The Queen in the West. Closed for Anonymaso

Cynric ap Rhys led a swarm of bare legged, woad splashed warriors through dense forest. The Normans they were stalking would never traverse such terrain with their mailed knights and warhorses but for Cynric's slightly built picts on their tough little ponies it was child's play.

The Norman knights were escorting the young and beautiful heiress, Isabelle De Clare, from Striguil to London. She was recently orphaned, her father having finally succumbed to an ague a sen'night since. Gilbert De Clare had held lands stretching across the marches as King Henry's vassal and Striguil was nigh on impregnable. Cynric had never been about to ape the Normans by building trebuchets and battering rams. When reports came that the old Earl was sick unto death however, Cynric had celebrated, plotted and waited. For almost a whole month De Clare clung to life by the thinnest of threads. By the time he finally passed away, his body was wasted to bone with fever, so Cynric's spies had said. Never one to let opportunity pass him by, Cynric had raised the Welsh to his banner and ridden out with a modest contingent. It took quite a bit to make the Welsh's chieftains forget their petty conflicts and feuds but the prospect of snatching Striguil from the English was certainly sufficient motivation.

Isabelle De Clare being such a wealthy heiress, King Henry had ordered her to ride for London and dwell in the tower there. He would milk her lands until he chose to gift her in marriage to whomsoever he saw fit. Currently, she was the wealthiest unwed heiress in the whole of England. Her party were travelling to overnight in Gloucester and then head south on the morrow. She was veiled and cloaked and it was raining but Cynric had heard stories about her beauty. This was going to be one occasion when business and pleasure aligned for him.

"*RHYDDID!" Came the cry as his men roared out of the forest and spilled onto the road. They swiftly encircled the knights, allowing none to try riding off with the heiress. The Normans were better protected but they were far slower than the Welsh and the Welsh had never heard of chivalry. Knights found their mounts hacked to death from under them, causing other horses to stumble and rear. Once on foot, the men found themselves surrounded by Welshmen intent on piercing ventails, groins, armpits and other areas left vulnerable by their armour.

Cynric fought his way through the melee to the light grey mare mounted side-saddle by a stricken girl. She was trying desperately to heel the horse out of the fray but his men were under orders that under no circumstances would she succeed. They bedevilled her at every turn, while not attacking herself or her mount directly. Cynric closed in and grabbed the plunging mare's bridle. The girl tried to slip down from the horse but her skirts hampered her and there was no way she would have run any distance with layers of wet fabric caught round her legs. Cynric lifted her bodily off of her horse and set her down across his broad thighs. Forced to look downward along the flanks of his horse, she could see for herself how hazardous it would be to fight until she fell beneath his horse's feet or caught a stray sword slash from the remaining combatants. Ignoring the French she spoke, he tied her wrists together and lashed her to his saddle pommel. Her maid was lashed to her saddle and brought on a lead rein by one of Cynric's trusted men.

The Welsh took no prisoners, so the half dozen men of her escort were butchered and stripped of horses and valuables. Cynric gagged his prize with a kerchief and they melted back into the saturated landscape, travelling by forest paths that Normans would never find even in broad daylight.

It was night when they arrived at Gloucester and Cynric brought his rain sodden bride to chapel. They burst in on the elderly bishop and gave him the simple choice of accepting a large bribe and marrying them, or being executed so they could put the same bargain before his successor.

"The King will never stand for this." A priest translated the bishop's French into the common English tongue used in marketplaces across the land. "The lady Isabelle is his to gift in marriage. She has been brought here by violence, completely unwilling. God is not mocked thus."

"Henry is fighting his own sons in the south and across the narrow sea. By the time word even reaches him, he will have no resources left with which to answer. The girl will be bedded and the marriage legal in the eyes of Rome. If he wants to waste his time laying siege to the stronghold of the west, let him come and do so. If he's got the wits he was whelped with, he'll accept that his dominion has shrunk slightly and accept my promise to deliver peace in the marches. We have never wanted his lands but the little Anjevin fop must cease laying claim to ours."

Cynric prevailed, putting the bishop and his priests under house arrest, to prevent them from sending messages out or calling for aid. Isabelle and her maid he deposited in a guest room, along with a basin of cold water, some bread and cheese, a flagon of the bishop's wine and a large chamber pot. He had the priest do a little more translation. Cynric's face split into a triumphant smile.

"On the morrow you will go to mass and wed me, because if you do not... I will start by giving your maid to my men for their amusement. Then I will fire every town, village and hamlet in sight of Striguil. Finally, I will bring the might of the west down upon the castle. So many men that their flaming arrows will block out the sun. Anything that doesn't burn will be torn down. Henry doesn't give a tinker's shit what happens on the marches, only that he receives his revenue. He's got far bigger fish to try than one silly little girl with one castle on the edge of his empire."

He delved into his pack and brought out a tight roll of oiled leather. Within was a beautiful gown of green silk, woven, dyed and stitched in the rustic celtic style, with no French finery. From the package fell kidskin shoes, a fine linen wimple and beautiful jewellery in hammered silver.

"Consider this your first bride gift." He told her. "To my people you will be the Queen in the west and they will revere you as such."

[* Freedom!]

Isabelle sat by the light of a single candle at her father's bedside and watched as his chest rose and fell in the last laboured breaths he would ever take. His chest was congested and gurgling. His breaths now so sporadic that every time he fell still as the grave she became convinced he would move no more. His pallor was a yellowish grey, his face and hands now blue. His bloodshot, sunken eyes were fixed and her candle flame had no effect upon the dilation of his pupils. He would not close his eyes. More than once Isabelle had carefully shut them, because he no longer blinked much and they became sore. Every time however, they would crack half open and remain so.

She held his cold hand and stroked his brow, knowing he was beyond the reach of words but speaking them anyway.

"You are a strong, brave man and you have fought well papa... but it is time for you to rest now. It is time for you to sleep. Go to be with mother... I know you have missed her. All will be well."

Minutes later, he gave a soft sigh and then became still. Isabelle watched his chest anxiously, resisting the urge to grope at his throat for his pulse. It would not be there... not discernible at any rate. Long moments passed and he moved no more.

Isabelle knew not how long she sat there alone with her father's corpse. The past weeks had transformed him from a hale and hearty man in his middle forties to a sunken husk. While she had always been a disappointment as his late wife's only surviving heir and a daughter, he had been her protector and the centre of her world. Her older brother had been trampled under a horse on the tourney circuit of Normandy and her younger brother had been cursed with the summer sickness. Every spring and summer he would sneeze and wheeze, his eyes streaming and his only relief was to stay within doors. Even contact with horse-hide had affected him, bringing him out in a livid red pox. Jean had always viewed his aliments as a weakness and would therefore give them no consideration. He could have taken a path into the church where he would have been less afflicted but instead he saddled up and continued his military training in an act of utter belligerence against his own flesh. So severely had he been afflicted that one day he had simply ceased breathing altogether.

"Oh father... what shall I do without you?" Isabelle murmured. She was not expressing the loss of his love or companionship, for neither had been boundless. Isabelle spoke of her own precarious fate; to have to submit to imprisonment in the tower and allow the King to choose her husband. Had she been born male she would be free now to choose her own destiny. An Earl. Instead, because of her sex she remained chattel and it stung. There was nothing to prevent the King from giving her to a simpleton, a brute or some old man in his dotage. At eighteen she was long unmarried but Gilbert was a pragmatic man, who had never been quite satisfied enough with the consequence of the suitors who offered for her. He had wanted her to wed one of Henry's sons but the very thought petrified Isabelle. And now through his hesitation and greed Gilbert would now have no say in his daughter's marriage... and neither would she.

After some time her father's manservant entered and Isabelle confirmed to him that his lord's soul had fled. Suddenly restless, Isabelle strode out of the pungent sickroom and drew a few lungfuls of clean night air. It felt as though the castle walls would fall in on her, so great was her distress at being left in this predicament by Gilbert's death.


"Sit astride your horse all the way to London? Out of the question, my lady."

Isabelle bit down an ill-tempered retort. She felt that they mocked her by referring to her as 'lady' when she had not even the autonomy granted the castle hounds.

"It is very uncomfortable to ride side-saddle for days at a time and we dare not risk the slow pace of a litter. I am perfectly capable of matching pace with you and your men, sir." Isabelle tried to prevail on her late father's sergeant.

"It would be unseemly and besides, I have heard that..." Suddenly he coloured and would not meet her gaze. "You are a wealthy heiress. Your virginity is therefore of great importance. Girls who do not ride side saddle can spill their... They can lose evidence of their virtue." He held up his hands as Isabelle narrowed her eyes contemptuously, flushing herself. "If Henry thinks even for a moment that there is any doubt regarding your purity... I cannot answer for what he will do."

What he was like to do in the sergeant's estimation would be to take Isabelle as a concubine and then gift her in marriage once he bored of her. It would not by any means be the first time he had done so. Nobody was going to tell Isabelle this, however.

Isabelle's gaze flicked from the sergeant to a rather nervous looking groom. She nodded brusquely in acquiescence. "Very well but you will not be impressed with the pace I set on that thing. It rocks me about so as to afflict me with mal-de-mer." Isabelle insisted on her other saddle being packed, even though she knew nobody would let her use it.


Isabelle was still ill tempered as they wound their way to Gloucester. Hemmed in by all these men at the behest of yet another one, she was beginning to see the virtues of chucking it all in and joining a convent. The weather had aligned with her mood and strong winds lashed rain at them with such force that it took her breath at times.

Then hoofbeats thundered towards them, seemingly out of nowhere. Lots of hoofbeats. Isabelle tried to turn in her saddle but it was an awkward business in her rain soaked skirts. Damn these fool men and their notions of propriety!

"WARE ARMS!"

Isabelle's grey mare baulked and sidled. Eponine was not a destrier and had no experience of battle. It took everything Isabelle had to keep the horse from rearing and throwing her as their attackers descended en masse. Her guardsmen started to do battle and Isabelle tried to weigh up with any rationality the dangers of heeling away alone versus staying to see who triumphed. As the tide turned against the knights, she gave Eponine her head and urged her to find them a way out of the mele.

"*Poursuivre, Eponine!" Isabelle gasped into the horse's ear. "Nous devons échapper."

It was impossible, however. As they finished dealing with the men, barely clad murderous picts closed in on her and blocked her at every turn. Eponine trembled, her haunches tensing. Isabelle patted her neck but only startled the horse even more. "D'accord Eponine." She crooned gently, praying the horse wouldn't throw her. The picts taunted her in their Welsh dialect but Isabelle neither knew nor cared what they said. Then the ringleader heeled towards her and it galvanised Isabelle into action. She kicked free of her ridiculous saddle and tried to get her leg over the horse in its sodden skirts, so she could slip to the ground. She stood no chance whatever on foot in a wet dress but Isabelle simply did not have it in her to sit compliant while the enemy bore down on her. She had to do something!

Of course, all bets were off once she was plucked from her mount and placed across her assailant's lap. Isabelle demanded in French to know what was going on but received no reply. He gave her all the consideration of a sack of flour and inevitably she fell into sullen silence.


Nobody was more astonished than Isabelle on arriving at Gloucester cathedral. To have been abducted and then brought the route she would have taken anyway was galling indeed. She was left bound and gagged in a corner while they interrogated the bishop but could not prevent a squeal of negation from escaping her when the Welsh brute announced his plans to wed her. He flicked his gaze in her direction just long enough to enjoy the terrified consternation in his captive's countenance before ignoring her once more. Isabelle was cast into a bedchamber and unbound. Suddenly the prospect of marrying this vile man was utterly eclipsed by the terror that he had no intention of waiting until the event took place before bedding her. Exhausted and sodden to the bone, Isabelle was appalled to feel her legs trembling. The bar was drawn away from the door and Isabelle was backed into the furthest corner brandishing a candlestick by the time her maid was sent in to her, along with food, drink and a wash basin. She would be damned if she was going to clean herself up for his delectation.

The Welshman then entered and had a priest translate his market dialect into French. Isabelle could understand this basic English but had no intention of saying so.

"On the morrow you will go to mass and wed me, because if you do not... I will start by giving your maid to my men for their amusement. Then I will fire every town, village and hamlet in sight of Striguil. Finally, I will bring the might of the west down upon the castle. So many men that their flaming arrows will block out the sun. Anything that doesn't burn will be torn down. Henry doesn't give a tinker's shit what happens on the marches, only that he receives his revenue. He's got far bigger fish to try than one silly little girl with one castle on the edge of his empire."

"You must know that I am the greatest marriage prize in England. You can be sure that Henry will bestir himself in the case of this 'silly little girl's' lost revenue. If you think that nothing can resolve his differences with his sons, wait until they hear that a vast chunk of the west has been taken by the picts and their heiress wed by force. France won't even exist to them until they have sent you to hell."

If this little speech gave him pause, he showed no sign of it. Instead he unpacked fresh raiment for her.

"Consider this your first bride gift." He told her. "To my people you will be the Queen in the west and they will revere you as such."

Isabelle cast an eye over the garments and noted that work had indeed gone into them. It surprised her that his people were even capable of such domestic industry. Otherwise they were unremarkable.

"A Norman queen ruling over woad clad picts? I have never seen such irreverence as is displayed by your people. No chivalry. No honour. They believe not in God and fail to comprehend the peril of their souls. They'll revere me like they revere everything else they can't eat, fight or rut with. They are savages."

[* Persevere Eponine, we must escape!]