For the King's Favor (36 page)

“You are always industrious, my dear,” Juliana said with a smile. “I seldom see you without some piece of stitchery in your hands, and if I do, it is because you are making cheese, or directing the spinsters, or overseeing the apple-pressing.”

Ida gave a rueful shrug. “There is always work to be done.”

“There are always servants too,” Juliana replied. “You do not have to do everything yourself.”

Ida avoided Juliana’s gaze. “I enjoy being busy.”

“Do you?” Juliana raised one thin tawny eyebrow. “That is most laudable, but there is a difference between being busy doing what a woman of your standing must do, and being rushed off your feet.”

Ida said nothing and hoped Juliana would let the matter drop. She was fond of her mother-in-law, but acknowledged she could be autocratic and forthright when the mood was upon her.

A maid moved unobtrusively in the background, replacing candles, bringing the light closer at Juliana’s instruction. The older woman left her place by the fire and went to look at the baby in his cradle.

“I remember his father swaddled up like that,” she mused with a half-smile. “I was a young wife then—a reluctant one. I was told it was my duty to serve the interests of my family and marry Hugh of Norfolk and I had no choice. I remember being astonished that his brutish demands could have resulted in my son.” She leaned over the cradle. “You have seen that I am not the kind to fuss over infants, but I loved Roger from the moment of his birth and I was desperate to protect him. I knew there were two sides to what he had it in him to become. All the time he was growing from infancy to childhood I did what I could—tried to instil honour in him and duty and a sense of fairness and courtesy to all, because I knew all he would receive from his father was ruthless self-interest and the desire to scramble over everyone else to be top of the dung heap and let decency go hang. I was determined that my son was not going to turn into his father.”

Ida ceased sewing and looked at Juliana. Her mother-in-law’s usually smooth face wore an intense expression that made the hair rise on Ida’s nape. She didn’t want Juliana to say anything else, but didn’t know how to stop her.

Juliana adjusted the sleeping baby’s coverlet with a gentle touch and returned to her seat. The red light from the fire, the yellow glow of candle flame made the jewels on her gown sparkle as if wet. Juliana rubbed her hands together. “Roger wasn’t my only one, you know,” she said. “I bore a daughter, stillborn, eleven months to the day from Roger’s birth, and seven months after that I miscarried another boy after my husband beat me for looking at him in a certain way.”

Ida stared at Juliana, appalled.

“At least I had recourse to kin,” Juliana added. “I complained to my brother and he had words with Hugh—threatened to turn the violence back upon him if he ever touched me again. It was an insult to the family honour, you see—the sister of the Earl of Oxford beaten black and blue by her husband. I was sent to the priest for a lecture on the virtues of being a good wife and made to do penance. Hugh didn’t want to quarrel with my brother so he left me alone after that—except to procreate, but I didn’t conceive again, and he couldn’t make me fear him. All I felt for him was contempt. In the end he had the marriage annulled and threw me out.” She gave Ida a sad, knowing look. “My dear, I lost my own firstborn son too—but at seven years old, and I did not see him again until he was a man.”

Ida made a sound to keep her throat open. She was strangling on grief.

“Roger hides it well, but he is like me. Much goes unsaid and lies deep, but it is not dead. It is buried alive. Ida, I have seen that you make my son happy, and that is beyond price.”

Ida couldn’t see her sewing for tears. She wiped them away on her sleeve, but fresh ones immediately took their place. “No I don’t,” she choked. “What you have seen is in the past.”

“It is only in the past if you make it so,” Juliana said gently.

Ida sniffed. “Yes, but also if he makes it so, madam.”

Juliana gave a thoughtful nod, her judicious manner showing whence Roger had obtained his ability to detach. “Both my marriages were made for duty and I had no say in their arrangement. Walkelin and I rubbed along tolerably at best, but it was not what I would have wished for myself. I paid a fine to the King not to be married again and gladly so. You had a say in your choice—and so did my son. It would be a pity to see such sweetness turn sour. You have so much, my dear, more than I had. You mustn’t let it slip through your fingers.”

Ida couldn’t contain her grief and began to sob. Juliana was not the kind to whom displays of affection came naturally, but she rose and sat beside Ida and set her arm around her shoulders. “Weep all you want,” she said. “The world would be parched without rain and this storm needed to come. Let it go.” She signalled to the woman who had been trimming the candles and told her to have the other maids turn down the bed and to bring hot milk sweetened with honey.

Ida shook her head. “You must think me weak and foolish,” she said in a cracked voice.

Juliana gave a faint smile. “Weak no, foolish yes. You and my son have positions to maintain. It would be easier if you were both pulling in the same direction instead of one going north and one going south, but that is for daylight to decide. Leave your sewing. It will wait another day.” Gently, Juliana tugged at the fabric in Ida’s hands until she relinquished it, secured the needle, and, helping her to her feet, drew Ida into the bedchamber.

Ida found it a relief to be told what to do. Usually she was the one making the decisions, ensuring the bed was aired, the drinks fetched, the candles lit, and usually she enjoyed that nurturing side of her duties, but she sorely needed the respite. As she slipped between the lavender-scented sheets, her eyes were almost closing, although she managed to drink the hot milk and honey that one of Juliana’s women brought to her. Juliana herself tucked Ida’s shoes at the bedside and unfastened the hangings to draw them across.

“Sleep well, daughter,” she said.

Ida almost gave way to a fresh burst of weeping when she heard Juliana say that word because it carried a parcel of love and acceptance. Allied to what Juliana had said about her stillborn baby girl, it was an immensely powerful statement, even if Juliana had now re-established the distance and did not lean to kiss her.

Feeling hot-eyed and exhausted, but immeasurably more at peace than she had done before, Ida slept.

***

It was late in the night when Ida stirred and turned over, making a small sound that mingled pleasure with a hint of anxiety. She was aware enough to know she was having an erotic dream and that such manifestations were sinful and dangerous. Soft lips brushed her shoulder, whispered over her collar bone, and nuzzled her throat. A weight other than her own bowed the mattress and strong arms gathered her in and drew her against a hard, warm, masculine body. Ida lifted one arm to explore and touched skin, hair, the soft burr of stubble. She breathed in a familiar scent and felt its effect unwind through her body, loosening her limbs, making them gelatinous. She opened her eyes. The room was in darkness, but she knew she was awake, and the presence was still there, powerful and undeniably male.

“Roger?”

“Ssshhh.” One arm supported her, the other swept down over her body. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, the corners of her mouth, and then her mouth itself, with subtlety and pressure. She moaned and arched against him, ready and desperate almost on the instant. He entered her in one thrust and she wrapped her legs around him and arched her spine, wanting to take more of him into herself. His rhythm was slow and measured, and although he was as hard as bone, he moved gently, like a low summer tide. She could feel the effort of his holding back shuddering through him and thought about saying he didn’t have to, but a part of her wanted it to go on for ever, this slow, tender surge and subside. She gave back to him, barely moving herself, but still the tension built and her body locked and strained, and suddenly, like a strand caught in the curl of the tide as it rolled to shore, she was tumbling over and over until deposited above the main strength of the swell, lapped by the smaller waves following behind. Above her, Roger breathed her name, and she felt him pulse within her again and again until he was spent, and then let himself down, gasping like a half-drowned man cast on to the shore.

Ida stroked his hair and the side of his face, welcoming his weight for the moment before he lifted off and withdrew from her. His breathing calmed and he softly kissed her shoulder. The pitch darkness enclosed them within the bed curtains like a cavern.

“We arrived very late,” he murmured. “It’s a long time since I’ve ridden by moonlight. My mother said you were sleeping and not to disturb you, but I’m afraid I didn’t heed her advice.”

“I am glad you did not,” Ida said shyly, “although I have been very thankful for her other wisdom. What are you doing here?”

“Fetching you and the children for the journey to Winchester.”

“I thought you would still be with the King.”

He was silent for several heartbeats and the atmosphere changed. “I sought leave from the court to come and escort you,” he said, and she heard a flat note in his voice. Concerned, she groped for the tinder and flint on the bedside coffer, found the lantern, and struck a light. She needed to read his expression because something was badly wrong.

As the lantern bloomed the chamber with grainy light, she looked at him. There was a chaff mark at his throat that she guessed came from his mail and a bruise on his arm, but otherwise his skin was unblemished. His eyes, however, held shadows beyond natural tiredness. “Was that the only reason you sought leave?” She found another candle to light and thought about what Juliana had said about not letting things slip through her fingers.

He gave her a wary look. “It was the main one,” he said cautiously. Then he sighed and shook his head, “I left the court because I needed a respite from my fellows, if only for a few days. There are men with whom I have to associate, but would rather not.”

Ida fetched the wine jug from the coffer. There was food under a cloth—bread and cheese—and she brought that too. “What’s happened?”

He grimaced. “We took Nottingham—you received my letter?”

She nodded. It had been to the point, written in haste before he set out on the road to the King’s hunting lodge at Clipstone. On receiving it, she had felt irritated that there was time to chase deer when there was no time to spend at Framlingham.

“It was a hard fight, but a short one.” He flapped back the bed covers, inviting her to rejoin him. “When they realised it was indeed the King besieging them, they saw sense and surrendered. From there, we moved to the hunting lodge at Clipstone, and then to Northampton for a council.”

He fell silent again and she sensed he was settling calm upon himself because it was not his way to stamp and rage.

“The King is short of funds, as you would expect,” he said. “He stripped England to pay for his crusade, and any rags of meat remaining on the bones went to secure his ransom—on which the balance is still owing. Until it’s paid, the Archbishop of Rouen can’t come home. There’s also the matter of dealing with the rebels in France and Normandy.” His jaw tightened with anger. “Richard has removed sheriffs from office and constables from castles. If men want their offices, they will have to buy them back.”

Ida frowned. “But you are not a sheriff and I did not think you were bothered about Hereford.”

“I’m not, and Hereford is back in Longchamp’s custody anyway. It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Richard has put Longchamp in charge of raising the money, and he’s a leech. He says that there are estates of my earldom that are in doubt and I must pay a fine if I want to keep them.” He curled his upper lip. “A thousand marks, if you please.”

Ida gasped. “That’s outrageous!”

“I agree, but the alternative is to lose the lands.”

“But surely, with what Richard owes you…what you have done for him…”

“He sees what I have done for him as no more than his due. It is the duty of a vassal to support his lord.”

“And of a lord to support his vassal!”

Roger drank. “Indeed, and he would say he has done so and been fair and generous to restore my earldom, give me the third penny of the shire and permission to rebuild Framlingham. I am not alone. Others have had similar demands made on them.”

“So what lands are in dispute for such a sum?”

“Five manors. Dunningworth, Staverton, Hollesley, Framingham, and Claxthorpe. I had to pay a hundred marks there and then, and the rest is due in increments at the exchequer.”

“And when that is done he will charge you another thousand, and another?”

Roger said nothing and she knew it was because such a state was an appalling possibility.

“What if you do not pay?”

“I suffer more forfeiture. While my stepbrother continues to dispute with me, Richard—or Longchamp—can make these demands and I must either pay or lose the lands to Huon. Ranulf de Glanville may have died on crusade, but his brother remains at court and their nephew is the Archbishop of Canterbury. Hugh and Gundreda still have influence among those who make policy and Richard will take whatever revenue comes his way and make few bones about its source.” He looked at her. “There is more.”

Ida wondered if it would not have been better for Richard to have stayed a hostage and let John take the crown. “What more can there be?”

He reached for her hands. “I am to sit on the Westminster Bench for the autumn term, so we’ll be remaining at Friday Street.”

Ida frowned because that seemed like a good thing. It meant they would be together; the house was not much smaller than the hall at Framlingham.

“But after that, the King will want me to go on another Eyre and enquire into the state of widows and orphans in wardship, among other things, because it’s another source of revenue. I’ve to complete four counties by the end of the year, and there will be another nine next year.”

Ida swallowed. Enough time then to beget another child, she thought, and then leave. She tried to pull her hand out of his, but he gripped it tightly. “I thought you could come with me,” he said. “We have manors in several of the counties. I cannot promise to be with you every day or even every week, but it will mean the absences will not be as long. I know it is not what you want, but it is a compromise.”