Gisborne: Book of Pawns

by Prue Batten

  ‘It’s beautiful, tranquil.’

  I straightened my head on the pillow.

  ‘My Lady, would you like to bathe? Do you feel strong enough? You are ve…’

  ‘Very dirty, I know. Sister, I am filthy but I need help. Can you … is it an imposition?’

  ‘Not at all, dear child. I will get a bath filled in the lavatorium and I will help you walk there. It’s not far.’

  As I fell into a doze, I smiled at the way she addressed me as a ‘child’. She must have been my age and it was only a moment, I swear, before she was shaking my shoulder gently. ‘My lady?’ She slipped her arm around my shoulder, levering me up as the world tilted. I put a hand to my temple, then my brow, feeling the linen covered wound.

  ‘We stitched it. It needed to be closed.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I realize … thank you, Sister…’

  ‘It’s Mercia, Mother Mercia.’ She made no comment about my misappellation, just smiled. ‘Come now, let’s remove the fields from your body. If you haven’t actually been ploughing, you look as though you could have been the plough!’

  Back on the cot, I felt more like a lady, less like a serf. My skin was pink, the light lying across it. My hair, though brown, lay soft and silky on the pillow, the linen bandage removed and the stitching proud. I had been assured it was a clean wound, that the stitching had been fastidious and fine. Mother Mercia had covered me in a rough chemise with longish sleeves and then pulled the blanket over me, propping me with a pillow and my folded and cleaned cloak. She passed me watered wine, a hot griddle cake and a bowl of potage and never had such plain food seemed so good, because whilst I might be wounded I was starving hungry.

  But Lord I was tired, the spoon heavier than a broadsword in my fingers.

  Mother Mercia noticed and took the bowl from me.

  ‘Sleep now, child.’

  ‘But Mother, I have…’

  Questions. My son. His father.

  ‘Not now. Sleep first.’

  She left, closing the door as the bell rang for None.

  Sleep is a reprieve. No matter the situation. One’s mind turns from its dilemmas, one’s body regirds. Often as I shifted on the cot, the sound of the waterfall would grow louder and then recede. Normal rhythms reasserted themselves and thus I slept through the night and its bells, waking as Tierce rang out the next day.

  I was unsure of my place, where I should go, what I should wear and so I lay watching the dawn light painting patterns across the wall. Listening to the water and the birds’ singing and the nuns’ chorus adding such a superb descant with a glorious canto.

  The door eased open and I turned to smile a welcome to Mother Mercia but the smile died and my hand shot to the stitches, my head turning to hide my face from the person who had entered.

  He said nothing immediately, just walked up to me and took my hand in his – he had beautiful hands – very strong, but capable of playing many tunes, not the least on heartstrings.

  ‘Don’t cover it. It does not matter.’

  His voice … ah, I remembered the tone.

  ‘It does…’

  ‘No. It is merely a battle scar, that’s all.’

  He moved away to stand by the window, a tall shape in a black woolen surcoat and dark chausses with muddy boots over the top. For the first time I really allowed myself to look upon him. His height and the flowing dark hair that fell around his neck, eyes the blue of a mid-summer’s evening.

  But, no, no! Eyes like a midnight sky. Remember, Ysabel? The cool remove? The anger?

  Even now, he stood rigid, half-turned from me, so alternate to his kindness over the wounding. His face had lost none of its patrician lines in the last year – if anything it had become even sharper. And the stubble lay upon his chin, neither beard nor clean-shaven, as if he shrugged a broad shoulder at both. Perhaps that was the most visible thing of all – Guy of Gisborne was his own man, bending his knee neither to his liege-lord nor anyone-else.

  ‘You are in mortal danger, Ysabel.’

  ‘You think I don’t know?’

  When I spoke it was barely a murmur and I faced the wall, having turned my awful face from him when our eyes met. The glance breathed air onto the embers of memory – the abbey at Locksley and me behind the screen, the Obedientiary shushing Matilda and myself. Descending the stair in Calais, the blue gown grasping my legs with its folds on the night we made love for the first time. My fingers curled into the rough weave of the coverlet as he continued.

  ‘Your life is forfeit. There is barely need for a trial. Richard has denied you, his family, in favour of his mercenary De Courcey. Richard has said you will be strangled, then you will burn, may God forgive him.’

  ‘He does what he must.’

  ‘Jesu, Ysabel! He does what he should not!’

  That was when the fire that had been smouldering inside me exploded with incendiary force. I whipped round, sitting up and grabbing the cloak from behind the pillow to wrap myself.

  ‘You say he should not, you base hypocrite! You, a man who should not have done many things and you dare to stand before me saying that?’

  He stepped back further along the wall away from me. When he spoke, it was that growl that made lesser men dive onto their bellies flat on the ground, a sound like the rolling out of a seige engine.

  ‘Meaning…’

  ‘Meaning Sir Guy, that you shouldn’t have sold me.’

  His eyebrows shot heavenward.

  ‘What?’ He pushed away from the window. ‘Sold you?’

  ‘Halsham said…’

  ‘Halsham,’ he mocked.

  I stood tall even though he was taller, broader and altogether more intimidating, thinking to myself that fires were difficult to quench.

  ‘Halsham offered you money and position in London and you told him about the hermit’s hut. You left me so you could secure the status and power so meaningful to your life. You left me to suffer at De Courcey’s hands after all your promises,’ I snarled, staring him down. ‘Deny it!’

  Ferocity burst forth, crashing like a wave about us.

  ‘I will deny it,’ he shouted. ‘Christ above, Ysabel.’

  He started pacing but the cell was too small and with the volume of his response, I expected to see the whitewash run, for the horn to fall out from the window, for me to be blown backward by his fury.

  ‘For leagues on our journey, you did nothing but denigrate Halsham. He was a snake, corrupt, the devil spawn. And yet you believe his word. God Almighty!’

  He pounded the stone sill with his fist and little flakes of whitewash drifted to the floor, the harshness of his words at odds with the gently floating particles.

  ‘You, you…’ Unable to phrase anything further, he walked past me but then swung back. ‘How can you distrust me so much, Ysabel? What did I do to warrant your lowly opinion of me?’

  He stopped in front of me, his hand flexing hard on the hilt of his sword.

  What did you do?

  My mouth opened and closed. ‘You were…’

  His eyebrow rose, a quirk that might have meant humour once, but now…

  And what argument did I have that would mean anything? I grabbed at the only thing I could.

  ‘You were secretive always. Prying truths from you was nigh to impossible. Is it any wonder I thought your secrecy was damnable and worse? I could only guess at truths.’

  ‘Secretive. And that is all? That is all it took to make you believe I had sold your whereabouts to someone like Halsham or De Courcey? Damn you, Ysabel, I am the King’s spymaster. Stealth is implicit but it doesn’t mean I am disloyal to those I…’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘I did not tell Halsham where you were!’

  My fires sputtered and died and a hideous flush crept over me as I looked at my actions from his point of view. He had protected me, fed and clothed me, holding me when I grieved about the parlous state of my life. And yet still I believed the absolute worst of him.

  ‘Well if
you didn’t sell me, if it was pure luck that led Halsham my way, why didn’t you seek me out at Moncrieff afterward. Why didn’t you return and help me escape?’

  He kicked a toe against the brazier, and it rocked as if agitated.

  ‘Gisborne, answer me!’

  ‘I did come back.’ He flung round. ‘On the eve of your wedding, if you remember. I came back and you looked at me, through me and past me. What message could I garner from that? Surely if you needed to be rescued it would have been evident.’

  ‘Oh Gisborne.’ It was my turn to pace. ‘By then it was too late. I needed you the day Halsham found me, not the eve of my marriage!’

  ‘Why, Ysabel? Why was it too late?’

  His voice had lowered perilously, and I was confused – was he saying something I needed to hear; was there something ulterior in his words?

  ‘Because the King had granted my care and my hand to a mercenary soldier whose forces he needed. There was nothing to be done at that point.’

  ‘Nothing to be done.’ He gave an empty laugh. ‘You think?’

  ‘Oh for Mary’s sake! What? Would you have thrown me over your pommel to gallop away from your hard-won status and power?’

  I dared him – so help me as I gazed at that severe face, I dared him. And it seemed as though we clashed close in our duel, our hilts jamming, our breath dragging in and out. He shook off my weapon and felled me with one blow.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Outside, the waterfall played its tinkling melody as though it was being plucked like a psaltery. Footsteps walked along the cloister. Then nothing.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Ysabel, if you had given me one sign that you needed help, I would have given up everything and taken you from Moncrieff. But you seemed at peace with your state – as if Richard’s decree gave you the freedom to stay at your family home amongst your memories. That it had settled your mind for you. Your face was…’

  I cast back to my marriage day, where in fear of my future I had retreated to a faraway place in my mind. Gisborne had seen me progress through the ceremony and the celebration with a veneer of acceptance and calm as if the presence of the man I had once loved mattered not one scrap.

  ‘It was not what you thought.’

  ‘Then if it was not what it appeared to be, can you not grant that I may have misread you? As sadly you appear to have misread me?’

  I sat on the cot, the ropes creaking under the straw-stuffed mattress and put my head in my hands. This was a man who was embittered early in his life. Why would he assume anything other than what he saw with his own eyes? Even though he knew De Courcey’s history, all he saw was a woman who sat as though becalmed in an ocean. Did she look as if she was affeared? Was she in need? Was there any sort of signal that would be worth him giving up all that he had worked for?

  No, of course there wasn’t. Why would he make a move that might be met with rejection? He’d faced that with his father and it had left an indelible stain. It was hardly likely he would risk the same thing again. And so I gave birth to his son without him knowing. I suffered rape and assault. And perhaps, just perhaps, it was all my fault.

  ‘Mary Mother,’ I whispered.

  In the silence of recrimination, the door creaked open and Mother Mercia rolled into the chamber. Despite her rose-red cheeks and her polished apple face, the look she cast upon us both chastised and be-devilled.

  ‘My Lord? My Lady? I trust all is well? Only it seems our walls may not be as thick as we had thought.’

  Gisborne turned his shoulder and gazed out the window although Lord knows why as horn reveals nothing of the view beyond. In my turn I flushed, wondering what the world of Linn had made of our godless behaviour.

  ‘I apologise, Mother. It was thoughtless and disrespectful.’

  ‘Well then, if you think that things have settled enough – there are visitors waiting.’

  The bossy prioress eased the door ajar and a bright face edged in.

  ‘My Lady…’ Gwen’s pretty face lit with happiness that reflected its light on the space around us.

  ‘Gwen,’ I gasped. ‘Oh Gwen! Is…’

  Behind her and peering over her shoulder, Brigid grinned.

  ‘Lady Ysabel,’ she said as Gwen stood aside.

  In Brigid’s arms lay my son – a sturdy bundle with black hair that tufted over the edges of a shawl. She held him out.

  ‘William,’ I whispered.

  ‘Do you not wish to hold him, madame? Come now, open your arms.’

  I lifted my arms as if they were not part of my body, as though this experience was a dream or a vision. I had not held my child since his birth and to hold him now, months on, when he was beyond that greasy, newborn state was filled with unreality.

  My heart stopped in those moments, as his weight settled and my eyes fixed upon him. I reached a self-conscious finger to his cheek and his eyes opened, the darkest blue gaze staring back. He didn’t blink, just observed, then smiled, two outrageous toothbuds shining back from his bottom gums. My heart started again.

  ‘Biddy, he looks so well. I owe you and Gwen his life.’

  In the crowded room, I felt a body push against me, but was too absorbed with my son to pay heed.

  ‘Ah Lady Ysabel, tis not us you owe but Sir Guy. He has made sure young William wanted for nothing, least of all security.

  Gisborne?

  I swung round but of course Gisborne had been the body slipping past.

  William’s father had left.

  ‘What say you, Brigid?’

  William had pulled a dimpled fist free and wrapped it round my finger, dragging it to his mouth as I posed the question.

  ‘Sir Guy, Lady Ysabel. Not long after we fled, we were waylaid and safeguarded to Mont Hault. We were taken to a modest dwelling with two rooms and a small barn. Peter and our guard, a man called Alfric, slept in the barn and Gwen and I slept in the cottage. It weren’t no better nor worse ‘n anything we had in the village and we were comfortable. We never wanted for pennies, everything was seen to. Presently Ulric arrived and explained it all.’

  Ulric. Of course.

  It became clear. Ulric had informed Gisborne of the birth of his heir and by doing so had betrayed my wishes. But did I have the right to abuse him for his disloyalty? Perhaps he had seen beyond my skewed emotions to the reality – which was that William needed support that would be far beyond Moncrieff’s villeins to provide.

  William stirred, the smile changing as a growl emerged.

  ‘He’s hungry, is all. Time for him to break his fast,’ Gwen said as she held out her arms.

  But Biddy stalled her.

  ‘P’raps you’d care to feed your son, yourself, my lady.’

  William had been fed on goat’s milk through a cloth until they reached Mont Hault but failing to thrive and desperate at his sinking state, Biddy feared for his life. She had the sense to seek out a wetnurse in the hope he would turn away from a fast approaching demise.

  ‘The little beggar did,’ she said. ‘Slowly fer sure, but improving nevertheless.’

  But he was a desultory feeder and as soon as she thought he was healthy enough to cope, she began again with bread in goat’s milk and honey or bread soaked in potage, giving him a little camomile and lemon balm infusion to ease any distrait. He progressed well to the chubby child who sat before me, propped on pillows. I soaked a crust in milk and honey now and enjoyed the gummy smile as he sucked and then experimented with those ridiculous teeth, reaching with a star-shaped hand to hold the crust himself.

  After, Gwen and Brigid having gone with Mother Mercia to break their own very late fast, I sat William on the floor on the coverlet, giving him a smooth wooden wristlet Biddy had passed to me. He leaned his body to the side, pushed on his arms and settled himself as if to crawl, rocking back and forth and discussing life in some infantile tongue for which I had no translation. He continued his little carole, dancing to his own tune and with some transparent partner,
and I took joy in his infancy, feeling awe and love in one.

  ‘You called him William.’

  I had not heard him return, so wrapped was I in watching the innocence.

  ‘The name came to me as I gave birth.’

  Gisborne sat on a coffer and I looked from he to his son; the likeness was remarkable, even in a child so young, and a perverse part of me was glad that there was no denying the child was a Gisborne.

  ‘Why did you not tell me?’

  ‘You had settled to a forward march, Sir Guy. I would not halt you.’

  William had somehow manoeuvred himself close by his father and grasped hold of the chausses to pull himself up. His hand found the scabbard and he toyed with it.

  ‘This is my child,’ Gisborne said as his hand slid over the top of William’s head. I was surprised to note the pain in his voice.

  ‘I … as I said, you made your choices, I made mine.’

  ‘Jesu, Ysabel. Then tell me, did you know you were with child when you wedded the baron?’

  The questions! How I hated them.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And yet knowing the dire nature of the man, you went ahead and risked not just your life, but my son’s!’

  William sank to the floor on his belly, his little bottom in the air, falling asleep almost immediately.

  ‘I remind you of the King’s decree.’

  ‘Ah yes. The King, your infamous god-brother.’

  ‘And your liegelord, sir. Besides,’ I added sourly. ‘It was never intended for William to stay at Moncrieff after his birth. Look at him, he is hardly a minted image of the baron. There was a plan…’

  Through the terse discussion, William slept on, obviously to the tension between his parents.

  ‘Ysabel,’ Guy’s tone changed on an instant. ‘What prevents you from acknowledging me on any level?’

  Oh yes, Ysabel, what? Pride?

  I had not been proud of any answer thus far. Everything smacked of the spoiled child of the nobility that Gisborne was forced to escort from Cazenay a lifetime ago. But I was ever spontaneous in my replies and now was little different. Insecurity wreaks its own response.