Gisborne: Book of Pawns

by Prue Batten

  ‘Old Jewry!’ I spat. ‘And your kinship with Halsham who is De Courcey’s man.’

  ‘Old Jewry?’

  Again an incredulous tone but his customary body language, that rigidity, was held in check by his son lying at his booted toes.

  ‘You were there. What role did you play? Firelighter, murderer?’

  I swear if William was not curled on the floor between us, Gisborne might have shaken me till my eyeballs rattled. His fists curled on themselves and I sat straighter, hugging my cloak closer.

  ‘No role beyond challenging your husband to desist before knocking him out with the flat of my sword and … disciplining his men at arms after I had discovered them torching a rabbi’s house and with the family inside like bread in an oven. Does that satisfy you perhaps? And then arguing with the King himself that the perpetrators in London and York, of whom a number were De Courcey’s own, be tried for murder and hung. But our King ever has his eye on the main chance, and with a Crusade in the offing he needs fighting men.’ He took a breath, his voice wrathful. ‘Is that the answer you wanted?’

  All at once I just wanted to give in and so I shrugged and reached down to stroke William’s little bottom.

  ‘Ysabel.’

  The way he said my name provoked such a bodily surge I felt humiliated it happened within one of God’s houses.

  ‘Please. You must leave. Take our son. It is more perilous daily.’

  Tears began to well but I would not cry. ‘It’s a mess, is it not?’ I said in a trembling voice.

  He stood and walked across to me, holding his hand out. I placed my palm in his and the feel of his skin on mine was another memory so that when I stood and raised my eyes to his, I remembered two naked bodies and the making of an heir.

  A rap at the door caused an expletive to hiss out as Gwen’s face appeared.

  ‘Wondered if you want us to take little Wills, my lady.’

  I found that I could laugh, the highly charged moment quenched.

  ‘Wills? Yes, Gwen. You may take Master Wills and see to him but you must bring him to me the minute he wakes. I would not lose any more moments with him.’

  We watched our son lifted into willing arms, not a stir from the floppy little soul, and then we were alone.

  ‘If I get some clothes for you, will you walk?’

  Clothes? Is it not what you do for me always, Gisborne?

  ‘Why break the habit of a lifetime, Sir Guy?’

  I softened the irony with a smile.

  One plain dun-coloured bliaut and one even plainer girdle later, I was climbing behind Gisborne up the far side of the waterfall the Welsh called linn and which was the psaltery-sound of the Alyn as it tumbled – a charming place, a pretty resonance, rocks and a tranquil pond up high and further back from the overflow.

  Suitable for talking.

  ‘I knew you the moment you walked into my chamber at Locksley.’

  I had stripped off boots and hose, rolled the gown to my knees and thrust my legs into the crystalline shallows. The sun shone and it warmed me through as if it were love.

  ‘Then why did you not say?’

  ‘I deal in subterfuge, Ysabel. You worked hard at disguising your voice, you had coloured your hair and you carried a severe wound. I would say you were hiding and wished not to be found. You knew who I was. As I said, if you wanted my help, you would surely have indicated it. Thus it was enough to keep a wary eye…’

  ‘But you encouraged me to stay on, knowing the Devil’s friends were coming.’

  ‘It was a massive risk. But I could better protect you close by than away.’

  All the while he spoke, he sat with distance between us and I could not read him – Jesu, but he was a man of secrets.

  ‘A risk that failed,’ I replied.

  ‘Not if you hadn’t run. My staff are loyal to a man and would never have betrayed you. Unfortunately you were seen by Halsham’s squire as you fetched the mare. It was a matter of moment for them to put everything together. Unfortunately they play the game of secrets almost as well as I.’

  ‘Do they know you help me?’

  He didn’t answer, but dropped his head and grimaced.

  ‘Oh God! How much could we have avoided by truths? Methinks we might both be at fault.’

  I rubbed at the stitches.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ He leaned over and eased my fingers away.

  I demurred for a moment, then, ‘No, but the memory does.’

  ‘Tell me,’ he said softly.

  So I did. In awful detail, finding I cried a little. He held me, a movement as natural as holding one’s child and the water played its odd melody and birds sang and that moment was God-given. One to be cherished.

  ‘Like I said, Ysabel, it is a war wound. A battle with the Devil and you won.’ He bent and kissed around the scar. ‘Tis like kissing a hedgehog.’

  ‘Then perhaps you kiss the wrong part of me,’ I hazarded.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he replied.

  How does making love happen without one noticing the progressions? A moment and he was kissing my lips. Then we were unclothed and in the water where I could see every part of his lean and muscled frame. His long legs wrapped around me and drew me in, his arms sliding around my back. My hips met his like someone craving water in the desert. His hand gently parted my thighs drawing my legs around him.

  ‘They say in Ireland, that the lovers’ knot has an unbroken shape, that it simply winds in and out, over and under in perpetuity, and that is forever how I remember the intertwining shape of this day of days as Guy of Gisborne and I, Ysabel of Moncrieff, made love.’

  I wondered if making love is any different to loving. Does it mean the same thing? For a man it can be merely one moment’s pleasure, but for a woman, the bodily act might signify a lifetime’s commitment. Once I said to Gisborne, ‘Don’t regret this’ and I thought I could say now with a little confidence that he did not. But then would I ever really know what the King’s secret servant felt?

  We dried in the sun, not worrying about life until I heard William’s distant cry, lusty and angry, and dragged on my clothes before Gisborne could react.

  ‘He cries,’ I muttered.

  ‘He demands,’ Guy laughed pushing away thoughts of the times to come. ‘He is my son.’

  We hurried back, worries away, but when we spotted Ulric, Peter and Mother Matilda in a tense conclave, it was obvious my past was catching up.

  ‘They are in Mont Hault,’ said Ulric.

  No!

  ‘And they head to the priory. Money pays for loose tongues.’

  Gisborne pushed in from behind me.

  ‘Horses and provisions?’

  ‘Ready,’ said Peter as Mother Mercia dashed back through the gates.

  ‘Then get moving.’ He turned to me and grabbed my hands. ‘We leave, Ysabel. There is a plan so rest easy, but you must ride and keep riding, no matter what.’

  ‘With you?’ I held onto his hands tightly as if a thread would snap if I let go and he nodded but turned when he heard Peter and Ulric running back with readied horses that followed willingly, ears pricked, eyes bright.

  Gwen and Brigid arrived with Mother Mercia, William crowing with delight at the horses.

  ‘He’s fed and happy,’ said Brigid unnecessarily. She was a staunch thing, Biddy. She knew we all faced death now and it wasn’t written anywhere on her face.

  My heart pounded, taking up its old anxious rhythm as we mounted.

  ‘Away!’ warned Guy. ‘We must make haste to the cover of the trees.’

  ‘Gisborne,’ I clicked my horse close to him and reached over, touching my palm to the stubbled cheek. ‘Stay close. I would not lose my son’s father…’

  ‘My Ysabel,’ he said and at that my tears began. ‘What I do, I do for you and for William.’

  His kiss burned my palm.

  I have lost my heart to you, Gisborne. Be careful with it, I beg you.

  We rode up the near side of the steep inc
line by the side of the waterfall. The goat track we used wound in and out of fern and tree. We were never in sight of each other, each turn coming tightly one on top of the other through dense growth. I was conscious of my little family ahead and I trailed second to last with Gisborne close behind. I thanked God he was near.

  Almost at the top I looked back, hidden by the trees. Far below, two men, one with russet hair, together with six men at arms were at the priory gates. The bell for Vespers was tolling and the summer light had softened, the gates remaining unopened until De Courcey, for it was he, yelled loud enough to wake the spirits in the barrows.

  The gates of the little priory opened and Mother Mercia emerged. De Courcey spoke. I could imagine that choleric face, inflamed by the hatred he held for me, the woman who had emasculated him before his noble peers. How he and Halsham would enjoy watching me strangle and burn. Mother Mercia replied and De Courcey’s voice became louder although I could not decipher any detail over the water’s plucking and chattering. She bowed her head, tucking her hands into her sleeves and turned to retreat behind her walls, but hated husband mine, he screamed at her, and his men rode to surround her and my hand crept to my mouth in fear for the gentle nun.

  I spurred my horse down around the bend, expecting to meet Gisborne, for us to ride to Mother Mercia’s defence. But the next turn appeared … empty of my son’s father and a horrible expectation began to form in my mind.

  A horrific wail broke the air as the priory bell’s echo faded. A man in distress, a man who knew there was no hope, who had been caught unawares, who knew the Devil sat behind him.

  ‘Jesu!’ I whispered as I watched from that bend.

  De Courcey grabbed at his neck. Pierced by an arrow, harsh choking sounds filled the air, as even the waterfall’s sound seemed to fade. He was as skewered as a wild pig and I was glad as he slid from his horse, Halsham leaping down to grab at the twitching, bleeding man who was my husband. But De Courcey lay dying, his blood spurting everywhere across the paving stones and I thought of Divine Providence as he gurgled and Halsham became soaked with gore.

  The arrow had been a shot from the bow of a master archer and I knew who was the assassin – the man who had trekked behind me on his horse but who like a phantom had vanished and the man who now made my throat close over with fear for him.

  ‘What I do, I do for you and for William.’

  ‘Ysabel, we go now!’ Ulric rode in behind me, agitated, grabbing my reins and pulling me on.

  ‘No!’

  I looked down at De Courcey’s body as I shouted and Halsham’s gaze turned in my direction. Perhaps he could see me, perhaps he could not, but it didn’t matter. He knew my voice and I knew the price on my head had doubled in an instant. But it did not signify – not really. I just quailed for William’s father.

  ‘He’ll flee as far as he can and if necessary seek sanctuary,’ Ulric muttered as he grabbed my reins and dragged me after him.

  And so we ran far into the dense vales of the Welsh, lost in the trees and tracks unknown to those of Halsham’s ilk. William sat astride Biddy’s horse, her arms around his baby form as he reveled in this rebellious journey, oblivious to the racking pain of his mother.

  Gisborne lived, I knew, for that essential connection remained unbroken, but where he would go and how we should ever find him sent my heart into an altered rhythm each time I thought on it.

  And there was no one at all to say to me in this time of separation and loss:

  ‘And all shall be well, and all shall be well,

  and all manner of thing shall be well.’

  To be continued…

  Acknowledgements

  To Jane V for her copious research in Northwest England and North Wales on my behalf and to she, Patricia and Maria for reading and commenting from the very beginning.

  To John Hudspith for his editing, his advice and his wonderfully strengthening wit.

  To my husband, Rob, who has faithfully supported me despite my affaire with Guy of Gisborne.

  And to Milo for being my muse all of his dog’s life. (1997-2012)

  Thank you for reading Gisborne: The Book of Pawns.

  If you enjoyed the novel, I would be most grateful if you would review it for Goodreads, Amazon and other sites. It’s a way of helping the book entertain further readers and gives important feedback to the author.

  You may be interested in the progressions of further works, news of which is aired, dismembered, re-assembled and commented upon at:

  http://www.mesmered.wordpress.com

  or via

  http://www.pruebatten.com

  Follow on Facebook at : http://on.fb.me/wzDCiG

  Or Twitter: @pruebatten

  The second volume, Gisborne: The Book of Knights will be released in 2013. To read the first part of the first chapter, turn the page…

  Gisborne: Book of Knights

  ‘Good morrow, good fellow,’ quoth Sir Guy;

  ‘Good morrow, good felow,’ quoth hee,

  ‘Methinkes by this bow thou beares in thy hand,

  A good archer thou seems to be.’ Child Ballad #118

  ‘And when a person seeks the viridity of virtue, the devil tells him that he does not know what he is doing, and teaches him that he can set his own law for himself.’ Hildegard von Bingen. 1166

  Chapter One

  The bells for Prime began to ring in the far-off chapel of Saint Julien in Cazenay and I had still not slept. I sat by the small window, a plain aperture, my hands cradling my rambunctious son’s chemise. I should have mended it before the candle burned to a stub but had been less than diligent and so I set it aside as William muttered in his sleep. But then the rhythm of his contented breath crept around the room and I offered a quick prayer for my son and his father – I would not offend my beloved Brother John of Saint Agatha’s by giving up on God entirely.

  Oh Guy, where are you? Already your son grows and does not know his father. He holds out his arms to Peter and Ulric and throws kisses upon them but not upon you.

  There had been no word of Gisborne for months and I shrank a little with each passing hour until I realised such behaviour ill-fitted a felon with a price on her head and so I sharpened my wits and my manner and resolved to become someone on whom Gisborne could rely. We were two outlaws, he and I – destined to wander far from England’s shores in order to live and the pity of it, the goddamned shame, was that we might not live, let alone wander, together.

  When the news finally came, it shook me the way autumn gales shake the last of the fruit from the trees. Words came sneaking to us along the labyrinthine intelligence channels Gisborne had created and it was short and pointed.

  With the royal alaunts hard on his heels, he had been forced to seek sanctuary in York and by the rules of sanctuary he had then to be tried by an ecclesiastical court. Almost exactly what my loyal and most dear friend, Ulric, had forecast months before.

  Such an event as this – the trial of the King’s man– took time to organise and Ulric leaped to horse to make the journey back to England.

  ‘I would not see him stand alone, Ysabel. He shall know that we are at his shoulder.’

  He left in a welter of pebbles.

  Horse’s hooves rang like a warning as St. Julien’s bells faded and I stood, my fingers biting the stone sill hard.

  Ulric, my brother-in-arms.

  I knew it was he because my heart warmed and chilled all in one. I thought to run to him even though I could imagine his exhaustion and his travel-pocked face, because I wanted to ask him. I needed to know. And yet fear held me back. Quite simply I was unable to articulate a very simple question.

  So I watched him from the window, paralysed by my own insecurity. Watched the shadows as he led his horse to the barn, Peter lighting his way, the torch flaring as they settled the animal and moved to their sleeping quarters.

  As dawn slid across the sky in the wake of my friend’s arrival, I prayed that today we would surely find out if Gisborne w
as alive. I had only to stiffen my spine to hear it from Ulric’s mouth.

  William sighed as he rolled over, his eyes opening and immediately searching for me in the shadowy room.

  ‘I’m here, William. Always here.’

  There was no early morning smile, merely intense scrutiny as if he dared me to prove that I would always be there. And then he held out his arms.

  ‘You’re a heavy boy, now.’ I picked him up. ‘And a little wet, I think.’

  I laid him on my bed and changed him in the pewter light of the early hours, washing him with water Biddy had infused with calendula and vervain. His clothes lay in a chest with dried lavender and he always smelled fresh and clean, unlike some of the village children who had the taint of the garderobe about their little legs. He played with the wooden horse Peter had carved, chanting ‘Ounthee, Ounthee, Ounthee!’ and making trotting motions.

  Dressed, he pushed at my motherly hands, slid off the bed and toddled to the door.

  ‘Gwenny, Gwenny!’ he yelled, not the least concerned the bells for Prime had only just opened the eyes of this transient family.

  ‘William, stop!’ I growled. ‘You are too loud.’

  He looked at me with his father’s expression, a cool appraisal, and I sighed as he turned back to the door, rattling the latch.

  ‘Gwenny, Gwenny!’

  ‘William, enough!’

  It was not often I took that tone with him and I swept the startled child up in my arms. But anxiety bit at every part of me, shortening my patience, making me angry at the world.

  ‘Naughty boy. You will wait and you will play quietly.’

  I glared at him – furious eyes meeting wide, dark blue ones.