Welcome to my novel extracts pages where I've posted some recent examples of my work as tasters of the kind of historical fiction I write. I hope you enjoy browsing through.

NEW! 15th October 2010
Okay, this is brand new work in progress. I am working on a novel about Empress Matilda and Queen Adeliza, working title LADY OF THE ENGLISH. Below is the first chapter, still very much in rough draft.

CHAPTER 1

Speyer, Germany, Summer 1125

Matilda held her dead husband’s imperial crown and felt the cold gemstones and points of gold against her fingertips and palms. In the light from the window arch, the metal shone with a soft patina, embossed with glints of harder radiance. Heinrich had worn it at feasts and official occasions. She had a matching one, made for her by the greatest goldsmiths in Speyer and decorated with gold flowers. In the course of their eleven year marriage; Matilda had learned to bear the weight with grace and dignity.

She was the wife of the Emperor. Her people called her ‘Matilda the Good.’ They had not always been her people, but it was how she thought of them now, and they of her. For a moment grief squeezed her solar plexus and tears threatened. Her husband would never wear this diadem again. He would not smile at her in that amused, grave way, nor discuss state matters with her in the bedchamber, nor share the same golden cup as they sat side by side at a banquet. No offspring born of his loins and her womb would occupy the imperial throne. The cradle was empty because God had not seen fit to let their son live beyond the hour of his birth, and now Heinrich himself lay entombed in the great cathedral here and another man ruled over what had been his.

Matilda the Good. Matilda the Empress, Matilda the childless widow. If she stayed, she would have to add Matilda the nun to the list of titles, and she was not of a mind to retire to the cloister. She raised her head and banished self-pity. She was twenty three, young, vigorous and strong. Another life awaited her in Normandy and England, once her home, if now barely remembered.

Turning, she presented the crown to her chamberlain to pack in its leather travelling casket

‘Domina, if it please you, your escort is ready.’

Matilda faced the white-haired knight bowing in the doorway. Like her, he was dressed for travel in a thick riding cloak and stout calf hide boots. His left hand rested lightly on his sword pommel.

‘Then so am I, Drogo.’ She gestured the servants to remove the last of her baggage, then paced slowly around the chamber, looking at the walls bereft of their hangings, the bare benches around the hearth, the dying fire. Soon there would be nothing left to say she had ever dwelt here.

Drogo watched her with knowing, sympathetic eyes. ‘It is difficult to bid farewell, Domina.’

Still looking around, as if her gaze was caught in a web of invisible threads, Matilda came to the door She was remembering being eight years old, standing in the great hall at Liege, trembling with exhaustion and the strain of her journey from England. All the fear, all the pressure of being sent out of the nest to a foreign land and a betrothal with a grown man because it suited her father’s political purpose and she knew she must do her duty and not fail him. It could have been a disaster, but instead, it had been the making of her and the moulding of a scared, studious little girl into a regal woman and able consort for the Emperor of Germany.

‘I have been happy here.’ She touched the doorpost, in a gesture of holding on and bidding farewell at the same time.

‘Your lord father will be pleased to have you home.’

Matilda sent the knight a strong glance, removed her hand, and straightened her cloak. ‘I do not need to be cajoled like a skittish horse.’

‘That was not my intent, Domina.’

‘Then what was your intent?’ Drogo had been with her since that long journey to her betrothal. He was her bodyguard and leader of her household knights. Strong, dour, dependable. As a child she had thought him ancient; even then his hair had been white, although he had only been thirty years old. He looked little different now, except for a few new lines and the deepening of older ones.

‘To say that an open door is waiting for you.’

‘And that I should close this one?’

‘No, Domina, it has made you who and what you are - and that is also why your father has summoned you.’

‘It is but one of his reasons and driven by necessity,’ she replied shortly. I’ have not seen my father in many years, but I know him well.’ She removed her hand from the doorpost and taking a resolute breath, left the room, carrying herself as if she were bearing the weight and grace of her crown.

In the courtyard, her entourage waited in the midst of a horseshoe of servants, retainers and officials. The bulk of the baggage had gone ahead by cart three days earlier under strong escort. Only the nucleus of her household remained with a handful of pack horses to carry light provisions and the items she wanted to keep with her. Her chaplain, Burchard, kept looking furtively at the horse laden with the items from the portable chapel. Matilda followed his glance, her gaze resting but not lingering upon a certain wooden casket in one of the panniers before she turned to her dappled mare. The salmon-red saddle was a sumptuous affair, padded and brocaded almost like her hearth chair, with a support for her back and a rest for her feet. It was not the swiftest way to travel, but it was dignified and a display of magnificence. The towns and villages through which they passed would expect nothing less than splendour from the Emperor’s recent widow.

Matilda settled herself and positioned her feet on the platform. A maid stepped forward to arrange her mistress’s skirts over her shoes, and Matilda was ready. Seated sideways, looking forward, looking back. It felt appropriate. She raised her slender right hand to the knight, who acknowledged the signal with a salute, and rode to the head of the troop. The banners unfurled, the heralds trotted out and the cavalcade began to unwind like a colourful array of jewels knotted on a string. The dowager Empress of Germany was leaving the home of her heart to return to the home of her birth and a new set of duties.

Adeliza gripped the bedclothes and tried not to gasp as Henry withdrew from her body. He was sixty years old, but still hale and vigorous; she felt sore inside from the force of his thrusts and crushed by his stolid weight. He flopped over onto his back, panting hard. Biting her lip, Adeliza placed her hand on her flat belly and strove to regain her own breath. Henry was a big man, and the act of procreation was often awkward and uncomfortable. God willing, this time she would conceive.

She had been Henry’s wife and the consecrated Queen of England for five years, and still each month her flux came at the appointed time in a red cramp of disappointment and failure. Thus far no amount of prayers, gifts, penances or potions had rectified her barrenness. She did not know what sin she had committed to warrant such punishment from God. Unless God was punishing Henry, and Adeliza was too loyal to think down that path. Her husband had a score of bastards by various mistresses, so he was potent with other women, but he only had one living legitimate child, his daughter Matilda from his first marriage. There had been a son too, but he had died while Henry was negotiating to marry her. Henry seldom spoke of the tragedy that had robbed him of his heir, drowned in a shipwreck on a bitter November night, but it had driven his policies ever since.

Henry kissed her shoulder and gave her breast an affectionate squeeze before parting the curtains and leaving the bed. She watched him scratch the curly silver hair on his broad chest. His stocky frame carried a slight paunch, but he was muscular and in proportion. He stretched and made a sound like a contented lion. Their union, she thought, even if it brought forth no other fruit, had released his tension. His appetite was prodigious and in between bedding her, he had other women too. He poured himself wine from the flagon set on a painted coffer near the hearth and on his return picked up his mantle and swept it around his shoulders. Silver and blue squirrel fur gave off a dull gleam in the candle light. Adeliza sat up and folded her hands around her knees. The soreness between her thighs diminished to a dull throb. He offered her a drink from the cup and she took a dainty sip.

Henry’s expression was thoughtful as they shared the wine. ‘Matilda will be arriving soon,’ he remarked. ‘The outriders will meet her tomorrow on the road.’

Adeliza tucked a strand of silver-gilt hair behind one ear and studied him. His eyes held a remote expression and she knew his thoughts had turned inwards to the weaving of his political web. He had never been less than kind to her, but Adeliza was no fool. Her husband was ruthless.

‘All is prepared for her,’ she said. ‘I have told the servants to make sure that there is a good fire in her chamber at all times to keep out the damp. I’ve ordered incense to be burned and bowls of dried roses and lavender put on the coffers. Her furniture has all been assembled and the wall hangings put up. I….’ She caught herself and fell silent. When she was anxious, she had a habit of talking too much, and she knew it irritated him.

Henry chose to be amused. ‘I am sure her chamber will be perfect.’ He kissed her hand. ‘You have the ability to make the meanest hovel a gracious home.’

Adeliza sent him a mischievous look. ‘I would rather decorate a chamber for my stepdaughter though.’

Henry chuckled. ‘I think both of you will benefit from being the same age.’

‘It will be strange to have her call me mother, and me to call her daughter.’

‘You will both grow accustomed,’ Henry said, still smiling, but Adeliza could tell his intent lay elsewhere. Henry’s conversations were never just idle gossip; there was always a purpose. I want you to cultivate her my love,’ he said. ‘She has been a long time absent, and I need to consider her future. Some things are rightly for the counsel chamber and for father and daughter, but others are better talked about between women.’ He stroked the side of her face with a powerful, stubby hand. ‘I trust your judgement and your intuition. You have a skill with people; they open themselves to you.’

Adeliza looked troubled. ‘You want me to draw confidences from her?’

Henry shrugged. ‘I would know her mind. I have seen her once in sixteen years, and then only for a few days. Her letters give me news, but they are couched in the language of scribes and I would know the heart of her. I would know if she is strong enough.’

‘Strong enough for what?’

‘For what I may ask of her.’ He paced the chamber, picking up a scroll and setting it down, fiddling with one of his jewelled rods of office. Adeliza watched him. He was like one of the jugglers he employed to entertain his courtiers, keeping the balls all rotating in the air, knowing where each one was and what to do with it, adapting swiftly as a new one was tossed into the rotation, discarding another when he had no more need. Lacking a legitimate son, he had to look to the succession. He had married her and hoped to beget another son, but it had not happened. He was grooming his nephew Stephen as a possible successor, but now that Matilda was a widow and free to come home and make a new marriage, the game had changed again. To think of making Matilda heir to England and Normandy was beyond audacious. The notion of a woman ruler would make even the most liberal of his barons think twice. Adeliza frowned. Her husband often gambled, but he was never rash and he was accustomed to imposing his will.

‘She is young and strong,’ he said. ‘And she has borne a child to her husband, even if it did not survive. She will make another marriage and bear boys if God is merciful.’

A pang went through Adeliza. If God was merciful, she herself would bear sons, but she understood his need to pursue other avenues. ‘Do you have anyone in mind?’

‘Several candidates,’ he replied in an offhand tone. ‘You need not trouble yourself for the moment.’

‘But when the time comes, you will expect me to smooth the path.’ Henry climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over them both. He kissed her again, with a hard mouth. ‘It is a queen’s duty, prerogative and privilege to be a peacemaker,’ he replied. ‘I do not think for one moment you will fail me.’

‘I won’t,’ Adeliza said, and as he pinched out the bedside candle, set her hand between her thighs and felt the slipperiness of his seed, and prayed this time for success.

2 Extracts from TO DEFY A KING

PUBLISHED BY SPHERE IN HARDCOVER, MAY 2010

Chapter 1

The Marshal manor of Caversham, Berkshire, January 1204

‘It’s not fair!’ Ten year old Mahelt Marshal scowled at her older brothers who were immersed in a boy’s game involving a pretend raid on an enemy castle. ‘Why can’t I be a knight?’

‘‘Girls don’t go raiding,’ Will answered with the superiority that came from being male, almost fourteen and heir to the Earldom of Pembroke.

She made a grab for his horse’s reins and he snatched them out of her reach.

‘Girls stay at home and embroider and bear children. Only men go to war.’

‘Women have to defend the castle when their lords are away,’ she pointed out. ‘Mama does - and you have to obey her.’ Tossing her head, she looked at Richard, who was twelve and could sometimes be persuaded to take her part; but although a broad grin sprawled across his freckled face, he didn’t leap to her defence.

‘She has to do our lord father’s bidding when he returns,’ Will retorted. ‘Papa doesn’t send her out with a lance in her hand while he stays at home, does he?’

‘I can pretend; it’s all pretend anyway.’ Mahelt was determined not to be bettered. ‘You’re not a man.’

Richard’s grin widened as Will flushed. ‘Let her defend the castle,’ he said. ‘She might have to do it one day when she’s married.’

William rolled his eyes, but gave in. ‘All right, but she’s not a knight, and she’s not riding Equus.’

‘Of course not.’

‘And she can be the French. We’re the English.’

That’s not fair!’ Mahelt protested again.

‘Don’t play then,’ Will said indifferently.

She shot her brothers a fulminating look. She wanted to ride Will’s new mount because it was a proper, big glossy horse, not a pony. She wanted to jump him over hedges like Will did and see how fast she could make him gallop. She wanted to feel the wind in her hair. Will had called him Equus, which he said was the Latin name the scribes wrote meaning ‘warhorse.’ Richard’s docile grey just wasn’t the same challenge, and she had almost outgrown her own dumpy little chestnut, which was stabled up with a leg strain. She knew she could ride as well as either of her brothers.

Heaving a sigh, she stumped off with bad grace to defend the ‘castle’ which for the purposes of the game was the kennel keeper’s hut. Here were stored the collars and leashes for the hounds, old blankets, hunting horns, various tools, baskets and bowls. A shelf at Mahelt’s eye level held chubby earthenware pots of salve for treating canine injuries. Mahelt took one down, removed the lid of plaited straw, and immediately recoiled from the vile stench of rancid goose grease.

‘Ready?’ She heard Richard shout.

Her left arm crooked around the pot, Mahelt emerged from the shed and with a resolute jaw, faced the youths, who were fretting their mounts. Both boys bore makeshift lances fashioned from ash staves, and gripped their practice shields at the ready. Uttering simultaneous yells, the brothers charged. Knowing they expected her to lose her courage and dash back inside the shed, Mahelt stood her ground. She scooped up a handful of grease, feeling it cold and squidgy-soft between her fingers, and lobbed it at the oncoming horses. Will ducked behind his shield, which took the first impact, but Mahelt’s next dollop struck him over the rawhide rim, splattering his cloak and the side of his neck. Another scoop burst on the shoulder of Richard’s grey. His efforts to control his shying mount left him exposed and her fourth handful landed a direct hit to his face.

‘Hah! You’re both dead!’ She leaped gleefully and down. ‘I win, I win!’ Triumph burned in her solar plexus. That was showing them.

Will was off his horse like lightning. Mahelt shrieked and tried to run inside the shed, but he was too fast and caught her arm. She spun round in his grip and struck his chest with her salve-covered hand, smearing his cloak with rancid grease.

‘It’s dishonourable to strike a lady!’ she cried as he raised a threatening fist.’

Will looked at his bunched knuckles and lowering his arm gave her a disgusted shove instead. ‘Look what you’ve done to my cloak! I pity whoever gets you to wife. You’re a hoyden.’

Mahelt raised her chin, determined not to show remorse or be browbeaten. ‘But I still won,’ she said. ‘Against both of you.’

‘Will, leave her,’ Richard said with exasperation, wiping his face. ‘Let’s go. There are better places to practice. We’d get more hurled at us in a real battle than handfuls of old grease.’

With a final glare, Will flung round and remounted Equus. ‘It looks as if you’ve lost after all,’ he said as he reined around.

Angry tears stung her eyes as she watched her brothers ride away. Raising her hand to dash them away, the stink of the salve suddenly disgusted her. She was cold, hungry and empty. Her victory was a hollow one and she was going to be in trouble for wasting the hound keeper’s salve, and dirtying her brothers’ clothes. She returned the pot to its shelf, and closed the shed door. When she turned round, she jumped, because Godfrey, her father’s under-chamberlain was standing behind her. ‘Your parents are seeking you, young mistress,’ he said and wrinkled his nose. ‘God’s eyes, what have you been doing?’

‘Nothing.’ She gave him an imperious look to cloak her guilt. ‘Defending the castle.’

Godfrey said nothing, but his gaze was eloquent.

‘What do they want?’ Facing both parents at once was generally reserved for serious misdemeanours. Her mother had eyes in the back of her head, but surely she couldn’t know about the grease throwing yet and Mahelt couldn’t think of anything else she had done recently to warrant such a command.

‘I do not know, young mistress. Your lady mother just said to fetch you.’

Decidedly on her guard, Mahelt followed him to the solar, pausing on the way to sluice her hands in the trough and wipe them on a net of hay tied to the stable wall.

Her mother and father were sitting before the hearth in their private chamber, and she saw a glance flicker between them as she entered. She could sense an atmosphere, but it wasn’t angry. Gilbert and Walter, her two younger brothers were playing a dice game on the floor and a nurse was attending to her little sisters, Belle aged four, and two year old Sybilla.

Her mother patted the bench and Mahelt came to sit in the space her parents had made for her between them. The fire embraced her with warmth. The hangings were drawn across the window shutters and the mellow glow from numerous beeswax candles made the room feel cosy and welcoming. Her mother smelled wonderfully of roses and the arm she slipped around Mahelt to cuddle her was tender and maternal. Mahelt decided her brothers were welcome to their silly game. Parental attention was better, especially if she wasn’t in trouble. She thought it odd that her father was holding her floppy cloth doll in his big hands and looking at it in a pensive manner. Seeing her watching him, he put it down and smiled, but his eyes were serious.

‘You remember a few weeks ago, the Christmas court at Canterbury?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, Papa.’ It had been wonderful – all the feasting and dancing and celebration. She had felt so grown up, being allowed to mingle with the adults. She had been wary of King John because she knew her mother disliked him, but she thought the jewels he wore around his neck were magnificent. Sapphires and rubies so her cousin Ela had said, all the way from Sarandib.

‘You remember Hugh Bigod?’

‘Yes, Papa.’ The heat from the fire was suddenly hot on her face. She picked up her doll and began fussing with it herself. Hugh was grown up, but he had partnered her in a circle dance, clasping her hand and winding her through the chain. Later he had organised games of hoodman blind and hunt the slipper for the younger ones, joining in himself with great enthusiasm. He had a rich singing voice and a smile that made her stomach flutter, although she didn’t know why. One day he would be earl of Norfolk, just as one day Will would be earl of Pembroke.

‘Hugh’s parents are seeking a suitable wife for him,’ her father said. ‘Your mother and I believe it would be good for Marshal and Bigod to unite in a marriage alliance.’

Mahelt blinked. She felt the doll’s soft dress under her fingers, the heat from the fire, her mother’s arm around her. She looked at her father. If the law allowed it, if it were possible under God’s heaven, she would marry him. She knew she was expected to make a great match to benefit her family. It was her duty and she was proud to do it, but she hadn’t expected the moment to come like this – out of an ordinary day when a moment since she had been play-fighting with her brothers. Her stomach was suddenly hollow.

‘It will only be a betrothal for the moment,’ her mother reassured her. ‘Nothing will change until you are older, but your father must make the offer now.’

Mahelt’s relief that she was not to be married off on the instant was immediately replaced by curiosity. ‘Why must you make the offer now, Papa?’

Giving her a grave look, he spoke as one adult to another. ‘Because, Matty, I want to secure an alliance with the earl of Norfolk. He is powerful and honourable and his estates are prosperous. He knows the laws of the land better than anyone, and his son is a fine young man. You will be safe and cared for, and that matters to me. If we do not make the offer now, the earl may not wait. There are other families with whom he could match Hugh to great advantage. This is the best match for you.’

Mahelt tightened her grip on her doll - because she was thinking, not because she was upset. Will was betrothed to Alais de Bethune, who was five years old. Mahelt’s cousin Ela, Countess of Salisbury, had married William Longespée when she was only nine. Mahelt was almost eleven now, nearly two years older. ‘I like Hugh Bigod,’ she said swinging her legs. She liked Countess Ida too, who had given her a brooch at Christmas, enamelled with red and blue flowers. Hugh’s father, earl Roger of Norfolk always wore magnificent hats.

‘Then I am glad,’ her father said, ‘and very proud of you. I will make the offer and we will see what happens.’

His approval made Mahelt feel warm and tingly. He hugged her and she abandoned her doll to squeeze him as hard as she could in return. He pretended to choke at the force of her grip, then made a different sound in his throat and drew away, grimacing. ‘Child, what have you been doing? What is that smell?’

Mahelt tried to look nonchalant. ‘It’s just the salve Tom the kennel keeper uses on the hounds when they’re injured.’

He raised his brows. ‘And why would it be on you?’

She squirmed. ‘Will said I had to defend the castle against attack because he wouldn’t let me be a knight and ride Equus.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘He said I had to be French too, and then he got cross and rode off because he didn’t win.’ She concealed a momentary quiver as she remembered him saying that she had actually lost. It wasn’t true.

‘And the salve?’

Mahelt set her jaw. ‘There was nothing else to throw. I wasn’t going to yield, because they’d have taken me prisoner and held me for ransom.’

Her father looked away and rubbed his hand across his face. When he turned back, his expression was severe. ‘You do know that Tom will have to make more salve now, and for that he will have to wait on the next pig killing for the lard. He’ll have to find the herbs too.’

Mahelt fiddled with the end of her braid. ‘I’m sorry Papa; I’ll help him.’ It would be fun, she thought, all that mixing and stirring. Better than sewing in the bower.

He looked wry. ‘It is probably fortunate that there will be a gap between your betrothal and your marriage.’

‘I wouldn’t throw things at my husband,’ she reassured him earnestly.

‘I am relieved to hear it,’ he replied in a slightly strangled voice. ‘Go now and wash your hands properly and we’ll toast some bread on the fire.’

Mahelt jumped from the bench and hastened to do his bidding, relieved to have escaped so lightly. Besides, she was ravenous.

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EXTRACT 2

Settrington, Yorkshire, February 1204

Hugh Bigod dismounted to examine the wolf he had just killed, and wiped his spear in the tawny winter grass. Silver-grey fur ruffled in the wind. Her fangs were bared in a bloody snarl and even in death her amber eyes were baleful. She would have bred pups this year, but her swollen belly was not the result of fecundity, but of having gorged on the heavily pregnant ewe, she and her mate had brought down the previous day. Wolves were a constant problem at lambing time, slinking round the sheepfolds, grey as twilight, waiting their moment. The shepherds and their dogs kept close watch, but they could not be everywhere at once and even brought in close to the homestead, there were still casualties among the flocks.

Pellets of icy rain drove slantwise into his face and he turned his head away from the wind. Although his fingers were encased in mittens, his hands were numb. It was a frozen, hungry time of year, the dregs of winter hanging on even though the dawns arrived earlier and the light was slower to leave the sky at night.

‘I can have a wolfskin rug for my bedside now,’ said his fourteen year old brother Ralph, a gleam in his dark grey eyes.

Hugh smiled. ‘With a sheepskin the other side for balance, and to remind you why we hunt wolves in the first place.’

‘I don’t know why you want a wolf pelt anywhere near you, they stink.’ said William. At sixteen, he was the closest of the brothers in age to Hugh.

‘Not if they’re properly tanned and aired.’ Ralph argued.

William shook his head. ‘The only good place for a wolf is a midden pit.’

Accustomed to their verbal sparring, Hugh took little notice. It meant nothing. They squabbled cheerfully among themselves – sometimes even came to blows, but the rancour never lasted and they were always united against a common foe.

Hugh remounted Arrow. The mare was so named because of her ability to fly into a fast gallop from a standing start. She could outrun any wolf and she was his pride and joy. Gathering the reins, he studied the sleet-laden clouds scudding in from the east coast while he waited for Ralph to swing the bloodied corpses across the pack pony’s saddle. The wind was as vicious as the bite of a wild animal. It was a day when any sane man would remain by his hearth, and only venture outside to empty his bowels – or deal with wolves.

He had been lord of Settrington for five years – ever since his father had granted him ten knights’ fees of his own following King John’s coronation. He had been seventeen then - old enough for responsibility under supervision and he had cut his teeth on these Yorkshire estates, preparing for the day when he would inherit vast tracts of fertile land and coastal villages in East Anglia including the castle at Framlingham with its thirteen great towers. His father was still hale and fit, but one day, Hugh would be earl of Norfolk, and his knights’ fees would amount to more than a hundred and sixty.

He paused by the shepherd’s hut to give the herders the good news about the wolves, then rode down to the manor. As the afternoon settled towards dusk, the horses churned their way through the icy mud of the track, bitter air clouding from their nostrils and steaming from their hides. Lantern light gleamed through the cracks in the shutters of the manor house and grooms were waiting to greet the hunting party and take their mounts.

‘Sire, your lord father is here,’ the head groom told Hugh as he dismounted.

Hugh had already noticed the extra horses in the stables and the increased number of servants. He had been expecting his father because King John and the court were at York, and Settrington was only twenty miles away. Hugh nodded to the groom, stripped his mittens, and blowing into his cupped hands, entered the manor house. His waiting chamberlain presented him with a cup of hot, spiced wine which Hugh took with gratitude. His father was sitting before the hearth, legs crossed at the ankle, sipping from a cup of his own, but at sight of Hugh, he stood up.

‘Sire.’ Hugh knelt on one knee and bowed his head.

‘Son,’ Pride in his voice, Roger Bigod raised Hugh to his feet and kissed him on either cheek. Hugh felt the solidity of his father’s body beneath the fur-lined mantle as they embraced. He was as hard and sturdy as a pollarded tree.

William and Ralph arrived to be similarly greeted and for a while the conversation was all of the foul weather and the wolf hunt. More hot wine arrived, and platters of hot fried pastries. It was Lent so they were neither filled with cheese nor dusted with sugar and spices, but the tongue-scalding heat and the lard-fried crispness were still welcome to men who had been at hard exercise in freezing weather. Hugh’s hands and feet began to throb back to life. Chilblains were another good reason not to leave the fire on a bitter February day. He pushed away the nose of a hungrily questing dog. ‘How is my lady mother?’

His father wiped his lips on a napkin. ‘Well enough, but longing for spring like all of us - and eager for news of you of course.’

‘As soon as the weather improves I’ll ride down to Framlingham and see her,’

‘It might be sooner than that.’

‘Oh?’ Hugh arched a questioning eyebrow.

The earl glanced at his other sons. ‘After dinner will do. ‘I want to talk to you alone and uninterrupted.’

He would not be drawn and Hugh had no choice but to control his curiosity.

After a modest Lenten supper of fish stew and bread, Ralph disappeared to skin his wolves. William, too fastidious to join him, went to play dice with the knights, having been ordered to make himself scarce.

As he waited for his father to speak, Hugh was tense with anticipation. Something momentous was afoot.

Standing with his back to the fire, the earl cleared his throat. ‘William Marshal has approached me and offered his eldest daughter Mahelt in marriage to you.’

The news came as no surprise but Hugh’s stomach still sank. His father had been studying prospective brides for some time. The Marshal’s daughter was one of several names on the list.

‘I told him we would consider the proposal and I would give my answer when I had spoken with you.’

‘She is not yet eleven years old.’ Hugh’s initial thought emerged as words, although he had only half meant to speak.

‘She will grow swiftly and you are still young for marriage. I was well beyond thirty when I wed your mother, and the Marshal almost twice your age when he took Isabelle of Leinster to wife. What matters is the honour and prestige of a tie with the Marshals, and the affinity the girl will bring.’

Hugh thought back to dancing with Mahelt Marshal at the Christmas feast in Canterbury. She was tall for her age and as lean as a gazehound. He remembered her hair in particular – shiny dark-brown glinted with rich bronze. He had enjoyed her nimble, lively company, but she was a boisterous child, not a wife to wed and bed. Indeed, when he thought of the Marshal family, the earl and countess came to mind, not Mahelt. At court, he had been far more smitten by Countess Isabelle who, in her early thirties, was a strong and alluring woman.

‘It bothers you, I can see.’

Hugh cupped his chin. ‘There may not be many years separating girl from woman, but what if she should die in the meantime? Her dowry will no longer be secured to our estates and other offers will have passed us by.’

‘That is a risk we take,’ his father conceded, ‘but Mahelt Marshal is not sickly; all of her brothers and sisters are as robust as destriers.’ A gleam entered the older man’s eyes. ‘Good breeding stock.’

Hugh exhaled with sardonic amusement.

His father sobered. ‘There will not be a better offer than this.’ Hugh knew his father’s astute brain and reasoning abilities were what made the King value him as a judge and counsellor. He would have weighed the advantages and pitfalls of the match, and have answers for every point Hugh might raise. ‘I bow to your will, sir,’ he said. ‘I know my duty to the family and my concerns are not objections.’

His father’s lips curved in a half-smile. ‘Nevertheless, your doubts are commendable. I am pleased to have raised a son who can think for himself. The lord Marshal desires only a betrothal at this stage, and to leave the marriage until the girl is old enough for the full duties of a wife.’

‘Is she to live with us?’ Hugh’s tone was bland, but he was secretly unsettled at the notion of having a child-wife to his name, even if she would be mostly under his mother’s wing.

‘Not until the marriage, which will not take place until she is of an age for successful child-bearing. The earl of Pembroke suggests the betrothal itself take place at Caversham after Lent.’

‘As you wish, sire,’ Hugh said with relief that he was not imminently to be saddled with a bride.

His father held out his cup for Hugh to refill. ‘Good then, it is settled, apart from negotiating the fine details of dowry and bride price. The King will have to give his permission of course, but I foresee no trouble. We are in good favour with him and he values our support. I’ve taken the precaution of bringing a jewelled staff to present to him, and a copy of Aesop – given his enjoyment of gems and reading, they should put him in a good mood.’

‘Is there any news from Normandy?’ When last Hugh had attended court, King Philip of France had been making deep inroads into the province and not only the Bigod lands near Bayeux were threatened, but also the considerably vaster holdings belonging to William Marshal.

His father shook his head. ‘None that is good. As long as the castle at Gaillard holds out, Rouen is safe from the French, but there have been no gains on our part and when the campaigning season begins again…’ He made a gesture that described without words how much of a predicament King John was in. Eastern Normandy had been overrun by the French and Anjou was lost. ‘Queen Eleanor is four score years old and in poor health. When she dies, there will be war in Poitou.’ He looked sombre. ‘I used to think she would be a part of the landscape forever, but people are not as enduring as the stones.’

Hugh said nothing, for it was the way he thought of his parents – as immutable as rock, when the truth was that they were as vulnerable as trees in the forest.

‘The King will raise an army to try and push Philip back, but whether or not he succeeds…’ Roger gazed into the fire, his air one of grave sobriety. ‘The minor Norman vassals will go over to Philip in order to keep their lands. Why should they be loyal to a lord who as far as they are concerned, has fled across the sea and left them to cope as best they may? John will lose all the small men, and it is the small men who uphold the great.’

Hugh gave his father a sharp look. ‘What of our own estates? What of the stud?’

‘I was going to talk to you about that. Time I think to bring the horses to England. Even If I must lose Corbon and Montfiquet, I am not gifting the King of France with my horses. Come the better weather, I want you to go and fetch them back to East Anglia.’

‘And our people?’

‘We will cross that bridge when we come to it.’ His father folded his arms inside his furred mantle ‘Your great grandfather came to England and fought on Hastings field because the Norman lands would not sustain him. They are a useful addition, but hardly a patrimony.’ He pursed his lips. ‘It will go hard for The Marshal if we lose Normandy because he does have castles and estates of great value to think on. He stands to lose his second son’s inheritance. The lad’s rising thirteen years old and the Marshal needs to hold on until he can despatch him to Normandy in his own right and create separation that way.’ He heaved a deep sigh. ‘We all walk knife edges of one sort or another, but better to walk them in strong and protective company. That way there is less chance of being eaten by wolves. He raised his cup in toast. ‘To your betrothal.’

‘My betrothal,’ Hugh responded wryly.

Watch the trailer here!

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my novel extracts pages where I've posted some recent examples of my work as tasters of the kind of historical fiction I write. I hope you enjoy browsing through.
I have added two extracts from TO DEFY A KING, due out in May of 2010. Just scroll down past the other click throughs on this post and you'll find it on this page beside the picture of my Norman cooking pot.

For an excerpt from June 09's publication THE TIME OF SINGING, click on the url below. The first is part of the opening chapter and introduces the lead male character Roger Bigod. The second, is the introduction of Ida, ther heroine, in Chapter 3. Here's the url. Hope you enjoy these sneak previews! http://tinyurl.com/4ybslb

Click here for an extract from THE SCARLET LION
http://tinyurl.com/yw8935

Click here for an extract from THE GREATEST KNIGHT
http://tinyurl.com/26wbpe

Click here for an extract from A PLACE BEYOND COURAGE
http://tinyurl.com/yvqf4d

Click here for an extract from SHIELDS OF PRIDE
http://tinyurl.com/276lg6

Here are the excerpts from TO DEFY A KING.
........................................................................................................................................

TO DEFY A KING

Rough draft

Excerpt 1

Meeting Mahelt Marshal:

Caversham, Berkshire, January 1204

‘It’s not fair!’ Nine year old Mahelt Marshal scowled at her older brothers who were immersed in a boy’s game involving a pretend raid on an enemy castle. ‘I want to be a knight.’

‘Well you can’t be,’ Will answered with the superiority that came from being male, almost fourteen and heir to the Earldom of Pembroke.

‘Why not?’ She made a grab for his pony’s reins and he snatched them out of her reach.

‘Because you’re a girl,’ Will rolled his eyes, intimating that she was stupid. ‘Girls don’t go on chevauchée!’ He smirked a little. ‘Girls stay at home and do sewing and mind the babies. Only men go to war.’

Mahelt was having none of it. ‘Women have to defend the castle when their lords are away,’ she pointed out. ‘Mama always governs the estates when Papa goes to war - and you have to do as she says.’ She jutted her chin triumphantly and looked at Richard, who was twelve and could sometimes be persuaded to take her part. Just now, a broad grin was spread across his freckled face, but other than that he wasn’t leaping to her defence.

Will was ready with his retort. ‘But she has to do what our lord father says when he returns, and she doesn’t put on mail and ride off to fight. Papa doesn’t send her out with a lance in her hand while he stays at home, does he?’

Mahelt chewed her lip. ‘I can pretend. It’s all pretend anyway. You’re not a man.’

Richard’s grin brightened further, and Will flushed. ‘But I will become one,’ he said. ‘You never will. Go away.’

Mahelt stamped her foot. ‘I’ll tell!’

‘Will, let her defend the castle,’ Richard said, ever the peace-maker between his argumentative siblings. ‘She might have to do it one day when she’s married.

Will scowled but capitulated with a deep sigh. ‘All right, but she’s not a knight, and she’s not riding Equus.’

Richard shrugged agreement.

‘And she can be the French. We’re the English.’

‘That’s not fair!’ Mahelt squawked.

‘Don’t play then,’ Will said indifferently.

Mahelt narrowed her eyes. She wanted to ride Will’s new pony because it was nearly the size of a horse and had big brown spots on its silver-pale rump. She wanted to take him over jumps like Will did and see how fast she could make him go. Will had called him Equus, which he said was the Latin name the scribes wrote in their notes meaning ‘warhorse.’ Richard’s docile grey wasn’t the same challenge, and she had almost outgrown her own dumpy little chestnut, which was currently stabled up with a leg strain.

With a heavy sigh and bad grace Mahelt stumped off to defend the ‘castle’ which for the purposes of the game was the kennel keeper’s storage hut. The collars and leashes were stowed here together with old blankets, hunting horns, wooden bowls, various tools and baskets, and a shelf holding earthenware pots of salve for treating wounds sustained in the hunt. Mahelt reached to one of the pots, removed the lid of plaited straw, then recoiled from a vile stench of rancid goose grease.

‘Ready?’ She heard Richard shout.

Her left arm crooked around the pot, Mahelt emerged from the shed and watched her brothers fret heir ponies. Both boys carried makeshift lances fashioned from ash staves and gripped their practice shields at the ready. Uttering a yell, Will dug in his heels. As Equus pounded towards her, Richard following on his grey, Mahelt stood her ground, well aware they expected her to lose her courage and dash back inside the shed. She scooped up a handful of grease, feeling it cold and squidgy-soft between her fingers, and lobbed it at the oncoming horse. Will ducked and presented his shield, which took the first impact, but Mahelt released a second handful hard on the first, and it struck him over the shield rim, splattering his cloak and the side of his neck. Another scoop hit Richard’s grey and, as the pony shied, Richard had to haul on the reins, and in doing so, left his guard open for a fourth handful to hit his face.

‘Hah! You’re both dead!’ Mahelt leaped gleefully up and down. ‘I win, I win!’

Will was off his horse like lightning. Mahelt shrieked and tried to run inside the shed and slam the door, but he was too fast and caught her arm. She spun round and struck his chest with her salve-covered hand, further smearing him in rancid grease. She kicked his shins and he raised his hand to slap her.

‘It’s dishonourable to strike a lady!’ Mahelt cried. ‘Papa wouldn’t do it. I’ll tell him!’

Will lowered his hand and gave her a disgusted shove instead. ‘Do that and I’ll show him what you did to my cloak! I pity whoever gets you to wife. You’re a hoyden, not a lady.’

Mahelt looked down her nose, determined not to show remorse or let him browbeat her with words. It was always a contest between them as to who had the last one.

‘Will, let her be,’ Richard said, his own voice filled with exasperation. ‘Come away. There are better places to practice. We’d get more hurled at us in a real battle than handfuls of old grease.’

With a final glare, Will flung away from her and remounted. Watching her brothers ride off towards one of the far paddocks, Mahelt was filled with equal measures of triumph and regret. She had won the battle but lost the war because they had gone off without her and after this they wouldn’t be forgiving her in a hurry.

Excerpt 2
Meeting Hugh Bigod

Settrington, Yorkshire, February 1204

Hugh Bigod dismounted to examine the wolf he had just killed and wiped his spear in the tawny winter grass. Silver-grey fur ruffled in the wind. The fangs were bared in a bloody snarl, the amber eyes fixed in death. It was a young female and would have bred pups this year, but her swollen belly was not the result of fecundity, but of having gorged on the heavily pregnant ewe, she and her mate had brought down the previous day. Wolves were an endemic problem at lambing time, slinking round the sheepfolds, grey as twilight, waiting their moment. The shepherds and their dogs kept close watch, but they could not be everywhere at once and even brought in close to the homestead, there were still casualties among the flocks. At least with the kill of this female and her mate, Hugh knew he had prevented the formation of a new pack on his demesne.

Pellets of sleety snow drove slantwise into his face and caught in the fur collar of his cloak. Although his fingers were encased in mittens, his hands were numb. It was a frozen, hungry time of year for everyone, the dregs of winter hanging on even though the mornings were beginning earlier and the light was slower to leave the sky at night.

‘I can have a wolfskin rug for beside my bed now,’ said his brother Ralph, a gleam in his dark grey eyes.

Hugh quirked a smile at the fourteen year old who was the fire-eater of their family. If there was a brawl, Ralph was frequently at the centre. If there was excitement to be had, the same. Yet he was a good lad with a solid core of truth about him and he had kept his head and done as he was bidden during the hunt. ‘With a sheepskin the other side for balance,’ he replied, ‘and to remind you why we hunt wolves in the first place.’

‘I don’t know why you want a wolf pelt anywhere near you, they stink.’ said William, who, at sixteen was the closest of the brothers in age to Hugh.

‘Not if they’re properly tanned and aired.’ Ralph refused to be set down. ‘We don’t share beds as we did when were babies, so why should you object?’

William looked superior. ‘I wasn’t objecting. I was just saying they stink. The only good place for a wolf is a midden pit.’

Hugh was accustomed to the verbal wrangling between his brothers and paid it small heed beyond minor exasperation. It meant nothing. They squabbled cheerfully among themselves – sometimes even came to blows, but the rancour never lasted and they were always united against a common foe.

Ralph was determined to have the skins, and swung the bloodied corpses across the pack pony’s saddle. The beast flinched at its burden, nostrils flaring, but Ralph settled it with soothing words and fed it a crust of bread from the pouch at his belt.

Hugh remounted his courser. Her winter coat was as thick and plush as a fresh fall of snow. He had named her Arrow because of her speed and the way she could fly into a straight gallop from a standing start. She could outrun any wolf. He lifted his gaze to the clouds rolling across the sky like low grey smoke. The wind was as vicious as the bite of a wild animal. It was a day when any sane man would stay by his hearth and only stir outside of his door to empty his bowels – or deal with wolves.

He had been lord of Settrington for five years – ever since his father had granted him ten knights’ fees of his own following King John’s coronation. He had been seventeen then - old enough for responsibility under supervision. He had cut his teeth on these Yorkshire estates, preparing for the day when he would inherit vast tracts of fertile land and coastal villages in East Anglia and Normandy, including their castle at Framlingham with its thirteen great towers. His father was still hale and fit, but one day, Hugh would be Earl of Norfolk, and his knights’ fees would amount to a hundred and eighty.

He paused by the shepherd’s hut to give the herders the good news about the wolves, then rode down to the manor. As the afternoon settled towards dusk, the horses churned their way through the icy mud of the track, bitter air clouding from their nostrils and steaming from their hides. Lantern light gleamed through the cracks in the shutters of the manor house and grooms were waiting to greet the hunting party and take the horses.

‘Sire, your lord father is here,’ the head groom informed Hugh as he dismounted.

2 Extracts from THE TIME OF SINGING

“Arise my love, my fair one,

And come away;

For lo, the winter is past,

the rain is over and gone,

the flowers appear on the earth,

the time of singing has come.”
Song of Solomon

EXTRACT 1: ROGER

Chapter 1

Framlingham Castle, Suffolk, October, 1173

Roger woke and shot upright on a gulp of breath. His heart was slamming against his rib-cage and although the parted bed curtains showed him a chamber sun-splashed with morning light, his inner vision blazed with vivid images of men locked in combat. He could hear the iron whine of blade upon blade and the dull thud of a mace striking a shield. He could feel the bite of his sword entering flesh and see blood, streaming in scarlet ribbons, glossy as silk.

‘Ah God.’ He shuddered and bowed his head, his hair flopping over his brow in sweaty strands the colour of tide-washed sand. After a moment, he collected himself, threw off the bed coverings with his right hand, and went to the window. Clenching his bandaged left fist, he welcomed the stinging pain like a penitent finding comfort in the scourge. The wound was not deep enough to cause serious damage but he was going to have a permanent scar inscribed across the base of three fingers. The soldier who had given it to him was dead, but Roger took no pleasure in the knowledge. It had been kill or be killed. Too many of his own men had fallen yesterday. His father said he was useless, but it was a habitual opinion and Roger no longer felt its impact beyond a dull bruise. What did abrade him were the unnecessary deaths of good soldiers. The opposition had been too numerous and his resources insufficient to the task. He looked at his taut fist. There would be a lake of blood before his father’s ambition was done.

To judge from the strength of the daylight he had missed Mass. His stepmother would delight in berating him for his tardiness and then comment to his father that his heir wasn’t fit to inherit a dungheap, let alone the Earldom of Norfolk when the time came. And then she would look pointedly at her own eldest son, the obnoxious Huon, as if he were the answer to everyone’s prayers rather than the petulant adolescent brat he actually was.

Framlingham’s bailey was packed with the tents and shelters of the mercenaries belonging to Robert Beaumont, Earl of Leicester – an assorted rabble he had plucked from field and town, ditch, gutter, weaving shed and dockside on his way from Flanders to England. Few of them were attending Mass to judge by the numbers infesting the inner and outer wards. Locusts, Roger thought with revulsion. By joining the rebellion against King Henry and giving lodging and support to the Earl of Leicester, his father had encouraged a plague to descend on them, in more ways than one. The plot was to overthrow the King and replace him with his eighteen year old son – a vain boy who could be turned this way and that by men skilled in manipulation and the machinations of power. Roger’s father had no love for the King, who had clamped down hard on his ambition to rule all of East Anglia. Henry had confiscated their castle at Walton and built a strong royal fortress at Orford to neutralise their grip on that part of the coastline. To add insult to injury, fines for earlier insurgency had gone to assist the building of Orford.

Turning from the window, Roger sluiced his face one-handed in the ewer at the bedside. Since the tips of his fingers and his thumb were free on his bandaged side, he managed to dress himself without summoning a servant. From the moment he had been capable of tying his braies in small childhood, a fierce sense of self-reliance had driven him to perform all such tasks for himself.

On opening the coffer holding his cloaks, his eyes narrowed as he noticed immediately that his best one with the silver braid was missing and he could well guess where it was. While donning his everyday mantle of plain green twill, his gaze lit on the weapon chest standing against the wall. Last night his scabbarded sword and belt had been propped against it, waiting to be checked and cleaned before storage, but now they were gone. Roger’s annoyance turned to outright anger. His sword had been a gift to him from his Uncle Aubrey, Earl of Oxford, at the time of his knighting. This time the thieving little turd had gone too far.

Jaw clamped, Roger strode from the chamber and headed purposefully to the chapel adjoining the hall where Mass had just finished and people were filing out to attend their duties. Roger concealed himself behind a pillar as his father walked past deep in conversation with Robert Earl of Leicester. They were an incongruous pair, Leicester being tall and slender with a natural grace and good-humour, and his father speaking in guttural tones, his rolling pugilistic gait reminiscent of a sailor heading from ship to ale-house. His paunch strained at the seams of his red tunic and his hair hung in oiled straggles, the colour of wet ashes.

Roger’s stepmother Gundreda followed, walking with Petronilla, Countess of Leicester. The women nodded graciously to each other, smiling with their lips but not their eyes. There was little love lost between them, even if they were allies, for neither woman possessed the social skills upon which to build a friendship and Gundreda was resentful of Petronilla’s superior airs.

As they moved on, Roger’s seeking gaze struck upon the flash of a lapis blue garment and a twinkle of silver braid, as his half-brother Huon swaggered out of the chapel, one narrow adolescent hand clasping the buckskin grip of a very fine sword. A little behind him traipsed Huon’s younger sibling Will, fulfilling his usual role of pasty shadow.

Roger reached, seized, and swung his half-brother around slamming him against the pillar. ‘Have you nothing of your own that you must resort to thievery of everything that is mine?’ Roger hissed. ‘Time and again I have told you to stay out of my coffers and leave my things alone.’ Taking a choke hold on the youth’s throat with his good hand, he used his other to unhitch the sword belt with a rapid jerk of latch and buckle.

Huon’s down-smudged upper lip curled with contempt, although his eyes darted fearfully. Roger noted both emotions and increased the pressure. ‘I suppose you wanted to parade before my lord of Leicester, and show off a sword you’re too young to wear.’

‘I wear it better than you!’ the youth wheezed with bravado. ‘You’re a spineless coward. Our father says so.’

Roger released his grip, but only to hook his foot behind Huon’s ankles and bring him down. Straddling him, he dragged the purloined cloak over his half-brother’s head. ‘If there’s a next time, you’ll wear this on your bier,’ he panted, ‘and my sword will be through your heart!’

‘Huon, where are y…’ Gundreda Countess of Norfolk had turned back to find her lagging son and now stared at the scene with consternation and fury. ‘What do you think you’re doing!’ she shouted at Roger. ‘Get off him; leave him alone!’ She forced Roger aside with a hard push, the full weight of her body behind it.

Choking and retching, Huon clutched his throat. ‘He tried to kill me…and in God’s own house… He did, Will, didn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Will croaked as if his own throat had been squeezed. He refused to look anyone in the eye.

‘If I had intended to kill you, you would be dead now!’ Roger snarled. He encompassed his stepmother and his half brothers in a burning glare before flinging from the chapel, his cloak over his arm and his scabbarded sword clutched in his good fist. Her invective followed him but he ignored it for he had become inured to that particular bludgeon long ago.

‘I didn’t have enough soldiers,’ Roger said to his father. His sword hung at his hip now, its weight both a burden and a support. A man shouldn’t have to wear a weapon to bolster his confidence; he should be at ease within his own skin, but Roger always felt off balance in the presence of his sire. The Earl had called a council of war in his chamber; Robert of Leicester and all the senior knights were present to observe whatever humiliation Hugh Bigod chose to mete out to his eldest son on the scathing edge of his tongue.

‘There is always an excuse, isn’t there?’ Hugh growled. ‘I could give you an entire army and it still wouldn’t be enough. I daren’t put weight on you because you’re not strong enough to bear it.’

Roger made a throwing gesture and felt the wound on his hand smart like a wasp sting. ‘You don’t give me the tools to do what you ask of me. You don’t trust me, you don’t give me credit for what’s due, you don’t….’

‘Credit!’ Norfolk bared a palisade of teeth yellowed by more than seventy years in the gum. ‘I’ll give you credit boy. For losing experienced men we couldn’t afford to lose, and letting good ransom money slip through your inept fingers. You’ve cost us at least a hundred marks which is more than your hide’s worth. How much more credit do you want?’

Roger swallowed, feeling sick. He sometimes thought that his own death would be the only coin to satisfy his father. Whatever he did, it would never be right. Yesterday they had seized and destroyed the castle of Haughley, taking pledges of ransom from the knights and turning over the rest of the garrison to the butchery of Leicester’s Flemings. Roger’s task had been to secure the postern, but his father had given him insufficient men for the assignment and some of the defenders had managed to break free, killing several of Roger’s soldiers in the process.

‘The young men of today aren’t as hard a breed as we had to be, Hugh,’ said Robert of Leicester who had been watching the exchange between father and son with shrewd speculation. ‘Let it rest. At least he didn’t run. I am sure we can still find a position for him that will be useful to us.’

‘Aye, following the dung cart,’ Hugh sneered. He pointed to a bench. ‘Hold your tongue, boy, sit and listen and see if you can keep more than fleece between your ears.’

At five and twenty, Roger had left boyhood behind long ago - on a warm summer afternoon, aged seven, locked in the solar, watching distraught from the window as his mother departed her annulled marriage to his father and rode away to a new life with another husband. Within the week, Gundreda had replaced her at Framlingham and nine months later had produced Huon. His father had never once called him “boy” in affection; it was always an insult or a put-down. As a child, he hadn’t understood, but maturity had brought knowledge. It was about power; it was about keeping the young stag down…and it was about punishment. His mother had escaped, but he hadn’t and he was her proxy. Everyone said he was like her in his way of seeing the world, and in his father’s lexicon, such a trait was unforgivable.

Eyes downcast, Roger stepped over the bench, sat down and folded his arms. The fingertips of his right hand sought reassurance in the feel of the solid iron disc of his sword pommel.

Leicester said, ‘Haughley is no longer an obstacle, but the keep at Walton still stands and so does Eye.’

Hugh grunted. ‘Eye’s damaged and the garrison won’t venture beyond it. The same goes for Walton. We should strike into the Midlands while Henry is fighting in Normandy and the Justiciar is occupied chasing the Scots. Once Leicester’s yours, we can push north-west and join Chester.’

Roger bit the inside of his cheek at the not so subtle hint in his father’s words that Leicester should move his army to his own lands. The Flemings were denuding Norfolk’s supplies at a terrifying rate and had already started to strip the hinterland with their foraging parties.

. ‘Quite so,’ Leicester said. A hard smile curved his lips. ‘I wouldn’t want to outstay my welcome, but I’ll need provisions.’

Roger saw his father’s gaze narrow. ‘I have no more to give. ‘My barns are down to the last sheaves and the hay ricks are sweepings. I’ll have to buy in more for the winter at God knows what price.’

‘Then let our enemies provide it. The abbey at Edmundsbury is well stocked, so I hear and the abbot is no friend.’

Hugh rubbed his jaw, considering, his fingers rasping on his stubble. He threw a sneering glance at Roger. ‘Pig sticking,’ he said with a humourless grin. ‘Do you think you can at least manage that?’

Roger returned his father’s stare. ‘You want me to run off pigs and burn villages?’

‘For a start. If you prove capable, I might think about promoting you, but foraging is all you are worth at the moment. You have my leave to go.’

Roger jerked to his feet, his chest hot with anger. How easy it would be to draw his sword and use it. To rage like a wild bull. Easy and pointless. ‘Edmundsbury,’ he said stiffly.

His father raised one eyebrow. ‘Not superstitious about the Church are you?’

Since the last king’s son and heir had died after raiding the lands of the Abbey of Saint Edmund, Roger might have answered with veracity that he was, but knowing his father expected such a response, he didn’t rise to the bait. ‘No, sire, but we are vassals of the Abbey for three knights’ fees and I have always honoured the Church.’

‘And do you not honour your father also?’ Hugh leaned a little forward and clenched his fists. A seal ring gleamed on his bleached knuckles. ‘I will have your obedience – boy. My other sons do not shirk their filial duty and question my authority.’

Roger gritted his teeth, performed a perfunctory bow to his father and the Earl of Leicester, and strode from the room, his control hanging by a thread. Reaching the safety of his chamber, he threw himself down on the weapons chest and covered his face with his hands. It was too much. He wasn’t just at the edge of a precipice, he was over it and scrabbling to hold on by his fingertips while above him his father, prepared to stamp on his precarious hold and send him into the void.

EXTRACT 2: IDA

Windsor Castle, September 1176

Ida de Tosney studied the wall hanging in the chamber, admiring the way the embroiderer had combined two shades of blue thread and mingled it with green to depict the river where the hunting party in the picture had paused to water their horses. She imagined how she would work such a scene, perhaps adding a line of silver to the water and a fish or two. She loved planning embroideries and although she had but recently turned fifteen years old, she was an accomplished needlewoman.

Her rose-coloured gown was embellished with vine leaf coils of delicate green thread at the sleeves and neckline. Small clusters of garnet grapes adorned the scrollwork, and the outline borders were worked with seed pearls. The belt, double-looped at her waist, was of her own weaving, and it too was decorated with pearls, for she was an heiress and these were her court robes, especially made for her presentation to the king who’s ward she was. She was beset with anxiety at the thought of being presented to him and had been over the moment a hundred times in her mind, envisaging her curtsey, the rise and the step back. She hoped that if he spoke to her, she would be able to make an appropriate answer.

Her maid Goda twined gold ribbons through Ida’s thick brown braid, whilst Bertrice tweezed Ida’s eyebrows until they were shapely arches and Ida tried not to flinch.

‘You have to look your best for the King,’ Bertrice said bossily. ‘If he likes you, he’ll deal well with your wardship and find you a good husband.’ She patted a moist, lavender-scented cloth against Ida’s brows to remove any redness, and then smoothed the area with a gentle fingertip.

‘Perhaps you’ll even find a husband today, among the courtiers,’ Goda abetted her colleague. ‘It wouldn’t do to look ungroomed, would it now young mistress?’

Ida blushed and made herself stand still while the women completed her toilet. She knew they were anxious she should please the King, because it reflected on their care of her. She wanted to please the King too, for her own sake as well as theirs, and as they said, some of the men looking on, might be in search of a wife. Although still innocent of the world, Ida had begun to notice the assessment in men’s glances - the way their eyes lingered on her lips and her bosom. Such attention created a warm glow in her solar plexus even while it scared her. Something told her that here was power and here was danger, and both were frightening new territory.

An usher arrived to take Ida to the great hall where, together with other wards and supplicants she was to be presented to the King before dinner. Goda gave a few final tweaks to Ida’s gown and draped a midnight-blue cloak at her shoulders, fastening it with two round gold clasps. ‘Good fortune, mistress,’ she whispered.

Ida gave her women an apprehensive smile and taking a deep breath, followed the usher from the room.

In the great hall she was bidden to wait with a group of others, all clad in finery, and glowing from recent ablutions. Ida, being the youngest, apart from an adolescent youth who was a royal ward like herself, had a place near the end. The smell of rosewater, tense sweat and new woollen cloth filled Ida’s lungs each time she drew breath. She clasped her hands in front of her so she would not be tempted to fidget as some of the others were doing, and kept her eyes modestly lowered, although now and again she peeped from beneath her lids to see what was happening around her.

Trestle tables had been set up for the main formal meal of the day. On the dais, the board was covered by a cloth of embroidered white napery and the dishes, cellars and cups standing upon it were of silver gilt, some of them inlaid with gemstones. Two pantlers were busy carving oblongs of bread into flat trenchers for holding meats in sauce, and other servants were bringing jugs of wine from the buttery to a side table. Despite feeling anxious, Ida still managed to be hungry. She hoped her stomach wouldn’t rumble when she had to curtsey before the king.

When Henry finally arrived, he breezed into the room as if blown by his fanfare and the group scarcely had time to curtsey and kneel. His auburn hair was cropped close to his head in a practical manner, unadorned by oils or crimping and his clothing was commonplace in comparison to those of his supplicants and guests. If Ida hadn’t been forewarned about his preference for practicality, she would have mistaken him for an attendant, and his marshal, bearing a golden rod of office and wearing a sumptuous scarlet tunic, for the king.

Glancing upwards through her lashes, she watched Henry arrive at the presentation line and begin moving along it, pausing for a brief word to each person. His voice had a harsh edge, as if he had been inhaling smoke, but he spoke well and pleasantly and had a way of putting people at their ease. Although he had bounced into the hall, she thought he was limping a little now and wondered if his shoes were pinching him. She noticed a scratch on the back of his right hand that looked as if he’d had a tussle with a dog or a hawk. Numerous rings adorned his fingers and she had seen him take a couple off and present them to others in the line as gifts. She supposed he must have a coffer full of them for such events. Certainly, he wasn’t wearing the rings to show off the beauty of his hands which were rough-skinned, as if he’d been engaged in manual labour all day.

His glance flickered to her as he spoke to the youth standing at her side. Ida, looking up at that same moment, was briefly snared in a stare as bright as sunlit glass. Hastily she dropped her gaze, certain he would think her rude and mannerless.

‘Ida de Tosney,’ said the Marshal. Ida curtseyed again, keeping her focus on the minute stitches in the hem of her dress. Then she felt a forefinger beneath her chin, tilting it up.

‘A most graceful curtsey,’ Henry said, ‘but I would have you stand straight and look at me.’

Ida summoned her courage, did as he asked and was again caught in that predatory crystal stare.

His finger moved, to touch one of her gold cloak clasps. ‘Ralph de Tosney’s little girl,’ he said softly. ‘When last I saw you, you were a red-cheeked babe in your mother’s arms, and now look at you – grown enough to have a babe of your own.’ His eyes followed his words up and down her body and heat burned Ida’s face.

‘But still red-cheeked,’ he said with a smile.

‘Sire,’ she whispered, feeling embarrassed and frightened. The looks she had received from young men in passing were as nothing compared to the way the King’s gaze was devouring her.

‘Your modesty becomes you,’ Henry said and moved to the youth at her side, but he cast a lingering look over his shoulder.

Quailing with embarrassment, Ida awaited a dismissal that did not come. There was still time before the dinner hour and the King wanted to speak further with his wards and charges. He had a chair fetched and a fine cushioned stool which he bade Ida set under his left foot.

‘The pains of old age,’ he told her with a wry smile. ‘I would have the sight of your youth and beauty take them away.’

‘Sire you are not old,’ Ida said politely as she arranged the footstool to his liking which took several attempts. She had to touch and lift his leg, which was an intimate thing to do, and all the time she was aware of his scrutiny and was embarrassed. When she had performed the duty and would have retreated to an unobtrusive place at the back of the gathering, he would have none of it and beckoned her to stand at his side. ‘Be my hand maiden,’ he said.

Ida saw some of the experienced courtiers exchange knowing glances and their looks tied her in knots. Henry engaged the rest of the group in conversation, but now and again, he turned round to her with a glance or a gesture. She responded with tentative smiles but felt the strain at the corners of her mouth. She hated being singled out. As always when faced with things that worried her, she turned her mind inwards to embroidery. Fabric of gold damask silk covered the footstool with an exquisite diamond lozenge pattern. She began assessing how to recreate it on a rectangle of tawny wool she had in her sewing casket.

‘You are lost in reflection, little Ida,’ Henry said with amusement. ‘Tell me, what deep thoughts you hold in your head.’

She reddened and darted a worried glance around at the rest of the gathering. What must they think of her? ‘I…I have no deep thoughts, sire,’ she answered tentatively. ‘I was only thinking about the pattern on your footstool and how I would work an embroidery of my own.’

She saw laughter fill the King’s eyes before she lowered her own. Now he would mock her, and indeed he did, but with kindness and a note in his voice that made her shiver. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘if only all the women I have known had minded their needle, perhaps I would be a less haunted man today.’

‘Sire?’

‘No matter.’ He shook his head. ‘You remind me, Ida, that there is still innocence in the world and gentle moments remaining in life – and that is one of the rarest and most difficult things anyone could do.’

Ida saw sadness in his eyes and despite her discomfort and unease, it awoke her compassion. His words lit a small flicker of warmth inside her too to think she had given him something others could not.

Extract from THE GREATEST KNIGHT

Extract From Bestselling Novel
THE GREATEST KNIGHT
Published by Sphere in Paperback
ISBN 0 7515 3660 1


Based on the true story of William Marshal, one of England's greatest heroes.

The below is copied and pasted from the manuscript on my PC, so not a precise copy of the finished version - but close enough.

Chapter 1

Fortress of Drincourt, Normandy, Summer 1167

In the dark hour before dawn, all the shutters in the great hall were closed against the evil vapours of the night. Under the heavy iron curfew, the fire was a quenched dragon’s eye. The forms of slumbering knights and retainers lined the walls and the air sighed with the sound of their breathing and resonated with the occasional glottal snore.

At the far end of the hall, occupying one of the less favoured places near the draughts and away from the residual gleam of the fire, a young man twitched in his sleep, his brow pleating as the vivid images of his dream took him from the restless darkness of a vast Norman castle to a smaller, intimate chamber in his family’s Berkshire keep at Hamstead.

He was five years old, wearing his best blue tunic, and his mother was clutching him to her bosom as she exhorted him in a cracking voice to be a good boy. ‘Remember that I love you, William.’ She squeezed him so tightly that he could hardly breathe. When she released him they both gasped, he for air, she fighting tears. ‘Kiss me and go with your father,’ she said.

Setting his lips to her soft cheek, he inhaled her scent, sweet like new mown hay. Suddenly he didn’t want to go and his chin began to wobble.

‘Stop weeping, woman, you’re unsettling him.’

William felt his father’s hand come down on his shoulder, hard, firm, turning him away from the sun-flooded chamber and the gathered domestic household, which included his three older brothers, Walter, Gilbert and John, all watching him with solemn eyes. John’s lip was quivering too.

‘Are you ready son?’

He looked up. Lead from a burning church roof had destroyed his father’s right eye and melted a raw trail from temple to jaw, leaving him with an angel’s visage one side, and the gargoyle mask of a devil on the other. Never having known him without the scars, William accepted them without demur.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said and was rewarded by a kindling gleam of approval from John Marshal’s one eye.

‘Brave lad.’

In the courtyard the grooms were waiting with the horses. Setting his foot in the stirrup, John Marshal swung astride and leaned down to scoop William into the saddle before him. ‘Remember that you are the son of the King’s Marshal and the nephew of the Earl of Salisbury,’ his father said as he nudged his stallion’s flanks and he and his troop clattered out of the keep. William was intensely aware of his father’s broad, battle-scarred hands on the reins and the bright embroidery decorating the wrists of the tunic.

‘Will I be gone a long time?’ his dream self asked in a high treble.

‘That depends on how long King Stephen wants to keep you.’

‘Why does he want to keep me?’

‘Because I made him a promise to do something and he wants you beside him until I have kept that promise.’ His father’s voice was as harsh as a sword blade across a whetstone. ‘You are a hostage for my word of honour.’

‘What sort of promise?’

William felt his father’s chest spasm and heard a grunt that was almost laughter. ‘The sort of promise that only a fool would ask of a madman.’

It was a strange answer and the child William twisted round to crane up at his father’s ruined face even as the grown William turned within the binding of his blanket, his frown deepening and his eyes moving rapidly beneath his closed lids. Through the mists of the dreamscape, his father’s voice faded, to be replaced by those of a man and woman, arguing in a tent.

‘The bastard’s gone back on his word, bolstered the keep, stuffed it to the rafters with men and supplies, shored up the breaches.’ The man’s voice was raw with contempt. ‘He never intended to surrender.’

‘What of his son?’ The woman asked in an appalled whisper.

‘The boy’s life is forfeit. The father says that he cares not - he still has the anvils and hammers to make more and better sons than the one he loses…’

‘He does not mean it…’

The man spat. ‘He’s John Marshal and he’s a mad dog. ‘Who knows what he would do. The king wants the boy.’

‘But you’re not going to…you can’t!’ The woman’s voice rose in horror.

‘No, I’m not. That’s on the conscience of the King and the boy’s accursed father. The stew’s burning, woman; attend to your duties.’

William’s dream self was seized by the arm and dragged roughly across the vast sprawl of a battle camp. He could smell the blue smoke of the fires, see the soldiers sharpening their weapons and a team of mercenaries assembling what he now knew was a stone throwing machine.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘To the King.’ The man’s face had been indistinct before but now the dream brought it sharply into focus, revealing hard, square bones thrusting against leather-brown skin. His name was Henk and he was a Flemish mercenary in the pay of King Stephen.

‘Why?’

Without answering, Henk turned sharply to the right. Between the siege machine and an elaborate tent striped in blue and gold, a group of men were talking amongst themselves. A pair of guards stepped forward, spears at the ready, then relaxed and waved Henk and William through. Henk took two strides and knelt, pulling William down beside him. ‘Sire.’

William darted an upward glance through his fringe, uncertain which of the men Henk was addressing, for none of them wore a crown or resembled his notion of what a king should look like. One lord was holding a fine spear though, with a silk banner rippling from the haft.

‘So this is the boy whose only value to his father has been the buying of time,’ said the man standing beside the spear-bearer. He had greying fair hair and lined care-worn features. ‘Rise, child. What’s your name?’

‘William sir.’ His dream self stood up. ‘Are you the King?’

The man blinked and looked taken aback. Then his faded blue eyes narrowed and his lips compressed. ‘Indeed I am, although your father seems not to think so.’ One of his companions leaned to mutter in his ear. The King listened and vigorously shook his head. ‘No,’ he said.

A breeze lifted the silk banner on the lance and it fluttered outwards, making the embroidered red lion at its centre appear to stretch and prowl. The sight diverted William. ‘Can I hold it?’ he asked eagerly.

The lord frowned at him. ‘You’re a trifle young to be a standard bearer, hmm?’ he said, but there was a reluctant twinkle in his eye and after a moment he handed the spear to William. ‘Careful now.’

The haft was warm from the lord’s hand as William closed his own small fist around it. Wafting the banner, he watched the lion snarl in the wind and laughed with delight.

The King had drawn away from his advisor and was making denying motions with the palm of his hand.

‘Sire, if you relent, you will court naught but John Marshal’s contempt…’ the courtier insisted.

‘Christ on the Cross, I will court the torture of my soul if I hang an innocent for the crimes of his sire. Look at him…look!’ The King jabbed a forefinger in William’s direction. ‘Not for all the gold in Christendom will I see a little lad like that dance on a gibbet. His hellspawn father, yes, but not him.’

Oblivious of the danger in which he stood, Aware only of being the centre of attention, William twirled the spear.

‘Come child.’ The King beckoned to him. ‘You will stay in my tent until I decide what is to be done with you.’

William was only a little disappointed when he had to return the spear to its owner who turned out to be the Earl of Arundel. After all, there was a magnificent striped tent to explore and the prospect of yet more weapons to look at and perhaps even touch if he was allowed – royal ones at that. With such a prospect in mind, he skipped along happily at King Stephen’s side.

Two knights in full mail guarded the tent and various squires and attendants waited on the King’s will. The flaps were hooked back to reveal a floor strewn with freshly scythed meadow and the heady scent of cut grass was intensified by the enclosing canvas. Beside a large bed with embroidered bolsters and covers of silk and fur stood an ornate coffer like the one in his parents’ chamber at Hamstead. There was also room for a bench and a table holding a silver flagon and cups. The King’s hauberk gleamed on a stand of crossed ash poles, with the helmet secured at the top and his shield and scabbard propped against the foot. William eyed the equipment with longing.

The King smiled at him. ‘Do you want to be a knight, William?’

William nodded vigorously, eyes glowing.

‘And loyal to your king?’

Again William nodded but this time because instinct told him it was the required response.

‘I wonder.’ Sighing heavily, the King directed a squire to pour the blood-red wine from flagon to cup. ‘Boy,’ he said. ‘Boy, look at me.’

William raised his head. The intensity of the King’s stare frightened him a little.

‘I want you to remember this day,’ King Stephen said slowly and deliberately. ‘I want you to know that whatever your father has done to me, I am giving you the chance to grow up and redress the balance. Know this; a king values loyalty above all else.’ He sipped from the cup and then pressed it into William’s small hands. ‘Drink and promise you will remember.’

William obliged, although the taste stung the back of his throat.

‘Promise me,’ the King repeated as he repossessed the cup.

‘I promise,’ William said, and as the wine flamed in his belly, the dream left him and he woke with a gasp to the crowing of roosters and the first stirring of movement amongst the occupants of Drincourt’s great hall. For a moment he lay blinking, acclimatising himself to his present surroundings. It was a long time since his dreams had peeled back the years and returned him to the summer he had spent as King Stephen’s hostage during the battle for Newbury. He seldom recalled that part of his life with his waking memory, but occasionally, without rhyme or reason, his dreams would return him to that time and the young man just turning twenty would again become a fair-haired little boy of five years old.

His father, despite all his manoeuvring, machinations and willingness to sacrifice his fourth born son, had lost Newbury, and eventually his lordship of Marlborough, but if he had lost the battle, he had rallied on the successful turn of the tide. Stephen’s bloodline lay in the grave and Empress Matilda’s son, Henry, the second of that name had been sitting firmly on the throne for thirteen years.

‘And I am a knight,’ William murmured, his lips curving with grim humour. The leap in status was recent. A few weeks ago, he had still been a squire, polishing armour, running errands, learning his trade at the hands of Sir Guillaume de Tancarville, chamberlain of Normandy and distant kin to his mother. William’s knighting had announced his arrival into manhood and advanced him a single rung upon a very slippery ladder. His position in the Tancarville household was precarious. There were only so many places in Lord Guillaume’s retinue for newly belted knights with ambitions far greater than their experience or proven capability.

William had considered seeking house room under his brother’s rule at Hamstead, but that was a last resort, nor did he have sufficient funds to pay his passage home across the Narrow Sea. Besides, with the strife between Normandy and France at white heat, there were numerous opportunities to gain the necessary experience.. Even now, somewhere along the border, the French army was preparing to slip into Normandy and wreak havoc. Since Drincourt protected the northern approaches to the city of Rouen, there was a current need for armed defenders.

As the dream images faded, William slipped back into a light doze and the tension left his body. The blond hair of his infancy had steadily darkened through boyhood and was now a deep hazel-brown, but fine summer weather still streaked it with gold. Folk who had known his father said that William was the image of John Marshal in the days before the molten lead from the burning roof of Wherwell Abbey had ruined his comeliness, that they had the same eyes, the irises - deep grey, with the changeable muted tones of a winter river.

‘God’s bones, I warrant you could sleep through the trumpets of Doomsday, William. Get up you lazy wastrel!’ The voice was accompanied by a sharp dig in William’s ribs. With a grunt of pain, the young man opened his eyes on Gadefer de Lorys, one of Tancarville’s senior knights.

‘I’m awake.’ Rubbing his side, William sat up. ‘Isn’t a man allowed to gather his thoughts before he rises?’

‘Hah, you’d be gathering them until sunset if you were allowed. I’ve never known such a slugabed. If you weren’t my lord’s kin, you’d have been slung out on your arse long since!’

The best way to deal with Gadefer who was always grouchy in the mornings, was to agree with him and get out of his way. William was well aware of the resentment simmering among some of the other knights who viewed him as a threat to their own positions in the mesnie. His kinship to the chamberlain was as much a handicap as it was an advantage. ‘You’re right,’ he replied with a self-deprecating smile. ‘I’ll throw myself out forthwith and go and exercise my stallion.’

Gadefer stumped off, muttering under his breath. Concealing a grimace, William rolled up his pallet, folded his blanket and wandered outside. The air held the dusty scent of midsummer, although the cool green nip of the dawn clung in the shadows of the walls, evaporating as the stones drank the rising sunlight. He glanced towards the stables, hesitated, then changed his mind and followed his rumbling stomach to the kitchens.

The Drincourt cooks were accustomed to William’s visits and he was soon leaning against a trestle devouring wheaten bread still hot from the oven and glistening with melted butter and sweet clover honey. The cook’s wife shook her head. ‘I don’t know where you put it all. By rights you should have a belly on you like a woman about to give birth.’

William grinned and slapped his iron-flat stomach. ‘I work hard.’

She raised a brow that said more than words, and returned to chopping vegetables. Still grinning William licked the last drips of buttery honey off the side of his hand and going to the door, braced his arm on the lintel and looked out on the fine morning with pleasure. The peace of the moment was broken by the sound of shouts from the courtyard. Moments later the mail-clad earl of Essex and several knights and serjeants raced past the open door towards the stables. William hastened out into the ward. ‘Hola!’ he cried. ‘What’s happening?’

‘The French and Flemings have been sighted in the outskirts!’ a knight panted over his shoulder.

The words hit William like a bolt of lightning. ‘They’ve crossed the border?’

‘Aye, over the Bresle and down through Eu. Now they’re at our walls with Matthew of Boulogne at their head. We’ll have the devil of a task to hold them. Get your armour on Marshal, You’ve no time for stomach-filling now!’

William sprinted for the hall. By the time he arrived his heart was thundering like a drum and he was wishing he hadn’t eaten all that bread and honey for he felt sick. A squire was waiting to help him into his padded undertunic and mail. Already dressed in his, the Sire de Tancarville was pacing the hall like a man with a burr in his breeches, issuing terse commands to the knights who were scrambling into their armour.

William pressed his lips together. The urge to retch peaked and then receded. As he donned his mail, his heartbeat steadied, although his palms were slick with cold sweat and he had to wipe them on his surcoat. Now was the moment for which he had trained. Now was his chance to prove that he was good for more than just gluttony and slumber, and that his place in the household was by right of ability and not family favour.

By the time the Sire de Tancarville and his retinue joined the earl of Essex at the town’s West Bridge, the suburbs of Drincourt were swarming with Flemish mercenaries and the terrified inhabitants were fleeing for their lives. The smell of cooking fires had been overlaid by the harsher stench of indiscriminate burning and in the Rue Chausée a host of Boulonnais knights were massing to make an assault on the West Gate and break into the town itself.

Eager, nervous, resolute, William urged his stallion to the fore, jostling past several seasoned knights until he was level with de Tancarville himself. The latter cast him a warning glance and curbed his destrier as it lashed out at William’s sweating chestnut. ‘Lad, you are too hasty,’ he growled with amused irritation. ‘Fall back and let the knights do their work.’

Flushed with chagrin, William swallowed the retort that he was a knight and reined back. Glowering, he allowed three of the most experienced warriors to overtake him but as a fourth tried to jostle past, William spurred forward again, determined to show his mettle.

Roaring his own name as a battle cry, de Tancarville launched a charge over the bridge and down the Rue Chausée to meet the oncoming Boulonnais knights. William gripped his shield close to his body, levelled his lance and gave the chestnut its head. He fixed his gaze on the crimson device of a knight on a black stallion and held his line as his destrier bore him towards the moment of impact. He noticed how his opponent carried his lance too high and that the red shield was tilted a fraction inwards. Steadying his arm, he kept his eyes open until the last moment. His lance punched into the knight’s shield, pierced it and even though the shaft snapped off in William’s hand, the blow was sufficient to send the other man reeling. Using the stump as a club, William knocked the knight from the saddle. As the black destrier bolted, reins trailing, William drew his sword.

After the first violent impact, the fighting broke up into individual combats. Nothing in his training had prepared William for the sheer clamour and ferocity of battle but he was undaunted and fed upon the experience avidly and with increasing confidence as he emerged victorious from several sharp tussles with more experienced men. He was both terrified and exhilarated; like a fish released from a calm stewpond into a fast-flowing river.

The Count of Boulogne ordered more troops into the fray and the battle for the bridge became a desperate crush of men and horses. Armed with clubs, staves and slingshots, the townspeople fought beside the castle garrison and the battle swayed back and forth like washing in the wind. It was close and dirty work and William’s sword hand grew slippery with sweat and blood.

‘Tancarville!’ William roared hoarsely as he pivoted to strike at a French knight. His adversary’s destrier shied, throwing his rider in the dust where he lay unmoving. William seized the knight’s lance and urged the chestnut towards a knot of Flemish mercenaries who were busy looting a house. One man had dragged a coffer into the street and was clubbing at the lock with his sword hilt. At a warning shout from his companions, he spun round, but only to receive William’s lance through his chest. Immediately the others closed around William, furiously intent on dragging him from his mount.

William turned and manoeuvred his stallion, beating them off with sword and shield, until one of them seized a gaff resting against the house wall and attempted to hook William from his horse. The gaff lodged in his hauberk at the shoulder, the lower claw tearing into the mail, breaking several riveted links and sinking through gambeson and tunic to spike William’s flesh. He felt no pain for his blood was coursing with the heat of battle. As they surrounded him, trying to grab his reins and drag him down off the horse, he pricked the chestnut’s loin with his spurs and the stallion lashed out. There was a scream as a shod hind hoof connected with flesh and the man dropped like a stone. William gripped the stallion’s breast strap and again used the spur, forward of the girth this time. His mount reared, came down, and shot forward so that the soldiers gripping the reins had to let go and leap aside before they were trampled. The mercenary wielding the hook lost his purchase and William was able to wrench free and turn on him. Almost sobbing his lord’s battle cry, he cut downwards with his sword, saw the man fall, and forced the chestnut forwards over his body. Free of the broil of mercenaries, he rejoined the bulk of the Tancarville knights, but his horse had a deep neck wound.

The enemy had forced the Drincourt garrison back to the edge of the bridge. Smoke and fire had turned the suburbs into an antechamber of hell, but the town remained unbreached and the French army was still breaking on the Norman defence like surf upon granite. Bright spots of effort and exhaustion danced before William’s eyes as he cut and hacked, no longer any finesse to his blows. It was about surviving the next moment and the next…in holding firm and not giving ground. Every time William thought that he could not go on, he defied himself and found the will to raise and lower his arm one more time.

Horns blared out over the seething press of men and suddenly the tension eased. The French knight who had been pressing William hard, disengaged and pulled back. ‘They’re sounding the retreat!’ panted a Tancarville knight ‘God’s blood, they’re retreating! Tancarville! Tancarville!’ He spurred his destrier. The realisation that the enemy was drawing off, revitalised William’s flagging limbs. His wounded horse was tottering under him but undaunted, he flung from the saddle and joined the pursuit on foot.

The French fled through the burning suburbs of Drincourt, harried by the burghers and inhabitants, fighting rear guard battles with the knights and soldiers of the garrison. William finally ran out of breath and collapsed against a sheepfold on the outskirts of the town. His throat was on fire with thirst and the blade of his sword was nicked and pitted from the numerous contacts with shields and mail and flesh. Removing his helm, he dunked his head in the stone water trough provided for the sheep and making a scoop of his hands, drank greedily. Once he had slaked his thirst and recovered his breath, he wiped the bloody patina from his sword on a clump of loose wool caught in the wattle fence, sheathed the blade, and trudged back to the bridge, suddenly so weary that his shoes felt as if they were made of lead.

His chestnut was lying on its side in that ungainly way that told him even before he knelt at its head and saw its dull eyes that it was dead. He laid his hand to its warm neck and felt strands of the coarse mane scratch his bloodied knuckles. It had been a gift at his knighting from the Sire de Tancarville, together with his sword, hauberk and cloak, and although he had not had the horse long, it had been a good one - strong, spirited, and biddable. He had expended more pride and affection on it than was wise and suddenly there was a tightening of grief in his throat.

‘Won’t be the last you’ll lose,’ said de Lorys gruffly, leaning down from the saddle of his own dappled stallion which had several superficial injuries but was still standing, still whole. ‘Fact of war, lad.’ He extended a hand that, like William’s, was bloody with the day’s work. ‘Here, mount up behind.’

William did so, although it was an effort to set his foot over Gadefer’s in the stirrup and swing himself across the crupper. The cuts and bruises that had gone ignored in the heat of battle now began to strike him like chords on a malevolently plucked harp, especially across his right shoulder.

‘Wounded?’ Gadefer asked as William caught his breath. ‘That’s a nasty gash in your mail.’

‘It’s from a thatch gaff,’ William replied. ‘It’s not that bad.’

De Lorys grunted. ‘I won’t take back the things I’ve said about you. You’re still a slugabed and a glutton…but the way you fought today – well that makes up for everything else. Perhaps my lord Tancarville has not wasted his time in training you after all.’

That night the Sire de Tancarville held a feast to celebrate a victory that his knights had not so much snatched out of the jaws of defeat, as reached down the throat of annihilation, dragged back out and resuscitated. Badly mauled the French army had drawn off to lick its wounds and for the moment at least, Drincourt was safe, even if the neighbouring county of Eu was a stripped and pillaged wasteland.

William sat in a place of honour at the high table with the senior knights who feted him for his prowess in his first engagement. Although exhausted, he rallied beneath their camaraderie and praise. The squabs in wine sauce, the fragrant, steaming frumenty and apples seethed in almond milk went some way to reviving his strength, as did the sweet, potent ice-wine with which they plied him. His wounds were mostly superficial. De Tancarville’s chirugeon had washed and stitched the deeper one to his shoulder and dressed it with a soft linen bandage. It was sharply sore; he was going to have the memento of a scar, but there was no lasting damage. His hauberk was already in the armoury having the links repaired and his gambeson had gone to the keep women to be patched and refurbished. Men kept telling him how fortunate he was. He supposed that it must be so, for some of the company had left their lives upon the battlefield and he had only lost his horse and the virginity of his inexperience. It didn’t feel like luck though when someone inadvertently slapped him heartily on his injured shoulder in commendation.

William de Mandeville, the young earl of Essex, raised his cup high in toast, his dark eyes sparkling. ‘Hola, Marshal, give to me a gift for the sake of our friendship!’ he cried so that all those on the high table could hear.

William’s head was buzzing with weariness and elation but he knew he wasn’t drunk and he had no idea why de Mandeville was grinning so broadly around the trestle. Knowing what was expected of him, however, he played along. The bestowing of gifts among peers was always a part of such feasts.

‘Willingly my lord,’ he answered with a smile. ‘What would you have me give to you?’

‘Oh, let me see.’ De Mandeville made a show of rubbing his jaw and looking round at the other lords, drawing them deeper into his sport. ‘A crupper would do, or a decorated breastband. Or a fine bridle perchance?’

Wide-eyed, William spread his hands. ‘I do not have any such items,’ he said. ‘Everything that I own – even the clothes on my back are mine by the great charity of my lord Tancarville.’ He inclined his head to the latter who acknowledged the gesture with a sweep of his goblet and a suppressed belch.

‘But I saw you gain them today, before my very eyes,’ de Mandeville japed. ‘More than a dozen you must have had, yet you refuse me even one.’

William continued to stare in bewilderment while a collective chuckle rumbled through along the dais and grew in volume at William’s expression.

‘What I am saying,’ de Mandeville explained, between guffaws, ‘is that if you had bothered to claim ransoms from the knights you disabled and downed – even a few of them – you would be a rich man tonight instead of an impoverished one. Now do you understand?’

A fresh wave of belly laughter surged at William’s expense, washing him in chagrin, but he was accustomed to being the butt of jests and knew that the worst thing he could do was sulk in a corner or lash out. The ribbing was well meant and behind it, there was warning and good advice. ‘You are right, my lord,’ he agreed with de Mandeville. The shrug he gave made him wince and brought a softer burst of laughter. ‘I didn’t think. Next time I will be more heedful. I promise you will receive your harness yet.’

‘Hah!’ retorted the Earl of Essex. You’ve to get yourself a new horse first, and they don’t come cheaply.’

On retiring to his pallet that night, William lay awake for some time despite his weariness. His mind as well as his body felt bludgeoned. The images of the day returned to him in vivid flashes, some, like his desperate fight with the Flemish footsoldiers repeating over and over again, others no more than a swift dazzle like sharp sun on water, there and gone. And through it all, running like a thread, needle-woven into a tapestry was de Mandeville’s jest that wasn’t a jest at all, but hard truth. Fight for your lord, fight for his honour, but never forget that you were fighting for yourself too.

THE SCARLET LION

Available in Paperback from Sphere: ISBN 978 0 7515 3659 1

Chapter 2

Longueville, Normandy, Spring 1199

Isabelle sat at her embroidery with her ladies. Pulling away from winter, the light had a pale clarity that meant more intricate sewing could be undertaken. Bending an attentive ear to the chatter, she was glad to hear a lively note in the women’s voices, for that too, like the return of the sun and the sight of birds building their nests, was a sure sign spring had arrived.

Jean D’Earley’s young wife Sybilla was stitching an exquisite design of silver scallop shells onto a tunic band. Embroidery was her particular skill and her husband was the best dressed knight of William’s mesnie. Sybilla was William’s niece, and of a quiet disposition, but Isabelle believed the creativity and dedication exhibited in her sewing were indicative of a rich internal life that didn’t need gossip and socialising to sustain it.

‘How are you feeling now?’ Isabelle asked her. The young woman had been unwell for three days running with a queasy stomach. and Isabelle had her suspicions, compounded by the way Sybilla kept looking at the cradle holding the newest addition to the Marshal family, three month old Walter.

‘A little better my lady. The infusion of ginger has helped.’ Sybilla looked pensive. ‘I…I think I may be with child, although I am not yet certain.’

Isabelle patted her arm in reassurance ‘I suspect so too. It is good news for you and Jean if it be the case.’

Sybilla looked dubious. ‘He has been much absent with the Earl and we haven’t bedded together often of late; it may be a false alarm.’

Isabelle sent a rueful glance towards the cradle herself. ‘William only has to look at me and I quicken.’

‘Aye, well you and the Earl have had plenty of practice,’ teased Elizabeth Avenal, wife to one of William’s knights. She was always eager to talk of matters bawdy or sexual when the bower ladies were gathered over their sewing, although in mixed company she was less bold. ‘Everyone knows that unless a wife experiences the same satisfaction as her husband, her seed will not descend to mix with his and she will not conceive.’ She chuckled at Sybilla. ‘If you’re feeling full enough for the sickness my girl, then your lord must have discovered the art of pleasuring you in bed.’

‘Elizabeth!’ Isabelle spluttered with a look at Sybilla who had flushed bright pink.

‘Well it’s true!’ lady Avenel defended herself. ‘Even some priests say so. The ones who don’t are juiceless old prunes who’ve never had a good fu….’

She bit off her words as the chamber door opened and William flung into the room. He glanced swiftly at the circle of women, said ‘Isabelle, a word,’ and strode over to an embrasure further down the room. Sweeping aside a motley assortment of children’s toys, he sat down on the cushioned chest under the window splay, two vertical frown lines etching the space between his brows.

Isabelle’s mirth faded. Abandoning her sewing, she left her women and hastened to William’s side. ‘What’s wrong?’

He breathed out hard and rubbed his neck. ‘Ach, nothing out of the usual. I don’t even know why I am surprised. ‘Is there any wine left, or has the sewing party drunk it all?’

Something had riled him; he didn’t usually make acerbic comments about her women. ‘No, there is plenty left to drown your woes,’ she said sweetly and fetched the cup and flagon herself, exchanging eloquent glances with her ladies as she did so.

Having taken a long drink, William rested the cup on his thigh and sighed out hard. ‘I’ve just been talking to a messenger from Baldwin de Bethuné.

Isabelle sat down beside him, plumped a fleece-filled cushion at her back and looked at him expectantly. Baldwin de Bethuné, Count of Aumale was William’s closest friend and currently with the King. Even when William was absent from the court, such contacts kept him well informed. Whatever the news was, it had certainly put a bur in her husband’s braies.

‘Prince John is under suspicion of conspiracy and Richard’s in a quarrelsome mood. I tell you, Isabelle, sometimes I want to knock their heads together until their brains run out of their ears - not that it would make any difference except to my own satisfaction.’

‘What do you mean, under suspicion?’

He eyed her sombrely. ‘Philip of France claims to have letters implicating John in treason. John’s supposed to have asked Philip’s aid to mount a rebellion against Richard – who is not best pleased.’

‘It was only a matter of time,’ she said.

His nostrils flared. ‘Why is everyone prepared to believe the worst of John and not allow that he might just have learned his lesson and matured?’

‘So you don’t believe it is true?’ She managed to school her voice to calm enquiry, avoiding the flat note that usually entered it when they spoke of Richard’s brother.

‘Of course it isn’t,’ he said impatiently. ‘Philip’s as wily as a fox and false rumours like this are a fine way of creating discord. John might be devious and self-seeking, but he’s not mad and he would have to be insane to go conniving with Philip. The last time he dabbled in conspiracy, Richard was locked up in a German prison. John won’t risk anything with Richard close enough to breath down his neck. ’ He drank again, his movements swift with displeasure. ‘Whatever his flaws as a man, John has been a model of loyalty to Richard these past five years.

‘So what will happen now?’

‘It’s already happening. John’s gone off in a fury at being accused and God alone knows where.’

‘Perhaps to Paris,’ she said with pessimism. ‘Perhaps the King of France has succeeded anyway.’

William’s shot her an irritated look. ‘I sincerely doubt he’d turned to Philip, but he might just be sufficiently annoyed to go and plot some mischief by way of revenge.’

‘Has Richard done anything about it?

‘Not yet from what Baldwin says. He’s decided John probably isn’t guilty, but he’s not entirely sure. Why would he leave court unless he had something to fear? If ever our sons start behaving like Richard and John, I will drown them, I swear I will.’ He heaved a deep sigh. ‘Richard is going on campaign in the Limousin to work off his anger and hunt for gold to fill his coffers. Some vassal of Aymer de Lusignan has dug up an ancient hoard on his lands and he’s refusing to give it up. Richard needs funds and the idea of a spring campaign to make the sap rise appeals to him.’ He picked up one of Mahelt’s poupées, the one of himself as a warrior in the green and yellow surcoat and eyed it thoughtfully.

Isabelle’s stomach lurched. ‘You are not going with him?’

‘No, I’m still due to sit on the Bench of Justices with Hubert Walter at Vaudreil. De Braose, de Burgh and Mercadier are attending on Richard. He says John can wait until his return…I’m not sure he can, but it’s a decision for Richard’s cup, not mine.’ He put aside the poupée in the surcoat and picked up the one of himself in court garb of red twill embroidered with silver thread. ‘Jesu, another tunic,’ he said with a shake of his head, making it clear which of the two figures he would rather be. ‘I am in danger of becoming a fop.’

Isabelle’s heart lightened with relief that King Richard was not summoning him on yet another campaign. ‘Sybilla made it for her. She’s so quick and skilled with a needle that it takes her no time.’ She lowered he voice and added, ‘Sybilla thinks she may be with child.’

‘So that’s what you were gossiping about when I came in?’

She smiled demurely. ‘More or less.’

He grunted with amusement. ‘Lady Elizabeth has a loud voice,’ he said. ‘It is good news for them. Jean will be pleased.’ He rose to his feet and stretched. Isabelle was glad to see the tension had gone out of him, glad too that he had come to her to ease and share his burden. Not all marriages were thus.

‘I suppose if I am leaving for Vaudreil on the morrow I had better find my two eldest sons. I promised them a jousting lesson.’ A regretful expression crossed his face. ‘It doesn’t seem a moment since I was their age and my father was teaching me my sword strokes at the pell.’

‘While doubtless your mother looked on with her heart in her mouth.’

‘Not in the least. She knew the only way I was going to make my way in the world was by learning to use the tools of my trade. Besides, she had already had her moment of anguish when I was five years old and King Stephen almost hanged me from a gibbet.’

Isabelle shuddered. Whenever William mentioned the episode from his infancy when King Stephen had taken him hostage for his father’s good behaviour, she felt cold. His father had gone back on his word and Stephen had threatened to string William up in full view of the besieged garrison. ‘And no surprise. If any man tried to do that to one of ours, I would bar his way with a naked sword in my hand,’ she said with intensity.

He said wryly, ‘I do believe you would, my love. I know she never forgave my father for telling King Stephen to go on and hang me – that he had the anvils and hammers to get more and better sons than the one he lost.’

Indignation shone in Isabelle’s eyes. ‘And I would use my naked sword to ensure that his boasts about hammers and anvils were short-lived indeed. If I had been wed to him, I would have killed him.’

He gave a humourless smile. ‘I think my mother came close to it on occasion. He lived very close to the edge….died in his bed though, and of old age.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Don’t look so worried. No one is going to take our sons as hostages.’ Leaning past her, he picked up the representation of Isabelle from Mahelt’s collection of poupées. ‘New clothes for you as well, I see.’ He pursed his lips in assessment. ‘I like the cloak.’

‘It’s Irish plaid,’ Isabelle said, eyeing him.

‘I noticed – even if you think I don’t know anything about Ireland When Richard returns from his campaign I’ll ask his leave to visit Leinster. You have waited long enough - if I am being fair too long.’

Isabelle stared at him. Her heart kicked, then soared with elation. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. ‘Thank you!’ she gasped, ‘thank you!’

Grinning, he squeezed her waist. ‘I intend to thoroughly exploit your gratitude,’ he said. ‘Be warned.’

She watched him leave the room, his tread buoyant now that he had shared his burden with her, then she turned back to her women, her face flushed and her eyes alight.

Elizabeth Avenel was waiting to pounce. ‘Jesu, I see what you mean about him only having to look at you and you quicken,’ she quipped. ‘You look like a woman who has just been thoroughly pleasured.’

Isabelle laughed and clapped her hands. ‘I have. ‘We’re going to Leinster!’

The expression on lady Elizabeth’s face was priceless.
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"An extraordinary, wonderful true story...I really felt that I had walked with William Marshal and that my own life was enriched." Richard Lee: Founder of the Historical Novel Society

Extract from A PLACE BEYOND COURAGE
The story of John FitzGilbert Marshal

To be published in UK hardcover in October 2007

'Sometimes keeping your honour means breaking your word.'


Extract from the end of Chapter 1
The court of King Henry I at Vernon sur Seine in Normandy, Autumn 1130
-------------------------------------------------------

Arriving at his lodging, John dismissed his chamberlain and squire. Most of his waking hours were spent in company, but he enjoyed moments to himself when he could snatch them. They gave him time to recoup and reflect; to be still and let him think at leisure. He draped his cloak across his coffer and hung his sword belt and scabbard on a wall hook. A flagon and a cup stood on a trestle under the shuttered window together with the pile of tallies and parchments from this morning. He poured wine, moved the lamp until he was satisfied with the fall of light upon his work area, and sat down with the sigh of a man letting go of one thing and preparing to tackle another.

He reached for a document lying to the side of the others, its lower edge tagged with Henry’s seal. This one was personal business, not a routine matter of palfreys or bread for the hounds. His inner vision filled with the memory of the blushing girl he had seen at mass in the cathedral at Salisbury when he had been home attending to his father’s affairs. Aline Pipard’s father was recently deceased too, and John had now bought her guardianship, which gave him the right to administer her estates and eventually sell her marriage to whomsoever he chose.

Sipping his wine, he contemplated the document, wondering if she was going to be worth the fee he had paid for her. He hadn’t decided what he was going to do about the guardianship - sell the marriage on, or take the girl to wife himself. His father and hers had long been acquainted. He had known Aline from a distance since she was a little girl, but his association with her amounted to no more than a few casual meetings and glances in passing. His purchase was less concerned with family ties than with the available revenues from the Pipard lands and the knowledge that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush. His acquisition was something to fall back upon should lean times arise. Thoughtfully, he rolled up the document, tied it with a length of silk cord and having set it aside, commenced work on the routine lists and tallies waiting his attention.

John was on his second cup of wine and had just trimmed a fresh quill when a soft tap at the door interrupted him. He considered ignoring it, but the work was boring and he was in a mood for distraction – probably a female one to judge from the sound of the knock. Leaving his work, he went to open the door and was pleased to discover his assumptions correct. Without a word, he stood aside to let the woman enter the room. She moved to the hearth with fluid, deliberate grace and turned to wait for him.

He dropped the latch, fetched another cup and poured her wine. ‘Mistress Damette,’ he said, courteously. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ He addressed her by her working name. Her real one was Bertha and she was the youngest of six daughters belonging to an impoverished knight from the Avrenchin. It was three years since she had left the enclave of court whores to become the concubine of an Angevin baron.

She responded with a throaty laugh and a knowing look as she accepted the wine. ‘You owe it to the fact that you are the King’s marshal and I am in need of employment.’

‘I gathered as much.’ He picked up his own half finished cup and leaned with feigned nonchalance against the trestle. ‘What happened?’

She pursed her lips at him. ‘Crusade. He took the cross and foreswore women. He was selling everything he could to raise the money to go and fight for Christ, so I grabbed my silks and furs and left before he had a chance to sell them too. Her voice developed a sultry edge. ‘…otherwise, I’d be here in nought but my shift.’ She put the wine down, unfastened her cloak, and draped it across the coffer on top of his own. The tight lacing of her gown accentuated every line and curve of her figure.

John looked her up and down. She had burnished dark hair and eyes to match. Lamp and firelight glanced upon orbit and satin cheekbone. His father had originally been responsible for admitting Damette to the court enclave and she had occasionally shared the senior marshal’s bed, but never his. He had been a youth learning his trade back then, and even if she was of his years, she had been a deal less innocent. ‘An interesting notion,’ he said, ‘but you know the ways of the court and I’m afraid that “naked under the cloak” is one of the less original ploys these days.’

Her eyes gleamed. ‘I think you’ll find I have more to offer than that, my lord.’

‘Such as?’

She stepped up to him, dipped her forefinger in his wine and slowly rimmed his lips. ‘Experience.’ She trailed her hand languidly down his body from breastbone to groin, her touch lighter than a breath. ‘Skill.’

Lust surged through him, hot and heavy as molten lead. ‘You know the rules; the dues owing.’ He set his arms to her waist and pulled her against him. The supple pressure of her body was exquisite.

‘Oh yes, I know them…my lord marshal,’ Damette breathed. ‘You will have no cause for complaint on any score…I promise you.’

Languorous in the aftermath of twice-taken release, feeling as if all sharp edges and discontents had been smoothed out, John folded his hands behind his head and studied the rafters. ‘How did you know to call me ‘my lord?’ he asked curiously.

‘Because your deputy told me your father was dead…I am sorry for that.’ Damette raised herself on one elbow. A rosy flush darkened her breasts and throat, revealing that the pleasure had not been his alone.

He said nothing. She hesitated, then leaned over and cupped his face on the side of her hand. ‘I am not sorry you have his position though.’

The haze of satisfaction cleared from his eyes. ‘It’s no use casting your line in my direction, sweetheart, I’m not a man for taking mistresses. I know too much to be snared by such bait.’

She laughed and bent to kiss the corner of his mouth. ‘You may have the face of a sinning angel and a way between the sheets, but I’m not angling beyond mutual interest. You would demand too much – and so would I.’

‘That’s about the measure of it - especially the last part.’ He stroked her hair, to keep the moment light, then sat up and reached for his clothes.

‘You shield yourself from people don’t you?’

John donned his shirt, rapidly followed by braies and hose. ‘Show me a courtier who doesn’t.’ Padding from the bed, he returned to the trestle and the pile of work still waiting. He was tired, but he had learned to cope without sleep long ago. His father had been wont to say that the time to slumber was in the grave, and John had embraced the philosophy with a whole heart. He looked across at her. ‘I don’t have to shield myself,’ he said. ‘The face I wear is the face beneath.’

She rolled onto her stomach and turned towards him, slender ankles raised and crossed, dark hair spilling around her shoulders. ‘You’d be surprised.’

‘At what?’ He sat down and began work.

‘At what does lie beneath when you are put to the test. Can I stay until morning?’

‘As long as you’re quiet.’

‘I promise not to snore.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

She made a face at him and John almost laughed, but managed to preserve an offhand demeanour.

Borrowing his comb from the coffer, she began to tidy and braid her hair, completely unselfconscious in her nudity. John occasionally glanced and admired. Firm, full breasts, long legs. Damette wouldn’t stay long among the whores. She would attract another patron soon enough.

She worked at a tangle. ‘I know you do not want me to interrupt you,’ she said, ‘but you might be interested to know I spent two nights with Geoffrey of Anjou.’

John lowered his quill and eyed her sharply.

‘He’s a handsome youth, the Empress’s husband,’ she said. ‘Fast to the finish as you’d expect of his years, but a fresh bolt in the bow as soon as his first one’s spent.’ She gave him an eloquent smile before contemplating the ends of her gathered hair. ‘He says he’s thinking of going on pilgrimage to Compostella and that he won’t have his wife back for all the gold in England.’

‘You’re certain he said that?’

‘Of course I am. He’s still too young to have learned discretion. If a man has finished futtering and does not wish to sleep, then often he wants to talk…and I am a very willing listener.’

John shook his head. ‘Henry won’t let him go to Compostella, at least not until this impasse over the marriage has been resolved. He needs her and Geoffrey to beget heirs.’

‘Then perhaps Geoffrey is forcing the King’s hand, or perhaps he is teasing. I gained the impression he’s the kind who likes to throw sticks in the fire for the pleasure of watching them burn.’ She secured her braid with a red silk ribbon.

John gave her a speculative look. ‘You didn’t want to make a bid for becoming Geoffrey’s mistress then?’

She wrinkled her nose and laughed. ‘Oh no, he’s far too fickle. For the moment he’s a prickly youth who needs stroking and reassurance – although when he grows up, he might be worth it.’

John continued with his work for a while, although his mind was split between the parchments and tallies of the marshal’s accounts and what Damette had said.

‘I could be very useful to you,’ she offered, as if sensing the periphery of his thoughts. ‘Your father always considered that the things I heard and saw were a great asset to him.’

John studied a tally without focusing on it. He realised now how much his father had protected him in keeping him away from Damette when he was Geoffrey of Anjou’s age. ‘Then I too will be happy to consider.’

‘And them fee?’

‘Negotiable,’ he said impassively and put his head down over his work. She plainly knew just how far to push, for she lay down with her back to him and pulling the coverlet high over her shoulder, at least feigned sleep.

John poured more wine and toasted her huddled form, his eyes lighting with dour humour. If nothing else, tonight’s interlude had informed him that he was most certainly back at court.