by Prue Batten
‘It is of no account. But…’ he added wickedly. ‘We are now equals, my lady.’
He bowed over my hand.
A smile stretched on my own face, coming from God knows where on this day of death and realization.
‘Indeed, Sir Gisborne. Equals.’
‘Come, Ysabel.’ He took my hand in his own and it felt as normal as if I were his wife. ‘We need to hide. Are you a little eased?’
My stomach had ceased its up and down motion and I thought I could manage to sit in the dark shelter without racing outside again and so I nodded and let him draw me within.
He passed me watered wine in the stoppered flask Cecilia had given us.
‘Was it worth it, do you think? Seeing your father?’
I needed no time to ponder.
‘God, yes. I was so rancorous. I hated him and yet when I saw him I could forgive him everything. He suffered his own indignity and pain – it was obvious. I can’t blame him for what happened any more than one can blame a maladjusted fool for opening a hen house and letting the fowl fly. Father was maladjusted, Guy. My mother’s death had tipped him over the edge of reason and he was a lost cause. What he did, if you can believe it, came from loving someone too much. So I can forgive him that. I can imagine one could love someone too much. Do you agree?’
Gisborne raised an eyebrow.
‘I am not sure I would know.’
No, of course. Why would you?
‘Why would I hate him? It is not going to give me back Moncrieff, is it?’
‘No…’
I thought on his own situation.
‘Do you think you might have forgiven your own father in time if you had seen him?’
He sucked down a huge mouthful of the watered wine and I suspect he wished it were something far stronger.
‘On the contrary. If I had seen him, it would have been all I could do not to…’
‘Guy!’
‘No. Think on it, Ysabel. My father did nothing out of love. Least of all provide his wife and child with surety. He was a man I did not admire. He was cruel to my mother, even though she brought a huge dowry to their marriage. Sometimes both she and I wondered if that was the sole reason he married her, because Gisborne was hardly a monied estate when the marriage contract was drawn up. My lady mother had no say in the matter as her father, a lesser noble, saw the marriage as an expediency. My father was highly regarded by Henry when he was younger and my Angevin grandfather liked the idea that such nobility should sit around his own family. But in truth, my father got me upon my mother and then lost interest. He was pleased he had an heir but she never conceived again and I could ask any number of questions about that.’
Gisborne had never been so open, not without me soliciting, and I watched him closely as he spoke. His face sharpened, the planes slicing to a knife-edge in the emerging dawn light; a face writ large with dislike. His voice dipped and rose with a hard then soft timbre depending on whether he spoke of his father or mother. I began to see the many layers beneath that hard outer skin and relished that he shed them with me. Did that not bespeak some sort of trust between us?
‘He removed himself from me, his son. I was left to my mother to educate. She organized for the priest to teach me letters. It is where I learned to love words, a rare enough thing to be sure. She organized for the steward to teach me to ride, for our master-at-arms to teach me the bow and arrow, to wrestle, to throw a knife. It was as well he had travelled and fought across the Middle Sea. He knew much and but for the fact that he had lost half an arm, would never have come our way. I thank the Lord he did. Edwin was more of a father than mine ever was.’
‘Then what happened to Edwin when the Templars took Gisborne?’
‘They employed Edwin, realising full well that he was the estate, far more so than my father. He wept the day my mother and I were turned off.’
He shook his head and looked down at his hands.
‘Ah Ysabel, so much to regret. So much to ha…’
‘Hate? Is that what you would say?’
I lay my own hand on his.
He didn’t reply.
‘My word, Sir Gisborne,’ I chastised. ‘I should not like to be someone you hate. You hate for life I should think.’
‘My father is owed such, Ysabel, I thought you would understand.’
I grabbed at the fraying closeness about us.
‘I do, Guy. I swear.’
Just don’t hate me the same way.
He flipped his palm up and closed his fingers around my wrist, pulling me toward him and I hoped I smelled of mint and nothing else.
‘Ysabel, you are the kind of young woman my mother would have l … liked.’
Is that your way of saying something else, Gisborne? Do you grow fond of me or am I still someone who is like a horsefly, driving you to distraction?
‘When I was at Saint Eadgyth’s, they told me of her. I would have liked her, I am sure,’ I said.
He leaned forward then and pressed his chin against my forehead. We sat very still, his hands over mine. He brushed his lips over my eyebrows and sat back.
‘Ysabel, I must try and find horses. I beg of you, do not move. Do not leave the hut. No matter what.’
He stooped under the sagging doorframe and I followed, leaning there as he walked across the clearing, his shoulders carrying my whole life upon them. He turned at the edge of the coppice and lifted his arm, the smallest smile playing around his lips.
Ah yes, Gisborne. For better or worse.
Chapter Eleven
Loneliness is an uncomfortable thing. It burrows into one’s awareness like a tick, creating discomfort to begin with and then a larger and larger pain. I sat as the daylight strengthened, initially glad of the solitude. With Guy gone, I could drop my defenses. Cry if I wanted, reminisce, or better, think of nothing. The trouble is I could not think of nothing.
I wept for my mother and father and then for myself, but outside birds were chirping and forest creatures moved about. In the gloom of this crumpled hideaway, it was easy to allow the sorrows of the past to tunnel in further and so I moved to sit against the doorframe in a beam of weak sun, allowing its mediocre warmth to carry me to better places.
I set thoughts on my family and my loss aside, watching a small brown wren hopping across the glade and flirting with shadow. She chirruped and I dug into the small belt purse for the remains of the crust. I tossed the crumbs and she moved closer, bright-eyed and confident and I wanted to assume at least part of her joy of life.
‘Where is your partner, little wren?’ I asked. She gave no sign of having heard me, just bobbed here and there, scooping up the crumbs with dainty dexterity.
My partner has gone and left me, little bird. But he says he will return and it won’t be too soon, I confess.
Till now, Gisborne had eased my fears. I might have laid claim to a certain amount of bravado but in essence I was a coward; such a spoiled young woman who had suddenly been confronted with a destiny that terrified her and would not admit to her weakness, instead lashing out at others. I think he understood my fears because at some point he had experienced that same trepidation.
But there is a difference, Ysabel. He uses hate to propel him on. Shall you do the same?
Who could I hate, I wondered? I had forgiven my father, so that left De Courcey and Halsham but I could do nothing about either except flee. Perhaps it was hate that propelled me so earnestly but in a moment of bleak honesty I thought it was fear. I wondered what happened to Guy’s venomous hatred for his father now the man was dead. Who would he focus on?
That traitorous voice in my head whispered: For sure, it won’t be De Courcey and Halsham…
The sun had moved swiftly and hung overhead, still pale and winsome … the kind from which a fine drizzle is sure to emerge, especially here in the fens. The wren took precipitous flight at my feet as if something had disturbed her … gone in a moment. I sat very still. All around had grown quiet, it seemed as though
every living thing held its breath.
And then I heard the sound in the distance, not a league away; the baying of lymers and I could feel the blood racing from my face to pump through my heart. Lymers could sniff out anything. My father had used them to drive quarry toward the hunters. He loved the grand dogs, proud of their ability to seek and drive a hind to the kill. He had a pair of alaunts as well, ferocious beasts that he used for boar hunting. But I was sure the sounds I could hear, the baying that ripped through the forest were lymers and if I had a choice I would rather the lymers hunted me than to have my throat shredded by the alaunts.
I jumped up, the small book slipping to one side under my tunic.
‘I beg of you, do not move. Do not leave the hut. No matter what.’ Guy’s words tugged at me, holding me back. The dogs’ baying echoed across the forest. If I stayed, I would be caught. If I ran I would have a fighting chance … if I could make it to a stream where my trail could be hidden.
I am sorry, Gisborne.
I began to run.
The daylight had shifted the forgotten puzzle that was Moncrieff’s green ways back into clear focus. If I ran that way, past the oak, and kept straight on, I knew I would meet a stream and I set off, fleet of foot, hoping I would meet Gisborne, that I could leap on a horse and we could gallop far beyond the hunting pack.
I ducked under branches, tripped over roots, moving quickly, trying to be mindful of my surroundings and then I glimpsed the rivulet, saw the dull sheen of its surface in the watery light. I pushed along its banks, running ever upstream, looking behind with every second stride but heading west and realizing with a sinking heart that Gisborne might not find me, that I was alone and must save myself this time.
I climbed over tree roots that sank themselves deep into the river edge and noticed a large fallen willow whose branches lay well out into the water and thought if I could move along the trunk to drop into the river and swim upstream for a distance, the lymers might lose my scent.
I edged along the riverbank, pushing through sedge. One more bole of an enormous beech to skirt around and I was…
‘Lady Ysabel of Moncrieff!’
An iron grip fastened on my arm as someone growled and a blade was held to my throat.
No, no, no!
‘Are you running away? What will Baron De Courcey think?’
I hated that voice. Hated it beyond belief. Hate was here, by my side. It was my friend; it would support me. I struggled and the point of the dagger nicked my throat.
‘Enough.’
Both my arms were grasped and twisted behind my back.
‘Cedric, give me rope!’
Rope was passed and my wrists were tied and I was turned toward my captor.
Robert Halsham grinned at me.
‘Hello,’ he said, his voice falsely friendly. ‘I’ll wager you didn’t expect to meet me here.’
I deigned not to reply.
‘Oh come now, Ysabel. You can’t play the high and mighty lady now. You’re trussed and ready to be dispatched to the Baron. Time to step down off your high horse.’
Still I refused to be drawn.
‘I have to say the Baron will like your dutiful silence. He hates opinionated women.’
How did you find me? How did you know?
He walked around me, still grinning and I recalled once again that painted image of Beelzebub.
‘Do you wonder how I found you? How I knew where you were?’
I closed my eyes and turned away but he grabbed me and twitched me back.
‘You’ll like this, Ysabel. I ran into Gisborne. I gave him a last chance, blood being thicker than water. I said to him that if he told me where you were, I would allow him to ride away on a mount provided by me, with money provided by me to a position provided by me. If he did not then I would make sure the Baron knew of his perfidy and his attempted murder upon myself. And that dear Cuz, says I, will be the end of your onward and upward journey, end of everything.’
The bastard grinned at me before continuing.
‘He debated for the time it takes to lengthen a stirrup leather. As he did exactly that, he told me about you and then left for London with a bag full of money tucked in his belt and a spot of duty as one of the King’s best.’
Gisborne, you did not. Please God, no.
My heart cracked but I would not give Halsham the pleasure of seeing me so hurt. I drew myself up and sneered at him.
‘Gisborne is cut from the same cloth as you, Halsham. What you say is no surprise. It is why I have been running. I knew he would betray me. It was a given and I knew I must get away.’
‘You say.’ Halsham’s sarcasm stripped bark off trees. ‘Horses, Cedric,’ he called.
A horse was led up and I was bundled into the saddle, feet thrust through stirrups. As I had been thrust up and over, the hood covering my knotted hair fell off and the horse’s hooves shifted and ground it into the muddy riverbank. Halsham grabbed the reins, passing them to Cedric who was not a Moncrieff man that I remembered and for a mere moment I wondered what my father’s men thought of this new situation or if they had cleverly vanished into the backdrop of village life, subtly withdrawing their services from men that they surely could never respect. Suddenly the thought that there might be a hidden group of dissenters who might help me gave me strength.
‘Lead her,’ Halsham ordered. ‘I shall follow behind.’
Cedric clicked his tongue and jerked the reins and the horse tossed his head, following irritably.
I gripped with my knees, my balance wrong with hands tied behind, an ignominious position that began to fuel something nasty. Fury began to flow like spring sap. At Halsham. At God.
How can You allow this? Whatever have I done to deserve such things as You have delivered?
Brother John had always spoken of the magnitude of God’s love, of how we, His sheep, were cared for and protected by the majesty of such affection. I swore. If God loved me, He’d never have allowed my parents to die or Moncrieff to be lost. Such ‘majesty’ would never have allowed a lamb to fall foul of wolves like Halsham or De Courcey.
‘You’re the very picture of a woman scorned, Lady Ysabel,’ Halsham mocked. ‘Do you fret for the loss of Gisborne?’
Gisborne. The traitor
‘You are wrong,’ I straightened my shoulders until they were as straight as a pike. ‘I do not pine over the loss of men like Gisborne, just as I would not fret over your loss should it happen. There are some things simply not worth fretting over. My freedom and property are entirely different.’
‘Your freedom is in De Courcey’s hands and I for one would not fuss myself if he uses those hands to induce a change in your manner.’
Halsham’s voice betrayed such arrogance, it was all I could do not to rant. But his next comment stepped on the burning wick of my temper.
‘As to your property, as you say, that is another thing entirely.’
I tried to turn but could only glimpse his horse’s nose on my hindquarter.
‘What say you, Halsham? Your comment is tiresomely oblique.’
He laughed.
‘By God De Courcey’s in for some sport with you.’ He kicked his horse up by my side. ‘I mean simply that you need not be concerned about your position.’
I had learned in a short space of time to hide any expression from this loathsome boil and replied in a barely interested manner. ‘You say. Really,’ shifting my body away from him as we rode.
‘Indeed, Lady Ysabel. I do say. And whilst I would that I could tell you more, I must not. The Baron and your father will make it clear to you…’
My father! Halsham doesn’t know! He doesn’t yet know my father is dead.
He also seemed unaware I had been within the castle. Not unless Gisborne had held forth and it seemed he had not.
As if it mattered.
We had regained the road to Moncrieff by now and its ramparts loomed ahead. The sky had darkened still further and dampness began to eat into my clothe
s. Mizzle drifted down like a veil, blurring the outlines of my home, of the place where lay my parents. I cursed Fate and Guy of Gisborne. I cursed God.
By now, I should be galloping on horseback through the woods and westward, ever further from the home that wasn’t mine anymore. We clattered along the stony way, the hooves beating a dirge, until the sound changed and we moved onto the wooden bridge so lately passed beneath. Moncrieff’s pale stone appeared grey and uncompromising and its foursquare shape with rounded corner towers, so dearly loved in the past, now threatened another sort of life.
We walked under the raised portcullis, men gathering as we halted. All were in the hated black surcoats of the Free Lancers and I could see no familiar face, not one, my heart sinking as I gazed at the rough cut henchmen before me.
Cedric dismounted and held my horse. Halsham threw his legs over his horse’s wither and slid down, approaching me with a knife in his hands, reaching up to cut the bonds that had begun to chafe.
‘Is the Baron returned?’ he asked as he took me by the arm and helped me dismount.
‘No sir.’ Some lackey who held a saddled horse, spoke up. ‘None are back yet.’
‘God’s blood, Ysabel. He’s going to be livid when he finds he has ridden to Saint Eadgyth’s for nothing.’
He held my arm tightly as if he thought I should make a break for the bridge and freedom.
‘Aidan, to horse man, and get onto the road to Saint Eadgyth’s and inform the Baron that Lady Ysabel has joined us at Moncrieff.’
At that, a low burble filled the courtyard as men eyed me curiously. Some nudged each other and lewd comment bandied about.
‘Enough!’ yelled Halsham. ‘Show the lady the respect she deserves as chatelaine of the castle in her departed mother’s place. Aidan, get you gone! Did you not hear the order? The rest of you to your posts. And lower the portcullis until the Baron returns.’
He pulled me after him and all I could hear were the hoof beats of the departing mount, the grinding of the gear that lowered the portcullis and men shifting to their duties. No children running to and fro, no banter and laughter, no poultry and dogs, no women, nothing of Moncrieff life as I remembered. This was now a stronghold, a place where armies met and melded and I shook my head as we climbed from the bailey to Moncrieff’s Great Hall on the first floor.
