Lords of the White Castle (56 page)

From the corner of her eye, Maude saw Hawise reaching to the tail of Lady de Vesci's snappy little lap dog. By the time Maude had dived to the rescue of both, and laughed about the near incident with the other women guests, the moment of intimacy had passed and Chester's wife, the Countess Clemence, was engaged in conversation with Juliana. Maude tried to imagine marriage to her father being as comfortable as an old pair of shoes and gave up.

However, it was easy to equate herself and Fulke with the image of fire.

The forest of Wharfedale reminded Fulke of Wales with its wild, deep greenery, the fern-clad chasms and gullies of rushing white water and outcrops of lichened rock. Wolves still roamed in its heart and the wild boar was not as rare as it had become in the south. It was King John's forest, but Robert le Vavasour had the right to hunt and take game within its bounds, a privilege recently granted by John on his return from Normandy.

'I was in two minds whether or not to invite you to my nuptials,' said le Vavasour as the huntsmen paused between trails to dine on bread, spiced ham and small chicken pasties washed down with watered wine. The dogs milled around the kennel-keepers, the alaunts and wolfhounds standing as tall as ponies, the terriers, wiry and red of coat, snuffing at shin height.

Fulke shrugged and bit into a pasty. 'In truth I was in two minds whether or not to attend. With King John back in England, it would have been safer to remain at Whittington.'

'Then why didn't you?'

Fulke eyed his father-in-law. There was the faintest hint of Maude in the straight line of his nose and the set of his jaw. 'For Maude's sake,' he said. 'Because you are her father.' He chewed and swallowed. 'And sometimes you have to take risks.' He glanced across the clearing towards two men who had just arrived and were dismounting from their horses: Ranulf of Chester slim, dark-haired and Fulke's own age; de Vesci a little older, florid-faced with a petulant crease between his brows. Men with whom he had much in common. John had seduced and slept with de Vesci's wife to the Baron's fury and chagrin. Chester was a neighbour; his sister had once been betrothed to Llewelyn and Fulke had set about courting his friendship.

'You will not conduct rebellious talk under my roof,' le Vavasour warned sharply.

Fulke reached for another pasty. The hunt had made him ravenous and they were very good, just the right blend, of spices to meat. 'Weddings are traditional places to discuss politics and cement alliances, as well you know,' he said. 'If you invited me here, it is because you desire a foot in either camp.' He licked his fingers. 'Don't worry. I won't talk treason behind your back. It would not be good manners and, whatever your opinion of me, I do have a certain sense of decorum.' He helped himself to a third pie.

'If you had a sense of decorum, FitzWarin,' Chester said, joining them, 'then you'd leave some of those pasties for others.'

'All's fair in love and war where these are concerned, my lord.'

Chester grinned and seated himself at Fulke's side, resting his spine against the rough bark of an ancient oak. 'Do you say the same about our King?' He took two pasties, tossing one to de Vesci who remained standing.

Fulke shrugged. 'I say nothing beyond what has already been said. I hold Whittington of Prince Llewelyn now.'

De Vesci looked at Fulke. 'Are you not afraid that someone. here will hand you over to John for a mess of silver? You are outside your own territory and there is a price on your head.'

'Of course I am afraid, but more for my family than myself.' Fulke took a gulp of watered wine. 'But if I paid heed to that fear, it would stifle me. I watch my back; I heed my instincts.' He raised an eyebrow at the three men. 'I make alliances with those I trust, or whose interests run with mine.' He knew that Chester had a pact with Llewelyn. He also knew, however, that Chester was loyal to John, and the Earl's dealings were concerned with securing his own borders rather than striking out in rebellion against the King. De Vesci had a grudge against John, was unlikely to do the King any favours, but he was not yet an open rebel. His father-in-law Fulke trusted after a fashion. Le Vavasour was forthright, arrogant, bigoted and frequently insufferable, but he did have his own peculiar code of scruples. If he intended giving Fulke to John for a payment of silver, he would announce it loudly and do it openly, not through the postern door
of
his own wedding feast.

'But still, it is dangerous for you to be abroad with John back in the country,' said de Vesci. He put Fulke in mind of a terrier, snapping and dodging, looking for an area into which he could sink his teeth.

'I agree, but I have gone too far down the road to turn back.'

Chester rubbed his neat black beard thoughtfully. 'If you were willing, I could speak to John on your behalf- broker a truce between you. You need the security of the King's peace. He needs experienced fighting men.'

Fulke grimaced. 'You would be treading old ground. Hubert Walter has tried before and been refused in the shortest of terms. Besides, I hold Whittington for Llewelyn and I would rather serve him as a liege lord than John.' When Chester said nothing Fulke gave him a look through narrowed lids. 'What makes you think that I would be willing to negotiate?'

Chester arched one eyebrow. 'Common sense,' he said. 'Self-preservation. At some point, the King must either negotiate or fight with Llewelyn. Welsh dominance is always at its height when a ruler is occupied elsewhere in his kingdom. Once John turns his gaze on Wales, Llewelyn will be wise to retreat behind his mountains.' He gestured between himself and Fulke. 'We both know that Llewelyn is the better man, just as we both know that John has superior resources. If you are caught in a border war, then God help you. All that will be left of Whittington is a smoking ruin.'

Fulke reddened beneath the Earl's scrutiny and jumped abruptly to his feet.

'I am sorry, but it is true,' Chester continued relentlessly. 'And I would be no kind of friend or neighbour if I did not point it out.'

'Then why did you agree a pact with Llewelyn?' Fulke challenged.

Chester sighed. 'Because it was sound policy to do so. Because keeping a Welsh dragon from my door is just as important as serving an Angevin leopard.'

Frustrated, Fulke swept his black hair off his brow. 'John is in the throes of losing Normandy and Anjou to France,' he said. 'It may be that he will lose England too.'

Chester quietly shook his head, underlining the fact that he thought Fulke was clutching at straws. 'John may be many things, but a fool is not one of them.'

Le Vavasour had been watching the exchange in shrewd silence. Now he rose to his feet and dusted crumbs from his hunting tunic. 'I would think seriously on what my lord Chester says,' he told Fulke. 'At least let him speak to the King on your behalf. John cannot afford to ignore the word of one of his greatest earls, especially if it is added to the opinion of Hubert Walter.'

Fulke gazed at his father-by-marriage. Robert le Vavasour did not speak out of concern for either him or Maude, but out of anxiety for his own lands and privileges. This right of free warren, for example. And who could blame him? A man with the ability to tread the thin line between the factions and not put a foot wrong would reap a fruitful harvest.

'I need to think on what you have said.' Fulke went to untether his courser's reins from the branch around which they were wrapped. The horse champed on the bit and butted at him, seeking a tid-bit. Fulke rubbed its soft, pink-snipped nose. 'Once I played a game of chess with John.' He looked round at the others. 'Doubtless you all know the tale, it's common knowledge. We were boys and he was angry drunk, wanted a scapegoat, someone to trample. I wouldn't let him trample me. He and I, we are still playing that game of chess. He wants the satisfaction of triumph and I will never give it to him while there is breath in my body and my heart still beats. He knows it; so do I.'

The hunt resumed, the men chasing their prey through dappled sunshadow, the horn blowing its trespass into the deepest, most secret parts of the forest. Usually Fulke enjoyed the exhilaration of the chase, the powerful feel of the horse beneath him, the twist and turn of manoeuvring between trees and through bramble-clad undergrowth. But as they hounded their quarry, a fine, eight-tined stag, through the forest, he found that his heart was bursting with the deer's, rather than singing a hunter's paean to the joy of the kill.

A week after the wedding, Fulke and Maude set out for Whittington and, at the Earl's invitation, broke their journey at Chester. Ranulf still wanted to persuade Fulke to make his peace with John.

'Let him grant me my hereditary due and I will do him homage,' Fulke said with the grim determination of oft-repeated rote. 'But not until then.'

Maude enjoyed the sojourn at Chester. The wedding and the celebrations afterwards had been an ordeal that she wanted to forget. She was glad that she had attended her father's nuptials, but relieved that the duty was over. Juliana might be able to see the good in le Vavasours nature, but Maude's view of her father was tainted by the past and she could not regard him with affection or any sense of empathy. Certainly she had been surprised by the way he seemed to warm and relax when Juliana was near, the expression of a well-fed cat settling on his features. Smiling and solicitous, Julian a was swift to attend to his comfort, hanging on his words as if they were pearls of the utmost wisdom, and doing his bidding as if it were a genuine pleasure. Maude had felt slightly nauseated, but she had recognised how well they suited each other. A pair of comfortable shoes, as Juliana said.

Fulke laughed aloud when she told him of the comparison her stepmother had made. 'I would not like to wear either one,' he declared with mirth as they lay in bed on their first night in Chester's great keep. 'I'm sure that one or the other will find a pebble at the end of their toes.' Outside a heavy snow was falling, but they had the heat of their bodies to keep them warm, and coverlets of lined fur.

'You would rather play with fire?' Maude flicked back her hair and rose on her elbows to look at him. The dim glow of the night candle emphasised the declivity between her breasts.

'What?'

'She said that some marriages burned like fire—but that old shoes were better.'

Fulke grinned. 'Not from where I'm looking,' he said.

By the morning the snow was piled as high as Fulke's waist and any thoughts of journeying on were curtailed. He and Maude indulged in a silly snowball fight which became a free for all with half the castle joining in. Indoors they played merels and fox and geese, hoodman blind and hot cockles, sporting with abandon like children, aware that this was a rare and magical respite from the knife-edge on which they lived.

Fulke took Maude around Chester's thriving booths and stalls. She waited patiently for him, feet quietly freezing as he enthused over swords and helms, spurs and horse harness, and he tucked his hands beneath his arms, made vapour patterns with his breath and tried not to let his eyes glaze over as she chose hair ribbons and small feminine fripperies for the bower.

The morning after their expedition around the town, the weather began to thaw and, on rising, Maude was sick.

Fulke eyed her as she staggered back from the garderobe, heavy-eyed and wan. He knew the signs by now and was filled with a mingling of anxiety and pleasure. Anxiety because he feared for Maude's wellbeing, pleasure at a masculine sense of virility and the hope that this time she might bear a son for Whittington.

Maude pulled a face at his scrutiny. 'I ate too many honey comfits yesterday at that sweetmeat stall by the west wall.' She clambered back into bed and swallowing, closed her eyes.

'Liar,' he said lightly and ran his hand over the slight curve of her belly. 'When will the new child be born?'

She shrugged. 'Likely it was conceived under my father's roof, so the autumn I would hazard.' Her voice took on a slightly aggrieved note. 'If it is a boy, he will claim all the credit for urging me to my duty, and if it is a girl, I will be to blame.'

'If he opens his mouth,' Fulke growled, 'I swear I will cut out his tongue and tack it to my whetstone. The credit or blame is mine. I own responsibility full measure.'

A smile softened her lips and her eyes opened, green and clear, drawing him in. 'I will hold you to that,' she said.

'But still, you cannot start a fire without striking a spark on a steel.'

They kissed tenderly for a moment, and then Maude drew away. Her nose wrinkled mischievously. 'Since you acknowledge your blame, you had best find Barbette and send her for dry oatcakes and mead, else I shall be abed and puking until compline.'

Earl Ranulf's wife Clemence proved to be convivial company and she and Maude spent many hours in the bower gossiping over their embroidery and weaving while the men took themselves off to look at horses and livestock, or hunt game with hawks and hounds.

In Clemence of Chester, Maude found a kindred spirit, bright, eager and strong-willed. They shared similar tastes and opinions and although there was a gulf of power between Fulke and Ranulf, their husbands were men cast in the same mould. Indeed, the women had so much in common that their friendship developed a depth far beyond the short span of its existence.

A new style of gown was becoming popular: a sleeveless, full tunic with loose armholes that was worn over a tight-sleeved underdress. It was a boon for women in pregnancy. Maude expressed interest and Clemence immediately had her sempstresses fashion one for her in soft, blue linen trimmed with matching braid.

'I do not believe I will ever use one of these gowns for such a purpose,' Clemence sighed as Maude tried on the finished garment and declared that it was ideal. 'You are more fortunate than you know to have the joy of children.'

Turning, Maude saw Clemence gazing wistfully at the two small girls, the baby robed in a smock, Hawise in a green tunic that was a miniature replica of adult garb. The child's auburn curls were caught back in a braid ribbon, exposing the delicate nape of neck, rounded cheek and sweeping eyelashes.