The Greatest Knight (29 page)

Twenty-three

Near Reading, Berkshire, September 1183

Twelve-year-old Isabelle de Clare gazed out of the opening at the back of the covered wain at the unrelenting autumn downpour. She was accustomed to wet days in Ireland, but to her imagination, this deluge seemed harder, colder, and altogether more hostile. Had the weather been reasonable, she could have ridden pillion with one of the grooms. They hadn’t let her bring her own mare; they said she would have no need of a mount when eventually they reached London. Today, their intended goal was a night’s lodging at Reading Abbey, although it would be dark by the time they arrived, given the lurching pace of the wain through the ruts and puddles. Overhanging trees dripped on to the top of the wain making heavier sounds around the steady rustle of the rain. The air that blew through the opening was moist and cold. There was a hanging that could be drawn across, but that would mean sitting in semi-darkness and Isabelle had slept all she could. Aine, her Irish nurse, and Helwis, her Norman maid, sat in a huddle of furs, the former complaining about a persistent toothache, the latter coddling a heavy cold, her nose a beacon.

Isabelle kept apart from them. Like a cat, she had always preferred her own space. By nature she was pragmatic, accustomed to enduring, but there had been so much to shoulder of late that there was little room in her soul for more. Her upbringing had made her mature beyond her years, but she was still very young. A woman yes, for her fluxes had come regularly now for six months and she was legally of marriageable age, but she had not attained her full growth, and although she would admit it to no one, behind her feline self-containment, she was frightened.

Behind the wain, her escort rode in the deluge; King’s knights bearing the lions of England on their shields and dripping red silk banners. Following the death of her brother Gilbert, earlier in the year, she had become an heiress of considerable worth—a marriage prize of such magnitude that King Henry had taken her guardianship in hand and ordered her to be brought to lodge in the Tower of London. She still wept when she thought of Gilbert. He had been three years younger than her, red-haired like their Norman father, but not robust and always succumbing to fluxes and agues, the last one of which he had not survived. She had been devoted to him—as had their mother—and his death had left them both reeling. He was hardly in his grave when King Henry’s writ had arrived in Ireland, commanding her mother to bring Isabelle to England and hand her into royal custody. As the sole heir of Richard Strongbow, lord of Striguil, and Aoife, daughter of Dermot McMurrough, High King of Leinster, Isabelle was too great a prize to have at large. Besides, taking her into wardship meant that the Crown could continue to milk her inheritance until she was given in marriage.

Isabelle and her mother had spent a short time at Striguil on its high cliff above the River Wye, but within two months they were parted—Isabelle sent on her way to London and Aoife returning to Ireland. She could still feel her mother’s arms tight about her in a final embrace and hear her exhortations that Isabelle be strong for the sake of her father and her ancestry. “Your father and grandfather never gave in or gave up,” Aoife had said. “And you must be like them. Remember who you are, my daughter, and do not let them subdue your spirit.”

Isabelle gave a little sniff. She was dangerously close to feeling subdued now: taken from her home, from her friends and family; her only comfort two women, both of them ailing, and the small, sleek hound pup her mother had given her at their parting. The little creature was curled in a heap of blankets sound asleep at the moment. Isabelle had christened her Damask, for her coat bore the silver sheen of Arabian silk.

There was a shout behind them as another troop came splashing up the road. She saw her escort reach to their swords and her stomach swooped. There was always the chance of being abducted or robbed on the road. The country was supposed to be at peace but, as in Ireland, it was a peace fraught with tension and continuous scheming. She sighed with relief when her guards relaxed their hands and exchanged friendly greetings with the newcomers—not a troop, she saw now, but a knight, his squire, and a groom, all heavily cloaked against the rain. The brow-band and breast strap of the knight’s horse were adorned with small shield-shaped badges enamelled half green, half yellow, with a snarling red lion in the foreground. Isabelle thought them striking. The knight’s shield and banner matched the badges, but having lived in the isolation of Ireland, she had no idea who he was, nor could she see anything of him beneath hood and mantle.

Snippets of conversation drifted to her, disjointed by the rain and the turn of the men’s heads as they spoke together. She heard her name mentioned by her guards. “Countess Isabelle of Striguil…bound for London…King’s writ.”

The knight said something about foul weather for travelling, and her guards replied that they were making a stop at Reading Abbey. “Warmer where you’re going though, messire?”

The knight gave a rueful assent and rode on. As he splashed closer to the back of the wain, she noticed the red cross of a crusader stitched to his cloak. His horse was steaming and his bare hands on the reins gleamed with rain. He wore a gold ring set with a large blue sapphire. His face she could not see for his deep hood and he was swiftly beyond her vision, but as he rode on, she realised that he had spoken to her. One word in acknowledgement, greeting, and farewell: “Demoiselle.” His squire and groom squelched past in his wake, together with several laden pack ponies. Isabelle moved back into the deeper confines of the wain. The ends of her heavy blond braids were jewelled with raindrops and her face tingled with cold.

***

William broke his own journey in Salisbury with a visit to Queen Eleanor, where he knelt to receive her blessing on his pilgrimage. Her touch on his head was light, her voice calm and steady as she wished him Godspeed.

“May you find your peace, and peace for my son,” she murmured. “And may God bring you safely home when you have found your road.”

“Madam.” He rose to his feet at her command and kissed her hand.

She gave him a long, steady look. “You did your best for him, William. He failed you, but you never failed him…and you never failed me. Not once, not for a moment.”

She had found the sore spot in his soul and applied the cauterising knife, white-hot with knowing and brutal compassion. “No,” he said, “but perhaps I failed myself. It is time to take stock.”

She studied him, and then nodded. “Then go and do it,” she said, “but do not make a prison for yourself and do not lose the grace you already have.”

***

William thought long and hard about the Young King’s mantle. At first he wrapped it in linen and kept it in a waxed leather bag to protect it from the elements, but by the time he had made the crossing to Normandy and revisited the tomb in Rouen, he had changed his mind. If Henry had intended to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, then his cloak should be worn for its purpose. William had taken it from its protective coverings and draped it across the Young King’s tomb. For a night, it had lain there while William kept vigil, lamps flickering on the red silk cross sewn to the breast above the heart.

In the morning, following confession and mass, William donned the cloak and wore it continuously throughout the long journey, down through Lombardy and Apulia to Brindisi, and across the straits to Durazzo; across Byzantium to Constantinople, and the gruelling ride through Anatolia to the Syrian Gates, then the final journey along the coast to Caesarea before turning inland to Jerusalem. By the time he rode through the David Gate and into the Holy City, he was as lean and hard as whipcord and the Young King’s mantle had lost the sheen of royal finery. The red silk cross was frayed, the rich blue dye had faded, bleached in salt wind and hot sunlight, and the hem was uneven where it had come unstitched and William had repaired it himself.

The road had been hard and filled with danger and privation, but each mile travelled towards his goal had seen a gradual lifting of William’s burden of guilt and sorrow. The hotter the sun, the fiercer the wind, the harder he was scoured, the better he felt in his soul. Lighting candles, offering the Young King’s mantle at the Tomb of Christ in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, he felt as weightless as a husk. He could not have risen had he tried, and so remained on his knees, head bowed, prostrating himself before God and begging His forgiveness until his vision turned to white light and then darkened.

A Templar monk finally stooped over him, helped him to his feet, and, saying little, took him outside to Rhys and Eustace, and then brought them to a hostel on Malquisnet Street where he made William drink sugar-sweetened wine and eat a platter of stuffed dates. Gradually William revived. For the first time in an age, he was aware of the taste of the wine and sweetmeats, and of the hunger still gnawing in his belly. On the road to Jerusalem, food had merely been sustenance to keep him putting one mile behind another, and towards the end it hadn’t mattered at all.

The Templar studied him with compassionate dark eyes. His name was Thibaud; he was Norman, originally from the Giffard estates of Longueville and he remembered William from the tourney circuit. “That was in the days before I came to Outremer and took my vows,” he said. “You were tourneying with the Young King and there was no one to match you. I can still remember how you seemed to set the field on fire.”

William found a smile, although it felt strange to curve his mouth and the muscles quivered. “Yes,” he said. “We were good. It’s in the past now.” He watched the street vendors shouting their wares and inhaled the smell of hot oil from their griddle plates. Malquisnet Street was where all the city cookstalls and eating hostelries were gathered and it was crowded with hot, footsore pilgrims in search of sustenance. “I doubt I’ll tourney again.”

The Templar nodded sombrely. “I heard that the Young King was dead,” he said. “A pilgrim from Anjou told us two months since. I said prayers for his soul, God rest him.” He crossed himself.

So did William. “It was his cloak that I laid upon the tomb of Christ. He charged me to bring it, and to give alms to the poor for the repose of his soul…” A soul imperilled by blasphemy and robbing from Mother Church. He didn’t make the remark aloud for there was no point in hauling the story out of the grave again. It was over, finished. He compressed his lips.

Thibaud’s gaze was perceptive, but he said nothing, merely asked William how long he was staying and what his plans were now.

“I have pledged myself at the Holy Sepulchre to a year in God’s service in expiation of my sins before I turn for home,” William said, and turned the sapphire ring on the middle finger of his right hand.

“That is what I did,” the knight said, “and then stayed to join the Templar order. There was nothing for me back in Normandy, save a life of tourneying at which I had but small skill, or being someone’s hearth knight. God chose me to be His hearth knight instead.”

“I have thought about it,” William admitted. “My father was a patron of your order and, having seen your castles and travelled with other Templars, I admire your skill and faith and industry…but…”

“But?” Thibaud still smiled but there was a guarded expression in his eyes.

“But I have pledged King Henry that I will return to him and make a report of my journey. Nor am I worthy of taking any holy vows.” William ceased to play with the ring and looked directly at the Templar. “I will gladly serve the order while I am here, and help its patronage where I can when I return. That I promise.”

The knight inclined his head and looked moderately pleased, although perhaps he had hoped for more. William wondered if Thibaud was hoping to recruit him into the Templars. It was an opportune place to seek out likely candidates—the end of the journey, the holiest place in Christendom.

Later, when William had eaten a full meal of chickpea stew and flat bread, washed down with plain wine, he asked Thibaud to take him to the stalls of the fabric merchants in the covered markets by the David Gate.

“It is usually the women who come here,” Thibaud said, looking curious and amused. “The men always head for the sword-sellers, the horse market, and then the tavern.”

William half smiled. “All of those in due course, but I have a matter to attend to first.”

“Ah, you’re buying a gift for your sweetheart?” Thibaud gave a sly grin.

William shook his head. “For myself, for when I die.”

The humour fell from the knight’s face. “You’re buying your own pall?”

Without replying, William paused at a stall and began examining the wares. There were fabulous bolts of gold and red silk, shimmering like fire; blues and greens with an iridescent peacock gleam; Tyrian purple, its price beyond reckoning. Some were woven with patterns of lozenges and fantastical beasts, others had raised designs repeated through the weave. William spent a long time looking. The Syrian merchant spread the cloths for him, emphasising their texture, how fine the weave was. Eventually he selected two pieces of undyed silk with no embellishment, but of a weave so delicate and exquisite, they cost as much as some of the more colourful and elaborate cloths.

“They are my covenant with God,” he told the bemused Templar as the merchant wrapped the silks in a square of plain linen to protect them. “I accept that he can claim my life whenever he chooses and that until such time I will endeavour to lead an honourable life and repay the debt owing.” He took the wrapped silks from the merchant. They made only a small package, which weighed next to nothing in his hand…but their significance to his life was all-embracing. It was the difference between staying where he was and moving forward.