Gisborne: Book of Pawns (27 page)

‘You see, Ysabel?’ Cecilia reached for my hand. ‘It is pointless. We do not even know where…’

‘I have found him. He is in one of the cells.’

Cecilia and I both spoke together.

‘No! Did you…’

‘Is he…’

‘He is wrapped in a fur over a wadding of straw. I did not speak to him, merely saw him through the spyhole.’

I grabbed Cecilia’s arm. My father deserved my care, he had not forsaken me after all and for that I was glad. I had no doubt he suffered terribly for his weakness, existing in some dark place where he was unable even to scream or cry with grief.

‘Ceci, he will starve with no one to feed him. And what about water … De Courcey is a murderer! I must see my father.’

Cecilia jumped up.

‘Not now, Ysabel, you must stay here and I must return to the Lady Chamber, but I will come again before Matins. Please Guy, watch her. She must not go to the cells.’

She grabbed the folds of her
bliaut
and threaded back down the stair, whispering as she left, ‘We will plan when I return.’

The candle flame jumped as she passed and then settled as silence filled the space.

‘You
must
leave, Ysabel. Without seeing your father.’ Gisborne shifted on the stair and lowered himself to sit above me.

I shook my head. If I cast back, I could see that the moment I opened that fated packet in Cazenay I released a plague of curses. I was Pandora. Every step of my journey home had been filled with deepening distrait.

‘I can’t leave Papa to die alone. No matter what mistakes he has made, no matter that I should hate him and want him to fester and rot in a dungeon, I cannot. Others might say let him fade in the knowledge of what he has done, let him suffer the pain. But I cannot.’

I looked toward that tiny jumping flame that defied the shifting air within the passage, standing strong and lighting dark corners. Somewhere I could hear dripping water and wondered if it rained outside. It often rained in the fens … it was a childhood memory.

‘My father is
in
my heart.’ The words came out softly. ‘My mother
is
a
part
of my heart and so is Moncrieff, and yet you and Cecilia ask me to abandon everything after coaxing me on this journey anyway. Why did I bother acceding to your wishes? It would have been safer to remain in Cazenay. What was the point of bringing me home? You
must
have known things had changed. Halsham knew for a surety.’

‘He did not. He was returning from the Holy Land with the Free Lancers…

‘The Holy Land.’ I gave a low, disbelieving grunt.

‘Yes, the Holy Land. If you remember when you first met him. That aside,’ Gisborne’s deep tones floated down the stair. ‘Whatever he knew until he reached Calais would have been old news; no more than I knew. In Calais of course, that changed when De Courcey arrived.’

‘And what was the old news, Gisborne? That his employer had taken over Moncrieff?’

‘No. But that he desired the estate, yes.’

‘Was
I
part of the estate?’

‘Not immediately.’

‘When?’

‘Halsham told me in Walsocam that De Courcey wanted you, that what I predicted had indeed happened. That by having you as his bride he would be fit to appear in the court of Richard as the son-in-law of Baron Moncrieff.’

I huffed out a disgusted breath.

‘Ysabel, it gives me no pleasure to tell you any of this. It never has. But the final thing I will tell you is that I was offered money, a great deal, if I handed you over at Walsocam. I told Halsham that it was not possible as I had left you at Saint Eadgyth’s by your choice. That we had disagreed over a personal issue and that you chose to stay within the priory for the moment.’

‘And he believed you? I can’t imagine he would be so ingenuous. Besides, how did he know you would be at Walsocam? That was a little fortuitous, surely?’

‘It was a mistake on my part. He was passing through the village on his return to Moncrieff and saw me at the inn. I had almost purchased food enough for two, the words almost out of my mouth … it was luck on a grand scale that I had not spoken.’

‘Luck?’

‘Yes. Luck. The point is that I hoped to have returned you to Cecilia before any of this latest transpired. When you could perhaps have helped your father in his anguish and prevented his losses from accruing.’

‘So you say.’

I stared at my hands … dirty hands with grimy fingernails. Nothing of the lady hung about me anymore.

‘You do not believe me.’

Something in his tone made me look up. I could barely see anything of him, just a broad shadow blocking the stair, but for one brief moment I thought I detected defeat in his voice and it seemed so very wrong in such a man. I wished I could see his eyes but I could not. Instead I said the first thing that sped into my mind … my torn-apart, ill-guarded mind.

‘I cannot see into your heart, Guy.’

The trite sentence was all I could think of to explain my ongoing disquiet and his reply was so cool my skin prickled.

‘And yet, my
lady
, I have never allowed any harm to befall you. It seems to me that heart notwithstanding, I have fulfilled the task I was given. I saw you to Moncrieff and I can yet see you safely away. Remember I said I owed you my life? I will honour that.’

He shifted in the dark silence. His leather surcoat creaked and I heard something clink against stone … the dagger in his belt.

‘You may not see heart in such a vow,’ he continued. ‘But then perhaps that is really not my problem. It is yours.’

He went to stand, as if to move past me – a gesture of dismissal, and I felt chastened. Part of me wanted to be angry at being made to feel so ungrateful and thus so petty. Because no matter what – jeweled girdles, pers-tinted
bliauts
, shelter and sustenance – all that aside, he had indeed seen me safe, had honoured his self-styled debt. Whether I approved of his manner of doing so was immaterial. I was in Moncrieff with Cecilia, and De Courcey had no idea.

A masterful stroke.

I shivered. The wind had strengthened outside, buffeting the tower. It sent a foraging party through the arrow loop where the fingers of the nasty draught tunneled and bit into my body. I pulled the clothing tighter and shuffled away from the opening.

‘You are cold,’ Gisborne observed.

‘Cold, afraid, confused, desperate. All of those,’ I muttered as my teeth clenched to stop an emerging shudder.

He stepped down, sitting between myself and the slit so that his presence warmed me. Just the feel of a body close to mine, a broad one that blocked the breeze was enough but I couldn’t deny other things.

‘Ysabel, you can see, can’t you?’ He took my hands and rubbed them between his own, chafing warmth into the tips. ‘Very soon they will know that you are not within the priory. They will begin the hunt. I say you have just hours to leave. After that, it will be too late. We can follow the secret channels to the river and then head west, but it will be long before we are safe away from De Courcey’s net and we shall have to hide in the forests like outlaws.’

‘My father…’

‘He will not know you even if you do see him.’

I sat weighing the danger.

‘I agree then, I shall let you help me. But I must be allowed to farewell my father.’

‘Ysabel…’

‘Please.’

I turned to him and in the light of that tiny flame I could see the face of the man who had cared for me.

He leaned forward and kissed my forehead and it was as if the sun shone. I had put my faith in him and it seemed meet and right that he should touch me like a benediction. I lifted my face to his and our lips joined.

We made love with urgency, as if for the last time. There was a harshness to it … a rawness, flesh on stone, quick breaths. I laid my head on his chest as we regained our breath and whispered.

‘Sir Gisborne, I did not want to but it seems I…’ I stopped and cleared my throat.

Do not say it! Do not, Ysabel.

‘I owe you an apology,’ I prevaricated. ‘You have been stalwart.’

His voice rumbled through his ribcage like once before.

‘Then Ysabel, you must surely be able to see into my heart after all and know that I…’

We heard footsteps and hastily rearranged our clothes in time for Cecilia to appear and for us to act as if nothing had happened. But she barely looked at us.

‘The castle is in uproar. The Baron rode in not long since – did you hear? – and ordered me taken to the Great Hall, demanding I tell him why you should choose sanctuary at Saint Eadgyth’s Priory. I had no idea – it was the truth. Guy, have you set a false trail? Good for you, my dear, if you have.’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Whatever the case, he almost reduced me to ashes with the heat of his temper and left immediately. He has gone to Saint Eadgyth’s to see for himself. A party had been sent much earlier by Halsham … so you must go now, while they are occupied elsewhere. Hell will descend when he returns without you.’

‘She understands, Cecilia.’ Guy’s hand pressed my waist from behind, ‘and has agreed to leave.’

‘Aah.’ Ceci gave a relieved sigh. ‘I am so glad, child.’ She placed a small drawstring bag in my palm, curling my hand over it and squeezing. ‘Your mother’s comb, a necklet - the one you loved when you were small, do you remember? The rest I shall keep hidden until you can … until you are safe. But I have this … you must take it now.’

She passed over an object about the size of a man’s palm.

‘God’s breath, Cecilia. How did you get it? I wanted to retrieve it from the Baron’s room but with De Courcey taking the chamber for himself it was a risk.’

‘I searched for it when I was nursing Joffrey. I had such a feeling about Moncrieff, that De Courcey would strip it bare to the bones, leaving nothing for Ysabel. It was in a coffer that was filled with Joffrey’s clothing. It seemed like nothing should anyone have looked… a scrap of d’Aumiers silk. It could have been spare fabric to mend his chemises.’

‘What is it?’ I reminded them I was still there, sitting with the object in my palm.

‘It’s the book, Ysabel; the Saracen book.’

I unwrapped it swiftly for time was running away. As the silk slithered off I could feel the irregular surface of the cover and then it lay boldly in my hands in the dull light of the candle. An oval ruby nestled in the cover, as smooth as a wren’s egg and surrounded by irregular shaped pearls. Gold filigree laced in and around so that the remarkable cover looked like a tile from an Arabian palace.

Lovely, delicate
.

I opened it, the cover creaking, and there lay the unknown text, illustrated on every second leaf with a detailed miniature of Saracen life. It smacked of wealth, of privilege … as if it had fallen into the hands of thieves who were brazen enough to climb a sheikh’s walls to secure it. Worse, it could have been Christian knights who pillaged some bastion in the Holy Land and then gamed it away to my father.

‘It’s worth a king’s treasury, Ysabel.’ Cecilia said.

‘Indeed,’ Gisborne added. ‘And may be needed to pay your way. Now quickly, pack it and let us leave.’

I rolled it with haste and pushed it into the drawstring bag, shoving the latter down the front of my surcoat where a belt held it at my waist and prevented it from falling. ‘My father,’ I said as I jerked the belt tighter.

‘Ysabel…’ Cecilia frowned.

‘No. I will go only when I have seen him.’

‘Ysabel, he will be unable to speak to you and he may not even know you.’

Cecilia made no bones about my choice but I didn’t care if Papa didn’t know me or that he couldn’t speak. It was to satisfy myself that I did this … to know that I had been daughterly. That I hadn’t just run with my tail jammed between my legs like a frightened cur.

Briefly I wondered if I was delivering some sort of perverse message to Gisborne; saying see, this is how one fulfil’s one’s obligations to one’s parent no matter what the parent has done. He had chosen to slice his father from his life with an incision deep into the heart. There was no room for compassion or care for a man who had left he and his mother to the whim of the Knights Templar.

But no, why would I be so specious? I was doing this for my mother and for me, no other reason; to satisfy the corner inside
my
soul that Lady Alaïs inhabited, not to win a point over my escort. Guy of Gisborne had lost his heritage, his mother and his father; so had I. And yet for some obscure reason, a reason I couldn’t rationalize, I felt in my heart that his loss was worse than mine.

Was it because my mother had died in a richly appointed home provided by her loving husband? And that my home and heritage were only lost after my father became insane with grief? Gisborne had lost his mother in awful circumstances … on the road and penniless after his father, without a thought for their future, had followed his obsessive ambition. Thoughtless, selfish … cruel. But had my father been any less thoughtless?