The Falcon and the Flower

by Virginia Henley

  “Why, that would be most kind of you, milord. Did you know him very well?”

  “Come, let us walk while I tell you of him,” he said, formally extending his arm so that she could place her hand upon it. “Henry considered me one of his bright young men. He was like that—he took a keen interest in those who served him. He trained me himself in his ways and in his conception of law administration. Henry was a generous man to those who served him well. He gave me Brittany to govern; he rewarded me well for my loyalty. I am the last survivor of the aristocracy of the conquest. Bloodlines are very important to me, Princess Jasmine.”

  “Oh, please call me Jasmine.”

  “If you will call me Ranulf?” he asked.

  “Ah, milord, I could not,” she protested.

  “You will in time,” he said gently, happy that she was in great awe of him.

  “The rewards from your grandfather have made me the wealthiest noble in the realm,” he said with pride, “and yet I am a plain, blunt man. I do not parade my wealth upon my back like some of the flashy peacocks at court. I have no claim to beauty, and yet I appreciate beautiful things more than any man I know.”

  Jasmine wondered why he was telling her these things. “Everyone speaks so well of my grandfather, and yet because I am a woman I find it incomprehensible that he would imprison his wife.”

  “Ah, it was her vast power as queen that he had to contain. She bred him four sons and then used those sons like young wolves to pull down an old lion, so that hers was the power and the glory! Eleanor was very strong and willful and grew ever more so with age. That is the reason he turned to your grandmother, the beauteous and gentle Rosamund Clifford. Now, there was a love match.”

  Jasmine deliberately insulted him. “Ah, I had no idea you were so old, milord earl, you must be senior to my father.” She looked at him with pretended innocence and saw that his eyes were remote and malignant, and she shivered as if a goose had walked over her grave.

  “I am not yet forty years old, mistress,” he said bluntly. “Your grandfather insisted I marry into his family. He always intended I should have a wife with royal blood,” he added pointedly.

  Jasmine could not quite bring herself to insult him about the royal bride who had divorced him as soon as she was able.

  Ranulf de Blundeville’s eyes dropped to her breasts and he said thickly, “I once spoke to your father William about needing a young wife.”

  Jasmine knew they were on dangerous ground indeed, so she again deliberately misinterpreted his words. “Perhaps one day we shall be related through marriage then, for I have two sisters who are not yet betrothed. Excuse me, sir, I have duties that cry out for attention.”

  “We will be related through marriage all right,” he said under his breath, relishing the thought of having the exquisite, delicate body at the disposal of his own body’s demands.

  Chapter 22

  As the days stretched out, Jasmine found that Isabella was throwing her and Ranulf de Blundeville together on the flimsiest of excuses. Jasmine began to miss Estelle’s support and wise words of advice and longed for the older woman’s return. Of course this also meant King John’s return, but it would almost be worth it to have the security of her grandmother’s presence.

  King John’s foul reputation preceded him, once Mathilda FitzWalter’s still body was returned. The gossip and rumors spread like wildfire and were on every tongue until a pall hung over all Nottingham. Whispered plots of revenge were overheard and hushed up, and the ranks began to thin out. It became dangerous to venture anywhere near the forest lest a terrible accident befall those connected to the royal court. Wives urged their husbands to put a distance between them and the king and return to their own safer castles.

  The Lady of Hay, Mathilda, was outraged and insisted her husband William de Braose leave Nottingham immediately. They would return to their own estates, which bordered those of her good friend Avisa, and wouldn’t she have a thing or two to pour into her ears. John was a cold-blooded child murderer. Hadn’t he disposed of his own nephew Arthur because he posed a threat to the throne? Something must be done, she told everyone she encountered.

  It did not take King John twenty-four hours in Nottingham to learn which way the wind blew. He ordered the queen pack up the royal household to remove to Gloucester and gave her one day to accomplish the impossible. He insisted that he wished to be in Gloucester by September. If she was not ready, he informed her, she would have to follow, but it would be at her own peril because he needed his soldiers at his back and was willing to spare her a mere token escort.

  John sat down with Ranulf for a serious tête-à-tête on their favorite subject, money. De Blundeville offered him a hundred thousand crowns for Jasmine. John promptly accepted and invited the earl, his best friend, to accompany the royal party to Gloucester where Isabella would be able to indulge herself planning a secret wedding.

  Estelle sat in a bath of Epsom salts, bewailing the fact that she had no nipbone plant to add to the water. A quiet knock on the chamber door sent Jasmine quickly to stop any from entering while Estelle was naked. She opened the door a crack to see a young page. “The court is ordered to Gloucester. You have one day to ready yourselves,” he piped.

  “God’s love.” Estelle moaned. “I’m tempted to poison all the horses. My arse will never be the same again.”

  “Why don’t you ride in a litter, Grandmother?” Jasmine asked with concern.

  “What? And admit I’m an old woman? ’T is a good thing my backbone is stronger than my backside.”

  Jasmine couldn’t hide a smile. Pride kept Estelle in the saddle. Pride was what she herself had inherited from Estelle. Pride was a luxury that came with a high price, but oh, how she scorned those without it. “I’ve warmed this towel at the fire. Let me dry you and you can slip right into bed,” soothed Jasmine.

  “Thank you, darling, but it can’t be done. I have to go down to the tents and give Gervase a sealed message from de Burgh.”

  “Didn’t he return with the king?” Jasmine asked, surprised.

  “No. He took the Scottish princesses to his uncle, Hubert de Burgh, for safekeeping.”

  Jasmine didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed. “Well, that’s good. The wretched man is forever threatening me with marriage.”

  Estelle began to dress. “There are men about far more wretched than de Burgh.”

  “I know,” admitted Jasmine. “I hope Ranulf de Blundeville goes back to Chester.”

  “Don’t count on it,” advised Estelle. “He and John are close as copulating dogs.”

  “Grandmother!” Jasmine exclaimed, shocked at her language. “Don’t be obscene.”

  “I abhor obscenity!” said the old woman. “Bar this door while I’m gone.”

  As it turned out, Queen Isabella was nowhere near ready to depart at the end of the twenty-four-hour ultimatum John had issued. Thinking only of himself, as he was wont to do, he left for Gloucester, taking the lion’s share of the knights and men-at-arms. The Earl of Chester was stuck escorting the queen and her ladies. This, however, gave him ample time to discuss the plan for the secret wedding. Isabella was extremely excited by her own cleverness for she had thought of the perfect cover to blind everyone to her plotting.

  It was the upcoming wedding of Falkes de Bréauté to Joan, the widow of the Earl of Devon. Joan had provided the thirty thousand crowns King John demanded for her hand in marriage, and the wedding was to take place as soon as de Bréauté reached Gloucester after he had done the king’s dirty work of dispossessing the bishops of their Canterbury holdings. So all the talk was of “the wedding.”

  Much to Jasmine’s annoyance, Chester seemed to enjoy her company. For the most part she remained silent while Ranulf impressed upon her his exalted ancestry, his importance to the realm, the number of cities and towns he ruled, the jewel of these being Chester, an ancient, walled Roman city.

  When the weather turned cold and nasty for traveling, which was un
usual for autumn, he described the sun-warmed coast of Brittany around the Gulf of St. Malo, an area he had governed for her grandfather. She knew the stark and graceless earl was wooing her. She tried being cold and distant, but he did not seem to notice. Next she told him pointedly, “My lord earl, I do not think it is wise for us to be seen so much together. I am promised in marriage.”

  He was amused. “No man is more aware than I that you are promised in marriage,” he said enigmatically.

  She relaxed a little, offering a silent prayer for Falcon de Burgh. He served as a powerful barrier between her and men’s unwanted attentions. But Ranulf de Blundeville seemed impervious to the implied wrath of her betrothed.

  To Jasmine the journey seemed endless as mile after weary mile they walked their horses at a snail’s pace toward Gloucester. She was tired, irritable, and a small knot of apprehension was growing inside of her because of Chester’s insidious presence. She was picking up vibrations from the man that frightened her. He was almost like a predator circling his prey in ever smaller circles, and she had the feeling that she might be trapped if she didn’t proceed with caution. At last the spire of Gloucester Cathedral could be seen in the distance. It had taken them over three weary weeks to make the journey.

  Falcon de Burgh and a dozen of his best fighting men were playing nursemaid to Alexander of Scotland’s two little sisters and their personal servants. The hard-bitten Norman soldiers had set out with tight-lipped anger and disgust at their assignment. Everything that could possibly go wrong had done so. The little girls cried because they were leaving their dogs and pets behind, then their horses became lame and de Burgh had to purchase new mounts for them at Newcastle.

  The children and their servants spoke with such a thick Scots’ burr that communication was almost impossible, resulting in one misunderstanding after another. The weather had a will of its own and chose to be perverse until de Burgh’s men were at their wit’s end. Finally the whole debacle degenerated into farce. Falcon was relieved that his men’s high spirits broke out in hilarity. The horseplay and heels-in-the-air laughing fits were infinitely preferable to a volcanic erruption of frayed tempers.

  They jousted and pushed at each other with their rough hands when they mounted, played devastatingly cruel jokes on one another, and seemed to exult in the inclement weather. The more bitter the wind, the more they threw off their hats and opened wide the necks of their leather jacks, laughing boisterously. It was as if the wind lifted their wild spirits. And indeed to men who lived by the sword, this was like a holiday, sauntering from castle to castle along the east coast. The little girls were tucked in their beds by suppertime, leaving the long evenings free for the men to laugh and drink and gamble and tell tall tales, each outdoing the one told before.

  The next night, spent at Folkingham Castle, turned out to be the most miserable experience of the whole wretched journey. It was pouring cats and dogs, the heavens chucking down everything they had. The place was in such disrepair they spent the night in the leaky stables with their mounts, vying with one another for piles of moldy, wet hay.

  Tempers frayed somewhat around midnight with curses and accusations of “witless bastard” and “weak-livered whoreson.” A voice said, “Horse shit’s supposed to be lucky, stop whining.” Another voice answered, “Lucky for me, unlucky for you!” This was followed by the sickening thud of a fist in a face. When the gray wet dawn arrived at least half of de Burgh’s men sported black eyes and sheepish countenances.

  After an hour in the saddle, both children were sneezing and coughing and their servants were almost useless. De Burgh realized that winter had arrived early and no more warm autumn days would be forthcoming. He made a quick decision. Instead of going directly south from Spalding, he turned east, skirting the wash, and rode into Norfolk.

  The de Burghs had vast holdings in this part of England. Hubert’s Castle Rising was a snug, well-appointed place where the children could be put to bed until they were well and Falcon and his men could lie before roaring fires, eating and drinking their heads off if they so chose.

  The hour was late when they arrived at Castle Rising, and Falcon was surprised to see that the stables were almost full. He glanced up in the darkness and saw that the de Burgh flag was flying, indicating that Hubert was in residence. They clattered over the drawbridge and rode under the spiked portcullis to the inner bailey where he left his men to deal with their charges. He walked through the passageway with guardrooms on either side filled with men at their evening meal.

  Hubert’s face split into a broad grin. “Falcon, lad, well met. Is Salisbury here?”

  “No. I’ve only a dozen of my men with me, but you’re the one man in all England I’m glad to meet up with tonight.”

  “Why’s that?” Hubert asked suspiciously.

  “I’m escorting the Scots’ princesses to you for safekeeping and I’m glad to be shut of them,” he said, grinning. “We don’t make very good nursemaids.”

  “Shit, that’s all we need,” Hugh exclaimed, looking decidedly uncomfortable. He indicated the man sitting on his right. “Falcon, this is the Bishop of Norwich.”

  “Yes,” Falcon said, nodding, “I’ve known the bishop since I was a lad in these parts.”

  “Aye, well, that’s why I rode up here to get his advice about how to proceed with the news I received from the latest ship.” Hubert hesitated, then plunged in. “Pope Innocent has excommunicated John. The shit will really fly when he finds out.”

  Falcon removed his damp cloak and ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s why you hoped Salisbury was with me.”

  “Aye.” Hubert nodded. “In Greece they used to kill the messenger who delivered bad news … but I figured even John wouldn’t kill his own brother.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Falcon said grimly. He turned to the bishop. “What will this mean?”

  The Bishop of Norwich puffed out his lips. “It will all blow over as soon as the king accepts Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury. Then the Pope will reinstate him. In the meantime, John won’t be able to attend church or receive the sacrament. While he is under the ban of excommunication, any religious service he attends will be invalid.”

  Falcon said carefully, “And if the king refuses to obey the Pope? Where do you stand in this?”

  “Of course he will obey the Pope. We all must obey the Pope, for his is the higher authority. I shall certainly obey him.”

  “You may, my lord bishop; the king may not. What then?”

  “It would be anathema. The Pope would lay England under an interdict. All religious services would be ordered to be suspended. No burial services, no wills probated. We would cease to be a Christian land. With a papal ban the Pope could curse King John within and without, sleeping or waking, going and sitting, standing and riding, lying aboveground and underwater, speaking and drinking, in field, in town …”

  Falcon beckoned Hubert with a jerk of his head. What he had to impart could not be said before the bishop. Hubert rose from the table and said, “I’d better take a look at the little princesses. Special quarters will need to be plenished.”

  When they were alone Falcon said, “John has sent Falkes de Bréauté to confiscate all the lands of Canterbury. Salisbury is on his way to dispatch William Marshal to Rome to read the Pope a tirade. John is a bloody fool! He has no support from his northern barons, but thinks he can rule without it. Now he makes war against the church. If he thinks he can rule without the support of the church, he is wrong, dead wrong.”

  “Christ!” said Hubert, shaking his head. “No wonder he was afraid to stay in the north and returned to Gloucester. Salisbury’s gone to Chepstow, ye say? My men will have to escort the princesses to Corfe. Tomorrow I’m on my way to Chepstow. Perhaps Salisbury and myself with William Marshal’s help can bring John to his senses. Will you ride with me?”

  “Only as far as Gloucester. I’m getting married, remember? Then I’m going to my own castle in Wales at Mountain Ash to s
it out the winter. John is unstable. I can smell civil war on the air. What the hell would I do if he ordered me to ride against Nottingham or Lincoln? Do you think I’d sacrifice my men in a civil war?” he said with disgust.

  “Your men worship you,” his uncle pointed out.

  “They wouldn’t for long if I ordered them to fight their brothers.”

  “Those who stick by him will get preferment, rewards,” advised Hugh.

  “Oh, aye, next time I see you, you’ll likely be justiciar.” Falcon flashed his wolf’s grin, then shook his head. “The price is too high for me,” he said honestly.

  Chapter 23

  Gloucester Castle was the most well-appointed and comfortable stronghold Jasmine had ever seen. No wonder the king had kept it in his possessive Norman fingers when he had divorced Avisa. The household chamberlaine ushered her to her own spacious room, high in the castle with a breathtaking view of the Black Mountains of Wales. Behind these rose some of the highest peaks in the world, the Cambrian Mountains.

  She hung Feather’s cage by the window and gave Quill a little pan of water and an old slipper. It was only after she was unpacked and settled in that she learned her chamber was just a short distance from the apartment occupied by the Earl of Chester. She decided that on the morrow she would have a word with the chamberlaine and demand a room close to her grandmother.

  Estelle needed to replenish her supply of medicinal herbs and reasoned that she would be able to find most of them close by along the banks of the great River Severn. Also Joan of Devon wanted to learn how to make scented candles. Rushlights, torches, and quarion candles, which were widely in use, smoked and stank. Estelle had spoken of using beeswax mixed with the oils of flowers, and the bride-to-be was quite taken with the idea.

  Jasmine was trying to decide what she would wear to the wedding, which was only three days away. It must be something demure, modest, perhaps even prim to discourage men’s eyes from feasting upon her, especially those of Chester and the king. The trouble was that Estelle had always seen that she was dressed like a fairy princess. She thought perhaps she would wear the shell-pink velvet because it was plain and cut with a high square neckline. Of course the underdress that went with it was delicate as a spider’s web, embroidered with silver threads. She sighed, realizing no matter which she chose, she would stand out. The contrast between her dresses and the queen’s was very marked, since Jasmine’s were all in pastel shades to complement her flaxen tresses, while the queen wore jewel-bright tones that showed off her vivid darkness and the ladies of the court all copied the queen’s fashions.