Lords of the White Castle (40 page)

'Their horses will be tired too,' the knight replied and Fulke saw the glint of battle in his eyes, the hope of glory at being the one to bring the FitzWarin brothers to account. 'We're so close I can smell the victory. My thanks, brother, for your help.' He clapped spurs to his mount's flanks and rode on with his troop, the autumn sun dazzling on mail and weapons.

Fulke inhaled and his nostrils were filled with the rank smell of the habit's customary occupant. The porter, he deduced, had a penchant for garlic. Having bought them a small amount of time, he turned to go back inside the abbey, but as he laid his hand to the door, more riders arrived, obviously stragglers from the party that had just galloped off. Their leader was Girard de Malfee, whom Fulke knew well from his squirehood. The cowl preserved Fulke's anonymity, but he was still vulnerable to being discovered as de Malfee quickly proved. Levelling his spear, the knight poked it through Fulke's habit, where it grated on the telltale resistance of mail shirt and gambeson. 'Well, well,' grinned Girard. 'Here's a well-stuffed monk. I wonder what will happen if I prick him to make him leak.' He leaned on the spear haft.

'You'll regret it more than I.' Raising his voice in a cry for aid, Fulke lashed the quarterstaff round in an arc to deflect the spear, and gave de Malfee a tremendous buffet beneath his helm.

As de Malfee reeled, the Abbey gates swung open. Fulke's own men poured out, brandishing weapons, and, after a brief, bloody skirmish, took the stragglers prisoner.

'No killing,' Fulke warned as he put down the hood of his tunic. 'Not on holy ground.'

'We could always take them back outside to finish them,' William declared as he tied a victim's hands with vicious thoroughness.

Fulke shook his head. 'That would be obeying only the law, not its spirit. Girard, if you've any sense left in your skull, greet King John for me and thank him for the morning's entertainment.'

De Malfee glared at him, one eye framed by rapidly swelling flesh. 'It is not a game, FitzWarin,' he snarled.

'It is, and I'm winning,' Fulke retorted. 'If John doesn't want to play any more all he has to do is yield. You can tell him that I was always better at chess.'

'Tell him yourself!' Girard snarled.

Fulke gently rubbed the bump on his nose. 'I will, when he's prepared to listen. For the nonce I think it safer to communicate like this.'

Trussed up like bedraggled fowl, de Malfee and his companions were dumped in the porter's lodge where the porter too had been tied to prevent him from raising the alarm. Fulke instructed his men to take the best of their victims' mounts and weapons.

'Are you fit to ride?' Fulke asked Ivo as they prepared to leave. Philip had stuffed a makeshift linen bandage between Ivo's helm and cheek, concealing the wound on the left side from view.

'Since the alternative is staying here to be tended by the monks, I'll manage to be fit,' Ivo answered with a mirthless grin. 'I doubt that the Abbot is going to be much impressed by the gift you're leaving in his lodge.' He jerked his chin in the direction of the monks, who were pouring out of the chapel.

'That cannot be helped' Fulke said, 'but perhaps we can offer him some compensation. I'll make sure he receives a fine bolt of silk damask for his altar.' He smiled with savage humour. 'After all, it is cloth fit for a king.'

CHAPTER 21

Limerick, Ireland, Spring 1201

The rain whispered down, soft as the touch of cobwebs, shrouding the green of the land in swathes of clinging grey. Maude had grown accustomed to the damp climate, to the clouds that constantly swept in, heavy and moist, off the Irish Sea. She had become used to hearing the soft, guttural tongue of the native Gaels in place of French and the stretched vowels of the English; to feeling as if she was living on the edge of the world, where the seasons moved, but time stood still. And always it rained.

Rising from her bed, Maude glanced to the window embrasure where the soft patter of rain was like a song on the shutters. She found herself longing for just a moment's kindness of sunshine; a warm sparkle to light a pattern on the floor rushes and banish the smell of must from the wooden walls of the keep. In the cold, wet winter, she had kept to the hearth, sewing by the light of candles and rush dips, weaving braid, listening to the harps of bards and the long tales they sung of the history of their land. She had practised with her bow, rain notwithstanding, until she could almost hit the centre of a target with her eyes closed.

The occasional times when there was a gap in the weather, she and Theobald had gone riding together in the wild and beautiful country, green as Eden. With pride and humility, he had shown her his religious foundations: the monasteries at Wotheney, Arklow and Nenagh. And he had voiced his intention of taking the cowl before he died. Not, he said, that he intended to die yet. But when the time came, as it must come to all men…

Last night in the hall, the bard had sung a new ballad that had crossed the sea from England and travelled with peddlers and entertainers to Limerick on the Shannon. A song of the outlaw Fulke FitzWarin, who had robbed King John of a treasure in rich cloth and jewels, and then outwitted his pursuers by disguising himself as a monk and tying them up in the porter's lodge of a nearby abbey.

Theobald had dismissed the latter part of the story as disreputable embroidery, but Maude wondered. Fulke was living on a knife-edge and mayhap that made a difference to what he would and would not do.

Barbette appeared to help her dress in an undertunic of bleached linen topped by a gown of warm green wool and a mantle of the checked fabric such as the Gaels wore. The pattern was attractive, the emerald and blue enhancing the clear green of Maude's eyes.

'There are visitors below, my lady,' Barbette murmured as she positioned a circular silver brooch high on the mantle. 'An Irish lady, but she speaks passable French, and she seems to know your lord husband.'

'Her name?'

Barbette shrugged. 'I do not know, my lady. It sounded like the kind of noise men make when they're practising with swords.'

Maude's lips twitched. 'That is not very kind.'

'I cannot help it, my lady. Perhaps I am not very kind because she is very beautiful and, when I left, all the men were hanging on her every word. Do they not say that St Patrick banished all the snakes from Ireland? Well, I do wonder if he left one behind.'

Maude was intrigued and the
ennui
of another soft grey day receded as it was overtaken by curiosity and anticipation. Any woman who could make Theobald sit up and take notice was bound to be interesting, especially if she had a name that sounded like the noise men made in battle practice… which was also the sort of noise they made in bed.

Maude arrived in the hall to find Theobald still seated at the high table, lingering over the breaking of fast as he very seldom did these days. He was wearing his customary long robe, bereft of embellishment, charcoal-dark in colour so that it appeared little different from a monastic habit, save that there was a gilded leather belt at his waist and a fine hunting dagger slung from it.

He was listening intently to a woman seated at his left-hand side. She was elegantly clad in the Norman fashion, her gown of rose-coloured wool laced to show the curve of breast and hip, and her veil worn in a style that exposed her white throat and her glossy black braids. The woman's hand rested on Theobald's sleeve and her manner, even from a distance, seemed distinctly flirtatious.

As Maude came closer, she realised that their guest was older than she first appeared. Fine lines radiated from her eye corners and two small creases tracked between her nose and mouth.

'My lord.' Maude curtseyed formally to her husband, a question in her eyes.

Clearing his throat, Theobald rose to his feet, kissed her hand and sat her on his other side. 'My lady. This is Oonagh O'Donnel who is here to bring her son as an oblate to Wotheney'

Maude murmured a courteous greeting. So that was why Theobald had been hanging on her every word. Her son was to take the cowl.

'I knew your husband many years ago when he came with Prince John to try and tame the Irish,' said the woman in a husky purr. 'Indeed, it was even possible that we might have wed.'

Maude made a sound of polite interest and accepted the bread, cheese and wine that the squire on duty served at her place. Oonagh. It did sound like a name that men shouted in battle or in bed. Theobald, she could see, was at a loss. 'Then why did you not?'

Oonagh laughed. 'He wasn't the sort to be wrapped around my little finger,' she said. 'Even though I tried. Do you remember?' Playfully she tapped Theobald's arm.

Mute, a little dusky of colour, Theobald shook his head.

'Ah, but you were a good dancer in those days.'

'He still is,' Maude said with a glance at her husband, who was clearly wishing himself elsewhere.

'Indeed, so am I.' Oonagh took a swallow from her cup. 'But I don't dance as often as I used to, and with far fewer partners.' She shrugged. 'I suppose it comes to us all.'

Maude decided it was time to change the subject. 'Your son is to enter the noviciate?' she enquired.

The woman smiled, although the gesture did not reach her eyes, which narrowed slightly. 'Ruadri, my middle child.' She gestured to two handsome boys sitting at the trestle just below the high table. They were large, fair-haired adolescents. 'Adam has come to bear me company. Collum, the youngest, is at home.' She looked at Theobald and smiled. 'Sadly my second husband died almost seven years ago, but he had been in poor health for some time before that.'

Maude wondered why the woman was smiling as she spoke, then decided she did not want to know.

'Yes, we heard,' Theobald said without inflection and began to toy with a scrap of bread on the board.

Oonagh finished the wine in her cup and dabbed her lips with the napkin, leaving a faint pink stain. 'Tell me, my lord Walter, what happened to that strapping young squire of yours? What kind of man has he made?'

'A fine one,' Theobald said tersely.

'I'm sure he has. Even without his antlers, he was a handsome young stag. I was very tempted to go after him and bring him down—and I could have done, you know.' She leaned back in the chair and ran a finger sensuously up and down the stem of the goblet. 'Sometimes I still call myself a fool for letting him go.'

'I scarcely think that this is talk worthy of the mother of a postulant,' Theobald snapped, openly agitated now. He rubbed his forehead and frowned.

'Ruadri's the one entering your monastery, not me,' Oonagh replied without heat. 'Save your sermons for him and let me live my life as I choose.'

A muscle ticked in Theobald's cheek, but he held grimly on to his composure.

Oonagh eyed him sidelong and a hint of a smile curled her mouth corners. 'Very well, I admit I spoke out of turn. I hope that Fulke fares well, and that he remembers me with as much affection as I remember him.' She set the cup down and rose to her feet in a swish of expensively heavy cloth and musky perfume. 'Now, my lord Walter, are you going to sit there all day, or are you going to show me this monastery of yours?'