Whispers at Court

by Blythe Gifford

  ‘Does it?’

  Enguerrand shrugged, not meeting Marc’s eyes. ‘Who am I to know a woman’s heart?’

  An honest answer, but not the one he had hoped for. ‘But for you. It is only about the land. Nothing more.’ He made a statement, yet, he held his breath, waiting for his friend’s next words to answer a question.

  ‘Bien sûr, mon ami. And a pleasant way to pass the time.’

  An answer that came too quickly. ‘You’re certain? Because the risk, if things go too far—’

  ‘Your suggestion insults both of us.’ No easy smile now. Enguerrand slapped his chess piece on the board and scooped Marc’s away.

  So. There was the answer. The one he had, of course, expected, wanted to hear.

  Yet what had he done when de Coucy pressed him about Cecily? Lied. With a denial so transparent Enguerrand made no pretence to believe it. So, now, should he believe or should he—?

  ‘Check!’

  He blinked at the board. Enguerrand had him blocked, a move Marc had missed because he was thinking of other things.

  And with the victory came the expansive, careless smile he had hoped to see. ‘Accept and enjoy life here as you can,’ Enguerrand said, clasping Marc’s shoulder.

  Enjoy. He had never looked at life as something to be enjoyed. Conquered. Vanquished. Triumphed over, yes. But to be given luxury he had not earned felt wrong. ‘As a hostage?’

  ‘If it allows you to pass the time with a lovely woman of noble birth, however briefly, then give thanks to God for the blessing. Appreciate the gifts of peace and beauty when they are handed to you. I do.’

  Cecily was beautiful, yes, but he hadn’t had a moment’s peace since he’d met her. ‘I would rather be given safe passage home. Wouldn’t you?’

  If he were Enguerrand, he would. His friend’s home was a grand castle high on a rock, near as well defended as this one while Marc’s life had been lived in borrowed rooms that belonged to others, fighting their battles, not his own. And yet, that was the life of every chevalier. What would it be like, to defend something of his own? He wondered, sometimes.

  ‘Of course, but here, I am in the company of some of chivalry’s flowers. Some of these men will soon leave to go on Crusade. Some day, I may ride beside some of them in this noble endeavour. I cannot hate what represents the finest we strive for.’

  Enguerrand, still living the pretence of chivalry in the face of all he had seen. As much of a disguising as wearing the head of a stag.

  And yet, when Marc thought of Cecily, he yearned for, even believed in, life as he had never seen it lived.

  A friendly blow on the shoulder brought him to. Enguerrand stood, patting his stomach. ‘Come. We must not miss dinner. It will be our last before the Christmas Eve fast.’

  Reluctantly, he rose. What would Cecily say when she saw him? And what would he say to her?

  Better nothing at all.

  * * *

  Late the next morning, as Cecily watched Peter the Mason enter the room, she realised she had not seen him in months. He was, she could tell, a man whose entire life was devoted to turning stone into sculpture. A short man, it seemed as if he, himself, was made of stone dust. Somehow, it was embedded in the lines in the pads of his fingers, as brass might be beaten into the fine lines of the tombs. Even his hair had turned to the cool white of alabaster.

  She took a deep breath. ‘It has been a while since we have spoken.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, my lady.’

  ‘Your work here at Windsor has gone well. The queen told me the king was pleased.’

  A smile touched his lips. Sweet, but still full of pride. ‘I am honoured.’

  ‘Since your work is complete, I have permission to ask you to return, to finish my parents’...’ she swallowed. To say the word was to pronounce them dead again ‘...tomb.’

  ‘And have you selected the final details from the drawings?’

  Drawings. She could barely remember them.

  Designing her father’s tomb had been a long, painful process. First, her mother had ordered the stone for the carving, then waited months for the cart to bring it from the north to the coast. Then, more waiting until she could find a mason, the best one, and have the man brought from Nottingham to assess the stone slab that would cover the tomb in the church.

  Cecily’s mother had excused her from much of this, but insisted that she help select the final effigy design. Even then, Cecily could not look. As if she were a babe instead of a woman grown, she ran to her room, burying her face in her pillow.

  That was when her mother had stormed in, judgement, anger and disappointment flashing in her eyes.

  You have been raised to be a countess and yet you cower here, indulging in your grief, shirking your duty. You are unworthy of the title you will one day bear.

  Yes. Yes, she was. She had behaved as a child, expecting her mother to take care of a daughter’s sorrow, not recognising the depths of a wife’s mourning would be even more profound.

  Dutifully, then, she had followed her mother, looking at the designs, squeezing her eyes shut when her mother could not see. For right beside the carving of her father’s body, lying as if asleep, was another roughed-out figure.

  Her mother’s.

  And when Cecily had wept again, her mother, finally despairing of her help, cast her aside and did the work alone. ‘Did my mother not choose?’

  He nodded. ‘For your father, yes. And she had a preference for her own, but you should approve it.’

  ‘Well, I have not looked at the sketches for quite some time.’ Even then, she had not really seen them. She could remember nothing of them now, not even where she had stored them. ‘I will let you know before you return to Dover.’

  She ignored his puzzled look as he withdrew.

  Where were the sketches? Had she even brought them to court? She should search for them, make a decision, force herself...

  But she was not ready for that today.

  * * *

  And then, suddenly, in the midst of all the revelry of a court at play, came Christmas Eve. Instead of playing at dice, or laughing at the fool and his somersaults, the sombre members of the court gathered as a group, and wended their way to the lower ward in the dark of night for the Angel’s Mass.

  Marc stifled a yawn. He was as religious as the next man. He knew that all was in God’s hands and man could only pray for a favourable outcome while trying to be no more of a sinner than was necessary. He knew men who had seen God’s hand in the world before their eyes. Some claimed the hailstorm that battered the English army on Black Monday could only have been His work. Cecily had said her father had died near then. Marc wondered whether the man had witnessed it and, if so, what he had thought.

  But Marc? What he had seen in life and war suggested more of the devil’s power than the Lord’s, though he was not one to set himself in judgement. He would observe the expected rites and allow wiser men to make such determinations.

  But tonight, all seemed different. Captive under an unfamiliar sky, with air so cold he feared it would shatter like ice, he saw each of God’s stars precise and sharp above him. Watching as the angels must have watched the shepherds.

  He shifted, uneasy, wondering what they saw.

  Give thanks to God, Enguerrand had urged.

  One kiss. Now two. And he wanted more. Wanted so fiercely that he was glad he had seen her only from afar since then.

  Enguerrand, so facile with courtly games, could dance along the brink, well knowing not to go too far. But Marc was not adept at games. He was a warrior. Winning meant life. Losing meant death, or worse.

  As they entered the church dedicated to the patron saint of England, the court’s chatter subsided. He had not seen Cecily today, and he found her now, as usual, near the Lady Isabella. Wor
dless, Enguerrand followed his gaze. Neither of them were thinking, for a moment, of God.

  As the chant of the mass began, the Latin words, even with a slightly different accent, washed over him, at once as familiar and incomprehensible as they had been all his life.

  Cecily’s head was bowed, but even from here, he could see her tremble, then bite her lip and brush her cheeks with shaking fingers.

  Tears. She must be crying.

  Against his will, his chest tightened. Was she so tender-hearted as to be moved to tears by the thought of Christ’s arrival in the world? Or was there something else? Memory. Loss.

  You show nothing, he had told her, after the hunt, his words an accusation. But last night, when she had let him glimpse her sorrow, he saw why. A father gone. Then her mother. Even a seasoned warrior would weep.

  He had lost his father so long ago that he scarcely remembered him, his mother he remembered not at all. And he had lost brothers-in-arms during battles against the rebellious peasants or the les goddams. Loss was inevitable. Unending. He had become hardened to it over the years.

  But this woman’s heart was still tender. The wound still raw. Protected from too much, she had said. Behind the shield of her straight spine and the smile she wore in company, it seemed that even she grieved and wept and mourned.

  And with her family gone, she was as alone as he.

  After the service, they prepared again to brave the frigid night, touched with air so cold it could freeze her tears as they fell.

  ‘Come,’ Enguerrand whispered, beside him. ‘Join us. We are breaking fast.’

  Marc’s stomach growled. Neither food nor drink had passed his lips this day and the Christmas feast was still hours away. ‘I heard nothing of a royal banquet.’

  A shake of the head. A slow smile. ‘A private party. Isabella. Cecily. A few others.’

  The words raised hunger of a different kind.

  As the rest of the court returned to their beds, Enguerrand led Marc up the stairs of a tower at the end of the newly completed royal quarters and into a small chamber, gilded and painted like a flower garden.

  The princess, Cecily and another dozen or so men and women had gathered already. Intimate indeed. And in this setting, the courtly obediences had been put aside.

  As Enguerrand left his side and joined the princess, Cecily looked over and saw him for the first time, her eyes widening in surprise.

  He joined her.

  ‘I did not expect you,’ she said. Her voice was softer than usual, but her tears had dried.

  What should he say now? He knew little of women or their needs. Without a mother or sisters, he had come to the de Coucy castle, a household full of men and thoughts of war. Was she happy to see him? Or not?

  What I feel is not to be trailed before all.

  He could say the same. Ask of something ordinary, then. Something of the world and not of the heart. ‘Do you always spend Christmas at court?’ Surprised, he realised he had never thought of her away from here, where the king himself cared about her comfort.

  She exhaled, a small sigh of relief. ‘We spend, I mean...’ She stumbled over the words.

  Without intending to, he had again reminded her of loss.

  But she shook her head, as if to shake off the sorrow. ‘Most of the winter is spent with the court.’

  With the court. Far from Losford Castle at Dover. Far from the impregnable guardian of the isle. Invasion would be unlikely when the winter winds blew. Her father the earl could be spared the eternal vigilance for the Christmas season and beyond.

  And yet, if Marc had a home, a place of his own, he doubted he would ever leave it.

  All of the solemnity of the mass had disappeared as the group gathered about the long table. Food arrived. Fish, baked, grilled, simmered and sauced, yet fish, and so acceptable fare for a day of fast. The room filled with laughter and conversation and he and Cecily sat side by side and no one sent an extra glace their way.

  And, if they spoke, he doubted anyone would care what they said. ‘You grew up by the sea?’ he asked, finally.

  As the page passed by with a torch, her face was lit with light and a smile, as if the thought of home had brought happier memories. ‘I could see it every day.’

  ‘The Oise River is not so grand.’ A stupid statement. He was not good at courtly talk.

  Yet Cecily seemed to think now of home and not of his failings. ‘The sunrise is so beautiful there. You cannot always see it clear, but when you do, it is as if the sun emerges from the sea.’

  He gave a grunt of disgust. Sunrise was not something to be rejoiced in, but something to be slept through. ‘The only time I wake to see the sun is for battle.’

  She smiled at his discomfort. ‘You are not an early riser?’

  ‘A man at war learns to sleep when he can.’ And he wished he had not said it, for fear he had reminded her of her father again.

  But this time, he had not. ‘It is beautiful, the sunrise from the battlements of the castle. You should see it.’

  ‘I would like that.’

  And then she blushed and looked away and so did he.

  She could not have intended to invite him, the enemy, to her home. Could she?

  Once again, this man had made her forget everything she should remember. She should not have invited him to see the castle that defended Britain’s coast. Inside, looking with a warrior’s eye, he would surely learn its secrets, discover its weaknesses, ones she had not even recognised.

  For until the king selected her husband, Losford Castle and its protection was in her hands. Yet de Marcel’s questions had been about her. Not the castle. Not even the countess. For just that moment, she had thought only to share the joy of her home. A mistake. She must turn his attention elsewhere.

  ‘But why speak of Dover?’ she said, looking down at her trencher. ‘Around you is the most beautiful castle in Christendom.’

  He looked up at the walls and ceiling. ‘I can see your king builds for beauty as well as strength.’

  Had he ever complimented anyone on the island? If so, it was not within her hearing. Perhaps the season had softened both of their tongues. ‘You sound surprised.’

  ‘He brought only destruction to my land.’

  ‘Destruction? A strange word to describe a battle.’

  ‘I am not speaking of battles.’

  ‘Then what are you speaking of?’ Knowing, even as she asked, that she would not like his answer. But better she think of him as an enemy and not a friend.

  He studied her before he spoke, as if assessing how much to say. ‘More than once, the English would ride across our lands, not stopping to do battle, but only to burn towns and fields until the earth was scorched and there was nothing left for man or beast.’

  She winced. Her father had told her nothing of war, but such wanton destruction did not sound like the way of Christian knights. ‘I’m certain my father could not do that.’

  Puzzlement in his eyes first. Then pity. ‘Ah, my poor countess. You have no idea what life is like beyond your castle walls.’

  I have been protected against too much.

  Yes, every day she was more certain that she had not learned everything she needed to know. Had she acted as a child for too long? Shirked her duty? Was that the reason her parents had shielded her from the hard work of managing the household? She had always thought there would be time. Tomorrow. Next week. Next year.

  But she could reveal no weakness to this man. Not of the castle or of its countess. ‘It is you who do not know how brave and noble the English are.’

  She had expected their familiar argument to begin. Instead, he sighed. ‘My people, too, did not always behave with virtue.’

  The sorrow in his words stole her reply.

  The meal ended. The g
uests bowed before the princess, then took their leave. She and Marc were the last to leave, save for de Coucy.

  She paused, expecting him to join them, but instead, he called from across the room. ‘Mon ami! We leave to greet King Jean on Saint Stephen’s Day, oui?’

  As Marc agreed, Cecily gritted her teeth, welcoming the reminder that refreshed her rage. When the King of France returned, he would be welcomed and fêted, while her father lay cold in his tomb. She must cling to that anger and let it burn away any weakness for Marc de Marcel.

  Marc and his friend exchanged a few words, and then, she found herself walking beside him through the maze of corridors and stairs.

  She looked over her shoulder, but de Coucy did not follow. ‘He lingers with the princess. Can he be trusted?’

  ‘Bien sûr.’ Marc’s voice carried a touch of indignation.

  Her cheeks burned. Had she, unknowing, exposed Isabella’s weakness for the man? ‘And yet, you have just admitted your people have not always been honourable.’

  ‘De Coucy is,’ he said.

  ‘Then he is alone of your countrymen.’

  ‘No. So is our king.’ He spoke in tones of reverence she had never heard from him before.

  ‘You call him honourable, yet he returns because his son was not.’

  A deeper frown. ‘The Duke d’Anjou shamed his father when he fled home to French soil. A man cannot always be proud of his son.’

  Or of his daughter. Though she tried—

  ‘And so,’ Marc continued, ‘the king sacrifices himself again to set things right. I have seen few men I admire so much.’

  Surprised, she studied him. ‘I have not seen you revere anyone as you do this king of yours.’

  ‘If you had seen him fight that day. At Poitiers.’

  Poitiers. That battle so long ago. It had been a triumph for the English. Her father returned home that time, full of smiles and ransom rewards. They thought, then, that the war was over and that peace would last for ever. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Your father did not tell you?’

  She shook her head. ‘A man does not share tales of battle with a twelve-year-old daughter.’ Yet another of the many things they had shielded her from knowing.