The respite gave Geoffroi time to collect his thoughts. As his racing heartbeat gradually slowed down, he closed his eyes and sent up a swift but sincere prayer of gratitude that he had been in the right place at the right time.
The mood of the visit improved daily from then on. Hugh remained weak and unwell, although the fever, having broken, did not return. His mother judged that he was on the mend, and set about presenting him with a variety of dainty little dishes to tempt his appetite, accompanied always by draught after draught of water, one cupful of which each morning was subjected to the Eye’s blessing.
Ediva, after the shock of their original reunion, now treated Geoffroi much as she had done before; whatever thoughts she might have on his possession and use of the Eye, she kept to herself. Ida, however, was far less reticent; in fact, she was not reticent at all.
‘I would lay odds that you have captured her heart,’ the Lombard teased Geoffroi as they settled down for sleep on the fifth night after their arrival. ‘Would that every man who went a-courting could effect a miracle cure on his sweetheart’s little brother!’
Geoffroi had not told his friend of the Eye’s role in Hugh’s recovery, which made him uneasy since it meant he had to take credit for a healing skill that he did not actually possess. ‘Better to have no sick little brother in the first place,’ he said soberly.
Faintly he heard the Lombard chuckle but, to Geoffroi’s relief, he did not pursue the matter.
The next day, Ida and Geoffroi went out riding together.
It was the first time that they had spent any length of time entirely in one another’s company. Geoffroi felt the joyful hours of that fine May day etch themselves so deeply in his memory that he knew he would never forget one moment of them. And, looking at Ida’s happy, laughter-filled face, illuminated to beauty by her love, he guessed she felt the same.
He went to speak to Ediva one evening, while Ida was sitting with the fast-recovering Hugh.
They sat facing one another in front of the fire in the hall; Geoffroi imagined that she knew very well what he wanted to say, and did not waste her time by hesitation.
‘I have fallen in love with Ida,’ he said simply, ‘and I would like to ask her to be my wife.’ Before Ediva could speak, he rushed on, ‘I have a home to offer her — Acquin is not grand or even very large, but it is the household of a proper family, secure, full of affection, and it is set in the midst of fertile, productive land. For all that I cannot offer her great wealth, jewels or fine clothes, Ida would not want for any necessity, you have my word on that. My mother, my brothers and my sister would welcome her and embrace her as one of the family and, as for me, well, I will not cease to work to make her happy as long as I live.’ He cast around in his mind to see if he had left anything out; he didn’t think so. He raised his eyes from their studied concentration of the fire and met Ediva’s.
She was smiling.
‘Geoffroi,’ she said gently, ‘Although I now know the whereabouts of Acquin, and appreciate that it is not too many days’ distant from us here at Lewes, I must say that my hope has always been that Ida would marry a man who lived close by.’
Heart beating fast even as it appeared to plunge down towards his boots, Geoffroi said, ‘But-’
Ediva held up her hand for silence.
‘I had in mind,’ she went on, ‘some kindly, honourable, courteous man who loved her deeply and whom she loved in return, who lived close by so that I might have the pleasure of seeing my beloved daughter grow in beauty as she embraced the joys of being a wife and, in time, a mother.’ She paused, looking steadfastly into Geoffroi’s eyes. ‘But,’ she went on, a smile quirking her lips, ‘I think I always knew that was asking for too much. This paragon of virtues who lived but a stone’s throw away just does not seem to exist’ — she gave a small sigh — ‘so I suppose we shall have to make do with you.’
Geoffroi, mouth open, closed it and then said again, ‘But-’
Ediva began to laugh. ‘Geoffroi, my dear man, I am teasing, and it is very wrong of me.’ She got up and came to sit beside him. ‘What I just said is, in essence, true. But what I did not say is that, in all important respects, you are what I should have chosen for Ida, and I am quite sure dear Herbert would have thought so too.’ There was a brief pause — her voice had broken a little as she spoke of Herbert — and then she said, ‘What woman, after all, sees her daughter establish her own household on the doorstep of her mother’s? My girl will be happy with you, Geoffroi,’ she added firmly. ‘Go and ask her if she will have you. And, if she will, you have my blessing.’
He asked her. So eager was she to say yes that she had thrown herself on him, shouting ‘I will! Oh, I will!’ even before he had finished getting the words out.
Geoffroi d’Acquin and Ida, daughter of Herbert of Lewes, were married on Midsummer’s Day of the following year. The seventeen-year-old bride, who did not seem to be able to keep her adoring eyes off her tall husband, wore a garland of flowers on her auburn hair; Geoffroi, gazing down at her as she clung to his arm, thought, eyes as blue as the midsummer sky. Aye, now I see it for myself.
Herbert, I thank you.
12
From the start, Geoffroi and Ida were happy together. Ida took to Acquin as soon as she saw it — country girl that she was, the landscape and the quiet rural setting suited her well — and she quickly grew to love the lady Matilda, Geoffroi’s mother. She became, to a greater extent than Geoffroi had dared to hope, given her youth, a dependable, capable and beloved member of his family. If she missed her own mother and her childhood home, she never said, and Geoffroi did not ask.
Geoffroi’s brother Robert was not well. They all realised it and, it seemed to Geoffroi, they all made private preparations for what rapidly began to seem the inevitable. The poor man, skeleton-thin, and racked with pains in both his stomach and his chest, lasted through the summer and saw the harvest in, although he himself had no hand in it.
Satisfied that he left Acquin in Geoffroi’s good hands — ‘You really have had enough of soldiering, haven’t you, Geoffroi?’ — Robert d’Acquin died in the warmth of a golden September evening, three months after Geoffroi had brought home his bride. And, with his passing, Geoffroi took up the title and the responsibilities of Acquin, and his new life truly began.
He had the firm support of his mother; and the lady Matilda probably knew as well as, if not better than, anyone did how to run the estate. But she could not go out herself to order and command the busy daily round of the farmer, and neither could frail Esmai nor young William, about to leave Acquin and enter a monastery near Rouen.
Geoffroi, feeling the weight of Acquin descend on to his back, was more grateful than he could say for the presence of the Lombard. ‘I know you want to go home,’ he said one day to his friend, ‘and I know, too, that I am wrong to detain you here, but-’
‘You do not detain me,’ the Lombard said calmly. ‘I choose to stay.’
‘-but if you’d just agree to remain with us for another few months, just while I get used to everything,’ Geoffroi continued as if he hadn’t heard, ‘I should thank you with all my heart and keep you always in my prayers.’
The Lombard said, with the faintest irony, ‘How kind.’
The Lombard was true to his word and remained at Acquin through that winter and the following spring and summer. Geoffroi gradually ceased to consult him before making big decisions, and the time finally came when he didn’t consult him at all, instead merely informing him once a decision had been made, and then more from courtesy and habit than from necessity.
By early autumn, it was apparent that Ida was pregnant.
The state became her; Geoffroi thought she had never looked lovelier and he fell in love with her all over again.