The Villains of the Piece

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

  He frowned, hoping he remembered it right, then went on, ‘Now. This is my offer. You will surrender to me all your castles, manors, holdings, shrievalties, offices and honours, and leave here a destitute man, or you will retain them for the time it takes to lead you to the gallows. Arrangements for your hanging are complete. You’ll be gone within the hour. I shan’t dither with you. I’ll take your answer now, and it will be stamped as final. Divest, or die; which is it to be?’

  The malevolence of Geoffrey’s expression concealed any satisfaction he may have felt. So Stephen did not realise that he had made yet another serious mistake. To offer a hideous death on the gallows, or the surrender of all property, was to offer no choice at all. But with surrender, the king had offered freedom. Leave here a destitute man, he had said. Unfortunately, it was not what his queen had told him to say. Time and again she had rehearsed him, not to offer death or freedom, but death or imprisonment. That was what he should have said, but the demoniacal Earl of Essex had confused him.

  Geoffrey licked foam from his lips. Then he nodded. ‘You seem to have me, and I don’t like the feel of rope. So I divest. Take everything, well, naturally you will. But if I were you, I would not give it away. Not for a while. Just keep it for me, hmm?’ He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. The muscles tightened, and his eye-lids creased and shrivelled. Then he opened them again, and they were twin orbs of fire. To touch the eye-ball was to be burned. Stephen stepped back, horrified.

  His voice again deep and beckoning, Geoffrey asked, ‘Well, why am I kept here? You do not usually allow commoners in your court.’

  Stephen motioned to his barons and they sheathed their swords. The hammering on the doors had died away, and the bar was lifted. Geoffrey de Mandeville moved into the entrance, looked at his armed accusers and the royal guards, then slowly stretched out his long arm and uncurled his bloodstained fingers and pointed at the king. No more than that, though he might as well have loosed a crossbow bolt at Stephen’s skull.

  Then he stepped backwards, remembering the step, and was gone from sight.

  Stephen slid his sword into its scabbard, and rubbed angrily at his forehead. But it continued to itch most of the day.

  * * *

  The murderous, piecemeal war continued. Snow revisited the country, and the barons retired to their castles, the villagers to their ruined homesteads. At Wallingford, Varan again felt the left side of his body stiffen in the cold, and he grew sullen and uncommunicative, for this year it had stiffened earlier, as though in anticipation of the first snowfall.

  Brien and Alyse had recaptured the happiness of their early years. But the chatelaine was now thirty-seven years of age, the warlord forty-three, and they were still childless.

  The younger couple, Edgiva and Morcar, doted on their young son Alder, and did not object when, from time to time, Lady Alyse offered to watch over the boy. Indeed, they were flattered, and seized the opportunity to roam along the river-bank, scene of their earlier amorous encounters. In their absence Alyse played a gentle game, in which Alder answered to the unspoken name of Brien.

  On Christmas Eve, Fitz Count’s closest friend, Miles of Hereford, led a hunting-party across the Severn estuary and into the snowbound Forest of Dean. The hunters started a number of boar and red deer, and were out to break the record for a winter kill when a stray arrow ricocheted off a tree and transfixed Miles through the neck. He was dead when the hunters caught up with him, still in the saddle, his horse puzzled by the sudden lack of direction.

  The leadership of the rebel party now devolved upon Robert and Brien, and the latter was not at all sure he wished to go on with it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Villains of the Piece

  January 1144 – December 1146

  In the event, Brien’s decision was made for him.

  Within a few days of the death of Miles of Hereford, the empress accompanied her young son to Anjou. She had by no means abandoned her cause, but she had not seen her husband for three and a half years. In that time he had conquered most of Normandy, though he still showed no inclination to visit England. So, if he would not come to her, she must go to him. It was less the act of a dutiful wife than of a general demanding a war council. She had much to tell the count, and all of it could be said outside the bed-chamber.

  Nevertheless, Matilda’s departure sucked the wind from the rebel sails. Trumpets still sounded, and castles were strengthened, and patrols sent out. But neither side invited battle, and the leaders avoided any direct confrontation. Robert of Gloucester stayed in the West Country, awaiting the return of his sister. Brien Fitz Count remained at Wallingford, polishing the tip of the rebel spear. Letters passed between them, and Robert forwarded enough money for Brien to pay for a sixth watch-tower. This was erected above the existing gatehouse, overlooking the Thames. It was called Alyse’s Tower, a guarantee that it would be defended to the last grey stone.

  With the rebel leaders holding their ground, many of the minor barons became restive. They found this war without battles irksome and unprofitable, and they again took the reins into their own hands. With the first stirrings of spring, they emerged from their strongholds to continue their policy of aggrandisement. But they were as faint shadows compared with the two spectres who arose among the fenlands of East Anglia, and the rocky fastnesses of the north.

  The first of these was the dispossessed and vengeful Geoffrey de Mandeville…

  * * *

  He had been joined by one of the most accomplished turn-cloaks of the day, Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk. It was Hugh who, nine years before, had ridden pell-mell from the Forest of Lyons to Boulogne to inform Stephen of Blois that King Henry was dead. And it was Hugh who claimed to have overheard the dying king name Stephen as his heir and successor. This had involved a remarkable feat of eavesdropping, as Hugh had been outside the bunting lodge at the time.

  Since then he had fought for and against the king, and was now delighted to join Geoffrey de Mandeville in open rebellion. His pleasure was sharpened by Geoffrey’s assurance that they would be fighting for themselves. ‘You will be loyal to me,’ he told Hugh, ‘as I will be to you. It need not go beyond that.’

  So, freed from all restraint, they set out to plumb the depths of depravity, well aware that it was a bottomless pit. It worried Hugh at first. He wondered why he had not thought of it before.

  Geoffrey chose as his base the stone-built monastery of St Benedict at Ramsey. This isolated collection of buildings, complete with its orchard and vegetable garden, stood on an island, deep within the fens. On the way there, he attacked and plundered the city of Cambridge, never his enemy. His troops, recruited from unemployed bands of mercenaries and unhung brigands, ran riot through the city. They murdered whomsoever they saw, hacked their way into the churches, stole the ornaments, defiled the altars, then set the buildings alight. They were in no mood to take prisoners, so they castrated those merchants who were slow to surrender their money, or used women as keys to the coffers. Geoffrey’s men brought a wealth of experience to their work, and treated the citizens to a week of indescribable invention. Then they rode on into the fens, their trail masked by smoke from the burning city.

  One could enter the fens and be hidden in a moment. Reeds and osiers grew higher than a man on horseback, and were resilient enough to part, then sway back into place. The real danger was not of discovery but of losing one’s way, or drowning in the deepwater pits, or being sucked into the glistening black mud. It was difficult enough to navigate the marshes in daylight, impossible at night. So Geoffrey led his men due north and along a narrow causeway to the island of Ely, centre of the eel fisheries. He reached the low-lying island at dusk and turned at the end of the causeway, repeating over and over to the men who filed past, ‘We’ll have these people for friends… Leave them alone…’ He had no need to say more; the sound of his voice and the expression on his face were enough.

  They camped around the shores of the island, not eve
n daring to enter the town. But the night was not without incident, for there are recidivists in any army, however severe its commander. A dozen men did barter at the town walls and come away with wine or mead and stagger roaring about the camp. And a few stones were thrown, and shops looted, and fishermen clubbed as they came ashore.

  But the morning light revealed Geoffrey’s sincerity. It was hard to imagine an atrocity that had not been performed upon the malefactors. Their bodies were on display beside the causeway, and anyone who had the stomach to ask was told, ‘No, you heard no screams. They were executed first. This time.’

  After that, Geoffrey de Mandeville and Hugh Bigod commanded one of the most obedient armies in Christendom.

  They left the inhabitants of Ely to gape at the bodies and stare south at the pall of smoke that rose from the still-burning city of Cambridge, and headed due west across the fens towards the chosen base at Ramsey. They did not reach it in one day, and were forced to spend the night in the marshes, each man huddled in his place, not daring to move for fear of drowning, or of being smothered by the liquid peat, or of catching Geoffrey’s eye. They were hard men, this collection of murderers and rapists, but they crouched like children among the reeds, imagining every footfall to be the work of de Mandeville. The moon allowed them to see eels and snakes, and to watch spiders climb the rushes an inch from their eyes. But they did not stir, not when they could still remember the latticed corpses by the causeway.

  And then, stiff, wet and exhausted, they clambered to their feet and staggered away from the rising sun. By now the amusements of Cambridge were forgotten and, like the retaliatory creatures they were, they wanted repayment for their sufferings on the marsh. Geoffrey knew this, and had arranged it, for he could easily have taken them on a detour and let them pass the night on one of the nearby islands. But he needed to reawaken their animosity, then direct it against his next adversaries, the monks of St Benedict.

  Even he, who had once told his friends, ‘God holds no terror for me, though it may possibly work the other way about,’ was not prepared to lead even-tempered men against the monastery. He required the worst, if he was to achieve the worst.

  * * *

  The black-robed Benedictine peered from beneath his cowl, at first interested by the appearance of the horsemen, then alarmed as they led their mounts through the budding flowerbeds. He hurried forward, one hand raised in warning. ‘Take care! You’re trampling bulbs! Messires, I beg you, control—’

  The arrow passed through his shoulder and he spun round. Some unexplored sense of preservation made him stagger away from the monastery entrance, and he fell senseless against the ivy-clad wall. The angle of the shaft and the folds of his voluminous robe gave the appearance of a chest wound. His eyes were closed, so the invaders judged him dead and ignored him.

  They thundered across the laid gravel and into the monastery yard. They loosed arrows as they rode, killing monks and pigs and chickens. Cell doors slammed shut, to be broken open a moment later, their occupants slain. The sound of chanting faltered and died away, and more monks emerged from a side door in the chapel. They were greeted and murdered by a flight of arrows.

  Geoffrey and Hugh reined-in beside the building.

  ‘I want no looting,’ Geoffrey said. Then, before Hugh could voice his astonishment, he clarified, ‘I want it piled here in the yard. This is not like Cambridge, where there was enough for everyone. We’ll share what we find.’

  The pock-marked Earl of Norfolk nodded, partly with relief. He had not been anxious to attack a monastery, at least not one that was so obviously defenceless. He had looked to Geoffrey to lead the way, but for a moment he had thought de Mandeville meant – well, no matter. He didn’t.

  ‘I’ll see it’s done,’ he said. ‘I’ll see no one keeps mementoes.’ He looked round to make sure he was not stepping into the path of an arrow, then dismounted and plunged into the building.

  Sounds blended into a traditional requiem. Shouts and screams, the splinter of wood, the chink of metal. The squeal and flutter of livestock, the shattering of glass, the rend of fabric. And then, stopping the invaders in their tracks, the sonorous tolling of a bell. Its sound carried across the marshes to Ely, to Cambridge – Christ in His grave, it would alert the country!

  ‘Still that noise!’ Geoffrey roared. ‘Cut the ringer! And the rope! Do it, one of you!’

  Men ran forward, swung their heads to locate the bell-tower, then charged through one of the low arches. The tolling continued, then rang twice, out of rhythm, then stopped. Geoffrey sighed with relief and waited for his men to reappear.

  By this time the monks of St Benedict had either fled, or been killed, or were huddled in a group against the south wall of their refectory. The invasion seemed complete, so there was no reason for those who had rushed to silence the bell to stumble backwards into the open air.

  But they did, still holding their knives, and Geoffrey leaned forward in his saddle, uncomprehending.

  At the end of the line, driving the invaders before him, came a thin, wizened monk. He was not an old man; in the middle of his life perhaps, and at second glance he was more than a monk. His white robe and black cowl proclaimed him to be the abbot of St Benedict, and his weapon, a heavy silver cross on a chain.

  He did not hold the cross rigidly before him, but lashed out with it, this way and that, as though it emanated flames, or was the hilt of an invisible, ten-foot sword. Whatever its properties, it forced the invaders to retreat, their free hands raised to ward off a blow, their sword arms limp.

  With a mixture of interest and apprehension, Geoffrey watched the abbot repel his troops. Then he spurred forward and the line broke.

  ‘Now, now,’ he said, his voice deep and attractive. ‘I need you in my vanguard, Abbot. Fifty of those crosses and I would be invincible. What name shall I tell them to put on your grave?’

  The skinny priest let the cross fall against his chest. He pushed back the cowl of his robe, smiled encouragement at his huddled monks, then banished the smile as he answered the horseman.

  ‘Tell them what God allows. Daniel, Abbot of St Benedict. Anything else will be your own invention. And in return, how should I instruct the devil?’

  ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex.’

  The abbot reclaimed his smile, then achieved a very rare victory. He laughed in Geoffrey’s face. ‘I’ve heard of half of you, Geoffrey de Mandeville. But were you not relieved of your earldom? Do you think we are deaf because we are distant? We heard what happened to you, and if we ever doubted it before, we cannot doubt it now. An earl become a marsh rat? No more the Tower of London, or the manor house, or the castle. Just reeds and streams, eh, de Mandeville? Just the company of murderers and despoilers. Oh, dear; there’s little I can tell the devil that he won’t already know.’

  ‘Did you ring that bell?’

  ‘Did you slaughter half my monks? Did you kill those pigs, that dog there, those trampled chickens?’

  ‘I want this place, cleric—’

  ‘Then ask God for it. It is not mine to give you.’

  ‘ “Ask, and it shall be given… Knock, and it shall be opened unto you…” Yes, I remember something of the kind. However, I have my answer. And you have the time it takes me to count my fingers. Collect your brethren and run out of here, run from this place or I shall take it over as a graveyard. One… Two… Three… Four… A thumb …’

  Daniel beckoned to his surviving flock, then quietly told them, ‘Hurry on. You know where the boats are. Get going.’

  They hesitated for an instant, but he threw up a hand and they lifted the skirts of their robes and ran for the gate. He followed them, walking, listening to Geoffrey’s deep-toned count.

  ‘…Second hand… One… Two… Three…’

  Daniel raised his cowl against the spring wind, then stooped to adjust the thongs of his sandals.

  ‘… Four… And the thumb…’

  There was still time to run. He was within the arc
hed entrance. There was time to step aside and dash for the boats.

  He turned to face the yard, and raised his chained cross and told them they were excommunicated. They would die without salvation, and their bodies would not be received into holy ground, and they would be forever damned, each and all of them, separately and severally damned, throughout all eternity, and beyond.

  Geoffrey said, ‘Bring him down.’ But no one moved, or let fly at the abbot. He did not repeat the order – once, and once only from de Mandeville – but he dragged his horse sideways, then leaned down and snatched a loaded crossbow from one of his men. He shushed the nervous palfrey, pressed the butt of the crossbow against his shoulder and tripped the catch.

  The skinny figure of Abbot Daniel was hurled back on to the gravel path.

  Hugh Bigod hurried out of the chapel. ‘Everything’s accounted for. It’s a haul, I tell you, brother. Crosses, candles, gold mugs, chains of – What’s the matter? What happened?’

  Geoffrey de Mandeville shook his head. Nothing was the matter. Nothing had happened. He tossed the weapon down to the bowman.

  * * *

  They fortified the walled monastery, and linked the out-lying guest houses with a wooden palisade. In area, the base exceeded that of most castles, and every day saw the arrival of a dozen mercenaries, a gang of cut-throats.

  The monks who had escaped by boat raised the alarm at Peterborough and Hungtingdon, though news of the sack of Cambridge had already reached the capital. Stephen reacted true to form. He rushed north at the head of an army, only to be checked by the treacherous nature of the fens. His siege machines sank in the ooze and had to be abandoned. His troops lost their way and let fly at one another through the reeds. Scouts, planted by Geoffrey, guided the royalists into ambushes or quagmires, or left them stranded among the rushes, which were then set alight.