by Prue Batten
‘Ysabel, we have no time, you know this.’
‘But…’
‘We need to rest now. And I shall make sure that Khazia is tended, but you need to realize that this is truly a disaster…’
‘I think you make too much of it. Disaster for Khazia surely, but us?’
Guy took me by the arm and led me to an inn. I thought it was a step forward that he didn’t just deposit me with more good Sisters for a day and a night of prayers and the confessional. But the fact we had rooms side by side at the hostelry meant little as I went over and over the situation that Guy had revealed earlier. My home was under threat. My father’s inestimable wealth had diminished. Guy implied it was because my father grieved for my lady mother but his words lacked conviction and I wondered at the real truth.
We ate a simple meal from one of the booths lining the street, a small game pie and some ale.
‘Khazia,’ Guy said, ‘is a problem.’ He flicked pastry flakes from his surcoat and rubbed his hands together to remove the last crumbs.
‘I disagree…’
‘I know how long it can take a horse to repair from a torn ligament, Ysabel. To push Khazia would be a cruelty.’
I swore to which Guy raised an eyebrow, and I threw the remains of the food to a passing cur where it disappeared in two gulps. ‘Khazia needs a day or two, that is all, no longer. She’s strong.’
Guy scoffed. ‘You’ve seen the road. She’d be lame in half a league. Be rational.’
‘What do you suggest?’ I snapped.
‘There is a way round this.’
‘Tell then, because I’m damned if I can see it. We must wait days, that’s all there is to it.’
‘No.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘We can get new horses.’
‘What!’ The enormity of what he said almost knocked me backward. ‘And leave Khazia in Rouen. You jest.’
‘No, I don’t. We must leave on the morrow so we have no choice. I can see no other way around this.’
I walked away from him but knew he followed close as we headed back to the inn.
‘You ask me to do something that hurts, Gisborne. On top of all I have lost and appear to be losing, you ask me to get rid of a horse I have had for eight years, a friend.
‘A friend who was not so important that you thought little of what you might do to her by galloping her downhill at Cazenay.’
‘You bastard,’ I swung round and lifted a hand that he caught in mid-arc, but I shook him off. ‘How dare you presume to know what I feel for Khazia! That day at Cazenay my mind had slipped sideways with grief for my mother. But I know what I think now and I know that you ask too much.’
‘Ysabel,’ he lowered his voice and at any other time I might have said he was being solicitous. He opened the door of the hostelry and I passed through. As we climbed the stairs he continued. ‘You need to get to Moncrieff and soonest. We have no idea what we might find at the coast with the weather. Above all else that is an imponderable. We can sell Khazia and buy a good horse to get you to the boats quickly. Sell that one in Calais and buy a ride in England. No, no,’ he pressed my arm. ‘Don’t say it. I know what she means to you but it is the only answer.’
I knew he was right if urgency was what propelled us. But it seemed to me that if there had been extreme need for speed before, he had kept it quiet and I could only guess it was for my peace of mind. Since our new understanding he had opened a little about what I would find and now haste stretched my nerves as if I were on the rack. But I was convinced he knew more than he was telling.
‘Gisborne,’ we stood outside my chamber door. ‘What else do you know? You ask me to sell Khazia so that we may make haste. It seems there is something behind this, something of import. Have the grace to tell me.’
He leaned across me and I smelt the faint fragrance of leather that hung about him. His hand twitched the door latch and the room was revealed, lit with a brazier in the middle of the floor and a cresset on the wall. ‘May I?’
A lady did not invite a man into her chamber and I was no whore. If anyone saw us … I glanced quickly along the corridor but it was deserted and so I nodded my head and almost ran inside as he followed, shutting the door carefully. He moved to a coffer and I sat on a chair a safe distance away with my knees jammed together and my gown strained as tight over my knees as if it were a door barred to the world.
At any other time I would have marveled at his face. I loved the sharp planes, his straight nose, hair that sat on his collar. I tried to seek an answer from his expression but there was nothing and in fact he sat as if he leaned over the chessboard to plan a series of moves without his opponent sizing him up.
Perhaps I am an opponent.
Then again I wondered if I might be a pawn. It seemed to me a woman’s life could be legitimately described in such a way – she is offered up as a bride of advantage or perhaps she is offered to the Church. Leastways she is a commodity. In my case, I had been offered up to be sure, but thanks to my less than diligent father, the man who would rather write songs than plan succession, I had managed to keep the pawn on the board.
‘Ysabel, what I shall say you won’t like. You ask what I know. What I shall tell you is the truth and I ask that you don’t hold such truths against me but rather accept that they are inevitably facts you would have found out.’
‘You scare me,’ my stomach had tightened and I could feel my heartbeat become unnervingly irregular. ‘But I will not blame you…’
‘This is what I would say. When your mother died, your father sank himself into his cups. In the beginning he kept to himself. Ysabel, please do not cry for I have still more to tell.’
My eyes prickled and perhaps the candle flame caught the sparkle of an unshed tear, but I did not weep. I wished I could sob and wail because my chest was so tight I thought I might not get a breath inside. This is grief, I realised.
Grief. My silly, weak father.
‘But then some hunting friends began to call. They took your father out on long expeditions, returning him blind drunk, and then collecting him again the next day and so on. Not so bad you think? Perhaps not, until word began to spread from different demesnes, that games of chance were being played and with large stakes.’ He stopped and scrutinized my face.
‘Tell me, tell me and be done.’ I whispered.
‘Your father has staked Moncrieff, Ysabel, and they say that a Baron De Courcey might be the winner.’
‘No! No!’ I uttered as I jumped up.
‘Hush,’ he held my arms, making me look at him. ‘Hush. You need to get back to Moncrieff and talk with your father, with the bailiff and with the priest.’
‘Who is he, this Baron De Courcey?’ I shivered and Guy drew me toward the fire.
‘A thug. Moneyed, titled and a thug.’
I began to shake and I barely noticed as Gisborne rubbed his hands up and down my arms to engender warmth.
‘He shall not have Moncrieff.’ I spoke through chattering teeth. ‘Over my dead body if necessary, but he shall not have Moncrieff.’
I sat up high on the cot that night barely able to sleep, my arms around my knees, staring into the dark. The candles had long since melted to stubs and the brazier had burned to embers which cracked, sparked and occasionally flared - testament to the breeze that slid under the door from the hallway.
I could barely think of Father. Anger smouldered inside me like the remaining coals of the fire – it would take little to fan it and cause a conflagration.
‘My Mother,’ I whispered to the dark, a clear vision of her in my mind; honey gold hair bound in pleats and with a filet of twisted silver and gold around her head. She was as beautiful as Eleanor of Aquitaine and my father was lost to her the moment he met her, just as he was now lost without her.
‘What do you think of this fool man, Lady Mother? Without you he is a oarless ship, a lost sheep.’ My voice became louder and my fingers twisted on the covers. ‘I trusted him to keep me, to keep you. I trusted h
im to keep Moncrieff and now it seems I might be without home or name. He gave no thought to his own flesh and blood, his daughter. Help me, Mama.’
I prayed and thought how ironic it was that the one time Gisborne didn’t place me in a religious house for the night was the one night I really needed spiritual support.
‘Dear Lord, keep Moncrieff from the hands of the greedy. Let me find my home as I remember it when I return.’ My voice crept into the corners of the room and I crossed myself. I wished that I could see my mother sitting in the chair, that she would answer me. But the shadows were ambiguous and I was alone.
Khazia!
A phantom-like silver coat appeared in my mind, white mane blowing back like a bannerol in an Occitán wind. My equine friend and confidante of eight years. Many a time I had ridden out on my own and told her things I would tell no one else, lambasting the quality of proposed husbands, denying the concept of marriage.
Even on this journey I had chatted to her about Guy of Gisborne. I trusted her far more than I trusted Marais and at least Khazia would not gossip. She knew my soul had begun to stir in response to Guy’s tinkering, that I fancied myself as a little more than his employer’s daughter.
Paramour? The voice that whispered such things lay deep within me and I shuddered. But then why should I not allow him into my deepest heart? I had lost almost everything and had nought but a feckless, untrustworthy father to whom I must return and maybe a home that was no longer mine.
The tears slipped from the corners of my eyes. Gisborne and I had much in common. He had nothing and no one. Neither did I, for what was my father worth? Guy and I should be kindred spirits, united in our travails.
It appears you may have no dowry, Ysabel.
For a man who thinks that status is power, what good would you be?
‘Be silent!’ I hissed this last to the soul-deep voice. I did not want to know because since my feelings for Gisborne had begun to stir I had cherished this obscure idea, one I only shared with Khazia, that maybe I could give him status.
As the daughter of the moneyed Baron Joffrey of Moncrieff, I could give him wealth and a title. My mother and godmother thought well enough of him to encourage his employment. He was considered educated and steady. Why else would he be trusted at my father’s shoulder? Despite his apparent emotional state my father would surely see Gisborne as the capable son he never had. Perhaps marriage could be within my grasp after all.
Thus I had daydreamed to my horse and her ears twitched and I remembered now that she snorted loudly.
Derision. That’s what she thought.
What man with ambition would want to tie himself to a damsel with nothing? If my father had lost Moncrieff, I would be penniless. Landless. I would no longer be Lady Ysabel of Moncrieff but just plain Ysabel.
‘Oh God help me,’ I moaned as a likely future stared across the room at me.
I could not bear the thought of Khazia being sold. The horse was the last part of a past life to vanish and it poured acid on an already suppurating wound.
The bells of the Benedictine Abbaye Saint Ouen chimed the hour for Vigils and I shivered as I have ever held the belief that the midnight hour is the witching hour. ‘Mary Mother, protect me...’ I began and crossed myself again, wondering how I could expect God to right my wrongs. Briefly I thought that if Father had gamed Moncrieff away then I had a choice beyond the road. I could become a religieuse. Many noble women did for any number of reasons. They might be unmarried, unloved by their family, of ill-health. They may even have a calling.
Ah, but what they had and it appeared I did not, was a dowry for the Church. Besides, if I were to be honest, the thought of being incarcerated in a House of God was not at all my calling. I could never become a Bride of Christ. As this idea left the way it had entered, a soft tap could be heard on my door.
I jumped up and ran to it, my heart pounding. Inns were all well and good but at least one felt safe in the dorter of a House of God.
‘Ysabel,’ Guy’s voice whispered. ‘It is I…’
I flung the door open and dragged him in.
‘Are you mad? Everyone shall hear you and I will be seen to be a harlot!’
‘Then it is good that we leave in an hour.’ He bent and stirred the fire in the brazier and the room warmed in the firelight.
My eyebrows rose. ‘An hour? But it is dark.’
‘A military troupe leaves for the north and we can travel in their wake with a group of merchants. It will be safe. They go to meet Richard at Calais.’
‘But what about Khazia?’
‘There is a Comte de Lascalles with whom I have spoken and he was attracted by Khazia’s breeding. We agreed a price,’ he placed a bag of coin in my hands, ‘and he has also traded me a good campaign horse as part of the bargain.’
‘Khazia?’ I could have wept.
‘Will be taken to the Comte’s estates as soon as she is able.’
‘No! I must see her. I must say farewell.’ I threw the bag and it hit his chest. ‘How dare you do this without my approval!’
He glared at me, his eyes as cold as iron.
‘As I recall, we decided to leave forthwith for Moncrieff. Khazia, like Marais, was a liability.’
‘Goodness Guy,’ I snarled. ‘Shall I become a liability of which you must rid yourself as well?’
‘You are frequently a liability, Ysabel.’ His voice stroked the hairs on my neck in a frightening manner. ‘Here…’ He threw a bundle at my feet. ‘Whilst I do think you are winsome in your shift…’
I grabbed the blanket off the bed to wrap myself.
‘Too late, I am afraid.’ He swung his gaze over every inch of my now covered body and there was nothing I liked in that expression. ‘And a pretty view it was too. You will be riding a campaign horse and as we are with soldiers, my advice is to dress as a youth. I have leggings and an undershirt and surcoat in the parcel along with boots and a hood. Your dark cloak is unremarkable and as much a man’s. It will serve. For what it is worth, Ysabel, it may pay to be dressed thus until we reach Moncrieff and find out what awaits us.’
I hugged the blanket tight, humiliated, wishing I had never thought I could marry him.
‘Why? What does it matter if a noblewoman rides to the coast with an escort?’
‘I don’t know. My gut crawls a little, that is all, and it is better to be cautious. Dress and be downstairs in an hour. I shall have the horses.’
I watched him turn, his back straight, stride long. I would swear he had put me back to where he had me safely positioned before we had sent Marais home … all tenderness gone in the blink of an eye. Thoughts of my little mare must now be pushed aside and I had no option but to trust this man and hope he guarded me with genuine care.
I stared up at the campaign horse – a giant creature of the Apocalypse. Shadows jumped and flickered and thoughts of Moncrieff receded unhappily to the back of my mind whilst I contemplated the mountainous shape in front of me. I sighed as I thought of my little grey mare on whom I could spring bareback if I chose, and I would almost have given in to all my woes if the bristly lips of my mount hadn’t brushed over the top of my hand as it lay on the hitching rail. The animal was infinitely gentle and I lifted my eyes to his, what I could see of them in the dark, and would swear he sent me a message back telling me not to concern myself with things I could not change.
Indeed. How you right you are.
Gisborne was nowhere to be seen so I called to the ostler. ‘The mounting block, do you have one? Steps?’ I indicated the horse. ‘To get on?’
He looked me up and down with curiosity and then replied, ‘Yes … sir. This way, please.’
With a youth’s clothing and my hair diminished to a knot under the hood he assumed I was a male but my voice had obviously thrown him. Ah well, no doubt he thought I was partial to men rather than women, my tones more those of a certain type of youth. He indicated the steps and retreated, staring at me as left.
I retrieved the ho
rse and the animal plodded after me with giant hooves that echoed on the cobbles. He seemed resigned to his fate as my ride and I promised him as I gathered the reins, that I would be kind and not heap my sadnesses upon him. He stood patiently as I lifted my foot high up to the stirrup. I have always been supple and managed to spring upward and then clamber astride. What I had not reckoned with was the breadth of his back and I whimpered as I settled, my thighs burning as if they were stretched across the rack.
I clicked my tongue and we moved through the leaping shadows of the torchlit space to the front yard of the livery.
‘Ah, Ys … Yves. I was wondering where you were. You are ready?’ Gisborne’s dark shape could barely be seen.
‘I am, sir,’ I replied gruffly.
We walked passed a flame as I looked at him and his eyes glinted with merriment - something one rarely saw. ‘We must make haste. The company will not wait.’
We trotted side by side, my horse the height of his.
‘My voice is hardly masculine, Gisborne. How long must I maintain this vocal charade? It rasps my throat.’
‘You could not speak at all. Play the mute. What a turn-up that would be.’ He laughed and it vibrated through my body, settling its echo in delicious places. He spurred his horse into a canter, scattering itinerant drunkards and street laggards and I urged my mount to keep up.
The horse had a long stride despite his muscle-bound bulk. I could imagine him in battle, dancing away from a sword, kicking out with powerful hind-legs as soldiers advanced upon him with pikes… every movement choreographed in his early training. ‘What is the beast’s name?’
‘He is called Monty. Short for Montaigne.’
He laughed but I knew it was at my expense so I shut my mouth, concentrating on the road.
We approached the city gates as the company of armed men began to ride out, the sight leaving me breathless. Dawn was breaking and the dark shade of night began to weaken as streams of light emerged from the eastern horizon. Weaponry winked, basinets and chainmail flashed, the noise of jingling harness and many metal-shod hooves reverberating above the sound of a waking town. Fifty rows of men rode two by two, the first ten rows carrying pennants in Richard’s colours – three golden lions with blue claws and tongues on a red field. Behind the army rode a mounted division of twenty men with black surcoats and an indistinct shield crest but they and Richard’s cohorts leaped well ahead of the band of merchants and ourselves who brought up the rear, twelve of us in all.
