11

Any number of noble schemers were likely suspects, thought Roland—Norman barons and newly minted English dukes. The throne of England had been a prize for the taking for a hundred years, and no doubt some grasping men felt it was ready and waiting for them now.

But Roland did not voice any of this. He kept his own counsel, believing a judicious silence was his wisest course. Somewhere off in the drowsy hunting lodge, someone was getting sick, disgorging a day’s worth of wine or west-land cider. The sound ceased, and the lodge was quiet again.

The prince, Roland thought, did not much resemble his brother.

The king was red-haired and ruddy-cheeked, and expressed nearly every feeling—from glee to anger—with some variety of laughter. The prince, however, spoke in even tones, with a searching, sideways glance. He liked to make other men laugh, but he rarely smiled himself.

“Marshal Roland,” said Prince Henry, “you would make a challenging enemy.”

This sounded like a compliment, but Roland felt a chill.

“I am loyal to my lord the king,” said the marshal. He meant: I am no conspirator.

“And when,” said the prince, “under Heaven’s mercy, my brother comes to die, you will still owe the same duty to the throne.”

Roland was appalled. Such mention of a monarch’s death was never so brazenly voiced, even by a brother of the king. This was a trap, Roland realized—a test to discover his possible disloyalty.

“Our king is in spitting health, my lord prince,” said Roland, adding, “God be thanked.”

Henry’s gaze was steady. Roland felt his soul being weighed, marred specimen though it was. I should not have killed the poacher, thought the marshal. Henry did not like it then, and he does not like it now. The prince, thought Roland, was one of those quiet, unforgiving men.

“What if I myself,” said the prince, “ordered the dogs slain and the pike shafts readied?”

“I would be required to report as much to the king.”

The prince laughed quietly. “Of course, I was speaking only to test you,” he said.

“You are cunning, my lord prince.”

“Do you enjoy bloodshed, Roland?” asked the prince in the tone of someone considering a matter of philosophy.

“In past years I did very much, my lord, but no longer.”

“Would you wish for a more peaceful season, dear Roland?”

This was true enough—Roland would be glad when his life became serene, the way his father’s had been. His father had been the royal chandler, with responsibility for the king’s candles, but the job had a status beyond that of simply providing illumination for the long winter nights. Chandlers were generally reliable and respected men, attended by cheerful and efficient servants.

His father had been full of praise for the ancestral home of Montfort, refuge of scholars and holy men, and how finely scented the beeswax of that place had been and how softly woven the wicks. His father could pass by the heads of a dozen men on pikes, gaping and eyeless, ignoring them because his heart was full of nostalgia for Candlemas as it had been celebrated in his boyhood.

In Roland’s view, the English were lucky to learn Norman ways. Not long ago a goose girl who lived in a hole in the ground near the river, a pathetic hovel, accepted a quarter silver penny to lie with him. A quarter of a penny could buy a flock of geese, a goose girl, and a bushel basket for the eggs, but in his tenderness he had felt a generosity, and was just settling in with the lass when young Simon Foldre had stumbled across them.

The young woman had all but screamed rape! and hurried off with his silver piece, and Roland had had to endure Simon Foldre’s challenge. Simon was not altogether a useless young man—he was half Norman, after all. And he was tall and well built—no easy opponent. He had a way of pronouncing the Norman words and vowels with superlative care, as though aware that at any moment he might be exposed as what he really was—a hare raised by cats.

“I shall ride to London at dawn,” said Henry decisively, “stopping first in Winchester to drink new ale.”

With a stab of regret, Roland realized how much he wanted the prince where he could watch him.

Roland gave a dutiful bow. “But the king will be better defended, my lord prince, with you by his side.”

“Nonsense,” said Prince Henry. He laughed. “I need to find out how it is that the rats of the Fleet River have grown big enough to eat dogs.”

“You heard about that butchery in Boulogne, my lord,” said Roland. “Lord Walter of Poix, our Norman friend, had to endow a very large window of stained glass to escape the Church’s censure.”

“You don’t like Walter, do you?” inquired the prince.

Surely the prince had heard the minstrels sing, “The man ahorse and the man afoot met upon a bridge.” The rhyme was most offensive to Montfort pride—the Tirel hero of the song pissed on the unhorsed Montfort. That was what passed for humor in these troubled times—no sober Christian could smile at such a lyric. Roland was not sure, but he was willing to wager that he had heard the dwarf whistling the tune just last week.

“I think we need not fear the lord of Poix,” said the prince. “His grandfather had a mastiff who could eat candles.”

Sometimes Roland was convinced that the king and this brothers could not be spoken to as a man would speak to another, rational soul. Their minds were a mystery—even the best of them uttered nonsense. “Candles, my lord?”

“He ate twelve church tapers at one sitting, and my own uncle lost a silver shilling wager.”

“That certainly does burnish Walter’s name,” said Roland, with an irony lost on the prince.

Perhaps the prince had been right. Perhaps someone was listening. A footstep whispered among the rushes strewn across the floor, and a cloth nearby moved, its neatly arranged folds shifting, settling.

It was Roland’s turn to seek out a spy, but the royal marshal had far better cause for his suspicions.

He whisked aside a hanging drape, took a long stride through benches arranged along the wall, and seized a slight, cringing figure by the arm.

Just as he smelled the unmistakable stink of burning rushes.

The lodge was on fire.