“Take care, dear lady,” said Ralph Flambard.
“We want no harm to come to you.”
Isabel left the king’s banqueting hall,
racing toward her own chamber, where she could be alone and calm
the furious blood now pounding in her ears.
Walter fitz Alan was a fool, a stupid,
dangerous fool. Did he not know the damage he could do, to her and
to Lionel, by pursuing her? It might be that he did know. He might
have said what he did, aware that Ralph Flambard was nearby and
would overhear him. Sir Walter could be in the pay of one of
Lionel’s many enemies, possibly even of Ralph Flambard himself,
could be part of a plot to ruin Lionel by destroying her honor.
Either that or Walter had been merely trying to charm her, to add
her to the collection of adoring ladies he had reputedly left
sighing over him in France. Either way, he meant danger to her and
to Lionel, to their precarious position, if he tried to draw her
into some scandalous involvement. She had survived the quicksands
of the court of William Rufus so far only because she had trusted
and cared for no one but herself, and because she had not involved
herself with any man. If she wanted to avoid social disaster she
had to continue that way.
She got control of herself at last, assuming
again her usual cool demeanor and vowing that Walter fitz Alan
would never upset her again. No man would. Not ever.
By late January Isabel could no longer keep
her secret. She knew it would make no difference to her marriage.
Lionel was incapable of changing what he was, so that part of her
life would remain a barren desert. But a child, especially if it
were a son, would give her new dignity among the other noblewomen
at court. She had to tell Lionel before some astute lady made a
clever guess and started a rumor. He had been complaining lately
that she was putting on weight, which spoiled the effect of her
sleekly fitted gowns.
“There is good reason for that, my lord,” she
told him the next time he commented on her newly rounded bosom. “I
am going to have a child in June, an heir for Adderbury.”
“Good God.” Lionel had been standing before
her, untwisting a heavy neck chain he wanted her to wear that day.
Now he sank down on the side of her bed, the tangled golden links
dangling from his hands forgotten in his astonishment. “I find it
hard to believe.”
“It’s your fault, my lord. You are the one
who got drunk and forced me.”
“I know.” Lionel made a motion with one hand
then looked down at the necklace, a gift to him from William. He
tossed it onto the bed as though it burned his fingers. “A child. A
son.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“No. How could I be? It is my child, I’ve no
doubt of that. Someone would have told me if you had been
unfaithful. Only, I wonder what William will do when he hears?”
“The king,” Isabel said sharply, “will
probably impose a new tax, one on all first-born children, and
after you have paid it, he’ll pay no attention at all to the
child.”
“I wish I could believe that would be all.
I’d gladly give him half my lands to keep my child safe. But he’s
changing, Isabel, he’s becoming more vicious and grasping all the
time, and I am less and less able to bend him to my will. It’s
Ralph Flambard’s influence. And in private…” he paused, seeing her
white face. “I won’t tell you about that.”
Isabel realized for the first time that
Lionel was trapped, a victim of his own ambition and the king’s
selfish, distorted love. She made a sudden decision.
“I know I always insisted I wanted to remain
at court,” she said. She put her hands out impulsively, catching
both of his. “Lionel, could we not quit this unhealthy place and go
to live at Adderbury? Here I am frightened all the time, and I
think that’s not good for the baby. I wouldn’t complain about it
being dull, I promise I wouldn’t, if we could go to Adderbury and
live quietly and feel safe. Please say yes.”
“William would never give me permission to
leave. He needs me as he needs the wine he drinks too much of every
night. You know what would happen if we left court without
permission. He’d find some excuse to confiscate everything I hold
and put us both in chains, if not worse.
“And even if we did obtain permission to
retire to Adderbury,” Lionel went on, “What would happen then? If
we loved each other, we could make a heaven of Adderbury, but,
while we are yoked together unto death by our parents’ arrangements
for us, what is between us is not love and never could be. You
don’t really want to leave court. It’s your whole life. You would
soon be bored in that gloomy pile of stone and wood, and I, I’d
accept sweet beardless youths for squires. I couldn’t help myself,
you see. Sooner or later there would be a hellish scandal. Folk in
the countryside are not so tolerant as those at court. In any case,
I am too ambitious for a quiet life. No, my dear, we must play the
game to the end. We stay at court.”
“Will you tell the king about this or shall
I?” Isabel laid one hand across her rounded abdomen in a protective
gesture. She was surprised when Lionel’s big hand covered hers.
“I will do it today, before he hears it from
someone else. I’ll make a joke about it to keep him from being
angry with me. A filthy joke.”
Isabel, looking up at him, saw endless
anguish in her husband’s eyes. She would have put her arms around
him and offered what comfort she could, but he walked around the
bed, putting it between them and picking up the chain he had tossed
down on it. He began working at the chain again until it was
straightened. He laid it neatly on the bed.
“There,” he said. “It’s a comfort to know
there is something that can be untangled.”
“My lady.” King William Rufus stood before
Isabel, fists on hips, staring openly at the soft curve below her
belt. “By God, it is so. I never would have believed it. Tell me,
lady, is it truly your husband’s child?”
Around them, courtiers snickered at the
king’s wit, and craned their necks for a better look at Isabel’s
reaction. Ralph Flambard hovered in the background, smiling with
silky craft. Isabel saw Walter fitz Alan, dark and
dangerous-looking, his jaw clenched tightly. Behind Walter, his new
squire, Guy, looked as if he would like to hit someone. Isabel
would not permit herself to show anger or dismay. She made a slight
curtsey and then stood looking back at the king with just the right
degree of humility, but there was more than a touch of ice in her
voice.
“That question needs no answer, Sire,” she
said, and saw his eyebrows go up in surprise.
“A virtuous wife, by God.” William leaned
toward her, his lips twisting with malicious humor. “Will you be so
pure at Adderbury, I wonder? No doubt. There is no one there to
tempt you, and you will soon be too fat for anyone to want you,
even your adoring husband.”
Isabel felt the blood drain out of her face.
She could not believe what she had just heard. She was not certain,
not having had time to think about it, whether the insult to her
virtue or the threat of exile was worse.
“What do you mean, Sire?”
“Get you to Adderbury, lady, and stay there
until you are sent for. Leave tomorrow morning.”
“And Sir Lionel? Is he to go too?”
“Certainly not. I need him. More than you do.
You’ve already used him.” William turned his back on her and headed
for the banquet table.
Isabel sent a look of appeal toward Lionel,
but he gave her the tiniest shake of his head before following the
king. Lady Aloise, clutching old Sir Stephen’s arm, would not look
at her. The other courtiers made a wide circle around their
banished member, pretending she did not exist, as if her disgrace
was contagious.
“What a peculiar court, where a loyal wife is
punished by a jealous ruler for doing her marital duty,” said a
soft voice at her elbow. Walter fitz Alan’s dark eyes looked down
into hers. “I would help you if I could, my lady. Will you accept
my escort to Adderbury?”
“No, I will not,” Isabel snapped. “I’ll use
my husband’s men.”
“Isabel, I’m sorry.” That was Guy, his kind,
youthful face filled with distress for her.
“Think nothing of it,” Isabel said in a
brittle voice quite unlike her own. “This court grows wearisome,
and it is better for me to retire to a more restful place where I
can bear my child in peace. I don’t mind at all.”
“I think you do,” Walter said.
“I know you do,” Guy cut in. “I’ve watched
you, Isabel. You enjoy all the display and the elaborate ceremonies
and the chance to wear beautiful clothes. I don’t think you want to
go at all.”
“Be quiet, Guy,” Walter admonished.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,”
Isabel said.
“Why must I be punished?” Isabel raged. “How
could the king do this to me? To me?”
Around her, the servants worked frantically,
Agnes folding clothes and linens, Joan packing them into baskets
and wooden chests while footmen collected the filled containers and
carried them out to load on baggage carts for the journey to
Adderbury.
“William is jealous of you. He thinks I care
too much for you. Besides,” Lionel said with infuriating logic,
“only yesterday you were begging me to take you away from
court.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” she declared.
“I thought you would. Ah, Isabel, I wish you
had not let this happen.”
“I would remind you, my lord, that my
pregnancy is not my fault alone, though I am the one who is paying
for it.”
“I am sorry you must go. I have no one else
to whom I can talk so freely or trust so entirely.”
A manservant carried away the last of
Isabel’s belongings. Agnes handed Isabel her traveling cloak and
then she and Joan went out, leaving husband and wife alone.
“Will I be permitted to return once the child
is born?”
“I don’t know. Isabel, I have letters here
for the seneschal and the chaplain at Adderbury. I told my
secretary to write that you may have whatever you desire. They are
to obey you as if your orders were mine.”
“Thank you.” She took the letters. “Will you
come for the birth?”
“I dare not.” Lionel shook his head. “It
would only enrage William.”
“He’s mad.” Tears stood in Isabel’s eyes.
“Mad and dangerous. He will destroy you. And all of us.” The sweep
of her hand included all the court that lay beyond her chamber
door.
“He is the king. I have given him my
oath.”
“And your honor.”
“It’s too late to regret that now.”
And then, for the first time in their odd and
unhappy marriage, Lionel of Adderbury put his arms around his wife,
and held her with something approaching tenderness, his cheek
resting on her golden hair, not drawing back when her arms crept
around his waist. They stood thus for only a few heartbeats before
he patted her lightly on the shoulder and dropped his arms.
“Go now,” he said, and she went out of the
room and left him standing there, alone.
Lady Isabel’s son was born on the twentieth
of June, 1092. She sent a messenger to her husband at once, but
having had no reply after two weeks, she went ahead with the
baptism without him.
“The baby will be called Thomas,” she told
the chaplain.
“A good Christian name,” Father Herbert
approved, beaming at her.
The priest was a short stocky man with
lackluster brown hair and brown eyes. He was none too bright,
usually unwashed, and overly superstitious, all attributes that
would once have disqualified him as a friend or confidant. But he
was from her native Brittany, could read and write a little, and
came close to total adoration of Isabel. She needed him. She was
desperately lonely.
Adderbury was far from the main roads and
seldom had visitors. She could talk to Agnes, Joan, Father Herbert,
or Roger the seneschal, a bulky, honest widower of few words, who
went in awe of her.
Isabel used Father Herbert to write letters
to Lionel, letters that were seldom answered. It took Lionel six
weeks to respond to Isabel’s announcement of Thomas’s birth, and he
took no notice at all of her repeated pleas to be allowed to return
to court. Lionel never came to Adderbury himself. He had the
seneschal transact all his business and ride to court occasionally
to deliver rents to his lord, but Isabel was never allowed to go
with him.
She had at first loved her son, delighting in
the golden-haired, blue-eyed baby. She had envisioned a triumphal
return to court, her beautiful child in her arms, herself restored
to her rightful place as wife of the king’s favorite. As months
passed and she was forced to remain at Adderbury, she grew
resentful of the little boy who was the cause of her disgrace.
“At any other court I would be honored for
producing an heir,” she grumbled to Father Herbert. “It’s so
unfair. I’ve lost everything just for doing a wife’s duty.”
“Do not regret the court. You are well out of
that wicked place,” Father Herbert responded. “Ah, my lady, the
rumors I have heard. William Rufus is undoubtedly the worst king
this land has ever had. A drunken sodomite who grows more depraved
with each day that passes. Even the Saxons were preferable to him.
It is shameful, shameful. And the taxes, dear Heaven, the taxes,
and even imposed on the church.” Father Herbert cast his eyes
upward to heaven, as if expecting immediate help in dealing with
England’s unworthy king.
“I used to have gowns of embroidered silk,”
Isabel mused, “fur-lined cloaks and gold-shot veils so sheer they
were like clouds. Now, my lord has reduced my allowance so that I
am forced to go about in rough wool, and I am cold all winter in
this drafty mound of a building.”
“Heaven will send a great punishment upon the
king for the unspeakable things he has done,” the priest intoned
piously. “There will be a thorough cleansing one day.”