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BOOK: A Place Beyond Courage

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Now came the news that he had bought the right to her lands and her marriage. He had sent her these prayer beads and flooded her timid heart with emotions she had no experience to map.
Domine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum; sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.
As she prepared to go forward and take communion, she grasped the paternoster like a talisman and was beset by both longing and fear. Should she pray for him to come and make her his wife, or should she pray that he remained with the King and beguiled her imagination from afar?
Deo gratias.

Outside the cathedral, the snow had dwindled to tiny white flakes, not much larger than scurf, but cheek-stingingly cold. Aline and her mother bent their heads into the wind and, servants in tow, hurried towards the nearby castle where the sheriff had offered them hospitality and a bed for the night before they returned to Clyffe. Lord Walter had also been in church for the mass, accompanied by his wife and several of their offspring, ranging from his two eldest sons who were almost grown men, to his youngest daughter, a bright little girl of six years old. Aline avoided them. The Salisburys were as boisterous as dogs. However, aware that God was watching, she put a smile on her face as the child skipped past, her plait of brunette-bronze hair bobbing from side to side. The notion of bearing John FitzGilbert children such as this made Aline’s stomach leap and churn and she fiddled nervously with her beads. He had touched them; he had chosen them.

A sudden cry followed by shouts of alarm made her spin round, her heart in her mouth. An elderly man making his way from the cathedral had fallen over a chunk of dressed stone left by one of the masons working on improvements to the castle. Aline stared at the jagged twig of bone thrusting through the punctured skin and the blood welling round the wound. The queasy feeling in her stomach intensified. She looked away but it was too late; the image was branded upon her vision. She faltered, saliva filling her mouth.

‘Oh Aline, not now!’

Her mother’s dismayed cry seemed to come from a tunnelled distance. She felt a tightening grip on her arm as her legs buckled. She was dimly aware of being half carried into one of the dwellings of the castle complex. Someone sat her on a bench and pushed her head down between her knees. The stink of burning feathers filled her nostrils and she retched, bringing up bile and watery spittle into the floor rushes.

‘Lady Cecily, I am sorry your daughter is unwell,’ she heard a woman say in a concerned voice and as Aline’s focus returned, she saw that Lord Walter’s wife, Lady Sybire, was standing at the side of the bench.

‘It is nothing.’ Her mother made an embarrassed gesture of negation. ‘She will be all right by and by.’

Beneath Lady Sybire’s quiet scrutiny, shame flooded through Aline. The sight of blood made her sick and no one understood. They all thought her weak and foolish. She had tried to control her aversion but to no avail.

The sheriff’s wife lightly touched her shoulder. ‘I will have someone bring you wine,’ she said, then looked round as a commotion heralded the arrival of the injured man, being gently borne by two companions. ‘You will excuse me.’ Inclining her head, she whisked away to deal with the matter.

‘I’m sorry, Mama,’ Aline whispered. Swallowing on tears, she made a determined effort not to look in the wounded man’s direction.

‘Hush, child,’ her mother said, her voice gentle, but edged with irritation. ‘You must find it in you to deal with these things. What will your warden think of you? You have to prepare yourself for the future.’

‘Yes, Mama.’ Aline felt cold and shivery. Her father had never had much time for her, but providing she stayed out of his way in her chamber or at her prayers, he had not expected more. The notion of what might be required now terrified her.

A servant came from the lady Sybire with a flagon of hot wine and the offer of a quieter, private chamber for Aline to recuperate, which Cecily accepted with alacrity.

‘You can learn much from watching Lady Sybire,’ she told Aline as they sat down upon another more ornate cushioned bench arranged before a glowing central hearth. ‘She is a great lady.’

The heat from the logs made Aline’s chilblains tingle and her cheeks burn. The wine warmed her vitals and took the edge off her panic. ‘I do not think she likes me, Mama,’ she said in a small voice.

‘Tush, child,’ Cecily replied with impatience. ‘She knows neither of us beyond a few words in church and her husband’s dealings with your father, God rest his soul. I suppose though she’ll want to know more about you now you’re the ward of the King’s marshal. He is a neighbour after all, even if an absent one.’

Her mother’s mention of John made Aline fumble for her new prayer beads, but to her horror, they were no longer at her belt. Uttering a distressed cry, she leaped to her feet and frantically searched the bench and the floor, but there was no flourish of colour, no gleam of honey among the rushes.

‘I had them in the other hall!’ She searched again, frantic, unable to believe they were gone. ‘I know I did, I know it!’

‘You must have dropped them.’ Her mother laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. ‘Calm yourself, daughter, we’ll find them.’ A note of censure entered her voice. ‘They won’t turn up for tears and weeping. You should not become so distraught over trifles.’

Aline wiped a panicky hand across her eyes and, striving for composure, started to retrace her steps.

The soft lustre of the amber beads caught little Sybilla’s eye as she passed a bench in the main hall. The sheriff’s youngest daughter swooped on them with a child’s magpie delight, and immediately realised they were the ones belonging to the young woman who had swooned when the man fell over and broke his arm.

The beads glowed like golden water and felt warm and tactile. There was a lovely tassel of gold silk in the middle and a hanger to fasten them to a belt. Sybilla was entranced. She had a feminine adoration of jewellery and trimmings. On a wet afternoon, she loved nothing more than to sit on her mother’s bed and riffle through the rings and brooches, belts and buckles in her enamelled jewel casket. Sybilla had no trinkets of her own apart from her bronze cloak brooch and assorted hair ribbons. Her mother said she was too young to own such fripperies and the time would come all too soon when she was grown enough to have a lady’s responsibilities and therefore a lady’s privileges.

Gazing upon the beautiful set of beads, Sybilla felt an enormous temptation to run to her bed and hide them under her pillow. No one would know; they would be her secret treasure. Perhaps God had meant her to have them by making her the finder. Then again, perhaps Satan was tempting her. She was old enough to know the Ten Commandments and that coveting and stealing were wicked sins. If she took the beads and her mother found out, the punishment would be terrible. Being whipped and denied dinner would be the least of it. She would probably be barred from playing with the jewel casket ever again too.

Sybilla was still deliberating the merits and disadvantages of desire versus honesty when the young woman and her mother returned to the hall. Clearly distraught, the former was searching the floor, stooped over and taking small, slow paces. The mother followed, looking too, eyes screwed up as she struggled to focus. Guilt flashed through Sybilla. With a pang of regret but also a feeling of relief, she approached the women and held out the beads. ‘I found these,’ she said. A small, righteous glow warmed her stomach.

The young woman fell on them with a joyful cry. ‘Thank you, thank you!’

‘I told you they would turn up,’ the mother said with a roll of her eyes.

‘They’re very pretty.’ Sybilla’s gaze was wistful as she watched their owner secure the beads to her belt and stroke them possessively.

‘The King’s marshal sent them to me,’ the young woman told her. ‘He’s my guardian.’

Sybilla considered the statement with interest. She knew about guardians because her father often had to deal with such matters and she had heard him speaking to her mother about this heiress or that with lands in wardship. She wondered if their guardians sent them presents too. Perhaps it was a good thing to have a guardian.

The mother reached into the purse hanging from her belt and producing a silver halfpenny gave it to Sybilla. ‘You’re a good girl,’ she said.

Sybilla curtseyed politely as she had been taught, and thanked the woman, but the small piece of coin didn’t warm her hand as the beads had done and she went to drop it into the bowl of a beggar sitting outside the hall door where it fell with a soft, cold clink.

Northampton, September 1131

John paced Northampton castle’s wall walk and inhaled the scent of dying leaves and woodsmoke on the sharp midnight air. He was glad to be wearing his fur-lined cloak rather than his lighter indoor one as autumn began to encroach. The leaves were turning, the swine had been herded into the woods to feed on pannage in preparation for the November slaughter, and mushrooms were integral to every meal.

He spoke to the guards, checked that all was well and looked out over a sward populated by the tents and pavilions of men unable to find lodgings in castle, town or auxiliary buildings. John and his officers had been toiling like ants to ensure the smooth operation of their particular concerns. Thus far, everything was running as easily as oiled fleece through an experienced spinster’s hands, but one had to be constantly alert for snags and tangles. Although most folk were abed by now and those who weren’t had legitimate reasons for being on the prowl, John hadn’t allowed the men on duty to relax their vigilance.

The King was holding a grand session of pleas on the morrow and John knew he was going to be busy beyond belief. Still, it would be a lucrative time too, and he was expecting to prosper via the gratuities that would flood the marshal’s coffers. For every baron paying homage to the King, John was entitled to five and a half marks. There were lesser tariffs for lesser men, but all owed a fee to John which came as extra to his salaried marshal’s wage of two shillings a day.

Having performed a circuit of the battlements, he descended to the ward and strolled to have a word with the porter who was sitting by the door, a pair of mastiffs couched at his feet. The dogs were accustomed to John and forbore to growl but he didn’t encourage their familiarity because they were guard dogs. Besides, they had a tendency to slobber.

‘All quiet, my lord.’ The porter rubbed the jowls of the nearest mastiff. A glint entered his eyes. ‘Apart from the comings and goings of folk in search of beds other than their own, of course.’

John half smiled. ‘There are always those.’

The porter sniffed the air. ‘Rain before dawn,’ he announced with the experience of one who spent most of his time outside officiating at doorways. John glanced skywards and made a face. That would mean a crowded hall and short tempers among men forced to wait outside. Mud, damp and the stink of wet wool.

One of the dogs rumbled in its chest and a ridge of fur rose and darkened along its spine. The other lunged to its feet, its muzzle on a level with John’s hipbone. The porter ordered it down with a terse command and the mastiff sat on its haunches and stared into the night, its body quivering. ‘A bed-searcher,’ the porter said. ‘Hector can smell ’em a mile off. He knows the scent of a bitch in heat.’ He gave a salacious wheeze into the collar of his hood.

John smiled wryly at the porter’s crude but apt assessment and, bidding the man goodnight, moved off into the dark, as quiet as a shadow himself. The guards stood aside for him as he entered the great hall. A few lamps burned to light men’s paths to the privy but the rafters were in darkness and the hearth was banked for the night, not even an ember’s glow filtering from beneath the close-fitting cover. There were moments of brighter light like stepping stones where a few souls were keeping late hours in the alcoves allotted to them. A couple of knights belonging to King David of Scotland were playing a protracted game of merels by a stub of candle and someone’s squire was sitting cross-legged on his pallet, mending a piece of harness. John picked his way between these islands of light to his own pallet-space, which was divided off from the others by a curtain of heavy Flemish wool. With sleeping room at a premium and so many magnates in residence, even the King’s marshal had to bed down in the hall tonight.

Damette was waiting for him as he had suspected she would be. However, given that she was now the mistress of the King’s cup-bearer William Martel, he did not expect her to warm his sheets. Rings adorned her fingers tonight, and jewelled pins secured her veil to her hair. She smelled delicious: given other circumstances, he would have devoured her whole.

‘I hate those dogs,’ she said with a grimace. ‘They always growl.’

‘It’s their duty.’ He reached out to stroke one of the dark braids shining below the hem of her veil. ‘You are late abroad.’

She gave him a conspiratorial look. ‘Since my lord has gone visiting, I thought I would too.’

‘Gone visiting where?’

‘To the Earl of Leicester’s lodging with Meulan, de Senlis and the Bishops of Winchester and Salisbury.’

‘A regular conspiracy,’ John said with a curl of his lip.

BOOK: A Place Beyond Courage

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