Gisborne: Book of Pawns (25 page)

‘They look for you,’ he snarled, ‘as they have ever done because they know you are in England, that you set sail from Calais, that you were dropped somewhere on the coast…’

‘With you!’ I interjected. ‘Their own efficient information source.’

‘In the name of God!’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘In the name of your mother…’

‘Holy Mary! How
dare
you invoke my mother’s name…’

‘I
dare
woman, because if I don’t you will not listen and her last words to me will mean nothing.’

Silence, but for the hoarse breathing in the damp space. The light mellowed as the sun moved round the edge of the castle walls, sifting itself though the bars of the grille.

‘What - words?’ I glared at him, my face tight with hate and disbelief.

‘
“Protect my Ysabel, Guy. Find her, keep her safe fro
m her father’s misguided behaviour
.”
’

‘Oh.’

My anger deflated in a whisper, my mother’s words striking my heart and piercing it so that I shook my head and walked to the grille, rubbing my hands over the damp stone of this castle that should have been an inheritance. But my mood was sombre for less than a moment.

‘And why, Gisborne, would you pay heed to my mother’s words? You barely knew her. You were a mere steward.’ I emphasized the word ‘steward’ as if it was as dirty as peasant’s feet, the lowest of the low.

‘We had respect for each other. She trusted me.’

‘How fortuitous.’

I wanted to strike him where it hurt, my tone almost a sneer.

‘By God, you bitch. Rot here then with your bleeding head and shoulder. Try and avoid De Courcey. But as his net closes about, remember I could have helped.’

He took a step back.

But I needed to have the last word.

‘Gisborne! How did you get here before me?’

The question hung in the air like the sword of Damocles.

He shook his head, a marginal shake, barely there. ‘I know every inch of the demesnes. Every track, every swift and secret way. I broke the horse galloping here and the beleaguered animal is even now hidden in a coppice. His saddlery is thrown in a bog and he sweats as if he is ill. If he is found, there are no saddlemarks amongst the froth of his exertions. I made sure.’

He had an answer for everything. As cold as a winter wind, not a sign that he tried hard to convince me although others would say he merely told truths.

‘What about the castle? How did you know about the grille?’

‘I told you, I know every inch of this place, the domain
and
the castle.’

‘And sold the plan to De Courcey for a recommendation to moneyed knighthood, no doubt.’

Our whole conversation had been uttered in wrenched tones and he replied in a strangled whisper.

‘Cecilia showed me because your mother was too ill. Over time I was able to ascertain that the bailiff was unaware. If your father betrayed any of the secrets of the castle to any other of his staff then you can be sure De Courcey will know by now. Methinks however, that if they knew about this, they would be here with a guard and they are not. Cecilia trusted me to use the secrets for safety should I ever need to.’

Cecilia!

He disappeared out the door leaving me a beaten woman and I stood there for less than a heartbeat. I ran after him as he disappeared up a narrow snaking stair.

‘Where is she?’

Guy stopped, a darker shadow against the unlit walls. I could decipher nothing in his expression as he turned back. He was alarmingly neutral.

Got her,
he must
be thinking.

And poor unfortunate me, I had no choice but to let him.

‘She’s been placed…’

‘Placed?’ I interrupted, visions of cells and dungeons looming large.

‘In your mother’s chamber, the Lady Chamber. We can go via the passage.’

But of course I knew that and pushed past him to hurry away. I heard the scrape of flint and there was a flare of light and a flame followed me. Straight ahead I forged. Then up, up again, curling around the tower. My legs ached as I hauled them step after step, climbing all the time until I reached the heights of Moncrieff. The secret passage was narrow – fine for someone of my breadth but Guy’s shoulders scuffed against the stone behind me.

‘Ysabel, slow down. She may have a guard with her.’

I stopped and turned toward him, the flames casting jumping shadows across us both.‘
‘Why would she be guarded? What has happened here? Does De Courcey hold the castle outright now, with none of Moncrieff’s men about?’

My breath came in ragged spurts.

‘It would appear so.’ Guy leaned against the wall, the torch flaring in the secret air.

‘And my father?’

‘I haven’t been here long enough to locate him. We must rely on Cecilia.’ Guy pushed past me, the flame brightening and then fading as he turned a corner. ‘Only a little further, come on.’

A couple more bends and we stopped just as the flame gutted, leaving us in a dank and close darkness. My breath sucked in. Within seconds, the claustrophobic walls pressed on me from all sides, my heartbeat stalled and the heat of panic steamed through my body.

I will not give in…

I quieted, breathing more slowly and the darkness eased so it was possible to discern light around a narrow aperture. Guy shuffled toward the infinitesimal gap, pressing his ear against it.

‘We’ll have to wait. She’s not alone,’ he whispered and his fingers squeezed. ‘Did you hear that?’

I thought I did – a rumble of voices, a door opening and then closing.

‘They’ve gone.’

Guy shouldered his way through the aperture that had been concealed by a yielding cover; a heavy rug that hung on the wall. My mother’s chamber was uniquely situated on the first floor in a round tower and was well lit by four commanding windows. At enormous cost, my father had shipped panels of glass from Normandy. Despite being distorted and thick, with bubbles of air trapped within the viscous layers, sun streamed in and it was possible to find thin, clear spots through which to gaze on a world below. Through these strange little viewpoints, one could observe the verdant beauty of Moncrieff – woods crisscrossed with ribands of narrow waterways for miles hence.

The remaining chamber walls were softened by a number of unusual carpets – massive, knotted rugs my mother purchased from itinerants when they passed through Aquitaine from across the Middle Sea. One of the rugs concealed an entrance to a secret passage – the slimmest opening. Wide enough for a man unafraid to compress his body to the thickness of a wafer and where lesser men might balk at the thought of being permanently stuck to wither and moulder through the centuries.

From inside the chamber all seven carpets hung innocently, betraying no secrets. No weaving looked any different to another except in the patterning and unless one had prior knowledge of the labyrinthine secret of Moncrieff, such deception would always remain undiscovered.

Cecilia was standing at the fire and when she heard movement behind her, she swung around, a small knife whipped from her sleeve. Her grey eyes widened and she almost shouted as her eyes settled on us.

But momentarily I did not see her. Instead I saw my mother seated at her tapestry frame, a needle trailing a flare of wool. She laughed at something a rambunctious eleven year old girl said as the child twirled around in a lined and embroidered cloak of her mother’s, tripping on the folds.

‘Ysabel,’ my mother had a honeyed voice of great subtlety. ‘You shall never be a lady if I don’t send you to Cazenay.’

‘When?’ cried the girl who was almost a woman, kicking the folds of the cloak out of the way.

‘Oh immediately,’ said Lady Alaïs. ‘When you reach twelve years of age.

‘But that’s tomorrow.’ The girl stood still, eyes widening. ‘Can we leave for Cazenay tomorrow?’

‘Not tomorrow, my daughter. We shall have a celebration here first. But we leave at the end of the week. In four more days.’

I saw the excitement in the younger Ysabel’s eyes, the anticipation. She could barely wait to leave Moncrieff.

How I wish she had not.

Cecilia leaped forward, an expression halfway between joy and terror whilst I stood stockstill, frozen with memories. Her arms clasped me and she whispered but I could not hear. Only my mother’s voice, her Occitán accent, and all I could see was her lovely hair coiled and deliberately uncovered. My beautiful mother…

‘Ysabel,’ Cecilia spoke by my ear. ‘You risk your life.’

She pushed me back behind the rug, staying in the room herself as she cast a worried glance at the door of the chamber.

It was then that I focused on my mother’s companion, my godmother. She had grown gaunt and drawn, her hair covered by a wimple not unlike Thea’s, her
bliaut
dark-grey and unembellished. But the fine white linen of her chemise and the heavily wrought silver of her girdle betrayed her nobility. That and the rings upon her fingers – a twisted marriage band of gold and silver and a plain silver band studded with a ruby the size of a quail’s egg. It was so heavy that it fell to her finger joint, rattling there and looking out of place, the more so because Cecilia had been a widow for at least the twenty years of
my
life. Her husband, Sir Hugh Fineux of Upton, had been killed in some battle or other and as a child I couldn’t care despite that fact that I looked at my godmother now and wished I had.

Cobwebbed wrinkles fanned from the corners of her eyes and worry had ploughed two deep trenches between her fine eyebrows. In fact my mother’s friend had aged beyond belief and yet she held the knife in her hand with strength and familiarity. It was that above all else that brought the harsh message thudding home; Moncrieff
was
in a state of siege.

‘Cecilia,’ I could barely speak as the memories crushed my throat. I wanted to collapse into her arms in the belief that all would be well. ‘Where is she?’

‘She is in the chapel. Your father commissioned a sculpted tomb but…’ She grabbed my arm. ‘You must
not
go near because De Courcey has men everywhere.’

I hated that he was here as if he had the right. That he was in control.

Gisborne’s voice echoed my concern.

‘How many men?’

Cecilia clasped him like a mother with a son.

‘Lord but I am glad you are both safe,’ she said. ‘Well done, Guy. I knew I could trust you to bring her back. But things have happened between times and she is not safe now and we must conceive a plan.’

‘Lady Cecilia, I thank you for
your
belief in me…’

Your
belief in me? Is this some kind of lesson, Gisborne?

He continued, ‘… but what has happened and how many men?’

‘De Courcey has taken over the castle, his now by law. A full garrison of a hundred men guarding the castle and Moncrieff village.’

A hundred men! It’s a king’s army! What has happened to Moncrieff’s tiny force?

‘By what right does he take what is not his? Where does he get the men?’ I was shocked.

But they ignored me. Gisborne swore, the language of the soldier’s camp betraying his surprise and fury that we should be so curtailed.

‘And the Baron?’

Cecilia sighed, her tongue clicking in a brusque ‘tsk’.

‘I know not,’ she said. ‘My own lack of freedom prevents me from knowing much at all.’

I broke in for it was as though they had forgotten I stood inches away inside the wall.

‘You didn’t answer me, Cecilia. By what right is he here? Where does De Courcey get these men that presumably guard my father as if he were a threat to king and country.’

The look she gave me was filled with sadness.

‘Moncrieff is his, my love. It was ceded to pay debts and that is the law. The men are De Courcey’s own; an army of Free Lancers who march across borders for money. Currently they are in England at the king’s behest…’

I turned away. All I
could see was Halsham’s face above the livery of his Free Lancers surcoat.

Chapter Ten

‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘You must hide because they will be in and out with food and I am taunted by De Courcey and his officers as if they think to use me as bait.’

She reached again for my hand and gave it a little shake.

‘They know you stepped off near Great Yarmouth so they are on your tail. You know where you would hide up the stair in the hole as a child? You must go there and stay now, both of you, until I am able to talk with you. It will be late at night when they tend to leave me alone.’

I opened my mouth to question her but she interrupted.

‘In the hole there is a cover and cushion, for I hoped you would come.’