Whispers at Court

by Blythe Gifford

  As many times as she had done so, this morning, the world really did look new. She had made love with a Frenchman.

  No.

  She had made love with Marc de Marcel.

  She was the one made new this morning. The golden light washed her skin, just as his touch had done. She had battled her weakness for months, fearing that to succumb to her feelings, to him, would be to abandon everything her parents had expected of her. Instead, this morning, she looked out on a Channel clear and calm, free of fog or wind, and with as perfect a sunrise as she had ever seen.

  She heard steps behind her and then, he was by her side, yawning. She looked up and smiled. He was not a man who loved the morning. ‘I did not think you would wake.’

  ‘You boasted of the sunrise. I thought I should see it.’

  Was he, too, a new man, to be rising voluntarily before the sun?

  And yet, she could not ask. Everything between them was as delicate as the wash of gold and grey spread across the sky. It would last no more than a breath. Could not be captured, held, or kept from shifting imperceptibly into something else.

  So they watched, silent, as the sun lifted itself out of the water and the golden light faded into pale yellow and blue.

  ‘I think the time has come,’ he said, when the day had fully arrived, ‘for you to see the tomb.’

  Tomb. The very word chilled her. She had learned to breathe without tears. To live. Even to love. Had she the courage to confront the inescapable fact of her parents’ death? Would she be drawn back to the dark despair and doubt that had held her these past few years? Or would she look, clear-eyed, on the motionless stone outlines of their bodies as if she looked at no more than a rock?

  And which would be worse?

  Marc’s fingers touched her arm. ‘I will stand beside you.’

  Simple words that brought quick tears. When had she been able to lean on anyone at all?

  She slipped her hand into his. ‘Come. Let us see the mason’s work.’

  * * *

  Cecily sent word that she would come so that the cloth could be raised and the tomb prepared for viewing, yet when she entered the church, she shut her eyes as she took a step.

  And stumbled. But Marc’s arm was there, at her waist, not letting her fall. She opened her eyes and met his.

  I will stand beside you.

  At the end of the aisle, the square stone block loomed larger with every step. Beside it, the short, balding sculptor, stood beside his work, awaiting her judgement.

  When she reached him, unable to speak, she nodded, then forced herself to look at the effigies.

  Images of her parents lay side by side, as stiff as the stone they were carved from, her father in his armour, her mother on his other side, hard to see. A sword, ready, was at his side and a stone pillow cushioned his head, as if the sculptor had cared for his comfort.

  Cecily stepped closer, softly, as if afraid to wake them, as if they might rise from the dead, only to look down on her in disappointment.

  The sculptor had carved each individual link of chainmail so that it flowed from her father’s helmet, covering his chin and hugging his neck. She stretched out her hand and stroked the alabaster with trembling fingers, surprised to find the stone warmer than she expected.

  ‘It is beautiful work,’ she whispered. ‘This surpasses anything I could have expected.’

  Behind her, he murmured thanks.

  But her mother had approved the design for her father’s figure. Cecily was the one who had fled her duty. If her mother was portrayed poorly, the blame would be hers.

  Barely breathing, she raised her eyes to look.

  Here it all was, headdress and gown created in the same, loving detail as the armour. Buttons on the sleeve, stitches down the front. Small flowers carved on the girdle.

  And her mother’s hand rested gently in her father’s, as if even in death, they must be touching each other.

  She raised her eyes to the sculptor, speechless.

  ‘You said do what you will, my lady,’ he said, quickly, as if uncertain of her approval. ‘And she had looked at this one more than once.’

  Silent, she struggled to speak. Duty. Obligation. She had never thought of her parents’ marriage as more than that and had never allowed herself to imagine more than that for her own.

  But here, this said more loudly than words that duty need not live without love. Could she hope, even expect, such a thing for herself?

  And if it came, had she courage enough to grasp it?

  ‘I hope you are content, my lady,’

  She nodded, the tears clogging her throat. ‘Oh, yes. Yes.’ She tried to clear her choked voice. ‘You have done work as fine for me as for the king. You may return home with pride.’

  ‘If you want me to work more on her hair I can—’

  ‘C’est tout.’ Marc’s voice behind her, clearly one of dismissal. ‘The countess would like to be alone.’

  A murmured farewell, footsteps fading, and the closing of a door.

  ‘Is it so like them?’ Marc’s voice, as soft as hers had been, but still echoing on the stone.

  ‘Not at all.’ The man’s face was narrow as all men’s were depicted now. Her mother’s nose too sharp. Yet that did not matter. ‘But this.’ She reached across the stone figures to touch the place their hands joined and near burst with smiling.

  Then, she turned back to him, barely able to see his face, yet glad to have a witness. ‘I had forgotten and he let me see.’

  Forgotten. Or perhaps, had never known. For before Marc, she had not understood what another person could be for you. How he could stay beside you, inside you, around you, a constant source of strength you did not know you had.

  That was what Marc had given her. And now, she did not know how she would live without it.

  * * *

  Marc watched as Cecily’s smiles and tears warred, uncertain what to do. Did she need comfort? Should he reach out to her? Yet she smiled.

  He let me see.

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘Love. I can see their love.’ Her face, now radiant, as if she had been touched by it, too. ‘When Mother rode to the hunt again, I thought duty had replaced her grief. Now I think...’ She looked back at the clasped hands. ‘Maybe she just wanted to be with him.’

  La faiblesse de la femme. A woman’s weakness, something no warrior would know. Certainly when it was time to leave Cecily he would be able to do so, without regret, without—

  Too late to pretend his heart was walled from siege. When he had to leave her, his heart might break as her mother’s had.

  The church door rattled and they both turned to look. ‘My lady.’ Henry, the steward, hurried down the aisle. ‘The king’s representative and Lord de Coucy are here.’ He glanced at Marc, as if he would know why. ‘They seek food for the horses and some other supplies before boarding the ship to take the body of the king back to France. They sail on the morning tide.’

  I will show them my knife at your throat and tell them I will release you once I am on the ship.

  And yet, he did not move.

  Cecily’s eyes met his and they looked at each other for a long, slow moment. Then, she turned to stroke the stone one final time. Finally, she faced the steward, back straight, chin up, in the pose he had seen a hundred times. But this time, she did not don it as a brittle disguise. This time, it seemed, she had truly, finally, become the countess and duty was as much a part of her as her spine-bone.

  ‘Provide them with what they need,’ she said. ‘But do not tell them that either de Marcel or I am here. Is that clear?’

  Henry, brow furrowed, looked from one to the other, then nodded and left the church.

  Cecily, straight and silent, started down the aisle. Marc did not kn
ow what she was thinking, but he followed her, without questions, out of the church, towards the cliffs and the sea. They left the castle through a little-used gate on the water side and took a path he had not seen before, up the coast, away from the harbour where the ship awaited, until they were atop the cliffs that stretched along the sea.

  He had seen them from the ship before he arrived, a white wall of stone, protecting the island. The beach, far below, was too small for a boat to land. The cliffs impossible to scale. So the land protected itself, even before a castle was built.

  But this day looked all of peace. Clear sky. Sharp wind. Red poppies scattered the grass, while butterflies, scraps of white or orange, struggled against the breeze.

  The path was narrow, precarious in some places, so he let her lead until they were well away from the protection of the walls. Finally, she stopped and turned to gaze towards the castle. The harbour and the ship were barely visible, but beyond, Calais beckoned, a thin stripe atop the waters of the Channel. At the edge of this wild cliff, beyond the reach of eyes and ears, they were, truly, alone.

  She gazed out over the water while the wind whipped several strands of hair free from her braid. ‘I used to come here as a child,’ she began. ‘When I wanted to escape.’

  He knew now what she had longed to leave. Expectations, as rigid in their own way as his warrior’s code. Hovering, looming, as the castle behind them did, high and alone above the town and the sea. Her parents’? Her own? It didn’t matter. They had lain in wait and now she must face them.

  He took her hand, waiting for her to speak.

  ‘I am ready,’ she said, finally. ‘Ready to let my parents rest. Ready to be the Countess of Losford, to do my duty. Ready for almost all things...’

  For your husband? The very thought, as painful as a blade’s thrust. So he waited for her to go on.

  She brought her gaze to him. ‘But I am not ready to say goodbye.’

  His hand touched her hair and smoothed an errant strand from her forehead. What an imbécile he had been, thinking he could hold her close and keep his feelings safely walled away. Every castle could be taken. Every wall had a weakness, usually one the commander had overlooked.

  Behind him, out of sight, was a ship in the harbour that could take him home. All he had to do was what they had planned. The choice was his.

  ‘I will find another way home.’ And he opened his arms to enfold her.

  He kissed her, the wind at his back, holding her so close that the air treated them as one. Together, they stumbled away from the path, away from the edge of the cliffs, and sank into the grass.

  Kisses, nothing but kisses everywhere lips could touch. Fast. Unceasing. As if they both knew, finally, goodbye was inescapable and close. Too close.

  And yet, as they made love, time slowed. Did the sun travel through the sky? Did noon pass? Did night fall? He did not notice. Finally, he was no longer a warrior, coiled for battle and she, no longer a countess. Only Marc and Cecily.

  And when the loving was over, he put his arms around her. Held her against him because he did not know what else to do. As long as she was in his arms, as long as he held her tight and close, he did not have to meet her eyes.

  I will find another way, he had said, pushing the inevitable into tomorrow or the day after or the month to come. Yet that did not change one thing.

  There would still be a goodbye.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  And so the king’s men received what they needed and left the castle without glimpse or word of Cecily and Marc. The ship sailed for France; de Coucy returned to London, and if Marc thought of either of them again, he did not tell her.

  And Cecily began her work as if she had awakened from a long sleep.

  She knew, had always known, who she would be and what she must do, but she had always thought she had time and that her parents would be there, to teach her. When she lost them, all she had not learned, all she was not ready to do, had haunted her. And so she had stayed away, blaming grief when it was really fear, foolishly thinking that her parents would rise up and call her not worthy of the title they had left her.

  But now, somehow, she felt whole. As if she had discovered, in these months with Marc, that she was more than just her title. And then, to see that there had been more than duty between her parents. And her mother had chosen to show that for the ages. It gave Cecily faith.

  But it did not give her answers.

  Still, for now, the castle was hers and all the duties she had avoided suddenly seemed urgent, as if they must somehow be complete before her husband arrived.

  And before Marc left.

  * * *

  With a sense of wonder, Marc watched Cecily plunge into her duties with a joy he had never seen in her before. Busy, tireless, yet smiling. More, she leaned on him, asked his advice, shared her burdens and accepted his help, as if her love for him had freed her from the past.

  So he worked beside her to ready the castle for its new lord, one day and then the next. And as he made the castle better, he forgot to think of it as hers alone and cared for it as if it were his.

  What had he ever had that was his? His life beside Enguerrand had been lived in the de Coucy stronghold. Impressive, impregnable. But never, never his. Now, as he helped her build, he thought of the king and Windsor, of a building that would last the ages, that would never be taken.

  That would protect her as he would do.

  And so one day became the next.

  Tomorrow he would prepare a boat. Tomorrow he would lay in supplies to cross the waters for home. Today, he would help her inspect the west wall and the armoury.

  And all the while, ignoring that he must leave.

  And so they worked, as if each day were their last together, and when the day’s duty was done, they found solace in each other. Gradually, the nights became even more important than the days, the nights where he could lie next to her and make love to her and pretend there was nothing in the world beyond the bed in which they lay.

  And each morning, he rose early and left her, so the servants would not see. So that later, after he was gone, she could pretend that she had let him stay only because he had threatened her life.

  Awake before the gates were opened, he would go to the top of the tower to look out on the scene she had shown him. Some days, fog obscured all—harbour, sea, sky—so he could not even see the ground from the top of the tower. Impossible, on these days, if you walked the cliffs, to know how close you might be to the dangerous edge. Impossible to see an enemy approach, by land or sea.

  Impossible to know what lay ahead.

  Other days, he saw the promise of light on the horizon, then watched the sun emerge from the sea. On those days, it seemed as if the end of the earth itself was in sight, as sharp and final as the edge of the white cliffs that dropped sharply from land to sea.

  When it was that clear, he could turn in the direction of home, close enough that he could see it, reminding himself that he must leave and return to...what?

  * * *

  Ten days later, early in May, a new foal died, the cook burned her hand and Cecily lost her temper with the laundress. She curled up next to Marc that night, near to tears.

  ‘I will never learn all I must. How did my mother do it so easily?’

  He hugged her to him. ‘By crawling into bed with her husband and moaning of the ills of her day.’

  She blinked. She had never thought of her parents...that way. But now, it seemed something she could believe. Even accept.

  ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘you did not know your parents when they were young and untried. No knight rides perfectly the first time.’

  She sat up, with a sigh, feeling comforted and a bit foolish. ‘A countess has much to learn.’

  ‘So does a knight. It takes time. Yea
rs.’

  ‘But you learned.’

  He shrugged, an attempt to be modest, yet she caught a glimpse of pride in his smile. ‘Well enough to teach others.’

  ‘Lord de Coucy?’

  ‘And more. I gave Gilbert better practices than the pell stake at Westminster.’

  ‘Gilbert?’ A good man, she had called Marc. Better than she knew. ‘And did he improve?’ Poor Gilbert. If her father had lived, he could have given Gilbert those final years of training he needed.

  Marc grinned. ‘One day, he may unhorse me.’

  ‘Today, I feel as if I have been unhorsed.’

  He cupped her cheek in his hand. ‘Give yourself time.’

  And yet, as they drifted to sleep, she knew time with Marc was the one thing she did not have. Soon, he would be gone and she would be wed and eventually, she would teach a daughter, or a son, to be the new ruler of Losford.

  Suddenly, that possibility, which had once seemed as distant as her parents’ deaths, was near upon her. And instead of thinking of the man the king had chosen, she dreamed of a son with the golden hair and light-brown eyes and broad shoulders of Marc de Marcel.

  * * *

  As the days went on, Marc thought less of France, shimmering on the distant horizon, and more of Losford and the ground beneath his feet.

  The truth was there was little to take him home now. France was a broken country. The coffers were bare. Why was he going back? What had he left behind that was so important? What would greet him when he returned? More battles? There was peace with England, yes, but there was another Crusade being planned. They would need fighting men.

  Yet he wondered now, what all the fighting, all the battles had been about. A country? A king?

  With the war over, what was there for him to do in France except join one of the companies of knights who ravaged the countryside? Or perhaps he could be a Templar and dedicate his sword to God.

  But suddenly, as he looked to what he thought was home, that seemed...not enough. He wanted a place, a person, a home of his own, a family worth fighting for. The rest now seemed to be nothing but empty words and fluttering banners, as hollow as the promises of chivalry.