Lords of the White Castle (16 page)

Not for the first time, Maude wished that she had been born male. It would solve everything. Her father would have an heir. She would not have to stay in the women's quarters at home cared for by nurses and reluctant relatives, but would already have been sent for fostering as a junior squire in some great household. She swung her legs beneath the trestle, kicking in irritation at the hampering folds of her best blue gown. Male clothes were far more practical. She had often longed to pose with a sword at her hip like her father. The weapon spoke to her of power and rank, of the mystique of the warrior and the voice of authority. It was a power she knew that she would never have. Even Queen Eleanor was not permitted to attend her own son's coronation and feast with him afterwards. It wasn't fair.

'Sit still,' Mathilda snapped irritably, 'and stop playing with your food.'

'I don't like it.'

Her grandmother cast her gaze heavenwards. 'You would if you tried,' she said impatiently. Removing one of the whelks from Maude's trencher, she gouged it from its shell and popped it in her mouth. 'See?'

Revolted, Maude looked away.

The older woman sighed. 'What am I going to do with you?'

It was a question repeated so often and to so little effect that Maude took no notice.

'I need to visit the privy,' she said plaintively.

'Can't you wait?' Mathilda hissed. 'Are you two years old that you cannot hold yourself for a minute?'

'But it's going to be a lot longer than a minute.' Maude wriggled further to emphasise her need.

'Oh, very well,' her grandmother capitulated, 'but don't make a show of yourself and mind that you hurry back.'

Maude left her place at the trestle with the demureness of a gently bred young lady. It was hard, for she was yearning to run, but as her grandmother had pointed out she did not want to call attention to herself. However, she had not the slightest intention of hurrying back. She could plausibly claim that she had lost her way among Westminster's labyrinth of buildings.

She found the privy easily enough and it was the work of seconds to ease her bladder, which was nowhere near as full as she had pleaded. Instead of returning to the women's hall, however, she went towards the White Hall where King Richard was feasting with his magnates, her father among them.

Servants hastened hither and yon with platters, either heaped and steaming or congealed with remains. Maude recognised the ubiquitous portions of porpoise garnished with oysters and whelks. The fishy smell wafted on the evening air. So did the sound of laughter and music from the interior of the hall. She crept nearer, longing for a peek into the masculine world from which she was barred.

Following a man laden with a salver containing an enormous stuffed pike, she entered a world that was astonishingly familiar, but alien too. The voices were louder and more boisterous—the guests mostly being grown men—but the finery of the clothing, the opulent colours crowding the trestles and the formal manner of seating exactly mirrored the women's hall. King Richard sat at the centre of the high table in precisely the same position as Queen Eleanor. His hair blazed like flame and, in his ceremonial robes of white, purple and gold, he was incandescent. The Bishops of the realm strung away from him on either side like jewels on a glittering necklace. Beneath the high table sat the magnates and nobles, all gleaming with silk and hard, yellow gold. If each gathering was a mirror of the other, then the affair in the women's hall was a dull reflection of this peacock brilliance.

Maude stood against the side door, her eyes at full stretch and still not wide enough to take in the gorgeous array. Her small figure was dwarfed by the hall's hugeness and the great gathering it contained.

'I think you are about to be in trouble again, Mistress le Vavasour,' said a rich voice, pleasant with humour.

Maude jumped and switched her scrutiny from the eye-aching scene before her to Alain FitzWarin's older brother. She knew that his name was Fulke because her grandmother and Lady Hawise had been talking about him and how he was to be knighted.

'I went to the privy and I got lost,' she said defensively and tilted her head to gaze up at him. He was much taller than her papa with a wealth of glossy black hair and smiling eyes that in the haze of torchlight were a dark, indeterminate colour. His nose would have been fine and straight, were it not for a misshapen kink to the bridge.

He folded his arms. 'That's not true, is it? You wanted to look, didn't you?'

'And if I did?' The amusement in his eyes annoyed her.

She had the suspicion that she was being mocked, that her action was providing him with entertainment. 'What business is it of yours?'

'None, mistress, since I am leaving to take up my vigil, but others might not be so inclined to turn a blind eye. What will your father do if he sees you?'

'He won't mind.' Despite her brave words, panic flickered beneath Maude's ribs. She could recall with uncomfortable clarity the lash of her father's riding crop on the back of her legs and desired no fresher reminders of the sensation. She glared at Fulke, wanting to fight, wanting to hide and cry.

'You know him best, I suppose, but I doubt that he will welcome you with petting and smiles.' He took her arm. 'Come, Mistress le Vavasour, let me escort you back to the women's hall.'

'I don't need escorting,' she snapped gracelessly and shook him off. 'I can find my own way'

'I'm sure you can, and I'm also sure that it would be very long and meandering. It is not safe for a girl-child to be wandering around Westminster alone.'

'If I was a boy you wouldn't say that!' Maude cried, feeling belittled.

'No, well, the dangers for boys are different.'

'Fulke? I thought you were going with your brothers to the chapel?'

Maude looked up at an older man, only a little less tall than her tormentor. He had a full head of cropped tawny curls just beginning to thread with silver, and piercing light grey eyes.

'I was, my lord, but then I encountered Mistress le Vavasour snatching a glimpse of the feast.' He spoke her name with a meaningful inflection and a look passed between the two men.

A frown caused two deep creases to appear between the older man's flaxen brows, but his tone was kindly enough when he spoke, 'Child, you should not be here. Do you wish to speak to your father?' He cast a glance around, searching the hall.

Alarmed, Maude shook her head. 'I only wanted to look,' she repeated, but in a voice that was filled with wistful pathos now, not defiance.

The man grunted and tilted her chin on his forefinger, examining her face. Then he looked at Fulke. 'I will take her back to the women. Go to your vigil, lad.'

'You are sure, my lord? It will be no trouble.'

The man nodded. 'I am sure.'

Somewhat reluctantly, she thought, Fulke FitzWarin inclined his head and went on his way.

A servant scurried past with a steaming boar piglet on a silver salver, its crisp-skinned corpse surrounded by a field of green parsley sprigs. The aroma of roast pork hung succulently on the air.

'Come.' The man held out his arm in formal court fashion for her to take.

'I don't know who you are,' Maude said.

'It is a little late to be concerned with propriety,' he answered drily,' but I will humour you. My name is Theobald Walter, lord of Amounderness, and your father is known to me.'

After a brief hesitation, Maude laid her hand on his sleeve. He was wearing a tunic of bright blue wool and it had been so expertly woven and clipped that it was as soft as thistledown to the touch. His face bore lines and creases like her father's, but they were less harsh and he seemed kindly disposed. Many of the barons in the hall would have gone straight to her father and demand that he administer a sound thrashing.

'You do not resemble your father,' he said curiously, 'except that perhaps you have his way of looking.'

She wrinkled her nose, 'People say I am like my mother, but I'm not.' A hint of rebellion returned to her voice.

'You are angry with that comparison?'

Maude gave a graceless little shrug. She could feel him looking at her, could feel his silent demand for a reply, and she squirmed. 'Mama used to keep to her chamber. Even when she wasn't sick, she acted as if she was. Papa got so angry that he used to shout at her but that only made her worse.' The words emerged like a blurt of ink on a clean page. She had not meant to say them, but he had pulled them from her by the perception of his question.

Lord Walter's eyelids tensed. He quickened his pace. 'Does he shout at you?'

'Sometimes. Not as much while my grandmother's looking after me. She shouts instead.' She looked up at him. He was frowning now and his jaw was tight, emphasising the hollows beneath his cheekbones. 'Why are you asking me these things?'

He did not reply immediately. By the time he did speak, they had reached the women's hall. 'Because no battle captain leaps into an engagement without knowing what he is up against,' he said a trifle grimly.

Maude stared at him blankly. The torchlight outside the hall wavered and guttered, making him look very tall. The gold braid at the throat of his gown and his ornate belt buckle picked up the twinkles of light from the flames. He looked like a figure in a night-lit stained-glass window.

'Go on, child,' he said gently, 'get you within, and make sure you stay. Heaven knows what you might surprise out of the darkness.' He made a shooing motion, not unlike her grandmother.

Maude stared an instant longer, then whirled and ran into the hall, almost colliding with a servant bearing a platter of fried fig pastries. She had arrived just in time for the sweetmeat course.

Her grandmother delivered her a furious scolding, but as Maude nibbled the crisp, golden pastry with its sticky sweet filling, her mind was busy with the matter of Lord Theobald Walter and what a strange, but oddly comforting manner he had.

The chapel of St Peter held the darkness of night transformed by the illumination of hundreds of wax candles and tapers. No daylight made jewels of the stained-glass windows, but the flamelight reflected on every surface like watered gold. Before the high altar, the Confessor's tomb drew the eye to the skill and magnificence of the stone-carver's art.

Fulke bowed his head and softly murmured the words of the
Pater Noster
. Beside him he could hear others whispering too, attempting to stave off sleep as they knelt in vigil on the eve of being knighted. There were a dozen young men, gathered together for the same purpose, his brothers among them. William's gaze was fixed in shining determination on the altar beyond the tomb, his fists clasped one upon the other in fervent prayer. Philip, in contrast, was murmuring quietly to himself, taking the moment in his equable stride.

Fulke gave a self-deprecatory smile. And he was taking the moment by observing others when he should be communing with God and praying for the grace to be worthy of knighthood. He made himself concentrate, and for a time succeeded. When he came to awareness again, he was surprised to see Theobald Walter praying amongst the novice knights, his head bowed and eyes closed with a tightness of concentration at their corners that gave him a pained expression.

It was against custom to speak unless in prayer, and Fulke received the distinct impression that Theobald desired to be ignored. He was not here to bolster the young men in their vigil, but for reasons of his own. Respecting the silence, Fulke said nothing and pretended that he was unaware of Theobald's presence. He focused on the cross gleaming upon the altar and the world narrowed down to a shining cruciform of gold. When he looked round again, Theobald had gone.

The interminable hours passed. Fulke's eyes ached with staring and burned for want of sleep. William's head kept sagging towards his clasped hands and he would suddenly jerk, his eyelids fluttering as if striving to hold aloft a great weight. At one point, Fulke could have sworn he saw Whittington keep floating in the air before the altar. A woman stood in one of the window embrasures, her silver-blonde hair tugged outwards by the wind like a rippling silk banner. He could not see her face, but he received the impression of an allure so strong that it pierced him to the core, melting his heart and loins. As he watched, she climbed through the embrasure, impossibly narrow though it was, and for a moment stood on the ledge, poised between air and ground. He wanted to call out, to stop her from throwing herself that last measure, but as he drew breath, she flung out her arms and he saw that her dark-coloured cloak was in fact a pair of wide, leathery wings. When she leaped, they bore her easily, the light shining through the membranes. She circled the keep once, then flew away until she was naught but a small dot in the distance.

Fulke snapped to awareness, a cry locked in his throat and the hair prickling at his nape. His heart was thundering and there was a fading puke of sensation at his crotch. Yet he was not aware of having slept. His eyes were so dry with staring that they had started to water. Visions on the eve of knighthood were viewed as prophetic, but if so, what had it meant?

Fulke had little time to puzzle over the event, for daylight was finally greying the east window and attendants were arriving to take the postulants away to receive the ritual bath and donning of fresh raiment in preparation for the knighting ceremony.

Fulke stepped into a steaming barrel tub, and the last vestiges of the disturbing image were washed away as he was deluged by a jugful of hot water borne by a squire.

Maude screwed up her face and yelped as her grandmother yanked on her hair.

'Oh, stand still, child, it's nothing,' Mathilda said irritably. 'I'll never be done if you don't stop wriggling.' She gripped the half-woven braid and continued to plait it tightly. 'You must look your best for today.'

'Why?' Maude clenched both fists and teeth in an effort not to flinch.

'That is for your father to tell you.' Reaching the end of the braid, Mathilda secured it with a silver fillet. 'He has some very important news,' she said as she set about a similar torture on the left-hand side.