‘We don’t need more castles,’ she told me, ‘we just need the estates we have to work better. Let my father keep Ivry. That place is nothing but trouble.’
Soon we would have enough evidence to show the scale of the steward’s deceit, but would Eustace understand? And if he did, would he do anything about it? His normal response when difficulty arose was bluster and a flagon of red wine.
XXXVII
It was a bad time at Breteuil. It rained heavily for days on end. The logs were wet, the fires smoked, the long days of Lent stretched into the distance, there was fighting reported at Pacy and more fighting in the south. The knights were restive. They wanted action because that is what knights are about. Eustace’s knights were not the courtly sort, interested in the new fashion for chansons and romans and lays of derring-do and dalliance. If a lady gave them a favour they would use it to wipe their arses. They would eat and sleep in their chain-mail if they could. But now there was much riding about and drilling, but no action.
Eustace was on tenterhooks for news about the Ivry inheritance; it had become an obsession with him. Duke Henry knew that and kept him waiting. Eustace was drinking heavily and picking quarrels with everyone, especially me if I came near him, so I avoided him. The only person he was wary of, even in his cups, was Juliana. Their contract was to leave each other alone.
In spite of my best efforts, Eustace found me one day as I was taking the boy Roger out in the bailey on the pony. Juliana had gone into the town on some local errand, and I rather hoped that Eustace would be asleep on his rank bed, snoring off his wine.
I had arranged some jumps for the boy at his particular request – I was surprised by the earnestness of it – made out of brushwood and bits of old barrels. Maybe he wanted to show off, who knows? All at once, there was Eustace, red in the face and swaying like an overloaded hulk in a Channel storm.
‘And what exactly do you think you’re doing, Mr Latiner?’
‘As you see, sir, we are teaching the Castellan of Ivry’s son how to jump. He is learning well.’
‘Milksop stuff, Mr Latiner. Just the sort of thing a book reader would do. Go on, then, boy. Jump. Go on!’
And he smacked the pony hard on the rump, making him start and rush at the jump I had made so that the boy was almost thrown. I could see the lad was alarmed but he tried not to show it. He wheeled the pony round and took him over a couple of little obstacles – rather well, I thought.
‘Call that a jump!’ cried Eustace. ‘The animal just walked over it. I’ll make you a jump, boy.’
He walked up and put his big bloated face right up against Roger’s.
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, boy? You want to be a knight one day, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, sir, knights don’t just walk their way over obstacles. They have to learn to fly, boy. They have to leap ditches and charge over hedges while the sky is thick with arrows and heavy with the cries of dying men.’
While he was saying this, he was collecting the larger bits of wood I had discarded and building a veritable monument of a jump. He summoned a groom to help him. It was as tall as the boy by the time they had finished, and solid as a motte; not the sort of thing that would break up easily if you crashed into it.
I watched with misgiving. I was not keen to battle with Eustace because I knew that it would bring trouble to Juliana as well as myself. He saw me as her creature, although he did not know just what a creature I was – at least I believed he did not. However, I was not going to stand by and let the boy be bullied.
‘There,’ cried Eustace, ‘that is what I call a jump. When I was your age, boy, I would take that with a foot or two to spare. Now, go on, jump that one, and then you can call yourself a chevalier. Take the pony up and let him have a look at it.’
I could see the boy was uncertain. The jump was too high, it was quite obvious even to the groom, and it seemed to me the pony thought so too. By now a little crowd was gathering. I had an inspiration.
‘Why don’t you show him how to do it, sir?’
The man was torn. Half of him wanted to show off, the other half warned him that it was quite a high fence for a rider with three flagons of burgundy wine inside him. However, he seemed to think his honour was at stake, as indeed it was, and he ordered the groom to fetch him a horse.
‘Now you’ll see how to do it, boy,’ Eustace told him earnestly, ‘and this may prove useful for you when advancing in close order on the enemy. You have to grow up early in these days of war. Know your enemy, boy, because tomorrow he may be your friend. Or, like the Latiner here, know your friend because tomorrow he could be your enemy. Isn’t that so, Latiner?’
I could smell the wine on the man’s breath as he turned and swivelled his question at me, and I felt a great urge to punch his arrogant, truculent face in the mouth, but I thought of Juliana and the discomfort of the dungeon and stayed my hand.
‘It is so, if you say so,’ I told him, ‘it is very much so, sire.’
‘You don’t know who the hell anyone is in these difficult days. The Duke’s daughter is your bitch-wife and whose side is she on?’
It struck me that I had under-rated Eustace in the past. He was a sot, no two ways about it, but there was a kind of craftiness in there too. Perhaps he did suspect what Juliana and I got up to, and was just biding his time. The thought made me alarmed. I felt exposed out there in the bailey. There was violence in the man which could flicker up like a tongue and catch you if you didn’t look sharp.
He paced about for a bit, thinking perhaps of something unpleasant to say, or some scrap of useless advice to give to the boy, while I gave Roger a reassuring smile and tightened his girth straps. Finally, the big horse arrived, and with much pushing and shoving, the Comte climbed into the saddle.
The horse snorted and reared a little and the Comte gave it a savage thwack with his whip, which did nothing to calm it. A great Percheron beast, it was, all the way from my home.
‘Steady, Thunderbolt, damn you,’ he said. ‘Now, boy, watch carefully. We take the horse to the jump – if we have time – just to show him what he is facing. Then we turn around and go back, not too much, not too little. Of course, in battle, there is no time for this, I would be carrying a lance as well as wearing a sword, plenty to think about. Perfect control is the order of the day. You have to be part of your mount, you have to feel the beast, boy. Perfect control. Your horse is part of you while you are on it. Now, watch closely because you are going to do it next. Perfect control. Man and horse in perfect harmony, the perfect fighting engine, reins in hand, back erect, ready to charge the enemy …’
We turned and watched the Comte as he trotted back and wheeled round to face us. I did not like to admit it, but the man was strangely impressive in his battle mode. It was the only time he was truly alive. He sat on his horse, poised, silent. Then he gave a curious cry, deep in the throat – doubtless something his forbears had learned at the side of Rolf the Ganger – and spurred his horse towards the enemy, which was represented in this instance by the jump he had made.
The horse cantered up to the jump – and stopped dead. The Comte slithered over its head, turned completely over, arse over tit, and landed painfully on his bottom.
‘Oooooch!’ he cried, and fell back as though dead.
There was an embarrassed pause. Even Fulk, my old adversary, opportunistically in the front row, had nothing to say. The silence was broken by Roger. What made him do it, I have no idea. Possibly the sheer embarrassment of the situation or perhaps something the castellan his father had taught him to do when he was down or in the face of adversity.
Whatever it was that had provoked it, the boy began to laugh.
The effect on the spectators was reflected on every face. Astonishment and almost awe. No one had ever laughed much at the Comte de Breteuil, not even his wife, and certainly not the Latiner. I looked at them. I looked at the Comte lying flat out on the grass, like a whale, beginning to
stir. I looked at the boy laughing, a clear high joyful noise it was too. I wanted to laugh as well. I wanted him to stop. And then the worst thing happened. Everyone started laughing. Slowly the Comte sat up. To my amazement, he too was laughing. Oh well, I thought, I may as well laugh too. The groom advanced and helped the Comte to his feet.
The Comte suddenly stopped laughing, and everyone else stopped too, even the boy. You could have heard a dandelion clock drop. He seemed all at once to be stone cold sober.
‘All right, show’s over. Haven’t you anything better to do than stand around gawping? There are butts over there waiting for the archers, and a dangling-iron yonder ready for the knights. Pages, go to the armoury and polish the hauberks and the fucking armour or I’ll tell the sergeant to polish your backsides.’
There was a confused rush of men running to their various posts, eager not to be noticed by the glaring red eye of the master. I stood beside the boy with my hand on his shoulder. The Comte turned and regarded us with more than displeasure.
‘You,’ he said.
I gathered he was addressing me. I was used to that term of greeting from my days at Mortagne.
‘Was it your idea?’
‘My idea?’
‘The jumping. Was it your idea?’
‘Well … yes…’
I was about to say it was a good way to keep the boy happy. He did not seem to have much of an aptitude for Latin, when he went home he would soon forget it, and the games and pastimes we had in the nursery and schoolroom were more for little girls. Besides he was a good rider.
The boy surprised me by putting up his hand. He was brave, no doubt about it.
‘Well?’ asked the Comte.
‘It was my idea. My father wishes me to become a good rider.’
‘Oh, he does, does he?’
‘Yes, he does.’
‘And did he suggest this plot to make me look a fool? Put the jump up too high and make the bugger jump it?’
‘No, sir. He said nothing of that.’
‘But that is what he had in mind. He knows my passion for war and for the chase. I wouldn’t put it past him. Cunning devil! He’d try anything to keep that castle.’
‘It wasn’t my father. It was my idea.’
‘So you are the plotter. So young … so wild…’
‘No, sir. But … Ivry … it is my home, sir.’
‘I’ll speak no more of it. I will deal with you later. I am surrounded by plotters and enemies. They are using even children now … they are disguised as boys but really they are devils…’
I feared he was going to harm the child, so I stood between them.
‘Don’t you want him to try the jump?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said.
I supposed he did not want to be beaten by a boy while there were still people around. It seemed to me an even chance that the boy would fall off and injure himself, but damage had already been done worse than a broken arm. The yeast was working now as I have seen it in the abbey brewery: swollen, alive and restless as sin.
‘No,’ the Comte said again. ‘I have something else in mind.’
I did not like the sound of that at all. What on earth had possessed the boy to laugh? I had thought he was an intelligent little fellow. Perhaps they did things differently in Ivry.
I took Roger back to the castle and left him in the care of the nurse. Then I waited for Juliana to come back from the town.
XXXVIII
Juliana was a strange mixture. On the one hand she was made from the same mould as her father – clever, observant, brave – but essentially hard, the hardness so necessary in a king. She could be hot-headed like her father. She took what she wanted, for example me. One had to be careful not to draw the dragon out of her, her ladies could tell you that. But Juliana was not a bully; she had some of her Saxon mother’s qualities too. Her mother’s name was Ansfrida, a great beauty and widow of a leaseholder of the famous Abingdon Abbey, with properties near Oxford. She had come to Henry, then a prince, for help after her husband had been thrown into prison unjustly by Henry’s brother, Rufus. She had been so ‘radiant in her distress’, that Henry could not resist her – and had not deserted her either, looking after her and her daughter until she had died – and even then he had prevailed on the abbey to let her be buried at the entrance to the cloisters. You did not win Henry’s heart lightly. Well, her daughter had some of that radiance too, believe me, and that was why Henry was so fond of her. And that was why Eustace knew he could not go too far to annoy her, the Duke’s favourite.
I told her about the afternoon’s events when she returned from the town, and she looked thoughtful.
‘He’s getting one of his ideas,’ she said. ‘He thinks Ralph the castellan is using the boy to play a trick on him. That’s typical mad Eustace. He completely loses sight of the main story, which is that Amaury de Montfort is pulling his strings. I keep telling him he doesn’t really need Ivry. We have enough castles.’
‘What about the boy?’ I asked.
‘Let’s go upstairs and talk about it,’ she said.
She smelt just a little of oranges and spice and sweet pepper. It was the smell of the wardrobe room. She must have slipped up there to make sure the coast was clear.
‘We must take care of the child,’ I told her. ‘Eustace did not like the boy laughing at him today.’
‘I am not sure I would have done either,’ she said.
‘It was unwise but rather wonderful. People don’t laugh at Eustace enough.’
She drew herself up a little.
‘He may be laughable, but he is still my husband. I do not want him publicly insulted.’
‘It was not intended as an insult. I think now that the boy was laughing out of politeness. He believed that Eustace was trying to be funny.’
‘Politeness would be lost on Eustace. At any rate, we must see that the boy is safe and well. Then I shall know that my girls are all right. The sooner this is over the better. My father plays with Normandy like a chess set.’
‘But he is a good player,’ I said. ‘He has only ever lost one small battle, which is more than can be said for King Louis.’
It was fortunate that when we entered the wardrobe we were not holding hands, because Eustace was sitting on the bed eating raisins with, of all people, Amaury de Montfort, while the crafty steward Odo whispered in their ears. They rose as we entered: Eustace and the steward furtive, a little guilty, as though they had been conniving; Amaury as brazen as ever.
‘What are you doing in my domain, husband?’ said Juliana, coldly. ‘You never penetrate to these heights normally. I cannot think of a time when you did.’
‘I do not know about penetration, but I am sure there are others who do,’ he said unpleasantly and, turning to me, ‘Come for a little oil and spice to make an embrocation, Latiner?’
‘As a matter of fact, I have. The boy complained of a sore back after his riding.’
‘I hope you are not thinking of monkish practices.’
‘Certainly not,’ I replied. ‘I hear that some of your knights are not so reluctant with the pages.’
The steward cast a side-long look at me. I did not like his dirty mop of straw-coloured hair which looked as if a horse had peed in it.
‘Tell me who they are and I will castrate them,’ Eustace said.
‘And what are you doing here, Amaury?’ questioned Juliana. ‘I should have been told of your arrival. I fear you have not been properly entertained.’
It was a monstrous impoliteness to enter a castle’s private rooms without being first welcomed by the châtelaine.
‘Entertained well enough, Cousin Juliana. Nuts and raisins, feast fit for a king,’ he smirked, and the other two giggled with him.
‘And what plots are you hatching?’ she enquired.
‘Plots?’ he arched his eyebrows.
‘I know you well enough, my lord. It is always castles and lordships with you.’
‘Well, my lady, since I
am not in your best books, you will be relieved to know that my visit here is already over. I am gone. What you see before you now is a pale shadow, a wraith, a no thing, a memory. I have another appointment to keep, in Évreuil. No peace for the wicked.’
‘And no wickedness for the peaceful. You should try it sometime.’
‘I am gratified that you know me so well,’ said Amaury, unabashed, ‘and think of me so much. Farewell, Madame. Goodbye, Monsieur le Comte. And you too, Latiner. Not too much amo, amas, amat now…’
‘I will see you out,’ said Eustace.
‘No need. I know this castle well. It was almost mine – until our gracious Duke decided you should have it.’
‘I hope you don’t think …’ began Eustace.
‘My dear Comte, of course not. No hard feelings. See me to the stairs and then you can go back to your lady. She needs to see more of you…’
He was the sort of person who cannot open his mouth without making an insinuation. They left together and I could hear them muttering to each other and laughing as they lingered on the landing outside. Eustace shouted for a page to see his visitor out, and returned to the room as Amaury tripped lightly down the stairs.
‘Since you ask the reason why we’re here,’ said the steward Odo, still impertinent in the proximity of his master, ‘the butler has run out of cloves and cinnamon. It’s a cold evening and Lord Eustace thought we’d have some hot spiced wine. We seem to get through so much cinnamon and cloves, we never order enough. I don’t know where it goes.’
This was an obvious dig at us and our investigation of his accounts, but Juliana was equal to it.
‘Well, you should know where it goes, steward. It is your job. And the butler has plenty of cloves and cinnamon in his cupboard, as you should know too,’ she said and turned her attention to Eustace. ‘I don’t like you snooping up here. I am the châtelaine and this is my domain. I cannot keep track of these stores which you know are costly if you keep sneaking in. And, talking of accounts, I have some problems with the steward’s. We shall speak of it later.’
The White Ship Page 17
