To Defy a King (40 page)

'Not all of us,' Will sneered, 'because it won't extend to all, will it?'

'Be glad that the interdict is over and that we have a sound archbishop at the helm,' she replied with disciplined serenity.

'And a rotten king. How can I be glad for that? How can you, Mother?'

'I did not say you should be glad for such a thing. What I said was that Archbishop Langton is sound. He will bring a balance that has been lacking.

Your father is here too and that is all to the good of the country and our lands.'

'But not to his own, I warrant, even if he won't see it. He never does.'

'He has been gone a long time from England. He is pleased to be back.

Ireland for him has always been a place to mark time.'

Will glowered. 'Better Ireland,' he said and, seeing someone else he knew, excused himself and strode away to talk to them.

Isabelle sighed and gazed after him with a lined brow. 'I fear his time as a hostage has corroded his good nature.'

'I'm not sure he had a good nature to begin with,' Mahelt replied, and held her tongue on the other things she knew; the things that had put bitter iron in her brother's soul. She loved and trusted her mother but some matters were private between herself and Will.

Isabelle gave her a perceptive smile. 'You neither, my daughter. I feared for the Bigods when you went to them, as much as I feared for you.'

Mahelt flushed. She was unsure how much her mother knew about her own clandestine activities on Will's behalf in the early days of her marriage. It was probably a subject best left unbroached. She gave a reluctant laugh.

'Hugh treats me well and I love him dearly. With his father . . . I have come to understandings or truces, mostly truces.' She glanced ruefully at her boiled crab of a father-in-law. 'I adore Hugh's mother, but I worry about her. She was very ill in the winter and we thought she might die. She's a little better now, but not well enough to undertake more than light duties.'

'I am sorry to hear that, I hope she soon recovers.'

Mahelt nodded agreement. 'She became ill just before the King came to Framlingham, and I had to take the part of chatelaine.' She glanced round to make sure no one was within hearing distance. Lowering her voice, she said,

'The King . . . when he visited . . . He suggested I might want to open my legs for him.'

Her mother inhaled sharply. 'He didn't--?'

'No!' Mahelt said with angry contempt. 'I put my hand to his jewels and almost wrenched them off his body.'

Isabelle put one hand to her mouth and stifled a gasp.

'He thought he had me alone, you see, and that I would be his victim, but he became mine instead.'

'It is well that you defend yourself from him, but have a care because he will look to ways of getting his revenge.' Isabelle frowned in concern. 'Does Hugh know?'

'Yes, but we have told no one, not even his father, and I do not think the King has spoken of the matter to any of his cronies. He claimed his discomfort was caused by saddle sores.' Mahelt's eyes sparked with remembered anger. 'Hugh would have finished the gelding were it not for the fact that the King was under our roof at Framlingham and all of his knights and hirelings were camped in our ward. Hugh says we must play a reasoned game and not be fools.'

'He has a wise head on his shoulders.'

Despite the heat of the day, Mahelt shivered. 'I hate John,' she said.

Isabelle raised an index finger in warning. 'He is the anointed king, and while you may not want to sit by him at dinner or spend time in his company, he is wily and intelligent. We must play the game with astuteness and caution - as Hugh and your father both know.'

'Mama...'

'I understand.' Isabelle squeezed her arm. 'But you must separate your heart from your head in this. No more, here comes the Archbishop.' She dropped a reverent curtsey.

Mahelt didn't answer as she did the same. She was not sure she could find it in her to separate heart and head. If the price of diplomacy was swallowing her hatred for John, she didn't think she had the right currency in her purse.

Mahelt curled her forefinger around a lock of her hair and extended her feet towards the residual warmth from the hearth. It was late and apart from starlight and the occasional glimmer of a watch fire or guard's lantern, Winchester was humped in darkness. The household had retired long since, but she was waiting up for Hugh who had gone to talk matters of state with his father and other barons, including her brother and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her father was elsewhere, attending on the King. It was the mark of a good and attentive wife to wait up for her husband, but Mahelt's vigil wasn't entirely the result of duty. She was curious.

She and her mother had spent the early evening together, catching up on general gossip while their children played. Ancel and Joanna were similar ages to Mahelt's sons. Her other sisters had either joined in the play or the gossip, as the whim took them. When Mahelt had last seen them, they had been infants and small children. Now, Belle at thirteen was starting to develop a figure and bid to be the beauty of the family with her waist-length flaxen hair and dark blue eyes. Sybire was twelve, and baby Eve was a long-legged eight year old. Gilbert and Walter were no longer mischievous boys, but adolescents with breaking voices and little interest in the domesticity of the bower. Gilbert was in training for the Church and already had his focus fixed on a bishopric, and Walter was as restless as a colt in springtime.

The men had still not returned by the time her mother left, and it was well after midnight when Mahelt was roused from a doze by sounds in the yard and the barking of dogs mingled with sharp low-voiced commands. Rubbing her eyes, she went to the open shutters. By the light of a lantern borne by a squire, she saw Hugh bidding goodnight to his father, while Tripes and a couple of other house dogs milled around their feet.

As Hugh started up the outer stairs to the chamber, Mahelt hurriedly returned to the bench so she would not be caught gazing out of the window like an over-anxious wife.

'Still awake?' Hugh asked as he opened the door. 'I thought you'd be long abed by now.' Wagging his tail almost fit to knock himself off his own three legs, Tripes bustled around Mahelt and Hugh before flopping down in front of the embers.

Mahelt rose from the bench. 'I wasn't tired.' She removed his hat and kissed his cheek, noting as she did so that he was holding a piece of parchment.

'Naturally your curiosity had nothing to do with it?' His eyelids creased with amusement.

Mahelt made a face at him. 'Of course not. Do you want some wine?'

He shook his head. 'My back teeth will be awash. I've already drunk too much as it is.' He sat down on the bed and Mahelt knelt to remove his boots.

'Are you going to tell me what happened then? What's that in your hand?'

Hugh glanced round to check that no servants were lurking and handed her the parchment. 'The future,' he said.

Mahelt gazed down at the words. The writing was not that of a scribe; indeed she suspected it belonged to her father-in-law. There were a few scorings out on the parchment and places where the wording had been scratched away and changed, but although the document was not a best copy, it was still clear. Mahelt's complexion began to flush as she read the points. '"King John concedes he will not take men without judgement, nor accept anything for doing justice, nor perform injustice."' She glanced sharply at her husband and then back to the parchment. '"We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or other officials, only men that know the law of the realm and are minded to keep it well. I concede that my men should not serve in the army outside England save in Normandy or Brittany and this properly; and if anyone owes thence the service of ten knights, it shall be alleviated by the advice of my barons. We will entirely remove from their bailiwicks the relations of Gerard D'Athee so that in future they shall have no place in England, namely Engelard de Cigogne, Peter, Guy and Andrew de Chanceaux, Guy de Cigogne, Geoffrey de Martigny, Philip Marc, his brothers, and his nephew Geoffrey and the whole brood of the same. We will at once return the son of Llewelyn, all Welsh hostages, and the charters delivered to us as security for the peace."' She had to raise her eyes and wipe away tears, but at the same time she was nodding vigorously and aglow with pride. Of course this was the simple part. Getting John to accept it was going to be more difficult.

'Put it in the strongbox in the weapon chest,' Hugh said. 'As you can see, we didn't just sit down tonight to drink and indulge in idle talk. Now Langton is back we can begin in earnest. This is only a rough draft; there's a lot more to do, but when it is finished, we shall have our charter and, come hell or high water, we will bind the King to its terms.' His colour was high as he spoke.

'It's neither rebellion nor treason. John swore today in that cathedral to mend his ways, and these points are to be the manner of his mending.'

Mahelt took the parchment and stowed it away in a wooden coffer inside the weapon chest. The latter was kept double-locked because of sharp weapons and mischievous little hands. Returning to the bed, she knelt over Hugh. If she had been awake and restless before, now she was effervescent with anticipation and excitement. 'Does my father know?'

'We have asked Will to tell him when he returns from attending on the King.

John will need men of balance around him to bring him to the table. Better that your father has knowledge, but is involved from the other side, so to speak.'

Mahelt reached forwards to unpin the gold brooch at the top of his tunic and then unlace the ties of his shirt. 'And will John agree?'

Hugh threaded his hands through her long brunette hair and, pulling her down to him, kissed her. His mouth was warm and tasted of wine and Mahelt gave a delicious little shudder. She hoped he hadn't drunk too much.

'Not at first,' he said between kisses, arching his spine and gasping, 'but we will bring him to do so. He won't be allowed to make empty promises.'

Her busy hand discovered that her hopes concerning his condition were all delightfully confirmed. He was as hard as a lance. 'Neither will you,' she said with a breathless laugh as she straddled him.

* * *

Will looked at his father and drew a deep breath. He was navigating a fraught channel. 'You have said before the King must be curbed. You yourself have been a victim of his abuses - we have all suffered.'

It was late and there were only the two of them in the small screened-off room beyond the hall of the Marshal lodging in Winchester. Everyone else had gone to bed long ago. Will's eyes burned with tiredness and he could tell from the pouches beneath his father's eyes that he too had had a long, difficult day. However, neither man was going to be able to sleep with the draft of this charter lying between them. Will was irritated that he had been chosen to speak with his sire. In his opinion it would have been better for someone outside the family to do it because now the issue of father and son was muddying the waters. He was having to ask his father to listen, and that was a reversal of the roles.

'But holding clandestine meetings involving men who have been in rebellion against the King is not the way to go about it,' his father replied, and his voice had a biting edge.

'Langton was presiding. Roger and Hugh Bigod were there. Just because de Vesci and FitzWalter and de Quincy are among the group, that doesn't make this a document of rebellion. It's based on a charter of the first King Henry.'

Will fixed his father with a solid, determined stare, impressing on him that he was not for backing down. He was twenty-three years old and his own man. 'These men are not going to melt away, sire.'

'I wouldn't be so sure of that. Saer de Quincy is not a man to trust in a storm, nor one with whom I would keep company.'

'Neither is John,' Will retorted.

A crease appeared in his father's cheek. Abruptly he turned away to the flagon and poured them each a cup of wine. 'You do not have to be a part of this,' he said. 'You can return to my household and take time to recoup and settle down.'

Will accepted the wine to show willing, but his expression was as fixed as his father's. 'With respect, it is too late for that. Sire, you must listen. If it . .

. if it comes to the crux, what happens if you go down?' The words were out and he felt sick for saying them, but it had to be done.

'I never thought to see my own son align with rebels,' his father said with weary distaste. 'It is like looking in a cracked mirror.'

Inwardly Will flinched, but kept the recoil from expression and body. 'All we want is a just rule.'

His father shook his head and held out his hand for the scroll. While he might not be able to read words, he was capable of reading seals and knew each one by heart. Will watched him with trepidation. His father had a superb memory - he only needed to hear or see something once to fix it in his mind. If Will had read him the wrong way, everything would come crashing down. All his father need do was take this document to John and forewarn him. 'Are you willing to stand against such men?' Will asked, trying to keep the trepidation from his voice.

'I would stand against each one individually if I had to,' his father said, 'but this isn't a matter of that. It is a matter of standing against treachery. I have always striven to protect our family. I have devised strategies and sought intelligence, but I have never plotted in corners - never!'

Will swallowed. 'So are you willing to stand against me as a traitor too?'

'Should I bless you that you will go behind the King's back? You are no better than that which you seek to overthrow.'

Will blenched but held his ground. 'God forgive you and God forgive me.

Do you not see?' He extended his hand in a pleading gesture. 'You cannot stand against this. It's not just these names. There are others without number. I came to you tonight to ask you to smooth the path and help make the King see reason. Do his actions not violate your heart and your honour?

What will happen if it comes to war? Where will you stand when the country is covered in ashes? Will you be a puppet of this tyrant king, or will you use your foresight to see the right way forward?'