To Defy a King (56 page)

She found her father-in-law in his own chamber, sitting in his chair and holding the most recent piece of embroidery Ida had been working on before she became too sick to sew. It was a band for a hat with a design of green foliage. A rabbit peeped out cheekily from behind one of the leaves.

'Sire,' Mahelt said. 'You have to come now.' When he did not reply, she added, 'It is your duty. You have often told me what is mine. Now I tell you yours.'

She saw his jaw clench. 'I cannot,' he said.

'She asks for you. Will you let her down?'

For a moment she thought he was going to snarl at her again, but he rose to his feet and drew a deep breath. 'You are right, daughter. I do owe her this duty. I may not love you for it, but you are correct to persist in reminding me.' On dragging, stumbling feet, he left his sanctuary and made his way to his wife's chamber. Mahelt walked at his side as escort and support, and in that brief journey, felt as if she had grown while he had diminished.

When the Earl entered the room, Hugh immediately vacated his place at the bedside and ushered his father to take his place. The Earl tripped as he sat on the folding stool, but recovered himself. Slowly he raised his hands and removed his hat, exposing his sparse silver hair. Leaning forward, he took one of Ida's hands in his own. 'Wife,' he said. 'Would you leave me with your sewing unfinished?' He set under her other hand the band he had been clutching.

Ida made a slight sound and turned her head towards him. Her hand gripped the cloth. 'I don't want to go,' she whispered, 'but when the thread is cut, a thing comes to an end whether it be done or not. You should know that. I am sorry I have not fulfilled my duty . . .'

'Ida, you always have, and more.'

She gave a faint, sad smile. 'I have loved you since I saw you,' she said, and after that, she did not speak again.

There was silence in the moment after Ida died, in the infinitesimal time between the knowledge and the welling of grief. Mahelt controlled her own anguish, knowing that she was now the mistress of the household and its functioning and stability depended on her and her direction. Ida would have to be washed and laid out; sewn into a shroud, borne to church and a vigil kept.

Her father-in-law still sat at the bedside, holding his wife's hand, watching her still face with a desperate, desolate look on his own, as if willing her to wake up. Going to him, Mahelt set an arm across his shoulders in a comforting gesture. He pinched tears from his eyes, the embroidered band still woven through his fingers. 'I loved her,' he said in a choked voice.

Mahelt wondered how far back that past tense went. It was too late to be sorry now. But then other things so often got in the way of love, as she had cause to know, this man being part of that obstruction. All she felt for him now was sorrow and pity. He might strut in his furs, he might hold greatness in his hands, but just now he was defenceless and naked, and she was the one with the strength. 'Come,' she said. 'Let the women have her. We shall wash and prepare her fittingly and you can visit her again in a while.'

He rose like a sleepwalker and Mahelt handed him into Hugh's care. Hugh's face was lined with grief too, but, like her, he was composed and in command of his faculties. Their eyes met in a moment of cooperation and understanding, and even if it was only on a practical level, it was a stepping stone.

Preparations began to remove Ida's body to Thetford for burial. That first night they held a vigil for her in the church of Saint Margaret, close to the house. The Earl insisted that her bier be draped with the richest silk cloth they could find, and set upon it with his own hand the banners of Tosney and Bigod, and the half-embroidered band with the needle still tucked neatly into the back of the stitchwork as if its owner had just stepped out of the room for a moment.

At dawn, bleary-eyed, they broke fast after mass and the men donned their armour. It was a subdued party that rode out from London to escort Ida's coffin the eighty miles to Thetford. Rain was spitting in the wind and the overcast sky threatened more to come. The silks upon the coffin had been covered with grey woollen cloth for protection and then by waxed tent canvas. Mahelt kissed farewell to her sons and the baby, who were staying in London with their nurses and the servants, and mounted her mare. The Earl had retreated into an oblivious, stricken silence and those around him had to guide his every move. She had half wondered if Hugh or his father would try and make her stay behind, but no one had spoken to deny her and she had been ready to fight them if they dared - certain that this time she would win.

45

Thetford, October 1216

Ida was buried in the choir at Thetford Priory with all due ceremony, if not the great pomp associated with the laying to rest of a countess. In a way, it reflected her life, Mahelt thought. Ida had never wielded power beyond the domestic circle, nor had any interest in doing so. It was fitting that she should lie here, one day to be joined by her husband, who would then sleep at her side for eternity. Her death had sent the Earl into a vague, lost world of his own as if he walked his own twilight between life and death. For the moment at least, his mind was not at the helm. Hugh had taken command, made the decisions about where to stop for the night and seen to all matters pertaining to the security of the entourage.

They stayed in the priory guest house and were given cautious hospitality by Father Vincent. Thus far Thetford had escaped a mauling from the various armies criss-crossing the region and he had no desire to attract attention to Saint Mary's from whatever faction. He warmly welcomed his patrons, but at the same time made polite enquiries as to when they would be leaving.

'The morrow,' Hugh reassured him. 'At first light.'

The Prior relaxed after that and set out in his turn to promise that he would keep the Countess safe and have masses said daily for her soul.

'It is terrible to see the country tearing itself apart again,' Prior Vincent said.

'My grandsire told me dreadful stories of the war between the Empress Matilda and her cousin Stephen over the right to rule England. They say Christ and His Saints slept. Now it has come again. The fields burn and men kill each other for power. I pray daily for peace.'

'As we all do,' said Hugh. 'But until we have justice, peace will not come.'

'Then I pray for justice too.'

'Amen to that.'

'And mercy.'

Hugh nodded in polite agreement. He had seen precious little of that of late, although he still believed somewhere in a corner of his mind that God was merciful. All the ruthless cruelty belonged to man.

He spent another night in vigil at his mother's tomb, supporting his father, who was a husk of his former self, as if Ida had been the part that nourished

his soul. The Earl refused to remove his armour and insisted on standing guard in his mail hauberk, coif and chausses.

'I was always leaving her,' he said, his frame bowed by the weight of his mail. 'Throughout her life I had to go away and she hated it. I suppose you remember those times - the headaches and the tears. There was no help for it; I had to do my duty, but she never understood. And now . . .' He closed his eyes. 'God help me, she is the one to leave me, and I do not know how I shall bear it . . . but bear it I must, because like her I have no choice.' And he bent his head and wept.

In the morning, Mahelt came to bid a final farewell to her mother-in-law as their party prepared to return to London. 'Be at peace,' she said, laying a garland of evergreen on the tomb. 'I shall come again - often. You will not be forgotten, that I swear.'

Her only answer was the soft patter of the rain on the roof shingles, the scuff of a monk's soles on the tiled floor, and a feeling of deep melancholy.

Five miles along their road home, they began to smell smoke in the wind, and then to see dark billows rising from the direction of a nearby farmstead.

Hugh ordered close formation and sent scouts to investigate.

'It's not a fire from a charcoal clamp or from any ordinary sort of burning,'

he said, looking worried. He placed his hand to his sword hilt.

Mahelt's mare tossed her head and sidled, disturbed by the smell. 'It can't be the King, surely,' Mahelt said.

'It could be a foraging party.'

One of the scouts that Hugh had sent ahead returned at a gallop. 'Burned-out farmstead, my lord,' said Gervase de Bradefield. 'Slaughtered animals and a couple of bodies. Reckon everyone else managed to flee. The horse dung is fresh. I would say they came through soon after dawn. About thirty I'd guess from the tracks, but the ground's well churned.'

Which was about their own strength, excluding the Earl and Mahelt. A troop of such numbers suggested foragers stringing out from a larger army within striking distance, but where that army was, Hugh did not know. Heading for Cambridge perhaps, or Peterborough, but there was no telling for sure. He hoped not Thetford, for wherever they came, destruction would follow.

As they picked up the pace, a church bell from a distant village started to toll a warning. Mahelt shuddered and was glad she was riding astride and able to keep up with their increased speed. She was thankful too that the children were safe in London. It began to rain harder. Hugh rode at her side, his gaze constantly checking their surroundings and his hand close to his sword hilt.

They spoke little and kept their mounts to a rapid trot.

Suddenly, ahead of them, a band of mounted men, armed to the hilt, rode out of the rain and blocked their path. Mahelt gripped the knife at her belt.

Around her the Bigod knights and serjeants reached for their weapons. 'Be still,' Hugh cautioned, holding up his right hand.

'These are allies. Look at their shields. They bear the device of Perche. They serve Louis - and is not the Count of Perche your kin?'

'My father's distant cousin,' she said, trying not to show her anxiety.

Hugh nudged Hebon forward and greeted their leader, a hard-eyed man with a broken nose and a missing front tooth. 'We have no quarrel with you,'

Hugh said, 'unless you make it so.'

'Nor we with you, my lord Bigod,' the man replied, displaying his own knowledge of heraldic blazons. His gaze lit on Mahelt with jaunty impertinence. 'Or my lord's kin. You let us go about our business, and we shall let you go about yours.'

'And your business is?' Hugh enquired.

'The erstwhile King of England. Our scouts say he is in Cambridge, my lord.

We ride to take him.'

'You will need more men than you have.'

'There are more,' the soldier said. 'We're an advance party. Others are following behind.'

'Then beware. There's a raided farm about three miles back to the east; you may run into the King's foragers.'

'Thank you for the warning, sire; we'll be on our guard.'

The soldiers drew aside on the road to let them past. Hugh noted that their pack beasts were laden with cooking pots, strings of onions, crocks of honey and several necked hens, one of them dripping dark beads of blood from its beak. His feeling of unease grew. When he looked over his shoulder, it was to meet the hard gaze of the knight upon him in speculation.

The next homestead they came to had been raided too. An old woman sat on a stump in her garth, wailing and cursing, while behind her flames roared through her cottage and animal shed. A dead guard dog sprawled in her yard, entrails spilling from a gaping slash in its side. At the sight of armed men, the woman tried to run, but stumbled and sprawled full length in the dirt.

Hugh started to dismount, but his father was faster, suddenly shaking off his grey mood to ride over to the woman and block her escape.

'Bastards, bastards!' she screamed in English, shaking her gnarled, clenched fists at him. 'French sons of whores!'

'Dame, we are not French, we are English,' the Earl replied in her own tongue, which he spoke tolerably well.

'English, French, you are all the same,' she spat. 'You care nothing - nothing for us! My home gone, my hens necked, my stores raided. Kill me now, because I won't survive the winter. I might as well be dead!

Her story emerged in incoherent bursts. The day before soldiers had come through, demanding food and provisions. They had taken her goats and the pig she had been fattening for slaughter, her sacks of flour and even the mushrooms she had picked that morning. Her hens had been foraging and they hadn't bothered to catch them, but she had lost her goose and gander.

Then this morning another band had arrived and taken what the others had not - her cooking pot, the hens, the honey. They had demanded money and when she said she had none, they had set fire to her house as a parting 'gift'.

It was an ordinary tale of
chevauchee
. Soldiers passed through. They took, they burned, they destroyed so that their enemies could not have the spoils or live off the land.

Hugh offered to bring her to the next town, but she spat a refusal. However, she took the handful of silver pennies he gave her, and the blankets and bread Mahelt provided from their own supplies.