by Prue Batten
Lovely, delicate.
I opened it, the cover creaking, and there lay the unknown text, illustrated on every second leaf with a detailed miniature of Saracen life. It smacked of wealth, of privilege … as if it had fallen into the hands of thieves who were brazen enough to climb a sheikh’s walls to secure it. Worse, it could have been Christian knights who pillaged some bastion in the Holy Land and then gamed it away to my father.
‘It’s worth a king’s treasury, Ysabel.’ Cecilia said.
‘Indeed,’ Gisborne added. ‘And may be needed to pay your way. Now quickly, pack it and let us leave.’
I rolled it with haste and pushed it into the drawstring bag, shoving the latter down the front of my surcoat where a belt held it at my waist and prevented it from falling. ‘My father,’ I said as I jerked the belt tighter.
‘Ysabel…’ Cecilia frowned.
‘No. I will go only when I have seen him.’
‘Ysabel, he will be unable to speak to you and he may not even know you.’
Cecilia made no bones about my choice but I didn’t care if Papa didn’t know me or that he couldn’t speak. It was to satisfy myself that I did this … to know that I had been daughterly. That I hadn’t just run with my tail jammed between my legs like a frightened cur.
Briefly I wondered if I was delivering some sort of perverse message to Gisborne; saying see, this is how one fulfil’s one’s obligations to one’s parent no matter what the parent has done. He had chosen to slice his father from his life with an incision deep into the heart. There was no room for compassion or care for a man who had left he and his mother to the whim of the Knights Templar.
But no, why would I be so specious? I was doing this for my mother and for me, no other reason; to satisfy the corner inside my soul that Lady Alaïs inhabited, not to win a point over my escort. Guy of Gisborne had lost his heritage, his mother and his father; so had I. And yet for some obscure reason, a reason I couldn’t rationalize, I felt in my heart that his loss was worse than mine.
Was it because my mother had died in a richly appointed home provided by her loving husband? And that my home and heritage were only lost after my father became insane with grief? Gisborne had lost his mother in awful circumstances … on the road and penniless after his father, without a thought for their future, had followed his obsessive ambition. Thoughtless, selfish … cruel. But had my father been any less thoughtless?
I could hear my mother’s voice.
‘Ysabel,’ she would say. ‘Your father is just a man who lost his way. And by the very depth and breadth of his mistake I can measure how lost he is … a lovable fool who lives now in his own Purgatory. Is that not enough punishment?’
Oh yes, enough punishment.
‘But Mama,’ I would counter, ‘is Gisborne’s situation any different? His father gambled with his son’s future. He trusted the wrong people to protect his family whilst he fought in the Holy Land. Ultimately his price was to contract leprosy and die. My father has an apoplexy and is dying by starvation. In each case, the fathers’ children lost their inheritance. I think it is the same, what say you?’
‘Perhaps the issues are no different,’ Mama might say. ‘But you can only do what gives you a form of inner peace at this time. Master Gisborne has acted in a way that was enabling for him. It is not for you to say what is right and what is wrong. This man after all, is trying to see you safe.’
And so I took Cecilia in my arms and hugged her.
‘Ceci, place some flowers on her tomb. And do whatever you must to keep safe.’
I could not say I would be back for in truth I had no idea. But with no other word I pushed past her and leaped down the stair as if the devil licked my heels, passing the Lady Chamber and entering the unlit ways of Moncrieff’s secret labyrinth.
I could hear Gisborne’s steps behind me, close enough for him to touch my shoulder, to pull me back, to say ‘Don’t do this. I know what fathers are like, you are a passionate fool.’ But no, instead he let me go on and I chose to believe he accompanied me because he must, because he would see me safe. The part of me that wanted to believe that he trod behind me because he might care for me was pushed away. This was not the moment to reflect on the progressions of our intimacy or our divergent attitudes. Being safe, keeping safe was the focus.
Moncrieff’s passages were concealed in only one of its four towers. My grandfather had built the castle around a square bailey, furnishing each corner with a semicircular tower in the style of Saracen defensive structures. Such knowledge returned with the men of the First Crusade and my grandfather had used it, along with the men and the labour. A secret passage, concealed wall within wall, showing great foresight should Moncrieff ever be breached … such a secret that it lived and died within my family.
I wondered what had happened to those builders – the masons and carpenters. Their mouths must have been shut in some way or other for the passages to remain so concealed. I preferred not to think on the possible legacy of brutality that might line the stairwell, instead I thanked God that it existed at all and that we, Guy and I, had a chance to leave the poisonous place that Moncrieff had become.
‘Slow down, Ysabel. Hold,’ Guy hissed.
I jumped.
Guy touched my shoulder. ‘Just beware. Do not assume we are inviolable.’ He pushed in front of me, taking my hand as he passed and I wanted him to keep holding because if I felt brave it was merely bluff and I wanted reassurance.
We progressed down the stair, Gisborne’s candle flickering and almost gutting a dozen times but at the foot of the passage, he huffed the candle out and we were plunged into gloom, our eyes adjusting to seek darker shade on light; we proceeded slowly, he leading me like a child until we halted.
Hands cupped each of my shoulders, more softly on the arrow graze, and I looked up and saw the whites of his eyes. I dare say he hoped I might have reconsidered my decision on the downward flight but it was not to be. I nodded my head at him, my hand reaching up to lay over his knuckles.
‘You must prepare yourself,’ he whispered, and turned me toward the spy-hole.
I climbed onto a block of stone that had been positioned below the hole. The hard, chiseled walls chilled my body as I leaned into them, a freeze that hovered like a death wish. I positioned my eye over the hole and blinked to focus.
The cell was lit with a vague dancing flame from a cresset. The high window, barred and barred again made me wonder not for the first time just who my grandfather might have kept prisoner here because for sure they would never have escaped. I thought of the engineer who had designed the castle fortifications, of the labourers.
No.
As to my father … he would never have imprisoned anyone and it seemed more than cruel irony that a chamber built by my grandfather should imprison his dying son.
Because he was dying. The rasping breath was a sure sign.
A month, Ceci? God’s breath, it will be a day or less.
Fluids bubbled with each breath and I could envisage the flood in his chest as he struggled. There was no evidence of De Courcey’s guard, the spy-hole looking straight to the door.
Papa lay huddled under a fur, a shrunken, wizened shape, no sign of the handsome husband and father. His skeletal face was shaded with stubble … evidence that Cecilia was no longer his nurse. His face had indeed slipped sideways, his mouth twisted and open and a shine in the light of the flame indicating he dribbled. His hair lay about him, filled with bits of straw.
Mama, how you would hate this! You would attack De Courcey with dogs and a pike for this wretched treatment of your husband … you would hang the man’s remains…
Joffrey began to cough – a wet, choking sound that horrified me. Gisborne’s hand slid up my back and I straightened a spine that had begun to sag.
‘Father,’ I called. Gisborne’s fingers curled to a fist. ‘Father!’
‘Ysabel!’ He went to pull me down.
‘No! Just let me speak to him.’
‘Papa…’
What could I say? What would matter to him as he lay dying?
‘Mama waits, Papa. She waits and all will be well. All manner of things will be well.’
Did he hear me? How could he show me? He could not, of course … beyond his breathing which had quieted, his chest ceasing its frenzied rise, slowing and calming. There was a rattle of metal and footsteps and I looked to the door. Keys scraped in the lock and a guard pulled the entry open.
‘Give ‘im the rites, priest. ‘Ee needs ‘em fast.’
‘He should not even be here. It is a disgrace in the eyes of God,’ the priest barked as he walked into the cell.
‘Baron De Courcey wanted ‘im ‘ere. ‘E don’t care if the chap’s dyin’. Not sure it matters to the chap either. ‘E’d ‘ardly know if ‘e was in ‘eaven, ‘ell or in between.’
Anger began to boil inside me but Gisborne’s bunched fist tapped twice against my back reminding me of the need for caution. I cast an anguished look at him but he just shook his head, his mouth a thin, uncompromising line.
‘I am distraught that this must be,’ said the priest. ‘Leave us.’
The guard, an older man whose face I didn’t recognize, turned away.
‘Won’t lock the door then. ‘E ‘aint goin’ anywhere.’
‘As you wish…’ the priest muttered, seating himself by Papa’s side.
This man I did know. Brother John, our family’s dear friend from the tiny church of Saint Agatha in the village and who had seen many births, deaths and marriages within the domain. I recalled how he had become a part of our family. He was found sleeping in the old hermit’s hut and had been invited to take food in our Hall. It transpired that as penance for a perceived transgression, Brother John had left the monastery to which he belonged to walk the length of England, begging for food and shelter. My father asked him what he had done that was so bad he cast himself adrift from his religious brothers.
‘I lusted after my work,’ Brother John replied.
‘What work?’
My father had been intrigued, the priest’s educated voice a sign of something more than a mere monk working in a monastery garden.
‘I was in charge of our scriptorium, I was considered by many to be a gifted scribe. In time, my humility was overtaken by my ego and I began to work for my own satisfaction rather than for God.’ He laughed, a rueful sound. ‘Hubris. Suffice to say, Baron, I lost my way. To walk is my personal penance. I have been walking for many months now.’
Brother John however, walked no further than Moncrieff. I was born whilst he ate in the Hall and he stayed to christen me in the miniature church that was Saint Agatha’s. Easter followed and a number of village weddings and burials occurred. In time, there was always something, some soul to be helped, a kind word to be spoken and Brother John became part of the fabric of our lives. Watching him now, I thanked God. This man was my father’s friend.
‘Dear Joffrey,’ I heard him say as he reached for my father’s hand. ‘My dear, dear man…’
I sucked in a breath to call to him but Gisborne’s hand slid over my mouth.
‘No. Don’t confound the issue further. The less who know of us the better.’
I shook my head violently.
‘Ysabel, enough. Now you do as I say.’ He tugged me down off the stone. ‘You saw your father and God help us, you spoke to him. Now we go or your freedom is forfeit.’
I pulled away from his grasp but he was tenacious.
‘Now, Ysabel!’
A hoar frost could have sprung from his tone and of course he was right, so I allowed him to tow me back to the fork in the passage and the grille, my heart weighing heavy on my toes. He lifted the iron frame and looked out and I realised how much I owed him for who else would have made sure that it was greased well enough not to squeak should we need to use it.
‘Into the reeds and wait.’
He legged me up over the sill and I flopped into the sedge, crouching until he joined me so quietly I would swear he had magicked through the walls.
Moncrieff connected to the lakeside by a causeway - stacked stone creating a track to the shore and at the end abutting the castle a portcullis and barbican to protect from incursion. The causeway had been known to flood at times of high-water, rendering Moncrieff a solitary islet – a place redolent of myth and legend I would think when I was younger, as mists rolled across the water.
I looked out at the moonless surrounds now and the self-same ribbons of mist twined tendrils up into the air, strands drifting around sedge and reed to thicken and thin. In its very opacity lay our safety and we edged forward, feeling our way around the walls. Occasionally a foot would slip on the greasy rocks and slide under the water but if there were ripples they were concealed and we barely made a sound.
We reached the causeway and moved underneath the planks of the drawbridge where we could sit and take stock. The nightlife piped and splashed spasmodically and from within the castle there was but the bark of a dog, a door slamming shut, some heavy footsteps and a murmur of voices.
Guy once again pulled at me and we began to move beneath the bridge, easing onto the side of the causeway. The water level was low enough for us to tread with dry feet – it had obviously been a dry winter and spring and I wondered at the future harvest with such conditions and what the drinking water would be like, because Moncrieff folk mattered.
We only had to wade through water once and in a matter of moments we had broached the shore. The bell of Saint Agatha’s rang out for Matins and it cut through me like a knife for I believed it was tolling not just as a farewell to my father but to me.
‘We must move away from the road,’ Guy no longer whispered and it was like a shout after the night of secrets. ‘We need horses. Without them…’
Without them we are easy prey.
We slipped into the fog, wraiths of the darkling hours, the air moist and heavy. I lost all sense of direction and followed dutifully behind like a faithful hound, Gisborne’s tall body a mere shadow. We walked for perhaps twenty turns of Thea’s bracelet, pushing through shrubs and under trees. I fingered the quaint knotted string out of a desperate need for blessings and jumped when Guy broke the silence, my mind far from the lake and by the side of my father with Brother John.
‘Here,’ Guy indicated ahead.
A squat shape emerged through the fog and I recognised Brother John’s hermit’s hut. Decrepit walls and roof still stood although it was much lower to the ground. Of any door there was no sign … if there had ever been one.
Guy stepped aside to allow me to enter, having brushed cobwebs from the doorframe. The mist had thinned enough for a paling night sky to be observed. We had been lucky, a league or two away from Moncrieff and in the last moments of night.
‘We rest,’ Guy folded onto the ground and I joined him. He dug into the pouch at his waist and pulled out a crust of bread, passing it to me. I broke it in half and handed back the largest piece.
‘What now?’ I fingered the dry bread.
‘Horses,’ he replied, chewing. ‘I will have to steal them and hope we are well into the forest before the alarm is raised. De Courcey will know it is you after he discovers your absence at Saint Eadgyth’s.’
‘And you, Gisborne? Why should he not think it is you on the second horse?’
He looked back at me; a steady gaze.
‘Oh of course,’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘You told Halsham a falsehood. Wither do you journey, Sir Gisborne?’
He swallowed the bread. ‘To London.’
‘Really?’ I felt sick, my stomach curling. ‘And the second horse?’
‘You have a guide … a fellow you hired at Great Yarmouth. The Sisters at Saint Eadgyth’s will confirm it.’
My mouth had filled with a sour taste.
‘You think of everything.’
And as he went to repl
y, I bolted to the door to throw up what little I had eaten at Moncrieff, puking until all I expelled was foul yellow froth. I groaned and wiping my mouth with some grass, walked to the other side of the clearing, my arms wrapped around my middle.
‘Father’s dead.’
I stared at the unfurling leaves on an oak tree. Ironic that it symbolized a rebirth whilst my father died.
‘Yes.’ Gisborne spoke gently.
‘Do you think he knew I was there?’
In my own heart, I thought he did. The way his breathing changed, and the way he became so still, but I was afraid to enunciate the idea to Gisborne in case it was repudiated. It seemed important to hold onto such a feeling.
‘I think so … he grew very quiet,’ he replied.
‘You sensed that?’
‘His breathing was laboured before you spoke.’
‘Perhaps he just moved closer to death.’
‘Perhaps … but I think not.’
His words were balm even though he might be saying what he thought I needed to hear. Whatever the case, it was kind.
‘I’ve lost everything. My mother, my father and my heritage and as quickly as a lightning strike.’
‘It gets a little better over time, Ysabel.’
‘You think?’ I spun round. ‘Enlighten me. How?’
The anger rang out, the bile in my belly as vicious as the acid that tainted my words. And then I understood.
‘I’m sorry. Of course you know. That was stupid of me.’
He passed me a sprig of greenery.
‘Wild mint. Chew a leaf and then spit it out. It will make your mouth feel fresher.’
The mint revived me. If there had been honey as well, a paste of the two would have been even better.
‘Where did you find it?’
He indicated either side of the door.
‘Our hermits obviously knew the value of herbs. There are others … rosemary, rue, borage, thyme. Maybe more.’
‘Guy, I’m sorry I was so tactless.’
The light grew brighter with each passing moment and I marked the exhaustion in his face, guessing my own was little better. His hair was tangled and stubble threatened to become a black beard. His eyes crinkled at the edges.