For the King's Favor (18 page)

Ida nodded. “Thank you, yes,” she said and knew she was blushing.

“I had food sent up…I didn’t know what else to do.”

“And I thank you. It was very welcome and thoughtful of you.” She resisted the urge to brush away the crumbs sprinkling the front of her cloak.

“You’d had a long journey,” Roese said with sympathy and a slight twinkle that made Ida warm to her. “I must return this little one to his bed. My lady, I bid you goodnight.”

Ida watched her go down the stairs, carrying the child with all the care of a precious burden. He looked over his mother’s shoulder at Ida and peeped her a shy smile that cut through all her defences. Feeling shaky and close to tears, she closed the door and returned to the fireside.

Roger drew her back into his lap and she curled there, absorbing the warmth of his body and the heat from the fire, and although she stopped shivering, there was still a place inside her that remained desolate and cold.

Winchester, Christmas 1181

Marriage suits you well,” Hodierna remarked to Ida with a gleam in her eyes as the women sat with their sewing and gossip in one of the domestic chambers in Winchester Castle. “There’s pink in your cheeks and I swear you are plumper already. Has that husband of yours been feeding you up?”

Ida smiled, thinking of buttered toast, and looked demurely at her needlework. She was embellishing one of Roger’s tunics with a design of running stags and intended giving it to him as a gift on the twelfth day of the festivities. The three weeks since her wedding had flown with the speed of a peregrine on the stoop. There had been estates other than Framlingham to visit, although they had not been able to range too far because of returning to Winchester, but Roger had taken her to visit Yarmouth and Ipswich. Watching the bustle on the dockside of the latter town, an icy wind blowing onshore from Flanders, listening to Roger discuss business with his quay master, Alexander, Ida realised that her husband was a greater man than his quiet demeanour at court and the state of Framlingham suggested. Even with substantial parts of his inheritance farmed out to Henry’s officers, he was a wealthy man.

“Well?” Hodierna prompted when Ida did not immediately reply. “Have you nothing to say?”

Ida took another stitch. “Perhaps I do not know where to begin,” she said. “But you are right, marriage does suit me well.”

“It certainly suits your husband,” Hodierna smiled. “I’ve never seen him so relaxed at court. When he looks at you, the source is plain. He is a very proud and satisfied man, I would say.”

Ida blushed, then laughed and told Hodierna about falling asleep on their first evening at Framlingham.

Hodierna’s shoulders shook with mirth. “It is your honey month, it’s to be expected,” she said and patted Ida’s knee affectionately. “You should make the most of each other while all is fresh and new.”

Ida grimaced. “If I could have my way, we would have stayed at Framlingham or Ipswich or Thetford all winter.” She gave a pensive little sigh. “There is so much we do not know about each other and I fear we will never have the time to learn.”

Hodierna patted Ida’s knee again, more seriously now. “You had the wherewithal to choose the man,” she said. “Now use that wherewithal to accomplish the rest.”

There was a sudden flurry at the chamber door and, to a fanfare, an usher cried the arrival of Queen Eleanor. Ida gasped at the announcement. Embarrassment and shame flooded through her and she would have fled the room, save there was no way out but past Eleanor herself. Although Ida had become Henry’s mistress long after Eleanor’s imprisonment, she still felt dreadfully uncomfortable. She had never thought to come face to face with the Queen. With the rest of the women, she rose to her feet and curtseyed. That Eleanor was here in Winchester rather than being kept under house arrest at Salisbury was a concession to the season, a sign that Henry’s rancour towards her was mellowing, and an indication that he needed her presence for political reasons.

Eleanor bade the women be seated and joined them at the fire. She had a separate chair with gold cushions and a footstool on which to rest her feet. At almost sixty years old, she still possessed the charisma that had made her name famous throughout Christendom, first as the young Queen of France who had ridden to Jerusalem with her husband, leaving a trail of allure and scandal, and then as the worldly wife of the nineteen-year-old Duke of Normandy, where, indeed, she had done the same. Ida kept her eyes downcast and tried to remain an anonymous lady by the fire, but soon found herself admiring the rich braid edging the Queen’s mantle and pondering the thread sequence needed to work out the pattern. However, she was not the only woman round the fire admiring the sight of fine textile work.

“My lord Bigod is going to be the most handsomely attired man at court,” the Queen said with a smile. “Is the design of your own making?”

Ida almost jumped out of her skin because it was obvious that Eleanor knew who she was. Then again, it was foolish to think she wouldn’t. Even under house arrest, so formidable a woman would not be ignorant of the happenings at court. “Yes, madam, it is,” Ida managed to say, wishing that she could melt into the wall and disappear.

“Such beautiful colours. Where do you get your silks?”

Ida mentioned the name of a trader in Winchester and the conversation began to flow more easily as other women joined in, wanting to know details, making recommendations of their own. Eleanor had her musicians entertain the women and, under cover of the strains of lute, citole, and pipe, lightly touched Ida’s arm. “I know my husband,” she said quietly. “I do not bear grudges against the innocent, Lady Bigod. Let that be understood.”

“Yes, madam,” Ida said and, although she remained uncomfortable, Eleanor’s kindness took the edge off her anxiety.

The lord John arrived to pay his respects to his mother, kneeling to kiss her hand and bowing his head. Eleanor greeted him warmly enough, but there was an underlying friction between them, as if they were two rough-edged stones lying side by side on a swift river bed. But then, Ida thought, they were strangers to each other. Eleanor had been imprisoned when John was a little boy and he had been raised at his father’s court under his father’s influence. The parallels with her own situation were painful and obvious. How much of a stranger was she going to become to William as the years rolled out? Would she be greeted like this one day by a youth on the edge of manhood, a youth whose experiences of the world had been filtered through Henry’s eyes and the life of the court? The missing years to come were a grief she could not begin to contemplate.

More women arrived to pay their respects; among them, Eleanor’s sister-in-law, Isabelle de Warenne, and her children. Her son was a spotty, dark-haired youth about the same age as John. His sister was just beginning to develop womanly curves. Her fair-brown hair fell to her waist in two neat, thick braids and she had a shy smile. John stared at her with predatory eyes and moistened his lips. Beyond the adolescents, a couple of younger children waited their turn to greet Eleanor, and behind them a nurse bore a wriggling toddler in her arms.

A pang seized Ida’s heart as she set eyes on her son. He was wearing a tunic she had made for him of warm winter wool and a little blue hood with an edge of coney fur. Seeing her among the women, he shouted, “Mama!” and struggled to be set down. The woman hesitated for a moment, then let him go, and he ran to Ida. She opened her arms and engulfed him, drawing him into her lap, feeling that terrible surge of love and loss roll over her again like a tidal wave. The anguish was so strong it was a physical pain.

He wanted to play a hand-clapping game with her, but once he had repeated it twice, he grew restless and was off like a buzzy little fly to play with his younger cousins who were dancing in a circle to Eleanor’s music and holding hands. Ida sniffed and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.

“Sons always leave you,” Eleanor said. Her voice was hard and although her gaze held compassion, there was severity too. “Husbands are no better. Look to them for moments of joy, but do not invest your happiness in them, for they will squander it.”

“Madam, I am sorry…”

“Do not be,” Eleanor replied sharply. “The more time you spend apologising for things that are not your fault, the more you will fade until you become a shadow. Your mother did not bear you to be a shadow, either of yourself, or of a man. Remember that, Ida. You stand in your own light.”

Her comments touched a raw part deep within Ida and made her want to cry even more—in recognition, and at the pain of the illumination. Nor was she certain that she wanted to look at what the light was showing her.

“My lord Bigod…” Eleanor said thoughtfully. “I do not know him well, but men speak highly of him, including those whom I trust to give me straight opinions. I remember him a little when he was much younger—no more than a pup. He was always quiet, a watcher I used to think, not a doer, but he has proven himself since then—if not always to my advantage,” she added wryly.

For a moment Ida wasn’t sure what the Queen meant, but then realised Roger had stood against her faction in the rebellion of eight years ago, and brought down her supporters at the battle of Fornham.

“Yes.” Eleanor tilted her head, considering. “You suit him, I think. You both have great courage and you will give it to your children.”

Ida blinked on the prickling heat behind her lids. Little William, dancing with his cousins, became a sparkling blur. “I do not feel brave, madam.”

“Those who feel brave are not always the most courageous,” Eleanor said. “It takes much to stand firm when one is daunted.” She was silent for a moment, then continued, “Your husband, I understand, is skilled in the finer points of the law, but I suppose he has had to be. I am told that the King restored him three manors and pardoned him a debt as a wedding gift.”

“That is so, madam.” Ida wondered where Eleanor was leading with this.

The Queen arched a thin eyebrow. “Three manors that were confiscated as part of the inheritance dispute between your husband and the former Countess of Norfolk and her sons. The lady Gundreda has been petitioning me.”

Ida made herself focus fully on Eleanor rather than William. This could be dangerous. “The lady Gundreda has no right to those manors,” she said. “If the King chooses to restore them to my husband as a gesture of goodwill, then that is right and good.”

“And my lord Bigod is hardly going to refuse them, is he?” Eleanor said with a dry smile.

“No, madam.” Ida raised her chin. “They are his inheritance and he has offered neither bribes nor spread rumours abroad in order to have them.”

Eleanor’s lips quirked. “Bribes and rumours,” she said. “I have been the recipient and the bestower of plenty of those in my lifetime, and look what it has done for me.” She gave Ida an assessing look. “Sometimes, more than bribes and rumours and even beyond family ties and the obligation of lord and vassal, a bond is a matter of personal preference. I have promoted men in my service because I have wanted to reward valour and loyalty. Sometimes I have rewarded their womenfolk for services too. That is something to think about.”

William dashed back to Ida to sit in her lap but she barely had a moment to put her arms around him before he was off again, brimful of energy. Eleanor had given her so much to think about that her mind was spinning, yet she felt invigorated too.

When Eleanor rose to leave, she gave Ida an exquisite ivory needle case and a dimpled gold thimble. “No doubt you have had your share of such gauds from my husband, but these carry nothing with them except my good wishes for your marriage,” Eleanor told her. “Think on what I have said whenever you are at your needlecraft.”

“Indeed, madam, I will!” Ida curtseyed to Eleanor, aware that the relationship between them had been utterly redefined in the space of an afternoon and while Eleanor had done that redefining, Ida had learned a great deal.

It was a wrench for her when William had to leave with his nurse as the court prepared to dine, but after a final cuddle, she pressed her lips together, maintained her composure, and watched him depart, even though her heart threatened to shatter all over again. For his sake, she had to let him go.

***

Roger had rented lodgings not far from the castle, in a complex of houses owned by the monks of Troarn Abbey. It was only a short walk from the castle, but gave him and Ida a little more privacy than sleeping there would have done and in their newly wedded state, being alone was something to look forward to and savour.

Henry had put Roger back in harness. He had witnessed a couple of charters and been consulted on several points of law. He had not had much time to speak to Ida alone, for they had had to socialise with others at the dinner gathering, and this was the first time since this morning they had been alone with each other.

Roger sat down on the bed and waited as Ida dismissed her women to their sleeping chamber beyond the partitioning curtain. He knew she had spent the afternoon with the Queen, but she had said nothing of the meeting. He thought she seemed a little quiet and preoccupied.

Her loose hair gleamed like polished oak. Watching her move towards him, her fine chemise showing her body through the linen, a warmth of love and desire infused Roger’s body. Over the past three weeks, it had become a familiar and welcome sensation—like feeling full after the first good meal following Lent. He wanted to take her to bed and love her until they were both flushed and breathless. Indeed, he was not sure how he had lived without such joy in his life before. Having returned to court, his wanting was tinged with jealousy too. With Henry in proximity, Roger was keen to keep Ida to himself and reaffirm his possession every time the opportunity arose.

She came to him willingly when he held out his hand and her response was as eager as his own, perhaps more so, and in a matter of minutes, she was clutching him and gasping his name in the throes of climax. Roger kissed her soft white throat and felt her pulse thundering against his lips, and he sensed that for both of them the intensity of the release was more than just a thing born of physical attraction, but came from the tensions pent up during the course of the day.

Rolling over, he drew her with him so that she lay over him, her dark hair webbing his chest, her body intimately pressed the length of his. “Ida,” he said with a tender smile, using her name now in the aftermath as she had used his in the throes.

She lowered her lashes in that lovely shy way she had and then slanted him a melting doe-brown gaze that almost undid him all over again. Then, with a sudden, subtle change of mood, she sat up, straddling him, the move one of comfortable intimacy rather than an invitation to further sexual congress. Roger ran his hands through her hair for the pleasure of feeling its cool silkiness. Henry must have done this too, but he wouldn’t think on it. She was his now.

“There is something I want to talk to you about,” she said, and now her mouth was serious.