To Defy a King (18 page)

The orchard workers were beginning the day's tasks and bustled about with their ladders and baskets. A few last, lazy wasps crawled among the windfalls and droned around the trees, causing sudden flurries of alarm amidst the apple-pickers.

Hugh broke the bread and cut up the cheese with his knife. Mahelt watched his hands at work. His hair fell over his brow and the summer sun had dipped it in gold at the ends. Task completed, he set down his knife and looked at her. In the fine morning light, his eyes held every shade of blue from woad and speedwell to charcoal and slate.

He bit into a piece of crust and chewed with enjoyment and vigour. Even if he had been drunk last night, he was evidently not suffering a malaise because of it. Mahelt's stomach was churning. She picked at the cheese and nibbled on the bread and waited for him to speak.

'So,' he said eventually as he lifted his cup. 'What are we going to do about this mess? You have caused more flurry in this household than a fox in a chicken coop.'

Mahelt continued to play with her food and said nothing.

He drank, appraising her over the rim of the cup before lowering his arm and sighing. 'Don't you realise the harm you could have caused? If the wrong people found out it could destroy us all. How can my father help yours and be a force for stability if the King turns upon him for treason? He has to be above reproach!'

Her eyes widened. It hadn't occurred to her to think of Hugh's father helping her situation. She viewed him as a stuffy and self-satisfied little cockerel with a pedantic need to have everything in its place. She had seen the way he arranged his dish at the table, placing everything just so. Heaven forbid that a knife or a cup should be slantwise on the cloth, or that the cloth should have a drip on it. 'I didn't know your father was helping mine.'

'There's a lot you don't know.' He took her hand and ran his thumb back and forth over her wedding ring. 'Your brother may hand you what he believes are clandestine messages, but we are not uninformed dolts. We know what goes on at court; we have to for our own safety.'

Mahelt shivered at his touch. 'I fear for my father and my brothers - as you would if your kin were held hostage.'

'Indeed I would. I know you felt desperate and did what you thought you must, but it can't happen again. Come to me if you are troubled and we will see what can be done.'

Mahelt wondered if he was offering in oblique language to help her pass messages, and that made her anxious as much as it melted her, because while she might be a Bigod by marriage, it certainly did not make Hugh a Marshal.

She wanted to trust him, but knew he was honour bound to obey his father.

'I have some apples to mulch,' she said, avoiding a straight reply. 'Your father seems to think it a fitting occupation for women.'

Hugh's lips twitched. 'What he desires is a commitment from you that shows him you are prepared to be part of this household. Mulching a few apples seems to me a small price to pay to keep the peace and to prove you can be a good chatelaine. Do this well, and the pressure on you will ease.'

Mahelt rose to her feet and fixed him with a challenging stare. 'And will it always be this way? Shall I always be a prisoner of his opinions and dictates?'

Hugh rose too, and slipped his arm around her waist. 'My love, you are not a prisoner, except of your own choosing, but you must learn to compromise.'

'Why?' she pouted. 'He doesn't.'

Hugh's grip on her tightened. 'There are ways around. You don't have to butt down walls with your head when there's an open door beside you -

unless you enjoy hurting yourself. My father is a judge and a lawyer. He understands justice and he's fair. If you are prepared to be reasonable, then he will be reasonable too.'

'He wouldn't allow me to see Will; I don't call that reasonable!'

'And do you call going over the wall at night and accepting secret letters reasonable too? Which is the more reasonless? That is something you should think on, my love.' He kissed her, once on the mouth, tenderly this time, without last night's smoulder, and then again, lightly, on the cheek. 'Don't put your fingers in the fire unless you are prepared to be burned,' he said.

'As I told you, deeds have consequences.'

Watching him walk away to his own duties, Mahelt set her fingertips to her lips. Her body was tingling. She felt light and heavy at the same time. Full and empty, needing, but not knowing what would satisfy her. He was right.

She did have a lot of thinking to do. Drawing a deep breath, she turned to her task. If mulching an orchard full of apples was what it took to restore her to grace, then it had best be done, but what lay beyond that was open to question.

16

Framlingham, January 1208

On a sleety, freezing January day, Mahelt was playing a boisterous game with the younger members of the Bigod household. One person was rendered blind by a woollen hood worn back to front. The other players used their own hoods as soft weapons to dart in and bat the victim. The latter had to try and catch one of the other players, so that they became the hoodman instead.

Shrieking with laughter, Mahelt darted in, swiped her brother-in-law Ranulf, who was the hoodman, and swooped out again. She was aware of her father-in-law observing her, but for once he was smiling, even if his gaze was watchful. Meeting her glance for a moment, he toasted her with a cup of cider pressed from the apples she had mulched in the autumn. Mahelt swept him a dutiful if less than heartfelt curtsey. She had been doing her best to fit into the mould required since the events of the previous October. She still found it difficult to sit and sew, but she had taken over supervision of the dairy and helped out with arranging the welcome of guests and visitors to Framlingham. She enjoyed the latter and was good at it, but knew she was closely watched lest she used it as a means of passing on information. She only wished she could. Her father was still kicking his heels at the court and her brothers remained hostages. She didn't want to think about any of them being trapped and powerless.

She lunged at Ranulf but he was faster and he caught her with a yell of triumph. Mahelt both laughed and screwed up her face as she changed places with him. Somehow it seemed appropriate that she should be in darkness.

The play began again, hoods flicking against her body while she snatched at thin air and heard the teasing laughter. A soft knot tapped against her side, once and then again, taunting. Flick, flick. She pretended to ignore it, but then turned with a sudden leap, her hand seizing the tassel attached to the end of a hood. Hugh, she realised, because his was the only one with such decoration. 'Got you!' she cried in triumph, pulling her own head covering off.

He flashed a grin. 'You mean I saved you,' he retorted.

Mahelt put her nose in the air and her hands on her hips. 'Not so!'

He tweaked her nose and kissed her cheek.

Physically she and Hugh remained balanced on a knife edge. Since November, he had often been away, attending to various duties concerned with the earldom and his own estates. During his absences, she was kept under the Earl's unwelcome and strict supervision. When Hugh was home, he was careful and restrained. Nevertheless, it had still been possible to snatch a few vivid moments alone. His father could not watch them all the time, and even he allowed that a certain degree of formal courtship was permitted, providing it stayed within limits.

The Earl's chamberlain walked up to his lord and pressed a sealed package into his hands with a murmured word. Mahelt's stomach clenched as it always did when she saw a messenger because of the news he might be bearing from Ireland, or from the court. The Earl broke the seal and read the contents. His face remained expressionless, which might mean everything or nothing. She threw herself into the game with reckless abandon and was caught again. Hugh shook his head. 'What am I to do with you?' he said sorrowfully. 'I can't save you from yourself!'

She tossed her head. 'I don't need saving,' she sniffed, her manner haughty because she was on edge. Fiercely she donned the hood, darkening her sight.

The next time she caught someone, it was her sister-in-law Marie, and as Mahelt blinked in the light and looked round, she realised that Hugh and his father were not in the hall. Making an excuse that she needed to visit the privy, Mahelt left too.

Hugh closed the door of his father's personal chamber. Sleet tapped against the closed shutters like fingernails and the flames in the sconces leaned away from the windows, pushed by an icy draught.

'Sire?'

Roger handed a roll of parchment to Hugh. 'It's from Ralph. I don't know what to believe any more. The rumour at court is that the Marshal's men have been brought down in Ireland.'

Alarmed, Hugh swiftly read the news his brother had sent. The parchment bore the imprint of the sheep's spine like a ghost. Meilyr FitzHenry had returned to Ireland and the King had ordered all the Marshal's best knights to come to court and answer for their conduct. They had refused and the King claimed to have received news of heavy fighting in Leinster resulting in the death of Jean D'Earley and the seizure of the pregnant Countess Isabelle and the other Marshal children.

Hugh gazed at his father, appalled. 'How can this be true? The country would be in uproar if that had happened, and Longespee himself would have written to us, not left it to Ralph!'

'I no longer know anything with this King at the helm,' Roger said brusquely. 'Nothing he says or does can be trusted as the truth. If the Marshal does fall . . .' He did not end the sentence, but shook his head and said, as if to convince himself, 'It won't come to that. Rumour is only rumour and we know how John likes to make men squirm and hang them with words.'

'It must be true about sending FitzHenry back to Ireland though.'

'Yes, but Ralph says FitzHenry has only been gone a fortnight. It isn't long enough for those claims to have happened and the news to be brought back. I suspect the King is causing mischief because it is in his nature.' His father drew his furred cloak more firmly around his shoulders as another hard gust of wind flurried sleet against the shutters. 'We'll discover the lie of the land ourselves when we go to court.'

'Should we tell Mahelt?'

His father considered, and then shook his head. 'There is no point until we have sifted rumour from truth ourselves. Whatever has happened, nothing we do can alter it now. The only advantage is that forewarned is forearmed.'

Emerging from the chamber, Hugh almost bumped into Mahelt and saw from her white face and blazing eyes that she had heard at least some of the discussion. Hugh cursed, looked over his shoulder, sent up a prayer of gratitude that his father hadn't noticed her, and dragged her forcefully into the corridor beyond. 'Listening at keyholes again?' he whispered. 'I thought you'd learned your lesson!'

Mahelt jerked out of his grip. 'Why should I not when it concerns me! I heard you talking with your father - about mine!'

Hugh scrambled to remember what had been said. He seized her again and pulled her further away from his father's chamber while he assessed the damage. The door was thick and she had been playing hoodman blind when he left. She couldn't have heard it all.

'What do you mean if he falls?' she hissed. 'What have you heard?'

Hugh glanced round again and said in a low voice, 'The King has sent Meilyr FitzHenry back to Ireland and demanded your father's senior knights come to court. Ralph thought we should know.'

Mahelt blinked fiercely. 'They won't come,' she said. 'Jean would never desert my father's instructions or leave my mother on her own.'

'I am sure he would not.'

'Why is he doing this to my family? Why can't he leave us alone! I hate him!' She began to weep.

'Ah, Mahelt, don't.' He folded her in his arms and kissed her. He wanted to protect her from the hurts of the world, and King John was one of those hurts. In a different way he suspected that her father and brothers were hurts too because whatever was done to them, she felt as a blow to herself. She might be a Bigod in law and supposedly this family was her first allegiance, but he suspected that whatever lip service she paid to that fact, she would always be a Marshal first. Nothing was ever going to alter that.

Roger hadn't been to court for several months, but thought it prudent to put in an appearance, show himself to the King and give the right sort of impression. It was one thing to have representation in the form of deputies and kin, but they were only a presence to mark his place, rather than to carry matters forward.

Standing in the busy hall at Marlborough, Roger rested his glance briefly on Hugh who was talking in a group that included Longespee, Ralph and the Earl of Oxford. Mahelt's hostage brothers were present too, the older one having been brought south again. He wasn't being kept in one place for long.

The Marshal brothers stood amid the group, yet slightly apart from it, as if there were an unseen barrier between them and other men. At least the rumours Ralph had mentioned in his letter were only half true. Meilyr FitzHenry had indeed returned to Ireland with a remit to summon the Marshal's men, but the tale about the fighting and capture of the Countess was merely the overflow of John's malice and wishful thinking. Foul weather in the Irish Sea meant no ships had made the crossing in the last month.

To Roger's pleasure and satisfaction, Hugh was proving popular at court. He used his good humour and fine looks with subtlety; he wasn't brash like some of the other young bloods. Nor was he affected in his mannerisms or the way he wore his clothes - Longespee's failing. Roger judged that his son needed to learn to present a less open face to certain men, but that would come with time and experience.

Glancing further round, he noticed that William Marshal, who had been talking to the Bishop of Norwich, was now alone save for two of his knights who stood either side of him like wary guard dogs. Men were avoiding him, because being out of favour with King John was contagious. A man had to watch with whom he spoke and measure every word. It was one of the reasons Roger was keeping a close eye on Hugh's progress.