Lords of the White Castle (32 page)

Maude was shocked at the change in Hawise FitzWarin. Gone was the vivacious red-haired woman who had caused heads to turn as she passed. Now if heads turned it was in pity, or unease. In her dark widow's weeds, her face framed by the severity of a full wimple, Hawise could have been a nun—except that there was no sustaining spiritual glow. Maude thought that it was like looking through a window into an empty room; she wondered if she had done the right thing in coming to Alberbury.

'I will not trouble you above one night,' she said awkwardly as she exchanged a kiss of greeting with Hawise. A groom appeared to take her dappled mare and show the Serjeants of her escort where they could stable their mounts.

'One night?' Hawise's lovely, ravaged face fell with disappointment. 'Can you not stay longer?

'I do not want to impose on your hospitality'

'Tush!' Hawise waved her hand. 'It will do me good to have company, especially young company. This place is too full of silence where voices should be. Where are you bound?' She gestured and her maid came forward to take Maude's travelling cloak.

'To visit my father.' Maude heard the desperation in Hawise's tone. She doesn't want to be alone, she thought.

'Theo's in Normandy with King John, seeking his permission to go to Ireland. If he receives it I will go with him, but for the nonce I am performing my duty as a daughter.' She placed heavy emphasis on the word 'duty'. 'If it will not burden you, I will be glad to remain for a sennight.'

Hawise's smile was an incongruous mingling of delight and sadness. 'Of course it will not burden me, although perhaps I will burden you.' She linked her arm through Maude's and drew her within the keep. 'Ireland, you say?'

Hawise's touch was bird-like and Maude noticed how loose the rings were on the older woman's fingers. 'Theo wants to inspect his religious foundations,' she said, wrinkling her nose. 'He says he wants to be buried at the monastery at Wotheney.'

'He's not ailing?' Hawise said quickly.

Again that strange, almost desperate note. 'Not that I can tell,' Maude said,' but he doesn't smile much these days. You know that John confiscated the rights of Amounderness, took away his shrievalty and threatened to deprive him of his Irish lands?'

'No, but nothing that monster does would surprise me,' Hawise said, sudden fire in her eyes. 'I had to pay a fine of thirty marks when my husband died in order not to have another man forced upon me by our beloved King!'

Maude made a shocked sound in her throat, but she was not surprised. To raise revenue both John and Richard had sold lands, offices and people as if they were hot cakes off a cooks tall.

'I suppose you heard about the matter of my sons,' Hawise added. 'Not only has John deprived them of their inheritance, he has deprived me of their comfort and support….' Her voice wavered. 'At least while our overlord for this place is Robert Corbet, I am assured the tenancy. He and my husband were good friends. John cannot touch the lands that I hold in dower, or which are held of others.'

Maude patted her arm in sympathy, unsure what else to do. 'Hubert Walter told us what happened at Castle Baldwin,' she said. 'Have you heard from your sons since they… left?' She had been about to say fled but caught herself in time.

Hawise nodded and sniffed back the threatening tears. 'A messenger travels between us regularly. They are sheltering in Brittany with distant de Dinan kin—earning their keep as castle guards and household knights—biding their time.' Her mouth corners tightened as if pulled by a drawstring. 'But for John's ill temper and grudge-bearing, my sons would be here now. Fulke would have taken seisin of Whittington and likely a wife as well.' Her pursed mouth softened in a bleak smile. 'I know that mothers are notorious for clinging to their sons, but I would welcome another woman into the household, and the opportunity to dandle a grandchild in my lap.'

She led Maude into the solar, to the warmth of a brazier and an oak bench padded with an embroidered bolster. 'It is too late now. That time has been squandered. 'With the slow effort of an old woman, she sat on the bench, one hand pressed to her left side.

When Maude murmured in concern, Hawise shook her head. 'I will be all right presently' She signalled a maid to bring wine and when it arrived, drank with shaking hands. Her colour improved as if the redness of the wine had gone straight to her cheeks, but her face remained drawn. With a visible effort she gathered herself and patted Maude's knee. 'Divert me a little. Tell me how you and Theobald are faring.'

Maude searched her mind for matters that Hawise might find amusing or interesting. To tell her that Hubert was using his influence to have Theobald's lands restored would not be tactful, and to talk of Theobald's obsession with his monasteries was enough to put even a dedicated cleric to sleep.

'Well,' she said dubiously,' Theobald and I have been kept apart recently because he has followed John into Normandy, but I hope to go with him to Ireland.' She sighed. 'You are not the only one who desires grandchildren to dandle in their lap. My father is constantly reminding me that it is my duty to provide Theobald with an heir and that I should encourage him to play his part at every opportunity'

'And you do not welcome these reminders?'

'I do not need them.' Maude toyed with her wedding ring. 'I know my duty and I love Theo dearly. When we are together, we live as man and wife in every sense of the word—except it be a holy day' It was not entirely true but there was righteous comfort in the delusion. Their relationship was comfortable and loving, but it was more father and daughter than husband and wife. She had to think hard to remember the last time that they had lain together in the carnal sense. 'What will be, will be.' She gave a dismissive shake of her head, reached for her wine and smiled. 'In Theobald's absence I have been honing other skills.'

'Indeed?' Hawise raised her brows.

Maude giggled. 'Do you remember how I was forever running off and playing tomboy games to my grandmother's despair?'

Hawise smiled. 'Only too well,' she said wryly.

'Well'—and a slow smile spread across her face—'I have taken to archery,' Maude said. 'It's a sport permitted to women, so my grandmother cannot complain, and I have discovered a certain degree of skill.'

'Archery!' Hawise repeated, her expression intrigued. 'I would not have thought you had the strength to pull a bow.'

'A great deal lies in the technique,' Maude said,' and I'm stronger than I look.' Her eyes brightened. 'It gives me pleasure to see the men's astonishment when I match them at the target. Every time I hit the centre, I'm striking a blow for the girl-child who wasn't allowed to run about with the same freedom as a boy.'

'What does Theobald say?'

'He encourages me.' She laughed. 'He says that if ever the day comes when we have to withstand a siege, he will put me up on the battlements with his other archers. I told him I would hold him to it.'

'I could imagine you doing so,' Hawise said. 'And having skill in embroidery, you could stitch wounds as well as inflict them.' She had been smiling as she spoke, but the curve suddenly left her lips as if she had been slapped.

'Lady Hawise?' Maude gently touched her hand.

The older woman's eyes had rilled with tears. 'My sons,' she said with a painful swallow. 'Who is going to bind their injuries and watch out for them from the battlements?'

Maude bit back the reply that they were grown men who could fend for themselves. She thought of how protective she felt towards Theobald, imagined him wounded and in need. 'Surely they will be cared for by their kin in Brittany?'

Hawise shook her head and did not answer. She fumbled a linen kerchief from her sleeve, dabbed her eyes and blew her nose. 'I am being foolish,' she sniffed, 'and all the tears in the world will make no difference.' Pink-nosed with emotion, she straightened her shoulders. 'Enough. Do you have this bow of yours with you? I would like to see it.'

Maude spent the next hour out on the sward, demonstrating her new skill to Hawise at the large, straw-stuffed butt. Time after time the goose-fletched arrow flew to the centre. Maude was rapt with concentration. She moistened her lips; her eyes shone with the pleasure of accomplishment. One of the household guards who reckoned himself a good archer came to match shots with her, and was beaten.

'You do indeed have a skill,' Hawise murmured.

'It is like any discipline, you have to practise.' Maude held out the bow, offering Hawise a shot. 'You could learn.'

The older woman refused with a sad shake of her head. 'It is too late.'

'It's never too late.'

'For me it is.'

They went within shortly after that for the sun had lost its warmth and a cold breeze had sprung up. Hawise shivered and huddled inside her cloak, her face grey and drawn.

In the hall, they dined on almond pottage and saffron squab pie. Maude ate with the healthy, ravenous appetite of active youth. She had been hungry when she went out to shoot and now her stomach felt like an empty cavern. While she devoured the pottage, the pie, and the bread that accompanied the dishes, Hawise just poked at her own food and scarcely touched a morsel.

'Are you not hungry?' Maude asked, thinking it small wonder that Hawise was so thin.

'I have no appetite these days,' Hawise confessed, looking at the few scraps on her trencher with distaste. 'Sometimes even the smell of food makes me feel sick.'

'Have you consulted a physician or a wise woman?'

Hawise shook her head. 'For thirty years I have tended to the ills of all within my household. I do not need a physician to tell me what is wrong.' She did not elaborate, merely toyed with her goblet. The set of her face discouraged Maude from enquiring further.

Later that evening, however, as they sat over a game of merels by the hearth, Hawise pushed one of her pieces with her forefinger and said softly, 'Maude, I cannot keep it to myself any longer. I have to tell you that I believe I am dying.'

The fire spat and crackled on a knot in the wood. It was the only sound in the room. Maude looked at Hawise, lost for words. Although the room was warm, a shiver rippled down her spine, as if drawn by the tip of a scythe.

'I feel as though I am being eaten alive and it grows daily worse.' Hawise bit her lip. 'When my sons left, I thought it was the grief of seeing them go following so hard on the heels of their father's death.'

'Mayhap that is so,' Maude said quickly, clutching at a straw of comfort.

Hawise shook her head and laid her palm to her belly. 'I have a lump here and it grows with the pain. When I am being fanciful, I tell myself that it is my broken heart pushing against my skin. But I have seen such growths before, and I know that they foretell death.'

Maude's swallow was audible. 'I am sorry,' she whispered, knowing that it sounded inadequate, but what else was there to say, except to wish Hawise's confidence unspoken? She did not want the burden that was being laid upon her.

The corners of Hawise's eyes crinkled in a travesty of a smile. 'There is no need to be, although I will be glad if you pray for my soul. Death, when it comes, will be a welcome release… and at least I have time to prepare. It is the waiting that is the hardest part—and the daily grind of the pain.'

'But it's not fair!' cried the rebellious child in Maude's nature, the violence of her own emotion taking her by surprise. Her eyes filled with tears of frustration and anger and she dashed the metels pieces from the pegged wooden board with a swipe of her hand.

Hawise rose and hastened around the board to take Maude in her arms, if life was fair,' she said, 'my husband would still be alive, my sons would be here, not exiled in Brittany, and Whittington would be ours.' She stroked Maude's cheek tenderly, if life was fair, I would have borne at least one daughter and she would have been like you.'

Her words made Maude want to cry even harder and rage against her helplessness. There was nothing she could do to make things right—no matter how many times her arrows hit the centre of the target.

CHAPTER 17

Manor of Higford, Shropshire,

Summer 1200