'Do you want some more wine?'
He looked down. Clarice was offering him a fresh cup while reaching to take the empty one from him.
Fulke laughed. 'Child, you will make me as drunk as a May reveller,' he said, but took her offering rather than slight her.
She fixed him with that solemn gaze. It was almost like being scrutinised by a nun or a stern maternal aunt and he had to struggle not to laugh at the incongruity. Christ alone knew what she would be like when she was an adult. 'I did but jest,' he added kindly. 'You are being helpful' 'I like to help.' She accepted the compliment as her due and, taking his empty cup, wove her way through the throng back to the sideboard. Thoroughly diverted, Fulke gazed after her until Hawise, who had not been put to bed with the others, yanked at the hem of his tunic. 'Pick me up,' she demanded. 'I can't see.' Fulke scooped her into his arms and perched her on his shoulders. 'High enough?'
She giggled and pulled his hair and the ghost of loneliness evaporated.
'How long?' Maude's voice was a whisper. She and Fulke had retired to the curtained alcove of their bedchamber. Beyond the heavy woollen hanging, the floor was occupied by the pallets of sleeping men, servants and children. There was scarce an inch of free space in the entire manor and she knew that everyone had needle-sharp hearing. 'How long do we have?'
Fulke was sitting on the bed. He had earlier removed the ragged clothes of the charcoal burner and with a grimace she had set the garments aside to be cut up and put in the latrine for arse wipes. They were useful for nothing else. He had washed the charcoal dust from his body in the stone horse trough by the stables. Maude would have liked to prepare a hot bathtub, but there had been neither time nor space. Besides, it would have been unfair to the others and so the horse trough had sufficed. 'How long?' he repeated as he removed his clean tunic and shirt. Despite his ablutions, the smell of smoke and a tang of sweat still clung.
She could tell that he was hedging for time and that therefore the reply was not good. Not that she expected it to be. He had trespassed at the King's hunting lodge; he had broken William free and in doing so run yet another ring around John. 'Tonight? Tomorrow night? Next week?'
He rubbed his palms over his face. She looked at his hands and remembered the jolt they had sent through her at the time of her marriage to Theobald. She had fallen in love with Fulke on her wedding morn, had danced on the gossamer lines of a web and now she was stuck fast.
'Sooner rather than later,' he said, taking his hands away and regarding her, his eyes dark as black water in the light of the weak cresset-lamp flame. 'I dare not risk antagonising Archbishop Hubert. This is a sanctuary for you and the children, not for me.'
'Then it is no sanctuary at all.' She unlaced the leather thongs at the sides of her shoes and pushed them off her feet, resisting the urge to throw them. 'I cannot bear it.' Foolish words. She had to bear it because there was no other solution. She might be able to run through the woods after him, up hill and down dale, but the children could not, and they were what mattered.
She met his eyes and her breathing quickened. 'Would you give up Whittington for me and your offspring?' she asked. 'Would you surrender one thing in order to have the rest?'
'My principles and pride, six years of my struggle and fifty of my family's?' His voice was neutral, but she was not fooled.
'Is it worth it?'
'That depends on the value of honour. Dross, or gold.'
'So, your honour is priceless and because of it your life is dross.'
'Because of it, my life is honourable,' he said. 'Without it
I
would be dross.'
'Then there is no more to be said.' Maude bit her lip, tears of frustration filling her eyes. She knew that if she asked him outright to yield, if she pleaded and wept, he might do so for her sake, but it would be a hollow victory. As he had just said, he would feel diminished in his own eyes. Likely he would grow to resent her for making him yield when it was against his will. If she damned his honour, then she damned him. Yet the alternative of a life in exile, seldom together, always listening for pursuit, was just as unpalatable.
Tomorrow he would go. All they had of each other was tonight and she did not want to waste it in recriminations and quarrelling, each of them chasing their own tails to nowhere.
Tears sparkled on her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. Her throat ached with the effort of containing her grief. She fumbled with the side lacings of her gown, catching the waxed ends on the eyelets. Fulke laid his hand over hers.
'If I could do it, I would,' he said.
'I know,' she choked. 'Don't speak.'
The lace knotted and she could not see through her tears to unravel it. Fulke tried but his hands were trembling, and in the end he had to cut the cord with his knife. Maude struggled out of the gown, no mean feat given the yards of material in the skirt and the small space of the alcove. Flushed, panting, tearful, she knelt on the bed and faced him, drinking in his scent and filling her eyes with his harsh, masculine beauty. She was parched with wanting, yet knew that to drink from the cup was only to want more and to be denied. Setting her hands to the hem of her chemise, she pulled that off too, and in the beat of heart and breath while discipline still held, she unfastened her braids and shook them out, clothing herself in the ashen silk of her hair.
'Holy Christ,' Fulke said softly. He reached out to touch its sheen, then brushed it gently aside so that his hand was on her skin. Her throat, her shoulder, her breast. Maude gasped. She met his eyes, saw the heaviness of desire and the effort of control. But tonight it didn't matter. Not the first time.
She pushed his hand aside and threw her arms around his neck, carrying them body to body on the bed. 'Now,' she demanded fiercely, 'take me now.'
It was almost an echo of their wedding night: the enclosed space giving the illusion of privacy; the proximity of others that lent the intensity of silence to their lovemaking; and the knowledge of the danger in which they stood increasing an urgency already built by months apart. It was a white-hot conflagration, swift, profound and shattering.
Washed up on the shore, lapped by small after-ripples of sensation, they lay half drowned in each other's arms, gasping like swimmers newly surfaced from a wild tide. She pressed herself against the damp, salt taste of his body, unwitting to relinquish her hold, her craving only increased by the moment's satiation. She felt the rise and fall of his chest, the thunder of his heart like galloping horses; her own beat hard in rhythm. Tonight was all they had, and the memory might have to sustain her for a long time.
Their second lovemaking was slow and languorous, like the gentle curling of surf on the beach, and afterwards they slept shoaled together, surfacing again somewhere near dawn to join again in the poignancy of need and pleasure on the verge of parting.
They lay in the aftermath, reluctant to rise, drawing the closeness out to the very last grain. The sound of voices came to them through the curtains. A whispered argument was being conducted as to whether they should be roused or not.
Fulke made to part the curtains. Maude stopped his arm with an instinctive motion, and then withdrew its restraint. Time, unlike wine, could not be sealed up in a flagon and kept, much as she wished it could. Sighing, she sat up, reaching in the dark for her chemise.
Fulke opened the hangings a chink. 'What is it?' he said brusquely. 'If it's petty I will kill you. If not, then you are wasting time.'
Philip and William exchanged glances. The latter's face wore the colourful hues of the beating he had received at the hands of his captors and he stood slightly hunched, favouring his kicked ribs.
'The watch has sighted riders approaching,' he announced. 'Philip said it wasn't an army and not to disturb you, but I said you needed to know.'
'Banners?'
'Salisbury and Chester.'
'Admit them. I'll be down as soon as I'm dressed.'
William gave Philip a triumphant look, which Philip accepted with a smile. 'Perhaps you're learning at last,' he said, and received a two-fingered salute by way of reply.
Fulke closed the bed curtains and reached for his shirt.
'I heard,' Maude said over her shoulder. She was rummaging in a narrow clothing coffer that had been squeezed between the foot of the bed and the wall. There were folded garments within, layered with dried rose petals and sticks of cinnamon bark. She withdrew a gown of green linen with deep side gores. The dye was beginning to fade slightly in the creases, but it was suitably decent to greet a couple of earlscertainly better now than the one she had worn last night. God knew where she was going to house Salisbury and Chester. Mailing was already packed as tight as a barrel of salt herring. 'What do you think they want?'
Fulke shrugged. 'Could be rags, could be riches. Let's go and find out.'
Salisbury and Chester were in the great hall. Clarice had seen to their refreshment as attested by the fact that both men held brimming cups of wine and were looking with bemusement at the grave, sweet-faced child who was now enquiring as to the merits of their journey.
'Not one of yours, Fulke?' asked Salisbury as the men clasped hands and Maude gently directed Clarice to go and look after the other children, channelling the girl's nurturing instincts in a different direction.
'How did you guess? No, Maude's fostering her at the moment. She's related to the Archbishop.'
'She'll make someone a formidable wife.'
'Yes, it's frightening.' Fulke smiled for form's sake, but his eyes were wary. Although the social formalities were being observed, this was far from a social visit. Maude returned and, taking the place of the juvenile hostess, ushered the men to a quieter corner of the hall where a cushioned bench and two chairs were arranged around a brazier.
'I suppose you are here as a result of what happened yesterday?' Fulke asked.
Salisbury cleared his throat. 'It would be foolish to pretend otherwise.' He crossed his legs and stared at the embroidery down the mid-seam of his shoe. 'My brother has authorised myself and Ranulf to seek you out and offer you terms.'
Fulke's heart jumped. Behind him, he was aware of Maude's utter stillness. 'Terms.' He nodded and bit the inside of his mouth. 'What sort of terms?'
'Yield to John, acknowledge him your liege lord and he will restore your lands.'
'Including Whittington?' Fulke raised one eyebrow and was unable to prevent the note of disbelief in his voice.
'Including Whittington. I have his word on it.'
i am sorry, my lord, but the King's word is not enough.'
Salisbury flushed slightly. 'You cannot blame him for imprisoning your brother. Anyone in John's position would have done the same with such an opportunity'
'Mayhap they would, but that does not alter the fact that I would not trust John further than I could throw him.'
Sighing, Salisbury delved into the leather satchel at his shoulder and produced a sealed scroll. 'I have here a safe conduct from the King for you, your brothers and all your men so that you may come to Westminster with impunity and make your peace. It is witnessed by myself and Ranulf and the Bishop of Norwich.' He held the scroll out for Fulke to take. 'John's as weary of this conflict as you. He acknowledges that there has to be an end.'
Fulke took the scroll and, drawing his meat knife, broke the seal. 'A pity he did not acknowledge it six years ago,' he said grimly and unrolled the vellum to look at the neat brown script of one of John's army of professional scribes. The signature was John's though, and below it were the names of the all-important witnesses. 'Is this the only copy?'
'John de Grey has sent a copy to Norwich and one to the Chancellor,' Ranulf said. 'You might not trust the King, but you can trust his intent this time. He needs your loyalty'
Fulke smiled without humour. 'And that he could have had six years ago too.' He wafted the scroll at the two Earls. 'Then it was just me. Men were scrambling over each other to please the new King, offering him all kinds of bribes for favours. Selling their souls. Now there is more discontent. John is losing Normandy. He is, some say, losing his grip on England. I do not believe that, but I know there is a cauldron of discontent.' He leaned forwards to emphasise his point. 'All it takes is someone like me to give it a more vigorous stirmayhap inveigle my father-by-marriage and the northern barons into a revolt, draw in the Scots and the Welsh, and John would have a full domestic war on his hands. I may be a minor cog, but it is the minor ones that turn the larger ones, that turn the mill wheel and grind the corn… for better or worse.'
'You will not get a better offer,' Salisbury said somewhat stiffly.
'Oh, I know, my lord, I know. And I do not pretend to have the luxury of the upper hand, but still, there is a certain sweetness amongst the bitter in having two Earls bring me the King's terms in person.' Rising to his feet, he went to Maude and handed her the letter. 'Our son's inheritance, and our daughters' dowries,' he said to her.
'Then you accept?' Salisbury asked.
Fulke set his arm around Maude's shoulders. 'You may tell the King that I will come to London and surrender to him as he requires.' He looked at the two men. 'You can also tell him: stalemate. He will know what you mean.'
The summer sky was a deep manuscript-blue, reflecting in the River Thames as it wound past the palace and abbey in a glittering ribbon towards the city further downstream. Fulke gazed out on a traffic of galleys, cogs and rowing boats, swans, cormorants and restless geese. It was said that the geese laid their eggs at sea and so, being related to fish, could be eaten on Fridays with impunity.
Fulke inhaled deeply. Watching the geese, pondering on their mating habits was, he knew, procrastination. Before him, the palace of Westminster waited, and within it, like the beast in its lair, was John.
It had been sixteen years since Fulke's last visit to Westminster. Then he had been a youth of nineteen, the glamour of knighthood veiling his eyes. He had watched a king crowned, had received the blow of accolade in the chapel, had encountered a little girl in a dishevelled blue dress, her eyes brimming with indignation, never thinking that one day she would be the mother of his children. And before that he had played chess with a drunken, vindictive braggart who was now a king.