“You know, of course,” Aloise went on,
laughing a little at Isabel’s obvious confusion, “That you need not
always lie alone if you do not wish it. Lionel may not care to
serve you as a man should, but there are others here who would be
most willing, if only you would encourage them a little. Just look
around the hall at this very moment, and chose whom you will. Here
comes Sir Richard, for example. He thinks you are beautiful beyond
compare.” Aloise smiled at the heavy-set, homely man as he passed
them on his way to speak to the king, and then smiled more broadly
at Isabel’s expression. “Well, perhaps not Sir Richard.”
“I do not want a man.” Isabel would have left
Aloise, but she caught Isabel’s arm and held her.
“Don’t go. I thought you liked Sir Richard.
You are always so polite to him. Let us be friends, Isabel.”
Aloise’s dark eyes probed Isabel’s face. “How strange you are, so
bland and pleasant, and yet I think you have secrets. You never
show what you are thinking. Was bedding Sir Lionel really so
bad?”
“I will not discuss such private matters with
you or anyone.” Isabel tried unsuccessfully to free her arm from
Aloise’s tight grasp.
“We should not quarrel, Isabel. My husband
was a close friend to the old king and still has a good deal of
influence with this one. He might be useful to Sir Lionel.”
“You are right.” Isabel linked arms with the
woman, and, changing the uncomfortably intimate subject, began
chatting lightly about gowns and the silly capers of the king’s
jester, but she guarded every word she spoke to Aloise. She knew
she could never let down that guard. She had promised Lionel to be
silent about their marriage and she would keep her promise.
Isabel threw herself into the riotous
Christmas celebrations, attending all of King William’s banquets
and numerous hunts, although she did not really care for hunting,
especially in very cold weather. She would rather have stayed
behind and kept warm by a blazing fire, but she did not want Lionel
to be angry with her or think she was boring. She wanted to remain
at court, where all was light and luxury and at least presented the
appearance of great pleasure, and therefore she exerted every
effort to amuse Lionel.
He admired her tall, almost boyish
slenderness, and so she ate very little, growing even more slender.
She knew she drank too much at the never-ending feasts, but wine
gave her ease. She made a game of preferring only the finest
Rhenish wines, served in special silver goblets. Lionel was
delighted. No one else at court had a wife so knowledgeable about
the various foreign wines, who made such a ceremony about serving
them, or insisted so prettily that it was all to please her
brilliant husband, who had taught her everything she knew on the
subject. It set Lionel apart, made him seem special, and when King
William joined the game and began making a great fuss about his own
wines, the costly Rhenish beverage became all the rage at
court.
Isabel knew all of King William’s nobles and
their ladies, but she had no real friends, for there was no one in
whom she would dare confide. The courtiers were constantly
gossiping or inventing new intrigues, and she trusted none of them,
not even Aloise, with whom she remained on pleasant terms. Aloise
worried her.
“You should be more careful,” Isabel said to
her one evening. “You are too free with your smiles and glances. If
you offend Sir Stephen and make him jealous, he will send you from
court.” Isabel was determined never to offend Lionel in such a way.
She felt a chill at the very thought of Adderbury.
“I am not cold like you. I need a man’s
attentions,” Aloise replied.
Isabel shook her head in concern. She knew
Aloise had lovers. There were few secrets at this court.
“What would you do,” Isabel asked, “if there
were consequences?”
“Consequences?” Aloise looked blank for a
moment, then understood and began to laugh. “What an innocent you
are! There are ways, things one can do to prevent what you call
‘consequences,’ and if they don’t always work, well then, there are
certain people who know how to deal with such matters before they
become apparent.”
“Aloise, that’s dangerous.” Isabel was
thinking of soul as well as body.
“Life is dangerous. And uncertain.” Aloise
shrugged. “For men, it is war; for women, lovemaking, for everyone,
sickness. I intend to take pleasure in every moment. Who knows what
tomorrow will bring? You should take a lover, Isabel.”
“I am content with my marriage.” It was a
lie, as Aloise surely knew. Isabel was becoming a good liar. The
only person to whom she could speak with even a semblance of
honesty was Lionel himself, and she was becoming increasingly
dependent upon him and upon the pretense of marital contentment
they had created for the world to see. It did not matter whether
the world believed them or not, she would defend the illusion with
her very life if need be, for bound up in it was all her
self-respect and all her newfound, growing ambition. She would not
take a lover, but she would do anything else she might to advance
Lionel, and thus, herself.
Isabel knew she was changing. As time went
on, her concentration on herself and her own daily pleasures became
intense. She was frivolous, shallow, and most of all, extravagant.
Lionel was pleased.
“You are more entertaining than I had dared
to hope you would be,” he told her one day, as she showed him her
latest gown. “No, not that necklace, this one. And the other belt.
There, that’s much better. You really are quite intelligent,
Isabel. I shall be sorry to leave you. I never thought I’d say that
about any woman.”
“Leave me? Where are you going?”
“You may as well know, I suppose,” Lionel
said. “Everyone will be talking about it by morning, though it was
only decided just before I came to see you. Duke Robert has been
causing more trouble in Normandy. He wants King William’s men who
hold castles in Normandy to do homage to him, rather than to
William, who is, Robert says, only a younger brother with a very
poor claim to the throne of England. It’s nonsense, of course. The
Conqueror clearly stated just before he died that England was to go
to William, and Normandy to Robert, and King William cannot allow
such an insult to pass unnoticed. We sail for Normandy on
Candlemass Day, and I hope to God William puts an end to that
unpleasant older brother of his.”
“I will miss you,” she said, surprised to
find it was true.
“What, do you care for me, my lady? I think
not.” He laughed at her, then looked thoughtful. “There is
something you can do for me while I am gone. Isn’t it odd that I
trust you? There are few others I can depend upon.”
“I always have your interests at heart, my
lord.”
“Say rather that your interest in my position
at court coincides with my own. What I am, you are also, my lady.
Baroness or countess or perhaps something greater.”
“Just so, my lord.”
“And you have never looked at another man in
two whole months of marriage. Considering how most ladies in this
palace behave, I find that touching.”
“My one experience of a man did not encourage
me to look for more.” The words slipped out without her usual
careful consideration before speaking of their non-existent marital
relations.
“Be careful, my dear.” Lionel raised a
cautionary finger. “Do not irritate me, or it is Adderbury for
you.”
Isabel had learned that the best thing to do
when Lionel began to be annoyed with her was change the
subject.
“You said there is something you wanted me to
do for you?” she asked.
“Yes. Guard well my interests here at court
while I am gone. I will be with William at all times, and I can
keep him, shall we say, inclined in my favor, but there are those
who are jealous of me. I need you to protect my back, so to speak,
when I ride into battle. Let me know at once should any intrigues
against me be started here in England. Particularly watch Ralph
Flambard. I do not like that man.”
“I will do my best to keep you informed of
everything that happens while you are away,” Isabel promised.
“Of course you will. It is for your benefit,
too, my dear.” He smiled his beautiful, false smile and left
her.
* * * * *
She did miss him. She almost convinced
herself that she cared for him and would welcome him home with open
arms and a warm bed. She did not know why she felt that way, unless
it was anger at the other ladies who repeatedly made sly comments
over her slenderness, meaning her flat belly and un-pregnant state.
It was a clever, catty way of hurting her for what was an open
secret by now: King William’s deep attachment to Lionel.
“Pay no attention to them,” Aloise advised on
the day when a particularly sharp-tongued lady had nearly reduced
Isabel to tears. “They say the same things to me, but I don’t
care.”
“Of course you don’t,” Isabel snapped. “Your
husband is too old for them to blame you. But Lionel – how they
despise him!”
“They envy him,” Aloise said wisely. “Were
the king a different kind of man, any one of those ninnies sitting
there embroidering would gladly throw herself into the royal bed to
improve her own and her family’s station. Forget them, Isabel. They
are unimportant.”
But Isabel could not forget. The opinions of
those ladies did matter to her. Isabel wished, not for the first
time, that it were possible to produce a child without help from a
man.
The king and his men were gone for eight
months, returning to England in September only to make preparations
for war against King Malcolm of Scotland, who in William’s absence
had crossed the border into northern England.
Lionel had few kind words of greeting for his
wife. Not only had King William made peace with his irascible older
brother, but Duke Robert and the youngest royal brother, Henry,
with whom William had also patched up a quarrel, had both returned
to England with him. With the new closeness among these royal
brothers, Lionel felt himself slighted and overlooked.
“Damn them!” Lionel threw his wine cup across
the room, barely missing Isabel, who sat at the fireside with her
embroidery. Lionel flung himself into a chair across the hearth
from her and gave her a petulant look from under his thick
golden-brown eyebrows. “After all the things I have done for
William, for him to treat me so coldly now! How dare he?”
Guy fitz Lionel calmly picked up Lionel’s cup
and returned it to the table, where he refilled it before handing
it to the sulky older man.
“Brothers should be on good terms,” Guy said
quietly. “As you and I have always been.”
Lionel snorted, gulping at his wine.
Isabel turned speculative eyes on her
brother-in-law. Guy had gone to Normandy in the king’s company and
had returned much changed. She knew he was not yet quite fifteen
years old, but he had begun to look more like a man than a boy. His
face was harder, his jaw firmer than when she had first known him.
The resemblance to Lionel was striking, but there were already
indications that Guy would be even more handsome, his features more
finely modeled.
“Guy is right,” Isabel observed. “Lionel, I
would advise you not to interfere between princes. Besides, you
know how changeable William is. He’ll tire of Henry and quarrel
with Robert again soon, and then his affection will light on you
once more.”
“I don’t need your advice,” Lionel shouted at
her. “Stupid woman!” And he stormed out of the room.
“Surely,” Guy said to Isabel, “You do not
approve of the…the … ah …
friendship
, between Lionel and
King William?”
“No, of course not.” Isabel met Guy’s blue
eyes, so like Lionel’s yet so innocent and troubled in their
expression. “I don’t like it at all, Guy, but what can I do? Lionel
behaves as he pleases.” To her mortified astonishment, large tears
began to run down her cheeks. She was so accustomed to hiding her
emotions that she did not know what to do at first, but her
confusion lasted only a moment or two. She had learned during her
months at court to think quickly and to take advantage of every
opportunity, and she could not help noticing Guy’s distressed
reaction to her tears.
“Please don’t cry,” he begged. “I didn’t mean
to pain you. Is there anything I can do to help you, Isabel?”
“There is nothing anyone can do. He is angry
at the king for not paying more attention to him, but he cannot
express his rage to William so he spends it on me. Any day now I
will say or do something to make him so furious he will banish me
to Adderbury to make himself feel better. Then what will become of
me?” Pleased at the effect her tears were having on the young man,
Isabel blinked, letting a few more spill over her lids and down her
face while she tried to look suitably mournful.
“Adderbury is not so bad,” Guy said. “I
rather liked growing up there.”
“It is not the royal court,” Isabel sniffed.
She finally wiped away the remaining tears. As she looked at Guy,
it occurred to her that there was something he could do for her,
but if she told him what it was, he would run from her in horror,
and if Lionel ever found out it would not mean just banishment from
court but her death.
“Whatever needs to be done,” Isabel said, “I
will have to do alone.”
Lionel was very drunk. He had been working at
it since noon and Guy was worried about him. Lionel in his cups
tended toward indiscreet speech. Near midnight Guy half-dragged,
half-carried his brother to Isabel’s room.
“He was saying the most awful things.” Guy
dumped the nearly unconscious man onto Isabel’s bed and began
pulling off his shoes. “Lionel has made a powerful enemy tonight.
He called Ralph Flambard a mincing caitiff. He would have insulted
the king next, so I got him away from the banquet hall and brought
him here. I thought if he were in your bedroom, even if he did keep
talking that way, only you would hear him.”