The Champion (44 page)
‘You’re here to protect us,’ the old man spluttered, his indignation making him rash. ‘I haven’t sweated blood for sixty years to give my flocks to devil-damned Welshmen!’
Alexander mounted Samson and stared down from the satisfying height of the destrier’s back. ‘You tell me two things I already know,’ he said coldly. ‘Now I will tell you something that you seem not to have grasped. I am not a simple hired sword to cut to pieces anyone with whom you have a difference. I am William Marshal’s representative, and as such, I will observe the code of justice.’ He reined Samson about. ‘Go back to your home,’ he said with a piercing look. ‘In two weeks you will have that justice, whatever the outcome.’ Then, with a curt nod, he rode away, uncaring of the curses he knew were being aimed at his back. The lord, or his justiciar, was never popular at times of judgement.
It was full dark by the time he arrived at Abermon and the drizzle had turned to fine sleet. He ordered a bathtub to be prepared, and with a sigh of relief sank into the hot, fragrant water.
A maid brought him a cup of spiced wine. She was young and pretty with a plait of white-blonde hair and eyes as blue as hyssop flowers. Alexander had seen her about the keep before now; she was the daughter of the cook, and it seemed just recently that their paths had been crossing more often. She found tasks to do in his chamber, she brought him delicacies from the kitchen, filled his bathtub, presented him with spiced wine. He watched her now through half-open lids as she put fresh towels to warm and laid out his garments, jobs that a squire would normally have performed, but of course, Alexander did not have one. He thought that perhaps it was time he found a lad to train up. The girl, her name was Annis as he recalled, was tempting but he would be a fool to take up the offer in her eyes. His custody of Abermon was temporary and although the presence of a woman in his bed would have been a great pleasure and comfort, he had to be above reproach.
It was not just the fact of being above reproach to others. Ever since that fatal night when he had abandoned moral control to wine and lust, he had kept himself on a tight rein. Looking at Annis, he saw Monday, and his desire was curbed by feelings of guilt and self-disgust. It would be so easy; it had been so easy then.
‘Leave me,’ he commanded, as she approached him with one of the warmed towels. There was a delicate sheen of perspiration on her brow and upper lip, and a damp splash over one breast.
‘My lord?’ Her blue eyes widened in question and the pink lips parted softly.
‘Leave me,’ he repeated. ‘I can do for myself.’
She stared at him with a slightly puzzled air. ‘You do not want me to help you?’
‘No.’
A hurt expression entered her eyes, and goaded Alexander to snap, ‘Lord damn you, girl, just get out! I want to be by myself. Is that so hard to comprehend?’
Without a word, she put the towel on the nearest coffer and fled the room, probably to cry on the stairs, he thought with a spurt of irritation, directed both at himself and at her. He drank down the spiced wine, and leaning back, closed his eyes.
A half-waking dream came to him, of Monday walking across the chamber, her arms outstretched, her brown-bronze hair cloaking her shoulders. There was a smile on her lips and forgiveness in her eyes. In her arms she carried a huge leather-bound book, and as she reached him, she opened it and he saw page after page of magnificent illuminations of all the things that might have been. He reached out to touch the pictures, knowing that if he could do so, everything would be made right, but before his fingertips could connect, she snapped the book shut in front of his nose and he woke up.
The bathwater was lukewarm, his skin was cold, and the room was empty – desolate and devoid of colour.
The house was situated in the merchants’ quarter of Rouen, not far from the river Seine, the city’s main artery of wealth and commerce. It was built of stone, with a solid wooden door, and even boasted a tiled roof. Monday gazed around the main room, with its fine central hearth and trestle benches stacked neatly against the walls. The windows were glazed, another luxury. There was a large curtained-off store room, and a sleeping loft above.
‘What do you think, sweetheart?’ John asked with a pleased grin. He was wearing a tunic of mulberry-coloured wool, furedged against the winter cold, and a Phrygian cap was set at a rakish angle on his dark curls.
‘It is very fine,’ Monday said, turning to study the wall hangings and an attractive set of glazed cups on the sideboard.
John beckoned to one of the servants who had accompanied them, and bade him light the kindling in the hearth. ‘I am glad you like it, because it is yours,’ he said.
The flames licked and crackled around the dry twigs and a delicate twirl of almost invisible smoke drifted towards the louvre. ‘Mine?’ Monday said in wonder. ‘Am I to live here?’
‘Clever girl.’
More servants busied themselves setting up one of the trestle tables and spreading it with a fine linen cloth. Baskets of delectable food appeared, and a barrel of Burgundy wine. Monday’s stomach growled with queasy hunger, and hearing it, John laughed and patted her belly. ‘You’ve a glutton in there,’ he said, and filching a fig sweetmeat from one of the bowls being set out, bit one half himself, and popped the other in her mouth.
He was preparing to set out on campaign against the French. Despite the fact that a truce had been declared, it was only loosely binding, and sporadic warfare with King Philip was an inevitable part of life. Pregnant as she was, and suffering with nausea and dizziness, Monday could not follow John from camp to camp as she had done before. Nor, with him absent, could she remain in the royal residence in Rouen. This house was the ideal solution. There would be a modicum of privacy, no more hastily covering herself with the bedsheet as servants and officials entered John’s chamber at the wrong moment. Fewer censorious glances. The opportunity to breathe her own air and have time for Florian.
At the moment her son was playing on the stairs to the sleeping loft, bumping down them on his bottom one by one and singing a song to himself.
As John returned to her, she threw her arms enthusiastically around his neck, and kissed him. ‘It’s perfect. You’re so good to me!’
He nuzzled his beard against her throat. ‘You can show me your gratitude after we’ve eaten,’ he murmured. ‘Jesu, if I didn’t need my strength, I would say be damned to the food, and dine on you instead.’ His voice was hot with lust, and Monday laughed and nuzzled his beard.
Alexander rode into Lord Gwyn’s village with a single attendant at his back and an escort of two Welsh spearmen who had met and challenged him on the forested road. Slushy snow lined the track, and the black tree branches wore bolsters of white, bowed down and heavy . The sky was murky, threatening another fall, but as yet it held off, gathering over the mountains.
Gwyn’s village was about two-thirds the size of Abermon, and it had no castle, only a fortified hall, lying behind a wooden stockade. People ceased their business to watch him pass, women with their drop spindles in their hands, men at their winter mending.
Hastily summoned from his hall, lord Gwyn emerged to greet his visitors, fastening his cloak as he strode across the snowy ground.
‘God’s greeting,’ he said, one eyebrow raised in speculation. ‘You come a week early and to the wrong place for our tryst.’
‘I have found out what I wanted to know. It seemed foolish to wait another sevenday when the matter can be settled now.’
‘And it did not seem foolish to venture into my domain so lightly guarded?’ Gwyn asked, with a gesture at Alexander’s attendant, the blond serjeant.
‘No more so than continuing a feud that should never have begun.’
Gwyn snorted. ‘It began the day that the first Norman set foot in Wales,’ he said, but diminished the sting of the comment by turning and gesturing towards his hall. ‘Come, since you are here, you might as well partake of my fire and my mead.’
Gwyn’s mead was strong, and not as sweet as the stuff that Abermon’s steward obtained from Monmouth, and it was flavoured with herbs rather than the stronger pungence of spices. Alexander sipped appreciatively, and accepted a cask to take back with him to Abermon.
‘I am glad that you have come to me,’ Gwyn said, ‘for I would never have come to you.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Alexander gazed around the hall. For a Welshman, Gwyn was wealthy, but his roof was of thatch, not tile, and by Norman standards the hall was rustic and cramped. But then the Welsh deigned not to be judged by such standards. They were warrior farmers, a rural people who set small store by towns and rigid organisation.
‘So, what facts did you discover?’ Gwyn asked.
Alexander took another sip of the mead and set his glazed beaker aside. ‘Some of your young men were absent from your hearth on the day of the attack. I do not know their names, or their physical identity, nor do I particularly want to, but they were in Abermon for the market.’ He held up a forefinger to stop Gwyn from interrupting him. ‘Well, not strictly for the market, but for the other attractions of market day. Dame Sahild not only brews very fine ale, she also keeps two very amiable serving wenches. If you investigate, you will find that certain of your young men are covering up for their companions who availed themselves of the serving girls on that day.’
Gwyn darted a glance around his hall, but although there were several people going about their business, their ears obviously out on stalks, no one met his eye. ‘What are you saying?’
‘That you have not been told the truth by your own men, as I have not been told by the village lad.’ He shook his head. ‘I haven’t come here to accuse your people of the deed, far from it. Indeed, their debauched behaviour exonerates them. They could not have been responsible for stealing Godric’s sheep, because they were abed with Dame Sahild’s girls. The sheep were stolen by the lad himself. He sold them in Monmouth and concocted the tale to cover his deceit.’ Alexander pulled a wry face. ‘It is a family where small love is lost. The son grew tired of waiting his turn, and decided to take part of his share during the father’s lifetime.’
Lord Gwyn drew a breath through his teeth and nodded with satisfaction. ‘I knew that there was something amiss.’ He looked thoughtfully at Alexander. ‘Your predecessor would have kept such information close to his chest and probably even gone to war rather than admit his side at fault.’
Alexander shrugged and once more reached for his mead. ‘I am not my predecessor. I hold Abermon in trust for my lord Marshal, and when I return it to him, it shall be in a better state than when I received it. Only then will I profit from my duty. These last five years I have seen plenty of war, have been both the besieger and the besieged. If it came to the test, I could probably outdo my predecessor on the battlefield too.’
‘Is that a threat?’ Gwyn asked with a speculative smile.
‘Call it a friendly warning.’ Alexander finished the mead and stood up.
Gwyn rose too, and walked with him out of the hall into the frozen winter light. ‘A permanent truce,’ he mused. ‘I do not think I can give you my word on that; there will always be reasons for dispute, but for the moment, I am willing to abide by your request for peace. After all, friendly warnings should not be ignored – from either side – should they?’ He extended his hand, and after a brief pause, Alexander shook upon it, knowing that they understood each other. Whether at peace or at war, respect would remain a constant between them.
‘My brother,’ John said through his teeth. ‘A murrain on my chivalrous marvel of a brother. If I told what I knew of his vices, people would still rather believe his myth than my truth.’ He prowled the bedchamber, restless as a caged beast. His right fist clutched a handsome silver goblet in which there was a generous measure of spiced wine. He took a marauding gulp.
Monday turned from the coffer where she had been kneeling to remove the new tunic she had sewn for John during his sojourn in the field. There had been no warning of his arrival, just the sudden whirlwind of his presence bursting through her door, demanding comfort and attention. That was how it was with him. Long absences, when only the material wealth of her surroundings kept her believing that she had a royal lover, then abrupt visitations, frantic and intense.
‘You have quarrelled with Richard?’ She made her voice soothing and sympathetic.
‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘He has quarrelled with me. It seems that the word of Philip of France holds greater weight than mine.’ He was brought up short by the cradle containing his infant son and namesake. Born at the beginning of February, the baby already had a fuzz of Angevin red hair, and the fine, milky skin that accompanied such colouring.
John crouched and extended a bejewelled forefinger. The baby clenched his tiny, starfish grip around it and made a mewing sound. John’s tense features softened slightly. ‘I couldn’t have stayed at the palace tonight,’ he said, his eyes on the child. ‘All those faces staring, all wondering how much is true, whether I have reneged on my oath to Richard. Do they think I am stupid?’
‘Is that what you are accused of, reneging on your oath?’ Monday closed the coffer lid and put the new tunic and shirt down on the bed.
‘It is what I
was
accused of,’ he said. ‘Philip showed Richard a letter he purported to have received from me, suggesting that I was willing to change my allegiance in return for certain concessions. Do you think I would be so foolish as to write such a thing?’
Mutely Monday shook her head.
‘Hah, well Richard did. Hauled me up before him in public and demanded my balls on a platter.’ Freeing his finger he stood up. ‘It took two days and I wore my voice hoarse before he could be persuaded that I and not Philip Augustus was telling the truth. But do you know what hurts the most? The fact that he would think me stupid enough to jeopardise everything in a letter full of crude ambition. I do not deny that I covet what Richard possesses, but in the fullness of time I know it will be mine. My sainted brother is never going to beget a child … not unless it becomes possible for men to have babies!’ His breath emerged on a short laugh of disparagement.