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Sailing Aboard the White Ship
The Unexpected Disaster
The baby's wails and Bert and Rory's shouts and the clack of their rough wooden swords still echoed in Emeny's ears as she shouted "I'm off for bread, too!" over her shoulder into the one-room house. Her mother was still mostly bedridden--though thank God not with a fever--from the childbirth, and she was going to the fountain around the corner to fetch water, a penny in her palm for bread.
Around the corner a gaggle of ducks waddled as fast as they could at her, spilling like a stream of water around her in the thick, cold mud. "You whoresons!" skinny little Sayer FitzRolf shouted, jogging after them and just barely ducking her. The voice of Sayer's father shouted, "I heard that, boy!" from the inside of a house across the lane.
Emeny shook her head, smiling, then shivered when the cold draft from the main street bit into her. It was refreshingly clean and smelled fresh and airy instead of fetid and heavy, but it was cold from the Channel just beyond. Emeny's father worked at the wharves, so they lived not a hundred feet from the water. She took a deep breath, hugging the wattle and daub wall next to her, then dashed into the square ahead.
Geoffrey de l'Aigle whooped as he overtook the prince himself and drew into the lead, crouching low in the saddle and slapping his horse's side enthusiastically. The squires of course hung back respectfully, but the noblemen were racing to see who reached the inn first, and it had always been to Geoffrey's advantage in races that he was the shortest and lightest of them.
"Gah!" William behind him growled, smoothly riding up and down, reducing the strain on his horse. The powerful animal beneath him reacted, speeding up and pounding the ground with massive strokes, but only managed to stop losing ground to Geoffrey's smaller, more compact beast. They needed to tire the horses out before the half-day sea voyage ahead.
They'd been passing farmhouses and waystations on both sides for miles now--not racing--but now houses and shops crowded both sides of a road that'd been churned to hard mud by heavy wheels and hooves.
Only a mile to the inn.... Geoffrey knew that Dancer could do it; the horse was panting hard, froth from his lips flying back--
maybe smacking the prince in the face!, but he had more in him.
Folk heard the hoofbeats and whoops and darted out of the way, or stood in their doorways waiting for the careless noblemen to pass. Some shook their fists and cursed, but King Henry's son and his retinue took no notice.
Almost there.... Geoffrey himself became frenzied and intent on the prize. Around the bend was the inn, just fifty feet across the paved square and around the fountain...when a girl darted in front of him, not paying attention. He gave the loudest shout of his life and sawed the reins to the right, back the way she'd come. She looked straight at him, mouth agape and eyes as big as the rest of her head, and then dived forward and into the fountain.
Dancer went down onto his hindquarters in his urgency to stop, for even the soft bit that Geoffrey used hurt when pulled so hard, and slid on the paving stones, falling flat and throwing Geoffrey clear. The others, seeing this, slowed less drastically but with concern, riding around the fountain and then vaulting off their horses, running to the prone form of Geoffrey.
Deep, gleaming red blood ran quickly between the cracks in the paving stones, meeting at some of the intersections and spreading outward away from the body. The noblemen stood around the body with the squires crowding in and craning for a view behind; they were in full riding gear and did not mind the breeze. "Is he...." began Richard FitzRoy of Lincoln, the King's bastard, but was unable to finish.
Bertrand, at twenty-six the eldest of them, knelt slowly, eyes crinkled as if staring into the sun, and turned him over. "Poor lad," he shook his head. "Poor lad." The center of Geoffrey's forehead was caved in grotesquely, with the sharp depression oozing blood and grey matter. The eyes were closed tightly, for all time, as if closed on instinct before impact.
William jerked as if bitten, still in shock, and turned quickly, shoving through the squires behind him. He went to the fountain, the others trailing behind, and saw the girl floating there, drowned, having hit her head on the fountain. "At least the bitch is dead, too."
"Can't leave," William said blearily in a hoarse voice to Thomas FitzStephen, captain of the White Ship. Thomas stood with his hands respectfully behind his back, looking down at the seated prince. The others sat at the table looking grim and moody; in fact, the entire inn looked depressed.
"Why not?" Thomas scratched his neatly trimmed grey beard, curious instead of aggrieved. He'd come from the docks a minute ago to tell the prince that all was ready for departure, and hadn't noticed or heard of the incident in the square.
The prince's jaw sagged as he stared down into the red wine in his cup. When he looked up again, his grey eyes were ringed by suppressed tears. "Geof...."
Bertrand next to him put his arm around him and Richard FitzRoy, sitting across, stood casually and took Thomas's arm, drawing him aside. "Geoffrey de l'Aigle, our good friend, died in a spill today. My brother is distraught. We must make the arrangements."
Thomas nodded. The prince sure looked distraught, but Richard decidedly did not. Still, he and his father--
who had been William the Conqueror's personal boatman! he never failed to remind other captains--hadn't gotten so far by caring for politics or the social delicacies of the nobility, so he kept his mouth shut.
"Geoffrey's home of L'Aigle is about ten days away, though we'll try to get the Archbishop to come and officiate at the funeral. My brother may need you at any time, though, so you'll have to stay here for twenty days, or maybe even a month or more."
Thomas shrugged, nodding and noting how Richard always emphasized his fraternal relationship to the legitimate prince. "That's all fine, sir, no problem. I'll stay here." He received a salary from the king, anyway, and living in Barfleur was no more expensive than living in any town in England other than London.
Richard nodded and turned away, done with him. Thomas walked back to the table and said, "My prince, you have my deepest condolences for the loss of your friend. I've served you some years now, and in all the time I knew him Geof was always polite, quick to laughter, and slow to anger. He never made much of anything but God, his friends, and great times to be had." He stepped backward, head bowed, and turned to walk out when a spontaneous cheer of "Hear hear!" resounded through the inn.
He only winced when he stepped into the biting twilight wind and imagined his wife's scathing response to the letter he would send, demanding to know whether he was lying, and actually just living with some whore in Paris.
EDIT: So, the POD is that the White Ship never leaves port at OTL's time or date, meaning that Prince William Adelin survives and King Henry has a legitimate heir. Ironically--and I made it so--Geoffrey de l'Aigle was the only nobleman who survived IOTL; the only other person who survived was a Rouen butcher.