The grip on his arm tightened. ‘To live without you is the hardest thing I ever did.’ A faint smile crossed her face as for once she turned her humour against herself. ‘I think I am even worse tempered than before.’
He smiled at her. ‘And thus no man will ever suspect that beneath Maud is the Aaliz only I know. ’
‘Truly,’ she said and laughed with him. She seemed to relax, the frustration of the conference diminishing in his company. Turning her head slightly she looked into his face. ‘Dear love, how is it with you?’
‘Well enough, except that day or night I never cease to need the sight of you.’
The smile faded. ‘Nothing can ever be as it was at Wallingford. We have had our taste of paradise. I do not think another will be vouchsafed us.’
He said nothing. He could not bring himself to speak the words of agreement to what he knew to be true. He wanted to deny it, to seize her in his arms, let his kisses blot out all her desperate anxieties, ease his own equally desperate need, but all he could do was to lift the hand on his arm and put his lips to it. He felt a tremor run through her. ‘My heart, if I could save you one minute of sorrow – ’
She looked at him again, all her feelings at that moment revealed in the expressive brown eyes. ‘The gain was worth the loss. To be loved by you has crowned my womanhood.’
And as they turned back towards the noisy, glittering, fruitless meeting on the plain he remembered how she had once said that marriage to Geoffrey degraded her womanhood – now he would remember always for his comfort that it was he who had made her value it.
Two days later the talks collapsed. Nothing anyone could suggest brought satisfaction to both sides. Three days of truce were allowed for all parties to return to their strongholds and Brien, cut off by the ravagings of Philip of Gloucester at Faringdon and Cricklade, circled north away from the King’s troops. He stayed a night at Marlborough with his old friend, John the Marshall, still stubbornly holding the castle, the second at Wantage and on the third day dined with the Abbot at Abingdon, approaching Wallingford from that direction. As he entered the castle Amauri de Beauprez caught him by the arm and hurried him to the roof of the tower. There, looking across the bright river, the banks deep in meadowsweet, he saw that on the far side his enemies were once again building themselves a wooden tower at Crowmarsh, that Stephen had lost no time in blockading him into solitude.
CHAPTER 4
In the spring of the following year he fell sick and his wife, strangely, found it a cause for rejoicing. He lay on his bed, flushed and sweating, a constant cough racking his chest, a high fever depriving him of his senses, and she who had been banished from his heart and his bed now found herself needed once more. She nursed him with loving care, sitting sleepless by the bed while he tossed and turned and tried to fling away the bedclothes. She sponged his face, made up potions from herbs to cool his burning body; she gathered seeds of dittany and boiled them with three hairs from a dead rat, a mixture that would, she was assured, bring down a fever. More appetizingly she fed him warm broth made under her own direction. The infirmarian from the Priory came to bleed him and after that he was a little quieter, exhausted by the process, and Mata was glad when the monk had gone and she might tend her lord in the way she thought best.
Through the worst of it Brien was barely aware of either her or Thurstin, often muttering unintelligibly to himself, the Empress’s name constantly on his lips, which did not surprise Mata, and another name, a name she did not know, which did. As he tossed restlessly she smoothed the bedclothes, the silent tears running down her face. Even she had not suspected the depth of his devotion to that strong, beautiful woman who terrified her – and as she nursed her husband a resolution began to form, slowly and painfully, in her mind.
One morning when he was sleeping quietly for the first time for weeks, she stood looking at his face now grown so thin, the cheeks hollow, the eyes sunken above dark patches, and thinking, now that he had turned towards recovery, of delicacies with which she could tempt his appetite. Then she went to the chest and began to fold some linen, so absorbed that she did not see he had woken and was watching her.
He lay still for a while, his eyes on her, following her movements, her gentle hands of which he had been vaguely aware during the timeless period of his illness, hands that had nursed him, washed him, fed him, brought cool cloths to lay on his burning face. At last he said, ‘Mata – ’
She hurried to him, and knelt beside him, taking his thin hand in hers. ‘Oh my dear lord, you have come back to us at last. ’
‘Yes,’ he said and frowned. ‘How long have I been ill?’
‘A long time,’ she said and smiled, though her mouth was trembling, ‘but you will get well now.’
He glanced towards the window. ‘The spring has come?’
‘It is near summer.’
He tried to struggle up and she laid pillows behind him, so that he might rest more comfortably. ‘There, now you can see through the window. It is a beautiful day.’
He looked back at her, seeing her joy, the moisture lying on her cheeks. He saw also the weariness, the traces of the long watching. ‘I think you have worn yourself out caring for me.’
She shook her head. ‘It has been enough that you needed me.’
He frowned. ‘I doubt I am worth such devotion.’
Almost angrily, as if it were ingratitude on his part, she said, ‘Do not say such a thing. You know there is nothing I would not do to serve you.’
‘I know,’ he agreed, ‘and I could wish it were otherwise – for your sake.’
Her eyes filled and he sighed. ‘Now I have made you weep.’ He freed his hand and raised it to touch her cheek. He added, quoting Cicero, ‘Well, nothing dries quicker than a tear – and you are too sensible to waste them on what cannot be mended.’
Fora few moments she had thought him changed, softened by his sickness, but this was more like himself and she rose to her feet, the habitual manner of masking her feelings descending on her. ‘I will get you some soup.’
He caught her hand once more. ‘Don’t think I am not grateful. I will not forget what you have done for me.’
‘No more than a wife’s duty,’ she said and turned to go, but he did not release her.
‘There are more ways than one of doing one’s duty. Never think I do not know your love, Mata.’
She wanted to cry out – if you know it then why do you not return it – but she knew the answer to that. Instead she repeated, ‘I will get you some soup and send Thurstin in to sit with you. He has been half out of his mind with worry over you.’
When she had gone he lay still, looking at the slit of blue beyond the window. He felt as weak as a half-drowned kitten, yet as he digested the fact that he had been ill for weeks he realised that his mind had eased, that the burden had been lifted for a while and though it was not gone, though nothing had changed, yet there was a sense of temporary relief. When Thurstin came in his patent joy at his lord’s improvement was so overwhelming that it caused Brien some amusement.
‘You would think I had been to hell and back,’ he said lightly and then fell silent, for it might be that the words were truer than he knew.
As the days passed he grew stronger. He sent for his housemen, for de Beauprez and Ingelric, for Bernard and Roger, and demanded to know every detail of the time he had lain in fever. They told him what news there was though it was hard to come by with Stephen’s castle blockading their southern exit. The King’s men aided by, surprisingly, Earl Ranulf had tried once more to storm the castle gateway but Ingelric had held it firmly and the royal forces retired – all that Wallingford had lost was a few stones out of one wall and a sentry who had exposed himself too rashly. Brien listened to this with grim amusement heightened when they told him that Stephen had acted as expected and, annoyed by Earl Ranulf’s demands, had arrested him and taken him, furthermore, as he had taken de Mandeville, while under safe-conduct at the royal court. Ranulf had been forced t
o hand over his castles other than those in his own county, he had had to yield to the King much land and treasure and his brother’s castle of Lincoln – with the result that when he was released he immediately took up arms against the King. ‘So my lord Moustaches is back with us,’ Ingelric said, ‘though God knows what benefit that will be to the Lady.’
Baldwin of Redvers, they said, had founded a new abbey at Quarr on the Isle of Wight, and Reginald of Dunstanville had twin sons; the new Pope had repudiated Henry of Winchester’s choice for the Archbishop of York and had nominated and consecrated Henry Murdac, Abbot of Fountains, to the fury of the erstwhile papal legate. Abbot Bernard, standing at the Pope’s right hand, denounced Christian men for fighting each other and called on them to take the Cross and journey to the Holy Land, turning their swords on the infidel instead of on each other. Some in England, weary of the struggle, answered that call. Apart from this both sides were fighting small skirmishes when and where they might which did no good to anyone.
Brien came to the opinion that he had missed little by his sickness. Neither Mata nor his physician from the Priory would let him rise from his bed yet so he ordered Thurstin to drag his iron bound chest close to the bed and one by one he took out his precious books and turned the pages. Verses he had forgotten sprang to meet his gaze and the old pleasure began to return to him. Lying there without the will or the need for action he read avidly and as the summer waxed he began to wonder if he could once again be ‘the Clever Breton’ as men had called him and not the author of ‘Brien’s Close’. In the quiet room he lay and read, slept and ate the food Mata brought him, listened while Master Walter said Mass for him and felt his strength returning.
One evening after supper when Mata had gone to look at one of Beatrice’s babies who had fallen sick, he reflected on his wife’s talent for nursing. She had been nothing to him for so long that he had forgotten to think of her as a person, but he saw now in what high esteem she was held by his own people. Nothing could heal the relationship between them but he felt a gratitude, an understanding for her that he had not had before.
He thought of Aaliz and their passion, fulfilled in this very bed, and it seemed strangely remote. His body at the moment was too weak to contemplate passion and it was as if his love had reached a new dimension. He wished the news had told him how she looked, if she were well, if she still paced restlessly demanding action.
But to think too much of her was a dangerous path on which to set his mind and would destroy his illusory calm. He pulled a book from the chest and turning the pages realised he had picked out Augustine’s Confessions, the one manuscript he had avoided so far for he saw too close a similarity between that saint’s experiences and his own. He replaced it, knowing himself a coward for not daring to face whatever truth might meet his eyes. Instead he took out a safer volume of the poems of Fortunatus and letting the pages open where they would saw a verse aptly written of his own Breton coast.
Around this Breton Isle the ocean swells,
Deep water and one love between us twain,
Wild is the wind but still thy name is spoken…
Still runs my love for shelter to its dwelling,
Hither, O heart, to thine abiding place.
He raised his eyes to the window, staring out, unseeing. Were there never to be words that did not speak of her? ‘Deep water and one love between us twain…’ And the Breton isle might be himself, surrounded by an ocean of love and anguish, desire and pain. Still would his love run, always to her, and know no quiet, he thought, until he lay in the deep ground. When he was strong again would his body not leap when he saw her, would every sense not be fired by desire? It would, it must be so. Yet – yet there was always that other knowledge, hidden in the unopened book of Augustine, revealed in Abelard’s end. Part of him cried out to be as they were, and take the path to that ultimate peace which lay, he knew, in renunciation – but he could not do it, could not bring himself to open and read, as Augustine had done in the garden at Cassiciacum. Dear God, he thought, and closed his eyes on the patterns of sunlight on the wall, to the familiar things of the room, why do I have to think and think and thus torment myself? Why had God made him so, why could he not have been as so many others, content to eat and sleep and hunt, fight and fornicate and question nothing?
When Mata came into the room she saw him lying so still she thought him sleeping peacefully, but when he opened his eyes she saw he had been neither asleep nor at peace. She wanted to cry out to him, but the barriers were up again and they were as far apart.
On the first day that Brien came down to eat his dinner in his own hall he was welcomed back by his men in a vociferous manner that could not but gratify him, and they were in the middle of a meal that had turned into something of a feast when Bernard and some ten men who had been on a sortie came triumphantly into the hall. In their midst they had three prisoners, a knight and two soldiers and they thrust forward, Bernard calling out, ‘My lord! See what a prize we have brought you! ’
He pushed the knight before the high table and there were gasps of astonishment, as men turned their heads to see. Ingelric said sharply, ‘Holy Virgin! ’ and Roger rose from his seat, a heavy flush rising under his skin, for the captive was none other than Earl Robert’s traitor son.
Philip stood unmoved. He seemed to be thinner than ever, his colourless face scarcely more than skin and bone; he had lost his helm and his bare head was rumpled, but he stared round the hall at his enemies with surprising calm.
‘Jesu!’ Brien gave a sudden laugh. ‘How did it happen that you snared so rich a bird, Bernard?’
The staller looked grimly satisfied. ‘We saw them coming, my lord, only these three on the Oxford road and we laid an ambush.
They did not even draw their swords on us.’ He scratched his head in puzzlement at this inexplicable behaviour. ‘And they came with us without objecting.’
‘Well?’ Brien said. ‘Are you mad or a fool, Philip of Gloucester? You must know my men and one in particular would see you dead – hanged or by the sword or rotting in “Brien’s Close.”’ He closed his mouth suddenly, wondering why he had said the last words, having so recently on his sick bed repudiated the part of him that had brought about that epithet.
Philip met his gaze unflinchingly. ‘I am in your hands, Brien FitzCount, but you dare not use me as you used William Martel.’
‘Dare not?’ There was a sudden rasping sound as a sword was drawn and a bench pushed backwards. Roger, unable to contain himself any longer, came limping round the table and pushing through Bernard’s men confronted the prisoner. ‘By God’s Wounds, if my lord gives me leave I will throw you down there myself.’
Brien rose. ‘Roger! I do not give you leave.’
‘My lord, at least let me be the one to chain him. ’
Philip stood his ground. ‘You will not. You cannot touch me.’
‘Oh?’ Roger shouted derisively. ‘You are a damned, lying, treacherous dog! By what right do you say I cannot avenge myself? It was you who made a quarrel with me, you who broke my back and twisted my leg. Look at it – ’ he thrust it forward, stiffly, ‘Look, damn you! I am owed blood for that.’
‘Blood there may be,’ Philip retorted, still calm but with a faint colour now in his cheeks, ‘but it will not be of your shedding.’
‘Will it not?’ Roger snapped. ‘You will see – ’
Brien raised one hand to silence Roger. ‘You betrayed us all,’ he said, ‘your father, the Lady – there is no traitor worse than one who will betray his own kin.’
A strange expression crossed Philip’s face. He glanced slowly round the hall, seeing the curious men, the angry men, the knight before him with a drawn sword and on the dais the baron under whose roof he had learned his knightly crafts. If he was afraid of the vengeance of these men now, he did not show that fear. Instead he said steadily, ‘Whatever I have been in the past does not enter into it. See.’
So surprised that he did not attempt any v
iolence Roger stared as Philip swung off his mantle. Beneath it and over his mail tunic was a white surcoat and on this was sewn a large cross.
There was a sudden and astonished silence in the hall, every man craning his head to see this surprising thing. No one at the high table moved.
‘You cannot touch me,’ the Earl’s son repeated and there was a note of edgy triumph in his voice. ‘I have taken the Cross – I go to the Holy Land to fight the infidel.’
Roger was the first to break the silence. ‘You!’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘Do you think to hide behind that? You owe me reparation first.’
‘The man who attacks me attacks our Lord Christ,’ Philip cried to the assembled hall. ‘I call you all to witness,’ and he folded his arms over the emblem on his breast.
Brien rose and came down from his seat to stand between the two men. ‘Enough, Roger,’ he said quietly. ‘You cannot touch him and neither can I.’
The Lion's Legacy (Conqueror Trilogy Book 3) Page 30