A Chuckle In My Ear

"A conspiracy," I nodded, "on your behalf."

"Or Duke Robert's. Or anybody's." He smirked. "Either this was a tragic accident, or Sir Walter was acting alone. I would assume Lady Tirel would be thick in her own husband's counsels. It would be wonderful if she could produce, say, an affidavit. Something in writing, sworn to God. Something which exonerates her, the de Clares, and me from having prevailed upon her husband to murder the King." He blinked up at me, the picture of innocence. "I'm sure she'd listen to a brave, just, Godly man who knows her well."

I cleared my throat into an awkward silence. "And if I do this for you..."

He tapped my letter to his brother. "Sir Robert of... what was it you said? Kestros? Something else, sounded Greek?" He smiled. "You should hurry. Tirel's lands are way down the River, beyond London. Near Colchester, wasn't it?" He frowned into the shadows, catching a nod from Giffard. "Yes. I would prefer it if the first she heard of her husband's shitty archery came from a man who could tell me how the news struck her."

I felt an odd chill come over me. "I understand."

"Good." He wagged a hand at Giffard, the chancellor hovering off to the side with a sealed note. "I'll send you with a writ. I'm sure a crusader wound will get you food and lodging, and if it doesn't, you have your sword. But if all else fails, my writ may help." Giffard handed it to me silently, a standard writ of assistance issued over William's seal. "Obviously," he laughed suddenly, "I don't expect the people in the lands you're passing through to know who I am, or that I have, um, assumed the duties of King?" He gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Still. Do what you have to do to reach Lady Adeliza's doorstep as soon as you may, hmm?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

"You see now why I was happy to learn you have three horses." We all paused, considering, counting the miles. All of us had been everywhere in England worth fighting for, plus Wales, the journey already clear in everyone's minds: Winchester to London, some seventy Roman miles. London to Colchester about the same.

It was Thursday. "If I leave tonight, I'm confident I could be there on Monday by dinner." Nods; again, we'd all done this sort of thing before. "I won't ride by night."

"Well, of course," Henry shrugged amid general agreement; everyone knew the night was when the elves came out and did mischief. Besides, the moon was waning; the road would probably be unsafe for horses, anyway. "Demons and shit." Everyone nodded solemnly. "In any case, God keep you safe. You'll be able to find me in London; I'm going there as soon as the treasury is secured here. You might try to bring Lady Tirel there to talk to me, since she evidently enjoys riding with you." He leered, enjoying his pun.

I bowed my head among the ribald laughter of the assembled knights, neck burning, until I felt they'd had enough fun.

"I'll go, Lord Henry. I'll be in London in about a week's time."

He waved his hand, magnanimous, already a King. "Godspeed, Robert of Eyensbury."

* * *

The wall of the castle, long but low, sank slowly behind me along with the sun as I passed out of Colchester on Monday evening, weary of the saddle and hopeful that I wouldn't have to spend too long finding Adeliza Tirel. The land all around me lay dotted with exactly the same kinds of farms and fields I'd been passing for three days, my horses as bored as I was. Our journey had been fast, even easy, punctuated by a few of the new Norman castles a day in the endless English countryside.

I was conscious, as ever, of the people: the Saxons always covered by a vaguely furtive air that stuck to them like road dust, the Normans striding about much more freely. Thirty years of firm rule by the two Williams had set both sides equal under God, but it hadn't been long enough yet to erase the difference between conquered and conqueror.

And then there was me. Stuck in the middle.

It wasn't just me, though. There were many like me now, of mixed parents, though most were younger than I: it had taken time for the Normans to start fucking the Saxons, in most parts of the kingdom. My father had not waited, though. Mum had told me the story often enough. He'd arrived at their manor just a few months after the Conquest, and she said they'd been inseparable until the day he died.

You didn't hear those sorts of stories these days, I reflected. Marriages weren't like that anymore. These days, you had wives kicking up their heels for warriors like me while their husbands went into forests and shot kings dead.

I sighed, my hips sore; it had been many months since I'd ridden so far. They'd given me a bath on Saturday night at London, but that felt like weeks ago now, the old Roman roads seeming to suck my horses' hooves down deeper and deeper the farther we went. My beasts were doing well: the Roan was her usual calm self, carrying me for miles without complaint. The Grey, his gait marred these days by the wound he'd taken at Nicea, ambled along happily, dreaming of battles past.

And the Stallion? Well, the Stallion was just an evil-tempered, hateful piece of shit.

They'd borne me well enough, though, and now that a canon back by the castle had told me he thought Langham was just four miles up the road, all three horses seemed to sense the relief that would lie at journey's end down the long slope toward the Stour valley. A ridge crossed the road before me, humped low beyond the tangled marshes of a dark, straight brook, and I hauled up a few furlongs short of it to study the sky.

Smoke spiraled up from houses here and there, faintly blue and soon swiped away by the eager wind off the sea far to the right, but one trail of smoke was thicker and bolder than the others. That'd be the manor, I figured, and I nudged the Grey over that way with the other two following after they'd snacked on some dandelions.

I doubted Adeliza would be all that happy to find herself host to a warrior and three horses, still less once she heard what her husband had done. But it couldn't be helped. The smoke grew before me, a finger jabbed at God, and soon I caught sight of a low wall and gate at the bottom of a green hill, humped like a tit. Tirel had raised a keep up there, wood now but with piles of stone close by as though he'd intended to start soon on a proper Norman castle.

He'd probably be in one soon, I reflected, either fleeing to one across the sea, or dumped forgotten in the basement of one of Henry's. I shuddered to think of what Adeliza would say when I gave her the news.

I reined up at the little gate, a pair of Tirel's peasants staring at me from just inside. I saw them exchange mutters before the older of the two stepped my way and cleared his throat. "The baron isn't here, sir." He bowed respectfully, like people usually did when they talked to someone on a horse.

"Don't I know it." I hesitated, wondering whether I should have hung my sword from my belt before I arrived, but too late now: it was trussed across Stallion's back. "I'm not looking for Sir Walter, but for Lady Adeliza. Is she at home?"

They looked at each other again, for a lot longer this time. "Um. Yes, she's around... is there news?"

"For her there is," I shrugged, hoping I didn't sound ominous. "Listen, can you keep an eye on my horses? Only one of them is a dick."

"Yes, I was thinking that," the peasant scowled, glaring at Stallion. "That bay looks like a right asshole."

"Stay away from his feet," I advised, hopping down to the mud with a grateful sigh. The house looked new-built, in stone and wood instead of the wattle everyone else used; it told a lot, I reflected sourly, that he'd rebuilt his home before he'd rebuilt his tower. Tirel had once been a pretty scary knight, I recalled from my time with my namesake Lord Robert of Eu in Poitiers, but I knew how it was: when a man wants to settle down, he settles down fast and hard. He grows soft, fat, even genteel enough to be invited for a hunt with the King.

There was no doubt his wife knew I was here. Even in the largest manor, a visitor is rare enough that everyone knows about the arrival at once. I walked to the door with a measured stride designed to ease my sore thighs, making sure my face was carefully blank for anyone watching from inside, until a stir from the lean-to at the side of the house drew my eye.

And my heart.

A boy played there, toddling around beside a washtub, pushing a bladder through the still water. His maid sat nearby with one of her cronies, in low-voiced conversation while they watched the child. I knew the boy to be four years and two months old. I stood a long time, staring, quite oblivious to the two maids, or the peasants behind me with my horses, or the sun or the sky or the earth itself.

I had to physically stop myself from rushing to the boy, scooping him up, holding him high. The urge was strong enough that I took a step, without even realizing it, a single instinctive stride...

"He's cute."

The voice came low from my left side, where the front door had opened without me noticing. It belonged to a woman of little natural beauty but much native effervescence, a woman of sparkling eyes and a lively mouth and a ready smile, now standing at the door with her arms crossed beneath breasts a bit larger than I remembered. She was five years older now, perhaps 24, and she wore it well. I felt my mouth spread into a grin, seeing her reply the same way. "He is indeed. How are you, Lady Adeliza?"

"You never called me Adleiza," she sniffed, crossing toward me, stepping light and proud with her back straight. "None of my friends do, Robert."

"Alice," I nodded, my heart doing strange things in my chest, with my dick following suit in my trousers. My eyes fell toward her neck, her chest, before I looked away in desperation. "He's well? Healthy?"

"A perfect little boy," she lilted, and I could hear the smile in her voice. She'd always enjoyed the effect she had on me. "He's well, Robert of Eyensbury. And so is his mother."

I swallowed, remembering the peasants now, the maids. The boy, I now saw, watched me closely from under the lean-to. "I'm relieved to hear it, Lady Adeliza."

She paused until I dared to look back at her, only to see her smile fade. "If you're here," she pointed out, "there cannot possibly be a good reason for it. Do you bring me news?" She kept her tone light, carefree, but her eyes narrowed a bit.

I took a deep breath. "Of course. Can we, perhaps, go inside? You guess right: I do have news, Lady, from Winchester."

She stirred, reading my face, then glanced toward the lean-to. "Gytha? You are needed, I'm afraid."

"M'lady." The second of the two maids got to her feet, a Saxon woman of about forty years with a look in her eye that suggested she'd trusted no one, ever, and that she liked it that way. She made her way over, looking me straight in the eye. "Who's this, then?"

"This is Robert of Eyensbury, a man-at-arms in the service of Geoffrey of Millow, in turn of the late Count Robert of Eu." She cocked her head at me. "Only, I heard you'd taken up with Duke Robert of Normandy and gone off to slay infidels?" The trill of her voice was too light for mockery, though that's what it was.

"I had, m'lady," I nodded. "I'm back, and in the service of... well. Of the King, in a way. The brother of Duke Robert." I glanced back to where the peasants had been joined by three others, all of them looking curiously at my horses. "Really. We should go in. My news is important."

"No doubt." She nodded toward the Saxon. "Gytha will accompany me. It is hardly proper for a baron's wife to be alone with some other lord's liege man," she chuckled.

"Despite your past, m'lady?" Gytha demanded, plainly in no mood to laugh. "This is he, yes? The man who got you with child?"

I flushed, but Alice merely laughed louder. "Dear Gytha," she sighed, "I should have you beaten for such insolence. The Bishop himself says my son is Sir Walter's; I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about." She winked at me, leaving me staring at my boots and reflecting that the whole of England knew I'd fucked her. We had been quite the scandal, at the time. Even on crusade, men had ridden up to me along the dusty roads of France or Greece or the Empire, grinning, congratulating me on bedding this woman.

My voice came out as a mutter. "After you, Lady." We trooped across the muddy yard, my feet stepping automatically over a chicken as I looked under the lean-to to catch one more glimpse of the boy. Who was, unnervingly, looking straight back at me.

I ducked inside under the thatch.

"You're not a knight, Robert?" Again, what would have been mockery from anyone else was just a tease from Alice. "I was told everyone who went clattering off to Jerusalem would become a knight."

"Uh, that's not quite true." Alice and her maid were clearing some wool off a narrow bench against the wall, where it appeared I was supposed to sit. "Propaganda, sadly. There is a lot of that in God's war, honestly."

"I'm not surprised. Priests lie all the time." Alice smoothed her dress as she took a stool by the fire, both of us watching as Gytha brought me some beer with a snarly look to her face. "Remember, Robert, they are not my favorite people. Priests."

"I remember." I sat gratefully, my legs stretched out in front of me, hips slowly untangling themselves. Five years ago, the priests had almost been her mortal enemies. The Church had not been pleased by her conduct with me, which was a big part of why I'd been expected to take the cross. "Thank you," I told Gytha. The beer was dark and looked thick.

"Sure." She sat on another bench in the silent house and at once produced her distaff, eyeing me darkly. "Don't mind me."

Alice surely didn't. "It's unexpected to see you, Robert, but what news do you bring? Tell me." Her eyes went wide in that way she had, the way that wormed into your heart and stayed there.

I took a deep breath. For four days now I had been ahead of the news that the King had died, and now that I was finally ready to deliver it, my tongue felt frightened by what I had to tell her. "The news is not good," I shrugged, setting the cup on the bench beside me. The beer tasted sweet. "King William Rufus is dead. Last Thursday, in the New Forest."

"God rest his soul," Alice murmured, crossing herself, "but he was a piece of shit."

I nodded; that was a hard thing to disagree with. "He was a sinner, yes, but he's now gone." I hesitated. "I think his brother Henry Beauclerc will be the new King, though... well. It was still very confused when I left, so I don't know what has happened."

"Yes." Alice's eyes shone expectantly in the firelight. "You rode quickly. Straight to my door. I wonder why."

I spread my hands, helpless. "I came here at Lord Henry's command."

"Did you?" She licked her lips, that well-remembered tongue of hers flicking out. "Tell me, Robert," she went on, voice thick with irony, "did you speak with my husband Sir Walter before you left Winchester? How's he doing?" I took a breath and held my tongue, glancing over at the Saxon maid. Alice noticed. "Gytha," she asked pleasantly, "would you tell this man what I will do to you if you ever betray a confidence?"

"You'll cut my tongue out, m'lady."

"Indeed I will." She nodded at me, eyes flashing again. "You can speak freely around Gytha. Answer, Robert."

"The king died," I began slowly, the stone wall cold on my back, "while hunting. Sir Walter was with him, as were your brothers? Roger and Gilbert?" She raised an eyebrow. "Lord Henry. Some squires. A forester. Grooms." I licked my lips. "The King was shot by an arrow, Lady, and the man who shot the arrow was your husband the Red Knight."

The room went still, Gytha's distaff still as she looked hard at me, then her mistress. For her part, Alice merely nodded. "Sir Walter is very good with a bow," she mused.

"That's what everyone says," I nodded quietly. I sat, sipping my beer, watching as her brain went to work in the silence of Sir Walter's manor house, Alice's eyes flicking back and forth. The room seemed small to me, cold. I'd grown up in a Saxon house, wide and airy, with people carving out whatever space they needed for whatever tasks they were doing, but that offended the Norman sense of order. All the new houses had rooms, and it still felt odd to be in them sometimes. The fire crackled against the faint sound of my horses outside, until Alice sighed.

"So. What does Lord Henry want of me?" Her face was no longer saucy. Her life had become deadly serious on what had been a lovely summer afternoon. "My husband, I assume, is dead?"

"When I left, Sir Walter had not yet come to Winchester." I swallowed. "People there did not seem all that interested in tracking him down, though. Henry had other things on his mind."

"Such as?" she asked sharply.

"The treasury."

Alice laughed, a bitter rasp. "You think Henry Beauclerc will be the new King."

"I know it," I admitted.

She nodded, then rested her chin in her hand for a few more moments before she asked again. "Why did he send you to me? What are you supposed to do here?" Her lips found their smile. "Does he expect you to kill me?"

"Stop that. I told you, when I left, nobody really seemed to care all that much about Walter." I glanced again at Gytha. "I think he's not sure what happened, and Henry Beauclerc does not like being unsure. This might have been a mistake, your husband missing a boar or a deer. Or? Maybe it was murder. And if so? Was it Sir Walter? Someone else? Someone who paid Sir Walter?" I shrugged. "These aren't comfortable questions, Alice."

"No." She sniffed. "He's dead. Walter. He must be dead. Henry has to kill him." She glanced around at her home. "The manor: gone. He'll take it. I'll become his ward. He'll marry me to someone else."

"No. Hey." I wanted to lean into her, to take her hands in mine, but Gytha and her distaff made that impossible. I had been thinking, on my ride, of her. Of this place. Of the Red Knight, and how he'd never be back here, and who should rule Langham... and its Lady. "Stop. This is serious, Alice, but all is not lost. There's a reason he sent me, instead of one of your brothers. Think about that." I watched her eyes as she did so.

"My brothers are assholes," she pointed out.

"Here's what he wants," I went on, ignoring her, "legitimacy. He wants the kingdom to know he's really the King. That there was no murder, no conspiracy, nothing like that. He wants to know this was just... normal. One King dies, another takes over. God's will." I made myself smile. "He wants his brother's killer's wife to tell the whole kingdom that nothing strange happened. That he was not a traitor, that he never said anything against William Rufus." I drank the last of the beer. "That you support him."

She blinked in disbelief. "No. He's going to kill me."

"If he wanted that, he wouldn't have sent me." I looked at Gytha once more. "He knows we... knew each other."

"No, Robert. We didn't know each other. We fucked."

"Well, yes."

She shook all over. "He wants that? Just, like, a statement from me?"

"A letter. Or in person." I shrugged. "Or both."

She shook her head. "He wants me to go all the way to Winchester and, what, kneel? Grovel? Fuck that!"

"No. He's in London by now. He was leaving the day after me." I figured the miles in my head. "I imagine he got there, oh, Saturday night? Or sometime yesterday, at the very latest."

"I don't want to go to London," she sulked.

"Well. Then write a letter. I'll take it back to him." I shrugged. "Or? Just think about it tonight and make a decision tomorrow. I doubt there's any great hurry as far as you're concerned." I paused. "You're worried about Walter."