'I am feeling the passage of time.' He stooped to remove his shoes. 'Yet everything seems to stand still. My father had no daughters for whom to provide betrothal celebrations, but I can remember Christmas feasts when we danced like that with relations and neighbours. I was one of the youngsters then, exhorting everyone to join the jigs and carols, and my father was the amused adult. Now we have changed places. Am I his ghost? Or is he mine?'
'You're drunk,' Maude said, thinking that she was not so far off that condition herself. 'First comes pleasure, then sadness.'
'Well, that's true,' he said and cursed as his leg binding became knotted beneath the fumbling of his fingers. 'I'm glad to see Hawise happy, I'm glad her marriage is settled, and I'm sad that I'm beginning to lose her. Already she looks to William Pantulf as if she draws her sustenance from him…'
Maude came and knelt before him to help with his leg binding. 'That is as it should be,' she murmured.
'Yes, I know, and I'm glad of it, but it still cuts me like a knife.'
'You still have two more daughters.'
'Promise of more wounds. What sort of comfort is that?' He gave a broken laugh. 'Jonetta will wed soon enough and Mabile….' He shook his head and swallowed.
'Oh, Fulke.' Maude unwrapped the second binding and moved up his body, pushing him back on the bed. She painted his face with the end of one of her braids and kissed him softly. 'You still have a wife too. What sort of comfort is that?'
He threw his arms around her, enveloping her in a hug that almost crushed her ribs. 'Where would I be without you?' he muttered.
'Likely in the hall with your brothers still drinking to old times,' she said flippantly, but stroked his hair with tender affection. In a moment, she would have to push him away so that she could breathe, but understanding his need, she pressed herself to him.
'Melusine,' he muttered, his breath sodden with wine fumes. In moments, he was snoring. Maude gently extricated herself, took a gasp of air, and looked at him in the faint flicker of the night candle. She thought he had been troubled of late, but it was more of an inkling on her part than anything he had said or done. Perhaps there were difficulties with the estates. Since returning from an expedition to Poitou with John in July, he had been poring over the accounts with his stewards and had been on several whirlwind visits to various FitzWarin manors. Occasionally he had been into Wales too. The cordiality that had existed between him and Llewelyn during the outlaw days had lost its robustness. They were polite with each other. Fulke had forgiven but not forgotten Llewelyn's withdrawal of support and Llewelyn did not trust a marcher lord who had made his peace with John. Fulke was still a dangerous warrior, and some of the border lands were in dispute. Courteous but barbed words had been exchanged over the manor of Gorddwr which had a FitzWarin tenant as lord over a settlement more than three-quarters Welsh.
Maude yawned. The morning would bring what it would bring. Perhaps drink had made her maudlin too, that and the realisation that her eldest daughter was almost at an age to wed. And soon her sons would leave to begin their training in the household of Ranulf, Earl of Chester. First pages, then squires, then knights. But not yet, she comforted the surge of panic within herself. There was still some small space of time to nestle her brood, and the glory was in seeing them fly and knowing that she had given them the wings to do so… all except Mabile, whose wings were of fragile, damaged gossamer. Everything came so slowly to Mabile and with great effort. At three, Hawise had chattered ceaselessly like a magpie from the moment she rose to the time she lay down to sleep. Mabile, however, had not even begun to grasp the intricacies of language. Sometimes, as if raging against her inability to communicate, the infant would throw spectacular screaming fits that were only comforted when she was held tightly and soothed like a swaddled infant. Most of the time she was silent. She would sit for hours, staring at images only she could see, and softly rocking herself to a heartbeat rhythm. It was eerie and disturbing to watch her. A heart-breakingly beautiful faery child, perfect and yet irrevocably flawed.
Maude found that she had been silently weeping and, knuckling the tears from her eyes, took herself to task. Curse the wine for exposing her vulnerable underside when she was always so careful to keep it hidden. She curled her body around Fulke's insensible form, taking comfort from his solid warmth, and, closing her eyes, sought the panacea of sleep.
Next morning, nursing the remnants of a vile headache, Fulke wandered into the bailey and groaned as he saw his father-in-law riding into Whittington. Rain was threatening in the wind. The trees beyond the timber keep fluttered their final rags of colour on winter-black branches. It was no day for travellers to be abroad, but Robert le Vavasour was a contrary bastard at the best of times.
Fulke's wolfhound bitch thrust her moist nose into his hand, seeking affection. He patted her head absently and watched le Vavasour dismount from a handsome bay cobthe sort of animal for long journeys when comfort was the requirement rather than hunting speed, or the fire and strength of a destrier. His father-in-law was dressed for a long journey too, well bundled up in a thick cloak and hood, with tough, cowhide boots rather than the softer goatskin, and the leather well waxed against the weather. An escort of knights travelled with him, but not his domestic household. Not a social call then.
With a forced smile of welcome, Fulke went forward to greet le Vavasour. After all, he told himself, the old devil might finally have come to give him the manor of Edlington over which they had been in dispute for many years. It was supposed to be part of Maude's dower, but le Vavasour insisted it wasn't.
'Christ.' Le Vavasour's gaze roved disparagingly over the timber battlements and walkways. 'It always astonishes me that a man of your standing would turn outlaw for the sake of a place like this. Why don't you build in stone? Surely it cannot be safe with the Welsh so close?'
Fulke abandoned the pretence of a smile. 'Aside from the fact that stone costs money that I do not have,' he said curtly, 'King John will not grant me permission to strengthen the fortifications.'
'A pity, but understandable.' A narrow, almost furtive look entered le Vavasour's eyes. He pushed down his hood and stripped off his gauntlets. 'Are you not going to invite me within?'
'Since you have ridden all this way to see me, it is the least I can do,' Fulke said dryly. 'A pity you did not arrive yesterday. You could have celebrated your eldest granddaughter's betrothal to William Pantulf of Wem.'
'I might have done if I'd been invited,' le Vavasour growled.
'It's only a betrothal, not a wedding. We would not omit you from that in spite of what you have to say about red-haired girls.' Fulke beckoned to a couple of grooms and they hurried to help with the horses.
Le Vavasour grunted. 'I speak as I find,' he said and followed Fulke's open-armed gesture towards the keep.
'How are Juliana and Thomas?'
'Better for the distance,' le Vavasour said. 'You know women and children. All right in their place, but not too close to yours.'
Fulke's headache increased.
Once inside the keep, le Vavasour swept his eyes around the limewashed walls decorated with banners and shields, and repeated that it was a pity the place was constructed mainly of timber. He grimaced at the central hearth, remarking that castles these days were being built with chimneys. Maude he greeted with a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. Her own greeting was equally tepid.
The children were summoned with dragging feet to greet their grandsire. Robert examined Hawise like a horse-coper studying the points of a brood mare at a fair and said that he hoped she would develop the hips for childbearing before her marriage. Jonetta was given a cursory glance and Mabile was ignored, le Vavasour making it plain that as far as he was concerned, she did not exist. The boys were poked and prodded and told to speak up, and when young Fulke did, asking why his grandfather was so rude, was promptly informed that he was a mannerless whelp and that a whipping would mend his tongue.
'I suppose,' Fulke said thoughtfully, as if pondering the notion, 'that mannerless whelps then turn into mannerless
old
men, and that it runs in the bloodline.' Gently, he tousled his son's barley-blond hair.
The children were dismissed and Maude made her escape by muttering an excuse about talking to the cook and making sure the bed linen was aired. 'Do you want me to prepare a bathtub?' she asked on her way out.
'And dilute my juices?' Le Vavasour waved her away. 'King John might indulge himself every fortnight like a Byzantine, but I'm northern bred and made of sterner stuff. Away with you, woman.'
'Yes, Father,' Maude said meekly, her green eyes filled with unspoken fury. Head high, she left the hall.
'You are staying the night?' Fulke enquired.
'No point in riding on now, is there?' Le Vavasour plumped down in a curule chair near one of the braziers that augmented the heat from the despised central hearth. 'I suppose I could continue to Shrewsbury, but I do have family obligations after all.' He spread his knees and hitched the fabric on his chausses.
Fulke inclined his head and quietly gritted his teeth. 'So, what kind of family obligation brings you to Whittington?' he asked. 'Have you finally decided to hand over Edlington?'
'Edlington was only Maude's in dower while I did not have a son. You know that. Now that Juliana has borne me an heir, it goes to him.'
'I know of no such clause,' Fulke retorted.
'Well, that's the blame of your ignorance,' the older man said firmly and shook his head. 'I didn't come here to give you Edlington, nor did I come to argue. As it happens, I am on my way to a council of barons at St Edmunds, and I thought you might be interested in accompanying me.'
'And why should I be interested?' Fulke looked at his nails. He knew all about the council because it had been mentioned in certain corners while he was serving John in Poitou. He had kept his head down, but that had not prevented his ears from hearing the talk, or his mind from mulling over the details.
'Because it might be to your advantage, and although you serve King John, I know that there is no love lost between you.'
Fulke considered his father-in-law. 'Would I be right in thinking that the council will be attended by such men as Eustace de Vesci and Robert FitzWalter?' They had led a group of disaffected barons who had been levelling complaints against John and fomenting rebellion for the past three years. Fulke had tremendous sympathy for them, but he distrusted de Vesci and FitzWalter almost as much as he distrusted John. Their rebellion was as much about feathering their own nests as it was about justice. His father-in-law had de Vesci for a close neighbour, but had never seemed particularly keen to join the protest.
Le Vavasour drank his wine. 'Yes,' he conceded, but raised a forefinger as Fulke snorted down his nose. 'It is not what you think. The Earl of Winchester, the Earls of Clare and Essex will be in attendance.' He counted the names off on his fingers. 'And Bigod and Mowbray and de Stuteville. Half the noble families in England and….' Here he leaned forward for effect and fixed Fulke with a bright stare. 'Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury.'
Fulke folded his arms as if rejecting the overture, but his stomach had leaped at the words and he could feel the old exhilaration rise and quiver like tiny bubbles in his blood. His had been a voice in the wilderness when he conducted his own rebellion against John. Now, more than ten years later, there was a concerted movement. 'And their purpose?'
'To make the King acknowledge the rights of his vassals.
To make him realise that he cannot force them to serve him in wars across the Narrow Sea or fund those wars. To bind him to the promise that no free man shall be arrested, imprisoned, or ruined except by fair judgement of his peers. And that no widow shall be forced to remarry or to pay a ruinous fine to maintain her widowhood.' He waved his hand. 'And more besides. It is all to be written down in a charter of liberties.'
'And you expect John to agree to it?'
'I expect him to be brought to agree to it, or risk civil war. These taxes and scutages he continues to levy to play his games abroad are bleeding us dry. I know that you owe him more money than you can hope to repay. The only reason you went with him to Poitou was to be excused the fine you would otherwise have had to pay. Look at what happened to William de Braose when he could not pay his fines and taxes. Hounded out of his power and his wife and son imprisoned in a dark hole to die of starvation.'
There was genuine indignation in his father-in-law's tone, but not, Fulke knew, out of any sympathy for the wife and child. What did worry le Vavasour was the fact that authority could be removed at the merest snap of the royal fingers. William de Braose had been no minor lordling, but an earl
of
great stature and influence. 'William de Braose was hounded for being too powerful and a party to John's darkest secrets,' Fulke said.
'Do you believe John murdered his nephew?'
'I am scarcely the man to ask,' Fulke said. 'I may have a truce with John, but that does not make me impartial and I have Breton relatives. Arthur was their Prince and he had a strong claim to England's throne… until he became John's captive and that was the last anyone heard or saw of him.'
'Then you do believe it?'
Fulke shrugged. 'I believe that Arthur is dead. If not, John would have produced him to stop Philip of France from using Arthur's disappearance as a goad to war. As to whether or not John murdered him… well, that is a matter between John and God.'
Le Vavasour pulled a face. 'I have no sympathy for de Braose, never liked the man, but if John can destroy him, he can do the same to any of us on a whim. He must be curbed.' He looked at Fulke. 'Will you ride with me to the council?'
'I'll think on it,' Fulke said evenly. A pity the voices were only challenging now instead of fifteen years ago. But then fifteen years ago, John had been new king and the barons had been courting his favour as much as he courted theirs. Now the goodwill was threadbare on both sides.