The Greatest Knight by Elizabeth Chadwick Read Free Book Online Page B

than rumour. The King has taken the Clifford girl to his bed and to his bosom. He’s always had occasional whores but they have never lasted longer than a week, but this is different. He’s as smitten as a mooncalf and de Clifford’s daughter is no common harlot. He’s given her a household of her own and pays her serious court while shunning his wife, and for that, Eleanor will never forgive him. It’s half the reason she’s returning to Poitou after Christmas.” He studied the sky. “It’s calm out here tonight, nephew, but there are stormy waters ahead.”
    ***
    William swiftly settled into life at King Henry’s court. In many ways it was similar to the time he had spent in the Tancarville mesnie with the same constant bustle of officials and messengers, clerks, priests, soldiers, servants, and hordes of supplicants, their pouches draining of silver as they sought to bribe their way through ushers and stewards to the King’s ear. William was still a small grain in a great mill. His sleeping quarters remained little more than a straw pallet either on the floor of the great hall, outside Salisbury’s chamber, or sometimes in a tent pitched on spare ground in the bailey of whatever castle the court was currently occupying.
    Unlike de Tancarville’s orderly household, where William had trained, the royal court functioned in an atmosphere of organised chaos and the food was atrocious. Henry’s impatient palate was not a gourmet’s. As far as he was concerned, bread was bread and if a trifle burned or somewhat gritty, it didn’t matter. Complaints were met with raised eyebrows and short shrift. In Henry’s lexicon, fit for a king was fit for everyone else. The same went for his household wine, which had a reputation throughout his lands. “Like drinking mud,” Salisbury warned William. The Earl had prudently brought his own supply and a servant who knew how to care for it.
    Henry was also impatient with ceremony and careless of his clothes. They were always rumpled and there was usually a thread dangling where some of the seed pearl embroidery had torn loose, or been snagged by a dog’s paw. Henry forgot to pass messages on to his ushers and stewards, or he would change his mind after having done so with the result that the court would be ready to move on a morning when the King was still lazing abed, or caught napping while the King sprang to the saddle and hastened off at dawn.
    “They say the Angevins come from the Devil!” the Bishop of Winchester spluttered one rainy morning when this had happened for the third time in a row and he was trying to mount his circling, braying mule. “I can believe it, because following the King around is like being at the court of hell, and God in his mercy alone knows if we’ll all have beds tonight!”
    The great lords and bishops would send outriders ahead to secure sleeping space and stabling and fodder and there were often undignified squabbles over the most unsavoury of hovels. William learned to take it all in his stride. His genial, easy-going nature meant that he counted having to bed down with his horse less of an earth-shattering disaster than it was to others more tender of their dignity.
    The court came to Argentan for the Christmas feast and a great gathering of vassals from all parts of the Angevin lands. The Queen was due to arrive any day with the children, and the servants hastily prepared quarters to house them. Rooms were swept and fires laid. New rushes were strewn on the floors and sweetened with herbs and dried flowers. The damp December cold was further kept at bay by braziers placed in the draughty areas near window splays and doors. Seldom noticing the heat or cold unless they were extremes, Henry cared little for such touches, but with small children expected, additional warmth was a necessity.
    On the day the Queen arrived, William was schooling Blancart in the tiltyard. Bleached winter sunshine lit the day, but imparted no warmth. William’s