“The King intends her for you.”
William folded his arms. “Yes, he does.”
“But you’re not going to.”
“I have yet to decide, and that depends on the lady herself,” William replied and would not be drawn by further searching from his brother. He had originally been of a mind to marry Heloise of Kendal whatever the circumstances, but on the sea crossing from Normandy to England Queen Eleanor had chosen to give the cauldron a quick stir, murmuring to him that he had accepted far too low a reward for his services.
“You can do better for yourself, William,” she had said, laying her hand on his sleeve. “My husband can give you much more than the meagre portion he has doled out to you thus far.”
“It is enough, madam,” William had answered, made uncomfortable by her knowing gaze.
She had nodded shrewdly. “Perhaps it is for now, but will it be enough in the future when you realise how much more you could have had? Think on it. There are more heiresses in my husband’s gift than Heloise of Kendal.”
He had been thinking ever since, his mind plodding like an ox on a treadmill. He had been offered more than he had ever had in his life. Lands to administer, the rents and produce of which would keep him solvent and allow him an entourage; a young wife, the chance of heirs; his own hearth instead of warming himself at the fires of others. Yet Eleanor said he should risk asking for more. Whether out of a genuine concern for him or a desire to make mischief he was not certain, although, knowing the Queen, it was probably a mixture of the two.
With an effort he broke the traces and shook himself free. “I’ll go to London and fetch my new charge,” he said to his brother. “And then I’ll govern the lands entrusted to me and bide my time. There is no need to rush into any decision.”
Twenty-six
Tower of London, May 1186
They were feeding the lions. Isabelle de Clare winced at the distant sound of roaring. She had gone to watch once, but the sight of the great beasts tearing apart the carcass of a horse had not been one she was desperate to repeat. Damask, her small silver hound, would shiver if Isabelle took her anywhere near the lion pit, but sometimes Isabelle would go without the bitch to watch the great golden beasts prowl the walls of their confinement. After all, she told herself, they were a rare sight and when she left the Tower she would probably never see their like again—if she left the Tower, she amended gloomily.
It was three years since she had entered this place and dwelling within its confines like a pawn shut up in an ivory chess casket was immensely frustrating. Her childhood homes had been the windswept shores of Ireland and South Wales, with occasional forays into the Marches, to her family’s great keep of Striguil, hugging the cliffs above the River Wye. Now it was difficult to remember any of them. The faces of her family were growing hazy in her mind too, as if successive layers of mist were being drawn across their images. If she tried she could still picture her mother’s blond braids, but then her own were the same and a constant prompt. Her brother and father had travelled deeper into the fog and at times were almost wholly obscured.
The roars echoed and although they were far from the lions’ quarters, Damask squatted nervously on the grass to urinate, her ears trembling back in the direction of the sound.
“I do not blame her,” said Heloise of Kendal, joining Isabelle on her morning walk with the dog. “The lions make me want to do that too.”
Isabelle smiled at her companion, glad of the company. Like her, Heloise was an heiress, although her lands were nowhere near as great and she had only been here for a few months rather than the three years of Isabelle’s residence. She was a dumpy pigeon of a girl with mead-brown eyes and a freckled complexion. Whereas Isabelle spoke French with the soft lilt of her Irish birthplace, Heloise’s accent was strong and forthright and held the distinct influence of the north.
“The justiciar has had orders about me,” Heloise announced as the girls crossed the sward. The late spring weather had chosen a day to pout and rain clouds threatened in the distance. A cool wind blustered their cloaks and tugged at their veils, exposing Isabelle’s heavy wheat-gold braids and Heloise’s glossy dark ones.
“You’re not leaving?” Isabelle’s gaze widened in dismay. Although Heloise had not been at the Tower for long; she had already made an indelible impression on Isabelle’s lonely existence and she could not bear to think of losing her friend so soon.
Heloise shrugged. “I’ll probably have to. Lord Ranulf said that he’d received letters from the King releasing me into the hands of a warden.”
“Did he say who?”
Heloise wrinkled her nose. “William Marshal,” she said, and sniffed. “He’s not of the north.”
Isabelle shook her head. She had not heard of the man either, but, like Heloise, her upbringing had been away from the hub of all court affairs and the important men she knew about were those of Leinster, Striguil, and Longueville.
“Probably some Norman with planks for wits,” Heloise added. “Lord Ranulf didn’t say much, but I could tell he wasn’t impressed.”
“What will you do?”
“What choice do I have?” Heloise folded her arms inside her cloak. “I suppose if I don’t like him I can always dose his wine with hemlock or cause him to fall in a bog on the moors. The peat pools swallow sheep and cattle whole, so I don’t see why they shouldn’t swallow a man without trace.”
If Heloise had hoped to elicit a horrified response from her friend, she was disappointed. Coming from Ireland, Isabelle knew all about bogs that conveniently swallowed troublesome folk. Her own mother had not been above muttering such sentiments on occasion—especially about Normans. She wished this unknown William Marshal to perdition for taking away her new-found friend. “When’s he coming?” she asked.
Heloise shrugged. “Lord Ranulf didn’t say. You know what he’s like. Getting anything out of him is like trying to prise a limpet off a rock. Soon I hope. I want to go home.”
It started to rain and Damask turned tail and streaked back the way she had come, her coat as sleek as watered silver. Sated by their meat, the lions’ roaring had settled to an occasional desultory rumble.
“I wonder who the King will set over my lands.” Isabelle shivered as she made to follow her dog. The drops struck her face like tears. She wanted to go home too, but that would never happen until she had a warden set over her, and God alone knew how fit for the purpose that man would be. He might buy the office with no more intention than to milk her lands dry, and she would be powerless. A pawn removed from her casket and knocked sideways on the chessboard. Her hands had tightened into fists as she walked and she could feel the tension seeping up the back of her neck and throbbing at her temples.
“Not worth worrying about until it happens,” Heloise said cheerfully. “Nothing you can do about it…except bide your time if he proves unworthy.”
