seat. Fetching a stool, he sat down beside the king, keeping his gaze lowered, for it seemed somehow indecent to look upon another man’s raw, naked pain. He had been dreading this meeting as much as Henry, but it had to be done. A reckoning had to be made. After waiting several moments for questions that did not come, he realized the reason for Henry’s reticence-fear that he was about to hear a story that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Who could blame him for assuming Hal had died as fecklessly and carelessly as he’d lived?
“You may be proud of his last days, my liege,” he said firmly, “for he showed courage, dignity, and grace, dying as a good Christian, as a great lord ought to die, setting an example for us all.”
Henry searched his face intently, but he did not think Marshal would lie to him. “Tell me,” he said, and Will did, thankful that he’d not joined Hal until the last week of his life and need not speak of those rash actions that the young king had so regretted at the end. He related, instead, the story of the reckless, selfish boy who’d not become a man until it was almost too late. He had to stop occasionally to collect himself, for he was finding that retelling it was like reliving it, and he was not surprised to see tears silently streaking Henry’s face as he listened. How much worse it could have been, though, if Hal had not repented and been shriven whilst there was still time!
“We did not know what to do with your ring, sire,” he concluded, “at last decided we ought to return it to you. But it was remarkable, for none of us could remove it from your son’s finger. It was as if even in death he could not bear to part with it.”
Henry swallowed with difficulty. “May God grant him salvation,” he whispered, but it no longer seemed such a forlorn hope, not after what he’d just heard about Hal’s remorse, regrets, and contrition. “There is one last duty you can perform for him, Marshal. I want you to escort his funeral cortege to Rouen.”
“My liege…I would that I could, but that is not possible.” And when Henry frowned, Will hastily told him of Hal’s final debts and the pledge he’d been forced to make to the Basque routier, Sancho de Savannac.
“My son cost me greatly,” Henry said when he was done, “but I would that he’d lived to cost me more. This is not your debt, Marshal. I will take care of it.”
“Thank you, sire.” Will reached then for the pouch dangling from his belt and drew forth Hal’s deathbed letter. “This is for you, my lord king, dictated by your son to the Bishop of Agen.”
Henry stared at that rolled parchment with dread. Will understood. As painful as it would be to read his son’s last words, it might help to cauterize the wound, though. He waited patiently until Henry took the letter, assuming their conversation was over then. But Henry made no move to dismiss him.
Henry was gazing down at the unbroken seal, recognizing it as Hal’s. He’d also used the sapphire ring to seal the letter, and that brought a lump to Henry’s throat. Looking up after a long silence, he said, “I wronged you, Marshal, blaming you unfairly for his mistakes and his sins. I see now that yours was the only level head in his mesnie. Once you were gone, he foundered like a ship without a rudder. I thank you for returning to him when you did, for I do not doubt that you helped to steer him back onto the path to deliverance.”
“I could not have done so if you’d not granted me that safe conduct, sire,” Will said and rose, taking this as his cue to depart.
“After you take my son to Rouen, come back to me, Will. You are a good and honorable man, and I would have you join my household knights.”
Will gasped. He’d hoped that Henry would offer to assume responsibility for Hal’s debt to Sancho, but his expectations had gone no further than that. He’d resigned himself to the loss of royal favor, to a far different life from the one he’d enjoyed during his years with Hal. “My liege, you do me great honor. I would gladly serve you as I served your son. There is yet one more trust that I must discharge on his behalf, though. He felt great shame for having taken the cross so lightly, and he asked me to act in his stead, to deliver his crusader’s cloak to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.”
“And you agreed, of course,” Henry said, with a faint smile, his first in more than a week. “Go, then, with my blessings. Tell my chancellor how much you will need for your pilgrimage and he will issue letters of credit. And upon your return, a place will be waiting for you.”
“Thank you, my liege.” Will waited, sensing that there was something still to be said.
“I would rather my son had triumphed over me than Death had triumphed over him,” Henry said, very softly, and Will did not doubt him. They regarded each other without need of words, two very different men united in their shared sorrow for the king’s son.
Constance had been back at the ducal castle in Rennes for only two days and she was still busy cataloguing all the damage done when Roland de Dinan had seized it on behalf of the English king. Trailed by a scribe clutching a wax tablet and bone stylus, she was inspecting the storerooms. As she tallied up their losses, she was seething, infuriated that so much would have to be replaced. Their flour was gone, as were the salted herring, cod, and mackerel, the dried figs and dates, even the five bushels of salt she’d purchased that spring.
“They were like a swarm of God-cursed locusts!” she fumed. “They stripped the hall and bedchambers bare, stole our grey fur coverlet that had been a wedding gift from the Bishop of Rennes, even looted several pounds of wax. I’m surprised they did not steal the grease used for cartwheel axles.”
Her butler murmured his agreement, and the clerk scribbled hastily to keep up with her torrent of words. Her ladies, Juvette and Blanche, exchanged knowing looks, for they understood that her foul mood was not explained entirely by the sorry state of the castle. Duke Geoffrey had returned to the war after recovering Rennes and staging punitive raids into Roland de Dinan’s lands at Becherel, and Constance had hoped that he’d left her with child. This morning she’d found out it was not so, much to her disappointment.
The butler now led the way toward the buttery, where Constance knew their greatest losses lay. Any of the tuns of wine not drained dry by de Dinan’s men would have been carried off when he’d retreated, leaving a garrison behind to guard his prize. She’d heard that they had not put up much resistance when Geoffrey had besieged the castle, loath to fight against their duke. Constance could take some solace from that, yet more proof of Geoffrey’s acceptance by her Breton lords. He’d managed to overcome a huge liability-that he was the English king’s son-with uncanny ease. Of course she knew his campaign to win them over had begun well before their marriage; he’d laid the groundwork during those years when he was acting as his father’s deputy in Brittany, forging bonds with men like Raoul de Fougeres and Reginald de Boterel that would stand him in good stead once he no longer relied upon Henry for his standing in Brittany.
Constance still marveled at the vast difference between the reality of her marriage and her bleak expectations. She would have scoffed at the romantic idea of soul mates. Nevertheless, they had reached a remarkable understanding with surprising speed, discovering that they shared the same aspirations and ambitions, the same innate skepticism and gambler’s instincts, with, as an added bonus, the pleasure they found in their marriage bed. They’d be wed two years in August, with only one serious quarrel in all that time. Geoffrey had been furious to learn that she had countermanded him and returned to Brittany instead of seeking safety at the French court. Constance had been forced to apologize, which did not come easily to her, but Geoffrey had right on his side-she had indeed been put at risk by the seizure of the ducal castle, and she’d had to concede that her capture would have been disastrous.
The buttery was a total loss; they’d even taken the keg of verjuice. “I hope my lord husband burned de Dinan’s manor to the ground,” she said angrily. “If it were up to me, I’d have sown salt into his fields, the Judas.”
Her butler thought that was not entirely fair to Roland de Dinan, who’d been given the stark choice of offending his patron, the English king, or his duke and duchess. He was not crazed enough to offer a defense of the disgraced baron, though, and sought to console Constance by revealing that some of the wine had no longer been drinkable; wine rarely remained potable for more than a year, for if it was exposed to the air, it developed an acid, unpleasant taste.
That did cheer Constance somewhat; she hoped that the marauders had ended up as sick as dogs. She was turning to check the details on her scribe’s tablet when Juvette rushed into the buttery. “Madame! The lord duke has just ridden into the bailey!”
Constance froze. Geoffrey’s unexpected return could only mean something had gone very wrong. Had he gotten word of a coming attack upon Brittany? “He is not injured?”
“Oh, no, Madame. I could see no signs that he’s been wounded. But…he and his men look very grim. I fear he brings bad news.”
So did Constance. Normally she would have hastened out to greet him, but she decided now that a private reunion might be better and she said abruptly, “Leave me, all of you. Tell the duke that I await him in the
