Castle of the Heart (36 page)

“I should have been with her.” he said, his
voice just above a whisper. “I might have saved her.”

“Had you been there, you would have drowned,
too,” Isabel told him. “Count yourself fortunate that you came to
me instead. Well, this changes everything.”

He gaped at her wordlessly, shaken by her
coolness, and then he began to weep. It was unmanly, he knew, but
he could not help it.

“She needed me,” he cried, “and I wasn’t
there. She was my responsibility, my charge. She must have been
terrified. She was afraid of the sea.”

“Selene was afraid of everything,” Isabel
said scornfully. “She was afraid of life itself. Don’t weep for
her, she wasn’t worth a single tear.”

“This is your doing,” Thomas accused her. He
slammed down the wine goblet and rose to stride back and forth
across the hall as if he did not know what to do next. “I would
have been with her but for your lying message.” He ran his fingers
through his hair in a gesture of frustration and despair.

“I had nothing to do with the ship sinking.
You can’t blame me for this accident,” Isabel exclaimed.

“I need not. There is enough else to blame
you for. I’m no fool, madame, whatever you may think. I suspect
much of the unhappiness at Afoncaer in recent years can be laid to
your charge. I believe you had something to do with Selene’s
inability to love me, and her coldness toward Guy and
Meredith.”

Isabel laughed, a spiteful sound he
remembered well from his unhappy childhood. Her voice, after a
moment’s pause, fell on his ears like ice.

“It is true, Thomas. It was I who first
suggested the marriage, and I who convinced Selene to marry you
when she was most unwilling to wed anyone. Were it not for me, your
marriage to Selene would not have come about at all, and that dowry
of hers, that chest of gold coins Guy wanted so badly, would never
have been his for the benefit of Afoncaer.”

“You did that? You? And let us believe it was
Lady Aloise’s idea?”

“Of course. And you never guessed the truth.
You were too concerned about Afoncaer to ask many questions about
the proposed bride’s character, and too trustingly certain that Guy
and Valaire, those honest fathers, would make an agreement
beneficial to everyone involved. Poor Thomas.” Isabel laughed
again. “Not so clever after all. No wonder Selene never loved you.
You are just like your father. Doing the right and honorable thing
is all he ever thinks of, too. He could have been so much more than
a mere border baron were he only willing to bend a little and fit
his conscience to circumstances. The king is his friend, he could
have had power at court, and wealth beyond his wildest dreams, but
all he will do is stay at Afoncaer with his precious Meredith and
worry about the welfare of his people. His people? The Welsh care
nothing for him. They’ve shown that well enough recently, haven’t
they? And you are as foolishly wrapped up in Afoncaer as he
is.”

Thomas stared at her, the blood running cold
in his veins. At first he thought she had gone mad, but then he
realized that Isabel was in full possession of her senses. She was
irritated with him, as she had ever been, but she was quite cool
and sensible, and she was deliberately telling him something she
wanted him to know. Thomas staggered as the full impact of her
words struck him. He could hardly breathe. He struggled to form
chaotic thought into words and force them out of his mouth.

“Lady,” he said, taking a purposeful step
toward her, “are you saying that Sir Lionel fitz Lionel was not my
father? That you committed adultery with Uncle Guy? That is a
damnable lie! I could believe it of you, madame, but not of him.
Uncle Guy would never betray his brother in such a foul way. So, if
my father is other than Sir Lionel, you had better tell me his
name. I have no right to inherit anything from Uncle – from Sir
Guy, if this is true.”

Isabel said nothing, but only smiled,
watching him, taking in his horror and his building anger.

“Speak, madame!” Thomas exploded. “This cruel
claim is too much after Selene’s death. I want the truth of this.
Answer me now, before I do you violence.”

Isabel continued to smile upon her son, her
voice sweet and caressing as she sent her words like arrows into
his already hurt and bleeding heart.

“Sir Lionel did not love women,” Isabel said.
“He only lay with me once, to consummate the marriage, then would
have nothing more to do with me. I needed to produce an heir. One
night Guy was on guard in the anteroom outside our chamber. I went
to him in the dark and lay with him. He called me by some other
woman’s name; he thought I was she. Then I got into bed with Sir
Lionel, and the next morning I told him he had made love to me. He
had been very drunk the night before and could not remember what
had happened. He always believed you were his son. My reputation
was so spotless he had no reason to doubt it.”

“How could you do such a thing?”

“I had little choice if I wanted to safeguard
my position. It only happened the once, Thomas. There was never any
love lost between Guy and me, but don’t you see what a good idea it
was? The bloodlines are the same. The inheritance that passed from
your grandfather to Lionel, and from Lionel to Guy, will pass from
Guy to you, as it should. You are the old man’s grandson. It’s not
as though I lay with a stranger.”

Thomas knew, without further question or
thought, he simply knew that Isabel was telling him the truth.

“Does Uncle Guy – does my father know of
this?”

“He knows. I told him just before I left
Afoncaer forever. The day I went into exile at his command.”

“I remember that day,” Thomas said. “You
would not even bid me good-bye. You rode out of the gates without
looking at me.”

“I could not trust myself to speak,” Isabel
told him.

“No, not to me. But into his ear you could
pour your poison. My mother. You wicked, deceitful, adulterous
bitch! I have many times excused you,” Thomas went on, “to those
who criticized your deeds, telling them it was your unhappy
marriage to Sir Lionel that molded you into what you are. But now I
think you would have been the same abominable creature if all your
life you had had all you wanted. In fact, had you never been
restricted by Sir Lionel, or Uncle – my father, you might well have
been worse than you are now. It’s in your nature, isn’t it? Vain,
shallow, calculating, caring for no one but yourself. I am ashamed
to call you mother.”

Isabel did not answer him for a moment, and
when she did her voice was low and weary.

“You have no idea what it was like to live at
court and give no heir to my husband. People whispered about what
he was, about his love for King William Rufus, and everyone laughed
behind my back. With one act I silenced them all.”

“An act of adultery.”

“Only one. And for it I was sent from court
by a jealous king as soon as my pregnancy was obvious. I do deeply
regret my abstinence for all those lonely years afterward, until I
married Walter. I have not had a happy life, Thomas.”

“That is in large part your own fault. I have
done with you, woman,” Thomas declared. “I will never see you
again, unless you devise some new scheme against Afoncaer or those
souls I hold dear. In that case, I will come to you, and, by
heaven, I swear I will kill you with my own hands.”

“And you will go home to Afoncaer and tell
Guy all I have told you, will you not?”

“We will settle the matter between the two of
us. You and I have nothing more to do with each other.” The look
Thomas gave her was one of pure hatred. Then he was gone from the
hall, calling to Benet to saddle his horse and bring his armor.

Isabel sat down in her chair on the dais,
staring straight ahead, not moving until the sounds of Thomas’s
departure had ceased. On her face was a smile of triumph, for her
revenge against Guy was completed, or would be when an angry,
unforgiving Thomas confronted him, but at the same time, unchecked
tears poured down her cheeks in recognition of what that triumph
had cost her.

Thomas rode in frantic haste from Isabel’s
house outside Dol to Barfleur, hoping vainly that the reports of
shipwreck were false. He prayed he would find Selene and all the
other passengers were safe, either delayed in Barfleur or
transported to England, but he discovered on his arrival at the
harbor that the story was true. One hundred forty noblemen and
women, in addition to servants, squires, pages, musicians, and the
crew of
The White Ship
had perished on that terrible night,
and all that was left of Captain Fitz Stephen’s beautiful new ship
was the top of one mast poking above the waves just outside the
harbor.

“I should have been with Selene,” Thomas
repeated over and over. He had not loved her, but still, she had
been his wife, she had borne his children. He wept for her. “I
failed to help her so many times, and at the last, when she needed
me most, I had abandoned her.”

“You could not have known what would happen.
It was not your fault, my lord.” Benet’s attempt at comfort only
reminded Thomas just whose fault it really was that he had not been
present to help Selene. He might have cursed Isabel then, had he
not been so stunned by the suddenness of the tragedy. He could not
even begin to think just yet of the grief of those others who had
also lost relatives and friends, or of what the loss of the heir to
the throne would mean to King Henry and to the future of
England.

In his despondent state Thomas hardly knew
what he was doing. It was Benet who saw to what was needful, who
found lodgings for the two of them and the men-at-arms, who made
Thomas eat regularly though he had no appetite, and who each day
went with Thomas to the docks and then to the local church so they
could check on the bodies that had been recovered.

“‘Tis only a squire’s duty,” Benet said when
Thomas roused himself enough to thank his faithful companion.

“It is more than that.” There was the faint
hint of a smile on Thomas’s somber face, the first indication that
he was beginning to recover some of his usual spirit. “These are
acts of friendship, Benet, and I’ll not forget them.”

It was six days before Selene’s body was
found. Thomas could identify her only by her waterlogged gown and
her long black hair, and the pitiful ruin of what had once been so
lovely haunted his nightmares for weeks. She was buried in the
local cemetery along with the other victims, including Thomas’s
dozen servants and men-at-arms, who had been recovered from the
sea. When it was done, and he had made arrangement for masses to be
said for her troubled soul, he found a ship to take him and his
remaining men back to England.

Instead of going directly to Afoncaer as he
would have preferred, Thomas sent a messenger there with word of
the tragedy and rode to Brampton, where Henry was holding court. He
thought he ought to see Sir Valaire and Lady Aloise, and to offer
his condolences to the king.

Henry was much changed, sunk in grief, an old
man no longer interested in governing. His clothes were rumpled and
stained, looking as though he regularly slept in them, and his eyes
were dazed and haunted.

“I lost my dear Matilda only a year and a
half ago,” Henry wept when Thomas was admitted to private audience
with him, “and now this. Oh, William, my son, my son, all I did was
for you, that you should rule securely after me. And Richard, dear
lad, too young to die. How can they both be gone at once?”

Thomas was shocked by Henry’s appearance and
his manner. This was not the vigorous, resilient man to whom he had
once been page. Putting aside his own sorrow at the loss of Henry’s
sons, who had both been his friends, Thomas tried to think of
something to catch the king’s attention and recall him to his
duties as ruler.

“Sire, I assure you, Baron Guy and I will do
all we can to keep your peace along the border,” Thomas promised
him. “And further, we will freely offer whatever assistance is
needed by the late earl of Chester’s people, with no thought for
our own advancement in his territories.”

“What do I care for border disputes now?”
Henry cried. “All my pride and ambition lies at the bottom of the
sea with my sons. There is nothing left for me.”

“You are a brave and strong man, sire,”
Thomas insisted. “You are bowed down now, but you will recover from
this loss. You must, for your people need you, and when you do,
remember that my Lord of Afoncaer and I are your loyal servants,
and that you have but to command us.”

Sir Valaire and his wife were in slightly
better condition than the king. But then, Thomas reminded himself,
they had not had so many hopes riding on their child’s life.

“Henry has lost two sons,” Valaire said,
“while I still have all of mine. I grieve for Selene, and always
will, but Henry’s loss is greater, for it is England’s loss,
too.”

“He did nothing but weep while I was with
him,” Thomas said.

“It’s all he does all day. Bishop Roger of
Salisbury, his treasurer, holds the reins of government now, and
there are many who do not like that. There’s a plot afoot to try to
convince Henry to marry again, in the hope of getting another
heir.” Valaire had a speculative look. “Will you stay at court,
Thomas? With so many nobles lost to us, there is easier preferment
for a capable man with ambition. You could go far. I’ll be happy to
speak in your behalf to Salisbury.”

“I thank you for that, sir, but the only
place I want to go is Afoncaer. It’s where I belong. I’m not overly
fond of court life. I much prefer the freedom of the borderlands.
And until we are certain what will happen next in this realm, or
who will rule it after Henry, we must keep a strong guard at
Afoncaer. The Welsh may take advantage of this situation to try to
drive us out.”