Thurstin took the costrel and drank, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘I’ll never get used to it.’
Roger laughed. ‘Best get to a monastery then, for we serve a fighting lord.’
Thurstin handed back the wine. He looked momentarily older. ‘I will never leave him, even if I have to learn to fight. Yet I once thought – ’ he broke off. No need to say what he had once thought, and he doubted if Roger would understand.
At first light the next day the men of Ewelme and Swyncombe, satisfied to have so illustrious a prisoner and the one who burned their homes and farms, gladly took Martel back to Wallingford. Once there in the large outer bailey Brien was dismounting from his horse when Ingelric came hurrying down from the tower above the drawbridge.
Basset said, ‘See what prize we’ve brought back,’ and jerked Martel from the saddle. With his hands bound the steward fell, cursed Basset and stumbled awkwardly to his feet.
‘Where would you have me house him, my lord?’ Ingelric asked. ‘By the Rood, it is good to see him shackled, but there are prisoners enough awaiting ransom in the chamber below the keep and you will want him secure.’
Brien glanced round the bailey until his eye fell on one spot where there was a pit, dug deep and roofed only with an iron grid. ‘The bear pit,’ he said curtly. ‘We’ve no animals there to entertain us now and it will be a fitting place. Chain him well.’
Martel stared round the bailey, followed the glances of his captors, and then turned to look, aghast, at the lord of Wallingford. ‘Mother of God, Brien FitzCount, you cannot – ’ Hands seized him and hurried him away, for the men of Wallingford needed no second bidding from their lord. Nor was there a lack of them to set fetters on his wrists and a rope about his chest to lower him into the hole. He struggled vainly, losing a shoe as he was dragged away, shouting obscenities at Brien, but the latter watched unmoved as his wriggling body disappeared and the grid was fastened, the bolts shot.
Then the men began to amuse themselves, running to the kitchen for fish-heads or rotten vegetables to pelt through the holes in the iron frame.
‘Brien will keep you close,’ they shouted. ‘You’ll not get out of there in a hurry.’ And ‘Brien’s Close’ the pit became from that moment.
Only Thurstin stood hesitantly, holding his master’s helm, staring at the iron grid, the revolting stench of putrid eggs catching at his stomach, a slow hatred forming, taking roots in his mind. It must be the Lady who had thus changed his master for this thing that had been done was surely alien to the lord he had first come to serve. He watched the men throwing filth down the hole, yelling at the wretched prisoner, laughing at him, and at last, sick with disgust, turned away, glad of the excuse to carry his lord’s gear to the armoury.
To Ingelric, who was standing like a statue, his face expressionless, Brien said only, ‘He is not to be harmed, Earl Robert will get a high price for him,’ and walked away across the bailey.
From a window high in the keep the lady of Wallingford had been watching her husband – at least she supposed it was Brien. ‘Holy Mary, have pity,’ she whispered and went with trembling legs down the stair into the hall.
He was standing by the high seat talking to Amauri de Beauprez and as she came to him he took her hand, greeting her coolly. He saw her pale cheeks and reddened eyes.
‘You seem unwell, wife?’
She shook her head. ‘No – no, I am well enough, but I saw – from the window. My lord, what has that man done that you should treat him so?’
Abruptly he answered, ‘It is William Martel.’
The name seemed immaterial to her, only his action of any importance. ‘Ah, my lord, it is not worthy of you.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Is it not?’
She ignored the dangerous stillness in his voice. ‘No,’ she went on urgently, ‘others may use their enemies so, but not you.’
He regarded her through narrowed eyes. ‘Do you dictate my actions, wife? I doubt you need weep for Martel.’
She shook her head. ‘I do not – only for you.’
He laughed without mirth. ‘For my sins? But you waste your sympathy on Martel. Good God, Mata, he burned Swyncombe and drove out poor Alfric – he killed Thomas’s son and let his men rape a child.’
She caught her underlip between her teeth in an effort not to weep. ‘I know, I know, but you are not like him. I cannot bear that you – ’
Amauri, with a calm unconcern that was surprising until she remembered he too was a Breton, said, ‘Such men receive only their desserts. He has offended too much against my lord.’
‘Too much for mercy?’ she asked in sudden bitterness and Brien took her hand and led her away towards the stair. ‘This is not a matter to discuss here. You can change nothing, Mata.’
She shivered suddenly. ‘There are prisoners in this castle, I know that, and you must have ransom for them but to chain that man in the bear pit – ’ She stopped at the bottom of the stair and looked up at him. Had she not known from the day she was allowed to return to Wallingford that he was wholly changed? She had come home to find that he was gone, escorting the Empress back to Bristol and the thought that the Lady had spent three weeks here, sleeping in her bed, eating at her table, produced warring emotions in her. For her husband’s sake she had embraced whole-heartedly the Angevin cause, but though she did not suspect the full extent of it she was not blind to the fact that he loved the Lady as he had never loved her. And when he returned a few weeks later he seemed to her a different man. They were further apart than ever but despite that she tried to reach him. ‘I beg you, my lord, at least to house him decently – that men may not say you are as he is.’
‘If I had my way he would not be alive at all,’ he returned harshly. ‘You speak of what you do not understand.’
‘I think,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I have never understood – now least of all.’
She went slowly up the stairs and he followed. In their chamber he busied himself washing the dust of travel from his hands and face while she sat on the bed watching him. And at the sight of her there a revulsion rose in him, but whether it was directed at her, at himself or was brought about by the memories this room, this bed, held for him he did not know. He glanced round the familiar things, at the stone cross on the shelf and shrank from that too. Throwing down the towel he left the room without speaking, but instead of returning to the hall he went on up the stair and out on to his favourite retreat, the roof of the keep, where in the warm July evening he stood with his hands resting on the parapet, drawing deep breaths of the scented air. There must be a honeysuckle far below on the bank, he thought, and leaned his head against the stone crying out silently within himself, ‘Aaliz – Aaliz’. Did he not relive every day, every hour, every moment they had together, conjure up her face, her body that had been his, remember her words, her gestures, her response to his loving until it became more than he could bear? He remembered how once he had wished for some joy to compensate for the pain of loving her fruitlessly – well, he had had that joy and now the pain was back, only deeper, more searing than before because it was a worse agony to mourn what he had known and lost than to covet what had been no more than a dream.
A longing for escape seized him. To be free of a situation that was rapidly becoming intolerable was a desire that grew daily in him and yet – Jesu, he thought, how gladly would he embrace that bondage if it might be endured in her arms. In the stillness a dog barked and the sound of it intensified his loneliness, as if only he and that solitary dog far away lived in the dark silence. Each man, it seemed to him, was a well of loneliness, of dark confused passions and instincts and aspirations. Sometimes they reached out blindly to each other seeking understanding, or to a woman seeking comfort, but in the end there was only a solitary way to travel. He thought of Master Abelard lying now in the Abbey of the Paraclete in the care at last of Heloise and her nuns – for Abelard had died in the spring of last year, safe at last from all the stresses of hi
s stormy life – and a great desire for that peace came over him.
Yet it eluded him, was gone as soon as it was felt, for as long as Maud was here there was no seeking anything but to be with her, to serve her. Nothing else mattered – neither Mata weeping in the great chamber, nor Martel crouched against the wall of the bear pit, nor even the stranger that they – or Maud – had made of himself.
CHAPTER 2
‘Sherbourne?’ Stephen exclaimed and gave a sudden sharp laugh. ‘Sherbourne! By St. Peter, the Earl sets a high price on my seneschal.’
Mahel FitzMiles, attended by half a dozen knights and acting as Earl Robert’s envoy, stood before the King in his palace at Winchester and surveyed the enemy at closer quarters than he had seen them since he was a mere lad four years ago before the war engulfed them all. Now he was a personable young man, short and sturdy with thick brown hair and an amiable expression that hid an intractable nature. His father, Earl Miles, had been recently excommunicated by the Bishop Robert of Hereford for robbing church lands and Mahel’s slow fury was turned against all churchmen. He stared at Bishop Henry of Winchester with undisguised dislike.
The Bishop, now finally committed to his brother’s cause, leaned over to whisper in his ear, ‘Stephen, you cannot let Sherbourne go – it is your last outpost in the south-west and as such too important.’
‘My lord,’ Mahel ignored Henry and spoke smoothly to the King. ‘My master the Earl is aware of the high affection in which you hold your steward and of Messire Martel’s qualities as a soldier. It was, after all, he who held off our men from seizing your own person.’
The shaft went home and Stephen flushed. He sat in his chair of state, wearing his crown – the Conqueror’s royal diadem – and a long purple robe lined with ermine, his tunic of the same colour embroidered in gold. He was still handsome, his thick chestnut hair flecked with fairer streaks, his blue eyes clear, his skin brown and smooth, and he knew he looked well for a King. Yet they would say he ran away at Wilton, he thought bitterly, that he was his father’s son. But if he had stayed and been caught again, what then? How could that have benefited his cause? He thought of the mean cell in Bristol castle, the cold, the dirt, the rats, and he shuddered involuntarily.
Simon, Earl of Northampton, who was standing negligently behind the King’s chair and picking his teeth, leaned forward to say, ‘I agree with my lord Bishop. One man for a castle would be folly, however high-born the man.’
‘It is not a question of birth but of need,’ William of Ypres spoke sharply across the top of Stephen’s head, for he was standing on the other side of the royal chair.
‘Aye, the need of a castle,’ Geoffrey of Mandeville said loudly. ‘God’s Wounds, we can do without Martel. Give me leave, sire, to go to Sherbourne. I’ll keep it for you against Earl Robert’s men whatever your present garrison may say.’
Stephen glowered at him. He had hated de Mandeville ever since the latter’s temporary defection to the Empress and he could not forget that Geoffrey had once dared to keep prisoner his daughter-in-law, the Princess Constance. ‘We know you hold loyalty cheap, my lord.’
Alain of Richmond who had ridden to court for the first time since Stephen’s release two years ago, immediately allied himself with the King. ‘You are become too puffed up, my lord of Mandeville. Is it not enough for you to hold half the land in East Anglia besides the Tower in London and God knows what else. You grasp too much.’
Geoffrey laughed in his face. ‘And you are sour because your half-brother cannot be dislodged from Wallingford. If I had the chance to do so I’d take that place in a week. ’
Prince Eustace said angrily, ‘Boaster! If my father could not do it, be sure you could not.’
‘The bantam crows like the cockerel. What do you know of war, young lording?’
‘Be silent!’ Henry of Winchester stepped forward. ‘We are not talking of Wallingford.’ Much as he had disliked Brien FitzCount since he received that stinging reply to his letter, he was not going to be led off the subject in hand. ‘We are concerned with the choice between Martel and Sherbourne Castle and I say –‘
‘With all respect, my lord,’ William of Ypres broke in, ‘we have heard your opinion. ’ He was pale, his skin a yellowish hue, his eyes bloodshot and sore. ‘My dear master,’ he leaned down towards Stephen, ‘I beg you to regain Martel’s services. You know I am in poor health and unlikely to be able to serve you as well as I have in the past.’
Stephen reached up to cover William’s hand with his own and the Flemish captain bent even closer, his mouth by the King’s ear. The hall with its crowd of men, the colours of their clothes, the hanging gonfanons, was blurred, the outlines indistinct, and he relied more on voices than features to recognise each man. ‘I am going blind,’ he said barely above a whisper, ‘and I am afraid. I would go back to my lands in Kent and found a holy house where monks may pray away my sins.’
‘No,’ Stephen said. ‘No, William. Do not leave me.’
‘I can no longer command where I cannot see,’ the Flemish captain answered bluntly. ‘You need Martel. You can trust him as you can trust none of these.’
Henry of Winchester moved forward. ‘My lord, we of your council are entitled to hear what is said when you call us to advise you.’ His voice was cool, his manner prickly. Pope Innocent had died recently and thus his office as papal legate had automatically lapsed. The new Pope, who was old and feeble, was unknown to him, moreover Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux was in Rome to whisper in the Holy Father’s ear so it seemed improbably that he would be re-appointed. Now he had to yield place to the Archbishop of Canterbury – as Theobald’s upstart clerk, Thomas Becket, had not hesitated to remind him – and he was not going to take impertinence from William of Ypres. ‘You would be better served by better men, brother. There are plenty ready to lead your forces without trusting to those who cannot respect the Church’s property. Look at the fate of Robert Marmion who robbed the lands of Ely and fell from his own fortifications to break his neck.’
Stephen laughed, but he was annoyed. ‘What that has to do with it I don’t know. I don’t wish to give up Sherbourne, but – ’
‘Then don’t, sire,’ de Mandeville called out. ‘By God, we’ll teach these dogs a lesson. Get you back to Earl Robert, Mahel FitzMiles, and tell him that the King – ’
‘The King will make up his own mind,’ Stephen silenced him angrily. He rose, his purple mantle sweeping the ground. ‘My lords, no man shall say King Stephen failed his friends. Messire – ’ he turned to Mahel who had been watching the scene with fascinated interest, ‘tell your master he shall have the keys to Sherbourne in two weeks hence in exchange for the person of William Martel.’
The long procession winding across the grass passed by the doors of the great abbey church at Gloucester, but though these were thrown open for the people to come to St. Stephen’s Mass on the day after Christmas, the column of men did not enter. At their head walked four knights bearing the arms and staff of office of the Earl of Hereford, while behind them came the coffin borne by six tenants-in-chief, knights of the shire of Hereford, staggering a little under their burden for the Earl had been a heavy man. Immediately following these were the chief mourners, the dead man’s sons, Roger looking neither to right nor left, and Mahel weeping unrestrainedly.
They were followed by the two senior barons in the Angevin party, Earl Robert and Brien FitzCount, both walking with measured steps; then came Baldwin, Earl of Devon and Reginald, Earl of Cornwall and a long line of men, all in strict order of precedence. The Empress herself, a dark mantle wrapping her about, rode at the side of the coffin, her son walking by her, his eyes fixed on the cortege, his impish grin for once absent.
Brien too kept his eyes fixed on the coffin in front of him. It did not seem possible that three days ago he and Miles had been hunting in the forest near the river Wye. It had been a warm winter day, an unusually mild spell of weather settled over the country, and they had had a fine chase after a big s
tag. Miles had thrown off hood and gloves, laughed at Brien and said when they caught the fellow he would put the antlers on the wall of Hereford Castle.
The chase had taken them several miles through the forest and scrubland and then the stag had turned and doubled back across their path. There was a moment of wild excitement, everyone shouting, men jerking their mounts about, a shower of arrows loosed. And then, horrifyingly, with one sharp cry Miles reeled in the saddle and fell to the ground before Brien could reach him or save his fall. He lay there on his face, an arrow protruding from his back. Brien had leapt from his horse, broken the shaft and turned Miles over, but the Earl was already dead. That it was a sheer accident no one doubted but the loss of Miles to their cause was a heavy one.
Brien himself mourned a life-long companion – but worse was to come for Miles had died still under the ban of excommunication and although Roger, the new Earl, approached the Bishop of Hereford requesting Christian burial for his father, the Bishop refused adamantly to permit the unshriven corpse to be laid in his cathedral. Furious, Roger arranged for the burial in land his father owned near the abbey in Gloucester.
The Lion's Legacy (Conqueror Trilogy Book 3) Page 25
