The Scarlet Lion (42 page)

                             *** "He's going to be one of the best destriers I've ever ridden," William enthused later in their chamber. "Turns on a penny and I hardly need to touch the reins or use the spur." He latched his belt and settled it comfortably at his hips.

   Isabelle laughed poignantly. "You are like a young knight with his first warhorse," she said.

   He chuckled. "There's nothing like a fresh stallion under a man to make him feel green and limber again…Well, not quite. I can think of one other thing…" He gave her a teasing look, to which she responded with a slanting glance through her lashes.

   "Well then, my lord, you are fortunate to have both before you leave." She set her arms around his neck and kissed him. The gesture was affectionate and only mildly lustful, although it held potential. Their physical relationship no longer burned with the avid heat of the early days but there were still moments of fire and the intimacy continued to warm and illuminate their marriage. As in all things, William was still eminently capable.

   Sighing softly, she drew away. "So, is this dispute with the Pope going to be resolved or will the French invade?"

   He gave a cynical snort. "Even if it is resolved, we may still face an invasion. Philip has had his eyes on England for a long time and he won't let a small thing like papal disapproval prevent him. I doubt that anything short of a pitched battle will stop him in the end."

   Isabelle shivered as he said "pitched battle." "But if John submits to the Pope…"

   "Which he will." William cut across her musing. "He cannot fight the Church, the French, and his barons all at the same time. If he yields to Rome, he snatches the papal bludgeon out of Philip's hand and gains it for himself."

   "So one moment he's an excommunicate, the next he's numbered amongst the righteous," Isabelle said with a disparaging twist to her mouth.

   "Precisely." William went to the window and looked out. Gilbert and Walter were practising their swordplay on the sward with the sons of some of his knights. He was amused to see Ancel dancing around them with his toy wooden sword, shouting insults and being a nuisance.

   Isabelle joined him, slipping one hand around his waist and hooking her fingers in his gilded belt. Watching the children at their play, she tried not to think of the Welsh hostages whom John had hanged in Nottingham last year, including one little boy almost as young as Ancel. The news had chilled her blood. Jean had been a hostage in Nottingham at the time and she wondered if he had been an appalled witness to the deed. It was true the Welsh had risen against John after peace had been sworn, and that he was within his rights to deal harshly with the hostages, but even so, to hang little children went against all decency. Small wonder that mothers were reluctant to hand over their sons to him. If he demanded Ancel from her and William, she would refuse. Enough was enough. Troubled by her thoughts, she rubbed her cheek against William's wool-clad shoulder. "Since you have come at his summons and raised troops for him, perhaps he will let us have our hostages back," she said.

   "I hope so, although…" He broke off to laugh as Ancel whacked Walter's haunch with his toy sword. Walter justifiably knocked him over. Ancel got up, thought about crying, but changed his mind and charged in with renewed determination, only to be sent flying again.

   "Although what?" Her tone sharpened.

   He sobered. "Although Richard is one and twenty now and old enough to take on the Normandy lands."

   "Old enough, yes," she said. "But is he ready?"

   "For his own well-being he has to be. If he's in France and serving the King of France for Longueville then John cannot touch him. We haven't had a family presence there since we left Normandy."

   Isabelle could see the sense in his thinking, but it hurt. She wanted her son back, not pushed further from reach. "Yes," she said bravely, "it is the best thing for him. I just wish…" She shook her head.

   Ancel's nurse arrived and pulled the child out of the fray, scolding the older boys, whose faces wore expressions of longsuffering and indignation.

   "It's not that far from Caversham and Hamstead," William said quietly. "It's not farewell for ever."

   "No," Isabelle replied, her voice a little too flat as she recognised she had bidden farewell to her two eldest boys years ago when they went to court.

   "When Will is free, there'll be a wedding to arrange too." His expression became introspective. "It'll be a great pity that Baldwin won't be here to celebrate it."

   Isabelle squeezed his arm and kissed him. The sudden death from a seizure of the friend of his young manhood and tourney days had affected William deeply. He had said little enough when the news came, but his long silences and the amount of time he spent alone schooling his horse were evidence of his grief. Isabelle had never been particularly fond of Baldwin, but she had understood the depth of his relationship with William and the camaraderie they had shared. They had been friends on the battlefield, in the camp, and at court, each knowing that he could trust the other with his life…and now one of those lives was in the grave, survived in the flesh by a single daughter, sixteen years old and betrothed to their heir.

                             *** Standing on the palisade rampart at Dover, William inhaled the fresh morning breeze, glad to fill his lungs with clean air after the stuffiness of the council chamber from which he had emerged a short while ago, blinking like a day-dazzled owl.

   He gazed at the blue glitter of the Narrow Sea and imagined it teeming with a host of French warships. The English levies were camped around the castle and billeted in the town, tents of every hue, shape, and size pitched wherever there was room. Beacon pyres stacked the clifftops ready to warn of imminent invasion and the local populace had made preparations to flee should the French take the victory, unhooking hams from chimneys and sending their cattle and pigs into the weald.

   Pandulf, the Papal Legate, had arrived late yesterday evening, having come straight across the sea from the French camp and talks with King Philip. Last night at the council table he had emphasised to John how close the French army was to embarking. The wind was right and the men were ready. John had one last chance to come to terms with the Pope over the matter of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Either he capitulated and accepted the papal choice, Stephen Langton, or the French army would unleash itself upon England with full papal support. The discussion had strung out late into the night, candles burning down to their stubs, men growing red-eyed and bleary. Then again this morning, but at last and at the final hour, agreement had been reached.

   William glanced at the tents belonging to his Irish and Welsh levies: the axe-wielding common soldiers from Leinster; the longbowmen of South Wales; the serjeants; the tough garrison soldiers of the Marches; the knights who owed him military service. They were hard men who would have stood their ground, and he would have stood with them should it have come to battle. He felt a tinge of regret and gave a self-mocking smile. He was like an old stallion, fed a ration of oats and champing at the stable door because he heard the distant clash of arms.

   "Well, are the French coming?" Will asked, joining him. John had released him from custody and he had been waiting with William's men. Richard remained for the moment in royal service, although not officially a hostage.

   William shook his head. "I hope not. John's agreed to welcome Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, to pay the Pope a thousand marks a year, and to make reparations to the Church. England's about to become a papal state under Rome's protection. If the French invade, then the tables turn and they become the excommunicated ones, not us."

   Will gazed at his father. "You mean he's managed to wriggle off the hook?"

   "With the help of his counsellors, yes," William answered, giving Will a stare that warned him to be careful where he trod. "We all had a say in advising him: Warwick, Derby, Surrey… myself. We told him he could not fight the barons, the French,
and
the Pope—that he had to remove one of them from the chessboard if he wanted to survive and that Rome was to the best advantage."

   Will looked discontented. "It is a good thing that we won't have to fight the French but…but who is going to stop John now?" he asked. "If he's got the Pope's support, he'll ride roughshod all over us. He's not fit to be King. He sells off widows to the highest bidder; he disparages heiresses; he forces people to pay for his goodwill…throws the wives and sons of his vassals into prison and starves them to death, he—"

   "Lower your voice," William snapped. "Have you learned nothing at court?"

"Hah! More than enough!"

   "We make him fit to be King. Deposing him would be against God's law and against our honour. He has to accept Langton into the archbishopric and that will put a curb on him for a start."

   Will set his jaw. "The French might still come," he said obstinately. "Philip's not brought his army all the way to Normandy to disperse it now."

   William shrugged. "If they do, they'll be damned men. As soon as the Legate has taken the King's oath, he will go and warn Philip of the peril in which he stands." He glanced round as John emerged from the papal tent where he had been conversing with the Legate. Pandulf's smooth, rounded features wore a smug expression. His lips were slightly pursed as if his mouth were a pouch full of delightful secrets. John was wearing one of his crowns, a beautiful thing of pearls, rubies, and trefoiled gold. His expression was feline and satisfied; the way he looked when he'd been bedding a favourite whore. He was all smiling deference towards the Legate, and the Legate, in his turn, was being gracious towards John, as well he might.

   John turned and knelt at Pandulf's feet and put his hands between those of the Legate. Pandulf leaned down to John and gave him the kiss of peace in the manner of one vassal acknowledging another. A ripple went through the crowd of witnessing barons, almost like the relief of discomfort when an overtight belt was slackened. Yet there were looks of anger and restlessness too. Not everyone had sought this outcome.

   Will shook his head, watched until he could watch no longer, and, thrusting past his father, walked away.

                             *** A short while later, Will stood on the clifftops beyond the castle, gazing at the sea hissing to shore on the beach far below and brooding on what had happened. He knew he should be glad that the French were not going to invade, but the emotions dwelling in his heart were savage.

   The wind buffeted him, making it difficult to keep his balance. He contemplated stepping closer to the edge. A figure was toiling along the path towards him from the direction of the castle and he grimaced to himself when he realised it was Jean D'Earley.

   Panting hard, Jean joined him and stood for a moment to regain his breath, one hand pressed to his side.

   "Did he send you?" Will demanded.

   Jean shook his head. "If he knew I was here, he'd be vexed with me. Perhaps he'd be right, but I want to say something to you and it won't take long."

   Will prodded a head of pink downland clover with the toe of his boot. "Say it then and have done. It won't change my mind about anything."

   Jean looked out to sea. "I have known your father since he took me into his service as a stripling and raised me to knighthood. He became my father too. I love him dearly, and because of that love, I accept that his oath is to John. While there is breath in his body, he will do all in his power to keep him on the throne. Nothing will stop him—and that includes his sons."

   "Do not be so certain of that," Will said mutinously.

   "I hope you love him too," Jean replied with quiet severity.

   A lump constricted Will's throat. "Do you always hit below the belt?"

   "Never." Jean shook his head. "I always aim for the heart."

Thirty-two

CAVERSHAM, BERKSHIRE, SPRING 1214

What do you think of her, Mama?" asked Mahelt in a low voice that did not carry beyond the embrasure where she and her mother were sitting, stitching an altar cloth for Caversham's chapel.

   Isabelle placed two neat stitches and then looked out of the window to her future daughter-in-law who was feeding Will's palfrey small pieces of bread on the outstretched palm of her hand. Alais de Béthune had arrived two days ago at dusk in the midst of a thunderstorm. The girl had been jittery with fear and worn out from the long journey. Isabelle had offered comfort, sympathy, and a warm bed. Alais had brushed off the former, accepted the latter, and slept for the best part of a day.

   "It is too early to tell. You have travelled with her. You must have more notion than I." She looked at her daughter. Mahelt and Hugh had undertaken the responsibility of bringing Alais from the eastern wilds of Holderness to her new home. Chaperone duty was a good excuse for Mahelt to visit her parents while they were closer than the dangers of the South Welsh Marches to which they would soon be returning.

   "She gives very little away," Mahelt said, also glancing out of the window and resting her eyes on Alais de Béthune.

   "Shy perhaps?"

   "I would have said guarded…and with a lot of growing up to do."

   Isabelle's lips twitched. Mahelt had done a great deal of growing up herself—no longer the newlywed child-woman they had left standing at the gates of Framlingham as they rode away to Ireland, but a competent chatelaine, wife, and mother in her own right.

   Mahelt looked thoughtful. "She didn't say much on the journey, but probably because she didn't know us, and with her mother so recently dead…"

   "And her father last year. She has had a difficult time of late."

   Mahelt rested her sewing in her lap. "Alais told me she was glad her father was dead."

   "Well, that doesn't seem very guarded, and why would she say such a thing about her father?"