She hung for a moment at the very edge of the
precipice, tasting the fear, and the freedom, that lay beyond if
she would but leap with him. She wanted to trust him, to go with
him and let herself feel again all the things that had been bottled
up inside her as she had struggled to survive in a treacherous
court and a disastrous marriage. She still had to survive, and
self-preservation won. She took her hand out of his.
“I cannot,” she said, low but very
clearly.
He stepped back, regarding her as if he
thought he had not heard her aright.
“You must leave me alone,” she continued, her
voice growing stronger as she spoke. “You must stop seeking me out
and causing everyone to notice us.”
“Now I am the one who cannot. I love you.
Whenever I see you my every instinct is to fly to your side so I
may hear your voice, perhaps touch you. I ache to hold you in my
arms; my mouth burns for the feel of yours opening beneath it.
Isabel,” his husky whisper tore at the wall she was trying
desperately to rebuild around her heart, “Isabel, my darling, my
love, I beg you, come to me.”
“No!” She had herself in hand now. She was
too used to deceit to be taken in by him. “You do not love me, you
are only trying to seduce me for some purpose of your own.”
“As God is my witness, I swear I love you!
You are my very heart and soul.”
“I do not believe you. Who pays you, Walter?
Is it Ralph Flambard?”
“What?” The look on his face should have told
her how mistaken she was, but she was too sure of herself now to
pay any attention to him.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” she persisted,
ignoring his cry of pain. “You and Flambard plan to ruin me, and
through me, Lionel. You would destroy us both through this love you
so falsely declare.”
“Are you so corrupted by the degradation all
around us that you cannot see honesty when it appears before you? I
have not lied to you,” Walter said. “I am only a simple knight
without lands or title, I have nothing to offer you save myself and
my love, but I meant every word I said.”
“I do not believe you,” she told him
scornfully. “I will never believe you. You are a spy, sent to do me
harm.”
A silence followed her words, silence so deep
she could hear the dead rose leaves scratching against the stone
walls surrounding them, enclosing a garden as barren and empty as
her heart. She felt peaceful and very sure of herself. The danger
was passed and she was Isabel again, in full possession of her
senses.
“I will trouble you no more, my lady,” Walter
said. “I will honor your wishes and stay away from you. Far away.
But I will never stop loving you. And when you are alone and in
need of comfort, as you surely will be one day, with your cold
heart, think of me and what I would have given you, and let my
absence be your punishment.”
He was gone. Isabel shrugged her shoulders.
She was well rid of him. He was a spy, if not for Ralph Flambard
then for another of Lionel’s enemies, and every word he had spoken
was a lie.
The short winter day had ended. It was
growing colder. Isabel pulled her cloak around her and started back
to her chamber, thinking along the way about the new velvet gown
she planned to wear for that evening’s entertainment. Gowns were
safe, and jewels, and frivolous songs. She had almost made a
mistake today. She had caught herself just in time. She did not
want to lose everything she had for something so silly and unreal
as love. Better, she told herself, to be frivolous and safe. Much,
much better.
In mid November, King William went to
Normandy and spent Christmas there. Isabel had been refused
permission to go along, so she remained at Westminster, which, in
the king’s absence, was nearly deserted and very boring without the
usual great holiday feasts. Still, it was better than Adderbury,
and infinitely better than Wales.
December blew itself out in a gust of sudden
changes. Walter fitz Alan announced he would take the cross and
join the great crusade even now marching toward the Holy Land to
free it from the Saracens. He would wait only until his squires,
Guy and Brian, had been knighted, and then he, and they, would be
gone. Isabel had not spoken to him since his emotional outburst in
the rose garden, though she had seen him every day. He kept well
away from her as he had promised he would.
Isabel had other concerns than Walter.
Shortly after Christmas word reached her, by rumor first and then
by information Guy had had, that Lionel had gone to Normandy to see
William. They had quarreled, Guy reported, and something shocking
had occurred. Something to do with Ralph Flambard.
“You will drive me mad,” Isabel cried. “I
must know what has happened. Tell me at once.”
“I cannot. I’d be too embarrassed.” Guy’s
face was dark red with his blush. “Please don’t ask me,
Isabel.”
“Where is Lionel now?”
“He sailed back to England. His ship was
nearly wrecked in a storm, but he made it safely to shore, and then
he and his men rode into Wales. He is said to be at Afoncaer.”
“How does he stand with the king after this
incident of which you will not speak? Has he ruined us all at
last?” In Isabel’s voice was all the contempt she had come to feel
for both Lionel and the king.
“I do not know.” Guy looked as if he might
cry. “I cannot bear it. By this degrading friendship with the king,
Lionel has shamed our family almost beyond redemption, and now he
has created a public scandal, so even the lowliest villein will
laugh at his name. God knows what he will do next, left to himself
in Wales. I have tried, but I cannot help him. He won’t listen to
me. I am going to leave England, Isabel. I can’t stay here and
watch my brother destroy himself.”
“Leave England?”
“I’ll take the cross and go with Walter.
Perhaps I can expiate our family’s shame in the Holy Land.”
“You would leave me alone? What shall I
do?”
“Take my advice and return to Adderbury and
live quietly there, out of William’s way. No,” Guy smiled sadly,
seeing her stricken face, “no, you won’t do that, will you? It’s
too boring. No reason at Adderbury to wear all your pretty dresses,
no one to flirt with, no hearts to break.”
She looked at him sharply, wondering just how
much Walter had told him. “I detest Adderbury,” she declared. “It
is safe,” Guy said. “Safe for Thomas. You should be thinking of him
instead of yourself. You are too selfish where he is concerned.
Sometimes I think you don’t love him at all. The boy adores you.
Treat him kindly and he will reward you with love and honor all
your life. Use him badly and you will have another Lionel to deal
with.”
On 2 January, 1098, on the Feast of the Holy
Innocents, Guy was knighted, along with his friend Brian of Collen
and six other young men. Isabel, who knew none of the other new
knights personally, paid no attention to anyone but Guy during the
ceremony, her eyes filling with tears as she watched him.
“You will be all a good knight should be,”
she told him later, as he kissed her solemnly on both cheeks.
“Walter and I will leave tomorrow at dawn,”
Guy said. “We may not meet again, Isabel, or at least not for many
years. I would not part from you in anger. I’m sorry for the harsh
words I used to you the other day. Forgive me.”
“I do. I know how troubled you have been over
Lionel. I have had orders from him, a letter from his secretary,
which Father Herbert read to me last night. I could not tell you
before this because of your vigil. I am to go to Wales or
Adderbury, whichever I choose, immediately, and to keep Thomas
close by me until he is sent to Prince Henry’s household on his
seventh birthday.”
“I am glad to hear Lionel still has a care
for his son,” Guy replied. “I hope you have, too.”
“I have told Father Herbert to write that I
will not go to Wales until Lionel has built comfortable
accommodations for me. Thomas and I will leave for Adderbury at
week’s end. So, you see, I am taking your advice after all.”
She was doing it most unwillingly, but at
least she had avoided going to Wales. She would stay away from that
benighted place as long as she possibly could. If she never saw the
Welsh border, or Afoncaer, at all, Isabel would be perfectly
content.
Meredith
England and Wales
A.D. 1098 – 1105
Mercia, AD 1098
She could not remember her mother and she had
never seen her father. He was the local lord, a Norman named
Ranaulf, who had thoughtlessly exercised his baronial rights over a
comely Saxon peasant girl. The girl had died during a winter of
intolerable cold and famine, when her ill-gotten baby was two years
old. The child she left behind was sheltered by her older brother,
Alfric, and his wife.
A healing woman, this strange Aunt Branwen,
clever with herbs, able to ease the pains of childbirth or cool a
fever, or stanch the blood of a wound inflicted by the farmer’s
clumsy tools. Branwen, who was not native to the village and
therefore regarded with suspicion, was rumored by some to be a
witch, but so long as she was the docile wife of Alfric their
neighbor, and attended church regularly, and cast only helpful
spells, she was tolerated, if not fully accepted.
The child’s name was Meredith, a word as
foreign to the village as the woman who had given it to her.
“I named you,” Branwen said when Meredith was
old enough to question her. “Your poor mother had no thought for a
name. She seldom spoke after you were born. You had to be baptized,
so I chose Meredith for you.”
Meredith would not have been sure of her age,
for no one bothered to keep records, especially of a villein’s
child, when everyone knew children died easily and often, but Aunt
Branwen, in addition to her other accomplishments, could count,
too, and she said Meredith had lived twelve summers and would soon
be a woman. Her breasts had budded, her hips had rounded, and her
waist had curved to a graceful line in the last few months. She was
so different from the other children, with her long, straight legs
and slender hands and feet, and her flaming red curls, that they
teased her and chased her, their own rickety legs and heavy feet
churning through the mud of the village’s single road, their thick
villeins’ hands flinging heavy clods of earth.
“I hate them! Hate them!” Meredith brushed
away an angry tear, her hand leaving a dirty smudge on one cheek.
“I don’t bother them. Why won’t they leave me alone?”
“They are jealous of you. You don’t belong
here and they know it. Neither do I belong here, but I can’t help
that now.” Aunt Branwen gave the kettle a vigorous stir with the
wooden spoon and sniffed. “When I was a girl there was always meat
in the pot, or a good fat chicken. Turnips, pah! Peasants’ food!
And if it doesn’t stop raining soon we will be eating acorn bread
and tree bark again before next winter is over.” She turned aside,
but not before Meredith saw the tears on her cheek.
“Don’t cry.” Meredith came to her aunt,
putting her arms around the woman’s waist and nuzzling gently
against her like some innocent young animal.
“That was long ago, girl, and far from here.
I made my choice and I’ll live with it. But you,” Branwen’s dark
eyes rested on her niece’s face and she sighed. “I would wish
better for you.”
“Why don’t we belong here? Why do they call
me misbegotten bastard?”
“It’s because the villagers hate Lord Ranaulf
so much. The Normans say it is a lord’s right to take any woman on
his domain. Your mother was young, no older than you are now, and
very pretty. The people here cannot forgive that Lord Ranaulf
showed your mother favor.”
“Did she like my father?”
“I do not think so. That would make no
difference. Normans do as they please. You would be wise to stay
away from all of them. Just be glad Lord Ranaulf seldom bothers to
come to Kelsey. And Meredith…”
“Yes, Aunt Branwen.” Clear grey eyes were
raised to her aunt’s anxious face.
“You are even more pretty than your mother
was. If anyone, whether knight or villein, tries to do that to you,
or lays a hand on you, you must run away and come to me, and I will
protect you. Promise me.”
“I promise, aunt.” One bare foot scuffled in
the dirt of the cottage floor. “Shall I go help uncle with the
milking?”
“Yes, go.” Branwen returned to the kettle
when Meredith had left, stirring idly as her thoughts drifted into
the past, to the time when she had first come to Kelsey.
Worn to bone-thin exhaustion by her flight
from Afoncaer, terrified that she would somehow be caught and taken
back and given to Sir Edouard, she had grasped at the one bit of
hope given to her. Alfric had willingly let her stay in his
cottage. He had cared for her when she had lain for days, too weak
to rise from the bed of rags and straw he had made for her. Alfric
had fed and soothed her as her mind returned to Tynant and Afoncaer
and the terrible things that had happened there. He had not
comprehended a word of her delirious ravings, but he had understood
her grief and had known that she must weep it out and be done with
it.
Later, when she was better, he had tried to
protect her from the curiosity and the superstitious gossip of the
other villagers for as long as he could. His arm was often about
her shoulders in those days, and she had sensed that he wanted her
despite the suspicions and the disapproval of his neighbors. Too
soon it became clear to Branwen that she must either marry Alfric
or move on, lest she endanger not only herself, but her host and
his family.
She had nowhere to go. Winter was coming,
when it would be too cold for her to live in the forest without
shelter as she had done in midsummer. All of Wales was surely
conquered by now. The Normans would not stop until it belonged to
them. She could not go back. It no longer mattered that she had
been born a noblewoman. She was an outcast, a refugee, dependent
upon Alfric’s kindness for her very life. Her once-proud spirit
broken at last by this knowledge, her heart still aching with guilt
over her brief attraction to the murderer of her family, Branwen
acquiesced in her fate. When Alfric timidly asked her, she agreed
to marry the Saxon villein. At least he was not a Norman.