by Prue Batten
A noise far below dragged at my attention, horses clattering out over the drawbridge … a cohort of a dozen men on thickset rounceys with powerful quarters. Their quilted saddle cloths carried the Free Lancer’s colours – De Courcey’s own it would appear. My fingers balled into fists as I watched them scatter a group of Moncrieff folk across the stony road, a child falling into a ditch and crying as they swept by.
The place had all the appearance of a military encampment. How the people of Moncrieff would hate this regime. Under my mother’s care and with my father’s wealth, they had wanted for very little – they were never hungry, they were allowed to cook their own bread instead of paying the lord of the manor for the privilege and they were paid in coin for any service they rendered Moncrieff. They had a chance to better themselves and to become free men but now a fool could see all that had changed when my mother died.
I lay my head on the tapestried cushion, my hand underneath it to lift it a little higher off the cold stone. I pulled the blanket over me, thoughts darting everywhere and then slowing, drifting…
‘Ysabel, wake you.’ Cecilia’s voice gently prised me from a place of dreams where exhaustion was salved and worry smothered. ‘You poor young thing, you’re washed out.’
Her hand smoothed over my head. A faint flickering light glowed behind her, giving her the appearance of a religious vision in my sleepy state.
‘Ysabel,’ she asked. ‘Where is Guy?’
I growled as I sat up, pulling the rucked surcoat down over my back, noting the candle further down the stair.
‘I know not nor care. He is untrustworthy.’
Cecilia looked at me, her eyes dark circles in a face marked by shadowy lines. ‘You say? Then you misjudge him to be sure.’
‘He’s Halsham’s cousin, Ceci, and the man himself dogged our footsteps from Cazenay to Moncrieff.’
‘I know he’s Halsham’s cousin but he is cut from different cloth I can assure you.’
‘You think? He plans to join the Free Lancers as soon as we are safe. How can you trust someone who wishes to work under De Courcey’s banner?’
‘Ysabel, this is hardly the time to dispute Guy’s future. When he has delivered you safely far from De Courcey, what he chooses to do with his life is none of our business. What matters is that you are alive and free.’
‘Ceci’, I snorted. ‘I am in the lion’s den. He has brought me straight into a lair from which I may not escape.
‘That is untrue, Ysabel,’ Gisborne’s voice broke in. In the heat of argument, I had missed the sound of his footfall as he climbed the stair. ‘If you had stayed in Walsocam where I left you, I would have taken you far from here where you could get to Wales or Ireland safely. But as always you acted impulsively and ill-advisedly.’
‘Lady Ysabel…’ I muttered.
‘Lady Ysabel,’ he sneered.
‘Stop it,’ hissed Cecilia. ‘This serves neither of you. Ysabel, Guy is right. You should not have left Walsocam so precipitately.’
‘But I needed to … my mother, you, my father…’
‘Your father is of little use to your situation. In fact he could make it worse.’
My heart skipped as her words sank in. ‘What do you mean, ‘of little use’?’
The church bells began to peel in the village and I realized they marked Vespers. Such a long dark night yet to follow…
‘He is very frail, Ysabel. Immediately after Guy left to retrieve you from Cazenay, he and De Courcey had an argument. Everyone inside the Hall and out heard it. De Courcey wanted the debt paid in full; for his ownership of Moncrieff to be acknowledged in writing and that any valuables within your father’s possession be handed over. Your father declared that he must retain something as the dowry for his daughter, that it was only right and proper and that she should not be condemned to penury because of her father’s sore actions. He argued the demesnes of Moncrieff, including the castle, paid the debt. De Courcey objected, showing your father a paper that calculated each loss your father had made at dice, chess, even cockfighting and horse-races.’
Papa, you didn’t forget me.
I could not help a choke in my throat. ‘But why did he…’
Cecilia reached over and touched my hand, squeezing gently.
‘Ysabel, he was bereft; a parlous grief that settled on him so that he seemed to know and feel nothing else. Common men would have been called mad.’
‘Truly?’
‘I think so. You must remember his adoration of your mother, almost an obsession. His heart broke when she died and he replaced one obsession with others. Drinking and gaming blotted his pain. It was only after he lost Moncrieff and after I chided him, that reality began to set in. He tried to ignore De Courcey but the man is choleric and that last day in the Hall was frightful. He roared at your father, even drew his sword on him and your father screamed back. He was livid. I tell you, I have never ever seen Joffrey so incensed. I expect the anger was with himself more than anything, that he could treat Moncrieff with such lack of respect. I am sure he thought he cast dirt on your mother’s memory.’
‘What happened?’
I had an ugly image of my father shaking with disgust and distress, De Courcey’s face ruddy, his bullish bulk rearing over the diminished form of Joffrey.
‘Your father was gesticulating wildly and of a sudden he had a seizure. He fell straight down, awake but insensible. The infirmarian from the abbey diagnosed an apoplexy. Your father lost the power of speech, his face collapsed sideways and he lost the ability to walk or hold things in his hands. De Courcey allowed him to be taken to the Master Chamber and I have nursed him since, but he can barely eat, chokes even on liquids and is fading away. He is incoherent and yet I would swear there is recognition in his eyes when he looks at me… oh Ysabel…’
Tears ran down my cheeks as I remembered my sweet, detached father who had, all of his life, worshipped at the altar that was Lady Alaïs. This was a man who wrote poetry and I couldn’t imagine him never being able to speak it aloud.
‘He is dying,’ I said.
I looked up at her and she met me with a steady, honest gaze.
‘I think so. He is not yet quite ready to die but it will be no more than a month.’
‘Do you think De Courcey knows that he is dying,’ I asked.
Cecilia shrugged and sighed.
‘Till yesterday I nursed him and would report only good things to the man, as it suited me to see him discomforted. I do not want him to think that all is going his way. I had hoped that you would return and that … well … that things might return to normal, but it is a fool’s dream, my dear. Your father is dying, Moncrieff is lost and for your own safety, you must leave. It was not what I intended but it is surely what must happen now. You must get away.’
‘I must see him, Cecilia. I must let him know I came home.’
‘Ysabel, they took me away from him and locked me in your mother’s chamber and for all I know he might be…’
‘He has been moved.’ Gisborne butted in. ‘When I left earlier, I searched all those parts of the castle I could get to and he is no longer in his chamber. It is De Courcey’s own…’
Cecilia sucked in her breath.
‘You were not seen?’
‘I think not. But that De Courcey has taken the chamber is obvious. His accoutrements are everywhere.’
‘You see, Ysabel?’ Cecilia reached for my hand. ‘It is pointless. We do not even know where…’
‘I have found him. He is in one of the cells.’
Cecilia and I both spoke together.
‘No! Did you…’
‘Is he…’
‘He is wrapped in a fur over a wadding of straw. I did not speak to him, merely saw him through the spyhole.’
I grabbed Cecilia’s arm. My father deserved my care, he had not forsaken me after all and for that I was glad. I had no doubt he suffered terribly for his weakness, existing in some dark place where he was unable even to scream or c
ry with grief.
‘Ceci, he will starve with no one to feed him. And what about water … De Courcey is a murderer! I must see my father.’
Cecilia jumped up.
‘Not now, Ysabel, you must stay here and I must return to the Lady Chamber, but I will come again before Matins. Please Guy, watch her. She must not go to the cells.’
She grabbed the folds of her bliaut and threaded back down the stair, whispering as she left, ‘We will plan when I return.’
The candle flame jumped as she passed and then settled as silence filled the space.
‘You must leave, Ysabel. Without seeing your father.’ Gisborne shifted on the stair and lowered himself to sit above me.
I shook my head. If I cast back, I could see that the moment I opened that fated packet in Cazenay I released a plague of curses. I was Pandora. Every step of my journey home had been filled with deepening distrait.
‘I can’t leave Papa to die alone. No matter what mistakes he has made, no matter that I should hate him and want him to fester and rot in a dungeon, I cannot. Others might say let him fade in the knowledge of what he has done, let him suffer the pain. But I cannot.’
I looked toward that tiny jumping flame that defied the shifting air within the passage, standing strong and lighting dark corners. Somewhere I could hear dripping water and wondered if it rained outside. It often rained in the fens … it was a childhood memory.
‘My father is in my heart.’ The words came out softly. ‘My mother is a part of my heart and so is Moncrieff, and yet you and Cecilia ask me to abandon everything after coaxing me on this journey anyway. Why did I bother acceding to your wishes? It would have been safer to remain in Cazenay. What was the point of bringing me home? You must have known things had changed. Halsham knew for a surety.’
‘He did not. He was returning from the Holy Land with the Free Lancers…
‘The Holy Land.’ I gave a low, disbelieving grunt.
‘Yes, the Holy Land. If you remember when you first met him. That aside,’ Gisborne’s deep tones floated down the stair. ‘Whatever he knew until he reached Calais would have been old news; no more than I knew. In Calais of course, that changed when De Courcey arrived.’
‘And what was the old news, Gisborne? That his employer had taken over Moncrieff?’
‘No. But that he desired the estate, yes.’
‘Was I part of the estate?’
‘Not immediately.’
‘When?’
‘Halsham told me in Walsocam that De Courcey wanted you, that what I predicted had indeed happened. That by having you as his bride he would be fit to appear in the court of Richard as the son-in-law of Baron Moncrieff.’
I huffed out a disgusted breath.
‘Ysabel, it gives me no pleasure to tell you any of this. It never has. But the final thing I will tell you is that I was offered money, a great deal, if I handed you over at Walsocam. I told Halsham that it was not possible as I had left you at Saint Eadgyth’s by your choice. That we had disagreed over a personal issue and that you chose to stay within the priory for the moment.’
‘And he believed you? I can’t imagine he would be so ingenuous. Besides, how did he know you would be at Walsocam? That was a little fortuitous, surely?’
‘It was a mistake on my part. He was passing through the village on his return to Moncrieff and saw me at the inn. I had almost purchased food enough for two, the words almost out of my mouth … it was luck on a grand scale that I had not spoken.’
‘Luck?’
‘Yes. Luck. The point is that I hoped to have returned you to Cecilia before any of this latest transpired. When you could perhaps have helped your father in his anguish and prevented his losses from accruing.’
‘So you say.’
I stared at my hands … dirty hands with grimy fingernails. Nothing of the lady hung about me anymore.
‘You do not believe me.’
Something in his tone made me look up. I could barely see anything of him, just a broad shadow blocking the stair, but for one brief moment I thought I detected defeat in his voice and it seemed so very wrong in such a man. I wished I could see his eyes but I could not. Instead I said the first thing that sped into my mind … my torn-apart, ill-guarded mind.
‘I cannot see into your heart, Guy.’
The trite sentence was all I could think of to explain my ongoing disquiet and his reply was so cool my skin prickled.
‘And yet, my lady, I have never allowed any harm to befall you. It seems to me that heart notwithstanding, I have fulfilled the task I was given. I saw you to Moncrieff and I can yet see you safely away. Remember I said I owed you my life? I will honour that.’
He shifted in the dark silence. His leather surcoat creaked and I heard something clink against stone … the dagger in his belt.
‘You may not see heart in such a vow,’ he continued. ‘But then perhaps that is really not my problem. It is yours.’
He went to stand, as if to move past me – a gesture of dismissal, and I felt chastened. Part of me wanted to be angry at being made to feel so ungrateful and thus so petty. Because no matter what – jeweled girdles, pers-tinted bliauts, shelter and sustenance – all that aside, he had indeed seen me safe, had honoured his self-styled debt. Whether I approved of his manner of doing so was immaterial. I was in Moncrieff with Cecilia, and De Courcey had no idea.
A masterful stroke.
I shivered. The wind had strengthened outside, buffeting the tower. It sent a foraging party through the arrow loop where the fingers of the nasty draught tunneled and bit into my body. I pulled the clothing tighter and shuffled away from the opening.
‘You are cold,’ Gisborne observed.
‘Cold, afraid, confused, desperate. All of those,’ I muttered as my teeth clenched to stop an emerging shudder.
He stepped down, sitting between myself and the slit so that his presence warmed me. Just the feel of a body close to mine, a broad one that blocked the breeze was enough but I couldn’t deny other things.
‘Ysabel, you can see, can’t you?’ He took my hands and rubbed them between his own, chafing warmth into the tips. ‘Very soon they will know that you are not within the priory. They will begin the hunt. I say you have just hours to leave. After that, it will be too late. We can follow the secret channels to the river and then head west, but it will be long before we are safe away from De Courcey’s net and we shall have to hide in the forests like outlaws.’
‘My father…’
‘He will not know you even if you do see him.’
I sat weighing the danger.
‘I agree then, I shall let you help me. But I must be allowed to farewell my father.’
‘Ysabel…’
‘Please.’
I turned to him and in the light of that tiny flame I could see the face of the man who had cared for me.
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead and it was as if the sun shone. I had put my faith in him and it seemed meet and right that he should touch me like a benediction. I lifted my face to his and our lips joined.
We made love with urgency, as if for the last time. There was a harshness to it … a rawness, flesh on stone, quick breaths. I laid my head on his chest as we regained our breath and whispered.
‘Sir Gisborne, I did not want to but it seems I…’ I stopped and cleared my throat.
Do not say it! Do not, Ysabel.
‘I owe you an apology,’ I prevaricated. ‘You have been stalwart.’
His voice rumbled through his ribcage like once before.
‘Then Ysabel, you must surely be able to see into my heart after all and know that I…’
We heard footsteps and hastily rearranged our clothes in time for Cecilia to appear and for us to act as if nothing had happened. But she barely looked at us.
‘The castle is in uproar. The Baron rode in not long since – did you hear? – and ordered me taken to the Great Hall, demanding I tell him why you should choose sanctuary at Saint Ea
dgyth’s Priory. I had no idea – it was the truth. Guy, have you set a false trail? Good for you, my dear, if you have.’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Whatever the case, he almost reduced me to ashes with the heat of his temper and left immediately. He has gone to Saint Eadgyth’s to see for himself. A party had been sent much earlier by Halsham … so you must go now, while they are occupied elsewhere. Hell will descend when he returns without you.’
‘She understands, Cecilia.’ Guy’s hand pressed my waist from behind, ‘and has agreed to leave.’
‘Aah.’ Ceci gave a relieved sigh. ‘I am so glad, child.’ She placed a small drawstring bag in my palm, curling my hand over it and squeezing. ‘Your mother’s comb, a necklet - the one you loved when you were small, do you remember? The rest I shall keep hidden until you can … until you are safe. But I have this … you must take it now.’
She passed over an object about the size of a man’s palm.
‘God’s breath, Cecilia. How did you get it? I wanted to retrieve it from the Baron’s room but with De Courcey taking the chamber for himself it was a risk.’
‘I searched for it when I was nursing Joffrey. I had such a feeling about Moncrieff, that De Courcey would strip it bare to the bones, leaving nothing for Ysabel. It was in a coffer that was filled with Joffrey’s clothing. It seemed like nothing should anyone have looked… a scrap of d’Aumiers silk. It could have been spare fabric to mend his chemises.’
‘What is it?’ I reminded them I was still there, sitting with the object in my palm.
‘It’s the book, Ysabel; the Saracen book.’
I unwrapped it swiftly for time was running away. As the silk slithered off I could feel the irregular surface of the cover and then it lay boldly in my hands in the dull light of the candle. An oval ruby nestled in the cover, as smooth as a wren’s egg and surrounded by irregular shaped pearls. Gold filigree laced in and around so that the remarkable cover looked like a tile from an Arabian palace.
