The Scarlet Lion (43 page)

   "I don't know. She mentioned it when I told her how sorry I was that she had lost both parents so soon after one another, but I couldn't wrest any more out of her than that."

   "There must be a reason."

   "You won't find it easy to wring from her. She didn't say anything about her mother. I don't think they were very close."

   In pensive silence, Isabelle continued to watch her future daughter-in-law. Will joined the girl, a goshawk gripping his gauntleted wrist. As Alais turned from the horse and towards him, it was like watching the sun come out over both of them.

   Mahelt giggled. "Perhaps you should bring the wedding forward, Mama. You don't want the next heir to Pembroke born out of wedlock."

   Isabelle gave her daughter a reprimanding tap on the knee. "Shame on you for such thoughts. I am sure Alais will be a virgin at her wedding."

   "But probably not as innocent as she is now…"

   "Which is all to the good. Do not tell me that you and

Hugh came to your own marriage bed without a certain amount of dalliance."

   Mahelt flushed. "We heeded your wishes to wait until my ripening," she said, "but it didn't stop Hugh from handling the fruit to find out if it was ready to be plucked." She gave her mother a meaningful look from wide, dark eyes. "In the end, I think the fruit plucked him."

   Isabelle had to laugh; Mahelt was incorrigible. "I fear you overheard too much bawdy talk from Elizabeth Avenel when you were a child," she said.

   Mahelt vigorously shook her head. "Not at all. I learned from watching you and my father. I remember how often the bed curtains were closed when he was home…" The twinkle in her eyes grew serious. "It was a good thing to see, because I knew that given the right man, I could have that too."

   "And Hugh is the right man?"

   Mahelt glanced at her youngest son, asleep on a quilt, his face flushed and his arms surrendered either side of his head. "I think so," she said with an intimate smile. "We have our disagreements, and I do not always see eye to eye with his father, but you and Papa chose well for me."

   "Then I am glad," Isabelle said, and felt a warm glow that her daughter was content with her match. There was never any guarantee of lasting compatibility even when all the signs were auspicious.

   Outside, the young couple were mounting up. Will had given his hawk to an attendant and was boosting Alais into the saddle of a dainty bay palfrey. She was flirting down at him as she took up the reins.

   "She sits a horse well," Isabelle said judiciously.

   "She's very pretty too."

   "That must come from her mother. Baldwin didn't have the looks to accompany his prowess, God rest his soul." Isabelle picked up her sewing again, feeling a moment of sadness. "We cannot bring the marriage forward," she said to Mahelt, her thoughts running on with her stitches. "Not until the matter of her inheritance has been settled."

   Mahelt looked startled. "I thought the contract was agreed years ago at the betrothal?"

   "It was, and the King approved, but her dowry is being disputed by her half-brother. As his mother's heir, he's claiming some of the lands the contract vouchsafed to Alais."

   Mahelt looked disbelieving. "But if the King approved it at the time, he has no grounds. It's William de Forz, isn't it?" She cudgelled her memory. "I was only small at the time, but I remember him in London. He kicked me, so Richard kicked him back."

   "It doesn't matter whether or not he has grounds," Isabelle replied. "What does matter is how far the King allows him to take such a claim."

   "You mean overturn the contract…he wouldn't do that." She eyed her mother askance. "He needs my father more than he needs William de Forz."

   "Mayhap," Isabelle said, "but it's not that simple. He calls himself de Forz, but his real name should be FitzRoy…"

   Mahelt's lips moved, silently repeating the last word, then she gasped and put her hand to her mouth. "He's John's bastard. Holy God, Mama!"

   "He's never been officially acknowledged, but then his mother was an heiress in her own right and able to provide for him and de Forz made a convenient 'father' for the cuckoo."

   Mahelt's eyes were as huge as platters. "Did Baldwin know when he married her?"

   "Of course he did. You couldn't dwell at court and not be aware of the scandal and it was never a well-kept secret. You wouldn't have heard because you were too young and it was not the sort of matter your father and I would have discussed in front of you…but we knew. That was why your father and Baldwin set out to put such a seal on the contract between your brother and Alais that nothing could break it…but it won't stop de Forz from trying or John from lending a sympathetic ear."

   Mahelt leaned back on the seat, still winded with surprise. "Baldwin's wife never struck me as being the kind that John would want to bed—from what I've heard of his preferences."

   Isabelle gave her an amused look. "And what would they be?" She thought of her own narrow escapes where John's lust was concerned.

   Mahelt shrugged. "Golden hair, breasts like cushions, and brains to match."

   Isabelle compressed her lips and took several stitches, although it was hard to prevent her shoulders from shaking. She had the hair, although time had somewhat faded its glory; she had the breasts…and perhaps John also thought she had feather for brains. "Like a hen then," she said without inflection.

   "The King takes pleasure in bedding the wives and daughters of his lords," Mahelt said with a steely glint in his eyes, "and then it doesn't matter what they look like…Yes, and that's like a dunghill cockerel treading a hen."

   "I think that is what John did with Hawise of Aumale. He got her with child then pushed the bastard on to de Forz for a consideration."

   Mahelt pursed her lips. "He can't do anything to prevent Will and Alais from marrying though, can he?"

   "I would not put anything past John," Isabelle said ominously.

***

Will rode through sunlit glades with Alais; the green of spring was in full bud and leaf. The sap in the trees seemed as if it was running through his veins too, like heavy honey, languorous and sweet. He could not believe that the young woman riding at his side and smiling at him through her lashes was the same scrawny little thing on whose finger he had set an overlarge betrothal ring ten years ago. She wore the ring now upon her heart finger, a sapphire gimmel shanked in gold. Her skin was as pale as ivory, almost translucent, her braids a shimmering golden-brown, and her eyes undid him. Like agates, they changed in the light, now green, now amber, now tawnybrown, but while their hue fascinated him, it was the shy flirtation and worship in them that unravelled his being. He was not used to having someone hang on his every word and it was a heady sensation. She was a good horsewoman too, handling her mount competently without having to think about it. Some of the ladies of the court looked like millers' flour sacks in the saddle, but not Alais.

   "You ride like a queen," he told her.

   Pink colour stained her cheeks and, slanting him a swift glance, she thanked him for the compliment.

   "Who taught you, your father?"

   "Yes," she said and looked down. He saw her lips compress and wondered if he had trodden on tender ground. He didn't want to upset her.

   "You must mourn him deeply. I know my own father does."

   She said nothing for a moment, but moved in tune with her horse. Her braids were as lustrous as the finest silk. "I hated him," she said passionately.

   Her words were so different from those he had expected to hear that Will could only stare at her in shock. Baldwin de Béthune had been his father's bosom companion, the
bon ami
of tournament and battlefield. He could remember Baldwin tousling his hair, teasing him, play-wrestling with him and Richard, poring over a game of chess. "Why?" he asked.

   Alais pouted. The moistness of her lower lip provoked a sensation of lust that shocked him. "Because he used to thrash me and lock me in an empty store room with naught but bread and water…He used to hit my mother too."

   Will's jaw dropped and his stare widened until his eyes were at full stretch. "Baldwin did that?" He could not have been more astonished had she told him that Baldwin had two heads and a tail.

   "You don't believe me?" Now there was hostility in her voice, sharpening the sweetness with an almost shrill edge.

   Will tightened his hands on the reins and closed his mouth. "Yes…yes, I do, if only because people are never what they seem…but I…" He shook his head, nonplussed.

   "He said I was insolent when I stood up for myself. He said he would not have a daughter of his humiliating him or shaming her upbringing by speaking out of turn…and it seemed that every time I opened my mouth, I did that. My mother and I were expected to know our place and it was under his heel like…like well-trained dogs. If we behaved as he thought we should, he patted us. If we didn't, we were beaten." There was a sudden liquid shimmer in her eyes and if Will had been unravelling before, now he was completely undone.

   "Don't weep," he said hoarsely. "You will unman me."

   A smile sparkled through her tears. "I wouldn't want to do that, my lord."

   Will flushed. Liquid fire had run through him when she called him "my lord," a title usually reserved to his father. "No one will ever beat or hurt you again, not while I am your husband," he said vehemently.

   The forced smile became a genuine one that dazzled Will and destroyed all chance of his reassembling his love-scattered wits, but then her expression clouded over again. "But what if my brother succeeds in taking away part of my dowry. Will the agreement still stand?"

   "Of course it will!" He was horrified to think of any other outcome. "My father and yours were bosom friends, and for that bond alone, you would still be my wife. Your brother won't lay a finger on your lands," he added, a steely note entering his voice. "I promise you. No matter what he says or John does, the marriage contract is as tight as a sword in a new scabbard. You are mine and your lands will belong to our children."

   She blushed and the look she sent him made him wonder how he was going to bear the time until they were man and wife and able to share a bed.

                             *** John eyed the young man who had just risen from his knees. A handsome lad, very handsome indeed, even if not overly gifted with height. The dark hair, the narrow mouth, and the shape of the beard-edged jaw found their older counterpart in John's own face. William de Forz, lord of Holderness, was at court to pay his mother's death duties to the Crown and give homage for his inheritance.

   "Be welcome," John said. "I would have been pleased to see more of you had your mother chosen to raise you in England."

   "And I would have been pleased to attend, sire, but my stepfather had other notions." The voice was pleasant, rich and modulated, similar to John's own. Fine gold rings adorned his fingers and his tunic was trimmed with a narrow band of silk— significantly of royal purple.

   "Your stepfather perhaps had his reasons," John said delicately, and commanded an attendant to pour wine. "Do you read?" He gestured towards several books piled on a coffer, some of them covered in plain leather, others gilded and set with jewels.

   De Forz's eyes lit up. "Yes, sire. Like you, I collect books." John walked over to the pile, selected one of the plain leather covers, and handed it to his guest. "It belonged to Hubert Walter. Matters of the exchequer. You might find it useful."

   "Thank you, sire, indeed I will, especially if I am to find the money to pay the fines and dues incurred by my mother's death and the drain on the estate caused by my sister's marriage to the Marshal heir." He rubbed his thumb over the scuffed leather edges, and glanced covetously at the gem-encrusted books. John saw the look. The young man was going to go away disappointed if he expected to receive one of those.

   John stroked his chin. "Your half-sister's dowry hardly swallows up the lands left to you by your mother. However, in her memory and because I need good men to serve me in these times, I am willing to forgo much of that debt. If you are willing to help me, then in my turn I will help you as much as I can."

   De Forz looked down at the book in his hands. He turned the pages, read a little, looked up with eyes full of ambition. "My half-sister's father took liberties when he agreed to her marriage portion."

   John shrugged. "That is out of my hands. The contract was witnessed and ratified by too many people. It must stand."

   "So there is nothing you can do to prevent the marriage or the loss of the lands from my patrimony?"

   John looked at his clean, trimmed fingernails. "Short of one of them dying, no," he replied in an offhand voice.

   "Yes, that's what I thought," de Forz answered, his own voice equally neutral. "What a pity."

Thirty-three

PEMBROKE, SOUTH WALES, JULY 1214

Isabelle smiled at her smallest daughter who was asleep against her skirts, having fallen prey to the exhaustion of over-excitement caused by her eldest brother's marriage and the hectic pace of the preparations and celebrations of recent days. They had given Isabelle a splitting skull and she would be glad when she too could put her head down and sleep. She was seated with her other daughters on a long padded bench that had been erected for spectators so they could be comfortable while they watched the jousting contests and feats of arms being performed on the castle sward.

   The bride sat next to Isabelle on her gilded cushions, her hands demurely folded in her lap, her new gold wedding ring shining on her heart finger. A chaplet of white roses crowned her loose golden-brown hair. She wore a gown of pale gold silk damask with a long train, the sleeves deep and lined with more silk in iridescent blue-green. The girdle was belted high, with surplus fabric drawn through it, so that rather than seeing the bride's taut, slender figure, the impression was one of fecundity. Indeed, Isabelle had half wondered, given the strong attraction between Will and Alais, whether the next heir to the earldom might put in an appearance earlier than nine months from the wedding day. However, there had been blood on the sheets this morning and Alais kept shifting on her cushion as if in a certain amount of discomfort. From the heavy-lidded looks Will had been casting at her all day, and Alais's demure cat-that-has-justeaten-a-bird glances of response, Isabelle hazarded that they had abstained from the final act in the months before their marriage, but were by no means novices.