A Place Beyond Courage (26 page)
‘And I am keen to hear what he has to say.’
John saw FitzHubert’s men to their horses, marking again how they stared at everything. His eldest son was in the stable yard exercising his pony and two-year-old Walter was watching, holding his nurse’s hand and sucking his thumb. Seeing the way de Cambrai and Serlo eyed his children, John’s gut somersaulted. He had a deal of swift thinking to do if he and his family were going to emerge from this intact.
‘I want you and the boys to go to Hamstead,’ he told Aline when he returned to the solar. ‘At first light tomorrow. Pack what you need tonight.’
She gave him one of her frightened looks but he was so used to them by now that it was like water off waxed leather. ‘Because of those men?’ she asked.
‘That’s part of it. There may be trouble at Marlborough and I want you safe. I know what you were like at the siege. Even if there isn’t any fighting, my guests are not the kind with whom you’d wish to associate.’
Aline stared at him anxiously. ‘You’re not really going to make a pact with them, are you?’
John snorted. ‘I’d rather bed down with a host of demons.’
She shuddered. ‘Then why invite FitzHubert here?’
‘Because it’s more than my life’s worth to go to Devizes . . . and I mean that.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Let him come to me, and let it be the other way round.’
A cold rain-laden wind gusted fiercely across the Downs. John stood on the wall walk of the keep, protected from the elements by his fur-lined cloak. Robert FitzHubert and his troop were expected at any moment and he was poised, ready and waiting, having spent the last three days in detailed preparation for the event. His first move had been to send Aline and the boys to Hamstead, well out of the way. With them gone, he had bent his concentration to the matter in hand, knowing that he was taking a gamble and therefore had to load the odds in his favour as much as he could.
What did FitzHubert really want? What was the mercenary going to gain out of making a pact with him? John could see little sense in such a move from FitzHubert’s point of view. He was almost certain that FitzHubert’s approach was more about threat and domination than the cooperation of allies. The thought of being dictated to and threatened by a worm like FitzHubert brought a curl of disgust to John’s lip. He had decided he would listen to what the mercenary had to say, but knew the upper hand had to be his from the start. His men all knew their part - where they should be and what they should be doing. An hour since John had eaten a hearty dinner with his senior knights in his private chamber as they went over the plans for the last time.
‘My lord, they’re sighted!’ came a cry from further along the battlements.
John hastened to the lookout’s side and followed the pointing finger. He studied the glitter of armour and counted numbers. Not too many, but certainly enough if he had read FitzHubert’s intentions correctly. ‘Open the gate,’ he commanded, and went down to greet them.
FitzHubert arrived at a pounding gallop and, mouth wide in a boisterous laugh, rode his stocky dun stallion straight at John, who calmly stood his ground, forcing the mercenary to rein back and haul the destrier aside.
‘Welcome, my lord,’ John said without a trace of sarcasm. ‘You appear to be in a hurry.’
FitzHubert laughed again, although his eyes were calculating. ‘The faster a man arrives, the more time he has for the important things. Besides, I like my horses the way I like my women - hot as hell and hard to stop. I’m sure you’d agree with that, my lord!’ He dismounted and tossed the reins to the waiting groom.
‘Certainly I agree with you about the women,’ John replied amicably. ‘Come within - your men too.’ A gesture brought servants forward to lead the soldiers into the keep, and others to attend to the horses.
John had had the dining trestles set out in the hall with jugs of wine and baskets of bread for the men. But instead of ushering FitzHubert to the dais, John brought him to his private chamber on the floor above. FitzHubert followed him, gazing about covetously. John noted it and said nothing. However, he had to hide his satisfaction when FitzHubert glanced round as they reached the chamber door and saw the two mail-clad knights following up the stairs.
‘Ignore them,’ John said with a dismissive wave. ‘I like to keep them near, but you need pay them no more heed than you would a piece of furniture.’
FitzHubert rallied and squared his shoulders. John could almost see the cogs of his mind turning on the realisation that he had been isolated from his own men whilst John remained well guarded.
John ushered him into the room, closed the door, leaving his two knights menacing in the stairwell, and gestured FitzHubert to a seat on the hearth bench.
‘Your wife not here?’ FitzHubert stared round as if expecting Aline to pop out from behind the tied-back bed curtains beyond the seating area.
John heaved a regretful sigh. ‘Sadly not. She and my sons are visiting their godmother.’ He did not intend to tell FitzHubert where Aline really was. ‘You will have to suffer my poor service, I am afraid, but since by its nature this must be a private conversation, it’s all to the good.’ John poured wine for them both, using the training he had received at court. No coarse tavern-sloshing into common earthenware, but an elegant red ripple from glazed flagon into cups of pale green Italian glass, worth a ransom in themselves.
FitzHubert’s fat fist looked ridiculous closed around the delicate vessel, like a dung-shoveller holding a flower. John’s own hand, slender and long-fingered, was a perfect foil. ‘A gift - in a manner of speaking - from the Bishop of Salisbury and his kin,’ John said.
‘Hah, like Devizes then!’ FitzHubert guffawed and spread his muscular thighs, affording John an astonished glimpse of purple silk braies above the hose. He had to choke down his laughter. Dear God, where on earth had he purloined them? ‘We have a great deal to be grateful for in the downfall of Bishop Roger, FitzHubert said, ‘I heard he was a common peasant boy from Caen before he took the tonsure and that he owes his rise to his ability to say mass as quickly as a youth finishes with his first woman.’
John smiled. ‘Being brief with the mass sounds as good a reason as any to me.’ He sat on the fine chair he had had placed in the room for this meeting. Its size and ornate carving made the bench look plain and rustic. The space between the two seats was occupied by a coffer on which stood a dish of little rose-water tarts and another of delicate fried pastries - food of the court and the King’s private chamber. Not the kind of morsels to satisfy the likes of FitzHubert, but pointedly displaying John’s courtliness and sophistication.
John drank from his glass cup and leaned back in his chair. ‘So,’ he said affably, ‘what is this pact of which your men spoke the other day? What do you want to talk to me about?’
FitzHubert took one of the pastries and devoured it in two bites. Crumbs flaked his upper lip and speckled his tunic. ‘I thought since we were friends and neighbours, we might have things in common worth investigating - things we might do united that we might not have considered on our own lest we bite off more than we can chew.’ With a grin at his own weak pun, he gobbled down another pastry.
‘United,’ John repeated thoughtfully and sipped his wine.
FitzHubert hunched forward, an eager glint in his eyes. ‘We could use each other’s men, for instance. If you lend me soldiers when I need them, then in my turn I will lend you mine. We both have troops of trusted and proven ability. I’d not have taken Devizes Castle with a herd of sheep, and those lads of yours on the stairs look as if they can handle themselves in a fight.’
‘They can.’ John met FitzHubert’s stare head on. ‘But I wonder what advantage there is in this from my point of view?’
FitzHubert gave him a patronising, almost contemptuous look as if he was talking to someone he considered dull-witted or slow on the uptake. ‘I am saying if you wanted to take on something bigger than you normally would, you’d be able if you had more men.’
‘Yes, I understand that,’ John said, ‘but why should I want to do so?’
‘Oh, come now.’ Impatience glimmered in FitzHubert’s expression. ‘You’re an ambitious man; don’t tell me you haven’t thought about expanding your territory. I know I have.’
John raised his eyebrows at his guest. ‘Have you indeed?’ His voice was courteous but glacial. ‘And where would that be?’
FitzHubert dropped his gaze and withdrew a little. ‘Who knows where ambition takes us?’ he said with a vague wave of his hand. ‘There are many opportunities we can both explore if you are agreeable.’
‘Indeed,’ John agreed, struggling not to let his revulsion show. ‘It is true a man needs to be strong in himself and in his allies. I cannot ignore the fact that a new and powerful lord sits at Devizes with whom I should be better acquainted. I am glad to remedy that now.’
FitzHubert drained his wine and stood up, his impatience tangible. ‘We should return to the men. If we are to make a pact, it should be done before all.’
John did not miss the sly flicker of his visitor’s eyes and felt his belly tighten at the danger that still lurked.
The mercenary extended his hand. John took it, clasped it and felt the bite of the fingers: fleshy, but hard as oak beneath. His own thinner, finer grip bore the tensile strength of good steel.
Opening the door, he gestured his knights on the stairs to escort them down to the hall and brought up the rear himself. He wouldn’t have trusted FitzHubert at his back and besides, it was a courtesy to let the guest go first.
The hall was raucous with noise. FitzHubert’s men raised a huge cheer and pounded the trestles when they saw their lord and John together. Most of them were already half inebriated. The sight of them at the judicial core of his keep sent a jolt of anger through John. His own soldiers, with the exception of a few deliberately placed to counter suspicion, were cold sober and waiting his command. Until he had spoken to FitzHubert, John had been hedging a decision, but now he was clear what he had to do.
John watched FitzHubert taking a mental inventory of all he hoped to gain. So be it. The dolt could start with the cells at the back of the undercroft and a pair of iron fetters. He made a sign to Benet, who in his turn signalled to the other, strategically placed men. The knights who had stood guard in the stairwell seized FitzHubert and John moved in to relieve the mercenary of his sword and dagger in a single, smooth motion.
‘You treacherous hellspawn whoreson!’ FitzHubert roared. ‘I am here in good faith as your guest. You can’t do this to me!’
‘Call me what you will, but never a fool,’ John retorted coldly. ‘I know why you are here and good faith has nothing to do with it.’
FitzHubert bellowed at his men to rise up, but they had been grabbed by John’s prepared and sober soldiers and most were in no fit state to fight back. ‘Bastard!’ he howled at John, struggling against his captors.
‘Perhaps I am,’ John said, ‘but I know the meaning of integrity as you do not. You are right about ambition though. I will use you and your men to my own advantage, and I thank you for your earlier offer.’ He gave a brusque nod to his knights. ‘Take him away to the “guest chamber” and see him fêted with suitable hospitality.’
With grim pleasure, his men hauled the sputtering FitzHubert away to the cells. John sat down on the lord’s chair at the dais trestle, FitzHubert’s sword laid across the cloth before him. In the pose of a lord sitting in judgement, he waited until the last mercenary had been dragged away. Only then did he rise to his feet and return to his private chamber. On the way, he handed the sword to Benet who had just returned from supervising the incarceration.
‘It’s all done as you wished, my lord,’ Benet said, ‘although not without some resistance and rough handling - nothing the lads couldn’t deal with.’ He looked speculatively at John. ‘What are you going to do with them, my lord?’
John pursed his lips. ‘I’m not entirely certain yet, but I have a few ideas to mull over.’ He handed the sword to Benet with a grimace of distaste. ‘Here, take this and break it on the anvil.’
Benet’s eyes widened with dismay. ‘But it’s a fine sword, my lord.’ Without any of John’s revulsion, he tested the balance and twirled it in his hand, describing fancy patterns in the air.
‘Even so, break it. I want the pieces fastened to the castle door as a warning to anyone else who would try to take what is mine - by whatever means.’
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