To Defy a King (54 page)

Longespee caught Hugh's eye as he turned from making his obeisance to Louis and for a moment they examined each other, before both looked away.

Hugh knew they were going to have to speak at some point, but whatever was said would be forced and unnatural. Someone would have to make the first move. Hugh bit the inside of his lip. After the incident with Hugo, he had vowed to have no more to do with his half-brother, but he couldn't ignore him if he were here in Louis's camp.

Pondering the matter, he returned to his pavilion, and then paused and looked at the space beside it. Before he could change his mind he sent Ralph to go and tell Longespee that there was room to pitch a tent alongside the Bigod camp. 'God knows he won't find lodging with half the city burned to a cinder,' he said.

Ralph's expression brightened and he ran off to the task with alacrity. Hugh rubbed his temples and sighed.

Longespee's knights began arriving, followed by his packhorses and baggage carts. Hugh directed them towards the space and had a quick word with Longespee's chamberlain. In the periphery of his vision, he caught sight of a stocky black and white pony, and turned round in surprise and shock.

'Roger?' he said, disbelieving.

His son dismounted with an accomplished leap and ran to him with a whoop of delight. Hugh seized him and swept him into his arms and Roger half throttled him in a stranglehold embrace. 'Uncle Longespee said we were coming to see you!' Roger cried, his voice high-pitched with excitement. His face was rosy and bright with life; his dark hair gleamed like his mother's and he smelled faintly and cleanly of herbs.

'Did he?' Hugh could barely speak. Knowing that Roger was the King's hostage had been a constant ache inside him, exacerbated by the guilt of his own part in the matter. To have Roger here now, so vibrant and full of life, almost unmanned him with joy, relief and remorse. 'What are you doing with your uncle?' He set Roger on the ground.

'I'm his page,' Roger said stoutly.

'I mean how do you come to be in his care?' Looking up, he saw Longespee coming towards him, the familiar green cloak thrown back from his shoulders and the light flashing on the chappe of the long scabbard at his hip.

'He came for me,' Roger said.

'I see you've been reunited.' Longespee halted a few feet away from Hugh and folded his arms. 'You'll observe he's still in one piece and full of spark.'

Hugh noticed the new lines graven at Longespee's eye corners and between nose and mouth, and the gaunt cheekbone shadows that spoke of insufficient sleep. 'Indeed he is, but I would have you tell me how he comes to be in your custody.'

'You don't know?' There was wary surprise in Longespee's dark hazel stare.

'Obviously, or I wouldn't be asking you,' Hugh said tersely.

Longespee rubbed the back of his neck. 'It was arranged between the women,' he said. 'Your wife asked mine to take him into our care and make sure he came to no harm.' His mouth curled in a bitter smile. 'At least your wife thinks I can be trusted with his welfare. I can see why she might not see fit to ask you.'

Hugh's stomach lurched at the betrayal. 'Mahelt asked you to take him?'

'She asked Ela when she came to Bradenstoke and Ela said yes and wrote to me. I agreed because Ela is my beloved wife - and my sovereign lady. I owe her my fealty and my loyalty and I would do anything she asked.'

'As you do not owe your loyalty to your brother the King?'

Longespee gave him a hard look. 'No,' he said, 'not any more - and I think you know the reason why.'

Still reeling from the shock that Mahelt had gone to Ela without consulting him, Hugh managed a mute nod.

Longespee flushed. 'Ela says you cared for her at that time, and I am grateful.'

'I did not do it for your sake, but for Ela's.'

'I realise that, but even so, you have my thanks.'

Hugh made a gesture of negation. 'Bestow them if you must, but they are not necessary.' He cleared his throat. 'You have mine for keeping my boy whole.'

A gleam kindled in Longespee's eyes. 'So I take it that for now we have a truce.'

Hugh gave a curt nod. 'It would be foolish not to.'

The brothers embraced and gave each other the kiss of peace, and even if the gesture was stilted, it was in public and genuine. Longespee turned to see to his affairs, and in the act of departing ruffled Roger's dark hair. 'You've been a fine squireling, nephew,' he said. 'I've much enjoyed your company.'

Roger smiled and flourished him a courtly, perfect bow. Longespee chuckled at Hugh. 'He was very fast to learn his manners once shown the way.'

Hugh narrowed his eyes. 'My son had his manners before he came to you, but then stitching gauds on to garments already suited to their purpose has ever been one of your whims.'

Longespee looked surprised and a little hurt. 'I meant it as praise.'

Hugh exhaled his irritation. 'Yes,' he said. 'Of course you did.'

43

London, July 1216

Mahelt sat at Ida's bedside, holding her hand. Her mother-in-law was becoming increasingly frail. Her appetite was poor and she had to be coaxed to eat. She slept a great deal, and when she was awake, often wandered in her wits. The chaplain and physician were frequent visitors, but the latter declared that matters had gone beyond his skill and the Countess of Norfolk would either recover by God's grace, or be taken by Him in His great mercy.

Just now, Ida was awake and aware. Her gaze on the open shutters, she said in a desolate whisper, 'I won't see my son again. It is too late.'

'Of course you will!' Mahelt replied with false heartiness. 'By the autumn you'll be home at Framlingham, you'll see.'

Ida shook her head. 'It does not matter,' she said wearily. 'Framlingham has always been the Earl's more than mine. I would have been content to dwell with him in the old stone hall before the towers went up, and want nothing more than a quiet life. Oh, I enjoyed the court when I was a girl . . . the games and the dancing, but it is a long time since my lord has danced with me . . . and we were different then.'

Mahelt looked at the hand clasped in hers. It was small and capable, and bore the marks of the years like mottles on an autumn leaf. The nails were clipped short because Ida didn't want them interfering with her sewing. She wore no rings save her wedding band. Mahelt rubbed her thumb over the bright circle of gold on Ida's finger, then looked at her own and thought of Hugh and the distance that had sprung up between them since the loss of Framlingham. Hugh had said he thought he was keeping her safe, and that there would be time, but he had been wrong on both counts. Was she going to condemn him for ever for that misjudgement? Every time he smiled or made a jest, she wondered how he could do so when their son was a hostage.

Each time he approached her to make love, her response was frozen because she could not bear to think of begetting more sons to become pawns in the power games of men. She was aware of still being very angry, but in some ways anger was a good thing, because it kept her strong, and God knew, they needed their strength just now.

With great tenderness, Mahelt unplaited her mother-in-law's thin rope of grey hair and combed a scented lotion of rose and nutmeg through it, remembering the times when Ida had done the same for her while she was in confinement with the children. Then she fetched her a shawl of soft rose-coloured silk to fold around her shoulders. The hue of the fabric put the illusion of colour into Ida's cheeks.

'You are a good girl,' Ida said.

Mahelt shook her head. 'I am not sure that I am.'

'Tush, I know what I speak of.' Ida fiddled with the shawl for a moment and then gestured with a languid hand to a small gold and red enamelled box on her coffer. 'The key is on my belt.'

Mahelt brought both to the bedside. Ida took the little box in her hands and unlocked it; then she withdrew a tiny pair of shoes fashioned from delicate kidskin. A lock of fine, dark hair tied with a piece of faded scarlet thread was tucked down into the toe of one of them.

'These were his first shoes,' Ida said. 'My William's, my Longespee. I have kept them all these years, ever since the day I had to let him go.' Her voice quivered. 'I lost a child and never got him back. This is all I have.'

Mahelt almost choked on her emotion. The sight of the little shoes was heartbreaking because they were so fragile and minute. To have kept them for so long, such a precious treasure locked in that box like a heart . . . dear God.

Ida stroked the thin-grained kidskin. 'Promise me you will give them to him.

Tell him it is a part of him I have kept all of my life. Always my burden, my grief . . . and my solace. Promise me.'

'I promise,' Mahelt whispered. It was more than she could bear, and as soon as she could make her escape without obviously running away, she did so.

Once in her own chamber, she dismissed the servants, drew her bed curtains and had a good cry. Somewhere in one of the coffers was a tunic belonging to Roger. Was she going to keep it down all the days of her life as an item of worship, imagining her son's body fleshing its folds? What of the items from her own curtailed childhood? Sniffing on tears, she went to a wooden chest in the corner of the room and pushed back the lid. Beneath folded-up chemises strewn with lavender, beneath old hawking gauntlets, bone skates, various pieces of fabric and scraps of leather, was a drawstring bag made from blue wool with white silk cords. Mahelt took it from the coffer, tugged open the drawstrings and tipped out the wooden
poupees
with which she had played as a little girl: small wooden pegs carved into human shape and clothed to represent members of her family. A man in a green and yellow surcoat with an exquisite red lion stitched on the breast and a fur-lined cloak.

A woman with fat golden braids of yellow silk thread. Children . . . four of her brothers, herself and three sisters. And there they stopped. There was no Ancel, no Joanna because they had not been born. There was no record of herself in her wedding gown, no Hugh, no Ida, no Roger, Hugo or Isabelle.

Their history was not carved here.

The sound of horses in the yard and men's voices rose up to the window.

Mahelt scrubbed her eyes on her sleeve and, having hastily returned the
poupees
to their cloth home, looked out of the open shutters to see knights and soldiers dismounting amid a cloud of summer dust.

'Mama, Mama!' Roger burst into the room wild with excitement, his face alight. Then he checked himself, a slight frown between his brows as if he were remembering something. Slowly, he drew his wooden sword from his belt and, bending one knee, proffered the toy on his outstretched hands, and suddenly it wasn't a toy at all. 'My lady mother,' he said.

All Mahelt wanted to do was seize him in her arms and press him against her to heal the great empty hole she had been carrying around since March, but she knew she could not - at least until this scene had been played out. Her heart swelled with pride and elation and she had to clench her fists to rein back the emotions threatening to overwhelm her. 'You may rise, my lord Bigod,' she said to him, and somehow kept her voice from quivering.

Roger stood up and smiled at her. He had lost a front tooth and he had grown. His skin bore the golden tinge of outdoor summer and his eyes were alive with sunshine. 'I've been practising with my sword,' he said. 'Don't worry; I'll be able to protect you now. My uncle Longespee has been teaching me.'

Mahelt swallowed. 'You have returned as a man and a true knight of your house,' she said. 'Words cannot tell how proud I am of you.' And then the dam burst and she did throw her arms around her beautiful child and cry.

A servant arrived bearing a jug of buttermilk and a platter of honey cakes, put them down and bowed from the room, leaving the door open for Hugh to enter. Mahelt looked at him and felt tension strain the atmosphere. There was a storm coming and she was both apprehensive and glad. A storm to tear down; a storm to wash clean. But one that would not break while there was a child between them, even if he was the lightning. 'How?' she asked.

Hugh answered carefully, measuring his words as if balancing on a high rope in a gale. 'Longespee decided Louis was getting too close to Salisbury and that it was time to make his move and renounce his fealty. When he arrived in Winchester, he brought Roger with him.'

'That is fortunate,' she said, her words like knives. 'Had he still been in de Melun's or Beleset's custody, we would not have him home, would we?'

Hugh inhaled to reply but was forestalled as Hugo came running into the room, shouting his brother's name and leaping on him like an exuberant puppy. A bout of rough and tumble ensued and Roger turned from mannerly knight into excited little boy in the space of a heartbeat.

'Go,' Hugh said. 'Go play with your brother while I talk to your mama.'

Roger was only too keen to run outside and show Hugo his new play sword with its red and gold binding. Their voices clamoured in the doorway and left a fading trail to the bright outdoors. The room settled to silence and Mahelt's heart began to pound.

'You should have told me you had asked Ela to take him in,' he said. 'Do you know what a shock it was to see Roger in Winchester with Longespee?

To know that you had gone behind my back?'

Mahelt faced him with her chin up. 'Perhaps I had grown accustomed to using my own wits and fending for myself. If you depend on other people, they let you down, don't they?'

His complexion reddened. 'Are you going to belabour me with that club for ever and a day? You knew what Longespee had done to me and to our dependants in the past, and you still went to him.'

'Would you rather have had him in the tender custody of the King's mercenaries?' she snapped. 'Of men like Engelard de Cigogne and Gerard D'Athee? William Longespee is a thousand times better than the alternative.

Ask your mother. She gave me her blessing.'

'She would. She thinks the sun shines out of Longespee's backside - always has done.'

'Oh, in the name of the Virgin!' Mahelt tossed her head. 'Longespee is neither a saint nor a monster. He's a man, Hugh, and he was my best hope for Roger. We wouldn't have been in this position if you hadn't abandoned us in the first place. I had to think and scrabble and claw to protect him because you, his own father, could not see his way clear to that duty!'