The Champion (54 page)
But although John had agreed, and Alexander had yielded with grateful words, neither man was satisfied with the other’s response.
Banners and green bunting edged the buildings and the waterfronts. Even the galleys and cogs moored at the wharves sported streamers and pennants to celebrate the coronation of England’s new child queen. The citizens of London lined the route to Westminster Abbey, waiting for the royal procession – throngs of folk in their holiday best, rich and poor making the best of the fine, crisp weather and the excuse to make merry. The dung-collector’s wife with a silk ribbon binding her best linen wimple, the apothecary in his new cloak trimmed with the belly fur of a lynx, the goldsmith’s plump spouse wearing a panelled gown of Flemish cloth, a ring on every fat white finger, all were here to see and be seen – except for the cut-purses, who went about their business of freeing people of their money with unobtrusive efficiency.
Monday stood at the side of the road, a fresh wind whipping colour into her cheeks and flapping her wimple. Clouds hurtled across the sky, fresh white chasing grey between vast gaps of blue. She was flanked by Alexander and Hervi, the former wearing his best tunic and chausses, for although he was free at the moment, he was on duty at the Marshal household throughout the evening. Hervi too had been released from his responsibilities for half the day. Had it not been for the habit and tonsure, Monday would not have believed him a monk, he seemed so much like the Hervi she remembered. Certainly his holy vows had not imbued him with any degree of gravity. He positively doted on Florian, and Florian in his turn was absolutely fascinated by Hervi’s wooden leg, and would have kept his company for that alone, if nothing else.
Smiling, Monday glanced aloft at her son. He was perched on Alexander’s shoulders so that he should have a good view of the procession. In his hand was a gilded stick with a bunch of scarlet and blue ribbons twisted around its end, and tiny bells sewn on to the ends of the ribbons. Hervi had bought it for him from a passing huckster. Florian had been in ecstasy, Alexander less so at the prospect of a jingling row in his ear for the rest of the day.
‘I thought monks were supposed to be impoverished,’ he said with a sidelong glare.
‘I am now. It was only a halfpenny from the bishop’s exchequer for my dinner. I’m depending on you to be charitable now.’
At which juncture, Alexander had declared that he would fund only bread and water as a penance for the folly of giving Florian such a toy, but his eyes had been laughing.
‘They’re coming, I can see them!’ Florian suddenly screeched, and bounced up and down on Alexander’s shoulders, pointing exuberantly with the streamered stick.
Hervi’s deep chuckle rumbled from the depths of his cowl. ‘You will bounce your poor father into the ground before ever they arrive,’ he said, then put his hand across his mouth as he realised what he had said.
Florian, however, was too busy leaning forward and peering up the road to notice Hervi’s slip.
Monday folded her arms beneath her cloak in a slightly protective gesture. She was aware of Hervi’s hangdog gaze, of Alexander’s impassive face.
‘He didn’t hear me,’ Hervi said.
‘I know, don’t worry.’ She gave him a smile, but it did not reach her eyes, which were wary.
‘You ought to tell him.’
‘And so we will, in the fullness of time,’ Alexander said, a certain sharpness in his tone. ‘Let it be, Hervi. Tread your own ground, not ours.’
Hervi gave an exasperated shrug to show that he would yield even while he did not understand, and looked down the road towards the sound of trumpets, drums and fanfare. Monday did too, although her focus was not entirely on the approaching pageant, but on the path that had brought her from a sultry August evening in Rouen, her world in ruins around her, to this coronation parade in the company of Hervi and Alexander.
When she had recovered enough from her miscarriage to travel, Alexander had taken her to the Marshal’s keep at Orbec to recuperate in full. Then he had gone to John. Monday did not know the details of what had been said at their meeting. Alexander had given her John’s commission for coronation garments, together with the measurements of the young queen-to-be. And for the rest he had been reticent, sparing only the barest outline. ‘He said nothing worth repeating,’ he had replied when once she had pushed him, and the set of his lips had led her not to pursue the subject.
She had spent a month at Orbec, and been absorbed into the daily routine of the Marshal family life. Isabelle Marshal was softly spoken with a warm, maternal nature that did not stand in the way of a firm backbone. Monday took to her immediately. She was much quieter than Aline of Lavoux, less effervescent, and her enthusiasms were not whims but enduring convictions. She saw much, said little, and had a vast capacity for compassion. Although their stay at Orbec was temporary, and Monday knew it must end, it was the first time since her mother’s death that she had felt not only secure, but at ease.
Florian had delighted in Orbec too. There were so many children that he was never short of playmates, and there were always activities to watch or join in. Alexander was absent for much of the month on the Marshal’s business, and despite convalescing, Monday had a coronation robe to sew for the future queen. She settled to a busy routine, and discovered that she missed him, but never with enough time to brood on the feeling. When he had ridden into the bailey on his return, she happened by chance to be there, and her stomach had taken flight with a thousand tiny butterflies. But she had not flung herself into his arms, and he had not grabbed her and swung her round in his. It had still been too soon; the new growth too tender.
In October they had travelled to England for the coronation of John’s queen. Monday had rented a house in London near Watling Street, using coin she had saved during her time as John’s mistress. She had visited John’s bride several times to fit the coronation gown of red and gold silk. Isobel of Angoulême had given no indication of being aware that Monday was anything more to the royal household than a skilled sempstress, and Monday had maintained that pretence. John’s wife was precocious for twelve – could have passed for fifteen at least. Her complexion was flawless, her hair a curtain of heavy blonde silk, and her eyes a deep, bewitching blue. A beauty, and she knew it. Kneeling at her feet to pin the hem of the crimson silk, Monday silently, if not with a little sarcasm, wished husband and wife well of each other.
Fitting John’s robe had been an ordeal, a public one, for he had been busy conversing with a handful of his barons while she knelt at his feet and adjusted the hem. He had paid her scant attention, and even when their eyes had inadvertently met, his gaze had been a flat, blank wall. She had been tempted to stick a pin in him, to stamp her foot and demand not to be ignored. She had been his bedmate and the mother of his child, and deserved better. But a temptation was all it remained. She had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Nor was she even jealous, only hurt and disappointed. He made no mention of the baby and unborn child they had lost, not a single flicker of regret or grief.
An official had paid her fee in the antechamber and marked it on a tally stick. She wondered if one of the notched tallys was a record of how much John had paid her for other services, but could not bring herself to ask.
A sudden flurry of wind lifted her wimple and threw it across her face, tangling across her lips and stinging beneath an eyelid. By the time she had clawed herself free and tucked the ends of the wimple inside her cloak to prevent it from escaping again, a roan stallion was prancing abreast of them, its dour-faced rider struggling to hold it steady amidst the cacophony of the crowd. The stallion’s hindquarters swung dangerously towards the onlookers and the man astride drew in the reins so tightly that the beast’s head was tucked right down into its chest, emphasising the powerful crest of its neck.
‘Thomas of Stafford, your grandfather,’ Alexander said, without inflection.
Monday stared, and a small shiver ran down her spine. He was close enough for her to dart out and touch him. Her feet even struggled to move, but were stalled by her reason. She risked being struck either by his horse, or by the soldiers who rode escort. Looking at the mane of white hair, the rugged curves of feature, she felt no cry of blood to tell her that this was her own kin. But then she had no reason to do so. She bit her lip and followed his progress with troubled eyes.
Then someone did run out from the crowd, a child no older than Florian, attracted by a harness bell that had fallen off a horse’s bridle. His mother screamed and dashed out after him. Monday screamed too as the roan horse plunged and lashed out, the shod hooves narrowly missing the woman as she scooped the infant to safety – or at least safety from death by shod hoof. Thomas of Stafford snarled at her in fury and even as the horse had lashed out, so did he, with his whip, cutting her a blow across the cheek that raised an immediate welt, and sent her and her child reeling into the crowd.
Glaring with fury, Thomas of Stafford swore at the woman and rode on. Fists shook in his wake and curses pursued him. The welt on the woman’s face turned from numb white to stinging, swollen red. She howled; the child howled. People clustered around her, offering help and sympathy.
‘Now do you see?’ Alexander said grimly to his brother.
Hervi said nothing, but his jaw tightened and the ebullience visibly departed his large frame.
Monday shivered, and thought how close she had come to being whipped herself. Perhaps he had struck out in fear, she thought, but knew that it was a weak excuse for what she had just witnessed. Thomas of Stafford had raised his hand out of arrogance and rage – perhaps at all womankind.
Alexander squeezed her hand. ‘I should not have told you,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘No, you were right. I have often wondered about him, eavesdropped on tales.’ And even felt sorry because none of those tales had shown her grandfather in a good light. All that could be salvaged was that he was brave and proud and a doughty warrior. ‘Now I know,’ she said, and returned Alexander’s squeeze.
They scarcely even noticed John as he rode past on a white stallion, caparisoned in gold and jewels, his wife beside him, the yards of her crimson silk skirts billowing over her mount’s flank and rump. Resembling images from an illuminated book of hours, they drifted past Monday and Alexander. The page turned, and like Stafford, they were gone.
Monday stared at the expanse of water, frozen solid in the bitter cold spell that had turned the world to metallic shades of silver, pewter and leaden grey. The colour, the carrying screams and shrieks of laughter, came from the people sporting on the ice; young men mainly, with the shin bones of oxen lashed to the soles of their boots. Others had made long slides, the ice as bright as polished iron, and as fast as quicksilver.
Alexander turned a bright grin on her. ‘All set for the sport?’ he enquired.
She wrinkled her nose at him dubiously, but sat down beside Florian in the sawn-down oval bathtub that they had dragged to the great marsh outside London’s northern wall. It had been Alexander’s idea to adapt the bathtub. Its base had been smoothed off and liberally greased with candle wax, and a rope run through its fore end. Florian sat snug within it, covered by sheepskins, a hat and mits of the same warming his head and hands. Monday raised one leg, and Alexander braced it against his lower thigh and began to tie on the first shin-bone skate, his mits tucked beneath one arm, his fingers dextrous. For her own modesty and comfort, Monday had borrowed some of his garments – linen leggings topped by warm hose of grey wool, a tunic of checked blue and grey with a short, fur-lined cloak, a hood and cape to cover her hair, and sheepskin mits to keep her fingers from freezing. He had told her that she looked very fetching, and she had rolled her eyes at him and called him a flatterer. She had to admit that the clothes were comfortable, and movement was so much easier. Wearing a dress hampered the length of stride, and inserting extra material only made the garment drag on the ground.
Alexander finished the first skate and set about lashing the second, his breath clouding the air with each jerk of effort.
‘I won’t be able to stand up!’ Monday laughed.
‘You’ll spend plenty of time on your backside,’ he agreed, and finished, sat down to lash on his own skates. ‘I know I did.’
‘When did you learn?’
‘One winter at Orbec with my lord Marshal’s sons on a frozen fish pond.’ He stood up and held out his hand. Very gingerly Monday took it and levered herself to her feet. It was a little like wearing wooden pattens, she thought, but with a narrower edge of balance, and a surface that was more slippery than the road to hell.
‘Hold on to me,’ Alexander said, amusement in his voice. ‘And watch what I do. Look, you have to position your feet like this, and trust yourself to the ice. Don’t think, just fly.’
He made it look effortless, but then he would, she thought, a trifle irritably. It was his athletic coordination that was one of the foundations of his jousting skill. But she could not stay irritated for long, especially after he tried to show off with an oh so casual move that went wrong, making him the first faller of the two, while she, with a frantic flailing of her arms, managed to keep her feet.
The time passed in delight, through the waist of an hourglass faster than she thought possible. Half the populace of London seemed to be out on the ice enjoying themselves. Alexander’s bathtub was not the only innovation. Someone else was skidding along on a large wicker bread basket, and she also saw a piece of hurdle fencing being used. Young men played at jousting on foot, using long wooden poles, and there were several noisy clashes and bruising falls.
