Gisborne: Book of Pawns

by Prue Batten

  ‘Do not, Baron. Do not speak! The fact is that my father has been dead these two days and is lying rotting in the dungeons and with each minute that passes as his corpse disintegrates, I shall blame you for the most appalling care of a man who deserves so much better. And before you castigate your men for revealing such a truth, know that I was aware how dangerously ill he was. Daughters do. I felt it here…’ I wrapped my chest hard.

  ‘Sit!’ he roared, face filled with ire. ‘Hold your tongue! Your father is indeed rotting beneath the soles of our feet, but he brought it on himself and you know it. We shall bury him tomorrow…’

  ‘With my mother. They must lie side by side. And then Lady Fineux and myself shall leave you to your spoils.’

  I turned for the door but my wrist was grabbed and I was spun around.

  His voice sank low and I knew it presaged something unpalatable.

  ‘You and the Lady of Upton go nowhere. Not until we receive word from the king.’

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘You, Lady Ysabel, haven’t seen a quarter of what I dare. Now…’ he called for Cedric and the man pushed the door ajar. De Courcey lowered his voice, his words laced with poison.

  ‘Take the lady to her chamber and lock the door.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Ysabel!’ Cecilia rushed to me as the door slammed shut behind. ‘What happened?’

  Perhaps I looked pale that she should react so. But inside I felt hot, blazing … as if the most stupendous fever raged. But it was hate, anger and so many other insidious emotions besides. ‘He admitted Father is dead and has agreed he shall be buried tomorrow. That’s all.’ I turned to the window and stood with my forehead pressed against the cool, cool stone of the embrasure.

  How has all this happened? I am sinking into the bowels of some sort of Hell.

  ‘That’s not all. Not by a long stretch.’ Cecilia stayed by the hearth, the fire as dead as I felt inside.

  Ashes, dust.

  ‘Tell me,’ she sighed.

  ‘He has written to the King asking what Richard would wish for my wardship.’

  ‘But that’s preposterous! I am your godmother, it is perfectly natural that you would live with me at Upton.’

  ‘And yet that is not what he would have. He waits in some delight for something else. It would seem he might want me.’

  ‘Hell and damnation! I worried about this, my dear. He has Moncrieff and I hoped it would be enough. If all he wants is to dip his wick, lord knows there are plenty of noblewomen who would oblige a man as wealthy as he. But…’

  ‘Cecilia, I know what you will say. You call him an illbred ruffian. Everyone is no doubt aware of his nature – the man who runs a mercenary army, the man who is loyal as long as the monies last. He has a disreputable reputation. How could he remove such a taint from his person? How could he lift himself further in Richard’s eyes? For sure, he has already provided the manpower but it is the trust and recognition he craves and what better way of earning it than to claim he cares for the future of the daughter of Joffrey of Moncrieff, lately deceased. You and I both know that Richard will offer my hand to one of the men he most needs to support him in his endeavours. It is a plan made in Richard’s and De Courcey’s version of heaven.’

  ‘Oh my love. Hell, more like! We must write to your royal godmother.’

  ‘Eleanor, as ever, is involved in her own machinations, Ceci. You know and I know what she is like. And by the time a plea arrived, I fear the King’s answer would be in De Courcey’s hands and the decree expedited.’

  ‘Then you must get away. Use the secret passage again.’

  ‘To what endeavour? Do you not think he would find me as easily as I was found this last time? No, Cecilia. I cannot see a way out of this. And to be frank, I just want to bury my father and then…’ I rubbed a forehead that ached with foul intensity. ‘God knows.’

  The morning of my father’s burial arrived with a flash of wind-driven cloud across the window. Outside the tower that housed the Lady Chamber, the wind moaned – a dirge to match the spirit of the day. Once again my back ached with such ferocity I thought I should have to lie down, nauseous with the pain.

  I hoped Cecilia was unaware that I nibbled at my food and I wondered at how thin I must be as I felt my belly and hipbones. Food was more than I could stomach on this day of emotional torment. I wondered if I would be allowed to speak with Brother John and at least have some say in the progression my father’s burial should take. But it was obviously not to be as the hours passed.

  I had dressed in a midnight wool bliaut of my mother’s. It reminded me of the sable-edged cloak that had once been mine in another place; a place where I had discovered something of the truth that lay in wait for me at Moncrieff. Cecilia braided my hair into a plait and I let it hang down my back, refusing a veil. Instead, we went through all the chests in the room, eventually unearthing a false bottom in a coffer. Secreted away was a filet of silver, twisted and turned delicately like a wreath of flowers and as I lowered it over my forehead there was something of the gesture of a queen and I wondered if I was pretending to assume an authority I just did not possess. There was also a sapphire studded cross on a chain… the round stone as smooth and deeply coloured as the ocean. It had been my Cazenay grandmother’s and as it slipped over my head I decided it may be worth something should I be in need.

  You will be, Ysabel, you will be.

  I grunted.

  Cecilia and I examined the few possessions left in the room. It was so obvious that Lady Alaïs’ jewels had been taken – all bar the filet and the cross. But her small looking glass lay amongst creams and simples and we found her Book of Hours in amongst wool and pieces of incomplete embroidery. Her frame lay against a wall and it was this unfinished piece – a design of a maid and a unicorn – to which I turned to while away the moments until we would be called for my father’s farewell.

  ‘You would think he would at least have let Brother John come to give me comfort or to discuss a prayer, a hymn … something. The man is such a piece, Ceci. Poison! I’ll wager he won’t even open my mother’s tomb, that he will cause my father to be buried at the side of Saint Agatha’s with the rest of Moncrieff. Can you imagine how my father must have longed to be laid with Alaïs? It would have been the one warm moment for him, that soon he would lie by the side of his heart’s love.’

  I didn’t cry as I spoke. I suspected that any tears had evaporated in the blaze that had lit my body the previous night.

  ‘We must hope that some honour may be shown, my dear.’ She tutted and sighed. ‘I wish we had heard from Gisborne.’

  ‘Well I do not and we shan’t. He betrayed me, Cecilia, I have told you. Halsham paid him with coin and a career. I am where I am right now because Gisborne is as tainted as the rest and nothing, nothing you say will make me think any differently. I shall tell you, once in our journey he said to me that status is power and put me under no illusion that his plan was to seek such status and thereafter have the power he craved. I think the side you saw and the side I saw were two different beings.’

  Cecilia sat calmly stitching.

  ‘On the contrary my dear. I think the side you saw on your journey was exactly the side I saw. I’d venture to say that you are falling into Halsham’s net, believing what he wants you to believe.’

  ‘Ceci! They are cousins. Have you not heard that blood is thicker than water.’

  ‘Be that as it may, Ysabel, I think you are wrong. Now, let us not dispute. We must stick close together and to be honest, today is a day where we truly shall need each other. It is an awful thing to have to bury one’s dear ones.’

  I knew full well she talked of her own loved husband and the baby son that died two days beyond his birth. And that she talked of Alaïs as well. She and my mother were like sister-friends and as I thought about them I wished I had a sister or a friend like Cecilia Fineux of Upton.

  But I have. There she sits, calmly pushing a needle and thread throu
gh fabric.

  I jumped up, letting my own frame fall, and went to throw my arms about her and kiss her cheek.

  ‘Goodness, what are you doing, my love? I’ll needs unpick my work.’

  ‘I thank God I have you, Cecilia. I really do.’

  I squeezed her shoulder and walked back to my seat, picking up the frame and re-threading my needle.

  ‘By what other name is the man called? I have yet to hear him referred to as anything other than the Baron or De Courcey.’

  ‘You do not know? God’s blood, it is common knowledge. He is called Benedict; such a lovely name for such an unlovely man.’

  I snorted, staring out the window at the clouds that fled across the sky still, as if the Devil were behind.

  Benedict. Blessed. And De Courcey a corruption of the meaning.

  Saint Agatha’s bell had just rung for None when keys turned and the door swung open. The familiar guard from previously entered and dipped his head.

  How is that you are trapped in this spider’s web? You have a look that I think I could like.

  He was perhaps my age or a little younger and I felt a curious comfort when he glanced my way, the way one feels in the company of a friend or a favourite cousin.

  ‘My ladies, it is time for the burial. If you would follow me.’

  He stood back and Cecilia and I dropped our frames and went to the door.

  ‘My lady,’ he said, as I passed. ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

  I stopped. His mouth widened in an attempt at kindness and I responded by touching his arm.

  ‘Thankyou. I am grateful. What is your name?’

  ‘Ulric of Camden, my lady.’

  ‘Ulric of Camden,’ my hand still lay lightly on his arm. ‘You are most kind.’

  ‘Young man.’ Cecilia at her most imperious swung back to Ulric as she began to walk along the passage. ‘Do we go to the chapel or the church?’

  ‘The chapel, my lady. The Baron has caused Lady Alaïs’ tomb to be opened and the d … deceased will be interred with his wife.’

  ‘Huh,’ was all Cecilia said but for myself I sighed in relief. My mother deserved to have her husband by her side. For his part Joffrey had surely paid for his own foolery and could at last rest with her.

  The chapel sat in another of Moncrieff’s four towers, its one arched window sitting high in the wall and facing out to the lake. The chapel had no pretensions to grandeur – humble and cold, a small altar with a brass cross and two large smoking candles. The embroidered altar cloth my mother had made was missing.

  ‘There were flowers when your mother was buried, masses of them,’ Cecilia whispered.

  My mother’s tomb, set inside the door to the left, lay open and I was glad we were by the door because the smell was overpowering. Brother John rushed up and took my hands and squeezed, his own roughened ones a welcome feeling. De Courcey was nowhere in sight and so John spoke quickly and without fear.

  ‘It’s a bad thing, Ysabel. A bad thing. All of this.’

  He threw his hands around to indicate my mother’s tomb, Moncrieff and life, I suspect.

  I waved my hand under my nose and Ceci thrust a strip of linen filled with cloves into my palm and I sucked in the aroma greedily.

  ‘I will make this as brief a service as I can by the Grace of God. Do you understand?’

  I nodded. I hadn’t yet glanced inside my mother’s tomb. I was afraid my memories would be shattered.

  Behind us I heard feet shuffling and turned to see four men with a shrouded shape on their shoulders, a look of distaste on their faces. De Courcey led the way and nodded at me. ‘Lady Ysabel.’

  ‘Why is my father not dressed in his finest accoutrements? Why a ragged shroud?’

  Even I knew the formula for a nobleman.

  ‘Because I would expect no man to deal with the smell that has become your father’s remains.’

  ‘That is yours and Halsham’s fault. If you had acted when he died, he would have been accorded the respect he is due.’

  De Courcey’s straight lips twisted.

  ‘The respect he is getting is hardly his due, my lady. He deserves even less, in my opinion. Be glad that he shall be interred with your mother and not in a pauper’s grave out there.’

  He waved his arms to indicate the Moncrieff walls.

  I could say nothing in reply. What was there to say? My father was a pauper and besides, in this instance I had no energy to fight. I watched the men lay my father none too gently in the tomb, noting that in his own grief, he had obviously given instruction the tomb be broad enough for he and my mother to lie side by side. I glanced toward her, grateful to note that she was dressed in a most magnificent gown and her face, God be praised, was covered in a dark veil.

  Brother John began the obsequies, quickly passing through an abbreviated service, flicking holy water across the corpse. I sniffed at the cloves and was surprised to find moistness on my cheeks and yet I had nothing of the tightness of tears in my chest. In what seemed minutes it was done, the tomb closed, the vast slab of stone pushed and manouvred until it clicked into place. And for the first time, I heaved a great sigh of relief.

  It drew a line in my life. Whatever I did now, I would be moving forward. My only concern was to what? De Courcey stood leaning against the chapel door, not a vestige of sympathy or etiquette about him. It seemed he’d been appraising me as I stood listening to Brother John.

  ‘Baron, when did you send to the King? How long until there shall be an answer?’

  He pushed away from the doorjamb and walked toward me.

  ‘When I returned from Saint Eadgyth’s. If I had known you were connected with my liege at that point, I may have phrased the letter differently. As it was…’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That is between my liege and I, my lady, but in answer to your earlier question, I envisage a reply in a space of seven days. Perhaps seven more, but no longer.’

  Seven days!

  ‘So I am locked up for that time? A prisoner?’

  He tipped his head to the side and pursed his lips.

  ‘What do you propose?’

  ‘I should like to visit the Moncrieff villagers at the very least.’

  I wanted to talk to someone else familiar, someone who knew me from a time when my parents lived and Moncrieff was blessed. I wanted something to ameliorate a fate that sped toward me like a herd of wild horses.

  ‘I am not inclined…’

  Brother John pushed next to me, his wiry body reminding me of his asceticism, his scalp gleaming in the darkening light of the afternoon.

  ‘If I could interrupt, my lord.’

  ‘What is it, priest?’

  ‘I would take responsibility for the lady and you could appoint a guard of your choice.’

  ‘I could.’

  De Courcey looked at his fingernails and then lifted his gaze to me, another assessment.

  ‘But shall you be trusted I wonder? Let us see, shall we? Ulric,’ he called to my door-guard and the fellow shifted through the men that surrounded us and stood in front of the baron.

  ‘You shall guard the lady, and yours and Brother John’s lives shall be forfeit if anything should happen.’

  Ulric swallowed but John just smiled and said quite equably, ‘Then there shall be no problem, shall there?’

  Lightness filled me; relief surely, but then I fell forward as that odd feeling in my head became an overwhelming blackness and I knew nothing more.

  Strong arms laid me on something soft. I opened my eyes and found De Courcey’s face disturbingly close to my own as I observed the hangings of the bed in the Lady Chamber. He smelled of something fresh but I could not place it.

  ‘Lady Ysabel.’

  His voice seemed a little thick; if I were less awry, I would have said something about our closeness stirred him.

  He was pushed aside and Cecilia bustled next to me and laid a cold cloth on my forehead.

  ‘You see, Baron, it is as
I said. She is not well after her journey and now the burial. I do wish you would try to understand.’

  ‘I do,’ he growled. ‘Credit me with some sense, madam. I see that she is moved by grief, that she is tired and that she is under duress wondering what her future shall be. I just wish she realized she is not to be thrown out of Moncrieff.’

  ‘It’s perhaps what she will be retained for that upsets her,’ Cecilia muttered.

  If De Courcey heard he did not respond.

  Instead he said, ‘I am sure you shall care for her and I have no doubt she will be well. I am to leave now as I have business away and shall return in a few days, by which time…’ he pushed in beside Cecilia and ran a hand down my cheek as our eyes met. He barely smiled.

  ‘By which time I suspect she will be up and about and visiting the Moncrieff domain. Take care, my lady.’

  This last was said as he pushed my lips hard with a finger.

  You dare!

  I shut my eyes and turned my head away, hearing the door close more quietly with his exit than it had in the past.

  ‘Well!’ Cecilia humphed. ‘He is a cunning piece.’

  She turned the cloth over so that the cool could do its work.

  ‘Ysabel, what is wrong? Are you sure there is nothing we need concern ourselves with?’

  Her grey eyes were filled with concern.

  ‘It’s just my back,’ I replied, shifting on the bed. ‘It hurts so often. Very low and it comes round into my belly. I had to ride a warhorse you see, for many miles and the horse was tall and so very wide and I think I may have done some damage. If I could just rest comfortably … but it seems I rarely get the chance.’

  The door rattled and Brother John walked in, his robes swinging, and I was reminded of Sister Thea.

  How I long to be in that sanctuary.

  ‘My dear girl! What shall we do with you?’

  ‘She says it’s a back injury and tiredness and one might agree but…’ Cecilia frowned.

  ‘Then I shall get the infirmarian at the abbey to make up some pain relief and a tonic and we will have you up and about in no time.’