The Scarlet Lion (51 page)

   "Give me an excuse not to rise and be about my duties," he murmured.

   Isabelle laughed throatily. "It's cold and it's raining," she teased. "The moment you rise your clerks and chamberlains will be at you. Your knights will be making their reports and the couriers will be waiting with their budgets of news— probably none of it good."

   He chuckled. "Well, the first's an excuse, yes, but the others are reasons to be up and about. Have you nothing more compelling in your armoury?" He nibbled the tender skin beneath her ear and Isabelle felt the burn of his morning stubble, prickly, but pleasurable nonetheless. She stretched luxuriously like a cat.

   "How compelling do you want?" she purred. "A glance through the door, or the complete inventory?"

   He closed the bed curtains against the grey streak of morning and in the warm darkness kissed her with leisurely thoroughness and stroked her body with his fingertips until she arched and gasped. She was five and forty, still of childbearing years, but her fluxes were sometimes erratic these days. She knew that she might conceive—after all, Queen Eleanor had done so with John at a similar age, but on balance she thought not. On two occasions since Joanna was born she had harboured suspicions, but they had come to nothing.

   They made love slowly in a tender exploration of touch that made her skin tingle, her breath shorten, and her loins flood with exquisite lust. At the end, he took her hand and meshed her fingers through his and somehow the fierce grip of crisis was more intimate than the surge of his body within hers.

   They lay together in the centre of the bed regaining breath, kissing, touching. Isabelle willed her husband to doze off and sleep for a while longer. She didn't want the world outside their bed curtains to intrude just yet. "A few more moments of peace," she pleaded with God. William's hand lay upon her breast, his lips moved softly at her shoulder and then ceased as his breathing deepened.

   A sudden banging on the door roused them both with a shock.

   "My lord, my lady, there is grave news!" shouted Jean D'Earley from without.

   William groaned. Rolling to the edge of the bed, he parted the curtains. Isabelle sat up, reaching for her chemise. Grave news could come from all quarters at the moment and it was knowing where to turn to face it that was their greatest challenge. So much for her recent plea to God. William pulled on his braies and, tying the drawstring, went to unbar the door.

   Jean was dressed, but his hair was sticking up in untidy spikes and his face was puffy with slumber, revealing that he too had been roused from his bed. "My lord, King John is dead—at Newark of a flux. Jack was at his deathbed and he's sent a messenger." Jean indicated the man standing beside him, drenched from his hard ride, shivering, grey-faced and looking close to collapse.

   William's mind had yet to assimilate the news, but experience took command. "A few moments will not matter. Get this man some dry clothes and meet me in the lower chamber. Find Walter and summon the mesnie."

   Jean bowed and left, the tottering messenger in tow. William returned to the room, leaving the door open to admit his squires and Isabelle's women. Inside the privacy of the bed hangings she had already donned chemise and undergown and was now pulling on and gartering her stockings.

   "You heard what he said?"

   Isabelle nodded. "This changes everything." She didn't say whether for better or worse. Like William she was stunned and trying to grapple with the implications. John's heir was a child of nine years old; his rival a grown man in his twenties with more than half the country backing him.

   William stared at the wall as his squire knelt to wrap braid bindings around his hose and fasten the ends with ornate gold hooks. When the youth brought William's soft kidskin shoes to finish the toilet, William waved the choice away. "No, lad, my riding boots. It'll save time later and I'm going to need them."

   Isabelle suppressed her instinctive protest. He had to leave Gloucester, but at this point she hadn't been thinking that far ahead. Obviously he had. "At least you have a thick new cloak," she said courageously with a glance towards the rain-spattered window glass. "We finished stitching it two days since."

   "I might be needing my hauberk too."

   Fear squeezed her heart. "I pray not…"

   William shrugged at her. "I pray not too—the rivets are the devil to prevent from rusting in autumn and winter. Best to be prepared though."

   It was typical of him to make light of the moment, but she could see the serious worry in his eyes.

   Once dressed, Isabelle and William attended mass, made a hasty breakfast of bread, cheese and ale, and talked to Jack's messenger. The latter, a tinge more colour to his face now, had been furnished with a dry tunic and shirt and was finishing a bowl of hot gruel. Hastily spooning up his last mouthful, he bowed to William and Isabelle, swallowed, and told them about John's death. The King had spent the night at Lynne and had complained of feeling unwell with a rolling stomach and a flux of the bowels. He had recovered sufficiently to eat a dish of fruit and drink some newly pressed cider from the local orchards but, during the night, his condition had deteriorated.

   "Then we heard his baggage train had got bogged down in the Wellstream estuary at tide-turn." The messenger dolefully shook his head. "Men and horses drowned, carts buried to the axles, pack animals sucked under by quicksand. Half his book chests gone, the Empress Matilda's crown, his personal chapel, pieces of regalia, and many barrels of silver." Fuelled by the hot food, his voice gained the relish of a storyteller.

   Isabelle exchanged worried glances with William. Depending on how much had been lost, the accident to the baggage could be either a minor upset or a complete disaster.

   "The King rode on to Newark Castle," the messenger said, "but his strength gave out and everyone knew he was dying. The Abbot of Croxton was with him at the end and heard his confession, as did the Bishop of Winchester." He looked at William. "My lord, the King requested before witnesses that you and the Legate govern the realm on his son's behalf. He asked that you protect his son and keep him safe from French hands and he sent you this ring in token." He unfastened a leather cord from around his neck. Threaded on to it was one of the King's favourite rings: a large balas ruby set in clawed gold. William took it from the man and cupped it in his hand. "Go on," he said impassively.

   "There is little more to tell, my lord. When the King had made his will and the Bishop of Winchester had heard his confession, he spoke no more and, at the hour of vespers, his soul left him." The messenger crossed himself, as did his audience. "Some said they could hear it keening as it flew away, but the Abbot said not to be foolish, it was only the wind beating against the castle walls, and indeed the weather was very stormy. The Abbot took the King's entrails to Croxton but, as the King wished, his body is to be brought to Worcester. Your nephew is escorting the cortège and says he will meet you in the city two days hence."

***

"One step at a time," William told Isabelle as he prepared to go to Worcester and meet John's funeral train. "I've sent to Hereford for the shroud cloths. Thomas Sandford will bring Prince Henry from Devizes and, as soon as the King is buried, I'll ride to escort them here." He rubbed his forehead as if doing so would quicken his thoughts. "Chester and the Legate will already have messages from the deathbed at Newark, but I've written again, bidding them come to Gloucester."

   Isabelle touched his sleeve. "But how can you carry on fighting if Henry has no money and all the south and east is in Louis's hands?"

   He gave a heavy sigh. "I can only hope the situation is better than it looks. Until I have taken an inventory, I am working blind; I don't know what resources might be elsewhere. Devizes and Corfe might yield revenue if we're fortunate. I'm hoping now John is dead some of the barons will return to our camp. It was John they hated, not his son. Henry's an innocent child; I can use that in our favour. Louis rewards his Frenchmen with lands and ignores many of his English lords. It's one of the reasons Will turned his back on him and I suspect others will take little persuasion to cease their allegiance. As soon as I've had time to assess the situation I'll have letters written and safe conducts issued."

   Listening to him, Isabelle's fear increased, but so did her pride. "Many years ago," she said, stroking his sleeve, "you saw an assault on a keep foundering, and you climbed the siege ladder and seized the battlements yourself."

   "Milli." He gave a lean smile. "Richard was angry because I was first on the ladder and his men pulled him back because they wouldn't risk both of us together." The smile vanished. "But Richard's gone now…and it's a long way up."

   Isabelle pulled his head down and kissed him hard. "I am glad we had this morning," she said.

   He squeezed her waist. "So am I. Perhaps we should have bolted that door and stayed abed. My love, I'll be returning with Prince Henry and we'll have to hold a council here. I leave it to you to make preparations."

   "It will keep me from worrying…about you, anyway. Sorting out sleeping places and provisions for an unknown number is a different matter. What of the Queen?"

   "She's safe at Corfe with the younger ones, and staying there for the moment," he said. "The last thing we need is for her or her other children to be kidnapped by the French."

   Isabelle could not help feeling relieved. Finding secure and comfortable accommodation for the household of the Queen of England as well as the Earl of Chester would have taken prodigious organising, not to say a miracle.

He kissed her again, hard, and swept out.

   Isabelle touched her lips where the imprint of his mouth on hers lingered. Despite their lives being more uncertain than ever, she felt as if John's death had lifted a great weight from her shoulders. Another burden had settled in its place, but it was considerably less onerous. John's heir was a child and someone was going to have to rule in his stead. The vultures would be gathering for their share of the control and William would be in their midst. What happened in the next few weeks was in the hands of God and a few powerful men, including her husband. It was frightening, but at the same time she felt a touch of exhilaration and perhaps inevitability. All of his life, William had been travelling towards this point.

                             *** As requested at his deathbed, John wore the cowl of a Benedictine monk. The hood was buckled beneath his chin to keep the bearded jaw firm and the mouth closed. A dalmatic of heavy red wool clothed him from neck to ankle and his right hand gripped his scabbarded sword. William had provided silk shrouds to cover the bier and enough silver for the poor waiting outside the church that they would not go away empty-handed. John's tomb was to lie in the cathedral's chancel, with Saint Oswald on his left and Saint Wulfstan on his right.

   Kneeling and standing, his joints aching with cold, the Latin words of the funeral mass flowed over William's head. The ritual was comforting and here and there a word he recognised stood out, but his mind was not so much on the ceremony as his own chequered life. He had been born when Stephen was on the throne: a lifetime ago. Perhaps more than a lifetime; there were few remaining who remembered those days and the vicious civil war that had torn England apart. He had served King Henry and Queen Eleanor, the Young King, then Richard and John. Now the heir to the kingdom was a nine-year-old boy and civil war was again devouring the land. His life had come full circle. He had almost lost it at five years old when taken hostage by King Stephen. If it ended now, it wouldn't matter. He had had more than his share of years. But still he prayed the candle had a little longer to burn—enough at least to see the country out of crisis.

   After the funeral, William took a brief respite to eat and drink in the Bishop's rooms at the cathedral and then, accompanied by Jack and the knights of the mesnie, set out in the direction of Devizes to greet the nine-year-old heir to England.

   "The reports are true about what the King said on his deathbed," Jack told him as they rode. "I was there and he said he wanted you to govern until Henry comes of age. He wasn't delirious; he was aware almost to the end, God rest his soul." He crossed himself.

   William crossed himself too. "John knew how to torture me even until the last," he said darkly. "The Earl of Chester is twenty years younger; let him take up the reins." He kicked his horse, urging it ahead at a rapid trot.

   Jack gazed at William's straight posture and easy seat in the saddle. Frowning, he pinched his upper lip.

   "Daydreaming?" Jean D'Earley enquired with a half-smile as he rode past him.

   Jack shook his head. "I hope not," he replied.

***

Standing in the courtyard of Gloucester Castle Isabelle watched William's troop arrive. William was riding his bay courser and young Prince Henry sat before him on the saddle, bundled up in the folds of William's cloak. The boy's thin face was wan from the long journey and his eyes heavy with blue smudges beneath. William leaned over and murmured to him and Henry answered with a nod, then wriggled upright.

   Isabelle knelt, as did the knights, clerics, and various household retainers assembled behind her. Henry looked a little nonplussed, but at another murmur from William, gestured everyone to rise. His eyes widened when everyone did. Henry was accustomed to deference because he was the heir to the throne, but full obeisance had always been for his father and mother.

   Isabelle exchanged glances with William as he lowered the Prince to the ground and dismounted. "It has been a long journey," he said. "In more ways than one. I think my lord the King would like to bathe and rest."

   She nodded. "Will you come to the private chambers, sire?" she said to Henry, gesturing towards the keep.

   "Thank you," Henry replied in a stilted voice, pitched high with strain and the natural treble of childhood. His hair was the pale gold of fresh straw and his eyes the same startling aquamarine blue as his mother's. His mouth was hers too, hinting at a sulky droop, but just now held firmly straight as he strove to play his role and not appear afraid or unnerved.