cloud of suspicion hanging over his older brother. He did not want William to be tarred with Hugh’s brush, nor did he want his sister, Maud, to be banished from royal favor. It was not her fault that her son had turned to treason, and he hoped to make Henry understand that.
The sun was high overhead, radiating heat rarely felt in England, and Roger was heading back to the great hall when a shout echoed from the battlements: riders coming in. He halted, hoping it might be Henry returning from the hunt. It wasn’t, but the new arrival was a welcome one: William de Mandeville, the Earl of Essex.
Once they’d exchanged greetings, Willem turned his horse’s reins over to his squire, smiling when Roger asked why he’d not gone hunting with the king. He’d been meeting with some of the routiers, he explained, as a new contingent had just arrived from Brabant.
Roger was not surprised to hear that, for he knew such mercenaries were the backbone of his cousin’s army. Rather than relying upon the grudging military service given by his vassals, Henry preferred to hire professional soldiers, and such men were always easy to find. Despite the disapproval of the Church, routiers from Brabant and Flanders and even Wales were available for those lords with enough money to engage them. Debating that point with Roger, Henry had insisted that routiers made superior fighters because they could be mobilized at once, they would serve as long as they were paid, their desire for plunder gave them enthusiasm for their work, and their fearsome reputation often weakened enemy morale. Roger had not been convinced by his cousin’s arguments, for he still thought it immoral for a man to earn his living by killing fellow Christians. But now he felt a flicker of relief, so worried was he about Henry’s plight. At least he’d have routiers on hand for the defense of Rouen should it come to that.
“I hope you are bringing good news about the siege of Leicester,” Willem said, and Roger was pleased to reply in the affirmative. Henry’s justiciar, Richard de Lucy, and his uncles, Rainald and Ranulf, had been besieging the city and castle of the rebel Earl of Leicester since early July, and Roger was now able to tell Willem that the townspeople had surrendered. The castle still held out and a truce had been struck till Michaelmas. Roger’s other news was not as encouraging, though. De Lucy had ended the siege of Leicester Castle in order to hurry north, where the Scots king had been staging bloody border raids.
“Now it is your turn, Willem. The last we heard in England, the sieges of Driencourt and Verneuil were still continuing. Tell me they have not fallen.”
“I would that I could. Driencourt fell to the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne last week, and they moved on to Arques. The siege of Verneuil still goes on. The town is composed of three wards, called burghs, each with its own walls and ditch. The French have taken the first two, but the third and the castle still hold out.”
Roger stared at the other man. “Jesu, how can you sound so calm? Arques is less than twenty miles from Rouen!”
“First of all, Rouen is well defended, no easy prize for the taking. Secondly, the Flemings suffered a great reversal at Arques. The Count of Boulogne took an arrow in the knee, and the wound has festered. His brother was so distraught that he halted their advance whilst Matthew’s injury is treated.”
Roger did not see that as such a “great reversal.” He’d met the Count of Flanders, and he thought Philip was the most formidable foe that Henry was facing, far more ruthless than Louis. How long would his brotherly concern last?
“I do not understand why Harry has taken no action! Why does he linger here at Rouen, doing nothing? Why did he not try to relieve the sieges of Verneuil or Driencourt?”
Willem’s smile was one of patronizing patience; he was wryly amused that people were always so quick to make uninformed judgments about military matters. As clever as Roger was, had he ever led an army, planned a campaign? “The king was wise enough to see that he had to wait for his foes to move first. Beset on so many sides, he has to fight a defensive war, and he understood from the first that Normandy must be protected at whatever cost. If he were to lose Normandy, many of his English barons with lands on this side of the Channel would join the rebellion to save those estates. Moreover, he’d be forced to choose between England and Anjou if Normandy was taken.
“Trust me, Roger, it has not been easy for him to wait like this. He is a man accustomed to seizing the initiative. Trust me, too, that he has not been ‘doing nothing.’ He fortified all his border castles, often using his hunting as a means of sending confidential messages or holding clandestine meetings. He has more than five thousand Brabancon routiers at his command, and he made a swift, secret trip to England this spring to bring back money from the royal treasuries at Winchester and Northampton, so he can hire more if need be. When the time is right, he’ll strike back, and when he does, I have no doubt that he will prevail.”
“From your lips to God’s Ears,” Roger said lightly, but he was greatly reassured by Willem’s cool certainty, for he respected the earl’s grasp of strategy and battle lore. “Tell me, Willem. How is Harry coping…truly?”
Willem shrugged. “It is hard to say. He has never been one for confiding, has he? I am guessing that he draws strength from his anger, at least during the daylight hours. How he fares alone at night is between him and the Almighty.” The sun was hot upon his face and he touched Roger’s arm, saying, “Let’s find some shade in the gardens, and you can tell me about the new Archbishop of Canterbury’s thwarted consecration.”
Roger grimaced. “That was a disaster. All was in readiness for the ceremony and on that very day we got a letter from Hal, claiming that the archbishop’s election was invalid because he’d not given his approval and warning us that he’d made an appeal to the Holy Father. So we still lack an archbishop until we hear from Rome, which is most unfortunate-although I’ll admit that I thought the monks had made a poor choice in Prior Richard. Oh, the man is laudably inoffensive, with the virtue of realizing his limitations, but he is hardly a worthy successor to St Thomas.”
Willem thought that Prior Richard’s appeal might have been the fact that he was so very different from the volatile, intense, martyred archbishop, but he was too tactful to say so to Roger, knowing he and Becket had been friends. Opening the gate into the gardens, he asked if there was any chance that Hal’s ploy could succeed and the Pope take his side.
Roger shook his head. “I see Louis’s fine hand in this appeal to Rome. He was outraged that Harry was able to reconcile with the Church so easily, and he’d like nothing better than to stir up more trouble between Harry and the Holy See. But the Pope thought it was in the Church’s best interests to make peace with so powerful a king and he-”
Roger stopped in mid-sentence, distracted by the sight meeting his eyes. Five boys were racing around the gardens, laughing and shrieking. The object of their amusement was a young blindfolded woman, laughing, too, as she stretched her arms out, trying to catch them as they danced around her. Both men smiled, for they’d often played Hoodman Blind themselves in their youth. Roger assumed that the children were some of the sons of the nobility being educated in the king’s household, and as he drew closer, he recognized one of them from Henry’s Christmas Court at Chinon: his uncle Ranulf’s youngest son, Morgan.
Morgan recognized him, too, and ended the game by crying out, “Cousin Roger!” As he dashed over to embrace his kinsman, the other children began to back away, seeing that the fun was over. The woman removed her blindfold, and at once dropped down in a deep curtsy. She was very pretty, with blue eyes and fair skin, too well dressed to be a nursemaid. She was obviously known to Willem, though, for he strode forward and gallantly kissed her hand, then glanced back at Roger with a glint of mischief.
“My lord bishop, may I present the Lady Rosamund Clifford? My lady, this is the king’s cousin, the Bishop of Worcester.”
Rosamund flushed as she and Roger exchanged stilted greetings, and she quickly made her excuses, her withdrawal from the gardens so hasty that it was practically an escape, the boys trailing in her wake. Roger gazed after her, taken aback. So this was the infamous Rosamund Clifford.
Reading his thoughts, Willem grinned. “She is not as you expected, is she?”
“No, she is not,” Roger conceded. “I thought she’d be more…more sultry,” he said. “Eleanor was a great beauty, after all, when she was younger. I suppose I imagined Rosamund to be cast in the same mold.”
“I know. The lass is comely enough, but she is no Cleopatra. She is soothing, though, and mayhap that has its own charm.” Willem laughed softly. “Much has been said of the queen, but I daresay none have ever called her ‘soothing,’ have they?”
“Indeed not,” Roger agreed. He’d heard that Henry was now openly living in sin with Rosamund, and while he deplored adultery, of course, he could understand why the king had taken such a defiant stance in light of the queen’s betrayal. “Well, at least there is one who is benefiting from these tragic events.”
“You mean Rosamund? I doubt it. The world is full of women eager to be the king’s concubine, but Rosamund
