Free Rhiannon by Roberta Gellis Page B

it.”
    “Yes,” Ian agreed, “you are right. I think Henry tried to
win Hubert’s love. I suppose in his own style Hubert did love him, but
he did not show it in the right way. Henry needs to be loved—needs it. That
father and mother…”
    He closed his eyes and shuddered. Richard nodded in
sympathy. He had spent some years in John’s court as a hostage for his father’s
behavior. He was somewhat surprised at the violence of Ian’s reaction because
he did not know that Ian understood that part of Henry all too well. Ian had
himself been cruelly mistreated as a child. Geoffrey’s lips twisted. There was
nothing anyone could say about Henry’s mother that was too bad as far as he was
concerned. That vain and heartless woman had made four years of Geoffrey’s life
a hell of misery. Nonetheless, he did not lose track of the point he was trying
to make.
    “Winchester is more clever. He does not offend the king in
the same way. He treats him with great deference, and even allows him to work
at kingship until he begins to be bored. Most of all, he does not tell Henry
that the beautiful things he loves are a waste. It is most unfortunate
that Winchester does not understand this realm. He could manage the king very
well, if only he could be brought to see that absolute power will never be
accepted by the lords.”
    “Yes, and he has even infected Henry with the idea that he
is ‘divinely’ king,” Ian said. “Winchester seems to forget that the oaths we
swear work both ways. The king has duties and obligations to us just as we have
to him.”
    “True enough,” Richard agreed. “Moreover, there are laws and
customs that no king can ignore. If those are not held by king and man alike,
there can be no order, no security in the realm. No man could trust the king or
any other man. The law must be upheld by all.”
    “And Henry knows this,” Ian insisted. “Your father taught
him and de Burgh also—he abode by the law, however unfortunate his manner of
doing it. I say again that what Henry has is a sickness, a fever roused in him
by Winchester’s mistaken ideas. There is no deep, basic fault in the king as
there was in his father.”
    Richard did not answer directly. He agreed with Ian only to
a certain extent. He had been a child in court when Henry was a younger child,
and he knew the king’s capacity for spite and deceit. However, he also knew
Henry’s capacity for loving and giving. Richard agreed that the king was acting
out of character in this current violent severity. Henry did not enjoy
severity. The king was very generous; he liked to give and to be thanked for
it. He did not like to face anxiety and animosity and criticism and could not
bear to be blamed for any fault.
    “Well and so, but what do you recommend that I do?” Richard
asked.
    “Go back to your own lands, my lord,” Geoffrey replied
promptly.
    “Even if I be outlawed?”
    Geoffrey was silent for a moment; he hated to say what he
must say, for loyalty conflicted with justice. “Yes,” he got out at last. “Hold
your lands, my lord, with force if you must, although I hope it will not come
to that. It would be harder to regain what had fallen into the king’s hands—and
your efforts to regain your own would wake new anger and resentment. If Henry
holds nothing of yours, which he might be tempted to give another—”
    There was a multiple, inarticulate sound. Every man there
knew of Henry’s predilection to giving away what was not his—particularly to
foreign relatives and suppliants.
    Geoffrey glanced around but did not comment directly. “It
will be much easier to forgive and forget,” he continued, “if the king does not
need to disgorge what is bringing money into his purse or, perhaps, deprive a
favorite of what he has gifted to him. To keep such a prize, there would be a
temptation to maintain the state of enmity. You know how he has stripped de
Burgh, little by little, of everything he could.”
    “I agree,” Ian said