'You keep some interesting friends,' Matilda said with a gleam of amused curiosity. 'Does he really have such a bad reputation with women?'
'Only with women who have a bad reputation themselves,' Simon answered - 'but he is known to play outrageously close to the knuckle with the chaste wives and daughters of barons who attend the court. Fingers may not have been burned, but there have been some narrow escapes.'
'Is he betrothed or married?'
'Not as yet,' Simon said blandly.
Matilda nodded and said nothing, but she missed neither her sister's furious blush, nor the tone of her husband's reply. Everyone cast webs she thought, only some did it with more subtlety than others.
Matilda was accustomed to comfort and luxury. Even if her mother had leanings towards a religious life, she had also believed in maintaining the dignity of her status and the hall at
Northampton had been as well appointed as any in the land. However, nothing had prepared her for Westminster's great hall. Charcoal burned in decorative wrought-iron braziers, giving off waves of glowing red heat. The walls bore the smell of new limewash, and it gleamed, as yet unblackened by successive layers of smoke. Embroidered woollen hangings ran in horizontal bands along the walls, and colourful shields and banners decorated the higher reaches. Lower down, obscuring some of the hangings, great swags of evergreen had been hung to enhance the festive season and resinous forest scents added to the melange assaulting Matilda's nose. The floor was thickly strewn with dried reeds and scattered with herbs that gave off a pleasant aroma as they were trampled underfoot. The gardener in Matilda identified lavender, bergamot and rue.
There were one or two women in the hall, but they were vastly outnumbered and, to Matilda's astonishment, out-dressed by the men. She had to prevent herself from staring as a plump baron traipsed past. His tunic of salmon-pink wool with yellow silk sleeve linings was wearing him rather than the other way around. His ankle boots were of goatskin dyed green with silk lacing and he was wearing green and yellow striped hose. Luxurious dark-brown hair tumbled to his shoulders and caught glints of red in the candlelight.
'Close your mouth, sweeting, it is not seemly to gape,' Simon murmured in her ear.
'You must have thought us very dull when you came to Northampton,' she said as another man passed, every finger adorned with gem-set rings and his tunic sparkling with hundreds of seed pearls and little gold beads.
'The old king's court was somewhat more staid, I agree, but this is the Christmas feast and an opportunity for all to dress in their most exaggerated finery.'
Matilda's own finery consisted of a gown of dark green wool embellished with a necklace of irregular polished amber beads that had once belonged to her paternal great grandmother. Jude wore wine-red with a cross of gold. Dowdy by no means, but they resembled two nuns in comparison with the garish butterflies surrounding them. Even the bishops and archdeacons were part of the display, their silk copes stiff and glittering with thread of gold.
'Your father would have enjoyed this,' Simon remarked. 'He would have outshone them all… and I mean that in a praiseworthy sense.' He squeezed Matilda's hand. 'Although, truth to say, his daughter is a more than worthy representative.'
She laughed. 'You do not need to play the courtier with me. Male birds always have the brighter plumage, do they not?'
Simon grinned at her retort and tweaked one of her wrist -thick braids.
'But I think you are right about my father,' she added softly. 'I remember he wore gold bracelets at his wrists. I can see them now…' For a moment she was a tiny child, watching her father push aside the well housing. She had a clear image of his hands, the long fingers, the red hair growing strongly on their backs, the cunningly worked bracelets and the way they slid together and clinked musically on the bones of his wrist. 'My mother hated them, but I thought they were beautiful.'
'He wore them at his marriage,' Simon said. 'He had cropped his hair and shaved his beard for your mother. He was going to remove his bracelets too, but I said he should keep them.' He smiled wryly. 'I was thirteen-years-old, what did I know?'
'Him,' she said with lucent eyes. 'You knew him.'
'Perhaps.' Simon shrugged and bit his tongue on the comment that Waltheof had probably had more in common with a thirteen-year-old boy than the woman he had been about to wed.
An usher arrived to lead them to a long dais at the end of the hall where the new king was seated with a gathering of courtiers. The sight of William Rufus at close quarters almost caused Matilda to stop walking but a quick prod from Simon restored her pace. She lowered her eyes, swallowed the urge to giggle, and, once they reached the foot of the dais, sank in a deep curtsey.
Above her, she heard the creak of the high-backed seat as Rufus rose. She was engulfed in a powerful embrace, set on her feet, and brought eye to eye with the King, who was built like a barrel and not overly endowed with height.
'Cousin Matilda, welcome to Westminster.' Rufus' voice was as loud and harsh as the call of a crow and hurt her ears. His hair was pale sandy-blond, with a centre parting exposing a broad forehead and framing the ruddy, wind-burned complexion that had given him his nickname. He wore a tunic of clashing bright red splashed with green embroidery that reminded Matilda of a whoremonger whom her mother had once had whipped from the parish.
'I am pleased to be here, your grace,' she replied.
'God's Holy Face, but you resemble your sire - does she not, Simon?'
'Indeed, your grace,' Simon answered gravely. 'She has his courage and his joy in life.'
'But let us hope not his judgement, eh?' Rufus laughed, and his barrel belly shook.
Matilda went crimson.
'She resembles her mother too,' Rufus continued tactlessly. 'She too could give you a look that would shrivel your cods in your braies. Although I warrant she does not shrivel yours, eh Simon?'
'Not in the least, sire,' Simon's tone was level, revealing neither amusement nor anger. The courtier's mask, Matilda thought. Was this how he survived at gatherings like this?
'Aye, well she's got the hips on her to breed you some fine sons.' So dismissing Matilda, Rufus turned his attention to Jude. 'Now this one looks more like her mother, although I hope she doesn't have the temper to match.' He chucked Jude beneath the chin. 'A pretty little doe, aren't you?'
Jude blushed and looked down. Rufus let her go and turned to Simon. 'What did you do with my sweet cousin, their mother?' His tone suggested that he considered Judith anything but sweet.
Simon cleared his throat. 'The lady expressed a preference to retire to her devotions with the nuns at Elstow, sire.'
'Hah, I should think you were overjoyed. I doubt she has mellowed with the years.'
'Her leaving was to our mutual agreement,' Simon said with quiet dignity.
Rufus snorted. 'I used to wonder what my father saw in you - until that time you came to my aid when everyone else stood back. Not all that glitters is gold, is it?'
Smiling ruefully. Simon plucked at his plain reddish brown tunic. 'I most certainly do not glitter, sire.'
Rufus gave Simon a punishing blow on the shoulder. 'When you do, I will have cause to worry.' An imperative gesture furnished Simon and the two women with a place at the side of the main trestle. Goblets were set before them and expensive golden wine poured to the brim.
Matilda strove to keep her revulsion from showing on her face but the effort made her tremble. She felt as if she had been pawed over and besmirched.
Simon lightly laid his hand over hers. 'Let it slide from you like water off a duck's back,' he cautioned, murmuring in her ear so that it looked to a casual observer as if he were speaking love words. 'It is the only way.'
Matilda had an opinion on that, but a sense of self-preservation held her from voicing it. She took a long drink and prepared to endure. It was something she was good at, even if her training had been at the hands of the cloister rather than at the groin of the court.
Rufus demanded to know how the building work was progressing at Northampton and Simon gave him the relevant details. Observing the King from beneath her lashes, Matilda saw that he could not be still for a moment, that he had to twitch and gesture and interject comment. He belched and farted as if he lived on a diet of onions and cabbages, and he laughed aloud at some of the riper sounds and stenches.
How, she wondered, could her mother and this man have sprung from the loins of the same grandparents? And how could Simon bring himself to serve such a sovereign? And yet, as she watched and listened, her hands folded in her lap, she began to see glimmers of a different personality beneath the crude and garish facade. William Rufus was acting the fool, but acting was not the same as being one.
Later, when the King had retired to an inner chamber with two handsome young attendants, Simon led Matilda and Jude among the other barons to make introductions. Matilda quickly learned that the swirl and current of court politics was as deadly as a river in spate. There were men whom Simon called friend with open smiles and relaxed manner, others he treated with wary courtesy, and some where, beneath her hand, the muscles of his arm grew as hard as iron and she could almost see the hair rise on his nape.
Roger de Montgomery, Lord of Shrewsbury, and his sons were one such group. Matilda curtseyed to them as Simon bowed. As she straightened, her gaze was trapped by the most handsome of the four men. He had hair as black as midnight water, eyes of pale, crystal grey and features that were so chiselled and clean that a stone mason would have wept. His dark colouring and strange eyes were set off by a magnificent court tunic of dark blue silk lined with the deep purple-red hue that only the richest in the land could afford. His name, she learned, was Robert de Bêlleme, and from the way Simon was standing she understood that her husband disliked him intensely.
'We heard that you had wed at the behest of England's new king,' declared Montgomery. His tone indicated that congratulations were not in order. 'And that you are to be invested with the title of Earl of Northampton.'
'You know better than I how the mill wheels of court gossip grind the corn of destiny,' Simon replied and made to move on.
Montgomery caught his sleeve. 'If I listen closely to what is said, it is because I am a prudent man. It may be that your title is not worth the air of its speaking. William Rufus has been anointed king, but some say that it is not his right to inherit the crown.'
Simon raised one eyebrow. 'Someone once said that it was not his father's right to take England's crown, but I see few of them at court today. Still,' he shrugged and smiled, 'it is a fact of life that gossip-peddlers - like whoremongers - will always be amongst us.' He drew his arm from beneath Montgomery's clasp and moved, ushering Matilda and Jude before him.
'So will halfwits and cripples,' said Robert de Bêlleme in a voice that was as precise and balanced as his features. 'But I know which have the more value to me.'
For a moment Matilda thought that Simon was going to turn round and lash out at his tormentors, but with formidable control he continued to walk away. His complexion, however, was ashen, and his eyes red-gold with fury. Matilda's own anger, slow to kindle, burned hot at the core for the insult that had been cast at Simon like a spear.
'How dare they,' she said through clenched teeth.
Simon strode blindly. Near the door he paused in a draught of icy air and drew several slow, deep breaths.
'Trouble?' enquired Ranulf de Tosny, detaching himself from another group of courtiers and joining them.
Simon shook his head. 'Only my own,' he said. 'Take care of Matilda and Jude will you.' Without waiting for a reply he went outside, his stride swift and uneven with the anger that still gripped him.
'It seems that he does trust a wolf with his sheep after all,' De Tosny said, but in a preoccupied way, his eyes on Simon. He turned to the women. 'What happened?'
Matilda told him and De Tosny glanced towards the Montgomerys, distaste apparent in every line of his face.
'Their blood is tainted,' he said. 'Not a good one among them.'
'They seem to be in like company,' Matilda said angrily. 'I used to wonder why my mother shunned the court, but now I see that she had good reason.'
De Tosny grimaced. 'It was not always as dangerous as this. You have come at a time of change and turmoil. There is a new king on the throne, but some here believe that his older brother has the better right to sit there.'
'Meaning the Montgomerys?'
De Tosny's gaze slipped from hers. 'Among others,' he said warily. 'Robert of Normandy would not hold the reins of governance as tightly as Rufus, and certain lords would be able to take their chances.'
From his behaviour, Matilda judged that he did not want to name the 'certain lords' and was anxious not to be pressed. It was of no consequence. She would ask Simon. The thought of her husband drew her eyes to the night sky framed in the doorway.
'He needs a moment's stillness to regain himself,' De Tosny murmured as he saw her look. 'He will return soon enough.' A wry smile lit in the depths of his eyes. 'Even if he has left you and your sister with me, he is still a diligent shepherd.'
His words were intended to soothe and reassure, but Matilda's nurturing instincts remained perturbed. Murmuring her excuses, she went in search of her husband.
Outside the air was freezing and the frost had grown a coat of silver-white fur. Matilda shivered and folded her hands together inside her mantle. It was double-lined wool, but still it did not entirely protect her from the bite of the winter evening.
She found Simon not alone, as she had expected, but deep in conversation with the hugest man she had ever seen. He must have stood around two yards tall and his girth was such that it almost blotted out the horizon. His face was so fat that it resembled an inflated bladder of lard. Beside him Simon looked like a scrawny waif from the gutters.