The Greatest Knight (42 page)

***

“Poor lass,” William said later in their tent when she told him about her encounter with Aline. He dismissed his squires and sat down on his campstool to remove his boots. “But her circumstances could be worse. My brother indulges her and he hasn’t bedded her—which he is within his rights to do, young as she is. He brought her with him to court, which he didn’t have to do.”

“Her family would object strongly if he didn’t,” Isabelle said sharply. “Her presence hasn’t stopped him from entertaining whores in his chamber.”

William reached for her and drew her into his lap. “I don’t condone what he does, but perhaps he seeks more than release of the body.”

“He won’t find that with a whore,” she sniffed.

“Mayhap a semblance if she knows her trade and has some touch of compassion. Certainly he won’t find it with that child-wife of his, and he can’t turn to Alais. That road is strewn with too many thorns.” He unfastened her veil and drew out the golden pins securing the jewelled net. “Your hair,” he said as her braids tumbled down, heavy as rope, glossy as silk. “I love your hair. I want daughters with your hair…” He buried his face in its softness.

She closed her eyes, her heart full, her loins liquid. The words were in her mouth that he might soon be getting that wish, when the tent opening flapped back and the evening breeze ruffled the interior, guttering the candles. His complexion as red as fire, Jean stepped inside. He avoided looking at Isabelle as she sprang from William’s lap, her tresses wild and the neck opening of her gown unfastened.

“My lord, I…” was as far as he got for hard on his heels came Prince John, who, as far as everyone knew, should have been enjoying his wedding night. William’s brother John followed him into the tent, his expression one of discomfort and unease. Isabelle curtseyed. William rose slowly to his feet and in his own time made his obeisance to the Prince.

The latter gave a mocking smile. “I am sorry to disturb your privacy, Marshal. You at least seem to be enjoying your bride.” He inclined his head to Isabelle, his gaze frankly admiring her state of dishabille. “Had I thought about it properly, I would have pushed Richard to give me the de Clare lands instead.”

William gestured his squire to bring more stools. “A good thing for me that you did not,” he replied. “To what do I owe the honour of this visit? It must be important if it brings you from your marriage bed.”

“Conspiracy is infinitely more interesting than futtering, don’t you think?” John said and taking the foldstool from the wide-eyed squire, opened it out and straddled it. “You can go,” he said.

Jean looked to William, who curtly nodded his head.

The Prince flicked his gaze to Isabelle. “My lady stays,” William said coldly. “She is mine to me and the de Clare lands are hers.”

John shrugged. “As you wish, but remember that women’s tongues need a firm bridle.”

“I trust my wife as I trust the Queen your lady mother—with my life and my honour,” William answered impassively. “The tongues that have done me the most damage throughout my life have been those of other men.” He rose to his feet, took Isabelle’s hand and made her sit in his chair. She gave him a quick look through her lashes compounded of pride and trepidation. Gathering her hair in her hands she swiftly tied it back with one of the ribbons from her loosened braid, but made no effort to don wimple or veil, thus saying without words that this was her and William’s private domain and that she would do as she pleased within it.

“Supping with the devil,” William mouthed at her in such a way that she was the only one to see. Her gaze widened briefly before she lowered it to her lap and clasped her hands.

“As you wish,” Prince John said, although he was plainly not overjoyed.

“What can I do for you, my lord?” William asked. “If this is about my wife’s Irish lands, then I’ll be glad to have the matter resolved.” He sat on the rope-framed bed and folded his arms. As lord of Ireland, the Prince had rewarded his followers with fiefs in Leinster that were rightly under Isabelle’s jurisdiction, and was proving loath to return that authority to her estate.

“No,” the Prince said curtly, “we can deal with that issue later. That isn’t why I’ve come, and you know it.”

William shrugged. “It did strike me as strange that you would abscond your marriage bed to discuss Ireland,” he replied.

The Prince looked annoyed and William’s brother stepped into the breach. “What my lord has to say is of great concern to us both,” he said. “You would do well to listen.”

William spread his hands. “You have my attention.”

For a moment the Prince looked as if he might leave, but he restrained himself, his irritation revealed in the choleric flare of his nostrils. “While my brother is on crusade, he intends to leave his lands in the hands of justiciars fit for the purpose.”

That much was obvious and William said nothing, merely rubbed his chin and waited.

“Some of those men are as good as appointed. Others will buy their way in. Richard has virtually every office in England up for sale.” John flicked William a keen glance. “William Longchamp will play a leading role. Richard’s made him Bishop of Ely and that means Longchamp’s fingers will be in the fiscal pie. It’s always the tradition that Ely watches the coffers.”

William nodded, still wary, but more interested now. “I heard from the Queen that the senior justiciars were likely to be the Earl of Essex and the Bishop of Durham,” he said.

“And if either of them should fail, then who do you think will step into the breach?” Prince John rose to his feet, paced the tent, and turned. “Longchamp will take advantage in any way he can.”

So will you, William thought, eyeing his royal visitor impassively.

The Prince sighed. “I can see you are hostile, Marshal, and I can understand that. You think ill of me because of my father, but I had to make some difficult decisions. If I chose differently to you, that does not mean that you are right and I am wrong.”

“No, my lord,” William said stiffly, knowing that he would never forgive John for abandoning his father on his deathbed. Whatever his reasons, none could be strong enough—not even fear for his own life. The Bible said that love was as strong as death, but that applied to honour too.

The Prince’s gaze hardened. “How would you feel if you were subject to the tyranny of William Longchamp? Which of us would you choose then?”

“My choice is Richard.”

“Who will be gone years at best. I’m not asking you to compromise yourself, just to think. My bride has vouchsafed me lands throughout the south-west of England. Your brother has lands there too as well as being granted custody of Marlborough and the shrievalty of York. With your Giffard manors and the estates of Striguil, you can either add your strength to mine, or oppose me—should we come to trouble…I am making contingency plans, no more than that.”

There was always more than that with John, William thought cynically, and yet the Prince did have a point. Once Richard was gone, even if his lands remained stable and well governed, there were bound to be power struggles and every man would have to decide who were his allies and who were not.

“The shrievalty of Gloucester is for sale at a cost of fifty marks,” John said softly. “That means the control of Gloucester Castle and the Forest of Dean. You are in great favour with my brother. He’ll sell it to you willingly.”

“And if I do this and then choose to oppose you?”

John shrugged. “Then you would be mad. My brother is keen to promote the Marshal family, but Longchamp is not. We may not always see eye to eye, but it makes sense for us to do so now.” He rose to his feet and went to the tent flap. “Think on what I have said. My mother would tell you it’s good advice.”

‘Perhaps I should consult her then.”

John gave an arid smile. “Do so. She will doubtless warn you against me, but she is no lover of William Longchamp either. She has no time for men who do not see the sunrise in her face. I bid you goodnight. I have my duty, as you have your pleasure.” He lifted a sardonic eyebrow in farewell to Isabelle.

There was a short silence after he had gone. John Marshal cleared his throat and pushed his hands through his greying hair. “He’s right. We should look to our own interests. You should ask Richard to give you Gloucester. He won’t deny you. Fifty marks is no great sum.” His tone was brittle and edgy, like a man on the eve of a battle campaign, and it filled William with unease.

“But a price to be paid.” He looked at Isabelle. “What do you think?”

John Marshal blinked, plainly surprised that William should consult his wife.

Isabelle chewed her lip. “I think it would be a good thing to offer for Gloucester,” she said after a moment. “The more powerful you become, the more choices you have. Prince John is the King’s only adult heir and your overlord for your Irish lands. You need to tread a careful path, neither leaning too far towards him, but not rejecting his overtures either. The men with the best sense of balance are going to be the ones who remain intact.”

John Marshal stared at her with a dropped jaw. William’s expression was one of pride and admiration. “I agree,” he said. “I have given my oath to King Richard and I will hold by it until death, but I must protect myself as well.” He looked at his brother. “As Isabelle says, we must tread carefully. I will not condone any attempt by the Prince to take the crown whilst his brother is gone, but the more land and influence we have as a family, the better protected we are.” He poured himself a cup of wine and swilled his mouth as if to rid himself of the taste of his words.

John Marshal shrugged. “I will do what I must,” he said. “You protect me from Richard if it becomes necessary, and I will do what I can to smooth your path with John…and hope that none of it comes to pass.”

William nodded. “Pray God,” he said.

When his brother had left, William sighed and rubbed his palms over his face. “Jesu, I begin to think I should have stayed in Kendal.”

Isabelle came to him. Picking up his wine from the coffer, she took a drink herself. “No,” she said. “You would never have warmed your hands at such a small fire. You know that.” She handed him the cup. “You said to me at Stoke that you were preparing for the storms ahead. This is the first squall and it may well blow over. Whatever happens, you should take Gloucester.”

William drank, set the cup aside, and lay down on the bed, his arms pillowed behind his head. Isabelle leaned over him, unbound her hair again, and let it tumble around them, scented like a distant rose garden.

Thirty-five

Striguil, Welsh Borders, Christmas 1189

Drawing rein, William sucked crystalline air through his teeth and gazed at the massive walls rising out of the frozen winter haze. Ermine snow puffed the ground, bordering the rough grey silk of the River Wye. Deeper snowfall was threatening in the yellowing clouds and the light was fast spiralling away from midday towards dusk.

“Striguil,” he said on a billow of dragon’s breath. “Thank God.” He curled his mittened fists around the bridle and wondered how stiff his knees would be by the time he attained the keep.

“Cold enough to freeze the tits off a witch and the cock off a warlock,” said his knight Alan de Saint Georges.

William’s lips twitched. “Let us hope for their sakes there are not many of them around here then, hmmm?”

Roger D’Abernon spat over the side of his saddle. “William Longchamp would certainly be cockless if he ventured away from his hearth—spawn of hell.”

William said nothing. He had been attending on King Richard for the past four months, himself and his brother given prominent positions at the royal counsel table. Isabelle had spoken of storms and there had been plenty of those to weather. Richard was opinionated and volatile. At times, with so many offices for sale, government had been more like a session of beast trading at London’s Smithfield Fair. Factions were rife, and although everyone smiled at everyone else, or at least strove to be civil, the knives were out and awaiting an unguarded moment. In spite of the dangers and tribulations, William was enjoying his new responsibilities. As a household knight, he had had limited authority, much of it grounded in his military prowess. Now his opinions were sought and weighed in full counsel rather than on an informal basis. His brother’s too, although John was less adept at playing courtly politics and put on the defensive by Richard’s chancellor Longchamp who seemed to take a particular pleasure in baiting him. William’s eyes narrowed in response to his thoughts. Longchamp’s contempt for the Marshals was thinly disguised beneath a veneer of strained courtesy. However much William mistrusted him, Prince John had been right. Longchamp would bear watching—especially now.

Wrapped in a fur-lined cloak, Isabelle was waiting in the bailey to greet him and William’s heart swelled with pleasure to see her. Her cheeks and lips were flushed with cold. Showing below her veil, her gold braids were lustrous and as heavy as ripe corn, and through the opening in her cloak, her body showed a glimpse of fruitfulness too, just beginning to round.

The groom led William’s horse away to the stables and in the purple dusk, as the first stars of snow began to fall, William embraced his wife with tender hunger. She kissed him, oblivious of the audience of knights and retainers. “I was counting down the days to Christmas and beginning to wonder if you would arrive in time,” she said.

William laughed with wryness and pleasure. “I was counting down the days too. I’ve missed you hard.” His look grew concerned. “How have you been faring? You look beautiful.”

Isabelle pressed her hand lightly over her womb. “I am beginning to look as if I have done nothing but sit by the fire and eat bread pudding,” she answered ruefully, “but I am well. The sickness stopped soon after I arrived at Striguil.”

William nodded and felt relieved. Isabelle had wanted to remain at court with him, but she had been unwell in the early months of her pregnancy and as the court was constantly on the move, she had had little opportunity for rest. While Queen Eleanor was sympathetic to Isabelle’s condition, she had not wanted a puking pregnant woman attending on her. William had to stay with Richard and he had deemed it best for Isabelle to go to Striguil. She was its Countess; she could take fealty of her vassals, make treaties with her neighbours, see to the interests of the earldom, and at the same time rest in one place.

“The child has quickened,” she told him as she led him towards the hall. “Not that you can feel with the palm of your hand as yet, but I have felt him stirring within my womb.”

“Him?” William said with a smile.

Isabelle nodded with calm serenity. “It will be a son,” she said.

William gazed at the keep as they approached it. The entrance was via a timber stair that led up to a decorated entrance with a guardroom to the left and a door to an undercroft beneath. The castle had been built by the Norman warlord William FitzOsbern in the years immediately following the Norman Conquest and although some work had been done to keep it strong, William thought that there was room for expansion and improvement. The great hall itself was a large rectangle set above the storeroom, with a fire burning in a large central hearth. Benches occupied niches created by decorative blind arches cut into the walls. Banners and hangings draped the white plasterwork, and an array of painted shields, alternating round and kite-shaped, English and Norman. A doorway at the end of the hall gave on to an external stair while an internal stair led to the private quarters set into the roof space and it was to this that Isabelle drew William.

The room above could hardly be called a solar, although there were a couple of squints looking out on to the river side of the keep. The space was divided into two rooms by a heavy woollen curtain—an antechamber for attendants and an inner sanctum where the lord and lady could enjoy a modicum of privacy. The latter was cosy with the heat of several charcoal braziers and there was a large bed, lined with straw and piled with two thick feather mattresses. Isabelle’s painted marriage coffer stood beside it and another large wooden chest for William’s gear. A cradle of polished cherry wood nestled in a corner. William went to look at it, tried to imagine it filled with a baby, and felt his stomach wallow with anticipation and fear. Not wanting to show the latter to Isabelle, he busied himself removing his cloak and hood. His squires had followed them upstairs with items of baggage and Isabelle’s ladies waited unobtrusively in the background. William dismissed them all. Later he would take proper stock of Striguil and attend to outstanding business. Later he would have time for others, but just now he was feeling rather selfish.

***

William laid his hand on Isabelle’s softly rounded belly and kissed her throat beneath her loose, fair hair. Her pulse thundered in time with his heartbeat and her breath was as short as his as they slowly returned from the pleasure of rediscovering each other’s bodies. He laughed softly. “I have gone for years without the comfort of a woman in my bed,” he told her, “but now, after two months away from you, I feel like a green boy with his first woman.”

“You said that before, at Stoke,” Isabelle said huskily.

“Well, it’s true. It is what you do to me.”

“You didn’t feel like a green boy to me.”

“But too hasty…”

“Not for me. You have been two months away from me also.” She stroked his face. “We have all the winter’s night before us, and a double feather mattress and warm furs…there is time for leisure as well as haste.”

Her words, her light, deliberate touch, brought weakness and warmth to William’s limbs and he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her again. Isabelle responded fervently, then pulled away and laughed as William’s stomach rumbled as loudly as distant thunder.

“Shame on me,” she said, “for putting my own desires before the needs of a starving man!”

“That would depend on what I was starving for the most,” William interrupted with a lazy smile, “but I wouldn’t refuse food now, especially if I’ve to spend the night in leisure and haste. Besides,” he added, sobering and reaching for the furred robe lying half on the bed, half on the floor, “there are things I have to tell you, and it’ll be easier whilst eating than making love.” Rising, he went to a low trestle table where food and drink had been set out. A leek and almond pottage had been keeping hot under a small brazier of coals and there was wheaten bread freshly baked, soft and fresh. Whatever refinements the sturdy, dour Striguil was lacking, Isabelle’s cook was not one of them. William had known he was hungry, but hadn’t realised the extent of the hollow feeling in his stomach until he sat down and began to eat. Isabelle joined him, and if William had had any lingering doubts about the state of her health, it was dissipated by the sight of her tucking into the food almost as heartily as himself. He hoped that what he was about to tell her would not destroy her appetite.

“So,” Isabelle said as she broke another morsel of bread and dipped it in her rapidly vanishing pottage, “what do you have to tell me that is better suited to soup than coupling?”

William snorted at her words. “I am not sure that it is suited to either activity.” He let his own spoon rest. “The Earl of Essex is dead, God rest his soul.” He crossed himself. “Of a quartan fever in Normandy.”

Isabelle crossed herself too, her expression filling with distress for the man she had known and liked, and then, with the dismay of a deeper realisation. “He was to be the joint justiciar,” she said.

“Richard has appointed William Longchamp in his place.” William made a face. “The choice was not unexpected, but it’s still a blow. The only consolation is that four sub-justiciars have been appointed to regulate those who might be tempted to abuse their power with Richard gone.”

“Then I hope such men are our allies.” Isabelle set her bowl aside. She fixed William with a sombre gaze.

William smiled diffidently. “Well, one is at least,” he said, “because Richard has appointed me to a position. We are answerable only to him and the Queen.”

Isabelle’s eyes widened. “That is excellent news!” Her expression brightened. “Who are the others?”

He told her, leaning forward and taking her hands, and she was pleased to hear the names. William Briwerre, Geoffrey FitzPeter, and Roger FitzReinfrey were men of similar ilk to her husband, raised through the ranks and of trusted mettle. Longchamp was trusted mettle too and of humble background, but in his case he had sought to eradicate that stigma by behaving as if he had been born royal. “Of course,” William added with a grimace, “as well as Longchamp, we’ll have to keep an eye on the ambitions of Prince John and there is bound to be friction between the two of them. You saw the posturing before you left court.”

“But you can do it,” she said with conviction. “You have the strength.”

“I suppose I’ll find that out, won’t I?”

Isabelle narrowed her eyes and decided that his tone bespoke assurance rather than uncertainty. He had changed in the months they had been apart. It was as if a sword had been taken from the armoury and honed on a grindstone until its edge was blue and keen.

He drained his wine and refused her offer of more. “I’m summoned to attend the King in Normandy before Eastertide,” he said, glancing at her belly. “It’s going to be hard leaving you behind.”

“Then bring me with you,” Isabelle said.

He started to shake his head but she pre-empted him. “It was right that I came to Striguil in October. I was greensick and, besides, it was necessary for one of us to take fealty of the vassals, but I am well now; I want to come with you.”

William opened his mouth, but again she stole his words. “I could take homage of the Longueville vassals in Normandy. Let them now see their lady and the store she sets by the father of their future heir.”

He considered the point and had to agree. Her presence in Normandy would certainly advance his position with the Norman vassals who were hers by right of blood.

“Not only that,” she said, “but I can rest at Longueville while you are in service to the King and you can escape to me there whenever you can.”

William gave an admiring laugh and shook his head. “My love, you should have been sitting in the counsel chamber in my stead. I’m certain that you would have run rings around William Longchamp.”

Isabelle gave a shudder. “To the contrary, my sickness would have continued. He reminds me of a black hairy blowfly.”

The analogy made William grin with appreciation, although he wasn’t really amused. With his heavy black hair growing wild around his tonsure, his long black beard and bright black eyes, Longchamp did indeed resemble a corpse fly—annoying and dangerous and giving no respite to his victims. The only hope was in swatting him when he was too bloated to avoid the blow. “His downfall will come,” he said. “I have no doubt of that, but we have to be careful that ours doesn’t precede his. It is like the tourney. You have to be able to control your lance and your horse without thinking and then you have to know when to launch yourself into the fray and when to hold something back.” He pushed his cup and bowl aside and went to unlatch the shutters and peer out through the squint on a world of whirling whiteness.

Isabelle joined him and stood on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder. “A good thing you arrived when you did,” she said. “Otherwise you’d have had to turn back for Gloucester. It looks as if we’re going to be snowed in for a while.”

“I’m sure we can find things to do,” William said, setting his arm around her thickening waist.