Elizabeth Chadwick (32 page)

For a while there was no answer as they kissed. Emmeline quietly and tactfully retreated.

“Where I told you, at the court of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth,” he said as their lips parted. “I’m more concerned about you.”

“Then why did you not come sooner?” She could not help herself; she had to say the words although she had promised herself that she would not cling.

“Because I offered Llewelyn my sword and he accepted. I’ve been in the field, chasing his enemy Gwenwynwyn for the past fortnight.”

Maude eyed him sidelong. “So you will serve Llewelyn as a mercenary?”

“As far more than that,” he said, and now there was a glow in his eyes. “He is going to help me regain Whittington, and then I will hold it for him as his vassal.”

“Is that wise?”

He made a wry face. “Since I have renounced my fealty to John, I am free to give it elsewhere.” Bleak humor flashed in his eyes. “Marcher barons are a law unto themselves. There have always been alliances between the Welsh and the border Normans when it has suited both parties.” Leaving the bed, he paced restlessly to the window and looked out. “I’ve brought sufficient men with me from Wales to take Whittington.”

She studied the straight set of his spine, the way he braced one arm on the wall and clasped his sword hilt with the other, fingers tapping an unconscious rhythm. The room seemed too small to contain his energy. Emotions surged through her: fear, love, and pride. She concealed the former and allowed the latter two to shine in her voice as she threw back the covers and came to him.

“That is good news,” she said softly, her hand on her belly. “Our first child will be born there.”

He swung around and stared with widening eyes. “You are with child?”

“So Emmeline says, and I cannot doubt her since I have all the signs.”

He reached out and gathered her into his arms. Then, as she gasped at being squashed against the hard metal rivets of his hauberk, he let her go as if she were scalding him. He looked down at her belly as if expecting to see it swell before his eyes. “When?” he asked.

“Around Candlemas, I think. Are you not pleased?”

He swallowed. “Of course I am pleased,” he said huskily. “And terrified too.”

“Terrified?” Maude suppressed the reply that it was she who should be terrified since the burden of carrying and bearing fell to her.

He laughed without humor. “A few months ago my responsibility was to my brothers and myself. Then I married you, and now you are with child.”

Maude folded her arms beneath her breasts. The movement made her realize how tender and sore they were. “You could have chosen not to do so.”

“Oh Christ, I didn’t mean that. I have no regrets on that score, nor ever will. I want to protect you, I want to keep you safe from all harm, and so fierce is the desire, I am afraid I am not equal to upholding it.”

“I have told you I am not made of glass,” she said, going into his arms and drawing them around her waist. “The only mistake you make is in underestimating us both. I am as strong as sword steel; you are my shield. We will not fail.” She pulled him down to her and kissed him. The smell of horse and sweat engulfed her, but she reveled in it, the pungency reinforcing the joy of having him back.

“Are you going to unarm, or is this a fleeting visit before you abandon me again?”

“I didn’t abandon you!”

“It felt as though you had.” Maude deftly unlatched his sword belt. “I expect you to make amends.” Her breath grew pleasantly short with anticipation.

“Amends,” he repeated softly, and his glance flickered to the bed, the covers invitingly pushed back where Maude had left them. He began to smile. “I do not think that will be too difficult a task.”

Maude narrowed her eyes. “Do you not?” she said softly. “We shall see.”

***

“Well,” Fulke said, tugging on a strand of Maude’s hair, “you are right. I have never met a woman so abandoned in all my life.” He yelped as she poked him in the ribs. The bedclothes were rumpled and half strewn on the floor, and tangled among them were various items of discarded clothing. “Have amends been made to your satisfaction, my lady?”

She stretched sinuously and gave him a wicked look through her lids. “What if I say no?”

“I will consider you the greediest woman alive.”

“I am.” She ran a finger down his bicep. “I do not think you know the depth of my appetite.”

As if in response, her stomach rumbled loudly. She had eaten nothing but oatcakes that morning and it was past noon now. Queasiness lurked in the background, but it was a minor discomfort compared to the ravening hunger brought on by the relief of Fulke’s return and a bout of intense lovemaking.

Fulke laughed. “Well, if I cannot satisfy it, I’d best find you a man who can,” he said. Drawing on shirt and tunic, poking his feet into his shoes, he headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Maude propped herself up on her elbows.

“To see the cook, of course. What do you think I meant?”

Maude threw a bolster at him. Rising, she drew on her chemise and began to comb her hair, going over to the window. The courtyard was full of soldiers making camp: Fulke’s men and Llewelyn’s, the latter barelegged, the older ones among them sporting impressive mustaches. Many of them carried longbows of yew and ash, formidable weapons that were little enough to look at but deadly in use. She shivered at the thought of the fighting likely to come.

Fulke returned with a large wooden platter of roast hen, bread, cheese, and wine. Maude’s mouth watered. Suddenly the hunger was too much to bear and almost before he had put the platter down, she pounced, grabbed a portion of hen, and bit into it ravenously.

Fulke eyed her with mock trepidation. “Thank Christ that you did not bite me like that,” he said.

“You escaped lightly,” she retorted through a mouthful, then paused, her gaze switching to the door where Philip was hovering on the threshold.

Fulke followed her look and beckoned. Hesitantly Philip entered the room, his glance tactfully avoiding the story told by the strewn bedclothes and Fulke’s and Maude’s state of undress.

“What is it?” Fulke asked.

“I thought you should know. Arfin Marnur’s below—just returned from Shrewsbury with some interesting news.”

A gleam of interest lit in Fulke’s eyes. Even as Henry Furnel had his henchmen and spies everywhere, so Fulke had his own sources of gathering information and Arfin was one of them. “I’ll come down,” he said. “What sort of news?”

Philip smiled. “Apparently Gwyn FitzMorys is in Shrewsbury to see Furnel the undersheriff. He’s got half the knights of the Whittington garrison with him. They’re planning a foray to capture you.”

Fulke set aside his food and began donning his chausses. “Excellent,” he said, grinning fiercely.

“Excellent!” Maude cried, looking at him in horror. “They’re planning to take you and you say excellent!”

Fulke finished dressing and came around the bed to give her a smacking kiss. “Of course. Gwyn FitzMorys has split the Whittington garrison. While he chases himself up his own backside, I’ll be paying Weren a visit!”

His step lithe and energetic, he bounced from the room and clattered down the stairs. Maude shook her head. Clinging on for the wild ride was proving more exhausting than she had thought.

In the first light of a summer dawn, Fulke rode out of Babbin’s Wood and entered Whittington at the head of a host of Normans and Welsh.

Lime-washed daub and wattle dwellings grew out of the gray half-light, smoke rising from newly awakened cooking fires. A dog howled in warning and set up an answering clamor from other dogs in the village. Folk peered out of their cot doors, then slammed them and knelt to pray. But Fulke’s army ignored the settlement and rode on to the painted timber keep.

One of the gates was wide open to admit an early delivery of firewood and the guard who should have been on the wall walk was slouching on his spear and talking to the carter. Had he been at his post, he would have seen Fulke’s men sooner than he did. As it was, he had time for a single bellow of warning before three Welsh arrows brought him down across the open entrance. The carter fled. Fulke and William thundered forward to secure the gates.

After that, the fight for Whittington was brief. Caught unawares, the soldiers of the garrison swiftly yielded and were herded into a sullen knot in the corner of the bailey. Fulke commanded his men to shut the gates and take position on the wall walks. William took a detail and searched the hall and storehouses lest any FitzMorys troops were hiding, waiting to spring an ambush.

Fulke was elated at how simple it had been. He had expected to fight hard for the keep. Some of his success was sheer good fortune, but he owed most of the easy victory to the laxness of Weren FitzMorys’s command. Only one guard on duty and in the wrong place. Even as a squire of fifteen, Fulke knew he could have done better.

There was a scuffle from the direction of the hall, and William returned, dragging a woman by her drab-colored cloak. At least Fulke thought it was a woman until William tore off her wimple, revealing cropped hair and the frightened features of Weren FitzMorys.

“I found this tasty wench skulking in the bower,” William said with a wolfish grin. “Fortunately for her my appetite for rape seems to have vanished.”

Fulke’s mouth twitched and he had to fight not to laugh as he rode up to the captive.

Weren FitzMorys was crimson with chagrin and fury. “You’ll pay for this!” he snarled.

“We all get what we deserve in the end,” Fulke replied coldly. “If you had set a better watch and been less negligent, you would not be standing before me now in a maid’s dress…or perhaps you would?”

Weren looked as if he might burst into tears.“When Gwyn returns, he’ll deal with you!” he threatened in wavering tones.

Fulke raised a scornful eyebrow. “If you can only issue threats on another’s behalf, then indeed you are rightly attired.” He nodded to William. “Put him out of the keep with the garrison…and, for decency’s sake, give him his wimple back.”

“My pleasure.” William grinned.

A weeping Weren FitzMorys was marched to the doors of the keep and thrust out wearing the garments in which he had tried to conceal his identity. The garrison was allowed to depart in a more dignified manner. Any other servants and retainers who desired to leave were permitted to do so unharmed.

Silence fell. Slowly Fulke dismounted. He had an urge to shout his name and hear its resonance bring the timbers to life. He almost felt as if such a cry would break a spell and that former FitzWarin inhabitants would come pouring out of the buildings in welcome, his father leading them.

William, sober now, knelt to kiss the damp earth of the courtyard floor. Seeing the gesture, Fulke lifted his spear, its head adorned by the red and white FitzWarin banner, and presented it to his brother.

“Go and fly this from the battlements, Will,” he commanded. “Let everyone know that once again there are FitzWarins at Whittington.”

***

Fulke brought Maude to Whittington later that morning. She had been waiting for him in Babbin’s Wood with an escort of knights, to protect her and remove her from harm’s way should the taking of Whittington end in disaster. But it hadn’t, and his heart was bursting with joy and fierce pride as he kissed her and set her on her mare to bring her home.

As they rode out of the woods, Maude gained her first glimpse of the keep that had engendered so much bitter struggle since the time of Fulke’s grandsire—the great-grandsire of the baby growing in her womb.

The castle stood on a low rise overlooking a crossroads: Oswestry to the west, Chirk and Wrexham to the north, Whitchurch to the east, and Shrewsbury to the south. The Welsh border curled in a semicircle less than three miles distance on all but the southern boundary. There was a palisade around the whitewashed timbers and a ditch surrounding the sharpened stakes. The gates stood wide in greeting, but they were heavily guarded, and vigilant soldiers manned the wall walks. Inside the compound were numerous daub and wattle storage and service buildings, and a large wooden hall with oak roof shingles.

Fulke drew rein and looked at her. “It is not as great as Lancaster or as grand as the Archbishop’s palace at Canterbury,” he said with defensive pride, “but it is mine and one day it will be the finest keep on these Marches.”

She turned her gaze from the castle to him. “If I had wanted palaces and vast castles, I would have agreed to become John’s mistress,” she replied. “It is mine too, and it is already the finest keep on these Marches. I desire no other.”

Although he swallowed, he still found it impossible to speak further, but he reached across the space between them and clasped his hand over hers.

A long day turned into a long night of celebration, although no one got particularly drunk. They could not afford to drop their guard. That morning had been a clear demonstration of what happened when vigilance was relaxed even for a moment.

That night, lying in the chamber above the hall, his and Maude’s cloak for a groundsheet, a blanket above, Fulke wrapped his arms around his wife. “Tomorrow we begin to build,” he said, his lips at her throat. “I will have the village carpenter make us a bed.” He pitched his voice low. Whittington was crowded with his men, and others were using the chamber for sleeping space too.

“You could have made do with the one that was already here instead of having it taken out and burned,” Maude commented. “It was good seasoned oak.”

Fulke grimaced. “My father always said that a bed was a couple’s private space. I want to begin afresh, not lie with you where FitzRoger and his sons have lain with their women and whores.” He cupped her breast. “I am giving you a clean slate to furnish Whittington as you choose.”

Maude made an interested sound. “With a marble table for the dais and silver cups and tablecloths of silk damask?” she teased.

“And I always thought you a woman of sound taste.”

She pinched him and he leaped against her with a muffled protest. Their lips met, softly at first, but with a kindling hunger. Mindful of the other sleepers, they made love in silence—intense, fierce, shattering. As they parted and drifted into sleep, secured by the clasp of hands, Fulke pondered on the nature of silence, how much meaning it could hold: from hollow desertion waiting to be filled with noise to the containment of pleasure that was magnified to a blinding intensity by the very need to make no sound.

And behind her closed lids, Maude imagined Whittington as it would be in the future. The proud baronial caput of the FitzWarin family, complete with a dais table of speckled Purbeck marble. Smiling to herself, she snuggled against Fulke.

***

Gwyn FitzMorys looked at his older brother in furious disbelief. “You haven’t got the abilities of a cracked louse!” he cried. “How could you have let it happen!”

“They were on us before we knew it,” Weren said miserably. He flashed an accusing look at Gwyn. “Besides, half the garrison was away with you, flashing their mail at the Shrewsbury whores.”

Gwyn reddened. There was an element of truth in the sally but he was not going to admit it. “We were meeting with the undersheriff!”

“Amounts to the same thing.”

Gwyn seized Weren by the throat of the borrowed tunic. Apparently the idiot had been trying to escape disguised as a maid and had been the laughingstock of FitzWarin’s soldiers. “It amounts to more than you ever will!” he spat. “God on the Cross, all you had to do was keep the gates shut and maintain a vigilant guard on the wall walks. Papa was right when he said that you couldn’t organize a drinking session in an alehouse!”

Choking, Weren strove to pry his brother off and could not.

“Papa will be turning in the grave where the FitzWarins put him!” Gwyn snarled and released Weren with a push that sent him reeling against the wall.

“You should have been there!” Weren gasped as he struggled upright.

“Why? I’m not the heir.”

“No, but you know what to do! You shouldn’t have taken the best men!”

Gwyn glared. He had taken them because he had been expecting to set out along the Northern March with Henry Furnel in search of Fulke FitzWarin. Instead, FitzWarin had slipped behind his back and struck at the weakest point. Now he had Whittington, and from what the men said, sufficient Welsh mercenary troops to secure the place. Besides, whatever hatred he might feel for FitzWarin, Gwyn acknowledged that the bastard possessed formidable military skills. “No, I shouldn’t,” he said softly. “It was my fault for overestimating your ability.”

“What are you going to do?”

He felt the anxiety in Weren’s stare. Weren might be the elder brother, the one entitled to the land, but he had about as much notion of how to control and govern as a plow ox. Gwyn thought about shrugging and leaving him in the lurch, but for their father’s sake and his own pride, he could not.

“I am going to stay here and fight on,” he said. “You”—he stabbed a forefinger—“are going to John with the news of Fulke FitzWarin’s outlawry. Now we have no land, it is your duty to secure a fief to support us until we can regain Whittington.”

He watched Weren swallow. “And God help you if you fail,” he added, “for I certainly will not.”