Whispers at Court

by Blythe Gifford

  ‘Then I will tell you, for it is a story everyone should hear.’

  They dashed across the Upper Ward, shivering, and entered the tower. At the bottom of the stairs, he paused, as if the story could not be told while walking. As if it deserved his full attention. And hers.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Sit.’

  The stairs were empty. A lone torch on the wall burned low. The others had hurried to bed, knowing they must rise again for mass in only a few hours. She settled on a hard, stone step and waited, reluctantly, for him to begin.

  ‘We had so many more men. Everyone thought the battle would be easy, but we were attacking a well-defended location.’

  ‘And facing a better commander.’ All England, all the world knew that, save for his father, the king’s son Edward was the greatest warrior in Christendom.

  Marc frowned, but she saw the slightest inclination of his head. An acknowledgement?

  ‘At least facing a braver one.’ He shook his head. ‘The commanders of our flanks, cowards, held back, then retreated, and left the king unprotected.’

  She had accused the French of many sins, but she could not imagine any knight doing such a thing. ‘Are you certain? Were you there?’

  He nodded and sighed. ‘I had just been knighted and was still brave and foolish. But across the field, I saw the men protecting the king, even the fresh troops, start running. I ran towards them, but it was too far, there were too many of les goddams. I could not reach him...’

  He looked down so she could not see his eyes, then cleared his throat. ‘The king fought on after the others deserted him, with no hope of victory, with only his son, little Philippe, by his side. Barely old enough to be a squire, and yet he alone did not flinch or run.’

  ‘Worthy of admiration indeed.’ Her words, grudging.

  ‘The enemy swarmed over him, crying for him to yield or die, as if he were an ordinary man and not the king. “Where is my cousin?” he asked them. “Where is the Prince of Wales?” for it was not right that a king surrender but to one of a rank worthy of accepting his glove. And yet, les goddams now turned on each other, each wanting to claim the ransom for taking him captive.’

  She wanted to tell him he lied. That no English knight would have done such a thing. And yet, de Marcel had always been as blunt with his speech as with his sword. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Finally, a French knight, exiled and fighting for the English, came to him and promised to lead him to the prince. Only then, when he could surrender with honour, did he hand the man his glove.’

  The unsettling image lodged in her mind. A valiant French king and his son beside him. Englishmen falling on him as dogs would snarl over scraps fallen from the table. No wonder her father had protected her from the knowledge of war. ‘I see,’ she said, ‘why he has earned your admiration.’

  The very words were an apology.

  As his eyes met hers, she saw beneath the shield he kept between himself and the world. Saw, for once, a man who had been disappointed in life. I know that my people did not always behave as they should.

  And suddenly, she was shamed to think she had imagined no one had ever suffered as she had. ‘Perhaps I have been blinded.’

  He smiled then, slow and sad, without the satisfaction of victory she had expected to see. ‘We just proved that, n’est-ce pas?’

  Perhaps he had. And perhaps she had been shielded from the truth of the world, the truth which could be so disappointing. Certainly this glimpse of chaos, of life and death, was not what she had expected. Had she been blind to something of her father, too?

  No one had told her of her father’s death. Why?

  Chapter Twelve

  And so Cecily did battle with Christmas Day.

  There was dawn mass, then midday mass and, finally, fast was broken for the finest feast of the year, full of laughter and memories.

  Here were the spiced, baked apples her mother loved so much. Here was the boar’s-head song that announced the presentation of the feast, when the king always cajoled her father to raise his voice and sing, the only time of year he ever did so.

  She smiled and nodded in response to the laughter around her, but as the candles and songs and feasting continued, grief weighed on her chest and gripped her throat.

  This Christmas, for the first time, she was truly alone.

  And alone with doubts she hated Marc for raising. It had been difficult before, the wondering whether she was really prepared to rule Losford. But she had kept her head high, surrounded by those who had known her near since birth, and shielded her doubts with grief. None of them had questioned her, or pushed her too quickly.

  But this man, this enemy who was only a chevalier and not even a nobleman, had raised new doubts. For the first time, she realised the world might be crowded with cowardice, cruelty and ignoble acts and that war was far from what she had pictured. Had her parents simply wanted to shield her until she needed to know? Or did they think her incapable of facing such truth?

  Will she ever be ready?

  She did not see much of Marc this day. The royal family, dressed in their colourful, matching livery, dispensed and received official greetings, so there was none of the cosy intimacy of the night before and no time alone with Marc.

  But the doubts he had sown followed her. For all that she had mourned her father’s death, she never really knew how her father had died. Perhaps not wished to know.

  She did now. And Gilbert must tell her.

  Finally, as darkness fell on this short day, she beckoned Gilbert to her side. He followed her into the corridor, a wine-coloured smile on his lips.

  It faded when he saw the seriousness on her face. ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘I heard last night about Poitiers. About how we...took the French king in violation of the honour we should have shown him.’

  Gilbert looked away. His silence and the sadness on his face confirmed every accusation.

  ‘What about my father? Was he...did he...?’

  ‘No.’ Not waiting for her to complete the question. ‘Your father remained close to the prince. He was a man of honour, Cecily. Never doubt that.’

  A relief, that her father had not been part of that mob. That the man she held in her heart was real.

  But that still left a question. ‘Tell me about the other battle.’

  He blinked, as if coming to. ‘Which one?’

  So many that he must ask. ‘The one that killed my father.’

  A moment of what looked like confusion on his face, followed by pain, and then it seemed that scenes she could not see were coming back to him.

  ‘Your father was brave,’ he said, finally, as if there was nothing more to be said. As if that were all she needed to know.

  Once, it would have been.

  ‘I am certain he was brave,’ she said, sharply, though she no longer was. ‘I want to know what happened.’ Brave, and yet Marc had talked of cowardice. And the way he had described the English victory over the French...had the French been as cruel to her father? ‘Did he suffer?’

  ‘Suffer?’ He sounded puzzled. She was not certain whether it was from the wine or because it was not a question a warrior would ponder.

  ‘When he died, was it quick? Or did...?’ She could barely speak the words. She did not want to think of him, lying wounded on the field for hours. Her mother’s death, at least, had been as quick as it was unexpected. At least, that was what they had told her. ‘Did God show mercy?’

  Questions she had never asked until Marc showed her the real face of war. The conflict had happened across the Channel, out of sight, victory and defeat both softened by the miles.

  You have no idea what life is like...

  ‘It was not a battle.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He did
not die in a battle.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ No one had suggested this before. All this time she had blamed the French. ‘Was it a sickness?’

  The look on Gilbert’s face was sick with memory. ‘It was the hail.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The storm. Black Monday.’

  The very words a chill. She had heard of the storm. Heard the story of how the weather had changed, with the same suddenness as the plagues had rained on Egypt, and how, afterwards, the king seemed to feel that even God wanted him to make peace with France.

  But no one had ever said that the storm had killed her father. What else had they hidden?

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, in a tone he could not ignore.

  He sighed. ‘Winter had been hard. The French cowered behind the walls of Paris, refusing to face us so the king decided to take the army back to friendly territory for the summer. Easter was over. It was still spring but it already felt like summer as we marched, warm, sunny. Spirits were lifting, we could see the spires of Chartres ahead of us and then...’

  The very joy, the hope he described, doomed. She knew that now. Fists clenched, she held her breath.

  ‘And then,’ he said, ‘the sky turned dark and cold and angry. As suddenly as when God parted the Red Sea, the heavens opened and hail fell from the sky. Hailstones large as eggs, hard as rocks, hurtled down on us. Many of the men, the archers, those with no armour but their leather jerkins, were struck. Over and over...’

  Just those few words and she saw the mayhem. Men stoned to death by frozen rocks from the sky. ‘But my father was wearing armour. He was protected.’ And yet she knew the story’s end. Knew he had—

  ‘He had removed his helmet. When I found him, the hail had pounded so hard, the chainmail was...battered into his skin—’

  She shut her eyes against the sight, but Gilbert had given her his memories.

  ‘And was he alive?’ she whispered. ‘When you found him?’

  Gilbert nodded, silent.

  ‘How long?’ She gripped his arm and shook it. ‘How long did he live?’

  His bleak expression said more than words. ‘He did not die until the next day.’

  She let go. Slumped with the burden of knowing. So he had suffered. Beaten and bloody and waiting for death to take him. Death had not come heroically, as he fought for his king, but it rained down from the sky, as if somehow he had been beaten by a vengeful God. Or, worse, an uncaring one.

  A burden her mother had borne alone because her daughter could not even look at a sculptor’s drawing with clear eyes. Because her daughter was weak and unworthy of the title she would bear.

  You do not know...

  Marc was right. She had preconceptions and idealistic notions and no knowledge of the messiness of the life that even her beloved father had lived. Sheltered and cared for, she had expected life and death to unfurl according to plan.

  Her father’s death, then her mother’s, had torn that plan asunder. Lost, angry, she had focused her fury on the French, as if somehow they must pay for her pain. As if that would make the world right and just again.

  Instead, she must face a harsher truth. Everything she thought she had known was wrong, or at least, incomplete. Good. Evil. Right. Wrong. All upended. How was she to live? How was she to fulfil her duties, her parents’ expectations? How was she to know what to do?

  ‘Was he at peace? At the end? Was there a priest at least, to give him last rites?’ Her mother’s death, too, had been sudden, but there had been a priest close at hand, so she had the comfort of the church. But Cecily had not thought of these things before when it came to her father’s death. Not thought of the possibility of his death at all when he went to war, for how could God allow his warriors to die?

  ‘Yes. He was confessed. Absolved.’

  She clung to that comfort. ‘And the others? How many others died?’ What had he said of those archers without armour?

  ‘Death came to many men and horses, but your father was the only lord who died.’

  She felt a fierce kinship with the daughters, wives, mothers of all those nameless men who carried the longbow. Their bodies, no doubt, were laid to rest on enemy soil. No comforting effigy would keep their families company.

  Marc was right. She knew nothing of war and even less of war for those who marched instead of rode.

  And for that, for that arrogant sureness that he, or his people, had been solely to blame for her father’s death, she owed him an apology.

  An apology. To a Frenchman. Surely, the world was upside down.

  * * *

  For Marc, the Christmas entertainment seemed unending.

  Darkness had fallen, and yet no one sought rest. Cecily was out of reach and without her, the time stretched, wearisome.

  Enguerrand, too, seemed ill at ease. The princess had been pressed into royal duties, but instead of singing, dancing and charming the others around him, he sat, watching her from across the room, wearing an expression Marc had never seen before.

  Can he be trusted? What had happened, after he and Cecily left last night?

  Marc knew him better than any man on earth. Knew when he was putting on a face as a leader. Knew when he was tired and hungry or angry and holding in his temper.

  Now, the way Enguerrand watched this woman, Marc had never seen that face before. Was it yearning? Joy? Happiness? His friend looked different.

  And that was dangerous.

  Unlike Marc, de Coucy was a leader, not a loner. As skilled with conversation as with the sword, he had a way of getting men to trust him.

  Women, too.

  But women in general. Not just one woman. This, the way he was behaving with Isabella, was different. Others would not notice, for de Coucy had been polite and gracious, singing, dancing, talking to all in the hall.

  But he had always come back to Isabella’s side.

  Marc knew why. Didn’t he? Enguerrand had even reassured him there was nothing more than the land and a pleasant disport to interrupt their months in captivity. Calculated. A ruse.

  And yet, as Marc watched him, he wondered. It did not seem like that. Not now.

  He turned to his friend, only to see him gazing at the princess, with a strange wistfulness.

  Marc followed his gaze, wondering what Enguerrand saw. Isabella was beautifully dressed and refined, but she had a rather sallow complexion and, he suspected, in time she would be as plump as her mother. She certainly did not move as gracefully as Cecily did. And she laughed too much, not like...

  ‘Come.’

  Cecily’s voice. Her hand on his shoulder. She leaned closer. ‘I would speak to you alone.’

  He glanced at Enguerrand, wondering how to explain his absence, then realised his friend would not even notice.

  Marc rose and followed her into the corridor. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I share a room with two of Isabella’s ladies. They are still in the Hall.’

  He didn’t argue. They walked, silent, down corridors, across the cold Ward, and then up the massive staircase that led to the living quarters of the Round Tower and to a room across the tower from the one he shared with de Coucy.

  She closed the door. The air smelled of blanchet powder and rosewater. Alone seemed tinged with possibilities, but the tone of her voice did not.

  She squared her shoulders and met his eyes. ‘I must apologise to you. To all Frenchmen, actually, but you are the one I have most abused.’

  He felt his jaw sag in surprise. ‘Why so?’

  ‘You were right. My father did not die at the hand of a Frenchman. Yours or any other’s.’ Her voice was hard and brittle.

  ‘He fell ill then.’ It happened, more often than many would admit.

  She shook her head. ‘He was bludgeoned to death by
frozen rain. God smote him down, for what sin I know not.’

  The lifted chin. The determined gaze. All began to crumble. Her lip quivered as tears threatened.

  Ah, there was the pain, not only of grief, but of the realisation that war and gallant warriors were not all she had imagined. That the cruelty of men or the world or even God could randomly upset the order of things. That the justice, the rightness, of the world that we believe we see is an illusion and that the reward for a dutiful life could be an unfair death.

  Marc knew this. All men in war did. In France, even the women knew it, for in France, battles were everywhere. Castles burned. Goods were stolen. Women dishonoured.

  She, so many of them here, had been spared the knowledge of all that. War was over there. Out of sight. And with the impregnable Losford Castle as a bulwark, war did not threaten their homes for more than a fleeting moment.

  She had lived here, surrounded by walls and guards and sweet treats and pretty matching costumes, cossetted by her family, protected by the court, and losing her parents was the first thing, really, that had shaken her world.

  And he felt a mixture of envy and regret. Regret that she had, finally, discovered the truth.

  Envy that she had been spared from it so long.

  He had seen only hardness. She, only the soft. And who was to say which of them was more fortunate? Was it the protected lady? Or the warrior with no illusions left?

  He put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him. ‘War is cruel,’ he said, knowing words were little comfort.

  She shook her head. ‘So foolish, to blame you. We were, after all, the ones who crossed the Channel.’

  An admission so vast for her that he did not know how to answer.

  And yet, the French had tried to invade her island before. They might again. Men were ever seeking wars, though he could not say why except that for him, when he felt the anger, he wanted to strike at something. In battle, he could.

  ‘Does it help? To know how he died?’ There was comfort in that, sometimes. A sense of completion.