Innocent's Champion

by Meriel Fuller

  Despite the prominent size of her pregnant belly, Isabelle jumped up with surprising speed, approaching the bed and plucking the furs from Matilda, tossing them to the floor. ‘Come on, then!’ she chivvied, clapping her hands. ‘If you want my help, then it has to be now. I have far more important things to be dealing with.’

  Head swimming, Matilda inched tentatively towards the edge of the bed. A headache clustered on her brow, drumming relentlessly. A thousand chaotic thoughts ran through her mind: where could she go now? Could she continue north, alone, to find her brother? But the light was fading, which meant leaving at dusk. She would have to find a place to rest for the night. A few days ago, such an idea had been utterly achievable in her mind, but now, now she felt vulnerable, frightened. Was this what Gilan had turned her into? A nervous, pathetic shadow of a woman, with no mind, or self-confidence of her own? Her heart pleated with sadness and she bit down, hard, on her bottom lip to prevent a fresh wash of tears marring her face. She had come to rely on him, had become used to his dynamic, vital presence at her side. She missed him. She loved him.

  ‘Now, where are the clothes that you arrived in?’ Isabelle asked breathlessly, a terse smile pinned across her narrow mouth. She whirled about, trying to spot them. ‘They were ideal, you looked so much like a boy when I first saw you.’ She marched about, flipping open the lids on a couple of oak coffers, ducking her head to check behind an embroidered screen, then sighed. ‘No, not here. She must have taken them away to be washed. They were in a fearful state. Horrendous.’

  ‘She…?’ Matilda asked, bare feet skimming the elm floorboards. She shivered in the diaphanous material of her shift.

  ‘Marie. Gilan’s mother. She was the one who tended to your wound. Gilan was beside himself. I’ve never seen him like that before. It was quite amusing, actually. He was insanely worried about you.’ She cackled gleefully, then covered her mouth hurriedly with her hand, as if embarrassed by the high-pitched sound.

  ‘I’m sure he wasn’t that worried,’ Matilda replied dully, trying to summon the energy to stand upright. She felt as if she were distanced from her own body, floating, drifting.

  ‘No, you’re right,’ Isabelle agreed vigorously, realising her mistake. ‘He wasn’t that worried. I expect he was exhausted from having to carry you all that way.’ Isabelle’s hazel gaze fixed on to Matilda like a crab’s pincers. ‘You were probably becoming a bit of a burden.’

  Matilda nodded, swaying from the bed. The chamber reeled and she clutched out to the bedpost, grabbing the carved wood and a handful of curtain for support. A burden. Of course, that was all she was to him.

  ‘There are no clothes here,’ Isabelle announced. ‘I will go and fetch a gown of my own for you. Wait here and don’t go anywhere.’ Lifting the iron latch on the door, she slipped through, the voluminous red-satin hem trailing after her like a serpent’s tail.

  No chance of that, thought Matilda, her whole body shuddering with the effort of staying upright. Short of running away clad only in a chemise and bed fur, she had little choice but to stay put. She reached down to pull the pelt from the bed and up around her shoulders, wriggling her chilly feet against the floor. Maybe if she stood next to the brazier she would warm up a little? Staggering across the chamber, she reached the spot between the bed and the window, where the black coals glowed snug inside their metal casing. Her body cleaved to the heat gratefully and she pressed one hand against the stone windowsill to balance herself.

  Panes of uneven, handblown glass formed the narrow, arched windows. The small glass diamonds were fixed into a grid of lead work; through them, she could see down into formal gardens laid out to the south of the castle. Rows of yew hedging divided the flat area into several areas of planting and paths: a herb garden, a rose arbour and a vast vegetable plot. Rounded heads of globe artichokes undulated in the breeze, grey and stiff, segmented. The gardens were surrounded by the towering curtain wall, turreted at intervals, protecting the castle within. Beyond the wall, acres of forest stretched towards the western horizon, where glowering clouds gathered, collecting ominously.

  Three figures walked slowly together along the central path, heads bent towards each other in earnest conversation, arms interlinked. Her heart lurched as she recognised Gilan’s immense shoulders, the gilt of his hair matching that of the elderly couple walking with him. The older man pulled himself along heavily with the aid of a stick, his step rolling sideways, marred by a significant limp. The lady was almost as tall as Gilan, hair shining out like a coin in the dimming light. She had to be Gilan’s mother, Marie.

  Matilda bit her lip, betrayal coursing through her. Despite everything that had happened between her and Gilan, he had helped her and brought her to his home. His mother had tended to her wounds. Was she really going to slink away without a word of thanks, like a fox in the night, head held low? Closing her eyes, she pressed her heated forehead against the cool glass of the windowpane. Of course that was what she would do. For to face Gilan now, knowing that he would never be with her, and skim her eyes across the beautiful carved lines of his face, inhale his heady scent of leather and horseflesh, was too much to bear. Her cobbled-together heart would surely shatter and she would never, ever, be able to piece it back together.

  She had to leave now. Alone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As the light faded into dusky evening, servants scurried about the great hall, setting flaming tapers against the thick wax candles set into hollowed stone niches, or stuck on to unwieldy wrought-iron candlesticks. A massive fire burned in the fireplace, dispelling the constant feeling of damp in the chamber, even in summer. The jacquard-weave curtains were pulled back from the main entrance, and the labourers and soldiers tied to the Earl of Chesterham’s extensive estates filed in, tired, hot and dirty from their day’s work, settling themselves at the trestle tables in keen anticipation of food. Wine sloshed out from the pewter jugs set upon the tables and goblets were lifted aloft. The noise of chattering rose steadily to a pleasant hubbub as people began to relax, watching with glee as laden platters, steam ascending in veiled drifts, were brought out from the kitchens.

  Turning to his son beside him, Ranulf raised his silver goblet, brimming with rich French wine. The deep red liquid swirled in the candlelight, almost spilling. ‘It’s so good to have you home, Gilan.’ He touched the cup to his lips, swallowed deeply. ‘And thank you,’ he murmured. ‘Thank you for telling us…how it truly happened.’

  Seated between his mother and father, Gilan inclined his head tersely, staring grimly across the crowds of people thronging the hall. Telling his parents about Pierre’s death had been the most difficult thing he had ever had to do, but somehow, the telling of it had not been as difficult as he had anticipated.

  He knew why. Against the white damask tablecloth, a pair of twinkling, forget-me-not eyes flashed before him. With her generosity of spirit, her beautiful kindness, Matilda had never given up on him, chipping away at the hard shell around his heart, gradually exposing the grief, the loss and the guilt that churned within him since his brother’s death. She had softened the hurt, diluted it, peeling the solid layers away with her generous smile, the lightest touch of her fingers against his arm, the fragrant press of her naked limbs against his own. She was his salvation, an angel shining through the shadowed storm of his grief.

  So when his mother and he had left Matilda in the upstairs bedchamber to recover and sleep, and the time came that he must speak of Pierre to his parents, he had been able to tell them everything, about how he had caused the accident and how he blamed himself. He told them how he teased Pierre on that fateful morning, calling him a slug-a-bed for lolling about in his tent, not realising his brother was ill and burning up with a fever; told them how he wished, time and time, again, that it should have been him who had climbed the scaling ladder.

  But they didn’t blame him. With tears in their eyes, his
mother had turned him in her arms and hugged him; his father Ranulf had squeezed his hand. In silence, they had walked together along the garden paths, listening to the furious scream of swallows diving in the air above, and remembered Pierre. Their son. His brother.

  Abruptly, Gilan threw his napkin down on to his plate and pushed his chair back, the wooden legs scraping violently against the polished elm floorboards. He had changed into a tunic of grey velvet for the evening’s feasting, the expensive material pulling taut across the magnificent breadth of his shoulders.

  ‘Where are you going?’ His mother glanced up at him in surprise. Her white-blond hair had been fashioned into an elaborate twist at the back of her head, secured with emerald pins. The jewels winked in the juddering candlelight, green fire.

  ‘Matilda, I must see how she is,’ he said. And he wanted to talk to her.

  Marie laughed, glancing pointedly at Gilan’s empty plate. ‘Sit down, my son, and eat. She’ll be sleeping for a good while yet. And I left Berta with her. She’ll come down and tell us when she wakes up.’

  ‘I must say, I can’t wait to meet this young woman,’ Ranulf said, his hand hovering above a platter of floury bread rolls. ‘Disguised as a boy and acting as a guide for none other than Henry of Lancaster himself—she sounds a complete tearaway!’ He bit down into the bread, loose white flour dusting his top lip.

  ‘I thought so, too, when I first met her,’ Gilan said, failing to spot the swift knowing glance between his parents. ‘I was so wrong.’ He threw himself down into the chair once more. A flicker of colour snared his attention and he looked up to see Isabelle walking alongside the trestles towards the dais. The front of her dress bulged outwards, declaring the advanced stage of her pregnancy.

  He whipped his head around to his mother, brows drawn together in question. ‘She’s pregnant!’ he hissed, his mind rapidly calculating the months and days that he and Pierre had been out of the country. ‘But how can that be?’

  His mother raised her eyebrows, a tight smile playing across her lips. ‘Precisely. How can that be? She swears blind that the child is Pierre’s, but we all know it’s not the truth—Pierre was away for the whole year, like you.’

  ‘But she wants Pierre’s inheritance and she’ll claim it through the child,’ Gilan replied grimly.

  ‘Not now, my son, not now that you’re home. You’re witness to the fact that you were with your brother all this last year,’ his mother said calmly. ‘And besides, a certain Lord Robert of Havering is paying a great deal of interest towards her. I suspect the child is his.’ Her tone was dry, scathing. ‘Although I’m sure that won’t stop her angling for you to be her next husband. She always had an eye for you.’

  Gilan shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t especially interested in Isabelle’s schemes. Before he had left on crusade she had been a flighty, unsteady maid, quick to drop into a melancholy, brooding mood. Pierre had despaired of her inconstant manner on several occasions, unsure how to deal with his wife’s volatile behaviour.

  ‘On second thoughts, I will go and see Matilda,’ Gilan said, pushing back his chair, ‘even if she is still sleeping.’

  ‘Running away, my son?’ Ranulf murmured, smiling ruefully, rubbing one hand across his sore leg. The wound he had sustained in France plagued him continually. ‘I wish I could do the same.’

  Gilan approached the wooden steps at the side of the dais as Isabelle placed one slippered foot on the bottom step. Her vast stomach pushed out her skirts, gathered with tiny pleats from an embroidered seam beneath her bosom. The pale pink silk rippled like water, the bodice sewn with sparkling seed beads in the shape of flowers.

  ‘Isabelle, greetings. I trust you’re faring well?’ Gilan asked courteously, extending one hand down the three steps in order to help her up. ‘Need a hand up, my lady?’

  ‘Oh, Gilan, I didn’t see you there!’ Isabelle gasped out, twisting her mouth into what she hoped was a winning smile, fluttering her sparse eyelashes in his direction. ‘I’m not moving very fast these days!’ She indicated her belly with a significant glance.

  His tanned fingers clasped around her hand; she clung on to him with a surprisingly strong grip as he hoisted her up. Standing on the level beside him, still holding on to his hand, Isabelle swept him with her hazel gaze, a smug, self-satisfied smile playing across her bloodless lips.

  ‘Still a handsome devil, Gilan,’ she murmured coyly, savouring the stunning shock of his bright hair, the metallic sparkle of his eyes. She raised one hand to touch the lean, tanned line of his jaw, but he pulled back, abruptly, before her fingers made contact, frowning at her over-familiarity.

  ‘Behave yourself, Isabelle. My mother is waiting for you.’

  ‘Oh, Gilan, don’t be like this. I’m pleased to see you, that’s all.’ She peeked at him from under lowered lashes, smiling coquettishly. ‘Can’t I greet my brother-in-law in the proper manner?’

  ‘This is hardly the proper manner, Isabelle.’ He raised one gilt eyebrow in her direction. ‘And well you know it.’ Prising her fingers easily from his hand, he moved down the steps. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, Isabelle, but I am needed elsewhere.’

  ‘Oh, can’t you stay?’ Isabelle whined, patting at the coils of her wispy, brown hair. Her mouth turned down at the corners, a sour expression. ‘I have to endure your parents day in and day out. It would be a delight to talk to someone different.’

  ‘No, I’m going up to see Matilda—the girl I brought back this afternoon,’ he explained. ‘She had a nasty bump on the head.’

  ‘I know,’ said Isabelle, stretching out her hand down to him, ‘I heard all about it. But I’m sure the best thing for her at the moment is to sleep, without interruption.’

  Gilan shrugged his shoulders. ‘I will sit with her while she sleeps. I wouldn’t want her to wake up and think we’ve all abandoned her.’

  ‘Berta is sitting with her, so there’s no need for you to go,’ Isabelle remonstrated. A hot wash of colour swept across her thin face.

  ‘She doesn’t know Berta,’ Gilan countered in a calm tone.

  Isabelle placed her hands on her hips, a dangerous gleam entering her eyes. ‘And she knows you, I suppose?’

  Gilan frowned. ‘Yes, of course she knows me. I brought her here, remember?’

  Isabelle snorted. ‘How could I forget? You practically ignored me when you carried her up the steps.’

  He inclined his head in apology. ‘Forgive me. But you will have to excuse me now, Isabelle, for I must go to her.’

  A hardness dragged at Isabelle’s mouth, compressing her lips into a grim, clenched line. ‘Haven’t you done enough for her?’ Jealousy tore at her voice, a raw, bitter hatred. ‘I want you to sit with me!’ She dug her fingers into the hard muscles of his forearm, pointed nails scratching his flesh beneath his tunic.

  Gilan raised his eyebrows at the change in Isabelle’s tone, the shrewish questioning. Here was the true Isabelle, the one his brother had found so difficult to deal with. Across the white expanse of tablecloth, across the glowing pewter ware and glistening movement of eating knives, he could see his mother looking over, frowning, then rising from her chair.

  ‘And I told you, Isabelle,’ he replied, steel reinforcing his voice, ‘that I am going to sit with Matilda.’

  A triumphant glint entered Isabelle’s eyes, and she folded her arms across her bosom, shaking her head. ‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to tell you then, Gilan.’

  ‘Tell me…what?’ he rapped out. His eyes narrowed dangerously, glimmering dark pewter.

  ‘That she’s gone.’ Isabelle’s words emerged with deadly clarity. ‘Yes, that’s right, Gilan, she couldn’t bear to stay a moment longer once I told her the truth.’

  ‘What…what truth?’ he exploded, a harsh red colour streaking his taut cheekbones.

  ‘That, my love…’ Isabelle�
�s voice subsided to a teasing seductiveness, faintly gloating ‘…we are to be married, of course! Surely it makes sense…. Gilan! Come back here!’

  But he had turned away from her, sprinting across the hall towards the stairs.

  * * *

  Tears pouring down her cheeks, Matilda stumbled up the forest path, tripping once again on the enormous hemline of Isabelle’s gown. Her toes sank continuously into the fallen debris of leaves and twigs, a smell of rotting fungus assailing her nostrils. She gasped for breath, scrubbing angrily at her eyes. She couldn’t seem to stop crying. Bracing one hand against the scratchy bark of a tree, her lungs compacted, fighting for air, pain slicing across her brow.

  Her progress was slow, too slow! Her legs shook with the effort of moving, her muscles puny, uncooperative. All she wanted was to be away from Gilan’s home as quickly as possible, so why was her body so unwilling to move? What was the matter with her? This godforsaken dress didn’t help, the trailing hem catching at her toes with every step. Her heart had dropped in dismay when she viewed the clothes Isabelle had brought back for her; for a start, they seemed more suited to the winter months: a gown of pale green velvet, high-necked, and a hooded mantle of lilac wool, lined with grey silk. There had been no time to do her hair; she had bound it into a rough plait that snaked down her back and hoped it would suffice.

  A drop of rain hit her face, trickled down her cheek. Then another, and another. She had to move, find shelter. Above her head, through the criss-crossing grid of branches, fat grey clouds obscured the limpid blue of the sky, bulging ominously. Black crows wheeled and circled above their nests in the lofty branches, their harried calls echoing like an alarm.

  She laid her head against the trunk, hot tears trickling down her face. Why did this have to be so hard? What she had planned to do was not insurmountable: find her brother, go home. It was what she had planned to do all along, before she had met Gilan. Before. It was all so different now. She was different. Pushing her palms against the tree, her heart shuddered with grief, at the loss of a man who had become so dear to her. A man whom she loved. And now, this man, this man who said he was not worthy of her, would go to another. Had he been lying to her the whole time? Had he always known about the marriage to his sister-in-law? Of course, it made sense, for one brother to marry the dead brother’s wife, to take care of her. Why had she not questioned him more, instead of blithely succumbing to his charms, to his beauty? Why had she been unable to resist? She shook her head in disbelief at her own stupidity. Foolish, foolish girl! She had to go on, to force herself to put one foot in front of the other, to kick out at the awkward skirts and clear a path. She must keep going. She had to.