The Scarlet Lion (48 page)

   "London, no doubt," he said neutrally. "The rebels have scarcely moved from there all season while they wait for an answer from the French." He turned the small wooden horse between his fingers, "It's my brief to try to persuade Philip not to allow his son his chance at England."

   "Are you likely to succeed?"

   William spread his hands. "I don't know. Philip would dearly like to add England to his territories. On the other hand he doesn't want to risk his heir in a war on English soil—a war that defies the: Pope. And Louis's claim to John's crown holds as much water as a leaky bucket so he's unlikely to win his petition to Rome."

   "Then there is a chance." Isabelle went to his clothing coffer and began sorting through his tunics, shirts, and hose in search of garments suitable for the French court.

   "Well, yes, but never underestimate the pigheadedness of young men. Those in London have invited Louis to be England's King, and if Louis wants it badly enough, his father is more likely to yield to him than he is to listen to the pleadings of myself and the Bishop of Winchester."

   Isabelle ran her fingers over the cloth of silver he had worn in Ireland as lord of Leinster. Too ostentatious, she thought; he would outdo Philip in that one. The blue would be better, with the garnet grape clusters embroidered at the cuffs.

   "I want you to come with me," he said.

   Isabelle's heart gave a sudden kick. She turned from the coffer and gazed at him.

   He shifted under her stare and she sensed uncertainty— almost, she would have said, the hesitancy of a suitor unsure of the response he was going to receive and beginning to regret opening his mouth. "You will be an asset to me at the court, and when that is done, we can go to Longueville for a day on the way home. It will be good to see the place again, especially when I had not thought to do so…and Richard will either be there, or at court."

   When she said nothing, he cleared his throat. "I know we cannot go back to the past, but I'd like to pay homage to my memories." He gave her a teasing look to rescue the moment from the danger of becoming maudlin. "It'll be an excuse to wear your court gown and those shoes with the gold embroidery and pearls that you only ever wear at Christmas."

   Isabelle swallowed. She had been saving them for her funeral, but she wasn't going to tell him that. Besides, thinking about it now, there was no point in hoarding them for an event she wasn't going to experience. She could always have another pair made. "You are right," she said. "Better the King of France admires them than the moths."

   He returned her smile. "No, wear them for your husband. Let him do the admiring as you dance."

   Turning to him, Isabelle threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, William," she said, and laughed, although deep inside she felt a poignant sadness.

                             *** At the French court, Isabelle wore her gilded shoes almost every day. Now that she had changed her mind about their purpose, she was determined to wear them out and they took her to formal feast, informal dancing, and personal exploration of the booths, market places, and churches of the Île de France. She saw little of William, closeted as he was in delicate negotiations, but she was far from bored. The obligatory social round involving the wives and daughters of the French nobility kept her well occupied and she gleaned almost as much information from them as she would have done sitting in council with William.

   She was ecstatic when Richard arrived at court from Longueville. William's second cousin, Thomas, Count of Perche, rode in from his lands too, and insisted on offering hospitality to her and William at his lodging on the banks of the Seine.

   "Your son is a fine young man," he told Isabelle and William one evening after vespers as they drank wine and the river flowed past his lodging house like a dark stained glass window. He lifted his cup off the shelf of his belly and toasted the broadshouldered young man at his side. "Although I should not be saying so to his face, especially in front of his proud parents. I wouldn't want to make him big-headed."

   Richard flashed a white grin. "And that would be a disaster for the tourney field. I need to be able to get my skull in and out of a helm."

   Isabelle gave him a sharp look. "You tourney?"

   Richard shook his head. "Not like my father used to do, if the tales are anything to go by," he said with a mischievous look at William, "but on occasion I enter the lists. Besides, I don't have the time with the Norman estates to tend."

   Thomas snorted. "What he doesn't tell you is that he took the prize at Saint-Damme at Christmas—and faced down William des Barres, who is the best tourney knight in France."

   "I had some good fortune," Richard said, flushing but obviously pleased. In his mid twenties, the fleshiness of adolescence had yielded to height and muscular strength. What had emerged from the chrysalis was an extraordinarily attractive young man with ruddy-gold hair and green-grey eyes. Just looking at him made Isabelle feel proud and terrified.

   "It was more than that," grunted Thomas. "You ride like your father." He saluted William with a cup that waved precariously in his hand for he had been drinking steadily for much of the evening. "There haven't been any tourneys of late because of Lent, but they'll be starting up again soon. Good practice for the battlefield."

   Isabelle choked on her wine and Richard laid a solicitous hand on her sleeve. "Don't worry, Mother. Even if Prince Louis does take an army to England, I won't be in the ranks. I'm not obliged to serve him across the Narrow Sea."

   "For which I thank God," she said vigorously. "I suppose you know about your brother—that he is amongst the rebels."

   The grin left Richard's face. "Yes," he said, and leaned back from the table as if withdrawing a little from the conversation. "I am sorry. I am also glad I'm out of it."

   "I am too," Isabelle said.

   An uneasy silence fell and was broken by Thomas. "If Prince Louis gets his way, half the French lords will be crossing to England, but no point worrying about it tonight. Not worth spoiling good wine and company, eh?" He gestured to his minstrels and entertainers who had been playing quietly in the background during the meal, ordering them to strike up a lively tune and perform feats of tumbling. The manner of his doing so made it plain that while he was happy to discuss old times, the future was a different matter.

***
A week later, the conference with the French over and to
no purpose, William and Isabelle spent a night at Longueville
before embarking for England.

   Isabelle walked the rooms where she had spent her young motherhood. Ghostly echoes of family laughter rang from the walls and haunted the corridors. Many of her children had been born here. Will, her first, on a morning in late April after a long night's labour. She stood in the great bedchamber, remembering lying against the bolsters, the baby's soft weight resting along her arm as he nestled at her breast. Richard and Mahelt were both English born, but this room bore the imprint of Gilbert and Walter's first cries too. Her eyes misted over. The years had flown with the swiftness of summer swallows on the wing.

   Longueville was now a bachelor's home, but Richard had furnished the dwelling rooms with curtains and hangings from Flanders in the latest fashion. Woven reed matting covered the bedchamber floor, topped with the luxury of richly coloured rugs either side of the bed to comfort the feet on rising. Isabelle supposed that he had learned these touches of luxury at John's court. Either that or he had a mistress about whom he was keeping quiet. Isabelle had noticed many women giving him looks at court, but he hadn't returned any of them except in the most general of ways, so she suspected not.

   Running her fingers over a coffer painted with shields bearing the arms of Marshal and de Clare, Isabelle wondered if they should have remained in Normandy when the lands were split—done homage to Philip in full and abandoned the rest. They would certainly have led more peaceful lives as lords of Longueville and Orbec. But then they would not have achieved so much either, especially in Ireland.

   In thoughtful mood, Isabelle returned to the great hall. William was sitting before the fire, holding the hand of a frail, elderly man—his brother, Ancel, namesake of their youngest son. Isabelle had never met him and if William had not told her that this was his sibling and younger than him by several years, she would not have believed it. The noses were the same, strong and bony, and perhaps the line of the jaw, but there the resemblance ended. Ancel was cadaver-thin, yellow of complexion, and so unsteady that he could barely walk. In his prime he had served in the mesnie of Count Thomas's grandfather, Rotrou, but now, wasting away, he had come to his nephew's keep at Longueville to end his days.

   "I knew you would come back," he was saying to William, his speech slow and careful as he harboured his strength. "I prayed to God to see you before I died and He has been gracious enough to grant my wish." He gave a sad shake of his head. "I thought about returning to England, but it was too far for me to travel. Besides, I'm glad I didn't if all the rumours I hear are true."

   "I told you never to listen to rumours," William said with great sadness in his eyes, although his lips were smiling for the benefit of his brother.

   Ancel gave a wheezy laugh. "Hah, I remember all the ones about you and the Young Queen Marguerite. Nearly your downfall, they were."

   "They weren't true though." William shifted on the bench as if pricked by a thorn.

   "No, but they ruined your reputation for a while." Ancel leaned towards Isabelle. "He was accused of having an affair with King Philip's half-sister, did you know that?"

   "Yes, I knew," Isabelle said, unperturbed. "But it was long before our marriage, and nothing but the petty scheming of jealous rivals. I have ever known the difference between dross and gold."

   Ancel nodded his approval. "So have I, my sister," he replied with a pained smile. "Marguerite was a great lady, but she couldn't hold a candle to you."

   Isabelle thanked him for the compliment with a courtly dip of her head.

   Ancel was silent for a while, then looked thoughtfully at William. "So," he said, "Louis is still intending to invade England?"

   William gave a resigned nod. "His father would rather not have him go, but he will agree eventually. It's too much of a prize not to."

   "And you'll resist him when he invades?"

   "I have no choice."

   Ancel held out one trembling hand and looked at it. "I'm glad I can no longer fight. I don't envy you…but then I suppose you do not envy me." He gave a brief, cracked laugh, and his breathing caught, but when Isabelle gave a murmur of concern, he waved her aside. "I'm all right," he said. "Best I've been in an age."

   He retired to his chamber soon after that to sleep. William stood a long time, watching him, then quietly left the room. Isabelle made to follow her husband, then changed her mind and left him alone. She had seen the way his fists were clenched, and knew from the set of his jaw that what he needed most was solitude. His need for company would come later, and she would be there for him then.

Thirty-seven

LONDON, SPRING 1216

I don't know why you are bothering to meet him," said William de Forz as Will checked and recinched the double girths on his bay courser and prepared to mount. "It won't make any difference, will it? What are you going to say?"

   "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," Will answered, deliberately busy with his task so that he did not have to meet his companion's scornful amber gaze. "My father has asked to see me and I'm not going to refuse him."

   "I would."

   "I'm not you." Will's friendship with de Forz had cooled considerably over the months they had spent in each other's company in London. At first de Forz had been a bolster to Will's fury and grief over Alais's death, and a tenuous connection with her since he was her half-brother, but as Will began to find a modicum of balance, he had started to notice things about de Forz that made him uneasy. He was always aggrandising himself at the expense of others. He clad himself richly but doled out alms and charity from a grudging fist, and he was casually cruel. If a dog got underfoot, he kicked it out of the way with enough force to make it yelp. A pargeter's lad had accidentally spilled limewash on de Forz's cloak yesterday and de Forz had cut him across the cheek with his riding whip, inflicting a vicious wound.

   As Will swung into the saddle and prepared to leave, de Forz detained him with a hand on his bridle. "Your father is new returned from France. You'll tell us everything that he tells you."

   "I'll think about it," Will said and used his spurs, forcing de Forz to release his grip and leap back. Will clattered out from the lodging yard into the road with an escort of two knights and two serjeants. The streets were moderately busy with folk going about their business, but at the sight of armed men, they hurried past or stood to one side with heads down and eyes lowered. The city of London had opened its gates to the rebels, but its inhabitants were wary. Only two days since a young wine merchant had been stabbed to death in a brawl with one of de Forz's henchmen. De Forz's man had slipped away before he could be arrested and hanged, leaving behind a lingering taint of suspicion. The rumour ran that de Forz had given him funds for his escape on a French-bound galley, and de Forz was known to have a grudge with the vintner over unpaid debts.

   Will left the city by way of Ludgate, crossed the Fleet river, swollen dirty brown by recent rain, and continued along Fleet Street until he arrived at the precincts of the Temple Church. Word had gone ahead and Aimery de St Maur, master of the Templars in England, had come from his lodgings on the east side of the church and was waiting before the ornate arched doorway to greet him. The lord Aimery was to be his escort and safe conduct from the Temple to Caversham. No one from either faction would dare to attack a conroi of Templar knights going about their business.