The Devil's Cup Read online

  ‘Good morning,’ he said with a smile. ‘Who’s in charge here?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’ the young soldier replied challengingly. His hand had gone to his sword hilt.

  Josse identified himself. ‘You won’t know the name,’ he added, ‘but I’m a King’s man and I’m on my way to join him.’

  The soldier eyed him suspiciously. ‘I’ve only your word for that.’

  Josse reached inside his tunic. ‘I have a letter bearing the King’s seal, addressed to me.’ He held it up, but not close enough for the soldier to take it. The seal, however, seemed to impress him. ‘Wait here,’ he said curtly. Then, looking at Alfred, ‘You can take your horse over there—’ he pointed to a long row of water troughs beside the horse lines – ‘and let him have a drink.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  A short time later, a short, stout figure in surcoat and mail came trotting up to Josse. He waved a hand, a smile creasing his plump face. ‘Knew I recognized the name,’ he panted as soon as he was within earshot. ‘I’m Matthew de Compton, and you and I once tried to drink each other under the table.’

  Josse reached out to take the man’s proffered hands. ‘I won, as I recall,’ he replied.

  Matthew de Compton gave him a suspicious look. ‘Maybe. It was a very long time ago.’

  ‘Aye, when Henry was King and we were green lads.’ He and Matthew smiled at each other, and Josse felt the warmth of happy memory sweep through him. ‘Still a King’s man, I see,’ he said, lowering his voice.

  Matthew de Compton sighed. ‘Yes, that I am, although …’ He broke off.

  Josse nodded. ‘Aye.’ There really was no need to say more.

  ‘You’re heading off to join him?’ Matthew said.

  ‘I am, for he sent me a summons.’ Once again, Josse reached for the letter.

  Matthew stopped him. ‘No need, for I have seen other copies of the same appeal.’ He grinned at Josse. ‘I’m sure you didn’t think you were the only one.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Josse decided to keep to himself those few words that the King had added in his own hand.

  ‘Do you bring many with you?’ Matthew demanded.

  ‘No, we’re but three.’

  Matthew suppressed a smile. ‘Ah, well, all mighty warriors, no doubt.’

  ‘Have you up-to-date news?’ Josse asked. ‘Do you know where he is? Last I’d heard, he was on his way north to Lincoln.’

  ‘We receive reports daily,’ Matthew said with a slight swagger. ‘We’ve a good system of messengers operating, and, with relays of horses set up at many way stations, they can cover the ground swiftly and thus keep us all informed. The latest news is that King John has left Lincoln, sent the rebels holding the castle fleeing for their lives, fired everything flammable and killed anyone foolish enough to stand against him.’ He paused, shooting a glance at Josse. ‘But he missed his chance to apprehend the Scottish King,’ he added softly. ‘They say he’s beside himself.’

  Josse nodded. It was understandable, for if John could have apprehended and curtailed Alexander, one threat would have been removed. ‘So where’s he bound now?’

  ‘He’s come storming all the way down the Lincolnshire coast,’ Matthew said, a wide smile of satisfaction on his face, ‘and he’s in no mood to be merciful. He’s got the local barons worried, that’s for sure, because those lands are almost universally rebel-held, and King John’s made sure not to leave a barn standing or anything edible in the fields. Burnings and destruction are the order – he’s even set fire to the bloody hedgerows – and the abbeys haven’t escaped either, since he’s commanded them to be gutted.’ Apparently noticing Josse’s questioning look, he added quietly, ‘He’s wild with fury, is the King. He’s got it into his head that the abbeys are full of food, and meat, and harvested grain, hidden away in the hope that he’ll leave the holy houses alone. It may be so, it may not, but it seems he’s not prepared to take the risk.’

  Against his will, Josse thought of Hawkenlye. Would John have done the same, if he’d been fighting the rebels in the south-east rather than in the east? He had an image of the beautiful old buildings, gutted, on fire. And for nothing, for there was no more hidden store of food and grain at Hawkenlye than there was likely to be in Lincolnshire.

  He has his reasons, he thought loyally. It’s not for the likes of us to question him.

  But nevertheless, the images wouldn’t go away.

  Matthew was still talking, and Josse made himself concentrate. ‘If you’re hoping to find him, best bet is to go on to Lynn,’ he was saying. ‘Bishop’s Lynn, I suppose I should say. He received word in Lincoln, back at the start of October, that there was a big shipment of supplies on its way there, and he wants to be in port to arrange for the goods to be distributed to his northern castles.’ He leaned closer and added confidentially, ‘Seems he’s anticipating another attack from the northern rebels, now that he’s convinced himself they’re in allegiance with Alexander of Scotland, and he needs his defences to be well prepared and sufficiently well supplied to withstand a siege, if needs be.’

  Josse nodded. ‘He really thinks an attack from the north is likely?’

  Matthew shrugged. ‘If it comes, we’ll be ready,’ he said confidently. ‘The news is all good!’ He nudged Josse in the ribs, quite hard, as if determined to cheer him up. ‘Dover Castle still holds firm, and they’re saying now it’s impenetrable!’

  ‘My wife’s grandson is there,’ Josse said softly, thinking of Ralf. Thinking, too, of Helewise.

  Matthew nodded approvingly. ‘Good for him,’ he said. ‘You’ll be proud of him, no doubt. It’s a vital job they’re doing down there, since we must at all costs hold on to Dover.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s doing his best,’ Josse murmured, but he didn’t think Matthew heard.

  ‘They’re a feisty lot down there in Kent,’ he was saying, admiration warming his voice. ‘They’re saying the resistance to Prince Louis and his half-hearted invasion is strengthening all the time, no doubt buoyed up by the Frenchie’s failure to take Dover.’ Once again, he leaned closer. ‘Prince Louis’s men are deserting in their hundreds,’ he whispered, ‘either slipping off back to France or, in the case of native English support, going over to the King’s side.’

  Josse was sceptical about ‘in their hundreds’, which seemed a little optimistic. It was, however, very encouraging to hear that Dominic and his fellow defenders were doing so well, and, indeed, that the band of rebels in the Great Forest was acquiring a fine reputation and a few new recruits. He felt a glow of pride for the men and the women of his home.

  Matthew was grinning. ‘They’ll see sense sooner or later, these rebels, the whole cursed lot of them,’ he said confidently. ‘Oh, I grant you times have been hard, and the King’s had his doubters and critics …’ That, Josse reflected, was putting it mildly. ‘But when all’s said and done, King John is ours and that Prince Louis isn’t.’

  Josse didn’t think it was the moment to go into the highly complex history of the relationship between the Crowns of England and France. Anyway, what was the point? It boiled down to precisely what Matthew had just said: King John was theirs and Prince Louis wasn’t.

  ‘Get on the road to Lynn,’ Matthew was urging him. ‘That’s where you’ll find him!’

  Meggie and Faruq were making good progress, covering from perhaps thirty to as many as almost forty miles a day. The October weather was warm, sunny and dry, so that sleeping out under the stars was no great hardship. As long as the rain held off, Meggie reckoned they would reach their destination in another couple of days. She had travelled the route westwards with her mother in the past and, to her relieved satisfaction, soon realized that her memory of the lesser paths and tracks remained accurate. Joanna and her people had preferred to move around the land on unfrequented roads; since these were often also the most direct, Meggie reckoned that she and Faruq were lessening their journey by many miles.

  Faruq, it seemed to her, was torn between c
onfiding in her as to what this mysterious mission really involved, and keeping faith with the vow of secrecy he had made to his mother. So far, Meggie had discovered little more than she’d known when they left Hawkenlye: Faruq and his mother believed the Queen to be in terrible danger, and somehow – still Meggie had no clue as to how – they were convinced that this was in some way their family’s fault and it was their duty to protect her. What Faruq thought he could do that couldn’t be done far better by whatever forces the King had detailed to safeguard his Queen, Meggie just couldn’t begin to work out.

  There was, it appeared, little option but to ride on and hope for clarification.

  Queen Isabella was cross, frustrated, weary of the walls of the castle and bored to tears. She would, she thought, not for the first time, very much like to present her long list of complaints and dissatisfactions to her husband, preferably accompanied by a hurled object or two and her own angry fist.

  She stretched out on the silk coverlet, the soft mattress yielding as she shifted position. She gazed around the walls, the huge, skilfully dressed stones of which they were built evident only around the doorways; for the purposes of both insulation and decoration, everywhere else they were concealed with hangings. In some places, these took the form of heavy curtains, lined and interlined, trimmed with decorative borders; elsewhere there were vivid tapestries, usually depicting lively hunting scenes and frequently featuring some animal being ripped to pieces with a lot of severed limbs and spurting blood. John liked hunting scenes. The floorboards were oak, varnished and burnished to a dark, golden shine and covered by thick rugs. As well as the vast bed on which Isabella lay – piled with pillows, with extra blankets and a glossy fur pelt folded ready in case she was chilly – there were other, smaller truckle beds that pulled out from beneath the master bed for the servants who attended her by night. Even they had a more than adequate complement of covers. Around the walls were various chests containing her garments and the King’s, as well as enough personal possessions to equip an average-sized village. King John was renowned for being a perpetual traveller, restless if he stayed in one place for more than a couple of days, and he never went anywhere without a full household of equipment.

  Although she was reluctant to concede that anything about her present location was acceptable, Isabella had to admit – but only to herself – that the accommodation was very comfortable and, even by John’s high standards, luxurious. Ever since he had made Corfe Castle one of his regional treasuries a few years ago, he’d poured money into improving it. Isabella stroked a hand heavy with rings across the smooth scarlet and blue silk of the bedcover. She smiled at the memory of her fiery husband, driven to fury at the penny-pinching, coin-counting ways of the Exchequer, as yet again he wasn’t given the funds he demanded the very instant he’d demanded them: ‘I’ll fortify a series of my castles out in the regions,’ he’d yelled, ‘and keep funds in every last one – then we’ll see who’s prepared to stand in my way when I’m required to spend money on the defence of my realm!’

  He had done more than strengthen the castle’s fortifications: he had also turned the private, residential quarters of his favourite dwelling into the perfect domestic retreat, and the Gloriette, which had been constructed to the east of the keep, was a sophisticated, high-quality dwelling more than suitable for a king and his queen. It was an area within the safety of more than one circle of walls, with a curtain wall and a ditch separating it from the main bailey, and the narrow access gates were manned at all times. A contingent of heavily armed and well-trained soldiers was garrisoned within the walls, and one of the longest-serving and most trusted of the King’s personal bodyguard led them.

  Isabella knew she was in the safe confines of Corfe Castle for her own protection. It was a time of peril, and the abduction of those closest to kings was a tried and tested method of putting pressure on them. Isabella had no wish to be the captive of the rebel barons or, even less, of Prince Louis. She would probably be treated with courtesy and consideration, but she would be their prisoner and everyone would know it. There would be no escaping the humiliation. Here, locked up in her husband’s castle with no hope whatsoever of leaving until he said she could, they could at least pretend that she was there for her sake and not the King’s.

  But she knew different, as she suspected did most people. The present conflict had given John the excuse to imprison her and he’d leapt at the chance. It sometimes seemed to her that this was his latest, and in some ways most ruthless, move in the endless game they played with each other.

  She hadn’t been too displeased when the men of power in her family had told her she was to marry John of England, and not the man she’d always believed would be her husband. Hugh de Lusignan was neither as powerful nor as rich as John; two facts that had weighed quite heavily in persuading the young Isabella that the surprising change of plan for her wasn’t all bad. And, although at first she had been horrified at the reality of her thirty-four-year-old husband (she’d only recently passed from girlhood into womanhood, and he was old enough to be her father), the dismay hadn’t lasted. Admittedly he hadn’t been much to look at. He wasn’t tall, and even then his heavy, muscular body was becoming stout, and the thick, unruly hair was coarse and at times looked decidedly ginger (where it wasn’t going grey), clashing rather unappealingly with the flushed, red cheeks. But, almost from the start, something about him had called out to her.

  She found it all but impossible to say what it could have been; she had concluded, after much thought, that what had attracted her back then (and, despite everything that had happened between them, still did now, despite her furious attempts to resist) was his humour. He’d always had the ability to make her laugh. The escalating arguments, the fights, the hurling of objects, the urge to hit, punch, bite, wound, had so often been halted in their tracks by some wry comment of his that had appealed to her sense of the ridiculous and, even at the height of her rage, made her burst out laughing. Then, oh, then, how swiftly fury had changed to passion, and they would tumble into bed and make love in the ways that he had taught her, each bringing the other to such a pinnacle of ecstasy that everything else would be driven from her mind.

  She’d known he had lovers. It had hurt like a deep knife-cut to begin with, and in her pain and her jealousy she had wanted to kill him. But since she couldn’t, she’d had her revenge in a more subtle way and taken lovers of her own. He knew; of course he knew. The knowledge of each other’s infidelities had somehow worked to add further piquancy to their lust, however; once, when he’d found out about her dalliance with an extremely handsome but particularly bone-headed young man who had little to commend him but his family’s wealth, John had held her down in the huge bed and, as he brought her to the sort of world-eclipsing climax that she’d known in her early days as his wife, hissed in her ear, ‘Does he do that? Can he bring you joy like I can?’

  And she’d had to admit that he couldn’t. Nobody could, although she’d kept that bit to herself.

  She’d heard the whispered rumour that he’d executed one of her lovers and had the corpse suspended above her bed. It wasn’t true – which was a pity, really, since it was a good story – but she wouldn’t have put it past him.

  With a sigh, she got up from the soft bed and stretched. She straightened her gown – she had selected the crimson silk today, and its deep, glowing colour pleased her as much today as when she had first set eyes on the beautiful fabric – and, moving over to the oak-framed looking glass, rubbed at its silvery surface with her sleeve. Turning it so that the light fell on her face, she studied herself. She would soon be thirty, but everybody told her she didn’t look her age. They were sycophants, of course, the lot of them, and even if she’d lost her teeth, sported crows’ feet, grown warts with hairs coming out of them and her rich, fair hair had turned to a scraggly white rat’s nest, they would have said she was still the beautiful girl she’d been when the crown was put on her head.

  She leaned closer
to the reflecting glass. Her face was a long oval, her skin smooth and pale. Her features were regular and well placed, her hazel eyes slightly hooded, the small, straight nose perfectly set above the generous and well-shaped mouth. She bit her lips, bringing the blood to colour them. The shade, she was well aware, was a soft, flattering echo of the colour of her gown. She knew she didn’t look like a girl, though; her eyes had seen far too much, and no girl had that calculating knowledge in her glance.

  Knowledge. She sighed again. She had never been able to ignore an unpleasant fact once it had been proved to be true, even when that would have been the more comfortable option. Moreover, although she had told lies to many people – to almost everyone, come to think of it – the one person she didn’t lie to was herself. She could no longer persuade herself that her life was tolerable, and that meant she’d had to take certain steps, the first of which had been to work out the precise reasons behind the escalating discontent and unhappiness.

  The problem had been where to start.

  In the early years of the marriage, John had treated her like a child. Well, that was fair enough, since she’d been little more than one. Was that where the corruption had set in? Was it then that the habit of making her decisions for her, of working out what was best for her, of ordering her wardrobe, her personal routine, her comings and goings and every other detail of her days – and always, always, decided because of what was best for him, never for her – had set in? Probably it was. And it had been a habit that was, or so it seemed, unbreakable.

  The queens who had preceded her had been permitted so much more freedom and liberty than John had ever allowed her. So much more money, too; for he’d never given her access to the revenues from her own inheritance, and he had kept from her the Queen’s Gold that was hers by right and long custom. He allowed her no voice in anything but the most trivial of domestic matters; as regards political decisions, she had as much influence as his favourite hound. She was totally dependent on him: he could pen her up here in Corfe Castle – a luxurious prison, perhaps, but a prison nevertheless – and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.