She laid her hand to his cheek and he turned his head and kissed her fingers. "I too," she said.
There was a long silence in which she thought he had fallen asleep. He did a lot of sleeping these days when the pain allowed him respite, but then he spoke. "This bed," he said with a smile in his voice. "Do you remember, I had it made by a carpenter in London."
"Yes, I remember," she murmured. "From an oak tree felled at Hamstead. Its pieces have travelled wherever we have gone…" Their marriage bed, the heart of their home, where they had slept, made love, talked and quarrelled, and mended such quarrels in the time-honoured fashion. Their ten children had been begotten and born within its hangings. Made up with different covers, the curtains tied back, it had served as a day couch and witnessed the comings and goings in the chamber, the scratching of the scribes' quills, the robust discussions of knights and vassals, the gossip and laughter of informal assemblies, the closeted intimacy of private discussion. Now it waited to perform the final service.
"The tales it could tell," he said.
"Then perhaps for decency's sake it is a good thing that beds do not have voices."
He laughed, but the laughter was curtailed by a spasm that stiffened his body and drew an involuntary gasp from him. Isabelle was immediately attentive. Leaving the bed, she hurried to bring him a cup of the syrup-of-poppy mixture prescribed by the physicians. On this occasion he did not refuse the offer, but drank the laced wine with something close to desperation.
When she took the cup from him, he closed his eyes, and it made her ache to see the dark shadows beneath them.
"I never thought to say it, Isabelle, but I am weary for the end of the road," he said after a moment. "I grieve to leave you behind, but each mile now is a burden. I would have done."
She returned to the bed and lay down again at his side. There was nothing to say, and besides, she was so close to tears again that replying was impossible.
*** Three days later, William prepared to take the vows of a Templar knight in the presence of Aimery de St Maur and other Templar brethren who had travelled from London for the ceremony. The knights of his mesnie were present too, and Isabelle and their children, saving Richard who was in France.
Isabelle knew her part and had steeled herself to it. At the appointed moment, she approached the bed. William was propped up by a pile of bolsters and pillows. The coverlet was turned back, showing a neat border of embroidery. He was wearing a shirt and tunic of unbleached linen, the colour of dirty snow, and his skin, tight over his bones, stripped of flesh, was the same hue.
She stooped to kiss him for the last time, and was suddenly very glad that they had had the time together three days ago, for otherwise she could not have borne this dry simulacrum, performed in front of others.
"
Belle amie
," he whispered, and stroked her face.
She had been prepared for the embrace, but not the word and the caress, spoken with such aching tenderness. The defences she had built could not withstand such an assault and they crumbled. She had sworn she would not cry, but her eyes filled. She was aware of Mahelt's arm about her, gently drawing her back from the bed, and Mahelt too was sobbing.
William's almoner, himself a Templar, stepped up to the bed and gravely laid the white mantle upon it. Covering her mouth, Isabelle fled the room and ran to her chamber. Sitting on her solitary bed, she drew the curtains and, behind their flimsy privacy, broke her heart.
*** "Mama? Mama, are you awake?"
Isabelle raised her head from the pillow. The linen was saturated under her cheek. Her head felt as tight as a drum; her eyes were sore and swollen. Mahelt, puffy-faced and redeyed herself, had parted the curtains and was looking at her with anxiety.
"Yes," Isabelle croaked and sat up. Through the gap in the bed hangings, she could see one of her women lighting candles. The sound of shutters being closed came to her ears. "What hour is it?"
"Nigh on compline. I've looked in on you once or twice, but you've been asleep and I haven't wanted to disturb you. I've had the servants bring food to the chamber…" She gestured into the room.
"I'm not hungry," Isabelle said. A savoury smell drifted through the gap in the curtain. Something with cumin by the scent of it, and new bread. Her mouth watered and she half thought she was going to be sick.
"You must try and eat something. You have to keep up your strength," Mahelt said practically.
Isabelle looked up at her daughter. She was tall and robust, William's in every way with his long bones and dark, winterriver eyes. "What for?" she said.
"For us…for Ancel and Joanna—for the earldom. I know my brother is competent, but you are still its heart, Mama." Her voice almost cracked.
Isabelle sniffed. "You will make me weep again," she warned as she eased to her feet. Her body ached all over as if she had aged forty years in a few hours.
Mahelt took her arm. "Come, at least try and eat. It might make you feel better. I'm not hungry either but taking a meal together will help, I think."
Isabelle doubted that anything would make her feel better, but she allowed Mahelt to bring her to the trestle. It had been laid with a good white cloth and set with the best silver platters and green glass goblets from the sideboard. Two steaming bowls of chicken and cumin stew had been set in the middle of the table, with baskets of new bread to accompany them. Cushioned benches had been drawn up to the trestle and Isabelle's chair positioned at the head of the table.
There was a sense both of routine and occasion and Isabelle felt it unfurl through her misery like a twist of bright ink through water. Father Walter arrived to bless the meal and inform her the Templars were dining in the guest chamber while Will, the knight Henry FitzGerold, and Jean D'Earley were watching over William, who was asleep.
Isabelle dipped her spoon in the stew and stirred it round, wondering if she could manage a mouthful. A glance showed her daughters all doing the same. Even Mahelt, who had urged her with such brave words, was breaking bread with vigour, but conveying very little to her lips.
Summoning her will power, Isabelle tasted the food. It was warming, pungent and spicy, full of flavour, but it might as well have been sawdust in her mouth. She made herself chew and swallow, to reach for bread, dip it in the sauce. Eat.
She had just forced down a third mouthful with a swallow of wine, when Jean D'Earley was announced to the chamber, his breathing swift with the haste of his stride.
Isabelle looked at him and shot to her feet, the chair crashing backwards on to the floor and fear flooding through her. "William!" she gasped.
Jean hurried forward, waving his hands in negation. "No, no, my lady, it is not what you think, I am sorry for frightening you."
"Then, what—what is the matter?" She pressed her hand to her breast and felt her heart galloping like a runaway horse.
"The Earl has woken, and he is in good spirits, my lady. He has asked for his daughters and he wants them to sing for him." Jean stooped to pick up the fallen chair and guided her back into it with a solicitous hand.
"Sing!" Isabelle stared at him, wondering if her hearing was defective. "He wants them to sing?" Perhaps William had been given too much poppy syrup and was delirious.
Jean's smile was a travesty. "Henry and I were sitting with him and he said that it was strange, but he felt an urge to sing—perhaps because he was relieved at having set his affairs in order, I do not know. I told him he ought to do so—that it might gladden his heart and give him strength, but he told me to be quiet, that everyone would think he had gone mad. So Henry suggested perhaps it would be more fitting if his daughters should come and sing for him, and I said I would bring them."
Isabelle gestured to the wide-eyed young women. "What are you waiting for?" she demanded. "Your father has asked for you. Go—go!"
Looking bemused and a little frightened, they left the trestle ushered by Mahelt, who took Joanna's hand.
Jean sat down on the bench beside Isabelle. "I am sorry, I did not mean to frighten you. The Earl is very weak, but still in his senses."
Isabelle pushed the food aside, all glimmer of appetite gone. Jean covered her right hand with his own. "It is very hard," she said. "He is letting go, but I am still clinging, still hoping, but for my own selfish sake, not his."
"He was the father I barely knew," Jean murmured, "then a mentor, friend, and companion. There will be a great hole in the fabric of my being when he is gone, but not as great a hole as the one had I not known him."
"Ah, Jean," she said as his words touched her to the quick. "You know."
"Yes." He squeezed her fingers, then rose and left the room.
Isabelle sat for a while, the back of her hand pressed to her lips, the smooth gold of her wedding ring a harder pressure than that of flesh and bone. Then she left the trestle and, bidding her women remain where they were, took the path to William's chamber.
Henry FitzGerold was sitting outside, playing chess with his squire. Both leaped to their feet when they saw her, but she motioned them to be reseated, and quietly slipped through the door which had been left slightly ajar.
Mahelt was standing before the bed, her sisters at her back, singing in a clear, pure voice without trace of a tremor. The song was a rotrouenge that William had taught her when she was a child at his knee. Her voice lifted the hair on Isabelle's nape and raised in her feelings too intense, too sharp for tears. William's eyes were alight as he listened to his daughter sing and he was smiling. Isabelle moved unobtrusively to a bench at the side of the room and sat down, hands folded tightly in her lap. One by one the girls took their turn singing for their father, and although Mahelt had by far the best voice, they all did their best to please him. Joanna was shy and William helped her, raising his own voice in song. Isabelle's throat closed with emotion, for despite all the debility and suffering, William's voice remained deep and fine. The effort, however, of breathing and singing drained him. Seeing the colour leach from his face, Isabelle rose and shooed the girls from the room. In the aftermath of maintaining her composure to sing, Mahelt was weeping now, bitterly, but Isabelle left her in the hands of her younger sisters, closed the door, and returned swiftly to William.
His eyes were shut, but as she trod across the rushes to the bed, he opened them again and, despite his dreadful colour, gave her a fatigued smile.
"And what song shall I sing for you?" she asked unsteadily.
"The one of Solomon," he said. "'Set me as a seal upon your heart…for love is strong as death.' Ah, I am tired now of singing. Come and sit with me awhile." He held out his hand.
"Will your new vows allow a woman to sit upon your bed?" she asked and managed not to sound bitter.
His smile remained. "As long as she does not climb into it and seduce me into carnal lust," he said. "We must needs control ourselves."
Despite herself, she laughed through her anguish and sat upon the coverlet, taking the hand he had held out in hers.
"Our daughters…" he said after a while when he had recovered a little. "Even as much as our sons, they carry our bloodline and I am glad to see them together. Make sure Will finds a good man for Joanna when the time comes."
Isabelle murmured assent.
He smiled ruefully. "And that she practises her singing."
"Daily."
He closed his eyes and she thought that he had fallen asleep, but he had been summoning his strength. "Last night I saw two men robed all in white standing either side of the bed. I know I was not dreaming, even though my son and the others sitting in vigil plainly saw nothing." He let out a sigh. "It will not be long now, Isabelle…"
*** The Tuesday after Ascension Day dawned bright and clear. Trees were in pale green leaf, bursting with life, and the birdsong had begun early in the morning and scarcely abated from the dawn chorus. Isabelle had gone down to the riverbank with Ancel, Joanna, and her grandchildren to feed the swans and cygnets. As they had done every year of her marriage, the birds were nesting on the far bank. She liked to imagine they were the same pair but knew she was being fanciful. Bishop Hugh of Avalon had had a pet swan for thirty years, but those in the wild were not so long-lived.
"They mate for life," she told Mahelt, who was walking with her. The women's skirts were soaking up a dark hem of dew and their feet were wet, but neither minded.
"How do you know that?"
"One of the gamekeepers told me."
"What happens if one dies?"
"I didn't ask him that." Isabelle divided the bread they had brought between the youngsters, and saving half a loaf to herself, broke it in her hands and threw pieces to the adults. They dipped their graceful necks and shovelled up the softened morsels. The fluffy youngsters imitated their elders. Under the water their webbed feet looked ridiculously large for their bodies. Fish rose to gobble their share—great tench and chub, and red-finned rudd.
"Don't go too close to the water or you'll fall in. Rohese, watch them!" Mahelt called across to the nurse keeping an eye on her two sons and her toddling daughter. "They're daredevils, the boys. Heaven help me when they leave my skirts for the training ground!" There was pride in her voice as well as anxiety.
Isabelle eyed her grandsons with poignant amusement. The chubbiness of infancy had melted away leaving active, wiry little boys of nine and six, the eldest dark like his mother and with her eyes—William's eyes. "It doesn't seem a minute since you were that age. You'd have been in one year if your father's reactions hadn't been so swift. He grabbed you and nearly fell in himself. The mud and water came over the top of his boots."
"I don't remember…I wish I did. Will my children be the same when it comes my turn?" Mahelt blinked hard and she threw the last of her bread into the water. "What of their memories?"