6

Simon was glad to be home again, under the smoke-cured oak timbers of the manor house.

“I must pay Swein at once, as soon as I give him the tidings,” said Simon. “The horse breeder has a temper, and we don’t want him riding off to try to wrest Bel out of the royal stable.”

“Ah, Simon, Swein will endure this indignity, and so will you,” said his mother with an air of indisputable judgment. “I shall pay a visit to Edith,” she added, thinking of Edric’s widow, “and her two daughters.”

Simon stood in the wide, quiet hall of his family home. His sword nick had been bandaged with clean linen, and after a bite of wine-soaked simnel bread, he was not feeling the least fatigue or pain. Or only a very little.

His mother—Widow Christina, as she was known—was beyond finding any bad news shocking. Her husband, a knight who had, as the story went, once staved off a mad dog from King William’s camp, had died of a fall from his horse in midsummer, ten years before.

He had been a seasoned campaigner when he took Christina’s hand in marriage. He had brought over a Norman wife and daughter only to lose them to black fever, and Simon had more than once heard his father tell Christina that she was his enseignier—evidence of his blessing, and his second, undeserved chance at happiness.

Christina had survived her bereavement, and learned to laugh again and enjoy the sound of her son singing poems beside the fire, but a quality of sorrow was always with her. Simon knew that her dreams of personal vindication included Simon’s marriage to a Norman family of wealth, if only to prove that her family had the equal of any pedigree, on either side of the Channel.

“You will pay Swein this silver, Simon,” said Christina, returning from a cupboard. “And tell him we join him in praying for God’s help against royal criminals.”

This was the last cut-treasure from the family strongbox, and there was no way of knowing how long this silver fragment had been stored, wrapped in fine-spun cloth to keep it from tarnishing. Some tankard or arm ring from the just-past age, when the Vikings raided the English coasts, must have yielded this precious metal, some Norwegian’s battle hoard. Usher of Aldham had been a tireless defender against the Norse.

Aldham estate currently prospered, but the mending of walls, relining of wells, and repair and breeding and replanting all took a toll. Christina and Simon were land-wealthy without having much ready money.

“What do you think of Prince Henry, Simon?” his mother was asking. “I have never laid eyes on the man.”

“Prince Henry has some great subject on his mind,” Simon said. “I doubt even Bel’s high spirits will give him much happiness.”

“Henry wishes he were king, I have heard,” said Christina. “The middle brother Robert is in Jerusalem on crusade, and King William the eldest drinks and ruts his way back and forth across our kingdom. I hear that Henry’s pigeon hawk hatched a two-headed chick.”

Simon had to laugh at this. “That’s a sure sign, Mother—but of what?”

Christina laughed quietly in turn. “I confess I’m not entirely certain—but when is an omen as straightforward as a beggar’s curse?”

The sound of riders in the dooryard silenced them.

Simon counted the hooves by sound—three mounts, at least, along with the chin-chink of chain mail and the rasp of a spear butt dragged along the ground.

The house servants gathered outside, English and Norman speech too tangled for Simon to make out. There was no need to fear—Aldham’s housemen could stave off a good-sized army, and had done just that during Viking times. Certig’s voice could be heard above all, the retainer mastering not a word of Norman speech but calling out in English, “Tell your lord, my good herald, that his horse has squashed our rooster!”

Simon strode to the wall and took down his father’s sword, a blade with a red carnelian jewel in its hilt. He and Oin had practiced fighting with broadswords and two-handed swords, too, and while Simon had never actually struck steel in earnest, he was not going to embarrass himself.

Alcuin, the chief house servant, hurried into the smoky firelight and said, “My lady, a noble visitor asks to speak with Simon.”

“Who disturbs our peace, Alcuin?” asked Christina with an air of hopefulness. She received few guests of note, and while she was gracious to scullery servant and abbot alike, she was habitually eager to be pleasantly surprised by a day’s events, and routinely slightly disappointed.

“A Norman nobleman,” said the houseman. He said this in the manner of Need I say more?

Alcuin had attended Simon’s father as a plate servant, pouring wine from a ewer in the days of Simon’s boyhood, when coin was more plentiful. Alcuin had grown gray as his duties increased. “He is of a name unfamiliar to me, if it please my lady,” he added. “And Certig is sore upset. Sangster the breed cock has been stepped on by a horse.”

“Is the poor bird badly injured?” asked Christina.

Sangster was the fire and spirit of the dooryard, a menace to man and beast, and a local legend. The chicks he sired proved fertile and healthy, and the red-feathered warrior would not be easily replaced.

“Worse than hurt, I fear, my lady,” said Alcuin.

He was his mistress’s loyal chief of staff, and he knew how she liked to learn all she could in the way of detailed gossip. “This noble fellow wears a red agate ring and a cap with a rich plume, my lady,” he offered. “His herald says that he is one Walter Tirel, of a place called Po-icks.”

“He is Count of Poix,” prompted Simon, with a sensation of expectant pride. He was thrilled inwardly, sure that Walter would live up to his reputation. “Walter Tirel is the king’s guest, and I hunt with him tomorrow, as Heaven wills it.”

“Oh, Simon,” breathed Christina, “I would so enjoy meeting this visitor!”

Alcuin waited expectantly, something unsaid in his eyes—a caution, perhaps.

The chief servant took his instructions from the lady of the house but, as was customary, even a widowed mother deferred to the wishes of the eldest male in her family.

For a moment Simon’s pride allowed him to think that the illustrious nobleman had ridden out of his way to meet his prospective companion. Perhaps this Walter of Poix was so good-hearted—and Oin fitzBigot so generous in his descriptions of Simon’s knowledge of the woodland—that the Norman lord had decided that he had to meet this son of Fulcher Foldre at once.

This hope was soon shattered.