A Place Beyond Courage (37 page)
Was this where his wife had sat when she was at Ludgershall? Doing the same as she was now doing? Sybilla pushed the thought away with an inward grimace.
The main dish was beef in a spicy sauce, served with fresh white bread and side dishes of mushroom frumenty. There were small fried pastries and platters of roasted songbirds. She and John shared a trencher and he served her with dexterity despite his blind eye. He was attentive, enquiring of her what she liked, giving her the choicest morsels, behaving with the suave polish of an accomplished courtier. He had better manners than Patrick. He didn’t loudly suck his fingers and he had the knack of being able to eat without dripping sauce all over his clothes or the napery. Fastidious without being finicky, she thought with approval, and hoped he was viewing her with similar appreciation. Although she hadn’t caught him looking yet, she suspected he had been giving her a thorough scrutiny.
He had employed some musicians, including a troubadour from Aquitaine who possessed the rarity of a lute. Multicoloured ribbons dangled from the instrument’s neck, their hues repeated in the man’s striped hose. Sybilla’s face lit up for she adored music and novelty. She forgot to be restrained and demure, and clapped her hands with delight.
Sybilla’s assumption concerning John’s scrutiny was correct. He had indeed been studying her and was intensely aware of her presence beside him - as if her body warmth was giving off an extra glow. Her hair was decently braided and half hidden by her veil, but he could imagine how it would look, spread like burnished wood upon a white linen pillow when released from its pins. He had been a trifle disturbed by her silence, her downcast eyes and the way she toyed with her food, for such behaviour reminded him of Aline and he didn’t want more of the same in his life. He hoped it was nothing more than tiredness or natural apprehension. However, when the musicians arrived to perform, her expression blazed to life, as if a candle had suddenly illuminated a darkened room.
‘You enjoy music?’ he asked.
‘Yes, my lord.’ She turned to him, lips parted in an enthusiastic smile. ‘Do you?’
‘It has its place. It’s useful for occasions like this . . . and of course musicians make excellent messengers and spies, depending on who’s paying them to sing the tune.’
Her gaze widened. She picked up a pastry and took a bite. Her lips were full. She had even, white teeth. He imagined kissing her and felt a pleasant jolt of anticipation. ‘But beyond that, my lord?’
John tilted his head and pondered. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose it can be an entertaining diversion.’
‘I like to sing,’ she said. ‘I love all music. It’s more than entertainment, don’t you think? It can lighten or darken a mood. It creates atmosphere . . . and it’s good for dancing.’
‘Ah, you have a fondness for dancing then?’ He was pleased that she conversed in more than monosyllables and had opinions.
‘When I have the opportunity - which hasn’t been often of late.’
He grimaced. ‘That’s true.’ Except for the death dance of the warrior with sword and lance. He had forgotten what it was like to dance as a courtier. ‘I might be persuaded to remember the steps on the morrow though,’ he added with a slow smile.
She blushed and grew a little flustered, but then forgot to be embarrassed as she listened to the troubadour and continued to eat. Jesu, she was a beauty, John thought and felt his gut tighten with apprehension. His luck had turned around so completely: it couldn’t be this good.
‘What was life like at court?’ she asked him after a while.
‘Was, or is?’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘In the days when my father went there to render his account. Before the fighting.’
John leaned back and folded his arms to consider. ‘I could tell you about the exchequer and bore you to tears,’ he said, ‘but I’m not sure that other stories are for the ears of unwed virgins.’
She flashed him a look and wrinkled her nose. ‘Then tell me those tomorrow.’
John grinned. ‘They wouldn’t be for my wife either.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, that isn’t fair!’ She folded her elbows on the table and leaned towards him. A faint, spicy scent wafted from her garments. The beaded embroidery at her neckline winked softly with the pulse in her throat. Her expression was genuine and a little flirtatious. ‘I suppose you’ll just have to bore me with tales of the exchequer then. Did you ever have to arrest anyone for not paying their debts?’
‘From time to time . . . the occasional sheriff, several barons. We usually managed to come to some sort of agreement without anyone becoming too uncomfortable. I’ve only committed murder once.’ He looked at her straight-faced.
She parted her lips and stared at him, briefly taken in, but then she laughed and shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘It’s true. A rat got into one of the forel cases and made itself a nest out of a page of fees owed by the Bishop of Winchester. Then it bit an usher and ran amok across the tables spilling ink and scattering parchments. It’s my duty to keep order, so I had to do something . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Made a mess of the chancellor’s table, but I had no choice. There’s a permanent knife mark in it now. After that I went out into the market and bought a cat and gave it the forel box to sleep in instead.’ He smiled at her again, enjoying himself enormously.
The meal continued and so did the conversation. He found he could tell her about more serious parts of the exchequer duties without her eyes glazing over and her attention wandering. Some of it she understood; he could see that a lot went over her head, but she had a sharp mind, a keen wit and a genuine interest . . . and whether consciously or not, she knew how to use the language of her body to convey subtle, unspoken meaning.
When she rose to retire, leaving him and Patrick to talk by the fire, he was reluctant to see her go.
‘Well,’ said Patrick with a knowing smile and a cup raised in toast, ‘you seem satisfied enough with your part of the bargain.’
John returned the toast in laconic fashion. ‘I’ll tell you whether or not I’m satisfied on the day after tomorrow, but I am not displeased thus far.’
Patrick gave him a haughty stare. ‘I would take my sword to you if you were. I expect you to treat her with the respect due to a lady of her rank.’
Even though you didn’t when she was under your roof at Salisbury
, John thought. ‘Due to the sister of an earl,’ he said, his expression as solemn as when he had been telling Sybilla about the rat in the exchequer forel. ‘I suspect though, I am going to cherish her more than I cherish you . . . with all due respect.’
, John thought. ‘Due to the sister of an earl,’ he said, his expression as solemn as when he had been telling Sybilla about the rat in the exchequer forel. ‘I suspect though, I am going to cherish her more than I cherish you . . . with all due respect.’
The next morning, Sybilla was married to John and their wedding mass celebrated in the church of Saint Mary in Ludgershall village. Robed in her gown of red silk damask, Sybilla knelt beside John to receive the Bishop’s blessing. A light veil pinned in place by a chaplet of roses covered her hair, but beneath it her tresses were unbound and had been combed until they shone like brunette silk. John stood with the handsome side of his face on view to her. He was wearing a tunic of night-blue wool that enhanced his colouring. He wore his sword too as a symbol of his knighthood and a reminder that he was well able to protect everything that came to him. After the mass, as they left the church, he kissed her, but it was a formal gesture, performed before all, and Sybilla responded in a similar manner. She had become the wife of the Empress’s marshal, but for the moment that title and responsibility seemed a distant whimsy and nothing to do with her.
Once more, she sat in the hall to eat and listen to music, but it was different this time - formal, of course, because of the ceremony that had gone before, but encompassing many more guests than there had been the previous evening. The food was more elaborate and the best wine had been brought from the undercroft, including some from France that sparkled and bubbled on the tongue. All the shutters were thrown wide to admit streamers of sunlight and the wall above the dais was decorated with tendrils of evergreen and wild flowers. Arranged on the white table napery were dishes and cellars of enamelled silver, delicate green glass and more robust glazed ware.
John paid his new wife compliments and attention, but had perforce to spread the latter over a broad field. A marriage wasn’t just about the binding together of a man and a woman. It was about allegiance and prestige, about making bonds and social connections with others who might have similar interests and persuasions. Sybilla found herself having to talk to the sons of Robert of Gloucester, then a senior knight belonging to the household of Brian FitzCount. Then vassals and the wives of vassals. Her father had been too frail to travel from Bradenstoke, but the Prior was here, and her brother Walter. She was kept almost too busy to eat or drink, and certainly had no time to be nervous about the other duties soon to be required of her.
Between courses, the musicians entertained the company. A troupe of players tumbled and juggled for their supper. The Bishop gave a long speech about the duties of marriage and Patrick a rambling incoherent one as he was in his cups, declaring he was glad for the new accord between the houses of Marshal and Salisbury - which would bring Ludgershall back into his family where it should always have been. John’s own speech was sober and brief. He too was glad of the new accord and the opportunity he had been given to direct his attentions elsewhere than war against his neighbour. Here he smiled at Sybilla, and received laughter and approbation. ‘And, of course,’ he added with a bow in Patrick’s direction, ‘any sons that come of the match will be Salisbury by half their birth, but all Marshal by name.’ And before Patrick could bridle at the remark, he gestured to the musicians and called for the dancing to begin. Holding out his hand to Sybilla, he bade her rise from the trestle and join him. She left her seat in a rustle of red brocade and let him lead her to the floor.
‘You’re still fighting him though, aren’t you?’ she murmured as they took their places.
John shook his head. ‘No, he’s still fighting me, and I am no one’s floor straw to be trampled upon.’ He bowed to her, stood straight and pressed his palm to hers on the diagonal, turned, changed palms. ‘I don’t want to talk about him. I’d far rather dance with my wife.’
She smiled. ‘I don’t want to talk about him either.’
Sybilla discovered that John was an excellent dancer. He had the lithe coordination of a cat and a sense of rhythm that made it a joy to partner him. Most men, Patrick included, could perform the moves, but were as wooden as planks. John was as fluid as water. Enticed, she moved and flowed with him, and it was as if they were two currents winding through the same stream. She flashed him a look through her lashes as their hands touched and their hipbones brushed edge to edge. He gave her a slow smile that made her quiver as much with anticipation as fear. The music coursed through her blood and sang in her loins as she matched him move for move. Oh, this was heady. Her breath grew short but not owing to exertion.
It was almost midnight when she and John finally retired to their marriage bed. He had chosen to dispense with the bedding ceremony, declaring it was not that kind of occasion. If he was satisfied with his bride and she with him, there was no need for a host of witnesses crowding into the chamber. Patrick had not protested as she thought he might. Thinking about it, Sybilla suspected he didn’t want to see his sister naked in a bed with John FitzGilbert, even if he acknowledged the fact of the marriage. She too was relieved, for she hadn’t been looking forward to everyone squeezing into the bedchamber and making bawdy jests as she disrobed. As it was, she blushed at the barrage of well-wishing that followed them out of the hall and up the stairs to the room above.
Holding her hand, John pushed open the door, then stopped on the threshold and stared. Sybilla gasped. A shower of pink rose petals strewed the marriage bed while garlands of flowers decorated the tied-back hangings. Sybilla’s two women waited demurely near the door, hands folded, but with coy smiles on their faces. John’s chamberlain, Osbert, was standing to one side looking both sheepish and disgruntled.
Sybilla laughed and clapped her hands. ‘Oh, how lovely - and how thoughtful!’
‘I knew you would like it, my lady,’ smiled one of the women.
‘I do, oh I do! Thank you!’
John went to the bed and looked down at the petals. ‘At least they’re not dried herbs,’ he said with a straight expression. ‘That’s like lying in a bed of crumbs.’ He turned to the maids. ‘You obviously care about your mistress.’
‘Indeed, my lord,’ said the taller one, who had freckles and bright brown eyes with a mischievous glint. ‘I love her dearly.’
‘Gundred is my milk sister,’ Sybilla said with a gesture at the maid. ‘Her mother was my wet nurse. Lecia is my chaplain’s cousin.’ She indicated the other, slightly younger girl, who was red-cheeked and round-chinned. The latter gave him a pert curtsey and a dimple appeared beside her mouth. John flicked a glance at Osbert who was looking as ruffled as a cat chased up a tree by two lively young dogs.
‘Then it seems you are in good hands.’ John inclined his head to the women in acknowledgement. ‘Osbert, you have my leave to retire until summoned. The guests shouldn’t have eaten all the almond cakes yet if you want to avail yourself, and I ordered a tun of good wine left in the kitchens for those on duty.’
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