The Greatest Knight (43 page)

Thirty-six

Longueville, Normandy, April 1190

William clattered into the courtyard at Longueville at a gallop, flung down from his sweating courser while still reining the beast back, and strode into the keep. There was something so close to frenzy in his gait that the servants eyed him askance. Ignoring them, he ran up the twisting stairs, almost losing his footing but refusing to slow. His chest was pounding, his breath roaring as he reached the level, strode down the passage, and came to the bedchamber. Setting his shoulder to the door, he burst inside.

Several pairs of female eyes turned in surprise and shock at his precipitous entry. His wife, whom he had expected to see in bed, was kneeling Madonna-like on the floor, bathing a tiny pink skinned rabbit in a shallow bronze basin. The rabbit was squeaking. Isabelle’s hair hung free to her waist and she was dressed in her chemise and a loose bedrobe. Her dark blue gaze had widened in alarm, but seeing William, she smiled. She raised the rabbit from the bowl, wrapped it gently in the towel that a maid was holding out, and crossed the room to him.

“I told you it would be a son,” she said. “He has been christened William to follow in your name.” She placed the bundle in his arms and took a moment to issue orders to her ladies with a few hand gestures and murmured words.

William gazed down into the baby’s face. He had been attending on Richard when a messenger from Longueville had arrived on a lathered horse to tell him that his wife was safely delivered of a son. Richard had given him brief leave to return home and see his heir—although the way he felt just now, permission or not, he would have left anyway. He had tried to outride his demons on the way here, but no matter how relentless his pace, they had kept up with him. Now, for a moment, they receded as he gazed into the pink, wizened face of his newborn son and marvelled anew at the wonder of God’s creation. Even unformed and without definition, he could recognise Isabelle in the feathery pale brows and the little cleft on the chin. A small arm wriggled free of the towel and waved with determination but no purpose. William captured the miniature hand in his and was himself captured. He swallowed a constriction in his throat and looked at Isabelle. There were tears in her eyes too, and a tremulous smile on her lips. He drew her to his free side and kissed her. “This is the greatest gift you could have given me,” he said hoarsely.

She gave a wobbly laugh. “Better than Striguil, Leinster, and Longueville?”

“Better than all those,” he said. “You do not know…” He swallowed again and forced control on himself. “How are you faring? Should you not still be abed?” Looking at her more closely, he noticed the shadows beneath her eyes.

Isabelle threw a defiant look at one of the midwives who was nodding agreement with William’s remark. “I am sore and tired,” she admitted, “but women of less degree have to bear their children and begin work again the next day. If I had stayed a moment longer abed, I would have set with boredom.”

The baby’s squeaks had subsided to soft murmurs and William saw that his son was on the edge of sleep, one little hand still curled around his wide tanned thumb. Isabelle took the baby gently from her husband, bore him to the cradle, and laid him on the soft fleece lining. He gave a few sleepy, protesting cries, but as she set the cradle rocking with the gentle rhythm of a moored craft on a summer river, he drowsed off to sleep.

William watched entranced. “I think adult beds should have rockers too,” he said. While he had been occupied with his wife and child, Isabelle’s women had been preparing a bathtub. His squires had arrived and were duly brought to view their lord’s new heir. Jack was indifferent, Jean regarded the infant with an expression compounded of fear and fascination.

“It’s all right,” William grinned. “I won’t hold it against you if you don’t think he is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen—although my wife might. As long as you pledge him your loyalty, I’m content.”

“He’s so small,” Jean said in a wondering voice.

“He was quite big enough,” Isabelle answered with mock severity. “Don’t leave your lord standing there in his sweat. There is a bath prepared and food to hand.”

A tad sheepishly, the squires went to attend William, taking his sword and spurs, and handing the clothing he discarded to the maids for laundering. William dismissed them with a wave of his hand. “We’ve ridden hard,” he said. “Put away my weapons and then take your own food. You can have the bathwater when I’m done, if you want.”

Isabelle had seated herself on a cushioned bench running parallel to the foot of their bed and was watching him thoughtfully. William ducked his head under the water and sluiced his hair, but there came a point where he had to raise his head and look at her. It was ridiculous when he thought about it. At court he could dissemble with the best and the skill came to him as naturally as breathing. But Isabelle could see straight through to his core and was not content to let him conceal things.

“You might as well tell me what nest of serpents you are sitting on,” she said. “I will find out sooner or later. Why should I have the double ordeal of worrying about what it is that you won’t say?”

William pressed water from his eyes and faced her with a sigh. “I hope that you have a wet nurse at the ready lest what I tell you curdle your milk.”

Isabelle raised an eyebrow. “That bad?”

“There have been more riots in England against the Jews…”

Her face filled with dismay. “I thought that King Richard put a stop to it after the massacre at his coronation.” She shivered at the memory. An attempt by the London Jews to present Richard with a gift had been misunderstood. Blows had been struck and a frightening anti-Semitic riot had ensued. Richard had been furious with the mob and had issued strict orders for the protection of his Jewish communities for they were a vital source of wealth and revenue to the Crown.

“Richard thought so too,” William said grimly. He rested his arms on the edge of the tub and took the wine that Jean had poured for him. “But the moment he sailed from England, the riots started again. First in Lynn, then in Norwich and Stamford and Lincoln.” He drank deeply from his cup. “The Lincoln riots were quelled sharply enough because the sheriff and the Bishop knew what they were about and took the Jews into their protection in the castle but in York it was a different story.” He glanced towards his squires, but they were busy eating and talking to Isabelle’s maids.

“York?” Isabelle’s brows twitched together, and then comprehension dawned. “Your brother…” She raised one hand to her lips.

He lowered his voice. “…couldn’t organise a drinking session in a tavern but managed very easily to mishandle a mob into massacring every last Jew in the damned city.”

Her eyes grew huge. “No,” she said against the pressure of her fingers.

William finished the wine, his expression harsh.

“How did it happen?”

“You do not want to know.”

“Tell me!” she demanded. “I have a strong stomach.”

“So do I, but not for this, especially here in my private sanctuary with my wife and newborn son. Suffice to say that the mob attacked the Jews who then took refuge in a tower of the castle. My brother was summoned to quell the riot.” William shook his head, his expression filled with revulsion. “Instead, he lost control. His own soldiers joined the besiegers and when the Jews realised there was no succour to hand they took their own lives…men, women, children…babies.”

Isabelle swallowed saliva, her stomach suddenly queasy. Even if the Jews were infidels and sinners, the image of a despairing mother sealing off her baby’s nose and mouth, or a man slitting his own wife’s throat, was shocking. Pushing her maid to one side she rose to her feet and stumbled to the window arch where she drew deep, slow breaths until the nausea subsided. Her womb twinged with the aftercramps of childbirth and she felt the slow trickle of blood between her legs. In the cradle, the baby snuffled in his sleep and Isabelle felt the pressure of tears behind her eyes.

“I should not have told you,” William said remorsefully as he left the tub.

“Yes you should.” Her voice wobbled. “It’s not something you can hide under the bed like a ball of fluff, is it?” She returned to her bench, her legs weak and trembling. To steady herself, she set her mind to practical matters. “So what is the consequence of this?” she asked. “What has Richard said?”

William tucked a towel around his waist and used another to dry his face and chest. “Richard exploded like a cauldron over a hot fire with the lid too tight,” he replied. “Not only has he been disobeyed the moment he turned his back, he’s lost all that revenue from the Jews. My fool of a brother is summoned to attend on him and explain how he managed to handle events so badly.” He inhaled deeply. “And William Longchamp has been sent to England with a mandate to restore order.”

Worse and worse, Isabelle thought.

“You know what he’ll do.” William flung a towel into the corner laundry heap. “He’ll strip my brother of the office of sheriff, and John will have no one to blame but himself. Longchamp’s bringing his own brother with him, so who do you think is going to take over the position of sheriff of York?”

“Jesu!” Isabelle breathed. “Is there nothing to be done?”

“For the moment, no. Longchamp has the King’s mandate and, having seen the rage Richard was in when he heard about York and the other cities, I doubt that he’ll relent and reinstate my brother. I can try to rectify the damage with diplomacy, but Richard is in no mood to listen at the moment.” He rumpled his hands through his damp hair. “Christ, it’s a mess.”

‘Does your brother have a reason to hate the Jews? Is he in debt to them?”

“Not as far as I know, but then what do I know of John? I wouldn’t have thought him capable of such idiocy, but he is.” William went to look at his sleeping son. “My father used to say that someone ought to explode a barrel of pitch under John to ignite his wits, but it looks as if they’ve been scattered to the four winds instead.” He sighed at Isabelle. “I suppose that mutual support is an obligation of brotherhood, but John sometimes makes it very hard indeed. We could have done without Longchamp sticking his finger in the pie at York.”

***

“You can say nothing to me that I have not already said to myself,” John Marshal told William and Isabelle. He had arrived at Longueville en route to join Richard and face the royal ire. Since William was preparing to return to the court, the Marshal brothers would at least arrive together and united. In the circumstances, William thought it fortuitous and the best he could do, but he wasn’t prepared to forgive his brother’s crass stupidity easily.

“How much do you care to wager?” William growled. They were sitting in William’s chamber, the great bed made up with its day covers and the hangings secured back. “If Richard does not string you up by your thumbs, you will be fortunate. How did you let it happen? God’s bones, the sheriff of Lincoln managed to save his Jews from the mob!”

“Well, I’m not Gerard de Camville and my wife’s no Nicolaa de la Haye,” John snapped. The whites of his eyes were veined with red and there were deep pouches of sleeplessness beneath them.

William raised an eyebrow. Nicolaa de la Haye was a formidable woman of similar years to themselves, brisk, forthright, and personable. But what concern wives were in this instance was not immediately clear to William.

“I thought it would burn itself out if I let them have their way a little.” John gave William a belligerent look from beneath his brows. “You didn’t feel the hatred blistering off the mob. Rather they should turn it on the Jews than a Christian sheriff.”

Jesu,” William said through his teeth and suppressed the urge to strike his brother in the mouth. “What sort of a commander of men are you? What sort of a cowa—” He clamped his mouth on the rest of the word, but John knew full well what he had been going to say and colour rose up his throat and into his face.

“You weren’t there,” John snarled. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. It’s a setback. I’m still castellan of Marlborough. You still have Gloucester.”

William’s jaw was aching with the strain of holding back the words. Suddenly he felt very weary, as if he had been sparring all day and gained neither advantage nor improvement in skill—a waste. “I suppose that Longchamp has installed his brother as the new sheriff of York?”

“It won’t last,” John said moodily. He too looked as if he had fought all day for nothing beyond a deadening of the soul. “I may have had my punishment for mishandling the York riots, but Longchamp’s arrogance will be his downfall.”

“As your incompetence might be ours,” William said irritably.

“And of course you’re infallible…the flawless knight, the perfect courtier, the greatest that’s ever lived outside a minstrel’s lay,” John snarled. “Only you know what deeds lie on the other side of that coin!”

William recoiled from the accusation as if from a striking snake. The baby woke in his cradle and began to wail with fretful hunger. John jumped at the sound and then huddled into himself as if protecting a wound. Going to the cradle, Isabelle lifted her son in her arms. Retiring a little from the men, her back turned to her brother-in-law for modesty, she put him to suck. John studied mother and child with bitter eyes. “My wife miscarried of a son during the riots at York,” he said.

William stared at his brother. “Jesu, John.” He couldn’t keep the revulsion from his expression or his voice. “I thought you weren’t going to bed her yet?”