The Scarlet Lion (46 page)

   Isabelle didn't have to wonder. She knew herself responsible. She should never have allowed Alais to go to the chamber alone. She should have had more care for the domestic security of the keep. The thought of Will's reaction to what had happened made her feel ill with worry, guilt and grief. That someone could have so much hatred in them, enough to murder a young, heavily pregnant woman in such a shocking manner, was sickening. Few candidates came to mind, but her husband and son were fighting for the foremost one and the fear and loathing added a deeper blackness to the cloud hanging over her.

                             *** In the royal camp at Gloucester, Will had been drinking hard. William had noticed, but said nothing. His son was a grown man and responsible for his own mistakes. Lecturing him would be counter-productive because he was already on a knife-edge.

   "It's war, isn't it?" Will pushed his dark brown hair off his forehead. "John never had any intention of looking at the terms put to him."

   William shrugged. "He looked but he didn't like what he saw. There's still room for negotiation on both sides."

   "You think so?" Will looked sceptical. "I reckon the only speaking to be done now is on the edge of a sword." He tossed down the rest of his wine and reached for the flagon to find it empty too. "Christ, where's it all gone?"

   "In your belly, all but the one cup that's in mine." William pointed towards the pallet set up in a corner of the room. "You're drunk. Go to bed."

   "It'll all look better in the morning?" Will's upper lip curled.

   "I didn't say it would look better," William replied with laboured patience. "I said that you were drunk. Of course, you might be able to think clearly on a bucket of wine, but I always find—" He broke off and looked up as Jean D'Earley entered the chamber, followed by Isabelle's chaplain, Walter.

   "My lord, there is news from Pembroke," Jean announced in a blank voice.

   William knew it wasn't good news, not delivered by a senior knight and a chaplain when everyone was on the verge of retiring. Walter looked exhausted, miserable, and frightened. He bowed to William, but it was to Will he turned. The latter sat as if frozen to his seat, like a man watching his doom approach and unable to do anything about it.

   "Sir…my young lord…" He fell to his knees before Will. "It grieves me beyond expressing to be the bearer of dreadful tidings, my lord, but your wife the lady Alais is dead…and the child with her."

   Will stared at him. "Dead?" he said blankly.

   Walter put his hands together as if praying. "My lord, no one knows how it happened. The lady Alais was…was…Oh, Holy Christ have mercy…murdered in her chamber." The final words emerged as if a sudden hard blow had forced them out from where they had become stuck. "Your lady mother found her, but by that time it was too late and she and the child were dead."

   "Murdered?" William demanded, horror crawling over him.

   The chaplain gave a frightened nod. "Stabbed. No one knows who or why…or they didn't when I set out to bring you the news. It was in the heart of the keep…the top room. The Countess has put every guard on duty and none of the keep ladies is to be left on her own."

   Will drew a tearing breath and lurched to his feet. "No!" he snarled. "You lie!" And he lunged at Walter, seizing him by the throat and shaking him like a terrier with a rat. William stepped forward to try to separate them, but Will's choke hold had the strength of trauma behind it. Jean D'Earley had to punch Will in the stomach before he would release his grip. Will doubled over, retching, and the chaplain staggered backwards, clutching his throat, wheezing for breath, his eyes almost popping out of his skull. William folded his arms around his son and drew him on to the bench. Will shuddered, spasms rippling through him as his body reacted to the news even while his mind rejected it.

   "I have ridden three good horses into the ground getting to you," Walter croaked. "The Countess fears for your lives. She begs you to be on your guard. She herself is bearing the lady Alais to the abbey at Tintern."

   William's own mind was numb, but less so than his son's. He had picked up the implication that Isabelle believed the death to be political rather than the work of a deranged person or someone with a personal grudge against Alais. "Tell me what happened…all of it," he said.

   "My lord, I am not sure it is wise," said Walter, casting a hesitant look in Will's direction.

   "Even so, I would know, rather than let the details come out in festering drips. We will have to hear sooner or later. Apply the cautery and make it now."

   Hesitantly, with long pauses between his words like a man on his deathbed, Walter told father and son the tale inasmuch as he knew it.

   Will vomited up the wine he had drunk; William's expression grew harsh and wintry. "I have seen and heard much wickedness in my lifetime," he said, his voice gritty with revulsion and grief, "but nothing to match this."

   "It's John's doing." Will lurched to his feet. "He hates us. He's never forgiven you for paying homage to Philip of France for Longueville and for how you humiliated him in Ireland. He hates me too because I'm a Marshal!"

   "John isn't stupid," William snapped. "He wouldn't turn against us when he needs us so badly."

   "You don't see it because you don't want to see it. What will it take? Will we all have to be murdered in our beds before you open your eyes?"

   "Enough!" William said, his voice harsh with the effort he was making to hold on to control. "You have said enough!"

   "I haven't even begun," Will retorted, but clamped his jaw and, heeling about, wove unsteadily towards the door. "I'll ride by moonlight…be at Striguil by dawn."

   William caught his arm. "Then in God's name sober up first. Your troop will need time to assemble. Take Bloet and Siward for escort. I'll bring the rest of them as soon as I can."

   Will nodded stiffly, wrenched himself free, and, without looking at his father, stumbled from the room.

   William sat down heavily and put his face in his hands. He was appalled that such a deed could have been perpetrated in the heart of his earldom. It was a violation that threatened to rip the soul out of his family and his dynasty. If not John, then who, or why? And the poor girl…the only child of his best friend. How could he stand at Baldwin's tomb and tell him that she had been murdered at the core of the Marshal household where she should have been safe?

   His blood froze as he remembered an incident in Ireland when he had been involved in a heated argument with Albus, Bishop of Fearns, over two disputed manors. The Bishop had cursed him, declaring that his sons would never have sons and that the name of Marshal would be obliterated within a generation. The Bishop might or might not have the power or the means to do such a thing in the physical sense, but a curse had its own terrible, unseen energy.

                             *** Isabelle was waiting at Striguil with the funeral cortège when Will arrived with his small escort of companions. She had only been there a few hours herself and was exhausted from the gruelling journey and her equally gruelling thoughts. The sight of Will flinging down from his tottering mount in the bailey filled her with dread. What was she going to say to him when the enormity of what had happened was too much for words to encompass?

   She went to him, her arms outstretched, but he ignored them. "Where is she?" he demanded in a ragged voice. His face was grey and gaunt and his eyes were wild.

"The chapel," she said.

   He thrust past her and strode towards the keep. Isabelle had to run to keep up. "I tried to save her, but there was nothing I could do—nothing anyone could have done. I'm so sorry, I…"

   He said nothing, gritted his teeth, and increased his pace.

   Striguil's small chapel was ablaze with expensive wax candles, their light clear and hot, redolent with the scent of clover and honey. Incense too filled the spaces and haltered his breath. Before the cross on the altar stood a bier covered in silk cloths of scarlet and gold, fringed with tassels, and upon that bier, in cold state, lay Alais, hands clasped together in prayer, eyes closed as if she slept. Four household knights stood in vigil around her, swords drawn, and Father Roger, another of the family chaplains, was kneeling at prayer.

   Gasping for breath, Isabelle caught up with her son and tried to take his arm, but he shook her off and, making a perfunctory reverence to the altar, approached the bier. The knights on guard flickered their eyes to him then looked away into the middle distance.

   He stared for a long time, still now after his rapid movement. The baby lay at Alais's side, swaddled in linen, features perfectly formed even down to the feathery pale gold eyebrows and lashes. Until that moment he hadn't quite believed it was true. There had still been a faint chance it was a mistake, or a lie, but such mercy was now gone. Grief and rage gathered within him, hot as molten lead and as brittle as midwinter ice. Between the two extremes, he was immolated and shattered. All the promise, all the joy, all the future: it was nothing, a barren wasteland.

   "She's to be borne to Tintern tomorrow," his mother said. "It's green and peaceful there and the monks will say daily masses for her soul and that of the baby."

   "Boy or girl?" he asked in a husky voice. His fists opened and closed.

"Boy…" she whispered, her eyes swimming with tears.

   "My son…my wife…" His voice cracked. "In the heart of Pembroke, Mother…how could it happen? Tell me, how could it happen?"

   She shook her head and swallowed. "We don't know. There were no witnesses. I found her…I was going to talk with her and she was…she was lying on the floor by the window…She wanted to be on her own awhile, you see. It never entered our heads that she might be in danger."

   Will moved away from her. He couldn't bear to stand at her side and listen to her talk. In a moment he was going to seize her as he had seized Father Walter, and there would be no way back from that…but then as matters stood there was no way back and no way forward for him anyway. He was trapped for ever in limbo with his dead wife and child. "Go," he said to her. "Leave me be."

   "Let me at least—"

   "Go!" he half sobbed, his voice lifting towards a snarl. "I cannot bear you in my presence. Do you not understand? You always say you do, but you have no idea!"

   Isabelle took a backstep and gasped at the blaze of rage bordering on hatred in her son's eyes.

   "I blame you," he spat out of the depth of his anguish. "You were there, you could have done something. Perhaps you even knew!"

   "What! Jesu God!" she cried. "Grief has sent you mad. I would have protected her with my life!"

   "But you didn't!"

   "He was my grandchild too." Isabelle's voice quivered with shock. "Do you think I'd have stood by and let someone take a knife and rip out his life?"

   "I don't know what I think. I only know that she is dead and I do not want you near me. I want her, but I cannot have her, can I?"

   Isabelle drew a deep breath and felt her entire body ache as she inhaled. There was no point in staying to argue. She was reeling from the accusations he had hurled at her and felt so unwell that she couldn't have remained even had she wanted to. She needed William, his wisdom, his guidance…although she had a suspicion that William would have struck Will to the ground for what he had just said.

   On unsteady legs she left the chapel. She was vaguely aware of the staring, appalled faces of servants and retainers. Sybilla D'Earley took her arm, whispering that Isabelle should pay no heed, that her eldest son was overset and that he would come to his senses by and by. "I don't see why he should," Isabelle said brokenly, "when the entire world has gone mad."

                             *** It was a beautiful spring morning, bursting with life, when Alais's funeral mass was held at Tintern and her body laid to rest before the choir at Aoife's side. The sun shone through the high glass windows, creating streamers of clear light on the tiled floor. The chanting of the monks rose in plaintive melody to mingle with the incense smoke.

   Hollow-eyed, savage with grief and anger, Will held his place only to honour Alais and his son. He had barely spoken to his mother. It was her fault and it gave him a sense of stability to have someone immediately to blame. He had not apologised for his wilder accusations. The way he felt, he would rather set the world alight than conciliate. It had to be John's doing. A man who could murder his own nephew, hound vassals into exile, starve their wives and children to death, and hang little children was unlikely to cavil at getting his own back on the Marshals for the humiliation he had suffered over Ireland and Normandy.

   His father had arrived from Gloucester in haste with the main troop. Will had scarcely exchanged a word with him, and did not intend to do so once the funeral mass was over. All he wanted to do was escape. He couldn't bear the notion of a family conference with his parents united in their compassion and concern. He would feel backed into a corner, would have to fight, and he didn't know what would come out of that fight, only that it would be deep, bitter, and black.

   As they emerged from the chapel, the usual gaggle of beggars and poor folk were waiting to receive alms. Will was aware of his mother giving them, of having a kind word for each person…as if she were genuinely caring of their plight. His father stood with her, supporting her with his hand at her arm and with the solid strength of his presence. Biting the inside of his cheek, Will turned towards his groom who was holding his horse ready.

   As he set his foot to the stirrup, his father strode over to him, bidding him wait, calling out that they had matters to discuss.

   "We have nothing to discuss," Will answered as he gained the saddle.

   FitzWalter and de Vesci have left Gloucester and declared open war. I know you are shocked and grieving, but I need you and your men in the field."

   Will gathered the reins. "I am taking my men to join FitzWalter and de Vesci. I renounce John as my King and I swear I will do everything within my power to bring him down."