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‘It is far too long.’
‘Doubtless you have had other excitements in the meantime.’
‘Nothing to compare with these I share with you.’
‘And, if our child is another boy, he may well wear the crown after you...but Robert of course would come before him. I trust you would not put any other little bastard you have got on some light woman before our sons.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘Not if I were there to make sure of their rights.’
‘You will be there...beside me. Have no fear.’
And he was thinking of the i
There would be complications when he became King; Nesta would be one of them, for, although he talked glibly of keeping her with him and legitimizing her sons that they might inherit the throne after him, he knew this would not be. The Norman dukes who had done this in the past had not been head of a well ordered country such as the Conqueror had made England. But he would deal with these matters when they came and Nesta would never fret too much over one lover for there would always be others waiting to take his place.
And now she was pregnant with another child. He half hoped it would be a daughter. Daughters were not so ambitious and it often assured the loyalty of some wavering vassal to give him a king’s daughter to wife. Daughters had their uses; but if they were legitimate the more useful they became.
He must get the crown.
Nesta moved close to him and put her arms about his neck.
‘You are pleased about the child?’
‘I am.’
‘And if he is a boy you will give him lands and titles?’
‘When I have them to give.’
‘And you will not set him above the many children that exist in this country claiming to be yours?’
‘Yours would always come first with me,’ he said, abandoning all thoughts of his unsatisfactory position in her seductive embrace.
* * * * *
He was too restless to stay long in Deheubarth and he was soon riding to Winchester.
He did not go straight to the court, instead he called at the house of the Clare family to whom he had always shown favour.
They welcomed him and there was feasting in their hall. The venison tasted good. Rufus had given Sir Walter Tyrrell leave to hunt in the new forest. They were great friends, Tyrrell being a first class huntsman, and the King always enjoyed his company on a hunt.
Sir Walter had married one of the daughters of the Clare household and his father-in-law had bestowed lands in Essex upon him. They had always been ready to welcome Henry to their home, no matter on what ill terms the Prince was with his brother.
They had feasted and drunk, the minstrels had played and sung and the company was drowsy.
Tyrrell said to Henry: ‘You are thoughtful this night, my Prince. Are you dreaming of the beautiful Nesta?’
‘Nay,’ said Henry, ‘of other matters.’ He laughed. ‘I grow old and I remain poor. I often think how unfortunate I was to be the youngest of my father’s sons.’
‘If you do not possess great wealth now you have your hopes, my Prince.’
‘Hopes long deferred,’ mourned Henry.
Gilbert, Lord of Clare, Tyrrell’s brother-in-law, looked a little uneasy.
‘Serving men have long ears.’ he murmured.
Henry nodded. Gilbert was right to remind him. It was all very well to talk of his hopes with Nesta in her bedchamber; it was another matter to discuss them in a hall where many might hear.
He changed the subject but the next day when he went hunting with Walter Tyrrell and his brothers-in-law, Gilbert and Roger, he raised the subject again and there was no reason why they should not discuss it freely in the open air.
‘Rufus,’ said Gilbert, ‘grows more and more under the influence of Flambard. The people are angry with the continual taxation, and they like not the ma
‘They have taken to shaving the fore part of their heads as the thieves do, since you were at Court,’ said Tyrrell, ‘and they wear their hair long at the back so that from behind they look like harlots.’
Gilbert added that men were wearing tails attached to their shoes so that it looked as though scorpions grew out of their feet.
‘Nothing,’ added Roger, ‘is too ridiculous. And the aim of every courtier is to look like a woman. With long hair and rich clothes they mince about the Court. It is not easy to tell the difference between men and women. There are many who deplore the way things are going and the one they blame for it is the King. We all know how he extorts the utmost in taxation. Flambard’s methods are detested throughout the country.’
‘They call the King a tyrant,’ said Walter Tyrrell.
‘And so he is,’ cried Henry. ‘He is unfit to rule If my father were here he would greatly regret having left England to him.’
‘And even more so to have left Normandy to Robert,’ said Gilbert. ‘If only he had lived long enough to see that there was one son who would have ruled in a ma
‘He thought he had trained Rufus,’ replied Henry. ‘After the death of my brother Richard, Rufus was constantly in his company. I was too studious. I became more adept in book learning than my father and because of that he doubted I would make a soldier. Rufus became his favourite. Rufus was to have England. And see what Rufus has done to England. It would have been different had Richard lived. Richard was different from the rest of them. I think we are alike. Richard was calm of nature. Often he would step in and bring peace into our boyish quarrels. He would have been a good king.’
‘But he was killed when hunting in the New Forest.’
‘A terrible accident,’ said Henry. ‘It was said that it was a judgment on my father for taking people’s homes from them to make the New Forest. Some poacher who had his eyes put out for killing a deer had laid a curse on my father, so they said.’
‘Rufus is as keen a huntsman as the Conqueror. He has kept what the people call the harsh forest laws.’
‘Perhaps.’ said Henry lightly, ‘some poacher will lay a curse on him, so that the forest kills him as it did my brother Richard.’
Gilbert looked cautiously over his shoulder. It was treasonable to talk thus about the death of the King.
The forest seemed suddenly still, as though all the wild creatures were listening.
The men exchanged glances. Something very significant was happening.
* * * * *
William Warren, Earl of Surrey, called at Wilton Abbey. The Abbess was still confined to her bed and it was the duty of her deputies to supervise the meeting with Edith.
Edith’s disappointment was almost unbearable when she saw that he was not accompanied by Prince Henry. How insignificant he seemed! Yet he was handsome enough. It was merely that in comparison with the incomparable Henry he seemed of so little account.
They seated themselves on the window seat; the nuns took their place resolutely at a safe distance.
William had said: ‘You may leave us.’ But how he lacked the authority of Henry!
‘We shall remain,’ replied the elder of them, and although he attempted to bluster they refused to go.
How different it would have been had Henry been here I thought Edith.
‘I came to see you.’ said William, ‘because I am going to the King shortly. I am going to tell him that we are betrothed. I see no reason why we should not be married within a few weeks.
Edith said: ‘I have to tell you that I have been thinking on your request for my hand and I have been undecided for so long. I am no longer. I have made up my mind that I do not wish to accept your proposal.’