To Defy a King (52 page)

Appalled, Hugh gazed in her wake. He was exhausted; reeling from what had overtaken them. The foundations underpinning his life were crumbling away at a rapid rate, leaving him hanging over a very dark chasm indeed.

His father palmed his face and sighed. 'There is no peace to be had anywhere,' he said. 'Not in the kingdom, not in my household.' He looked wearily at Hugh. 'That boy is my grandson and I love him whatever his mother thinks. That I could not protect him is a heavy burden.'

'But a lesser one than being his father,' Hugh said tautly. 'Mahelt is right. I wasn't there either. I should have brought them with me as she desired, but I thought they would be better off at Framlingham. I thought they would be safe. I thought I had time . . .'

'The boy's Marshal kinship will protect him,' his father said sharply. 'It is pointless crying over spilled milk.'

Hugh gave his father a hard look. 'But it helps to know why the milk was spilled in the first place. Roger is my son and he is only six years old and worth more than platitudes. I know what this king is capable of.'

'I repeat to you, the lad will be protected because his grandsire is the King's backbone. My father lost our earldom for rebelling against the King and Framlingham was razed to the ground. It took me twelve years of solid toil to regain our inheritance and our title. I rebuilt our home from the ashes and I will not see it reduced to ashes again or end my life in exile. We are opposed to the King, but we must leave doors open too. John offers us a month's grace to come to him and sue for peace.'

'On what terms?' Hugh asked huskily. A terrible notion was growing in his mind.

His father opened his hands. 'Probably the kind we'd not accept; John triumphant will be twice as bad as John on the back foot. We must have a peace that will bind both sides. We have French knights in London and Louis will come, but the immediate future is like a sea mist, swirling and changing. We must hug the shore to stay safe, even if we stay off the land.'

'Just tell me, did you give Lenveise orders to yield if the King fetched up beneath our walls? Is that part of your "hugging the shoreline" policy?'

His father lowered his head so that all Hugh could see was the brim of his hat. 'The King moved faster than I thought,' he said. 'I expected Framlingham to be empty.'

Hugh swallowed bile. 'You gave the order to yield even though you knew they were in there.'

'I bade Lenveise use his judgement. Don't be naive. It was a risk we ran and we miscalculated our timing. That is all.'

'That is all?' Hugh shuddered. 'What of the consequences? '

'We deal with them.' Now his father did look up, and his grey eyes were implacable.

Hugh exhaled hard and, with clenched fists, walked away from him.

He found Mahelt in a chamber off the hall that was used for hosting guests.

She was lying on the bed with her back to him and her arms around Hugo and the baby. Her breathing was slow and deep but Hugh could not tell if she was feigning sleep or not. He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at the three of them, knowing there should be four. 'I am sorry,' he said and reached to stroke her lustrous braid. 'I know I have made a damned mess of everything. We'll get him back, I promise you. I know you set my oaths at naught, and I do not blame you, but I will keep this one with my life.'

She made no reply and he did not know if he was relieved or disappointed.

The angle she was lying at exposed the bruise on her cheek, and seeing it, he felt as if he had struck her himself.

42

Bradenstoke Priory, Wiltshire, April 1216

Ela at her side, Mahelt knelt before the tombs of her grandparents within the church of the Augustinian priory at Bradenstoke, and paid her respects. John FitzGilbert and his wife Sybilla lay beneath engraved slabs of Purbeck stone, with their eldest son beside them. Mahelt and Ela's great-grandparents, Walter of Salisbury and Sybire de Chaworth, rested here too, with others of their kin.

Mahelt paid particular attention to the tomb of her grandmother Sybilla, who had also been forced to give up her small son as a hostage. The child had survived his ordeal and grown up to become Mahelt's own father. But what had Sybilla thought as her boy was taken by the enemy? Had her heart died inside her too? Her father seldom spoke of the ordeal from his perspective, although other men did, relating the tale of his near-hanging with relish.

Mahelt tried not to dwell on that aspect, but it still haunted her dreams.

In the month since Framlingham had been taken, nothing had been decided.

Hugh and his father had been garnering resources from the parts of their lands that had not been occupied or plundered. They had sent messages to John playing for time, saying they were considering their position. Roger was still a hostage at Norwich, but Mahelt was honing ideas, and had come to Bradenstoke to ponder them at her grandmother's tomb. She had brought an offering of a mark of silver to be given in alms and had paid for fourteen pounds of beeswax for candles. As a personal supplication, she kissed the garland of spring flowers in her hand and laid it reverently on her grandmother's tomb. A few damp mayflowers shed pale petals on the engraved stone. Crossing herself, Mahelt rose and went from the church into the pale April sunshine. Ela followed her out, and the women stood for a moment, enjoying the gentle warmth and gazing across the views afforded by the priory's raised elevation.

'How is the Countess?' asked Ela after a moment.

Mahelt shook her head. 'A little better but still unwell - upset and confused mainly.'

'I am sorry to hear it,' Ela said with concern. 'She is a good and gentle lady.'

'She is indeed.' Mahelt thought of her mother-in-law. The spark she had possessed when Mahelt had first known her was all but extinguished, replaced by a dull weariness. It was clearly an effort to drag herself through each day. She was at her best with her grandchildren, dandling Isabelle on her knee, telling stories to Hugo and feeding him sweetmeats. She still sewed too, but in the repetitive way that was a comfort mechanism, in much the same manner as Hugo sucked his thumb. Mahelt bit her lip. 'I have something to ask of you - a boon.'

'Of course, if I can help.' Ela squeezed Mahelt's arm. 'You know that.'

Mahelt drew a deep breath. 'You know my son is still a prisoner in Norwich.

It's been a month now that the constable has had him.'

'Yes,' Ela said with sympathy in her eyes, but caution too. 'I am sorry for that. I would not like to think of my William or Richard in such custody.'

Mahelt hesitated because this was no small thing she was asking of her cousin. 'Would your husband be prepared to petition the King for custody of Roger and have him brought to his cousins at Salisbury?'

Ela looked briefly taken aback, but swiftly rallied. 'I do not know.' Her brow creased. 'I was under the impression that William and Hugh had quarrelled badly.'

'They have, but this goes deeper than their quarrel.'

Ela narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious. 'You do ask me this with Hugh's agreement, don't you?'

Mahelt thrust out her jaw. 'Hugh knows I have come to you,' she said stonily.

'To do other than visit and pay respects to our ancestors?'

Mahelt watched fleecy clouds roll across the sky like a flock of migrating sheep. Then she turned to Ela and said on a pleading note, 'You are a mother and my kin. If my son was with you, I know you would treat him well. I am afraid of what might be happening to him. I know what my brother suffered at the hands of the King - more than he will ever tell my parents - and I know what John did to those Welsh boys at Nottingham. I dare not think what sights my son is seeing and what he is hearing while in the custody of men who think nothing of robbing and torturing others. Ida said I should come to you. Usually she has no opinion on matters of policy, but she was keen to have me broach this.'

Ela looked troubled, but eventually she nodded. 'I will see what I can do,'

she said and embraced Mahelt with compassion.

'Thank you!' Mahelt felt hope surge through her, but held it down before it could take hold. Once she would have been certain that to ask was to receive, but no longer. That particular expectation lay in ruins.

Drawing back, Ela said, 'I told William about what John did to me at Marlborough.'

Mahelt had been longing to ask, but had deemed it best to wait for Ela to speak in her own time. 'What did he say?'

'He was furious and upset, but once he'd thought about it, he said it was pointless charging like an enraged bull and making matters worse for all of us.' Her head came up and pride shone in her hazel-grey eyes. 'He says his allegiance is to me and to God, no longer to his brother - that I am his sovereign lady.' She set her lips. 'People think me gentle and quiet. But they do not realise how strong I am when I make up my mind. My faith in my husband, in God and His Holy Mother sustains me.'

Lacking such faith just now, Mahelt said nothing. She had taken her own strength from kneeling at the tombs of female ancestors who in their lives had had to find within themselves a place beyond courage. She had vowed to honour that lineage and find the fortitude within herself to survive.

Roger's teeth chattered and he was shivering so hard that he thought his bones must be clacking together inside his flesh too. He didn't have a decent cloak to protect him from the cold spring rain that was sheeting down. His best one with the warm lining had been left at Framlingham when they brought him to Norwich. He hadn't liked Norwich's constable, Hervey Beleset, who had handled him roughly and kept him locked up except when he was making him do chores like clean harness or shovel ordure. Once he had been dragged from his confinement and Beleset had made him watch rebels being hanged on a gibbet whilst implying that this might happen to him or his family if the King so willed. He wanted his mother and grandmother and Hugo, and baby Isabelle even though she cried and belched milk almost every time she was picked up. He wanted smiles and praise and reassurance. He desperately missed his father, who would have recognised his fears and immediately banished them or helped him understand. He was always hungry and thirsty. Beleset made sure he received food, but it was mostly gristle and gruel - enough to sustain him, nothing to enjoy. Roger had endured the disgusting slop by telling himself that these were a soldier's rations and the kind of treatment he was receiving was the sort meted to real men. It was just like the stories his uncle Ralph had told him about being a prisoner in France.

Yesterday afternoon, a man had come with orders to take him from Norwich to a place in the south called Sandwich. He had been collected by a powerful, grey-bearded mercenary called Faulkes de Breaute, who had picked him up by the arms and held him up to his eye level, his grip as solid and bruising as the man himself. 'One word out of place from you, brat, one whine, and you'll swing on a rope, understood?' he'd said.

Roger had refused to be intimidated and had nodded and looked boldly back into the mercenary's black eyes. After de Breaute had set him back down with a sour grunt, Roger had not rubbed his sore arms until the man had turned his back.

They had been travelling for a day and a half. The previous night they had pitched tents by the roadside. Roger had helped to unfold the canvas and fetched firewood. In some ways he rather enjoyed being with the men and pretending he was grown up. He had helped see to the horses, tended the fire and stirred the pottage. De Breaute had growled at him from a distance and given him a half-hearted kick in passing, but other than that left him alone, for which Roger was grateful. He had heard the mercenary grumbling to one of the other men that he wasn't a nursemaid and that escorting a lordling whelp was beneath him. Roger considered it an affront to his own standing to be in the care of such an uncouth man, and made shrift to avoid him where possible and be aloof when he could not.

Now, as he rode along, he began to recognise familiar territory. The path that branched off to the camp-ball ground, the hazel coppice where his dog had chased a fox to earth, the hollow tree where he had made a den last summer. Despite being chilled to the bone, Roger had an excited feeling in his tummy as they approached Framlingham. Perhaps he was being returned to his mother and Hugo and his baby sister? Perhaps his father would be there? He considered asking de Breaute, but decided against it after one look at the mercenary's dour mouth, ringed in blue stubble.

The rain continued to pour, trickling down the back of Roger's neck, dripping off his hair and over his face. Feeling thirsty, he sucked moisture out of his sleeve. As they squelched into sight of the castle, he could see numerous men on the battlements, busy as ants. De Breaute, who had been riding ahead on his great dappled stallion, reined about and joined him.

'Little drowned rat,' he said with a smirk. 'Hardly the Bigod heir now, are you, boy? You put me in mind of an urchin off a herring boat.'

Roger rather liked sailing on herring boats but he knew he was being insulted and kept quiet. He was chilled and tired. His legs were frozen and yet they burned from chafing against the saddle. Knowing de Breaute was watching him, he put his chin up and pretended he was entering Framlingham as its lord and master. The mercenary grunted and looked sourly amused.

The castle gates were open but well guarded and they entered a courtyard full of purposeful activity. De Breaute turned in his saddle to study the packed courtyard. Roger sensed that something had annoyed him.

Surreptitiously he looked round at all the coming and going, and was filled with a strange, unsettled feeling to see so many strangers in his home.

Heavy-eyed with cold and hunger, he watched a man crossing the courtyard and vaguely recognised him. He had glossy dark hair and was wearing a magnificent green cloak with a big gold brooch at the shoulder. De Breaute

muttered something under his breath as he dismounted, and then bent his knee. 'My lord,' he said reluctantly.

The man gestured him to his feet, then cast a bright, hazel-brown stare in Roger's direction. Anger clouded his features. 'Good Christ, man, why does the child not have a decent cloak?'