Lords of the White Castle (9 page)

Oonagh watched him thoughtfully. 'You have gentle hands,' she said.

Fulke felt his ears begin to burn. 'I don't know about that, my lady'

'I do. There are not many men who have gentle hands.' She stepped over the threshold. Another command in Gaelic brought the dog from her ecstatic trance to instant obedience and she followed her mistress.

'Doubtless I will see you again, Fulke FitzWarin,' Oonagh FitzGerald said and, with a brief nod, went on her way.

Moments later there was a warning snarl and the sound of her voice sharply raised as she called the bitch to heel. Fulke ran out to see what was happening and met Jean on his way up the stairs, a steaming jug in his hand and an expression of recovering shock on his face.

'Jesu, have you seen the size of that brute?' he cried. 'It's bigger than a pack pony and it's got teeth like palings!' He looked over his shoulder as if expecting to see the wolfhound padding up the stairs after him.

'Yes, we've met.' Fulke smiled, an air of smugness hovering at his mouth corners, its mistress came to tend Lord Theobald.'

Jean cocked a curious eyebrow. 'You look highly pleased about something. It can't be that dreadful dog. What's her name?'

'The dog or the woman?'

'You know what I mean.'

Fulke grinned. 'The lady's name is Oonagh FitzGerald and she's a widow.'

'Do you think her loneliness needs comforting, perchance?'

The notion of comforting Oonagh FitzGerald was one that had a direct effect on Fulke's nether regions. The remark about his gentle hands still scorched his blood. 'I think that is why she keeps the dog so close,' he said. 'To afford her comfort and protect her from unwelcome approaches.'

'Ah, but your approach obviously wasn't unwelcome or your eyes wouldn't be gleaming like that and your ears wouldn't be so red!'

'God on the Cross!' groaned Theobald from his pallet. 'Will both of you put your pricks back in your braies and be about your duties. I could die of thirst or purging while you prate nonsense!'

Fulke and Jean exchanged wry glances. 'Yes, my lord,' both said in unison and strove not to set each other off laughing.

Theobald's sickness gradually abated, but he had purged so much that he was as weak as a kitten and unable to attend the state sessions in the great hall until the end of the week. By that time, much of the damage had been done. Taking the bit between his teeth, John ruled as he chose. He had not wanted to come to Ireland. It was a mere crumb thrown from the largesse of his father's table, a sop to keep him quiet, and he had neither the will nor the experience to do the task he had been set.

While Theobald slept his way back to strength, Jean and Fulke had long periods when they were free of obligation. As always, Jean eased his way into the community of kitchen and stables, slaughter shed and dairy. His ear for language quickly rewarded him with a smattering of Gaelic and access to the groundswell of general opinion, none of it good where John was concerned. To the Gaels, he was just another booted foot to crush them. To the Norman colonists, he was an interfering boy who was already bearing out his odious reputation for ill manners and petulance.

Other information was forthcoming too, and of particular interest to Fulke.

'Lady Oonagh FitzGerald,' said the castle butcher as he scraped the last shreds of meat from a beef leg and slapped the marrowbone into Fulke's hand with a wet smack. 'Now there's a name to conjure with.' He nodded at the bone. 'Going courting are you? It's always a good idea to sweeten the chaperone.'

Fulke laughed. 'It would take more than this, I think.' He looked curiously at the butcher. 'Why is it a name to conjure with?'

'You're pitting yourself against fifty others, all with the same notion. The lady Oonagh's an heiress and a rare beauty. Not often you find both together. Mind you, perhaps you'll get further than the rest. You're the first who's come to ask me for a bone. Of course,' he added,' you'd best play while the sun shines. Prince John will sell her off to the highest bidder.'

Fulke stared. The marrowbone in his hand felt slimy and wet. The powerful smell of butchered steer coiled in the air. It was the law that a widow could not be remarried unless she chose, but it was a law frequently ignored and vastly open to abuse.

'Not a pretty thought, is it?' The butcher turned away to his block and picked up his cleaver. 'But it's the way of the world. You can't give a dog a bone without killing a cow.'

Fulke winced at the comparison and walked off across the ward. A sudden shout and the close thunder of hooves caused him to spin round and leap aside just in time to avoid being ridden down by a group of horsemen. They drew to a chaotic halt in the centre of the bailey, their mounts barging each other, plunging, circling. The short, bright tunics and plaid cloaks would have marked them as Gaelic lords even if their beards had not. Each man sported a magnificent set of whiskers. Some let their facial hair flow loose to the waist. Others had plaited their whiskers and one or two had divided their beards and waxed the ends heavily so that they were as stiff as spindles.

Fulke gaped at the sight, his eyes huge with astonishment.

'A fine sight, do you not think so, Fulke FitzWarin?' murmured Oonagh, who had walked quietly up beside him, her dog at her heels.

He gave a slight start and his pulse quickened. 'Who are they?'

'The first Irish lords coming to pay their respects to Prince John and claim his support for their cause.'

'What cause?' He felt sufficiently emboldened this time to fondle the bitch's silky ears. The hound raised her nose and snuffled the air, but had the manners not to snatch at the marrowbone in his other hand.

'Their fight against other Irish lords who will also come and try to win your Prince's influence. It has always been the same in this land. No single man is strong enough to hold the rest, and because they all have a similar power, they spend their time waging futile war.' She looked up at him. 'Your Prince has mercenaries, your Prince has barrels of silver pennies to buy weapons and men; therefore he is to be courted.'

Fulke thought about what Archdeacon Gerald had said on the crossing about those barrels of pennies. 'I do not believe he will make much of a bridegroom,' he said and, hearing the last word in his ears, flushed slightly. While his mind had been considering what she had said, his body had been responding to hers. He had the uncomfortable suspicion she was aware of the fact.

'Does any man?' she replied with the flicker of a smile. 'Are you betrothed?'

Fulke swallowed. 'Not as yet, my lady'

'No.' Her expression hardened. 'It is the girls who are bargained away before they are scarce out of childhood. How old are you, Fulke?'

'Fifteen summers,' he said, wishing that the answer were more.

'I had been wed for two years by the time I turned fifteen,' she murmured. 'But then girls grow up faster than boys. They have to.'

Fulke asked if he could give the marrowbone to the dog. Oonagh nodded and spoke in Gaelic. The bitch wagged her tail and, opening her formidable jaws, took the offering from Fulke's hand with a ladylike dignity. 'Someone told me that Prince John would sell you in marriage to the highest bidder.'

Oonagh laughed and the sound sent a chill down Fulke's spine. 'He can try,' she said, and laid her hand on his sleeve. 'Would you offer for me?'

Fulke coughed. Gauche and naive he might be, but he knew she was playing with him. 'If I did, he would refuse it. Prince John does not look kindly on me.'

'The kindness would be in his refusal, I promise you. You would not want me for a wife.'

'I—'

'Fulke, we're needed in the hall!' Jean came running across the ward. 'William de Burgh wants attendants for the Irish lords and we're to do duty.' Arriving, he bowed breathlessly to Oonagh and eyed with interest the way that her hand rested on Fulke's sleeve.

'And do your duty you must.' Oonagh released Fulke's arm and gave him a look through her lashes. 'Thank you for the bone.'

As the youths hurried towards the hall, Jean said enviously, 'I do not know how you do it.'

'Do what?'

'Make a woman like that take notice of you. God knows, half the squires in camp would give their eye teeth to have her touch them and gaze at them the way she gazes at you.'

Fulke looked embarrassed. 'She was just teasing.'

'Aye, well, you're fortunate to be so teased.'

On reaching the hall they were immediately directed to the high table and commanded to bring wine. The Gael lords were clustered around the hearth, muttering amongst themselves and fingering their impressive beards. A couple of Norman colonist barons had joined them, their own facial hair clipped within orderly bounds and their dress less flamboyant. Of John and his retinue, there was no sign, although de Burgh was doing his best to play the welcoming host. There was a grim expression on his face and he kept casting expectant glances in the direction of the stairs to the private apartments.

'He'll be lucky,' Jean said from the side of his mouth.

'The Prince swallowed enough wine last night to sink a cog. Even if he does appear, he'll be in no fit state to greet important guests.'

Jean's words were borne out. As he and Fulke presented wine to the guests, there was a fanfare of trumpets from the far end of the room and two guards emerged from the stair entrance to flank the arrival of the royal retinue.

Fulke almost overflowed the cup he was pouring for the Irish lord, but the chieftain did not notice for his own attention was fixed on the group emerging from the darkness of the stairway into the daylit great hall. He muttered something low, guttural and, from the tone, uncomplimentary.

John was plainly still suffering from the excesses of the previous evening. His tread was unsteady and if he had been to bed, it was in his clothes, which were rumpled and stained. His dark hair stood up in spikes around the gold circlet binding his brow. He resembled a beggar in borrowed robes, or a boy masquerading as a man, trying to hide his inexperience behind a keg of wine. His companions were in no better case, all of them lurching and red-eyed.

Ignoring the group by the hearth, John tottered over to the dais and slumped down in the high-backed chair that stood behind a napery-covered dining trestle. His retinue arranged themselves around him like a throng of half-dead butterflies.

'Wine,' John snarled and clicked his fingers.

Fulke watched a hapless junior squire scurry to the Prince's bidding and felt great sympathy for the youth and contempt for John. To avoid the royal eye and with it the royal malice, he busied himself among the guests where John's blatant bad manners and ignorance had caused the muttering to grow more vociferous.

'I'll not bow the knee in homage to a conceited little arsewipe like that,' growled one of the Gael lords in laboured French to a Norman settler. 'I'd rather give King Dermot the kiss of peace first.'

The Norman lord looked uneasy. 'The Prince is in his cups,' he excused. 'I do not imagine he was expecting our arrival.'

'That's pigswill, man.' The Irish chief made a casting gesture and Fulke had to step smartly backwards before the flagon was knocked from his hand. 'He knows that the lords of Ireland are riding to Waterford to greet his landing—to see for themselves what manner of man has been sent to rule over us.' He jutted his beard contemptuously in the direction of the dais. 'I don't see a man; I see a spoiled and useless child. How will he exert control when he cannot control himself?'

Striving to soothe ruffled feathers, William de Burgh brought the Irish and Norman lords to the dais to present them to the Prince.

One elbow resting on the board, jaw propped on his hand, John watched them approach and gave a theatrical yawn behind his other hand. Then he looked round to meet grinning approbation from his companions.

'Can this charade not wait?' he demanded over loudly of de Burgh. 'My brains are fit to split from my skull and I'll never remember their names. They all sound like someone being punched in the gut anyway, and God knows what's nesting in those beards.'

One of John's companions choked on a guffaw. Fulke winced. In private, the remark would have been amusing, but ridiculing allies and vassals in public was stupid, dangerous and shameful. A good host saw to his guests' comfort. A good ruler ensured that their loyalty remained staunch.

'What's nesting will be a serious rebellion unless you mend your attitude,' de Burgh murmured. 'Your Highness, you cannot afford to antagonise these men.'

'I can afford anything I want,' John slurred.

'Including a bloody war when you could have peace?' de Burgh hissed. 'Many of them speak French. You have already caused untold damage.'

'Oh, in the name of Christ's cods! You prate like an old woman!' John drew himself upright and affected an air of regal dignity. 'Kneel and do your homage to me,' he commanded in a raised voice. 'Then you can go.'

After a long hesitation, Robert FitzAlan, one of the settler Normans, came forward to bend the knee and take his oath of allegiance. He spoke as if he had a constriction in his throat but somehow managed the declaration. But he was alone. To a man the Irish lords turned round and walked out, their acknowledgement of John's right to rule ungiven. They collected their weapons from the steward at the door and they were gone.

A cursing William de Burgh ran after them to try to persuade them to stay, but returned empty handed. Expression thunderous, he strode towards the dais.

John lurched to his feet. 'Whatever you are going to say, you can keep it behind your teeth,' he said. 'You forced me to attend on them. You take the consequences.' He swayed down the dais steps. 'I'm retiring to my chamber and you will not disturb me again.'

De Burgh stopped as if he had been struck with a poleaxe. The Norman lord who had sworn allegiance looked sick. Fulke eyed the flagon in his hand and thought of the one in Westminster, and how John had blamed him and ordered him to pay. And in the end he thought, everyone
would
pay for John's wilful conceit, perhaps with their lives. He was no longer playing petty games of chess and dice. The board was larger, the stakes higher, and the only way to win was by ruthless commitment.