The Lion's Legacy (Conqueror Trilogy Book 3)

by Juliet Dymoke

  ‘If I have to go to Rome, to the Pope himself,’ he proclaimed fiercely, ‘I will have my father moved to holy ground. ’

  Slowly the bearers lowered the coffin into the deep grave prepared for it. The Earl’s chaplain did all he was permitted to do in reciting prayers, but there was no final absolution, no sprinkling with holy water, no blessing from the Church. It was a moment of undefined fear, of grim foreboding, of terror of the unknown hell that awaited men who died beneath the Church’s ban. It lay on them all, even the unusual warmth of the day seeming like a dark pall covering them for there was no sun, the sky overcast and threatening rain.

  When Brien had handed over Martel three days ago it was with relief, first that he was here again and in Maud’s company, and secondly that he was freed from the vengeance he had taken, freed from the oppression of Martel’s presence, freed above all from his own inexplicable act of cruelty that had caused Mata and Ingelric and the rest of his household to look at him in astonishment. He would be remembered for ‘Brien’s Close’, he thought bitterly, when other and better things were forgotten. Martel complained to Earl Robert about his treatment, but though the Earl raised one eyebrow his words fell on deaf ears and he rode away promising vengeance.

  There seemed to be a sense of doom hanging over the Angevin cause now. Brien could see the tears running silently down Robert’s grave face for the latter not only mourned Miles but was grieving for his youngest son, Roger the chaplain, who lay dying of the sweating sickness in the abbey infirmary.

  There was death all round them. Robert FitzHildebrand the traitor was dead too, his entrails, so it was said, devoured by an evil worm; and John of Ramsay, Brien’s old commander, was also gone, killed by Geoffrey of Mandeville. The latter had quarrelled with King Stephen, fled to East Anglia and launched himself into violent rebellion. He had sacked Ramsay killing Brien’s tenants, driving out the monks, and at Ely had turned the great island abbey into a fortress where he was at this moment defending himself against the King’s forces. His second defection did the Empress’s cause no good for he was fighting for no one but himself and his unspeakable atrocities only drove more men to ally themselves with the King.

  Brien thought of John of Ramsay this morning, praying for his soul as he prayed for Miles and for the dying chaplain – and as the last shovelful of earth was pressed upon the grave he set a hand on Maud’s rein to lead her horse away.

  Now he allowed himself to look at her. She seemed to him more beautiful than ever, sitting straight-backed on her black mare, a fur mantle about her, the hood framing her face. When they had met three days ago for the first time since their parting there had been others present, and only the pressure of her fingers assured him that here was not only the Empress but Aaliz who had loved him so ardently. They played their parts well, so that men saw only her sisterly affection towards him, his devotion to this daughter of his benefactor, but he found it all an almost unbearable strain. The sight of her brought back all the memories of those nights of loving in the dark winter-time at Wallingford, and his desire, which had been thrust down during the long lonely months, surged up again so that his longing to hold her, to lie with her, was becoming harder to control.

  He walked beside her now and as he glanced up she looked down at him, her face hidden by her hood from prying eyes and for one moment allowed her love to show itself.

  ‘Aaliz,’ he said under his breath, ‘you have not been from my mind.’

  ‘Nor you from mine. ’

  The rain began to fall, a warm drizzle, as he led her up the slope to the castle.

  In the solar the lady Mabel awaited them with hot spiced wine. She was a small woman, plump and good-natured, resembling her father Robert FitzHamon rather than her mother who had been a member of the notorious Bellême family and she was very much in awe of her sister-in-law the Empress, handing her a cup with great deference. Maud took it and sat down in the only chair by the fire, her eyes on the flames.

  ‘We could ill afford to lose Miles at this moment,’ she said sombrely.

  ‘There is no moment that is propitious for losing those we love.’ Her brother came to sit on the stool opposite her, holding his hands to the blazing logs. The lady Mabel brought him wine and her eyes were full of tears; Roger the chaplain was her youngest child, always her favourite, delicate and needing attention and she found it hard to bear that only monks were tending him now.

  Reginald said bracingly, ‘Roger FitzMiles will sit well in his father’s earldom, he has proved himself a fighting man.’

  ‘He will need more than a strong right arm to fill Miles’s place in our ranks, ’William of Gloucester pronounced gravely.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ his brother Philip said sharply. ‘We may have lost Earl Miles but you do not lack men to serve you, Lady.’

  William came to lay a hand on his arm, and began, ‘This is not the time to – ’but Philip shook it away.

  ‘You are too womanish, William. Wine of Christ, do we wage a war or not?’

  ‘Not at this moment.’ The Earl turned on him. ‘Have you forgotten your brother Roger is dying?’

  ‘I am sorry for Roger,’ Philip’s tone was short, his dark brows still drawn close together, ‘but he can fight nothing – not even his sickness.’

  A sudden sob from his mother caused the Earl to say angrily, ‘You have an evil tongue. The Empress will give you leave to withdraw.’

  Maud said, ‘Go, fool,’ and Philip with one short laugh left the room.

  A silence fell and a sudden wind stirred the tapestries on the wall. Brien crossed to the window to look out at the rain-drenched countryside and hooked the shutter more firmly. ‘Are you cold, Lady?’ She shook her head and he came back to stand by her chair. The burial, shorn of all the comfort, the hope the Church could have given depressed them all, frayed tempers, filled them with foreboding though none of them put it into words.

  And then as if in answer to a desire so strong that Brien felt it must sweep the room clear of people, the Earl rose and said, ‘Come, wife, we will go to the Abbey to see how our son fares – with your permission, my sister.’

  She nodded and watched them go and then sent Reginald to the stables to say she would not ride out again today. Her son, standing by her chair, she abruptly dismissed to his lessons:

  ‘I would rather talk to my lord Brien,’ he said. ‘I will learn more from him about being a knight than I will from my tutors.’

  She turned and rapped his knuckles with her riding whip which lay on the table beside her. ‘Do as you are bidden. William, see that he goes to Master Matthew.’ The tone of her voice forbade further argument and sucking his fingers Henry went with his cousin William. Slowly the room emptied. No one could enter here except by the curtained archway through which her son had just left and Brien waited for a moment, hardly able to believe that they were indeed alone. Then in silence he held out his hand. She took it and rose to her feet. They stood looking at each other and then his arms went round her, his mouth on to hers.

  It was a little while before, lost in the joy of holding her once more, he realised she was standing stiffly, her body rigid and unresponsive. In cold fear he lifted his head to see her face.

  ‘My nephew is dying,’ she said in a constrained voice.

  He did not release her but neither did he attempt to kiss her again. ‘And we have just buried Miles who was our friend. I know – Jesu, I know! But when shall we have another such moment? In this place when can we ever be alone?’

  She gave a sad, crooked smile. ‘I once said I could arrange it, but it is not easy.’ And then with one of the swift changes of mood that was typical of her she flung up her hands behind his head, drawing his mouth down to hers, clinging to him with an ardour that, after her brief coldness, sent the long pent-up desire tearing from him. At last he raised his head and in a shaken voice said, ‘Aaliz – Aaliz, I do not know how to bear it.’

  She was twisting her fingers together at the back of his neck. �
�Every night I lie alone and think of Wallingford and our loving. Will we ever know such joy again?’

  A shudder ran through his tensed body. 'God knows – and only He knows if it is blasphemy to say that. It is outside the bounds of the Church’s law.’

  ‘Churchmen!’ she said scornfully. ‘Sometimes I think they presume too much when they say they know God’s mind. What they call sin is all the happiness I have ever had.’

  ‘And for me,’ he lifted her chin to look into her face, ‘all the beauty I have ever seen. My heart, my love, I grieve for Miles, and for Roger, may God have mercy on him, but I would be more than a man if I could turn my back on the first moment we have had alone since last Christmas.’ He held her closer. ‘I want you, Aaliz – I must have you. We cannot offend more than we have done already.’

  ‘Not here,’ she said, ‘not now. I will find away.’

  ‘There is no way, no way but here and now, taking any moment that comes to us. Aaliz – ’ He was blind to everything but his need, the need to release the repression of twelve weary months, and he used his strength to hold her, fastening his mouth on hers, his hands seeking to awaken her desire until she yielded to him, using arts that once he would not have thought he could employ.

  She was melting in his arms, swept away by the force of his loving, but even as her knees gave way, as he drew her down to the cushioned bench, her strength of will reasserted itself. She pressed her hands against his chest and drew back her head. ‘No,’ she said fiercely, ‘not here. I will not have it so.’

  He let her go so suddenly that she caught at the chair for support, the anguish of this moment of her refusal so great that he turned his head from side to side, hardly knowing what he was doing. And at once she put up her hands to frame his face.

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ she whispered, ‘never think I do not love you – I will never love any man as I love you – but remember what you said to me that last night at Wallingford. I am the Empress. I cannot be found lying with my lover like a kitchen maid covered in some dark corner.’

  He felt all the joy, the desire drain from him until he was empty, cold. ‘You are right,’ he said, ‘forgive me. I should not have behaved like a scullion. ’

  ‘Now you are angry.’ She sat down in her chair and regarded him sadly and at once he fell on his knees beside her and took her hands in his.

  ‘I am not angry – except with myself. I have only made it harder for you.’

  ‘Sometime, somewhere, it will be possible,’ she promised. ‘My dear one, do you not know how I long to be Aaliz once more – only trust me.’

  He put her hands to his lips. ‘I trust you always, only do not let it be too long.’

  In a sorrow that equalled his, she said, ‘My poor Brien, what have I done to you?’

  ‘You have made me a man,’ he said. ‘Before you came I was nothing.’

  ‘I think,’ she answered shrewdly, ‘you were more and not less.’

  ‘Never, never!’

  ‘Oh,’ she sighed, ‘I don’t deceive myself. All my life I have taken, seized what I wanted, commanded – now for the first time I want to give and I have only inflicted hurt.’

  ‘The joy was worth all this present pain,’ and if he had ever thought he suffered alone the expression in her eyes gave the lie to that supposition. ‘Aaliz – Aaliz, how can we bear it?’

  ‘I do not know,’ she said in a low strained voice. ‘Love came to us too late.’

  ‘Too late,’ he repeated and the words struck some chord in his head, though he could not think what it was for he was only aware of a grief that seemed to be drawing the blood from his body. He lifted her hands and laid his forehead on them. Neither moved nor spoke until the distant bell of the abbey, breaking sharply on the silence at an unaccustomed time, began to toll heavily, proclaiming a death.

  With the passing of the Earl’s youngest son the sense of gloom lay even more profoundly over the castle. The Empress had little to say to anyone and Brien, walking restlessly along the galleries or out hunting in the forest found his own nerves growing frayed. It occurred to him that his burden was in a sense easier to bear at Wallingford where he was away from the sight of her beauty. Yet he could not bring himself to leave her. If he could hold her once more, however long he had to wait, it would be worth every tormented moment, and the Earl, absorbed in his own grief, said nothing about the Wallingford men returning home.

  The matter was solved at last in a manner which brought his stay at Gloucester to a violent end. He was in the solar with Earl Robert one evening, talking of their future strategy, of what might be done now that Sherbourne and with it the whole of the west, was in their hands when the door opened with the briefest knock, and without waiting to be summoned Philip entered the room. He looked coolly at Brien and then at his father. ‘I thought you were alone.’

  ‘You see that I am not.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

  The Earl sighed. ‘If it is about the business of Faringdon I have told you I will think on it.’

  Philip stood with his legs straddled, his arms folded, staring at them as if he thought them greybeards. ‘Why will you not let the young men lead? Give me my castle and I will show you what I can do.’

  ‘For yourself or for our cause?’ his father queried sharply. ‘By God, Philip, you try my patience.’

  Philip sneered. ‘If I had Faringdon you would soon see a change – I would not waste time. I would build such a castle as my uncle Robert of Bellême used to do and not only hold it but press hard on Stephen at Oxford until that city is ours again.’

  ‘The men of Wallingford contain that area,’ his father answered shortly.

  ‘And sit on their backsides doing nothing. If I was there – ’

  ‘Be silent,’ the Earl interrupted angrily. ‘You insult the lord Brien who has sacrificed more for your aunt than any man living.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Philip retorted. ‘My aunt holds the whip over us all.’

  Brien half rose in his seat, his fingers itching to slap the arrogant ill-tempered face, but he controlled them and sat down again. It was Robert who strode across the room and gave his son a stinging buffet, saying in an icy voice, ‘I have dismissed you. Go.’

  Philip sprang back, a hand to his reddened cheek, his eyes dark with fury, but he did not dare try the Earl further. Without a word he turned and flung out of the room.

  The Earl sat down again, his face pale. ‘Why did I have to lose Roger and keep this one?’ and then he added, ‘God forgive me.’

  In the narrow arched gallery outside Philip stood for a moment breathing heavily. Then he strode along it so absorbed, so blind with rage that he did not see Roger Foliot until the two had collided with each other.

  ‘You!’ Philip snarled. ‘Stand aside and let your betters pass.’

  ‘Betters?’ Roger laughed. He was in a good humour for he had escaped the castle for an hour and found himself a cheerful bouncing wench in one of the town’s taverns. He had drunk deep and made love and was not disposed now to quarrel even with Philip – but neither could he resist a little mockery. ‘Tell me where are my betters and I will indeed stand aside. I can see only a rough fellow who earned his knighthood with me.’

  An ugly colour ran into Philip’s sallow cheeks. ‘Christ’s Cross, you presume too much – you and your high and mighty lord. I wish to God you would all go back to Wallingford and stay there, not that you are any more use there than here.’

  ‘Haro!’ Roger whistled as if he were at the hunt. He saw suddenly that Philip was trembling with fury, that some other occurrence had put him in so evil a mood that he must needs seek a quarrel anywhere to vent his wrath. ‘What have we done to offend you?’

  ‘You!’ Philip spat the word at him. ‘You are nothing but your lord – he thinks he stands next to my father, that the Empress looks on no one else – ’

  Astonished Roger said, ‘You are crazed. Brien holds no more than his rightful place. What has got into your head?’ />
  ‘He twists my father and my aunt to do his will – and he wills not to have me at Faringdon. Only he must serve my aunt in the east and he does nothing, besotted fool. ’

  ‘You are mad,’ Roger said with conviction. ‘But keep your tongue from my master or I will ram it down your throat. And what do you mean besotted? No man has kept his head in this war better than my lord.’

  Philip laughed. ‘Aye, he has kept his head.’ He laid emphasis on the last word. ‘He would sell his soul to the devil for her – perhaps he has.’

  At that Roger’s brief tolerance snapped. When Philip’s malice was turned on Brien it was too much, and he struck out angrily at the thin sneering face. Philip dodged backwards and whipped the dagger from his belt while with the other hand he seized Roger’s wrist. There was a swift struggle. Roger twisted the blade to lay open a wide cut in his assailant’s arm, and Philip was forced to drop his weapon. They staggered against the wall in the confined space of the gallery, Philip’s left hand sticky with the blood that was streaming down his forearm. Roger had his hands at Philip’s throat while the latter, choking, tore at them. With a sudden upward thrust of his arms he forced Roger’s fingers away and then brought up his knee and struck his assailant hard in the groin.