Sybilla stared at the row of stitches. She could not remember sewing them, but the evidence of her eyes was testament to her industry. She was like Marion, mindlessly seaming garments as if the lines of thread held the meaning of life. She wondered if Marion was dead. She also wondered if the girl had had any part in Ludlow’s overthrow. Reports were scattered and unclear. All that was known for certain was that Gilbert de Lacy had taken both town and castle in a single night of blood and fire.
“I was a young bride when I came to Ludlow,” Sybilla told Sibbi and Hawise who had arrived with their husbands at Joscelin’s call to arms. She gazed out of the window. From the high chamber at their manor of Stanton, where they had moved from Hartland, she could see the sheep grazing the harvested fields and watch an autumn wind tossing the trees. “It had a wooden palisade then and the towers were only half built, but I was still bursting with pride that such a place should be mine.”
“Mama…” At a loss for words, Hawise touched her arm. Everyone was still reeling from the news of Ludlow’s loss. Reality was like a blurred piece of window glass, thick and distorted.
“There were times when the war came so close that I thought we would lose everything, but we held on and I thought we had survived.” She gave a tremulous sigh. “Now I am old, and what pride I had…” She broke off and with a shake of her head picked up her needle, but her eyes were too full to sew.
“We’ll win it back,” Hawise said fiercely. “Papa has sent an appeal to the King and our vassals are rallying daily to our banner.”
Sybilla nodded. “Yes,” she said, her voice tight with the effort of controlling tears, “we’ll win it back, but when I think of the struggle when I thought that struggling was over, I feel very tired.” She turned as Joscelin entered the room and immediately pushed her lips into the semblance of a smile. It was one thing to unburden herself to her daughters who, as women, were fellow conspirators, another to expose her weaknesses to her husband, who needed her strength.
His tread was heavy as he crossed to the flagon and poured himself a cup of wine. The years that usually sat so lightly on him were now a visible weight. He too, she thought, was growing old and tired. It was a terrifying thought.
“There is news,” he said and took a deep drink.
And not good, she could tell. Abandoning her needlework, she went to him. “Tell me.”
He looked into the depths of his cup. “Several of our vassals have renounced their oath to me and chosen to declare for de Lacy.”
She winced and asked him for names. When he gave them, she was disappointed but not surprised. Even during the settled times there had been opposition to their tenure of Ludlow. Her claim was on the distaff side and his was through marriage to her. Nor had they produced sons to follow them, only sons-in-law, and not every man was keen to follow a FitzWarin or a Plugenet. “They do not matter,” she said. “William de Criquetot and Walter Devereux were always weak reeds. We have other, loyal men to call upon.”
He conceded the point with a shrug and another cup of wine. “We’ll be ready to march on Ludlow by the morrow,” he said. “The less time de Lacy has to become entrenched, the better. FitzWarin has a troop waiting at Alberbury, and he’s called in support from all of his vassals.”
She could feel him going through tallies in his head, collating, thinking, planning. Once such crises had been challenges to meet or cunningly circumnavigate. Once. When they were younger. Sybilla drew herself up. Maudlin self-pity would solve nothing and she would not add to Joscelin’s burden by weeping. “I will write again to the King,” she said. “And Bishop Gilbert will add his words to mine. Henry must act on this matter.”
“And who knows which way Henry will jump,” Joscelin said bleakly.
***
In the cramped side chamber allotted to himself and Hawise, Brunin was examining the rings in his hauberk for split or damaged links. His hands were black from the iron and grease, and his gaze intent on his task. Hawise wondered if it were a little like her mother’s sewing: a mindless repetitive action that served to pacify frayed and querulous energy. Her own habit was pacing, a trait that she had inherited from her father. The thought of him made her lengthen her stride until she came up short against the chamber wall.
“It has hit my father hard that men who have sworn him fealty have renounced their allegiance and given it to de Lacy,” she said.
He looked up from his inspection. “There have always been pockets of sympathy within the ranks of his vassals for Gilbert de Lacy. They would rather have the direct line rule them than a woman with a Breton husband.”
Flushed with indignation, Hawise turned from the wall to face him. “But Gilbert de Lacy’s line has not ruled here for more than fifty years!”
“That makes no difference in some men’s eyes,” Brunin said. “Whittington was given to my grandparents on their marriage by the Earl of Derby, long before your mother came into possession of Ludlow, but the span of years has not prevented Roger and Jonas de Powys from taking it…and King Henry from upholding their claim.”
Hawise sat down beside him. “I thought I understood how you and your family felt when Whittington was lost,” she said, “but I didn’t have an inkling…until now.”
“And how does it feel to be the landless wife of an impoverished knight?”
She drew herself erect. “We’re neither landless nor impoverished.”
“But considerably less well off than we were.” He rippled the mail through his fingers to inspect the next section. “Our forefathers possessed only their swords and their wits—or mine did. But it’s a heavy price to pay in pride.” His tone was neutral, his face blank, which told her that he was affected more deeply than he was willing to admit.
“You will always have that.” Her glance fell on the furled black wolf banner.
He followed the direction of her gaze. “Yes,” he said somberly. “That can’t be taken.”
For a while there was silence as he continued to work his way through the hauberk. Hawise rose, began pacing, stopped herself, and folded her arms before she was tempted to chew her fingernails. On the morrow he would ride with her father and FitzWarin to Ludlow. Having seen him in battle, she was afraid for him.
Her flux had begun on the night that they received the news about Ludlow. Either naturally late or a bleed brought on by the shock of the tidings, no one could say, but all she knew was that she was not pregnant. They had tonight to conceive a child, and then he would be gone to war. For a moment she considered pushing the hauberk aside and falling upon him in broad daylight. However, there was no more than a curtain across the chamber doorway—and they might be interrupted by anyone, including her father and Emmeline.
Brunin shifted the mail again, searched, and then looked up at her. “Your father heard news other than the defection of his vassals,” he said. “Has he told you about Marion?”
“He has said nothing. What of her?” Her stomach turned over. “Has something happened to her? Is she dead?”
“To him she is,” Brunin said grimly. “It seems that she let a rope down from the Pendover tower wall and allowed de Lacy’s men to tie a ladder to it. She kept watch while they did it…” He paused and looked down at the dark iron rivets and she knew that he was holding back.
“What else? Tell me!” she demanded.
His mouth twisted. “You will not like to hear this. Ernalt de Lysle has taken our chamber for his own and installed Marion there as his whore.”
The cold feeling increased. The notion of Ernalt de Lysle and Marion sporting in her marriage bed was so vile that Hawise almost retched.
“I thought about saying nothing,” Brunin admitted. “But if we regain Ludlow, you would see and hear for yourself.”
“I will burn the bed and the sheets and scrub the walls with lye,” she spat vehemently and returned to her pacing, but the room was not large enough to contain her turmoil. She felt as if she had been violated and was certain what she would do to Marion if she ever came within strangling range.
Brunin set the hauberk aside, wiped his hands on a linen rag, and halted her wild stride by taking her in his arms. She gripped his sleeves, digging in her fingers as if seeking a handhold on reason.
“God help me, I want to see both of them dead!” She pressed her forehead against his breast, tears spilling. “How can it have come to this?”
She felt his palms against her spine, firm, strong, steadying. “When I first came to Ludlow, Marion greeted me as if I were a prince, not some dubious changeling with a common mercenary for a grandsire. To have that sort of adoration was balm on the raw places…” He shook his head. “And now new places are raw.”
Hawise lifted her head from his breast and saw the revulsion, anger, and sadness in his face. If only for a moment, and with her, the neutrality was gone, and she was glad of it, for it made her feel less unworthy.
“Why did she do it?” she asked. “How could she?”
“For love,” he said. “Or for love denied.”
“Love!”
“You saw how she sought it: like a drunkard craving wine.” There was an odd note to his voice. “I know because it could have been me.”
Hawise’s throat tightened. “That’s not true.”
“I held back; she ran forward. That’s the only difference. Pretending you don’t need, or admitting you do: which is the more honest?”
She frowned. “But if I were your father’s enemy and I asked you to put a ladder over the castle wall in the dead of night, would you do it?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Not even for love?”
“No, because duty and loyalty would hold me in check. Marion has a conflict of duty with your family. She thinks that they have abandoned her…that they do not love her as Ernalt de Lysle loves her.”
“And for certain he does not!” Hawise said abruptly. “He loves himself and the notion of glory and—”
“You do not need to tell me about the true nature of Ernalt de Lysle,” Brunin growled. “But he has the gilded charm to make women fall for him, and a plausible tongue.”
Hawise blushed and dropped her eyelids. That was all too true. There but for the grace of God…
“Marion was ripe to fall into his hand.” A look of reluctant compassion crossed Brunin’s face. “Despite what she has done, I cannot help but pity her.”
“We should have watched her more closely,” Hawise said, not certain that she could find pity in her own heart at the moment.
“Hindsight is a hard taskmaster. None of us realized how desperate she was.”
“What will happen to her when we retake Ludlow?”
Brunin pulled her closely against his body. “That will be for your father to say, and I am glad I am not him.” He brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face and his expression was bleak. “Whatever he decides, he will still be more merciful to her than Ernalt de Lysle.”