Gisborne: Book of Pawns (10 page)

We ate a simple
meal from one of the booths lining the street
, a small game pie and some ale.

‘Khazia,’ Guy said, ‘is a problem.’ He flicked pastry flakes from his surcoat and rubbed his hands together to remove the last crumbs.

‘I disagree…
’

‘I know how long it can take a horse to repair from a torn ligament, Ysabel. To push Khazia would be a cruelty.’

I swore to which Guy raised an eyebrow, and I threw the remains of the food to a passing cur where it disappeared in two gulps.
‘Khazia needs a day or two, that is all, no longer. She’s strong.
’

Guy scoffed. ‘You’ve seen the road. She’d be lame in half a league
.
Be rational.
’

‘W
hat do you suggest
?
’ I snapped.

‘There is a way round this.’

‘Tell then, because I’m damned if I can see it.
We must wait
day
s
, that’s all there is to it.’

‘No.’ He looked down at his hands.
‘We can get new horses.’

‘What!’
The enormity of what he sa
id almost knocked me backward. ‘And leave Khazia in Rouen.
You jest.’

‘No, I don’t. W
e must leave on
the morrow so we have no choice.
I can see no other way around this.’

I walked away from him but
knew he followed close as we headed back to the inn.

‘You ask me to
do something that hurts, Gisborne.
On top of all I have lost and appear to be losing, you ask me to get rid of a horse I have had for eight years, a friend.

‘A friend who was n
ot so important that you thought little of what you might do to her
by
galloping
her
downhill at
Cazenay
.’

‘You bastar
d,’ I swung round and lifted a
h
and that he caught in mid-arc, but I shook him off.
‘How
dare
you presume t
o know what I feel for Khazia!
That day at
Cazenay
my mind had slipped sideways with grief for
my mother.
But I know what I think now and I know that you ask too much.’

‘Ysabel,’ he lowered his voice and at any other time I might
have
said he was being solicitous.
He opened the door of the
hostelry and I passed through.
As we c
limbed the stairs he continued.
‘You need to
get to Moncrieff and soonest.
We have no idea w
hat we might find at the coast with the weather. Above all else that is an imponderable.
We can sell Khazia and buy a good
horse to get you to the boats quickly. Sell that one in Calais and buy a ride in England.
No, no,’
he pressed my arm. ‘Don’t say it.
I know what she means to you but it is the only answer.’

I knew he was right if
urgency was what propelled us. But i
t seemed to me that i
f there had been extreme need for speed before, he had kept it quiet and I could only guess it was for my peace of mind.
Since our new understanding he had opened a l
ittle about what I would find and now haste stretched my nerves as if I were on the rack. But I was convinced
he knew more th
an he was telling.

‘Gisborne
,’ we
stood outside my chamber door.
‘What
else
do you
know?
You ask me to sell K
hazia so that we may make haste.
It seems there is something behind this, something of import.
Have the grace to tell me.
’

He leaned across me and I smelt the faint
fragrance of leather that hung about him.
His hand twitched the door latch and the room was revealed, lit with a
brazier in the middle of the floor and a cresset on the wall.
‘May I?’

A lady did not invite a man into
her chamber and I was no whore. If anyone saw us …
I glance
d quickly along the corridor
but it was deserted and so
I
nodded my head and almost ran inside as he followed
, shutting the door carefully. He moved to a coffer and I
sat
on a chair a safe distance away with my knees jammed together and my gown strained as tight over my knees as if it were a door barred to the world.

At
any other time I would have marveled
at his face.
I lov
ed the sharp planes,
his
straight
nose, ha
ir that sat on his collar.
I tr
ied to seek an answer from his expression b
ut
there was nothing
and in fac
t
he sat
as if he leaned over the chessboard to plan
a series of moves witho
ut his opponent sizing him up.

Perhaps
I
am an opponent.

Then again I wondered if I might be a pawn. It seemed to me a woman’s life could be legitimately described in such a way – she is offered up as a bride of advantage or perhaps she is offered to the Church. Leastways she is a commodity. In my case, I had been offered up to be sure, but thanks to my less than diligent father, the man who would rather write songs than plan succession, I had managed to keep the pawn on the board.

‘Ysabel, wh
at I shall say you won’t like. You ask what I know.
What I shall tell you is the truth and I ask that you do
n’t hold such truths against me
but rather accept that they are
inevitably
facts
you would have found out
.’

‘You scare me,’ m
y stomach had tightened and I could feel my heartbeat become unnervingly irregular.
‘But I will not blame you…’

‘This is what I would say.
When your mother died, your fa
ther sank himself into his cups.
In the
beginning he kept to himself. Ysabel, please
do not cry for I have still more to tell.’

My eyes prickled and perhaps the candle flame caught the sparkle of an unshed tear, but I did not weep.
I wished I could sob and wail because my chest
was so tight I thought I might
not get
a breath inside. This is grief, I realised.

Grief. My silly, weak
father.

‘But then some hunting friends began to call.
They took your father out on long expeditions, returning him blind drunk, and then c
ollecting him again the next day and so on.
Not so bad you thi
nk?
Perhaps not, until word be
gan to spread from
different demesnes, that games of chance were being played and with large stakes.’
He stopped and scrutinized my face.

‘Tell me, tell me and be done.’
I whispered.

‘Your father has staked Moncrieff, Ysabel, and they say that
a
Baron
De Courcey
might be the winner.’

‘No! No!’
I
utter
ed as I jumped up.

‘Hush,’ he held
my arms, making me look at him. ‘Hush. Y
ou need to get back to Moncrieff and talk with your father, with the bailiff and with the priest.’

‘
Who is he, this Baron De Courcey?’
I shivered and Guy drew me toward the fire.

‘A thug.
Moneyed,
titled
and a thug.’

I began to shake and
I barely noticed as Gisborne
rubbed his hands up and do
wn my arms to engender warmth.

‘
He shall not have Moncrieff.’ I spoke through chattering teeth. ‘
Over my dead body if necessary, b
ut he shall not have Moncrieff.’

I sat up h
igh on the cot that night barely able to sleep,
my arms around my k
nees, staring into the dark.
The candles had long sin
ce melted to stubs and the brazier had burned to embers which cracked,
s
parked and occasionally flared -
testament to the breeze that slid under t
he door from the hallway
.

I
could barely think of Father.
Anger smouldered inside
me like the remaining coals of the fire – i
t would take little to fan it and cause a conflagration.

‘My M
other,’ I whispered to the dark, a
clear vision of her in my mind;
honey gold hair bound in pleats and with a filet of twisted silver and gold arou
nd her head. She was
as bea
utiful as Eleanor of Aquitaine and m
y father was lost to her
the moment
he met her, just
as he was now lost without her.

‘What do you t
hink of this fool man, Lady Mother?
Without you he is a
oarless ship, a lost sheep.’ My voice became louder and my fingers twisted on the covers. ‘I
trusted
him to keep me, to keep
you
. I
trusted
him to keep Moncrieff and now it seems I might be without home or name. He gave no thought to his own flesh and blood, his daughter. Help me, Mama.
’

I prayed and thought how ironic it was that
the one time Gisborne
didn’t place me in a religious house for the night was the one
night I really needed spiritual support.

‘Dear Lord, k
eep Moncrieff from the hand
s of the greedy. Let me find my home as I remember it
when I re
turn.’
M
y voice crept into the corners of the room
and I crossed myself.
I wished that I could see my mother sitting in the chair
, that she would answer me.
But the shadows were
ambiguous and I was alone
.

Khazia
!

A phantom-like silver coat appeared in my mind, white mane blowing back like a bannerol in an Occitán wind. My equine
friend
and confidante of eight years.
Many a time I had ridden out on my own and told her th
ings I would tell no one else, lambasting the quality of proposed husbands, denying the concept of marriage.

E
ven on this journey I had chatted to her a
bout Guy of Gisborne.
I trusted her far more than I trusted Marais and at
least Khazia would not gossip.
She knew my soul had begun to stir in response to Guy’s tinkering, that I fancied myself as
a little
more
than his employer’s daughter.

Paramour
?
The voice that
whispered such things lay deep within me and I shuddered.
But then why should I not al
low him into my deepest heart?
I had lost almost everything and had nought but a feckless
, untrustworthy
father to whom I must return and maybe a
home that was no longer mine.

The tears slipp
ed from the corners of my eyes. Gisborne
a
nd I had much in common. He had nothing and no one. Neither did I, for what was my father worth? Guy and I
should be kindred spirits, un
ited in our travails
.

It appears you
may have no dowry, Ysabel.

For a man who thinks that status is powe
r, what good would you be
?

‘Be silent!’ I hissed this last to the soul-deep voice.
I did not want to know because since my feelings for Gis
borne had begun to stir
I had cherished this obscure idea, one I only shared with Khazia, that
maybe
I
could give him status.

As t
he daughter of the moneyed Baron Joffrey of
Moncrieff
, I could give him wealth
a
nd a title. My mother and godmother
thought well
enough
of him
to encourage his employment. He
was
considered
ed
ucated and steady.
Why else would
he be trusted at my father’s shoulder? Despite his apparent emotional state my father
would
surely see Gisborne
as
the capable son he never had. Perhaps marriage could be within my grasp after all.