The Scarlet Lion (15 page)

   The smell of the food brought saliva to de Braose's mouth and nausea to his belly. "Give me your lantern," he growled.

   The man handed the item over without comment, as if it were usual for great lords to demand such things of him in the dead of night.

   "Where were those two going?" de Braose asked.

   "Brothel in the town, so they said, my lord. Appointment with a French whore."

   "Plenty of Norman ones around without resorting to the French."

   "Told 'em I'd not let 'em back before morning and that they were risking the curfew, but that sort don't listen. Futter their own mothers against a wall for a penny."

   De Braose grunted and walked unsteadily back across the ward to the entrance. He descended the stairs with exaggerated care, fearing to slip in his soft-soled shoes and break his neck. His breathing sawed in his throat and the bristles of hair at his nape stood on end like those of a hunting dog confronting a wild boar.

   The dank chambers at the very base of the Tower housed the cells. De Braose had been here on numerous occasions; he had been witness to the methods employed in persuading prisoners to talk, had employed some of those methods himself, and knew the narrow passage and the trap door that gave access to the fast flow of the Seine—a convenient dumping ground for waste of all kinds.

   Arriving at a particular cell, not far from the passage, de Braose set the lantern in a niche in the wall and, after a moment, heaved back the heavy draw bar and creaked open the door. A foul stench hit him, compounded of rank straw, faeces, urine, mouldy damp—and blood. Inured as he was to the stink of such holes, he had to stifle a retch. He could hear the low moans of an animal in agony, the rustle of straw as it moved. The scuttering and squeak of rats. De Braose lifted the lantern in his left hand and, drawing his dagger with his right, ventured into Prince Arthur's cell.

   The youth was curled on a pallet of fouled straw, his knees drawn up towards his belly. His hose, once gaily striped red and blue, were so smirched and stained that it was hard now to discern their colour. He was whimpering to himself and breathing shallowly through chattering teeth. André and his friend had obviously been having some fun before going out into the town, roughing him up for their entertainment. It wasn't something John minded, and de Braose had no feelings about it one way or the other. The youth needed the pride and belligerence drubbing out of him. No harm in that. He drew closer, raising the lantern for a look at the damage, expecting Arthur to raise his head, but he didn't. And then de Braose saw the blood webbing the boy's hand and saturating his tunic.

   "Holy Mother of God," he whispered. The sound of his voice caused Arthur to turn and begin shrieking like a rabbit in a snare. De Braose stared at the ruined face, the swollen sockets filled with a black jelly of clotted blood, the streaked red mask beneath, the screaming open mouth, and he lost his gorge, vomiting and vomiting again until his stomach and throat were raw. "Christ, oh Christ in heaven!" he heard himself crowing.

   "Please…" sobbed the creature that had so recently been a gawky, truculent youth of sixteen and was now a crawling thing, alive on the edge of death and wearing the visage of a crossroads corpse pecked by crows. "Please…"

   De Braose didn't remember the journey back to the great hall, but he must have made it, for suddenly he was treading across the dais to John who was sitting sideways on to the trestle, elbow leaning on the wine-stained cloth, a near empty flagon at his side. His eyes were bright, the pupils almost obliterating the tawny iris, and his cheeks were flushed. One of his bachelors, Johan Russell, was owlishly trying to tell him something, but was too drunk to do much more than slur and dribble.

   John looked up and caught de Braose's eye. "Faugh," he said, with a curl of his lip. "You stink of piss and puke. Get out. Go and clean yourself up."

   De Braose swallowed and swallowed again. He had thought himself done with retching, but he was very close to heaving bile into John's lap. "Sire, there is something you need to see…"

   John laughed coarsely. "Unless it's got yellow hair and paps the size of udders, I don't think so, eh, Russell?"

   "Papsh…udders…" slurred the latter, putting his head down on the board and closing his eyes.

   De Braose gulped. He leaned closer to John and murmured the terrible knowledge in his ear. For a moment John's expression did not change. The cynical smile remained; the eyes glittered with malicious humour. And then the words began to sink in and his face changed. "Blinded?" he said.

   De Braose nodded and flicked a glance at Russell. "Yes, sire. And André and Raimund of Poitou have left the Tower."

   John jerked to his feet and almost overbalanced. When attendants advanced on him, he gestured them away as if shooing flies. As Russell tried to stand he shoved him back down. "Go to your bed," he growled, "or kennel here, I care not. You are dismissed. De Braose, come with me."

   "Who else knows?" John asked as he and de Braose made their unsteady way through the night and down the precarious stairs to hell, both of them breathing a stertorous haze of wine fumes.

   "No one, sire, as far as I am aware." De Braose swallowed a belch. "I felt that something was not right, so I went on my own to look…" He hoped against hope that by the time they returned, the boy would be dead. His mind's eye kept filling with the vision of those clotted, sightless sockets and blooddrenched features.

   John paused before the cell door. Any hopes de Braose had nurtured about Arthur being dead were dispelled by the highpitched continuous keening still coming from within. John shot the draw bar and entered, boots crackling softly on the straw. Turning his head aside, de Braose raised the lantern on high and watched the flame shadows lick against the glistening walls. He would be blind too. He would not see.

   Fastidious as a cat even in his cups, John trod across the cell to the pile of red straw where his nephew lay. John was silent for a long time while he looked. "God's bones, I will kill the sons of whores for this!" he hissed. De Braose sensed him crouch, saw the shadows on the green-slimed walls move and dart as John examined Arthur and Arthur writhed and screamed.

   De Braose shuddered. "What are you going to do, sire?"

   "What can I do?" John asked in a blank voice. "I cannot show him to the world like this. The blame's already at my door."

   De Braose had regularly seen John in a temper. Once or twice he had witnessed furious, foaming rage, but the quality of this was different. It was as jagged and sharp as broken ice; it possessed that same bitter, frozen burn. John was in full command of his faculties, but it was a John that de Braose had never seen before: one who had reached a precipice and was preparing to leap off the edge.

   "Sire?" He was a strong man, but his voice quavered like a squire's.

   "It's pointless keeping him alive. He's not going to recover from this. I'd put a dog out of its misery. I'll do no less for my nephew." Reaching to his belt he drew the small, sharp knife he had been using to pare slices off an apple earlier in the evening, at the same time planting his foot across Arthur's neck to pin him down.

   De Braose turned his back and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, seeing blood-red stars behind his lids. There was little sound to accompany the deed. A soft grunt of effort, the spurt and patter of blood, the rustle of the straw as Arthur kicked in his death throes, and then silence, except for de Braose and John's breathing, heavy as lead. De Braose half expected to feel the blade at his own throat next.

   "There's work to be done," John said in that same tone of winter ice. "Put the lantern down and come and help me."

   De Braose shuddered as if he too had suffered a mortal blow. His teeth were chattering, as Arthur's had been a moment before the knife entered his throat.

   "Pull yourself together, man," John snarled. He had avoided the spray of Arthur's blood, but de Braose could still smell its salty sweetness in the air. "You are a party to this and you stand in as much peril as me."

   "I…I did nothing…" De Braose stared at John, horrified.

   "And who will believe you?" John scoffed. "People know you for my guard dog. It's said in every corner of the court that William de Braose will do anything for a grant of land or a gift of gold. You can't afford to let this see the light of day any more than I can. For better or worse you are in this up to your neck. To enable us to swim my nephew has to sink without a trace. Do you understand?" He moved close, breathing wine fumes into de Braose's face. "Without a trace…If one word of this comes to light, I will know where to seek and there will be no hiding place for you—or your family—for eternity."

   De Braose swallowed and nodded. He would go to hell when he died, but he probably wouldn't know the difference because he was already there.

Twelve

LONGUEVILLE, NORMANDY, SUMMER 1203

Isabelle rubbed the fabric between her forefinger and thumb, assessing the quality. It was good Flemish twill, woven from English wool and dyed a rich, deep blue with the best woad from Toulouse. The cloth merchant, who had made a special journey to Longueville to exhibit his wares, watched her as attentively as a trained hound awaiting a command.

   The sound of children's shouts rising from the courtyard sent her to the open shutters to look out. Will, Richard, and sixyear-old Gilbert were practising their sword strokes at the pell under the supervision of one of the mesnie knights. They were growing so fast, she thought with sadness and pride. At thirteen, Will was shooting up faster than spring wheat and his voice, although still that of a child, was preparing to change. He was developing muscle too, beyond the sinewy strength of active boyhood. It didn't seem a moment since she had cradled him newborn in her arms. Now he ducked away from affectionate touches and eschewed the women's bower for the company of men whenever he could. And where he went, Richard would rapidly follow, for there was only eighteen months between the brothers.

   Other youths were training with her sons, including a couple of the younger de Braoses. Lady Maude was visiting Isabelle at Longueville while their husbands were in the field with the King. Isabelle was not fond of the lady Maude, but could hardly refuse the wife of an ally and one of the most powerful men in John's entourage. William de Braose was riding so high in the royal favour, he was like a hawk soaring over partridges in the grass. Wardships, grants, and castles had come his way in huge abundance, but for all her husband's success, the lady Maude seemed ill at ease. Usually brusque and confident, she had developed a nervous habit of constantly rubbing her hands together as if washing them. Isabelle wondered if the strain of maintaining that height was beginning to tell.

   Returning to the bolts of cloth, Isabelle informed the merchant she would have the blue wool.

   Maude de Braose, who had been examining a bolt of linen, snorted with derision. "I would have thought you too busy packing for a retreat, Lady Marshal, to waste time adding cloth to your burdens."

   "The children have to be gowned, my lady, and Flemish twill is a better price here than in England. I think you will find me prepared for anything."

   "That is what I used to think, in the days when I was naive like you," Maude said harshly.

   Isabelle stiffened her spine. "Do not mistake courtesy and good nature for naivety," she retorted. "I know the ways of the world."

   "Do you?" Maude gave a scornful shake of her head and one of her humourless yellow smiles. "Like me you have fine, strong sons to be proud of. Your eldest are on the verge of becoming men—aye, I have seen you watching them; I know what goes through your mind. Two more years and the eldest will be a squire, chasing girls, bedding them if he gets the chance, going to war, even while his siblings are babes in the cradle—or still in the womb."

   Isabelle flushed and had to stop herself from placing her hand on her belly—which was ridiculous because she had had her flux last week and knew she wasn't with child, even if William had come to her from the field on several occasions, hurting, frustrated, and in need of bodily comfort. "Yes," she said quietly, "I am proud of my sons, and rightly so."

   Maude's gimlet expression softened. "Like mine to me, they are the pinnacle of your achievement. All mothers love their sons, although I wonder about Queen Eleanor and what she thinks of John these days. He must be a grave disappointment." She fingered the linen again. "Have you nothing better?" she demanded of the merchant in a querulous voice. "This looks like material for a peasant's shroud."

   Ears reddening, the man burrowed amongst his wares. Maude turned back towards Isabelle. "I don't want to lose my boys. I have a care to them, and you should have a care to yours."

   Fear slithered through Isabelle's sense of security. "I wish you would speak plainly, my lady."

   Maude shook her head. "I will say nothing. God sees all. Sooner or later He will weigh us in the balance and some men's deeds will damn them to hell." She gestured roughly at the merchant. "I'll have two ells of that scarlet over there. It will do for my husband…God rest his purblind, foolish soul."

   Maude stayed to dine on the main meal of the day, but didn't linger over the candied fruits and flowers, insisting she had to be on her way to Dieppe to be ready to take ship for home. Isabelle saw her out of the keep and on to the road with a sigh of relief and considerable misgiving. She tried to put her unease behind her by playing a game of hoodman blind with the children, throwing herself into the romp with giddy abandon, but when the game was over, when she had finished with the breathless laughter and the children were otherwise occupied, her anxiety returned.

   She summoned her chaplain Father Walter to the solar, and when he had bowed into her presence, she drew him to the bench set in the embrasure and bade him be seated. "Lady de Braose was acting very strangely today." She told him what Maude had said.