Gisborne: Book of Pawns by Prue Batten Read Free Book Online

heal. Heal and forg et?
    Somehow I doubted Guy o f Gisborne was a man who would ever forget.
     
    To arrive in Le Ma ns on that day was to learn of a change in the course of history. We had heard rumours on the road of the Plantagenet family wars and thus it was no surprise to hear that King Henry had fallen sick whilst at Le Mans wh ere he had been born. He and Richard w ere in the middle of a brawl over succession, with Phillip of France siding with Richard. Philli p and Richard attacked the town and feckless, disloyal H enry ordered parts of his birth place to be burned to stall their invasion. But e ven a king could not control a wind that changed and caused a massive conflagration, threatening t o burn his birthplace utterly. Henry fled, l eaving the town to put out its fires and lick its wounds.
    He had retired to Chinon but his health failed by the day and he died two days before we arrived at Le Mans. I was surprised the town even thou ght to ring mourning bells. Guy said such was the power of a king.
    ‘Bu t’, said I, ‘the king is dead. Long live the king.’
    The bells rang with heavy resonance anyway.
     
    It was a relief to me that we had arrived in scorched Le Mans at all because I was exhausted beyond belief: saddle sore, heart sore, tired, dirty and hungry. I should have mou rned my former king but I did no t . To be frank I cared little and found the smell of burned buildings still lingered in the air, not unlike Henry’s memory.
    I wondered w ho could mourn an obsessive man who burned innocents alive to satisfy hi s need to make a point and overpower a son. Further, I decided that if any of his sons wanted to fight to secure their kingship, I cared not at all. I wanted to divest myself of all memories of fighting, of blood and g ore and yet I knew that what Gisborne and I had dealt with between Tours and Le Mans would live with me forever.
     
    The Sisters of the Priory Saint Jean were kind and generous, providing hot water and a small oak bath despite the fact th at it was late in the evening. The lay sisters had been directed to care for their new guest who obviously had coin to pay her way and I briefly thanked the Lord that Gisborne had lined palms to make it so. The bells of the Priory chimed and despite the fact they marked Vespers, I wondered if they also tolled as a reminder of the deceased monarch. I gave thought to Eleanor, wondering what she felt a bout her king-husband’s death. They always said she loved him despite his despicable treatment of her, what with his florid temper, his loose morals with the fair Rosamunde and others.
    I only knew that when I fell in love it would be forever and that I would only ever marry a man that I truly loved. Which b r ought me back to Eleanor, whereupon I decided she would be brokenhearted.
    My thoughts also went to Gisborne .
    I shrank from the i dea of investigating why. Whilst I soaked in the tiny bath in front of the brazier at the priory, I knew he might well be doing the same at his inn. We had arranged to meet after we had broken our fast the next day. The town of course would be in some sort of mourning ordained by the Church, but as long as we could arrange our forward passage, he seemed less than worried.
    How he felt about Henr y’s death, I could only guess. What I suspected was that he would shift the pieces around on the chessboard that was his life, and work out how to move forward and upward. There was a part of me that hoped it would be at Moncrieff but in reality I doubted it. The man had ambition and for all that Moncrieff was a w ealthy estate it was not his.
    Ah yes, status was all.
     
    The bells r ang through the night but I managed to sleep by telling myself they rang for Richard rather than Henry and that there would be a corona tion and England would be cont ent and my homecoming would be filled with the excitement of this new reign. But in truth, I was so tired the bells merely rang me to a long and heavy sleep.
    The other