Lords of the White Castle (50 page)

Emmeline sat down beside her and smoothed Maude's hair with a maternal hand. 'I would say, my love, that you are likely with child. Can you remember the time of your last flux?'

Maude frowned. That was hard, especially when half of her mind seemed to be wrapped in a woolly fog. 'It would have ended the week before Fulke came to Canterbury,' she said at length. 'I know because I told Barbette that my old linens would not stand another washing, and that I must buy some new.'

Emmeline counted on her fingers. 'That was almost seven weeks ago,' she said.

'With child.' Maude spoke the words and considered the notion with a mingling of fear, surprise and delight. The fist that had been clenched at her belly now opened and she spread her palm protectively. She had vague memories of her mother's pregnancies, of the constant sickness and the way her mother had dragged herself around as if at death's door. Indeed, the last confinement had killed her and the baby had been stillborn like all the others except Maude.

'You and Fulke will be just like his parents.' Emmeline gave her a huge hug, clearly delighted at the prospect. 'Six healthy sons, not a weakling among them.'

Maude almost choked on the dry piece of oatcake she was trying to force down. Six! She could not even imagine herself the mother of one just now. Impossible to think of a child growing inside her. Impossible to reconcile the exquisite pleasure of the act of procreation with the malaise that followed.

'The sickness will pass,' Emmeline said, as if reading her thoughts. She kissed Maude heartily on the cheek. 'Fulke will be overjoyed.'

Maude made a wry face. 'Wherever he is,' she said and wondered if she had become a typical baronial wife, fertilised and then abandoned, naught but a breeder of children. Of the seven weeks that Emmeline had counted on her fingers, Fulke had been gone for almost five of them, and no word. She had no idea what had happened to him, whether his plea to Prince Llewelyn had succeeded or whether his bones were bleaching in some Welsh forest. Surely not the latter, because he had been leading a large enough troop. Someone would have escaped to carry the tale home. Alternately she cursed at him in anger, and wept for him in fear. Theobald would never have treated her thus, but then Theobald had been a man of balance, of even-handed flatness. There had been no hell—and there had been no star-shining heaven either.

'He will come,' Emmeline said, giving her a reassuring pat.

'And perhaps I won't be here,' Maude could not help but snap. The mead coursed through her veins, invigorating her, and the oatcake was doing its work. Her stomach, although queasy, no longer threatened to turn itself inside out.

'Oh, come now.' Emmeline clucked her tongue. 'I know you fret for him, and he's inconsiderate not to send word, but men are like that. You do the best with what you have.'

'Except when you haven't got it,' Maude said crossly, but found the glimmer of a smile. It wasn't Emmeline's fault and Fulke's aunt had been so kind that she did not deserve to bear the brunt of Maude's ill temper.

Leaving the bed, she went to her clothing pole. She had left Canterbury without spare garments. Emmeline had lent her one of her gowns and, in the last fortnight, the women had sewn two new undertunics and a dress from the fabric that was to hand. None of the garments were fitted except for the gown in which she had arrived, so at least she had some accommodation for when her belly began to grow.

Once dressed, she repaired to the main hall. Richard and Alain had taken a dozen men out on patrol, leaving Philip at Higford in command of the other ten. Maude wondered whether to tell him that she was with child. It was Fulke who should know first, but he wasn't here, and the news would be common knowledge soon anyway. Yet she bit her tongue. She needed time to come to terms with the fact herself.

'Do you think Fulke's safe?' she asked Philip instead.

Having been up and active since first light, Philip was sitting amongst the crumbs of a demolished loaf and the remnants of a new cheese. He took a drink of buttermilk from the wooden cup at his side and offered a crust to Fulke's wolfhound, Finn, who was lying beneath the trestle, eyebrows cocked, jaws at the ready. 'Yes, I do,' he said after a moment. 'Sending a messenger all the way back through Wales would be dangerous and a waste of a man unless the matter was urgent. I can well understand why we have not heard from him.'

'But surely he should have returned by now' She shook her head at the offer of bread and cheese, but accepted another dry oatcake and a small cup of buttermilk.

'That depends how far he had to travel to find Llewelyn and what happened when he got there. You do not just appear at the court of a Prince, say your piece and ride out again.' Philip rubbed his thumb along his close-cropped auburn beard. 'You have to await the Prince's pleasure.'

'But what if that pleasure is to throw him in prison or kill him?'

Philip looked at her and his expression softened. Maude's heart turned over for he had the same eyes as Fulke, deep smoke-grey, striated with gold. 'Llewelyn is not a vindictive man, and he has a powerful streak of common sense. He has everything to lose and nothing to gain by rejecting Fulke. Nothing will happen to him, Maude, I promise. I know my brother.' He laid his hand lightly over hers in reassurance, then rose and left.

'It is more than I do,' Maude murmured softly.

With Barbette in dutiful tow, and Finn at her side, she left the keep to walk in the glorious sunny morning. She was tempted to have a groom saddle a horse, but was unsure if her settling stomach would bear the jolting. Women in the later stages of pregnancy were not supposed to ride or even travel in a cart. She did not think it would make much difference to her current state, but it was better to be safe. It was June now. Count back to conception in May. The child would likely be born around the feast of the Virgin in February's cold. As to where, she did not know. Perhaps they could go to her father's lands in the north, to Wragby or Hazelwood. Or to Ireland, where John's writ was weakened by the wild Hibernian Sea.

Maude strolled down to the riverbank. The water level was low in the summer heat and the brown outlines offish could be seen shimmying among the ribbons of weed. She seated herself on an area of turf that had been cut by a fisherman and folded her arms around her knees. Reed buntings warbled their territory claims from the tall stems of cow parsley and the manor's herd of long-horned cattle grazed in the lush meadow, flicking their ears and switching their tails at the irritation of tiny flies.

Finn trotted through the grass in search of hares, but avoided the cows. Maude inhaled the sunshine and peace of the morning. It was the first time she had been out of the manor on her own since her arrival. Once or twice she had ridden out, but always hemmed around by an escort of Fulke's men, armed to the teeth. It was only by saying nothing to Philip of her intentions that she was here now with only Barbette for company. Philip would have sent along at least four soldiers to protect her at each point of the compass. She grimaced, knowing that the gate guard would run and tell him, and she would have company soon enough. Unfortunately, not the company she craved.

Lying back, she pillowed her head on her arms in a decidedly unladylike manner and closed her eyes. The distant shush of the water in the mill race was soothing. She dreamed that Fulke came for her on a white horse, a bridal chaplet of red flowers in his hands and there was no one in the world but the two of them, riding through the summer morning for ever.

Finn rudely curtailed her idyll as he came tearing out of the meadow and launched himself into the river with a tremendous smack and splash of water. Barbette screamed and Maude shot upright, her gown covered in dark blots of water.

'Finn!'

Plainly deciding that Maude's screech was a command to come, the dog circled in the water, paddled to the bank and heaved himself out.

'Finn, no!'

It was too late. Starting at his head and twisting down to his tail, a massive shudder rippled through the wolfhound and the women were drenched in a spray of silver droplets.

'Bad dog!'

Anxious to make amends, Finn advanced on Maude, tongue at the ready to lick his way back into favour. Maude struggled to her feet, tripped on her gown and fell over. Immediately Finn was upon her, anxiously washing her face as if she were a stray member of the pack, his belly hair gathered in points and dripping river water all over her gown.

Barbette moved to haul him off by his broad leather collar. Suddenly the dog went rigid in her grip and stared at the path that led between river and village. His lips curled away from his teeth in a snarl. Stiff-legged, his ruff raised and the hair standing erect along his spine, Finn took several warning paces towards the two men leading their horses from the direction of the houses.

Filled with alarm, Maude scrambled to her feet. She knew neither of them. They were dressed as travellers with cloaks and satchels, but the long hunting knives at their belts and the way they carried themselves made her think of men trained in warfare.

'Call off your dog!' one of them shouted. 'We mean no harm.'

The language was the Norman French of the court, which did nothing to set Maude's mind at ease. 'I do not know that,' she replied. 'Who are you and what do you want?'

The men exchanged glances as if silently corroborating a tale. 'We are seeking Fulke FitzWarin in order to join him. Mayhap you ladies know of his whereabouts.'

The words were too glib. Maude wished she had not indulged her whim to step outside for a walk. 'Your journey is wasted,' she said, backing away. 'He is not here.'

'Then may we claim hospitality at the manor until he comes? We have been told that this is where we will find him.'

'Then you have been misinformed. I cannot help you.'

One of the men put his hand to the hilt of his dagger. 'But I think you can, since we know you are his wife,' he said.

Maude's heart was pounding. She wondered whether to set Finn on them, but the sight of the knife made her hesitate. She had no doubt that the man would plunge it into the dog if he were attacked.

Behind her, there was a sudden shout and the thud of hooves quickening to a gallop. Turning, Maude felt weak relief flood through her as she saw Philip at the head of a conroi of six knights.

The strangers took one look, mounted up and fled. Philip spurred after them but an instant later reined back with a curse. Their mounts were too fast and they were not bearing the weight of mail. Chase would be fruitless. Behind the nasal bar of his helm, his expression was furious. 'What in God's name are you doing here?' he roared at Maude. 'Don't you realise what easy meat you are?'

'I thought a stroll by the river was safe enough,' Maude replied, standing her ground but feeling distinctly unwell. 'I am not a hen to be kept in a coop.'

'Yes, you are, and they were a pair of foxes,' Philip said tersely.

'If I am not safe here, then I am not safe inside the manor.'

Philip removed his helm and wiped his brow on his gambeson sleeve. 'Do you think I do not know that?' he said with a mingling of anger and weariness. 'What did they want?'

'To join Fulke, so they said, but they also knew I was his wife—so I suppose they had been spying on me.' Suddenly the shock of what had happened robbed her legs of strength. Barbette's cry of consternation was lost on Maude as her vision blurred and a strange buzzing sensation made her feel as if her skull was filled with a swarm of bees.

Maude came to her senses in the main chamber at Higford. The smell of lavender invaded her nostrils. She was propped up against several feather bolsters and Emmeline was bathing her temples with a cold cloth.

'Will she be all right?' The masculine voice was full of anxiety. It sounded like Fulke's and when her lids fluttered open, she saw him gazing at her from the bedside, his expression one of intense worry.

'No thanks to you, if I am,' she muttered, wondering if he was real or a result of the strange symptoms being visited on her body. The former, she quickly decided, because he was wearing his mail and it bore flecks of rust. There was a stripe of rust on his nose too, where the nasal bar of his helm had rubbed, and he was tanned as brown as Jean de Rampaigne in one of his disguises. A figment of her imagination would not have appeared so rumpled.

He knelt quickly at her side and took her hand in a warm, tough grip. She looked down at their linked fingers and fought the urge to burst into tears.

'I arrived as they were bearing you in,' he said. 'Jesu, Maude, I have never been so afraid in all my life. Philip said you were walking by the river and were accosted by two strangers.'

She nodded and swallowed. 'They were looking for you.'

'They did not harm you?'

'No.' Maude bit her lip. 'I was frightened and angry, that is all. I had Finn with me and he would have ripped out their throats.'

His eyes darkened. 'You should not have gone out alone. Surely you must have realised the dangers.'

'I have been lectured once already,' she snapped. 'Philip compared me to a hen in a chicken coop. Do not you dare to do the same.'

He inhaled to speak, but let his breath out on a sigh, and rubbed his hand over his face. The action smeared the helm rust across his cheekbones. After a moment he said, 'Those men were likely John's spies, here to look for me and report back to my pursuers. Philip says they had been asking questions in the village and around about. Obviously when they saw you out alone, they realised that if they could take you, they would have a valuable pawn to bait a trap.'

'I did not think that I would be in such danger from taking a simple stroll within view of the manor.' It was the nearest she would come to an apology. Pushing her other hand through his lank, black hair, she curved it around his neck and fiercely drew him down to her. 'I've been so lonely and afraid. Where have you been?'

For a while there was no answer as they kissed. Emmeline quietly and tactfully retreated.

'Where I told you, at the court of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth,' he said as their lips parted. 'I'm more concerned about you.'