"You could have refused," William said with resigned exasperation.
"Yes, and the guilt would have consumed me whole by compline."
They paused to watch a couple of red-sailed barges mooring up in the dusk, with a cargo of timber poles that
would be unloaded in the morning.
"She has sworn not to quarrel with you."
He snorted. "And you believed her?"
"Brendan has always been her favourite saint," Isabelle said. "I think she will at least try."
He made a sceptical face. "Do you want her to come with us?"
They walked in silence for a while. The grass was damp and she felt the hem of her gown growing heavy and cold against her ankles. "I will not sleep easily if we leave her," she said at length. "I owe her my duty as a daughter even as much as I owe my love to you as a wife and to my children as a mother. In truth, I do not think she is well herself and she does not want to be left alone again. It is for her own sake not mine that she desires to accompany us—and I cannot refuse her."
William heaved a resigned sigh. "Then let it be so and I will pray to Saint Brendan myself for all the patience he can give."
Nine
TINTERN, WELSH MARCHES, MAY 1201
On a spring morning, fresh and green, alive with bird-song, Isabelle and Aoife travelled the five miles between Striguil and the Cistercian abbey of Tintern, nestling in a dip of the Angiddy Valley close to the meander of the River Wye. The covered wain ambled at a gentle pace for there was no hurry. Isabelle's advancing pregnancy was a barrier to haste and Aoife had been unwell for several weeks with swollen ankles and breathlessness when she exerted herself. Today, however, she felt sufficiently well for the excursion and had even found the energy to grumble that the cushions inside the wain weren't plump enough for comfort.
Will, Richard, and Mahelt rode their ponies hither and yon, covering five times as much ground as the wain as they ranged into the trees on either side of the road with the dogs. Pigeons clapped skywards and hares fled in lightning zigzags that left the children no chance of catching them, but served as something to pursue. William's knight Eustace de Bertremont kept a watchful eye on the doings of the youngsters, but forbore to intervene. The road to Tintern was peaceful and they were unlikely to come to harm. The smaller children, Gilbert, Walter, and one-year-old Belle, travelled with Isabelle and Aoife in the wain with their nurses, and had been playing clapping games and singing simple songs most of the way.
Aoife pursed her lips at Isabelle as they approached the abbey. "I cannot believe you are planning to go to Normandy as soon as the child is born," she said sourly. "Your husband will be in the King's service and likely in the field. He won't have time for you. I didn't follow your father there when he had to serve the King. I didn't drag you and your brother from pillar to post."
They had already had several variations of this conversation since returning to Striguil. Isabelle had tried to let it wash over her head, and to an extent she had succeeded since she was always more placid and unflappable as she entered the later months of pregnancy. Nevertheless, her mother's persistence was beginning to wear holes in her defences.
"Longueville is my home in Normandy," she said wearily. "It is not as if myself and the children will be living in a campaign tent. We'll be in a keep larger than Striguil." She clenched her teeth for she had promised herself she would not rise to the bait, yet here she was, doing precisely that. William was currently away at court where the King was making preparations to cross to Normandy and put down the unrest that King Philip of France and Prince Arthur were stirring up between them.
Aoife threw up her hands. "Go then, if you must," she said dramatically. "I can see how much it means to you. What do I matter?"
"Mother…"
"No." Aoife drew Belle into her lap and played with the golden curls escaping the infant's linen bonnet. "You have lived without me for most of your life, so why should you not push Ireland from your mind and look to Normandy and all things Norman? I notice you've put your saffron robe to the back of the garderobe."
Isabelle clung to her tolerance while the guilt bit deeper. "That is because it is too warm for the summer. As soon as I return to Leinster, I'll bring it out."
"And when will that be? In ten more years? I'll long be bones by then."
Feeling as if she was being chewed to pieces, Isabelle prayed for patience. Within her womb, the child kicked vigorously, as if sensing her tension. It didn't help that her mother was right. Although William had begun the task of making his mark on Leinster, he could not be in three places at once and out of Normandy, England, and Ireland, the latter would always come last. Another visit was less than a speck on the horizon and both she and Aoife knew it.
At Tintern, Abbot Eudo greeted them warmly. Isabelle's grandsire had founded the abbey seventy years ago and the de Clares had always been generous patrons. William had asked for monks from Tintern to colonise his new Abbey of the Vow in Ireland and with such patronage, grants and donations had flowed into Tintern's coffers.
The older children, having ridden off their excitement during the journey and knowing what was expected, behaved themselves. Of the younger ones, Walter was stoical and quiet anyway, and Gilbert loved churches and was too absorbed in everything going on around him to be up to mischief. Only Belle ruined the proceedings by yelling her head off until her nurse prudently took her to feed bread to the tench in the fishpond.
Isabelle, Aoife, and the children attended the sext service in the church and Isabelle made an offering of two marks of silver, one for the abbey and another for distribution to the poor.
"I would not mind resting here when my time comes," Aoife said as she and Isabelle walked down the nave following their prayer. "It is so peaceful." She watched Mahelt make a game of hopping from one tile to another, a strand of rich brown hair bouncing against her cheek.
Isabelle gazed at her mother in surprise. Aoife was so often contrary, selfish, and manipulative; when a different side of her personality shone through, it was like a sudden bar of sunshine illuminating beauty out of darkness. "You would rather lie with your in-laws than your own kin?" she said incredulously.
Aoife smoothed her thumb over the prayer beads in her hand. "Your grandparents lie at Fearns but I have never been fond of that place. I don't like the Bishop. Your father and your brother are in Dublin, but since I never slept in peace with the man when he was alive, I would rather not be his bedmate in death. Here it is tranquil, and I know I would not be alone. You come here often, as you will not come to Fearns or Dublin. It gives me comfort to think of my grandchildren's hands on my tomb and their children's after that."
Isabelle opened her mouth and then closed it again. What her mother had had the delicacy not to say was that, in the fullness of time, Isabelle herself would be entombed at Tintern and certainly some of her offspring. Aoife was ensuring her place in the matriarchal burial plot. Isabelle suspected what her mother was thinking but not saying was that, one way or another, she would eventually have her daughter to herself.
*** A month later and, despite the encroachment of summer, the weather was not so clement. Rain pelted the Marches in unceasing grey sheets and the River Wye, churning the foot of the cliffs below Striguil's keep, was as choppy as the sea.
William hunched his shoulders against the driving rain and, with Jack Marshal, Jean D'Earley, and Ralph Bloet at his heels, hurried down to the outer ward where a motley assortment of men were awaiting his inspection in the shelter of a timbered store house. William had returned from the court three days ago, but was due to set out for Portsmouth within the week and rejoin the King, who was about to cross to Normandy and deal with his nephew and Philip of France. William needed soldiers for the campaign and while he intended hiring men once across the sea, he wanted to season their ranks with Welsh and Irish mercenaries. The latter were fearsome axemen, and the Welsh bowmen of Gwent always earned their pay.
"You've weeded them already?" he asked, and Jack confirmed that this was so.
"I got rid of one who turned up more pickled than a piece of January salt beef, and another who's known to be light-fingered round the town. I thought you wouldn't want them, so I sent them packing. Plenty more to take their place."
As William expected, the men awaiting his scrutiny were a rough lot, both the salt and the scum of the earth. Men who were surplus to their villages and settlements: younger sons who were an extra mouth too many to feed; older ones with wanderlust in their veins; former crusaders who had returned home and not settled back to the yoke. William sought the latter out first because they knew what to expect and had a harder edge than those who were coming soft from the village and plough, leaving family and familiarity for the first time. He kept the ones who cared for their weapons and declined those who did not. He accepted an elderly man who could read and spoke fluent French, and a small, light youth who had few fighting skills but could coax the speed of lightning out of a horse. There was always need for wisdom and fast messengers among the soldiers, and he sent the lad over to the stables to be put in the employ of Rhys, his senior groom.
Satisfied with his selection, William gave the men a succinct résumé of what he expected of them and what they could expect from him and left them in Ralph's charge. "We'll recruit again in Normandy," he said as he bent his head into the slanting rain and hastened towards the great hall. "I don't doubt a quarter of them will change their minds as soon as they see the sea."
Jean grinned. "And you won't, my lord?"
William laughed grimly at the sally, although in truth his fear of crossing the Narrow Sea had diminished since his close escape from drowning in the Hibernian one. Had he been going to die on a ship, that would have been the occasion. Having faced his demons and lived to tell the tale, he could be more sanguine—if not less seasick.
There was no sign of Isabelle in the hall. He mounted the stairs to the upper chambers, the first of which was currently Aoife's domain, although usually it was his and Isabelle's solar, adjoining the main bedchamber. Frequently the women sat there at their sewing and he knew they would not venture far from the hearth today.
Isabelle was sitting at her mother's bedside, her embroidery frame drawn up. Aoife was fully clothed, but lying upon the bed, her back supported by an array of colourful cushions and bolsters. A rug of Irish plaid covered her legs. Her complexion was the hue of tallow. Grey shadows lay beneath her eyes and her lips were blue. "Is the wind from the west?" she asked him, her breast heaving with the effort to talk and breathe.
"Indeed it is, madam." William handed his cloak to one of his wife's women and came to the bed. "Are you unwell today?" He glanced at Isabelle, who gave a tiny shake of her head. He knew Aoife was ailing but she had been well enough to attend mass this morning, and one never knew with her how much was artifice and how much was truth.
"Better for knowing it's an Irish wind. I thought I could smell the pastures of home when I woke at dawn."
"What you can smell is the Welsh hills," William said.
"Hah, and I knew you'd even argue with a sick woman," Aoife said with a wave of her hand and a sour smile to show that she was almost in jest. "I know the scent of Kilkenny and I won't have anyone telling me different."
"Then I am sorry," William said. "I am mistaken."
Her gaze hardened, although the amusement remained. "You're a fine courtier—almost as fair a tongue as an Irish bard, but I'm used to men who have the gift of smooth words." Her breath sucked and whistled in her lungs as if they were a pair of worn out bellows.
William raised his brows. "Then I hope familiarity does not breed contempt, madam."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "My daughter will better talk of what it breeds," she said with a glance at Isabelle's pregnant belly, and paused for a moment to muster her strength. "You sail for Normandy soon, my lord."
"What of it, my lady?"
"I want you to swear you will not forget Leinster even when your heart is drawn to other lands. Leinster is my daughter's heritage and I will not have you throw it to the wolves." She had to pause again for breath and Isabelle laid a concerned hand on her arm.
"I will not forget," William said. "I swear on my oath as a knight that no wolves will tear it from my grasp, or your daughter's."
Aoife gave a brief nod. "I hold you to it, and may you be damned if you do not." After a moment she pointed to the fastened shutters. "Open them. I would hear the falling rain."
***
Isabelle was dreaming about the sea crossing to Ireland. They were taking Aoife back to Leinster, but the ship had sprung a leak and although everyone was bailing frantically, using pitchers, bowls, jugs, and even helmets in the case of the knights, the waters continued to rise. There was no sign of William but, looking down, Isabelle saw that she was holding his sword in one hand, bloody along its edge, and an empty skull in the other with which she had been bailing. Her mother, sitting above them on a throne, was shrieking like a banshee that the wolves were coming and were going to devour all of them.
She woke with a loud cry and jerked upright on the bed, her heart pounding and her body dewed in sweat. The vivid images lingered in her vision as if they were in the room with her. She had gone to lie down for a short while—had only meant to nap while her women kept an eye on her mother, but from the way the light had moved across the room she realised several hours had passed.
Pain ground through her loins and lower spine. Looking down, she saw with shock that her gown and the coverlet were saturated with fluid and more was leaking from between her thighs. The contraction of her womb had made her belly as tight as a drum. Her cry brought Jean D'Earley's wife Sybilla running from the other room. With a single swift glance at Isabelle, she shouted for help and sent one of the others to fetch the midwives.