It was already growing dark, and the wedding celebrations were all but over the next day when at last Richard sought out Matilda from the thronging guests and guided her toward the shelter of a tall hedge threaded with honeysuckle and dog roses. His face was grim. “You’re playing with fire when you flirt with John, surely you know that,” he began furiously.
Matilda blushed. “I did not flirt with him! He followed me. I had no wish even to talk with him, believe me. I dislike that young man.”
Richard glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t talk so loud,” he said anxiously. “Well, he certainly likes you, and it wouldn’t do to make an enemy of him by showing you don’t return his feelings.” He glanced at her obliquely.
“Are you suggesting that I-”
“I am suggesting nothing, Matilda. Just take care. Please.” He put his hand gently on her arm.
Matilda pressed her own fingers miserably over his, swallowing the lump that came to her throat. “I will take care, Richard. I know he’s dangerous.”
“I leave tomorrow to attend the coronation.” His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Then I go to Cardiff. I am to marry Amicia of Gloucester within the month.”
She felt rather than saw his eyes on her and blinked back her sudden tears. “I know, Richard. I wish you every happiness.” She took a deep breath and turned away for a moment, trying to regain control over the misery that had welled up until it was almost too great to bear. When she faced him again she was smiling. She broke off the delicate pink shell of a dog rose and pushed it gently into the clasp of his mantle. “Let us still be friends, Richard dear.” She was almost as tall as he, and gazing at him for a long, last moment, she leaned forward suddenly and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, then she turned and fled.
She sent her maids away early that night and, blowing out the candles, lay dry-eyed in the dark, listening to the distant shouts and music that floated across the encampment. William, she knew, was with the prince. Richard too, she supposed; the three men with whom her life seemed inextricably bound, drinking together at the banqueting board, toasting each other into the night.
She lay for a long time listening to the giggles of the two girls who attended her as they prepared for bed beyond the thin canvas partition in the tent, then gradually as they grew quieter her eyelids became heavier and eventually she dozed.
It was Gwenny, the elder of the two, who wakened her, roughly shaking her shoulder in the dark. The camp was silent, and the coals in the brazier beyond the tent flaps were long dead. “My lady, you’re to come quickly.” The girl was shaking with fear.
Matilda sat up. “What is it? What has happened?” She reached for her bedgown and wrapped it around her naked shoulders as the girl lit the candle by her bed.
“You’re wanted, my lady. In the Countess of Gloucester’s tent. Quickly.” Gwenny was panting slightly, still shocked from her own awakening by the countess’s terrified maid, and the candlelight showed her round face plump and perspiring as she searched by the bed for the discarded leather slippers. “Oh, my lady, there is such trouble there, I hear.”
“What trouble, girl, tell me?” Matilda pushed her feet into the slippers and stood up, reaching for the candle. “What’s happening?”
But Gwenny only shook her head dumbly, too terrified by the threats that the maid had passed on to anyone who might speak of the night’s happenings. Seeing her mistress was ready, she led the way out into the still night.
In the Countess of Gloucester’s tent, rich with silks and lit with myriad candles, an anxious group of whispering women were clustered around the countess. As Matilda ran in, clutching her robe around her, they stopped and stood back, revealing Hawise of Gloucester, dressed still, but disheveled and tearstained, standing over a kneeling girl. She had a firm hold of the girl’s hair and was shaking the unresisting head back and forth with pitiless violence.
“Dear God!” Matilda stopped in amazement. “What’s happening? What are you doing?” Her eyes blazing, she flew toward Hawise, knocking the woman’s hands away, and found herself looking down at the figure on the rugs at her feet. It was Isabella.
Matilda took a step back. She felt herself go cold as, now that the pressure on her hair had been released, the girl crouched lower, cowering away, her hands pressed desperately to her face. Behind her Amicia was standing, her own expression blank with horror, her eyes fixed on her sister with a desperate fascination.
Forgetting the other women, Matilda dropped on her knees and threw her arms around the girl, cradling the fair head on her breast.
“You must go back to him, Isabella. Now.” Her mother’s voice, cracked with emotion, cut through the silence.
Matilda tightened her grip on Isabella’s shoulders. The girl was completely silent; not tearful, not sobbing; her stillness somehow more appalling than crying and shouting would have been. At her mother’s voice, there was no reaction at all. Only a numb despairing rigidity.
“Will you ask these ladies to leave?” Matilda gestured impatiently, looking up at Hawise through the curtain of hair that had fallen loose from her plait. “Amicia, fetch your sister a warm mantle.” The girl’s skin was like cold alabaster in the heat of the night.
She saw Amicia turn into the depths of the tent, and slowly, one by one, the other women began to move away, although Hawise had not yet spoken. Then at last she seemed to find her voice again. “No one must know of this shame,” she whispered harshly. “No one must ever hear what has happened tonight. If any of you ever speak of it, I’ll have your tongues cut out, do you hear?” Her voice rang up the scale and cracked hysterically. “There’s nothing wrong with my daughter. Nothing wrong between her and the prince; just wedding-night nerves. She’s going back to her husband directly. Lady Matilda will take her back to the royal tent.”
Whispering uncomfortably, the women slipped one by one into the darkness, leaving Matilda and the countess looking at each other. Quietly Amicia brought a sable rug and placed it gently over her sister’s shoulders with shaking hands. Then she too crept away.
Hawise stood looking down at her daughter and suddenly her tears began to fall again. “The disgrace. The humiliation! She has betrayed us before the whole world by running away from him.” She groped for a lace kerchief and pressed it to her streaming eyes. “How can the silly chit have done such a thing? What was he thinking of to let her?”
“What happened?” Matilda spoke gently in the girl’s ear. “Can you tell your mother or me?”
But Isabella shook her head. As she pressed closer to her Matilda could feel the warmth slowly coming back to the girl’s taut body.
“Your mother is right. You must go back to your husband. It is not so bad, what happens, you know. You will grow accustomed to it.” She smiled sadly. “You may even grow to like it, my dear. But whatever happens it is your duty to go to him. Come.” She took the girl’s hand and raised her gently to her feet. Isabella stood submissively before her, her eyes on the ground, her sumptuous bedgown bordered with golden embroidery falling in full pleats around her. It was, Matilda noted with a strange feeling of relief, untorn and unsullied.
Gently she led the unresisting girl out toward the royal pavilion, skirting the damped fires and the rows of sleeping tents. The guards at the entrance came to a salute as they passed through, their eyes curiously taking in the details of the two women in their nightclothes, and Matilda, her arm firmly around Isabella’s shoulders, escorted her quickly from their gaze. John’s servants, bowing, held back the heavy tapestry hangings that covered the entrance to the sleeping area.
“Go to him,” Matilda whispered. She glanced around nervously, not wanting the prince to see her, but as she spoke a small plump woman appeared from the inner room and curtsied. “There you are, Your Highness,” she addressed Isabella, who stared at her blankly. “The prince your husband told me to come to keep you company and fetch you a hot posset.” She held out her hand and guided Isabella through the curtains. “His Highness has gone for a ride. He said he doubted if he’d be back by morning, so you may sleep undisturbed tonight.” The woman was careful to keep any expression out of her voice, but she glanced over Isabella’s head at Matilda and made a wry face that Matilda guessed was intended to mean that the prince had in fact said a great deal more than that and at some length. She sighed, and gave the girl a gentle push. “Good night, Isabella. Sleep well, love.”
