For Aelbad-now-Richard there were only three men in the world he feared: the King, his half-brother, Guillaume, and Douglas the Highlander. When in the service of Prince Eustace he had tried to murder all of them. Fortunately he was so young at the time it was difficult for the brothers to recognise him now, although the King felt something when he noticed Richard at the Chancellor’s swearing-in. The scribe had no idea if Douglas were still alive but fervently hoped he was not because he knew that as soon as the Scotsman identified him – he had no doubt the Highlander would, for he was a Merlin – he’d kill him. While Richard wished Douglas was dead, Henry knew he was hale, well-hidden and close by. He had explained to the justiciars, ‘I don’t want the brat King of Scotland to discover that his greatest warrior remains in England.’
‘Secrecy is intrinsic to the exercise of power,’ de Beaumont and de Lucy said to each other with smiles of satisfaction.
But the King had another reason for keeping the Scotsman from sight; he did not want Eleanor to know of his presence, for the Queen would realise that her terrible secret was as clear as air to the Merlin – and that if Douglas knew about her cuckoo, so would Henry. At night, after the milking maid left, the Highlander would come silently to the royal sleeping chamber. The mastiffs crawled towards him on their bellies, their tails thumping the floor. Sometimes the two men talked. Often they did no more than embrace and fall asleep side by side. The Merlin always left before a house churl brought in the maid of the morning. Douglas was a giant who moved as silently as a shadow and the King’s guards always averted their eyes as he passed.
Immediately after Henry’s announcement at his coronation that all castles built within the previous twenty years were to be destroyed – by their castellans or by his engineers – some barons in the midlands began to strengthen their fortifications for what they foresaw as an attack by the Crown. Among them was the Earl of York.
Richard de Lucy warned, ‘His stronghold of Scarborough is impregnable, Henry.’
‘Like to wager with me, darling?’ In his private chamber Henry told his justiciars, ‘Robert and Richard, you’re to run the kingdom from Windsor until I return. The Queen will remain at Bermondsey until her delivery.’ He meanwhile would set forth on his quest to bring peace and establish himself as the strongman of England. Mounted side by side in the courtyard at Windsor, Guillaume said, ‘After we’ve taken Scarborough we should cut west and visit the Earl of Pembroke.’ The Earl of Pembroke’s territory, a gift from King Stephen, was mostly in Wales.
‘Ah, Wales,’ Henry murmured to himself. ‘Wales. Where a beautiful silver-haired princess plays the harp – so I’m told. Some man from this side of the country sang to her during the Christmas Court.’ He wiggled his fingers in a pantomime of rippling them across harp strings. ‘Could it be you want to meet your music teacher again, lecherous flea?’
‘Don’t be more stupid than you were born.’
The King shouted with laughter. ‘How do you communicate with her? She speaks only the gibberish of the Welsh.’
‘She has a servant who can read French.’
‘Ooooh! Love letters!’
Guillaume coloured. ‘Just … notes.’
‘Notes.’ A frown flashed across Henry’s forehead as he looked around at the army forming up in the courtyard.
Among the shouting and confusion, knights yelling at their squires to hurry, horses rearing and growling, Douglas, wearing a tattered, rust-coloured riding cloak, his head cowled, joined the fray. Men-at-arms and engineers who had been waiting for hours scrambled to mount, calling to falconers to gather their birds and huntsmen their hounds. The Royal Progress was at hand; part war, part hunting expedition, part political campaign.
The brothers, each with a standard bearer – the King’s lions, his brother’s spotted leopards – were laughing to each other. They kicked their mounts into a trot then a canter, and rode to the vanguard, cloaks streaming in the wind. From a parapet Becket watched them ride away. ‘Their youth, their beauty, their devotion to each other,’ he murmured aloud. If only he would love me as an older brother. Or as another father. I seethe with jealousy.
He stepped indoors from the cold. With Henry away, months perhaps, Becket decided to devote some of his time to wooing Richard gently. Since moving from Canterbury to Westminster, then Bermondsey, then Windsor, spending time alone with his personal scribe had become almost impossible for Thomas of London. The King, whose energy seemed limitless, required his presence day and night. At dawn there was hunting from which the Chancellor would return just in time to wash his hands and change his gown before overseeing the monarch’s morning prayers. His duties included the chapel royal. The court and centre of the kingdom was wherever the King was. Now, since the King was living on a horse, the chapel royal was a priest and an acolyte on palfreys, and Thomas would have some time for himself and the pursuit of his scribe, whose conquest had become a matter of self-respect. Once indoors he beckoned a churl. ‘Send my scribe,’ he ordered. The night before, Richard had eaten his roasted ducks but with unanticipated vehemence had refused the Chancellor’s advances, exclaiming, ‘Sir! I’m a virgin.’ He had fallen into a fit of tears. I’ll be patient, Thomas had decided.
When his scribe arrived the Chancellor said, ‘Join me for a stroll before you go to supper. There’s a chance the King will summon me to Wales. I’d like to know more of that area from which you come. It may be I can take you with me.’
‘Oh, sir,’ the youth sighed. He stared at the Chancellor’s hand, at the large, gold-encircled ring on his middle finger.
‘You like it?’
‘It’s as fine a piece as any my father wore. Is it …?’
‘No. It’s not,’ Thomas replied firmly. He paused and smiled. ‘But I can understand why you may have thought of His Highness. Most observant of you, lovely boy.’
On his appointment to the court the Chancellor had visited a jeweller in London who dealt in antiquities. Besides rings of all sizes set with different gems, he had trays of Greek and Roman heads in gold and marble, a lady’s white hand with tapered fingers, a sandalled foot with half a leg, a selection of cameos and intaglios. Becket inspected the intaglios; beautiful women in profile, an eagle, a horse. Suddenly he saw what he wanted; a youth in pinkish marble, his back turned, his helmeted head in profile. He rested one elbow against a column. He was strongly muscled, especially his buttocks. The knee beneath his supporting elbow was slightly bent so he appeared low-hipped. The artwork could be set in gold, worn as a ring and used as his seal.
‘Mars?’ Becket had asked.
‘No, sir. Perseus the Destroyer. He’s very expensive. He was carved in the reign of the Emperor Nero.’
Becket shrugged and walked out.
Three days later Baron Richer de l’Aigle entered the shop accompanied by two men-at-arms. After a perfunctory inspection he announced, ‘That thing. The youth.’
‘That’s a thousand years old, my Lord. It’s very expensive.’
The Eagle’s men stepped towards the jeweller. ‘Are you suggesting I’m poor?’ Richer asked.
‘Not at all, my Lord. I can see you’re very rich. But I can’t sell it for less than three gold marks.’
Richer glanced at his men. ‘We think you can, Jew.’
The Baron fished in a pocket and tossed two silver marks onto the table. One of his men reached over, lifted the piece from the samite on which it lay and handed it to his master. As the three walked out Richer called over his shoulder, ‘If anyone asks, you sold it for thirty pieces of silver.’
The Chancellor had it set in a different jeweller’s shop with the legend Sigillum Tome Lun – seal of Thomas of London – inscribed around it. Standing in front of Richard, he held his hand out, fingers splayed, for the youth to admire his ring.
Other scribes assumed Richard, who was wiry, long-legged and short-haired, was the Chancellor’s image for the beautiful Greek.
The Chancellor added, ‘We should meet in the bestiary.’
They met that evening in the small enclosure of wild animals the Chancellor had established at Windsor.
Richard later wrote to Foliot.
He has grand plans for the expansion of his bestiary, which is nothing more than a bear, some wolves, a few monkeys with long tails and three peacocks that scream at each other. As you advised, I described the luxury in which I was raised. I told him Prince Eustace stripped our family of our manor houses and honours, of peregrines and lanners, of our alaunts, greyhounds and spaniels. He became greatly excited at my descriptions and wanted to know what my rank would have been had my family not been so cruelly treated. I said I was only a younger son, but had I inherited, I would have been lord of Castell Ogwr – Ogmore, in English – in the county of Glamorgan. My title would have been Ardalydd, which in English is ‘Lord’. He now calls me, ‘little Lord’ and openly reveals his passion, which I continue to rebuff.
Richard paused. He was growing bored with his own report and felt a need to include something that would enrage Old Flint Arse. He wondered if he could hint that the Chancellor kept a sheep for bestial purposes, but discarded that as too outlandish for His Grace to believe. But then a lie occurred to him that he thought Foliot might accept. He wrote:
As Your Grace knows, T craves power and his seduction of boys makes him feel powerful. The point is, Lord Bishop, the greater a man’s rank, the greater the Chancellor is drawn to him. When the King enters a room he becomes aroused in his member. I thank the Virgin His Highness never notices – although, of course, one can never be certain what the King sees and thinks, since he is a mystery to all of us.
Foliot read the letter twice, in a fury. He walked out into the cold, around and around his palace, shooing away the deacons who came running after him. As his feet crunched the rime of February snow, his mind searched for a concept just out of reach. Finally he went indoors to his private chapel to pray. There a mighty voice spoke to him. What it said was so terrifying he fell in a dead faint.
A deacon found him soon afterwards, barely breathing. He needed to be put to bed and although objecting that the flesh of an animal would sicken him, agreed to drink a small amount of chicken broth, its origin disguised by herbs.
Next day Foliot wrote to Richard warning him once again that to give way to the Chancellor’s demands for physical intimacy would be playing with fire. ‘But I’m most curious to know his ambitions. Therefore, you may exchange a touch of your hand on his, for example, when you question him.’
The youth replied in three words sent by pigeon. ‘The royal familiares.’
The Bishop’s hands shook as he read the scrap of parchment.
He knew, from his experience in the chapel, that he must prevent the King from making such a grievous error. If Becket worms his way into the royal family, he’ll corrupt both Crown and Church. ‘There’s no one in whom I can confide!’ he cried to the Saviour. The answer came immediately. ‘There’s the Empress.’
At two o’clock in the morning of 28 February the Queen gave birth to another son.
The Aquitaine midwives she had brought to England lifted him from the tub with cries of delight. He was not only big, but blessed with a mass of red hair. Almost before they had time to urge him to breathe he bellowed at them. Eleanor gasped, ‘We’ll call him Henry!’ Her labour had been only a few hours and all had feared that the baby, six days overdue, might be small and weak. But every inch was robust. Bells rang throughout England. In the midlands, the King heard their carillon even before the news arrived with post-riders. He danced in excitement. He sent word for Guillaume to join him on a victory ride through a curtain of blinding rain.
They galloped against each other while the men in camp cheered. Then they dismounted and ran to the shelter of some trees. Henry hugged his brother, great tremors shaking his body. ‘I have an heir! She’s given me an heir!’ He buried his head against Guillaume’s neck. ‘What am I to do with the other boy?’
‘Wait until the new one is a year old. By then you may have another son on the way.’
‘The longer I wait, the more attached she grows to the cuckoo. Brother, even if the new infant were to die before his first birthday, the cuckoo cannot continue in my nest.’ He began to weep tears he’d been holding back for more than a year. Guillaume hugged him and together they lowered themselves to the humid ground.
Guillaume said, ‘Douglas can take the cuckoo to the Highlands as we’ve discussed. He’ll convince the child he was an orphan. He’ll raise him to become a knight – even a Merlin like himself.’
The King rested his back against the damp bark of a trunk. ‘Children can remember their earliest years. Men can return from exile to claim an inheritance. I’ve thought over our discussions with Douglas. If reared as a Merlin in Scotland the boy could be doubly dangerous to the English crown. And there’s another problem. Brother, how do we take a tiger cub from its mother? My people show me the letters she writes to her sister. I memorised one because it was so poignant. She said, “My love for William has changed me in ways I thought impossible. With this son the thumb of God has pressed into my soul something exquisite and priceless. The adoration I feel. When I gaze at images of the Virgin I begin to comprehend Her heart.” Guy, I can’t smash her by taking her cuckoo. But my reign is not yet secure. England needs not weeks, it needs years to reconcile and I can’t afford a scandalous wife any more than Louis could.’
‘Precisely. Your sentiment for Eleanor is a luxury you can’t afford.’
‘You heartless swine.’
‘It’s stopped raining.’
They sat together in gloomy silence for a while, then strolled from the trees, remounted and raced each other back to camp, the gallop raising their spirits.
Henry yelled, ‘I won! I beat him both times!’
On the night of the birth, Orianne found another note beneath the Queen’s door. A hand had penned it hastily, leaving it unwaxed. Orianne dared to open it. Don’t imagine your triumph will last long, it said. The maid threw the scrap of parchment into a brazier.
Meanwhile, Henry’s struggle to subdue his realm and bring peace continued at a gallop. Far to the west, in the Welsh marcher lands, another Stephen partisan, Hugh Mortimer, greatest of the magnates of the area, fortified Wigmore, Cleobury and Bridgenorth Castles against Henry. The King took all three by force. His next foe was the Earl of Pembroke. Pembroke rode out accompanied by a sister, a girl of about eighteen, Henry guessed, and lovely. He kept a straight face, but laughed inside at Strongbow’s ploy. Their cousin, Rohese de Clare, the most famous beauty in England, was already a royal conquest, as Pembroke no doubt had heard. Rohese was almost twice this girl’s age, but Henry had been reared on the charms of older women and found more attraction in proud and confident bearing than a symmetry of features, pretty colouring and simpers. He leapt from his horse before the brother and his sister could dismount and strode forward, his hands laced together for the girl’s foot. She turned red with embarrassment. ‘Lord King, I cannot …’
‘You can if I order you to,’ he replied. He wanted to have a good look at her, to judge her weight and if she smelled nice. If Strongbow intends to disarm me, I want to test his weapon for myself, he thought. She was not as beautiful as Rohese. She was a peach still on the tree. She had honey-gold hair, green eyes, and even, rounded teeth. He took her arm and escorted her to a patch of shade where suddenly she found the mettle of her breeding.
‘Sire, you’ve confiscated half my brother’s lands.’ She stared at him without blinking. He stared back.
‘I’d prefer to confiscate all of you.’
A secret smile moved across her eyes.
Henry’s glance shifted to her brother, now dismounted and waiting at a respectful distance, his huge hands clasped before him. The King’s gaze moved over his body, from the massive shoulders to the strong legs, to the sharply etched intelligence of his face. A man I’d prefer to have fighting for me, than to fight against, he thought.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said to the girl. ‘I wish to speak to your brother.’ He sauntered towards the Earl. ‘Well, Pembroke,’ he said, ‘I believe you and I may be able to reach some amicable arrangement that will suit us both.’
‘That is my most sincere wish, Sire.’
‘I need to suppress the Welsh.’
‘Indeed you do, Sire.’
Henry raised an eyebrow.
Strongbow nodded.
‘We’ll meet again,’ Henry said, turned and strode to his horse. From the corner of his eye he watched the lovely sister turn bright red. Guillaume, who had the ears of a fox, heard her whispered exclamation, ‘He promised us nothing!’
Strongbow growled at her, ‘Be patient, Evie. He’s a much stronger and harder man than I anticipated. I should have paid more attention to what he said at his coronation.’
The girl burst into tears. ‘Stephen and Eustace told our father he was a weakling ruled by his mother,’ she snivelled.
Guillaume did not catch the rest of their exchange.
For a week Guillaume had been the happiest man in England. The day after they took Mortimer down, the Welsh princess had arrived by night. The moon stood at three-quarters and by its light a guardsman showed her to Guillaume’s tent. Henry heard them sing together for a while before deep silence spread through the camp as every man strained his ears to catch the magic of her voice shimmering in rapture.
‘Barbarian!’ Henry had shouted next morning. ‘You kept everyone awake with your screaming like cats.’
Guillaume stretched luxuriously and yawned. ‘I slept well,’ he’d replied. ‘Not for long, but …’
‘You’re still asleep! And look at our men. None of them has had a woman for weeks. This morning they’re all haggard from frigging themselves half the night.’
Guillaume grinned. ‘And you, sweetheart? Also frigging yourself …?’
Henry roared, ‘ME! You dare suggest …?’ His hand had flown to his sword but Guillaume was laughing too hard to notice. Or to care. As his brother frothed with rage Guillaume, in hilarity, had almost tumbled from his horse.
However, the exchange between Henry and Strongbow dampened his mood. As the brothers turned their mounts to ride east Guillaume asked himself each day, How can I accompany my brother in a war against Wales without endangering her life? Somehow I must persuade her to leave before we attack.
When Henry returned to Bermondsey after his travels, he filled the Queen’s chamber with regal gaiety. The new baby was already three weeks old. Unbarbered and unbathed, still in travelling clothes, Henry rushed into the Queen’s bedchamber to see his new son. ‘The game, Eleanor!’ he said. ‘Once you’re riding again you won’t believe what a joy this country is. Our hawks took so many ducks and other birds they were haggard by breakfast. At every castle we presented our hosts with food for their tables. And our falcons! Fast as lightning, so keen for the kill that as soon as they made one they rushed back towards the sun. The bells on their jesses tinkled like a heavenly host. I can’t describe the bliss of it!’
He lay back on her bed to make kissing noises at the baby.
‘During the war against Stephen and Eustace I considered the rivers of England cursed obstacles that encumbered my moving the army. But they seethe with fish and fowl. There are more rivers than in Aquitaine. Spring salmon were running. They leapt the length of a horse! I caught one with my bare hands, this big!’
The chamber held its breath in excitement.
‘Beastly thing thrashed and twisted like a devil. It got away. But I caught another on the point of my sword and we roasted it on the riverbank. Full of grease. Unimaginably delicious.’ He had missed his twenty-second birthday feast, he said, ‘because of the profusion of mallard’.
Eleanor had taken infusions of sage and yarrow to stop lactation and was bound. Henry took her stiffened body in his arms and in front of the servants covered her with kisses. ‘You’ve given birth to me!’ he cried as he glanced again at the baby. He was in such high spirits he babbled with excitement. ‘Scarborough fell and the Earl of York swore homage to me, kneeling in a puddle. He vowed he would die for me. I should have had a wager with de Lucy before I left! The scoundrel told me Scarborough was impregnable. Ha!’
She had already heard that soon after defeating the Earl of York he’d seduced the widowed Rohese de Clare. ‘And politically?’ she asked quietly.
Her husband was still fascinated by his son. For its part the baby tried to grasp a handful of the King’s hair. ‘See! He knows me already,’ Henry said. ‘Politically? I was brilliant. My persuasive powers were unequalled and irresistible. Even my good-for-nothing brother admits that. We have many new friends. And every night, dear wife, I heard a terrible noise. Running underground from Faversham was the sound of The Usurper gnashing his teeth.’ He poked the tip of his tongue out at the infant.
Eleanor smiled. She did not want to spoil his mood with the bad news she had had from across the Channel. ‘Have you met with the justiciars yet?’
‘I came straight to you.’ He disentangled the baby’s fingers from his hair and sat up.
Eleanor could see her question had alerted him to trouble. She motioned to the servants and her ladies to leave them alone. ‘Henry, you know I’ve kept certain men and women in Louis’ palace loyal to me?’
He had suspected it.
‘They report that Louis refuses to recognise you as Duke of Aquitaine. Meanwhile, your younger brother, Geoffrey, has won his affection. Louis is planning to make Geoffrey the Count of Anjou. Since he’s your mother’s favourite son, I hear the Empress is gratified. “Of course Henry won’t mind,” she said.’
‘Oh, won’t he!’
‘I’ve told our justiciars.’
Henry kissed her mouth. His eyes, she noted, tender and gay a moment earlier, turned to stone. ‘Thank you, Cousin.’ He stood to leave but paused. ‘Do we know when Louis intends to execute this stupid, warmongering act?’
‘He’ll wait until the end of God’s truce. Maybe until late summer.’
‘To deny me time to strike.’ He laughed. ‘But thanks to my beautiful and brilliant wife, he’s given me time to prepare! The House of Plantagenet once more unfurls its standard against the House of Capet.’ His surprise and praise was feigned to flatter her, to stimulate her affection for him. Henry had been warned already by Richard de Lucy that trouble was afoot in France. Because de Beaumont was so deeply fond of the Queen, the King had entrusted to de Lucy the job of opening her mail. He, in turn, instructed Becket to send him the most skilful scribe. Sometimes a whole letter was damaged when it was opened and needed to be rewritten. Within days Aelbad-now-Richard had mastered Her Highness’s manner of writing. ‘You’re to speak of this to nobody, including the Chancellor. If you do, you lose your tongue.’ The justiciar stared into the youth’s pale eyes, a question forming in his mind. He felt he had seen those pieces of blue ice before.
When Henry left her chamber Eleanor’s servants returned.
‘Bring Prince William,’ she said.
He could already walk and insisted on toddling unaided and climbing onto the bed where, immediately, he began kissing and petting his infant brother. His hair was coal black and his long eyes as dark as sloes.
An hour after Henry had left, Orianne answered a knock at her door.
Guillaume was bathed, barbered, dressed in a dark green robe as glittering and pliant as the man who wore it. He asked if he might see his new nephew. Eleanor patted the bed, inviting him to sit beside her. He declined with a slight bow and accepted a chair carried over for him.
He stared at the newborn prince. ‘Red as a fox!’ He flashed a smile at her. ‘Henry is truly joyous. You’ve filled his heart with pride.’ He paused. ‘And love.’
Eleanor’s expression was regal. ‘Already two heirs for the throne.’
In langue d’oc he answered, ‘It seems so.’
‘We wish to be alone,’ the Queen said. For a second time the servants and ladies left the chamber.
The two remained in silence until Guillaume said, ‘Here, little one,’ and lifted William onto his knee. Even at his tender age the toddler’s flesh was almost as dark as his uncle’s. Guillaume allowed the child to bite his fingers and pull his ears, while he bounced his knee slightly. ‘Horsey,’ he said. The sloe eyes squeezed shut with delight. ‘You’re exceptionally intelligent,’ he murmured to his nephew. After a while he carried William back to Eleanor’s bed, where the baby brothers resumed their mutual fascination. ‘Not long out of heaven,’ Guillaume mused. ‘You can see they both talk to angels.’
Eleanor’s breath caught in her throat. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘From your expression, Guillaume, I feel a sword hovers in the air.’
‘Henry knows the first boy is not his.’
‘I guessed,’ she muttered. In a whole year her husband had played with William no more than three or four times, for show, in front of courtiers. ‘Did you tell him?’
‘No. He was certain as soon as he saw him. And now I see him again, so am I.’ He sighed. ‘Henry’s unaware of who the father is.’
‘Will you tell him?’
‘If he asks. I think he will not. He’s ordered me to solve the problem. But I have no solution, as yet.’
Her small, bowed lips hooked down. ‘He’s so cunning,’ she said. ‘He’s disguised his feelings for twelve months.’
‘You’ve disguised yours even longer.’
‘Does anyone else know?’
‘Your maid. Probably your midwives. Your beloved motherin-law. Maybe spies from France. In a palace …’
‘I meant any of the courtiers.’
‘Many of them. They’re whispering.’
‘Already?’
‘Weeks ago. Before we left for Scarborough.’ His attention moved from the elder child to the infant. ‘If Prince Henry passes his first birthday …’ He swallowed. ‘Eleanor, Eustace kept a bestiary at Woodstock. The lions ate all the cubs that weren’t their own.’
‘Guillaume, please!’
‘It’s no time for pleasantries, Sister.’
Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I should have done what Erasmus asked. He begged me to let him take William. He could have spirited him away to Byzantium.’
Guillaume lifted her hand to his lips. ‘Perhaps he still can. I’d have to discuss that with Henry. But to do so, I’d need to reveal who the father is … I know what it is to lose a child. One of my sons died.’ He gazed out a window where the oak trees blushed pale green with the first small leaves of spring.
Eleanor had taken no interest in Guillaume’s private life. He was unmarried and aged twenty-three or four. She assumed he’d fathered bastards, but had never bothered to ask. ‘How many children do you have?’
‘Well …’ His expression became bashful. ‘I have to confess to half a dozen. But, please, Eleanor, that’s between you and me. Henry believes I only have four.’
She smiled wanly. ‘Such competitiveness! Your father always wanted to sire more bastards than Matilda’s father. Do you think he did?’
Guillaume stood and glided around the bedchamber, holding by his fingertips an invisible partner. ‘We believe our dear Papa had twenty-seven bastards, including me and my four sisters.’
Eleanor asked quietly, ‘Brother, will Henry force the Church to declare Little Geoffrey legitimate?’
She saw he had anticipated the question. The family temperament, terrifying in Henry, charming in his dead father, was enigmatic in Guillaume. ‘With a queen so fertile, why would he be tempted to such a provocative move? He’d have first to persuade the English Bishops, then the Pope. You, dear sister, have already assured a succession. And you and Henry have only just begun …’
He blew her a kiss and was gone. Was I too oblique? he wondered as he strolled down the corridor.
Eleanor picked up little William and gazed into his eyes. I’ve been mistaken in believing I’ve risen from the ashes of my reputation in France. The English court may begin to call me a harlot. Her son gazed back with his strange, solemn wisdom. ‘You would make a great and wise King. But …’
Later that day Orianne arrived with another note. She knew she had to give this one to the Queen because it demanded that Eleanor place a large ruby ring inside a leather pouch.
Your maid is to drop it in the fourth stable on the left.
‘Find Lord Guillaume,’ Eleanor said.
He arrived in minutes.
‘When do you return to France?’ she asked him.
‘Next week, in case Geoffrey, our little swine of a brother, decides to assume the seat of Anjou without giving us warning.’ He smiled at her. ‘You did well with that news from Paris.’
‘I want you to take a letter there.’
‘It’s for someone in the guild of masters and students?’
She nodded.
‘I sail from Southampton to Barfleur. I won’t be able to leave for Paris for perhaps a month after that. But I have trustworthy men who could …’
‘No! It must be you. You can speak to him of things I can’t put in a letter. About the whisperings in court. And this.’ She held out the letter. ‘It’s the third.’ Unknown to her, it was the fifth. Anxious for her lady’s health, Orianne had burned two.
He paced the chamber. ‘There’s one thing I won’t promise you, Eleanor. I won’t deceive Henry. I’m not only his brother, I’m also his vassal. I refuse to take the child to his father without asking permission from the King. If that was your plan.’
‘It was my plan,’ she muttered.
Guillaume looked, unsmiling, at his sister-in-law. Pray for him to die of fever like other young children, he thought. Since their earlier meeting he had decided what must be done to the cuckoo.