To Defy a King by Elizabeth Chadwick Read Free Book Online

offered King Philip five hundred marks to let him keep his Norman lands for another year, and Philip has accepted with the proviso that after that time, the Marshal must either give them up or swear allegiance to France - unless John has recovered the territory, of course.'

    Hugh mulled the information and watched Ralph cantering up and down the line of horses. The Marshal lands in Normandy were much greater than their own. It wasn't just a matter of a few manors and orchards and horses. It was Orbec and Longueville and Bienfait and all the rest. King John was not going to take kindly to such news. Private arrangements between his barons and the King of France were the stuff of royal nightmares.

    'I hope it doesn't cause difficulties for us, with you being betrothed to the Marshal's daughter,' William said darkly. 'What if we get caught up in any disputes that arise from this?'

    Hugh made a gesture of negation. 'Our father is too shrewd to let that happen, and the Marshal is no fool when it comes to keeping his hide intact.
    Why do you think he chose to settle his eldest daughter with us in the first place?'

    William shrugged. 'Because he and our father are friends and allies. He wants unions with all the great families in the land in order to strengthen his position, and he has the sons and daughters to accomplish that.'

    'Yes,' Hugh agreed, 'but he also knows our father treads a steady path. We are powerful enough to protect his daughter, and East Anglia is the size of a kingdom in itself, away from the hub of the court. We can live as we choose and none will interfere.'

    'You hope.'

    Hugh conceded the truth of William's remark with a tilt of his head. He suspected that, whether soldier or judge, the road ahead was going to be full of potholes and that each man would have to find his path as best he could.

    6

    Caversham, Spring 1205

    Will folded his arms and watched his sister, a look of exasperated amusement on his face. 'Surely you're not keeping that thing?'

    Sleeves rolled up, linen apron tied at her waist, Mahelt was busy bathing a scruffy, scabby brown and white terrier with the same tender thoroughness with which she had bathed her wooden dolls as a smaller child. The dog in the tub shivered and whined, but tolerated the treatment. Now and then it tried to lick Mahelt's face. 'Mama said I could,' she replied without looking up. 'He's just dirty and needs a bath.'

    Will snorted. 'There's a lot more wrong with him than being dirty! For a start he's missing a foreleg, or had you not noticed?'

    Mahelt scowled at him. 'Father Walter says he probably got it caught in a trap when he was a pup and that someone managed to cut it off and save him
    - like old Adam.' The latter was a one-legged cart driver, once a serjeant in her father's troop, who had been wounded in the calf by an arrow and had survived the ensuing amputation.

    The chaplain had found the dog scavenging in one of the barns after a group of players had passed through, and it probably belonged to them. He was mangy and flea-ridden; his ribs stared through his coat like rake tines; but the vigorous wag of his tail and bright, beseeching eyes had stayed the priest's first inclination to fetch a guard and have the creature knocked on the head with a spear butt. Mahelt, grieving for a pet bird that had recently died, had seized on the stray and immediately given him her heart.

    'He won't be able to run with the hunt or dig out foxes,' Will said.

    'Not all dogs hunt.' She lifted him out of the tub, liberally wetting the front of her gown in so doing. 'He'll live in the bower and bark at strangers.'

    The dog shook itself vigorously, spraying water droplets far and wide.
    Somehow it stayed on its feet. Mahelt giggled, while Will leaped backwards, cursing. 'That's one part of your dowry the Bigods might think twice about accepting,' he said with disdain.

    'Hugh likes dogs.' She gave him a superior look. 'Anyway, I'm not going to be married just yet.'