The Lion of Anjou: Can King Henry II bring peace to a troubled land? (The Medieval Saga Series Book 4) by David Field

Author:David Field [Field, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2022-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

XI

‘She’s almost as beautiful as her mother,’ Alain cooed as he looked down at William’s second child, Joan, now almost three years old. They were seated in the summer sunshine under the eaves of Repton Manor, where William and Adele were making the most of the two months’ leave of Court granted to them ahead of what each of them must then take on. For Adele it would be a journey across the Channel, accompanying her mistress Queen Eleanor to Poitou, where she hoped to escape from Henry’s almost sadistic attempts to get her pregnant for the ninth time during their marriage. Their latest son, John, had been born on Christmas Eve 1166, and Eleanor considered that she had done her duty for England. William, to be left behind in England, had been charged with the laborious and politically fraught task of drafting a new set of constitutions to govern the relationship between the newly instigated ‘assize’ system of criminal justice and the courts maintained by the Church.

‘How old is Hugh now?’ Alain enquired as Adele tactfully removed Joan from his arms. He looked across the lawn, where the sturdy boy was chasing a ball he had failed to catch when it had been thrown to him by Thomas Derby, the steward’s teenage son.

‘He’ll be seven on his next birthday,’ William replied as he followed Alain’s gaze. ‘Were either of us that energetic at his age?’

Alain chuckled. ‘If we had been, Prior Geoffrey would have hauled us back into line and given us a stern lecture on appropriate deportment inside a house of God. I sometimes catch myself using his very words when I admonish our novices for being too boisterous in the cloisters.’

‘You don’t regret taking holy orders as a way of life?’ William asked, uncomfortably aware of his own sensual nature, and wondering how a man who was his twin managed to suppress carnal yearnings.

‘I’ve never known any other,’ Alain reminded him, ‘since you were always the outgoing one, curious about life outside the priory, and then the abbey school. I might ask you if you regret going out into the wicked world.’

‘Never,’ William replied as he reached up and grasped Adele’s hand where she stood beside his chair, holding Joan in her arms. ‘I am the first to admit that marriage was not high on my agenda when the suggestion was put to me, but I soon learned that there is no greater comfort to a man than a loving wife.’

‘He’s talking nonsense, as usual,’ Adele grinned. ‘He married me because I came with an estate.’

‘Our uncle did the same, apparently,’ William advised Alain. ‘Did you know that?’

‘I assume that it was a different estate, with a different wife?’ Alain joked.

William laughed. ‘Of course — the estate was Chalfont, down near London, and the widow who he married was called Agnes. Sadly, she passed with her latest ague some months ago now, but prior to that they said that she was declining fast after Uncle Richard’s death.

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