The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick Page A

passed it on to their children in her breast milk, for suffering mal de mer was a wretched affliction.
       "I knew you would ask for Pembroke." John wafted his hand with gracious nonchalance. "Well then, take it, I grant it to you freely, and the right to call yourself Earl—which is something that my great and glorious brother never did. You should think on that."
       "Thank you, sire." William swallowed the urge to retch and knelt to John. The deck was hard beneath his knees, the sea a dragon's roar under the keel as he bowed his head.
       "Get up," John said brusquely. "Save your oath for England and my coronation. More privileges will follow providing you know where your loyalties lie."
       William lurched to his feet. "Sire, I have sworn my fealty to you, and my oath is binding unto death." He wondered how many times he would have to repeat his loyalty to John before John was convinced. It stood to reason that a man who broke his own promises as easily as they were made would have difficulty believing that some men kept theirs.
       "I trust you as much as I trust any man, Marshal." Suddenly John's expression was closed and dangerous. "And that is less far than I can throw you." He turned towards the canvas pavilion pegged at the stern of the nef. "I would ask you to join me, but you are green at the gills and I would be doing neither of us a favour. Besides, you wouldn't approve of the company I keep."
       William watched him duck into the shelter and received a brief glimpse of several gaudy court whores, and a select company of John's bachelors—knights beholden to him for their earnings. Grimacing, he leaned against a barrel and willed the coast of England closer. He had his earldom and hoped the price would not beggar him. He suspected his current queasiness was as much a reaction to his conversation with John as it was mal de mer.

 
     
    Five
     
     
    WESTMINSTER, MAY 1199
     
     
    It had been several years since Isabelle had attended the court. Richard and Berengaria, his Queen, had led separate lives and his gatherings had been of the military, masculine kind with little thought for women. Besides, Isabelle had been too preoccupied running the affairs of her estates and bearing children to have time for a life in the royal train.
       John's coronation and the feast that followed were a different matter and Isabelle had been delighted at the opportunity to don fine garments and attend a grand formal event. Her gown was of salmon-coloured silk, embroidered with seed pearls and beads of rock crystal. Her gauze veil was edged with pearls too and the ends of her fair braids were bound with fillets of beaten silver. Being between pregnancies, the lacing of her gown showed off a slender waist and full curves at bosom and hip. With not a little feminine vanity, she had been pleased to see heads turn, not least her husband's.
       As was customary, the feast itself was segregated, with the men fêting the King in the great hall and the women in the smaller White Hall on the south side. With no queen to preside, Isabelle and the wives of the other magnates were the highest ranking women present, and thus afforded a position on the dais at the far end of the hall. Although separated from William for the feast, Isabelle had stood beside him at the coronation and watched as the newly crowned King had officially belted him with the title Earl of Pembroke. Their two eldest sons had been present to witness the moment and as Isabelle had watched, an arm at each boy's shoulder, her eyes had filled with tears of pride and triumph.
       Will and Richard were not attending the feast, but had been taken back to the Marshal lodging houses at Charing, there to await with their younger siblings their parents' return from the post-coronation festivities. Mahelt had a new set of poupées robed in royal finery and Isabelle had promised the children she would bring them some almond marchpane, purloined from the