Godfrey’s wizened face lost its joking expression. “Orrick, make no mistake in the flowery language of his message or in the beauty of the woman he names. You are ordered to take this wife. And to take her now.”
Orrick matched his seriousness. “I did not miss that part of the message, Godfrey. I understand the intent within this.”
“Then go with God, my lord. I will keep you and the lady Marguerite in my prayers until you return safely to our lands.”
He reached out and shook the abbot’s hand and then received a blessing from him. ’Twas the way of Godfrey. Without another word, he made his way to his men and mounted his horse. The journey would take nearly two days unless they pushed. Now with the need to return home and prepare for his travels to the king’s court and a wife, he did urge his men faster.
First though he must tell his mother and make arrangements for her comfort elsewhere within the keep. His wife would need to have a certain hold on the way things were done and he suspected that his mother, familiar with the keep and its people for over three decades, would not relinquish her power without challenges. There would be time for all of that, of course. First he needed to go bring home his bride.
The journey seemed to speed by as he thought about the woman who would be his wife and the mother to his children and heirs. He was not some green youth with no idea of what was to come. Marriage had been on his mind for some time, but always one matter or another came up and interfered with it. Now, the king had given him a way to do it simply and plainly.
So, it was with great anticipation that he and his men rode into the yard of Silloth Keep and approached the stairway to the great hall. He had taken no more than three or four steps when his mother’s voice rang out to him, squashing any belief that the king’s orders would work out for the best.
Lady Constance came tearing around a corner and faced him as her ladies and various other servants caught up with her. The redness in her face and her labored breaths spoke clearly of her agitation. But what was she upset about?
His stomach sank as she waved several parchments in his face. Without any attempt to lower her voice, she addressed her most pressing concern to him.
“Swear to me that you will not marry Marguerite of Alencon!”
How had she known? They had just arrived at the keep after a strenuous ride back from Abbeytown. The king’s messenger reported to him there without traveling here. How could she have known?
“Mother, the king has ordered our marriage. I go now to answer his summons and to bring her back here. How did you know her name?”
He watched as the confusion and anger and frustration filled her face. She turned to several of her ladies and none gave her the answer or reassurance she sought from them. Orrick was becoming convinced, as Godfrey was, that his mother spent entirely too much time fretting over gossip and other womanly worries such as those. Mayhap his new wife could help to distract her from such ways?
“You cannot marry her.”
This was getting out of hand. This was why he should not have delayed his marriage this long and why his mother needed to take her place within his wife’s household. But her sorrow over his father’s death had driven him to mercy and her excellent skills at chatelaine had won out. ’Twas time to change that and his wife would be just the person to do so, with his guidance and control.
“The king has gifted me with Marguerite of Alencon, as you apparently know. And the king is generous in doing so….” His words drifted off as even he experienced an uneasy feeling over the amount of gold being paid to take this woman as wife. Damn, but his mother knew what was at the heart of this matter and now he feared asking her. But he must know what he faced from the king. “Tell me now, for I would hear all of it.”
Steeling himself for what was to come, Orrick took a deep breath and faced his mother in the midst of all who looked on around them.
“The king is truly generous, Orrick, but not in this instance. He pays you gold for he seeks to give you his mistress as wife. Marguerite of Alencon is the king’s whore.”
The king’s whore?
Now that he’d heard his mother’s words, he turned and sought his chambers. Orrick needed to prepare for this summons and prepare himself to take the king’s refuse as his wife.
At least now he completely understood that he was being punished for some sin committed by either himself or his father. What other reason could there be for such an insult as this?
Chapter Two
“Henry will not do this to me. You are wrong,” Marguerite argued. “He loves me.”
But the words sounded hollow and unconvincing even to her ears. Marguerite turned away from her companion and looked at the elaborate dress spread on her bed. It could not be. It simply could not be true that Henry had given her in marriage to someone else.
“You know him better than anyone, Marguerite,” Johanna replied in a bland tone of voice. “If you say he will claim you before the marriage can happen, I believe you.”
Her temper flared and she flung the dress from the bed onto the floor. Grasping the edges of it, she tore it open and pearls and gems went flying all over the room. Before she could rip it into the pieces she wanted to, another voice called out to her from the doorway.
“Is this how you treat the gifts of the king?”
Marguerite turned as Lord Bardrick, Henry’s steward and henchman here at Woodstock, entered her chambers. Johanna made a quick curtsy and escaped, though Marguerite was not sure if her own temper or the steward’s lecherous gazes at the woman’s ample bosom made her run from the room. The door slammed and she was alone with one of very few men who had Henry’s confidence and knew the king’s secrets.
“My lord,” Marguerite said, dipping gracefully as she knew she could to the floor in a curtsy, one that shared a glimpse of her own now well-endowed bosom with him. “I fear I am overwrought with excitement over my impending marriage to Lord…Lord…” She pretended not to remember the name of her prospective husband for a moment until Bardrick said it.
“Lord Orrick of Silloth.”
“Just so. Lord Orrick of Silloth. I mean no disrespect to the king. Indeed I am always pleased by his attentions and his gifts.”
They both knew the gift most recently given to her by Henry. The babe had been a girl unfortunately, and of no use to Marguerite in her plans to make a claim for Henry’s further attentions and affections. At least a boy would have been accepted and graced with a title and a position of power and wealth as Henry’s other bastard son, Geoffrey, had been. Through a boy she could have some hold. But the girl born a few months ago was worthless to her and remained behind at the convent where she had given birth to her, a nameless noble, nay a royal bastard, to be raised by the nuns there. Her own sister stayed behind to oversee the baby and to answer her own call to a life of service to God.
Bardrick walked to the door of the room, opened it and spoke to one of the servants waiting outside. “Take this to one of the seamstresses and have her see to it. And quickly, girl,” he yelled, pushing the servant to move more rapidly. “The wedding is on the morrow and it must be ready.”
Marguerite watched with a sense of amusement as the girl gathered the pieces of the dress together and stumbled from the room. She had not moved from the spot in which she stood.
“The king plans on carrying out this farce then, Bardrick?” she asked.
“’Tis no farce, lady. You will marry Lord Orrick and Henry will brook no refusal on your part.”
“And if I do not?” Marguerite could not