Elizabeth Chadwick: Novel Extracts

THE SUMMER QUEEN: THE FIRST CHAPTER

2011-12-10T15:21:00.000-08:00

Here is the first chapter of my work in progress on Eleanor of Aquitaine and the first paragraph of the second chapter. I hope you enjoy the sneak peek! Each day on Facebook, I always include the morning's opening lines and the evening's closing ones for those who like to guess what's going on!

Here now though, is a longer chunk. This isn't the official book cover btw, but just a mock up illustration.

Chapter 1

The Palace of Poitiers, home of the Dukes of Aquitaine, January 1137

Alienor woke at dawn. The tall candle that had been left to burn all night was almost a stub and even through the closed shutters, she could hear the cockerels on roosts, walls and midden heaps, crowing the city of Poitiers awake. Mounded under the bedclothes, her sister Petronella slumbered, her dark hair spread on the pillow. Alienor crept from the bed, careful not to wake her, because she knew how grumpy Petronella could be when disturbed too early. Besides, Alienor wanted these moments to herself. This was no ordinary day, and once the noise and bustle began, it would not cease.

Alienor put on the gown folded over her painted coffer, and pushed her feet into soft kidskin shoes. She unlatched a small door in the shutters and, braiding her hair with nimble fingers, leaned out to inhale the new morning with pleasure. A mild, moist breeze filled her nose with the scents of smoke and stone and freshly baked bread. For a long moment she gazed at the alternating ribbons of charcoal, oyster and gold striating the eastern skyline, and eventually drew back with a pensive sigh. Lifting her cloak from its peg, she tip-toed from the chamber into the adjoining room where the maids were catching the last moments of sleep, or else yawning and scratching with bleary eyes. Alienor slipped past them like a sleek young vixen and on light and silent feet, wound her way down the stairs of the great Maubergeon tower.

A drowsy youth was setting out bread and wine on trestles in the great hall. Alienor stole a small loaf, still oven-warm from the bread basket, and went outside. Lanterns still shone their fuzzy light in some huts and outbuildings. She could hear the clatter of pots from the kitchens and a cook berating a scullion for spilling the milk. Ordinary, every day sounds, saying that all was well and familiar with the world, even on the cusp of change.

At the stables the grooms were preparing the horses for the coming journey. Ginnet, her grey mare and Morello, her sister’s glossy black pony were still in their stalls, but the pack horses were being harnessed and carts stood ready in the yard to carry the baggage the hundred and fifty miles south from Poitiers to Bordeaux where she and Petronella were to spend the spring and summer at the Ombriére palace overlooking the River Garonne. Alienor enjoyed travelling, and she loved Bordeaux, but this time it was different and she felt unsettled, as if there was a storm just beyond the horizon.

Entering Ginnet’s stall, she offered the Spanish palfrey a piece of new bread on the flat of her hand, and rubbed the strong, sleek neck. Ginnet snorted and lipped at Alienor’s cloak, seeking more tidbits. ‘Papa doesn’t have to go all the way to Compostela,’ she told the mare. ‘Why can’t he stay at home with us and pray? I hate it when he goes away.’

‘Alienor.’

She jumped and hot with guilt, faced her father, seeing immediately from his expression that he had overheard her.

He was tall and long limbed, his brown hair patched with grey at ears and temples. Deep creases fanned from his eye corners and there were hollows beneath his well defined cheekbones. ‘You are early awake daughter.’ He gently tugged her thick braid of tawny hair. ‘Where is Petronella?’

‘Still abed papa. I left her to sleep.’

He gave her a grave look. ‘You know that a pilgrimage is a serious commitment to God. This is no foolish jaunt made on a whim.’

‘Yes, papa,’ she said stiffly. She knew the pilgrimage was important to him, indeed necessary for the good of his soul, but she still did not want him to go. He had been different of late; reserved and more obviously burdened, and she did not understand why.

He tilted her chin on his forefinger. ‘You are my heir, Alienor, and you must behave as befits the daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine, not a sulky child.’

Feeling indignant, she pulled away. She was thirteen years old, a year past the age of consent, and considered herself grown up, even while she still craved the security of her father’s love and presence.

‘I see you understand me.’ His brow creased. ‘While I am gone, you are the ruler of Aquitaine. Our vassals have sworn to uphold you as my successor and you must honour their faith.’

Alienor bit her lip. ‘I am afraid you will not come back.’ Her voice shook. ‘- that I shall not see you again.’

‘Oh, child! If God wills it, of course I shall come back.’ He kissed her forehead tenderly. ‘Besides, you have me for a little while yet.’

A groom arrived to see to Ginnet and Morello and her father drew her into the courtyard where the pale grey of first light was yielding to warmer tints and colours. ‘Go now and wake your sister. It will be a fine thing to say you have walked part of the way along the pilgrim route of Saint James.’

Alienor gave him a long look, before walking away, her back straight and her steps measured. His eldest daughter was swiftly becoming a woman. Already tall, she had grown considerably in the past year, and developed light curves at breast and hip. She was exquisite; just looking at her, intensified his pain. She was too young for what was coming, God help them all.

Petronella was awake when Aliénor returned to their chamber and was busy putting her favourite trinkets into a large cloth bag ready for the journey. Floreta, their nurse and chaperone, had braided Petronella’s shiny dark hair with blue ribbons and tied it back from her heart-shaped face, revealing the downy curve of her cheek in profile.

‘Where did you go?’ Petronella demanded.

‘Nowhere, just a walk. You were still asleep.’

Petronella closed the drawstring on the bag and waggled the tassels at the end of the ties. ‘Papa says he’ll bring us blessed crosses from the shrine of St James.’

As if blessed crosses were any sort of compensation for their father’s forthcoming absence, Alienor thought, but she held her tongue. Petronella was eleven, but still so much the child. Despite their closeness, the two years between them was often a gulf. Alienor fulfilled the role of their missing mother to Petronella as often as she did sister.

‘And when he comes back after Easter, we’ll have a big celebration, won’t we?’ Petronella’s wide brown gaze sought reassurance. ‘Won’t we?’

Alienor nodded. ‘Of course we will,’ she said and hugged Petronella, and found comfort in their mutual embrace.

It was mid-morning by the time the ducal party set out for Bordeaux following a mass celebrated in the pilgrim church of St. Hilaire, its walls blazoned with the eagle device of the lords of Aquitaine.

Ragged patches of pale blue peeped between the clouds and sudden swift spangles of sunlight flashed on horse harnesses and belt fittings. The entourage unravelled along the road like a fine thread, woven with the silver of armour, the rich hues of expensive gowns, crimson, violet and gold, and muted blends of tawny and grey belonging to servants and carters. Everyone set out on foot, not just Duke William. This first day, all would walk the twenty miles to the overnight stop at St Sauvant.

Alienor paced out, holding Petronella’s hand one side, and lifting her gown the other so that it would not trail in the dirt. Now and again, Petronella gave a hop and a skip. A jongleur started to sing to the accompaniment of a small harp and Alienor recognised the words of her grandfather, William the ninth Duke of Aquitaine who had revelled in a notorious reputation. Many of his songs were sexual in content, unsettling in their rawness and unfit for the bower, but this particular one was plangent and haunting, and sent a shiver down Alienor’s spine.

I know not when I am asleep or awake

Unless someone tells me

My heart is nearly bursting with a deep sorrow,

But I care not a fig about it

By St. Martial!

Her father kept company with her and Petronella for a while, but his stride was longer than theirs, and gradually he drew ahead and left them in the company of the household women. Alienor watched him walk away, and fixed her gaze on his hand where it gripped his pilgrim staff. The sapphire ring of his ducal authority glittered at her like a dark eye. She wanted him to turn and look at her, but he continued to focus on the road ahead, and she felt as if he were deliberately distancing himself, and that in a while he would be gone completely, leaving only the dust of his footsteps to follow.

She was not even cheered when her father’ constable Geoffrey de Rancon joined her and Petronella. He was in his late twenties with rich brown hair, deep-set green eyes, and a ready smile. She had known him since she was born because he was one of her father’s close friends and confidantes. He had lost his wife two years ago, and had not yet sought to remarry, but his need for heirs was not pressing because he had two daughters and a son from the match. ‘Why so glum?’ He peered round into her face. ‘You’ll make the clouds come back scowling like that.’

Petronella giggled and Geoffrey winked at her.

‘Don’t be foolish,’ Alienor lifted her chin and strode out.

Geoffrey matched her pace. ‘Then tell me what is wrong.’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing is wrong. ‘Why should there be?’

He pursed his lips. ‘Because your father is going to Compostela and leaving you in Bordeaux?’

Alienor’s throat tightened. Geoffrey saw too much. ‘Of course not,’ she snapped.

He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘I am sorry. You are right, I am foolish, but will you forgive me and let me walk with you a while?’

Alienor gave a grudging nod. Geoffrey clasped her hand in his and took Petronella’s on his other side.

After a while and almost without her knowing, the frown cleared from Alienor’s brow. Geoffrey was no substitute for her father, but his presence was a reassuring comfort and enabled her to go forward with renewed courage.

Chapter 2

Bordeaux, February 1137

Sitting in his chamber of the Ombrieres palace in Bordeaux, William the tenth Duke of Aquitaine looked down at the documents the scribe had left for him to read. He picked up the top one and studied its contents while rubbing his side.

‘Sire, you are still set on this journey?’

He glanced across the hearth at the cleric standing before the fire clad in heavy fur-lined robes. Geoffrey de Louroux was the Archbishop of Bordeaux and despite occasional clashes of opinion, they were friends of longstanding. William had appointed Geoffrey as tutor to his two daughters. ‘I am,’ he replied......

Bonus extract from LADY OF THE ENGLISH

2011-05-26T03:08:00.000-07:00

Coming up to publication of Lady of the English, I thought I'd put up a couple of bonus extract from Lady of the English.
The first features Matilda and Adeliza. The second, the young Henry II

To set the scene. Empress Matilda's father King Henry I has told her she must marry a youth called Geoffrey of Anjou. Matilda, widow of the German Emperor and in her mid 20's has refused and after a volatile argument has retired to her chamber.

Matilda was roused by the sound of Adeliza talking to her maids, and the waft of savoury food smells. Moments later, the bed curtains parted and Adeliza stood in the space between them with a tray bearing a bowl of broth, steam curling on its surface, a small crusty loaf and a portion of saffron-glazed chicken. The maids bustled about, lighting candles and closing the shutters against a lavender spring dusk. As Matilda sat up, Adeliza set down the tray on the coffer. She had brought a folded napkin and a small fingerbowl of scented water.

‘I am sorry to hear you are unwell,’ Adeliza said softly.

‘Did my father send you?’ Matilda snapped.

Adeliza gave her a reproachful look. ‘Of course not. When I told him I was coming to speak with you and bring you food, he was exasperated with me.’ She gave Matilda a woman-to-woman look. ‘He said you didn’t deserve to eat and that a spot of starvation would help put your mind in order, but he did not gainsay me when I insisted.’

Matilda glared at the beautifully arranged tray. ‘Indeed, I would rather starve,’ she hissed. ‘And I’m not hungry.’

‘I do not believe that!’ Adeliza remonstrated. ‘You have a good appetite and you will need your strength.’

Matilda continued to scowl. She truly did not feel like eating, but it was another way of defying her father since he had not wanted Adeliza to bring her food. ‘You are right, I suppose I will,’ she said and reached for the bread.

Adeliza poured wine for both of them and sat down at the bedside. ‘Ask yourself what good this is doing you. Where will you go from here if you defy your father?’

Matilda tore the bread into small pieces. ‘You agree with him then.’ She gave Adeliza a bitter look. ‘You are taking his part like everyone else?’

Adeliza shook her head. ‘I am concerned for both of you. I know how difficult this is for you. You have lost a good husband and your position at the heart of the imperial court. But you must look to the future and think about the long term. Here, drink and be consoled.’

Matilda thrust away the wine, making it slop over the edge of the cup. ‘You think I will find consolation in wine? Is that what I should do? She laughed scornfully. ‘Drink myself into oblivion?’

Adeliza mopped up the spillage with her napkin and gazed sorrowfully at the red stain. ‘I think you will find consolation in the Church, and in your children in the fullness of time.’

‘I may find strength in God, but no comfort, and certainly no consolation from men of God,’ Matilda spat and felt both triumphant and guilty as her young stepmother recoiled. ‘As to children – I had no such consolation from my marriage with my Heinrich, and neither have you with my father. Why should I put my faith in the solace of being a mother?’ Her voice strained and almost cracked. ‘I bore Heinrich a child, and buried him on the same day.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Distress filled Adeliza’s gaze. She reached out to Matilda in sympathy, but Matilda drew back. Adeliza lowered her arm and smoothed the bedclothes instead until there was no sign of a crease. She said hesitantly, ‘Perhaps a man only has so much good seed in his body. A younger one . . .’ Her cheeks reddened. ‘I am not being disloyal to your first husband or your father, but I say to you as one woman to another that your womb may more easily quicken this time.’

Matilda gave Adeliza a long look. ‘Would you change places with me?’

Adeliza’s blush brightened her entire face. ‘I would think on my duty to those who desired me to make the match. I would think on the good things that might come of it. That I might bear children and grow to love a young husband as he became a man. The difference in age between us would soon close up and matter less.’ She set her lips. ‘You learn to live with what you cannot alter and find ways to thank God for what you do have. In truth, what are your alternatives? Your father will not change his mind once it is set. If you refuse, he will make one of his Blois nephews his heir and consign you to a convent. You came home from Germany rather than become a nun. Would you choose the cloister now?’

Matilda blinked tears from her eyes, furious that she was crying. ‘Just for once . . .’ she said hoarsely, ‘just for once, I want him to see me, but he never will except as a tool.’

‘Ah no, never think that!’ Adeliza looked shocked. ‘He is proud of you – very proud, and that is why he is unyielding. He knows your potential and he wants the best for you.’

‘The best,’ Matilda gave a caustic laugh. ‘Geoffrey of Anjou is the best? God save me from the worst!’

‘Look,’ Adeliza said patiently. ‘I know this betrothal has come as a shock, but it will work out, you will see.’ She leaned over and kissed Matilda’s cheek. ‘I will leave you to think on it.’

‘You mean my father will be wondering why you have been gone for so long?’

‘The King has other matters to attend to, tonight.’ Adeliza’s voice was careful and her body taut, so that Matilda knew her father must be engaged with one of the many court concubines – probably riding her as viciously as he did his hunting horse when he was in a temper. ‘There is no more I can say to you. Now you must think on this for yourself.’

When Adeliza had gone, Matilda resisted the urge to close the bed curtains again and retreat into her shell. Adeliza’s actions had reminded her that she had a position in the world to uphold, and responsibilities. As she ate her supper, she pondered the matter. She was backed into a corner and her only recourse was to agree to the marriage as her father desired. He said it was an honourable thing, and, viewed with a superficial eye it was, but deep down, at the core of the matter, she knew it was shameful.
end of extract 1

............................................................................................

Extract 2

Henry FitzEmpress, almost eight years old, was testing the paces of his new mount Denier. The dam’s Spanish breeding had given the little chestnut fire in his feet. Henry loved the feel of the wind streaming past his face, even though it was cold enough to sting his eyes, because it gave him a feeling of speed. On a swift horse, he was invincible.

His father had started taking him hunting, and Henry had also begun his military training, fighting with a shield made to suit his size, and a wooden sword. He loved every minute. Indeed, the only thing he ever found difficult was staying still. It was always a trial when he was in church and expected not to fidget in the presence of God. By contrast, flying on a horse was easy.

His father was waiting in the stable yard to greet him when he returned from his ride, his groom following several paces behind. Henry showed off by drawing rein in a dramatic slide of hooves, and leaped from the saddle almost before the pony had stopped. He flashed his father a broad smile, exposing gaps at the front where new teeth were growing in.

Geoffrey’s lips twitched. ‘That was fine riding, my son.’ He plucked a burr out of Henry’s cloak.

Henry flushed with pleasure. ‘Yes, sire.’ Much as he was enthralled by the swiftness and grace of Denier, what he really wanted to ride was a destrier like his father. His new pony was just another point on the road towards that accomplishment. ‘I could have made him go faster, but Alain wouldn’t let me.’ He scowled over his shoulder at the groom.

‘Alain was wise, you should listen to him,’ Geoffrey said. ‘And to your horse. Always be bold; never be heedless.’

Henry pursed his lips and said nothing.

His father folded his arms. ‘I have been waiting for you because I have received some great news from England, from your mother. Stephen the usurper has been defeated in battle and captured by your uncle Robert and others of your mother’s kin and allies. Your mother is to become Queen.’

Henry stared at his father while his stomach gave the same kind of swoop that it had done while he was galloping Denier. He had not seen his mother in almost a year and a half and memory of her features had blurred at the edges, but she wrote to him often and sent him things from England: a writing tablet with an interlaced design on the ivory cover, and a fine penknife. Things she had sewn, which held her scent. Bells for his harness. Numerous books. And always the promise that one day he would be a king because England was his.

‘Can we go there?’ He was suddenly consumed with eager impatience. Had a ship been present in the courtyard, he would have boarded it there and then.

‘No, no, no,’ his father laughed. ‘Rein back your horse a little. It is early days yet. Your mother will send for you when it is time.’

‘But when will that be?’

‘Soon,’ his father said. ‘But not quite yet.’ He ruffled Henry’s hair. ‘One battle does not a victory make, even when the enemy has been captured. Once your mother has been crowned, she will send for you.’

Henry frowned and wondered how close ‘soon’ actually was. When adults said such things, it was usually simply to pacify – and it was always a long time. He did not see why he could not go immediately. He knew he could help, and it was his destiny.

His father said, ‘My first task now your mother has succeeded is to go into Normandy and secure the duchy. Many barons will want to pay homage to the winning side.’ He looked at Henry. ‘And no, you cannot come there either for the time being. Your task is to stay safe and learn and become a man.’

Henry grimaced, but knew better than to protest. As far as he was concerned, he was a man, and years were only numbers.

Extract from THE LEOPARD UNLEASHED

2010-11-10T15:21:00.000-08:00

EXTRACT FROM THE LEOPARD UNLEASHED
Published by LittleBrown UK in early December 2010

This is a re-issue of my (re-edited) 3rd novel and ties into THE WILD HUNT and THE RUNNING VIXEN.

Apologies for some wierd formatting. As usual Blogger has a minor hissy fit at cut and paste.

Chapter 1

The Principality of Antioch, Spring 1139

Antioch, the capital of Prince Raymond’s principality, was for Renard a rude and not altogether welcome awakening. It was easier to skirmish with Turks among the Nosairi foothills than it was to swelter along a crowded narrow street on a highly-strung war-horse in the wake of a camel’s untrustworthy rear end. Renard hated camels – an aversion stemming from the occasion of his landing in St Simeon four years ago when one had spat an evil green broth all over his tunic and tried to squash him against a wall.

The beast, currently blocking his view, belched to an abrupt standstill. Renard’s stallion flattened his ears, and, skittered sideways to avoid a collision. The camel’s Bedouin rider cursed through his blackened teeth and swatted the animal with a leather goad. The camel defecated. Swearing, Renard reined back hard.

William de Lorys, a knight of his retinue, closed hard brown fingers over his saddle pommel and grinned. Ancelin, Renard’s English standard-bearer, chuckled into his fair beard, dimples creasing his cheeks.. Beyond them, among his soldiers, there were stifled guffaws.The glare Renard threw at the ,men, only increased their amusement.

The camel lurched onwards, its huge flat feet moving with ungainly grace. Renard clicked his tongue to Gorvenal. The stallion pranced, unsettled by the camel and by the press of humanity as from all sides they were assailed by the hot, ripe city. A beggar thrust a sore-encrusted arm beneath Renard’s nose and pleaded for a coin Another showed him blind eye sockets and a mutilated nose, but he had heard and seen it all before and was too impatient and saddle-weary to feel anything beyond irritation.

Four years in Outremer, he thought. Sometimes it seemed like forty. From the marcher hills of his birthplace to St Simeon in northern Syria, he had crossed not only oceans and mountain ranges, but the distance between childhood and maturity. He had been a restless young man of twenty-three at the court of his grandfather, King Henry, when he had met Raymond of Poitiers, recognised a kindred spirit, and when Raymond had left for Outremer to become Prince of Antioch, Renard had taken the Cross and accompanied him.

Renard’s mother and sister had wept, but his father, watching him with a shrewd gaze that missed nothing, said every man was entitled to sow wild oats providing he learned from their reaping. Renard supposed that somewhere along the way he must have learned. The restlessness still churned through him,, but he was able to control the turbulence and apply it constructively.

The camel squeezed past two laden donkeys and down an impossibly narrow side-street in the direction of the souk. Renard sighed with relief and, relaxing in the saddle,, started to view his surroundings in a slightly less jaundiced light.

His house in the city, sited conveniently close to the palace, was built of white, sun-flashed stone around a cool courtyard with fig trees and a fountain in true Syrian style. It had once belonged to an emir, As Renard drew rein in front of the shaded stable area, grooms came running to take the horses, and Johad, his Turcopol steward appeared as if conjured from a djinn’s lamp. The ,man bowed deeply, flashed his master a gleaming smile, and presented him with a cup of freshly pressed fruit juice which Renard took and finished in several swift, parched gulps.

‘Johad, you’re a godsend!’ he said in Arabic as he removed the linen coif from his head. His hair clung to his scalp in black, saturated spikes and sweat trickled into the dark-auburn grizzle of a three days’ beard. Returning the cup to his steward, he crossed the stableyard to the bath-house. William de Lorys followed him. Ancelin, whose dislike of fruit juice was only matched by his dislike of taking baths, waved in disgust and perspired away in the direction of the kitchen to find some decent household wine.

‘Home,’ Renard said later as he sat cross-legged on the floor. Dressed in a cotton shirt and chausses and the flimsiest of silk tunics, he was eating a pilaff of saffron-coloured wild rice and spiced lamb. ‘If I were at home now, I’d be shivering in the thickest tunic I could find with my winter cloak on top of it, and dining on salt beef and gritty bread.’

‘Better than this muck!’ growled Ancelin, spitting a wad of gristle onto the bright rug. ‘Camel stew to eat, and camel’s piss to drink!’

Grinning, Renard reached Arab-style to the pilaff bowl. ‘When in Antioch . . .’ he said lightly; but although he had learned to enjoy the eastern way of life, he found that tonight the thought of salt beef was making his mouth water.

William de Lorys gave his young lord a considering look. ‘What else would you be doing if you were at Ravenstow now?’

Renard snorted. ‘God knows! Probably quarrelling with my father about the estates, or disgracing myself with some woman.!’

‘Now there’s a thought!’ Ancelin’s eyes brightened.

De Lorys eased a rag of meat from between his teeth. ‘It wouldn’t be as good,’ he said. ‘The women back home aren’t trained like the ones here.’

Ancelin stabbed his index finger at de Lorys. ‘You can do it half way up a wall with one leg on the roof and the other on the couch if you like. What’s happened to good, honest futtering, I’d like to know!’

Renard regarded the two men with amusement but felt no inclination to take sides. There were valid points to both arguments. His thoughts drifted past them towards the huge, starlit darkness outside. What indeed would he be doing at home now? Quarrelling with his father as he had jested? Perhaps. More likely struggling to keep the lands stable as Stephen and Matilda between them whipped England into the worst storm for its people since the coming of the Conqueror.

When Renard had left for Antioch, all had been as calm as a mill pond with King Henry as sharp-eyed, parsimonious and cunning as ever, in expert control of all he surveyed – except his own mortality. Within two months of Renard’s departure, the old man was dead of a bad eel stew and his lands cast into turmoil as his daughter and his nephew tussled for the throne.

Renard had wanted to come home, but his father had advised against it. Stephen, having snatched the first initiative and with it the Crown, was demanding sureties for good behaviour in the form of hostages from those barons he did not trust, his father among them. If Renard was absent, then he need neither be yielded up nor refused to the King, and a smiling diplomacy could be ,maintained.

Renard’s two younger brothers were already marcher land-holders in their own right and therefore unlikely to be summoned to dally in custody at the court. John, his older brother, was a chaplain in the Earl of Leicester’s household, and being as the latter strongly supported Stephen’s right to be King, John was safe for the moment.

Ancelin and de Lorys were still discussing women. Washing his hands in a bowl of rose-scented water and drying them on the towel presented by Johad, Renard wondered briefly about Elene. How old would she be now? Approaching seventeen and more than ready for marriage. She had been willing four years ago, but her body had been unripe even if her mind had been set, and the ceremony had been deferred until his return.

Nell, he thought, with her puppy-like devotion and her joy in all aspects of domestic duty. A fine wife she would make, and an excellent mother to the enormous brood of children with which she expected him to furnish her. Neither mind nor body kindled at the prospect. Their betrothal was a business arrangement, agreed ten years ago; a duty not onerous, but lacking the spark that might have driven him eagerly home to his marriage bed. Here in Outremer, finding a women for the basic need was simple. It was the men who died.

Johad served dishes of halva, platters of fresh figs, and a sherbet made from pressed lemons. Renard selected a fig. The halva was delicious, but it caused worm rot in the teeth and the taste of honey was sometimes too overpowering. Like this land, he thought. First it tempted you, then it dissolved into your bones, corroding them. Perhaps that was why he was longing for plain Norman fare and the cold, damp spring of the Marches that made a fur cloak a necessity. A shiver of longing ran down his spine as he drank some of the cold, slightly bitter sherbet.

The discussion about women had ended in a decision to do more than merely discuss. ‘Want to come?’ asked de Lorys as he rose from the remains of his meal and brushed stray grains of rice from his silks. ‘One of the men was telling me they’ve got a new dancer at The Scimitar.’

‘Have they?’ Renard’s interest sharpened. The Scimitar was expensive but the girls were usually worth it.

‘A Turcopol girl. Blonde in both places.’ De Lorys gestured eloquently and grinned.

Renard arched a sardonic eyebrow. ‘I won’t ask how your informant knows,’ he said.

The Scimitar was bursting at the seams when they arrived, but Renard was well known there, and the proprietor quickly found a place for him to sit and furnished him with a drink.

A youth with kohl-rimmed eyes and a painted mouth propositioned him. Madam FitzUrse, the proprietor’s wife, swatted the boy away in the direction of some Genoese sailors up from St Simeon and apologised. ‘Sometimes we get asked, and it doesn’t do to turn custom away,’ she said.

Renard smiled and raised his cup to her. ‘Business is business,’ he replied gravely.

She regarded him from the corner of a sly, bright eye. ‘Here to see our new dancer are you, my lord?’

Renard affected indifference. ‘I was dragged out by my men who were desperate to get their hands upon some vice after the monk’s life I’ve been making them lead. I am only here to regulate their excesses.’ Then he grinned. ‘But if you have a new dancer, I suppose I might watch.’

‘Hah!’ she nudged him with a meaty elbow. ‘You’ll do more than just watch!’ Forefinger and thumb came up to rub before his face. ‘I’ll warn you now, she’s not cheap. Cost you half a mark.’

‘If she is going to excite me enough to part with half a mark, I doubt I’ll last long enough to justify the expense,’ he said with amusement. ‘Try Ancelin or de Lorys.’

She looked shocked. ‘Would you give your best mare to a novice? Besides, they’ve already found themselves company.’ Patting his arm, she went to help her besieged husband who was refilling pitchers. ‘See me later when you change your mind,’ she called over her shoulder with cheerful confidence.

Renard stared round in search of his knights. Ancelin was in the act of disappearing out of the door with a plump Armenian girl who also sometimes danced. De Lorys was arm-wrestling another customer for the favours of a sultry-eyed Syrian woman with a body, as lush as the fertile plain of Sharon. Oasis in the desert. Renard smiled at the thought, and drank his wine.

Several times he was approached by one or another of Madam FitzUrse’s girls, but although he knew most of them by name and some by a more intimate acquaintance, he turned them away, his mind dwelling in rank curiosity on the ridiculousness of paying half a mark to spend the night with a whore no matter her beauty or expertise.

Shortly before the dancing was due to start, he finished his drink and went outside to piss, and there, in the star-studded darkness of an eastern night, his present mood of nostalgia was suddenly consolidated with such force that for a moment he was totally disorientated.

A man’s voice spoke from the walled shadows, slurred with drink, but unmistakably using the Welsh tongue. A woman answered him in the same language, her voice low, husky and full of anger, and as Renard’s eyesight adjusted, he made out two figures standing close in argument. ‘I will not!’ she hissed. ‘The money is mine. I work for it and you’re not going to swill it down your gutter of a throat!’

‘You little whore, you’ll do as I say!’ The man’s fist wavered up.

‘Go swive yourself!’ Accurately she spat in his face and ducked under his arm. He made a grab for her enveloping dark robe and suddenly a dagger blade flashed in his hand as he wrenched her round to face him.

‘Your face is your fortune, girl!’ he snarled. ‘Don’t tempt me to ruin it.’

Renard set his hand to his own dagger hilt and took a forward pace, but before he could intervene, the girl made a sinuous movement and drew her own blade from within the voluminous folds of her robe. ‘Strike then,’ she hissed. ‘Let us see who is the faster!’

Small bells tinkled daintily on her ankle bracelets and her feet were bare as she positioned them with feline precision.

Renard’s loins and belly contracted with an instinctive reaction to the dangers of a knife fight. The woman was holding her weapon competently, a gleaming silver crescent, and the man was staring at her in fuddled anxiety. Renard changed his mind as to the identity of prey and victim.

‘Listen, lass, there’s no need . . .’

‘Piss-proud coward!’ she sneered, stepped again and struck. Metal grated on metal and in a circular motion spun like a falling star and puffed in the dust.

Weaponless, the man stared and swallowed. The woman’s feet wove the ground and Renard caught a glimpse of spangled fabric as she shifted and struck again with the exquisite Saracen blade. Her victim howled and doubled up, clutching at his belly.

Deciding it had gone far enough, Renard shouted and strode towards them.

Startled, the woman looked up and across. Renard received the impression of huge, dark eyes and a chain of coins winking on a smooth, pale brow before she drew the hood of her robe around her face and, knife still in hand, melted into the deep shadows of a stone-arched entry that led into the back of The Scimitar.

‘Whore!’ the man gasped, still doubled over. ‘Conniving, ungrateful whore!’

Renard’s spine prickled. He stared towards the dark mouth of the entry and wondered whether he had really seen it happen or if his imagination was running wine-wild.

The man took one hand from his stomach and looked at the dark smear on his palm. ‘Bitch,’ he moaned. ‘No gratitude.’

‘It was what you deserved.’ Renard glanced round. Behind him he heard the tinkle of bells and the soft pat, pat of a drum. The dancing had started. ‘Is it bad?’

‘Course it’s bad!’ the man snarled. ‘Look what she’s done, the whore!’

Renard stared. then he spluttered. The dagger had indeed caught the fool, but only the tip in a thin, red surface inscription. The mortal damage was to the string holding up the grey, stained chausses and whatever shreds of soused dignity the fool was striving to preserve.

Renard gave in to his laughter but was not so overcome that he did not see the man shuffling sideways, eyes to the ground. Reflexes entirely sober, Renard moved rapidly and closed his fingers on the haft of the fallen knife – once a serviceable but now sadly out-worn hunting dagger. The grip was dropping to pieces and the blade had been sharpened so often that it was wafer thin.

Angling his wrist, he struck at the wall, the full force of his right arm behind the blow. A blue spark flashed briefly, illuminating the weapon’s destruction as it shattered. Within the lean strength of his fingers, the grip came apart. He dropped the pieces on the ground, dusted his hands free of fragments and looked steadily at the drunk.

The man swallowed and licked his lips. ‘I was just leaving,’ he said and, clutching a bunched handful of his torn chausses, started hobbling away. He paused once and looked over his shoulder, but Renard still watched him, and with a grunt and a bemused shake of his head, he gave up and shambled off.

The drums pulsed sensuously. A cricket chirred on the wall beside Renard and there was a mark in the stone where the dagger had struck. He gazed at the pieces in the dust and felt uneasy. Nothing that could be pinned down and given form or reason, but suddenly he found himself wishing he had chosen not to visit The Scimitar tonight and almost followed the drunkard out into the street.

‘Renard?’ hissed de Lorys from the doorway.

He swung round.

‘Are you going to be out there all night? You’re missing the new dancer!’ He sounded as excited as a child.

The impulse to flee receded. Smiling ruefully at his own misgivings, Renard returned to to the crowded interior of the tavern.

Being tall, he could see over the heads of most men. Ancelin was an exception and in his line of vision, but he eased in front of him, elbowing him in the belly when he protested. And it was then, as he took his first glimpse of The Scimitar’s new dancing girl that he received his second shock of the night.

‘Is she not a beauty?’ muttered de Lorys against his ear.

‘Oh definitely,’ Renard responded with more than a hint of dry sarcasm. Beneath the mesh head-dress with its headband of bezants, her kohl-lined eyes were huge and dark, and her garments were of silk fabric, spangled with stars . Her mouth was sultry and as red as blood, and beneath her head-dress, the hair that whipped her undulating body was the colour of sun-whitened wheat. Her skin was not the fair or rosy kind that typically accompanied such hair, but was as golden as spilled honey.

The dance she performed for Madam FitzUrse’s gawping customers was of the usual erotic order, guaranteed to send any newcomer to Outremer out of his mind with lust and fill with delight those who had only a passing acquaintance with the land. Men more experienced who might usually have walked yawning, were riveted by her striking looks, and the way she cast her eyes around the throng like a lioness backed into a corner, one paw raised to strike.

Bells tinkled on her ankles and silver zills chinked between her forefinger and thumb. Her hips moved in a sinuous, hypnotic gyration.

‘Oh God!’ groaned de Lorys in agony as she whirled and the tempo increased. She threw back her head and arched her throat, and the head-dress swung and flashed. Torchlight shimmered on her tinselled garments. Her eyes roved contemptuously over her sweating, lusting audience, her pupils as wide and dark as those of a night-hunter. She licked her red, red lips and smiled.

Renard found himself responding and dropped his gaze. On first arriving in Antioch, he had gorged himself on dancing girls, unable to believe his good fortune; gorged until he was sick of the very sight of them and they held no appeal for him. As time passed, his appetite had returned, but now he consumed in cautious moderation. He felt that he should be using caution now. The dish before him was certainly edible, but so hot that it would likely scorch the fingerprints off anyone attempting to do so, and half a mark was too steep a price to pay for burned fingers. He shifted restlessly. Men were tossing coins on the floor around her stamping feet. Her fingers fanned over her body, imitating those of a lover and she fell to her knees, hair sweeping the floor as the drums pounded to their climax.

Renard could not help himself. He raised his head and looked at her. Her own eyes had been closed, but as the final throb of sound resonated and died, she opened them, and met Renard stare for stare and he saw that her eyes were not brown as he had thought, but a blue as rich and deep as the sky beyond the stars.

The Scimitar erupted with roars of appreciation, loud whistles, thumped tables, bellows for more. Coins showered upon the panting, sinuous girl. A drunken young idiot made a grab for her and was snatched away by the scruff. She gained her feet in one lithe movement and lowered lashes that were thick and black, spiky with soot and gum. The drum beat lightly. She danced among the scattered coins, stooping gracefully here and there to collect them up.

Renard’s throat was dry and his palms sweating. He wiped them on his tunic and, turning abruptly away, forced a path through the avid crowd of men. Madam FitzUrse gave him a knowing smile and tipped wine from the pitcher she was holding until it brimmed his cup.

‘Well, what do you think of her, my lord?’

Renard took three long swallows to prevent the drink from spilling. ‘She’s a good dancer,’ he said In a bored tone.

Amused, she mopped a puddle of wine from the trestle. ‘Aye, she’s that, and more if you’ve a mind.’

‘Half a mark.’ He cocked her a bright look. ‘Why so expensive?’

‘Why don’t you ask her to show you.’

‘And risk being stabbed in my dignity?’ he snorted. ‘I think not.’

She pursed her lips at him and then shrugged. ‘Ah well, if you’re not in the mood, I’m not the one to force you.’ Turning at a shout from her husband, she gestured that she was coming, and patted Renard’s shoulder. ‘Her name’s Olwen. If you change your mind, the payment is half to her and half to me.’

Renard sat down at the trestle to drink. Another girl was dancing now, slender and dark as a dockside cat. His view was more than half-blocked but he had no real inclination. Olwen. A Welsh name for a Scandinavian-fair girl who handled a dagger like a man and danced like a sinning angel in a brothel and drinking house frequented by the knights and soldiers of Prince Raymond’s guard. An enigma to be treated with the utmost wariness, if not abstained from completely.

He finished his drink and made to leave, but his cup was pushed back at him and refilled with rich ksara wine. Surprised he stared beyond the lip of the pitcher and a gold-bangled wrist into the dark sapphire eyes of the dancing girl. Their colour was emphasised by the gown she had changed into – damask silk cut in the Frankish style and as deep as midnight.

‘Stay,’ she commanded, giving him the predatory look of a cat at a mousehole.

Renard’s skin prickled. ‘Is this free, or do I have to pay half a mark?’ he challenged, but did as she said.

Her gown rustled, releasing the waft of an exotic, spicy perfume as she sat down next to him. ‘Half a mark? Is that what she told you?’ She jerked her chin at Madam FitzUrse who was watching them with a smug smile.

‘I said I was not interested.’

‘You lied.’ Her voice was a compound of smoke and cream, and held more than a hint of scornful amusement. She extended a taloned forefinger and drew her nail gently over the back of his hand. ‘Men always lie.’ She gave him a slow, wild smile.

Her shoulder rested against his. The neck of her gown was decorously fastened but accentuated rather than concealed her figure. The warmth of her perfume rose from between her breasts. Renard realized that his body, independent of his mind, was gradually being wound up taut like the rope on a mangonel. He could feel the long pressure of her thigh against his and her forefinger in gentle dalliance on his wrist. He shifted away from her. ‘Where did you learn to fight with a knife?’ he asked abruptly.

She picked up his cup and took a long, slow swallow of the wine. ‘I was born with one in my hand.’

‘And your name is Olwen?’

‘Sometimes.’ Lowering the cup, she looked at him. ‘And yours?’

He stretched his legs beneath the bench. ‘That depends on the woman,’ he said with a smile. It was like a sword fight, he thought; each of them trying to strike beneath the other’s guard. ‘Cullwch perhaps?’

A pink tint stained her face. ‘You know the tales?’

‘My grandfather used to recite them to me. He was part Welsh, and I grew up on the Welsh borders surrounded by bards and story tellers.’

She pushed the drink back into his possession. Her colour remained high. ‘My father was a Welshman,’ she said in a gentler tone than she had used thus far. ‘He came over with Duke Robert, took up with my mother after the siege of Antioch, and stayed. He died when I was eleven.’ Abruptly she tossed back her hair and narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re clever aren’t you?’

‘If I was clever,’ Renard grimaced, ‘I would not be about to place half a mark on this table.’

Extract from Lady of the English.

2010-11-10T15:14:00.001-08:00

CHAPTER 1

Speyer, Germany, Summer 1125

Holding her dead husband’s imperial crown, Matilda felt the cold pressure of gemstones and hard gold against her fingertips and palms. The light from the window arch embossed the metal’s soft patina with sharper glints of radiance. Heinrich had worn this crown on feast days and official occasions. She had an equivalent one of gold and sapphires, fashioned for her by the greatest goldsmiths in the empire, and in the course of their eleven year marriage had learned to bear its weight with grace and dignity.

She was the wife and consort 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 and for a moment grief squeezed her heart so tightly that she caught her breath. Heinrich would never wear this diadem again, nor smile at her with that small curl of amused gravity. They would never sit together in the bedchamber discussing state matters in companionship, nor share the same golden cup at banquets. 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 red stone cathedral here and another man ruled over what had been theirs.

Matilda the Good. Matilda the Empress. Matilda the childless widow. The words whispered through her mind like footfalls in a crypt. If she stayed, she would have to add Matilda the nun to her list of titles, and she had no intention of retiring to the cloister. She was twenty three, young, vigorous and strong and a new life awaited in Normandy and England, the latter her birthplace, but now barely remembered.

Turning, she gave the crown to her chamberlain so that he could dismantle and pack it safely in its leather travelling case.

‘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.

‘Thank you, Drogo.’ As the servants to remove the last of her baggage, she paced slowly around the chamber, studying the pale walls stripped of their bright hangings, the bare benches around the hearth, the dying fire. Soon there would be nothing left to say she had ever dwelt here.

‘It is difficult to bid farewell, Domina,’ Drogo said with sympathy.

Still looking around, as if her gaze was caught in a web of invisible threads, Matilda paused at the door. She remembered being eight years old, standing in the great hall at Liege, trembling with exhaustion at the end of her long journey from England. She could still recall the fear she had felt and all the pressure of being sent out of the nest to a foreign land and a betrothal with a grown man. The match had been arranged to suit her father’s political purpose and she had known she must do her duty and not court his displeasure by failing him, because he was a great king and she was a princess of high and royal blood. It could have been a disaster, but instead, it had been the making of her and the moulding of a frightened, studious little girl into a regal woman and able consort for the Emperor of Germany.

‘I have been happy here.’ She touched the carved doorpost in a gesture that clung and bade farewell at the same time.

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

Matilda dropped 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 first 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 because 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 awaits 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’ may not have seen my father in many years, but I know him well.’ Taking a resolute breath, she left the room, carrying herself as if she were bearing the weight and grace of her crown.

Her entourage stood in a semi-circle of servants, retainers and officials. Most of her baggage had gone ahead by cart three days earlier and 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 gelding laden with the items from the portable chapel. Matilda followed his glance, her gaze resting but not lingering upon a certain leather casket in one of the panniers before she turned to her mare. The salmon-red saddle was a sumptuous affair, padded and brocaded almost like her hearth chair, with a support for her spine and a rest for her feet. While not the swiftest way to travel, it was dignified and magnificent. 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 precisely on the platform. Seated sideways, looking forward, and looking back. It was appropriate. She raised her slender right hand to Drogo, who acknowledged the signal with a salute, and trotted to the head of the troop. The banners unfurled, gold and red and black, the heralds cantered out and the cavalcade began to unwind along the road like 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 stifled a gasp as Henry withdrew from her body. He was sixty years old, but still hale and vigorous. The force of his thrusts had made her sore inside, and his stolid weight was crushing her into the bed. Mercifully, he gathered himself and 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 well endowed, and the act of procreation was often awkward and uncomfortable between them but 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. Henry had a score of bastards by various mistresses, so he was potent with other women, but only had one living legitimate child, his daughter Matilda from his first marriage. His son from that union had died shortly before Henry took Adeliza to wife. He 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. Her part in those policies was to bear him a new male heir, but thus far she had failed in her duty.

Henry kissed her shoulder and squeezed her breast 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. Stretching, he made a sound like a contented lion. Their union, she thought, even if it brought forth no other fruit, had released his tension. His sexual appetite was prodigious and in between bedding her, he regularly sported with other women.

He poured himself wine from the flagon set on a painted coffer under the window, and on his return picked up his cloak and swept it around his shoulders. Silver and blue squirrel furs gleamed in the candle light. Adeliza sat up and folded her hands around her knees. The soreness between her thighs had diminished to a dull throb. He offered her a drink from the cup and she took a dainty sip. ‘Matilda will be arriving soon,’ he said. ‘Brian FitzCount is due to meet her tomorrow on the road.’

Adeliza could tell from his expression that his thoughts had turned inwards to the weaving of his political web. ‘All is ready for her,’ she replied. ‘The servants are keeping a good fire going in her chamber to make it warm and chase out the damp. I have instructed them to burn incense and put out bowls of rose petals to sweeten the air. They hung new tapestries on the walls this afternoon and the furniture is all assembled. I….’

Henry held up his hand to silence her. ‘I am sure her chamber will be perfect.’

Adeliza flushed and looked down.

‘I think both of you will benefit from being a similar age.’ Henry said and smiled at her. ‘You will be good company for each other.’

‘It will be strange to call her daughter when she is two years older than I am.’

‘I am sure you will both quickly grow accustomed,’ he 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. She has been a long time absent, and I need to consider her future. Some matters are rightly for the counsel chamber and for father and daughter, but some things are better discussed between women.’ He stroked the side of her face with a powerful, stubby hand. ‘You have a skill with people; they open themselves to you.’

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

‘I would know her mind. I have seen her once in sixteen years, and then but for a few days. Her letters give me news, but they are couched in the language of scribes and I would know her true character.’ A hard glint entered his eyes. ‘I would know if she is strong enough.’

‘Strong enough for what?’

‘For what I have in mind for her.’ He turned away to paced the chamber, picking up a scroll and setting it down, fiddling with a jewelled staff, turning it end over end. Watching him, Adeliza thought that 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. Their own union had so far proved unfruitful. He was grooming his nephew Stephen as a possible successor, but now 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’s brows drew together. Her husband often gambled, but he was never rash and he was accustomed to imposing his iron will on everyone.

‘She is young and healthy,’ he said. ‘And she has borne a child, even if it did not survive the birthing. She will make another marriage and bear more sons 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 on that score.’

‘But when the time comes, you 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, felt the slipperiness of his seed, and prayed this time for success.

TO DEFY A KING

2008-06-17T04:56:00.001-07:00

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

2008-06-17T04:22:00.000-07:00

“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

2007-07-22T14:00:00.001-07:00

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

Also now published by Sourcebooks in the United States.

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.

2007-07-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

THE SCARLET LION

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

ALSO NOW AVAILABLE IN THE USA FROM SOURCEBOOKS

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

2007-07-17T16:10:00.001-07:00

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
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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.

Extract from SHIELDS OF PRIDE

2007-07-17T15:27:00.001-07:00

Extract from SHIELDS OF PRIDE

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CHAPTER 1

Summer 1173

Swearing through his teeth, Joscelin de Gael drew rein at the head of his mercenary troop and scowled at the covered baggage wain that was slewed across the Clerkenwell road, blocking the way. He had been in the saddle since dawn. It was late afternoon now, had been raining all day, and the comfort of his father’s London house was still five miles away on the other side of the obstruction.

An assortment of knights and men-at-arms surrounded the wain like witnesses clustering around a fresh corpse. A man was crouched, examining a damaged wheel. His cloak was trimmed with sable, his boots were of red leather and the horse his squire held was clean-limbed and glossy. A handful of women huddled together, anonymous in mantles and hoods and watched the men from beneath the dubious shelter of an ash tree overhanging the road.

Dismounting, Joscelin tossed his reins to his own squire and approached the crippled wain. The soldiers stiffened, hands descending to sword hilts and fingers tightening upon spear shafts. The crouching man stood up and his gaze narrowed as he recognized Joscelin.

Joscelin eyed Giles de Monstsorrel with similar disfavour. The baron was distantly related to the Earl of Leicester, and thus considered himself a man of high standing. He viewed Joscelin, the bastard of a warrior who had carved his own nobility by the sword, as dung beneath his boots. They had encountered each other occasionally on the French tourney circuits, but no amity had sprung from these meetings, Montsorrel not being the kind to forgive being bowled from the saddle on the end of a blunted jousting lance.

Forced by circumstance to be civil, Montsorrel gave Joscelin an icy nod which Joscelin returned in the same spirit before fixing his attention on the broken wheel. Not just broken, he could see now, but with a hopelessly shattered rim. ‘You haven’t a hope in hell of cobbling a repair here,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to hire another cart from the nearest village. Clerkenwell isn’t far.’ He walked slowly around the stricken wain, examining it from all angles before halting in front of the three sturdy cobs still harnessed in line between the shafts. ‘How much weight do you carry?’

‘None of your business!’ Montsorrel snapped.

‘Oh, but it is,’ Joscelin said. ‘I cannot bring my own wain past while yours is obstructing the road. If it’s not too heavy, I’d be more than willing to help you drag it to one side.’

Montsorrel glared. ‘You think I’m going to stand aside for hired scum like you?’

Joscelin thumbed the side of his jaw. Suddenly he was very aware of the pressure of his sword hilt against his hip. ‘Hired scum?’ he repeated softly.

One of the women murmured to her companions and, detaching herself from their group, stepped forward to place herself between the two men. She faced Joscelin, forcing him to divert his attention from Montsorrel. She had delicate features and unfathomable grey-blue eyes that held his for a moment before she turned to indicate the broken wain.

‘Messire, by the time we have found a wheelwright or hired another cart, the city gates will have closed for the night.’ She hesitated. ‘Forgive me, but I notice your own wain is larger than ours and but lightly laden. I am sure if you lent it to us of a kindness, my husband would compensate you for your inconvenience.’

Joscelin stared at her in surprise. He was accustomed to being propositioned by women, but in different social circumstances and for different reasons it had to be said, and never in front of their husbands. She looked down, a flush brightening her cheekbones. The rain continued to fall in a steady, cloth-soaking drizzle.

‘Linnet!’ Montsorrel’s anger diverted from Joscelin to his wife. ‘Do you dare to interfere?’

She flinched, but her voice was steady as she turned to him. ‘I was thinking of your son, my lord. He must not catch a chill.’

Montsorrel cast an irritated glare in the direction of the other women. Joscelin looked, too. One of the bundled figures under the tree was a small child. A little hand was held in the grasp of a nursemaid and Joscelin received the impression of wide, frightened eyes and a snub nose set in a wan, small face. Amid anger at finding himself trapped because he could not for shame refuse the woman, he felt a thread of pity for the infant.

Montsorrel said stiffly to Joscelin, ‘Very well, you’re a mercenary. I’ll pay you the rate to deliver the goods to my house.’

Joscelin bit back the urge to retort that he was not so much of a mercenary that he would allow the likes of Giles de Montsorrel to buy his obedience. ‘I’ll not serve you,’ he said derisively, ‘but your lady did speak of compensation. Perhaps we can reach an agreement.’

Montsorrel clenched his fists and looked as if he might burst.

‘No?’ Shrugging, Joscelin started to turn away.

‘Christ’s Wounds, just get on with it!’ Montsorrel snarled.

Joscelin gave a sarcastic flourish and sauntered away to instruct his men to strip and reload his own sound wain.

Linnet de Montsorrel rejoined the women. Her stomach was queasy with fear. Everything had its price, and she knew she would have to pay hers later when she and Giles were alone.

‘I’m cold, Mama,’ her son whimpered, and abandoned his nurse to cling to Linnet’s damp skirts.

She stooped to chafe his hands, noting with concern that his eyes were heavy and his complexion pale with exhaustion. ‘It won’t be long now, sweetheart,’ she comforted. She folded him beneath the protection of her cloak like a mother hen spreading her wing over a chick.

‘Madam, I know that man.’ Ella, her personal maid, jutted her chin toward the mercenary whom Linnet had just shamed into helping them. ‘It’s Joscelin de Gael, son of William Ironheart.’

‘Oh?’ Linnet knew of William Ironheart by reputation. They said he was so hard, he pissed nails, that he was stubborn, embittered, and dangerous to cross. Linnet studied de Gael. ‘How do you come to be acquainted with such a one?’ she asked in a neutral tone.

Ella blushed. ‘I only know him by sight, madam. He was at my sister’s wedding in the spring as a friend of the groom. They were both garrison soldiers at Nottingham castle.’

Linnet assessed de Gael thoughtfully. She judged him to be in his late twenties. ‘What is he doing in the mercenary trade if he’s Ironheart’s son?’

‘He’s only Lord William’s bastard. His mother was a common camp follower so rumour says.’ Ella folded her arms, hugging her shawl against her body. ‘Apparently when de Gael’s mother died in childbed, Lord William went mad with grief and tried to kill himself, but his sword shattered and he was only wounded. After that, men started calling him Ironheart because his breast was stronger than the steel. I’d say Brokenheart was more appropriate.’ Ella’s gaze returned to their reluctant rescuer, who was now standing back from the wain, one hand on his sword hilt, the other pushing his rain-soaked hair off his forehead.

Linnet, all romantic notions literally knocked out of her head by six years of marriage to Giles, said nothing, her feeling one of irritation rather than pity. She knew what it was like to be usurped by another woman in your own hall, and how much that other woman’s status also depended on arrogant masculine whim.

Two panting men-at-arms struggled out of the broken wain carrying a large, ironbound chest between them.

‘Make haste!’ Giles snapped, and Linnet saw him scowl at de Gael, who was eyeing the chest with open speculation.

‘I see now the kind of weight you carry,’ de Gael remarked. ‘Small wonder that your wheel broke.’ In his own good time withdrew his scrutiny and approached the women.

Linnet retreated behind downcast lids, knowing she would be the one to suffer if de Gael chose to take his impertinence further. Giles might think twice about assaulting a man of the mercenary’s undoubted ability, but no such restraint would prevent him from beating her. She heard the men puffing and swearing as their strongbox was manoeuvred into de Gael’s wain. Giles’s voice was querulous with impatience and bad temper, and inwardly she quailed.

De Gael crouched on his heels and gently peeled aside a wet fold of her cloak. ‘And who have we here?’ he asked.

‘My son, Robert.’ She flashed a rapid glance at her husband. He was still occupied in ranting at his guards, but in a moment he would turn round.

De Gael did not miss her look. ‘You have a high courage, my lady,’ he murmured. ‘I won’t make it harder for you than it already is.’ Plucking the child from beneath her cloak, he swept him up in his arms. ‘Come my young soldier, there’s a dry corner prepared especially for you in my cart.’

Linnet stretched her arms toward her son with an involuntary cry. Robert peered at his mother over de Gael’s shoulder, his eyes wide with shock, but the move had been so sudden that he had no time to cry, and by the time he did let out a wail of protest, he was being placed on a dry blanket in the good wain with a lambskin rug tucked up to his chin.

Linnet, following hard on de Gael’s heels, found herself taken by the elbow and helped up beside her son. Robert stopped crying and began to knead the lamb’s wool like a nursing kitten. Linnet stroked his brow and looked at de Gael. ‘You have my gratitude,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

The mercenary shrugged ‘No sense in keeping him out in that downpour when he can be warm in here. I expect your husband’s compensation to reflect my care of his goods.’ He started to withdraw. ‘There is room for your women, too, my lady. I’ll tell them, shall I?’

Rain pattered on the roof of the wain. She looked out through a canvas arch on a tableau of hazy green and brown. The smell of her wet garments clogged her nostrils. De Gael walked across to her maids. He moved with a wolf’s ungainly elegance, and she did not think that the similarity stopped there. And yet he had been considerate beyond the bounds of most men of her acquaintance.

On the death of her father at nine years old, she had become a ward of the Earl of Leicester, who had sold her marriage to his kinsman, Giles de Montsorrel, heir to the estates and castle of Rushcliffe. She had been wed at thirteen, as soon as her monthly bleeds were an established fact.

Linnet eyed her husband and felt queasy at the sight of his fists clenched around his belt. She had tried to be a good wife to him but he was difficult to please and she dwelt in a constant state of trepidation, wondering from which angle of his nature the next small cruelty would come. He always found a scapegoat to blame; nothing was ever his fault, and in the household that scapegoat was usually her.

Behind her, at the other end of the wain, their soldiers were depositing the clothing coffers with much bumping and cursing. Robert’s eyelids drooped and closed. Linnet leaned her head against her son’s, her arm around him, and wearily shut her own eyes.