The Villains of the Piece

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

  In prison in the royalist castle at Rochester, Earl Robert was offered the chance to change sides. The go-between told him that, if he agreed to abandon his sister, the king and queen would make him the most important magnate in the land. He would be second only to Stephen, and could create his own title.

  Robert refused without hesitation, reminding the bishop that, like Brien Fitz Count, he intended to honour his oath.

  In prison at Bristol, Stephen was offered an absolute pardon and a substantial pension if he would renounce his throne. His throat had healed sufficiently for him to bawl his brother from the cell.

  When the details of the exchange had been set out, Robert refused to be released. He claimed he was less important than the king, and that other captured rebels should be used to balance the scales.

  ‘Stephen’s party would, no doubt, like to make this tit-for-tat. But he is a king, and I’m no more than an earl. I want all my compeers released. Surely a king is worth a dozen nobles?’

  Queen Matilda rejected the condition. ‘That’s a fine trick,’ she told Henry. ‘We get back one man, while the Angevin bitch restocks her nobility. No. I want my husband returned, but as one for one with Earl Robert. You ask the king what he thinks about it. I am sure he would rather be a prisoner for life.’

  The message was conveyed to Stephen, who echoed his wife, then again drove Henry from the cell.

  Eventually, the empress convinced Robert to accept his release, and in late October he was taken from Rochester to the exchange point at Winchester.

  The queen then rode to Bristol, as hostage for Stephen, who was also conducted to Winchester.

  In an atmosphere of general mistrust, Earl Robert made the reverse trip, leaving several members of his family as hostage, this time for the queen.

  Then she, too, was released, and on her arrival at Winchester, Robert’s family was freed.

  It took ten days to complete the transaction, and the winter was on them again. The rival factions immured themselves in their castles, Stephen and his party in London and the east, Matilda and her supporters in the West Country. Brien Fitz Count, who commanded the tip of the rebel spear, returned to Wallingford and Alyse. All was well between them now, though he had only to pause and listen for Matilda’s words to scratch at his ear. My, my, is that what you told her?

  * * *

  Snow melted on the branches, and they lost their skeletal appearance and were clothed in leaves and spring blossom. The land warmed, and the sun learned to hang hot in the sky, and there was no longer the need for surcoat or woollen tunic. Water was sucked up from the Thames, and one could cross the ford and remain dry. There were thunderstorms, and a night of hail damaged the spring crop, but it was a time to be out of doors and to eat by the river. Men and women grew brown in the face, while the children ran naked, pulling up short to watch the jugglers, then running on again to steal vegetables from the fields, or thrash their way downstream, or race each other alongside the castle moat. The air hummed with insects, and was enlivened by birdsong and the occasional plaintive sound of flute or lyre.

  And between these pastoral scenes rode armoured columns, and cartloads of prisoners, and single envoys, ploughing a furrow of dust across the country.

  The war might be gone from a district, but it was not forgotten. Somewhere, they could be sure, a skirmish was in progress, a castle besieged, a cell door slammed shut. Somewhere the royal army was subduing a fortress, the rebel troops investing a stronghold. There was peace and there was war, in any village, in any week.

  As king restored, Stephen was in the north. His avowed intention was to settle the affairs of his kingdom and put an end to wickedness. If it entailed hanging and burning, so much the worse for those who died on the gibbet, or under the torch. He did not ride with murder in his heart, but he had experienced the ministrations of Cousin Matilda, and he had no intention of being recaptured. He had fought hard at Lincoln, and would fight harder now. And next year, if she was still at liberty, he would make his present efforts seem like overtures of peace. He would do what he had said, and put an end to wickedness, personified by the Empress of Germany cum Countess of Anjou cum Lady of England.

  To hell with her high-flown titles. She was an arrogant and merciless woman, an intruder at the feast of England. She would be evicted, or unmasked at the table. It did not matter which, so long as the country was made aware of her vicious nature.

  He had once been troubled by the rightfulness of her claim and had questioned his own motives for taking the crown. But no longer. Now he saw her for what she was, and, if he had been wrong before, time had proved him right. Under his guidance, England would survive and prosper. Under Cousin Matilda, it would die of a thousand wounds.

  Needless to say, the empress saw it differently. She was the daughter and sole legitimate issue of King Henry of England, and the English and Norman nobility had thrice sworn to support her. Many had reneged, but that did not make it less real. Nor did it pull her back into her mother’s womb, or stay King Henry’s seed. She was his daughter, and she was the rightful heir, and nothing Stephen could say or do would change it. He could hedge and hinder till Doomsday, but he would never be more than an actor, playing at king. And even as an actor he was a joke. Dear God, it would have been better to employ one of Bishop Henry’s animals and stick on a horsehair moustache. Then, at least, the courtiers could laugh openly, whereas they now sniggered behind their gloves.

  And so the year grew hot, and then cooled, and all the while castles were razed, towns sacked, ambushes sprung. Cirencester was burned to the ground by the royalists. The empress replied by laying waste vast areas of Leicester and Northampton. She herself was leading the army, for she had sent Earl Robert to Normandy, to seek help from her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou. In Robert’s absence, she rode south to Oxford, and was there when Stephen launched a surprise attack against the city.

  This important stronghold boasted a river-fed moat and a palisade and a strong, stone castle. The bridges had already been destroyed, and there was no easy way across the moat. So Stephen set up camp around the city, content to starve his enemies into submission. It could take a week, or a year, he didn’t care. Sooner or later the defenders would feel their bellies contract, and their throats swell. They would demolish the houses for firewood, then suck leather straps for sustenance, and finally, when there was nothing left, they would stagger out, weeping dry tears.

  * * *

  He settled down, sword at hand, to await the outcome.

  The bitter Normandy winter did nothing to cool Earl Robert’s anger. He had arrived in the duchy in August, and it was now October, and he was still there, waiting for Count Geoffrey to act. News of Matilda’s plight had reached them, but had failed to elicit any response from her husband. He offered one excuse after another, all of them variations on the same theme. He and his wife had agreed on a plan; she would go to England and lead her supporters against Stephen, whilst Geoffrey remained on the other side of the channel, protecting Anjou and attacking Stephen’s castles in Normandy.

  ‘Good God!’ he exploded. ‘If I was captured, do you think my wife would leave England and come to my aid?’

  ‘That is not the point,’ Robert said. ‘Empress Matilda is not famed for her rescue attempts. There were many occasions in the past when she might have sent help, or led a rescue-party. But this is different, and you know it. She is about to be taken, and if that happens, the cause is lost. Immaterial that you have gained half of Normandy. Stephen will be once again an unquestioned king, and will come against you with a united army. Those parts of Normandy that have remained loyal to him will rise at his command, and I would not fancy your chances. Take the war to his doorstep, Count Geoffrey, before he brings it to yours!’

  ‘You force my hand,’ Geoffrey complained. ‘I’m expected to fight on two fronts at the same time.’

  Robert stared at him. ‘I force your hand? Christ in Heaven, the situation forces your hand! Yes, you are expected to
fight on two fronts! Or ten, or twenty! But you are also required to assist your wife and our future queen. Look, come over and help lift the siege at Oxford—’

  ‘No, that’s impossible. My presence is needed here. But I’ll do this much. I’ll lend you fifty ships, and four— three hundred knights. They’ll supply their own sergeants and foot-soldiers. And for a rallying post, take our young son. He’s a bright boy. The barons will fight for him.’

  Robert struggled to keep his temper in check. He was taller than Geoffrey and dominated him as he queried, ‘My nephew Henry? Is that whom you mean? A nine-year-old? Where shall I put him, in the front rank with the archers?’

  ‘It’s the best I can do, Gloucester, and there’s no call to lean over me. If you don’t want the boy, then don’t take him. But I say it will hearten Matilda, and please the barons to know they are not merely fighting for a woman. That’s what helped Stephen to power, isn’t it? That he was a man? Well, let them see Matilda’s heir. I tell you, Gloucester, he’s a likeable boy. And it’s time he travelled.’

  Robert curled a hand around his jaw. Fifty ships, he thought. And three hundred knights. And perhaps a thousand foot-soldiers. And the boy Henry, who would probably insist on bringing his toys and games. He was not being lent a rescue force, he was being given charge of a nursery!

  But he knew it was all he would get from Count Geoffrey, and he grunted acceptance. Then he assembled the knights, took his garrulous, wide-eyed nephew by the hand, and led the borrowed fleet back to England. Buffeted by storms, the reinforcements landed at Wareham in Dorset, and immediately laid siege to the castle there. Robert sent men into the surrounding countryside to spread the word of the landing. He wanted Stephen to hear about it, and take retributive action.

  The impetuous monarch would withdraw from Oxford and lead his army south-west to the relief of Wareham. The Oxford garrison could then break out, enabling Matilda to escape. That was the plan, an invitation that Stephen would find impossible to resist.

  But the dog had already treed the cat and had no intention of being drawn away. Wareham would have to stand or fall by itself. As, by God, would Oxford.

  * * *

  By December the king had grown impatient, and his troops had overrun the city. They had managed to bridge the freezing river-moat and had set up their siege machines in the squares and side-streets. Houses had been torn down in order to give a clear field of fire, and the rectangular castle shuddered beneath a constant bombardment of missiles. The royalist archers sent their shafts high into the air, where they disappeared in the overcast. Then, unseen, the arrows and crossbow quarrels reached the peak of their trajectory, turned and fell on to the open towers and wall-walks. The deadly rain continued, day and night, and drove the defenders from the battlements.

  In the nearby streets the catapults were tilted so that they too sent their missiles on a near vertical path. There were accidents, and some of the massive rocks crashed back on the attackers, but each morning revealed fresh cracks in the walls, old fissures widened, watch towers wrecked. Stephen’s military advisers estimated that within two weeks the castle would be breached, though there were already signs that the garrison had run out of food.

  ‘No matter,’ he told them. ‘Keep up the bombardment. They’ll soon tire of living in a dice-cup.’

  His description was accurate, for the impact of the halfhundredweight rocks was enough to send a tremor through the castle. The shell of the structure was still standing, but the wooden roof had been smashed to splinters, and the rocks had continued down, tearing jagged holes in all five floors. It was now possible to peer down through the centre of the building and see the pile of spent rocks and broken beams and bodies that filled the cellars, sixty feet below. The well, their main source of water, lay buried beneath the debris.

  The defenders lived on the outer edge of the floors, and in the mural chambers in the wall itself, and on the broken stairways. They shot arrows from the loopholes, but even if it had been safe to man the battlements they could not have done so, for the upper stairway had been destroyed. Their only vantage points were the arrow-loops, allowing them slices of the scene below.

  Matilda’s left hand had been pierced by a splinter of stone. The fragment had been removed and the hand bound, but the slight wound had left her depressed and sullen. Until now she had urged the occupants to resist, assuring them that Earl Robert would return from Normandy at the head of a relief force, or that Brien Fitz Count would cover the fifteen miles from Wallingford, or Ranulf of Chester sweep down from the north. She had nursed the injured, eaten no more than her ration of food, even gave up her swansdown mattress to ease the last hours of the dying. Thereafter, she had slept on a straw-filled sack in one of the mural chambers, shivering as the snow blew in through the arrow-loops.

  But the wound made things different. It acted as a painful reminder that she stood as close to death or disfigurement as any of the beleaguered garrison. The rocks and arrows were no respecters of rank. They crushed or transfixed anyone in their path, infant or empress.

  She imagined her face seamed with scars, an arm torn away, her sight gone. Deprived of her greatest asset, her beauty, she would be disowned by her supporters and sent back to Anjou as a hideous example of divine judgment. The thought drove her to the brink of panic, and she determined to escape.

  She summoned the garrison commander and three of the knights who had accompanied her to Oxford, and told them to formulate a plan. One of the knights suggested a sortie, under cover of which the Lady of England could lose herself among the side-streets. If she donned disguise—

  ‘No. I’ll probably be killed at the gate, or live to be captured by mercenaries. In which case I’d rather take an arrow. Think again, messires.’

  Hugging herself beneath her stained, squirrel-skin cloak, she glanced out through the arrow slit. Below lay a jumble of snow-covered rooftops scored by dark alleyways. A narrow street led into a small, open square, and she gazed down at one of Stephen’s infernal catapults. Men were filling the bowl of the machine with rocks, stacking them in the shape of a pyramid. A moment later the winding mechanism was released. The arm of the catapult jerked upward, and the empress flinched as the rocks blossomed in the air. They shattered below the window and she felt the wall tremble. The garrison commander said, ‘Stay clear, my lady. You’ll not see the one that comes for you.’

  ‘Have you thought me out of here yet?’

  They admitted they hadn’t, and she turned back to gaze morosely out of the window. She no longer believed anyone would come to her aid. Indeed, she wondered if she had ever believed it. Fitz Count despised her for having provoked his admission of adultery. Robert and Miles were still smarting from the insults received in London. Ranulf seemed content to stay in the north and see which way the wind would blow. Geoffrey de Mandeville had already rejoined the king. So had Bishop Henry. So had a hundred others.

  No, nobody would come to her aid, because nobody cared to.

  Escape reclaimed her thoughts, and she faced the knights and said, ‘That far wall fronts the moat, doesn’t it?’

  The men frowned at her and nodded.

  ‘Is it frozen over?’

  ‘Yes, it’s been solid for several days. There’s a pipe comes in from the river, and I’ve had men down there, heating it to turn it back into water. That’s where we’re getting what little we have. If the ice gets much thicker Stephen will send men across to undermine the wall.’

  Matilda ignored the information. ‘On the first-floor level there’s a good-sized window, I remember.’

  ‘There is, but it’s boarded over against arrows and—’

  ‘The boards could be taken down—’

  ‘Yes, I suppose—’

  ‘—and a rope let down to the ice.’

  Now they understood, and rushed to dissuade her. ‘You’ll be seen, even while you are in the window!’

  ‘Not at night.’

  ‘Then you’ll fall. It’s twenty feet o
r more, and the wall’s as slippery—’

  ‘I won’t fall if I’m tied. I can be lowered down.’

  ‘It’s possible. But you’ll still be spotted on the ground.’

  ‘That’s the risk,’ she snapped. ‘But considerably diminished if I’m dressed in white. The ice will bear my weight, and I’ll wear a summer gown, a winding sheet, I don’t care what. The milled wheat came in white sacks, didn’t it? Very well then, I’ll dress in sackcloth.’ She waved away further argument, and told the knights they would go with her. ‘We’ll leave when it’s dark. The moon is down to the rind, so the pickets need not see us.’ Indicating the garrison commander, she said, ‘You, master. Hold on here a day or two, then surrender. Stephen may think of hanging you, but he won’t do it. It will make him look too vengeful. One doesn’t break the eggs because the bird has flown.’ She glanced at the knights again and repeated, ‘When it’s dark. Go on now and loosen the boards, so they can be removed later. And find some strong rope, and a team to lower us. I’ll fit us out with the sacks.’

  ‘May I ask?’ one of them said. ‘When we have made our escape, where are we headed?’

  ‘To the nearest safe refuge, where else? To Brien Fitz Count’s place at Wallingford.’ She managed a smile, and added, ‘If he allows us in.’

  The men laughed, aware of Greylock’s love for the empress. If he allowed her in? That was good. What she meant was, of course, if he ever allowed her out again.

  Matilda chose not to disillusion them.

  * * *

  Dusk, and they waited for the time candle to burn down. When it had melted three of the black rings that marked the hours, Matilda handed out the rolled sackcloth cloaks. The escapers groped their way down the littered steps and around the edge of the floor. The men who would lower them to the frozen moat were already easing the boards from the window. No one spoke, and for a while there was only the fitful sigh of the wind and the creak of obstinate boards. One by one they were removed and stacked beneath the window to form a step. Then one of the knights slipped a loop of rope around his waist, climbed cautiously into the arched window and knelt there, his back to the moat. He braced himself with one arm, his other arm pressed tight against the sackcloth bundle. The hastily-made surcoat would be put on when he reached the ground; it would not do for the enemy to see four pale phantoms float down from the window.