The Scarlet Lion (55 page)

   "What do you think of his latest cloak?" William asked in an effort to lighten the atmosphere.

   Will's lips curved, as if unaccustomed to the expression. "I think it wears him very well," he said.

***

Isabelle came to Marlborough in the spring, her grey mare pacing delicately through the soldiers' lines as the first stars pricked a turquoise sky. The perriers and trebuchets were still assembled, their leather slings hanging motionless in the still evening air. Their ammunition of boulders was piled at the feet of the machines and their crews were sitting around fires and cauldrons, eating their evening meals of stew and bread. There was a lot of laughter and camaraderie. Morale was high, as well it might be. Isabelle had heard on her way from Gloucester that Will had finally broken the siege and taken the castle.

   "God save you, Countess!" cried one man, bolder than the rest, with a flourish of his doffed cap.

   Isabelle inclined her head, smiled, and had Eustace, who was leading her escort, toss him a handful of silver.

   She could see as she rode into the yard that Marlborough would need considerable shoring up. The stink of scorched wood was pervasive and the masonry had been severely punished by the siege machines. The thatching on some roofs had burned away, exposing charred skeletal beams, and two blackened heaps on the ground were all that remained of two storage buildings.

   "The Earl is here too, my lady," announced the groom who came to help her dismount. "He arrived at noon."

   Isabelle felt a flutter of pleasant surprise. As far as she had been aware, he was forty miles away at Winchester, but then it was only a day and a half's ride—less if one changed horses. It explained the extra tents she had seen in the bailey.

   William and their eldest son were in the chamber above the great hall, parchments unrolled on a trestle as they pored over maps and diagrams. A pang rippled through her to see father and son with their heads close together, their voices blending in amicable discussion. She had cried with relief when William had told her that Will had made his peace and joined Henry's party, but for herself such peace had been from a distance. This was the first time she had seen him since last year at Caversham.

   Will glanced up and saw her. He didn't flinch, but she felt his shock, because it hit her too and almost made her recoil. She steadied herself, put a smile on her face, and continued towards him and his father. William asked a question and when it wasn't answered, raised his head.

   "Isabelle!" He stared at her, then strode around the trestle and took her hands. "What in the name of God are you doing here?"

   Noting that his eyes were filled with both pleasure and censure, she leaned forward to kiss his beard-grizzled cheek. "Visiting my son—and my husband too, it seems. You appear to have forced open the door so I don't have to sleep in a tent." Making an effort, she kept her tone light and turned to their son. "Perhaps I should have stayed at Gloucester but I thought it worth the risk."

   Will's throat worked and, for a terrible moment, she thought perhaps he was trying to swallow his gorge or find the wherewithal to be civil to her. But then he leaned forward and pecked her on either cheek. "Mother," he said, and then: "You are welcome, although Marlborough is hardly fit for a lady's occupation. The privies are stinking, there are no wall hangings or candles, and the floor rushes are bouncing with fleas…" He broke off, swallowing, clenching and unclenching his fists.

   Her eyes blurred. "You think I care about that?"

   "You do in your own household." Will's voice strained at the seams.

   "I can make exceptions."

   There was a long hesitation, then he opened his arms and let her in, and they embraced, clinging desperately to each other like shipwrecked sailors to a spar. Tears of joy and pain ran down Isabelle's face. Will's grip was so hard it hurt, but she didn't care about that either.

   "I know there was nothing you could have done; I understand that now," Will said thickly. "You were there; it was someone to blame."

   "It's over, finished…Hush now, hush now."

   She felt him stiffen in her arms, the man not the boy. He pulled back from her and wiped his gambeson cuff across his wet eyes. "It'll never be finished," he said stonily, "not while there is breath in my body. Things will never be the same either, but at least I have the wherewithal to go on…like that three-legged dog of Mahelt's."

   "Tripes." She gave a tremulous smile.

   "Yes, that is his name. We're kindred spirits."

***

"Will sent me a message to say that Marlborough was ready to fall," William told her as they shared his camp bed in the chamber below the wall walk. "I thought to help in the final assault but by the time I arrived the garrison had surrendered and Will had taken possession." He pulled her close. "What I hadn't bargained for was seeing you here too."

   "I wanted to talk to Will." Lying against him, Isabelle played with the laces on his shirt. "I knew he wouldn't come to Gloucester, so I came to him."

   "You're a brave woman, my love."

   She raised on one elbow to look at him, trying to decide if he was being wry, but despite the limewashed walls lending a pale gleam to the room and the shutters being open to an outside world of deep-blue sky and full, high moon, his features were difficult to read. "No," she said, "just a mother. I can no more walk away from that than I can from myself."

   "No," he agreed, "and I meant it." He rubbed her arm and sighed. "I have to return to Winchester on the morrow. I wish I didn't."

   "I will come with you," Isabelle said. "The children do not need me at Gloucester and they have carers and attendants aplenty."

   William grunted with irritated humour. "And you consider I need more care than my offspring?"

   "Of a certainty," Isabelle said. "And before you say it is too dangerous and you do not want me travelling in the army's tail, I will forestall you with Ireland and Kilkenny. I will remind you how I followed you to Normandy when I was carrying Will in my womb."

   The bed shook as he silently chuckled. "Baldwin used to worry for me—do you know that?—God rest his soul. He said that he admired you, but you were in danger of not knowing your place. He said I indulged you too much."

   Isabelle considered indignation and decided against it. "And I was fond of Baldwin," she replied. "He was a good man, but he wore a blindfold when it came to women. Had I been wed to him, either he would have strangled me within a year, or I would have put hemlock in his dinner. I do know my place, and it is at my husband's side."

   "I was not going to refuse you for it would be a waste of time. Ride with me if you will, but be prepared to ride hard, live out of a tent, and eat pottage every day."

   "It sounds idyllic," she said lightly. "I will wash your clothes and lie with you under the stars every night."

   He laughed at that and set his arm around her. "A laundress. Now there's a whimsical notion. I've never lain with a laundress before."

Forty-one

WINCHESTER, APRIL 1217

Florence the laundress puffed into the tent and piled a heap of folded shirts, chemises, and sundry linens on to William's campaign trestle. "'Ere we are, my lady. Good fresh breeze today. You can smell the sun on 'em." She thrust one of William's shirts under Isabelle's nose.

   Isabelle nodded. All she could smell was a strong but not unpleasant aroma of lanolin and lye from the Bristol soap Florence used in solution to pummel the washing, but she had learned from experience it was best to agree.

   Florence had been King John's washerwoman, but she had been dismissed by the Queen who viewed her as one of John's little idiosyncrasies that need not be indulged now he was dead. Taking pity on her, William had given her employment in his household and Isabelle was gradually becoming accustomed to her sudden appearances, as blustery and swift as a bright windy drying day. William's comment at Marlborough about never having lain with a laundress had greatly amused Isabelle when she first laid eyes on the woman. Florence was at least six feet tall and as wide as a barn. The size of her hips would have put the rump of the strongest destrier to shame; her breasts were doughy mountains that could have smothered a giant and her forearms were like a pair of prize hams. A mass of frowsy black hair was constantly escaping the decency of the kerchief supposed to conceal it and her complexion was so red and coarse she looked as if someone had used her face to scour pots.

   "'Eard some interestin' news over by the 'orse lines, my lady," Florence said as she refolded the shirt with a delicacy and dexterity belied by her large, rough fingers. The loving way she smoothed the garment made Isabelle bite her lip as she wondered if Florence had touched John's underwear in so intimate a fashion.

   "Did you?" Isabelle half suspected Florence's usefulness to John had been as much for her knowledge of who was sleeping with whom and plotting what than it was for washing his underclothes.

   "I reckon we'll be on the move soon enough." Florence licked her lips and eyed the dish of stuffed dates on the trestle.

   Taking the hint, Isabelle gestured to them. Predictably Florence took two. "What did you hear…?"

   Florence contemplated the first date, then nibbled it with a dainty lasciviousness that would have brought most men out in a sweat to watch her. "The French 'ave landed at Sandwich, 'aven't they? Messenger was givin' 'is 'orse to a groom an' I 'eard 'im say so. Masses of ships filled with 'orses an' men an' barrels o' supplies. They'll be marching on Winchester to take it back, that's what I reckon."

   The news was a blow. Isabelle didn't need to ask if Florence was certain. If she had heard a messenger say so, then it was true. She thought of all their hard work to retake Winchester and the ports of Winchelsea and Rye. If Louis had indeed brought a massive army across the Narrow Sea, then Henry's forces would be unable to hold.

   Florence popped the remainder of one date in her mouth, put the other in her apron, and, chewing vigorously, made to leave. "Better pack me mule," she announced stickily. "We'll be movin' before the day's much older…my lords." She dipped a coy curtsey to William as she deliberately squeezed her way past him and Jean D'Earley in the tent entrance.

   Isabelle saw from the expression on William's face that Florence was right. "I've heard." She pre-empted him.

   Removing hat and cloak, William flung them over a stool. "All we needed was a few more days," he said in a voice gritty with frustration and anger. "Just enough to turn the tide. Instead, the tide has turned for Louis and blown him back to us with more men and supplies than we can withstand." He poured himself wine, drank, and banged the cup down on the trestle, causing the wood to vibrate. "I've called a council of the senior commanders, but the only matter to discuss is how far we pull back and to where. We can't hold Winchester and he'll move straight to retake it. God's life, we'll have to abandon all this." He gestured towards the battle-camp outside the tent flaps. As he spoke, Florence wallowed past with her mule, its panniers laden with her washing cauldrons.

   "Do you know their numbers?" Isabelle asked.

   "Not yet, apart from enough to sweep us to kingdom come if we ride to meet them. I've sent out my scouts and spies and I'm liaising with the garrison at Dover. That's the plum Louis really wants, but whatever the cost, he can't be allowed to pluck it, or else whatever we do it's the end."

                             *** Isabelle bent over William's open palm and in the light from the window attempted to dig the splinter of wood out of the fleshy part with one of her sewing needles. The sliver had entered slant-wise and was visible as a thin dark line under his skin. The culprit was a rough tent prop he had grasped while doing the rounds of the troops who were encamped in the bailey of Northampton Castle.

   "At least it wasn't on a privy seat," Isabelle said as she probed and dug. "Have you seen them? They're terrible!" Then she laughed to herself. "Not that matters like privy seats are of much importance just now."

   Her remark brought a preoccupied smile to his lips. "They would be if I had splinters in my arse. Instead I have Louis and his reinforcements."

   Isabelle made a face. Messengers had been coming and going all day and William had scouts out seeking the French and trying to gain intelligence of their movements. Louis had moved swiftly on Winchester and Farnham, retaking them in the face of little resistance. Then, supposedly, he had turned his attention to the siege of Dover. However, at dawn this morning, William had received reports that French troops were in Leicestershire and had driven the Earls of Chester and Derby away from the castle of Montsorrel which they had been besieging, forcing them to retreat in the direction of Nottingham. Information was badly muddled and William needed more detail before he decided where to commit himself. For the moment he was in Northampton, covering as many crossroads as possible, and waiting.

   Isabelle teased the end of the splinter from the entry wound and, with the tips of her fingernails, succeeded in pinching it out. "If Louis has brought his men to Montsorrel, does that mean Dover has fallen to him?" she pondered.

   William sighed at her question. "That I don't know. If Dover has fallen and he has moved north en masse, then it is bad for us. I cannot see Louis riding to break the siege of Montsorrel without having secured Dover, but I must be certain of the reports before I move."

   Isabelle rubbed the splinter wound with salve and looked at him from beneath her lids. He could have had the chirugeon or one of his men dig it out had he been so minded; their eyesight was probably much better than hers. The fact that he had come to her meant he needed her company and her counsel. She felt warmed by the knowledge, but worried too. He didn't bring niggling anxieties to her, only the greater ones. What if Dover had indeed been taken? Could they weather such a drastic setback? She smoothed in the last of the salve and looked at his hands. His fingernails were grimed from handling his greasy hauberk. There was a smut of oil on his cheek too.