Gisborne: Book of Pawns (14 page)

‘Halsham.’ Gisborne strode between us. ‘Do you look for me?’ He gave me a quick glance. ‘Go about your business. I would like some food before my stomach forgets what my mouth is for
.’

As I left I heard Halsham laugh. ‘No please or thank you? Why carry this little charade
any further? J
ust hand the chit over to the merchants and let them see
y
our Lady
Ysabel
to England?’

I didn’t hear Gisborne
’s reply but when I looked back I saw
Halsham
’s face creep in
to an expression of ridicule as
he made some comment in
response to whatever was said.
They talked a little longer and then I saw
Halsham
offer
his hand, as a knight might do.
Gisborne stood immobile for
a moment
and then returned the
clasp and for me, the thread between Gisborne and I stretched thin to breaking
.

The afternoon’s ride
continued at the same pace. F
or some leag
ues
we had seen the wa
lls of Calais in the distance and i
t cou
ldn’t approach quickly enough. Oh, I had vague plans t
hat I could offload Gisbo
rne and sail to England alone or i
f neces
sary, hire a guard. But
I had relied on Gisborne to pay for everything till now, belie
ving he used my father’s coin. I had nothing and my head felt cleft in two.

Finally the company
halted two by two beneath the gates, Richard’s colour
s fluttering in the seabreeze. Horses stretched their necks, snorted, skirted back and forth on the road. Harnesses jingled and men muttered with tiredness.
The W
atch hailed us, the gates
open
ed
and we moved slowly at a clinking, clattering walk until we merchants brought up the rear
and the gates slammed behind us.
The army continued on to their
temporary
quarters and
Halsham
’s troo
p, with the smug man
at its head, wheeled to
the right to I know not where.
Nor did I care, wishing that
he
would d
rop off the face of the earth.

Gisborne
raised his arm to farewell the merchants, wishing them well and calling me to follow him. We walked in single file
over narrow cobbled street
s toward the smell of the sea, turning
underneath an arch and into the rear yard of an
inn. Monty halted and I heaved a sigh as I swung over to jump down. Gisborne’s legs had taken the strain of his dismount with no problems at all,
but my knees folded and I stumb
led against the horse as t
he ostl
er went to take him from me.
I held the reins back.
‘No. I would do it myself.
Thank you.’

‘You don’t have…’ Gisborne started to say.

‘But I do, sir.
He
has been loyal and caring. It is the least I can do.
I owe him
much.’

‘If you must.’
He followed me into the stalls and tied up his own horse, unsaddling and grabbing whatever he
could to wipe away the sweat.

The ostler watched us, bemused.
I could see he was unused to merchan
ts strapping their own mounts.
But Monty deserved this and when he was dry and cooled, I made sure he
had fresh water and hay
and only then did I speak to Gisborne.

‘Where is my room.
I wish to wash and replace my clothes and then I wish for you to inform me
on which boat I am to travel. Other than that, I have nothing else to say.’

I brushed past him and w
alked swiftly to the entrance of
the inn where we were shown to our separate rooms
,
and a
s Gisborne moved to walk into my
chamber be
hind me, I slammed the door
in his face.

D
irt stained the cl
oth that had been left for me.
The water in the bowl looked as if it h
ad been collected from a moat and
I craved a warm scented bath, for my nails to be clean, for my hair to once
again fall in a silky swathe. But it was not to be.
I turned from the bowl to reach fo
r clean clothes and of course there were none.

A firm knock sounded at the door an
d Gisborne called. ‘Ysabel, open up.’

I stayed quite still, wrapped in a rough towel provided by the in
n
keeper’s wife.

‘Ysabel, f
or God’s sake grow up and open
the damned door.’

Grow up?
Grow up, you think?

I grabbed
a cover off the bed and threw it ar
ound me like a cloak and hauled
the do
or open.

‘What? Damn you, Gisborne, what?’ My forehead tightened
with tiredness and frustration.

He pushed past me, slamming the door behind.

‘How dare yo
u enter my chamber,’ I hissed.
‘What do you think the innkeeper will say?’

‘The innkeeper thinks you are my wife a
nd that we have had a dispute because you asked to ride as a man on a man’s horse and that I was disgusted with your lack of wifely obedience.
If he is listen
ing, I dare say he is smiling.
So you can rant and rave as much as you like but you will merely fuel his enjoyment.’

‘Your wife!
God a
bove!
’

‘The idea is as unpalatable to me, Lady Ysabel.’ He threw a bundle on the bed.
‘Now that we have the pleasantries out of the w
ay, we can deal with business. There are some clothes.
The innkeeper has a meal fo
r us.
When you have completed your toilette, I shall await you down
the stair
.’

‘I am not hungry.’

‘God
save
me, Ysabel!
We haven’t
eaten a decent meal for days. I
t would serve you well to eat and then to sleep because our vessel departs at tide’s turn in the morning.’

‘All I require from you,’ I said as I tilted my chin up, ‘is the name of t
he ship on which I shall sail.
Your responsibility to me ends with that.’

‘My responsibility en
ds when I hand you over to your father, his behaviour notwithstanding. Unfortunately for both of us
that
is still some time hence.
Like it or not, it is the way of it.’

Whether I wanted to or not, I looked at the man who stood
before me and my stomach curled and rolled. H
is proximi
ty unsettled me, turning me awry.
He reached for the bundle on the bed and shook it out, holding a white li
nen chemise for my inspection.
It was beautifully worked on the hems and must h
ave cost much more than he had in his purse.
I looked to the
rest of the bundle and gasped.
A mi
dnight blue, finely woven
bliaut
draped like a shadow across the edge of the bed, i
ts folds pooling on the floor.
A cloak of the same shade but edged in black sable lay underneath and a boot fell to the floor, black kid,
more than
good enough for traveling.

He pulled the other b
oot from underneath the bundle and
I blushed as I reached
for the chemise he offered.
Our fingers touched, the slightest gli
de of one hand over the other.
I would swear he left a searing burn behind and I looked up
from the closely woven linen.
Our eyes met and his were a
s dark as the
bliaut,
darkening more by the second until h
e moved
and
the spell
broke
.

‘I
will leave you to dress, my lady.’

He bowed his head as if we had just met and left, the door closing behind him.

My equilibrium rippled and
crashed around me.

I had deceived myself.

I wanted to hate Guy of Gisborne but it was far too
late for that.

All I could do now was hide my longing
and I hated my naivety, my ignorance. Cazenay had not helped me grow at all. It had simply been a rarefied atmosphere whereby men and woman were thrown together to play games of love, games based on the rules of Eleanor’s courts – shallow rules, rules that grew like weeds from the words of troubadours’ songs and poems. There seemed nothing of reality in my previous life and I felt at sea, utterly.

I grabbed the damp cloth and scrubbed my
body again until it reddened, as I wished to be clean when that fine clothing slid over my skin.
I placed one nail underneath the others, scraping un
til they were almost spotless.

I would have loved some perfume
, some floral extract …
anything to take away th
e smell of horse and road and the never forgotten odour of
death which had stalked
alongside us these last weeks. But there was nothing …
until I slipped on the first of the
clothes and smelled lavender.
Each garment had obviously been stored in a chest with bags of herbs and the fragrance was d
elicate, engendering a lifting of spirits.

The soft wool of the
bliaut
fell from my breasts and as I reached for the ankle boots, I noticed an emerald and aq
ua girdle lying in a shy heap.
Picking it up, I ran my fingers over goldwork that edg
ed the peacock feather design.
It was a glorious piece of Saracen needlework
and a
gainst the midnight of the gown, it made a statement of w
ealth and privileged nobility.

How did you manage it, Gisborne
? More importantly, why?

With the bowl and cloth, t
he innkeeper’s wife had left a
wooden comb and I began to work through my hair,
removing tangle after tangle.
Oh,
it was so dirty, itchy and
oily aft
er days on the road, the kind of hair a lady would never have been seen with in Cazenay.
A final comb through and I plaited it, twistin
g the plait loosely atop
, resurrecting whatever I could of a style that I remembered but
had no looking glass to check.

I would have liked my
Cazenay
goods, my small but loved
collection of jewelry, even my own bone comb – but they were gone.
Carried away by our attackers, by
Wilf’s and Harry’s murderers.
My stomach growled as I recalled that dreadful moment
although less with grief than with emptiness. Time to eat, time to descend the stair.

Time to confront whatever was coming my way.

The gown wafted around my a
nkles, its folds heavy, flowing with each step.
As I negotiat
ed the stair, I grasped the
bliaut
so that I would not fall, progressing slowly, recalling
from an ancient past
the grace tha
t I had learned at Cazenay. Gisborne
stood at
the bottom with his back to me
but the stair creaked and he turned.

I
swear I
did not imagine the glance that came sco
rching up the steps. He
held out his h
and and I laid my fingers in the palm.
It should probably have felt cool against my own becaus
e the stair was breezy and dark but in fact
a shocking
touch vibrated up my arm.
My breath s
ucked in and I held it
as he be
nt his head, drawing my hand upward.
The pressure of his lips
on my fingers
was like a butterfly wingbeat and when he spoke, his voice reached in and touched every secret part of me.

If I was a castle wall, I had been well and truly breached.