The Greatest Knight (48 page)

“Yes it can; open your eyes. The justiciars could have taken the Prince at Windsor. If a truce was agreed it was because no one wanted to humiliate him and he consented readily to yield the keep.”

“On the understanding that you’d be able to raise the ransom and free Richard—neither of which is likely. If you fail and John becomes King, you will need to open your own eyes.”

“We won’t fail,” William said harshly. “If John defies us then we’ll do what we must. Ah God, brother, I don’t want to come to Marlborough with fire and sword.”

“Perhaps it will be me coming to Striguil instead,” John snapped.

“Christ, this is no game. The Prince is leading you into dangerous territory. Look at this place—stuffed to the thatch with men and supplies. There can only be one outcome…”

“So you say, but it’s a gamble, isn’t it—as our father would have known. He wagered your life on King Stephen’s weakness and he won.”

“Did he?” William ran his palms across his face and thought of his father’s ruined visage. “Did he win?”

“Yes, he did. Today he has a son in either camp. One way or the other the name of Marshal will survive. I hold Marlborough, which he always said belonged to us. He would be proud to see his eldest son holding it now—prouder than you will ever know.”

“John…”

“Enough. I will talk to my son and in the morning you will go on your way. You and I have said all that there is to say. It is pointless to argue more.” Rising to his feet, John Marshal left the room. William felt the cold air of his brother’s leaving stir the hair at his nape and send a chill down his spine.

Forty-two

Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, Autumn 1193

William drew Isabelle down the vast nave of Saint Paul’s cathedral where, four years since, they had walked in procession to their wedding mass. Her eyes widened as she stared at the ranked iron-bound chests sequestered between the tall pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling, all bristling with padlocks, at the casks and barrels of silver pennies, the bolts of fine cloth and precious spices, donated in lieu of coin. All of this munificence was guarded by soldiers in full mail with shields and spears. To one side several officials were busy quantifying the treasure with weights and measures and tally sticks. They were speaking in German and using Latin to converse with their English counterparts.

Behind William and Isabelle, attendants in the green and yellow Marshal livery heaved Striguil’s personal contribution to join the mass of riches waiting to be assessed and counted by the representatives of Emperor Henry.

“You have surpassed yourself, my lord,” said Walter de Coutances, his gaze shrewd as he supervised the stowing of the Marshal donation.

William shrugged. “I have done my best,” he said, “but it has not been easy. We mortgaged next year’s wool clip and sold our finery. A man can only wear so many tunics and cloaks in a lifetime.” He spread his hands to show that he wore but one ring—a fine sapphire cabochon. His fingers were bare for a man of his rank who would usually be dripping in gold.

“True,” de Coutances said and looked at him quizzically. “Have you heard any news from Marlborough?”

“Not of late,” William answered warily.

“I am told that it is well prepared for a siege, or to welcome rebels should they arrive at its gates.” De Coutances shook his head. “These are wicked times when they set brother and neighbour against each other.”

“I have no quarrel with my brother,” William said evenly, “only a difference of opinion.”

***

The letter from King Philip to Prince John was simple and succinct, carrying the warning words: “Beware, the devil is loosed.” In point of fact it pre-empted Richard’s release. The “devil” was still in prison, but likely to be free very soon. The first portion of the ransom had been paid and Queen Eleanor and Walter de Coutances were on their way to bring Richard back from Germany where he now dwelt under affable house arrest, holding his own court rather than languishing in fetters as his younger brother might have hoped.

William told Isabelle the details of the letter, a copy of which had found its way into Hubert Walter’s hands. He had recently arrived back at Caversham from London where the news was already as rife as a plague of rats in a granary. A wild October wind was playing around Caversham’s walls and the shutters rattled with each stormy gust. “Needless to say, John’s fled England,” he added.

Seated on their bed, Isabelle unwound her hair and looked at him. “You are not surprised.”

“It is as much as I would have expected, given past behaviour,” he said grimly.

Isabelle teased the ends of her loosened braids. “Does this mean he is fleeing the ship before it sinks, or hastening to fetch aid?”

William spread his hands. “Who knows? With John it could be either.”

“What of his castellans?”

He looked bleak. “They’ll have been ordered to hold out.”

Isabelle bit her lip. She knew they were both thinking of his brother. She had watched William pace their chamber and the hall, playing a waiting game and suffering for it.

“He won’t listen,” he said. “He’s like his master—he’s gone too far down the road to turn back.”

“You must try to talk to him though,” she said with quiet conviction. “At least then you’ll know you tried.” She pressed her hand to her belly. She was entering her third month of pregnancy and nausea was a constant discomfort.

William chewed his thumbnail. “Do you think Richard will forgive John when he returns?”

Isabelle frowned. “Yes,” she said slowly, “I think he will…not out of brotherly love. I don’t believe they have that kind of affection for each other. And not out of duty, but perhaps because they have a shared parentage, and Richard knows himself so much above John that his plotting is no more to Richard than the meddling of a child. Besides, can you think of anything more galling to John than being magnanimously forgiven by Richard?”

William shook his head. “No,” he said, “I can’t.”

***

Ralph Bloet, whose father was seneschal of Striguil, had brought William a gift from his father. “He thought it would suit your eldest son,” he said, nodding smugly at the small dappled pony with shaggy mane and tail. “His steward won him from a dwarf at dice and sold him on. He’s saddle trained.”

“Ralph, I owe your father for this,” William said with pleasure. “It’s time Will had a pony but I’ve been hard-pressed to find one small enough without going to the big fair in London.”

“Glad to help,” the young knight said with gruff satisfaction. “You’re avoiding London at the moment then?”

“No, not exactly avoiding, but preferring to be at Caversham—resting between storms,” he said wryly. “Who knows, I might yet find the grace of time to turn Will into an accomplished horseman—and Richard too, the imp.” He grinned at the thought of his younger son, only two years old but already lithe, co-ordinated, and getting into scrapes. “I…” He paused as a horseman trotted into the stable yard. The figure was familiar and filled him with a mingling of pleasure and trepidation. “Wigain?”

The little clerk dismounted from his blowing hack. Rubbing his buttocks and grimacing, he tottered bow-legged to William. “I swear the miles grow longer as I get older,” he groaned, giving William a perfunctory bow. He eyed the pony. “You’re breeding big dogs these days, my lord, if I may so.”

Bloet scowled, “You are insolent,” he growled. “If you spoke to me thus, I’d mend your manners with a whip.”

“Let be, Ralph,” William chuckled. “I’ve known Wigain since he was a common kitchen clerk and I was a landless whelp. Now I’m a royal justiciar with a countess for a wife and he’s still common, but no longer a kitchen clerk.”

“Sometimes I wish I were,” Wigain said in a heartfelt voice. “Christ, the state of my arse, you’d think I’d ridden here on the haunches of a cow.”

Bloet’s nostrils flared. He was plainly unimpressed by their visitor but held to silence by William’s dubious endorsement.

“You have news?” William sobered.

“From Archbishop Hubert Walter.” Wigain produced a sealed packet from beneath his mantle.

“You know what it says?” William took it from him and started walking towards the hall stairs. A servant was sent running to fetch Isabelle.

“Yes, my lord. I wrote it myself from his dictation. You are not going to like it, but you will not be surprised.”

William raised an eyebrow. There was grim relish in Wigain’s expression. “You are not going to tell me that the ransom has been seized by thieves or that Richard is dead?”

Wigain shook his head. “Nothing as bad as that.”

“It concerns Prince John then.” William nudged the door open and strode to the hearth. Taking his belt knife, he slit the seal, opened out the vellum, and handed it to Wigain. “You might as well read it.”

Wigain coughed meaningfully and William saw him furnished with a cup of wine. As he drank, Isabelle arrived from the private quarters and joined them, her expression questioning. Wigain bowed to her, wiped his mouth, and, clearing his throat, began to read.

The words made depressing listening. Prince John and King Philip had tried to prevent King Richard’s release by offering a higher sum of their own for the German Emperor to keep Richard in prison or to turn him over to them. Letters had gone out to all of John’s castellans in England, ordering them to stand firm and reiterating that Richard was not coming back.

“The Archbishop of Canterbury apprehended one of John’s spies with a packet of letters,” Wigain said. “There’s no doubt of John’s implication in treason. The Bishop fears that messages have still reached the castellans though.”

William swore. “Has there been a response from the Emperor?”

Wigain shook his head. “It’s too early for that.”

“He won’t agree to their offer,” Isabelle said. “He’s almost certain of receiving the ransom sum from England. His agents have been here and a part of it has already been paid. But where are John and Philip going to find such a vast amount of money? The French won’t empty their coffers to keep Richard imprisoned no matter what Philip desires and John has few resources to milk.”

William nodded; he had been thinking along similar lines. Philip and John didn’t have the money, and matters were probably too far advanced to be changed anyway. But as to John’s castellans…

“Archbishop Hubert’s preparing to invest the Prince’s castles,” announced Wigain as if reading his mind. “I’ve seen the orders for chains and ropes and the ingredients for Greek fire. If they don’t yield, they’ll be stormed and suffer the consequences.”

There was an awkward silence. Wigain helped himself to more wine. “I am sorry,” he said with a shrug. “I am only the bearer of the message. If the Prince’s castellans have any sense or care for their skins, they’ll yield.”

William shook his head. “My brother has neither,” he said heavily.

***

At Marlborough, John Marshal listened to his clerk read out the instructions from his lord. Richard was not going to be released, the Prince was going to make a new agreement with the Emperor. The justiciars were likely to attack the Prince’s strongholds in England and his castellans were to resist whatever the price.

Absently John paid the messenger and climbed laboriously to the battlements. By the time he reached the top, his lungs were straining and his legs were on fire. The castle had been built on a mound that some said was a burial place of the ancients. Occasionally, objects were dug out of the ground—arrowheads, beads, shards of pottery—that were nothing like the wares in current use. There was talk of spirits who walked through walls on gusty autumn nights, and footsteps heard on the wall walks on late June evenings, and a woman’s laughter. He couldn’t remember what a woman’s laughter sounded like. Once, he thought he had seen his father walking the ramparts, one side of his face in shadow, the other showing a straight, hard profile. The sword at his hip was the same sword that John now wore at his own and his boots had made no sound on the boards of the wall walk. John had blinked and in that moment, the apparition, if such it was, had vanished, to leave John gazing in bemusement and fear at moonlit bare wood and stone. He had touched the sword hilt for reassurance and the pommel had been like a lump of ice in the cup of his palm.

Two riders were approaching from the town and he narrowed his eyes in the dusk. The black courser was very familiar, as was the roan cob. His stomach lurched. “Open the gate!” he commanded to the guards on watch and hurried down to the courtyard, arriving there just as William and his squire were dismounting from their horses.

“Have you come ahead of the besiegers?” he demanded. A crushing pain in his chest made it hard to breathe.

“What do you think?” William said, and John saw both pity and steel in his younger brother’s dark gaze. “I have brought your son to see you, and I am here to plead with you to yield Marlborough before it’s too late.”

“Then you’re out of time,” John wheezed, “although perhaps you’ve done enough to salvage your conscience.”

William recoiled and John felt a brief moment of satisfaction that his barb had hit home. He gestured towards the hall. “Come within. Let me offer you hospitality while I can.” As he turned, he staggered. His son was the nearer and caught and braced him with a hard young arm. Close against him, John saw the smooth skin, the thick tawny hair, the features that mirrored his own. His child, his son. A man in his own right. Tears pricked his lids and his vision blurred.

He allowed himself to be aided into the hall and eased down on a bench. The strokes of his heart felt like a creature wallowing in mud. When William tried to send for a physician, he insisted he was all right, and indeed, after a cup of sweetened wine and a few moments of sitting down, the pain receded and the congestion eased. “You are wasting your own breath,” he said to William, “unless you have come to offer me aid, or stand between me and what is to come.”

“You know I cannot do that,” William said quietly.

“You can, but you won’t.”

“As you can yield Marlborough to the justiciars but you won’t,” William retorted. “Did you know that Prince John has tried to bribe the Emperor to keep Richard in prison?”

John shrugged. “There are always rumours,” he said wearily.

“It isn’t a rumour,” William said. “It’s as hard a truth as the fact that Hubert Walter is on his way here now with an army. If you do not surrender Marlborough, then he will take it by force.”

“It’s true, sir,” Jack said to his father. “I saw the Archbishop’s letter.”

John heard the deep voice, not a trace of boyhood in its cadence. “If Marlborough was in your charge, would you yield?” he asked the young man.

His son frowned and took his time to think before answering. “I might,” he said after a while, “but not until I was forced. If I surrendered too soon, I would compromise my honour; too late, and I would lose anyway and be of no further use to my lord.”