The Winter Mantle (66 page)

Castle of Gisors, Norman Border, March 1098

Removing his helm, shrugging his shield from his shoulders, Simon limped into the Great Hall at Gisors. His temper was almost at boiling point, and it was taking all of his will to hold it down.

The object of his rage was sitting with his boots propped upon the dais trestle, drinking from a handsome silver-gilt cup. Cloak, helm and swordbelt were laid at one side in readiness to ride. Robert de Bêlleme, Simon's
bete noire
, was also a battle commander at Gisors, and indeed the man responsible for the redesigning of what had been a poxy border keep into what was swiftly becoming an imposing fortress. His skills as an engineer and architect were outstanding. That did not, however, prevent Simon from loathing him. De Bêlleme had changed sides more often than the tables were turned in a busy great hall. Whilst Robert of Normandy was still occupied on the crusade, De Bêlleme was content to serve William Rufus, but Simon doubted the loyalty would last. The baron's nature was too fickle for that. The only light in the darkness was that De Bêlleme was about to leave Gisors for the war that William Rufus was conducting against Helias of La Fleche in Maine. 'Your man Gerard de Serigny has burned yet another village!' Simon snarled as he dumped his helm on the table and slung a leather armguard after it. 'What is the point of building this castle to hold the border if we then lay waste to the area that supplies it and make enemies of the people? Have you no control over the foraging parties you send out?'

De Bêlleme narrowed his silvery eyes. 'If De Serigny has burned a village, then it must have been harbouring French sympathies,' he said. 'It's possible to find lice even in the cleanest hair. And you know how fast they breed.' He made a cracking gesture with index finger and thumb.

Simon gave a growl of disgust and reached across De Bêlleme for the flagon, forcing the Baron to lean back and inhale a whiff of stale armpit. 'It was no more harbouring French sympathies than you would know honour if it walked up to you and smacked you in the face.' Simon snapped. Sloshing wine into a cup, he threw himself down on the bench that ran the length of the dais. 'I trust Gerard de Serigny is leaving with you.'

De Bêlleme finished his own wine, tossed the cup to his squire for cleaning, and rose to his feet. Unlike Simon, who was newly returned from patrol and spattered with mud, De Bêlleme glittered like a statue in a church, not a speck of rust on his hauberk, not a spatter of mud on cloak or tunic hem. 'No,' he said with a taunting smile. 'Serigny is remaining here, seconded to Hugh Lupus. I can spare a conroi, and whatever you think, you need men like him. At least they do not get caught by the French.'

Simon's anger bubbled closer to the top of the cauldron. A fortnight since he and Hugh Lupus had been caught on the border by a large troop of French soldiers. Their ransoms had been a formality, swiftly paid by William Rufus, but De Bêlleme had been rubbing it in ever since. 'There is no chance of that while they are raiding villages close to home, is there?' he retorted.

De Bêlleme gave an exaggerated sigh. 'You were an irritating brat, De Senlis, and you've not changed except to grow older and even less competent than you were as a squire.'

'That dish of frumenty I threw down your neck was deliberate,' Simon answered. 'And I count my competence somewhat less rancid than your honour… my lord.' He inclined his head to emphasise the sarcasm but there was no deference. These days, being an earl, he outranked De Bêlleme.

'I have neither the time nor the inclination to bandy words with you,' De Bêlleme sneered, and, taking his feet off the trestle, he pinned his cloak and swept together helm and sword.

'Mayhap not, but you will have them with De Serigny before you go, or I will do it myself - and with more than words if necessary.'

De Bêlleme glared at Simon. 'Do you know what happened to the last man who tried to tell me my business?'

Simon gave an exaggerated shrug. 'Doubtless you impaled him on a stake in the dungeon or strung him from the battlements by his own guts.' He met the pale gaze calmly, although his heart was hammering and he could feel his palm itching with the need to hold a sword between himself and De Bêlleme.

De Bêlleme made an impatient sound. 'I loathe you,' he said, 'but this once I will speak with De Serigny. We will not always be allies, Simon de Senlis. Remember it well.'

His spurs scraped the bench as he stepped over it and strode from the dais. Simon watched him out of the hall with a stare that was fixed and cold, but when the baron was gone his spine melted and he slumped on the bench. There was icy sweat in his armpits and even if his hand was itching to hold a sword his palm was so damp that it would have fouled his grip. He knew men who had a similar response to snakes. With him it was Robert de Bêlleme.

He drained his cup and poured himself a fresh measure, waving away the squire who would have attended him. 'Go and prepare a tub,' he said. 'I stink like a midden.'

The lad trotted off, but moments later and far too soon to have accomplished his errand, he returned to the dais with a sealed parchment in his hand. 'Earl Simon, a messenger asked me to give you this. Says it is a personal matter.'

Simon took the package and squinted at the seal, but it was not one that he recognised. He thought about leaving it until after he had bathed. There were always messengers, always supplicants, always someone wanting something. But he knew that now it was in his hand it would niggle at him. A
personal matter
. He thought at first of Matilda
-
but it wasn't her seal. 'Did the messenger say where he came from?' he questioned.

'From the convent of the Holy Redeemer in Evreux, my lord.'

Simon's expression did not change. He thanked the lad and dismissed him to his original errand, then slit the seal and unfolded the package.

When he had finished reading the single page of scribe-written brown lines, he threw back his head, closed his eyes, and softly groaned.

Simon drew rein outside the convent and dismounted. Behind him his conroi did the same, but since they did not expect to be admitted they settled down to wait in the lee of the outer wall.

Simon handed his bridle to Turstan and went to rap the lion's head knocker on the nunnery's heavy oak door. The brass ring in the lion's mouth was solid and smooth in his fingers, anchoring him to the reality of why he was here. Above the knocker, a small door opened in the thickness of the wood and a nun peered out at him, her face framed in a white wimple overlaid by a dark veil.

'Simon de Senlis, Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon,' he said to her. 'I am expected.'

A key grated in a lock and a bolt slid back. The nun opened the main door sufficiently to admit him and no wider. Simon suppressed a grimace. The job of porteress was always given to a nun with the mentality of a goodwife guarding her chicken run from foxes. She honoured him with a dip of her head and the suggestion of a curtsey, but only after she had frowned round the door at his men and locked up behind him.

'I will take you to Mother Abbess,' she said. Her mouth was prim and tight as if pulled with a drawstring. Clearly the reason for him being here was known and not approved — whatever his rank. She led him through the warren of buildings to the Abbess' private solar. Other nuns were about their duties in the space between prayers, indoor pursuits today of spinning, weaving and sewing, since it was not fit weather for gardening. He received swift glances and lowered lids. They would not talk about him behind his back, because they were sworn to speak only as necessary, but he could feel the weight of their speculation.

The Abbess' solar was a pleasant room, warmed by braziers and hung with colourful religious embroideries. The coffers along the side of the room released a scent of beeswax from their gleaming surfaces. It was such a contrast to Judith's chamber at Elstow that it enforced Simon's realisation of how much his mother-by-marriage had mortified herself in her last years.

The Abbess was seated in a high-backed chair, her hands folded in her lap and wrapped around a set of beautiful agate prayer beads. A large gold cross shone on her breast against the dark wool of her habit. Rising to her feet, she greeted Simon cordially, and bade the porteress fetch Sabina.

'I must thank you for coming so swiftly, my lord, and in person,' she said, resuming her seat and gesturing him to a second chair padded with an embroidered cushion. Turning to an exquisite silver flagon, she poured a generous measure of wine into one of two matching goblets and handed it to him.

'You thought I might send a proxy?' he said with raised brows.

'Not to missay your honour, but I thought it likely, my lord. I did not know if you would have the time - or the interest.'

'For this I would,' he said grimly and took a drink of the wine. As he had expected, it was superb. 'After all, the responsibility is mine.'

'Not ail men would see the matter in that particular light, my lord. We see plenty of distressed young women at our gates who have been abandoned by their lovers and left to deal with the consequences themselves. And on many occasions the father owns more than a ploughshare.'

'I did not abandon Sabina,' Simon said, his colour rising. 'Indeed, I offered her a place under my roof, but she was set on joining your community… I did not know until your letter arrived that she had borne a child.' He met her gaze steadily. 'She is not my habitual mistress, cast off to a nunnery when the arrangement no longer suited. This infant was born of a single occasion of weakness.'

She was not going to let him off the hook so easily. 'And yet Sister Sabina says that you know each other well.'

'We do… but not as lovers.'

The nun looked sceptical. He could not blame her. 'He is a fine, healthy baby. We could raise him here and send him for fostering in a monastery when he is old enough, but it is not wise to keep an infant among nuns when one of them is his mother. Even if he is bastard born, he is the son of an earl, and Sister Sabina desires that you foster him in your own household… I assume that your very presence here attests that you are willing?'

Simon set his empty cup back on the table and shook his head at her offer of more. 'Of course I am willing,' he said.

There was a tap on the door and Sabina entered, a swaddled bundle lying along her left arm, cradled against her heart. Simon stared at her. She had always been attractive in her ordinary gown and wimple, but the nun's garb made her look like a Madonna. The oval face, the pure features, the grey-violet eyes with their thick black lashes. He could almost see dumbfounded peasants kneeling at her feet in worship. And he would have been tempted to join them. Her hands were slender and beautifully shaped, ringless too. She had removed Saer's wedding band.

Simon rose to his feet. His heart was hammering against his ribs and his throat was tight. The words thai had always come so easily before now deserted him. He swallowed. 'Why did you not send to me sooner?' he demanded.

She met his gaze defensively. 'There would have been no point,' she said. 'What could you have done except watch my belly grow? Besides, I did not know that I was carrying a child at first. There had been no signs. In the early months my fluxes had continued. And when I did find out, I had some thinking to do.' She looked down at the baby and gently stroked his cheek.

'You do not have to give him up,' Simon said. 'I would furnish you a place to live, you know that.'

Sabina smiled sadly and shook her head. 'That would serve for his early years,' she replied, 'but the time would soon come for you to take him into your household and train him for knighthood, and I would be left with naught to do but sit and spin and brood. The parting will be better now than later. I will have my devotions to keep me occupied, and the support of Mother Abbess and the good sisters.' She raised her arm, bringing the child closer to her gaze. 'I may be about to renounce the world, but I want him to grasp it in both hands. He is my healing,' she added, 'a gift from God. I did not think to bear another child after I lost the others. Let him go out and live his life.' Her voice had been steady and calm thus far, but now it developed a wobble and her chin dimpled. 'Take him… His name is Simon, for you.' She kissed the baby gently on the brow, and gave him into his father's arms.

Simon looked down at the tiny swaddled scrap. Its eyes were closed in slumber and the wisps of hair peeping from beneath its linen bonnet were dark. Jesu God. He wanted to say that if he had known this would be the result of that moment of lust in Durazzo he would have abstained, but the words stuck in his throat and then dissolved at the feel of the warm weight and tiny skull. Sabina's son was indeed a gift — a wonderful and very disturbing one.

'I have a carrying basket for him,' she said, 'and swaddling bands that I stitched while awaiting my confinement.' She spoke with a swift and almost desperate practicality. 'You will need to find him a wet nurse…"

'There are several at Gisors,' Simon said in a distracted voice. 'Some of the soldiers have wives with them, and the Earl of Chester has a woman with a babe in his household.'

'Sister Sabina will see you to the gate,' the Abbess said, granting them a leave of conversation alone.

Somehow Simon took a courteous farewell of the senior nun. He was still reeling, unable to comprehend that he had an almost newborn babe on his arm. Sabina walked at his side, carrying the basket and the swaddling.

'He's a good baby,' Sabina said as they walked. 'He should not trouble your journey…'At first glance she appeared composed, but there was no colour in her face and her lips were compressed. 'What will your wife do?' she asked.

Simon grimaced. The wind gusted about them and he carefully shielded the infant within a fold of his cloak. 'I will cross that bridge when I come to it,' he said. 'Hopefully her spirit will be generous enough to understand.'

'And if it is not?'

'I promise you that whatever she and I suffer, the child will not,' he said. 'The sin is yours and mine, not his.'