“And the jewels,” Isabel said, her eyes
shining at the memory. “Long, heavy gold chains set with amethysts
and rubies and pearls. I do love pearls, don’t you?”
“This wretched state of affairs cannot long
continue,” Father Herbert assured her.
But it did continue. Heaven, it seemed, was
looking elsewhere. Isabel remained at Adderbury because she had no
choice, and watched her son grow into boyhood. She found it more
and more difficult to feel anything but irritation for him. She
blamed herself and she blamed his father, and she wished the night
when he was conceived had never happened.
Thomas was a sweet-natured, loving child, who
worshiped his beautiful mother and followed her about, clinging to
her skirts, which only increased her annoyance at him. Whenever she
could, she turned him over to Agnes, who lavished on him all the
affection Isabel could not.
Her release came after five and a half long
years of exile. King William’s first invasion of Wales, in 1095,
had been most unsuccessful. In the summer of 1097, he tried once
more, determined to conquer that recalcitrant country at last.
After several bloody battles and the loss of a great many men, he
was driven back to England again, but this time he managed to hold
on to several pieces of territory along the wild, heavily forested
border. He ordered strong castles built to help in holding the
newly annexed land. In honor of one who had ridden into Wales with
him, his dear friend, Lionel fitz Lionel, was created Baron of
Afoncaer.
In the autumn, with the season for military
campaigns over, Isabel was ordered to court for his formal
investiture. Lionel sent a length of green silk so Joan could make
her a gown.
“You should have sent a sketch of the latest
styles,” Isabel pouted when she met Lionel in the banqueting hall
at Westminster on the day of her arrival there. “Just look how all
the other ladies are dressed. I am completely out of fashion.”
“You are fortunate to be here at all,” Lionel
told her coldly. “Don’t complain or you will be sent away
again.”
“You are a stranger to me,” she said sadly.
She had sensed immediately that the odd, trusting dependency they
had once known was gone, eroded by their long separation. Lionel’s
appearance was much changed in the years since she had last seen
him. No longer the tall, handsome young knight, he was quite heavy
now, and his face was bloated and red. She thought that was from
too much strong drink. The goblet in his right hand was emptied as
quickly as it could be refilled by the servant hovering at his
elbow. His speech was coarse, his manner toward her insulting. When
he left her to sit by the king, who had made a point of ignoring
Isabel, she heaved a deep sigh.
“You do not seem pleased to have returned to
us, my lady,” said a silky voice at her left side. Isabel looked up
into a dark face she remembered all too well.
“Sir Walter.” She greeted him cautiously, not
allowing her fingers to rest in his for too long, though she warmed
to the admiration in his eyes. It had been years since anyone had
looked at her like that. How she longed for a little harmless
flirtation, to make her feel like a female again. “I hear you fared
exceedingly well in Wales, Sir Walter.”
“Booty,” he said, dismissing with a shrug the
collection of gold and silver ornaments he was rumored to have
taken from the members of a wealthy Welsh family in return for
their lives. “Your husband, however, is well repaid for his loyalty
to the king. I congratulate you on becoming Lady of Afoncaer.”
“A mere barony is not as much as Lionel
wanted, or expected,” she said. Thinking how foolish she had been
to let the unguarded words slip out, she left Walter. She felt his
eyes on her all the way across the room. Seeing Guy, she stopped to
greet her brother-in-law. He was now almost six feet tall. His blue
eyes were clear and sparkling under thick, golden-brown brows.
“How you have grown,” Isabel said, giving him
a sisterly kiss on one cheek. “You are a man.”
“I’ll be knighted right after the Christmas
feasts,” he told her. “Brian, too. He is Walter’s other squire and
my best friend. Several of us will be knighted on the same day. I
hope you will be here for the ceremony.”
“If the king lets me, I’ll stay.”
“Lionel won’t be here.” Guy’s eyes, troubled
now, rested on his brother. “I worry about him, Isabel. He is sunk
so deep in vice and greed he’s almost totally lost, yet I still
love him. I am glad you have come back. You will help him, I know.
Once he has Afoncaer repaired well enough for you and Thomas to
join him there, you’ll set him right again. I know you will. While
you were here and had some influence on him, he was still a man,
but now…” Guy broke off, shaking his head.
Isabel had not heard the last part of Guy’s
speech.
“Wales?” she said. “Oh, no, I’m not going
there. I am at court now, and here I will remain. I’ll find a way
to convince the king of that.”
Lionel had other ideas.
“Of course you will go with me,” he said the
next day, when they were at last alone together. “I will need a
chatelaine to manage my household, and that is your duty. Also, I
don’t want to leave you or Thomas alone in this pesthole of a
court. You may go to Wales with me next week, or you may both
return to Adderbury. Make your choice.”
Isabel decided to try diplomacy.
“I would like to remain at court until Guy is
knighted. He should have some family member present for such an
important ceremony. Let me stay until mid January, my lord.
Please.” He owed her that much, she thought, after her long
confinement in the country. She needed the gay entertainment, the
brilliant feasts. She had missed so much for Thomas’s sake, that
annoying little boy upon whom all her servants, and now even Lionel
and Guy, so doted. Isabel wanted to forget Thomas. She wanted new
gowns and music and laughter. She was twenty-one and she felt as
though she had just come out of prison. “I can look after your
interests here, as I used to do,” she urged.
“I suppose you may stay,” Lionel said
grudgingly. “Perhaps you can help me again.”
“What is it, my lord? You know you can trust
me.” That was not entirely true, not any longer. Isabel was now
most concerned with her own wishes and desires, but any excuse
would do if only Lionel would not send her back to the country.
“I don’t trust anyone at court these days,”
Lionel told her. “It’s because of Ralph Flambard. He stands so high
in the king’s favor it is rumored William is considering making him
Bishop of Durham. While I – I who have been at William’s side since
before he became king – I am pensioned off with a plot of land in
Wales and am told to go there and build a stone fortress!”
“I have heard Afoncaer includes vast lands,
my lord, and that your secure position there will help to balance
the power of the marcher lords to William’s advantage. You will be
doing him an immense service and he will surely be grateful.” She
had hoped to soothe him, but Lionel only became more angry.
“It’s Flambard’s doing. He wants me away from
court. For all I have been to William over the years I should have
had more lands and greater wealth given me. And I should have been
made an earl, not just a baron. That oversight is most certainly
because of Flambard!”
Isabel, recalling that Lionel had once
confidently hoped to become the equal of the great marcher lords,
realized her husband’s fortunes must have fallen considerably.
Before she could ask for more details, Lionel burst out with new
complaints.
“William used to seek me out. Now I must wait
to be admitted to his presence. Everyone is laughing at me. Well,”
Lionel went on, “I know what to do. I will go to Wales and build
his damned castle and seize as much land from the Welsh as I
possibly can to add to what I already hold. And while I’m at it,
I’ll squeeze every penny and every piece of grain I can out of my
villeins at Afoncaer. Then I’ll come back to court with all the
wealth and power I can muster, and I’ll destroy Ralph Flambard, and
then William will turn to me once more. After that, you’ll see me
made earl soon enough, and I’ll control William again, too.”
“My lord, have a care, I beg you.” Isabel
felt she did not know this bitter, angry man at all. She could find
no trace of human kindness or compassion left in him. “You have
changed so much,” she whispered.
“Aye, I had to, to survive. So will you if
you stay at court long. Everyone exposed to William’s venom must
change. Even the young.” Lionel took a deep breath, trying to calm
himself. “I have made arrangements for Thomas.”
“Thomas?” In spite of her dislike of the boy,
she felt a chill. “What are you going to do with my son?”
“I don’t want him to become a page here at
court, and be subject to William’s influence. I have spoken to
Prince Henry. In a year and a half, when Thomas is seven, Henry
will accept the boy into his household as a page.”
“I am pleased, my lord. Unlike his older
brother, Prince Henry is a decent and honorable man. He will keep
Thomas safe. I thank you for your care for Thomas.”
“He is my son, too. My heir.”
“Yes,” Isabel lowered her eyes. “Prince Henry
is heir to the throne of England. Thomas will be conveniently
placed, should Henry become king.”
“I have thought of that.”
“I knew you had, my lord.”
For just an instant there was a flash of
humor and of the old trust and understanding between them, before
Lionel went off to see the king. Two days later he left for Wales,
without taking private leave of his wife.
Walter fitz Alan was pursuing Isabel with
calculated determination. She had enjoyed his attentions at first.
It was flattering, after her isolation at Adderbury, to have so
handsome a man appear at her side each mid-day when she entered the
king’s banquet hall, as though he had been waiting for her alone.
He would sit beside her at mealtimes, offering her the very best
morsels the carvers served up and making certain her wine cup was
never empty.
He was scrupulously polite, not repeating the
too-warm speeches that so disturbed her when she had first known
him. They were never alone together, but every place she was, there
he appeared also. It was not long before others began to remark on
Walter’s interest, and then Isabel became concerned. She felt she
had to maintain her unblemished reputation, not only for her own
sake but for her son’s as well, and, yes, because of a last, faint
trace of loyalty to Lionel.
The other women teased her, as they had once
tormented her about being childless, with sly, double-edged
comments and knowing looks. When she fled the room, they gathered
together and their unkind laughter echoed after her.
She was blameless. They had no right to treat
her so, she told herself. They were mean, spiteful, vicious. And
now she did not even have Aloise to talk to. Sir Stephen, insisting
that he wanted to die at his own home, had taken his wife and sons
and re-crossed the Narrow Seas to Dol.
On this particular day, Isabel, sick of
falseness and of having always to be on guard, had made her way
into a rose garden enclosed by grey stone walls, where she hoped to
find a few moments of peace. Around her the rosebushes stood like
stark skeletons, awaiting the winter’s first snows. The early
November sky was lead grey and heavy. A chill wind whipped at her
cloak and lifted the edge of her white silk veil. She shivered.
She thought of Walter. She was afraid of him,
though she would never have admitted it to anyone. He stirred
something in her, something dark and deeply hidden, something she
would rather have left unexamined, denying it even existed. If she
had been forced to put a name to it she would have said it was
lust. Lately she had wanted to cross herself every time she saw
Walter.
She heard a step on the path behind her and
whirled, knowing even before she saw him who it would be. And this
time no one else was present to provide protection for her.
“You must stop this, stop following me,” she
said. “You will create a scandal.”
“In this palace?” Walter laughed.
“Impossible. There is so much scandal already, no one would notice
us.”
“That’s not true. Lionel has enemies. I know
they spy on me. They would report any misbehavior to the king. I
would not harm Lionel in any way.”
“I cannot believe you care for him.”
“It is a matter of loyalty. I will not betray
my lord and husband.”
“You mean you will not allow yourself to feel
anything, lest your own emotions betray you. And him.”
“I have no emotions. My heart is dead.”
“That,” said Walter, “I also do not believe.”
He seized her hand and began kissing it. “I love you madly,” he
declared.
She was so startled by this action and by his
words that she did not snatch her hand away as she ought to have
done. She stood there, stupidly letting him kiss her hand. She
whimpered when his mouth reached the pulse in her wrist. His tongue
flicked across the spot, sending flames racing up her arm. Her
brain was all on fire. She could not think, only feel, and those
emotions she had declared she did not have were urging her toward
Walter, into his arms.
“I love you,” he whispered, “more than I have
ever loved any woman in my life before this. I have loved you since
the first moment I saw you. I would give my life for you, even my
honor if need be. Nothing matters but you. I adore you.”
“No,” she quavered, her voice as weak and
shaking as the rest of her. “No. I mustn’t let you say these
things.”
“Isabel.” Long dark fingers turned her face
up to his. His mouth was there, just a breath away from hers.
“Isabel, we could be circumspect. No one need know. Let me love
you. Love me. Please.”