Lady of the English - By Elizabeth Chadwick Page 0,168

steady him. The fight was only going to grow harder the nearer he came to being of an age to rule the kingdom. But rule it he would, of that she was certain, even if her own time was slipping away.

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Forty-eight

Arundel, March 1143

A deliza knelt on the altar steps of the chapel at Arundel with her eldest son and supervised his prayers.

He was two months short of his fourth birthday and every day he brought her joy with his questions, his brightness, and his existence. His hair was a tousle of warm brown curls and his eyes were a bright tawny hazel, like Will’s. He had lined up his collection of toy wooden figures on the altar step together with a representation of the Virgin Mary wearing a painted blue cloak. There was a little manger too with the Baby Jesus and a wooden donkey.

“You were once a tiny baby in the cradle,” she said. “Just like your brother Godfrey, and just like little Jesus.” He wrinkled his nose. “But Jesus was born in a stable,” he said. “I wasn’t born in a stable, was I, Mama?” Adeliza swallowed a smile. “No, my love, you were born in the bedchamber with many attendants and soft feather pillows.

But Jesus only had a poor manger for a bed. You should never judge people by how much wealth they have. The poorest person may have the greatest gift. If you ask Jesus he will help you and sustain you and look after you all of your life, although he was born in a manger and you were born in a feather bed.

He is the Son of God, and yet he chose the path of humility.” LadyofEnglish.indd 416

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Wilkin nodded and sucked his bottom lip, the way he did when he was unsure about something. Adeliza gently stroked his head.

“If I pray to Jesus to bring Papa home soon, will he make it happen?” he asked.

Adeliza’s stomach gave a small leap. She had been praying for that herself. There had been no word from her husband for several weeks. He had come home after Stephen’s Christmas court in a subdued frame of mind and had told her about his meeting with Matilda at Abingdon, and how he had let her go, instead of taking her prisoner. “I could have stopped the conflict at a stroke, but I did not,” he said. “Nor did I tell the king what I had done, but perhaps I should.” She had kissed him and put her arms around him. “You did what was right and what your conscience told you to do.” He had shrugged and said nothing. A few weeks later, when it thawed, Matilda had returned the horses he had lent her with words of gratitude and a long letter for Adeliza. She said that her son Henry was in England to further his education, and to learn more about the kingdom to which he was heir. Adeliza had wondered if she could persuade Will to swear allegiance to Henry, but he was a stubborn ox when the mood was upon him. He said that Henry was a child and he had no intention of jeopardising himself or his family by stepping out on such a precarious limb.

“Mama?” Wilkin tugged on her sleeve. “Will he? Will Jesus make Papa come home?”

Adeliza shook herself. “Yes,” she said. “Yes he will.” She set her hand lightly on her son’s head and sent up her own silent prayer.

ttt

Seventy miles away, on the outskirts of Wilton, Will was attending to his own prayers in the chapel of the leper hospital 417

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of Saint Giles at Fugglestone. He had given four pounds of silver to the master to help sustain the brothers and sisters of the establishment, and also given them a cow he had brought from Arundel. She was in calf and would provide the inmates with good sweet milk come full spring when she gave birth.

Adeliza would be pleased, he thought, and put from his mind the knowledge that she would certainly be a deal less pleased to know her nunnery of Wilton, less than half a mile away, had been invaded by Stephen and was being used by him as a camp from which to attack Robert of Gloucester at Wareham.

Fresh from his success at Oxford, Stephen was in a bullish mood and determined to retake the port and thus deny the Angevins a secure landing with easy