To Defy a King (46 page)

'I am sure he will,' Mahelt said diplomatically.

'Of course he must see his wife first, and the King.' Mahelt said nothing.

'Men and their foolish politics,' Ida sniffed. 'Fighting like cockerels over who is to be on top of the midden.' She picked up her embroidery and began to sew. Mahelt watched Ida's dextrous fingers. Sometimes she thought that her mother-in-law's wits had disappeared into her sewing and it was the only thing these days she could make a positive decision about.

'Ralph must surely be freed soon.' Mahelt began sorting through the silks in Ida's work basket, looking to see if she was running short of any colours.

'They cannot keep him for much longer.'

Ida paused her stitching. 'I had not forgotten Ralph,' she said, her voice suddenly sharp. 'I pray for him as I pray for all of my children. I wish with all my heart that my sons had been freed together, but since it was not to be, surely it is better to rejoice for the one than weep for the other - at least today.'

'Indeed so, Mother, I am sorry,' Mahelt agreed, but wondered what would have happened if it had been the other way around and Ralph released while Longespee remained a captive.

Ida fell asleep over her embroidery and Mahelt went to look out of the window at the garden. She wanted to talk to the gardener about planting some roses like the ones at her father's manor at Caversham with their wonderful scent and petals the colour of wild strawberries and clotted cream.

Her ruminations were interrupted by Orlotia, Ida's chamber lady, who crossed the room on tiptoe and spoke to her in a low voice. 'Madam, your brother is here.'

Mahelt frowned. She wasn't expecting visitors. 'Which one?'

'The lord William, madam.'

Mahelt was nonplussed. What was Will doing here at Framlingham when he should be with their father or about the business of the earldom? His wife was due to give birth any day now as well - perhaps had already done so.

Her stomach plummeted. 'Where is he?'

'He's in your solar, madam.'

The note in Orlotia's voice made Mahelt certain that something terrible had happened. Without waking Ida, she hurried from the chamber.

She found Will sitting on the smaller hearth bench with his back to the fire, his face in his hands.

'Will?' She was suddenly very frightened and, because of it, almost angry.

Her brother shouldn't behave like this. It wasn't right.

He sat up and lowered his hands. 'Close the door and make sure no one is listening,' he said in a cracking voice.

Feeling queasy, Mahelt did so, then went to the curtain between solar and bedchamber to make sure no maids were lurking in there. 'What is it?' she repeated. 'Tell me!'

He swallowed and swallowed again and shook his head

'Look, I'll go and get you a draught.' Mahelt turned towards the door but he put out his hand to stop her.

'No, just . . . just let me get my breath.'

She retraced her steps and sat beside him on the bench, feeling really scared.

What if her father had been taken ill again? What if something had happened to her mother or one of her siblings? 'Take your time,' she said, as much for her benefit as his.

'It's . . .' Will shook his head and almost retched. 'It is the life of my unborn child and my wife . . . the light of my life.'

'What?' Mahelt stared at him in dumbfounded shock. Questions shot through her mind, but so fast she didn't have time to ask them.

'Alais is dead!' Will began to sob in a harsh, breaking voice. Appalled at the way her imperious brother was disintegrating before her eyes, Mahelt tried to embrace him, but he thrust her off, and she had to be content with running her hand up and down his spine instead. Dear God, Alais must have died in childbirth. She tried not to think about the new life growing in her own womb as if she would do harm by association.

Will washed his palms over his face. 'My wife, my son, my future,' he said in a sick voice. 'Murdered by John's assassins at the heart of where they should have been safe.'

Mahelt stared at him open-mouthed with disbelief. 'Murdered?'

'They were left dying in their own blood. Someone killed them, and vigilance was so slack at Pembroke that the murderer made good his escape.

Alais was in our parents' care and they didn't protect her. They ignored the threat. John is out to destroy us, from inside out and outside in.' His spine shuddered under her palm.

'What do you mean?' She was shocked that he was talking of their mother and father like this. The entire situation was unreal and unbelievable. 'Mama and Papa are always on their guard. You are overset and mistaken.'

'There is no mistake. I have seen their bodies.' He opened his clenched fist and showed her the small embroidered flower he had been gripping. 'From Alais's wedding dress,' he said hoarsely. 'They were not on their guard that day. However you defend them, you cannot defend this!'

Mahelt felt hollow inside. 'How do you know an assassin was sent by John?'

'Who else?' he said with bared teeth. 'Who else would do such a thing or want to harm our family in such a way? He has never forgiven or forgotten how my father humiliated him in Ireland. You do not know the half of what happened at court when Richard and I were in his clutches. He will bring us all down. Richard is out of his way in Normandy, but the rest of us are not.'

His words, their tone, what he had told her, caused Mahelt to press her hand to her womb. She wanted to run and find her sons and make sure they were safe. If someone could do this to Alais in the heart of the family's protection, then nowhere was out of harm's way. 'You cannot blame our mother and father,' she repeated.

Will ignored her. 'They were my pride and joy,' he said in a shattered voice.

'They made my life bearable. Now I have to live with this evil and eke out my existence until I join them in the dust.' His shoulders shook and he started to sob again.

This time he did let Mahelt fold him in her arms: her big brother with whom she had fought tooth and nail as a child. Neither of them had ever backed down or yielded an inch, but now she felt a great wash of maternal, tender pity. She didn't hush him, but let him weep until the storm abated enough for him to raise his head. She found him a napkin to mop his face and fetched a cup of wine from the bedside flagon. It was little enough, but she felt as if she was helping.

'What will you do now?' she asked as she returned with the cup.

'I do not know,' he said numbly. 'Only let me stay here a few days to gather my wits and think, then I shall go elsewhere. I have friends.' His gaze sharpened. 'I don't want you telling our parents where I am . . . swear to me.'

Mahelt's heart turned over. 'They have to know, Will.'

'I forbid it,' he snarled. 'I've severed my ties and I won't go back - not while my father supports that tyrant. You must promise me, you must!'

Mahelt was not sure that she should, but the anguish in his eyes, the twist of his mouth, made her acquiesce. 'Hugh and my father by marriage will have to be told. I cannot keep such a thing secret from them, and they will know you are here.'

Will knuckled his eyes again. 'It doesn't matter. It might even make them willing to listen, and alter their minds. Our sire is set on his course to support the King whatever happens. He'd rather keep to his precious honour than deviate by so much as a step. He's like a sheep on a well-worn track who won't change because that is how it has always been.'

Mahelt gasped at the bitterness in his remark. 'You mustn't say that!'

'Then what am I allowed to say?' He bared his teeth.

'Is it not true? Have we not from infancy been force-fed the fact that honour is sacred? No matter what it costs, we must keep it. But what if the cost of honour is supporting another's dishonour? What then?'

Mahelt said nothing because if there was an answer, she did not know what it was.

'I came to you because I could think of nowhere else,' Will said, his shoulders slumping. 'Earl Roger dislikes me, but he is a fair man of sound judgement, and I thought he might just be willing to listen. Is there . . . is there somewhere I can sleep?

'There's a guest chamber in one of the towers that I'll have aired and a mattress put on the bed.'

'Thank you. And a bolt on the inside of the door.' He pressed his lips together.

Mahelt almost said that there was no need: he was utterly safe at Framlingham; but then Alais should have been utterly safe at Pembroke.

'Wait here,' she said. 'I'll have it seen to.'

'No . . . don't go.' He caught her sleeve. 'Please.'

Once more she was assailed by anger and outrage that her strong, steady brother should be brought to this. A lost child. 'Just to instruct the maids,'

she said in a soothing voice. 'I won't leave. I promise you that.'

The men of the Bigod household sat around the trestle table in the Earl's chamber and listened as Will haltingly told his story. Mahelt was present too, sitting beside him, lending her silent support, with Hugh at her other side. Will warded off the exclamations of revulsion and the tendering of appalled sympathy as if fending blows with a splintered shield.

The Earl leaned back. 'Whether John perpetrated this deed or not, this is no way for a country to be governed. The King's mercenaries do as they please and he puts them in positions of authority which they abuse. No one is safe.

There are spies in every household. What the King cannot achieve by legitimate means, he digs from the underbelly. He has secret signs and countersigns and his men act according to their dictates no matter what they may say in public. People are tortured and murdered and killed. Demands are made and made again. Promises are broken. Enough is enough. I say that unless the King not only agrees to the terms in that charter but carries them out, we must stand against him.'

'Others have already risen,' Will said, 'and not just in the North. Mowbray, de Bohun, de Vere and Albini have all declared against him and more will come.'

The Earl eyed him from beneath the long brim of his hat. 'But not your father.' He shifted position in his high-backed chair. 'I am not without information. De Vere and Albini are my kin. I do not undertake this lightly because if I defy the King, I must be prepared to fight both his hirelings and those barons who do not rebel against him - likely with sword and shield as well as with a lawyer's pen. I have no fire in my belly for that kind of conflict, but we have reached a point where we must choose.' He sent a weighty gaze around the people gathered at the trestle.

Mahelt looked down, rubbing her thumb over her wedding ring. Her stomach was hollow; she felt trapped. If defiance were chosen, it would set her husband and brother against her father. Her adopted marital family against the kin of her birth. She hated John, but defying him also meant defying her father, and that was almost too painful to bear.

'So how do we go forward in this?' Hugh asked. 'It is one thing to say we will defy the King, another to do it. We need leverage, and for the moment we have nothing.'

'I agree,' the Earl replied. 'We know who will support us among our peers, but we must cast our net wider and look beyond our own walls to the towns .

. . and perhaps to Paris as well.'

A deep silence ensued as everyone considered the enormity of the words because having them out in the open made them real. 'You mean London and Louis?' Hugh said after taking a deep breath.

His father nodded. 'If we hold London, then we have the heart of England's commerce. And If John still refuses to negotiate, Louis of France has been waiting his opportunity . . .'

When the conference was over, Mahelt stood in the yard, waiting for Hugh to bid his father goodnight. Her brother had already retired to his own chamber and barred the door. Framlingham's wall walk bristled with soldiers; the guard had been doubled and security tightened. Mahelt shivered and laid her hand protectively over her womb and the unborn baby.

Hugh emerged from the chamber and, opening his cloak, enfolded her within its fur-lined wings.

She bit her lip. 'What has happened to Will - what is happening now - makes me realise how easily everything can be taken away.'

'Everyone is safe here.' He pulled her against him so she could feel the upright strength of his body. 'There are guards at every chamber door - loyal men.'

'But there should not have to be. We should be able to sleep in security, without the fear of being murdered in our beds.'

'I agree. John must be brought to account and his creatures banished.'

'And when that happens, my father will fall too. But if John survives, we go down. It's an impossible state of affairs.'

Hugh traced her cheek with his fingertip. 'Your father is well versed in politics and he will endure, even if it means retiring to Ireland. If John does prevail . . . well then, he will not harm the daughter and grandson of the man who is his mainstay.'

'Even if he saw to the killing of my brother's wife?'

'There is no proof of that, only your brother's opinion, and that is not entirely trustworthy. You know how much he hates the King.'

'Because he has lived with him,' she said in a voice filled with repugnance.

'Yes, but it still does not prove John did the deed.'

'He's behind it. You only need to look at his reputation. Who else would it be?' Mahelt pushed out of his arms and walked briskly towards their chamber. On reaching their rooms, she passed the guard on the outer door and found another one of Hugh's most trusted men sitting outside the curtained-off portion of the chamber where their sons were asleep. The man silently rose, bowed, and moved away to give her space. Mahelt parted the curtain to look in at the boys. Never had the potential for disaster and the destruction of everything she held dear been clearer to her. The rumours about Arthur, the truth about Maude de Braose and her son, John's predatory intimidation of women, and now the suspicion and speculation over the death of her brother's wife and unborn baby. What more proof did Hugh or anyone need? She pushed the awareness of her father's loyalty to John from her mind and sealed it away because it was too painful and complicated to think about.