Lords of the White Castle (26 page)

'Then what can we do?'

Morys glared at the young man. 'What can we do?' he parodied in cruel imitation of Weren's light voice. 'You're like a mewling infant still in tail clouts. Have you no mind of your own?'

Weren turned crimson. 'Yes, Papa, but I defer to you.'

Morys gave an impatient growl and bit at a ragged strip of skin beside his thumbnail. 'Then set aside your deference for a moment. Tell me what you would do.' His voice was filled with challenge and scorn.

Weren frowned, clearly struggling. 'Fight?' he said.

'With the judgement in FitzWarin's favour?' Morys spat. 'Do you have pottage for brains? Why do you think the FitzWarins have never sought to take Whittington by force of arms in all the time that they have disputed it?'

'Because they are not strong enough?'

Morys bared his teeth. 'Because, boy, any use of arms would have made them outlaws and destroyed their claim. If we take up weapons against them, then we become the outlaws and it won't just be the FitzWarins evicting us, but the entire feudal host of Shropshire. And we are certainly not strong enough to withstand that.'

i would submit a counter-claim,' Morys's second son Gwyn spoke out. 'Even if the FitzWarins are as thick as thieves with Hubert Walter, he is a man of high importance and to him the ownership of Whittington is but a small matter and easily forgotten. Fulke le Brun may be his friend, but we can make friends too—with the clerks who administer his commands.' To emphasise his point, he patted the money pouch at his belt.

Morys eyed Gwyn with shrewd approval. The only thing the lad had ever done wrong was to be born second. The older man sometimes thought that Weren's brains had been left behind in the womb and Gwyn had collected them on the way out. 'Indeed we can,' he said. 'Hubert Walter is not always going to be the King's Justiciar. He is already Archbishop of Canterbury and a papal legate. A man can only stretch himself so far before he fails.'

Gwyn stroked his sparse sandy beard, if the FitzWarins are in high favour with Hubert Walter, perhaps there are other great men upon whose toes they have stepped. Was there not a rumour concerning le Brun's heir and a quarrel with Prince John?'

Morys chewed his lip and considered. 'Yes,' he said after a moment, 'I believe there was. I cannot remember the details, except that much of it was rumour, but it bears investigating. Prince John has lands in the Marches and if he does harbour a grudge against the FitzWarin family, then perhaps we can put it to good use.'

Gwyn nodded and looked at his father through thoughtfully narrowed lids. 'It would be fortunate for us if Fulke le Brun were to meet with an accident of some sort?' He phrased the statement as a question.

Not just brains, thought Morys, but underhand cunning. He did not know whether to be proud or disgusted. Sometimes cunning was a milder way of saying dishonour. 'From a point of personal satisfaction, yes,' he agreed. Returning to the board, he poured himself a cup of wine from the flagon. 'Other than that, it would be of no benefit to us. Le Brun has six sons, all of them dyed in the same wool as their sire.' He grimaced, remembering the incident in Oswestry. 'We would be rid of one devil only to land ourselves with another, and then another.'

'But we have to stop them, for if they gain possession, we have nothing.'

Morys nodded. 'Believe me, lad,' he said fiercely, 'there is naught I would like better than to take my sword and hew the entire brood of them limb from limb and stuff the pieces into the maw of hell, but we would destroy ourselves into the bargain. No, we play a waiting game.' He gave a wintry smile. 'After all, possession is nine-tenths of the law.'

CHAPTER 14

Winchester, Summer 1198

Maude approached the bedside and knelt to kiss her brother-in-law's episcopal ring. 'Daughter,' he croaked and gave her a tired smile. His lips were cracked and his breath was sour. Sweat shone in the slack folds of his jowls and soaked the hair surrounding his tonsure so that it stood up in spiky brown clumps.

Maude wondered if he was dying. Certainly it was in Theobald's mind. They had received an urgent message from a clerk of the judiciary household to say that Hubert had been taken ill with an ague.

'Hubert.' Theobald too kissed the ring of office, and then embraced his brother.

A glimmer of amusement appeared in the sunken eyes. 'Don't fret, Theo, you're the eldest and I have no intention of dying before you. I've too much to do here on earth to give my spirit to heaven just yet.' Hubert struggled to prop himself up against the bolsters and was taken with a bout of harsh coughing that left him gasping for breath.

Theobald helped him to sit and Maude brought him watered wine. Hubert drank greedily, then laid his head back with a gasp. 'It was good of you to come though.'

'You fool,' Theobald said fiercely. 'You'll work yourself into the grave.'

'And that's a skillet calling a cauldron black,' Hubert retorted. 'You scarcely sit at home with your feet on the hearth yourself.'

'But I'm not the Archbishop of Canterbury, the papal legate, the Justiciar
and
the Chancellor either,' Theobald snapped. 'Collecting coin for tourneys, being a travelling judiciary and administering a few chosen estates hardly compares. And don't tell me that I'm nagging like an old woman. Whatever you say, you would not have sent for me unless you believed you were very sick indeed.'

Hubert fiddled with the open strings on the neck of his nightshirt. 'I admit I have been very ill, Theo, but I do truly believe that with God's aid I will recover.'

'And then what? Make yourself ill again?'

Hubert cast a commiserating gaze to Maude. 'Is he harsh like this with you?'

Maude looked from one to the other. Theobald's expression was exasperated. She knew how worried he was about Hubert. She also knew that railing at the sick man would achieve nothing beyond more exasperation. The mood had to be kept light. 'Only for my own good, so he claims,' she replied with demurely lowered lashes.

Theobald gave a splutter of indignation and Hubert chuckled, started coughing, and once more had to resort to the wine. When he had recovered, he reached out a febrile hand to pat his brother's shoulder.

'I'll put you out of your misery, Theo. You'll be pleased to know that even now one of my scribes is copying out a letter of resignation to King Richard. I am yielding the post of Justiciar. As you rightly say, I cannot be all things to all men, and, in truth, God should come first.'

'I am glad to hear it. 'Theobald folded his arms and tried to look stern.

'The notion has been in my mind for some time. Indeed, I have been grooming Geoffrey FitzPeter to take on the responsibility.'

Theobald grunted. 'I'll be even more pleased when you are well enough to leave your bed. Until you are, I am going to be your watchdog and ensure that you lift not so much as a little finger.'

'Then I will die of boredom instead of overwork!' Hubert protested, looking dismayed.

'You think my company boring?'

'Of course not, don't put words in my mouth, Theo.'

Maude left the brothers to their argument, which she knew they were both secretly enjoying. Theobald would know to stop before Hubert grew too tired.

Servants had brought their travelling baggage within the palace, the brass-bound clothing coffer, the pieces of their bed which would be assembled in a guest chamber, her embroidery frame and braid loom. She did not know how long they would be staying. There was no denying that Hubert was very sick, but he was bright enough to argue, and indeed did seem to be on the mend.

Theobald's interests had fared well while Hubert was Justiciar, but it had meant more responsibility and more time spent travelling the country. The increased pace had taken its toll on her husband too.

Of late Theobald had spoken of his wish for a quieter life. The revenues that had come to him as a result of Hubert's powerful position had been put towards founding various religious establishments. There was an Augustinian abbey at Cockersand in Amounderness, and several monasteries in Ireland. He spoke often of returning there, as if the place was drawing him. Sudden, dangerous illness had caused Hubert to evaluate his life, but Maude felt that Theobald had been unobtrusively putting his own house in order for the past year and more.

She gazed at the pieces of their bed. They still shared its broad, feather mattress when he was home or when she travelled with him, but mostly for the purpose of sleep. Occasionally he would wrap her in his embrace and, murmuring love words, enter her body with his, but it was an infrequent demand and not one that she sought to encourage. The pain of that first time had diminished, but the act was still uncomfortable. Mostly, Theobald treated her as a sexless companion. He would talk to her, using her to explore his ideas, to grumble or expound theories in the closeness of their bed where there were only her ears to hear. And for that she loved him and granted him the use of her body ungrudgingly on the rare occasions that he hungered.

Younger men tried to tempt her, believing that she could not possibly be satisfied with Theobald, but Maude rejected their advances with icy disdain. All they wanted was to get their hands beneath her gown and she had no time for their tawdry lusts. When she attended tourneys with Theobald, they would clamour to wear her favour, and sometimes she had to give it for goodwill, since Theobald was responsible for collecting the fees of those hoping to make their mark on the field. She now had a store of purpose-bought ribbons to distribute. Not since that first tourney, when she had given Fulke FitzWarin her plait binding, had she bestowed a personal piece of apparel on any knight.

Sometimes Fulke would attend the tourneys, but he kept his distance and she kept hers. A polite nod in passing was as much as each gave in acknowledgement of the other. If by chance they sat close at the tourney feast, their conversation was courteous but stilted and without eye contact.

The reputation of Fulke and his troop drew large audiences and the revenues from the tourneys they attended were satisfyingly high, delighting Theobald. Such was the level of expertise, there were even murmurs that Fulke's talent rivalled that of the great William Marshal in his youth. His skill in the saddle brought other rewards too, Maude had noticed with a jaundiced eye. Not just from women like Hanild, but others of more refined birth whose blood was stirred by his performance in the field. They wanted him to perform heroically in their beds too. Her cheeks flushed at the notion and she turned abruptly from studying her own bed.

'Lady Walter?' A wiry, handsome young man with an olive complexion and dancing dark eyes was addressing her from the doorway. He bowed. 'I do not know if you remember me. We were introduced at your wedding. My name is Jean de Rampaigne and I'm one of His Grace's retainers.'

'Yes, of course I remember,' Maude said. It was a half-truth but in her position she had quickly learned the courtesies that greased the wheels. She had been introduced to many people and although he looked familiar, she could place it in no particular context.

'I am glad that Lord Theobald has arrived,' the young knight said. 'He is family and His Grace will recover the swifter for seeing him. I think that Lord Theobald is one of the few people to whom my master will listen. If his older brother tells him to stay abed and rest, he might do so.' He looked wry. 'When he summoned you, he did truly believe that he was at death's door, and so did we. He takes too much upon himself.'