Elizabeth Chadwick (39 page)

This morning he had presided over several breaches of the law from the petty to the serious. Damage to property, thievery, murderer, abduction. The usual gamut. One foolish man had beseeched him for justice and been carried away screaming to face the gibbet. It might have been different had he asked for mercy instead. Salvation or damnation: it all came down to words.

John lightly brushed his beard with a beringed forefinger and signaled the next case to be brought before him.

“Caught in the great forest, poaching deer,” said the official as the bruised and beaten prisoner was ushered forward, the shackles clanking on his wrists. “Won’t give his name.” The official’s tone implied that it didn’t matter; this one was fodder for the gibbet.

John eyed the man, judging him to be in his early thirties. One eye was almost swollen shut. Dried blood was caked beneath his nose and joined the clotted mess of his split lip. He would not have been recognizable to his own mother, and yet John felt a glimmer of familiarity. It was the way the eyes held his in defiance, the knife-slash brows and heavy black hair. He knew those characteristics. No common peasant would return his look so boldly. No common peasant would wear a padded gambeson or sport such fine embroidery at the cuffs and hem of his tunic. John hunted his mind, searching thickets of memory until one sprang a reply like a startled quarry, and he began to smile.

“He might not give you his name, but I will,” he said, “He is William FitzWarin, brother of Fulke, and a valuable capture indeed. Tell the men who caught him I will give them the same payment that I give to those who bring me the hides of wolves.”

“You’ll gain nothing from having me,” William snarled and was immediately clubbed to his knees by the guard standing over him.

“Show more respect for your King!” the man warned.

“I’ll give it where it’s due,” William gasped, a bruise beginning to swell on his temple.

John gestured sharply to stop the soldier from clubbing William again. “I want him alive,” he said and stroked his beard. “For the moment.” He slanted a glance at William. “It all depends on how much your brother values your life.”

“Fulke will never yield to you!”

“Then you will hang from a gibbet for outlawry and poaching the King’s deer,” John said indifferently and waved his hand. “Take him away.”

William of Salisbury, who had been witnessing the cases with John, cleared his throat. “I understood from the Archbishop and Ranulf of Chester that you were going to negotiate an honorable agreement with FitzWarin,” he muttered. “I thought it was understood that you were going to restore his lands in return for his expertise as a battle commander.”

John eyed his half brother. “I never said that I would, only that it was a possibility.” He looked at his fingernails. “Now it is less of one because I have better means to bring FitzWarin to heel; I have a hostage.”

Salisbury frowned and looked discomforted. “But men will not see the fine shade of meaning,” he protested. “They will only believe that you have gone back on your word.”

“It is the difference between justice and mercy.” John shrugged. “Men should know the boundaries and what they are truly asking for before they open their mouths.”

“Why can you not give FitzWarin the land he asks for? It is not as if it is the size of an earldom, and if he swears his loyalty, I know that he will abide by it.”

John said nothing. He rubbed his forefinger back and forth across the smooth cabochon sapphire in one of his rings.

“It’s about that chess game when you were youths, isn’t it? You still haven’t forgiven him for that.”

“Why should I forgive him? He never apologized,” John said, and then, as he saw the look on Salisbury’s face, waved an impatient arm. “God’s bones, of course it isn’t just about that chess game. It’s about everything that has happened since.”

“But there has to be an end somewhere. John, give him the land.”

“As a favor to you?”

“If you like, but to yourself also.”

John scowled. He was aware of a griping sensation in the pit of his belly that had nothing to do with his digestion. It was a feeling that had often been present in his young manhood as he watched the way men reacted to his brother Richard. Coeur de Lion. That said everything. Richard’s courage; Richard’s rugged golden beauty; the way his charisma lit up a room and inspired its occupants with hero worship. Fulke FitzWarin did not have a golden blaze about him—his magnetism was more subdued, like the gleam of steel—but it existed and men were drawn. John hated Fulke FitzWarin, but few others shared his sentiment. They hated him instead, calling him Softsword for the loss of Normandy, as before, as an adolescent, they had scathingly called him Lackland because he did not have an inheritance. Making laws, hearing common pleas, strengthening the administration meant nothing to barons who wanted a magnificent warlord on a destrier.

Fulke FitzWarin had the glamour of the tourneys about him, but what galled John most was knowing that if set to the task, Fulke could administer and account with thorough competence. John’s gut was seething because Salisbury was right. He would be doing himself a favor by making peace, but he did not know if he could bring himself to do so.

“The matter of FitzWarin is not open to negotiation,” John said tersely. “Bring forward the next plea.”

“But—”

John glared. “Not another word, Will, I’m warning you.”

Salisbury subsided, but John could tell from the tension in his half brother’s jaw that he was far from happy. He was fond of Will, would do more for him than most, but he was angered by Salisbury’s determination to champion FitzWarin’s cause.

“I am the King,” he said, the words containing a hint of petulance.

The presenting of the next prisoner did not quite drown out Salisbury’s mutter, but John chose to ignore it. “And a king is accountable for his deeds.”

***

The charcoal burner’s coarse woolen robes chafed Fulke’s skin and he suspected that he had picked up lice from the greasy cap. Charcoal dust smeared his face and hands and he carried a large iron fork—a weapon masquerading as the tool of his trade. The charcoal burner had been delighted to exchange his own garments for a fine linen shirt and woolen tunic edged with blue braid, not to mention a payment of a shilling for his load of charcoal and the hire of his donkey and cart.

Fulke clicked his tongue and led the cart toward the hunting lodge. Outside, a group was gathering for a day’s sport. Greyhounds, lymes, brachs, and alaunts milled in the courtyard, some held on leashes by kennel-keepers, others roaming free and eagerly snuffling the ground. The bright rich garments of the riders proclaimed their nobility. Fulke’s borrowed robe had once been leaf green, but weathering and charcoal tending had reduced it to a murky shade of sludge.

Fulke saw John among the company, wearing royal purple on sapphire blue. His horse was a spirited dappled gelding and John was smiling as he wheeled the horse and spoke to William of Salisbury. The latter shook his head, fumbled in his pouch, and handed something over. Salisbury had been gaming and losing again, Fulke thought, narrowing his eyes the better to focus. But then Salisbury had always allowed John to get away with cheating.

John signaled to the senior huntsman. Decked in forest hues of brown and green, a longbow and quiver at his shoulder, the man unslung a decorated horn to blow the advance. The dogs began to bell with excitement and the courtiers urged their mounts forward. Fulke drew his cart to the side of the road and leaned on his fork as the King and his retainers set out to hunt.

Fortunately, the donkey was so old and placid that it was almost dead and scarcely paid any heed to the tumult of dogs as they loped past. A wire-haired terrier investigated the delightful smell of Fulke’s chausses and cocked its leg. Fulke restrained the urge to kick the little cur into the following week and maintained a patient expression on his charcoal-blackened features.

Doffing his cap, Fulke knelt, hiding his features by gazing at the ground. “God save you, my lord King!” he cried, thinking that no one else would.

John was diverted by the shout, and pleased. “And God save you!” he responded, reaching to his cloak.

There was a glitter and a gentle thud. The gray trotted on. Fulke stared at the ring brooch that had landed in the soft earth at his knees. It was made of silver, with the names of the three kings who had visited Jesus’s birth engraved around its perimeter, a sure protection against the falling sickness. Fulke knew that John always had a couple of spare brooches pinned to his cloak for such occasions. Whatever his faults, no one could accuse the King of personal parsimony toward his lower subjects.

William of Salisbury had lingered behind to adjust his stirrup and as Fulke stood up, the brooch in his hand, their eyes met and recognition dawned in Salisbury’s. The Earl shook his head in warning.

“You fool, what are you doing here?” he hissed.

“Would you not do the same for your brother?”

Salisbury glanced toward the hunting party. “I am not sure that I would.”

“Where’s Will? How closely is he guarded?”

“You expect me to tell you?”

Fulke shrugged. “I’ll find out anyway.”

Salisbury grimaced and looked up the road to the riders as if by thought alone he could will himself back among their number. “They’re guarding him in one of the bailey stores near the kitchens,” he said. “I cannot help you more.” Jerking on the reins, he spurred his mount to catch up with the others.

Fulke pinned the brooch on his ragged tunic where it shone with rich incongruity. “You heard that?” he said.

The mound of charcoal moved slightly as if a mole was at work beneath. “I heard,” came Philip’s muffled voice. “What was all that noise?”

“The King is going hunting.” Fulke went to the head of the cart and clicked his tongue to the reluctant donkey. “There’s never going to be a better moment.”

Fulke brought his cart of charcoal into the courtyard and, beneath the bored eyes of a couple of guards, took it around to the kitchen buildings. Charcoal was used to heat the braziers of the private rooms, but it also had its place in the kitchens, where a steady heat was required within the fireboxes to cook sauces and more delicate dishes.

The servants were busy preparing food for the return of the hunting party. A huge picnic had been taken, but appetites were always made voracious by a day’s sport. The guards sat down to watch the road and play a desultory game of dice. A woman brought them a jug of cider and a platter of bread and cheese. One of the kitchen attendants gave Fulke a hot cheese fritter and filled his horn cup with ale.

“Where’s Osbert today?” she asked. She folded her arms, obviously preparing to settle down and gossip.

“Business elsewhere,” Fulke said gruffly. “I offered to take his place.” He took a large bite of the cheese fritter.

“What’s your name then?”

“Warin,” he said around the mouthful and changed the subject. “Saw the King a moment ago, riding out to hunt. He gave me this brooch.” As he showed her the trinket, his gaze flickered toward a low, thatched shed a little to one side of the kitchen buildings. A guard dozed on a bench outside the door, leaning on his spear. “Got something important to protect in there—the royal treasure?” He grinned to show that he was jesting and finishing the fritter, wiped his greasy hands on his tunic.

She shook her head. “No, only a poacher. The foresters caught him yester morn south of here.”

“There’ll be a hanging then?”

She shrugged. “They say he’s important.”

“Oh?” Fulke took a drink of ale.

She shrugged. “Supposed to be a dangerous outlaw, but he didn’t look very dangerous to me after the way the foresters had beaten him.”

Someone called from inside the kitchens and she went back inside. Fulke breathed out on a soft oath of relief at her going and anxiety for William. He hoped his brother was not so badly beaten that he would be a hindrance. He gazed past the door through which she had disappeared and down the muddy track leading past the pig pens and midden to a wattle-gated back entrance.

The guards on the main entrance were still facing outward and absorbed in their game. He heard their good-natured laughter and prayed that he would not have to kill them.

“You can come out,” he said, returning to the cart, “but keep your heads low. There’s a guard to disarm outside the prison, and two on the gate whose lives will be sweeter for not seeing us.”

The mountain of charcoal moved again, revealing a layer of horse blankets and, beneath them, half a dozen of Fulke’s men, armed to the teeth.

Fulke rapidly outlined his plans to the men crouched in the cart. “There’s a back entrance down by the midden pit and the pig pens. We’ll use that to leave.” Instructions given, he strolled over to the dozing guard.

“I hear you’ve got a prisoner, friend,” he said conversationally.

“What’s it to you?” The soldier raised his head and Fulke’s black, dusty hand clamped down across his nose and mouth, shutting off air. There was a brief struggle. Philip arrived, whipped the keys from the guard’s belt, and unlocked the prison door. Then, as Fulke dragged the guard inside, Philip snatched the man’s helm off his head, jammed it on his own, and sat down on the three-legged stool, leaned on his spear, and pretended to snooze. It would not fool the other guards if they came close, but as long as they did not look too hard, the deception would hold.

Fulke kicked the door shut and dragged the struggling guard’s eating knife from his belt. “I will kill you if I must,” he warned, laying the edge against the man’s unprotected throat. “And that would be a shame for your wife and children when you do not have to die.”

The man continued to struggle but with less conviction. Fulke nicked him with the dagger. “A last warning,” he said. The door opened again and Alain slipped inside. With speed and silence, he unlatched the guard’s belt and bound his arms with it. A gag was made of the man’s rolled-up leg bindings and tied securely in place.

William, who had been sitting on the bed bench and staring in astonishment as wide as his blackened eyes would permit, rose to his feet and extended his shackled wrists. “Get me out of these damned things!” he said hoarsely.