The Scarlet Lion (53 page)

   Isabelle knelt before him to unfasten his boots. "Back then, at our marriage, I was ambitious," she murmured. "Now we are well in the saddle, I suddenly find I have no great desire to ride that particular horse."

   William gave her a wry look. "You can't change your mind at full gallop, my love. First you have to draw in the reins, and that is as great a decision as climbing astride in the first place."

***

Ranulf of Chester arrived the next morning as the barons were leaving the castle chapel after morning mass. He was greeted with due ceremony and furnished with a position at the head of the high table on the dais while the assembly breakfasted on bread, cold bacon, and ale.

   Chewing, Chester scowled at William, his air one of indignation bordering on petulance. "You could not wait, one day," he grumbled.

   William returned his look equably. "We could not afford to let the opposition take advantage of any hesitation. With the boy made King, it strengthens our stance and weakens Louis's. We could have waited one day for your arrival, we could have waited three. I hope you understand the necessity of our action."

   Chester didn't answer. He took a sip of ale and screwed up his face. "I don't know how you drink this muck, Marshal."

   William shrugged. "It suits me in the morning. If you'd

rather have wine…" He gestured a squire to replace Chester's cup with a brimming goblet.

   Chester took a long drink. He ate the bread and bacon and grew noticeably more sanguine as the sustenance worked on him. William judged that half of the Earl's irritation was caused by riding hard on an empty stomach. To have missed the coronation would have ruffled his feathers too. Chester enjoyed his rituals and ceremonies.

   Breakfast finished, the trestles were cleared away and deliberations upon the future rule of England commenced. Goblet in hand, Chester leaned against the high back of his chair, his dark gaze assessing and inscrutable. Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, played with the ornate gold and garnet cross around his neck. He had removed his mitre and placed it on the trestle, where the gold thread in it made it twinkle like a piece of the gilded marchpane subtlety from the coronation feast. The Legate kept his on. William had never seen him without it, nor his robes of office, even late at night.

   The men deliberated, arguing this point and that. Now and then William glanced towards the new King, who was not taking part in the discussions, but being kept close enough to be summoned. He and Ancel were playing with Ancel's toy wooden castle and the carved figures of the garrison knights and horses. From the snippets of conversation William overheard, Henry was fascinated by the interior rooms of the castle rather than the "men" on the walls, and was not impressed when Ancel began piling up straw and dust to build defensive embankments.

   The discussion circled back on itself. Several hints had been dropped in William's direction, and Chester's too, without conclusion. Everyone was watching everyone else. Impatience rippled through William. This was getting them nowhere. Someone had to do something. He placed his hands flat on the trestle and pushed to his feet. "My lords, if we did not have the time to wait for a coronation, we certainly cannot afford to procrastinate here like a frightened bride running away from the bed on her wedding night. I say that my lord of Chester should accept the regency. He is young enough to give the task his full vigour, but old enough to be wise."

   Chester snorted and raised one eyebrow in ironic reply.

   "I will gladly follow his lead and do everything in my power to assist him for as long as God grants me the strength to do so."

   Chester rubbed his forefinger consideringly across his top lip. After a moment he too stood up, adjusting the miniver collar of his cloak. "Marshal, I would accept if I thought you incapable, but you're not." He looked wry. "Men will follow you who would baulk at taking orders from me. I have seen you keep your temper when even angels would have raged. You have Ireland which is far out of Louis's reach and from which to draw resources. I am content for you to govern the realm and in my turn I will give you what aid I can." He bowed deeply towards William and extended his right palm, conceding him the rule.

   William felt the words settle their weight on him like an invisible mantle. Heavy with expectation. Suffocating. For a moment he couldn't breathe and his heart was pounding so hard he thought it might burst from his chest or beat itself to a standstill. He wondered if he was going to survive the moment. Chester would have no choice but to take over if he suddenly dropped of an apoplexy before the entire company.

   "My lord Marshal?" Chester looked at him in concern.

   William shook his head and drew a difficult breath, sucking it over a larynx tight with pent-up emotion. "You hand this thing to me," he said, "but I hesitate to take it on."

   "There is no one better," Chester replied unequivocally. "In God's name, Marshal, put on the harness and be done."

   The Legate raised his voice, his French bearing the heavy

accent of his native Tuscany. "My lord Marshal, you seem reluctant to accept the regency, but no one here disputes you are the best man for the charge. Perhaps if I offered you absolution for all the sins of your lifetime, it would settle your mind. No?" He raised a thick silver eyebrow, his stare knowing and shrewd.

   William stared back, his breathing rapid and his heart still slamming against his rib cage. You spider, he thought. You cunning old spider. The Legate couldn't offer William gold and riches; it was not within his power to do so. The papal authority already had all its weight behind the boy playing castles at the side of the dais, but offering William a direct path to heaven at the end of his life was a bribe of genius. What man would not desire such surety?

   William opened his clenched fists and bowed his head. "Then on those terms and given that no one else has put himself forward, I accept." As he spoke, he felt as if the marrow had left his bones. He managed to stay on his feet, but it was a triumph of will power over body. Chester passed him a goblet. William took it, realised that his hand was shaking, and, without drinking, set it down. Wine slopped on to the trestle and gathered in a glistening red pool. Drawing on all his resources, William pulled himself together to address the practical business. He didn't want congratulations and he almost resented the way that all the men were now relaxing, the weight lifting off their backs as he took it from them and set it on his own.

   "The King needs a guardian and stability in his life," he said. "By necessity I will be constantly on the road with a battle campaign to conduct. I cannot drag him from pillar to post and if he is to be King then he needs to continue to be fitted for the task. I would suggest that my lord the Bishop of Winchester takes on this role—if he is willing."

   Peter des Roches dipped his head. "I will be pleased to do so, my lord."

   William could tell it was more than just a polite response. The Bishop of Winchester guarded his privileges jealously and would expect a prominent role in governing the country, even if William held the reins. Des Roches had been a close confidant of John and possessed a shrewd fiscal brain. He would be useful in government. As a tutor to the King, there was no man among the gathering better suited.

   The rest of the day was spent discussing the finer points of detail with William in the midst, building the edifice and hoping that it wasn't going to fall down at the first challenge like a house of straw in a puff of wind. Sometimes he was aware of Isabelle by his side, supporting him, smoothing his path, setting men at ease. On occasion, she absented herself to supervise the provision of food for the company. He would glance up and see her talking to others, applying mortar to decisions, shaping the stones of agreement, but he had no time to talk to her himself.

   Dusk came and went. William's larynx was worn to a husk with talking. He was so exhausted that he could barely set one foot before the other as he made his way to his lodgings in the bailey. Isabelle studied him with covert worry as she walked beside him. Behind, she could hear Jack and Ralph talking in muted tones, but there was no mistaking the excitement in their voices. She fought the urge to turn and glare at them. As far as they were concerned, William's acceptance of the regency was a triumph, but she was annoyed that they were not giving a thought to their lord's wellbeing. Jean, however, walked with his head down and bowed shoulders as if he too had taken a great weight upon himself.

   Once within the chamber, William leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. The candlelight lent false colour to his complexion, but the shadows in socket and cheekbone were as dark as bruises and made Isabelle afraid for him. If this was the first day, what were the next and the next going to do to him? She had prayed that Ranulf of Chester would show willing and decisive and take on the burden, but either God had not been listening, or He had other plans.

   "Here, beloved, drink." She pressed a cup into his hands, the fact that she called him "beloved" in front of others a sign of her agitation.

   William shook his head. "I will be sick if I do," he said huskily, returning the cup to her.

   Struggling not to cry, Isabelle gave the wine to Jack instead, who raised it in toast. "To the regent," he cried, his voice reverberating with triumph. The salute was echoed by Ralph and Jean.

   William stared at them like a dazed stag brought to bay before hounds. "I am going to need all of your help," he said in an exhausted, rusty voice that barely carried across the space between him and them. "I have embarked upon an open sea so deep that no line could sound the bottom, and with no sign of land as far as the horizon. If I reach safe harbour, it will be a miracle, because God knows, we are this close to foundering… this close." He held up his forefinger and thumb, brought so near to each other that they almost touched.

   Isabelle's chin dimpled. William had always called her his safe harbour, but she could not protect him now; there was no shelter from this storm—for any of them.

   William's voice choked on emotion. "As you know, the child is almost penniless. Half the King's treasury was lost crossing the Wellstream and, with the country so divided, there are no revenues to replenish the coffers. None. God knows how we are going to raise money to pay the garrisons and the troops. I am too old to carry this burden…I cannot…" He swallowed and covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking.

   Filled with shock and distress, Isabelle hastened to him, putting her arms around him, holding him fast. In nearly thirty years of marriage this was the first time she had seen him break and it almost broke her too. Her own eyes filled and flooded. She gripped his shoulders and whispered his name as she had done to their children when comforting them in the nursery. She was aware of the men staring, open-mouthed, almost as distressed as their lord. Jean's eyes were glistening too. Against her body, she felt William's breath shuddering in and out of his chest as he strove to gain control and she was filled with a vast wave of love, compassion, and tender fury that he had been brought to this.

   Slowly, he straightened, and it was like a wounded man rising up from the field of battle because he knows that if he stays down he will die. He eased her gently to one side and, still breathing convulsively, wiped his cuff across his eyes. "Is that all?" he whispered hoarsely to the three men staring at him in frozen shock. "Have you nothing to say?"

   Jean gave a loud sniff. "My lord, I know you think you have been forced to take on something too great for you, but I say not. There is still all to fight for." He cleared his throat and jutted his chin. "What is the worst that can happen? Even if everyone who has pledged their support to you surrenders their castles to Louis, your honour will remain intact and—my lord of Chester was right—you have your Irish lands to fall back upon. They are far enough removed from England to deter Louis from following you there. What's to lose at this late hour?"

   William wiped his eyes again on the heel of his hand and breathed out raggedly. "You are right," he said in a voice that was choked but recovering. "Ireland is a haven should I be forced to retreat that far." He straightened his spine. "Even if I have to carry the boy on my shoulders from island to island and beg for my daily bread, I will keep him from Louis."

   Listening to him, Isabelle was unable to gauge whether he believed what he was saying or whether he was putting on a pretence for the sake of his men.

   "It is late," she said with a meaningful look at the knights, "and everyone will be astir early in the morning. We should all seek our beds."

   She saw the three men out. On the threshold, Jean hesitated, his face grave with worry. "Will he be all right?"

   Isabelle nodded with more conviction than she felt. "I think so," she said. "He is just very tired."

   "He didn't want to take it on."

   Isabelle looked at him, considering, grateful for his concern. "A part of him didn't," she said, "but the young knight of the tournaments still lives within him, keen to try out a new horse on a new field. Come the morning, we shall see."

   After closing the door on the men, she fetched the flask of aqua vitae from her coffer. William, who was now sitting on the bed, eyed it and her through swollen, half-closed lids.

   "I thought you only gave that to the badly wounded," he croaked.

   Isabelle wiped out a wine cup with the end of her trailing sleeve and poured into it a small amount of the clear liquid. It was difficult to obtain, but occasionally came their way through their merchant contacts.

   "That's right, I do, but you seemed badly wounded to me a moment since." She handed him the cup. "Straight down in one blow."

   He laughed bleakly. "My voice is almost gone. If I swallow this, I will never have one again." After a moment when he was plainly summoning his courage, he raised the cup to his mouth and tilted the rim sharply.