“Windsor?” Llewelyn’s voice was suddenly sharp. “You are following Ellen?”
“Of course,” Hugh said simply. “But first I mean to go to Corfe Castle, to see if there is anything to be done on Lord Amaury’s behalf.”
Llewelyn had given no thought to Amaury’s plight, no thought to anyone but Ellen. “Corfe Castle,” he echoed somberly. “God pity him. Do you truly think you can even gain admittance? From what I’ve heard of Corfe, it would be easier to get into the Caliph of Baghdad’s harem.”
“I have to try, my lord. From Corfe, I shall go to Windsor, seek out my lady. After that, it is in God’s Hands.”
No, Llewelyn thought, in Edward’s hands, God rot him. Strange, that hatred could burn with such a white-hot flame, yet be so utterly ice-cold at the core. But Hugh was still waiting patiently. “You’ll not want for money, Hugh. Tell me…if I were to give you a letter, do you think you’d be able to get it to Ellen?”
“I’ll find a way,” Hugh vowed, “that I swear to you, my lord.” He said no more, for there was no more to be said, quietly let himself out of the chamber.
Llewelyn crossed to a coffer, brought out writing materials, and took them back to the table. But he found himself staring at the parchment as his pen dripped ink onto the page. What was he to say to her? He’d sworn a holy oath to protect her, to cherish her, yet he could do neither. In truth, there was nothing he could do for her—only rage and grieve—and well he knew it. Looking blindly down at the blank parchment, he wondered if she knew it, too.
15
Corfe Castle, England
March 1276
The whitewashed wall above Amaury’s pallet was streaked with grime and yellowed by smoke, scarred by the scratched messages of men long dead. Upon his arrival, Amaury had begun to mark the days of his confinement, stirring the ashes in his charcoal brazier and drawing crosses on the wall above his head. But as February gave way to March and the crosses multiplied, he had a sudden harrowing vision of what his future held: row after row of those cinder-smeared symbols, filling the walls from floor to ceiling, crosses beyond counting. After that he drew no more crosses, counted no more days.
He’d been sleeping, awoke at sound of a key in the lock. He tensed, but the door did not open. He’d always been a realist, the only one of Simon de Montfort’s sons capable of detached analysis, the only one not ruled by his passions, and he refused—even now—to console himself with false hope, at least during his waking hours. His dreams, though, were of midnight escapes and miracles.
Sitting up, he scratched a flea bite while trying to motivate himself to light a candle, for the daylight was fast fading. As barren and sparse as his prison was, he was thankful to be housed in the Butavant Tower’s uppermost chamber. From his pallet, he could catch a grateful glimpse of sky, but the ground-floor dungeon was windowless. Below it, he’d been told, lay a chamber of even greater horrors, a pit deep in the earth, reached only through a trapdoor in the floor above. Amaury did not understand how a man could be buried alive like that and not go mad.
Lying back on the pallet, he sought in vain to get comfortable upon the thin straw mattress. He’d taken some of his holy vows more seriously than others, had never seen why poverty enhanced a priest’s piety. Like many sons of noble families he’d found in the Church a career rather than a calling. Well, he’d be honoring all his vows now, he’d be living as austerely as any recluse, those holy men who shunned the world and all its pleasures, mortifying the flesh whilst devoting their every waking thought to the glories of God Eternal and Life Everlasting.
Here at Corfe, he had his anchorite’s cell, and all the time he’d ever need for contemplative meditation upon his sins and hopes of salvation. He suspected, though, that he’d spare a thought or two for his royal benefactor, his right beloved cousin Ned.
Yielding the bed to the fleas, he got stiffly to his feet, moved restlessly to the unshuttered window. Dusk had begun to blur the edges of the Purbeck Hills, and slate-color clouds promised rain before morning. He wondered what view Ellen looked out upon from her Windsor chamber. He wondered, too, how he’d fill the day’s dwindling hours. He’d always imagined that boredom must be a prisoner’s greatest foe. But he’d not expected the solitude to be equally burdensome. Even as a boy, he’d been as independent as any cat, accustomed to going his own way. It came as a shock, therefore, to discover that loneliness could be so crippling.
So starved was he for companionship that he’d begun to look forward to those days when Bertram was on duty, for the genial, garrulous guard was always willing to linger and talk. A good-natured, unlettered man in his forties, Bertram had been untouched by the turmoil that had convulsed England during Simon de Montfort’s struggle with King Henry. The boundaries of Bertram’s world stretched no farther than the confines of his Dorsetshire village, and it mattered little to him that Amaury was a de Montfort. But that Amaury was a priest mattered greatly.
Bertram did not believe a man of God ought to be imprisoned like a common felon, and when he learned that Amaury was a papal chaplain, his indignation led him to perform small acts of kindness whenever possible, seeing that Amaury had extra candles, another blanket, even a wooden comb. And Amaury, who’d once dined with kings and consorted with popes, could only reflect, with rueful bitterness, that what Scriptures said was all too true. Pride indeed did goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
He stiffened suddenly, again thinking he’d heard the jangle of keys. This time, though, his senses had not played him false. As he turned from the window, the door swung open and Bertram entered with his supper tray. The food was the usual Lenten fare—salted herring, half a loaf of barley bread, a dollop of apple butter, and a tankard of tepid ale—edible, if not appetizing. But Bertram was beaming, looking as pleased as if he’d just brought Amaury a meal to grace a king’s table.
“I’ve a joyful surprise for you, my lord,” he declared, “a visitor!” And he stepped aside to reveal a grey-robed friar standing behind him in the shadows.
Amaury was delighted. But as he came forward to welcome the friar, the man pulled his cowled hood back, and his gasp was as audible as it was involuntary. “Friar—Hugh!”
It was a quick recovery, but needless; Hugh was grinning widely. “Bertram knows I’m no friar,” he said breezily, and then found himself blinking back tears, for Amaury, the aloof, the proud, was embracing him like a brother.
Bertram deposited the tray, collected the chamber pot, and headed for the door, warning that they had only till the Vespers bells sounded. They squandered a few of those moments listening to the receding echoes of his footsteps on the stairs. Then Hugh said regretfully, “I’d hoped there might be some way to set you free—until I drew rein before the outer bailey walls. It would take a Merlin to contrive an escape from Corfe, my lord.”
“I know, Hugh, indeed I know. I am astounded that you were even able to talk your way in to see me. That Franciscan disguise—very clever!”
Hugh grinned again. “Well, in truth, it was Prince Llewelyn’s idea,” he confided, fumbling under his robes.
“You’ve seen Llewelyn?” Amaury was incredulous. “By God, you truly are a marvel!”
Having untied the burlap sack knotted about his waist, Hugh now brought it out with a flourish. “Even if I cannot offer the keys to your prison, I do not come empty-handed, my lord.” Reaching into the sack, he withdrew a small prayer book and a coral rosary. “I’ve a psalter and pater noster for you. Bertram balked at the razor, but he agreed to bring you a washing laver on the morrow. I have a hairbrush for you, and some soft Bristol soap, too. And there’s a change of clothing, a tunic, chausses, a shirt, and several pairs of braies.”
Amaury had resolutely refused to let himself think that far ahead, to the time when his clothes would become too ragged, threadbare, and dirty to be worn. “You’ve thought of everything, Hugh,” he said, and when he looked into the sack, he saw that was, indeed, true. There were extra candles, mon
kshood root to kill rats and mice, and a larkspur seed powder for lice and fleas. An ink horn, several quill pens, and rolled sheets of parchment. Dried figs. Even a packet of needles and thread. “What prisoner could ask for more?” he said softly, and Hugh, missing the irony altogether, gave him a sunlit smile.
“There is more,” he said, holding out a small, leather pouch; Amaury heard the clinking of coins. “We thought this might come in handy, since most gaolers are more money-minded than Bertram. Ah, I almost forgot…there are some books, too, in the bottom of the bag.”
Amaury was puzzled by his own emotions. He ought to be elated, for Hugh’s bounty was a genuine godsend. And he was grateful. But at the same time, there was a curious sense of letdown, too, for the gift of these basic necessities, items he’d always taken utterly for granted, served to bring home to him his impotence, his outcast status as a prisoner, dependent upon others for even the most simple needs. But there was nothing in the least ambivalent about his reaction to the word books. “Ah, Hugh, bless you for that!”
“I wish I could say it was my doing, but alas, it was not,” Hugh confessed cheerfully, for although he was proud of his literacy, reading for pure pleasure was an alien concept to him. “It was Prince Llewelyn who thought books might help to banish boredom. Shall I see what we’ve got for you?”
Drawing out a book bound with thin wooden boards, he held it up for Amaury’s inspection. “Chretien de Troyes’s Yvain, the Knight of the Lion. And here is Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. The Song of Roland. I was fretting that you might have read some of these already, but Prince Llewelyn assured me that it is not unheard-of to read a book more than once!”
Amaury was watching so avidly as the books piled up on his bed that Hugh began to laugh. “I feel as if I’m pouring gold coins out for the counting! I know you are fluent in Latin, so we included the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Robert Grosseteste’s Dicta.”
Amaury reached out, picked up the last-named book. “My father had so many of Bishop Robert’s books,” he said, and only then did Hugh remember that Simon de Montfort and the Bishop of Lincoln had been more than friends; they had been political allies, spiritual soulmates who’d shared a vision of a new England, one in which the cleansing flames of a Christian chivalry could burn free and pure.
“Passing strange,” Amaury said, “that there should be so many men who see both my father and Bishop Robert as saints. They pray to the Bishop, too; did you know that, Hugh?”
Hugh nodded. “The monks at Evesham used to tell us of a family who had brought their ailing child to pray at the Bishop’s shrine. The lad swooned, and when he came to his senses, he said that the Bishop was not in his tomb, that he’d gone to be with his brother Simon, who was to die on the morrow at Evesham.”
Amaury said nothing, but there was such an odd, distant look upon his face that, for the first time, Hugh found himself wondering what it was like to be the son of a legend. “Do you ever wish,” he asked hesitantly, “that men did not see your lord father as…as St Simon of Evesham? It must be strange at times, sorting out your memories, making sense of it all…” He’d begun to stammer a bit, self-conscious, fearing he might inadvertently have offended.
No one had ever asked Amaury that before. “I think,” he said slowly, “that sometimes I feel…cheated, as if I’d been robbed of something that was mine…my family’s.” Hearing his own words, he smiled thinly. “Does that sound utterly mad to you?”
“No, of course not,” Hugh said, uncomprehending but invariably polite. “There is one more book in the bag. This one has a right interesting history. Your kinsman, the old Earl of Chester, bought it whilst on his way to the Holy Land, later gave it to his nephew, John the Scot, who was the husband of Llewelyn Fawr’s daughter. John gave it to Llewelyn, and eventually it ended up in the hands of his grandson, our Lady Ellen’s Llewelyn. He thought you might find it diverting, for it is all about alien lands, written by a Christian pilgrim. He relates some truly marvelous adventures, even includes a vocabulary of foreign words, mostly Arabic, I think.”
“I suppose learning Arabic is as good a way to fill the hours as any. Have you ever heard of Robert, the Duke of Normandy? No? He was a distant kinsman of mine, a son of William the Bastard, first of the Norman Kings. He was the eldest, but his younger brother Henry ended up on England’s throne and he ended up in an English prison. For a while, he was held here at Corfe. But then he was moved to Cardiff Castle in Wales, where he learned to speak Welsh. Of course he had all the time in the world for study. You see, he was caged until he died, nigh on thirty years, if my memory serves.”
It occurred to Hugh that education could be a dubious blessing. For certes, it would have been better, he thought, if Prince Llewelyn had never heard of Eleanor of Brittany and Lord Amaury knew naught of this Robert of Normandy. He was determined, though, that their visit would not end on such a bleak note, and he said, as heartily as he could, “I’ve something else for you, my lord. Ale was never to your liking; I remember you saying you’d sooner swill goat’s piss. Well, I have a full flask here of spiced red wine, and I thought we might celebrate my twentieth birthday together.”
“Your birthday?” Amaury echoed, and Hugh nodded, although it was actually still a few days hence. “I’d wager this is the oddest setting for any birthday you’ll ever have, Hugh!”
“No,” Hugh said and grinned. “When I turned fifteen, your brother Bran took me to a whorehouse in Siena!”
“Did he for true?” Amaury almost laughed. “That does sound like Bran. He always was a lad for—”
He heard it before Hugh did, the sound of footsteps nearing the door. Bertram poked his head in, then tactfully withdrew, after alerting them to “say your farewells.”
“Quick, my lord.” Hugh shoved a parchment across the bed. “From here I am going to Windsor, and if you write to Lady Ellen, I may be able to get it to her.”
As Amaury wrote, Hugh took this opportunity to inspect his prison. He’d not expected the chamber to be so bare, so stark, for he knew men of Amaury’s rank were often confined in considerable comfort, even allowed their own servants to tend to their needs.
“I do not understand,” he said suddenly, “why the English King is so set upon punishing you like this. Surely he cannot still believe you played a part in that killing at Viterbo. Jesú, the Bishop of Padua himself swore you’d never left the city!”
“Edward well knows that I am innocent,” Amaury said, and signed his name with deliberation. “Have you never heard of a scapegoat, Hugh? According to Scriptures, it is an unfortunate animal that shoulders the sins of others ere being banished into the wilderness.”
He saw that Hugh did not yet comprehend, and said quietly, “It is true that my cousin Hal betrayed our father, but he did not deserve to be hacked to death in a church. My brother Guy will never admit it, mayhap not even to himself, but he knows that to be true. God pity him, so did Bran. Hal died, not for his own sins, but for Edward’s.”
“You are saying, then, that King Edward is punishing you because he cannot punish Guy? But…but there is no justice in that!”
“Ah, but there is, Hugh,” Amaury said trenchantly, “royal justice.”
“And what exactly is royal justice?”
“Whatever the King says it is,” Amaury said, with a cynicism that took Hugh’s breath away. But when he opened his mouth to protest, he found himself unable to refute Amaury, for Edward was not his cousin and Corfe was not his gaol.
After encountering so many obstacles in his attempts to breach the defenses of Corfe Castle, Hugh approached Windsor with some trepidation. But he was to discover that his qualms had been needless. Corfe was a state prison and, of necessity, virtually impregnable. Windsor Castle proved to be far more accessible, a royal palace that comprised no less than three baileys, two half-timbered King’s Houses, several chapels, numerous stables, kitchens, a bake-house and buttery, a great hall, an almonry, kennels, and gardens,
all of this in addition to the circular castle keep and fortified towers, spread out over thirteen full acres of ground, an area even larger than that of the Tower of London.
Just twenty miles from Westminster, Windsor had long been a favorite royal dwelling, and while Edward was not currently in residence, some of his children were, and the nurseries in the upper bailey resounded with their squeals, with the scolding of their harried nurses. Amidst the comings and goings of tradesmen and servants and guards and townsmen, no one looked twice at a lone Franciscan friar.
Unlike monks, who were not supposed to stray far from their monasteries, friars were expected, even obligated, to remain in the world, preaching God’s Word in the streets and marketplaces. Hugh’s presence, therefore, seemed not at all untoward, and he was able to wander at will about the castle grounds, prudently avoiding those buildings where security-minded sentries might be inclined to challenge him.
There was not a stable groom, not a kitchen scullion, who did not know that Simon de Montfort’s daughter was the King’s unwilling guest, and they were all quite willing to gossip about her. Hugh soon learned that Ellen was lodged in an upper chamber of the Round Tower, that she was being treated with the deference due the King’s kinswoman, and that more than a few pitied her plight. But the most useful information came from old Emo, the royal gardener. Emo was vastly proud of the gardens and vineyards that lay beyond the castle walls; more than five flowering acres, he boasted, enclosed within hedges of blackthorn and alder. But the poor lass would not get to see his masterwork. She was only allowed to walk in the small garden plots safely set within the castle baileys, would miss the glory of his roses in full summer bloom.
King Henry had built a chapel in the northeast corner of the lower bailey, separated from the new royal apartments by a spacious cloistered garden. It was here that Hugh took up his post, safely hidden within the deep shadows of the silent chapel, watching the cloisters, waiting. His were virtues—a calm, steady nature, courage, and an enduring optimism—that were well suited for surveillance, and on the second day of his vigil, his patience was rewarded. Just before noon, a young knight escorted Ellen and Juliana into the garden.
The Reckoning Page 28