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.”
Guy
Wales and England
A.D. 11O5-11O6
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 about 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.
A sudden cold chill flowed along Guy’s spine
then gripped his insides. He pulled on the reins to stop his horse
and sat still in the middle of the road, trying to recall every
detail of a night fourteen years earlier, trying to banish a
horrible, unthinkable possibility.
“It was Kate,” he muttered. “It was. It had
to be.” It was impossible to remember every detail surrounding the
act now, there were too many years in between, and more than a few
women, and he had let the memory of his first sexual experience
recede into the sweet, hazy dimness of lost youth.
His brother’s wife. A sin. No matter if her
husband had neglected her for another man, no matter if Guy had not
known who she was – still, his brother’s wife. Still a sin. Still
disgusting, sickening. Why would Isabel do such an unspeakable
thing? He thought he knew why: to get herself a son and heir and
thus strengthen and improve her position at court. Small comfort to
Guy now that the scheme had not worked but had resulted in Isabel
being sent from court to Adderbury for five years.
But was that what had happened, or had she
taken the opportunity, while Lionel was in her bed, to seduce her
own drunken husband? Perhaps she had. Lionel had never, to Guy’s
knowledge, doubted the child was his. Only Isabel could say what
had really happened that night, and Isabel was not noted for
truth-telling.
Guy rode slowly back to Afoncaer, turning the
awful idea over and over in his mind. The first person he saw when
he entered the great hall was Thomas, and Guy stared at him as if
he had never seen the boy before. Was he nephew or bastard son? He
loved Thomas, and whatever the truth was, it was not Thomas’s
fault. He could not blame Thomas.
Meredith moved into view, gentle, smiling
Meredith, bringing him wine after his long, hot ride. Guy felt a
nearly uncontrollable need to put his head down on her sweet
shoulder and, giving way to most unmanly emotion, tell her all that
was troubling him.
He could not. There was no one he could tell,
not even a priest in confession, because he was not sure what was
true and what was not. And that, he realized, was Isabel’s final,
subtle revenge against him, a punishment more tormenting than the
one he had inflicted on her.
His household took his silence, and his lack
of interest in food, to mean he was still distressed by the unhappy
ceremony earlier that day, and they left him alone as he wanted.
Reynaud, the only other person who could have heard Isabel’s wild
words about Thomas, did not mention the incident. Reynaud was
discreet. Guy was certain he would say nothing. He got hold of
himself eventually and forced the terrible idea far down into the
back of his mind and went on with his life as he always had. But
every time he looked at Thomas, he wondered if he would ever know
the truth.
At dawn three days later, after the people of
Afoncaer had recovered a little from the unusual spectacle of an
unknighting, two much more joyous ceremonies took place. A priest
had been fetched from Llangwilym Abbey to say Mass and to conduct
the religious part of the service. Guy knighted Geoffrey, publicly
commending him for his bravery in helping to rescue Thomas. Guy
then received Geoffrey into his personal service.