The Greatest Knight (49 page)

John looked surprised and then thoughtful. “Did you tell him to say that?” he asked William.

“No, he is his own man,” William answered, looking thoughtful too.

“I cannot yield this place,” John Marshal said, his expression tight and stubborn.

“You can,” William answered, hoping that his voice held the right amount of encouragement and pleading.

John shook his head. “But I won’t,” he replied, and William knew then that he had lost.

***

They left the next morning as dawn cracked the eastern sky with streaks of yolk-gold. Looking back, William saw John standing in the gateway, arm raised in farewell. From a distance his grey pallor didn’t show and he had made a visible effort to draw together the dissipating threads of his being. There had been no embrace, and even if eyes had acknowledged a final parting, expressions had not shown it. What John and his son had said to each other during their private time together, William had not probed. What would he say to his own son on the eve of such a final and sombre leave-taking? A part of William wanted to turn his horse, ride back, and embrace his brother fervently. They had never been close, but now that external distances yawned between them and the last bridge was about to burned, he felt both pain and guilt.

His nephew, who had been looking round too, now faced the road ahead and set his jaw. “He’s going to die, isn’t he?” he said.

The words flashed through William, making real what he was trying to keep to himself. “I am not a physician,” he said brusquely.

“He is, though. His face was as grey as an unpainted effigy and you heard the way he was breathing.”

William sighed. “Yes,” he admitted wearily, “I fear he is.”

Jack swallowed. “Do you think he listened? Will he yield if they come?”

The dawn widened and the sky became as bright as the lining of a seashell. “I know that he listened,” William said. “But we both know he wasn’t persuaded. He could have yielded Marlborough to me had he so chosen.”

“He would never do that for the sake of his pride,” Jack answered.

“No,” William said wearily, “I suppose not.” He took his eyes off the sunrise and studied the young man. “I have sent Wigain back to Hubert Walter with a plea on your father’s behalf. I know he must lay siege to Marlborough if your father refuses to yield, but I have asked him to be lenient—to tread lightly on your father’s pride. I know it is not enough…”

The young man shrugged. “If your positions were reversed, would he do the same for you?”

William sighed. “You ask some hard questions. I would like to say yes, but in the balance I do not know. Nor does it matter now, save that in leaving him I feel I have betrayed him.”

His nephew’s jaw tightened. “The betrayal is Prince John’s,” he said. “Without his treachery, my father would not be in such a bind.”

“Your father is right; he may yet be our future King,” William murmured.

“That does not stop him being dishonourable,” the young man flashed.

“No, but if he became King, we would be honour bound to serve him—as your father feels he is honour bound now.” William grimaced. “Bound” was indeed the right word. Hog-tied and thrown in the fire.

Forty-three

Marlborough, Wiltshire, March 1194

Breath whistling in his throat, John Marshal watched them come, the army that William had warned him about; the army who would take Marlborough from him and leave him in disgrace. There might be a pardon for his overlord, the Prince, but John knew there would be none for him. One way or the other he was doomed. Bidding slow farewell to the rooms and corridors of his boyhood, he gave his wife the keys to the strongbox and such money as it contained. “If things should go ill, you are my deputy,” he said.

She gave him a blank, frightened look. “I don’t know what to do.”

He returned her a dour smile. “Pretend you are the Countess Isabelle,” he said. “No one is going to harm you. You’re just an innocent pawn. Behave as befits a great lady and you will be treated like one.” He went from her chamber into his own and bade his squires arm him. The weight of the mail hauberk dragged upon him as if the rings were fashioned of lead. The shimmer of the silk surcoat was too bright for his eyes; his father’s sword was an encumbrance at his left hip, which was aching from the insinuating March damp; but the heaviest burden was that carried by his mind. Sweating, nauseous, he wondered how long he and the castle could hold out. Perhaps his son was right. Perhaps he should be prepared to compromise…but not yet. He had to make the enemy believe it was worth their while to do so, and he had to give himself credibility in his own and his lord’s eyes. There was the rub. Something that William had possessed all his life without trying and which had eluded John no matter how he struggled.

“I have lived too long,” he said to the startled squires. “Perhaps today is fortuitous.”

***

At Striguil the March wind was bitter. Hugging her arms around herself beneath her cloak, eyes stinging, Isabelle went to look out over the palisade towards the lower bailey. William had been out schooling his horses all afternoon. Sensing his need for solitude and the disciplined concentration that left no room for a crowd of thoughts, she had kept to their chamber and told others to give him a wide berth, but as the hours drew on and dusk approached, she had thought it time to find out how he fared.

He was still at work with his new destrier, bought last month from the Earl of Norfolk—a powerful dark brown colt, dappled with chestnut on belly and rump. She watched him make the horse change leading forelegs at the canter and as always admired his straight spine in the saddle and his fluid understanding of the horse. In outline in the fading light, he could have been a lithe young squire and she felt both her heart and loins contract. His squires weren’t there, so she assumed he had sent them to the guardroom and he was attended only by Rhys, who was blanketing up Bezant, preparatory to leading him back to the stables. Within her womb, their third child gave a confined kick. There wasn’t much room these days.

Mindful of her advanced state of pregnancy, Isabelle moved carefully along the wall walk and descended to the lower bailey, her cloak flapping and her veil beating around her face so that she could scarcely see where she was going. By the time she reached the foot of the steps, Rhys had alerted William and he trotted the destrier across to her and drew rein.

“How is he shaping?” she asked, fondling the horse’s plush muzzle.

“Very well,” William answered, “although he still has much to learn.” He glanced around and, lifting his right hand off the bridle, rubbed his face. “I hadn’t realised how late it was.”

“I knew you needed the time alone,” she said, smiling but concerned.

William dismounted and handed the destrier to Rhys. Taking her arm he linked it through his. “You always do know what I need,” he murmured.

A look passed between them and Isabelle lightened it by laughing. “I may know, but I cannot always give it.” She laid her hand in emphasis to her belly. “I do not think it will be long now. I—” She stopped speaking and turned as the guards shouted warning of a rider and the porter made shrift to open the gate in the palisade. She felt William’s grip tighten on her arm and from the way he stiffened she knew that he had not outridden his demons this afternoon, that they were still very much with him.

A messenger cantered into the yard on a sweating chestnut courser. “It’s my brother’s horse,” William said hoarsely and a shudder rippled through him.

So, the news was here, she thought; the news they had been waiting for and dreading. The hooded figure that dismounted staggered on landing and turned towards them, and she saw that it was Wigain—a grey, exhausted vestige of his usual self, but Wigain nonetheless. The little clerk looked at William, all merriment quenched from his eyes. The evening wind whipped strands of grey hair at the side of his hood. “I’ve ridden from Marlborough,” he said, “from my lord Hubert Walter…” He licked his lips.

“My brother is dead, isn’t he?” William said flatly.

Wigain nodded and swallowed. “Yes, my lord. I am sorry. Archbishop Hubert sends his deep condolences…” He swallowed again, and coughed.

William ignored Wigain’s exaggerated efforts to call attention to his parched throat. “Does he indeed?” he said, his nostrils flaring.

Isabelle swiftly took the initiative, reclaiming William’s arm and tugging upon it. “It is cold and dark,” she said sensibly. “We can as well listen in the warmth of the chamber as out here.”

“Perhaps I don’t want the warmth of the chamber for what I am going to hear,” he growled.

She rolled her eyes. “But I do, and our unborn son or daughter.”

It was an excuse below the belt and they both knew it. However, William capitulated and let her lead him up the stairs into the private chamber, pausing only to send a servant to the guardroom to summon his eldest squire.

As William entered his chamber, his sanctuary, his two sons ran to greet him. When the nurse would have called them back, he bid her let them come for he needed their joy and their innocent liveliness to steady him.

Isabelle took a seat by the fire and laid her palm on the shelf of her belly. Wigain drank the wine he was given with every evidence of wanting to make each swallow last so that he would not have to open his mouth and speak. Jack quietly entered the room, his gaze wide and wary. William bade him come to the brazier. The young man’s eyes flickered toward Wigain.

“Your father is dead,” William said gently.

Jack’s expression did not change, although he stopped like a horse on a short rein.

Wigain ran out of wine to swallow. “I am sorry,” he croaked.

The young man gave him a fathomless look and a small shrug. “It was expected,” he said.

“Tell us.” William sat his sons at his feet and set his forefinger to his lips, bidding them be silent. Will nodded solemnly. Richard copied his father’s gesture and then exaggeratedly pressed his lips together and looked wide-eyed at Wigain, clearly expecting a story.

Wigain took the flagon from William’s steward and helped himself to more wine. “Archbishop Walter brought troops to Marlborough and commanded your brother to yield the castle in the name of King Richard. Your brother refused and had his bowmen loose arrows upon our men. The Archbishop laid siege to the keep with vigour—you know the way of it, my lord. You have seen enough siege and
chevauchée
in service to old King Henry and his sons.”

William nodded. “There is no need to give a blow-by-blow account,” he said tersely. “It serves no purpose. He was killed in battle?”

Wigain tipped the wine down his throat. “No, my lord. It is true that he was directing the battle from the wall walk. I saw his shield and banner on several occasions…but it was during a lull that they took that banner down and then heralds came out to ask Archbishop Walter for terms.”

Wigain saw a look flicker between uncle and nephew. “My lord archbishop desired surrender of the castle, and said he was prepared to let the garrison go free. But when the gate opened, it was Lady Marshal who brought the keys to him and told us that her husband was dead of a seizure.” Wigain looked sombre, remembering. “She knelt before the Archbishop with the keys held out on the palms of her hands and begged his clemency…and he granted it. He had what he wanted. The garrison surrendered and he allowed Lord John’s body to lie in the chapel while a coffin was brought and a cart to bear it away to Bradenstoke. There’s to be a funeral mass in the cathedral at Cirencester.”

William narrowed his eyes, calculating how soon he could be on the road. He felt leaden with sorrow and a deep sense of failure. How had it come to this?

Wigain took another drink from his cup. “There is more,” he said.

William looked at him. “More?” The word was ominous.

Wigain licked his lips. “King Richard has landed at Sandwich. He’s on his way to attend the siege at Nottingham and he bids you, as you love him, join him with all haste at his muster in Huntingdon.” The clerk looked uncomfortable. “There were rumours that you were in Marlborough with your brother…that you had chosen to defy the King.”

William clenched his fists and fought a powerful surge of fury. Turn your back and in an instant your enemies had their knives out. “But I wasn’t, was I?”

“No, my lord,” Wigain said, looking as ashamed as if he were the creator of the news and not just the bearer. “I am sorry. I didn’t know which to tell you first…”

“Does a brother come before a king?” William asked with a bitter, humourless smile. He looked down at his sons. His youngest one was gazing up at him out of wide, dark eyes. He remembered his own father, who had been willing to put his ambition and a would-be queen before his family.

“Is that the end of the story, Papa?” Will asked. “I didn’t like it.”

“Didn’t like it,” Richard echoed, beginning to pout.

“No, it’s not the end,” William answered, ruffling his heir’s hazel-brown hair. “Far from it, and for what it’s worth, I didn’t like it either.”

“You’ll like it even less when I tell you that William Longchamp is with the King,” Wigain said. “Richard’s revoked his banishment and welcomed him back to his side. He needs his money-grubbing skills and Longchamp has always been as slippery as an eel.”

William felt revulsion churn his stomach. His hand remained on his son’s head. “No need to ask who has been stirring the pot,” he said. “I had better make haste before I’m accused of full-blown treason.”

***

Riding hard, William met his brother’s funeral cortège on the outskirts of Cirencester as it progressed towards the cathedral. Aline had hired a group of six professional mourners and they walked either side of the coffin, garbed in long dark-coloured mantles with voluminous hoods. Periodically they wailed and struck their breasts. Aline was as pale as a shroud and her eyes were smudged with exhaustion, but she had control of herself. Whatever grief and difficulty had come from her marriage to John Marshal, she had gained stature and maturity too. William dismounted from his courser to walk beside the bier. John’s sword, their father’s sword, was laid atop the pall of red silk. There was a grieving twist of regret in William’s soul that he and John had not been closer in life, and now it was too late. Jack dismounted too and silently took his place among the mourners. The rest of William’s knights followed suit.

“In the end he didn’t have to surrender,” Aline said to William and Jack as they walked. She too wore a dark mantle and hood, but beneath it her gown of costly red wool showed as a bright border with each step. “His body gave out and I am glad for him that it did—that he did not have to yield the keep and his pride.” She bit her lip, remembering. “He came down from the wall walk to take a respite from commanding the men, and collapsed at the foot of the tower stairs. By the time I reached him, his soul had fled. There was nothing anyone could do.”

“I am glad for him too, that he was still lord of Marlborough when he died,” William said hoarsely, “although I would rather he had lived.”

They walked in sombre and contemplative silence for a long time, but at last William turned to the wan girl pacing at his side. “What will you do now?” he asked.

She gave a forlorn shrug. “Return to my family…serve them by making another match and hope that it is a good one.”

The grief and regret twisted a little tighter inside him. “I hope so too, my lady,” he said.

***

Following the vigil and mass in Cirencester, William left his nephew and the majority of his knights to escort the coffin the rest of the way to Bradenstoke Priory, and prepared to ride fast for Huntingdon. In Cirencester too, he knighted young Jack Marshal. “Since you are your father’s only son and a man, you should have the standing of knighthood,” William said as he belted Jack with his father’s sword. “Besides, you have earned it, and your father should have a senior member of his family and a sworn knight to lead his cortège.” Guilt and grief bit at him. He knew that it was his place to ride to Bradenstoke with them, but he couldn’t afford to.

Jack nodded, his jaw stiff with controlled emotion. William clasped his shoulder, man to man. “Join me in Nottingham when you have done your duty by your father,” he said. “I’ll have need of you.”

Leaving the cathedral, he breathed deeply of the bitter March air and gathered himself for the next ordeal.

***

It was late morning when William rode into Huntingdon, having set out from Bedford at dawn. He and his three knights were stopped at the town gate and a messenger was sent running to inform the King of their arrival. As William waited on his sweating palfrey, he was aware of the speculative glances cast in his direction and he did not have to imagine hard what men were wondering.