Read Online Candle in the Window by Christina Dodd - Free Book Online Page A

friend, and
why, he could not discern. Raymond was younger, and richer, more
noble, and so clever it made William’s teeth hurt. Prey to
dark moods, Raymond had depths William couldn’t understand,
yet the two of them meshed in some inexplicable rapport. Grateful
for his support, both spoken and unspoken, William filled another
cup. “What news of our King Stephen and our Queen
Matilda?”
    “Stephen’s on the march again, and
Matilda’s still licking her wounds across the Channel.
Stephen should have killed her while he had her in his
hands,” Charles said with disgust.
    “He’s too much of a chevalier,”
Raymond conceded. “Too much of a fool. And what good would
Matilda’s death do? ’Tis her son who’s making the
heads turn now.”
    “Are the rumors true? Is the boy back in
England again?” William asked.
    “The boy ,”
Raymond emphasized the word drolly, “is at least twenty and
ready to pluck the throne from Stephen’s unsteady
grasp.”
    “Have you seen Duke Henry?” William
asked, interested and intense.
    “Nay, not yet,” Raymond said,
“but he landed in January, and I hear he fights like a man
and thinks with the uncanny statesmanship of Matilda, but without
her uncertain temper. Nor should we discount the advantage of his
marriage to Eleanor last year. She’s the duchess of Poitou
and Aquitaine and—”
    “The queen of France.” William
grinned.
    “The queen no longer.” Charles chuckled
with the glee of a born gossip. “They say she drove saintly
Louis of France to distraction. She accompanied him on crusade, you
know, and created a scandal. Last spring they divorced on grounds
of consanguinity.”
    “Are they cousins?” William
interrupted.
    “Something like that,” Charles agreed.
“Half the royal marriages are tainted with consanguinity.
It’s only important when a divorce is needed.”
    Raymond picked up the knife and with vigorous
motions cut slabs of cheese for the men. “All of
Eleanor’s crying of consanguinity with the king of France,
and she and Henry share a blood line, also.”
    “Of course, her lands in Poitou and Aquitaine
make her a vassal of the French king.” Charles tore chunks of
bread from the loaf and passed them around.
    “Just so.” Raymond gave a peal of
laughter. “She’s required to receive his sanction to
marry anyone, and she flouted Louis. Henry, too, should have
received permission. He’d just paid his vassal’s vow of
fealty to his overlord for his lands in France. Henry had given him
the kiss of peace, andstill the wedding was
accomplished before Louis heard a breath of it. Eleanor’s
beautiful lands have gone to fund Louis’s greatest
rival.”
    Nicholas crumbled bread between his fingers as he
listened, but he could keep silent no longer. “That my
vassals would flout my authority to wed and combine themselves
against me would stick in my gullet, also.”
    “Personally, I believe ’twas their
marriage not even two months after the divorce that distressed
Louis,” Charles said. “No matter how holy Louis is, he
could hardly wish to believe that the she-devil he couldn’t
tame leapt gladly into another man’s bed. A younger
man’s bed.”
    “It sounds as if the wedding were political,
but the marriage bed was preference,” William observed.
“When Eleanor was queen of France, she complained that
she’d thought to marry a king and found she’d married a
monk.”
    “The contrary woman bore Louis only
daughters,” Charles reminded them.
    “Poor Louis couldn’t even win when he
marched into Normandy to crush his former wife and her new husband.
Henry charged in from the west and left Louis’s army in
ruins.” Raymond spoke, but all the men were laughing now. It
was a bright day for the English when the king of France was
discomfited, and the men reveled in it.
    “What says Louis about this today?”
William asked.
    Raymond answered with smug pleasure, “What
can he say? Eleanor is going to have a babe this summer, and