Epic Historial Collection (303 page)

 

She spoke to Merthin in the hospital, surrounded by other people. She was trembling and close to tears, but she could not see him in private. She knew that if they were alone her resolve would weaken, and she would throw her arms around him and tell him that she loved him, and promise to leave the nunnery and marry him. So she sent a message, and greeted him at the door of the hospital, then spoke to him in a matter-of-fact voice, her arms folded tightly across her chest so that she would not be tempted to reach out with a fond gesture and touch the body she loved so much.

When she had finished telling him about the bishop's ultimatum and her decision, he looked at her as if he could kill her. “This is the last time,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“If you do this, it's permanent. I'm not going to wait around anymore, hoping that one day you will be my wife.”

She felt as if he had hit her.

He went on, delivering another blow with each sentence. “If you mean what you're saying, I'm going to try to forget you now. I'm thirty-three years old. I don't have forever—my father is dying at the age of fifty-eight. I'll marry someone else and have more children and be happy in my garden.”

The picture he painted tortured her. She bit her lip, trying to control her grief, but hot tears ran down her face.

He was remorseless. “I'm not going to waste my life loving you,” he said, and she felt as if he had stabbed her. “Leave the nunnery now, or stay there forever.”

She tried to look steadily at him. “I won't forget you. I will always love you.”

“But not enough.”

She was silent for a long moment. It wasn't like that, she knew. Her love was not weak or inadequate. It just presented her with impossible choices. But there seemed no point in arguing. “Is that what you really believe?” she said.

“It seems obvious.”

She nodded, though she did not really agree. “I'm sorry,” she said. “More sorry than I have ever been in my whole life.”

“So am I,” he said, and he turned away and walked out of the building.

75

S
ir Gregory Longfellow at last went back to London, but he returned surprisingly quickly, as if he had bounced off the wall of that great city like a football. He showed up at Tench Hall at suppertime looking harassed, breathing hard through his flared nostrils, his long gray hair matted with perspiration. He walked in with something less than his usual air of being in command of all men and beasts that crossed his path. Ralph and Alan were standing by a window, looking at a new broad-bladed style of dagger called a basilard. Without speaking, Gregory threw his tall figure into Ralph's big carved chair: whatever might have happened, he was still too grand to wait for an invitation to sit.

Ralph and Alan stared at him expectantly. Ralph's mother sniffed censoriously: she disliked bad manners.

Finally Gregory said: “The king does not like to be disobeyed.”

That scared Ralph.

He looked anxiously at Gregory, and asked himself what he had done that could possibly be interpreted as disobedient by the king. He could think of nothing. Nervously he said: “I'm sorry His Majesty is displeased—I hope it's not with me.”

“You're involved,” Gregory said with annoying vagueness. “And so am I. The king feels that when his wishes are frustrated it sets a bad precedent.”

“I quite agree.”

“That is why you and I are going to leave here tomorrow, ride to Earlscastle, see the lady Philippa, and
make
her marry you.”

So that was it. Ralph was mainly relieved. He could not be held responsible for Philippa's recalcitrance, in all fairness—not that fairness made much difference to kings. But, reading between the lines, he guessed that the person taking the blame was Gregory, and so Gregory was now determined to rescue the king's plan and redeem himself.

There was fury and malice in Gregory's expression. He said: “By the time I have finished with her, I promise you, she will beg you to marry her.”

Ralph could not imagine how this was to be achieved. As Philippa herself had pointed out, you could lead a woman up the aisle but you could not force her to say “I do.” He said to Gregory: “Someone told me that a widow's right to refuse marriage is actually guaranteed by Magna Carta.”

Gregory gave him a malevolent look. “Don't remind me. I made the mistake of mentioning that to His Majesty.”

Ralph wondered, in that case, what threats or promises Gregory planned to use to bend Philippa to his will. Himself, he could think of no way to marry her short of abducting her by force, and carrying her off to some isolated church where a generously bribed priest would turn a deaf ear to her cries of “No, never!”

They set off early next morning with a small entourage. It was harvest time and, in the North Field, the men were reaping tall stalks of rye while the women followed behind, binding the sheaves.

Lately Ralph had spent more time worrying about the harvest than about Philippa. This was not because of the weather, which was fine, but the plague. He had too few tenants and almost no laborers. Many had been stolen from him by unscrupulous landlords such as Prioress Caris, who seduced other lords' men by offering high wages and attractive tenancies. In desperation, Ralph had given some of his serfs free tenancies, which meant they had no obligation to work on his land—an arrangement that left Ralph denuded of labor at harvesttime. In consequence, it was likely that some of his crops would rot in the fields.

However, he felt his troubles would be over if he could marry Philippa. He would have ten times the land he now controlled, plus income from a dozen other sources, including courts, forests, markets, and mills. And his family would be restored to its rightful place in the nobility. Sir Gerald would be the father of an earl before he died.

He wondered again what Gregory had in mind. Philippa had set herself a challenging task, in defying the formidable will and powerful connections of Gregory. Ralph would not have wished to be standing in her beaded silk shoes.

They arrived at Earlscastle shortly before noon. The sound of the rooks quarreling on the battlements always reminded Ralph of the time he had spent here as a squire in the service of Earl Roland—the happiest days of his life, he sometimes thought. But the place was very quiet now, without an earl. There were no squires playing violent games in the lower compound, no warhorses snorting and stamping as they were groomed and exercised outside the stables, no men-at-arms throwing dice on the steps of the keep.

Philippa was in the old-fashioned hall with Odila and a handful of female attendants. Mother and daughter were working on a tapestry together, sitting side by side on a bench in front of the loom. The picture looked as if it would show a forest scene when finished. Philippa was weaving brown thread for the tree trunks and Odila bright green for the leaves.

“Very nice, but it needs more life,” Ralph said, making his voice cheerful and friendly. “A few birds and rabbits, and maybe some dogs chasing a deer.”

Philippa was as immune to his charm as ever. She stood up and stepped back, away from him. The girl did the same. Ralph noticed that mother and daughter were equal in height. Philippa said: “Why have you come here?”

Have it your way, Ralph thought resentfully. He half-turned away from her. “Sir Gregory here has something to say to you,” he said, and he went to a window and looked out, as if bored.

Gregory greeted the two women formally, and said he hoped he was not intruding on them. It was rubbish—he did not give a hoot for their privacy—but the courtesy seemed to mollify Philippa, who invited him to sit down. Then he said: “The king is annoyed with you, Countess.”

Philippa bowed her head. “I am very sorry indeed to have displeased His Majesty.”

“He wishes to reward his loyal servant, Sir Ralph, by making him earl of Shiring. At the same time, he will be providing a young, vigorous husband for you, and a good stepfather for your daughter.” Philippa shuddered, but Gregory ignored that. “He is mystified by your stubborn defiance.”

Philippa looked scared, as well she might. Things would have been different if she had had a brother or an uncle to stick up for her, but the plague had wiped out her family. As a woman without male relations, she had no one to defend her from the king's wrath. “What will he do?” she said apprehensively.

“He has not mentioned the word ‘treason'…yet.”

Ralph was not sure Philippa could legally be accused of treason, but all the same the threat caused her to turn pale.

Gregory went on: “He has asked me, in the first instance, to reason with you.”

Philippa said: “Of course, the king sees marriage as a political matter—”

“It
is
political,” Gregory interrupted. “If your beautiful daughter, here, were to fancy herself in love with the charming son of a scullery maid, you would say to her, as I say to you, that noblewomen may not marry whomever they fancy; and you would lock her in her room and have the boy flogged outside her window until he renounced her forever.”

Philippa looked affronted. She did not like being lectured on the duties of her station by a mere lawyer. “I understand the obligations of an aristocratic widow,” she said haughtily. “I am a countess, my grandmother was a countess, and my sister was a countess until she died of the plague. But marriage is not
just
politics. It is also a matter of the heart. We women throw ourselves on the mercy of the men who are our lords and masters, and who have the duty of wisely deciding our fate; and we beg that what we feel in our hearts be not entirely ignored. Such pleas are usually heard.”

She was upset, Ralph could see, but still in control, still full of contempt. That word “wisely” had a sarcastic sting.

“In normal times, perhaps you would be right, but these are strange days,” Gregory replied. “Usually, when the king looks around him for someone worthy of an earldom, he sees a dozen wise, strong, vigorous men, loyal to him and keen to serve him in any way they can, any of whom he could appoint to the title with confidence. But now that so many of the best men have been struck down by the plague, the king is like a housewife who goes to the fishmonger at the end of the afternoon—forced to take whatever is left on the slab.”

Ralph saw the force of the argument, but also felt insulted. However, he pretended not to notice.

Philippa changed her tack. She waved a servant over and said: “Bring us a jug of the best Gascon wine, please. And Sir Gregory will be having dinner here, so let's have some of this season's lamb, cooked with garlic and rosemary.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Gregory said: “You're most kind, Countess.”

Philippa was incapable of coquetry. To pretend that she was simply being hospitable, with no ulterior motive, was beyond her. She returned straight to the subject. “Sir Gregory, I have to tell you that my heart, my soul, and my entire being revolt against the prospect of marrying Sir Ralph Fitzgerald.”

“But why?” said Gregory. “He's a man like any other.”

“No, he's not,” she said.

They were speaking about Ralph as if he were not there, in a way that he found deeply offensive. But Philippa was desperate, and would say anything; and he was curious to know just what it was about him that she disliked so much.

She paused, collecting her thoughts. “If I say rapist, torturer, murderer…the words just seem too abstract.”

Ralph was taken aback. He did not think of himself that way. Of course, he had tortured people in the king's service, and he had raped Annet, and he had murdered several men, women, and children in his days as an outlaw…At least, he consoled himself, Philippa did not appear to have guessed that he was the hooded figure who had killed Tilly, his own wife.

Philippa went on: “Human beings have within them something that prevents them from doing such things. It is the ability…no, the compulsion to feel another's pain. We can't help it. You, Sir Gregory, could not rape a woman, because you would feel her grief and agony, you would suffer with her, and this would compel you to relent. You could not torture or murder for the same reason. One who lacks the faculty to feel another's pain is not a man, even though he may walk on two legs and speak English.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice, but even so Ralph heard her clearly. “And I will not lie in bed with an
animal.”

Ralph burst out: “I am not an animal!”

He expected Gregory to back him up. Instead, Gregory seemed to give in. “Is that your final word, Lady Philippa?”

Ralph was astonished. Was Gregory going to let that pass, as if it might be even half-true?

Philippa said to Gregory: “I need you to go back to the king and tell him that I am his loyal and obedient subject, and that I long to win his favor, but that I could not marry Ralph if the Archangel Gabriel commanded me.”

“I see.” Gregory stood up. “We will not stay to dinner.”