The Knight's Conquest

by Juliet Landon

  As dawn appeared through the open window, Sir Owain was able to see her loveliness in a different light, though it also revealed the exact extent of the payment he had been offered.

  ‘You wept?’ he said, penitently, touching her eyelids. ‘There were tears? Why, sweetheart? Did I hurt you? Oh…I was selfish.’

  ‘No, no…Owain, it’s nothing. While you slept, that’s all. It’s gone.’

  He lay above her, seeing how the mossy greenness of her eyes reflected the day’s early light, the dark lashes, the shadows of fatigue. And something else. ‘There has to be a time,’ he whispered, touching her cheek, ‘when Fate wearies of the game she plays. Whatever it is that makes you weep, sweetheart, and I believe I know what it is, lay it to rest now. As long as you’re with me, you’re safe; and now I have you, I intend to keep hold. Forget all that’s happened. This is now. Today, we shall plight our troth to each other as the king has commanded, and by this time next year we can still be holding each other and a bairn as well. Think of that and believe it.’

  ‘Do you have any bastards, Owain?’

  His eyes flickered at the directness of her question. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ‘you have credited me with a certain degree of activity in that department that I don’t wholly deserve. So have others, for that matter. Most men have a bastard or two somewhere, if the truth be known, but unless one keeps a mistress, which can be an expensive exercise, it’s hard to be sure about one’s offspring. I do not have a mistress, nor have I ever had one for more than a few weeks. And you are the only woman I have ever offered for. Twice, remember. And I’ve fought like hell to get you. Those were tears of joy I saw yesterday, weren’t they?’

  ‘Joy. And pride. And relief.’

  ‘Then let’s move forward. Can you move?’ He laughed. ‘I used you mercilessly in the night, my sweet. Forgive me.’

  Together, they found plenty in their mutual weariness to amuse them which they were sure their friends would notice, Saskia being the first to confirm their predictions as soon as she entered with food on a tray to break their fast.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she said, plonking the tray down and staring at the bed. ‘It looks like a battlefield. So much for my rose-petals.’

  ‘And so much for two people of our temperament,’ murmured Eloise.

  Sir Owain turned to look at the bed. ‘She’s right, you know. Crécy was nothing to this.’

  It had been too late, last night, to take much notice of Sir Owain’s London apartments at Cold Harbour nor, to be truthful, was its situation of paramount importance to Eloise after such a day. But the new day awakened her interest to see how close the River Thames was, smooth and expansive at the end of a long sloping garden that ran between high walls and trees. Beyond the rose-covered trellis, the thriving river swarmed with boats and skiffs, large trading vessels heading for the wharves, and the well-appointed barges of wealthy noblemen and city officials. The water sparkled, almost blinding her, littered with traffic and the dipping of oars.

  ‘Now I see,’ she said, ‘This is a harbour, isn’t it?’

  ‘Known as Dowgate.’ Sir Owain pointed down-river to their left. ‘And up there is Ebgate, see? And there’s the bridge, and just beyond that is Billings-gate. You might just be able to see the Tower in the distance over the tree-tops. There…see?’

  ‘And across there? Is that Southwark?’

  ‘Yes, on the Surrey bank. There’s the spire of St Mary Overy, called Overy because it’s over the bridge. See all the orchards?’

  Gardens and orchards softened the edges of every cluster of buildings, green, luscious and secluded, like the one in which they stood which had a private landing-state at the river’s edge.

  Father Janos came to meet them. ‘Ah, they said I’d find you here.’ He smiled warmly at Eloise. ‘Does the garden meet with your approval, my lady? I tend the herbs myself when we’re here, but I’d be glad to have your advice.’ He looked around him, yet his superficial examination of the scene was, Eloise knew, the preliminary to another matter, and she had no heart to pretend innocence.

  ‘Heartsease, Father? You grow that, too?’ She smiled at him, tipping her head to one side.

  The priest was as open to her charm as any other man and, looking down at his sandals, laughed softly at them. ‘Heartsease? Yes, lady. And is your heart eased now? More accepting, perhaps?’

  ‘The truce had to end, Father, and now we have to face another more permanent agreement, and there is really no point in my not accepting it. I tried that, but it got us both into deeper problems. For Sir Owain’s sake and my own, I have to obey the king. If that’s heart’s ease, then so be it.’

  ‘Good. Then you are ready for the betrothal, both of you?’

  Standing behind Eloise, Sir Owain recognised the formality. Janos knew better than the rest of the house what they had given and received from each other. He laid his arms across her so that her chin rested upon them. ‘Yes, we are, Janos. But we both feel that this celebration must be private, this time. Totally private.’

  ‘Not even family?’

  ‘No. Let them hear of it afterwards, by all means, but Lady Eloise has been through all this before, as you know. This one must remain different in every sense, as it has been from the start.’

  ‘Then why not now, sir?’ Father Janos said, quietly. ‘You both wear rings. Why not simply exchange them, here and now?’

  ‘Before you?’

  ‘Before me. Do you wish it, lady?’

  ‘Yes,’ Eloise whispered. ‘That is how I wish it to be. Here and now, in private.’

  So there, in the Thames garden at Cold Harbour on the second day of July in the year 1351, Lady Eloise Gerrard and Sir Owain of Whitecliffe formally plighted their troth with no other witnesses except Saskia, a curious peacock, and the physician-chaplain, Father Janos Leuvenhoek, whose dark eyes were awash with tears as they exchanged rings, neither of which fitted well, and then a formal kiss.

  They chuckled as he wiped his cheek apologetically. ‘I do beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I can face any illness, but this is…oh, dear. I’m so relieved that things have come to this after…oh, dear.’

  Sir Owain bellowed, pulling Eloise possessively to his side. ‘After being on the sharp end of the lady’s tongue, eh? Is that what you meant? Well then, so am I relieved, my friend, believe me. Never was a woman so unwilling.’

  But Eloise said nothing to contradict him, for it would have spoiled the magic of the moment which, even she had to admit, had all the hallmarks of inimitability.

  She and Father Janos had tried to persuade the great handsome creature to allow her to apply a leaf or two of red cabbage to his worst wounds, but he would have none of it.

  ‘Well, then…’ she had held out some pills of dried herbs to show him ‘…perhaps we can persuade you to take one of these morning and evening in a little ale. You’ll not taste it.’

  Like a small boy, he had questioned their content, full of scepticism.

  ‘Tansy, hemp, red nettles, raspberry,’ Eloise told him.

  Father Janos continued. ‘Plantain, avens, madder…’

  ‘Argh! You really think that stuff will—?’

  ‘Yes, and so do Father Janos and Saskia. Anyone would think we were trying to poison you instead of heal you. Come on now, drink it up.’

  To please them, he had obeyed, but in private he had insisted that her more intimate therapy had done more to salve him than anything that Janos could prescribe. And then she knew that, like all patients who begin to question their medication, he was recovering well.

  The problem of their ill-fitting rings was soon overcome by a search of their combined jewel collections, Eloise not wishing Sir Owain to continue wearing one so dangerously poised on his first knuckle or to wear one herself that might fall off at any moment. And used though she was to living in some style, the magnificence of the apartments at Cold Harbour gave her a taste of what she might expect at Whitecliffe if ever they got so far. Used only for Sir Owain’
s stays in London, the chambers, though not large, were unusually well furnished after a man’s taste, lacking nothing of silver and precious tableware, glass from Venice, colourful tapestries from Flanders, tiled floors and painted woodwork with expensive gold leaf and ultramarine. The small chapel was a jewel of a place where they celebrated mass with the senior members of Sir Owain’s household and where Eloise tried desperately to dispel her fears, not entirely with the success she had prayed for.

  Perversely, her original plan to make enquiries about her late husband’s death and, by implication, Sir Owain’s involvement, surfaced again as soon as the day began to swing into action. Naturally, she had said nothing of her intentions to anyone except Jolita and Saskia, who now agreed with her that this barrier must be overcome.

  ‘Well,’ said the maid, licking a finger and smoothing Eloise’s arched eyebrow, ‘since you ask, I’d say that the place we went to yesterday would be one of the best places to enquire. Smithfield. That’s where Sir Piers bought some of his horses from, isn’t it? The horse fair there.’

  ‘You’re probably right. I expect he had friends there who remember.’

  The friends were more numerous than she had thought, and of both genders, according to the informants who had obligingly told Saskia all she needed to know about her late master’s popularity in exchange for an arm about her waist. Eloise had recruited the companionship of Jolita and Sir Henry for their visit to Smithfield, Sir Owain having business with the king to attend to that day, and Sir Henry was happy to escort the two sisters to find suitably well-bred and good-looking palfreys for their use.

  It was not difficult for Saskia to find dealers who recalled Sir Piers Gerrard’s performances in the lists as well as his reputation as a pursuer of women. ‘Aye, he loved danger, did Sir Piers,’ one gap-toothed horse-dealer told her. ‘You one of his ex-mistresses, then?’

  ‘Do I look like an ex-mistress?’ Saskia snapped, pertly.

  ‘Well, you could look like mine if you come to stand a bit closer,’ he said, grinning, ‘and I could tell you what you want to know, couldn’t I?’

  So, for the price of a little harmless familiarity, Saskia had gleaned from more than one source some of the shameful details that made Eloise begin to understand why she had been kept in the dark for so long. Her husband had courted danger. His death could not have been accidental.

  ‘Many mistresses?’ she said to Saskia, back in their shared chamber in the house on the Strand. Jolita had insisted on her sister’s company, and Eloise could see the practicality of being free from Sir Owain’s watchful presence while her enquiries continued. She sat on the large comfortable bed and stroked the green brocade coverlet. ‘I assumed Sir Piers must have had somebody else or he’d not have been so eager to get back here to London. But…many?’

  ‘It gets worse,’ Saskia said, her voice subdued. She perched uncomfortably on the carved chest at the end of the bed.

  ‘Tell me. Tell me everything, Saskie.’

  ‘I’m still not sure you ought to know this, love, but Sir Piers preferred married women. Not just the hangers-on who follow jousters, but other jousters’ wives and, well, he was very unpopular with them.’

  ‘Yes, with the jousters. And so?’

  ‘Apparently, just before he was killed, he’d started an affair with Sir Phillip Cotterell’s wife.’

  It took some seconds for the information to register and, when it did, Eloise’s face had drained of colour. ‘Sir Phillip Cotterell?’ she whispered. ‘Piers was having an affair with Sir Phillip’s wife? But, for pity’s sake, Saskie, they’d not been married long. So Sir Phillip found out and killed him…in a tournament…and got the king to agree to hush it up…and keep the truth from me because—’

  ‘Hush, love! Stop!’ Saskia came to sit by her mistress and hold her hand, regretting the disclosure already. ‘No…wait! That’s called jumping to conclusions.’

  ‘Well, what would you do if someone told you that your wife was being unfaithful? It makes sense to me. It’s what I’ve been wondering all this time.’

  ‘It’s not necessarily what happened, love, even so.’

  ‘And where is Sir Phillip now? Disappeared, of course.’

  ‘He’s on a pilgrimage to Rome, apparently. He’d hardly be so penitent if he’d intended to kill a man in cold blood, would he?’

  ‘Where’s his wife? Did she go, too?’

  ‘Lady Cotterell? In a nunnery somewhere.’

  ‘So she’s penitent too, is she? Which nunnery?’

  Saskia heaved a sigh. ‘I don’t know, love, and it’s no use you trying to find out when there are more nunneries in England than I’ve had hot dinners.’

  ‘Hot dinners or not, Saskie, I can start with those here in London.’

  ‘There are dozens here! Anyway, what would Lady Cotterell know about what happened? Less than you, I should think.’

  Eloise sprang to her feet. ‘Good grief, woman, whose side are you on? She was having an affair with my husband and her husband killed him. She’s got to know more than I do.’

  ‘Then why on earth can’t you ask Sir Owain? He was there.’

  ‘I know he was. But he doesn’t want me to know, so he’s not likely to give me the whole story, is he? And I want nothing less than the whole story, Saskie, even if it proves that he was deeply involved, too. I have to know exactly what all this means, and if Sir Owain is shielding his friend from my condemnation, then I need to know that, too.’

  ‘It sounds to me, love, as if Sir Piers brought all this upon himself.’

  ‘Very possibly, but none of them have the right to keep me in the dark. Not Father, not Sir Owain and not the king.’

  The matter was put aside for the rest of the day so that Eloise and her sister could be escorted to the great cathedral of St Paul’s and then to the Chepe where the shops sold more gold and silver than either of them could have imagined. At Jolita’s insistence, Eloise spent the night at the house on the Strand, which might have seemed somewhat selfish, in the circumstances, had Eloise not been eager to do some solo investigating on the following day. It suited her purposes. They sent a message to Sir Owain; they would meet him at the Great Wardrobe at the Tower where her father would be waiting to show them round.

  Jolita, though, was not as deceived by her sister’s willingness to be parted from her newly betrothed as Eloise had believed her to be. ‘Now, what is it?’ Jolita asked, adopting her usual pillow-hugging position with one of Eloise’s pillows. She crossed her legs like a pixie, rippling the green brocade beneath her. ‘You’ve not quarrelled again so soon, have you, Ellie?’

  Eloise smiled indulgently. ‘Your faith in me is comforting, dear sister. No, we have not quarrelled. Quite the contrary.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be obscure, Ellie! You’re up to something. Is it those enquiries you were so set on? It is, isn’t it? Doesn’t Sir Owain know?’

  ‘Dearest, don’t ask me any more. I know you don’t approve and I don’t want to enter into an argument about it. I shall have enough explaining to do when he finds out. That’s the problem,’ she added, flopping backwards onto the bed, ‘with being owned again. I’ve been free of having to explain myself and I was just getting to enjoy it. Damn him!’

  ‘But you can’t let it rest, I know. Do you have to investigate, love?’

  ‘Yes, Jollie, I do.’

  ‘Then I’ll come with you.’

  Slowly, Eloise turned her head into a mass of red silken waves to look at her sister. ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Of course. That’s what sisters do. Besides, it’ll be much easier to explain if we’re together. Now, tell me what you’ve discovered so far.’

  Eloise would not have told another living soul how shamed she was to have found that her marriage, founded on such promise, had stood no chance of being a success. So she turned on to her face to hide the pain in her expression, and told Jolita what Saskia had told her. Except that, thi
s time, there was not so much anger as humiliation.

  The two sisters dressed with some consideration, bearing in mind their mission to seek out a penitent in a nunnery. Sober tones would be best, they said, soft reds and browns, greys, and flowing ells of white wimple to cover their heads. They also agreed that a liberal presence of gold ornament would be appropriate. Nuns did not live by bread alone, nor were they immune to inducements.

  Mounted on their new palfreys, impressively elegant beasts of rich chestnut and dappled grey, and accompanied only by Saskia and three of Sir Henry’s liveried grooms, they set out towards St Helen’s Priory, since that was more in the direction of the Tower than some of the others.

  ‘There’s Clerkenwelle,’ one of the grooms told them, ‘but that’s some way out of town. And there’s St Mary’s Spital up on the Moor Fields, and St Clare’s over by the Aldgate.’

  ‘But St Mary’s of Bedlam is for sick folks,’ one of the others reminded him.

  ‘Bethlehem,’ the first one corrected him. ‘Aye, best stick to St Helen’s, mistress. We can go on to St Clare’s if that doesn’t work out.’

  His prediction was correct. Though they had set out early, it took them some time to wend their way through the busy narrow streets, past carts, sledges and horses, crowds of people, market-traders, drunks and piles of rubbish. They held their noses at the stench of decaying waste, no better since the terrible pestilence of two years ago, heaving sighs of relief as they gained entry to St Helen’s Priory only to discover that Sir Phillip Cotterell’s wife was not known to them. No, they were sorry, they could make no suggestions.

  ‘St Clare’s, then,’ Jolita said.