"What will happen now?"
A deep sigh shuddered through him. "John will have to answer the barons' complaints and put his rule to rights, or he won't have one. But it also means he'll be thrown back on England. There'll be nothing to divert his energies in other directions, and this defeat is going to unsettle his temper." He moved his hand so that he was holding hers and turned to face her. "Will thinks I am loyal to the point of stupidity, but stupidity has not gained us all this. I am doing my best to walk between two fires without getting burned but it is not easy."
"And Will?" Isabelle asked. "I don't want him to get burned either, but I can see how close to the fire he is."
"The only way some people learn is by being burned," he said with a twist of his lip. "I always thought it would be Richard…he was the child with his fingers near the fire out of curiosity, but he's got the sense to know that before you pick up a smouldering brand, you don a gauntlet." He gave a half-hearted smile. "Don't worry. The Welsh are going to keep Will busy for a while—as is his wife. It's astonishing what an accommodating woman can do to smooth the sharp edges off a man's nature."
"I hope you are right," she said, still feeling anxious.
"It has always worked for me," he teased, then sobered and raised her hand to kiss her knuckles. "I'll do my best with Will and hope he has the sense to compromise. Perhaps if his wife could soften him…"
Isabelle shook her head. "The only opinion she truly cares for is Will's. If he burns his fingers, then she is likely to plunge her entire arm into the fire to show her devotion."
William pinched his upper lip in thought. "Then we'll have to work on both of them. Alais could learn a lot from you, and she's clever…"
Isabelle raised her brows but forbore to say that first you had to want to learn. She didn't want to burden William with domestic frictions. Being accustomed to coping with the fickle humours of adolescent girls, she would deal with Alais accordingly. For the rest, all she and William could do was hold on fast and prepare to ride out the storms should they threaten nearer than the horizon.
Thirty-four
PEMBROKE CASTLE, SOUTH WALES, APRIL 1215
Isabelle swallowed her irritation as Alais complained that sitting sewing in the window-seat was making her back ache.
"Wherever you sit your back is bound to ache," she said frostily. "The child is due next month." Personally, Isabelle thought that it might be an early birth for Alais was carrying the child low in her womb and had been experiencing painless contractions for the past few days.
Alais had conceived in the first month of her marriage and although petulant and not at all pleased at the changes wrought on her body, she was smug at having succeeded in her duty so swiftly, and was basking in the attention lavished on her.
Isabelle continued to stitch while Alais stared moodily out of the window. "With good fortune, the men will be home for the birth," Isabelle remarked, making an effort at conversation.
Alais twitched her shoulders, which was a standard response to anything Isabelle said to her, but the compression of her lips and the hint of a wobble to her chin redirected Isabelle's annoyance into compassion. "It will be all right, I promise you. I was the same when I was carrying Will—nine months after my marriage and among people I did not know well."
Alais clenched her slender hands upon the detested sewing, her expression pinched and closed. It was plain to Isabelle that Will's bride didn't want to hear child-bearing wisdom from her, shunning it as she shunned all other advice and help from the older women in the bower.
Isabelle tried again. "It is good news that your brother wants to make peace," she said, referring to the messenger who had arrived yesterday at Pembroke, bearing letters from William de Forz to his half-sister. The words had been conciliatory, offering an olive branch with regard to the bitter dispute over her dower lands. He said he wanted to put the quarrel behind them for the sake of their mother's soul, and come to an amicable agreement.
Alais turned her head. "It makes no matter to me," she said. "I do not know him, nor am I ever likely to move in his company."
"But still, if he is your kin—"
"I have no fond memories of any of my kin," Alais said and, leaving the alcove, swayed ponderously towards the door. "I am going to lie down awhile." She placed her hand over her gravid belly. "And I want to be by myself."
Isabelle inhaled to protest that she should have at least one lady with her, but changed her mind. Alais had a predilection for her own company and would only sulk and pout if she thought Isabelle was hemming her around too closely and perhaps spying on her.
Saddened, frustrated, Isabelle bent over her needlework. Sybilla D'Earley joined her in the window-seat where the light was better for stitching. "She does not have the easiest of natures, does she?" Sybilla said.
"She will change after the child is born—and she is never at her best when Will is absent," Isabelle said, attempting to put a positive slant on her daughter-in-law's sulky behaviour.
"Perhaps," Sybilla replied dubiously. Isabelle gave her a questioning look and Sybilla rested her work in her lap. "Everyone knows I am the quiet one, but it means I have plenty of opportunity to watch others going about their business. If the baby is a boy, she will be insufferable. He'll be the next heir to Pembroke and what use are old branches on the tree when the new ones grow? She wants to be Countess, but she has no more notion than a goose what that entails and she certainly doesn't want to learn from you. That girl believes her time is coming fast and you must put a stop to it."
Isabelle gave a sour smile. "I have no intention of dropping off the tree just yet…and neither, I hope, has William." She spoke with conviction, but she could understand her daughterin-law's way of thinking. Alais obviously considered William to be in his dotage and not long for the mortal world. When he died, the earldom would pass to Will, and Isabelle could be elbowed off to Ireland as a dowager. Not that it would matter, Isabelle thought. If William died, she would retire to Kilkenny, or take a corrody at Tintern and not care. "I know what she is," she said quietly, "and I hope I have the good judgement to deal with her."
For a while, the women stitched in silence. From thoughts of her daughter-in-law, Isabelle turned to wondering how her husband and eldest son were faring. "We've heard nothing from Gloucester," she said. That was where they had been last, negotiating with a coalition of rebellious barons who had risen up against the King.
"They probably have little time to write," Sybilla said pacifically.
Isabelle frowned with frustration. "When last I heard, William said the rebels had been passing around a coronation charter of old King Henry—not the King's father, but his greatgrandfather—and demanding John confirm the liberties."
"It seems reasonable. What was promised then should hold true for now."
"That's what William says and I agree. A man should have a set fee for his inheritance instead of having to pay whatever sum the King demands. He shouldn't be arrested and condemned without fair trial. A widow shouldn't be forced to remarry or pay a massive fine to keep herself free." A cold frisson ran down her spine as again she was confronted with the vision of a life without William at her side. The word "widow" terrified her. "John won't look at the charter," she said with a curl of her lip, the expression saying more than words what she thought of the King. "All he sees is an infringement of his free will and an attempt to curb his power."
"Well, it is." Sybilla held her sewing to the light.
"Yes, but if he'd acted honourably, it would never have come to this." William had also told her in his last letter that John had thought about using Poitevan mercenaries to put down the rebels. William had persuaded him to abandon such incendiary tactics. Loyal or not, no English baron worth his salt would allow such men to ride over his lands and outright civil war would have been the only outcome.
Isabelle remembered William saying to her before he set out for Gloucester that trying to get both sides to see reason was like banging two stones together with one's hand between. Isabelle had replied somewhat waspishly that he should take his hand out then, but knew it was her frustration speaking, for in truth he could not. Will had shown forbearance thus far and remained with the royal party, but he was restless and discontented. It would take little leverage to tip him over the edge and set father against son. She didn't want to think about it, but the notion dwelt in her mind like an unwelcome guest at her table.
Isabelle came to the end of her thread and, after a moment's deliberation, decided that perhaps she ought to go and try to talk to Alais. With the birth imminent, the girl was going to have to rely on the midwife and the other women, and a functioning rapport at least was essential. Quietly folding away her sewing, bidding her women stay where they were, she went from the room and mounted the stairs to the chamber above.
***
Solitude was a luxury Alais craved but seldom found in the Marshal household. Wherever she went there were always companions of one kind or another: the women; Walter, Isabelle's fussy little chaplain; various attendants for this or that; and of course Isabelle herself with her knowing gaze. There was very little peace from that, added to which she was always wanting her to do things and trying to instruct her in her duties.
"I know my duties," Alais muttered rebelliously. She had performed the first one on her wedding night by getting with child straight away. She knew in her heart she had conceived then…the experience had been too overwhelming not to result in this infant growing in her womb. It would be a boy, she was certain of it. A dreaming smile on her lips, she stroked the curve of her belly. The pity was that Will was not here for much of the time to watch her grow round with the future heir to Pembroke. She always felt more certain of her ground when he was by, but this foolish war between the King and his barons had deprived her of his company for months on end. Going to the window, she looked out on the bright spring day and tried to visualise him walking across the sward towards the keep. If she gazed hard enough, perhaps it would come true.
Behind her she thought she heard a soft footfall, and the hair rose at her nape. "Will…" she said, and turned…straight into the path of a knife.
*** It was difficult mounting the narrow stairs hampered by long skirts, but the treads were arranged for defence, not domestic comfort, even if the chambers on the various floors were well appointed. Isabelle much preferred the older Norman hall, built by her paternal grandfather, and now used for dining and housing guests. The new keep was imposing, but didn't have that feeling of domestic comfort. Nor was it well endowed with privies. Screens and slop bowls were the order of the day.
She paused for a moment outside the door to catch her breath, not wanting to appear before her daughter-in-law gasping like a freshly caught trout. Then she raised the latch and pushed.
Alais was lying on the floor by the window, her body shuddering and her clothes saturated in blood.
Isabelle gasped and ran to her, thinking at first that she was having a traumatic miscarriage, but as she knelt and turned her, she realised with horror that the wound in her belly had been caused by a blade. Her baby, slippery with his mother's blood, lay unmoving beside her, the cord still attached.
"Mary, Holy Mother…Alais!" With shaking hands Isabelle tried to staunch the bleeding but the wound was too savage, and even as she spoke, Alais gave a final spasm and ceased to breathe. Isabelle stared, unable to believe, unable to comprehend. Who would do this? There was no sign of a struggle, and it must have happened here and quickly for the blood was all around and beneath her, not spilled elsewhere. She gazed about wildly, fearing for her own life, but whoever had done the deed was gone.
Swallowing nausea, Isabelle stumbled to the bed, dragged off the cover, and used it to throw over Alais and the baby…her grandson…No, she told herself, don't think on it. Such things can come later. Concentrate on what needs to be done now. On trembling legs she tottered back down the stairs to the room below to raise the alarm. The sight of her blood-stained hands and gown, the pallor of her face caused consternation among her women. Isabelle silenced them with a curt command. "Sybilla, go above," she said. "Make sure no one enters the room. Elizabeth, fetch your husband here immediately. Rohese, find Father Walter and tell him he is needed."
"What's happened?" Looking frightened, Elizabeth Avenel rose to her feet. "Is the lady Alais…"
Grimly Isabelle shook her head. "There has been foul murder done, here at the heart of our keep," she said. Her voice was as hard as stone because if she had not encased herself in a protective shell, she would have been unable to cope. "By whom I do not know, but my son's wife and their unborn child are dead…"
*** Isabelle was not to remember the next few hours with her conscious mind, but what had happened and its aftermath were to give her nightmares for the rest of her life. The guard was doubled and the castle secured, with no one permitted to enter or leave. Although her orders were carried out immediately, there had still been a leeway of opportunity for an assassin to make his escape. The murder weapon was searched for and not found—but since every man carried a knife at his belt, it was like hunting a forest for trees. Isabelle was frighteningly aware of the suspicious glances being cast her way. Everyone knew of the frictions between her and Alais; and she had gone up alone to talk with her. No one who knew her well believed for one moment that Isabelle had anything to do with the death, but those less familiar looked and wondered.