by Prue Batten
The street was crammed with stone buildings and paved with cobbles that wove and bent away around corners – but not deftly enough to hide two men leaning in toward each other. One was tall, the other unremarkable.
One was Guy of Gisborne.
I pulled back against the wall because there was something about the way they spoke that implied secrets. Gisborne shook his head and the other man grabbed his arm and spoke with unguarded intensity. The midday light caught on a heavy silvered chain hanging around the man’s neck, a badge of sorts.
I could see that he had finally snagged Gisborne’s attention as he continued to press whatever was his case. Gisborne showed no reaction, merely listened intently, but when the other man stopped talking Guy looked up and saw me.
He frowned and spoke to his companion and then waved his arm and I had no option but to walk forward.
‘Lady Ysabel.’ He bowed. ‘On your own again?’
‘Good day.’ Some instinct made me want to show the other man there was nothing but a servant-mistress relationship between myself and Guy of Gisborne. ‘The Sisters saw me to the top of the street. They helped me make market purchases.’
My eyes swung meaningfully to the shorter man who eyed me with interest.
‘Lady Ysabel,’ Gisborne said. ‘May I present Sir Robert Halsham.’
‘My lady.’ The silver chain flashed as the man bent over my fingers and the hairs on my neck prickled. He reeked of something untoward.
‘I have heard of your father, of course,’ he said.
He held onto my hand moments longer than was decent and I withdrew it to grasp the clothes bundle tighter to my chest and looked beyond him.
‘We have business, Gisborne. You may have forgotten.’
I swept past them into the inn and heard Halsham mutter. ‘Arrogant, but a beauty.’
Gisborne’s footsteps sounded behind me. Through the door as I glanced back, I could see Halsham walking along the street whistling and the sussurating sound sent a shiver sliding down my spine.
‘So polite, Ysabel.’
‘I didn’t like him.’
Guy’s eyebrows rose. ‘A quick assessment, surely.’
‘He has an air.’
‘He said the same of you.’
‘What he thinks of me matters little. What were you doing with him?’
He sat and beckoned to the serving wench who gave him that eye that all maids did. Honestly, it was like an affliction!
‘I had business with him,’ he said.
‘He looks remarkably dishonest. Not at all the kind with whom I imagine my father would do business, I am sure.’
‘It wasn’t your father’s business. It was mine.’
‘Huh, I’ll bet he has dishonest dealings.’
‘Ysabel,’ he hissed, his palm slapping the table in front of me, causing heads to turn. ‘He has just returned from Jerusalem via Antioch and Malta. In fact he had news of my father. Now are you happy?’
The maid put a tankard of ale in front of me with a wooden platter with a trencher of bread soaked in some fragrant onion and meat juices. She smirked at my chastened expression.
Vile wench!
‘Your father. He is well?’
‘He is dead.’
‘Guy...’
I reached to touch his hand and he flinched.
‘It is no matter.’
The topic of his father was thrown out like pigswill. ‘Leave it alone’ was the message. Any vestige of care disappeared from his face, wiped as cleanly as if he had washed it with a cloth. His secrets, all of them, were buried so deep inside his soul that I wondered what it would take, or even who, to reveal such.
But his father’s death was surely only a fraction of what Halsham had imparted. Patently I could not ask anymore out of respect for the grievous news so I wondered if I could inveigle more detail on the ill-made news bearer.
‘Halsham is a knight?’
‘Indeed, as the introduction indicated.’ Sarcasm fell to the table amongst the breadcrumbs.
‘He has fought in the Holy Land?’
‘I thought you didn’t like him and yet you show inordinate interest in the man. To answer you, he has fought in many places. He is a Free Lancer.’
‘Really.’ My attention was piqued as I chewed on the bread. ‘A mercenary.’
‘Yes.’
In an instant I recalled what I thought about chessboards and Guy’s future.
‘Guy, you don’t perchance think to become a Free Lancer yourself?’
He coughed on his food and his eyes opened just a fraction wider and if I knew anything, I would say he dissembled.
‘I am your father’s steward, Lady Ysabel. That is all you need concern yourself with at this point.’
‘Hmm.’ I tapped the table with my finger, my eyes meeting his deep blue ones. ‘Remember this, Sir Gisborne. Secrets are dangerous.’
We wandered through the town and watched people go about their business. The sun shone and we checked at the livery that our horses were fit and shod ready for an early departure on the morrow and I fed Khazia a crust of my bread. We left Halsham far behind in our perambulations and we talked again of ballads and such which seemed to be Guy’s great love. We stopped at a tavern that had trestles in the sun and as I sat back under the pergola over which grapevine threaded, I asked Guy to tell me one of the stories he knew.
‘One of the Welsh or Irish ones. You seem to know so many.’
He seemed so relaxed as he sat back, no evidence of the kind of grief that lurked in my heart waiting to jump forth. If I were a cynic, I would have said the news of his father’s death released something in him but knew it was pointless to ask. He stretched his long legs out, hands clasped over his middle.
‘I shall tell you the one of Finn. Some call him Fionn. It’s a good tale.’
I leaned forward and watched him closely as he began to talk.
‘I shall tell you how he met his love. Women like that.’ His eyes glinted and he grinned, the angular planes of his face shadowed under the dappled light of the pergola.
‘Fionn met his glorious and most beautiful wife, Sadhbh, when he was out hunting in the wild forests. The eldritch Fear Doirich had turned her into a deer as punishment after she had turned down his proposal of marriage and she was doomed to wander the forests alone forever, as she never thought to find the love of her life, for who would want a deer to love?’
He looked at me and I smiled back, urging him to continue.
‘As a graceful doe, she was grazing one day when Fionn's hounds, Bran and Sceolan, tracked her down. Almost ready to pounce on her and drag her down by the neck, they froze. The two huge hounds had once been human themselves and recognised the magic that surrounded her. Fionn paused with his spear raised and she looked at him with her dark eyes and something great passed between them and he spared her. He set forth back to his lands and was charmed to see that she followed in his footsteps. The minute she placed a hoof on Fionn’s estates, she transformed back into a woman and she cried out. Fionn could barely keep his eyes from her, so struck was he by her beauty. He and she fell deeply in love and they married and she was soon with child.’
I guessed he had shortened the tale significantly for the sun was sliding and dusk began to tiptoe close behind and being conscious of his duty, I was sure he would want to escort me back to the priory before dark.
‘But the Fear Doirich came to Fionn’s home,’ he continued, ‘and filled with fury that she had not only transformed back to a woman by finding her way to Fionn’s lands but also that she had fallen in love and married the king, the evil wight turned her back into a deer. He chased her away into the forests and she quite literally vanished. Fionn, aghast, left his estates and spent seven years searching for her. But to no avail. He was brokenhearted and the only thing that saved his mind was that at the end of the seven years, he found a child, not quite seven, naked, on the enchanted hill called Ben Bulbin. The child had Sadhbh’s eyes and he was s
ure he had found his son whom he named Oisin. Father and son hugged and cried but of the child’s mother there was not a sign and Fionn knew then that his great love was lost to him forever. And so he invested his attention in the boy.’
He looked down at his hands at this point and I dare say he thought of his own father and what he had lacked.
‘This child grew to become one of the noblest of the Fianna and one of the greatest Irish storytellers.’
He lifted his goblet and drank a mouthful of the ale he had ordered for us both.
‘That was wonderful. Where did you learn such marvelous stories?’
‘Ah, that would be telling,’ he grinned as he stood and stretched. ‘Some secrets are meant to be kept!’
I stood as well, knocking his arm not so playfully.
‘But let you not forget what I said, Gisborne. Secrets can be dangerous.’
Chapter Four
I prattled away the next day, my voice a counterpoint to the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves and the creaking of the saddlery. At one point I chatted so much about Moncrieff and my memories of the place, it was many leagues before I realized Gisborne had said nothing – just quietly allowed my words to drown him. But as my monologue on my memories of Moncrieff drew to a close, he spoke up.
‘Moncrieff may not be what you remember, Ysabel.’
I straightened my gown where it had rucked at the top of the stirrup leathers, the creases biting into the flesh of my thighs.
‘How so?’
He eased his horse to a halt and I pulled up beside him. ‘Eight years is a very long time to have been absent. I have no doubt that when you left for Cazenay, Moncrieff was the absolute epitome of grandeur.’
‘It was, as I told you.’
My brow tightened. As though I were about to hear something awkward. His face had such a dark look about it … not anger, not that. No – solemn was a more apt description, almost as if he had news of a death to impart. I rubbed at my temple.
‘Three years ago your mother became ill for the first time. What you don’t know is that she remained bed-ridden, never regaining her health.’
‘How do you know this?’
The grief that I had pushed away on my own account began to creep forth again. No one had told me my mother had stayed frail. She had only ever written to me with her usual sweetness. My father certainly hadn’t seen fit to enlighten me. If I had known I would have traveled back home with undue haste to nurse her. The kind of thing expected from a loving daughter; the kind of thing that might have eased the band of guilt girthed around my chest.
‘Come,’ said Guy. ‘I think we should eat, drink and rest the horses. Rouen is not too far but we shall make better time if we are refreshed. I shall tell you while we sit.’
I went about settling Khazia and sitting on the grass by the road but it was a habitual thing and I barely noticed. Not when my mind filled with images of my glorious mother as a faded, ill woman. The previous night’s damp still lay upon the verge, the odd dewdrop sparkling as it caught the daylight. Moisture crept through the folds of my gown, chilling me more than I wished.
‘She barely left the Lady Chamber,’ Guy continued. ‘I know this from Cecilia of Upton…’
‘Cecilia! Cecilia is my mother’s friend and one of my own godmothers. She has written to me whilst I have been away and said nothing…’
‘Your own mother’s very good and trusted friend who was prevailed upon by the Lady Alaïs to reveal nothing of any weakness. It was your mother’s way of showing her deep love that she didn’t want to worry you. Cecilia is still at Moncrieff. Out of loyalty to your mother’s memory she stays to keep your father company as best she can and to wait for you. She told me how your mother was the life of the place, how she was loved by all, how she threw herself into everything before she became ill. But mostly she told me how she was your father’s backbone.’
Ah, such truths I knew, but as Guy spoke something cold and unpleasant began to crawl down my spine.
‘As Lady Alaïs became more frail, your father lost direction. His bailiff struggled on but your father weakened in tandem with your mother. When I was employed as the Baron’s steward three months before your mother died, Moncrieff had slid badly. Fields had been left un-tilled, those that had been harrowed were unseeded. Sheep flocks were untended. No wool was gathered for sale. Food crops were reduced. Cecilia had kept as much as she could from your ailing mother in order to spare her but she was a prescient woman, Lady Alaïs, and it was she who urged your father to hire a steward. She had heard of me through Cecilia and must have thought that along with the bailiff, we could keep your father on the straight and narrow.’
‘I can hardly believe you.’ I jumped up and began to pace, parts of my gown still hitched into my girdle. ‘Father would never allow Moncrieff to fall into disrepair. He lived for the glory of the estate, was proud beyond belief.’
But in truth I knew that my father was a weak, disingenuous fool whom everyone loved. As in many marriages, someone like my father was improved by living with the love of his life, that person giving strength where there could conceivably be none.
‘He grieves. That is all. When I am come, it will make all the difference.’
There was an imploring note to my voice when perhaps there should have been an assertive tone and I suspect Gisborne understood, because he took my hands in his own and I forced myself to look into his face.
‘Oh Mary Mother,’ I uttered. ‘There is more?’
‘I have worked with the bailiff to put things to rights.’ He held my hands firmly. ‘The land is as it should be. The forests are managed, the hunting stock controlled. The domestic stock is farmed as expected. The castle itself has been thoroughly re-organised and interior and exterior inventories taken.’
‘But…’ My voice was hollow and I refused the food Gisborne handed me.
‘Three years of disorganization has meant three years of drawing on your father’s coffers.’
‘He is a rich man, one of the Greater Barons. I…’
‘Was a rich man.’ Gisborne’s voice was so definite that any hope I might have had vanished completely.
‘Was?’ I whispered.
‘Ysabel, there is little left. The staff of Moncrieff has had to be whittled down considerably. Moncrieff just pays its dues and that is all.’
‘But the villagers, how are the villagers surviving?’ A knot of panic began to twist. I was not going home to my memories. So much for the contentment I imagined in the reign of Richard.
‘We, that is the bailiff and myself, make sure that no one starves.’
‘Is there enough to pay you?’ A new note entered my voice, a bitterness resonating with the life that Guy had lived in his time.
‘Enough. You need not fret, those that are there are paid. But Ysabel, the Baron needs someone strong to guide him. Your homecoming is vital.’
I suspected he was not telling me crucial information on my father. Something was missing but I found myself unwilling to unveil any more truths. I was not ready. Instead I asked something else, something that flashed into my mind in an instant and articulated itself before I could hold it back.
‘Did my father ask you to fetch me back?’
As I asked, I dared him with the intensity of my gaze. He looked at me long but then scrutinized our joined hands. I felt tears gathering, one rolling down my cheek as he began to answer.
‘No. No, it was Cecilia’s idea. I agreed with it. Simply, if you do not return then Moncrieff is lost.’
My face must have crumpled, I can’t recall, because he took me in his arms and held me while I cried. As the storm passed I stayed still, feeling the warmth and comfort.
And something else.
His lips grazed my temple.
I moved my face and my cheek touched his. An infinitesimal move that sent shocks coursing through my body.
I turned my head slightly so that his mouth brushed the corner of my own and then I tipped my lips to
his. We barely met. Air passed between us. But then by mutual consent, more pressure was brought to bear and we kissed long. I kept my eyes closed, pushing Moncrieff to the outer edges of recall by what I did and what I was feeling.
His mouth slid down my neck whilst his hands lifted my hair and I knew, as sure as I knew that my father and Moncrieff would be changed forever, that changes were being wrought in me at the same time. But in the far off reaches of rationality, I wondered just how deep those changes would run.
I hated our time in Rouen.
Khazia tripped in a rabbit hole a league before the town, a ligament in her foreleg damaged and her leg swollen and hot. I was forced to lead her and thus we arrived, both of us, footsore and tired. Gisborne offered me his rouncey but I wouldn’t ride. The mare had carried me unstintingly for eight years, it was the least I could do to walk beside her whilst she suffered so. Gisborne joined me leading his horse, a petty cavalcade, and we barely spoke although each time his arm rubbed against mine butterflies danced in my belly.
But try as I might to regain the feeling of light and life I had held fleetingly in my heart back down the road, the issue of Moncrieff and my father subsumed everything. For me it felt as if the sun had gone from the world and that a grey pall hung over me. I felt it would not change until I could see Moncrieff for myself.
We took the horses to a livery and I spent time grooming Khazia and making sure the straw she stood on was thick and cushioned her legs from further problems.
‘No foot, no ‘oss,’ I whispered as I gave her the last of the apple-core saved from a windfall Gisborne had scrumped on the road.
‘She’s a beautiful mare, Ysabel.’ Guy stood behind me as I tightened the linen holding a poultice to her leg.
‘She is.’ I rubbed her between the ears. ‘Papa arranged for her to be waiting for me at Cazenay. She’s of Barbary blood, fast and fleet and she’s only twelve. She would be a good broodmare. Maybe back at Moncrieff. She needs time to mend, Gisborne. I need to poultice her daily.’
