The Greatest Knight (47 page)

“Madam.” William inclined his head.

The justiciars set about discussing the tactics and logistics of a campaign against the Prince and William made a mental note to send one of the squires to the shieldmaker to find out if his new one was ready yet. He was going to need it.

Forty-one

Caversham, Berkshire, April 1193

"Sit down before you fall down,” Isabelle commanded her husband who had newly returned from the siege at Windsor. He was swaying with weariness and the cloak he had tossed towards the coffer had missed its destination by several feet. Jean picked it up and completed the action. Isabelle pressed William on to the bench beside the bathtub. She ran her eyes over him but could see no sign of wounds. He was thin though, and she didn’t like the grey shadows beneath his eyes. “You have been pushing yourself too hard,” she scolded. He had sent a herald ahead to warn her of his arrival so at least she had had attendants prepare a hot tub in their chamber and hastily assemble a meal of barley and onion pottage with cold capon and bread. Outside, night had overtaken a thick lavender dusk; their sons were asleep in their cot, watched over by a nurse.

He leaned his head back against the wall, his hair flat and greasy from his helmet liner. She noticed a narrow healing scab that ran from outer cheekbone to eye corner. “Quite likely,” he replied, “but there was need.” He rubbed his palms over his face in a rasp of beard stubble, then gave her a red-eyed look. “Just knowing that Gaversham was within reach kept me putting one foot in front of another. Prince John has been persuaded to yield Windsor to his mother—on the condition that it be returned to him if Richard remains in prison. There’s a truce until All Saints’ Day and the Prince’s mercenaries have been dispersed—thank Christ.”

She brought him wine and watched him drink as if his throat were on fire. “We heard there had been fighting over Kingston way,” she said as she knelt to remove his spurs and boots. He was pungent, to say the least, but she didn’t care. He was home and whole, and it was all that mattered. She had been entertaining nightmares ever since he had ridden to join the other justiciars besieging Prince John at Windsor, especially after they heard about the savage acts of looting and rape around nearby Kingston. She knew the power of the Welsh longbow, and that his link mail was no protection against its arrows.

“There was,” he said grimly. “I performed acts of
chevauchée
in the Young King’s entourage when he was in rebellion against his father. I know all about looters and how to deal with them.” He studied the grazed knuckles of his right fist, then opened his hand and Isabelle saw him gazing at the line of hard skin his sword grip had caused. “The ones we came upon have their piece of England now—their graves. The rest, if they have stopped running, will not venture from their own hearths for a long time. I lost a serjeant, six footsoldiers, and a palfrey. I gained thirty longbows from their camp, sundry weapons, and the things they had looted from the people of Kingston.” A muscle worked in his jaw and she knew that he was not going to tell her what kind of things.

She unwound his leggings and he rose to let her help him out of the rest of his clothes. She gasped at an ugly burn on his wrist and hastened her maids to fetch salve for it. “A tipped-over cooking pot,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve taken no wounds in battle.”

“No? Yet I can see what it has cost you—”

He waved his hand in dismissal. “Mostly sleep,” he said. “There have not been enough hours in the day to accomplish all that needs to be done.”

Naked now save for his braies, he crossed the room and parted the curtain to gaze upon his sleeping sons, one at either end of the cradle, small faces flushed with slumber. Will’s hair was blond-brown, Richard’s held a gleam of red like an echo of his de Clare grandsire. “All children should be able to sleep thus,” he said to Isabelle. “In safety—untroubled.” He shook his head. “I remember seeing Prince John sleeping just like this in Poitiers once, but somewhere he was ruined beyond redemption…I won’t let it happen to my sons. None of it.” He put his hands over his face. Isabelle wondered for a moment if he was weeping, but when he lowered his palms she saw that his eyes were dry and that the expression on his face was a glazed one of punch-drunk exhaustion.

“No, none of it,” she said and gently led him to the tub. She stripped his braies and made him get in the water. She brought him the bread, capon, and more wine and, dismissing her maids and the squires, set about washing him herself. He stank of the camp, so she knew he’d been among his men and in the field. A marinated aroma of smoke and sweat clung to his skin.

As the food and wine began to work upon him, the colour returned to his complexion and the glassy look left his eyes. “Hubert Walter, Bishop of Salisbury, says that the ransom has been set, and he has confirmation that King Richard is very much alive.”

“How much?” Isabelle asked.

William devoured the last of the bread and drained his wine. “A King’s ransom,” he said with a deep sigh. “One hundred and fifty thousand marks, to be paid in three instalments.”

Her gaze widened in dismay. “Jesu! How is such a sum to be found?”

“God knows, and I hope that he tells me very soon because doing so is in the hands of the justiciars and unless we achieve it swiftly, John’s rebellion will renew itself and the country will descend into true civil war.” He ducked his head under the water, swilled his hair, and came back up. “We cannot fail. What makes it more urgent is that Prince John and Philip of France will do their utmost to thwart Richard’s release.” He began to wash himself, his action more lively now. “I suppose there’s the Cistercian wool clip, that’ll account for some of the funds, and the Church has gold and silver that can be loaned.” As he spoke his expression darkened.

“You are against the idea?”

“No, it has to be done, but it reminds me of my time in the Young King’s service. Back then we stripped the Church of relics too—it was to pay mercenaries, not redeem a king, but it still leaves me uneasy.” As he left the tub and tucked a towel around his waist and another across his shoulders, he sighed. “People will have to be taxed until they squeal. Individuals are to be asked to give as much as they can—with Richard’s promise that they’ll be rewarded for their fervour.”

Gently Isabelle patted him dry. “And how much of a reward do you desire from Richard?” she murmured.

William exhaled and took her in his arms. “I have enough,” he said, “and more than enough, but it is about keeping favour too. The Bishop of Salisbury hinted at a higher position in the Church for my younger brother—perhaps a bishopric. My loyalty, if it is unswerving and beyond the call of duty, will help to mitigate my older brother’s support of Prince John. Besides, I swore my loyalty to Richard and it holds unto death.”

Isabelle laid the palm of her hand swiftly to his lips. “Do not say that word,” she admonished.

“Which one?” he asked. “Loyalty?”

She made to push out of his arms, but he held her fast against his body. “One is bound to the other,” he murmured against her temple, “at least in my case it is. I cannot speak for Richard.” He wound his hand around her braid and kissed her softly. “If it please you more, then I will say that it is the code by which I live my life, and while I know that God is entitled to end that life whenever He chooses, I pray He will grant me the boon of letting me see my sons grow strong and tall first.”

Isabelle gave him another push, gentle this time, before swaying back into his embrace and silently tightening her arms around him.

***

John Marshal looked at the woman who had been his past and for whom his need still ached like a rotten tooth that he had never summoned enough courage to draw. And then he eyed the man standing beside her, dark-eyed, implacable, and quiet. Guillaume de Colleville was a minor Sussex landholder, a small fish for whom John could make life very difficult in his capacity as sheriff of that county.

“You want my blessing on your marriage?” John laughed sourly. “Christ, the last thing you want is a blessing from me!”

Reproach flickered in her eyes. The man’s fists tightened. John was tempted to order him seized and imprisoned. He had been squeamish about such things at first but with time it had grown easier.

“I need neither your blessing nor your consent,” Alais said, clasping her hands resolutely at her waist, “but I hope at least that you will wish me well. I came to tell you myself; it seemed the honourable thing to do…”

John swallowed against the sudden constriction in his throat. “Honourable!” He almost choked on the word and rounded on de Colleville. “She has told you her past?” John didn’t know whether to sneer, speak man to man, be fair and just, or lash out like a wounded animal.

Grooves of muscle tightened and relaxed in de Colleville’s cheeks as he fought his own battle. “All of it,” he replied with hard-won calm. “There are no secrets between us.”

“Then take her.” John gestured with his right hand as if throwing something away. “And may you derive more joy from her than I ever did.”

Alais stifled a wounded protest and her eyes filled with tears.

“What do you want me to say?” John snarled at her. “What is left to say? You said it all at our child’s graveside. If it was a sin to take you as my mistress, then I’ve paid a bloody price.” He struggled for composure. “Does my brother know?”

“He has agreed to stand witness at our wedding,” de Colleville said stonily.

John’s stomach heaved. “I suppose my children have no objection.”

“They are our children,” Alais replied, her voice shaking, but still with a core of steel. “And they welcome it…I too have paid a price.”

John swallowed. “I wish you well,” he managed to say hoarsely. “I truly do, but ask no more of me than that because I cannot give it. I am not that generous of spirit.”

They left soon after. In truth he had not expected them to stay. He folded his arms around his midriff, feeling as if someone had run a spear through him. Alais, Alais. It wasn’t the pangs of love; it wasn’t that he found it impossible to live without her. What did hurt was all the promise and sweetness of his once young life bleeding rapidly into sour old age. It was bitter regret and the knowledge that barren times lay ahead. It was the isolation and the betrayal. And that she had received from William the blessing he was not sufficiently generous himself to give.

“My lord?”

He looked up. His young wife’s voice was hesitant. She never called him “John” although he had given her permission to do so. “What?” he snapped, straightening up. A headache had begun to pound at his temples and his eyes were hot.

White-faced, she stood before him, clenching and unclenching her hands. Seventeen years old to his almost fifty, God help him. “The visitors have not stayed?” she asked.

John gave a bitter laugh. “I doubt we’d have had much to say at the dining trestle. Perhaps you should leave too.”

An expression of startled alarm crossed her face. “Leave, my lord? Where would I go?”

“As far away from me as possible…You don’t snuggle up with a wounded boar, you take a spear and ram it through its heart.”

“My lord?” Her voice was frightened.

“Christ, girl, get out, let me be!”

In the end he had to bellow at her and the sound of his own roar almost split his pounding skull in two. When the red mist had cleared from his vision, he saw that she had obeyed him and he was alone.

***

En route to the Marches to organise his own contribution to the King’s ransom, William rode by way of Marlborough. His heart sank as he approached the castle on its great mound and saw that the walls were bristling with soldiers. The atmosphere, despite his having sent heralds ahead, was disturbingly hostile.

“Perhaps we should turn around,” Isabelle said with a worried glance at the baggage cart carrying their two sons and their nurses.

William shook his head. He knew that whatever follies his brother might commit, fratricide was not one of them. “Even if he will not welcome the King’s justiciar, he will extend hospitality to his own kin,” he said grimly and heeled his palfrey on to the bridge.

John was waiting in the courtyard to greet him and William was horrified at how old and ill his brother looked. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery, his cheeks mapped with broken veins. The tunic he wore was grease-stained and his chin was shadowed with heavy silver stubble.

“Have you come to wash your hands of me too?” he demanded almost belligerently.

A jolt went through William at the tone of voice. “If I were going to do such a thing, I’d not have brought my family and your son.” He gestured towards the youth who had dark gold stubble of his own edging his square jaw. “He’s almost of an age to be knighted, and he’s shaping to be a fine man.”

“Ever the diplomat,” John grunted, making the words sound like an insult. “You had best come within.”

***

“You know that the King will be returning as soon as the ransom is paid?” William said. The women had retired with the children to a chamber on the floor above, Isabelle murmuring with a gleam in her eye that she intended taking Aline in hand for a spot of spine-stiffening. William stretched his legs towards the heat of the brazier and rubbed his thigh, which was aching tonight.

His brother folded his arms and looked stubborn. “The Prince says that it is still uncertain that Richard’s even alive.”

“He lives, I promise you,” William said curtly. “To deny it smacks of treason.”

“It smacks of caution and common sense,” John retorted. “And how in Christ’s name are you going to raise a hundred and fifty thousand marks? It can’t be done.”