Maël instructed those behind Vitalis. As his captive followed him into a chamber occupied by two, he said, “Your Majesty, here, Vitalis.”
Might the man sitting on an enormous trunk at the foot of a massive bed, sword propped on the trunk’s edge, wonder over Maël not naming the king’s enemy the leader of the Rebels of the Pale? If so, he showed no sign where he leaned forward with forearms on thighs, gaze fixed on the apple whose peel he cut away in a single, undulating strip.
There was another proficient at the same—more so for the speed with which he divested an apple of its clothing when he was more hungry than thoughtful. And memory of that young man made Vitalis more eager to finish this thing between William and him. Were Theriot D’Argent lost to his family because of the delay in awaiting Vitalis’s judgment, it would be unforgivable.
William finished peeling the apple. Unlike the youngest D’Argent brother who had looped the red ribbons over fence rails to indulge birds, he let it drop between his feet. It might sweeten the rushes for a while, but before long it would molder and attract pests.
The pretender looked up at Maël and Vitalis, then bit into an apple so heavy with juice, the assault of his teeth misted the air. He chewed slowly, shifting the mouthful, distending one cheek then the other, and finally swallowed.
“Sir Guy,” he called.
The chevalier standing alongside an unshuttered window stepped forward.
“You are precaution only, are you not?” William asked without looking around.
“Your Majesty?”
As if Le Bâtard had spoken clearly, requiring no explanation for any possessing half a wit, annoyance glinted in his eyes. “Am I capable of defending myself, Chevalier?”
“Such a question need not be asked, Your Majesty,” Sir Guy said without apology, and Vitalis noted annoyance in his own eyes. And liked him for it.
He was no Norman recently arrived on these shores. Even had Vitalis not learned all he could about those with whom William surrounded himself, still he would know it from the man’s Norman-French that was not as rich in consonants nor trippings of the tongue. Had the chevalier not been born in England to Norman parents, then mostly he was raised here. And that was but the first of things of interest about Sir Guy Torquay.
“Go,” William said. “I am safe in my own hands as well as those of Sir Maël should my captive behave badly.”
And speak of what I took from him in the cave, Vitalis thought.
Sir Guy bowed.
When he closed the door behind him, William took another bite, then set the apple on the trunk’s lid. “This day I decide your fate, Vitalis. Are you prepared for what that may be?”
“I have been prepared since I yielded to Sir Maël.”
William set his head to the side. “Even if I determine you are of greater value dead than alive?”
“More if you determine that, William of Normandy.”
The pretender unbent his back. “Why do you find it so hard to yield to your king? Do you grant me my rightful title, death will be one step more distant.”
Vitalis set his legs farther apart. “I am not in the habit of lying, even if it places me a score of steps from death.”
“You claim integrity.”
“Why would I not? It is free.”
William laughed. “Surely you do not believe it is without cost?”
“I am aware the cost of integrity can be great, at times deadly, but only when the price is paid to men, not God.”
The usurper narrowed his lids. “You sound Christian.”
So he did—and was, no matter it felt he had no cause to be. “I am a Christian the same as you claim to be.”
“It is no mere claim, as evidenced by the great favor shown me by the Lord who sealed it at Hastings when that battle went my way.”
Vitalis glanced at Maël and saw the chevalier had stiffened further. He did not like his sovereign who believed God was on his side, might even hate him. “Though I knew not the mind of the Lord when war raged on that battlefield,” Vitalis said, “nor have I know it in all the years since, I believe I know it in more recent months.”
“Pray, tell what you know of His mind, Vitalis.”
“After the harrying of the North, He is even less pleased with the ruler He allowed to take England’s throne.”
More tension from Maël, and Vitalis knew he questioned the wisdom of one who was making a greater enemy of the man