The quarried stone had travelled up the Severn to Shrewsbury, then by ox cart and pony pannier to the site of the new keep. From his saddle, Fulke watched the loads arriving and felt a strange mingling of pleasure and poignancy. His horse tossed its head and the bells attached to the scarlet ribbons plaited in its mane jingled musically.
The debris of the burned timber keep and stockade had been raked aside and a new keep with rounded gatehouse towers was rising on the site of the old fortress. Already the memory of the former building was fading. He could not picture the precise position of the kitchens or recall whether there had been five or six window embrasures down the length of the hall. But then how much did it matter except to the corner of his mind that yearned with nostalgia for a time that perhaps had not been as perfect as now it seemed?
The fire that had burned down the former keep had been like the fire of his marriage to Maude. So fierce it was an immolation, leaving naught but charred ruins beyond the white-hot glory. He would never experience that heart-searing conflagration again, and he was glad, for he knew that he would not survive it. But there were other paths of loving that grew out of a gentler caritas.
The soft clink of a mason's hammer carried to his ears and the cheerful shouts of the craftsmen as they toiled. Many
of
them had come from work on the priory at Alberbury, now finishedin its first stages at leastwith a chapel dedicated to St Stephen as the final resting place of the FitzWarin family. As a place too, for other rituals.
On this thought, he tugged lightly on the rein, and turned the horse in the fresh dew of the early summer morning. A little way back, Clarice was waiting for him, giving him time alone to collect his thoughts. There was a smile in her grey-gold eyes, the luminous flush of youth to her complexion. His heart, scarred and patched as it was, turned within him at the sight of her. If not love, if not lust, the emotions engendered ran as close as sun shadows.
It was a year and a half since Maude's death. He still grieved; there would always be a hollow place within him, but it was no longer a yawning cavern. Yet he was wary, unable to put his complete trust in the sensation of almost fulfilment.
'By summer's end, it will be habitable,' Clarice said. 'And the truce with Llewelyn means that even if there is another war with Wales, Whittington will stand as a rock against the tide.'
'The amount it is costing, it had better.' He smiled at her optimism. It was what he needed to draw him out of his darkness. She was right, of course. He had made his peace with King Henry too and had received his authority to rebuild the border keeps of Alberbury and Whittington. He had also received several small gifts from the royal hand: a waiving of a fine; a present of venison; and, ironically, a beautiful inlaid chessboard with a casket of carved ivory pieces.
The Marshal family had granted him the right to hold a fair each year at Wantage in recompense for what had happened to Whittington because of his support for them. The previous June, Hawise had borne him a small granddaughter, with Maude's silvery hair and green eyes. If not exactly his heart's desire, he had what he needed.
'You are sure?' he said to Clarice for the third time that morning. 'There is many a younger man who would be pleased to call you wife.'
Her expression lost some of its serenity. 'What do I have to say to persuade you?' she demanded, an exasperated note entering her voice. Reaching across the space between them, she laid her hand over his, her flesh white and smooth over his scarred and tanned. 'I know that with my dowry, I could have the pick of a dozen younger men. Indeed, you have paraded most of them before me on other occasions. I do not want them; I want you. And if you ask why, or say that you are old enough to be my father, I will hit you.' Her complexion flushed beneath the onslaught of her words. If he had learned to grieve at Whittington, she had learned to speak out.
'You have more understanding than a husband of my own years would ever have and you still have your strength. I have seen you at your best and at your worst, and I know that I can trust you.' She lowered her eyes. 'I… I can never replace Maude, nor would I want to. She was everything to you and such love only comes once… but I would be your life companion now. Don't shut me out, or doubt me.'
He swallowed, moved by her words. 'I do not doubt your integrity,' he said huskily, 'but I have to justify my own by giving you the opportunity to change your mind.'
'Thrice given, and thrice refused,' she said, the smile returning to her eyes. 'I will not change my mind.'
Capturing her hand, he turned it over in his and rubbed his thumb across her palm and fingers. In that she was like Maude, he thought. Once a notion entered her head, it was impossible to dislodge. 'Well then,' he said, his own lips curving, even though his gaze was more grave than hers, and perhaps a little sad. 'If you are ready, let us go.'
In the early summer morning, the dew still wet on the grass, they left Whittington to the masons and took the road to Alberbury Priory and the waiting priest.
Author's Note
I first came across the story of Fulke FitzWarin in a book by Glyn Burgess entitled
Two Medieval Outlaws
. At the time I was researching Eustace the Monk for his role in
The Marsh King's Daughter
, but reading Fulke's story, I realised that here was a novel bursting to be written and I decided to make Fulke my next project.
So, how much of
Lords of the White Castle
is truth and how much is fiction? Rather like a plait, there are three strands to the story: the facts that are verifiable history; the facts that are massaged by the 'tabloid journalist' skills of Fulke's chronicler; and my own interpretation of the two with a seasoning of personal imagination.
Fulke FitzWarin was born somewhere around 1170 into a Shropshire family of obscure origins but high ambition. His father was known as Fulke 'le Brun'The Brown -suggesting that he was dark of hair and eye. Incidentally, Fulke's brother Philip was known as 'The Red', thus I have given him auburn hair in the novel.
The tale about Fulke and Prince John quarrelling over a game of chess may be apocryphal, but some scholars, notably J. Meisel in the book
Barons of the Welsh Frontier
, believe that it is probably true. What is certain is that from an early age John and Fulke had no fondness for each other. John did give Whittington Castle to Morys FitzRoger for the sum of fifty marks and rejected Fulke's petition even though Fulke had been granted the right to have the castle in the Curia Regis court. Fulke turned outlaw as a result and for three years wreaked havoc up and down the borders until John pardoned him and restored his lands. Fulke seems to have had a powerful supporter in Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, who at one time was also the Justiciar, the Chancellor and the papal legate. It was said by some that he wielded more influence than John himself. It seems very likely to me that Fulke's connections with the Walter family began during his youth when the chronicle says he was a companion to Prince John. The Prince was being educated in the household of Ranulf de Glanville, whose nephews Hubert and Theobald Walter were. Although the evidence is circumstantial and cannot be proven, I also think it likely that Fulke was acquainted on a social basis with Maude Walter before their marriage.
The union of Fulke and Maude is where Fulke's unknown chronicler takes history into his own hands and, in the interests of a good story, shifts the timescale slightly. While Fulke's marriage to Maude is not in dispute, it did not take place until after Fulke's rebellion, whereas the chronicle puts their marriage during the period when Fulke was an outlaw. It is also the chronicler who supplies the details of Maude being lustfully pursued by King John and of enduring the perils of childbirth in the Welsh wilderness. The chronicler makes no mention of Maude having two children by Theobald Walter, but it seems likely that she did and that they were given into foster care when her first husband died. I have gone with the chronicle on this particular issue since taking the other option would have tangled the strands of the story to no purpose.
During the periods when Fulke was not doing anything spectacular, the chronicler keeps the readers enthralled by having his hero fight dragons and giants and embark on a Ulysses-like adventure. In the interests of maintaining reader belief, I have had to weave my way around some of the more improbable happenings, or find my own interpretations!
Fulke was one of the barons involved in the Magna Carta rebellion, although there are no firm reasons for his support. He could have been driven by a natural taste for making trouble, or by the fact that he was deeply in debt to the Crown at that time. And perhaps old grievances still died hard.
Whilst researching, I came across the strong possibility that Fulke's third daughter Mabile had severe mental or physical disabilities. This detail is suggested by J. Meisel in
Barons of the Welsh Frontier
. Mabile never married and she did not enter the Church. One or the other would have been de rigueur for a noblewoman in the thirteenth century, but there is no evidence for either. There is, however, proof that Fulke gave the income of his richest manor to support her in his will, and his eldest son Fulke agreed to abide by the ruling.
Maude died in the early 1220s; the cause is not known. Fulke married again, this time to Clarice d'Auberville who, from the circumstantial evidence, I believe to be a relative of the de Glanville family and of Hubert and Theobald Walter. Either with her, or perhaps with Maude before she died, Fulke had another daughter, Eve. The chronicle says that Eve went on to marry Llewelyn the Great, Prince of North Wales. This may or may not be true. Again, there is circumstantial evidence supplied by Eyton in his twelve-volume The
Antiquities of Shropshire
. Hawise's husband William Pantulf died in 1233 and Fulke took on the guardianship of his daughter and two small granddaughters.
Fulke outlived Clarice and was in his early nineties when he died. By all accounts, he was active until his mid-eighties when his eyesight failed and his son took the baronial responsibilities upon his shoulders. Fulke's heir and namesake only outlived his father by about six years. He drowned in a stream at the battle of Lewes in 1264 while fighting on the royalist side against Simon de Montfort. For a time the Montforts took custody of Whittington and Fulke's small grandson. The land was restored when King Henry regained control of the kingdom, but young Fulke, my Fulke's grandson, did not come into his inheritance until 1273. The FitzWarin line continued until 1420 when the eleventh Fulke FitzWarin died without a son to succeed him.
After Llewelyn's men burned Whittington to the ground, Fulke rebuilt the castle in stone. The gatehouse still stands today in testament to the events of more than seven hundred years ago. And if you are fortunate and go there, perhaps on a day in June as I have done, you may see a company of reenactors bringing a past reality to life.
For anyone wishing to read the truth and the myth of the story of Fulke FitzWarin I can recommend Glyn Burgess's
Two Medieval Outlaws
, published by Brewer (ISBN 0-85991-438-0) as an excellent starting point. For a more detailed examination of Fulke and his environment, I suggest J. Meisel's
Barons of the Welsh Frontier: The Corbet, Pantulf and FitzWarin Families 1066-1272
published by the University of Nebraska Press. I also found R.W Eyton's
Antiquities of Shropshire
, published in twelve volumes by John Russel Smith 1854-60 very enlighteningbut probably difficult to obtain. My local library had the collection, but in their rare books room and I was only allowed to read it under the strict supervision of the librarian!
I welcome comments and feedback on my novels. You can reach me via my website at: http:/www.btinternet.com/~elizabeth.chadwick or e-mail me at [email protected].
The Conquest
Elizabeth Chadwick
When a comet appears in the sky over England in the spring of 1066, it heralds a time of momentous change for Ailith, a young Saxon wife. Newly pregnant, she has developed a friendship with her
Norman neighbour, Felice, who is also with child.
But when Felice's countrymen come not as friends but as conquerors, they take all that Ailith holds dear.
Rescued from suicidal grief by Rolf, a handsome
Norman horse-breeder, Ailith is persuaded to become nurse to Felice's son, Benedict, but the situation soon becomes fraught with tension. Ailith leaves Felice's household for Rolf's English lands and, as his mistress, bears him a daughter, Julitta. But the Battle of Hastings has left a savage legacy which is to have bitter repercussions, not only for Rolf and Ailith but for the next generation, Benedict and Julitta.
From bustling London streets to windswept Yorkshire
Dales, from green Norman farmland to the rugged mountains of the Pyrenees and the Spain of El Cid, this is an epic saga of love and loss, compassion and brutality, filled with unforgettable characters.
'An author who makes history come gloriously alive.'
The Times
'The best writer of mediaeval fiction currently around.'
Historical Novel Review
The Marsh King's Daughter
Elizabeth Chadwick
England 1216: Dissatisfaction with King John has bred a civil war which threatens the social order.
Unwanted and unloved, rebellious Miriel Weaver is forced to a convent by her violent stepfather. Her plan to escape from the harsh life of a novice nun crystallises with the arrival of recuperating soldier of fortune, Nicholas de Caen. Miriel sees in his pride and self-sufficiency a kindred spirit and, once he is well enough to leave, a way out.