Gisborne: Book of Pawns

by Prue Batten

  The sail was quickly rigged and hoisted by the crew and for the first time for weeks I felt safe. Out in the middle of the sea between England and Normandy no one could touch me. Not my father nor De Courcey. Not even that carbuncle, Halsham. The sea purled under the bow of the nef, seabirds wheeled above us and the sun shone. Standing at the gunwhales, staring toward England’s shores, Gisborne’s hand slid over mine. He gave a small squeeze, subtle and almost invisible, but a support nevertheless.

  ‘Are you afraid?’ he asked.

  ‘A little,’ I admitted. ‘De Courcey looks like a man who is used to getting what he wants.

  In truth, whilst I did feel safe here on the Marolingian, I was afraid of home. Part of me wanted to flee west when we arrived in England … head to the wilds of Wales. But I thought of Cecilia and what she had done by sending Gisborne to find me, to warn me of my father’s parlous state, of Moncrieff’s decline. There was part of me that felt I at least owed her thanks and in person. Otherwise I would not be the person she remembered.

  As for my father?

  I was confused. If I was a daughter worthy of my mother, I had a duty to see him … but my feelings toward him were as ambivalent as his no doubt had been toward me. Why else would he have allowed Moncrieff to slide so badly that De Courcey was able to pick its bones? But more than anything, I wanted and needed to see my mother’s tomb, to say my own farewells. My mother had been my love and it was inconceivable that I should run from the respect she was owed.

  ‘I would that you continued to view him with caution,’ Gisborne said in response to my comment on De Courcey. ‘He certainly wouldn’t have your best interests at heart.’

  For a while, we just watched the shipboard activity, the men working as a well-oiled team, the sail now bellying, oars shipped, the cry of sea birds overhead. When I was a little girl, I used to revel in these journeys and the crews with whom we sailed were always kind and patient with me.

  They told me tales of merrows and mermaids and I would claim to be a mermaid myself, or a descendant of one. I was afraid of nothing. Not the sea when it turned black as pitch in the middle deeps of this channel, nor when it sharpened its teeth in a gale and gnawed at the sides of the vessels in which we sailed.

  The crews would tell me stories and my favourite was the one about the selkie, a lithe creature who shape-changed into a divine woman. A fisherman captured her when she sat on the shore one day as a woman and he hid her selkie’s skin which meant she could never return to the sea. She was at his mercy, living a grief-stricken life on land, spending hours standing on the shore, the waves washing away her tears, the wind tearing at her unfettered hair, pulling at her, saying ‘Come back, come back to where you belong.’

  As with most tales, the ending was bittersweet, the fisherman finally giving the skin back so she could return to her home. But he tried to follow her and inevitably drowned, which is why, said the sailors, that all shipboard men beware the beauties of the sea.

  Such were the tales that filled my voyages.

  And now I had different tales I wished to be told and touched Gisborne’s arm.

  ‘What is the connection between you and Halsham? No, please don’t turn away,’ I said as he readied himself to walk off. ‘You have some sort of history or you and he wouldn’t have been so … tolerant of each other shall we say, over these last few weeks. You let him go when he threatened me with rape. You could by rights have killed him! And when you nicked his throat with the knife he could have called for help and had you arrested but he didn’t. And when I said he’d betrayed us earlier, you didn’t disagree and yet…’

  ‘And yet?’

  He looked toward the horizon, away from my scrutiny.

  ‘And yet. Yes. Exactly.’

  My God, I felt he should have sworn an oath to call the snake out over it.

  ‘Halsham is…’

  ‘Yes?’

  Guy kept looking away as he gave me his answer.

  ‘Halsham is my cousin. His mother and mine were sisters.’

  Chapter Seven

  Cousins? He jests!

  Whatever he had been going to answer, this was not what I had expected to hear. I thought of Halsham the first time I had met him in Le Mans. A man whose manner had stood the hairs on my neck and who bowed over my hand with a look as licentious and assessing as it was cunning.

  'But he looks nothing like you,' I said.

  I recalled him standing next to Gisborne in that cobbled street. He had none of Guy's angularity, nor the breadth of shoulder. Why, the man was quite ordinary. Any semblance of strength was an illusion brought on by the cut of his surcoat with the insignia of the Free Lancers.

  And his colouring. Where were the fine skin tones that Gisborne might have inherited from his mother? The midnight hair, pale skin and eyes the colour of the sea? Halsham's colouring was as flesh-toned as a babe's. His thinning hair was a mottled brown that would no doubt fade to nothing if he could hold on to it.

  'No,' said Guy, continuing to stare across the decks. 'And yet he is the child of my mother's sister.'

  The sea hissed along the sides of the vessel as though it mocked this odd revelation. Above us a seabird cried out to underline the ocean's rejection of this claim of kinship. The sun had become lost behind a drifting grey cloud and I shivered slightly in the damp.

  'What were the two sisters like?'

  I felt that anything I could glean from Gisborne was to my benefit. Such things as hair lifting on my neck didn't happen without reason.

  'My mother was…' he stopped and shifted his position, ill at ease.

  I laid my hand on his sleeve but he barely reacted, choosing to continue with his gaze resting on a far-off memory on the horizon.

  'My mother was a beauty; dark, elegant – with piercing blue eyes that people used to say were fey. As though she could have come from the mists of some strange, enchanted isle. My Aunt Marie-Anne was shorter and equally as dark, but her hair curled wildly whilst my lady mother's was straight. My aunt's eyes were green.'

  I recalled Halsham's own; green with a taint of mud.

  'His father, then. It must be that his father was fair, surely.'

  'Uncle Roget’s family came from close by Amiens and he himself was quite fair. He was a mercenary, one of many Henry employed with scutage monies and when Henry landed in Dorset, Roget was amongst the army with a force that came to Henry's notice for its organisation and performance. After the Treaty of Wallingford, the king rewarded Roget with lands and a title near to Wales. Roget reinvented himself as an Englishman and the estate of Cwm Branar became Halsham. Whilst it was a large estate, I think he always envied my father the richness of Gisborne's lands.'

  Guy settled into the telling and I let him talk.

  'Roget and Marie-Anne caught a deadly pox when Robert was about twelve years old. Roget sickened rapidly and died within the week. Many others died on the estate as it swept through with plague strength. Not long after, Marie Anne died as well and Robert was left an orphan.'

  He leaned back against the gunwales and folded his arms across his chest, a defensive position that warned the world away.

  'My mother insisted that Robert live with us. The estate returned to the king and monies were paid from Treasury and held in trust for Robert for when he should need such funds. The king obviously held Roget in some esteem and rewarded the son accordingly.'

  And wilful arrogance was bred into the son from that moment.

  'Did you get on? It is almost as if he must have been your brother.' I tried to envisage twelve year old Robert and… 'How old were you, Guy?'

  'He is only a year or two older than myself and thus we had the same education and training. We were taught all the skills a young knight needs, but as to getting on - yes and no. We tolerated each other. Robert adored my mother, Ghislaine, and has never made a secret of the debt he owed her for taking him in, but in so many other ways he is grateful for nothing but what he takes for himself. Yes, he is my cousin,
and yes, we lived like brothers, but I have never liked him. Ever.'

  'And yet you engage with him and…'

  I was almost going to say defer to him but I stopped in time because such a statement would only have demeaned Gisborne and I could not do that. Not after the previous night.

  I gazed at him as he continued Robert Halsham's history as if I hadn't spoken. His eyes had no vestige of emotion, unreadable, but his jaw was quite rigid. Such a set spoke volumes and I could only presume every word unleashed a host of memories that he had thought to leave locked in some private room of his mind and that my persistence and perhaps our relative closeness had turned the key.

  'Robert left Gisborne when he turned sixteen. He asked my father for his funds and left to join the Free Lancers. He has fought wherever the mercenaries secured contracts and was knighted around the time of Beckett's death – for what I would prefer not to think. I know you wonder why I should have anything to do with a man whose principles you don't like, but whilst in Outremer, he informs me he kept an eye on my father, paying money to the Order who cared for him in his last days and arranging for a Christian burial. Whatever I might think of my father for deserting my mother and myself, I suppose I owe Halsham a debt for that at least. It was an honourable thing to do and surprising and I must show some sort of gratitude in return. In addition, he…' Gisborne stopped precipitately as though he didn't want me to know any more.

  But I was too quick, some would say precocious.

  'And in addition he has offered you position, hasn't he?'

  Gisborne finally looked at me. At last he seemed to acknowledge that he hadn't just been speaking to an empty space next to him on the deck.

  'My father left for the Holy Land only a month after Robert left Gisborne. Halsham said they fought side by side at one point which leads me to believe they developed some sort of relationship. Robert was aware the Templars had taken over the care of our estates and by various means he eventually heard that my mother and I had been turned off and that during our attempted journey to our French family, my mother had died. Be under no illusions, Ysabel, he doesn't offer me a position in his army out of love for me, or even pity. If he does it for any reason, it is payment of a debt to my mother.'

  It was strange. Halsham had his own agenda and I found it hard to imagine that he felt any kind of debt to Ghislaine of Gisborne but perhaps I was wrong. Maybe he did feel great affection for his aunt. Certainly I would never know and could only take Gisborne's word.

  'So you will join the Free Lancers after we return to England?'

  'He offers me wealth, Ysabel.'

  Status and power, Guy. It's what that bitter side of you craves.

  My thoughts were broken by a yell from behind us.

  'Ship aft!'

  We turned together. In the blurred distance, a sail marked the horizon. A crewman hopped on the rigging and scrambled aloft and eventually his shouts dropped down to the decks of our vessel.

  'A nef, full sail, sittin' high in the water! Canna see her colours!’

  Almost immediately I recalled De Courcey striding along the wharf, that red flash of anger implying that he would move Hell to accomplish his mission. He wanted all of Moncrieff, even the daughter.

  'It's De Courcey, I know it.' There was nothing of the lady about the way I grabbed Gisborne’s sleeve and dug my nails in. 'If the ship's in full sail and it’s sitting high in the water, it means she has no cargo and will catch us easily in this breeze.'

  'Now don't take on so, Mistress.' Davey's voice touched us from behind. 'Davey's been known to sail this ditch in a chase many a time in many weathers and none's yet caught him. Besides, there's a bit of a mist coming, look you.'

  The grey cloud of earlier had thickened and dropped low, hanging wisps of fog across the wave tops. The vessel astern drifted in and out of view.

  'I can sail into a creek from here with my eyes closed.' Davey grinned, his stained teeth showing big gaps between. 'You and the master here need to make secret landfall on English shores and I swear that's exactly what'll happen.'

  He began to walk among the crew, speaking softly, and each man went to the hold and heaved a hogshead onto his shoulder.

  'What do they do?'

  The tone of my voice pitched higher with anxiety. The hogsheads were hefted over the Marolingian's sides, one after another splashing into the sea and bobbing aft.

  'Don't fret, Ysabel. They're empty. They were merely subterfuge. Davey has been waiting for us to arrive. It was planned on my journey to Cazenay.'

  My mouth dropped open.

  'You say? Does this mean then, that you anticipated trouble?'

  Guy raised an eyebrow.

  'One can't be too cautious and Cecilia had given me to understand that you might become a valuable commodity.'

  Holy Mother but I was angry. All this time…

  'It didn't occur to you that you might pay me the respect I deserve by telling me this back in Aquitaine? God, Gisborne! How dare you?'

  'Oh hush, Ysabel. Don't rant. The crew will think you a harridan. I had no idea what you were like when I met you, whether you were strong, weak, given to hysteria, the manner of a child even.’ He grimaced. ‘Now I think on it…’

  ‘Stop it.’ I punched him in the arm as hard as I could. ‘This is my life you play with.’

  He had the gall to laugh but became serious in an instant.

  ‘It seemed to me enough that you knew your father was not himself and that Moncrieff suffered in consequence. And besides, you grieved mightily for your mother. As to the complete loss of Moncrieff, as I told you, I didn’t know till Halsham mentioned it. If you ask me I showed a great deal of respect for you.'

  'There you are, Mistress.' Davey joined us. 'Already we make extra speed. And we've got a thickening mist that makes us a ghost ship. We can sail northerly whereas they will presume we sail westerly. We'll be right where I want us when we hear waves on the English coast. We'll sail maybe a day or so on until we get close by Great Yarmouth and then I'll signal to shore and one of me mates'll row out and collect you.'

  Gisborne gave me a fiendish glance.

  'See, he can sail into a creek from here with his eyes closed, Ysabel. All you have to do is trust him.'

  I spent time huddled in a corner of the ship, a cloak wrapped round fending off the damp of the ocean. Guy took his share of the watch in the dark hours. Just he, Davey and a skeleton crew of rowers whilst the others yawned, snored and filled the spaces around me with their odour.

  If I lay down I could hear the sea hissing past the planks of the Marolingian.

  ‘Ysabel,’ it whispered, ‘Ysabel.’

  ‘What?’ I wanted to shout. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

  But it just kept repeating ‘Ysabel, Ysabel,’ as though I didn’t know my own name.

  I thought about De Courcey and why he chased me. Father had signed away Moncrieff so my existence should have had no bearing on it one way or the other. Which brought my thoughts back to the beginning again - why did I matter to De Courcey?

  When I realised the answer, my stomach dropped through the planks to sink to the ocean floor.

  How naïve I was to think such an arrangement would be as simple as my father handing over Moncrieff.

  Stupid, stupid Ysabel.

  My mad, thoughtless, inexorable father had not only given up his estates in payment, I swear that in some way or other, he had given up his daughter like a piece of coin. How, I had no idea but it must surely be answer.

  By the Saints! I hate him, how I wish he had died instead of my mother.

  I looked back to the time before Gisborne had arrived at Cazenay and I realized how ignorant and immature I had been, how indulged by everyone. I possessed some useless accomplishments but no experience of life or death and no understanding of the grosser side of human nature. Now here I was, swamped by the realities of gambling, deceit and … I thought of Wilfred and Harry … murder. It was the difference, quite simply betwee
n Heaven and Hell.

  I sighed and turned over. I lay on a bed of mildewed sail and faced one of the wooden ribs of the ship, reaching out a finger to touch it. It was smooth, as slippery as silk except for that mark there, and another. It was too dark to see but I tried to trace them and in my mind, decipher them. My finger went over and round, over and round. That and the sounds of the boat, the creaking of the rigging, the sighing of the wind through the stays and the ever-present ‘Ysabel, Ysabel,’ of the water lulled me into an dreamless sleep.

  And so it was; me with my circular thoughts, Gisborne working as a member of the crew, the seafog persisting. If I saw him at all, it was as a shape through the mists. He’d be bending to a task, laughing with the crew or in intense discussions with Davey. He would appear and disappear like an enchanted being. Once he glanced up and caught my gaze. There was no smile but our eyes met and held and I took strength from the moment.

  Davey had ordered the sail lowered a few hours after the mists enveloped us. All sound was muffled and we could hear nothing of our pursuers. The men took their place at oars that were well greased with seal-oil. Gisborne sat at a larboard oar and when Davey signaled, for no voices were allowed, he pulled with the rest. He half stood, his broad shoulder taking the strain as the oar scooped down into the water and up again. But then the mist drifted across him and he vanished and my heart skipped a beat. It was like being on ghost ship, as Davey had said, with shapes dissolving, a silent ambience with only a faint splash as the oars dipped. The water sighed along the planks but there was no other sound. Ghosts from past and present. I wasn’t sure if I felt intimidated by the pervasive atmosphere or not.

  At one point we heard rhythmic tolling and Davey jumped down to the rowers. He spoke softly but all appeared to hear. ‘Larboard oars pull. The rest of yer hold.’ The vessel juddered and began to shift away from the sound. The other oarsmen joined in, we moved forward a few lengths, then the larboard oars were stilled for one pull and we straightened again.