Elizabeth Chadwick (17 page)

“My name is Fulke FitzWarin,” he said, his voice shaking. “I have come to pay homage to King John for my lands.”

Jean de Rampaigne rode up, William galloping at his heels. “Let him through, Alaric,” Jean cried to the larger of the guards. “I will go surety for him. He’s well known to my master the Archbishop.”

The guards hesitated, exchanging looks. A crowd was beginning to gather as others waited their turn to enter the keep.

Alaric withdrew and beckoned with his spear. “Very well then, enter,” he said. “But leave your weapons here. You too,” he said to William.

The brothers unlaced their scabbards and handed them over. Fulke’s hands were trembling so hard he doubted he could have used a weapon anyway.

“I told you we should have ridden straight to Whittington when Papa died and taken FitzRoger then,” William muttered as they led their horses across the ward and found a boy to tend them.

“Hindsight is a wondrous thing,” Fulke sneered. “Likely we’d have ended our lives swinging from a gibbet.”

“Well, if you think there’s going to be a happy outcome from this, you’re a greater fool than you’ve ever taken me for!”

Fulke rounded on him with bunched fists and Jean hastily put his wiry frame between them. “Peace!” he hissed. “We’re not clear of the guards yet, and you do yourselves no favors by this childish quarreling. If you cannot handle yourselves, then what use are you going to be before John?”

Fulke clamped his jaw until the muscles showed in rigid grooves below his cheekbones. “You do well to remind me, Jean.” He looked at William. “We need to be united by our brotherhood, not split by our differences of opinion. Are you ready to go within?”

William wriggled his shoulders within his padded tunic. “No point in coming just to stay outside.” It was the nearest he would come to conciliation.

Fulke leading, they mounted the wooden forebuilding stairs and again were challenged by a pair of guards. This time Fulke managed to give his name in a courteous if curt fashion and the small party was allowed into the hall.

John was seated on a dais at the far end, on a throne cushioned and draped with embroidered purple cloth. He was chewing his index finger in a bored fashion as a baron knelt to pay him homage. Fulke glanced impatiently around the rest of the hall, taking in the gathering of marcher lords, both the great and the insignificant. He saw looks and whispers cast his way. Hubert Walter detached himself from a conversation with Ranulf of Chester and William Marshal and hastened across the hall, his Archbishop’s robes glittering.

Fulke knelt to kiss his ring, then immediately stood and looked Hubert Walter hard in the eye. “Do you remember when we drank to peace?” he asked bitterly. “It was futile from the beginning.”

Hubert met his stare without flinching. “I said that I would do what I could, not that I would succeed. I was elsewhere when the King made a bargain with FitzRoger, otherwise I would have intervened.”

“Then what is stopping you from intervening now…Your Grace?”

The Archbishop’s eyelids tensed at the way Fulke spoke the title. He shook his head. “It is not too late to make your peace, and I advise you to do so. Naught but bloodshed and heartache will come of this matter.”

“So you will do nothing?”

“I did not say that. I will try my best for you, Fulke, but sometimes it is easier to go around a stone wall than butt through it with your skull.”

“Tell that to our father,” William muttered, perfunctorily kissing the air above the Archbishop’s ring. “All his life he abided by the rules and it bought him nothing but a shroud.”

The conversation had not gone unnoticed on the dais. A squire summoned them to attend upon John and escorted the brothers up the hall.

Fulke paused at the foot of the platform and looked up at John. The King leaned back in his chair, affecting an air of indolence, but Fulke could sense his tension. John was like a spectator at a cockfight, awaiting the first flurry, the drawing of blood. The King’s gaze flickered to the group of courtiers standing around his throne. Following the glance, Fulke saw Morys FitzRoger standing among them, his thin face wearing an expression of fear mingled with exultation.

With great reluctance, Fulke bent his knee and bowed his head to pay homage. Anger simmered within him, controlled but still far too close to the surface. His skin felt raw with it. Beside him, William knelt too, muttering under his breath.

“This is a sight to gladden my eyes,” John purred. “Fulke FitzWarin on his knees at my feet.”

“I owe you my fealty now, sire. Before, I did not,” Fulke said curtly.

John smiled. “So you have come to do me homage for your lands? To put your hands between mine, swear your loyalty, and receive the kiss of peace?”

It was like drinking bitter poison. Fulke swallowed his gorge. “Yes, sire. I have come today to do homage…for all my lands.”

John shifted in the chair. The curl of his smile deepened. “You mean those to which you are entitled,” he said.

Fulke stood up. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. Do not do anything foolish, he told himself. The words were waiting to fire off his tongue like swift-loosed arrows but he made himself speak slowly, enunciating each one, so that those around could hear and not mistake. “By the benefit of common law, the castle, the lands and appurtenances of Whittington are mine by right and reason of my inheritance from my father. In respect of this, I offer you a hundred marks as the relief on the barony, including Whittington, which in the time of your great-grandfather the first King Henry was settled as the head of the FitzWarin family seat.”

John considered Fulke narrowly and fiddled with a large amethyst ring on his forefinger. Hubert Walter stepped forward, raising his arms to show the glittering goldwork on his cope, making his appearance as commanding as possible. “May I speak?”

John waved his hand in assent, but looked irritated.

“King Richard, your brother, adjudged that the FitzWarin family had the right to hold Whittington and that another estate should be settled upon Morys FitzRoger and his heirs in compensation. The final documents were never sealed, but only because of his untimely death. I have those documents to hand in proof of the decision, which I myself approved as King Richard’s Justiciar.”

John’s look of irritation increased. “Richard is dead,” he said bluntly, “and you are no longer my Justiciar. I have already granted Whittington to my good servant Morys FitzRoger de Powys for fifty marks, and my decision stands whether men are angered or not. Fulke FitzWarin will do homage for the fiefs that were held at the time of his father’s death. No more and no less.”

Fulke clenched his fists and battled a scalding wave of fury. “I am within the right of the law,” he said hoarsely. “You murder justice for the sake of a petty grudge.”

“Mind your words, FitzWarin, or you will find yourself without any lands at all,” John warned, triumph glowing in his eyes.

At Fulke’s side, William shot to his feet and put his hand to his nonexistent scabbard. At the same time, Morys FitzRoger stepped from the group of courtiers. He was plainly delighted at John’s decision and could not resist gloating.

“You are foolish to try and make a claim on my lands. If you say you have a right to Whittington you are lying through your teeth and if not for the King’s presence, I would knock them down your throat and choke you.”

It was William who broke. With a howl of fury, he launched himself at Morys and punched him in the face with his bunched fist. Morys reeled with a cry, blood bursting from his nose. William went after him, intent on beating him to a pulp, but was dragged off his victim by Hubert Walter and John’s half brother Will Longsword, the young Earl of Salisbury. William struggled against their restraint but was held fast. Morys FitzRoger staggered to his feet and stanched his bleeding nose on the fine woolen sleeve of his court tunic. His expression was one of dazed astonishment. “You misbegotten whelp!” he gasped.

Fulke swung around to John who was leaning forward, the excitement of a bloodsport enthusiast gleaming in his eyes. “Sire,” he said icily, “you are my liege lord and I am bound by fealty to you while I am in your service and as long as I hold lands from you. You ought to maintain my rights, and yet you fail me both in rights and in common law. You have denied justice to your freeborn tenant in your court, and for this reason I hereby relinquish my homage.” He turned to Hubert and Salisbury. “Let my brother go.” The molten heat of his rage had solidified and was now as cold and hard as polished granite. The command in his voice, the look in his eyes caused the men to slacken their hold and William was able to wrench free.

Fulke grabbed William by his gambeson sleeve and marched him out of the great hall. In the bailey, he collected their weapons from the gate guards, their horses from an attendant. All in grim silence, for there was nothing to say. It had all been said—and done.

Jean de Rampaigne sprinted out of the hall as Fulke set his foot in the stirrup.

“Fulke, go!” He waved his arms wildly. “Morys FitzRoger is demanding your blood and John is asking who is prepared to go out and hunt you down for an outlaw! The Archbishop is doing what he can, but the King’s mercenaries will do as John bids!”

Fulke gathered up the reins. “If they pursue me, they will receive all that they deserve,” he snarled.

“Well then, God speed you and lend strength to your sword arm.”

Fulke leaned down from the saddle to clasp Jean’s arm. “At least I still have friendship amongst all the falsehood,” he said, and then spurred for the gate.

Back at the smithy his troop was waiting, Philip and Alain galvanized into sobriety by de Rampaigne’s earlier appearance and Ivo and Richard groggy but awake after a thorough dunking in the trough.

“Mount up,” Fulke snapped. “We’re riding for Alberbury. I’ll tell you why as we go.”

“We’re outlaws!” William cried as his brothers and the other knights of Fulke’s company ran to their horses. “Fulke’s renounced his homage to the King—and more than time too!” He gave a wolfish grin. “And I’ve struck a blow for our family pride.”

“You’ll have more blows to strike soon,” Fulke said furiously, “and you had best make every one count. This isn’t a tourney or an escapade.”

“I know.” William’s voice continued to gleam with relish and Fulke knew that his words had fallen on stony ground. He wondered if William understood the magnitude of what they had done. They were outlaws, landless men, game to be hunted down like wolves and their hides presented to the King for a bounty payment. And there was no retreat.

Their path was set. God on the Cross, what price family pride?

***

They were no more than a mile and a half from Castle Baldwin, on the Welshpool road, when a band of John’s mercenaries, riding hard, caught up with them. Fulke knew immediately that there was to be no negotiation. Every man was fully armed and they were led by Pierre d’Avignon, who was one of John’s hard-bitten mercenaries, known more for his acts of chevauchée than his skills as a diplomat.

Fulke signaled his own troop to turn and face their pursuers. The road was dusty and rutted. There was no room for a charge of more than four abreast, but that suited Fulke, who was outnumbered.

“I have promised the King that I will return with your heads for the insult you have caused to him and his vassal!” d’Avignon bellowed, the words emerging muffled through the vents in his helm. There was no sign of Morys FitzRoger.

Fulke drew his sword. A lance was fine for the first charge providing you could keep it straight, but for serious close-in work on horseback, the best weapons were sword and mace, and it paid to shorten the stirrup leathers. “Then you are more than foolish to promise what you cannot have,” he shouted in reply, his own voice clear and powerful because he was wearing the older style of helm with an open face and just a nasal bar for protection.

The sun beat down, glancing on mail rivets, turning them to fire. Fulke watched d’Avignon drive in his spurs and slap the reins down on his destriers wet neck. He saw himself respond, heard the stretched-out echo as he roared a command to his troop. He felt the bunch and surge of Blaze’s muscles and the sudden cool stream of air over the burning links of his hauberk. Then the shock of meeting, the clash of blade on shield, of blade screaming and sparking on mail. Fulke knew the tactics. So did d’Avignon. Go for the collarbone and shoulder. Even if the sword could not part the mail, the force of the blow would break bones and disable. Once a man lost the use of his shield, he was easy prey.

Sweat stung in Fulke’s eyes, but he was in better case than d’Avignon whose closed helm was acting as a cooking pot in the day’s heat. Fulke thrust with his shield and swung his sword, urging Blaze with his knees. D’Avignon recoiled and his blow of retaliation went wide. Fulke pressed his advantage, chopping in hard beneath d’Avignon’s shield. The mercenary gave an involuntary howl of pain; his guard went down and Fulke attacked in full earnest.

The battle in the road was ferocious but brief. Trained by their seasons on the tourney field, Fulke’s troop fought as a cohesive team. Skilled though their opponents were, they were not accustomed to fighting in partnership. It was each man for himself and thus they were easy to pick off. Having dealt with d’Avignon, Fulke spurred to help Philip and Stephen, who were fighting two against three. A swift blow brought one man out of the saddle and a backhand slash disabled the second, leaving his brother and companion well able to finish the task.

Crying the FitzWarin name at the top of his lungs, William had joined with Ivo in dispatching two more opponents. A third mercenary pulled himself out of the fight and, digging in his spurs, fled back down the road toward Castle Baldwin.

“I cry quarter, I yield!” screamed a knight mounted on a black destrier as Fulke cut off his retreat. He threw down his sword, cast off his shield, and raised his hands in the air. His surrender was quickly echoed by the remaining half-dozen men. While they served John for pay, they couldn’t collect it if they were dead.

“Hold your sword!” Fulke snapped at William, who was so consumed with the fire of combat that he was all for continuing to the death. “There’s naught to be gained in slaughter and we’re wasting time that could be better spent.”