The Scarlet Lion (64 page)

Feeling a flood of tender warmth, Isabelle hugged her. "You know the important parts, as do they," she said. "That they are cherished and well loved. I do not suppose the details matter in God's scheme. I—" She looked up as Father Walter came puffing across the grass towards them, waving his arms as he ran. "Countess, Lady Mahelt, come quickly, it is the Earl!"

Isabelle's heart kicked and started to pound in swift, hard strokes. Raising her skirts above her ankles, she dashed towards the manor.

The door to William's chamber stood wide, the windows too, allowing the full flood of the May sunlight to brighten the chamber and dazzle the whitewashed walls. Tears streaking his face, Will was supporting his father in his arms. A weeping Jean was trying to revive his lord by splashing his face with rose water, but to no avail; although he yet lived, as attested by the laboured rise and fall of his chest. William's executor Richard of Notely had placed a cross in William's hands and was praying over him with the Abbot of Reading and the household chaplains.

Her breath sobbing in her lungs from distress and the urgency of her run, Isabelle knelt at the bedside and clasped her own hands in prayer and supplication. "Maria,
Mater gratiae, Mater misericordiae, Tu nos ab hoste protege et mortis hora suscipe. Maria, Mater gratiae, Mater misericordiae, Tu nos ab hoste protege et mortis hora suscipe." A part of her was screaming "Don't leave me!" bu
t another part was praying with desperation, "Holy Mary, release him. By your great mercy, let him go!"

The sun moved across the window space, shining in full benediction on the bed and those standing around it. William's gaze was open, fixed upon the arch of light. Isabelle followed its path. The dazzle of sun on lime-washed wall and bleached coverlet was blinding and for an instant she thought she saw the figures of whom he had spoken to her, perhaps even the ruffle of feathers like the arch of a swan's wings. When she looked back at William, half in awe, half distrusting, he had ceased to breathe and his parted lips were curved in the faintest hint of a smile.

Epilogue

STRIGUIL, WELSH BORDERS, AUGUST 1219

Isabelle had had her tapestry frame moved into the bailey to take advantage of the warm summer's weather and the good, clear light. These days her eyes needed help to see to make the fine stitches and since this was an altar piece for the abbey at Tintern, she wanted it to be the best she could do.

Her women sat with her, quietly plying their needles, working in companionable silence that no one felt the need to break. A refreshing breeze, neither too cold nor too strong, blew across the walls from the river far below. Isabelle paused to rest her eyes for a moment. The embroidery displayed the resurrection and its border was edged with alternating shields bearing the arms of Marshal and de Clare. At Mahelt's insistence she had embarked upon the project in the first days and weeks following William's death. The endless repetition of stitches had given her something to do, day in, day out, while she was desolate with grief and nothing mattered.

At first Isabelle had felt numb inside and as solid as the shields she had spent hours embroidering, but gradually, as she worked, the colours, the symmetry and beauty of the patterns had begun to open her feelings to the world around her again. She had started to take notice, although it was a gradual process and there were still days when the world was grey and overcast with sorrow. She had not yet reached a state of happiness, but today she was content, and it was a step forward.

As he had desired, William had been laid to rest in the Temple Church in London. The funeral had been attended by a vast throng of barons and magnates, and conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury. So great was the crowd that the alms-giving in honour of William's soul had had to take place at Westminster where there was sufficient space. Now a skilled master stone carver was preparing the effigy to lie upon the tomb, and when it was done, she would go to London and see that it met with her approval. Even if it was not her fate to lie beside her husband, she would have him fittingly represented.

She had pondered long on the nature of death and found comfort in the fact that even the Christ had had to die, and that it was an honourable estate that all must come to. She prayed that when her own time came, she could leave the world with as much honour as William had done. She had asked for God's blessing on the time that remained to her, and upon her family and children, especially Eve, who was carrying her first child.

Richard had not been in time to attend his father's funeral, but had come to her from France and stayed for a week at Caversham before escorting her here, to Striguil. He was so much like William, except rendered in the rich auburn colouring of de Clare, that his presence had given her great joy, seasoned with great pain. A month ago he had returned to France and for a brief while the grieving had begun again, but not as deep and she was past it now.

A joyous shout made her raise her head and look across the bailey. Two young knights had set up a quintain on the sward and were preparing to tilt at the ring, as William had so often done. Now and then they glanced covertly towards the women. Seeing Isabelle watching, one of them saluted her with his painted lance, then made his horse side-step and caracole, his grin as bright as the sun.

Above the young man's head, the banners fluttered on the battlements, proclaiming her residence; the red chevronels of de Clare and beside it the blazon that William had taken for his own on the tourney field of Lagny-sur-Marne before she had known him. The scarlet lion snarled out from its background of emerald and gold, blowing in the direction of the Welsh hills to the north-west.

As long as there were young knights to break lances and women to watch their prowess, as long as there were men who would temper their desires and ambitions with honour and integrity, William's presence would still be felt.

After a moment of watching the knights train, Isabelle picked up her needle and began to sew, a poignant smile on her lips and a tentative feeling of peace in her heart. Whatever the future held, she was ready to face it.

Author's Note

The Scarlet Lion
is my second novel about William Marshal. My first,
The Greatest Knight
, covers his early career and climb up fortune's ladder, from household knight and tourney champion to magnate and co-ruler of the realm during Richard I's absences on crusade.

As I have continued to research the story of William Marshal, his family and familiars, I have been privileged to be drawn into a life that by the standards of any age would be amazing and inspiring. Perhaps the only modern hero who comes close is Sir Winston Churchill and indeed the lives of the two men share many parallels, not least that of taking the helm at a time of national crisis.

William Marshal's name is a byword for chivalry. He is the dashing knight, the champion of the tournaments, contemporary of the Lionheart, flawless paragon. The man behind the legend, however, is somewhat more complex and occasionally flawed, but that only serves to make him more of a hero. He was easy-going and courteous, and enjoyed the simple pleasures of life when they came his way, but could play the great magnate to the hilt when it suited his purposes. He was an accomplished soldier and commander with a natural talent for the battlefield, but hand in hand with such skills came the dextrous ability to negotiate and seek diplomatic solutions rather than plunge into all-out war. He was generous to his men and open-handed, but fiscally astute—King John often borrowed money from him. By various, often hand-to-mouth stratagems, William kept the country from bankruptcy during the period of his regency despite the limited resources at his disposal. He set great store by his honour and his oath of fealty, but was prepared to blur the lines when his lands were threatened as in the case of his estates in Normandy and Ireland.

At a time when women's voices were not always heard, his wife, Isabelle, Countess of Pembroke, was very much William's partner and equal. Although she does not feature often in the primary sources, when she does appear, her presence is telling and reveals that she was no retiring flower. She did indeed object to her sons being taken hostage and said so. Heavily pregnant she did take on Meilyr FitzHenry and rule Leinster in William's absence, as she ruled their other estates when he was in the field. William said of her that "Ge n'i rien si par lu
i non." "I have no claim to anything here, save through her.
" She was present at his councils. Wherever he was, Isabelle was not usually far away. She was his "
Belle amie"
and it is what he called her at their final embrace before he took the deathbed vows of a Templar. When he died, she was distraught and she herself only survived him by a year, despite the age gap of more than twenty years separating them.

I am grateful to Catherine Armstrong at the Castles Wales website for her lead suggesting that Isabelle's mother, Aoife, Countess of Hibernia, was laid to rest at Tintern Abbey. Further personal research of my own appears to bear this out, and it would go part way to explain William and Isabelle's fleeting visit to Ireland in 1201.

I have tried to stay as true to the facts and the characters as I can, whilst acknowledging that this is a novel, not a reference work. If the edifice is built with solid building blocks of research, then it is bound together by the mortar of imagination.

Readers will not find the murder of Alais de Béthune in any reference work. All they do say is that she died about nine months after her marriage, but I firmly believe, although cannot prove beyond circumstantial evidence, that her half-brother William de Forz had her murdered and got away with it. That's the thing with history. Loose ends are not always neatly tied up. The death of Prince Arthur also remains open to conjecture. It is my personal belief that John did kill him, but that it was as a
coup de grace
after French agents forced his hand.

Where possible, the minor characters are drawn from life too. Readers might notice that the names of the chaplains serving William's household change but this is because there were several of them, who worked in rotation, or came and went as years and circumstances dictated. Chaplains named in the Marshal's charters include, among others, Eustace, Roger, Nicholas, and Walter (who was chaplain to Isabelle).

I have included a select bibliography of the main primary and secondary sources I used in the writing of
The Scarlet Lion
so that readers who are interested in knowing more about William Marshal, Isabelle de Clare, and their children can explore them and their world in greater detail. I found the Anglo-Norman Text Society's translation of the
Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal
invaluable for an eye-witness account of William's life and death. The piece was commissioned shortly after he died, and told to its composer by the people who had known him best, and thus the man himself shines through in much of the content. The
Histoire itself is also remarkable for being the first secula
r biography of an Englishman.

For readers feeling adventurous, William's tomb effigy can be visited at the Temple Church in London. The effigies of his sons William and Gilbert are also present in the round nave. Isabelle lies with her mother, Mahelt, and Walter at Tintern, but their graves have long since been lost. Visitors to Chepstow Castle (known as Striguil in
The Scarlet Lion
) can see the great castle doors that William commissioned when he became the Earl. A large replica of Isabelle's seal can also be viewed at Chepstow Castle together with information about the Marshal family. Pembroke Castle still retains the shell of William Marshal's great keep and there are exhibitions concerned with the Marshal family and their descendants. The town that William founded in Ireland, called Newtown in the novel, is today known as New Ross.

It has been a wonderful journey for me as an author to share the lives of such extraordinary people. It is with great respect, a touch of sadness, and a tremendous sense of inspiration that I move on.

E Dex en perdurable glorie
Dont que la sue ame soit mise
Et entre ses angles assise!

Amen

Select Bibliography

Carpenter, D. A.,
The Minority of Henry III
(Methuen, 1978,

ISBN 0 413 62360 2).

Church, S. D.,
The Household Knights of King John
(Cambridge

University Press, 1999, ISBN 0 521 55319 9).

Coss, Peter,
The Lady in Medieval England 1000–1500
(Sutton,

1998, ISBN 0 7509 0802 5).

Crouch, David,
William Marshal, Knighthood, War and Chivalry,

1147–1219
(Longman, 2nd edn, 2002, ISBN 0 582 77222 2). Flanagan, Marie-Therese,
Irish Society, Anglo-Norman Settlers,

Angevin Kingship: Interactions in Ireland in the Late Twelfth