eating!”
Rainald grinned and patted his paunch. “Jesu forfend that I insult Your Grace by showing indifference to this fine fare! In all candor, you’ve always been one for eating on the run. I trust you are not about to put an end to the festivities?”
Henry grinned back. “This is one dinner that could last into the morrow and I’d not complain. No, I have a surprise for my son.”
Making his way across the hall, he waited until he saw the server approaching the door and then signaled for a trumpet fanfare to introduce the meal’s piece de resistance. Garnished with sliced apples, centered on a large silver platter, the great boar’s head was an impressive culinary tribute to the young king, for it was more commonly served during Christmas revelries. The admiring murmurs gave way to cheers when Henry moved forward and took the platter himself. The sons of the nobility learned manners by waiting upon tables in great households, and a king was often served at state banquets by peers of the realm. But Henry’s action was an unprecedented compliment to his son.
With all eyes upon him, Henry carried the boar’s head to the high table, where he stood smiling up at his eldest son. Hal smiled, too, looking so composed and regal that Henry glowed with pride. The Archbishop of York glanced from Henry to Hal and said with the smoothness of a practiced courtier, “It is not every prince who can be served at table by a king.”
Hal’s blue eyes took the light, a smile still hovering at the corners of his mouth. “Yes,” he said, “but it can be no condescension for the son of a count to serve the son of a king.”
There was utter silence. Even those who hadn’t heard Hal’s retort sensed something was amiss by the shocked expressions on the faces of those at the high table. The Archbishop of York was at a rare loss for words, and Rainald nearly strangled on a mouthful of wine. Henry looked startled and then he laughed. Others echoed his laughter dutifully, but the laughter had a hollow sound. With the exception of Henry and his son, few in the hall found any humor in the young king’s too-clever quip.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
September 1170
Bec-Hellouin, Normandy
Soft shadows and silence. That was the boy’s first impression of the interior of the abbey church. Outside, the sun was blazing across a noonday sky, but within the nave, it could have been dusk. Blinking, he stumbled over a prayer cushion and lurched into the font. The noise he’d made seemed to roil through the stillness like thunder, and he flushed, relieved when the kneeling figure of his father did not react. The marble tomb glimmered in the gloom. He wondered if it was as cold and smooth as it looked. The woman buried here was his aunt, but she was a stranger to him. He’d never even laid eyes upon her and was sure that she’d not have welcomed him into her family circle, for she had been a great lady, an empress, and he was a lord’s bastard, born in sin.
“Requiescas in pace, Maude.” Rainald rose stiffly to his feet, for physical activity without aching muscles and creaking bones was as long-gone as his youth. Peering into the dimness, he beckoned to the boy.
As they emerged into the September sunlight, Rainald collided with a man striding briskly along the cloisters walkway. “Whoa!” Recognizing the chasuble and cope of a prince of the Church, Rainald began to offer a laughing apology. “I’m not always blind as a mole, my lord, but these old eyes of mine need time to-” As his gaze rose to the bishop’s face, he broke off with a cry of delighted surprise and enfolded the other man in an enthusiastic embrace. “Roger!”
Roger grinned and fended off another hug. “Nay, Uncle, my ribs will snap like twigs. For all your talk of aging eyes, your clenches could put a bear to shame.”
“Only an elderly bear with the joint-evil and a potbelly! What are you doing here, Roger?”
“The same as you, Uncle… paying honor to Maude.”
Rainald shook his head. “I can hardly believe that she’s been dead three years. Will you be saying the Requiem Mass?” Getting an affirmation, he smiled, and then remembered the boy. “Come here, lad. Roger, I want you to meet Rico… my son. Rico, this is your cousin Roger, the Bishop of Worcester.”
Rico made his father proud by kneeling and kissing the bishop’s ring. Roger was impressed by the boy’s good manners and he acknowledged the introductions with deliberate warmth, knowing that would please Rainald. It was a poorly kept family secret that Rainald adored this unlawfully begotten son of his and felt remorse and anxiety that he could not give Rico all that his legitimate heir, Nicholas, would one day claim. Roger had an uneasy sense that Nicholas would not long enjoy the honors of his father’s earldom, for the youth had inherited his mother’s frail physique and delicate health. An image of Nicholas flashed into his memory as he looked upon Rainald’s other son, for the contrast between them could not have been more dramatic: Nicholas, hollow-eyed and arrow-thin, with a winter-white pallor even in midsummer, and Rico, a youngster of sturdy build and obvious energy, a handsome lad who’d likely grow into a handsome man if the fates were kind.
There was a wooden bench in one of the cloister carrels and Rainald headed toward it now, making one of his usual jokes about “old bones.” Roger followed willingly and Rico dutifully. Taking pity on the boy, Roger concocted an interesting errand for him to run, and Rico was soon trotting across the grass toward the slype. Just before he disappeared into the passage, he suddenly did a handstand, for no other reason but the bliss of being ten years old and on his way to the stables on a mild September afternoon.
Both men exchanged a rueful smile, one that acknowledged the pure joys of childhood were distant memories, and thank God for it. “I thought,” Roger said, “that you named the lad Henry.” When Rainald confirmed that he had, the bishop looked puzzled. “Then why Rico?”
“Well, you saw him, dark as a Saracen, no? After he was born, I was joking that he looked as dusky as a Sicilian and we ought to christen him Enrico rather than Henry. The next I knew, his mother was calling him Rico and soon I was, too.”
Rainald’s eyes took on a fond, faraway look and Roger surprised himself by feeling a small dart of envy. He’d known when he’d taken his vows as a priest that he’d be forswearing those sinful pleasures that other men held most dear: carnal lust and good wine and bad company. He’d also be renouncing the Almighty’s blessings of marriage and fatherhood. He had never repented his choice, could not even envision a life not given over to God. But there were times when he wondered about that road not taken and the sons he’d never have.
“Speaking of sons,” he said, “I recently heard that Eleanor had young Richard invested as Count of Poitou this spring. I suppose that explains why she was absent from Hal’s coronation.”
“Well, she was also occupied with guarding the coast for Harry.. as you ought to know, lad. She kept you from sailing from Dieppe, no?”
“So you heard about that, did you?” Roger could jest about it now, but at the time, he’d found no humor in his plight. Having learned that Henry planned to crown his son, Thomas Becket had instructed Roger to go at once to England with papal letters forbidding the coronation. At the same time, Henry had commanded Roger to return to England so that he could attend the coronation. Roger felt that he had no choice but to obey his archbishop, although painfully aware that if he thwarted Hal’s coronation, his cousin the king would never forgive him. There was a certain relief, therefore, in discovering that the Bishop of Lisieux had alerted the queen about his mission for Becket and she’d given orders that no ship in any Norman port was to give him passage.
“Did you also hear about the public brawl that Harry and I had upon his return to Normandy?”
Rainald shook his head, looking so expectant that Roger had to smile; few men savored gossip as much as his uncle. “Harry was on his way to Falaise and I rode out to meet him. He at once began to berate me for not attending Hal’s coronation. When I told him that the queen had forbidden me to sail, he cursed me all the more loudly for trying to lay the blame on her. By then, I was no less wroth than he, and I shouted back that he was fortunate I was not present at the coronation for I’d not have allowed it to take place. I also accused him of ingratitude, reminding him of how much my father had done to secure his crown and how little he had done for my brothers after gaining the throne.”
Rainald whistled admiringly, only half in jest. He did not consider himself a timid soul, but he knew he’d not have spoken up as boldly as Roger, not to the man who was his king as well as his nephew. “Do not stop now.
