You have other duties, too, a fact your seneschal is keen to draw to your attention. The role of a new king, it seems, is to give gold and clasp hands; to receive fealty and hear petitions; to visit those tenants who might benefit from alms after summer storms left their farms battered and fatigued. You must be seen, so that all might learn to love you. They don’t know you, but nor did they know your father as anything more than a distant figurehead, so that matters little. They would kiss the palm of any man in a crown who paused long enough to hear their troubles.
You meet a newborn child. They say they’ll name him after you, but you tell them to give him a brighter name, a youngerone – one with less to weigh it down. Their uncertain smiles suggest they can’t tell if you’re joking, and you wish you knew, too, how much of that was jest. But you hope nonetheless that they don’t name the child for you. All you did was touch his brow and laugh when he clasped tiny hands around your finger; there must be fathers, uncles, grandfathers whose names are a better fit.
You meet older children, too. A small boy tells you he wants to be a knight, and you encourage him with tales of great deeds and chivalry. A girl tells you the same, and when you glance over at her mother you see the woman’s concern, though you can’t be sure if she’s afraid you’ll punish the girl for her dreams or merely trample them. You do neither, and tell her the story of a damsel rescuing a captured knight to repay him for his favour, because it is the best story you can offer her.
Two brothers, at odds with each other, bring a petition to you concerning their inheritance. Two sisters, penniless, beg a dowry from the castle’s coffers, for they’ll make no marriage without one. A poacher hunting in your father’s forests – your forests – is brought before you in chains, to be made an example of, and you regard him for a long moment.
‘Were you hungry,’ you ask him, ‘or merely sporting?’
‘My lord,’ begins your seneschal, but you hold up a hand to silence him.
‘I would have his answer.’ You turn back to the man. ‘You did not hunt a doe or hart. You trapped hares. That to me speaks more of hunger than of greed, but I would know your defence.’
The man is trembling, but he manages to meet your eyes. ‘I had three sons and lost two to the sea, sire,’ he says, ‘initially as fishermen until they were drowned last winter. Now my third son and I try to keep body and soul together on land scarce large enough to keep goats and the last of those fell sick with afever. We’ve no coin to buy more and no crop large enough to live on.’
Perhaps it is a lie. A figment, a story, designed to evoke pity. Your father would have thought so. He’d have fined the man if he were in a good mood and had his hand in a foul one, if he let him free at all, though all outcomes would have required him to concern himself with matters of justice and not merely the pursuit of his pleasure. No doubt your seneschal expects a firm hand and a similar violence from you, to prove to your people that you are no soft-hearted boy to be trifled with.
But a king can do worse than to be known for his kindness. ‘Give this man a goat,’ you tell your steward. ‘No – two goats. And coin enough to feed them for the winter.’
‘Sire,’ the seneschal protests, with real dismay in his voice. ‘If you allow poachers to evade punishment, you—’
‘Will gain a reputation for mercy? What a tragedy. Perhaps if I ensure my subjects do not starve, there will be no call for poaching. Who’s next?’
More of the same, it seems: more tests of what flavour of justice you might mete out, more signs that your father’s interest in his land and people had waned before his death. It was not the weeks of waiting for your return and coronation that left lands mismanaged and tenants starving, but the years that went before them. You will have your hands full for some time restoring your kingdom to prosperity, and that’s assuming no greater trouble – no raiders from the sea, no invasion from the east.
When the day is over and you are finally freed from duty and the weight of your crown, you find that there is somebody else who wants your attention: your ward, sitting beside you as you eat.
It is strange to think of her as such, when she is almost your own age and no niece or daughter. Perhaps a sister, in anotherlife, if your father had not sent you away and you had had the chance to know her better. Perhaps a wife, if you did not know already that you will marry for political ends if you must marry at all.
Still, she is under your protection, and you have been neglecting her these last days, your mind full of other things.
‘I hear you are winning the hearts of poachers and petty thieves,’ she says, with a touch of laughter in her voice. She is dressed almost as finely as you, in her silk bliaut with its embroidered hem and full, draping sleeves, her hair in long braids wrapped with ribbon. A narrow circlet keeps her silk veil over her hair.
‘Better to win the hearts of thieves than the hearts of nobody,’ you answer her, affecting the same lightness of tone. ‘Am I inciting such rumour already, or do you take a particular interest in petitioners?’
‘A little of both,’ she says. ‘One never knows whether the next man to stand before you in the hall will be there to ask for my hand.’
You glance sharply at her. You have not spoken of her marriage, and while you are half-aware that such petitions and proposals are inevitable – a man would be a fool not to know that marrying a king’s ward might better his standing, to say nothing of her beauty and charm – you had not particularly thought of them as imminent. This was, you realise, an oversight of ignorance.
‘Did my father . . .’ you begin, and trail off, unsure what you are asking her. It is close to half a year since her father died, and she has been reliant on the crown’s charity since then. ‘Did my father involve you in such things, at all?’
She tilts her head noncommittally – not quite a nod, not quite a denial. ‘He assured me that I would have some choicein the matter,’ she says, ‘but choice means little when you know nothing of the hearts of the men who desire you, only their name and lineage.’
You consider this for a moment. It is likely you will know no more than the name and lineage of whatever woman you one day marry, but those who enjoy not the privileges of kingship should carry not its burdens. ‘And is it marriage you seek?’ you ask her. ‘If a cloistered life would suit you better . . .’
A laugh, slightly nervous. ‘No, sire, marriage is more to my liking than that. I had some years in the cloister as a girl and while I’m grateful for my learning, it is not the path for me.’
No doubt she is more learned then than you, and has a fairer hand. ‘Then marriage it shall be,’ you tell her, ‘but when any man comes seeking your hand from me, I will ensure that you may talk with him, and hawk with him, and share whatever other diversions might suit you, before I ask you for your answer. If that suits you.’
A shy smile. ‘That settles greatly my worries, my lord. Thank you.’ But there is something else she would ask of you, you think, watching her pick at her food and open her mouth, once or twice, as though trying to shape a question and struggling to find the words.
‘Speak,’ you encourage her. ‘There is nobody here to listen. What is on your mind?’
This is not entirely true – there are servants, of course, waiting to refill your cup or bring you another dish of food, and others seated elsewhere in the hall. But here on this dais, it is only the two of you.
‘Your new knight is on my mind,’ she says at last. ‘The one who was here, at the feast . . .Bisclavret.’ She says his name almost the way you do – wondering, luxuriating, tasting each syllable. ‘He will swear his oaths soon, will he not?’
‘Yes,’ you answer cautiously. ‘When he returns from putting his mother’s lands to rights.’
