Chapter 36 #2
“For the moment, no. Longchamp has the King’s mandate and, having seen the rage Richard was in when he heard about York and the other cities, I doubt that he’ll relent and reinstate my brother.
I can try to rectify the damage with diplomacy, but Richard is in no mood to listen at the moment.
” He rumpled his hands through his damp hair. “Christ, it’s a mess.”
‘Does your brother have a reason to hate the Jews? Is he in debt to them?”
“Not as far as I know, but then what do I know of John? I wouldn’t have thought him capable of such idiocy, but he is.
” William went to look at his sleeping son.
“My father used to say that someone ought to explode a barrel of pitch under John to ignite his wits, but it looks as if they’ve been scattered to the four winds instead.
” He sighed at Isabelle. “I suppose that mutual support is an obligation of brotherhood, but John sometimes makes it very hard indeed. We could have done without Longchamp sticking his finger in the pie at York.”
“You can say nothing to me that I have not already said to myself,” John Marshal told William and Isabelle.
He had arrived at Longueville en route to join Richard and face the royal ire.
Since William was preparing to return to the court, the Marshal brothers would at least arrive together and united.
In the circumstances, William thought it fortuitous and the best he could do, but he wasn’t prepared to forgive his brother’s crass stupidity easily.
“How much do you care to wager?” William growled.
They were sitting in William’s chamber, the great bed made up with its day covers and the hangings secured back.
“If Richard does not string you up by your thumbs, you will be fortunate. How did you let it happen? God’s bones, the sheriff of Lincoln managed to save his Jews from the mob! ”
“Well, I’m not Gerard de Camville and my wife’s no Nicolaa de la Haye,” John snapped. The whites of his eyes were veined with red and there were deep pouches of sleeplessness beneath them.
William raised an eyebrow. Nicolaa de la Haye was a formidable woman of similar years to themselves, brisk, forthright, and personable. But what concern wives were in this instance was not immediately clear to William.
“I thought it would burn itself out if I let them have their way a little.” John gave William a belligerent look from beneath his brows. “You didn’t feel the hatred blistering off the mob. Rather they should turn it on the Jews than a Christian sheriff.”
Jesu,” William said through his teeth and suppressed the urge to strike his brother in the mouth.
“What sort of a commander of men are you? What sort of a cowa—” He clamped his mouth on the rest of the word, but John knew full well what he had been going to say and colour rose up his throat and into his face.
“You weren’t there,” John snarled. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. It’s a setback. I’m still castellan of Marlborough. You still have Gloucester.”
William’s jaw was aching with the strain of holding back the words. Suddenly he felt very weary, as if he had been sparring all day and gained neither advantage nor improvement in skill—a waste. “I suppose that Longchamp has installed his brother as the new sheriff of York?”
“It won’t last,” John said moodily. He too looked as if he had fought all day for nothing beyond a deadening of the soul. “I may have had my punishment for mishandling the York riots, but Longchamp’s arrogance will be his downfall.”
“As your incompetence might be ours,” William said irritably.
“And of course you’re infallible…the flawless knight, the perfect courtier, the greatest that’s ever lived outside a minstrel’s lay,” John snarled. “Only you know what deeds lie on the other side of that coin!”
William recoiled from the accusation as if from a striking snake.
The baby woke in his cradle and began to wail with fretful hunger.
John jumped at the sound and then huddled into himself as if protecting a wound.
Going to the cradle, Isabelle lifted her son in her arms. Retiring a little from the men, her back turned to her brother-in-law for modesty, she put him to suck.
John studied mother and child with bitter eyes.
“My wife miscarried of a son during the riots at York,” he said.
William stared at his brother. “Jesu, John.” He couldn’t keep the revulsion from his expression or his voice. “I thought you weren’t going to bed her yet?”
John flushed. “She’d begun her fluxes,” he said defensively, and rubbed his hands together as if washing them. “She took me to task over one of the Marlborough whores I’d had in my bed and I said that she’d not like the alternative.”
William’s nostrils flared. “You raped her?”
John shook his head in vigorous negation.
“Why do you think the worst of me? No, I didn’t rape her!
She was willing to do her duty—insistent, in fact, for it was she who came to me.
I was drunk and I hurt her, but it wasn’t rape.
I wish it hadn’t happened but sometimes things unravel despite the best of intentions.
I didn’t touch her again, but once was enough. At least she didn’t die.”
Isabelle looked over her shoulder, her underlip caught in her teeth. “Oh, John,” she said softly with appalled dismay and compassion.
“You wouldn’t want to walk a mile in my shoes just now,” he said wearily and stood up. “I’ll wait for you in the courtyard.”
“God’s bones,” William cursed as the door closed behind John.
He released the tension of the moment in a long shudder and crossing the chamber began jerkily to gird on his sword.
Isabelle finished feeding the baby, handed him to the nurse, and hastened to her husband.
William adjusted the weight of the blade at his hip and took her in his arms, resting his chin on the top of her head.
“I lost my temper,” he said. “I should not have done that.”
“Better than letting the anger fester within you,” she replied. “You had to say those things to him for both your sakes.”
He was silent for a moment, then he sighed. “He is right though. There is a reverse side to the coin of my honour.”
She tightened her grip on his arms. “Then that makes you a whole man, and I count your honour untarnished.”
William regarded her with a deep swelling of affection. She was half his age, yet she had a feminine wisdom that outstripped his own paltry efforts at sagacity. “Ah, Isabelle,” he said softly, and kissed her with gratitude and tenderness before going out to find his brother.