by Lisa Hilton
For each of those miles, I knew the happiness and purity of purpose of being a man. There was no thought except the movements of Othon’s flanks beneath me, the steam of his sweat, the dust of the white road in my eyes, fixed between the rein and his hooves, scouring always for the stone that could throw us to our death, until my fingers and thighs were reduced to one function, tensed only to ride, careless of what we should find at Mirebeau so long as, by miracle, we arrived in time. Action cancelled out thought, cancelled out everything except the drum of hoof beats and the occasional warning cries of the riders ahead. I was transported, fevered with the chase, and when we paused, during those eight and forty hours of hard riding, it was only to gulp ecstatically from a canteen, to splash my face with water, to cover myself in a cloak and slump deliciously against Othon’s heaving flank for an hour or two of black sleep before I turned my screaming body once again into the saddle. If the men of my husband’s familia were astonished to see their queen filthy and dishevelled, riding astride and alone and as swift as the best of them, they only showed it in curt nods of appreciation. I was a queen, was I not? And queens are magical. It was glorious. I felt equal among them, me, Isabelle, and if I ever truly loved John it was in those hours, when he forged ahead in the vanguard, high on his mount’s shoulder, looking every bit the king his brother the Lionheart had been.
Queen Eleanor had just enough time to dispatch the messenger to her son before immuring herself in the keep at Mirebeau. The Lusignan troops, two hundred and fifty knights and their sergeants, had pursued her first to Fontevraud, and then, finding she had fled, sped to the little walled town below the castle. They were encamped beneath the curtain with Duke Arthur, Lord Hugh and my old fiancé Hal among them. Queen Eleanor, eighty years old and shut up with a few ladies, could do nothing but pray. I wondered to what.
It was early evening on the last day of July when we reined in, the citadel in sight. There was barely time for speech, let alone ceremony. My husband’s regalia were far back in the train from Le Mans, so he pulled his own light crown from his saddlebag and stumped it on his head like a baker at a bread oven before he had even dismounted. I slipped down, handed Othon to Tomas and walked bandy-legged to his side, silently twining my hand into his own. He squeezed it gently but was already calling for William des Roches to come forward. Des Roches, the seneschal of Anjou, had been Arthur’s man, but had declared for my husband earlier in the summer. The two men washed their hands perfunctorily and then squatted on the ground, sucking at tepid wine, waving away hastily gathered platters of dried meat and cheese. Since John did not dismiss me, I sat down too, though my backside was so sore that I too scrambled into a delighted squat, keeping my eyes low lest they notice me. The Poitevins were confident of taking Eleanor, des Roches explained, sketching quickly with a stick in the ground how they had stopped all the gates of Mirebeau but one with earthworks.
‘Can we get in?’
‘I can lead you, Majesty, yes. But I have a request, if you would be so gracious as to hear it.’
I could feel John’s temper on edge, the closed-in tension of the flight building to explode. I laid a calming hand on his dusty sleeve, hard with mail beneath the stained linen.
‘My mother is within, and you speak to me of requests, man?’
‘I must. Duke Arthur is with the Lusignans. I will lead your men into the citadel, but in return I ask that I be given charge of him if he is taken. I was his man, once.’
I held my breath.
‘Very well, you shall have keeping of this foolish boy,’ John agreed. ‘When?’
‘In the morning.’
My husband rose slowly, des Roches waiting on his knees.
‘Have you a man to take charge of the queen?’
‘The queen, Majesty?’
Des Roches had simply not noticed me. I watched his face change as he observed the filthy urchin in her stained, ragged gown clutching his master’s hand.
‘Majesty, forgive me.’ He scrambled an obeisance, but I waved him off.
‘There is no need to waste a man on me, Lord des Roches. The Lusignans will not harm me. I will be safe next my husband.’
John turned to me, astonished. ‘Isabelle, it is impossible. You cannot.’
I lowered my voice, ‘My lord, you need every man we have. I cannot wait alone; there are no women with us. If I am captured, who shall answer for me? You said I could not ride with you, and yet here I am. I will not be an impediment, I shall stay quiet behind until it is done. And I will be company for your lady mother, if it should fail.’ I smiled up at him, and added, ‘I am certain that they will not harm me. And I am a Taillefer, am I not? I will be quite safe.’
‘You are my wife.’
I played my last card, leaning close to him so that no one else could hear. ‘And I have borne you no child, yet. You can take more wives. I am not afraid.’
‘Bless you then, Isabelle.’
I left them, and went to find Tomas.
*
At dawn the next morning, we were ready. It was Lammas day, the second anniversary of my wedding. I was nearly fourteen. Grumbling and sceptical, Tomas had found me a page’s hauberk which dangled heavily to my ankles, a barrel helmet and a grubby surcoat with the royal arms. I used his knife to slash a tear in my ruined gown and rip the skirt around the hem, enough to protect me as a woman, but close enough to ride in the fray. I remembered what I had done to my betrothal gown and imagined Agnes’s horrified face if she could see me. Though she could not scold me now for behaving like a hoyden. We decided I should leave my hair down for safety, too, and only close the helm to protect my face if I was close to the fighting. Othon was given a mail cotte and even a champron, with winged steel to protect his cheeks. I told him he looked splendid. I was giddy with joy. If I met Hal, we’d see who was the stupid girl, now, at last. For once, I brushed Othon down myself, as merry as a stable lad, and curled up next to him to pass the short night between exhausted drowsing and quick shocks of anticipation. We had no fires, lest they be seen from the citadel, but the summer night was hot, and I was weary and comfortable, one hand on Othon’s belly, the other never leaving my precious helmet.
It was not until we rode out in the first yellow-grey light that I saw what it meant to fight. Even at first, I still believed it a sort of magnificent game. The king had given Tomas instructions to keep close, we were to make straight for the citadel once we were inside the walls, and if we could, make our way to Queen Eleanor. We walked our horses slowly across a bridge and around the white walls of the little town. The king’s bowmen fired on the scouts on the walls; some of them toppled, but they were far away, as insignificant to my eyes as thrushes tumbled in a merlin’s claws. For those moments, the hum of the bows seemed to be the only sound in the world, the arrows’ flight stretching arcs of silvery silence between the men within and those without. The eerie stillness was shattered by a crash as though the cloudless summer sky had cracked in half.
The king’s infantry had improvised a battering ram from a poplar trunk; they had been hacking at it all night. Twenty of them ran it up and began beating at the unstopped gate. I thought of the knights mustering in readiness behind the walls. Othon was desperately flighty, pawing and twisting under me, for the first time I had to struggle to keep him in check. Des Roches’s earth map had showed a narrow street beyond the gate, opening into a square. The men were divided into three groups. The van, with John at its head, would make directly for the citadel, straight up through the lanes of the town. Two flanks would divide and circle the castle, fighting their way round to the rear of the keep. Tomas and I were to ride in the van. The infantry heaved and strained, relaying their strength around the trunk, aware that their king’s eyes were on them. Each blow on the gate was a taunt to Lord Hugh’s men inside.
And then, in a horrible surge, it began. The gates splintered, trembled, gave. In one explosion of steel, the knights unsheathed their swords, as one they brought up their horses singly and ran a
t the opening, tight as a tournament list. Othon was wild, tripping on the scattered planks, plunging, struggling between the heavier, well-trained destriers of the household. I tucked my head into my chest and gave him the rein, making no attempt to guide him, allowing him to steer us between two of his mailed and blinkered fellows. And we were in. Slithering, the horses hurtled over the rough paving of the little street, checked as they flew into the square, coming up four abreast and divided. The Lusignan troops were waiting, and the king’s men fell upon them. I saw des Roches at the head go down, his horse’s belly sliced, scrambling through the steaming entrails as his squire brought a second mount, then the squire fell under an axe blow as des Roches and the king screamed the men onwards. The helmet fell over my eyes, I could barely see through the cross-slit in the aperture. My hands were sliding on the reins. I held Othon between my knees with all my strength and managed to pull the thing off, just as a whiplash of air passed my face and I threw myself sideways, almost falling, and the sword took Othon on his foreleg. He howled and reared. I looked round frantically for Tomas, a little ahead, swinging his sword as sure as if he had been born to it, brought Othon behind him and saw him point to the standard wobbling up the hill before us.
‘This way, this way, push through!’ he yelled, but I couldn’t move. I watched Tomas vanish into a roiling pool of bodies and horseflesh, Lusignan green and royal scarlet blurring into a porridge of gore, the screams of falling men rising in a hideous music that would suddenly arrest, so that in the silence I could hear only the scrape of steel and the kites calling, far above us in that cloudless sky. I don’t know how long we remained there, men and horses pushing one another to their death, and I could not count how many fell, except that in a while the ground was sickeningly soft with trampled corpses. Ahead, the standard seemed petrified, I knew that the king would be in the fighting beneath it, and tried to push Othon up, but his poor chest was heaving and wheezing, he was losing blood, and then a Lusignan man-at-arms was before us, swinging his axe and I flattened myself into the saddle as the blow came down on Othon’s neck and we were tipped into the writhing mire. There was no time to bid my poor darling goodbye. I felt a hand on my arm, wrenching it almost from the socket, and I was up behind Tomas, making for a break in the line. We came up behind the standard, now surging forward.
‘No! Tomas! Othon, no!’
He had me gripped round the waist, riding with his legs to keep his sword arm free. I did what I could to kick out at the men as they came up alongside us, forced ahead by their own cavalry, the weight of the great Lusignan destriers sending them down the steep hill in an avalanche of bloodied green. Then Tomas’s weight thudded against me and I felt him slump and lose his grip on the reins. He had been struck. I grabbed the reins and turned the horse. Tomas’s face was blank steel, but as I watched the helmet slipped sideways and a great gout of blood spurted over me, hot and stinking, and Tomas’s head peeled slowly from his neck as his body slid to the ground. Tomas … The horse tripped over his corpse, stumbled, righted itself and cantered on with me splayed over its wide back, unable to do anything but shield my head with my arm. ‘This way! Go! Go!’
Des Roches was rallying the men for the charge on the citadel, but as I was carried forward among them I saw that the yard was empty. The frenzied horses were gradually walked down. We circled aimlessly until one of the squires called, ‘Over here!’ I was shaking too much now to control my mount, but he came up quietly and nosed at des Roches’s third, or fourth, horse, I had lost count, as placidly as if they were nibbling at a hedge.
‘Majesty?’
I raised my head, my eyes still burning with Tomas’s blood.
‘You are injured?’
I managed to shake it, no.
‘Come then, come quickly. The king is already inside.’
I followed him through a doorway, my legs like water, my throat heaving at the scent of blood. The hall was sweet with wood smoke and rosemary and summer dust. Within, a group of sergeants stood with drawn swords around a tableau on the dais. The trestle was covered with the remains of a breakfast, grapes, bread, a half-eaten pigeon pie. Hal, Lord Hugh and another lad were frozen, blenched, their hand at their sword hilts. Hal had a spot of grease by his mouth. Lord Hugh’s face was as cool and still as ever, the serpent at his collar polished and gleaming.
‘Isabelle?’ Hal was gasping, his surprise at seeing me wiping the fear momentarily from his features.
I didn’t care to look at him. I felt no triumph, only nausea.
‘Take them,’ my husband’s voice from somewhere above us. He was already climbing the inner staircase to the second floor of the keep. Shuffling, holding the drooping hem of my drenched hauberk over what was left of my gown, I began to follow him. I could feel Lord Hugh’s eyes on my back, measuring, as he had once appraised me in the hall at Lusignan when I came to my betrothal. In his look, I sensed that he did not believe it was finished, not even now, when he was the king’s prisoner. I knew the madness that glittered in the black depths of those eyes, and I would not return his glance. Still, I could wish myself back at Lusignan, I could have wished even that I had been married to Hal and safely at home in Poitou if I could have been spared what I had seen in the last hour. I forced myself to turn and find the eyes of the other boy. Arthur.
A flash of blue in the darkness of the hall. Deep blue, the blue of a halcyon’s feathers. His gaze held mine, and while I tried to dip my reddened lashes, I could not. Turquoise and sapphire, our eyes’ light the ink of a lapidary. He inclined his head courteously, his bright hair the sun to my bloodied moon. Madly, I thought of the poets’ stories so beloved of my mother’s maids. In the songs of the troubadours, love strikes like an arrow, like a blade in the heart. But perhaps that is because poets seldom see battle. When I looked at Arthur, the world was still. Just that, a tiny, plenteous moment, a question silently asked and its answer silently given. In that flash of illumination between us, I saw what I had to do, and beneath the exhaustion of the journey’s sleepless nights and the as yet unbroken storm cloud of my grief for Tomas and Othon, I felt another great weariness. There was only one way to end it, I thought, only one way to defeat the Lusignan demon. A sacrifice. Then my legs buckled under me like willow wands, and I fainted like a woman.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OVER TWO HUNDRED LUSIGNAN KNIGHTS WERE TAKEN at Mirebeau that day. Many were sent to Corfe, my husband’s favourite English castle, where he had spent a thousand pounds on fortifications. The king had Hal, Lord Hugh and Duke Arthur manacled and sent north by cart, the most disparaging and humiliating spectacle that could be made of a warrior. Arthur and Hal were sent to Falaise in Normandy and Lord Hugh was to be confined alone at Caen. With the king, I travelled first to Fontevraud, so that the people of the countryside saw two queens of England riding side by side in the same litter, though I might have been Queen Eleanor’s great-great-grandchild. I had been so curious to meet this legendary woman, queen in turn of France and England, Crusader, rebel and, many said, adulteress, but what I found was a bent-backed, crack-voiced old crone, her eyes milky with cataracts, barely in her wits long enough to thank the son who had delivered her. After leaving her in the care of the nuns, we, too, made for Normandy.
If I had felt love for John, briefly, at Mirebeau, that feeling was extinguished forever by the time the Christmas feast at Caen was over. I had reason enough to hate Lord Hugh, but I knew that it was ignominious to show him thus to the peasants, trussed up in a farm cart, and while I was glad that he should be so stripped of his dignity I knew that the magnates would dislike it. But the Angevin spirit which had called my husband to win the greatest victory for the English since his brother the Lionheart had relieved the garrison at Jaffa in the Holy Land before I was born, had simmered and curdled in him, making him swaggering and arrogant. He flitted about the victory, drinking more and more wine each night as he recounted it over and over. The lords said nothing, but I could see their looks.
Worse,
the king still insisted that I join him in his bed each night, and kept me there until noon each day. The fumbling attempts he had made since Paris were repeated, but this time, when he failed, he would turn furiously away from me, and it was only by endless caresses and promises of my love that I could keep him gentle. I hated the way the men at court looked at me, the lewd whisperings that followed me to dinner. At Mirebeau, I had felt magnificent, but now, in the veiled contempt in their eyes as they knelt to me, I could see that they thought again that I was a little slut, who had infatuated their king and forced him to leave the business of governing to them while he wallowed in my bed. And while it suited me to have them think this, just as it suited me that each night my husband grew more frustrated by his inability to make me his true wife, I was disgusted, and despised them.
I had sent my pearl ring to Agnes at Chinon, and she joined us at Caen with my women. I could not begin my plan until her arrival, and between John’s repulsive caresses and the endless feasting, time stopped once more. I might have ridden, there were plentiful horses for me to choose from, but after losing Othon I no longer wished to ride. I mourned Tomas, my friend and my saviour, but I was a warrior’s child, one way or the other, and I was not so sad for him. He had died bravely, at a great age, and I knew that he would have been glad to do so, glad to die like the men he had armed and trained all his life, gloriously, instead of keeling over in the stable yard with a bunch of keys for company. The Lusignan lands were now forfeit and my husband would tax the tenants heavily but I wheedled a grant out of him that would keep Tomas’s family in Poitou comfortable for many years. I tried to tell myself that Othon had died as a warrior, too, that he would have wished it so, but when John was finally snoring beside me in the darkness I saw his eyes, rolling and terrified, heard the great heaves of his ebbing heart, saw him fall, again and again, into that mess of bodies, and I knew that I had wronged him with my pride, with my wish to act out my childish game instead of staying safe at Chinon where I belonged. When Agnes came she said that perhaps the household would not have fought so hard had they not known their queen was among them, that perhaps it was my presence which had inspired the victory, and that Othon had not been slaughtered for nothing. It was kind, but I knew it wasn’t true, and besides, she had never liked him.