by Speer, Flora
On this particular day, Isabel, sick of falseness and of having always to be on guard, had made her way into a rose garden enclosed by grey stone walls, where she hoped to find a few moments of peace. Around her the rosebushes stood like stark skeletons, awaiting the winter’s first snows. The early November sky was lead grey and heavy. A chill wind whipped at her cloak and lifted the edge of her white silk veil. She shivered.
She thought of Walter. She was afraid of him, though she would never have admitted it to anyone. He stirred something in her, something dark and deeply hidden, something she would rather have left unexamined, denying it even existed. If she had been forced to put a name to it she would have said it was lust. Lately she had wanted to cross herself every time she saw Walter.
She heard a step on the path behind her and whirled, knowing even before she saw him who it would be. And this time no one else was present to provide protection for her.
“You must stop this, stop following me,” she said. “You will create a scandal.”
“In this palace?” Walter laughed. “Impossible. There is so much scandal already, no one would notice us.”
“That’s not true. Lionel has enemies. I know they spy on me. They would report any misbehavior to the king. I would not harm Lionel in any way.”
“I cannot believe you care for him.”
“It is a matter of loyalty. I will not betray my lord and husband.”
“You mean you will not allow yourself to feel anything, lest your own emotions betray you. And him.”
“I have no emotions. My heart is dead.”
“That,” said Walter, “I also do not believe.” He seized her hand and began kissing it. “I love you madly,” he declared.
She was so startled by this action and by his words that she did not snatch her hand away as she ought to have done. She stood there, stupidly letting him kiss her hand. She whimpered when his mouth reached the pulse in her wrist. His tongue flicked across the spot, sending flames racing up her arm. Her brain was all on fire. She could not think, only feel, and those emotions she had declared she did not have were urging her toward Walter, into his arms.
“I love you,” he whispered, “more than I have ever loved any woman in my life before this. I have loved you since the first moment I saw you. I would give my life for you, even my honor if need be. Nothing matters but you. I adore you.”
“No,” she quavered, her voice as weak and shaking as the rest of her. “No. I mustn’t let you say these things.”
“Isabel.” Long dark fingers turned her face up to his. His mouth was there, just a breath away from hers. “Isabel, we could be circumspect. No one need know. Let me love you. Love me. Please.”
She hung for a moment at the very edge of the precipice, tasting the fear, and the freedom, that lay beyond if she would but leap with him. She wanted to trust him, to go with him and let herself feel again all the things that had been bottled up inside her as she had struggled to survive in a treacherous court and a disastrous marriage. She still had to survive, and self-preservation won. She took her hand out of his.
“I cannot,” she said, low but very clearly.
He stepped back, regarding her as if he thought he had not heard her aright.
“You must leave me alone,” she continued, her voice growing stronger as she spoke. “You must stop seeking me out and causing everyone to notice us.”
“Now I am the one who cannot. I love you. Whenever I see you my every instinct is to fly to your side so I may hear your voice, perhaps touch you. I ache to hold you in my arms; my mouth burns for the feel of yours opening beneath it. Isabel,” his husky whisper tore at the wall she was trying desperately to rebuild around her heart, “Isabel, my darling, my love, I beg you, come to me.”
“No!” She had herself in hand now. She was too used to deceit to be taken in by him. “You do not love me, you are only trying to seduce me for some purpose of your own.”
“As God is my witness, I swear I love you! You are my very heart and soul.”
“I do not believe you. Who pays you, Walter? Is it Ralph Flambard?”
“What?” The look on his face should have told her how mistaken she was, but she was too sure of herself now to pay any attention to him.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” she persisted, ignoring his cry of pain. “You and Flambard plan to ruin me, and through me, Lionel. You would destroy us both through this love you so falsely declare.”
“Are you so corrupted by the degradation all around us that you cannot see honesty when it appears before you? I have not lied to you,” Walter said. “I am only a simple knight without lands or title, I have nothing to offer you save myself and my love, but I meant every word I said.”
“I do not believe you,” she told him scornfully. “I will never believe you. You are a spy, sent to do me harm.”
A silence followed her words, silence so deep she could hear the dead rose leaves scratching against the stone walls surrounding them, enclosing a garden as barren and empty as her heart. She felt peaceful and very sure of herself. The danger was passed and she was Isabel again, in full possession of her senses.
“I will trouble you no more, my lady,” Walter said. “I will honor your wishes and stay away from you. Far away. But I will never stop loving you. And when you are alone and in need of comfort, as you surely will be one day, with your cold heart, think of me and what I would have given you, and let my absence be your punishment.”
He was gone. Isabel shrugged her shoulders. She was well rid of him. He was a spy, if not for Ralph Flambard then for another of Lionel’s enemies, and every word he had spoken was a lie.
The short winter day had ended. It was growing colder. Isabel pulled her cloak around her and started back to her chamber, thinking along the way about the new velvet gown she planned to wear for that evening’s entertainment. Gowns were safe, and jewels, and frivolous songs. She had almost made a mistake today. She had caught herself just in time. She did not want to lose everything she had for something so silly and unreal as love. Better, she told herself, to be frivolous and safe. Much, much better.
In mid November, King William went to Normandy and spent Christmas there. Isabel had been refused permission to go along, so she remained at Westminster, which, in the king’s absence, was nearly deserted and very boring without the usual great holiday feasts. Still, it was better than Adderbury, and infinitely better than Wales.
December blew itself out in a gust of sudden changes. Walter fitz Alan announced he would take the cross and join the great crusade even now marching toward the Holy Land to free it from the Saracens. He would wait only until his squires, Guy and Brian, had been knighted, and then he, and they, would be gone. Isabel had not spoken to him since his emotional outburst in the rose garden, though she had seen him every day. He kept well away from her as he had promised he would.
Isabel had other concerns than Walter. Shortly after Christmas word reached her, by rumor first and then by information Guy had had, that Lionel had gone to Normandy to see William. They had quarreled, Guy reported, and something shocking had occurred. Something to do with Ralph Flambard.
“You will drive me mad,” Isabel cried. “I must know what has happened. Tell me at once.”
“I cannot. I’d be too embarrassed.” Guy’s face was dark red with his blush. “Please don’t ask me, Isabel.”
“Where is Lionel now?”
“He sailed back to England. His ship was nearly wrecked in a storm, but he made it safely to shore, and then he and his men rode into Wales. He is said to be at Afoncaer.”
“How does he stand with the king after this incident of which you will not speak? Has he ruined us all at last?” In Isabel’s voice was all the contempt she had come to feel for both Lionel and the king.
“I do not know.” Guy looked as if he might cry. “I cannot bear it. By this degrading friendship with the king, Lionel has shamed our family almost beyond redemption, and now he has created a public scandal
, so even the lowliest villein will laugh at his name. God knows what he will do next, left to himself in Wales. I have tried, but I cannot help him. He won’t listen to me. I am going to leave England, Isabel. I can’t stay here and watch my brother destroy himself.”
“Leave England?”
“I’ll take the cross and go with Walter. Perhaps I can expiate our family’s shame in the Holy Land.”
“You would leave me alone? What shall I do?”
“Take my advice and return to Adderbury and live quietly there, out of William’s way. No,” Guy smiled sadly, seeing her stricken face, “no, you won’t do that, will you? It’s too boring. No reason at Adderbury to wear all your pretty dresses, no one to flirt with, no hearts to break.”
She looked at him sharply, wondering just how much Walter had told him. “I detest Adderbury,” she declared. “It is safe,” Guy said. “Safe for Thomas. You should be thinking of him instead of yourself. You are too selfish where he is concerned. Sometimes I think you don’t love him at all. The boy adores you. Treat him kindly and he will reward you with love and honor all your life. Use him badly and you will have another Lionel to deal with.”
On 2 January, 1098, on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Guy was knighted, along with his friend Brian of Collen and six other young men. Isabel, who knew none of the other new knights personally, paid no attention to anyone but Guy during the ceremony, her eyes filling with tears as she watched him.
“You will be all a good knight should be,” she told him later, as he kissed her solemnly on both cheeks.
“Walter and I will leave tomorrow at dawn,” Guy said. “We may not meet again, Isabel, or at least not for many years. I would not part from you in anger. I’m sorry for the harsh words I used to you the other day. Forgive me.”
“I do. I know how troubled you have been over Lionel. I have had orders from him, a letter from his secretary, which Father Herbert read to me last night. I could not tell you before this because of your vigil. I am to go to Wales or Adderbury, whichever I choose, immediately, and to keep Thomas close by me until he is sent to Prince Henry’s household on his seventh birthday.”
“I am glad to hear Lionel still has a care for his son,” Guy replied. “I hope you have, too.”
“I have told Father Herbert to write that I will not go to Wales until Lionel has built comfortable accommodations for me. Thomas and I will leave for Adderbury at week’s end. So, you see, I am taking your advice after all.”
She was doing it most unwillingly, but at least she had avoided going to Wales. She would stay away from that benighted place as long as she possibly could. If she never saw the Welsh border, or Afoncaer, at all, Isabel would be perfectly content.
Part III
Meredith
England and Wales
A.D. 1098 – 1105
Chapter 11
Mercia, AD 1098
She could not remember her mother and she had never seen her father. He was the local lord, a Norman named Ranaulf, who had thoughtlessly exercised his baronial rights over a comely Saxon peasant girl. The girl had died during a winter of intolerable cold and famine, when her ill-gotten baby was two years old. The child she left behind was sheltered by her older brother, Alfric, and his wife.
A healing woman, this strange Aunt Branwen, clever with herbs, able to ease the pains of childbirth or cool a fever, or stanch the blood of a wound inflicted by the farmer’s clumsy tools. Branwen, who was not native to the village and therefore regarded with suspicion, was rumored by some to be a witch, but so long as she was the docile wife of Alfric their neighbor, and attended church regularly, and cast only helpful spells, she was tolerated, if not fully accepted.
The child’s name was Meredith, a word as foreign to the village as the woman who had given it to her.
“I named you,” Branwen said when Meredith was old enough to question her. “Your poor mother had no thought for a name. She seldom spoke after you were born. You had to be baptized, so I chose Meredith for you.”
Meredith would not have been sure of her age, for no one bothered to keep records, especially of a villein’s child, when everyone knew children died easily and often, but Aunt Branwen, in addition to her other accomplishments, could count, too, and she said Meredith had lived twelve summers and would soon be a woman. Her breasts had budded, her hips had rounded, and her waist had curved to a graceful line in the last few months. She was so different from the other children, with her long, straight legs and slender hands and feet, and her flaming red curls, that they teased her and chased her, their own rickety legs and heavy feet churning through the mud of the village’s single road, their thick villeins’ hands flinging heavy clods of earth.
“I hate them! Hate them!” Meredith brushed away an angry tear, her hand leaving a dirty smudge on one cheek. “I don’t bother them. Why won’t they leave me alone?”
“They are jealous of you. You don’t belong here and they know it. Neither do I belong here, but I can’t help that now.” Aunt Branwen gave the kettle a vigorous stir with the wooden spoon and sniffed. “When I was a girl there was always meat in the pot, or a good fat chicken. Turnips, pah! Peasants’ food! And if it doesn’t stop raining soon we will be eating acorn bread and tree bark again before next winter is over.” She turned aside, but not before Meredith saw the tears on her cheek.
“Don’t cry.” Meredith came to her aunt, putting her arms around the woman’s waist and nuzzling gently against her like some innocent young animal.
“That was long ago, girl, and far from here. I made my choice and I’ll live with it. But you,” Branwen’s dark eyes rested on her niece’s face and she sighed. “I would wish better for you.”
“Why don’t we belong here? Why do they call me misbegotten bastard?”
“It’s because the villagers hate Lord Ranaulf so much. The Normans say it is a lord’s right to take any woman on his domain. Your mother was young, no older than you are now, and very pretty. The people here cannot forgive that Lord Ranaulf showed your mother favor.”
“Did she like my father?”
“I do not think so. That would make no difference. Normans do as they please. You would be wise to stay away from all of them. Just be glad Lord Ranaulf seldom bothers to come to Kelsey. And Meredith…”
“Yes, Aunt Branwen.” Clear grey eyes were raised to her aunt’s anxious face.
“You are even more pretty than your mother was. If anyone, whether knight or villein, tries to do that to you, or lays a hand on you, you must run away and come to me, and I will protect you. Promise me.”
“I promise, aunt.” One bare foot scuffled in the dirt of the cottage floor. “Shall I go help uncle with the milking?”
“Yes, go.” Branwen returned to the kettle when Meredith had left, stirring idly as her thoughts drifted into the past, to the time when she had first come to Kelsey.
Worn to bone-thin exhaustion by her flight from Afoncaer, terrified that she would somehow be caught and taken back and given to Sir Edouard, she had grasped at the one bit of hope given to her. Alfric had willingly let her stay in his cottage. He had cared for her when she had lain for days, too weak to rise from the bed of rags and straw he had made for her. Alfric had fed and soothed her as her mind returned to Tynant and Afoncaer and the terrible things that had happened there. He had not comprehended a word of her delirious ravings, but he had understood her grief and had known that she must weep it out and be done with it.
Later, when she was better, he had tried to protect her from the curiosity and the superstitious gossip of the other villagers for as long as he could. His arm was often about her shoulders in those days, and she had sensed that he wanted her despite the suspicions and the disapproval of his neighbors. Too soon it became clear to Branwen that she must either marry Alfric or move on, lest she endanger not only herself, but her host and his family.
She had nowhere to go. Winter was coming, when it would be too cold for her to live in the forest without shelter a
s she had done in midsummer. All of Wales was surely conquered by now. The Normans would not stop until it belonged to them. She could not go back. It no longer mattered that she had been born a noblewoman. She was an outcast, a refugee, dependent upon Alfric’s kindness for her very life. Her once-proud spirit broken at last by this knowledge, her heart still aching with guilt over her brief attraction to the murderer of her family, Branwen acquiesced in her fate. When Alfric timidly asked her, she agreed to marry the Saxon villein. At least he was not a Norman.
Alfric admired her, even went a little in awe of her once he had learned of her ability to make and use herbal medicines. He was kind to her, kinder than she deserved, considering how little of her true self she gave to him in return for his protection. She let him use her body in gratitude for all he had done for her, but she could not bring herself to bear his children. His halting, gentle clumsiness when he touched her evoked only a dull pity and mild compassion. All the fire of Branwen’s lost youth lay banked beneath ashes, smoldering.
Lord Ranaulf had been in France when Branwen had come to Kelsey. Ranaulf’s seneschal, left in charge of the poorly managed fief and grown even more lazy than usual in his master’s absence, had not known, or had not cared, that a strange female was living with one of the villeins. He had given his permission for Alfric’s marriage without paying much attention.
When Lord Ranaulf did return several years later, and thought to ask if there had been issue of his dalliance with Alfric’s sister, he was told of Meredith’s existence. He then called Alfric into his presence to inform the villein that he and his wife were to foster the child until further notice. In recompense for this service, Ranaulf remitted a small portion of the crops Alfric usually paid to his lord at harvest time, and then rode away again without having seen his daughter.
