Ugly Gervase said: “Well, lord, I hope you don’t have Walter’s baby, now!” and they roared. Even William thought that was funny. They all walked out of the little booth together, leaning on one another and wiping their eyes. The other girls were staring at them, looking anxious: they had heard William’s whore scream and were afraid of trouble. One or two customers peeped out curiously from the other booths. Walter said: “First time I ever saw that stuff spurt out of a girl!” and they started laughing again.

One of William’s squires was standing by the door, looking anxious. He was only a lad and he had probably never been inside a brothel before. He smiled nervously, not sure whether he was entitled to join in the hilarity. William said to him: “What are you doing here, you po-faced idiot?”

“There’s a message come for you, lord,” the squire said.

“Well, don’t waste time, tell me what it is!”

“I’m very sorry, lord,” said the boy. He looked so frightened that William thought he was going to turn around and run out of the house.

“What are you sorry for, you turd?” William roared. “Give me the message!”

“Your father’s dead, lord,” the boy blurted out, and he burst into tears.

William stared, dumbstruck. Dead? he thought. Dead? “But he’s in perfectly good health!” he shouted stupidly. It was true that Father was not able to fight on the battlefield anymore, but that was not surprising in a man almost fifty years old. The squire continued to cry. William recalled the way Father had looked last time he saw him: stout, red-faced, hearty and choleric, as full of life as a man could be, and that was only… He realized, with a small shock, that it was nearly a year since he had seen his father. “What happened?” he said to the squire. “What happened to him?”

“He had a seizure, lord,” the squire sobbed.

A seizure. The news began to sink in. Father was dead. That big, strong, blustering, irascible man was lying helpless and cold on a stone slab somewhere-

“I’ll have to go home,” William said suddenly.

Walter said gently: “You must first ask the king to release you.”

“Yes, that’s right,” William said vaguely. “I must ask permission.” His mind was in a turmoil.

“Shall I tip the brothel keeper?” said Walter.

“Yes.” William handed Walter his purse. Someone put William’s cloak over his shoulders. Walter murmured something to the woman who ran the whorehouse and gave her some money. Hugh Axe opened the door for William. They all went out.

They walked through the streets of the small town in silence. William felt peculiarly detached, as if he were watching everything from above. He could not take in the fact that his father no longer existed. As they approached headquarters he tried to pull himself together.

King Stephen was holding court in the church, for there was no castle or guildhall here. It was a small, simple stone church with its inside walls painted bright red, blue and orange”. A fire had been lit in the middle of the floor, and the handsome, tawny-haired king sat near it on a wooden throne, with his legs stretched out before him in his usual relaxed position. He wore soldier’s clothes, high boots and a leather tunic, but he had a crown instead of a helmet. William and Walter pushed through the crowd of petitioners near the church door, nodded at the guards who were keeping the general public back, and strode into the inner circle. Stephen was talking to a newly arrived earl, but he noticed William and broke off immediately. “William, my friend. You’ve heard.”

William bowed. “My lord king.”

Stephen stood up. “I mourn with you,” he said. He put his arms around William and held him for a moment before releasing him.

His sympathy brought the first tears to William’s eyes. “I must ask you for leave to go home,” he said.

“Granted willingly, though not gladly,” said the king. “We’ll miss your strong right arm.”

“Thank you, lord.”

“I also grant you custody of the earldom of Shiring, and all the revenues from it, until the question of the succession is decided. Go home, and bury your father, and come back to us as soon as you can.”

William bowed again and withdrew. The king resumed his conversation. Courtiers gathered around William to commiserate. As he accepted their condolences, the significance of what the king had said hit him. He had given William custody of the earldom until the question of the succession is decided. What question? William was the only child of his father. How could there be a question? He looked at the faces around him and his eye lit upon a young priest who was one of the more knowledgeable of the king’s clerics. He drew the priest to him and said quietly: “What the devil did he mean about the ‘question’ of the succession, Joseph?”

“There’s another claimant to the earldom,” Joseph replied.

“Another claimant?” William repeated in astonishment. He had no half brothers, illegitimate brothers, cousins… “Who is it?”

Joseph pointed to a figure standing with his back to them. He was with the new arrivals. He was wearing the clothing of a squire.

“But he’s not even a knight!” William said loudly. “My father was the earl of Shiring!”

The squire heard him, and turned around. “My father was also the earl of Shiring.”

At first William did not recognize him. He saw a handsome, broad-shouldered young man of about eighteen years, well-dressed for a squire, and carrying a fine sword. There was confidence and even arrogance in the way he stood. Most striking of all, he gazed at William with a look of such pure hatred that William shrank back.

The face was very familiar, but changed. Still William could not place it. Then his saw that there was an angry scar on the squire’s right ear, where the earlobe had been cut off. In a vivid flash of memory he saw a small piece of white flesh fall onto the heaving chest of a terrified virgin, and heard a boy scream in pain. This was Richard, the son of the traitor Bartholomew, the brother of Aliena. The little boy who had been forced to watch while two men raped his sister had grown into a formidable man with the light of vengeance in his light blue eyes. William was suddenly terribly afraid.

“You remember, don’t you?” Richard said, in a light drawl that did not quite mask the cold fury underneath.

William nodded. “I remember.”

“So do I, William Hamleigh,” said Richard. “So do I.”

William sat in the big chair at the head of the table, where his father used to sit. He had always known he would occupy this seat one day. He had imagined he would feel immensely powerful when he did so, but in reality he was a little frightened. He was afraid that people would say he was not the man his father had been, and that they would disrespect him.

His mother sat on his right. He had often watched her, when his father was in this chair, and observed the way she played on Father’s fears and weaknesses to get her own way. He was determined not to let her do the same to him.

On his left sat Arthur, a mild-mannered, gray-headed man who had been Earl Bartholomew’s reeve. After becoming earl, Father had hired Arthur, because Arthur had a good knowledge of the estate. William had always been dubious about that reasoning. Other people’s servants sometimes clung to the ways of their former employer.

“King Stephen can’t possibly make Richard the earl,” Mother was saying angrily. “He’s just a squire!”

“I don’t understand how he even managed that,” William said irritably. “I thought they had been left penniless. But he had fine clothes and a good sword. Where did he get the money?”

“He set himself up as a wool merchant,” Mother said. “He’s got all the money he needs. Or rather, his sister has-I hear Aliena runs the business.”

Aliena. So she was behind this. William had never quite forgotten her, but she had not preyed on his mind so much, after the war broke out, until he had met Richard. Since then she had been in his thoughts continually, as fresh and beautiful, as vulnerable and desirable as ever. He hated her for the hold she had over him.