by Speer, Flora
They were lower in the water now. One of the sails, billowing loose from its lines, had blown against a torch and caught fire. Its brilliant glare lit up a nightmarish scene of broken bodies on the ship and people in heavy court dress trying desperately to stay afloat in the water. Selene saw Sir Ottuel reach for a rope, miss it, and plunge headlong into the sea. She uttered a silent prayer for him. Beside her, the earl of Chester’s wife sobbed softly.
“William, William, don’t leave me!” That was Matilda of Perche, the Atheling’s favorite sister, leaning over the side and stretching out her arms toward a boat Selene’s straining eyes could just make out at the edge of the fire-lit scene. There was a great shout from the sea, and the small boat seemed to be returning. Selene watched with odd detachment as Countess Matilda flung herself over the side and into the water.
The ship settled deeper. Water lapped at their feet. Selene watched it coming closer. The cries of pain and shouts for help receded into a distant clamor. She scarcely felt the shuddering of the ship as it ground upon the rocks, breaking up and sinking toward the bottom of the harbor. The flaming sail was nearly burnt out. It hung on the yard a moment more, then fell into the sea in a shower of sparks, and all was dark. The cries and the ship’s movement and creakings receded even further from Selene’s consciousness. She was only dimly aware that the weeping woman beside her had loosed her hold on the rail and fallen across the deck and into the sea.
This is the way, Selene thought calmly, the best way to end it. I’ll never have to listen to Thomas’s reproaches or know his hatred, never have to face Guy and Meredith, or see the pity in Arianna’s eyes when I am brought to punishment. Reynaud, that constant watcher, will never look at me in triumph and know his suspicions have all been confirmed at last. When I am gone, Thomas won’t have to tell anyone what I’ve done, my children won’t have to be ashamed of me. It will all be forgotten because I am dead. Whatever Isabel says to Thomas won’t matter at all and I know him; he won’t repeat it. The truth would hurt too many people.
She felt no fear at all, only a sense of relief that Thomas was safe on shore. In a moment it would all be over, the pain and fear, and the hot, desperate wanting.
The ship settled a little lower, the motion nearly jerking her hands off the railing to which she still clung. Selene pulled herself up onto the rail and perched there, hearing the last remaining cries of the drowning like the calls of faraway seabirds.
She closed her eyes, breathed a quick prayer, and let herself fall into the blackness. The water was cold, like black ice all around her, numbing her body. Her heavy gown pulled her down, down, and Selene sank gratefully, willingly, giving herself up to the sea without a struggle. She kept her eyes closed, and in that all-encompassing blackness, in the silence of the sea’s cold embrace, Selene found the peace she had searched for all her life.
Chapter 18
Isabel had put Thomas off all morning, remaining in her private chamber and refusing to meet him until it was time for the midday meal. Thomas seriously considered leaving without seeing her again, but he did not. He was held in her house by an intense curiosity about what she might have to say to him. Still, he decided to let her know that he was angry with her for making him wait so long. They finally came together in the hall, where food was being placed upon the tables and his men had joined Isabel’s household, all of them hungrily awaiting her arrival so they could begin.
“I know what you are attempting by this delay, madame,” he stormed at her. “You think to keep me here another night, but, by heaven, I tell you I will leave the moment this meal is finished, whether you have said what you have to say or not.”
“Very well, Thomas, but let us at least sit down and begin to eat. You are frightening my servants with your quarrelsome ways. My household is usually more peaceful than this.” Isabel glided past him, heading for her chair on the dais. Thomas followed her so closely that he nearly bumped into her when she whirled about at the sound of loud voices at the door. Isabel exclaimed in irritated surprise as the same messenger who had accompanied Thomas from Barfleur burst into the hall. “Alain, what do you mean by this rude intrusion?”
“My lady.” The messenger made a hasty bow and began to speak, his words tumbling out on top of each other, yet for all his hurried, confused manner, what he said made dreadful sense. “News from Barfleur ... a great tragedy…The White Ship sunk…William Atheling…tried to save his sister…dead, all dead.”
“What are you saying?” Isabel demanded impatiently. “Who is dead?”
But Thomas had grasped the import of Alain’s story at once.
“They are all gone?” he gasped, catching at Alain’s arm. “Selene? All?”
“All save one, my lord, and that a butcher from Rouen, on his way to the English court to serve in King Henry’s kitchens. He alone lived to tell the tale. I am sorry, my lord,” Alain added sympathetically.
“Selene.” Thomas sank into the nearest chair, hearing the loud murmuring among Isabel’s servants as they, too, began to comprehend the magnitude of the disaster Alain had described.
“Here. Swallow every drop.” Isabel thrust a goblet of wine at him, and he drank in stunned, childlike obedience to her command. He was sharply aware of Isabel ordering everyone else out of the hall, of Benet and his other men leaving with many concerned backward glances, and of servants picking up trenchers and platters and disappearing behind the screens passage toward the kitchen. He took another deep gulp of the wine, wishing it would numb the pain and blur the unnatural clarity with which he saw and heard everything.
“I should have been with her.” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “I might have saved her.”
“Had you been there, you would have drowned, too,” Isabel told him. “Count yourself fortunate that you came to me instead. Well, this changes everything.”
He gaped at her wordlessly, shaken by her coolness, and then he began to weep. It was unmanly, he knew, but he could not help it.
“She needed me,” he cried, “and I wasn’t there. She was my responsibility, my charge. She must have been terrified. She was afraid of the sea.”
“Selene was afraid of everything,” Isabel said scornfully. “She was afraid of life itself. Don’t weep for her, she wasn’t worth a single tear.”
“This is your doing,” Thomas accused her. He slammed down the wine goblet and rose to stride back and forth across the hall as if he did not know what to do next. “I would have been with her but for your lying message.” He ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration and despair.
“I had nothing to do with the ship sinking. You can’t blame me for this accident,” Isabel exclaimed.
“I need not. There is enough else to blame you for. I’m no fool, madame, whatever you may think. I suspect much of the unhappiness at Afoncaer in recent years can be laid to your charge. I believe you had something to do with Selene’s inability to love me, and her coldness toward Guy and Meredith.”
Isabel laughed, a spiteful sound he remembered well from his unhappy childhood. Her voice, after a moment’s pause, fell on his ears like ice.
“It is true, Thomas. It was I who first suggested the marriage, and I who convinced Selene to marry you when she was most unwilling to wed anyone. Were it not for me, your marriage to Selene would not have come about at all, and that dowry of hers, that chest of gold coins Guy wanted so badly, would never have been his for the benefit of Afoncaer.”
“You did that? You? And let us believe it was Lady Aloise’s idea?”
“Of course. And you never guessed the truth. You were too concerned about Afoncaer to ask many questions about the proposed bride’s character, and too trustingly certain that Guy and Valaire, those honest fathers, would make an agreement beneficial to everyone involved. Poor Thomas.” Isabel laughed again. “Not so clever after all. No wonder Selene never loved you. You are just like your father. Doing the right and honorable thing is all he ever thinks of, too. He could have been so
much more than a mere border baron were he only willing to bend a little and fit his conscience to circumstances. The king is his friend, he could have had power at court, and wealth beyond his wildest dreams, but all he will do is stay at Afoncaer with his precious Meredith and worry about the welfare of his people. His people? The Welsh care nothing for him. They’ve shown that well enough recently, haven’t they? And you are as foolishly wrapped up in Afoncaer as he is.”
Thomas stared at her, the blood running cold in his veins. At first he thought she had gone mad, but then he realized that Isabel was in full possession of her senses. She was irritated with him, as she had ever been, but she was quite cool and sensible, and she was deliberately telling him something she wanted him to know. Thomas staggered as the full impact of her words struck him. He could hardly breathe. He struggled to form chaotic thought into words and force them out of his mouth.
“Lady,” he said, taking a purposeful step toward her, “are you saying that Sir Lionel fitz Lionel was not my father? That you committed adultery with Uncle Guy? That is a damnable lie! I could believe it of you, madame, but not of him. Uncle Guy would never betray his brother in such a foul way. So, if my father is other than Sir Lionel, you had better tell me his name. I have no right to inherit anything from Uncle – from Sir Guy, if this is true.”
Isabel said nothing, but only smiled, watching him, taking in his horror and his building anger.
“Speak, madame!” Thomas exploded. “This cruel claim is too much after Selene’s death. I want the truth of this. Answer me now, before I do you violence.”
Isabel continued to smile upon her son, her voice sweet and caressing as she sent her words like arrows into his already hurt and bleeding heart.
“Sir Lionel did not love women,” Isabel said. “He only lay with me once, to consummate the marriage, then would have nothing more to do with me. I needed to produce an heir. One night Guy was on guard in the anteroom outside our chamber. I went to him in the dark and lay with him. He called me by some other woman’s name; he thought I was she. Then I got into bed with Sir Lionel, and the next morning I told him he had made love to me. He had been very drunk the night before and could not remember what had happened. He always believed you were his son. My reputation was so spotless he had no reason to doubt it.”
“How could you do such a thing?”
“I had little choice if I wanted to safeguard my position. It only happened the once, Thomas. There was never any love lost between Guy and me, but don’t you see what a good idea it was? The bloodlines are the same. The inheritance that passed from your grandfather to Lionel, and from Lionel to Guy, will pass from Guy to you, as it should. You are the old man’s grandson. It’s not as though I lay with a stranger.”
Thomas knew, without further question or thought, he simply knew that Isabel was telling him the truth.
“Does Uncle Guy – does my father know of this?”
“He knows. I told him just before I left Afoncaer forever. The day I went into exile at his command.”
“I remember that day,” Thomas said. “You would not even bid me good-bye. You rode out of the gates without looking at me.”
“I could not trust myself to speak,” Isabel told him.
“No, not to me. But into his ear you could pour your poison. My mother. You wicked, deceitful, adulterous bitch! I have many times excused you,” Thomas went on, “to those who criticized your deeds, telling them it was your unhappy marriage to Sir Lionel that molded you into what you are. But now I think you would have been the same abominable creature if all your life you had had all you wanted. In fact, had you never been restricted by Sir Lionel, or Uncle – my father, you might well have been worse than you are now. It’s in your nature, isn’t it? Vain, shallow, calculating, caring for no one but yourself. I am ashamed to call you mother.”
Isabel did not answer him for a moment, and when she did her voice was low and weary.
“You have no idea what it was like to live at court and give no heir to my husband. People whispered about what he was, about his love for King William Rufus, and everyone laughed behind my back. With one act I silenced them all.”
“An act of adultery.”
“Only one. And for it I was sent from court by a jealous king as soon as my pregnancy was obvious. I do deeply regret my abstinence for all those lonely years afterward, until I married Walter. I have not had a happy life, Thomas.”
“That is in large part your own fault. I have done with you, woman,” Thomas declared. “I will never see you again, unless you devise some new scheme against Afoncaer or those souls I hold dear. In that case, I will come to you, and, by heaven, I swear I will kill you with my own hands.”
“And you will go home to Afoncaer and tell Guy all I have told you, will you not?”
“We will settle the matter between the two of us. You and I have nothing more to do with each other.” The look Thomas gave her was one of pure hatred. Then he was gone from the hall, calling to Benet to saddle his horse and bring his armor.
Isabel sat down in her chair on the dais, staring straight ahead, not moving until the sounds of Thomas’s departure had ceased. On her face was a smile of triumph, for her revenge against Guy was completed, or would be when an angry, unforgiving Thomas confronted him, but at the same time, unchecked tears poured down her cheeks in recognition of what that triumph had cost her.
Chapter 19
Thomas rode in frantic haste from Isabel’s house outside Dol to Barfleur, hoping vainly that the reports of shipwreck were false. He prayed he would find Selene and all the other passengers were safe, either delayed in Barfleur or transported to England, but he discovered on his arrival at the harbor that the story was true. One hundred forty noblemen and women, in addition to servants, squires, pages, musicians, and the crew of The White Ship had perished on that terrible night, and all that was left of Captain Fitz Stephen’s beautiful new ship was the top of one mast poking above the waves just outside the harbor.
“I should have been with Selene,” Thomas repeated over and over. He had not loved her, but still, she had been his wife, she had borne his children. He wept for her. “I failed to help her so many times, and at the last, when she needed me most, I had abandoned her.”
“You could not have known what would happen. It was not your fault, my lord.” Benet’s attempt at comfort only reminded Thomas just whose fault it really was that he had not been present to help Selene. He might have cursed Isabel then, had he not been so stunned by the suddenness of the tragedy. He could not even begin to think just yet of the grief of those others who had also lost relatives and friends, or of what the loss of the heir to the throne would mean to King Henry and to the future of England.
In his despondent state Thomas hardly knew what he was doing. It was Benet who saw to what was needful, who found lodgings for the two of them and the men-at-arms, who made Thomas eat regularly though he had no appetite, and who each day went with Thomas to the docks and then to the local church so they could check on the bodies that had been recovered.
“‘Tis only a squire’s duty,” Benet said when Thomas roused himself enough to thank his faithful companion.
“It is more than that.” There was the faint hint of a smile on Thomas’s somber face, the first indication that he was beginning to recover some of his usual spirit. “These are acts of friendship, Benet, and I’ll not forget them.”
It was six days before Selene’s body was found. Thomas could identify her only by her waterlogged gown and her long black hair, and the pitiful ruin of what had once been so lovely haunted his nightmares for weeks. She was buried in the local cemetery along with the other victims, including Thomas’s dozen servants and men-at-arms, who had been recovered from the sea. When it was done, and he had made arrangement for masses to be said for her troubled soul, he found a ship to take him and his remaining men back to England.
Instead of going directly to Afoncaer as he would have preferred, Thomas sent a messeng
er there with word of the tragedy and rode to Brampton, where Henry was holding court. He thought he ought to see Sir Valaire and Lady Aloise, and to offer his condolences to the king.
Henry was much changed, sunk in grief, an old man no longer interested in governing. His clothes were rumpled and stained, looking as though he regularly slept in them, and his eyes were dazed and haunted.
“I lost my dear Matilda only a year and a half ago,” Henry wept when Thomas was admitted to private audience with him, “and now this. Oh, William, my son, my son, all I did was for you, that you should rule securely after me. And Richard, dear lad, too young to die. How can they both be gone at once?”
Thomas was shocked by Henry’s appearance and his manner. This was not the vigorous, resilient man to whom he had once been page. Putting aside his own sorrow at the loss of Henry’s sons, who had both been his friends, Thomas tried to think of something to catch the king’s attention and recall him to his duties as ruler.
“Sire, I assure you, Baron Guy and I will do all we can to keep your peace along the border,” Thomas promised him. “And further, we will freely offer whatever assistance is needed by the late earl of Chester’s people, with no thought for our own advancement in his territories.”
“What do I care for border disputes now?” Henry cried. “All my pride and ambition lies at the bottom of the sea with my sons. There is nothing left for me.”
“You are a brave and strong man, sire,” Thomas insisted. “You are bowed down now, but you will recover from this loss. You must, for your people need you, and when you do, remember that my Lord of Afoncaer and I are your loyal servants, and that you have but to command us.”
Sir Valaire and his wife were in slightly better condition than the king. But then, Thomas reminded himself, they had not had so many hopes riding on their child’s life.