‘And?’
‘Waldin St Clair is coming home.’
Marie furrowed her brow. ‘Why should that worry you? Waldin is but one man. What can one man do?’
François shifted impatiently. ‘From a military point of view it could be disastrous. Waldin is bound to attract recruits.’
‘So?’ Marie shrugged. ‘You weren’t thinking of laying a siege? We agreed to let St Clair and his hatchlings moulder away in their stinking bog. They cannot topple you from your perch.’
‘I wouldn’t stake my life on that, Maman.’
Marie examined her son’s expression. ‘You’ve learned more. Don’t spare me, I can shoulder it. It’s my hip that’s weak, not my spine.’
‘He’s going to marry Yolande Herevi.’
‘That strumpet!’ She responded scornfully, unable to perceive why her son’s hazel eyes were so strained. ‘I don’t know who your informant was, François, but he must have been mistaken.’
‘I have every confidence the man was telling the truth. And God’s Teeth, Maman, you know the blood that flows through Yolande Herevi’s veins also flows through ours. It’s not as though she crawled out of the gutter.’
Marie bridled, and her dark eyes snapped. ‘My sister threw herself in the gutter when she married below her station!’
‘Gwionn Herevi was a squire and bound for higher things, if I heard the story aright. He was no nameless beggar.’
‘I will not discuss my sister’s marriage.’ Marie’s damaged hip twinged, and delicately she kneaded her side. ‘Oh, let St Clair marry his whore, the matter’s beneath contempt. We should ignore it.’
François was galled by his mother’s indifference, but he had saved the juiciest morsel till last. Casually, he threw it at her. ‘My informant tells me she’s breeding.’
His mother’s body jerked. ‘What?’
‘Another case entirely, eh, Maman?’
The pallid lips worked. ‘That bitch could not be in pup – she must be turned forty!’
The vulgar turn of phrase made François flinch. ‘She’s thirty-five,’ he said, mildly.
‘Saint Félix protect us!’ Age-spotted fingers clenched on the bed furs. ‘What if she produces another boy?’
‘Exactly. If Yolande Herevi becomes Yolande St Clair, and has a son, that son would have a claim to half my lands would he not?’
Marie lay motionless. Her face was glazed, her eyes burned. Her pupils were tiny, hard and shiny as jet beads on a rosary. Down in the inner bailey, François could hear the drumming of many feet as the castle guard drilled in the yard. Rooks cawed on the battlements. But in his mother’s chamber, there was only a stifling, oppressive silence. The window slits were too slim to allow much sunlight in, and in the eternal twilight of the room, his mother could easily be mistaken for a corpse.
François repressed a shudder and, blaming the suffocating sick-room atmosphere for his dark imaginings, went to the window splay to breathe in fresh air. An unlit torch was propped against the log basket by the fire. Dipping the flambeau into the fire, he jammed it in a wrought-iron wall sconce. His hair brightened to flame in the light. ‘Maman, what do you advise?’
‘Nothing. We should do nothing.’
The heavy jaw sagged. ‘Nothing? But we cannot allow them to marry!’
The bedridden woman gave a slender smile. ‘Yes, we can. And we will. There is nothing else we can do. We have no cause to take action against St Clair, and it might prove to be needless.’
‘No cause? Needless?’
‘Let me finish, François. She might produce a boy, but who’s to say she will? She’s had two daughters already, and may produce another. No court in the land would uphold the claim of a girl against you, my son.’
‘I agree St Clair’s mistress could produce a girl, but what’s to prevent her having a boy later on? If that happened, we’d have to go through this all over again.’
She tutted. ‘Ever eager to ford streams before you’ve reached them. Learn to wait. The woman may contract a fever, St Clair could drop dead – anything might happen. Don’t get in a lather until events are come upon you. Well, will you wait?’
‘Very well. I’ll hang back till the bitch births. And if it’s a girl, I’ll follow your woman’s plan. But if it’s a boy, I’m for adopting my own strategy. I’ll not stand by and let some whelp of St Clair’s filch my birthright.’
Marie withdrew into her pillows, satisfied. ‘I’d like to rest now.’
‘Very well, Maman.’ He strode to the door. ‘You should come down to the hall. I’ll have someone knock up some crutches for you, we can’t let you fester up here forever.’
‘Crutches?’ Marie hauled herself up on one elbow, black eyes flashing contemptuously. ‘Crutches?’
‘Be reasonable, Maman. It would do you good to get out and about.’
‘I’ll have you know I’d rather be seen in my winding sheets than hopping about on crutches!’ The milk-white cheeks were mottled with anger.
‘As you wish.’ François bowed. ‘I was only trying to help.’
Muttering, Marie subsided. ‘Go away, François. Crutches? I don’t need any dammed crutches. What I need is some peace, so I can sleep and recover properly.’
‘Very well, Maman. I’m going. And I’ll stay my hand as far as Kermaria is concerned, at least until the babe is born. After that, we shall have to see.’
Chapter Thirteen
One morning not long after Easter, His Grace Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, was twitching and fretting outside the King of France’s pavilion, in a cleared area in the woods outside Paris. Tents belonging to both entourages sprouted like brightly coloured mushrooms all over the stubbly field.
Duke Geoffrey frowned at the blue silk tent flap which was tied down despite the lateness of the hour, and spoke to the captain of his hand-picked bodyguard, one Alan le Bret. ‘It lacks but two hours to noon,’ he complained, foot tapping a tent peg. ‘Our young King sleeps late.’ The Duke was in his mid-twenties, a full half-decade older than the King of France. Under a red damask tunic encrusted with embroidered leaves, the Duke wore a chainse of best Reims linen. Bored, he folded the cuffs of his shirt over his tunic sleeves, admired the effect, and turned to address his captain; a dour but efficient fellow who had risen high enough in his favour to be clad not in the Duke’s heraldic colours – black and white – but in his own choice, in this instance the delicate green of good quality homespun that had been dyed with birch. The captain wore his gambeson over his tunic. He was, the Duke had been pleased to discover, a man with a sense of humour if one troubled to dig for it. ‘Methinks our royal host delights in delaying us,’ Duke Geoffrey went on. ‘Philip knows I have to visit my duchy.’
‘King Philip had visitors last eve,’ le Bret informed him, ‘and they did not leave till late, past the third hour.’
‘Did you manage to glean who it was?’
‘Messenger from Flanders.’
Duke Geoffrey’s interest waned. ‘Marriage troubles, I should think. And how did you discover that titbit, Captain?’
Alan folded his lips together and glanced briefly at the royal tent.
‘It couldn’t be,’ amusement lifted the Duke’s lips, ‘that you were visiting the daughter of King Philip’s cook?’
‘Your Grace?’ Keeping his face as blank as a stone slate, Alan stared past his liege lord at a silver fleur-de-lys, flying high on a standard on the top of the French King’s pavilion.
‘You don’t answer, le Bret.’ Duke Geoffrey’s voice took on a warning note, but his eyes were smiling. ‘I think you tell but half your tale. While we wait I’d have you entertain me with the whole, if you please.’
Alan raised grey eyes to his noble lord’s. ‘Your Grace, you may have bought the strength of my arms, but I can’t think you own all of me.’