Walter,” Elise said with an irritated sigh, “this is not the time.”
“Of course it is,” he said, opening a beautifully burnished wooden casket inlaid with gold and silver designs. “It’s the last chance I have to challenge you, and first time in years, I’ll likely win.” She frowned at him, and he continued. “We might as well play,” he said, gesturing with his head toward the alcove. “This may take a while.”
She followed his gaze to the white linen screens embroidered with red crosses shielding the betrothal negotiations. Hortense had banished Elise and Walter to the benches at the far end of the central hearth as she and Marie prepared the great room for celebration. From there, Elise could neither hear the negotiations nor participate in arranging the festivities. Dressed for ceremony in a soft green chemise beneath a white heavily embroidered wool cotte, a bejeweled belt at her hips, she sat quietly, her index finger tapping the wooden bench beside her knee.
Her gaze flitted over Walter sitting across from her. She wished he would go away so she could think. Instead, he arranged the checkered leather sheet on the stool situated between them.
Inside the casket, red silk covered the padded niches cradling the pieces. Walter’s godfather, Henri, former king of the Franks, had given the game to him at his birth. Made in Persia, it was more refined than anything in Francia, and the only thing Walter had kept when exiled from Normandie—a beautiful yet painful reminder of a future lost to him forever.
He lifted out a small alabaster piece, simply carved with vertical lines rising to the jagged points of a crown. “I christen you, William Rex.” He slid the throne across the leather. “Suppose we put him here . . . and beside him . . .” Walter removed a matching throne, as tall as the king but thinner, with the grooved shaft capped by a horizontal band. “His arch-chancellor, Matilda of Flanders.”
Elise could not wholly suppress her smile, although she raised a hand to cover her lips. It was a wasted gesture, for her eyes gave her away. She caught Walter’s infectious grin.
“You, Walter, are irreverent!”
“Yes, ’tis a sickness I have recently developed and . . . there is no cure.”
He reached into the case again and pulled out two cubes, each topped, front and back, with points resembling a mitre. “Let’s see now. This,” he said, placing one piece next to Matilda, “is the archbishop of Rouen and this . . .” he balanced the other bishop in his hands as if testing its weight. He sighed, “I guess this has to be Stigand of Canterbury. We’ll put him next to William—where he can be watched.” Elise laughed, for everyone knew about Stigand, the scandalous archbishop excommunicated by five popes.
“Next, your favorite,” Walter grinned and extracted a rectangular block with a horse’s head and carved lines cleverly depicting its legs. “William has too many knights to choose from,” Walter said. “I suppose we have to make one of these Guillaume fitz Osbern since he is the king’s regent. Let’s put him . . . here.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now, we have Stigand cornered.”
He tapped the second horse gently against the casket. “Now, at fourteen, William’s son Robert is too young for knighthood. Instead, let us put Robert’s guardian into play.”
Watching him set the knight on a square, Elise felt none of the turmoil engulfing her years ago when Walter began teaching her this game. Once her infatuation eased, she’d learned quickly since chess was similar to tafl, a game she’d played often. Today, he had honored her by donning his finest, deep yellow tunic trimmed in black embroidery. He resembled his sire, she thought, gazing at his handsome, unblemished features, a brow furrowing in concentration, warm hazel eyes sometimes glowing like honey, and his full lips, which, unlike his father’s, smiled often.
Arques went into frequent, vicious rampages and belittled his son as if Walter were to blame for his misery. Once at table, Arques said, “I often wondered what slathering coward your mother rutted with to bring you forth.” Silence fell upon everyone, and she remembered the odd look on Walter’s face. Calmly, Walter smiled at his father. “It is obvious to me,” he said, raising his wine to toast his sire, who rose so quickly he nearly toppled the boards.
Now, absorbed by arranging the tall, slender towers, marked by long, deep clefts, he said, “Here is Westminster Palace, and this is the castle at Rouen.”
“And the foot soldiers?” she grinned, shaking her head at him.
“In truth, that’s the rest of William’s lieutenants,” he said, “but we should choose the best, don’t you think, Elise?” He quickly arranged the squat, three-sided pieces on the row in front of the king.
“Now,” he said, touching each pawn lightly with his middle finger as he ran down the row. “Here is Alain le Roux of Brittany, Dreux Marchand de Ville, and Guillaume Malet.” Touching the two center pawns simultaneously with his index fingers, “William’s brothers, Bishop Odo and Robert de Mortain.” Moving to the other pawns, he continued. “Guillaume d’Évreux, Alaric of Ewyas, of course, and last but not least, Uncle Eustace. Do you want to tie a ribbon around your knight to give him your liege, my lady?”
“What?” she chuckled. “Encumber his charge with unfurled silks?”
“Ah,” Walter said. “A sage wife.”
She reached for the opposing throne, equally carved but with blue staining the carved grooves. “Who is this?”
Walter glanced at the alcove before whispering. “This is . . . Philip.”
Elise grimaced. “Treasonous!” she chided in a conspiratorial whisper, placing the piece across from William.
“True.” He wagged his eyebrows at her.
She set the matching blue chancellor beside Philip.
Walter frowned. “For shame, we cannot have the dowager Queen Mother.” Elise cringed at Walter’s innuendo, for he referred to the queen’s affair with a married man.
“Instead, this is Thierry de Châlons, but he is no match for Matilda,” he teased. “Soon, Philip will need his own queen.” He looked up at her, his eyes twinkling. “You’re already spoken for, but you would have made a wondrous queen.”
She laughed and tipped her head, acknowledging the compliment. “The Church would bless that consanguineous marriage with excommunication and an interdiction against Francia.”
“Mere trifles.” He waved a hand over the board, chasing gnats away. “To whom shall we marry him?” he asked, adjusting the blue king on the board. “I know, let’s give him a Danish princess. That ought to alarm William.” He affected a tic and trembling hands.
Elise’s mirth exploded, “Danish! It would alarm me, too. Especially if the Danes attack my new home in Englelond!”
She pulled out the rest of the pieces and set them on the board. Walter named them quickly: the dukes of Lorraine and Aquitaine, the counts of Anjou, Blois, Poitou, Berry, Bourbon. “And Flanders,” he whispered.
Elise gasped. William’s father-in-law, Baldwin of Flanders, was until recently Philip’s regent and guardian. Of course, he would check William. In a moment, the board was ready. Elise played the white and Walter the blue.
“Ah,” he said at her first move, “the lady advances her husband.”
As they played, Elise realized how much she would miss Walter—the joy of talking with him, his refinements, and tastes, so like her own—and she wondered about her betrothed. Brash and uncultured, Brian had said. Alaric of Ewyas, born near Wales, far from Norman refinements, would be steeped in a coarse culture and exhibit crude, rough behaviors. Not only would their different ranks create a schism between them, but the smallest differences in their tastes would likely keep them strangers.
Remembering his angry mark on the betrothal documents, she feared calamity would come from this marriage. Could she stop the union, now, before it was too late? She glanced at the alcove where the negotiators conferred.
The nuns taught that consent was the first and most important step of marriage. If she did not consent, she could be sent back to the dreaded abbey or remain here with Arques. Neither Eustace nor William would allow that. It was more likely she would be forced to marry involuntarily—occasioned by rape and abduction—a custom powerful men employed. No, she thought, she would consent.
Walter glanced up, “I’m thinking. I’m thinking.”
“Take your time, Walter.”
As he turned his attention to the board again, Elise stood up and paced before the hearth. She saw Marie placing greenery on the tables. Servants swept in from a side room with armloads of pitchers. Elise stopped walking and turned toward the alcove.
She could refuse to join her betrothed or speak the marriage vows. She immediately rejected that notion. Her presence was unnecessary, a proxy could speak her vows.
In the end, consummation made the marriage legal. Perhaps she and her betrothed could forge a quick alliance. In doing so, they might postpone consummation until they understood their positions better. This last recourse depended on her husband—his determination to have her land and wealth and his understanding of their situation. This match angered him. Perhaps, she could persuade him to delay the final act. If not, she must live with the consequences of her husband’s alliances and the knowledge that he could thrust them into destitution. Her gaze moved to Walter, a daily reminder of how precarious her future could be, plunged as he had been from noble to pauper by his father’s rash decisions.