It came suddenly, unexpectedly, on a morning when the first dark fog of winter came curling through the narrow shaft from above, when he was shivering with cold and sitting huddled against the wall, not even caring for the rats who came close to him, watching him warily. He heard the bolts drawn, and hoped the food would be hot this morning – which it seldom was. A messy soup they brought him, and bread, while he longed for delicacies he had not tasted since Lincoln fight – cucumber in jelly or leeks with a cream sauce, roasted swan’s flesh, or sweet marchpane.
But it was not the gaoler with bowl and platter for him. Instead he saw the burly figure of the Sheriff of Gloucester and gaped in surprise.
‘My lord,’ Miles said formally and stood looking down at him. ‘I fear you have been uncomfortable here, but we have been at war.’ Aware of how he must look, crouching against the wall, his clothes filthy, his beard tangled, his body unwashed, Stephen got to his feet. ‘Uncomfortable!’ he exclaimed. ‘You are a master of understatement, Sheriff.’
Miles did not answer this. ‘I have brought you news,’ he went on in an expressionless voice. ‘You are to be freed, my lord.’
‘Freed?’ Stephen stared at him, incredulously. He could not grasp it. Was he to go, at last, from this miserable place? ‘I do not understand. What has happened?’
‘Your Flemish captain holds Earl Robert captive at Rochester. The Earl and your Lady have both given hostages and you and he are now to be exchanged.’
‘Exchanged for Robert?’ Despite the overwhelming relief that sent tears to his eyes, regal indignation rose incongruously in him. ‘I am King – am I worth no more than an Earl?’
To Stephen’s shame, his visitor laughed and he wished his words unsaid. Miles bowed but there was mockery in the action. ‘So we believe Earl Robert said, and he has won freedom also for all the men taken with him in exchange for you.’
‘That is proper,’ Stephen retorted with some dignity. ‘Is the Empress gone? The war over?’
Again Miles seemed amused. ‘Did you think we should yield so easily? No, my lord, we have it all to do again.’
‘By God, she is stubborn,’ Stephen retorted with a flash of anger, ‘and you, all of you are traitors.’
Miles turned away with an impatient shrug. ‘That is old ground to tread.’ He nodded to the gaoler to strike off the fetters and when it was done requested Stephen to accompany him.
At the door the King paused and gave a last glance round his cell. How could he have borne it for so long? ‘Am I not to have water to wash in? Fresh clothes? You have kept me in a manner ill-fitting your anointed lord.’
The Earl paused half way up the steps. ‘All that is necessary will be provided before you leave.’
It was Stephen’s turn to mock. ‘So that my friends do not see how you have treated me. I shall remember this, Sheriff Miles.’
‘I am the Earl of Hereford,’ Miles retorted coolly, ‘and I have long since left your service.’ They were at the top of the stair now and he held open a small iron-studded door which led into a guard chamber. ‘You will find all you need here. Horses and an escort will be waiting to take you to Winchester.’
‘Am I to see the Empress?’
‘She does not wish it.’ He ushered Stephen in and with an expressionless face, left him.
Stephen stood still, looking at the bowl of water on the table, the razor, the towel. Then he picked up the clothes that lay on a stool. They had given him a plain long tunic, a red soldier’s mantle, brown hose, nothing that was kingly, no hint of royalty. Was it done by design? He wanted to hurl the insignificant garments from him and shout for a suitable wardrobe, but with an effort he controlled himself. He was still within the enemy’s walls and must take his freedom at any price.
He washed, trimmed his beard and changed his clothes. He would be a King once more and the idea came to him to be crowned again, to have the Archbishop – treacherous fellow – set the crown once more on his head, the staff in his hand, pay him homage that all men might see he was still King in England. And that would be as good as thumbing his nose at his proud cousin, the Empress.
CHAPTER 3
The candles in the silver candelabra were guttering in the sudden icy wind and Brien moved them across the table so that they were clear of the draught. He had a letter in front of him, a letter that had made him so angry at first that he wanted to tear it to shreds and fling the pieces on the fire, but which now he was answering, point by point, to justify himself and his actions.
He smoothed the parchment and read again – ‘Henry, by the grace of God Bishop of Winchester and Legate of the Apostolic See, to Brien FitzCount. My land, my men and my manors have been raided and it seems to me that you are not to be trusted. Unless you cease to disturb my tenures I shall count you among the unfaithful…’
He flung the letter down in utter disgust. Since that awful retreat last year everything had changed. From being on the verge of victory the Empress’s party was worse off than at the beginning. After they had released their prisoner to regain Earl Robert they heard that Stephen had had himself crowned again at Lincoln – as if to emphasise the fact that his defeat there had been reversed, Brien thought with grim amusement, picturing the King preening himself as if he had been the author of his triumph. For triumph it was in that many lords had now deserted the Empress, among them William de Mohun whom she had made Earl of Somerset and for him Brien had nothing but contempt. Roger of Warwick had handed over his castle to Stephen’s garrison and though his Beaumont cousins had made their peace with Geoffrey in Normandy they provided no help in England and after Winchester Waleran was again advising the Queen. In the new year Stephen had fallen sick at Northampton, so sick that all England thought he was dying, and Robert seized this respite to sail from his castle at Wareham to Normandy to ask the help of Count Geoffrey, men and arms to bring the Empress to final victory.
And then, seemingly miraculously, Stephen had recovered and collecting an army had marched to Wareham where he took the castle, following that with a swift march across the country capturing others as he went. Brien stared at the candle flames, watching the yellow points of light, his eyes sombre. They had badly misjudged the situation, he most of all. While Robert was away he had left his sister at Oxford Castle deeming her safe there and close to Wallingford, in an area where the Angevin cause was strong. Brien had stayed there with her all through July and August, summoning his wife to attend her while Robert D’Oyley and the lady Edith kept the royal court well housed and entertained. The Empress’s knights had occupied themselves in riding round the countryside attacking and plundering any of Stephen’s men that they could find, and Brien had no compunction on that score whatever Henry of Winchester might say. The Bishop held some land north of Wallingford and this he had stripped bare, taking everything for her whose needs had priority.
But Stephen had outwitted them all and put Brien himself in an intolerable position under which he had chafed night and day. For two months ago he had been at Wallingford for a week, raising more men and supplies, when Stephen, keeping up that speed that took them all by surprise, swept round the flank of Wallingford, took the smaller castles of Bampton and Radcot, stormed Oxford town and then sat down before the castle. He had chosen his moment well, for not only was Brien at Wallingford, but Earl Miles was in Gloucester and Reginald in Devonshire where a diversionary attack had drawn him, all holding for the Empress but none with her at this vital moment. Furious, cursing himself for his lack of foresight, Brien suffered weeks of anxiety on her behalf, castigating himself for his failure to protect her, to be with her when she needed him most. A dozen plans for her rescue came into his head each day and were one by one rejected as hopeless – she was safe enough while the castle held and it was well provisioned but the problem was how to get her out before supplies ran out and hunger drove her to surrender. That prospect was so appalling that Brien shut his mind to it, refusing to consider such a culmination.
A shutter began to
bang in the wind and he got up to secure the latch. It was bitterly cold. Though it was still early in December snow had already fallen and he looked out on to a white courtyard, trampled where men had gone back and forth. His numbers here were depleted for he had left Ingelric and a body of his men with Maud, and this room seemed strange without Mata’s quiet presence. Yet he was glad of the solitude for he knew his anxiety rendered him withdrawn, curt to his men, impervious to all but the one desperate problem that turned and twisted in his head.
There was so little he could do. Stephen’s men were ravaging the countryside and occasionally his own raiding parties had a brief encounter with them, sometimes losing a man or two. William of Ypres had plundered Abingdon Abbey, to the most unpriestly fury of the Abbot, and despite his promise to Bishop Henry had broken open the Abbey’s treasure chests and seized monies which he claimed in the King’s name. Brien could do little to retaliate on the outraged Abbot’s behalf, but in a gnawing anxiety that left him no peace he too went raiding, attacking neighbours with whom he had once lived in amity.
Leaning against the stone embrasure an involuntary shiver shook him but it was less from the cold than from fear for the Lady, a fear so deep, so intense by reason of his private love that he did not know how to contain it. It was to keep himself from thinking of it, from envisaging what might happen, that he had sat down to write to Henry.
He came back to the table and taking up his pen again, venting his fear in scorn he began to write. ‘As for me, King Henry gave me land and hardly an acre of corn do I reap now from that land so that it is not strange I must take from others to sustain my life and those of my men.’
It was true for his possessions were gone except for one or two isolated manors such as Huntercombe and Swyncombe, and the immediate surroundings of Wallingford itself which he could watch from his castle. Rage shook him sometimes when he thought of the vast fertile productive lands he had once owned, the corn and fruit and fish that had poured into his hands. ‘If my possessions had been left to me,’ he wrote with angry pride, ‘I would have touched nothing belonging to any other man – nor do I do it for gain or plunder, as some do, but only to take what is necessary for me and for my dependents. Let all men know that I, Brien FitzCount, whom good King Henry gave the arms of knighthood and many honours, am ready to prove in any court all that I have said.’
He flung down his pen, all his Breton temper rising in a rare outburst of self-justification. He remembered the burning of Wherwell Priory, knowing that though others had flung the torches it was he who had brought about its ruin – yet surely that must be laid to the account of war and its attendant necessities? By God’s Wounds, other men had behaved worse than he! What of de Mandeville and his atrocities, what of Robert Marmion who had seized Coventry Abbey and desecrated that holy place? And what of men like Hugh Bigod who changed their loyalties with the seasons? What right had Henry to criticise him as if he were one of them?
He folded the parchment and sealed it and with that action his anger left him. He did not throw Henry’s letter into the fire after all but laid it between two books to be put away with other documents. Then he rested his head on his hands, his eyes closed. It was all against his very nature, the fighting, the raiding and plundering, the accusations and jealousy and injustice, and he felt utterly alone, cut off in more ways than the mere physical fact of his isolation here at Wallingford. The things that he had fought for, prayed for, seemed further from fulfilment than ever. And though he wanted victory for the Lady in a curious way he knew, had known since the night he told her of Robert’s capture that it did not lie in the crown of England. As he had gone up the stair that night trying to find words to break the bad tidings to her some instinct had told him they would never win now. He would go on to whatever end there might be, doing anything she asked of him, but that their way led to Westminster he no longer believed. They had had their chance and missed it.
He let no one see his disillusion. Only when he was alone did it take full possession of him, and to fight it he got up and going to the stone cross on the shelf knelt before it. He prayed then but only for her and with such intensity that for a while it eased his wretchedness. Yet even here everything was changed. He had somehow lost an intimacy with God he had once had when he had lived in and through his books, when his thoughts were occupied with the lives of such men as Cuthbert and Aiden and Wulfstan, when he had tried to deal with his people in the light of their example. The soft wind of understanding that had once blown on him, made him desire to be one of them, had changed course, swung round as the weather vane on the tower above, to blow him violently in another direction. He pressed his hands against his eyes and drew his breath, letting it out in a sigh as a great longing for the old peace stole over him.
He was still on his knees, too weary to frame any more words when there was a commotion below and a sound of raised voices. He got to his feet and opening the door leaned over the wooden balustrade to see what was happening.
It was Roger Foliot returned with the raiding party he had led out that morning and he stood in the hall below with some of the men and, in their midst, an angry gesticulating group. It was too dim to see whom these might be and Brien went slowly down the stairs. It had taken him three months of pressure reinforced by a letter from Gilbert Foliot to Henry of Winchester to free Roger by ransom. He could ill afford to part with any money now but he needed Roger and felt for him not only the deep sense of responsibility he owed to the lives of all those who came under his lordship, but also an affection – that fiercely demonstrated partisanship both amused and gratified him. Roger had returned to Wallingford breathing fire against Philip of Gloucester but Brien had told him sharply to forget private feuds while they needed to hold together to the common cause. Roger was a valuable asset now as a fighting man and this evening came forward as his lord reached the bottom step.
‘My lord, we went to Ascot. Robert D’Oyley’s men still hold his tower there, and we drove off a party of enemy knights. Then we went to Chinn or and have brought you all we could lay our hands on, corn and some barrels of ale and a store of apples as well as salted meat, more than we hoped for. Robert Giffard will be little help to King Stephen now.’
Brien laid a hand briefly on his shoulder. ‘That was well done. You did not burn the place?’
Roger shook his dark head, still glistening with melting snowflakes, his clothes muddy and wet, but his face wearing a look of grim satisfaction. ‘No, lord, as you forbade it – though it was tempting.’
‘Giffard was once a good neighbour and his uncle served King Henry well. I’ll not make a worse enemy than I need. ’
Roger grinned. ‘I’m afraid he swore to have your blood but I told him that a man who owned no more than a small manor and a few hides of land could not be thought much of a threat to the lord of Wallingford.’
A faint smile crossed Brien’s face. ‘I’m sure that did not please him, considering his ancestry and mine. Well, who is it that you have brought back with you?’
‘Master Alfric, the priest from Swyncombe, with one of your tenants. It seems – but here he is to tell you himself.’
The little priest had broken away from the group and came across to the tall figure by the stair. His face was wrinkled with anxiety, his eyes still red from weeping. ‘My lord, my lord – they have burned Swyncombe, the manor and all the dwellings – my church too and my house. They took everything, even my precious relic that you brought me from St. Evroul – ’ He was wringing his hands now, the tears running afresh down his face.
Brien stood still. ‘Who did it?’
‘William Martel, my lord. He took all I had, the monies for the Christmas offering to Bec, the tithes for yourself.’ He rubbed his hands on his stained gown and then wiped away his tears with one sleeve, snuffling his nose into it. ‘It was terrible – terrible – men behaving like beasts, not as children of God.’
‘Tell me,’ Brien commanded in a low, taut voice.
A
lfric knotted his fingers tightly together. ‘I tried to speak with them – to make them listen, but they would not. They took the women, burned one family in their cottage and a child I’d baptised not a week before. Three of the men took a girl – she was barely thirteen – and they held me and made me watch. Beasts – devils!’ He was shivering now, despite the great fire that burned in the hall.
Brien said, ‘Master Alfric, I am sorry for what you have suffered. War brings these evils and I want only peace, but we shall not have it until the issue is settled.’
A man pushed his way forward from among the men-at-arms, a plain man in a short leather tunic, his greying hair unkempt, his face blackened with cinders. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘while rich men quarrel we who are poor pay the price. My home is burned, my wife is dead and my son was killed by Martel himself because he tried to stop them.’
The Lion's Legacy (Conqueror Trilogy Book 3) Page 20
