Elizabeth Chadwick (33 page)

Whittington Castle, Shropshire, February 1202

In the deep of the night, during one of the heaviest snowfalls of the year, Maude gave birth to a daughter. Her labor lasted from the hour of compline until the second matins bell and the midwives had little enough to do to earn their pay except catch the baby in an apron, clean its face, and cut the cord. The infant squalled lustily the moment she entered the world, announcing her presence to all and sundry.

“Red hair and a temper to match!” the senior midwife laughed.

“And a red face!” Maude laughed too, and blinked back tears. She was exhausted, sore, overjoyed, and overwhelmed. It was almost impossible to believe that this tiny, furious creature was hers. Seeing the ripples and kicks beneath the skin of her belly was one thing; meeting their cause was another. She held her newborn daughter awkwardly in her arms and gazed into the crumpled, bawling features.

“She’ll calm in a moment,” the second midwife said cheerfully. “Shows she’s strong. It’s when they don’t yell that you have to worry.”

Emmeline, who had come for Maude’s lying-in, cooed over the baby, tears running down her cheeks. “Just like her poor grandmother,” she sobbed, wiping her eyes on her blue wool sleeve.

Still bawling, the baby was gently bathed in a ewer of warm water, dried in a soft towel, then tightly swaddled, bands of linen cloth replacing the muscular constriction of the womb. Being wrapped seemed to soothe her and the indignant bawls became little snuffles and hiccups.

The midwives delivered the afterbirth, and Maude was helped from the birthing stool to a clean bed, freshly made up with linen sheets and a sheepskin cover. Emmeline went to fetch Fulke while Barbette brushed and braided Maude’s gleaming silver hair. It had been un-plaited for the birth in the belief that it would help her push the child from her womb. The infant was placed in Maude’s arms and mother and daughter assessed each other. Maude would not have called her daughter “beautiful,” still puckered and red from her birth and the ensuing tantrum, but that didn’t matter. It was overwhelming love at first sight.

“She has her father’s eyes,” Barbette murmured.

Maude smiled and touched the soft little cheek. The baby turned instinctively toward the finger. “And his voice,” she said.

The door opened and Fulke strode into the room, filling it with his presence.

Maude watched him approach the bed. She knew he had been pacing ever since her labor had begun. Every hour or so he had sent one of the hall maids to inquire upon her progress until the exasperated midwives had returned the message that everything was going as it should and that the birth would happen when it happened.

“I would rather have fought a battle than waited out these last hours,” he said as he stooped to kiss her. “I am told we have a girl child.”

“You do not mind that it is not a son?” She knew how much store men set by their heirs, as if begetting a male child was the ultimate proof of their virility. She could remember her father’s disappointment as each of her mother’s pregnancies had ended in miscarriage or stillbirth, with herself the only surviving offspring and dismissed except as a bargaining counter in the marriage market. And this child was special, the first FitzWarin to be born at Whittington in more than fifty years.

“My only care is that you are both safe.” He looked at the child cradled in Maude’s arms and tentatively touched the fuzz on the baby’s brow. “Red,” he said.

“Hold her.”

Very gingerly, as if he had been offered a primed barrel of pitch, Fulke took his daughter in his arms. Maude swallowed the lump in her throat. She had been astounded at her miniature perfection. Now the baby’s tiny, delicate size was emphasized by Fulke’s own height and robust strength. She watched him extend a forefinger and saw the look on his face as the baby curled her little fist around it.

“I have heard about women who can wrap men around their little finger, but this is the first time I have seen a man captured by a single clasp,” she jested tearfully.

Fulke returned her smile, his own eyes bright with moisture. “Even if you were to bear me a dozen sons, no moment will ever crown this one,” he said hoarsely. He gazed down into his daughter’s birth-crumpled face. “What shall she be named? Jonetta for your mother?”

Maude shook her head. “No,” she said, “Hawise for yours. What else could she be named with that hair?”

***

Winter gave way to spring and then the heavy greenery of summer. Fulke deepened the ditches around the palisade, he repaired and strengthened the timbers, and he made himself ready for whatever Henry Furnel and the FitzMorys brothers might throw at him. But the summer passed, the grain was harvested, Christmastide arrived, and still they did not come.

“John cannot afford to pay his troops in Normandy,” said Jean de Rampaigne, who was visiting them for the feast season, having spent the last month in Hubert Walter’s household. “He is so unsure of the loyalty of his Norman barons that he has entrusted major keeps to his mercenary captains.”

“If he cannot afford to pay his troops, then surely that is unsound policy.”

Jean shook his head. “He can’t afford to pay them out of the revenues of Normandy, that is true, so he’s paying their wages out of England’s purse, milking the kingdom for all it is worth.”

Fulke acknowledged the statement with a humorless smile. “Hubert always did make a good herdsman,” he said.

“Aye, and like a good herdsman, he can see when the cow is in danger of running dry.” Jean cut a small spiced chicken and raisin pie in half with his meat knife and put one section in his mouth. He offered the other portion to Maude who sat on Fulke’s other side, but she smiled and shook her head.

“It’s dry salt sausage or nothing this time.” Fulke grinned at his wife. “While she was carrying Hawise, it was garlic. I could not approach her for fumes!”

“And see what happened when you did!” Giving as good as she got, Maude patted her belly. It was still flat, but for more than a month she had known that another new life was growing within her.

“Blame me,” Fulke said in an injured voice.

“You would be unhappy if I blamed anyone else,” Maude sniffed.

“I would be more than that.” Fulke felt a tug at his chausses.

“Da,” said Hawise, and clinging to his leg with one hand, held out the other one, demanding to be picked up. The dictate, imperative and tyrannical though it was, melted his heartstrings and he plucked her into his lap. She stared up at him out of huge smoke-hazel eyes and then squirmed around so that she could play with the garnet-set cross hanging around his neck. Those who had not known his mother said that save for her hair, she was made in his image, but he knew differently. Her looks were pure de Dinan. In character, she had more than a hint of Vavasour, especially when it came to wanting her own way. Maude said that she was like him, but then she would. He considered Jean’s words and their implications for his own life.

“Can John win?” he asked.

“Hubert says that it is only a matter of time and that it has been so since Richard’s reign at least. The Normans liked Richard—as we all did because of his luck and his daring and the way he could light up a room like a blaze of candles. John may have the ability, but he lacks Richard’s glow. The Norman barons neither like nor trust him. When they see him setting mercenaries above them, the damage is irrevocable.” Jean took a swallow of wine. “Hubert has even heard rumors that some of the barons with lands in England and Normandy are paying homage to Louis of France for their Norman holdings to protect them from pillage.”

Fulke nodded pensively and looked at the child in his arms, her delicate curls a near match in shade for the garnets in the cross.

“I say good fortune to them,” William said from further down the board. “And I hope John is torn to pieces in Normandy—let him lose it all and know how it feels.”

“It might avail our sense of justice, Will,” Fulke said, “but if John loses Normandy, it will not bode so well for us.”

“Why not?” William thrust out his lower lip.

“Because as he loses lands across the Narrow Sea, it leaves him more time to concentrate his resources on affairs at home—on the Scots, the Welsh and Irish…and outlaws.”

“You’re not afraid of him, surely?” William asked with a sneer in his voice.

“No. But only a fool would not see the implications.”

“And I am a fool?”

Fulke shrugged. “We are all fools sometimes,” he said, determined not to enter into a sparring match with his brother. “All I am saying is that we must watch the situation and be on our guard. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.”

“Not even you,” Ivo guffawed at William, thereby earning himself a cuff.

Maude rolled her eyes heavenward and excused herself to visit the garderobe. Fulke smiled at her, knowing their thoughts were in mutual agreement. At least she had the justification of a temperamental bladder to avoid the banter.

Hawise tried to put the garnet cross in her mouth and Fulke gently dissuaded her.

“Hubert still hopes that you and the King can come to peace,” Jean said.

Fulke raised his brows. “Likely the peace of the grave.”

“Yes, if your fight with him continues.” Jean hunched over his wine cup. “The King needs trained fighting men more than ever now.”

“Then let him come to me and ask for them.” Fulke gave Jean a suspicious look. “Did Hubert send you here to prepare the ground?”

“Hubert sent me nowhere. I asked his leave to celebrate Christ’s mass with you and he gave it willingly. All he said was that it would be a pity if you burned your bridges instead of building them.”

“I have built them…and I am very happy to have Prince Llewelyn for an overlord.”

“Dangerous though if John turns his attention to England and decides that the Welsh are making too many inroads on his borders.”

“I’ll keep an eye on the matter.” Fulke shifted Hawise in his lap and reached for his cup. “For the moment it is Christmas, and John is in Normandy.” The note of finality in his voice warned Jean to change the subject.

Jean licked crumbs from his fingers, then folded his arms. “You might be interested to know that Hubert has been busy in the matter of the FitzMorys brothers,” he said.

“Indeed?” Fulke’s tone was wary

“He has offered Weren FitzMorys the royal manor of Worfield in exchange for Whittington.”

“And the answer?”

Jean shrugged. “Weren’s the weaker of the two, but he’s also the heir if you are speaking of English and Norman law. Of course, by Welsh law, the brothers have an equal say in the disposal of their inheritance. From what His Grace says, he thinks that Weren will accept Worfield and play by Norman rules.”

“Leaving Gwyn disaffected and dangerous.”

“And isolated,” Jean said.

“Sometimes a lone wolf is more dangerous than a pack. I—” A sudden flurry at the far end of the hall distracted Fulke’s attention and then filled him with concern. “Take her.” Dumping Hawise in Jean’s lap, he leaped from the dais and strode toward the door.

A man wearing a heavy cloak and hood was assisting an ashen-faced Maude to sit down at one of the dining benches.

“Maude?” Fulke knelt in consternation before her and took her hand in his. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid it is my fault, my lord,” said the newcomer. He pushed back his hood, revealing the light hair and eyes of Fulke’s informer Arfin Marnur. “I have come from Shrewsbury. Your lady met me outside and bade me give her the news I was bearing and…” He gestured to the result. “I am sorry.”

“What news?” Fulke demanded fiercely. “Tell me!”

“My lord, Henry Furnel and Gwyn FitzMorys have gathered a force together as you thought they might. Even as I set out to warn you, they were making their preparations. They think you will not be looking for them in the winter’s cold.”

Maude had laid her free hand protectively over her belly.

Fulke saw the gesture and winced. Whittington was strong and solid, but it was not impregnable. And both FitzMorys and Furnel were dangerous.

“You have done well, Arfin,” he said. “I am grateful for the warning.” He gestured to the trestle. “Sit and take refreshment.”

Maude raised frightened eyes to his. “Are we to prepare for a siege?”

“We are as prepared as we can be, but that will only happen as a last resort.” He looked at her and his mouth tightened. “I’m going to take the fight to them. They won’t be expecting that.”

If Maude had looked pale before, now she was ghostly. “Is that supposed to comfort me?”

“No, to comfort myself,” he said grimly. “I will not let them within a mile of this place.” He squeezed her cold fingers in his and stood up. “I need to arm up.”

Maude rose. “If you make me a widow, I will not forgive you,” she said passionately.

“I will not forgive myself either. I’ve not come this far, fought this hard, loved this much to lose it all before the feast has even begun.” Regardless of a hall full of onlookers, he gathered Maude in his arms and pulled her close, binding her to him, breast and hip and thigh. She buried her face in his tunic and he felt her shudder. But after a moment, she lifted her head and faced him with a resolute expression.

“I will help you with your armor,” she said.

Fulke’s heart turned over at her frightened courage. He wanted to tell her that it would be all right, but he couldn’t, because it might not be the truth.

***

Fulke’s right arm felt as if it was made of molten lead. He did not know how much time had passed, minutes or hours, since he had discarded the broken stump of his lance and drawn his sword. The once smooth edge of the blade was pitted and nicked by dozens of encounters and the blue of the steel was edged with clots and drips of red.

The force from Shrewsbury was much larger than Fulke had expected. He was both flattered and dismayed. There had been no choice. Furnel’s men, their numbers swelled by mercenaries belonging to the FitzMorys brothers, had to be prevented from laying siege to Whittington. Breathing harshly through his mouth, he cut at a knight who came at him, aiming for the small space between aventail and nasal bar. The man reined aside with a scream and Fulke spurred forward in time to see Philip knocked from his horse by a knight whose shield was emblazoned with the boar device of FitzMorys. Alain and Audulf de Bracy charged to Philip’s defense. For an instant, the fighting was furious. Several Shrewsbury knights arrived to defend their companion. Alain went down. Audulf was swallowed up by the enemy. Fulke saw red. His last rational act was to sheath his sword and draw the morning star flail from his belt, a deadly bludgeon for close-in fighting