Lords of the White Castle (77 page)

Maude murmured a startled apology. No, she would not think about Whittington or Fulke. Good thoughts obviously made good hams.

An hour later, she and Guldrun finished smearing and turning the legs. Now they could be left for three days until the next application. Wiping her chapped red hands on a scrap of linen, Maude stepped outside the salting larder into a bitter late morning. The wind cut through her thick woollen dress as if the fabric was the sheerest chansil and the sky was overcast, suggesting more rain. Straw had been thrown down in the courtyard to soak up the results of the last torrential downpour. Whereas Ireland's rain was soft, almost green like the land, Yorkshire's came down unfogivingly in hard steel bolts.

Two riders were entering the courtyard, their heads tucked into their hoods and shoulders hunched against the wind. A man and a youth. Her heart began to thump as they neared. A travelling knight and his squire.

Guldrun followed her out of the salting larder, wiping her own hands. 'I'll tell't'steward we've got visitors,' she said and waddled off, her large buttocks rippling magnificently.

Maude nodded without looking at her, all her attention given to the man dismounting from the chestnut cob. The grey sky and the dark blue hood tinted his eyes with those brooding colours and emphasised the dark shadows beneath them. The lines between his nose and mouth were graven more deeply than she remembered. But then it had been a difficult few months.

Turning to the squire, he bid the lad take the horses and find them stabling, then see to the travelling packs. Then he pivoted to Maude.

'Is it not the coward's way out to send your daughter as your messenger?' he asked.

Maude clenched the cloth in her hands. 'I did not send her. She came to you of her own accord.'

'But you chose not to accompany her.'

The first drops of rain spattered from the darker skirt of cloud edging over the settlement and a sudden ruffle of wind tore at her wimple, sending the fabric billowing into her eyes. She clawed it down and looked at him through wind-stung tears. 'I chose not to,' she agreed.

'Will you tell me why?'

'Is it not obvious?'

'Would I ask if it were? Or do you expect Hawise to do your work for you?'

She saw the spark of anger in his eyes and answered it with a flash of her own. 'I do not know what she has said to you, but I gave her no "work". Jesu, do you think I would put words against her father in our own daughter's mouth?'

'I don't know. Would you?'

The rain slanted down in sleek silver rods, if you think that, then you had best recall your squire and ride back to Whittington because there is nothing for you here.' She left him and hurried towards the hall, changed her mind and direction, and made not for the central door, but for the stairs that led up to the small solar and bedchamber above. She was in no doubt that he would follow and whatever had to be said, it was better stated in privacy than providing a meal for the occupants in the hall, including their daughters.

The cold dread that she had misjudged him began to grow on her when he did not immediately follow. She steeled herself, pouring wine into two cups, adding charcoal to the brazier, dismissing the maid who was seated at a sprang frame by the window. Of course he would follow. Why travel all this way in order to ride out again? The horses would need resting even if he did not.

Taking the woman's place at the frame, she looked out on the courtyard. Fulke had gone. She could hear the thud of the rain on the straw. Hens fluffed out their feathers and huddled in the corner by the midden where a withy partition fence offered some small degree of shelter. Torchlight wavered to life in the kitchens across the way, casting a yellow glow over the darkening afternoon.

The door opened, as she had known it would, but until he walked into the room, she did not let out the breath she had been holding.

'I don't know,' he said, as if there had been no break in their conversation, 'because I no longer know you. Somewhere I have lost the woman I married, my helpmeet and soulmate, and in my darkest moments I fear that I will be unable to find her again.' Pushing his hood down, he came into the room and stood before the brazier, extending his hands to the warmth.

'Mayhap because she no longer exists.' His words made her throat tighten and tears gather behind her eyes. 'I fear that I have lost the man I married, or that I mistook him for something that he was not.' She looked at him across the space that separated them, the heat of the brazier and the chill of the air. Half rising, she closed and latched the shutters against the growing inclemency of the weather. 'Why did you go to a tourney?' she demanded. 'Why didn't you come home?'

'Is that what has rankled with you?' he demanded. 'That I went to a tourney?'

Maude pushed down the latch and looked at the pressure mark on her index finger. 'That you had more care for your new rebel friends than you did for us,' she said. 'That you could not leave the matter of John alone.' She met his gaze. 'I thought you had settled your differences. You said that all you wanted was justice. All you wanted was Whittington, but once you had it, it wasn't enough. John was still there and you wanted to bring him down, whatever the cost.'

He flushed. 'That's not true. If John were a king in the mould of his father, I would not have stirred an inch from Whittington.'

'Not so, because it was Henry deprived your family of Whittington in the first place,' she retorted.

'Look, this charter is important,' he said impatiently. 'It protects men's rights; it gives them freedom from John's tyranny. He has been forced to dismiss his Poitevin mercenaries who would commit whatever evil he commanded. Hawise said you did not want to be another Maude de Braose; well, the enforcing of this charter ensures that you never will be.'

Maude shook her head. 'Those words are mine, but I said nothing to Hawise; I would not tear her between us.'

'No,' Fulke said grimly. 'She says that she overheard you.'

She bit her lip. Out of the frying pan into the fire, she thought with dismay. 'I was overwrought,' she said. 'I vented my opinion on Clarice.'

She waited for the explosion of anger, but he was silent, his jaw clamped. Feeling cold and shaky, she went to the wine she had poured earlier and handed him his cup, not as an olive branch, but as a way of continuing the communication.

'It's not some boyish jape, Maude,' he said in a less harsh tone. 'If anything it is more important than Whittington itself.'

'Than your family?'

He frowned. 'It doesn't have to be a contest.'

'No, it doesn't,' she agreed. 'And that is why I do not understand why you walked away from the signing. My father told me that you left the place of truce and rode away to join the company of de Vesci and FitzWalter.' Her lip curled. 'That is why I say it is John you want, not peace and justice.'

'Christ, Maude, John has no intention of sticking to the laws of that charter unless he is forced. Do you believe me so petty and vindictive that I would pursue him for an old grievance?' He looked at her with anger, and she saw the pain in his expression. 'You do, don't you?

'I believe that it is not finished between you,' Maude said unsteadily. 'And I cannot help but feel like a widow when you put all your energy into fighting him.'

'I'm not fighting him now; I have sworn a truce.'

'To last how long? Until the spring grass grows beneath your mount's hooves and you can be off to war again?'

'If John abides by the charter, that need not happen.'

'But it will. I can see it in your face. Do not seek to pull the wool over my eyes with bland words.'

Abruptly he set the wine cup aside. 'Enough of this. I have ridden far, I'm weary, and likely I'm making a pig's ear of stating my case. I came to ask you to return to Whittington with me. Its soul is missing without your presence.'

'And if I say no?'

He scooped his hands through his hair and it gave her a pang to see the glitter of silver strands amid the heavy sheen of black. 'I had considered tying you across a pack-horse like a sack of cabbages and forcing you to come home, but where would be the point? Likely you would make your escape at the first opportunity or put a dagger between my ribs as I slept. I know it cannot be as it was before—as you say, we have changed, but…' He looked at her sombrely, seeking the words. 'But I want us to grow together, not apart.'

Maude felt herself begin to melt, but she stood her ground. 'You will still go off to war against John, though,' she said.

'Whether you come or stay, that cannot be changed,' he murmured, 'but because of it, I need you more, not less.' He spread his hands. 'Who else will keep my feet on the ground, take me to task… accept me for what I am?'

She narrowed her eyes. 'If he were not in Ireland with that vixen wife of his, I would think that you had been taking lessons from Jean de Rampaigne.'

'I swear to you, these are all my own words—although, truth to tell, I do not know from where they came,' he added wryly. 'All the way to Edlington I was coddling my anger, rehearsing what I was going to say to you about obligation and duty.'

'Were you?' Maude's tone was barbed. 'Well, it seems to me that you have had your say indeed.'

'And so have you,' he retorted, 'and we have both said the same thing, so that makes argument fruitless.'

She folded her arms across her breasts but it was not a defensive motion, rather one of assertion. 'Very well,' she said, 'I will return, but you have to promise me one thing.'

He eyed her warily. 'What?'

'That you will not go to another tourney unless you take me with you.'

'I have always worn your favour, you know that.' He patted his pouch. 'I still carry the hair ribbon you gave me on that first occasion.'

'I want to be there to tie it round your lance. I won't be your grass widow ever again. No. You have to promise….' She took a step back as he took one forward.

He unfastened his pouch and drew out the strand of green ribbon. The colour had faded, the silver was tarnished, but it still sparkled in places. 'On this token I swear,' he said. 'Bind me as you will.'

Maude took it from him and wound it carefully around her fingers and his, meshing them together, hers red from ham salting, his hard from grasping sword and rein. Their flesh touched, cold from the cold of the room, but heat kindling in the blood. His free arm curved around her waist, hers around his neck. He spoke her name, his grip tightened.

Their lips met, first in tenderness, then in fire. Fuelled by two seasons of chastity, kindled by his touch, Maude was consumed by a rush of need so strong that not only did her loins melt, but the bones of her spine were immolated and her knees buckled. From the unsteadiness of his breathing, she knew it was the same for him. Whatever their quarrels, whatever their differences, in this they were as one. It was a battleground and a place of peace-making, of yielding and assertion, of passion—and love.

Later, lying on the floor, she gently untangled the jousting ribbon from their bound fingers and trailed it lightly across his closed lids. He smiled, and, with eyes still shut, trapped her hand and kissed its palm.

From the courtyard, the sound of children's voices and the barking of dogs came up to them, muffled through the timber walls and the tightly closed shutters.

Maude sat up. 'That will be our sons, home from their ride,' she said. 'We had best find them before they find us.'

'And why shouldn't they find us?' Fulke pulled her back down to him, kissing her thoroughly. 'They need to know about love as well as war.'

'Mayhap, but I would hate your heir to get the notion that the solar floor is the customary place to learn.'

Fulke laughed and let her go. 'I suppose so,' he said as she scrambled to her feet and cast around for her wimple. There was the sound of footsteps sniffling up the stairs. 'You start with a bed and work your way down.'

The door burst open and two boys accompanied by a large wolfhound hurtled into the room to find their mother filling two cups with wine and their father seated on the bench, his legs outstretched in a casual pose. Being boisterous boys, unconcerned with outward appearance, neither noticed for one moment the tell-tale stalks of straw adhering to their parents' clothing.

CHAPTER 40

Whittington Castle, Shropshire,

Summer 1216