask only that you be as true to my sons as you’ve been to me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
July 1168
Poitiers, Poitou
The sun was scorching, the air so still and sweltering that Eleanor felt as if she were suffocating. The sky was blanched whiter than bone, bereft of clouds and birds. People were gesturing, mouths ajar, their words thudding after her like poorly aimed stones. But the only sound she could hear was the wild hammering of her own heart, the pulsing of fear. Ahead was a clot of men, clustered in a noisy, shifting circle. Picking up her skirts, Eleanor began to run.
The crowd broke apart as she reached them, scattering like leaves before the wind. Dropping to her knees beside her son, Eleanor eased his head onto her lap. Blood matted the brightness of his hair, freckles glowing like fever spots against the ashen pallor of his skin, and a reddish bubble of saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth. For a heartbeat of horror, she thought he was dead and her faith turned to ashes. But then she saw the reassuring rise and fall of his chest and her fingers found a pulse in his throat.
“Richard,” she said, throwing out his name as a lifeline. “Richard, open your eyes.”
His lashes quivered, then soared upward, giving her a glimpse of blessed blue-grey. “Am I hurt?” he asked plaintively and she choked back a sound that was neither laugh nor sob, but akin to both.
“Not as much as you will be.” An empty threat and they both knew it. When had she ever punished him for showing too much spirit, too little caution? He was struggling to sit up and she hastily bade him to lie still, wiping away some of his blood with a hanging silken sleeve.
Richard grimaced and then spat into the dust. “I bit my tongue.”
“Better a bitten tongue than a broken neck,” Eleanor said unsympathetically. By now her physician had arrived, flushed and panting, vastly relieved to see his royal patient was conscious and complaining. Her uncle, Raoul de Faye, had gotten there, too, and she let him assist her to her feet, her eyes narrowing as she looked over at the men who’d failed to keep her son safe.
“Whose horse was he riding?”
The question was posed in level, measured tones, but it sent a ripple of unease up numerous spines. William Marshal stepped forward, shoulders squaring as if bracing for a blow. “It was mine, Madame.”
Eleanor could not hide her surprise. “You, Will? You were the one who let a ten-year-old boy ride a battle destrier?”
Will was almost as pale as his young charge. “It was my stallion,” he said hoarsely, “and my fault.”
“It was not!” This indignant protest came from Richard. Ignoring the doctor’s futile attempts to restrain him, the youngster lurched unsteadily to his feet. “Will forbade me to ride Whirlwind! And… and I am nigh on eleven, Mama!”
Eleanor glanced from one to the other, seeing the truth writ plain upon their faces. “It is commendable that you do not want blame to be placed unfairly, Richard. But you need not sound so proud of your disobedience. A borrowed horse is a stolen horse if taken without consent.”
“Even if taken by the heir to Aquitaine?” Richard asked, with such overdone innocence that Eleanor had to smother a smile. As young as he was, her son knew full well that many of their society’s strictures would never apply to him. She was also amused-and pleased-that he’d cast his identity in terms of Aquitaine, not England. But he needed to learn a lesson and she set about teaching him one now by going unerringly for the vulnerable spot in his armor.
“Putting your own neck at risk is foolish but forgivable, Richard. After all,” she said dryly, “your father and I are fortunate enough to have sons to spare. A pity Will does not have stallions to spare. If you’d crippled or lamed his destrier by your recklessness, what was he supposed to do? Walk into battle? Mayhap ride pillion behind another knight?”
Her sarcasm stung. For the first time, Richard looked genuinely contrite. Turning toward Will, he mumbled an apology that was awkward, unwilling, and heartfelt, and when Eleanor instructed him to accompany the doctor back into the castle, he did not object.
“I will be there straightaway,” Eleanor assured the doctor. “Keep him in bed even if you have to bind him hand and foot.” She drew Will aside, then, for a brief colloquy, praising his honor while reminding him that any guardian of
Richard’s needed eyes in the back of his head and a strong sense of impending disaster.
Raoul had lingered and fell in step beside her as she moved away from Will. “That was a most impressive maternal lecture,” he said admiringly. “No one listening to it would ever guess that you’d committed the very same sin when you were… twelve, thirteen?”
Eleanor gave him a speculative, sidelong glance and then an unrepentant smile. “Twelve,” she admitted. “I’d just as soon you forbore to mention that to Richard, though, Uncle. He needs inducements to mischief like a dog needs fleas.”
“I am a safe repository for all of your guilty secrets,” Raoul proclaimed, with mock gravity. “Even the one I stumbled onto by mere chance this past week.”
“And what secret would that be?”
“That you have a spy at the French court.”
“Do I, indeed?”
Raoul nodded, watching her with a complacent smile. “You are asking yourself how I could know that. The answer is very simple. Spying is a demanding profession and the price of failure can be high, indeed. So the few who excel at their craft are much in demand. Your man is one of the best. I ought to know, for I have made use of his services myself from time to time.”
Eleanor shrugged, untroubled by Raoul’s discovery. She had a far more extensive surveillance system than Raoul-or even Henry-realized, and her French spy was only one of many irons in the fire. “You are right,” she said, “about his abilities. His last visit to the French court was particularly productive. It seems that the Countess of Boulogne is playing the spy, too, these days. She recently warned Louis that Harry met with envoys of the Holy Roman Emperor.”
Raoul’s dark eyes gleamed, for he liked nothing better than being privy to secrets. “And of course poor Louis panicked, sure that meant Harry is hip-deep in conspiracy with Frederick, making ready to recognize the emperor’s puppet Pope.” He paused deliberately. “So.. is he?”
Eleanor’s smile was cynical. “Harry likes to keep his foes off balance. I rather doubt that he is seriously entertaining the idea of accepting Frederick’s lackey as Christ’s Vicar, but he finds that a useful weapon to wield in his infernal feuding with the Church’s newest saint.”
Raoul correctly interpreted that as a sardonic reference to Thomas Becket. “That raises an intriguing question,” he observed. “Is the Countess of Boulogne playing the role of a double spy here, passing on information that Harry wants the French court-and the papacy-to have?”
“That thought sounds devious enough to have been Harry’s. But if so, the countess is Harry’s pawn, not his accomplice. She loathes him, you see.”
“Why?” Almost at once, though, a memory stirred, allowing Raoul to answer his own question. “Of course… she is the usurper king’s daughter!”
“I suspect she has a fresher grievance than Stephen and Maude’s squabble over the English crown. Or have you forgotten that Harry plucked her out of a nunnery to wed a husband he’d handpicked for her?”
As little as Raoul liked to defend Henry Fitz Empress, he could not find fault with that particular maneuver. “Well, he could hardly stand by whilst Boulogne fell into unfriendly hands, could he? Great heiresses ought not to take the veil, for it is a waste of valuable resources.”
“Like having a prize broodmare and refusing to breed her?”
Raoul laughed loudly. “I see marriage has not dulled your claws any!”
“Nor my wits, Uncle.”
As much as Raoul enjoyed bantering with Eleanor, he had a compelling question to put to her. “I heard a rather remarkable rumor in Paris-that your husband has a grand scheme afoot to partition his domains amongst his sons and get Louis to make a formal recognition of their rights.”
“Is that so surprising?” she parried. “You know Harry has long wanted to have Hal crowned in his lifetime and doubtless would have done so years ago if not for his quarrel with Becket.”
“Yes, I know about that. I know, too, that it was a highly controversial proposal, one that sent many of his most trusted advisers into a panic, for there is no precedent in English history for crowning a king’s son whilst the king still lives.”
Eleanor shrugged. “Harry has always seen himself as Angevin, not English, and such coronations are known in his continental domains.”
“But why make provisions for the younger sons during his lifetime? Did you happen to plant that particular seed, Eleanor?”
“No… I merely did what I could to nurture it once it had taken root.”
Raoul gazed at her in perplexity. “I understand why you would want to see Richard recognized as the heir to Aquitaine. But why would Harry want to see such a division of his empire?”
“Harry is a practical man. He knows full well how difficult it would be for Hal to control dominions that stretch from the Scots border to the Mediterranean Sea. If Richard inherits Aquitaine and Geoffrey takes Brittany, that still leaves Hal with England, Anjou, and Normandy. Moreover, he naturally wants to provide for all his sons; what father would not?”
“Why do it now, though? Does he not realize the dangers inherent in such a plan? What is to keep his enemies from playing his sons off against one another-or even against him?”
“You sound as if you assume there will be an actual transfer of power, Uncle. Knowing Harry as you do, how can you be so naive? Harry could learn to fly easier than he could learn to delegate authority. He’ll be seeking to run his sons’ lives and kingdoms until he draws his last breath. And if there is a way for him to rule from the grave, you may be sure he’ll try to find it.”
Raoul did not enjoy being called naive; to a lord of Aquitaine, that was the ultimate insult. Scowling at his niece, he said, “Of course I know Harry intends to keep the lads on a tight rein. I am not a fool, Eleanor. And neither is your high-handed husband. Surely it must have occurred to him that his sons will not be satisfied for long with merely the trappings of power? At fourteen, Hal might be content as a puppet king, but will he at twenty? I can only assume that Harry has some guileful stratagem in mind. What is it, though?”
“If you figure it out, be sure to let me know,” Eleanor said, blandly and mendaciously. It was simple, really, so simple that others overlooked it in their haste to ascribe complicated, calculating motives to an undeniably complex man. A man who’d been scarred by his prolonged and bitter struggle for the English crown. A man who loved his sons. A man who’d move Heaven and earth, if need be, to make sure they were not denied their rightful inheritance. Stephen was sixteen years dead, but not forgotten by Henry, never by Henry.
Eleanor could see the weaknesses inherent in Henry’s planning, for it was predicated upon the premise that he could control his destiny and that of those he loved, that he could mold and shape sons and wife to his will as if they were malleable clay, not flesh and blood and bone, with needs and hungers of their own. She had encouraged him in these protective, paternal instincts, knowing that she was no longer acting in his best interests. But she was not about to betray him to Raoul, to reveal that his “grand scheme” was motivated in great measure by a father’s fears.
They were nearing the great hall and she quickened her step, saying, “I hope Richard has not already bolted for freedom. He could have a broken leg and we’d still need to post a guard at his door to keep him bedridden. In that, he is his father’s son, for certes.”
Raoul hesitated only briefly and then said boldly, “But in all the ways that truly count, he is yours, Eleanor.”
She did not answer, but neither did she rebuke him, and that in itself was telling. He’d suspected for some time that she was now steering her own course, that the hand on Aquitaine’s helm was no longer Henry’s. She had stopped and was regarding him with a faint, feline hint of a smile, her eyes reflecting nothing but sunlight and sky, and he looked in vain for traces of his sister, a soft-spoken, gentle soul who’d lived quietly and died young, so very long ago.
Henry awoke suddenly, torn from a troubled dream of bloo
dshed and betrayal. So jarring was his return to reality that for a moment, he could not remember where he was. It was only when he saw the slender female form beside him in bed that he recognized his surroundings. This was Falaise, the house he’d leased for Rosamund, a private refuge from the brutal border wars he’d been fighting for much of the year.
Sitting up, he cocked his head, listening to the dreary sound of sleet drumming upon the roof, pelting against the shutters. The hearth had burned out and the chamber was filling with frigid air; by morning, ice would be glazing the water in the washing lavers. After a lifetime of indifference to weather woes, he was startled to find himself minding this winter’s misery so much. November was always a wretched month. It was a waste of breath to curse the cold or damn the wind. But still he shivered under coverlets of fox fur and at last rolled over, seeking Rosamund’s warmth.
She was drowsily accommodating, stifling a yawn and entwining her arms around his neck. She was not surprised that he was awake again. For all the gold in his coffers and the lands under his rule, sleep was the one luxury that often eluded him. She sometimes tried to visualize the workings of his brain, imagining his thoughts galloping like the fleetest greyhounds through the mazes of his mind, going too fast for respite. Even during his pursuits of pleasure-his hunting, their lovemaking-he never let the man control the king. His hunger was for empires, his dreams of dynasties. He had too much, she feared, for any mortal man to govern. A surfeit of ambitions, enemies, dominions, even sons.
She’d been quieter than usual that evening. Henry was not accustomed to giving much thought to the moods of others; that was one of the many perquisites of kingship. But Rosamund was like a wildflower on a well-traveled path, too easily trodden underfoot. For her, Henry was learning to be circumspect.
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