The Villains of the Piece

by The Villains of the Piece (retail) (epub)

  The physician tilted his head to the side. How difficult it was to impress the ignorant. The patient was there, full of poison, and all he had to do was make an incision from wrist to inner, and out it would come. Why did they call him, if it was only to argue?

  Brien squeezed the girl’s hand. ‘Fetch the juice. Apply it as you think fit. If it does not revive her, we will do as Lemos says. Go on now. Don’t be afraid. I know Lady Alyse loves you like a—’

  Like a daughter… A son… Matilda… Young Henry, he’s seven now, but you would know that. Ah, God, and that is why she has tried to kill herself…

  He pressed his lips against her hand, and stayed there until Edgiva returned with the fennel.

  It smelled of liquorice and made their eyes water, and Lemos retired to the window. The maidservant dipped her fingers in the juice, then touched them to Alyse’s nostrils. There was no reaction.

  She drew a dripping finger across Alyse’s upper lip, asked Fitz Count to raise his wife’s head, then smeared more of the stuff around her nose.

  Brien felt her body twitch. ‘Go on,’ he urged. ‘There’s some movement. Go on with it!’

  Lemos coughed and edged into the window seat. The smell pervaded the chamber. Brien blinked, couching his wife’s head. He heard Lemos cough again and started to say, ‘Christ, you are not the patient!’ then realised that it was Alyse who had coughed. Her body jerked spasmodically. He rested her head on the pillow, and Edgiva said, ‘She must have some air.’ Brien nodded obediently, crossed to the stairs and bellowed down to Varan and Morcar to come and help move the massive bed. Then he waved Lemos from the alcove and the men set the bed between the stone window seats, where Alyse could wake and gaze out over the fields and the river and watch the first stirrings of spring.

  Edgiva looked at the physician, then went to wash the fennel juice from her hands.

  * * *

  They stayed together next day, and Brien admitted his guilt, though he realised that his wife had already forgiven him. He, long ago, had behaved adulterously with the Empress Matilda. But nothing he had done could compare with the severity of her attempted self-murder. In that time there was no greater sin, save to deny the existence of God, and no one who had tried to take his own life could condemn an adulterer. Thus, by committing so grave an act, Alyse had surpassed his guilt and ensured that they would be together, if not in heaven, then amid the flames and fumes of hell.

  She was glad she had failed to die. Now she could spend the rest of her days with the man she loved, fearing nothing until the Final Judgment.

  * * *

  In June, Matilda reached London. There she met Geoffrey de Mandeville, the only man who could match Ranulf of Chester in ferocity and the desire for personal aggrandisement. He cut a terrifying figure, tall, lean-faced, so deep spoken that he seemed to draw the listener into an echoing, unplumbed pit. One would lean forward, seduced by the voice, content to fall in with his wishes.

  The year before Lincoln, Stephen had made him Earl of Essex. Matilda now added the titles of sheriff and chief justiciar, and confirmed him in his constableship of London, and as master of the Tower.

  The additional grants all but doubled his income and mapped the path for other ambitious barons. They saw how the empress had rewarded Earl Geoffrey, and they arrived at Westminster to hum-and-haw and to set a price on their loyalty. Stephen’s supporters were dispossessed, or banished, or imprisoned. Castles and fiefdoms changed hands, and the race for power became a stampede. Neighbour turned on neighbour, each accusing the other of treasonable conduct towards the Lady of England. Matilda created six new earldoms, though one name remained conspicuously absent from the list – Brien Fitz Count.

  Still at Wallingford, he learned, and did not care, that Matilda meant what she said. For him the cauldron of preferences and promotions had already boiled dry.

  Throughout this period, Matilda was accompanied and advised by Robert of Gloucester, Miles of Hereford and the indispensable Bishop Henry, who had not yet found the time to visit his imprisoned brother. Unfortunately, their advice was rejected, and they watched her become more arrogant with each passing day. They were, themselves, vain men, secure in their nobility and position. But Matilda chose to rebuff them in public, and no longer rose to her feet in response to their bow. On more than one occasion, Robert and Miles walked out on her, as they had done at Gloucester. But Henry remained, ever watchful, content to watch the current.

  If Stephen died tonight, the bishop was secure in his support of the empress. If an assassin entered the Great Hall at Westminster and ran a dagger into Matilda, Henry could arrange his brother’s release and be known as the man who had sought better treatment for him, and rescued him. But, he reminded himself, I must get to Bristol and pay him a visit.

  The aldermen and elected officials of London were summoned to Westminster, where they pleaded for a relaxation of taxes, claiming that the war had impoverished them. This was an ideal opportunity for Matilda to put Henry’s advice into practice, and to increase her popularity with mercy. She was without doubt one of the most beautiful women in the world, and on the threshold of being crowned Lady of England. Not since the landing on the estuary at Arundel had there been such an ideal moment in which to win over the people.

  However, it was then that she chose to mutilate the leopard.

  Her face contorted with anger, she strode among the delegation, screaming in their faces, marking on her fingers the number of times they had raised money for Stephen, and contributed to his cause, and joined in a city-wide conspiracy against her, and done all they could to hold her at bay.

  ‘And now you come here and complain of poverty. Crucified Christ! I’ll give you grounds for complaint. You will pay what you owe, on the hour of the day you owe it, and you will also find fifty thousand marks as compensation for your treason! That, too, you can pay, the same hour, the same day, or they’ll be calling London the Ruin-on-the-River! Now dig around, or watch for the fires to start!’

  The members of her court stared in silence as the delegation gathered their best cloaks around them and bowed themselves out. Henry rubbed a hand over his face, then glanced across at Matilda’s brother. Robert passed the look to Miles, who was far enough behind the empress to risk a shake of the head.

  Matilda turned, her expression settled again. ‘Isn’t it remarkable,’ she told Robert. ‘They have been my enemies since the beginning, and now they approach me as friends.’

  ‘No fear of friendship,’ Robert said. ‘You’ve seen to it that they’ll stay as they were.’

  * * *

  They came through the county of Kent, surrounded the city, infiltrated the outskirts, drove like daggers towards the centre. They were led by Stephen’s wife, and the mercenary captain, William of Ypres. They met with no resistance, but were cheered on their way, and their ranks swelled by infuriated citizens. Then, with London retaken, the army swept eastward towards Westminster, where Matilda was enjoying a late dinner.

  Men burst into the hall, shouting at her to flee for her life. She heard bells ringing, sounding the alarm, and then Robert was beside her, pulling her to her feet, telling her that the enemy was less than a mile away. Panic ensued, and she was hustled from the long hall, lifted on to a horse, all the while deafened by the bells and the chaos of flight. Horsemen thundered past with swords drawn, but she could not tell if they were friend or foe. Bishop Henry appeared, towing a string of rounceys, each horse laden with altar candles and crosses and clerical vestments. She saw Miles of Hereford lean over and grab at her bridle and urge her forward. ‘They are in the street!’ he roared. ‘Kick in, lady, kick in!’

  The horse jerked beneath her, and then they were riding into the darkness, rung out by bells.

  They passed the cathedral, the riders following the route Brien Fitz Count had taken six years earlier, when he and Alyse had left Stephen’s coronation feast. But there was a difference, for on that night the building had served its purpose, and a king had
been crowned there.

  As Matilda rode alongside the vast, echoing structure, her fear of capture was overlaid with a more ominous foreboding. She wanted to reach out and brush her fingers against the cold stone, for she sensed she was as near to it now as she would ever be. She was still Lady of England, but nothing had been settled, least of all the crown upon her head.

  Chapter Ten

  The Snow Route

  July 1141 – December 1142

  They deserted her like fleas from a drowning cat. Many of those same barons who had fled from the field at Lincoln now abandoned all pretence of loyalty to Matilda and adopted the expedient motto – Sauve Qui Peut! As news of her expulsion from London spread throughout the country, knights and nobles slammed their doors, or offered their services to Stephen’s queen.

  As the first peal of bells rang out from Westminster Cathedral, Bishop Henry reverted to his brother’s cause. He had had enough of this arrogant Lady of England. She had insulted her advisers, antagonised the people, even dismissed his peacocks as ‘less colourful than I imagined; they’re quite bedraggled, your birds’. Well, maybe so, but they were better company than the beautiful virago, who saw fit to treat her leaders like mindless peasants. What would the poet have written about her? ‘Before the crown is placed, she struts’? Something like that, for she shared with Stephen the same fatal impetuosity, the same desire to let the cart drag the horse.

  Between Windsor and the Chiltern Hills, the bishop left the fleeing convoy and turned south to Winchester. There he fortified the palace and castle, then wrote to Stephen’s wife, offering her the city. ‘But hurry,’ he pleaded. ‘The empress is nothing if not quick to repay hostility.’

  Within two weeks he was proved right. Matilda summoned him to Gloucester and, when he refused, decided to make an example of him. The rebel army swept out of their West Country strongholds. On the way they were joined by Ranulf of Chester, and a day later by Brien Fitz Count, who had a personal interest in rejoining Matilda. He wanted to ask her a question; the most intimate question a man could ask a woman.

  However, the speed and confusion of the advance prohibited privacy. The empress welcomed Greylock back among her leaders, and they met during the daily war councils. She asked if Lady Alyse had recovered from her fever – ‘It must have been remarkably grave, to drag on for half a year’ – then turned to more urgent, military matters. He played his part as one of the four senior commanders, and awaited his chance to speak with her, alone.

  The army surrounded Winchester and demanded the surrender of the turncloak bishop. An unseasonable mist blanketed the city, and Matilda fretted impatiently in her pavilion.

  ‘Cowardice keeps him in now,’ she said, ‘but when the mist burns off, and he sees the extent of our army, he’ll come waddling. And this time I’ll take him on a tour – of the dungeons at Bristol.’

  Brien asked to speak with her in private, and was told, ‘Don’t worry, Greylock, I’ll find some reward for you. You’ve come too late for the ripe pickings, but you won’t leave empty-handed.’

  ‘I’m not here to be enfeoffed, Empress. I want a moment alone with you, that’s all.’

  Matilda smiled at Robert and Miles and Ranulf and the others who crowded the pavilion. ‘He is after a reward,’ she joked. ‘He wants me to send you all out into the mist, to catch a death chill. Then he can choose from your properties!’ There were a few laughs, though none of them believed her.

  The mist was not burned off by the summer sun, but blown away during the night. So it was not until the first light of dawn that the defenders saw the encircling force. When they did so, they pounded the battlements and cheered themselves hoarse. The rebels glared up at them, amazed by the strange reaction. Then, their spines crawling with fear, they turned around and gaped at a second army, spread out over the low hills to the east. Even as they watched, the banners of England, Normandy and Ypres were unfurled, then the county standards of Leicester, Surrey, Hertford and Northampton. One of the last to be raised was that of Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex and master of London. Matilda called out from her pavilion, shrieked invective at the man she had so recently honoured, yet clearly failed to buy. ‘May the maggots eat you alive, you purulent bastard! Blink while they burrow in your eyes! You vile, dripping—’

  Brien caught her by the arm, swung her round and told her the plan was set. ‘You’ll come with me. Earl Robert is sending you back to Gloucester in my care. He and Miles will command the rearguard. Make a move, Empress. You are on the run again.’ He led her, none too gently, to where Varan was waiting with the horses. Beside herself with mortification, she tried to pull away, screaming at Brien to let her lead her army.

  ‘You run! Scurry home to Wallingford and your sickly wife, but don’t enlist me—’

  ‘I won’t,’ he told her. ‘This is Earl Robert’s scheme to save you, not mine. For the way you treated Alyse, and the cruel hints you made when you visited us, I’d be happy to see you captured. But I made a vow to your father, a long time back, and I have held to it ever since. I said then that I would see you crowned, and I have always honoured—’

  ‘Always?’ she challenged. ‘You told pretty Alyse how we had been together? No, I don’t think so. In your dreams you might, but—’

  He jerked out his arm, stiff as a pole, then bent it again, snatching her to him. The beautiful eyes were malevolent, the russet hair tangled about her face. Her mouth twitched as he turned his years of guilt upon her and burned her with his breath. ‘Yes, Matilda! Yes! Yes, I told her what we had done! She all but died from it, but you didn’t know that. It was not what she expected of me, but what choice had I, after you had spread the germ? She knows of my adultery, and that I am a father, and worse, that you are the mother. She knows everything, Lady of England, so you have lost your power with me. Now get mounted.’

  He pushed her back, and she stumbled and steadied herself. A strange, discomforting smile shivered along her lips. ‘My, my,’ she whispered, ‘is that what you told her?’ Then she swung away, pulled herself into the saddle, and set the palfrey running from the camp. Varan glanced at his master, saw he was not yet ready to move, and spurred after the empress.

  Brien stood for a moment, his fists clenched at his side. Is that what you told her? The smile had unnerved him. It was too knowing, too confident, too much the property of someone with an unfathomable secret. My, my, is that what you told her?

  As though from a distance, he heard the clangour of battle. Shapes flitted across his vision, and arrows stabbed the ground around him. What else could he have told Alyse, when Matilda had all but admitted their adultery, when time and place fitted so perfectly with the child’s conception? So why the smile, and the enigmatic question? What else could he have told her, if not the truth.

  He felt someone push him and wheeled round, his sword out. He saw Ernard, the young soldier who had witnessed the arrest of the bishops at Oxford. ‘Have a care!’ Brien snarled. ‘It’s the wrong time to shove.’

  Ernard decided not to tell his suzerain that, had he been an enemy, he would have killed instead, but gulped an apology and hurried, ‘You’re too much in the open, my lord. You should have a helmet.’

  Brien glanced at the tethered horses. His plain, acorn helmet hung from one of the saddle pommels. He asked Ernard, ‘Are you still with that girl Eadgyth?’

  Startled by the question, he replied, ‘Yes, my lord. She’s happy at Wallingford. I have not been keeping her against her will. She’s free to leave, but she prefers—’

  ‘Take one of the horses. You’re riding with me.’

  ‘But I’m expected to fight for the empress.’

  ‘Not today. This time we’ll save you for Eadgyth.’ He read Ernard’s expression – more than he’d been able to do with Matilda – and snarled, ‘Hell, boy, we’re not running. The empress is ahead of us on the road. We’re detailed to see her to Gloucester. Come on. I’ll need your help.’

  His life and honour saved, at least
for the moment, Ernard ran to the tethered horses, waited for Fitz Count to don his helmet, then accompanied him in pursuit of Matilda. Behind them, Robert and Miles stayed to command the rearguard.

  * * *

  The result surpassed their worst fears. Miles of Hereford reached Gloucester in late September, bereft of his armour, his face and hands torn by briars, a livid cut already healing across his chest. He described how the rebel army had been routed, and how he, himself, had been captured, and had escaped. Weighed down by his link-mail hauberk, he had thrown it away, along with his sword, helmet and leg-guards. For five days he had walked, half-naked, across country, thus the scratches, and had eventually bribed a carter to conceal him amongst a load of rotting vegetables. The carter was outside now, and the exhausted earl implored Brien to pay the man well for his help. Then he sank into a chair and fell asleep.

  Miles did not know the worst of it, for while he was blundering through the undergrowth, Matilda’s brother had been dragged from his horse on the banks of the River Test, a few miles east of Winchester.

  The two male rivals, Stephen and Robert, had now been captured, and the two Matildas, queen and empress, gazed at each other across the width of England.

  They needed someone to act as a go-between, someone with a grasp of politics and a fine sense of cunning. The choice was obvious, and they both contacted Bishop Henry, remembering to inquire after his peacocks.

  * * *

  He was in his element and, during the latter half of the year, he rode between London and Gloucester, arranging the intricate details of exchange. He made an extravagant show of impartiality, first praising the queen for having caught up the reins dropped by Stephen, then, on the other side of the country, encouraging Matilda to pursue her rightful cause. To both of them he offered arbitration by the Church, and his own good offices with the Pope. The women told him to get the exchange made; then they’d decide whether to go before the council or fight on.