Changeling (4 page)

As soon as the men saw Isolde followed by the three women of her household, they rose to their feet and pulled their hats from their heads, and bowed low to honour the daughter of the late Lord of Lucretili, and the heiress to the castle.

Isolde was wearing the deep blue of mourning: a high conical hat draped in indigo lace hiding her fair hair, a priceless belt of Arabic gold worn tightly at the high waist of her gown, the keys to the castle on a gold chain at her side. Behind her came her women companions, firstly Ishraq, her childhood friend, wearing Moorish dress, a long tunic over loose pantaloons with a long veil over her head held lightly across her face so that only her dark eyes were visible as she looked around the hall.

Two other women followed behind her and as the household whispered their blessings on Isolde, the women took their seats at the ladies’ table to the side of the raised dais. Isolde went up the shallow stairs to the great table, and recoiled at the sight of her brother in the wooden chair, as grand as a throne, that had been their father’s seat. She knew that she should have anticipated he would be there, just as he knew that she would inherit this castle and would take the great chair as soon as the will was read. But she was dull with grief, and she had not thought that from now on she would always see her brother where her father ought to be. She was so new to grief that she had not yet fully realised that she would never see her father again.

Giorgio smiled blandly at her, and gestured that she should take her seat at his right hand, where she used to sit beside her father.

‘And you will remember Prince Roberto.’ Giorgio indicated a fleshy man with a round sweating face on his left, who rose and came around the table to bow to her. Isolde gave her hand to the prince and looked questioningly at her brother. ‘He has come to sympathise with us for our loss.’

The prince kissed her hand and Isolde tried not to flinch from the damp touch of his lips. He looked at her as if he wanted to whisper something, as if they might share a secret. Isolde took back her hand, and bent towards her brother’s ear. ‘I am surprised you have a guest at dinner when my father died only yesterday.’

‘It was good of him to come at once,’ Giorgio said, beckoning the servers who came down the hall, their trays held at shoulder height loaded with game, meat, and fish dishes, great loaves of bread and flagons of wine and jugs of ale.

The castle priest sang grace and then the servers banged down the trays of food, the men drew their daggers from their belts and their boots to carve their portions of meat, and heaped slices of thick brown bread with poached fish, and stewed venison.

It was hard for Isolde to eat dinner in the great hall as if nothing had changed, when her dead father lay in his vigil, guarded in the chapel by his men-at-arms, and would be buried the next day. She found that tears kept blurring the sight of the servants coming in, carrying more food for each table, banging down jugs of small ale, and bringing the best dishes and flagons of best red wine to the top table where Giorgio and his guest the prince picked the best and sent the rest down the hall to those men who had served them well during the day. The prince and her brother ate a good dinner and called for more wine. Isolde picked at her food and glanced down to the women’s table where Ishraq met her gaze with silent sympathy.

When they had finished, and the sugared fruits and marchpane had been offered to the top table, and taken away, Giorgio touched her hand. ‘Don’t go to your rooms just yet,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

Isolde nodded to dismiss Ishraq and her ladies from their dining table and send them back to the ladies’ rooms, then she went through the little door behind the dais to the private room where the Lucretili family sat after dinner. A fire was burning against the wall and there were three chairs drawn up around it. A flagon of wine was set ready for the men, a glass of small ale for Isolde. As she took her seat the two men came in together.

‘I want to talk to you about our father’s will,’ Giorgio said, once they were seated.

Isolde glanced towards Prince Roberto.

‘Roberto is concerned in this,’ Giorgio explained. ‘When Father was dying he said that his greatest hope was to know that you would be safe and happy. He loved you very dearly.’

Isolde pressed her fingers to her cold lips and blinked the tears from her eyes.

‘I know,’ her brother said gently. ‘I know you are grieving. But you have to know that Father made plans for you and gave to me the sacred trust of carrying them out.’

‘Why didn’t he tell me so himself?’ she asked. ‘Why would he not talk to me? We always talked of everything together. I know what he planned for me; he said if I chose not to marry then I was to live here, I would inherit this castle and you would have his castle and lands in France. We agreed this. We all three agreed this.’

‘We agreed it when he was well,’ Giorgio said patiently. ‘But when he became sick and fearful, he changed his mind. And then he could not bear for you to see him so very ill and in so much pain. When he thought about you then, with the very jaws of death opening before him, he thought better of his first plan. He wanted to be certain that you would be safe. Then, he planned well for you – he suggested that you marry Prince Roberto here, and agreed that we should take a thousand crowns from the treasury as your dowry.’

It was a tiny payment for a woman who had been raised to think of herself as heiress to this castle, the fertile pastures, the thick woods, the high mountains. Isolde gaped at him. ‘Why so little?’

‘Because the prince here has done us the honour of indicating that he will accept you just as you are – with no more than a thousand crowns in your pocket.’

‘And you shall keep it all,’ the man assured her, pressing her hand as it rested on the arm of her chair. ‘You shall have it to spend on whatever you want. Pretty things for a pretty princess.’

Isolde looked at her brother, her dark blue eyes narrowing as she understood what this meant. ‘A dowry as small as this will mean that no-one else will offer for me,’ she said. ‘You know that. And yet you did not ask for more? You did not warn Father that this would leave me without any prospects at all? And Father? Did he want to force me to marry the prince?’

The prince put his hand on his fleshy chest and cast his eyes modestly down. ‘Most ladies would not require forcing,’ he pointed out.

‘I know of no better husband that you might have,’ Giorgio said smoothly. His friend smiled and nodded at her. ‘And Father thought so too. We agreed this dowry with Prince Roberto and he was so pleased to marry you that he did not specify that you should bring a greater fortune than this. There is no need to accuse anyone of failing to guard your interests. What could be better for you than marriage to a family friend, a prince, and a wealthy man?’

It took her only a moment to decide. ‘I cannot think of marriage,’ Isolde said flatly. ‘Forgive me, Prince Roberto. But it is too soon after my father’s death. I cannot bear even to think of it, let alone talk of it.’

‘We have to talk of it,’ Giorgio insisted. ‘The terms of our father’s will are that we have to get you settled. He would not allow any delay. Either immediate marriage to my friend here, or . . .’ He paused.

‘Or what?’ Isolde asked, suddenly afraid.

‘The abbey,’ he said simply. ‘Father said that if you would not marry, I was to appoint you as abbess and that you should go there to live.’

‘Never!’ Isolde exclaimed. ‘My father would never have done this to me!’

Giorgio nodded. ‘I too was surprised, but he said that it was the future he had planned for you all along. That was why he did not fill the post when the last abbess died. He was thinking even then, a year ago, that you must be kept safe. You can’t be exposed to the dangers of the world, left here alone at Lucretili. If you don’t want to marry, you must be kept safe in the abbey.’

Prince Roberto smiled slyly at her. ‘A nun or a princess,’ he suggested. ‘I would think you would find it easy to choose.’

Isolde jumped to her feet. ‘I cannot believe Father planned this for me,’ she said. ‘He never suggested anything like this. He was clear he would divide the lands between us. He knew how much I love it here; how I love these lands and know these people. He said he would will this castle and the lands to me, and give you our lands in France.’

Giorgio shook his head as if in gentle regret. ‘No, he changed his mind. As the oldest child, the only son, the only true heir, I will have everything, both in France and here, and you, as a woman, will have to leave.’

‘Giorgio, my brother, you cannot send me from my home?’

He spread his hands. ‘There is nothing I can do. It is our father’s last wish and I have it in writing, signed by him. You will either marry – and no-one will have you but Prince Roberto – or you will go to the abbey. It was good of him to give you this choice. Many fathers would simply have left orders.’

‘Excuse me,’ Isolde said, her voice shaking as she fought to control her anger, ‘I shall leave you and go to my rooms and think about this.’

‘Don’t take too long!’ Prince Roberto said with an intimate smile. ‘I won’t wait too long.’

‘I shall give you my answer tomorrow.’ She paused in the doorway, and looked back at her brother. ‘May I see my father’s letter?’

Giorgio nodded and drew it from inside his jacket. ‘You can keep this. It is a copy. I have the other in safe-keeping; there is no doubt as to his wishes. You will have to consider not whether you will obey him, but only how you obey him. He knew that you would obey him.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I am his daughter. Of course I will obey him.’ She went from the room without looking at the prince, though he rose to his feet and made her a flourishing bow, and then winked at Giorgio as if he thought the matter settled.

Isolde woke in the night to hear a quiet tap on her door. Her pillow was damp beneath her cheek; she had been crying in her sleep. For a moment she wondered why she felt such a pain, as if she were heartbroken – and then she remembered the coffin in the chapel and the silent knights keeping watch. She crossed herself: ‘God bless him, and save his soul,’ she whispered. ‘God comfort me in this sorrow. I don’t know that I can bear it.’

The little tap came again, and she put back the richly embroidered covers of her bed and went to the door, the key in her hand. ‘Who is it?’

‘It is Prince Roberto. I have to speak with you.’

‘I can’t open the door, I will speak with you tomorrow.’

‘I need to speak to you tonight. It is about the will, your father’s wishes.’

She hesitated. ‘Tomorrow . . .’

‘I think I can see a way out for you. I understand how you feel, I think I can help.’

‘What way out?’

‘I can’t shout it through the door. Just open the door a crack so that I can whisper.’

‘Just a crack,’ she said, and turned the key, keeping her foot pressed against the bottom of the door to ensure that it opened only a little.

As soon as he heard the key turn, the prince banged the door open with such force that it hit Isolde’s head and sent her reeling back into the room. He slammed the door behind him and turned the key, locking them in together.

‘You thought you would reject me?’ he demanded furiously, as she scrambled to her feet. ‘You thought you – practically penniless – would reject me? You thought I would beg to speak to you through a closed door?’

‘How dare you force your way in here?’ Isolde demanded, white-faced and furious. ‘My brother would kill you—’

‘Your brother allowed it,’ he laughed. ‘Your brother approves me as your husband. He himself suggested that I come to you. Now get on the bed.’

‘My brother?’ She could feel her shock turning into horror as she realised that she had been betrayed by her own brother, and that now this stranger was coming towards her, his fat face creased in a confident smile.

‘He said I might as well take you now as later,’ he said. ‘You can fight me if you like. It makes no difference to me. I like a fight. I like a woman of spirit, they are more obedient in the end.’

‘You are mad,’ she said with certainty.

‘Whatever you like. But I consider you my betrothed wife, and we are going to consummate our betrothal right now, so you don’t make any mistake tomorrow.’

‘You’re drunk,’ she said, smelling the sour stink of wine on his breath.