September sunshine flooded the walls of Ludlow in rich golden light. Hawise was enjoying the benediction of this end of summer warmth after the dire weather of the last six weeks. She was also enjoying her moment of respite at Ludlow. Brunin and his father had ridden to rejoin the King. There was talk of peace with the Welsh, but the terms had yet to be agreed and there was no guarantee that Owain Gwynedd would agree to what Henry wanted. There was also no guarantee that the FitzWarin would have Whittington restored to them.
Mellette had remained at Alberbury, but Hawise had returned to Ludlow where she could await Brunin in warmth and companionship, rather than dwell in Mellette’s cold, dowager world. She had brought Emmeline with her. There were many youngsters at Ludlow with whom the child could play, and the less restrictive atmosphere would help her recover from the loss of her mother.
“You have had a difficult beginning to your married life,” Sybilla commented as the women walked the dogs along the riverbank below the castle.
Hawise laughed bleakly. “I have had no married life. Brunin and I shared a bed for a week at Ludlow. At Alberbury we had to sleep in the hall, wrapped in our cloaks with Emmeline burrowed between us. There was no space for privacy of any kind and everyone was in shock and mourning for the loss of Lady Eve…and of Whittington.” She grimaced at her mother. “Lady Mellette stamped around being vile to everyone and it was left to me to order the household so that it didn’t descend into chaos. Brunin’s father…” She shook her head and watched two of the dogs splash into the river shallows after a moorhen. The indignant bird ran across the water and took off in a panic of dark wings. Emmeline giggled and pointed.
“He took it hard,” Sybilla said with a knowing nod.
“He was like a sleepwalker.” Hawise bit her lip. “His eyes were open, but they were only seeing what was in his mind and the rest of us might as well not have existed. Brunin has had to take up the slack.”
“Then God have pity on Lord Fulke, and be praised you were both ready for the responsibility.”
Hawise gave a rueful smile. “Prepared,” she said, “not ready.” She looked at her mother. “I don’t regret it though.”
“Then you are ready,” Sybilla said sagely.
They walked on, their path bordered by a second blooming of cow parsley and tall ox-eye daisies. The dogs shook themselves all over Emmeline, making her squeal, but in the next moment, child and hounds were running along the path, filled with exuberance.
Hawise’s half-sister Cecily joined them from the castle, a light cloak pinned at her shoulders. She was wearing a fine linen veil that exposed her throat and the glossy shine of her braids. Somewhere between spring and autumn a smile had returned to her face. She was being courted by Walter de Mayenne and negotiations had been entered into. Both sides were eager for the match to be made binding.
“I asked Marion if she wanted to come too, but she said not,” Cecily said as she fell into step with her mother and Hawise.
Sybilla sighed and gave a small shake of her head. “I do not know what to do with the girl,” she said. “The more I reach out, the more she withdraws from me, and yet I hate to see her trapped in a corner like a frightened wild thing.”
“She said she was busy with her sewing.” Cecily raised an eloquent eyebrow.
“Marion would sew from dawn until dusk if we let her,” Sybilla explained to Hawise. “She only leaves her needle to eat and sleep. Sometimes Cecily can persuade her to come for a walk but of late she has shunned even that. I make her run errands for me and do other tasks, but the moment her hands are free, she is back at her stitchery…or else washing her hands.”
“She makes clothes,” Cecily said. “Men’s clothing mostly: shirts and braies and hose.”
“For whom?” Hawise asked, although she already had an inkling of the reply.
“Whatever imaginary lover dwells in her mind, although I suspect he wears the face of Gilbert de Lacy’s knight. I put what she makes in a coffer. Such garments are always useful for guests and alms-giving days.”
Hawise brushed her hand over the seed-heavy grasses at the side of the footpath and felt chagrin. Once, for a brief span and almost to her downfall, her own dreams had worn the face of Ernalt de Lysle. “What is to become of her?”
Sybilla looked troubled. “Your father said before he left to join the King that he intended to arrange her a place in a nunnery. Certainly she is not fit to be wed, and after what happened, your father will not contemplate keeping her in our household. It is a sorry mess,” she sighed. “I often wonder what I could have done differently when she was a child to change things.”
“The damage was already done when she came to us, Mama,” Cecily said, giving her a hug.
“But I feel that I have failed in not undoing it…Ah, no more, I do not wish to think on it.” Sybilla waved her hand and quickened her pace to show that the matter was closed.
Later, as the maids latched the shutters upon the dusk and lit the candles in the bower, Hawise sat down at Marion’s side. Marion had placed her tapestry frame so that it caught the best of the candlelight from the wall sconce. She had abandoned the delicate sewing of earlier and was now working in couch stitch and woolen thread on a strip of linen.
“Do you want some help?” Hawise asked.
Marion shook her head. “No,” she replied in a pale, flat voice. “It’s mine. I don’t want anyone else to touch it.”
“What’s it for?” Hawise tilted her head. The picture was in its infancy but appeared to depict a castle or similar building and a woman standing in the doorway. Outlined to the right was a man on a horse.
“To hang on the wall, of course.” Marion flicked her a contemptuous look as if she thought Hawise was a lack-wit.
“In here?”
The contemptuous look hardened. “It might be.” Marion bent her head to her task.
Hawise watched Marion manipulate the needle. Her finger ends were rough where she had pricked herself, despite the use of a thimble. “You cannot hide in this forever. No matter how many pictures you sew, there is still a world beyond the window.”
“A world, or a nunnery?” Marion sneered. The needle jabbed in and out.
“What else did you expect?” Hawise thought of her own labor on Brunin’s yellow silk banner. A labor of love. Marion’s looked like desperation. “It’s Ernalt de Lysle, isn’t it?” she asked. “You’re making them for him.”
“You know nothing,” Marion snapped and turned her shoulder so that she was facing away from Hawise, shutting her out.
“It makes it seem real that you have to sew for him, like a wife or a sweetheart.”
“It is real.” Marion reached for the shears and snipped the thread. “I told you, you know nothing.” Raising her head she looked toward the end window where a maid was pulling the last set of shutters closed.
***
A week later, Joscelin and Brunin returned to Ludlow from the royal court.
“What happened?” Hawise asked her husband when, for the first time since the week of their wedding, she had him to herself. He had dismissed the squire who would otherwise have helped him unarm and she had sent away her maids and a male attendant once they had finished filling the wooden bathtub. Steam rose in misty swirls from its surface scented with astringent thyme and juniper.
Brunin had come directly from the stable yard and he stank of hard riding. He pushed his hands through his hair which was flattened and greasy from wearing an arming cap and coif. “What didn’t,” he said.
Hawise was burning with curiosity but she damped it down and fetched him wine and griddle cakes. They would be dining in the great hall with everyone else but the meal was still a couple of hours away and she could tell he needed sustenance.
Brunin drank the first cup of wine fast, began a second more slowly, and set about demolishing the griddle cakes with the efficiency of the ravenous.
“Henry and Owain Gwynedd have agreed to a peace,” he said, as he finished his fourth. “Owain’s pulled back from Rhuddlan and sworn homage to Henry and Henry’s withdrawn from his campaign. The Welsh might have tweaked the lion’s tail but they cannot withstand a concerted assault, and Henry doesn’t want to keep an army in the field through the autumn and winter. It suits all sides.”
“And Whittington?”
Brunin drained his second cup. “Whittington,” he said heavily, as if speaking the word were a burden. He unlatched his swordbelt and threw it across the coffer, not in anger, she thought, but in weariness and resignation. “Whittington is lost—for the moment.”
“Henry would not aid you?”
Brunin snorted. “You would not believe the hoops of fire we have had to jump through like tumblers’ dogs.” He stooped so that she could pull the hauberk over his head. While she laid it across the coffer with his swordbelt, he stripped the rest of his garments and stepped into the tub. She heard him gasp.
“Too hot?”
“Perfect,” he said, closing his eyes. “It’s one of the things I’ve dreamed about…when my dreams haven’t been nightmares.”
Hawise stooped to his discarded clothes. There was a tear in his shirt that would need mending once it was washed. With a restraint that came from effort rather than instinct, she did not badger him, but left him to speak in his own time.
Finally he cupped his hands in the water, swilled his face, and looked at her through spiked, black lashes. “The King didn’t want to begin another dispute with the Welsh that would cause further unrest along the Marches. He gave Whittington to Roger and Jonas de Powys who claim it as theirs, and enfeoffed my father with a manor in Gloucestershire instead.” His voice was expressionless.
Hawise stared at him. “He cannot do that!”
“He can, because he is the King. It is the same dispute that vexes your father and Gilbert de Lacy, save on a smaller scale. There are two claims and Henry has ruled that, for the moment, the de Powys brothers should hold Whittington.”
“But that’s not fair!” Hawise cried.
“So we told Henry—and in words more forceful than that.” He swilled his face again and pressed the water away with his hands.
“And what did he say?”
“That playing Solomon is always difficult…that there are hundreds of such disputes waiting to be resolved after the wars of the last fifty years. He finds the de Powys brothers useful and, since they have their feet in both camps and are fluent Welsh speakers, he’s prepared to be sympathetic to their claim. Iorwerth Goch will yield the castle to them and, in the meantime, Henry compensates us with one of his own manors.”
“And that is it? You lose Whittington forever?” Hawise knelt by the tub and began scrubbing his back with the washcloth, putting all the vigor of her indignation into the action.
“No,” Brunin said, and with a hiss half turned and took the cloth and soap dish away from her before she flayed him alive. “There is still room to appeal through the courts and get the lands restored, but for the moment possession is nine-tenths of the law.” He shook his head as she made to protest. “We were overrun by the Welsh. We were looking the other way when we should have been attending to our walls. Henry has given Whittington to the other claimants as a salutary lesson and because it suits him to have men of Welsh blood but English loyalties holding the keep.”
“But you were looking the other way because he had summoned you to his Welsh campaign.”
He shrugged. “It makes no difference. We still had a garrison at Whittington and the responsibility was ours.”
“And if possession is nine-tenths of the law, will you get it back?”
He was silent for a time, and Hawise was beginning to wonder whether to ask again or leave it alone when he finally drew breath to reply. “Yes,” he said softly. “We will get it back, however long it takes. The name of FitzWarin will not be forgotten at Whittington.” His jaw tightened and Hawise saw the lines of strain in his throat and across his shoulders. If he did not already have a headache, he was going to suffer a blinding one soon.
She took the cloth back from him and, this time, she was careful and her hands were very gentle, and after a while he relaxed, and then he grew tense again for different reasons, and for a while the matter of Whittington was of less importance than the dance of touch.
***
From the corner of her eye, Marion watched Brunin catch Hawise around the waist, pull her to him, and nuzzle her throat. Hawise laughed and gave him a bright look through her lashes and a nudge with her hip before slipping from the embrace to place a freshly laundered chemise in one of the traveling coffers.
They couldn’t keep their hands off each other, Marion thought sourly. Even if they were married, it was scandalous. There was a burning feeling inside her that she identified as jealousy—and fear that she would never have what they had. They were preparing to visit several FitzWarin manors, returning by way of the estates of Hawise’s dowry, and Marion was glad that they were leaving. Their laughter seemed to linger in the corners of the keep and even when she thrust her fingers in her ears she could still hear it inside her head. At night, lying on her pallet, she knew that in the next tower they were in bed together. Her mind felt the sweat of their bodies as they slid against each other, heard the sounds of pleasure they made, and was burned by the reflected heat of their lust. All night it kept her awake, like a fire licking in small cat-tongues along the pathways of her blood. Her loins were heavy and ached with dull need. Her thoughts were feverish, and the name of Ernalt de Lysle was on her lips as she counted her prayer beads through restless fingers and spoke his name like an invocation. She conjured his image and imagined him in the bed beside her. He would tell her how beautiful she was. He would stroke and caress her and in her turn she would wind her fingers in his golden hair and draw him down and they would become one.
Every night she would fall asleep to this vision of light and awaken in pitch darkness to nightmares of blood. Sometimes it was a wedding sheet, smeared with the red proof of her defloration; sometimes many sheets, twisted into a long rope like an umbilical cord dangling out of a moonlit turret window, the knotted end drip-dripping into the grass…and sometimes she would dream that Ernalt had thrust a knife into her belly and she would waken with a scream, clutching her stomach, and for an instant she would think she saw him lying beside her, drenched in blood, blue eyes staring into eternity.
Joscelin and Sybilla were leaving Ludlow too; a visit to their other manors was long overdue. Marion was supposed to be accompanying them but she had no intention of doing so. She knew Joscelin had plans to put her in a convent along the way and she was never going to let them imprison her thus.
Hawise left the coffer and went into the outer chamber to speak to her mother. Marion heard the women talking and the sound of light laughter. She felt excluded and miserable. Brunin sauntered across to the window, braced his arm on the splay, and looked out, his other hand resting lightly at his belt. She looked at the scar running from the base of his fingers toward his wrist. It was still new enough to be pinkish red and showed the marks where the stitches had lain. Marion thought of them touching Hawise’s body and shied away from where that led. But not swiftly enough, for he turned his head and looked at her with his knowing, sable gaze.
She thrust out her lower lip. “Everyone blames me, but it wasn’t my fault.”
“It was your choice though…and if Lord Joscelin decides to support you in a nunnery rather than beneath his own roof, then that is his choice too.” He faced her. “After all, you are not happy here, are you?”
She looked down at her hands. “I wanted to marry you once,” she said. “But I’m glad I didn’t, and I am happier than you know.”
His expression grew wry. “That is for certain.” For a moment he hesitated as if he were going to say more, but then with a slight shake of his head he left her and she heard him go into the other chamber and speak to Hawise, his voice losing its wariness and developing a softer timbre. For an instant she had a vision of herself, Brunin, and Hawise as children, playing in the bailey. The memory of her own laughter haunted her. She had been happy then, but that memory was little more than a faded echo.
Out in the bailey the dinner horn sounded. Marion wasn’t hungry, but she followed everyone else to the great hall. Let them be lulled by her passivity. She had to be cunning.
The smell of bread, onions, and meat as she entered the hall almost made her retch. Near the end of the hall were two trestles set out for travelers and minor guests. Seated at one of the benches was a man dressed in the sober garments of a merchant and, as she passed, he raised his eyes to her. She was surprised and affronted that a man of his class should bandy looks instead of lowering his gaze…until he deliberately touched his cloak clasp. Her gaze widened upon Ernalt’s brooch and her breath locked in her throat. Somehow she managed to keep on walking, somehow she succeeded in taking her own place at the high trestle in a manner that did not cause remark. But she could not prevent her hands from shaking as she broke the bread and sprinkled salt into her portion of lamb stew. Her partner for the duration of the meal was Lord Joscelin’s squire. Fortunately he had the ravenous appetite of a developing adolescent and although he attended to her, his courtesy was a matter of form and he was more interested in the food than watching her. Now and again she looked furtively toward the foot of the hall to check that the traveler was still there. He was eating with gusto and talking to his companions as if he had never looked at her or shown her Ernalt’s brooch. Biding his time, she thought, as she must bide hers.
When the meal was finished, Marion murmured an excuse about taking a walk to aid a queasy digestion, insisted that she would be all right, and went outside. She strolled the bailey paths, trying to look nonchalant, although her heart was thundering and she had to keep rubbing her hands because they were wet with perspiration. A chill wind was blowing across from Whitcliffe, and she wished she had brought her cloak, for her armpits were icy.
He caught up with her near one of the bailey store sheds and, with a swift glance around, drew her into the lee of the timber wall.
“Mistress Marion.” His eyes were of a brown almost as dark as Brunin’s. His hair, by contrast, was the yellow-gray of old fleece. He wore no sword, but a large dagger was slung from his belt and the solid weight of his garments spoke of prosperity.
She looked around fearfully. “You have a message for me?”
He opened his hand and held out the brooch. “Sir Ernalt sends you this as a token and bids you to tell him a time when it will be safe for him to come for you.”
Taking the brooch, she closed her own fingers over it, feeling the residual warmth of his hand and the hardness of the gold. Ernalt had kept his word. He had not forgotten. Her joy made her feel almost as sick as her misery had done before. “My lord and lady are leaving to visit their lands in Devon,” she said in a trembling voice, “and they want me to accompany them.”
“When?”
“Soon. Two days’ time, I think.” She searched his face and anxiety rippled through her. “They want to put me in a nunnery.”
His eyes narrowed. “Two days…”
Marion gave him an eager look. “You could bring me to him.”
“No, mistress, that was not my instruction and, besides, it would be too dangerous.”
“No more dangerous than him coming to me,” she said with a puzzled frown. “Indeed, less so.”
He looked at her hand, clasped over the brooch. “By that token you know that Sir Ernalt loves you beyond measure, but you must also know that he is ambitious. He wants you to be the lady of a great castle. He wants to see you gowned in silk and to treat you like a queen.”
Marion smiled with pleasure at the words, and then her eyes widened as the deeper meaning reached her. “Ludlow…” she said. “He wants Ludlow.”
“Only so that he can secure your future. Gilbert de Lacy’s wife would be the Lady of course, but you would be mistress of the chamber and her deputy. You would have rooms of your own and Sir Ernalt would be the constable.” His voice grew soft and persuasive. “With Joscelin de Dinan and his family absent, the castle will be easier to take and there will be no bloodshed. But we need someone inside to help us.”
She started to shake her head.
“You aided Lord Gilbert and Sir Ernalt to escape. If you do not help them now, then your only reward for loyalty will be incarceration in a nunnery. If you do your part, then you will gain gratitude and respect beyond measure…and have your love for the rest of your days. Your loyalty is to him, is it not?”
Put like that, the truth was indisputable. Marion swallowed. “What must I do?”
When he had gone, Marion hastened back to the bower. She did not have to pretend to be ill, for her stomach was churning with anxiety and she was sick several times. No one questioned her when she went to lie down on her pallet. Lady Sybilla brought her a cold cloth for her forehead and, after a few gentle words, mercifully let her be. She stared at the painted ceiling. Her choice was made; her path set. A nunnery and a lifetime of prayer and repentance, or Ernalt and Ludlow. No choice at all.