A brief silence settled over the room, a truce that they all knew was not likely to last. Hal was the first to speak. Ignoring Richard and Geoff, he looked intently into Henry’s face. “As we told you, Papa, I had no luck in finding the man who shot that arrow. None of them are willing to own up to it. Not surprising, I suppose. He’s afraid and with good reason. I am so sorry, for this ought never to have happened. As soon as we learned of it, we came straightaway to assure you that it was mischance, no more than that.” He glanced then toward his brother.
Geoffrey tore his gaze away from Richard, made a visible effort to focus himself. “Hal speaks true, Papa. That bowman was not acting on our orders.”
Henry would have expected Richard to be the one to erupt first. Instead, it was Geoff. “Well, whose orders was he acting on?” he snapped. “You cannot convince me that he’d have dared to act on his own. So who told him to shoot the king?”
Henry started to speak, then stopped, for he wanted the answer to that question himself. Geoff took advantage of his father’s hesitation and glared accusingly at his brothers. “Well?” he demanded. “Can either of you tell us in all honesty that none of your honorable allies would have given that command?”
“Yes, I can,” Hal said with certainty at the same time that Geoffrey admitted, “No, I cannot.” Hal stared at his younger brother in surprise.
“How can we?” Geoffrey gave Hal an impatient look. “The fact is that Papa’s death would be very advantageous to a number of men. I make no accusations, have no reason to suspect any particular one of the lords now in Limoges. But neither can I say with utter certainty that such an order could not have been given.”
“Well, I can,” Hal repeated. “None of them would sully their honor with a crime like regicide. It was an accident, no more than that.”
“The most convenient accident since William Rufus was slain in the hunting mishap that made his brother king,” Richard muttered, and Hal glared at him before turning his attention back to Henry.
“Neither one of us would ever have done this, Papa. Surely you know that?”
Henry was not sure what he knew. “Is that why you came, Geoffrey? To tell me this was none of your doing?” And when his son inclined his head, he reached out suddenly and grasped the younger man’s arm. Geoffrey stiffened, but did not pull away. Nor did he avert his gaze, meeting Henry’s eyes unflinchingly.
“What of the rebellion? Hal says he has been seeking to win you back to your family, your natural loyalties. Have you heeded him? Are you willing to renounce this accursed alliance?”
“I have been thinking about it,” Geoffrey said. “But I cannot abandon my allies without a backward glance. I would need to know that their grievances will be heard.”
“I am willing to do that,” Henry said, letting his hand slip from Geoffrey’s arm.
Richard drew an audible breath. “Well, I am not!”
“They want to meet with the king, not with you,” Geoffrey said disdainfully, and for a moment, his eyes rested upon his brother’s flushed face, silently promising Richard that there would indeed be a reckoning. “I will talk to Aimar and the others, tell them that you agree to a truce whilst they consider their choices,” he told Henry, and startled them all, then, even Hal, when he made ready to depart.
“That is it?” Henry stared at his son. “That is all you have to say?”
Geoffrey paused, his hand on the door. “What would you have me say?”
“I would have you explain yourself! I would have you tell me why you would betray me like this, why you-”
“How could you possibly not know?”
“I do not,” Henry insisted, and Geoffrey’s control cracked.
“That you do not know, Papa, says it all,” he said sharply, and left before Henry could respond.
Henry’s frustration found expression in anger. “What is he talking about? What grievance could he have that justifies his betrayal?”
“You truly do not know, do you?” Hal marveled. “It is because of Richmond and Nantes, Papa. Geoffrey and Constance feel that you cheated them out of two-thirds of her inheritance.”
“That is the reason he rebelled? How could he be so foolish? I’ve always told him that I’d give him Nantes and Richmond when the time was right. He had only to be patient!”
Hal and Richard were looking at him with an oddly similar expression, one of amazement, for it was obvious to them that Henry was quite sincere, that he did not understand why Geoffrey might not trust his promises or be willing to wait indefinitely. Even Geoff was uncomfortable with his sire’s inability to see any viewpoint but his own.
“I’d best catch up with Geoffrey ere he takes all our men and leaves me stranded here,” Hal said with a quick smile. “But I think I know a way, Papa, to reassure you that Aimar and the townspeople are not utterly set on war. Suppose they offer up hostages for their good faith?”
When Henry agreed, Hal made his departure, too, making an ostentatious display of ignoring his brothers as he walked past them to the door. Richard at once started to follow, halting with obvious reluctance when Henry ordered him to wait there until Hal and Geoffrey had gone.
“Whilst you were ducking arrows at Limoges, my lord king,” Richard said coolly, “some of Aimar’s routiers retook the castle at Pierre-Buffiere. Unless you want us to be trapped in Aixe under siege, we need to take action, and take it now.”
“I have sent into Normandy and Anjou for my levies and for the routiers who’ve served me well in the past. They are better trained and better disciplined than the brigands hired by Aimar and Geoffrey, who’re like to riot and go wild the first chance they get.”
Richard agreed that his father’s and his own routiers were superior soldiers to the men in the rebels’ employ. He was heartened, too, that Henry was at last reacting as a king and not a foolish, overly fond father. “It is about time,” he said, gruffly approving, and went off, then, in search of a late supper. Geoff would have lingered, but Henry clearly did not want him there, and so he, too, departed.
Alone at last, Henry slumped down in his seat and closed his eyes. Whenever he’d faced a crisis in the past, he’d known what he must do to prevail. Even when he was imperiled by the Becket scandal and then his family’s first rebellion, he’d seen a way clear, a route that would lead him out of the morass and back onto solid ground. Now he saw no such escape. The best he could hope for would be to lure Geoffrey back to the fold and reconcile Richard with his angry barons. But that would be a short-term solution, slapping a bandage upon an ulcerating wound, one that oozed blood and pus and could prove mortal if it were allowed to fester.
Ranulf and Bleddyn had been stuck in Southampton for several weeks, waiting for favorable winds. Then there had been a further delay as they tried to find men going south into a war zone, for it was too dangerous to venture into the lawless lands of Aquitaine without a good-sized escort. They did not reach Aixe, therefore, until late in Lent. Before they could seek Henry out, though, they were waylaid by Richard and Geoff and borne off to the great hall.
“I’ve ordered food for you,” Geoff said as soon as they were seated. “But we need to talk with you ere you see our father. Your arrival is a blessing, Uncle Ranulf, for you’re one of the few men that Papa may be willing to heed. You must convince him that Hal and Geoffrey cannot be trusted, that they are playing him for a fool.”
“It would help if I knew what is going on,” Ranulf said, somewhat testily, for these past weeks had been highly stressful. He’d not expected to be making urgent journeys like this at his age. “Where is Morgan? At the castle with Geoffrey?”
“The last we heard, Geoffrey is still in Limoges,” Richard confirmed, “and I assume Morgan is with him. You’re right to fear for the lad, Uncle, for he has fallen in with men who are no better than outlaws and cutthroats.”
That was hardly what Ranulf had hoped to hear. But before he could press for more information, they were interrupted by the arrival of their food, an unappetizing Lenten meal of salted herring supplemented by a tastier dish of hulled wheat boiled in almond milk, commonly known as frumenty. Bleddyn was very hungry and tucked in, but Ranulf lost his appetite once Richard and Geoff satisfied his need to know “what is going on.” He was shocked by Henry’s two narrow escapes, although he was not as certain as they seemed to be that Henry had been deliberately targeted; it would take a bold man to strike down a king.
He was deeply troubled, too, to hear how Hal and Geoffrey had been taking advantage of Henry’s trust; even allowing for Richard’s bias, it sounded to him as if his nephew was indeed being “played for a fool.” He prodded his knife into his herring without enthusiasm, thinking that none of this boded well for Morgan.
