For the King's Favor (32 page)

“Yes,” Ida said, thinking that chance would be a fine thing. “You will stay to dine?”

He bowed acknowledgement. He was of knightly birth, but as the youngest of six sons had few prospects of inheritance and had pursued a career, first on the seas as a mariner in the Bigod employ, and now as the master of their quay at Ipswich. He was a man of good manners with few pretensions, and not only a trusted employee but a friend.

“I heard from a shipmaster that the earl had made safe landfall in Antwerp,” Alexander continued as a servant brought him a mug of cider.

Ida nodded. “Indeed yes. I pray he has a swift, safe journey the rest of the way.”

Alexander pinched a moist line of the drink from his upper lip. “Amen to that, my lady. I have added him and your son to my prayers.”

Ida blinked at him. The hall door was open and sunlight streamed across the rushes towards the bench where she was sitting. Hugh gave Alexander a puzzled look. “The Bishop of Ely said I had to go, but my father refused,” he said.

Ida swallowed. “My son,” she repeated. “Which son would that be, Master Alexander?”

Consternation flickered across his features. “I am sorry,” he said. “I thought you knew.”

Ida put her hand to her mouth. “Tell me,” she said through her fingers. “Tell me now so there is no mistake.”

“Messire William FitzRoy is with your husband, Countess. I understand he was chosen as one of the hostages to go to the King in Germany at the meeting in Saint Albans. I am sorry you did not know.”

Ida shook her head. “No,” she said, feeling sick. “No, I wasn’t told.”

“Countess, shall I summon your ladies?”

His voice came as if from a distance. Hugh was staring at her with big eyes. “No,” she said. “But you will excuse me.”

She was trembling as she made her way up to the solar. She waved away her women when they came to her in consternation. Entering the bedchamber, she sat on the bed and cupped her face in her hands, feeling dreadfully ill. Distracted by her fight to prevent Hugh being taken, she had been attacked from another side and been blind to the danger. How long had Roger known about this, and why hadn’t he told her? Did he think she wouldn’t find out? Was she of so little consequence? She felt betrayed and isolated…and angry.

What was she to do? Ida asked herself the question repeatedly as if telling her prayer beads. Eventually, she left the bed and fetched a small enamelled jewel box from her coffer—one that Henry had given to her in another life. As she unlocked and opened it, the scent of cedar rose from the interior of the box in a vapour of memory. She picked up the tiny pair of goatskin shoes and removed from the right one the soft strands of dark hair tied with red silk. She stroked it gently across her cheek and in her mind’s eye saw her eldest son as he had been on the day she had cut this lock from him. She had tried to sever the ties even as she severed the hair from its roots, but the untimely cut had opened a wound in her heart that had bled ever since. With great gentleness, she replaced the shoes and the hair in the casket. There was a ring in there too; the one Henry had given to her on the taking of her virginity. Another memory. Another tie that had left its mark like the sting of a shore-washed jellyfish.

Cupped in her palm, the ruby gleamed like pitch. She put it on and for a moment looked at it shining on her finger. Her hands were smooth and well tended because she did not want rough skin snagging her embroidery. She rubbed unguents and rose oil into them on rising and each night on retiring, but she had never seen their first purpose as carriers for ornate rings. She removed the ruby one now. She would ask Alexander to sell it in Ipswich and she would contribute the sum fetched to the ransom. The jewel coffers were empty following the latest collection, but she still had a bolt of silk she had been saving and a belt woven with gold and pearls. Who, after all was going to see it here, and she could easily weave herself another one and pattern it cunningly so that it looked more than it was. She would sell her amber prayer beads too and have others made from plain wood. She would go out and she would chivvy, plead, and beg so that the hostages might come home safely. But while they might be ransomed, she wondered if she would ever escape from her own prison.

***

Hugh gave a surreptitious glance around and entered the dark, musty-smelling undercroft. He was almost sure no one had seen him come in, and he had Tib the terrier with him and the excuse that they were hunting for rats.

A row of wine casks stood along one wall and one of them had a faulty spigot that leaked the barrel’s contents in a slow drip. It would take a man several hours to get drunk from the spillage, but Hugh found it entertaining to lie under the tap and let the good red wine trickle into his mouth. It was more the novelty and a frisson of excitement at the notion of being caught that drove him to the deed rather than actual need for a drink of wine, which he could have purloined much more easily from the hall or the buttery chamber. Here, if he was lucky, there was no one to disturb him and he could have privacy for his thoughts.

As Tib snuffled in the corners, nosing between the barrels of supplies, and as the wine plopped on to Hugh’s tongue, he pondered the matter of his older brother. It was always the same when he was mentioned. A haunted look would enter his mother’s eyes and she would withdraw into herself. Sometimes it was a fleeting thing, no more than a cloud across the sun, but on other occasions, it was like a rainy day—or even a week—with grey from one horizon to another.

One of his earliest memories was of standing at his mother’s knee as she stroked his hair and told him that he was going to be a big, strong, beautiful boy just like his brother William. He remembered thinking that being big and strong was a splendid thing, but wondering who his brother William was, because he knew of no such person. She had said too that his older brother was the son of the King, and couldn’t live with them because he had to be raised at the court. Hugh had still been young enough to think it strange and marvellous that he had a royal brother and through him, a connection to the King himself. He had been too young to wonder why he never saw him, too accepting to ask the difficult questions. That was just the way it was. His mother seldom spoke of this magical being, but when she did, it was as if he had the ability to light up her world.

Recently though, Hugh’s perception had begun to change. There had been vague talk of his “royal” brother coming to visit them. His father had mentioned in passing that a meeting was going to be arranged, but then the fighting between Longchamp and Count John, followed by the King’s imprisonment, had interrupted things and nothing had happened. The apprehension, excitement, and curiosity engendered by the notion that he was finally going to meet this princely being had faded into the background, while other awarenesses had come to the fore as he entered adolescence.

Before a woman could bear a child, she had to lie with a man. Thus, his mother must have lain with the King in the same way that she lay with his father and in the same way that Alfreda the dairy maid lay with Mark the groom and now had a belly the size of a swollen harvest moon. The notion made him shudder. Had his mother really done the mating deed with the King? He didn’t want to believe it, but she must have done, because otherwise he would not have this brother, supposedly made of such fine stuff—and now it seemed a hostage alongside his father. Disturbing emotions rose from that knowledge too. Hugh’s bond with his father was deep and strong, but what if this absence diluted it? What if his half-brother usurped his position?

There was a sudden scuffle round the back of the casks and a growling Tib lunged, seized, and tossed an enormous rat from his jaws. The dying rodent landed on Hugh, who shot up with a yell and hurled the thing off his chest. Tib sprang again, repeated the move on his victim, then stood back to look at Hugh, his tail wagging vigorously and a laughing grin on his brown and white patched face.

“Good dog,” Hugh praised him despite his shock. He wiped a drip of wine off his chest. “Good dog.” It was a pregnant female and worth well more than a single rat. Hugh picked it up by its scaly tail and, taking it from the undercroft, slung it on the midden heap, thinking to himself that his half-brother had probably never done such a thing. He’d probably never gone into the undercroft to drink wine from a leaky spigot either.

He walked the dog around the precincts and paused to watch the masons at their work, although today he wasn’t particularly interested in joining them. Alexander was watching them too, his sleeves pushed up again in the heat of the day and his scar showing. “Your mother was looking for you,” he said. “She’s gone to church to pray for your father’s safety, and your brother’s too.”

Hugh looked at the ground. Alexander placed his hand on Hugh’s shoulder and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “You’re shouldering the burdens of manhood right well, lad,” he said.

Hugh flicked him a glance to see if he was being patronised, but Alexander’s gaze, although it held its usual amusement, was steady and sincere. “Your father would be proud of you…I know your mother is.”

Hugh set his jaw.

“You have courage by the barrel-load, because you take after both of your parents. I don’t think I know many people as brave as they are—and for reasons you’ll understand when you’re older.”

“Whom does my half-brother take after?” Hugh demanded.

Alexander gave him an assessing look, then shook his head. “That I do not know, never having met him. I’ll have to wait and see, and so will you.” He showed his scarred arm to Hugh again. “Do you want to know the truth? My brother spilled a cauldron of boiling porridge over me when I was a lad. We were fighting at the time, I don’t recall the reason, but he caught the porridge pot and over my arm it went. I forgave him long ago, but I don’t know if he ever forgave himself.”

Hugh wasn’t sure what Alexander was trying to tell him—if anything. The harbour master tousled Hugh’s hair. “Go on, go to your mother, although if I were you, I’d chew some mint from yonder herb garden before you do, or else she’ll wonder how you’ve been spending your time.”

Hugh flushed, but as Alexander grinned, he gave him an answering one.

Speyer, Germany, January 1194

Roger ducked over his saddle to avoid a low hoary branch and reined to the right with a yell of encouragement to his bay mare. She responded with a twitch of her ears and broke into a gathered canter. Frost silvered the lacework of bare branches and glittered like fine sugar crystals on crouching holly bushes and mossed-over fallen trees. His breath was white smoke as he followed the hunt, chasing hard after boar through the majestic forests beyond the walls of Speyer. He knew King Richard was somewhere ahead, for he had seen the rump of his white stallion through the trees only moments since and the brazil-wood red of his ermine-lined cloak bannering around him. “Hah!” Roger shouted again to his mount and once more felt her surge beneath him.

Hound-keepers and beaters ran either side, the brach dogs four to a leash. The belling of the slot hounds filled the forest. The thunder of hooves set up a vibration that trembled small avalanches of frost from the trees, and being alive was a thing of cutting clarity, sharp as a new knife. Roger’s mare splashed across a stream with icicle daggers fringing a stone overhang on the banks. The dogs were louder now and Roger felt the hot blood flowing in his veins.

King Richard was under house arrest but had leave to hunt and hawk, indeed to conduct court business from his chambers at Speyer. All he was not permitted to do was return home until his ransom had been paid into the Emperor’s coffers. Escape was impossible. For all that he had leeway to chase boar, wolf, and deer through the dark forests beyond the city walls, Richard was still closely guarded.

Roger had been attending on him for five months and in that time had grown accustomed to the life of the German court with its protocol and rituals, its ceremonies and almost Byzantine richness of clothing and surroundings. The days might be dark, short, and bitterly cold, but the flash of silk and gold lit the chambers and the wines were rich and strong. Sometimes it became difficult to recall what home and family looked like. Sometimes, when he tried to remember Ida’s face, all he saw was a blank oval and he would have to remind himself by looking into the face of her son. Occasionally it helped, but other times he would see Henry and he would have to turn aside.

The lad joined him now, his smaller chestnut gelding blowing hard, steam curling from his nostrils. “I need a faster horse,” William gasped with frustration. His voice grated in the space between boy and man as he put pressure on it to be heard above the noise of the hunt.

“Doubtless you’ll have one when we return to England,” Roger answered. The boy made no reply of his own, too busy coaxing speed out of his mount and trying to keep up as they turned hard right then left. Both horses jumped a fallen log, Roger marginally in the lead. There were others to either side of them, German lords, yelling in their native tongue, driving in their spurs. Ahead of them, the sound of vigorous shouting accompanied by deafening squeals gave notice of a kill.

“We’re too late!” William’s voice was rife with disappointment.

Roger didn’t reply that such was the nature of the chase, especially when following the King, and there would be other opportunities for valour. Young FitzRoy seemed to have inherited his father’s appetite for the hunt and loved to be in the thick of the fray, hence his disappointment with his horse. But no one was going to give one of the best mounts to an adolescent hostage, even if he was the King of England’s half-brother.

The huntsmen were busy eviscerating and dealing with an enormous boar. Hounds milled in excitement and the horses swished and stamped, eyes rolling at the raw scent of blood. Richard, wearing an ear-to-ear grin, was talking to some of the German lords, slapping their backs, sharing the exhilaration of the moment. His hat was jammed over his ears, concealing all but tendrils of his copper-gold hair, and his cheeks and lips were bright red from the cold. Against the latter, his teeth looked very white as he laughed. Roger watched him work his alchemy on his companions and admired the way he charmed and cajoled them. The Emperor might have his plans and agendas, but there was nothing to stop Richard from working to undermine them, or at least build himself a buffer by winning friends and sympathisers at the German court.

Richard turned round towards his horse, and met Roger’s gaze. A knowing look passed between them before Richard’s focus switched to William. “Here, Brother ‘Longespée,’” he cried. “A gift for you. Make yourself a knife hilt!” He tossed a white object across the air towards them. The youth instinctively thrust out his hand to catch the blood-smeared boar’s tusk.

Roger looked at the sharp curl of stained ivory that William held. The lad had taken to calling himself Longespée of late, after a royal ancestor who had been so titled because he had wielded a particularly long sword. To that end, the youth had begun training with a longer blade and a great deal of determination. There had been some amusement at his expense, not least from Richard, but when William had persevered despite the mockery and even shown some aptitude, Richard had taken to sparring with him and promised that when he was free, he would buy him a weapon to reward his newfound skill. William had also spent time designing a shield on scrap pieces of parchment and said that when he was knighted he would adopt the device of his paternal grandfather, Geoffrey le Bel, Count of Anjou: a bright blue background powdered with golden lioncels. Roger had raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Lapis-blue was an expensive colour with which to cover a shield, but quite in keeping with the youth’s tastes. No doubt he would want a valuable horse too—nothing under fifty marks.

As they returned to the city, the dusk marbled the sky with striations of indigo and bruised pink and the atmosphere was jocular. It wasn’t only the prospect of good food and drink and the exchange of tales around a blazing fire that was raising spirits; it was the knowledge that the bulk of the King’s ransom was on its way down the Rhine from Cologne, accompanied by Queen Eleanor, the Archbishop of Rouen, and an entourage of earls and prelates. Richard’s release had been set for 17 January and they were all only a week from freedom and a month away from home.

On reaching the castle, Roger dismounted, gave his courser to a groom, and went to his chamber to wash and replace his hunting hose with something suitable for dining in courtly company: chausses of red twill, tight to the leg, shoes decorated with gilding and his court robe of midnight-blue wool, intricately embroidered by Ida with small golden knots. His cloak was lined with the fur of Norwegian squirrels. At the time Roger had thought it all a little ostentatious, but against the opulence of the German court and Richard himself, his garments were understated. He combed his hair, and then his beard. The latter still felt strange to him but it had been easier to let it grow whilst travelling. It also gave him a certain elder statesman dignity that a clean jaw did not—something that was particularly useful just now.

Since joining Richard, Roger had been fully occupied in poring over documents, sitting in council, listening to arguments, advising, balancing, assessing as he had done on the Bench at home. The work was not dissimilar and sometimes he could almost imagine himself back at Westminster. The language surrounding him was German, not French, but everyone with an education could understand each other in Latin.

He was on the point of leaving his chamber when William FitzRoy arrived, flush-faced and heaving from his run. “My lord, the King summons you to the council chamber now,” he panted. “He sent me to fetch you!”

“Why, what is it?” Roger grabbed and fastened his cloak.

William pressed his hand to his side. His eyes were enormous. “The Emperor says he’s not going to release him!”

Roger stared at the youth, appalled.

“He…he says the stakes have changed. He’s been offered more silver to keep Richard hostage until the autumn!”

“By whom?”

“The King of France and…and the Count of Mortain.”

There was a tight feeling in Roger’s chest. He was occasionally angry in the mundane course of life, but it was a long time since he had felt absolute rage. After Fornham he had tried to avoid it. “That will not happen,” he snarled and strode from the room. The youth trotted at his heels, saying he was Richard’s duty squire, but Roger barely heard him because his mind was churning with other thoughts. There had been excuses and delays throughout the negotiations. At first the ransom had been set at a hundred thousand marks of silver, but that had been increased by half as much again. Although Richard’s prison was that of a gilded cage, it had already lasted more than a year and it was both illegal and immoral to prevent a crusader from returning to his home. The messenger must have arrived during the boar hunt and quite likely Emperor Henry had been reading the parchment at the same time that Richard was making his kill.

Roger paused before the door to Richard’s chamber and took several deep, calming breaths. He had no doubt there was already rage enough within. He needed a clear head for this if they were to find a way through.

Richard was pacing the room with savage energy as if he had not spent the entire day at the hunt. Resembling a pecky bird, Longchamp followed in his wake, the sleeves of his robes fluttering like wings. Roger noticed a large splash of wine on the wall as if someone had thrown the contents of a cup at it.

“I have heard the news, sire,” Roger said as he bowed. “It is a disgrace and a dishonour.”

Richard pivoted to face him. There was no laughter in his expression now. Even masked by candlelight, his complexion wore the choler of fury. “The King of France is a perfidious liar, but I did not believe he would stoop this low!” he spat. “John, yes, because digging tunnels has ever been his way. I will not be bound; I will not suffer more of this captivity!”

“Nor will you, sire,” Longchamp said. “We will find a way round this.”

“How much have they pledged?” Roger asked.

“Two hundred thousand marks,” Longchamp replied with a sneer. “In instalments.”

“A pledge is only as good as its fulfilling.” Roger went to stand by the fire and held out his hands to the fierce red heat. “Where will the money come from? King Philip will have to levy his people and I suspect they will object to paying a tax to keep the King of England in prison. England is drained dry. John would be fortunate to extract the squeak from a butchered pig, let alone that kind of sum.”

Richard had stopped pacing, although the anger still emanated from him in waves as hot as the fire. “We know they cannot raise the money and the Emperor knows it too, so this is bluff on his part. He has no love for Philip of France either, so why should he make him an ally in this?”

“He knows he must soon let you go,” said Longchamp. “And when he does, he will lose his leverage. This is an effort to wring the final drops from us.”

“The notion of taking money from Philip of France pleases him, I think,” Roger said, “but he knows the silver from England is secure and almost within his grasp. He needs it for his war with Sicily; he won’t let it go.”

Richard threw himself down on the bench before the fire and plucked at his beard. “I cannot stay longer in this place. I need to be home by the spring when the campaigning season begins.”

“Indeed, sire, there are many traitors to be dealt with there,” Longchamp said darkly. “Not all whom you have trusted have kept faith. You should beware your marshal. His brother is deep in the Count of Mortain’s counsel and the Marshal himself has ever favoured your brother.”

Richard raised his brows at his chancellor. “I would need more evidence than hearsay before I called the Marshal traitor.”

Roger gave Longchamp a narrow look. The Bishop of Ely was the kind to bear his grudges like a honed dagger that he would stick in his perceived enemies the moment they turned their backs on him. “You missay the Marshal, my lord chancellor. He has had his differences of opinion with you, but so have all the justiciars—and myself for that matter. That does not make us disloyal to our sovereign lord. Nor is this the matter of the moment, surely? What we must decide is how to respond to this new development. All else can be dealt with at the proper time.”

“Norfolk’s right,” Richard said. “I have no reason to doubt my marshal.”

Longchamp inclined his head. “It is my duty to advise on matters as I see them, sire.”

“Well, apply yourself to visualising the matter of springing me from my cage,” Richard growled.

***

Roger bowed low as Queen Eleanor swept past him, but he knew that he and all the others making their obeisance to her went unnoticed for she only had eyes for Richard. She was incandescent for him.

“My son, my light, my son!” Eleanor touched his face with trembling hands and tears rolled down her cheeks. “I knew this moment would come. I never gave up hope—never!”

Richard’s eyes were wet too as he smiled and kissed her fingers. “My lady mother, I never doubted, nor do I doubt that I will soon be free to go as I please.”

The court had moved from Speyer to Mainz, there to greet the Queen and discuss the continuing matter of the ransom. Roger wondered if Eleanor knew about the attempts of her youngest son and Philip of France to hinder Richard’s release and decided she must. Eleanor had never been without her network of intelligence-gatherers even when held prisoner by her husband, and although she was beyond seventy years old, she had the vigour and determination of a woman half her years.

Roger watched her draw herself together. Even though she continued to show her joy at being reunited with Richard, she was now bearing herself as a queen and a diplomat. Her maternal concern was genuine, but it did not harm her cause that everyone saw it shining from her. There was still a hard battle to fight; coupled with a deal of delicate political fine-stepping if they were going to gain their freedom.

Emperor Henry was superficially affable and concerned, but there was a hard glint in his eye and he too was prepared for the coming fray. No one was in any doubt about his determination to gain what he could from the dice he had been thrown. Following a formal banquet, discussions commenced, and he showed Eleanor and Richard the letters he had received from John and Philip, the latter still with its seal dangling from the edge of the parchment in proof.