by Angus Donald
But Robin was not finished.
‘The second secret I shall tell you, my friend, is what Aymeric de St Maur asked of me. He did indeed come to claim his boon – as Thomas rightly guessed. But can you guess what he really asked? I should have thought it obvious, Alan, even to you.’
‘He asked you to kill the King,’ I said, wondering that I had not seen this truth in all its blinding clarity before.
‘Almost,’ said Robin. ‘This man of God, this high and mighty churchman, did not put it quite in such bald terms. He did not sully his tongue with talk of regicide. He merely asked me to do everything in my power to ensure that young Henry of Winchester was placed on the throne of England before the year was out. That was the boon he demanded. And that, my friend, I shall gladly do.’
On the twenty-eighth day of October in the year of Our Lord twelve hundred and sixteen, lauded by the choir and cheered by crowds of commoners, Henry was crowned King of England by Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, in the soaring nave of Gloucester Cathedral. The nine-year-old boy had been knighted by William, Earl of Pembroke, now elected regent of England, and was then dressed in his ceremonial robes of red wool and black-and-white ermine, and acclaimed King by his loyal nobles: the Marshal and his nephew John; his half-uncle William, Earl of Salisbury; Ranulf, Earl of Chester; the Earl of Locksley; Aymeric de St Maur and many more. The ceremony was attended by dozens of knights, myself included, Savary de Mauléon and a few of the better mercenaries that the Marshal had persuaded to remain after John’s demise.
Taking advantage of the truce at Dover, hawk-faced Hubert de Burgh had even brought himself right across the land to witness the happy occasion. I also glimpsed the scarred face and milky eye of my old enemy Philip Marc, the high sheriff of Nottinghamshire, among the throng. Most significant of all was the presence of the papal legate Guala Bicchieri, the Italian prelate I had last seen on the beach at Sandwich damning the French. The new pontiff, Pope Honorius III, had declared that Henry was indeed the lawful King of England and the upstart Prince Louis had been thoroughly excommunicated.
God was on our side.
The day after the coronation, I realised how little that meant. God Almighty might approve of our choice of King, but nearly two thirds of the barons of England did not – and the dire state of our situation was made clear at a meeting of King Henry’s council in the great hall of Gloucester Castle. Robin was summoned with all the other nobles and I went with him.
King Henry, clad in crimson velvet, with his new crown, a thin circlet of gold, glinting on his brow, sat stiffly at the end of the hall in a huge black oak throne, a seat far too big for him and which made him seem even more of a little boy. He said nothing throughout the meeting and remained admirably still – except to give me a discreet smile, when I caught his eye. The Marshal whispered a few words in his ear, the boy nodded and then the grizzled veteran began: ‘Gentlemen, to order, if you please.’
The Marshal was still an imposing figure for all his seventy years: wide-shouldered, grey-bearded, upright of carriage, and with a fierce eye – which he now ran over the assembled company.
‘Yesterday was a day of great rejoicing,’ he said. ‘And rightly so. We have a new King and a new start, and I pray that all of our sorrows shall be forgotten in his new and no doubt glorious reign. But this is not the end of our troubles – it is the beginning. For now we must defend the King with all our might and return his rightful kingdom to him. And I suggest, gentlemen, that we now turn our minds to how this can be achieved. How can we rid this land of the enemy and return it to a state of lasting peace? My lord de Mauléon, I think you have the best grasp of it – tell us, if you will, how things stand.’
Savary de Mauléon stepped forward. ‘First, if I may, I will tell you of my own plans. I am leaving England to return to Poitou, where I intend to take the cross and depart on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I served King John loyally for many years, but it must be admitted that I did many things at his word of which I am not proud. I obeyed my lord’s orders and guided him to the right path where I could – I fulfilled my vow to him – but I am no longer a young man and I must look to my own soul. I wish the new sovereign all joy and success to his arms, but with his gracious permission, I must depart his lands and seek my own salvation.’
There was a slight pause and everyone looked at the boy in the enormous chair. King Henry inclined his head gravely in agreement but did not speak.
‘As my final service to the crown,’ said Mauléon, ‘I shall tell you all how matters stand at present and I pray that by God’s grace you may accomplish your aims.
‘In the north, the French have taken castles and towns as far as Lincoln, which is once again besieged, but they are pushing on further every day, and there remains a good deal of northern support for Louis and the rebel cause. Alexander, King of the Scots, is ever their ally and he would be more welcomed than opposed if he were to come south again with his men.
‘In the south-east, with the valiant exceptions of Dover and Windsor’ – here Mauléon bowed to Hubert de Burgh – ‘all of the major castles are held by our enemies. Although this William of Cassingham has been leading them a merry dance. London remains in rebel hands, as we all know. In the middle of the country we hold Nottingham and Newark, and we are strong in the west, too. These are the castles we hold …’
The Poitevin lord began to read out a long list of strongholds but I confess my attention wandered. I was looking at the lean bearded face of Aymeric de St Maur and thinking of what he had asked Robin to do. I liked the man on the whole, but I was conscious of the sorrow he had caused Tilda, who despite our happiness believed herself eternally damned as a result of his plotting.
‘To sum up,’ said Savary de Mauléon, ‘more than half of the country is against you. You have fewer men under arms and those are scattered in castles across the land, and you have no money to speak of to hire mercenaries. The loss of the royal baggage train and the priceless treasures it contained has weakened your cause considerably.’
He looked at Robin, who smiled blandly in return.
‘Gentlemen, you have a hard fight on your hands and I wish you success in all your endeavours. But I will take no further part in it.’
‘Thank you, Savary, most succinct,’ said the Marshal. ‘I now ask if anyone here wishes to speak. I beg you all to feel free to voice your concerns and offer suggestions.’
Robin stepped forward. I thought he was about to offer an excuse for the loss of the royal treasury: the treacherous quicksands, the untrustworthy guide, deep regret at not having been able to save it, and so on. But to my surprise he made no mention of it.
‘The rebels went to war against the King in the name of a document. Their rallying cry was liberty and the great charter. I should know, for I fought against John for exactly that reason myself.’
There was a ripple of disapproving murmurs among the assembled noblemen, who seemed to feel it in slightly poor taste to mention previous allegiances in this company. Many of them, too, had fought on the other side.
‘So we can at one stroke,’ said my lord, ‘take the rebel’s cause from him. With one move we can strip away whatever legitimacy they claim for their rebellion. We must reissue the great charter under King Henry’s name.’
Now the murmurs turned to voices of argument. Some men approved of Robin’s scheme, some were appalled at the implied curb to fragile royal power.
‘The rebels say they fight for the great charter,’ Robin continued. ‘I say we also fight for it, but under the true English King. I guarantee you that – if we offer amnesty, mercy, forgiveness – we will deprive the rebels of at least half of their men, the better half will come over to us, swelling our ranks correspondingly.’
‘What about the French?’ someone shouted.
Robin scanned the room. By some alchemy, just with his eyes, he managed to quiet the whole of the great hall. Into the silence, he said: ‘I say we slaughter the French. We kill every man jack
of them until Louis renounces his false claim and takes his leave of these lands for ever.’
And so it went. Two scant weeks later, in mid-November, when the clerks had wrangled over the wording and one of the more contentious clauses had been removed, the great charter was once again drawn up, witnessed, sanded and affixed with the royal seal, and copies of the document were sent to the four corners of the Kingdom. As Robin had predicted, almost before the ink on the document was dry, rebels began coming in to do homage to Henry and swear to be his loyal vassals ever more. One of these was William Marshal the Younger, the Earl of Pembroke’s eldest son, but he was only the first of many good men who came to our side.
* * *
Three days after the council meeting, I discovered Aymeric de St Maur at prayer before the altar in Gloucester Cathedral. As I waited for him to finish his devotions, I leaned against one of the huge round columns and stared up at the vaulting arches, filled with a yellowish light, the last of the short November day. Painted on the plaster were images of fantastic animals, demons and saints, in red and blue and black, scenes from the Bible, too – Adam being tempted by a half-naked Eve, who reminded me strongly of Tilda. I was longing to return to her and I am ashamed to say that even in that magnificent House of God, my thoughts turned to our lovemaking.
‘The origin of all our sin,’ said St Maur from my shoulder. I saw that he too was looking up at the first two people on Earth. I forced myself out of my reverie.
‘How goes it with you, Sir Alan?’ said the Templar. ‘How do you like our gallant young King?’
‘I like him a good deal better than the last one,’ I said. ‘But you must have guessed that. What do the Templars feel about our change of sovereign lord?’
‘I cannot speak for all of us but personally I approve. I think he will do very well. Perhaps even be a great king when he is older. And, until then, if he is properly guided—’ The Templar stopped. ‘But it is not for me, a poor soldier of Christ to tell a puissant King of England what course to take. I’m sure our noble friend William the Marshal will always steer him in the right direction.’
‘I heard a rumour the Earl of Pembroke has in fact joined your order.’
‘He has. He wishes to be buried one day in the Temple Church in London. But he does not make our policy. No, sir. And we do not seek to control young Henry through him, I promise you. We merely hope the new King will honour his debts.’
I did not believe him. I knew the Templars would use any means at their disposal to further their cause. And having one of their own as regent of all England would hardly bode ill for the Order. But I merely said, ‘King John did not pay them, I take it?’
‘I do not wish to speak ill of the dead,’ said St Maur, ‘but you and I know very well, Alan, that John was an avaricious man who loved silver above anything else. He wrung every penny he could out of this land, from nobles and peasants alike. From the Church, too. He “borrowed” a good deal of money from the Temple – hundreds of thousands of marks – and when we politely asked for the promised repayment, we were threatened with the loss of our lands, expulsion of the Order from England, no less. I only hope the boy Henry will take a more reasonable line. All we ask is that our loans, offered to the crown in good faith, be repaid in due course.’
‘Is that why you ordered King John’s death?’ I asked.
The Templar looked hard at me, seemingly very angry. I kept his gaze.
Finally, the man sighed and gave me a crooked smile.
‘My, my, the Earl of Locksley is far less discreet than I’d hoped. He has a reputation as a man who can keep a secret but in this case he’s been very loose-lipped.’
‘I shall never speak of it to another soul,’ I said. ‘You have my solemn word on it. But in exchange for my vow of silence on this matter, I want something from you.’
St Maur looked wary. ‘What do you want?’
‘Absolution,’ I said.
‘Your confessor can surely give you that, Alan. But, very well, In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti …’
‘It’s not for me,’ I said.
When I returned to Westbury a few days later, the sight of Tilda standing at the door of the hall filled my soul with a pure and shining joy. Once I had taken her into my solar and demonstrated my love for her, I dressed again and went out to my saddlebags and brought her a large piece of folded parchment. The document was written in the Master of the English Templars’ precise Latin. There was no mention of any specific sin – St Maur was far too canny to put down in written form what would have been tantamount to a confession of his guilt – but it named her and granted her absolution for all sins venal and mortal that she had committed up until this point in time.
Tilda wept as she read the document, her tears of joy falling on the vellum and smearing the black ink.
Chapter Thirty
I took part in no fighting that winter. A month-long Christmas truce was declared between the warring sides, and while there was some skirmishing in January and February, a second truce was declared soon afterwards that was supposed to last until Easter. The truth was the two sides were locked in stalemate. Over the cold months, more and more rebel English knights came over to King Henry’s banner but the French remained strong in the areas they controlled and Prince Louis departed for France in February to bring back more men for his cause.
I occasionally inspected my small force of Westbury troops when the weather allowed it, recruiting a handful of farm lads from the local area to swell my numbers into a respectable-sized company, which I deemed to be twenty-four men-at-arms. I also exercised regularly to keep myself from going soft. And there was a serious danger of that happening. Baldwin had the manor well in hand. I had silver in my coffers and Robert had taken charge of the day-to-day running of the Westbury garrison, with two experienced men-at-arms Simon and Nicholas standing at his elbows to make sure he did nothing egregious. Therefore I had a prodigious quantity of leisure time to spend with Tilda. We rode together across the Westbury lands, even in the snows of January, when her nose grew red and her hands turned to blocks of ice inside the warm fur-lined gloves that I had had made for her. But the cold brought out her beauty: with her white skin and raven hair, deep red lips and little points of scarlet on her cheeks after a hard gallop, she looked like the Queen of Winter from some extravagant fairy tale.
There is no man more generous than one who is in love and who has ill-gotten silver to spend: I lavished affection on my Tilda, buying her furs and silks and jewels until she begged me to stop. ‘I have been a servant in your household, Alan dear, and my bond with the other folk here has always been one of equals. How can I flaunt my new finery and not spark resentment among them?’
I moderated my spending at her request but how could anyone still consider my darling to be the equal of drab scullery maids?
We rode out almost daily and when the weather was too thick we curled up in my solar under the blankets with a brazier glowing cherry red in the corner of the room and found other amusements for ourselves.
We did occasionally have news of the outside world and of the war. William of Cassingham, it seemed, had paid no attention at all to the truce and he continued to harass the enemy on the Weald with remarkable success, killing hundreds of the enemy and making it impossible for the French to be secure even in the part of the country on which they had the strongest hold. He attacked the siege camp at Dover again, with his full strength, and burned all their engines of war; he very nearly trapped Louis himself at Lewes and the prince was only rescued from capture and probably a summary beheading by the arrival of a French fleet that bore him away.
Spring came like the arrival of an old friend and my joy was made all the greater by Tilda’s shy announcement that she was with child.
I wept when she told me that Robert might soon be expecting a little brother or sister and I took her into my arms. ‘Marry me, Tilda,’ I said through my running tears. ‘Marry me and make me the happiest man in Engl
and.’
We decided on a June wedding. But at the end of April, while Tilda and all the women were happily busying themselves with the planning of our nuptials, Robin came to Westbury with a hundred and fifty armed men and summoned me to my duty.
‘The Earl of Chester has broken the truce,’ said my lord, when he had congratulated me warmly on Tilda’s condition and our forthcoming marriage. He told me that Ranulf of Chester, the most powerful of the royalist barons after William the Marshal, had taken it into his head to attack Mountsorrel Castle, some twenty miles south of Nottingham, which was now occupied by Saer de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, a stalwart of the rebel cause who had resisted all blandishment to return to the royal fold and who was a personal enemy of the Earl of Chester. The castle had once belonged to Ranulf’s family and, telling nobody on our side, he had made a surprise attack with all his strength in an attempt to wrest it back from the rebels by force.
‘Louis is back from France with a hundred and forty fresh knights and half a thousand men-at-arms,’ said Robin. ‘The Marshal is ready to fight, he says, and we are summoned to join him at Nottingham with all the men we can muster between us.’
I admit I was reluctant to leave the manor and the delights of Tilda’s company, but when my lord called …
Two days later, I found myself in the great hall of Nottingham Castle in the presence of King Henry and his regent William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, and a dozen other magnates. The first person to greet me was the lord of Nottingham Castle, sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests, my old enemy Philip Marc.
