Castle of Dreams

by Speer, Flora

  “Am I to be made responsible for my husband’s death along with all the others? How many died at Tynant for my pride’s sake?”

  “Altogether, eighteen men and one woman,” Guy said.

  Isabel gave a deep sigh and was silent for a while. Then, “Where would our exile be?”

  “Walter’s brother Baldwin, acting on his own, has spoken with King Henry, pleading for Walter’s life. He has offered Walter a small holding on his lands in Brittany. If you go, neither of you may ever return to England again, on pain of death.”

  “But there is France and Flanders and Brabant.” Isabel’s face had taken on a livelier aspect. “It’s not so harsh a prospect. I choose exile.”

  “Even with a man you hate?”

  “I hate Afoncaer more. To be its lady at court is one thing. To be a prisoner here forever would be unbearable. I would rather die.” Isabel shivered, then cast him a sly look. “I can manage Walter. Even when he knew I had helped Meredith to get Thomas away from him, angry as he was then, he still desired me. Furthermore, his brother Baldwin is rich.”

  “You will sign the document about Thomas?”

  “Of course, gladly. Walter will sign, too, if you want. How long will this take? I want to leave this cursed place as soon as possible.”

  “Reynaud will draw up the document tomorrow. The day after, there will be a formal ceremony at which you and Walter will be charged and your punishment read publicly, after which you will be escorted, under armed guard, to the nearest port and thence to Brittany.”

  “I suppose there must be this public humiliation? You would not forego this ceremony?”

  He could tell she had already pushed the last few months into the past and was dreaming of social conquests in Brabant or France. She would, of course, need new gowns paid for, thank God, not by Guy of Afoncaer, but by Walter’s brother, Baldwin.

  “It’s better than a beheading,” he said, and left her.

  Chapter 33

  “Don’t be foolish, Meredith.” Guy, facing her across the window recess, looked almost angry. They were in his chamber, sitting on opposite sides of the western window niche, on the silk cushions that padded the stone benches. Their knees were nearly touching, but Meredith felt as though they were moving steadily farther apart. Guy spoke again, still frowning at her. “You cannot leave. Where would you go? Not back to the cave to live alone?”

  “No, I’ll never live there again, not with Rhys and Branwen gone. Oh, Guy, I wish I could make you understand. I’ve spent all my life learning to be a healer. How can I not do my work? How can I neglect people who need my skills? If it is within my power to help someone, I must do it.” Seized by inspiration, she leaned toward him and went on eagerly. “Perhaps I can make you understand. It is as if you, trained as you were for fourteen years to be a knight, and still practicing with your weapons each day, as I know you do, were suddenly told you could never again put on your armor and mount your horse and ride out to answer your king’s summons to war. It would drive you mad. You would soon cease to be Guy.”

  “It’s not the same thing.” His jaw clenched, the scar along the left side of his jawbone showing white. “It’s too dangerous for a woman to live alone, especially if she is defying the law, as you would have to do. The old ways of this country are more strictly prohibited now. Father Herbert is right about that at least, if he is right about nothing else. Women are not permitted to practice medicine. When I think of what could happen to you if you persisted in such activities, I cringe with fear for you.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Then you have fewer wits than I thought. Once you were protected by Rhys. Now you have no one. If you leave Afoncaer and pursue this whim of yours, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

  “It is not a whim. It’s my life’s work.”

  “Meredith, stay here,” He reached across the space separating them, catching her hands and bending forward to kiss her. She felt herself melting. She did not really want to leave him. “Stay with me, please.”

  “As your mistress?”

  “I need you.”

  “Were I a noblewoman, it would be different.” She pulled away, just a little.

  “If you were a noblewoman you would be aware of what a woman can and cannot do. I will not allow you to leave Afoncaer, and that’s the end of it.”

  It was not the end. She would bring the subject up over and over again until he understood that she must go. For the moment she gave in, loving him and angry with him at the same time. She knew she was foolish to stay even a little longer. She should simply put on her cloak tomorrow or the next day, and walk out the gate and disappear into the forest. If she stayed it would always be like this – she would be his mistress, nothing more, and she would be unable to do her work. But she loved him, and when he put his arms around her and began kissing her and led her to his bed, she went willingly, forgetting for the moment everything but him.

  For a day devoted to punishment it was oddly beautiful. Guy squinted up at the early November sun as he stepped from the great hall into the inner bailey. All work had stopped, or rather, had never begun this morning, for the folk of Afoncaer would not miss the unusual entertainment the day would provide.

  On Guy’s left hand the tower keep rose square and solid, completed except for some minor details that would be finished during the winter months. The outer wall surrounding Afoncaer and its town was finished, the higher wall around the inner bailey was nearly done. A space in one corner between inner wall and tower keep that had been designated for the new great hall was clearly marked by the first course of stone for its walls, laid only yesterday under Reynaud’s supervision. If the good weather held, more stones would be laid before all masonry had to be stopped for the winter.

  Guy surveyed the men-at-arms lined up in the inner bailey, and the common folk, masons, carpenters, village folk, and farming villeins crowded behind them. He saw the castle cook, cleaver in hand, waiting at one side of the bailey until he was needed. Beside him was the blacksmith holding his heavy hammer. At Guy’s right shoulder stood Reynaud, with a letter and a roll of parchment in one hand. At his back Guy sensed Geoffrey leading the two new squires, Robert and Kenelm, into their proper places.

  Guy saw Meredith and smiled, then sighed as Thomas appeared. He had thought the boy still too weak to attend this difficult ceremony, but Thomas had insisted, claiming his right as Guy’s heir, so here he was, clad in his best clothes and his warm winter cloak. Guy knew Meredith was responsible for that last detail, and he felt a warmth at his heart that superseded for a few moments the unpleasantness still to come. Guy composed his face into impassivity as the prisoners were led forth from their rooms in the tower keep.

  Isabel came first. Having made her choice, and by that choice having banished her fear of imprisonment or violent, untimely death, she apparently saw no reason to continue to appear as a martyr or a nun. Her belongings had been brought to her from Tynant and she had made the most of them. Her gown was brilliant green, trimmed with bands of gold embroidery. Her cloak was deep blue, her wimple of the sheerest gold-shot silk. Atop it her gold circlet gleamed softly when the sun touched it. She bestowed her most charming smile on the guard who told her where to stand.

  Alice and Margaret, both much more soberly garbed and serious of face, stood directly behind their mistress next to Father Herbert, who had rather unwillingly agreed, after a firm hint from Guy to the effect that he was no longer welcome at Afoncaer, that it was his duty to accompany Lady Isabel into exile.

  Lastly, the guards brought Walter out of the keep.

  He had been removed from the dungeon earlier that morning and given one of the guest cubicles in the tower wall, where a bath was provided, along with equipment for shaving and fresh clothes. There Reynaud, acting as Guy’s emissary, had explained what would happen at the public ceremony and had obtained Walter’s mark on the document which Isabel had already stamped with her seal, renouncing all claim to Thomas’s custody or to
any of his property.

  Guy had refused to see Walter at any time during his incarceration, not wanting his present anger or the memory of their past friendship to interfere with the carrying out of Walter’s punishment. But Walter had sent him a message, dutifully relayed to him by Reynaud.

  “Tell Guy,” Walter had said, “that he was right about the danger of loving a woman too passionately. Isabel used me for her own ambition’s sake, and then she betrayed me when she let Thomas go. My eyes are opened at last. I have loved a dream, not a woman. I despise her, and myself. Tell my friend Guy he has devised the most fiendish of punishments, for I must look at Isabel every day for the rest of my life and remember what she and I have done and what I have lost because of it. Tell him to guard his heart well, lest he end as I have.”

  Now Walter stood quietly in the center of the bailey, wearing a plain black wool knee-length tunic and hose, a wide black leather belt, also unornamented, riding boots, and his spurs. His chain mail and helmet had been confiscated for Afoncaer’s armory.

  One man-at-arms carried Walter’s sword, a second his shield and personal banner, while a third man stood to one side holding Walter’s traveling cloak, which he would need as soon as the ceremony was over. Once their sentences were read, neither Walter nor Isabel would be permitted to remain at Afoncaer longer than was absolutely necessary.

  There was a brief silence after everyone was in place, then Reynaud stepped forward and unrolled the parchment he held to read the charges against Walter.

  Guy watched his former friend’s impassive face as Walter’s crimes were recited: intent to steal a licensed royal castle, kidnapping and threatening death to the heir of that castle’s baron, treachery, unknightly behavior…

  Guy saw Isabel’s expression change from superior disdain to wary astonishment and then fear when that last charge was read. Isabel had not known about that. He hoped she would have sense enough to restrain herself in public when the final shock came.

  She deserves this, he reminded himself, they both do. Walter knew and was prepared, but Guy, not wanting Isabel to change her mind about going into exile, had kept it from her, for despite all that had happened, he did not want Walter’s death on his hands. If Isabel had known what he planned, she would have let Walter die.

  Guy had always admired Walter’s courage. He admired it more than ever now. For a knight, the most hideous death was preferable to what was about to happen to Walter, former dear friend, companion-in-arms, fellow crusader, near brother through many a campaign and battle and drinking bout. Guy found it hard to keep his own face from crumbling with emotion. Traitor and murderer of our friend Brian, he reminded himself, to stiffen his resolve. Walter never flinched.

  Reynaud was reading the sentence now: Perpetual exile from Britain for both Sir Walter fitz Alan and his spouse, the Lady Isabel. The faintest shade of emotion crossed Walter’s face as the knightly title was applied to his name for the last time. He controlled himself quickly and stood immobile, his hands loose at his sides, as Reynaud read on, speaking words that sounded like an alchemist’s formula for turning gold into lead.

  “Sir Walter fitz Alan of Brittany, unknightly knight, to be unknighted, at the order of Sir Guy fitz Lionel, second Baron of Afoncaer, who has been granted permission by King Henry of England to pass upon the said Sir Walter fitz Alan whatever punishment seems most fitting to his crimes.”

  There was a shriek, quickly stifled, from Isabel. She swayed, then stood rigidly upright, glaring at Guy, and he knew she would disgrace herself no further before the common folk.

  The ritual of unknighting continued. The man-at-arms holding Walter’s shield threw it upon the ground and, grinding his heels hard on the painted surface, trod upon it until it was broken and useless. The man bearing Walter’s sword held it up before Walter’s eyes, then the blacksmith broke it with one mighty blow of his hammer and left the pieces in the mud beside the shield. Walter’s personal banner followed. Last, the castle cook came forward and hacked off Walter’s spurs, casting them onto the pile with sword and shield and banner. Walter weaved a little from side to side as the cook did his work, but otherwise showed no sign he was aware of what was happening.

  Guy saw Thomas out of the corner of his eye. The boy’s face was pale and set and a lone tear trickled down his cheek. He made no move to brush it away.

  “Walter fitz Alan, you are herewith banished forever from Afoncaer, from Wales, from England, from all of Britain. Go, and return no more,” Reynaud intoned.

  The man holding Walter’s cloak stepped forward and draped it around his shoulders, while another man led out a horse, bearing plain leather trappings, with no symbols of knightly honor, for Walter was no longer worthy of such decorations. Walter mounted and rode in total silence through the inner and then the outer bailey and out of the gates of Afoncaer, with ten armed guards following him.

  Finally, Isabel’s palfrey was led to her, but she did not mount at once. She came across the bailey to Guy, and he braced himself for one last tantrum. He could bear that much, he told himself. After this, he would never see her again.

  “You tricked me,” Isabel said, her voice a harsh whisper only Guy and Reynaud could hear. “You said nothing about unknighting Walter when you let me choose the punishment.”

  “Go to Brittany and live in peace, Isabel.”

  “Peace? I’ll be living in disgrace! That creature isn’t even a knight!”

  “You did want him to live,” Guy said.

  “I despise him and I hate you. You are just like your brother; you always win, you always have your own way, while I am sent into exile.” Madness gleamed in Isabel’s deep blue eyes. “This time I have won, Sir Guy. There is nothing more you can do to me. And so, fearing nothing, I will tell you the truth I have concealed so long. Thomas, your beloved nephew, the heir of Afoncaer, is not Sir Lionel’s son. That perverted animal was incapable of siring a child on a woman, though he was so often drunk I was able to fool him into believing he had. I pretended Thomas was Lionel’s son to preserve my own reputation. Now it doesn’t matter any more. A parting gift to you, dear brother-in-law. Thomas is a bastard.”

  Before Guy could shake off his horror and astonishment, Isabel was gone.

  “She didn’t say goodbye to me,” Thomas said, coming across the bailey to Guy. “I saw her eyes were full of tears. Perhaps she couldn’t speak. I think she didn’t want to cry in public. But I know she loves me after all, doesn’t she, Uncle Guy? Why else would she have helped Meredith and Branwen to rescue me?”

  Guy stared down at Thomas’s trusting, upturned face that was so like his own.

  “Yes,” he said, “Your mother loves you very much.”

  Part V

  Guy

  Wales and England

  A.D. 11O5-11O6

  Chapter 34

  November, A.D. 1105

  Mounted on his strongest, fastest horse, Guy left the castle an hour after Isabel and Walter had gone. He rode in the opposite direction. His first impulse had been to follow them, to stop Isabel and wring the truth of Thomas’s birth out of her by whatever means necessary. But caution quickly took over. Her words might have been a lie, a parting arrow shot in hope of hurting him or Thomas. He would not give her the pleasure of knowing she had succeeded.

  He needed to get away from the enclosing walls of Afoncaer. He let the horse have its head and cleared his mind of everything but the physical sensation of the great beast beneath him until horse and man were one, flying down the road into the heart of Wales. When at last he pulled in his mount and turned, riding back at a slower pace, he was calmer, and he began to consider the possibilities that lay in Isabel’s statement.

  The first was that Thomas really was Lionel’s child and that Isabel had lied to him. This seemed entirely probable. There was a distinct family resemblance among Lionel, himself, and Thomas. People frequently commented on it. And for all her foolish and extravagant behavior, there had never been a breath of sexual scandal ab
out Isabel. It had been most unusual at the court of King William Rufus. Other women were gossiped about, but Isabel had been generally acknowledged to be a faithful wife. Her chastity had been a source of comfort to Guy in the face of all the whispers about Lionel’s overly close friendship with the king, and that same chastity now seemed to suggest Lionel as Thomas’s father.

  Second, there was the possibility that Walter was Thomas’s father. He had been madly in love with Isabel since first meeting her. Perhaps they had managed just one tryst without being discovered. That might have been possible, in spite of all the prying eyes and ears at court.

  But no, it could not be, for now Guy recalled that Walter had first come to court in January of 1092, when Guy had become his squire. Thomas had been born on June twentieth of that year. Thomas must have been conceived in late September of 1091, just after King William had brought his court back to England from Normandy. William’s two brothers had come with him, Guy remembered, and Lionel had been much put out that the royal brothers were on good terms and he was neglected. He might have turned to Isabel for comfort at that time.

  There had been a good deal of loving at court that autumn. Guy himself had enjoyed his first experience then, with Kate the kitchen wench.

  He had not thought of her for years. It had happened on the night when Lionel had been so drunk that Guy was compelled to carry him to Isabel’s bed. He smiled, remembering Kate, then grimaced, for eager as he was to repeat the episode, Kate was not. She had been furious with him each time he tried to touch her after that night. She had not been a virgin, he knew that now, and he supposed his too-eager youthful fumbling had displeased her. Odd, she had seemed to enjoy his embraces while he was with her, had in fact sought him out, awakening him to make love in the dark.