Free Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick Page B

and fire. He was slim with youth and his skin was fine-grained and clear, without the rash of adolescent spots that frequently bedevilled the passage into manhood. A son to be proud of. Whether he was a son to bear the weight of leadership only time would tell. “Can you do this task for me?
    I wonder…” Fulke stepped back and considered him further.
    “I have had an offer from the king of England.”
    “What kind of offer?” Geoffrey eyed him warily and drank his wine.
    “A former empress and future queen to wife, and the opportunity to sire on her the next king of England, Duke of Normandy, and Count of Anjou.”
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    Geoffrey stared. The words glittered on the surface of his mind before sinking into it, like small, sharp shards.
    “Yes,” said his father. “And that is why I asked if you were a man, because it will take one to deal with this.”
    Geoffrey’s stomach lurched and he thought he might be sick.
    He drank again, forcing himself to swallow rather than retch, and walked away from his father to Pertelot on her perch. He stroked the bird’s feathers, soft as the breasts of the village dairy maids. “She is old,” he said, his throat working. “She has been the wife of an old man.” His nostrils filled with the imagined sour, musty smell of the elderly as he spoke. Of the crypt and the tomb.
    “Her husband was younger than me when he died,” his father growled. “Are you saying that I am old?”
    Geoffrey looked round, a flush mounting his cheeks. “No, sire.”
    “When you are a grown man, she will yet still be a young woman.”
    “But she has been used,” Geoffrey said, feeling sick disappointment, and still the musty smell was in his nostrils. “She is not a virgin.”
    “So much the better. She will know what to expect. Henry of England wants to secure his boundaries by allying with us, but he also wants a swift young stag in his daughter’s bed. If she is older than you, then time is on your side, and there are always other women. She bore a child to the emperor, so she is not barren, but the infant died. Her husband’s seed was not strong enough, but I have faith in yours, and so, it seems, does the king of England.”
    Geoffrey said nothing because he was still clenched up inside with disappointment. Even if there was prestige at wedding a woman of so great a rank, her age and the fact that she was not a virgin and a shy young girl made him recoil. Frowning, he 61
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    went to the window and leaned against the embrasure wall. He was not fourteen until August but he had had his first woman last year at harvest time in a barn, under a great, golden moon, and he had repeated the experience many times since then.
    He had discovered wonderful pleasure in matters of the flesh and already considered himself a skilled practitioner. His father did not know the half of it. He pursed his lips and considered.
    Perhaps if he used the woman well and got her with child regularly, sooner or later she would die and he could take a second wife more to his taste. And there was nothing to stop him having mistresses alongside a wife. “Will I be a king as you will be a king?” he turned to ask.
    “Not while Henry sits upon the throne because he would not countenance such a notion, but he will not be there forever.
    It is preposterous that a woman should rule on her own. If your sons are under age when Henry goes to his grave, then who can say?” Fulke lifted a warning forefinger. “I hope I have raised you well in the matter of politics. Never let your heart or your loins rule your head. It may be that you will never be a king, but your children will be royal and Normandy will be yours for the taking. Think of our family. You will be grafted into the house of England and Normandy. I will sit on the throne of Jerusalem. Any children borne of my match will be your half-brothers and