SirenSong Read Free Page B

find nothing that suggests either guilt or innocence?”
He smiled wryly. “Sooner or later I suppose I must go home or at least tell my
father where I am.”
    “I did not intend that you should spend the rest of your
life as a hireling knight,” Henry laughed. “I have not yet told you the end of
the tale. There has been trouble in Wales. I will not take the time to explain
that in full now. There is always trouble in Wales. But it grows more
and more likely that we will have to march in with an army and lesson this
David ap Llewelyn. What this clerk Theobald overheard was that Sir William’s
new plan for enraging Richard against me was to force me to attack him.”
    “Attack him?” Raymond said with patent disbelief.
    “Not with an army, but to seem to persecute him,” Henry
explained. He paused, and his face darkened again. “I am always accused of
unjust persecution. When I wished to free myself from being shackled like a
slave to the will of Hubert de Burgh, that was unjust persecution. When I wish
to obtain a see for a dear friend and a relation I am accused of persecution of
Walter Raleigh. When Richard protects his friends, that is noble. When I do it,
that is persecution.”
    Raymond was appalled. The king’s voice had risen to a
petulant whine as he recounted his wrongs and there was nothing Raymond could
say. What Henry complained of was both true and not true, according to the
tales Raymond had heard in Aix. De Burgh had certainly become too great and
needed a set down, but Raymond’s father said he thought the king had carried
the matter too far and too long. It was the action, Alphonse d’Aix pointed out,
of a young man who still feels the chain of tutelage when all others can see
that it has fallen away. Thus he continues to strike out for freedom after the
enemy has fallen and should be shown mercy.
    In the matter of the see of Winchester, which Raymond had
heard about in every hospice in France, Henry again was not totally innocent
nor totally at fault. He had begun a perfectly legitimate campaign on behalf of
a perfectly worthy man, but the see of Winchester had long been held by a great
man of affairs who was more often absent from his diocese than in it. Those who
held the right of electing the bishop claimed they had suffered neglect because
their lord’s attention was so much drawn away from them. Thus, when the king
suggested to them another man much like Peter des Roches, the previous bishop,
they said they would not have him and elected Walter Raleigh, also learned and
wise but with no political interests or foreign connections.
    Fortunately for Raymond, Henry did not expect a response to
his complaint. Until he was made aware of the fact by near brutality, the king
assumed that everyone to whom he spoke was in complete agreement with him. It
was an unfortunate assumption and the cause of much pain because, when someone
was finally forced to disagree violently enough to make the king understand,
Henry was all the more shocked and hurt. This time, however, the long-dead de
Burgh and the see of Winchester were side issues. Henry shook off his petulance
to return to the immediate problem.
    “Sir William’s plan, as I understand it, was either to be so
slow when called to fight in Wales that he would be fined or reprimanded, or to
cause such disruption in the campaign against the Welsh as to produce the same
result. Then, when accused or blamed, to fly to Richard saying I wished to
disseisen him or some such. That, on top of the Winchester affair and perhaps
some other things of which I do not know, was to rouse my brother against me.”
    There was something wrong in what Henry was saying. If Sir
William was Richard’s vassal, it should be Richard who would summon him to
Wales. However, Raymond was aware that he did not really know whether the terms
of vassalage were the same in England as in his country. Besides, he was not in
a mood to examine things too closely. He was thrilled at the