The Wolf at the Door Read online

  The letter coincided perfectly with Saldon’s feelings. He had heard more than enough about the arrogant warlord, and had long envied him his success. He had seen Marshal once, at court, and even then the constable had wondered how such a desiccated creature could have made himself the champion of three successive kings. And been granted the earldom of Pembroke and Striguil. And had them brought to him by the sought-after Isabel de Clare.

  What was so special about the Arab that he had caused King Henry to elevate him to such wind-blown heights? What backstairs abilities did he possess that were denied to men like, well Saldon, for example? None that were apparent in that seamed Islamic face.

  From Mirebeau, the Lusignan prisoners had been led, shackled and fettered, to Angers, Falaise, or Mortain. At this last fortress, Marshal had divided his contingent into two groups, twenty to be incarcerated at Mortain, twenty-five to continue on to England. Among the twenty were those with broken wrists and wrenched necks, and the warlord had taken the opportunity to release the others from their irons. When the second group of prisoners left Mortain they were on horseback, as befitted their rank, and those who had given their parole were allowed to sit free in the saddle.

  It was in this way that they crossed the outer bailey of Corfe Castle, the more intransigent captives roped in line, the rest bound only by their word.

  One hundred and fifty yards separated the main gate from the keep, built directly against an inner curtain wall. A wooden bridge linked the keep’s second-storey entrance with a steep flight of steps, and Saldon waited there at the head of the flight, one foot tapping the outer edge of the bridge. Three of his knights stood at the base of the steps, watching the prisoners and escort follow Marshal across the yard. One of the knights muttered something and they laughed, then turned and looking up to include the constable in their joke. The one who had spoken said, ‘What if you were to tell him his orders have been changed, and he’s to take the bastards to Nottingham? You could say the king had returned and was waiting for him in the north. That’d curdle his lust for Lady de Clare.’

  ‘It would,’ Saldon agreed, ‘but he’s too near his kennel to be lured from it now.’ He nodded past them, and they turned back to see Marshal dismount and approach the keep.

  As he did so, garrison guards began unseating the twenty- five prisoners and dragging them towards ring-bolts in the wall. The Angevin escort stared at them, then attempted to intervene, roaring their indignation. ‘These men gave their word, most of them! They’re not cattle at a market, and where do you think they can run to here?’ They moved forward, cursing, to find themselves within a spiked fence of spears. More guards emerged from the towers in the western wall, thickening the fence. They had obviously rehearsed the scene until they were pace perfect, and there was nothing the weary escort could do.

  But Marshal was not yet fenced-in. He turned at the shouts, saw what was happening, then lengthened his stride.

  Saldon remained where he was, rapping a tattoo, while the trio of knights moved casually into line, as though to bar the way. They wanted to remind the Arab of his place – he was at Corfe now, not at Pembroke or prowling the court at Le Mans. This was Saldon’s domain, in which his knights stood where they pleased. Once their visitor had been brought to a halt, acknowledging their power, they’d move aside. It was a petty display, but they too had heard of Marshal’s high-flown ways, and they relished the chance to deflate him in public.

  Near the wall, the Angevin escort were still bellowing at the garrison. Marshal waited until he was close enough to the knights to address them without shouting, then said, ‘You’re blocking my path, messires. Move away, or I shall think you’re out to arrest me. And you know I’ll resist.’ The words were flat and unemphatic, but they left no room for doubt.

  The trio hesitated, grinned without humour and let him come between them. Had they thought about it, they’d have realized their act had been performed a thousand times before. William Marshal was a popular target for bullish young knights, though he was not the only one. It happened to every warlord, every bishop and monarch, every man scented with success. The smell was attractive.

  He went up the steps, dispensed with courtesy and pointed in the direction of the wall. ‘You have my escort at spear-point. They are English and Angevin knights, and you’ve set Corfe against them.’

  ‘Yes, to discourage interference,’ Saldon retorted. ‘However, if you can assure me that your riders will hold their station, I’ll withdraw the guards.’

  ‘You’ll withdraw them anyway,’ Marshal told him, ‘or take the consequences.’

  The constable gazed at him, debating a challenge. Then he raised his arms, flagging his hands above his head. The fence moved and broke, and the escort immediately unsheathed their swords and settled their shields. The next time thetried it, there’d be a few chopped posts.

  ‘Well now,’ Saldon said, ‘that’s done. It’s a pity we’ve made such a bad start, Earl Marshal. Perhaps you misunderstood your orders. You’ve had charge of the prisoners for so long you’re probably loth to part with them. But they are my responsibility now. Your mission ended when you brought them into the yard.’

  ‘Not so. It ends when I make them over to you, and I have not yet done that. You seem over-anxious to air your reputation, lord constable, chaining them—’

  ‘Reputation as what, Pembroke? As a loyal servant of King John?’

  ‘As a gaoler in whose cells the prisoners tend to die.’

  ‘Take care!’ Saldon snarled. ‘No blame attaches to me for what occurred! Those other captives found their own way to the grave—’

  ‘As will these if you leave them chained out in the sun.’

  With heavy patience, the constable said, ‘They’ll be quartered in due time, don’t concern yourself. But I can hardly lock them away without knowing who they are. The sooner you give me the lists, the sooner they’ll be housed. And the sooner you’ll be on your way to Pembroke.’ He managed to leer around the words, and Marshal half expected a conspiratorial nudge. Christ’s eyes, the man was an atrocity. Unable to resist the temptation, Saldon said, ‘We’ll exchange papers, how’s that?’ He produced John’s letter, handed it to Marshal, and took from him the list of prisoners, with their ranks and titles. While he glanced at the twenty-five names, the warlord read how John had described him to Saldon. ‘Our stiff-necked earl… The detail will be commanded by William Marshal, unless he has trotted non-stop to his marital bed… Marshal may hold other views, but you are the master…’

  ‘He has an unkind turn of phrase, the king,’ Saldon commented. ‘Hmm?’

  ‘He does,’ Marshal said, and let the parchment fall to the step. The smoothed-out scroll bore John’s personal seal, and the brown wax splintered on the stone. Saldon blinked down at it, incredulous, while the warlord descended the narrow flight.

  * * *

  A few miles from Corfe he disbanded the escort, rewarding each of them with one of the horses that had carried thefrom Mortain, or its equivalent value in coins. Seven of the knights were landless, and four of them asked him if he would accept their oath of fealty. They would be his liegemen, obedient to his wishes and loyal to the House of Pembroke. If later he granted them a fief, they would hold and defend it for him, as their suzerain. They had long wanted to serve him, and he could now judge how well they had acquitted themselves at Mirebeau and after.

  ‘Oh, well enough, I’d say. But I should warn you, messires, I’m for home, so you’re in for another hard ride.’

  It was not the kind of warning to deter them.

  As he made his way north to Gloucester, then westward through the foothills of the Black Mountains, the scene at Corfe faded from his mind, to be replaced by images of Pembroke and of Isabel de Clare.

  Even so, he was dogged by doubts. He had fulfilled his mission, and treated his prisoners with the respect due to their rank. The king had commanded him to deliver twenty-five to Corfe, and he had done so without loss or injury. Indeed, he
himself had fared the worst, prey to sea-sickness.

  But would he have entrusted the Lusignan captives to a man like Saldon if the castle had been in Anjou or Aquitaine? Was it coincidence that had placed Corfe within a few days’ ride of Pembroke, or had John chosen it for the Arab’s convenience? In short, had William Marshal delivered the prisoners, or merely rid himself of them, en route to his marital bed?

  The question recurred, but went unanswered.

  * * *

  Throughout the final quarter of the year the French pressed their attack. If King John had ever possessed magical powers they were no longer in evidence, and Philip Augustus took full advantage of Softsword’s lassitude. He could not understand why John had failed to follow up his success at Mirebeau, though the most encouraging explanation was that God sided with the French. He had seen Melusine’s descendant swoop upon Mirebeau, and had thereafter raised His hand against the demon king.

  There might be other, more mundane reasons for John’s inactivity, but it suited Philip to dress his cause in the panoply of Christendom. Death to the English as the enemies of France! And death to the enemy as minions of the devil!

  By late November the war had spread to several fronts, and a number of Angevin leaders had turned against their king. In Normandy, the fortresses of Arques and Driencourt were again beleaguered, and the French army had moved against Conches and Bonneville. In the west, Brittany was in open revolt, clamouring for the release of its prince, the fifteen-year-old Arthur. Maine, Anjou and Touraine were now a battleground, many of the barons still loyal to the king, others ranged against him. Aquitaine and Gascony held firm in the south, though neither had yet come under attack.

  In the three months that had elapsed since John’s day of triumph, he had alienated his nobility, allowed the French to advance deep into his territories, and otherwise devoted his time and energy to the Sparrowhawk. It was as though he regretted his single, outstanding victory, regretted his shortlived reputation as a brilliant and courageous general, regretted the gifts and paeans of praise. Only Queen Isabelle had no regrets, loving the attention he lavished upon her.

  The suzerain of Europe had been appalled by his treatment of the Lusignan prisoners – men of rank chained behind an ox-cart – yet he had done nothing to placate them. Certain of his most loyal supporters had found themselves suddenly out of favour, charged with aggrandizement and self-seeking. The Bretons had appealed for the release of Arthur, but their appeals had been ignored. And all the while the king’s chief adviser, William Marshal, remained on the other side of the Channel, barred from the court.

  The French had believed that King John was in the devil’s employ at Mirebeau. The English believed he was now.

  * * *

  And then a force more powerful than any army swept in and settled the country. Men hunched around their fires, the windows shuttered, the rooms partitioned with boiled-leather curtains. Outside, snow filled the fields and blocked the tracks, and the wind sent batteries of hail clattering against the mud-walled huts and ashlar castles. The war was not forgotten, but it could not be prosecuted, chest-deep in snow. Instead, this was the time to boast of past achievements and plan for the future; to send luckless messengers struggling from one fortress to another; to take inventory of weapons, repair armour, compile lists of allies, potential defectors, known enemies. This was the waiting time, in which to air one’s doubts and review decisions, the breathing space, where the threats and promises were visible to the eye.

  It was during this bitter winter that Arthur of Brittany was transferred from his dungeon at Falaise to a similar prison at Rouen, John’s new home…

  * * *

  He was, in many ways, an image of the king. At fifteen, Arthur was as tall as his uncle, as addicted to jewellery and as venomous in his speech. He was never quite sure on which date he had been presented as a rival for the English throne – but he had been knighted by the French monarch, promised Philip’s daughter in marriage, and had then paid homage for Anjou, Aquitaine, Maine and Brittany, should the French ever wrest them from the English.

  If things went well, Arthur would one day be King of England. But until then he remained a child of France.

  And now he was John’s prisoner at Rouen, a wolf trapped by a wolf. It would seem unlikely that they would get along.

  Nevertheless, the king had discussed the situation with Isabelle, and they had agreed to cosset the young man. He was, after all, a member of the family, and they could understand how he had been misguided by the Frenchman. They’d make friends with him and, in return for his fealty, offer him the dukedom of Brittany. If it was possible to make a captive feel at home, they’d do so, and perhaps he’d lose interest in the fish.

  Before he was summoned to the assembly hall he was wined and dined, offered a bath and a choice of robes, and promised the attentions of a young lady, if the interview went well. In response to these courtesies, he ate to increase his strength, drank in moderation to warm his blood, then refused the bath, the clothes and the offer of company.

  ‘I love these redolent garments,’ he said. ‘They have the stench of imprisonment, but they’re the clothes I wore at Mirebeau, and I’m proud of them. As for your woman, I’ll find my own in due course, and she will not be one of Softsword’s rejects. God forbid, for I’d rather suffer injury than infection.’

  On this sour note he was herded none too gently into the hall.

  The long chamber was decorated with the house standards of those who remained loyal to the king. Marshal was conspicuous by his absence, but even so there were sixty or seventy Angevin overlords, a wealth of knights and sufficient guards to form a frieze around the base of the walls. Uncharacteristically, the king and queen came forward to greet the prisoner.

  ‘You’ve been whipped along a hard road,’ John told him, ‘but grace a Dieu, you’re with us now.’

  ‘So it appears,’ Arthur said.

  ‘I gave orders for you to have fresh clothes; they weren’t brought to you?’

  ‘Brought and sent back,’ Arthur said.

  John nodded. ‘Because you preferred your present garb. Yes, I can appreciate that. You’re still effectively a prisoner, and you don’t wish to discard your uniform until—’

  ‘My lord king?’

  ‘—you’ve been released from— What?’

  ‘I wish to speak.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ John invited, ‘that’s why you’re here. You’re a foolish young man who has been seduced by Philip’s empty promises, but you can see now where it’s led you. Or rather, misled you. Speak out, Arthur, there’s no prohibition here. And go over by the fire if you’re cold. Get the dungeon-damp out of your bones.’

  Arthur looked at him, and stayed where he was. ‘What I have to say will not take long.’

  It was now the Sparrowhawk’s turn to encourage. She was his senior by less than two years – a court comprised of children – yet she felt almost maternal towards this thin, misguided youth. ‘You have as long as you need, my dear Arthur. Understand, you have not been captured by your enemies so much as taken from those who would manipulate you. We have no real quarrel with you, or with Brittany. You’re its rightful duke, and it’s only the half-blind Augustus who poisons you with discontent.’ She nodded at the wisdom of her words and saw John nod alongside.

  Arthur evinced a smile, drew a response from Isabelle, then promptly ignored her. Facing John, and making a target of his high-heeled boots and tent-like cloak, he said, ‘I’ll take your blatherings from the beginning. I was not whipped along any road, though I was brought from Mirebeau, tied to the saddle. And in similar fashion from Falaise. And it was there, in that gaunt castle, that I was shackled to the cell wall and left to straddle a growing mound of excreta. Once a week it was shovelled away, this compost of stale bread and riddled meat, and even then I knew I was being treated better than my companions of lesser rank. Your smiles have faded, majesties, why’s that? Does it finally occur to you that I shall not be bou
ght with pressed linen and the offer of a whore?

  ‘Let me tell you how I can be purchased. By the knowledge that you’ve both been swept away – shovelled away. You, king, whose coronation must rank as England’s greatest disaster, and you, Lady of Lusignan—’

  In a last effort to be reasonable, John hurried, ‘Too far, Duke Arthur, that goes too far. Queen Isabelle was never the Lady of Lusignan, nor did she wish to be. I’m prepared to tolerate your outburst, but I’ll have no one insult the Queen of England.’

  ‘Then,’ Arthur said, ‘you’ll be very lonely, for she’s a better object than a jester. You both are, outside these walls. A king on stilts, and a queen who rules from the bedchamber? God knows it; if any man is to keep his self-respect, he has to be your enemy.’

  He coughed into the cold air and did not resist when a group of guards and barons manhandled him from the chamber. He had said what he wanted to say. And, with luck, his cell would have been cleaned out in his absence.

  * * *

  The snow held them in thrall. January was more bitter than December, but the worst was left till last. In early February northern Europe was lashed by gales, tempted by an hour’s sunlight, then swept by fresh falls of snow. Patrols floundered a few miles from home, their marks already obliterated. Emissaries died en route, trapped by the darkness and the numbing winds. It seemed that God no longer favoured the French, but had imposed a curfew on all the warring factions. They had displeased Him, and were frozen in their tracks.