Henry hesitated. There was wisdom in that. It was galling, though, that his younger brother should have to point it out to him.
He changed the subject. ‘I have decided,’ he said, ‘that it would be good for you to make a pilgrimage. You have recently been in bad health and need perhaps a little humility and forgiveness of your sins.’
‘My ill health was due to the cold of Corfe … not to my sins.’
‘Are you so virtuous then, brother? This is what I wish to tell you. Alexander, your brother-in-law, is going to Canterbury to pray at the shrine of St Thomas, and I think it would be an excellent plan if you accompanied him.’
You think, was Richard’s inward comment. You mean Hubert de Burgh thinks.
But the idea was not displeasing to him.
He had spent too long away from affairs and it would be interesting to meet his brother-in-law.
It seemed strange to Joan to be back in the schoolroom in the Palace of Westminster. Two years had passed since her marriage with Alexander. She had then been eleven years old – a child in years but her stay at the castle of Lusignan had brought her abruptly out of childhood and had taught her the emotions of an adult.
She felt very experienced compared with her sisters: Isabella who was now nearly ten years old and Eleanor who was nine.
They had greeted her warily. Poor little girls, thought worldly-wise Joan. What did they know of life?
She had a husband of two years standing. Alexander. He was not unkind and he had made her a queen. He was twelve years older than she was, an experienced warrior at the time of their marriage; he had frightened her a little at first, with his rather sharp features and the tawny tinge in his eyes and hair. But she was beautiful, she knew; and seemed to grow more so when her mother was far away. Everyone commented on her charm and that pleased Alexander. He was glad too of the alliance with England which she represented.
When he found that she was intelligent he talked to her a little about state matters. He was a man who while he excelled in battle was yet a lover of peace, and he told her he wanted a prosperous Scotland and no country was prosperous in war, and though he would defend his boundaries with his life he preferred to make them safe through marriages such as theirs than through battle.
She could agree with him on this and as she had learned meekness at Lusignan she accepted her lot.
He was not Hugh, of course; and she supposed she would go on thinking of Hugh all her life. He would always live on, as an ideal of what one had failed to achieve sometimes did.
She did not want to think of her mother with Hugh. She had now become aware of what such a relationship meant, for she would be expected soon to provide Scotland with an heir. She was not too young for that; she had been sickened when she had heard that her mother had already given Hugh two children. She supposed in time she would get used to the idea. Often she pictured them together. Of course she had subconsciously known that there was something different about her mother when compared with other women. She would never forget the way in which Hugh’s eyes had followed her as she moved around and now that she knew the meaning of those smouldering looks which passed between them she understood a great deal. She would remain here while Alexander took the journey to Canterbury in the company of her brother Richard. She remembered Richard but vaguely. He had been more forceful than Henry, always trying to push himself forward and pretending that although he was the younger he was the more important.
Her sisters Isabella and Eleanor wanted her to tell them about Scotland. They looked at her with awe – their elder sister who was widely travelled. First she had gone miles away to Lusignan and then she had come back and had a marriage. This made her a very important person.
But Eleanor, the younger of her sisters, had a very special question to ask.
‘Tell us what it is like to be married,’ said Eleanor.
Joan was embarrassed. ‘My dear sister, you will discover soon enough.’
‘Very soon,’ said Eleanor. ‘Did you know, Joan, that I am going to be married ?’
‘When?’ cried Joan. ‘You are far too young.’
‘It is true, is it not, Isabella?’
Isabella nodded gravely. ‘I heard Margaret Biset talking about it.’
‘Margaret Biset had no right to talk before you,’ said Joan.
Isabella was quick to defend her nurse-governess. ‘But she did not know she was talking before me for I was hidden where she did not think to look for me.’
‘Eavesdropping. Oh Isabella!’
‘It is to be forgiven,’ retorted Eleanor, ‘when plans are made for us and we are not told for a long time.’
‘And what did you hear?’ asked Joan.
‘That someone called William Marshal is claiming me,’ said Eleanor.
‘She means he is going to marry her,’ said Isabella.
‘Why, you are not nine years old yet!’
‘He had another child wife, Margaret said,’ put in Isabella. ‘She said he must have a fancy for them.’
The two young girls giggled but Joan stopped them.
‘You are being foolish. Tell me all you know of this.’
‘It is just that William Marshal was promised Eleanor and is now claiming her. She will go away to him as you went to Lusignan. But you came back, did you not, Joan?’
Joan nodded.
‘But not for long. Then you went to Scotland.’
‘Your Hugh married our mother instead. He wouldn’t have been able to do that if our father had been alive,’ said Eleanor.
‘Of course he wouldn’t, you foolish girl,’ put in Isabella. ‘Do you remember him?’
Eleanor nodded. ‘He used to shout,’ she said, ‘and scream.’
‘Margaret said sometimes he fell on to the floor and chewed the rushes. It made him less angry doing that. I tried it when I was cross. But it didn’t make me less cross and the rushes were horrible.’
‘You chatter too much,’ said Joan severely, ‘and you must stop hiding yourselves so that you can hear what people say. It’s bad manners.’
‘It’s interesting,’ observed Isabella.
‘One day you might hear what you would rather not.’
‘I’d rather not have heard I have to go to William Marshal,’ admitted Eleanor fearfully.
‘Well if she has to go it’s best to know about it, is it not, Joan?’ asked Isabella.
‘Perhaps,’ said Joan.
Then she turned to Eleanor and saw herself as she had been what seemed like an age ago when she had heard she was to go to Lusignan, Had she looked as young and defenceless as Eleanor now looked? And Lusignan …. how beautiful it now seemed looking back. How she hated the harsh Scottish winter when the snow came quickly and stayed. She thought of the lush pine forests and riding with Hugh. Her mother had taken all that away from her because she was in a way a witch and made spells so that she was the most beautiful woman in the world and all men – even those betrothed to others – wanted to marry her.
She shook off these thoughts and gave her attention to Eleanor.
The poor child was more frightened than she would have them know.
It was not easy to be alone with Henry. He was so important now. It was hard to realise he was one of those brothers with whom she had played in those days which now seemed so long ago.
He had been their mother’s favourite – if she could be said to have had a favourite for she did not greatly care for any of them, Joan knew now. It had been such a strange life they had led in Gloucester Castle. It seemed now as hazy as a dream. Vaguely she remembered her terrifying father; he was enough to make any girl afraid of marriage. Fortunately her mother had never been afraid of him although Joan had since heard terrible tales of their life together.