Lady of the English - By Elizabeth Chadwick Page 0,154
the men and money I provide, she won’t welcome me.
If you are having problems keeping men’s loyalty, how much more difficult will it be if she has her Angevin husband in tow?” Robert scowled. “If that is your stance, then it was foolish and pointless to summon me to Normandy. You could have said all this by letter. Each day I am gone makes the situation in England more precarious.”
Geoffrey shrugged. “I needed to know what was happening, and who else should I ask but my wife’s own brother? Letters and messengers are all very well, but they do not tell the whole of it. I have had no direct contact with Matilda for three years, in which time she has had her fingertips on the crown and by all accounts lost it through her own obstinacy, so who then is the fool? I must know that if I commit men and money to England I am not throwing everything into a bottomless pit. Besides, 381
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having seen you as a commander here, it does not dispose me to come to England.”
Robert stiffened.
“You take me the wrong way,” Geoffrey said, although with a gleam in his eyes to show that he had been deliberately baiting Robert. “You are an accomplished general, and you would object to my interference in your theatre. If we are being honest with each other, you no more desire me in England than I desire to go there.”
“I could go,” Henry piped up from his lectern. “I am going to be king of England and I should be there. It’s not fair that Mama should be fighting when I’m not.” Geoffrey eyed his precocious son with amused pride. “Think you so?”
Nodding, Henry left his window seat and brought his parchment to his father and uncle.
Geoffrey studied the sketch of a castle under siege with arrows flying towards it across a ditch. Bodies bled copiously through their mail shirts, and men were hurling stones off the battlements. A ribbon of blue was evidently water because there were fish swimming through it. Henry started pointing out the weaknesses of the defences and how he would go about the siege and capture. “It’s the Tower of London,” he said.
“But you have never seen the Tower of London!”
“Then I need to.”
Geoffrey chuckled, but then he sobered and shook his head.
“England is a dangerous place. It would be unsafe to let you go.”
“No place is safe,” Robert replied harshly. “Bringing him to England might just tip the balance. We need to show the people that this child is their brightest hope for the future. He shines with kingship.”
Geoffrey frowned, reluctant to take the conversation further.
He had often been told of England’s magnificence in the days 382
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of the old King Henry, the peace and fertility of the lands, the brimming treasure chests, but that was all gone. Stephen had squandered the gold on his mercenaries and his cronies, and what he had not spent, his bishop brother had stolen. There was war, and the fields were black with a barren harvest of ash. It was no place for a sane man to go, much less a vulnerable child.
While Henry was here, he was under his eye, his influence and his tutelage.
“I want to go,” Henry said with a stubborn jut to his chin and a steely glint in his eyes that reminded Geoffrey entirely of his wife. “I want to learn about war.”
“Have you not learned enough about it in Normandy?” Geoffrey demanded. “I can show you everything you need to know, and explain it.”
“But it does not come with a crown,” Henry replied with inarguable logic. “I want to see Mama, and I want to see England.”
Geoffrey tightened his lips.
“I will look after him,” Robert said earnestly. “I swear on my life that he will come to no harm. Only give me the men and supplies to help us through this. You are right that Normandy may be the foundation for your son’s victory, but what point is a foundation if you do not build the house?”
“That is up to you and my wife, and thus far whatever you have built, you seem determined to raze the next day,” Geoffrey snapped.
“And your wife and I know that we need aid from Normandy and that it would be greatly enhanced if Henry returned with me—since you will not come yourself.” Geoffrey gave Robert a strong look, but eventually sighed.