The Champion (43 page)

‘He dislikes clever women,’ she had been told by the wife of an official attached to his household. ‘They remind him too much of his mother, and she has never made a secret of the fact that Richard is her favourite, and John an inconvenience, born when her body should have finished child-bearing.’

That knowledge in mind, Monday played the game of daughter and child, and knew that she was a fraud. She also knew that she could not perform either role for much longer. They were in Rouen at the moment and it was past Michaelmas. Barring mishaps, Monday was certain now of what the spring of 1199 would bring.

John selected the pink wool too, because Monday fingered it wistfully. Oh yes, she was learning all the ploys but felt cheapened by their use.

The cloth merchant departed, and as always, after one of his gift-givings, John took her eagerly to bed, lying her down across the yards of fabric he had selected.

‘When we wear our new gowns, we’ll remember this,’ he said, and paused to laugh, his beard chafing her breasts. ‘Imagine the bishop’s face if he knew how the material of his new chasuble had been sanctified!’

It was just the sort of thing John would say. He had small reverence for the Church, his nature far too cynical to allow the love of God into his heart, and he was always making jibes and playing jokes at the expense of the ecclesiasts around him. Despite his mistrust of the Church, he valued his clerks and deacons and chaplains. They held high office in his household, but their role was purely administrative. John shunned spiritual advice. Within him, there was a dark core, which people saw but only John knew. And no one was ever going to be allowed close enough to probe that darkness.

Monday squirmed upon the shining, woven gold, made uncomfortable by his remark. She could imagine the bishop’s face all too clearly, and unlike John, could find no recourse to humour. It was almost sacrilege. But she knew better than to say anything. John’s enjoyment of their lovemaking was intensely heightened by the piquancy of coupling on fabric intended for a bishop’s robe, but for once he did not bring Monday with him and she was left stranded, half aroused, half nauseous.

The moment he withdrew with a heavy sigh of satisfaction, she closed her legs, and rolled off the measure of damask. Outside, the bells of Rouen cathedral chimed the hour of nones as the grey autumn afternoon drew towards dusk.

John turned his head on the pillow. ‘By God’s bones,’ he said throatily, ‘I think I will buy another two ells of that cloth, and next time we can send it to the Pope!’

It was too much. Monday raced from the bed to the garderobe, and was violently sick, retching again and again until her stomach ached beyond bearing.

‘You don’t like the idea?’ John asked flippantly, but his eyes were narrowed. ‘Or was our sport not to your taste, sweetheart?’

Monday staggered out of the garderobe and sat down weakly on the padded bench by the window embrasure. Not for anything would she approach the bed. ‘No, John,’ she said in a low voice, hating herself for lying. ‘Not that … I am with child; three fluxes I have missed so far.’

He sat up. ‘With child,’ he repeated a trifle blankly. ‘So soon?’

She nodded. ‘It seems I quicken easily.’

‘Stand up.’

Her legs would scarcely support her, but she did so.

‘Turn around.’

There was a long silence while John perused her rounded curves. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said softly. ‘I discovered you, Monday. Got you with child by Tuesday.’

She could not judge by his tone or the jest whether he was pleased or not, nor did she have the courage at the moment to ask him.

‘Don’t look so woebegone, it is not the end of the world.’ He left the bed and came to where she stood. ‘I’ll take care of you, you know I will.’ His arm curved around her shoulders, and his fingers spread their possessive grip on her upper arm.

Monday nodded. The damp from the river Seine pervaded the room despite the hangings and the warmth of a brazier. Her flesh stood up in tiny goosebumps, and strange, hot chills ran up and down her spine. The world swam out of focus.

As her weight sagged against him, John drew her to the cushioned bench, solicitously sat her down and fetched her sweetened wine with his own hands. He smoothed her brow and kissed her temple. ‘Better?’

She managed a wan smile, to which John responded with a broad one of his own. ‘Good. Wear your best gown to dinner, and all your jewels. I want you to shine among all the other women of the court.’ His smile became an incorrigible, irreverent grin. ‘Shine,’ he repeated, ‘like a madonna.’

Riding through the murk of a wet December afternoon, the drizzle insinuating itself between the various layers of padding to reach his skin, Alexander did not feel that he had been particularly blessed by fortune, although his mind kept telling his protesting body that William Marshal had done him a great honour in bestowing on him the custody of a small Welsh border keep some fifteen miles north of Chepstow.

The custody of Abermon was only temporary, until the Marshal appointed a permanent tenant, but nevertheless, to be given such responsibility, if only for a brief period, was proof of the value that Lord William set on him. Abermon might be small, but it guarded the approach to Chepstow from the north, standing as it did on the Monmouth road, close to the recent Cistercian foundation at Tintern.

The previous lord of Abermon had died childless, without any close relatives to claim the inheritance. Indeed, the only claimants were the Welsh from whom the lands had been taken a hundred years ago during the reign of the first Henry. There were raids and counter-raids, sporadic fighting and squabbles, interspersed by uneasy truces.

This was what he was doing today, patching up a truce. An English settler had accused his Welsh neighbours of stealing his sheep. The Welsh had denied it vociferously, blows had been exchanged and blood spilt. If this meeting failed, yet more would stain the soil.

The meeting-place was on open ground beside a huge granite boulder with smaller rocks clustered around it. Legend said that it was a burial cairn of the old ones. Its more prosaic function was as a border marker between Welsh and Norman territory, and the traditional site for settling disputes. Oaths sworn over its rough surface were as binding as oaths sworn in a church. If not by their honour, men were induced to keep their word for fear of what the supernatural would visit on them if they broke it.

Shivering, Alexander drew rein and blew on his frozen fingers. Behind him, the men of the garrison did the same. A flask of heavily sweetened mulberry wine was passed around. The fine drizzle blew into their faces, making a dull grey and tawny haze of their surroundings. Alexander had deliberately arrived early in order to gain control of the situation, but it made for a certain amount of discomfort.

‘I don’t see why the Welsh could not have come to Abermon,’ grumbled one of the soldiers, hunching down into his cloak. ‘It’s the centre for justice in these parts.’

‘Not the Welsh centre,’ Alexander responded, narrowing his eyes into the rain as he thought he saw something. ‘They have different codes.’

‘Well, they should learn to live by ours in weather like this.’

Alexander glanced round at the man, a dour serjeant of about Hervi’s age. ‘It is not so long ago that the Norman baron William de Braose invited seven Welsh lords to a parley in his castle at Abergavenny, and murdered them all. Then he turned on their defenceless wives and children. How can they learn to live by our codes when they encounter treachery like that? You will oblige me by holding your peace during this parley. Even if you want to wield your sword through the depths of a freezing winter, I certainly do not.’

The man’s lips tightened within his full blond beard, and although he argued no further, he rolled his eyes at his companions, seeking their silent support. Alexander knew that they thought him too young for the task, that the Marshal had erred in sending a beardless boy to perform the duties of a grown man. What they had not considered was the varied experience that had fitted Alexander for such a task.

Almost simultaneously, the Welsh arrived from their side of the border on their tough, small horses, their warband of a similar size to Alexander’s troop, and the English accusers appeared from the village road with an escort of neighbours sporting pitchforks and billhooks. Inwardly, Alexander groaned. Outwardly he maintained a calm façade, and dismounting, deliberately unhitched his sword belt, wrapped it around the scabbard and handed it to the blond serjeant. ‘Gerald, take the men back a hundred yards.’

‘Sir?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Yes, sir.’ With obvious reluctance, Gerald pulled back. The Welsh leader, Gwyn ap Owain, stared hard at Alexander, and after a hesitation, slid down from his horse and issued a terse command to his own warband. Here too there was consternation, before they reluctantly drew away to leave their leader standing alone. Ap Owain, however, retained the sword at his hip. The villagers held their ground. Alexander sought out the man who had made the original complaint, and whose son had been wounded during the ensuing fracas between English and Welsh.

‘Come forward,’ he beckoned. ‘The rest of you have no business here, but you might as well stay to witness the parley. Throw down your weapons and go and wait with my men. There will be peace here, not more blood-letting.’

There was some muttering, but the dissent was quickly dealt with by threat of a hefty fine at the manor court. The neighbours withdrew, leaving father and son standing together, one glowering like a gargoyle, the other looking pale and sick, his wounded arm bound in a sling.

Gwyn ap Owain regarded the proceedings with mockery in his hazel eyes. ‘I see the great William Marshal has sent a diplomat this time,’ he said. He was a little older than Alexander, but still under thirty, with shaggy black hair and a full moustache.

‘Would you rather we test each other’s mettle with weapons?’

The Welshman shrugged and gestured over his shoulder at Alexander’s men. ‘That was a very fine sword you handed to your serjeant. Was it given to you at your knighting?’

‘I fought to earn it,’ Alexander replied. The question had not been as casual as it sounded. Gwyn ap Owain was insinuating that Alexander was a young Norman of privilege who had never had to struggle for life’s advantages. ‘I lost it once through folly and swore never again. It has been christened with blood, but I would not spill more without good reason.’

‘I can give you one,’ the villager interrupted indignantly. ‘The bastards stole my sheep and sliced open my son’s arm!’

‘We stole not so much as a hank of wool!’ ap Owain retorted.

‘Hah, you Welsh, you would thieve your own grandmother’s last breath!’

‘And you would swear a lie on her soul!’

‘Peace!’ Alexander said sharply, making a chopping motion with his hand. ‘I did not come here for the purpose of listening to insults. They have no part in a search for the truth.’

‘A naive diplomat,’ ap Owain said, breathing hard.

‘Rather that than a fool,’ Alexander answered steadily, and beckoned the youth to come forward. ‘Now, tell your tale again.’

Brandishing his bandaged arm like a trophy, the young man repeated how he had been herding his father’s surplus wethers to market when he had been set upon on a lonely stretch of road by Welsh raiders. The wound to his arm had been sustained during a brawl between factions of English and Welsh in Abermon itself, and the situation had escalated from there.

Alexander studied the lad’s performance, noting that he spoke out boldly with many a gesture, but his eyes slid from direct contact, and his colour was high. ‘Lord Gwyn?’ Alexander turned to the Welshman.

‘My men were nowhere near the place on that day.’ Gwyn ap Owain snapped his fingers with contempt. ‘If we wanted to go raiding, think you that we would pick off such small prey like common highway robbers? Why does he think it was us?’ He swept his hand towards his warband. ‘Would you like to identify them now, tell me which ones were absent from my winter hearth?’

‘I didn’t have time for a good look at their faces. I just knew they were yours,’ the youth said sullenly, his eyes continuing to slip and avoid.

‘Ah,’ ap Owain mocked, ‘so first you know, then you don’t.’

‘You are confusing the boy with your trickery!’ the father cried, and shook his fist.

‘On the contrary, he is the one who is confusing me! If he was robbed, it was by none of mine. Where is your proof, where are your witnesses?’

Alexander saw that there was no room for negotiation. Tempers were rising and nothing was being accomplished. As the lord of Abermon he was expected to arrive at a solution, either by diplomacy or force of arms. The former seemed ready to fail, and yet his instinct told him to trust the word of the Welshman above that of the villager’s lad. Something here was rotten and he needed more time to find out what.

‘I am not satisfied that I am hearing … all the facts.’ He had been about to say ‘truth’ but managed to change it in time. ‘I want to investigate this further, garner my own information. What say that we confirm a truce and meet at this place again in two weeks’ time?’

‘And it will drag out and drag on?’ Lord Gwyn sneered.

‘No, I promise you that … on my own soul, not my grandmother’s.’

Lord Owain narrowed his eyes. ‘In two weeks,’ he repeated.

‘It will give you time to prepare for war, if that be the outcome.’

The Welshman’s mouth curved upwards beneath the thick moustache. ‘And yourself also,’ he said cynically.

‘I do not want war. The lord Marshal gave me care of Abermon, and I am answerable for all my actions to him. Fomenting discord with my neighbours is unlikely to win me approval.’

‘It will be interesting to see if your deeds match up to your words,’ ap Owain said, and with a brusque nod, mounted his horse and returned to his men.

Alexander beckoned to his own soldiers, and turned to father and son who were standing in stunned silence. The youth was green around the gills. ‘I will go to war if I must,’ Alexander said, with a hard glance at the young man, ‘but not on a pretext. The next two weeks will sort fact from fable.’