The Reckoning

by Sharon Kay Penman

  It had been a hot, dry summer. For weeks on end, the skies had been as empty and vast and daunting as the uncharted seas that lay beyond Greenland. But September brought reviving showers of misty silver rain, perfect autumn days of mellow sun, the last flowering of village gardens and wild meadows. The River Loing flowed through Montargis like a swirl of moss-green ribbon, forking into two streams, winding and twisting and spilling over into a shallow lake, the site of the fair.

  Montargis had more shops than most villages, enriched by the presence of the castle and the convent. But they offered only those necessities people could neither provide for themselves nor do without. There was a cobbler to repair shoes, a farrier to shoe horses, an apothecary to mix healing potions, a tanner to turn hides into leather. The villagers baked their own bread in the Lord’s oven, mended their own tables and wagons, spun their own flax, grew their own food, and slaughtered their own livestock at Martinmas. Theirs was a world self-sufficient and sequestered, a world in which choices were a luxury reserved for the highborn.

  On this sunlit Saturday, though, they were confronted by a range of choices, just as dazzling as the jugglers who moved through the crowds with sure-footed grace, tossing apples and balls skyward as they sauntered past. There were merchants selling olive and almond and linseed and poppy oil. There were peddlers with needles, mirrors, razors, and combs carved of bone, not wood. There were stalls draped in silks and fine Flanders wool. There was a booth filled with fragrant perfume vials of jasmine and rosewater. And there were the even more enticing aromas coming from a cook-shop tent: roasted joints and meat pasties and enough candied quince to satisfy the greediest sweet tooth. Hugh was not surprised that every man, woman, and child in Montargis not in need of the Last Rites had turned out for the occasion.

  The jugglers were not the only performers drawn by the lure of a large crowd. There were brightly clad tumblers and a woman rope dancer and a man leading a bear on a chain. But as soon as Ellen and Juliana had begun to exclaim over the silk merchant’s selections, Hugh sped sure as an arrow for the booth of Mauger the Leech.

  Mauger was not really a doctor; that was merely a courtesy, recognition of his valuable services to the village, the castle, and the convent. He had spread out his spices and herbs and ointments upon a trestle table draped in burlap, but Hugh never gave them a glance. She was standing behind the table, her glossy brown hair demurely tucked under a white veil, a robust, big-boned girl, too tall for most men, but not for Hugh; at seventeen, he’d reached the same formidable height as England’s King, two full fingers above six feet. Emma’s dark eyes, dimples, and swaying walk had captivated him at first sight, and she seemed equally taken with his flaxen hair and good manners.

  “I have a token for you,” he said, holding out a hair ribbon he’d bought from the silk merchant just moments before.

  “How pretty!” Reaching eagerly for the ribbon, she whispered, “Take care. My father is watching.”

  “Ah, good morrow, lad.” Mauger’s smile was friendly, for he was genuinely fond of Hugh. But he was worldly enough to know that young men like Hugh did not wed girls like Emma. Occasionally an impoverished knight might take a wealthy merchant’s daughter as his wife, but he could provide no marriage portion large enough to tempt a man into marrying beneath his class. If there’d be no wedding ring for Emma, he was determined that there’d be no tumble in a hayrick either, and he hovered close at hand, keeping his daughter and Hugh under his benevolent, paternal eye—much to their mutual frustration.

  Soon, though, customers began to crowd around the stall, wanting to consult with Mauger about their various ailments. Hugh took advantage of the confusion to seize Emma’s hand. “Are you not going to show me your wares?”

  Emma giggled. “Well…this is calament, a remedy for chest colds, best drunk hot. And this is sanicle, a gargle for those poor souls with throat ulcers. And over there are leeks, which ward off lightning, and wormwood, which kills fleas. But here is our most costly restorative, powdered unicorn horn from Cathay. Men say it protects you from poison.” Casting Hugh a seductive sideways glance, she murmured, “They also say it does wonders for your manhood.”

  Hugh’s mouth twitched. “Do you think my manhood needs help?”

  Emma laughed low in her throat. “Jesú forfend!” But then, to her dismay, Hugh spun around. “I’ll be back,” he cried over his shoulder, before disappearing into the crowd. Emma’s bewilderment was not long in giving way to vexed understanding. By the rood, if he was not off to defend the Lady Ellen’s honor again!

  Hugh was swearing under his breath, shoving and pushing against a wall of bodies. He ought never to have left her, not with so many strangers about, men ignorant of her identity, for if her dress was plain, her face was not. He’d developed a keen eye for potential trouble, had spotted the man almost at once, mounted on a blooded palfry, a fashionable mantle flung carelessly over his shoulder, just the sort of prideful young lordling to see a pretty village lass as fruit ripe for the picking. And this one was more brazen than most. He’d drawn rein, staring quite blatantly at the Lady Ellen, then slid from the saddle, tossing the reins to his servant. By then, though, Hugh was in motion, cursing himself for having allowed Emma to distract him from his duties.

  Ellen was laughing at the antics of a small trained terrier; it was dancing on its hind legs in time to its master’s tambour. Her attention focused upon the dog, Ellen was unaware that she was about to be accosted, not until the man grabbed her arm. She whirled, giving a surprised cry that turned into a scream as Hugh came barreling through the crowd, sent the man sprawling. It was one of his better football tackles; his target reeled backward, sat down heavily in the dirt.

  Even before he regained his feet, Hugh sensed that he’d made a mistake. Revelers at a fair were a boisterous lot; nothing was likely to please them more than a brawl. Yet now he saw shock and disapproval upon the closest faces. “Are you daft, lad?” an elderly man remonstrated. “Whatever possessed you to clout a priest?” And it was only then that Hugh saw the well-tailored cassock beneath his victim’s stylish mantle.

  As the young priest got to his feet, he was jostled again, this time by Ellen, who flung herself into his arms with a joyful “Amaury!”

  Hugh’s chagrin chilled into consternation. “I am so sorry! But I thought that…that you were annoying my lady…”

  Amaury was not mollified. “Priests do not often ravish women at village fairs,” he observed coolly, dusting himself off with some care, and Hugh could not help thinking that he was not entirely to blame for the mishap. For certes, this youngest de Montfort son could not be more unlike his reckless, dark, and brooding elder brothers. He was only of average height, compact and sturdy, with curly chestnut hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and Ellen’s hazel eyes. He looked elegant and urbane, and not amused in the least by Hugh’s blunder. Although his anger was under restraint, it was real, nonetheless.

  Hugh started to stammer another apology, but Ellen forestalled him. “I do not blame you, Hugh,” she said, struggling gamely to suppress her laughter. “I’ve been warning Amaury for years that he looks more like a court fop than a servant of God. Little wonder you suspected the worst!” Turning back to her brother, she embraced him again. “I’d wager St Francis of Assisi was never once mistaken for a rake on the prowl! You might even take it as a compliment of sorts.” When Amaury started to speak, she put a finger to his lips. “Ere you say something you’ll regret, I think you ought to know the identity of my champion. Amaury, may I present Hugh de Whitton?”

  Amaury’s eyes cut sharply to Ellen. “The lad who was with Bran?” When she nodded, he glanced again at Hugh. And then he smiled. “Well, I’ll say this for you, Hugh de Whitton. You make quite an impact upon a first meeting.”

  Hugh, smiling back shyly, could only marvel that his loyalty to Bran should have proven to be such a golden key, giving him unconditional entry into the very heart of the House of Montfort.

  Nell found it difficu
lt to forgive Guy for the havoc he had wreaked at Viterbo. He had committed the most profane of murders. Her nephew had not deserved such a death and well she knew it. Her brother Richard had never gotten over his son’s murder, suffering an apoplectic seizure that proved fatal. Amaury had almost been sucked into the mire, too, splattered with the guilt of a blood-bond. Ellen had forfeited all chances of making a marriage that would be her salvation. Even Simon had not been spared, for now the proud name of de Montfort would evoke more than memories of his martyrdom. It would evoke images of a bloodstained altar cloth, a church defiled, a dying priest. And Bran—a grave on a lonely Tuscan hillside, eternal exile for an anguished, unquiet soul.

  But Guy’s April excommunication had sent shock tremors through all her painstakingly constructed defenses. An excommunicate was to be shunned by his fellow Christians as a man with “leprosy of the soul.” None could break bread with him, pray with him, even acknowledge his existence. He was legally dead, with no rights under the law. He was denied the solace of the Sacraments, and if he died with the Church’s curse still upon him, he could not be buried in consecrated ground. And an excommunicate—her son—was damned forever in the fires of Hell Everlasting.

  Nell had yet to take her eyes from Amaury’s face. “You have news of Guy,” she said, bracing herself for fresh grief.

  Amaury nodded. “I’m sure you’ve guessed that Ned was the one who finally prodded the Pope into action. When he reached Tuscany last February, he set about hunting Guy down. To his fury, though, the citizens of Siena and Florence balked. The Podestà of Siena even pleaded on Guy’s behalf, and arranged for Guy to meet secretly in the city with Charles. That,” he added, with a grin, “Ned never knew—else he’d have suffered a seizure for certes!”

  “Guy met with Charles?” Nell was no innocent; she was King John’s daughter. But even she was startled by the extent of Charles of Anjou’s cynicism.

  “Guy has not been forsaken, Mama. His father by marriage has stood by him, and his wife even appealed personally to the Pope. But with Ned in Tuscany, breathing down his neck, Guy thought it prudent to put some distance between them, and withdrew to the Count’s castle at Monte Gemoli in the Cecina Valley. Once Ned realized that Guy was out of reach, he prevailed upon the Pope to excommunicate him, as you know.”

  Amaury paused. “It was then that I decided it was time to talk some sense into Guy; the stakes were just too high. It was no easy task, for Guy is Lucifer-proud. My arguments about the salvation of his soul fell on deaf ears. But I eventually convinced him that his defiance was playing right into Ned’s hands, that Charles would not dare to restore him to favor as long as he was accursed by God. I also pointed out that nothing would enrage Ned more than if Guy reconciled with the Pope.”

  “Are you saying that Guy has made his peace with the Church?” Nell asked incredulously. Ellen, too, looked astonished.

  Again, Amaury nodded. “On July sixteenth, as the Pope left Florence, Guy met him on the road, barefoot as befitted a true penitent, with a rope halter about his neck.” Amaury smiled thinly. “The Pope was impressed by such a spectacular act of contrition, and I did my best to convince him that Guy’s repentance was heartfelt.” Another hinted smile. “Being a papal chaplain does have its advantages; having the Pope’s ear is most decidedly one of them. The result was that the Pope declared Guy a prisoner of the Church and put him into the custody of that gentle gaoler, Charles of Anjou. Charles promptly sent Guy to his castle at Lecco on Lake Como, with servants and fine wines to ease the burden of confinement.”

  “But I met with Edward at Melun in early August, and he made no mention of this!”

  “He’d not yet heard. When he does, he’s like to declare war upon the Holy See,” Amaury joked, but neither his mother nor sister laughed. A silence fell, broken at last by Ellen.

  “I want to tell Juliana,” she said, rising. “And Hugh has a right to know, too.”

  As the door closed behind her, Nell reached out, entwined her fingers in Amaury’s. “She knew I wanted some private time with you. Where the two of you get your tact, the Lord God only knows; for certes, not from me or Simon! Amaury, I must tell you of my meeting with Edward. He was far more generous than I’d expected, has agreed to restore my Pembroke dower lands. But he refused to allow you or the Bishop of Chichester to return to England.”

  Her hand tightened upon his. “I do not know why he bears you such ill will. Mayhap because you refused to disown Guy. Or because you persuaded the Pope that Simon should be reburied in consecrated soil. He may even still believe you were implicated in the Viterbo killing. But this I do know—that his hatred of you runs so deep a man might drown in it.”

  Guy would have sneered; Bran might have shrugged. Amaury knew only a fool would make light of an English king’s enmity. “I doubt then,” he said, “that I shall be making any pilgrimages to English shrines. Mama, I want now to talk about you. Ellen wrote to me that you’ve been ailing.”

  “Ellen is fretting for naught. Sometimes if I am too long on my feet, my ankles swell, and I get out of breath if I exert myself too much, but surely such minor complaints—” Nell stopped abruptly, too late. So accustomed was she to underplaying her ailments that she’d forgotten Amaury would not be as easy to reassure as Ellen. Amaury had studied medicine at the University of Padua, and it was obvious that he’d at once comprehended the significance of her symptoms, making the same diagnosis as Marguerite’s physician had done, that she was suffering from dropsy, an illness that was slow-paced but eventually fatal.

  “Ah, Amaury, do not look like that! My dearest, death comes to us all, and in God’s time. I do not fear it, for I am nigh on fifty-eight, have had joys and sorrows enough for any two lifetimes. I have no regrets for myself. They are all for Ellen.”

  Amaury was still in shock. But the son’s need to hope was proving stronger than the doctor’s diagnostic instincts. He could be wrong; it need not be dropsy. With an enormous effort, he focused upon what she was saying. “Ellen? What do you mean, Mama?”

  “In less than a fortnight, your sister will be twenty-one, well past the age when young women of good birth are wed. What is going to happen to her, Amaury? A woman without a husband, without a male protector—”

  “Christ, Mama, I’d give my life for Ellen!”

  “My darling, I know that you would! But it is the sword men fear, not the psalter. Because you are a priest, there might well be fools who’d think that Ellen would have none to protect her or to avenge her, not with Bran dead, Guy in disgrace, and her cousin John in the Holy Land. That is just the way of men, those without honor. I need not tell you, Amaury, how often women are abducted, raped, forced into marriage against their will. Jesú, it nearly happened to my own grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine—twice! Ellen is no longer a great heiress, but she is beautiful, and I fear for her, fear that lust-blinded men might see her as fair game.”

  Hugh’s protectiveness suddenly made sense to Amaury. “Then we must find her a husband, Mama, and the sooner the better.”

  “You sound like a sailor—any port in a storm! Would you have Ellen wed to some aged widower with foul breath and penny-pinching ways—our Ellen? Yes, I want a husband for Ellen, but he must be worthy of her, must be a man who’d protect and cherish her, who’d not try to break her spirit. I know how marriage is for most women, Amaury, but it was never like that for me, not with Simon. He let me speak my mind, trusted my judgment, confided in me. Growing up, Ellen saw that, saw how your father treated me. And I realized early on that we must take great care in choosing her husband.”

  Nell sat back in her chair, smiled sadly. “That is why I was so much in favor of the match with Llewelyn ap Gruffydd. Because he was a Prince, of course. But also because he was Welsh. The Welsh pamper their wives, lad, in truly astonishing ways. Their women cannot be wed against their will, as ours can. They cannot be beaten at a husband’s whim. Under Welsh law, they can even object to a husband’s infidelity! I’d seen how Llewelyn Faw
r treated my sister Joanna, and I felt confident that his grandson would do right by Ellen. But it was not to be, and I regretted much more than the loss of a crown…”

  “Well,” Amaury said, after some moments of thoughtful quiet, “there is an honorable alternative to marriage. Ellen could take the veil. With a handsome corrody and the de Montfort name, who knows, she might end up as an abbess one day.”

  Nell was shaking her head. “Our Ellen’s faith is deep, but we both know she has not the temperament for convent life. She’d find no contentment as a nun, no more than I could honor my vow of chastity—not after I met your father.” She hesitated only briefly, for she knew his piety existed in harmony with a strong secular streak. “It was not,” she explained playfully, “that I loved God less, but that I loved Simon more!” And Amaury justified her confidence by laughing softly.

  “Ah, Amaury, how glad I am that you are here, that I can talk to you like this. I once asked—nay, demanded—so much from life. If it be true that ambition is a grievous sin, then grievously did Simon and I suffer for it. They’re all gone, those old hungers, those high-flying dreams. Now I ask but one thing—that ere I die, I can see my daughter settled and safe. And yet I very much fear that is a wish beyond my grasp.”

  Amaury was silent. As much as he wanted to confort her, she was the one person he could not lie to, and he, too, feared for Ellen’s future.

  9

  Talerddig Grange, Powys, Wales

  January 1274

  Of all the granges owned by the monks of Ystrad Marchell, Talerddig was the most isolated, sequestered deep in the mountains of western Powys. The monks and lay brothers were astonished, therefore, by the unexpected arrival of Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, his wife, and son. Gruffydd was their lord, and they made haste to welcome him, wondering all the while what had brought him to this distant corner of his realm. Gruffydd did not enlighten them, and soon after dark, their cloistered quiet was broken by yet another arrival, a mystery guest muffled in a hooded mantle, accompanied by a small escort of armed men who rebuffed all attempts at conversation. Their lord was no more forthcoming, demanded to be taken at once to Gruffydd, and although his identity was hidden within that shadowed hood, his voice carried the steely inflection of one born to command. The lay brothers did not think to challenge him; instead, they obeyed.