Lady of the English (34 page)

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Hearing Will’s voice on the stairs, Adeliza swiftly folded the parchment and stuffed it into her writing coffer. She needed time to consider what to say.

Will was breathing strongly from his climb, but not out of breath. He went to his son, kissed him, and chucked his chin, making him crow, then turned to Adeliza and took her in his arms. “The men are ready,” he said. “Will you come down and bid us farewell?” Then, with a frown, he stepped back and touched her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She forced a smile.

“Look, we’ll be back in a few days and you are well protected here. There is no need for concern.”

Adeliza felt terrible, knowing he had misconstrued her guilt as worry. “I know I am safe. Have a care to yourself, my husband.” She gave the whiskery side of his face an affectionate pat and kissed him.

When she had seen the men on their way like a good and dutiful wife, she returned to her chamber, took out Matilda’s letter, and pored over it for a long, long time. And then she put it in the fire and watched it burn until she was certain that it had all turned to ash.

ttt

It was teeming with rain when Will returned from court four days later. “It has been like riding through pottage these last few miles,” he told Adeliza as he shook himself like a wet dog.

“A good thing we didn’t take a baggage cart or it would have bogged down.”

She chivvied the servants and hastened him out of his wet garments and into dry replacements. Sitting him down before the fire, she brought a towel to rub his hair.

Will leaned back and closed his eyes. “You will never guess what the bishop of Winchester has been hiding up his sleeve,”

he said.

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“I do not suppose I will,” she replied. “Henry of Blois is a man of great cunning and knows how to hide things he does not wish people to see.”

“Indeed,” Will said grimly. “You know how angry he was about being passed over for the see of Canterbury in favour of the Beaumonts’ candidate?”

“Yes.” She finished drying his hair and fetched a comb to tidy his curls.

“We all sat down to discussion and suddenly he produced a papal bull he’d been sitting on since April, if you please, to say that Innocent has granted him the position of legate, which effectively puts him over and above Theobald of Bec.”

Adeliza lowered the comb, her gaze wide and astonished.

“Since April?”

He nodded. “For four months the king’s own brother has been biding his time, and now flourishes this thing like a tumbler producing fire in his hands. There is no one above the king but God, and who is God’s representative on earth but the pope, and directly beneath him are the cardinals and the legates. If Stephen is a secular king, then his brother has set out to match him, and not in a harmonious way. Winchester says Stephen must make reparations for arresting the bishops and that he had no right to do what he did to Salisbury, Lincoln, and Ely.”

Adeliza left his side to bring him a cup of hot wine and a platter of wafers and pastries. “What does Stephen say?”

Will shrugged. “Stephen says maybe so, but that the castles held by Salisbury and the wealth within them is a matter for the Crown, not the Cross.”

She made her voice casual. “Is it a serious rift then?”

“Difficult to say. If Henry of Winchester can keep his appointment as papal legate secret for four months, then what else does he have up his sleeve? His nose has been put out of 267

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joint by the Beaumont brothers. They are becoming a danger to Stephen because their power games are dividing the court.”

“Are they a danger to you?” she asked with concern.

Will took a pastry and bit into it. Honey oozed out and he licked the golden stickiness off his fingers and took the napkin Adeliza handed to him. “They have no interest in me because I keep my distance and I have no desire to seek power by whispering in the king’s ear. The Beaumonts have their eyes upon others who are far greater rivals than I will ever be—men who support the archbishop, and men who would follow Robert of Gloucester if he were in the country. The Beaumonts think I do not have the wit to cause upheaval. That you are my wife amuses them—as if a pet dog has stolen a juicy marrow bone off a butcher’s stall. I am nothing to them. All that matters is that I am loyal and steady and wag my tail like a good hound.” He looked at her. “If the Beaumonts ignore me, it is because I make sure I am no threat to them. But others are in deep danger and that is a pity, because they are strong men whom Stephen should retain in his service rather than cause by his inaction to take their swords elsewhere. FitzCount at Wallingford has as good as declared for the empress and now it looks as if John the marshal will turn rebel too. The Beaumonts begrudge him Marlborough and Ludgershall, and think that Stephen values him too highly.

If they push him further he will rebel and cause great damage.

They are doing the same to Miles FitzWalter, because, again, he is a threat to their power. In the end, they will ruin all.”

Adeliza allowed the food and drink to mellow his humour; he was never out of sorts for long. Then she sat on his knee and played with his hair and stroked his face. “After what you have said, I hardly dare speak, but I have something we must talk about.”

“Surely it cannot be anything that bad,” he replied, his tone indulgently amused as he settled her more comfortably in his lap.

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Adeliza drew a deep breath. “Matilda has written to congrat-ulate us on the birth of our son. She wants to visit us and asks us to welcome her to Arundel.”

His body had been loose and relaxed, but now she felt him tense. “Have you given her an answer?”

She wrapped a curl of his hair around her index finger. “It would not be fitting without consulting you first.”

“I doubt she wants to pay us a visit for the sake of love alone,” he growled. “All the south coast ports are on alert against assault from Normandy.”

“But she is hardly going to arrive wearing a hauberk.”

He snorted down his nose. “You think not?”

She curved her arm around his neck. “She has never been able to mourn at her father’s tomb. She should be granted permission to visit Reading at least. That is only Christian and decent.”

“But it is not the reason she wants to come to England, and you know it. Do not play me for a fool.”

“I would never play you for a fool!” she said vehemently.

“What harm can she do if she comes to Arundel? You are Stephen’s man and not about to change that stance. What better surety could there be?”

He shook his head. “It would be dangerous and foolish to agree to her request. The best surety is keeping her the other side of the Narrow Sea.”

“But she will be under our eye and Stephen can watch her movements.” She gave him a pleading look. “Now I am settled with a husband and a baby son, I want her to see that life can still be good. I have a duty to her, one I took on when I wed Henry, and it does not end because he is dead. I do not expect you to understand, but it is about the ties of women. Matilda is like a jewel in my crown—part of what made and still makes me a queen. Would you deny me that?”

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“You would have me risk all for the ‘friendship of women’?”

he asked on a rising note. “Are you mad? What do you think Stephen will say when he is doing his best to keep her and Robert of Gloucester out of the country?”

She raised her chin. “What do you think my first husband, Henry the King, would say if he knew I had refused to admit his daughter to the castle he gave me when I became his queen and Matilda’s stepmother? That bond is sacred.” She moderated her voice. “I am not fomenting war or rebellion, but I want to see Matilda and talk to her, and perhaps talk sense into her.

We can act as mediators. Stephen trusts you, and Matilda is my daughter and my friend.” She curved her body round his so that she could press a kiss to the frown between his eyebrows, and then another on his set lips.

“I do not know what to say.” Will’s tone was bleak. He had either to believe that Adeliza was being naive and ruled by her womb, or that she was playing the game of politics with an agenda of her own, and neither option was palatable. He could refuse her, but there was some truth in what she said. There had been many time over the past few years when he thought Henry must be turning in his grave and this was one of them.

What Henry would have made of him marrying Adeliza in the first place, he preferred not to contemplate.

“She will find a way to come to England whether we refuse her or not,” Adeliza pointed out. “I ask this as a boon of your love for me…I have asked little enough until now.”

“It is more than a boon,” he muttered. “I do want to please you, and I love you dearly, but I must consider the consequences. Do you think Stephen will stand by and not act if I do agree?”

“But I am within my lawful rights to welcome her.”

Abruptly, he put her from his knee and stood up. “I need to think about this, because I have to keep everyone safe.”

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He dug his hands through his hair, rumpling the curls she had just untangled. “If I do agree, then the moment she arrives at Arundel, I will send to the king and tell him she is here, because it is my own duty and obligation to do so. I will have no subterfuge and no secrets.”

“No, my lord.” Adeliza swept him a deep curtsey and bowed her head. She knew she had won, but it left a sour taste in her mouth. She was playing a role, to influence a man who was no actor and she felt as if she were cheating him. She knew that when Matilda came, there would be repercussions. But what else could she do? Will owed his fealty to Stephen, and she owed her wifely duty to Will, but beyond those oaths, older loyalties and vows had their claim, sworn on the finials of a royal crown, and they were the greater.

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Thirty-one

Domfront, Normandy, September 1139

M atilda drew a deep breath as she rose from her knees before the devotional in her chamber and blew out the candles in their enamelled stands. Then she instructed her servants to set about dismantling and packing the items she needed for her imminent journey. Within the hour she was setting out for England to make a play for the crown that was hers by right.

Going to the table near the bare bed frame, she picked up the letters she had earlier been reading and tucked them away in a satchel to peruse again later. There was one from the constable at Bristol, assuring her that all was in readiness for when she and Robert chose to arrive. Another was from Adeliza at Arundel, with the all-important confirmation that she was welcome as kin should she choose to visit. And then there was Brian’s letter, assuring her of his support at Wallingford—to the death if necessary. His words were like a strong steel rod down her backbone, stiffening her resolve. Others were waiting to rally to her cause, promising their commitment when she had landed safely in England. Miles FitzWalter, constable of Gloucester, Humphrey de Bohun, John FitzGilbert. With good fortune, the south-west and the Marches would soon be hers. Then too, there was the bishop of Winchester, her cousin Henry.

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Too wily to commit anything to parchment, he had sent a messenger with a few cryptic words that might mean anything or nothing. He spoke of conciliation and the role of the Church as mediator. Matilda was wary. A man who went behind his own brother’s back was not to be trusted.

“You can’t go there, you’re trapped!” piped a child’s voice.

Matilda turned and fixed her gaze on her eldest son. He was sitting in the window seat, playing a board game of fox and geese with his half-brother Hamelin and he was concentrating on defeating his opponent. She felt a surge of fierce maternal pride as she watched him. He was fully focused but not in an exclusive way. He was observing all the activity around him, even while engaged with the game. It was a formidable trait in a child just six years old, and what it would be like when nurtured to manhood gave her cause for optimism. He was tenacious too, because Hamelin was a bright boy, older, and determined not to give ground. She had to swallow as her throat tightened. She might never see him again after this morning because who knew what was going to happen if and when she reached England. She had put everything possible in place to support him and her other sons in her absence.

The best women to care for them; the best pages and squires as companions. Excellent priests and scholars to nurture their education and teach them to walk a true path with God.

She could do no more, and still she was anxious. She was going to miss them so much, especially Henry. She had even considered staying in Normandy and seeing it conquered first, but knew she had to make her challenge in England before it was too late

Geoffrey entered the chamber and looked round, hands on hips. He had ridden to Domfront to see her on her way and to take charge of their sons, something Matilda did not want to think about. She could not deny that Geoffrey was a good 273

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father, but she had had the greater part in raising their boys and it was a wrench to hand them over to him.

“Everything is ready for you,” he said, stepping aside to let the servants carry out the box containing the last items.

She waited impatiently while her maids clasped a thick cloak around her shoulders, and then she turned towards the light streaming through the open shutters. “Henry,” she said.