Elizabeth Chadwick (8 page)

“You’re a girl!” Alain’s voice rang with indignation.

“That means I’m a match for any turnip-witted boys!”

“You’re not. Give me that ball!” Alain launched himself at her. She screamed and made to run, but she was not quite swift enough and the boy brought her down in a flying tackle that sent her sprawling in the grass. But instead of bursting into tears or throwing a tantrum like most little girls that Fulke had encountered, she kept tight hold of the ball and used it to belabor Alain until for his own preservation he was forced to let her go. Richard and Audulf gaped in astonishment, unsure what to do.

Disheveled but triumphant, she scrambled to her feet, the ball still firmly in her possession. A long grass stain marred her blue gown and one of the garters holding up her hose had come untied so that there was an unseemly wrinkle of fabric around her skinny left leg.

“Let her play, lads,” Fulke said through his laughter. “She deserves it.”

The girl flashed a glance at Fulke, obviously noticing him for the first time. He had expected blue eyes to go with hair so blond, but they were a clear, pale green like expensive glass.

“I don’t want to anymore,” she said with a regal tilt of her nose and tossed the ball at a red-faced Alain as if it were a crust to a beggar. “Is he your squire? He has no manners.”

Fulke smothered a grin. “He’s my brother.” At his side, Jean was making small spluttering noises.

She eyed Fulke suspiciously. “He’s a lot younger than you.”

“Eleven years,” Fulke said with a warning glance at Alain who looked as if he was about to explode like a barrel of overheated pitch. “And you are, my lady?”

She flicked at her plaits again and fixed him with an imperious stare, made all the more touching and amusing by her disorderly appearance. “I am Maude le Vavasour,” she announced proudly. “My papa is a great lord and the undersheriff of Lancashire.”

“Yes, I’ve met him.”

Anxiety entered her expression, but she jutted her chin. “No, you haven’t.”

“I have. His name is Robert and he’s wearing a red tunic and blue chausses with leg bindings of scarlet braid.”
And
he’s offering you in marriage to Theobald Walter or anyone else of likely blood who’s prepared to pay the fee
. A spark of pity entered Fulke’s gaze. She was a child, a skinny, kipper-chested little girl running away with his brother’s ball. He couldn’t imagine her married to anyone. “He’s a friend of the lord to whom I was squire,” he continued when she said nothing, just stared at him with those strange, clear eyes. “Does he know you’re here?”

She nodded. “Of course he does. I am visiting with my grandmother.”

Fulke glanced around. “And where is your grandmother?”

“In there.” Maude pointed to the FitzWarin tent.

Fulke wondered whether to enter the tent and introduce himself or beat a hasty retreat. His suspicions that his father, William, and Ivo had made themselves scarce was borne out by the fact that the dogs had not rushed out to greet him. The excuse of taking them for some exercise and clearing the tent of their size and smell was too fortuitous to miss when his mother had the company of a gossip.

Before he had made up his mind to follow their absent example, the tent flap opened and he heard the sound of female voices raised in farewell. A slender, sharp-featured woman, elegantly gowned, stepped outside, followed by his mother.

“Now,” said the visitor, “where’s that child?” As she spoke, her eyes lit on Maude and widened in horror. “By the Holy Virgin, what have you been doing?” She hurried to the girl with the mincing steps of someone who has been taught their manners in high-born company. “I told you not to dirty your dress. What will your father say?

“I wanted to play, but the boy was rude and said I couldn’t join in because I was a girl.” Indignation filled Maude’s voice. “Then when I tried, he chased after me and knocked me down.”

There was no sign of Alain, nor the two other boys, who, at the first indication of trouble, had hastily sloped off.

“Never trust a woman,” Jean muttered out of the side of his mouth. “Even at this age they’re deadly.”

“It’s all right, Mathilda, bring her within and we’ll soon mend the damage,” soothed Hawise. “It’s not so bad.”

“Her father wants her to make a good impression, especially when he’s looking to make a match for her.” Taking her charge’s arm in a firm grip, the older woman marched her inside the tent and dropped the flap.

“I feel sorry for the lass,” Fulke said wryly, “but I cannot help wondering if I am a dupe for doing so. I think if my mother had borne any girls, my sister would have been just like that.”

“Thank heaven for small mercies that she didn’t, else you’d all be wound tightly round the wench’s smallest finger,” Jean said prophetically.

***

Theobald Walter slowly became aware that he was being addressed. “What?” he said to his brother.

Hubert gave an exasperated sigh. “I said you could do worse than to consider le Vavasour’s suggestion.”

They were sitting in Theobald’s tent, drinking a final cup of wine before retiring. It was late, although before the hour of midnight matins. For the final time, Hubert was wearing the robes of office that marked him Archdeacon of York. On the morrow he would be consecrated Bishop of Salisbury and would don a mantle embroidered with thread of gold and the gilded miter of his office.

“What, and sue for the hand of a twelve-year-old girl? Do you think I’m a depraved lecher?” Because Hubert’s words had caught him on the raw, Theobald’s tone rang with indignation.

“No, you lackwit, sue for her lands!” Hubert snapped. “She comes with a rich dowry and that’s worth a moment of anyone’s consideration, even someone as righteous as you! Edlington, Shipley, Hazelwood, Wragby! Whoever takes the girl to wife is going to inherit a fortune!”

Theobald eyed his brother with a feeling very close to distaste. Hubert might be a priest, but he was far from holy. His fiscal acumen was not just renowned; it was notorious. “She is twelve years old,” he reiterated.

Hubert shrugged. “What does that have to do with the color of silver? By the time she is ready to give you heirs, you’ll hardly be in your dotage, will you?”

Theobald waved his hand. “Get out before I throw you out,” he said, but with impatience rather than acrimony. He was uncomfortably aware that from a family viewpoint, Hubert spoke a lot of sense.

“I was leaving anyway.” Hubert levered himself to his feet and went to the tent flap, treading lightly for all his height and bulk. “Think on it, Theo. It’s a good offer and if you don’t make wedding arrangements soon, you never will. Perhaps of the two of us, you should have been the priest.”

“I don’t have the avarice for it,” Theobald growled.

Shaking his head but smiling, Hubert departed.

Theobald glared at the tent flap. The land would indeed be useful since it dovetailed with his own northern estates and interests. But did he really want a bride of twelve? Even given a few years more to mature, she would still be perilously young. Fulke had been fifteen when he had taken him on in the winter before they went to Ireland. He tried to imagine a girl of that age and grimaced. The image was too tempting and too appalling to bear. Leaping from the campstool, he took himself off to his narrow, solitary bed, its sheets made up with the tight precision of a pallet in a monastic cell.

The gold silk of Fulke’s surcoat was as nothing compared to the garments in which the great magnates and bishops were decked for the coronation. Vibrant hues of scarlet and blue, encrusted with jewels and embroidery, made the abbey nave glow like a living stained-glass window. So great was the quantity of seed pearls frosting Archbishop Baldwin’s cope that it was a wonder he could walk.

Prince John was resplendent in a robe of blue wool the color of a midnight sky. Small gemstones decorated throat and cuff and an enormous circular brooch of exquisitely worked gold fastened his sable-lined cloak. He looked every inch a prince, but all eyes were on Richard. Even clad in a tunic of plain wool, no one could mistake him for anything other than a king. The lack of adornment only emphasized his athletic build and the severe beauty of his bone structure.

With great ceremony, attendants stripped Richard of his tunic, shoes, and chausses, to leave him standing in his shirt and braies. The lacings on the shirt were unfastened and the royal chest laid bare. Archbishop Baldwin anointed Richards head, chest, and hands with holy oil, conferring on him the divine sanction for his kingship.

The solemnity of the moment, the silence in the great vault of King Edward’s abbey church, sent cold sparkles down Fulke’s spine. From the expressions on the faces of those pressing around him, he knew they shared his sense of awe and wonder.

Following the anointing, Richard was dressed in the robes of kingship. A gown of purple silk replaced the ordinary tunic, and instead of plain chausses there came a pair embroidered with tiny golden leopards.

Richard approached the altar and, lifting the crown in both hands, presented it to the Archbishop. Fulke exchanged a glance with his father who quirked a wry eyebrow at Richard’s gesture of helping himself to the crown instead of waiting for Baldwin’s sanction. The Archbishop maintained a dignified countenance, whatever his private thoughts on the matter. Smoothly he accepted the diadem and placed it upon Richard’s brow, thereby binding Richard to his sacred position as ruler of England.

After the coronation came the banquet over which Marjorie and the other kitchen attendants had been slaving for the past three days. As in the abbey, there were no women present, even as servers. The wives and daughters of the men who had attended the crowning were gathered for their own feast, presided over by Queen Eleanor.

Mindful of his knighting on the morrow and the fact that he had to keep vigil in the chapel overnight, Fulke drank sparingly of the wine even though it was excellent and plentiful. It would be a sacrilege to fall into a drunken slumber over his prayers.

Throughout the feast, nobles approached the high table, bearing gifts for the new King, among them Morys FitzRoger de Powys.

William went as rigid as a dog preparing to fight over a bone. “How dare he?” he whispered, gripping the haft of his eating knife.

“Peace,” Brunin warned. “It is his right as much as it is the right of any man present to bear gifts to the new King. Think you if we mar this feast with a brawl that Richard will regard us with favor?”

“But he will let him do homage for Whittington and it will never be ours!” William cried furiously.

“Hold your tongue!” Brunin hissed. “Now is neither the time nor the place. It galls me as much as it does you, but I swallow it. On the morrow, you become a knight. Make sure that you also become a man.”

William glowered but subsided with an angry slouch.

Fulke watched FitzRoger bow and return to his place. Whatever he had said to King Richard, he had not lingered to wheedle favors—probably wise while Coeur de Lion was beset on all sides by men vying for his attention and goodwill. He was unlikely to remember one minor plea among the many.

While William continued to glower at FitzRoger, Fulke’s glance swept up the hall to the high dais and rested on Prince John who sat in a position of honor close to the King. Richard had been generous and given his younger brother Isabella of Gloucester to wife, thereby securing John’s right to some very rich lands in the southwest, the Marches and the Midlands. John had every reason to look smug, although his expression still managed to contain a whisper of petulance.

John turned his head and his gaze encountered Fulke’s. It was as if two blades had clashed together, striking sparks. Fulke held his ground for a moment then lowered his eyes as etiquette dictated. But not in submission. John made a comment out of the side of his mouth to his nearest companion and the man laughed. Fulke’s fists clenched, much as William’s had done at the sight of Morys FitzRoger. Carefully he relaxed them and told himself that John was not worth it. But unconsciously, a moment later, he raised his hand and ran his forefinger over the kink in his nose.

***

Maude le Vavasour sat beside her grandmother at the queen’s banquet, and poked the portion of porpoise on her trencher. It was supposed to be a great delicacy but Maude hated fish of any variety, even when it was surrounded in a sea of pretty green aspic with a decoration of whelk shells. The whelks still occupied their dwellings and silver pins had been provided to drag them out. Maude watched in revolted fascination as her grandmother pried one of the grayish-brown creatures from its lodging, dipped it in a bowl of piquant dressing, and conveyed it to her mouth.

After an interval of chewing, Mathilda dabbed her lips delicately with her linen napkin. “Delicious,” she pronounced.

Maude shuddered. She wondered how long it would be before the sweetmeats were served. She was very partial to fruits steeped in honey and fried fig pastries, but such fare had not yet been forthcoming and the feast seemed to have gone on forever.

Queen Eleanor and various noble ladies of the court occupied the high table. The bovine Isabella of Gloucester, recently betrothed to Prince John. Isabelle of Pembroke, William Marshal’s half-Irish bride. Alais of France, supposedly soon to be married to King Richard, although her grandmother had muttered something on that score about pigs roosting in treetops. It was an interesting notion and Maude conjured the image of a razor-backed hog swaying perilously to and fro in a high elm tree during a gale. You’d have to be careful walking underneath; squirrels and crows were bad enough. She almost giggled, but managed to turn the sound into a cough before she was reprimanded for unseemly behavior.

Yesterday her grandmother had dealt her a severe scolding about her hoydenish ways, about staining her dress and behaving disgracefully in front of Lady FitzWarin and her sons. “How will your father ever find you a decent husband if you are going to act in so shameful a manner?” she had demanded. “If your poor mother could see you, she would weep!”

Maude pushed again at the thick slice of porpoise, all urge to laugh dissipating more swiftly than the heat from the congealing food. Her grandmother was trying to make her feel guilty, and succeeding, but beneath the chagrin, anger and resentment simmered. Her mother had always been weeping, either because she was unwell, or because life was too full of challenges and difficulties that she did not have the strength to meet.

Besides, Maude knew that Lady FitzWarin had been neither shocked nor disapproving. There had been a twinkle in her eyes and her mouth had twitched as she fought not to let her amusement show. She had also minimized the fuss over the stained gown, saying it was a common hazard of childhood play, not an overwhelming disaster. Her grandmother said that Lady FitzWarin was just being polite, but Maude knew differently. Despite the wide age gap, she had recognized a kindred spirit.

Not for the first time, Maude wished that she had been born male. It would solve everything. Her father would have an heir. She would not have to stay in the women’s quarters at home, cared for by nurses and reluctant relatives, but would already have been sent for fostering as a junior squire in some great household. She swung her legs beneath the trestle, kicking in irritation at the hampering folds of her best blue gown. Male clothes were far more practical. She had often longed to pose with a sword at her hip like her father. The weapon spoke to her of power and rank, of the mystique of the warrior and the voice of authority. It was a power she knew that she would never have. Even Queen Eleanor was not permitted to attend her own son’s coronation and feast with him afterward. It wasn’t fair.

“Sit still,” Mathilda snapped irritably, “and stop playing with your food.”

“I don’t like it.”

Her grandmother cast her gaze heavenward. “You would if you tried.” Removing one of the whelks from Maude’s trencher, she gouged it from its shell and popped it in her mouth. “See?”

Revolted, Maude looked away.

The older woman sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”

It was a question repeated so often and to so little effect that Maude took no notice.

“I need to visit the privy,” she said plaintively.

“Can’t you wait? Are you two years old that you cannot hold yourself for a minute?”

“But it’s going to be a lot longer than a minute.” Maude wriggled further to emphasize her need.

“Oh, go,” her grandmother capitulated, “but don’t make a show of yourself and mind that you hurry back.”

Maude left her place at the trestle with the demureness of a gently bred young lady. It was hard, for she was yearning to run, but as her grandmother had pointed out, she did not want to call attention to herself. However, she had not the slightest intention of hurrying back. She could plausibly claim that she had lost her way among Westminster’s labyrinth of buildings.

She found the privy easily enough and it was the work of seconds to ease her bladder, which was nowhere near as full as she had pleaded. Instead of returning to the women’s hall, however, she went toward the Rufus Hall where King Richard was feasting with his magnates, her father among them.

Servants hastened hither and yon with platters, either heaped and steaming or congealed with remains. Maude recognized the ubiquitous portions of porpoise garnished with oysters and whelks. The fishy smell wafted on the evening air. So did the sound of laughter and music from the interior of the hall. She crept nearer, longing for a peek into the masculine world from which she was barred.

Following a man laden with a salver holding an enormous stuffed pike, she entered a world that was astonishingly familiar, but alien too. The voices were louder and more boisterous—the guests mostly being grown men—but the finery of the clothing, the opulent colors, and the formal manner of seating exactly mirrored the women’s hall. King Richard sat at the center of the high table in precisely the same position as Queen Eleanor. His hair blazed like flame and, in his ceremonial robes of white, purple, and gold, he was incandescent. The bishops of the realm strung away from him on either side like jewels on a glittering necklace. Beneath the high table sat the magnates and nobles, all gleaming with silk and hard, yellow gold. If each gathering was a mirror of the other, then the affair in the women’s hall was a dull reflection of this peacock brilliance.

Maude stood against the side door, her eyes at full stretch and still not wide enough to take in the gorgeous array.

“I think you are about to be in trouble again, Mistress le Vavasour,” said a rich voice, pleasant with humor.

Maude jumped and switched her scrutiny from the eye-aching scene before her to Alain FitzWarin’s older brother. She knew his name was Fulke because her grandmother and Lady Hawise had been talking about him and how he was to be knighted.

“I went to the privy and I got lost,” she said defensively and tilted her head to gaze up at him. He was much taller than her papa with a wealth of glossy black hair and smiling eyes that in the haze of torchlight were a dark, indeterminate color. His nose would have been fine and straight, were it not for a misshapen kink to the bridge.

He folded his arms. “That’s not true, is it? You wanted to look, didn’t you?”

“And if I did?” The amusement in his eyes annoyed her. “What business is it of yours?”

“None, mistress, since I am leaving to take up my vigil, but others might not be so inclined to turn a blind eye. What will your father do if he sees you?”

“He won’t mind.” Despite her brave words, Maude felt a flicker of panic. She could recall with uncomfortable clarity the lash of her father’s riding crop on the back of her legs and desired no fresher reminders of the sensation. She glared at Fulke, wanting to fight, wanting to hide and cry.

“You know him best, I suppose, but I doubt that he will welcome you with petting and smiles.” He took her arm. “Come, Mistress le Vavasour, let me escort you back to the women’s hall.”

“I don’t need escorting.” She shook him off. “I can find my own way.”

“I’m sure you can, and I’m also sure it would be very long and meandering. It is not safe for a girl-child to be wandering around Westminster alone.”

“If I was a boy you wouldn’t say that!”

“No, well, the dangers for boys are different.”

“Fulke? I thought you were going with your brothers to the chapel?”

Maude looked up at an older man, only a little less tall than her tormentor. He had a full head of cropped tawny curls just beginning to thread with silver, and piercing light gray eyes.

“I was, sire, but then I encountered Mistress le Vavasour snatching a glimpse of the feast.” He spoke her name with a meaningful inflection and a look passed between the two men.

A frown caused two deep creases to appear between the older man’s flaxen brows, but his tone was kindly enough when he spoke. “Child, you should not be here. Do you wish to speak to your father?” He cast a glance around, searching the hall.

Alarmed, Maude shook her head. “I only wanted to look,” she repeated, but in a voice that was filled with wistful pathos now.

The man gestured to Fulke. “I will take her back to the women. Go to your vigil, lad.”

“You are sure, sire? It will be no trouble.”

The man nodded. “I am sure.”

Somewhat reluctantly, she thought, Fulke FitzWarin inclined his head and went on his way.

A servant scurried past with a steaming boar piglet on a silver salver, its crisp-skin surrounded by a field of green parsley sprigs. The aroma of roast pork hung succulently on the air.