William rubbed the back of his neck. He was rapidly discovering how perceptive of his inner moods Isabelle was. A smile and a genial comment might fool the world at large but not his bride of six weeks. She would question him or touch him or give him a look and he would feel as if she had peeled away his skin and left him exposed to the air. “You are right,” he admitted, “I do feel like a dog that scents something wrong, but were you to ask me what, I would have to say I do not know—unless it be the presence in one place of de Glanville, Longchamp, and Prince John. That’s enough to raise the hackles of any hound!”
Isabelle looked thoughtful. “I was never fond of de Glanville, although he did nothing to harm me…”
“Beyond shearing the revenue of your estates to the bone while he could and paying himself from the proceeds,” William said acidly. “Nor were you the only one. Wigain told me that he’s guilty of embezzling more than fifteen thousand marks which should have gone into the exchequer.”
Isabelle silently mouthed the amount, her eyes widening.
“Wigain does tend to elaborate, but usually about his love life and the size of his equipment. He’s reliable when it comes to gossip. Being in Richard’s household he’s in a position to hear all kind of things.” He shrugged. “De Glanville sets my teeth on edge, I admit, but he’s no threat. He’s pledged to accompany the King on his crusade and his time of influence is over. But Longchamp…” His lip curled. “He is a fine fiscal administrator and loyal to the King, and if that were all, I would embrace him, but he craves power and has so high a sense of his own worth that he views everyone else as if they are maggots crawling at his feet.”
Isabelle could feel William’s irritation in the rigidity of his forearm. Unlike her husband, she had had no exposure to Richard’s chancellor until she had met the royal entourage when it convened at Winchester after Richard’s landing from Normandy. Like William, Longchamp came from a family with higher ambitions than rank, and such a background automatically bred envy when royal favouritism was shown. She had been prepared to take Longchamp as she found him…and she found him just as William said. It made no matter that she was a great heiress: Longchamp’s look had cut her down, telling her without words that he had little time but plenty of scorn for young women whatever their status. “And yet you must come to terms with him,” she said. “What else can you do?”
William snorted with bleak amusement. “Do you really want to know?”
She gave a small laugh and pinched him.
As they stepped from the tent into the public domain, he said, “Supping with the devil is one alternative, but I don’t know if my spoon is long enough, and the devil may well not want to sup with me.”
Isabelle looked at him askance. “I do not suppose you’re going to explain that remark, otherwise you wouldn’t have spoken in riddles and put that closed look on your face.”
“My face isn’t closed.”
“Yes it is,” she said with amused resignation. “The more innocent and open you look, the deeper your thoughts go.”
“I will tell you later.”
“And I will hold you to it,” she said, giving him fair warning, and then smiled and dipped a curtsey as they were joined by the Earl of Essex and his Countess, who had also emerged from their pavilion to go to mass and witness the wedding of the King’s brother.
Isabelle sipped the wine. The taste was agreeable, but she wanted to keep a clear head. William said that the wine at old King Henry’s court had been like drinking mud, and that in consequence it was rare to see a drunkard there unless he had access to his own supply. Richard was plainly more discerning, as was Prince John, and in consequence many folk were already in their cups. William was too experienced a hand to be one of them, for which Isabelle was glad. Wine made men swift to laugh and far too swift to take offence and draw steel. She had noticed that Prince John was not drinking much either, but then he was a bridegroom, and he had his duty to perform. His new wife, Havise of Gloucester, sat quietly beside him, her eyes downcast and her expression so determinedly blank that Isabelle could tell she was dreading the ordeal. One didn’t need to school happiness from one’s face but fear and antipathy were different matters. At least Prince John was said to be an experienced lover. Rumours of mistresses among the court women were probably true, and he had caused a scandal by bedding his own cousin, the daughter of Earl Hamelin de Warenne, and getting her with child.
Currently he was glancing laconically around Marlborough’s great hall, fixing on this man and that in assessment. He caught her watching him and for a moment, trapped in his tawny stare, she felt like one of the live lambs with which the keepers at the tower had occasionally fed the lions. But then he dazzled her a smile, inclined his head, and his gaze moved on. Isabelle took a swift drink of wine to steady herself and choked. William bent round solicitously to ask if she was all right and she managed a weak reply. Suddenly she was very glad that she was not Havise of Gloucester.
The main courses of the feast were cleared away, leaving fruit, nuts, and subtleties on the trestles, and the musicians struck up a lively carole dance. Bride and groom rose to tread the first measure. John was light on his feet and kept easy time to the beat of the tabor. Havise was less sure of herself and several times tripped on her gown and missed steps. The dowager Queen joined the floor with Richard and others who were sober enough to dance, had an aptitude, or wished to honour the couple. As newlyweds themselves, William and Isabelle left the trestle to take part. Since the carole was progressive, Isabelle found herself having to be very nimble on her feet to avoid crushed toes, and had to turn her head from gusts of wine-laden breath. More than one lord thought she should be pleased to be congratulated on her recent marriage by a whiskery kiss and she had to tread a path between diplomacy and self-preservation. She partnered King Richard, who was flushed with drink but still in command of his faculties and a graceful dancer. Although he smiled at her, she knew he was looking through her and that any woman could have stood before him and he would not have known the difference. John, however, was well aware of her presence as he took Richard’s place. His hand touched her waist, his hazel eyes flirted, and such was the charisma of his body that her spine tingled. “William Marshal is a fortunate man,” he said, glinting her a smile. “He’s been landing on his feet all the years that I’ve known him, and he’s done it again.”
“My lord?” Isabelle said and prepared to move on.
“I could have had you, and he could have had Havise.” There was malice in the curl of the handsome mouth.
“Then I am a most fortunate woman, for I might have had you,” Isabelle replied, smiling too.
John’s laughter followed her to her next partner. What a foolish thing to say, she chastised herself. She was going to have to be more circumspect.
“Sister…” The next man bowed to her as she pressed her palm to his and with a start she realised that she was partnering her husband’s eldest brother. Another John, another man to be handled carefully. He had come to Winchester to bow to Richard, but his allegiance was to the Prince. He and William had embraced with smiles, but there had been an underlying friction and Isabelle was still trying to unravel the bond between them. She suspected that John Marshal was envious of William but trying not to be; that he was an ambitious man who hoped to profit from his position in Prince John’s retinue. He had recently been promised the shrievalty of York and had been at pains to insist that the appointment was by his own merits and not at William’s behest. Whether men believed him or not was another matter and, she suspected, a sore point.
“Brother,” she responded as they pressed palms together and turned. He was only two years older than William, but the difference seemed more like ten for William looked young for his age, with only a few silver hairs amid the brown and skin still tight to his bones. There were deep vertical furrows between John Marshal’s brows and where William’s mouth curved up at the corners, John’s curved down. A small paunch filled out his good wool tunic, whereas, despite his capacious appetite, William still had the lean flanks of a hound. “You must be pleased to be named seneschal of Marlborough,” she said.
He gave her a wintry smile. “Indeed I am, since it was an office my father held many years ago and he was unfairly deprived of it.”
Isabelle noted the tone. William’s brother clearly felt that Marlborough was no more than his due.
Later she danced with John Marshal’s wife in a carole involving the sexes dancing in two rings, men to the left, women to the right. Aline de Port was a little over thirteen years old, a pale, slender creature, her breasts scarcely budding against the tight lacing of her silk gown and her hips as narrow as a child’s. William had told Isabelle that his brother had not bedded her. Although the girl had had her first flux, she was still physically immature and were she to quicken now, she would likely die and the child with her. Isabelle suppressed a shiver at the thought. She was a fully developed woman, robust and healthy, but she felt trepidation when she thought of giving birth—an ordeal that seemed ever more probable with each day that her flux continued overdue.
The dance ended on a flourish, with the participants almost running the steps and Isabelle took a moment away to recover her breath. Aline joined her, declaring that she was thirsty and gulping down a brimming cup of wine. Thin tendrils of mouse-fair hair had escaped net and wimple to curl around her flushed face. Sipping from her own goblet, Isabelle asked her sister-in-law how she was finding the married state.
Aline shrugged. “I like the court,” she said in a high, almost transparent voice. “And I like my fine gowns.” It was her third cup of wine and she was swaying on her feet. “I didn’t want to marry him but my mother said that because he’s so much older than me, he’ll die after a few years and then I can pay a fine and wed whom I choose.”
Isabelle almost choked. When she had been told she was to marry William, it had been the first thought that had run through her head. But she was older than Aline and William was younger than John, and in the six weeks since her marriage, she had thanked God every day for her own situation.
“I have my own chamber,” Aline babbled on, “and he has his. I know he has women there sometimes, but it doesn’t bother me. While he’s making the beast with two backs with them, he isn’t making it with me.”
