Виктория Холт - The Battle of the Queens

Assuredly she was not going to allow him to escape her.

‘It is not possible,’ he said desperately.

‘My dear Hugh, it is possible if we wish it to be. If you refuse me, I shall know that I was mistaken. All these years when I have thought of you have been a mockery. You did not love me after all. Perhaps it was as well I went to John.’

‘You know that to be untrue.’

‘I had hoped it, but now you spurn me …’

‘Spurn you!’ He had taken her in his arms. And she thought: Yes, here in the forest … where some riders might come upon us at any moment. It will show him how great is his need of me, how his need and his desire takes from him the inherent inclination to conventional conduct.

‘Nay, you do not spurn me,’ she whispered. ‘You need me, Hugh … just as I need you. You could never let me go …’

He gave a cry of despair and thought of the innocent eyes of his young betrothed before he forgot everything but Isabella.

* * *

He had asked that he should first break the news to her.

‘My dearest,’ Isabella had cried, ‘but why? She will hear of it in time.’

‘Nay,’ he had said, ‘I wish this.’

She was a little put out but it seemed advisable at that time to give way.

He said he would ride out into the forest with his little betrothed because he thought it would be easier that way.

She was grave on that morning; it was almost as though she sensed some disaster. He found it difficult to tell her; he wanted to choose the right words, to explain that it was no deficiency in her.

She herself began it by saying: ‘My lord, are you displeased with me?’

‘My dear little Joan, how could I be?’

‘If I had done something that you thought was wrong.’

‘You have done nothing wrong.’

‘Is it something to do with my mother?’

‘Your … mother?’ he repeated miserably.

‘Yes, it seems that since she came …’

He plunged in. ‘You know that she and I were betrothed long ago?’

‘Yes, I knew it.’

‘Then your father came and took her away.’

‘She has told me often.’

‘Well, now she is here again and your father is dead … the truth is, we are to marry.’

‘You … marry my mother. But how can that be? I am your affianced bride.’

‘My dear child, you are very young and a much more suitable husband than I could ever be will be found for you.’

‘I think you are suitable. You are kind and I thought you liked me and were happy about our betrothal.’

‘I was, and I love you of course … but as a daughter. You understand?’

‘No,’ she cried. ‘No!’

‘Listen to me, little Joan. You have to grow up. There is much you have to learn. Your brother is the King of England.’

‘Young Henry,’ she said scornfully. ‘He is only a boy.’

‘He is the King of England and you as his sister are worthy of a great match.’

‘I have a great match.’

He took her hand and kissed it. She said eagerly: ‘You did not mean it. My mother will go back to England now you are home and it will all be as we planned.’

He shook his head sadly: ‘Nay, my child,’ he said. ‘Your mother and I will marry. It was what was intended years ago. Fate has brought us together again but it is what was meant to be. Come, we will ride back to the castle. I wanted to tell you this myself … to explain.’

‘I see,’ she said, ‘that you love my mother.’

He nodded.

‘Far more,’ she said sagely, ‘than you could ever love me.’

Then she spurred her horse and rode forward. He kept a distance between them. He did not want to see her sad little face.

* * *

So they were married and Joan saw her mother take that place which she had thought would be hers.

She watched them but they were unaware of her; they saw nothing but each other.

There were festivities in the castle to celebrate the marriage. There was dancing and the singing of lays. Minstrels rendered their music soulfully, romantically, and it was all about lovers.

Isabella was as beautiful as she ever was, Hugh was handsome. The life of the castle seemed to revolve round them; and the attendants whispered together and their talk was about the romance of two lovers, long parted, come together again.

Joan wondered what would happen to her. She supposed that when they emerged from this blissful wonder of being married they would perhaps remember her. Something would have to be done about her because she had no place in the castle now. Even the attendants looked at her as though she was something which a guest had left behind and must be set aside until she could be collected.

Even the bridegroom, kind Hugh, when they met, which she fancied he tried to avoid, seemed as though he were trying not to remember who she was.

She wept during the night when no one could see; and by day she wandered through the castle, lost and bewildered, but waiting with the certainty that something would have to happen before long.

William Marshal had gone to his castle at Caversham near Reading with the conviction that he would never leave it. He was old – few men passed their eightieth birthdays – and he should be grateful for a long life, during which he had been able – and he would not have been the honest man he was if he had denied this – to serve his country in a manner which had preserved her from disaster.

He could look back over the last four years since the young King had come to the throne and congratulate himself that England was well on the road to recovery from that dreadful malaise which had all but killed her and handed over her useless corpse to the French.

There was order in the land. How the people responded to a strong hand! It had ever been so. Laws and order under pain of death and mutilation had always been the answer; and if it was administered with justice the people were grateful. That was what John had failed to see, for he had offered the punishments without consideration of whether they were deserved. Praise God, England was settled down to peace; there had been a four years’ truce with the French and he and the Justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, would see that it was renewed. England was rising to greatness and he would say Nunc dimittis.

Isabella, his wife, was concerned about him. They had grown old together; theirs had been a good union and a fruitful one. They had five sons and five daughters and their marriages had often brought good to the family by extending its influence; and although his first concern was with his honour and the right, and he put the country’s interests before his own, he could not help but be content that his was one of the richest and most influential families in the land.

But he had known for some time that his time would soon come; and he preferred to go before he lost his powers. Who – if he had been a man of action and sharp shrewd thinking – would want to become a poor invalid sitting in his chair waiting for the end?

His wife Isabella looked in at him as he sat thoughtfully at his table and he called to her.

‘You are well, husband?’ she asked.

‘Come and sit with me awhile, Isabella,’ he said.

She came, watching him anxiously.

‘We must not deceive ourselves,’ he said. ‘I believe that I shall soon be gone.’

‘You have the pain?’

‘It comes and goes. But there is after it a kind of lassitude and times when I find my mind wandering back over the past and my King is another Henry, blustering, wenching, soldiering in the way of a wise general, using strategy rather than bloodshed. He always used to say that to me: “A battle that can be won by words at a conference meeting is worth thrice as much as that in which the blood of good soldiers is shed.” I forget, Isabella, that it is the pallid boy who is now our King and not his grandfather who rules over us.’

‘There have been two kings since then, William.’

‘Richard … who forgot his country that he might win glory and honour with the Saracens … and John …’

‘My dear William, it upsets you to think of that. It is past. John is dead.’

‘For which me must thank God,’ said William. ‘He has left us this boy king.’

‘And you, William, have made England safe for him.’

William Marshal nodded slowly. ‘We are at peace as we have not been for many years, but we must keep it so.’

‘Hubert de Burgh is of your opinion and with two such as you to guide our affairs …’

‘Ah, my dear wife, how long think you that I shall be here. That is what sets me wondering.’

‘We are going to see that you remain with us for a long time.’

‘Who is this all powerful “We” which sets itself against the wishes of the Almighty? Nay, wife, when my time has come, come it will. And I want to be sure that England stays firm and that we continue in those steps towards peace and prosperity which we have taken these last four years. I am going to send a message to our son, William. I want him to come here with all speed as I have much to say to him.’

Isabella Marshal was alarmed. With that almost uncanny foresight of his William seemed to sense that his end was not far off. But she knew him well enough not to try to persuade him against such action. William had always known where he was going.

When she had left him he went to a court cupboard and unlocking it, took from it a Templar’s robe. Divesting himself of his surcoat, gown and soft white shirt, he put on the coarse garment.