The Bastard King by Jean Plaidy Page A

his mother.

The Seed is Sown
    SHE WAS AT the top of the turret as he had known she would be. She told him this when he rode into the courtyard for by that time she was down there.
    â€˜My boy,’ she cried. ‘Thank God you have come home to me.’
    She took him into her arms; she wept shamelessly. He feared that he too might show a womanish emotion. But how good it was to be home!
    She had a warming stirrup-cup waiting for him; he was thin, she complained.
    â€˜William, my love, I am going to feed you. You have the best chamber in the castle. Come, I will show you. And then you will meet your sister Adeliz and your brothers. Odo cannot wait. I’ll swear he is peeping out at you from one of the windows. He has heard such tales of you. Even little Robert knows. Herlwin, my husband, has sworn to serve you with his life and you know your father gave him a large estate that he might care for me and be your faithful vassal. On this estate everyone is for you . . . every man, woman and child.’
    Yes, it was comforting to enjoy the luxuries of Conteville. He could almost believe he was back in Falaise.
    He embraced his sister Adeliz who had grown since he last saw her. He liked the children. Odo was a bright little fellow,who liked to stand at his side and gaze at him as though he were one of the heroes of his favourite legend, for his mother had told these stories to him as she had to William.
    For a day he gave himself to the pleasure of being with his mother, his stepfather and the children. They were his family on whom he could rely with as much certainty as he had on Thorold and Osbern! Having experienced the uncertainty of not knowing who was a friend, it was good to sink back on a couch of security.
    There were dogs and horses and falcons at Conteville.
    â€˜Choose what you will,’ said Herlwin. ‘We get some good hunting here.’
    He rode far from the castle with Herlwin. ‘These people you see are loyal to a man,’ said his stepfather. ‘They depend for their livelihood on me and would not dare raise a hand against my stepson even if they wished to. But they do not. They are with you.’ And it was true that people, seeing them together called a loyal ‘Long live the Duke.’
    He began to sleep as he had not done since that terrible morning when he had awakened to find Osbern’s bloody body beside him.
    He would return to the castle tired but exalted from the hunt. There was feasting in the castle hall as there had been at Falaise with himself at the head of the table as his father used to sit, and his mother on his right hand, his stepfather on his left.
    He would lie on the grass beside the moat with young Odo and tell him how they had struck down the stag with their arrows and what a fine big animal he was. He would carry his little half-brother on his shoulders and trot round the courtyard with him; he would take him out on his pony; the boy adored him.
    But he was in little mood for merry-making after the feast; he did not wish to hear the ballads and stories of heroes because they reminded him of Thorold and Osbern. So he and Herlwin would sit together over a game of chess.
    His mother looked on, smiling at them both. It was as it had been many years and even more adventures ago when his father had come home.
    A few days after his arrival at the castle he returned from a ride with his stepfather to find his mother waiting for them in the hall.
    She was smiling in a manner which told him that she had a surprise for him and that it would please him.
    â€˜There is someone to see you, William,’ she said. ‘He has come to beg to be taken back into your service.’ She turned and called: ‘Come, Gallet.’
    And there was Gallet the Fool kneeling before him kissing his hands.
    He must control his emotions. There must not be any foolish tears. Why should they come to his eyes at the sight of that slight figure kneeling there, and the rather