‘It is young Foliot,’ he said to Robert.
Roger, sweating and dusty, swung himself down from the saddle, his horse in an equal state of exhaustion and blowing heavily. He saw the barons hurrying down the outer stair from the ramparts and ran across to them. ‘My lords – ’
‘Well?’ Brien asked sharply. ‘Out with it, boy. We can see your news is urgent.’
‘I went to London, my lord, as you bade me, and found the King gone to Arundel.’ He saw his hearers exchange glances and went on, ‘He laid siege to the castle, but though everyone knew he could not take it Queen Adeliza was so afraid that she ordered the gates to be opened to him.’
‘What!’ Robert exploded. ‘Did D’Albini hand over an unassailable castle without a blow struck? Is the man mad? And what of my sister? For Christ’s love, speak!’
‘Aye, my lord,’ Roger answered hastily. ‘I think his lady, the Queen, must have prevailed upon him – though indeed she struck a bargain with the King first.'
‘A bargain?’ Brien asked and the Earl said, ‘Are they burghers to haggle over my sister? What terms?’
‘That the Lady should not be harmed but be allowed to go free.’
‘And is she?’ The Earl’s voice was sharp with anxiety.
‘Safe enough, my lord.’ Roger pulled off his helm and wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve. Already he felt less the boy than three months ago. ‘But the gates were opened and the King admitted. Queen Adeliza and my lord D’Albini seemed to wish they had not entered into the affair and asked only to be left in peace.’
Robert laughed harshly, one foot on the step above him, his hand on his knee. ‘Jesu, they change with every wind that blows. I thought better of D’Albini. Was my sister present during all this?’
‘Yes, lord, and she was very angry at the way things were and haughty with her cousin the King who – who bade her welcome as a subject but in no other way.’
Robert stood up, slamming one fist into his open hand. ‘I never planned for this. She should have been safe at Arundel. Why could Stephen not have left her there? The fight is between men and as men we will settle it.’
Roger gave a faint smile. ‘Your sister, my lord, took her part as a man and gave Stephen challenge for challenge.’ Then he stopped, uncertain how much to repeat of all that he had heard. He was conscious of others in the courtyard now, all aware that he had brought news and he saw William and Philip come down the steps to stand above their father, while Ingelric waited in an archway with de Sablé and men-at-arms collected in groups.
Robert laughed. ‘Well, and how did Stephen take the challenge?’
‘The King told her she had best go back to her husband, though she said she would go to you or nowhere. But I am sure he would not harm her, my lord.’
‘Jesu, if he dared!’ Brien broke in. ‘What did he say to my cartel?’
‘He said, lord, that he would be before Wallingford within the week – that is why I rode so hard to get here – and that if you do not surrender it and acknowledge him again, he will lay siege works to it and take it from you, though,’ he added gravely, but with a suppressed hint of pride in his face, ‘I told him he would find that none too easy either by battery or threats, that we were not the same stamp as the men at Arundel.’
Brien laughed and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Well said. I don’t imagine that pleased D’Albini.’ He looked across at Robert. ‘I suppose I must go back.’
The Earl nodded. ‘I wanted you here, but Wallingford is our outpost in the east and you must be sure it can hold. What if Stephen is there before you?’
‘I have more than one way of getting into my castle,’ Brien told him. There was a passage from the Priory that led to an underground gate of which only he held the key, and also a postern protected by the river which he could reach in the dark if necessary. John of Ramsay would have it guarded and a man there to open to him if he came that way – but to have to return now, to be denied sight of the Lady Maud roused in him such anger and suppressed disappointment that he turned on Roger, his hands itching to shake more information from him. ‘Was there no one there to speak for the Lady? In the name of God, boy, let us have it all and at once.’
‘Aye, my lord.’ Roger gaped at the sight of his master stirred as he had never seen him before. ‘She stood up before them all and reminded them of their oath to her. Then there was a lot of shouting and argument and the King’s brother, because he is papal legate, I suppose, said he spoke for the Holy Father who gives his support to King Stephen, but wishes no harm to the Lady. It went on and on and when the Empress walked out on them and went to her apartments I thought it time to come away to warn you.’
‘You did right, Messire,’ Earl Robert said and his son, Philip, standing above, leaned over his father’s shoulder to ask, ‘Aren’t we going to fight? A few burning manors will make the King’s men smart.’
The Earl swung round. ‘There will be fighting in due course, my son, but while your aunt is in the King’s hands we must act with care. In war it is necessary to use one’s head.’
‘And caution, I suppose, is the prerogative of our fathers,’ Philip said and laughed and William broke in, ‘Be still, brother. You speak as an inexperienced fool which you are.’
‘I am not a fool,’ Philip snapped, his thin face darkening. ‘Just because you have fought a few skirmishes in Normandy – ’
‘Hold!’ the Earl said in a voice calculated to bring them both to silence. ‘Messire Roger, I thank you for coming so hastily to us. The King respected your office as herald?’
‘Yes, my lord. He bade me tell you the Lady would neither be kept prisoner nor harmed but that she was no more to any man than the Countess of Anjou and he charged you to submit to him or yield your lands.’
Robert said drily, ‘He has mistaken me if he thinks I would do either.’
‘I do not think he expected you to do it. I think he looks to fight you – Count Waleran feeds him with evil advice.’
‘Who is King then?’ Philip asked mockingly. ‘Holy Cross, I’d soon have Waleran in shackles.’
Roger nodded indignantly. ‘Aye, it was Count Waleran, not the King, who said –’ He came to a sudden halt.
‘Who said what?’ Brien asked. ‘Go on, Roger.’
‘Lord, I dare not say it.’
‘You had better speak,’ Brien said in a more dangerous voice than Roger had ever heard him use and he went on hastily. ‘He – he asked if anyone thought that two bastards and a woman born of a sacrilegious union could turn the King from his throne.’
There was an instant silence in the courtyard. Roger’s weary horse swished his tail and men looked at each other, wondering how such words would be taken. Philip opened his mouth to speak, encountered a look from his brother, and closed it again.
At last the Earl said in an icy voice, ‘And the King? Did he – ’
‘He looked as if he did not like it, my lord, but then he laughed with the rest.’
‘God’s wounds!’ Robert swore. ‘He will repent that.’ And he went down the remaining steps and strode off towards the hall.
Roger looked uneasily at his master. ‘Should I have told him? I thought – ’ he stopped at the expression on his own lord’s face.
‘If anything were needed,’ Brien said, ‘it was this.’
Wallingford Castle held against the King’s forces. Stephen tried to storm the gates on the bridge and failed, built a containing castle at Crowmarsh on the opposite bank and crossed the river by boat further down. Approaching then from the north he burned a few outlying houses but found the great barbican unassailable. He had thought the castellan in Bristol and was astonished to see his familiar figure on the battlements. He sent his herald to demand surrender but all the answer he got was an invitation to approach the gates. His captain, William of Ypres, sent a body of Flemish mercenaries to try the storm but they could not get near for the hail of arrows and missiles, and later that day Brien sent out a party of knights
on a sortie to harass the King and prove the ease with which he could control access to the castle. William of Ypres captured two, raised a gallows and hanged them within sight of the gatehouse.
Brien watched the dangling bodies until the convulsive movements ceased, his arms crossed on his chest, a heavy frown on his face. Both were men who had been a long time in his service, one from Ewelme, the other the son of a tenant of Reading Abbey.
Ingelric came up to him. ‘My lord, we have taken several of their men. Shall we hang them up here for the King to see?’
It was some minutes before Brien answered. Then he said, ‘We will not return evil for evil – not yet.’ He watched the enemy soldiers below marching off to their camp, leaving the hanging men limp on the hasty gallows.
In the besieging camp William of Ypres told the King that the place could not be taken other than by starving out the garrison. ‘And you cannot waste time and men here,’ he said. ‘Earl Robert builds his forces in the west. Leave a garrison to keep the lord Brien contained and he can cool his heels while we deal with the Earl.’
Stephen took his advice and marched away to besiege Devizes.
Walking day by day on the high tower on the motte Brien saw the King’s troops, gonfanons blowing in the crisp October air, marching away to the west. He walked restlessly, caged and bereft of news, his anxiety for the Empress growing day by day, his desire to know where she was and how the Earl was faring gnawing at him so that he was sharp with his men, kept them all at work on the defences, organised sorties against the besiegers and let no one rest, least of all himself.
‘My lord,’ Mata said one night when he came to their chamber exhausted and flung himself down in his muddied clothes on their bed. ‘Why do you not send Roger or Messire de Sablé to find out what is happening. If the Empress is gone back to Normandy – ’
‘I’ll not believe that,’ he answered tersely. ‘She cannot have gone when we have barely started.’
‘But if she had?’ Mata persisted, looking down at him, a lump of mud from one shoe on her green silk coverlet. She had him back, and yet he had returned home with no thought of her at all, only a preoccupation that, in a sense, she must share if she would have any part of him at all. ‘If she has left England, if Earl Robert has gone too, you cannot hold out alone. My dear lord, I do beg you at least to consider. I – I saw a single magpie today, high on the walls, and it is a bad sign. There will be a parting, perhaps even a death – ’
‘Oh peace, peace!’ He got up, suppressing his irritation, and began to strip off his tunic. He opened the door and shouted for Thurstin to bring him hot water. ‘News will come soon, wife. In the meantime I hold here.’
The days darkened and he spent the long evenings writing a defence of the Empress’s cause in careful, logical language to appeal to men of right thinking and common sense and when it was done had two of his clerks make copies of it. He would send one to Gilbert Foliot who would know how to use it and another to the Archbishop of Canterbury and a third perhaps, his mouth lifted in wry humour, to Bishop Henry at Winchester.
Relief came at last towards the end of November in the most unexpected and welcome manner in the form of Sheriff Miles of Gloucester with a considerable force of men. He had outflanked the King’s army at Devizes and approaching Wallingford from the north, beat off the besiegers and burned their wooden castle. The drawbridge was lowered and he rode into the bailey to the cheers of the men within.
Brien met him as he came in under the archway. ‘You are the most welcome sight I ever expected to see,’ he said smiling, ‘and we’ve never warmed our hands at a better fire than you’ve made of that castle out there.’
Miles swung his leg over his horse’s neck and slid to the ground. ‘It burns well. All England will soon be aflame.’
‘Tell me,’ Brien said and seized his arm. ‘I’ve had no news since I returned. The Empress – ’
‘Is safe at Bristol.’
‘Thank God. The King let her go?’
‘It seemed that his brother, Bishop Henry, thought he could deal better with us if we were all together in the west – pride was ever his failing! – and he himself escorted her to Earl Robert. He’s too devious for me, is Henry of Blois, but then I’m a fighting man and don’t pretend to understand anything else. By the way, the King has burned your manors at Chalgrove and Cuxham.’
This news, distressing as it was, was a pinprick compared to the joy of knowing that the Lady was safe and Brien walked Miles into his hall, his relief such that he feasted his men that night and promised them retaliation, plunder and spoil from the men who had plundered them.
The war had begun in earnest and after supper when he had conducted Miles to the guest chamber he climbed to the high tower to stand under the dark sky, aware of frost in the air invigorating him, the crisp clean cold of it corresponding to his mood. He could still see smoke curling from the last of the fire that had destroyed Stephen’s castle and its acrid tang drifted across to him. The King was beaten in their first encounter and he wanted nothing now but to see him brought down for the days of his comradeship with Stephen were gone forever. Count Waleran’s words at Arundel still stung him – odd how an insult, worthy of nothing but oblivion, could rankle and irritate like a flea inside one’s shirt. He thought of his manors of Chalgrove and Cuxham, burned and looted. It was not so long since that June day when he had ridden from inspecting those very manors and he could see the land now, rich with crops, his tenants satisfied for he took only his fair dues and was a just lord to them. He remembered Evroul at Chalgrove, Peter of Cuxham, good men both – did they live or were they charred corpses in the ruins?
He paced, too restless for sleep, and glancing down into the courtyard below saw two figures slip from under an arch. They were hand in hand and when they came to the stair that led up to the door of the hall paused and turned into each other’s arms. The man was tall and massive and had to bend his head very low so that his mouth might reach that of the slight girl he held in his arms. The light of a torch kept burning at night by the stair lit his fair hair and Brien saw that it was Ingelric, guessing at once that the girl was John of Ramsay’s daughter, Beatrice.
He watched them, folded into one, the girl’s arms flung high about Ingelric’s neck, his embrace such that he lifted her off her feet, both lost in their hunger for each other, and Brien felt a swift envy, a yearning sorrow that he had never felt that passion, the desire that was more than mere fleshly need – for that it was between those two below he was sure. They disappeared through the door and he turned away, walking across the high roof to stand on the opposite side looking away towards the dark river. There was silence everywhere and a peace that was as untrue to the situation men had made as the autumn beauty that hid the decay of the year. Yet with an odd premonition he wondered if winter might bring him what he had not known in the spring of his youth.
He left Wallingford early in the morning and parted with Miles at Faringdon. A merchant they met told them that King Stephen had gone west from Devizes and burned Earl Robert’s manor at Tewkesbury but that when he heard of the relief of Wallingford he turned and marched rapidly back to London, visualising his capital in danger.
‘We are making him run,’ Miles said with satisfaction and set off to retaliate by burning Worcester.
Brien covered the last miles at a headlong speed, freed from the restraint of a large body of men, and arrived at Bristol by nightfall. As he rode across the bridge into the town he glanced up at the walls, at the castle which sheltered her, the moment upon him for which he had waited so long, had prayed so earnestly. Had she changed? And how would she receive him? Would the old affection with which she had turned to him in her time of misery be lost in the turmoil of the years?
He rode into the castle bailey outwardly calm, threw his reins to Bernard, and nodded to Roger to attend him, but he was anything but calm within as he ran up the outer steps into the hall. Into his head, suddenly, came a memory of Mata’s words –
‘your heart is elsewhere’. Was it true? Had she seen more than he knew himself?
A servant opened the door and he walked in upon a comic scene. The hall was crowded with men all taking their ease awaiting the supper hour and in one quick glance Brien saw his old friend Baldwin de Redvers, broad-faced and cheerful, one foot on a bench, talking with Reginald of Dunstanville, the Empress’s other half-brother. William de Mohun, sour-faced as usual, was standing by a trestle apparently saying nothing to Bishop Robert of Bath while Walter of Langport was telling a jest to Helias of Cirencester, and there were others that Brien knew, all men from the western shires. But he had no more than a cursory glance for any of them for at the far end of the hall the Empress herself was crossing the dais with her masculine walk, her purple gown flowing behind her, her mantle fastened by a jewelled clasp, her hair hidden beneath a white veil surmounted by a small gold coronet. The object of her attention was a man of middle age, on his knee before her and proffering a sword, but he was either nervous or clumsy for he had tilted it awkwardly and the point swung towards her.
The Lion's Legacy (Conqueror Trilogy Book 3) Page 9
