The Villains of the Piece

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

  They had landed at Wareham, ridden north towards Salisbury, then bypassed it and managed to lose themselves among the oaks and beeches of the great Savernake forest. Henry’s ability as a hunter saved them from starvation, but when they emerged at the eastern edge of the forest, four of the party were missing.

  The sense of adventure soon deserted them. They launched a series of unsuccessful raids in the district around Cricklade, then fled back to the forest. News of their activities reached the empress, and she immediately told her son to join her at Bristol. While she waited, she raged at Robert, reminding him that Miles of Hereford had died from a stray arrow in just such a forest.

  ‘I don’t know what excuse my husband will offer, but it will be insufficient, whatever it is. How could he allow our son to be so jeopardised? Good God, if one of Stephen’s local barons discover him, they’ll hold him for every penny we possess! Or Henry’s group will run foul of some real brigands, and then who’ll be left alive? Get some men out to Savernake, Robert. Retrieve the boy, lest England loses her future king.’

  ‘And you your beloved son, eh, Matilda?’

  ‘What? Yes, of course. Get on with it.’

  But the most serious threat to Prince Henry came from within his own group. They were tired of skulking in the forest and asked to be paid off. He stalled them for a while, but their suspicions hardened and, one night, while he slept, they rifled his saddlebags. As they had suspected, he was penniless.

  They hauled him to his feet, tall, brutish men who had anticipated a more rewarding adventure than this. Prince of Anjou he might be, but he was also a lying little whelp. Pay up, they told him, or the outing will end badly for you. And have no doubts about it, pauper; we keep our word.

  He told them he would appeal to his mother. They’d have their money in a week.

  Perhaps he did not make the content of his letter sufficiently urgent, or perhaps his demands were excessive. Whichever, Matilda and Robert decided not to comply, thinking it would bring the boy to Bristol.

  Among the gnarled oaks of Savernake, the Angevin adventurers were fast losing patience. They discussed selling the prince to King Stephen, or Ranulf of Chester, or whoever would pay the most. Henry pleaded with them to allow him one more try, and racked his brains for a likely donor. He thought of Brien Fitz Count, then dismissed him, aware that he was permanently impoverished. So were most of the rebel leaders, that was the trouble.

  But there was one man who could afford to pay, and the prince wrote him a long and persuasive letter. In part it said:

  ‘I implore you to look with pity upon my situation. I have been headstrong and foolhardy, though I sincerely repent my ways. Poverty weighs upon me, and casts doubt upon my honour. In short, I am at a loss as to how I can keep my word. I shall leave this country as soon as possible, for I have caused enough trouble here. You and I are bound by close ties, and, so far as my personal feelings go, I am well disposed towards you. I have always admired your courage in battle, and many of my countrymen still speak of you with awe. If you choose to help me now, I shall not forget it. Nor, I am convinced, will God, or my mother.’

  Moved by the penitent and respectful tone of the letter, King Stephen forwarded the money to his enemy’s son.

  * * *

  This astonishing display of gallantry was, at first glance, one of Stephen’s most reckless mistakes. He had had the young prince at his mercy, and could have bought more with his money than a promise of departure. But a calmer study of the act revealed the king to be more devious than any of them had thought. Bishop Henry in particular was impressed. His brother had shown rare understanding of a young man’s waywardness. He had allowed Prince Henry to retire with honour and, at the same time, had branded Matilda as a callous mother, and Earl Robert as a miser. On a more general level, the king was seen to be wealthy and generous, even indulgent, whilst the rebel faction were wrapped in the tatters of poverty.

  The feuding barons knew where their future lay, and trooped north to beg forgiveness of their king, and renew fealty to him.

  On yet another level, Matilda’s miscalculation hastened the end of the war, for it cast the ageing Robert of Gloucester into deep depression. He was not a miser, nor were his coffers completely empty. But like so many of the rebel leaders, he had allowed the empress to direct him. It was she who had told him to disregard Henry’s appeal, and she who had convinced him the letter was unimportant. Since she was the boy’s mother, she should have known.

  But none of them could have known that the young prince would beg money from their rival, or that Stephen would have the intelligence to lend it. So the respect that Earl Robert had earned over the years was lost, and people spoke of him as a poor man, unable to pay his way.

  He became sour and spiteful, quick to take offence, eager to parade his existing wealth. He squandered his money on clothes and jewellery, threw lavish parties for his shrinking circle of friends, then thrust out his long jaw whenever Matilda intruded.

  ‘I am correcting a misconception, sister! You would do better to repaint your own portrait than to criticise mine. Remember, you are the one who would not rescue her son. I am merely made mean in your shadow. If you tell me how to spend my money, you must let me tell you how to treat your family.’

  ‘You are being ridiculous. Do you think your so-called friends are impressed by your vulgar displays? They’ll drink you dry, and the fur clothes you give them will keep them warm all the way to Stephen’s camp. For God’s sake close your purse. Your friends have long since closed their hearts.’

  ‘Ridiculous?’ he snapped. ‘Yes, maybe I am. But say this. Say I have been made ridiculous, then look at yourself in the mirror.’ Stalking the room, he told her, ‘I am your brother. A bastard brother, but nevertheless your kin. I’m the one who laid the foundations for you here, in England, and fought for you before you landed, and led your party, and made your arrival possible. I don’t say I did it alone; I had Miles of Hereford, and the man who once worshipped you, Brien Fitz Count, and Baldwin de Redvers. We all worked on your behalf, without recompense, and for the most part without thanks. We never saw a day when we had too much money, and there were few days when we had enough. But we kept up the pretence, as we would have pretended health when we were ill. And now you deny your son a few silver marks, and make us out to be a nobility of beggars!

  ‘How dare you find fault, you who have always worn your purse on your face? How much has your beauty earned you, Matilda, tell me that? How many honest men have ruined themselves for your smile, or died with your image in their eyes? You are not ridiculous, as you say I am. You are greedy and demanding, believing that because God made you a woman, and gave you such perfect features, you have the right – yes, you think it the right – to take all and withhold all.

  ‘Are you generous, would you say? Do you have a warm heart? Is there any compassion in your blood? Do you own to your friends, and care for them, and ache when they are wounded? No, I think not. I think you have traded your God-given looks and men’s oaths, and seen yourself as an angel, lent by heaven. You live in a niche, set apart for you, above the horrors of the world. We mortals are here to succour and amuse you, and to set you on the throne of England. That is what I think. Ridiculous, you say?’

  She watched him for a while, and he ceased to be the tall, dominant, jut-jawed architect of her plans. Instead, he became an emaciated, querulous old man. Fifty-three was he? He looked sixty-three. Vain and unfulfilled, with a chin that threatened to bang against his knees.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Ridiculous, and becoming more so.’

  * * *

  They tore at each other throughout the summer. There were a few interludes, during which Robert goaded his party into action. A royalist castle was taken, a river crossing established, a wooden lookout tower built in some stretch of the forest. He exchanged letters with his friend, Brien Fitz Count, and became so envious of Brien’s austere existence that he thought of retiring to one of his smaller castle
s and holding it in faith, as Greylock was doing.

  He knew that the Lord and Lady of Wallingford were desperate for money, and that they had bankrupted themselves, time and again, in the service of the empress. But even so, they were together, and Lady Alyse had given birth to a son, what was his name, yes, Alan, and Brien had freed himself of Matilda’s spell.

  But Robert had not. He snarled at his sister in June and August and October, and in that last month strode towards her to deny some accusation or other, and felt his chest explode, and walked on, drowned in pain, and heard screams and shouts as he crashed headlong into the wall.

  He saw faces and swirled sleeves – did I give them those clothes – and his chest heaved again, and his heels and the heels of his hands drummed the floor and his heart burst. Or, as some thought, it broke.

  It did not much matter which, for he was dead, and Matilda’s party was beheaded.

  * * *

  An immense stillness blanketed the land. Robert of Gloucester had been more than the leader of the rebel party, more than King Henry’s eldest bastard son, more than Matilda’s brother. He had been a sincere, moderate, somewhat unimaginative example of an honest man. There had been little about him that glittered, but he had held the reins for ten years, more than ten, and had proved himself worthy to be called the son of a king. His sudden death drew memories to the surface, and his friends and enemies alike paused to see him in their inner eye.

  They hoped he would be buried with the fullest honours, and King Stephen sent an anonymous sum of money to help pay for the funeral. Happily, it was used for that end, and Robert was buried beneath the wave-lapped walls of Bristol Castle.

  Then, slowly, the adversaries rose from their knees and resumed their war.

  * * *

  Alyse knew better than Brien what would follow. He had been unable to attend Earl Robert’s funeral, and this had heightened his sense of grief at the loss of his last good friend. But he had not dared absent himself from Wallingford, for his scouts had reported large detachments of royalist troops in the area.

  Stephen’s campaign in the north had been neither won nor lost, for the death of Robert of Gloucester had caused Ranulf the Moustache to think again. The brutal warlord had never seriously seen himself as a candidate for the throne, but he had every intention of becoming England’s senior magnate. Indeed, with Robert out of the way, he was already the most important landowner, and he determined to secure by law everything he had gained by force. The way to do it was simple, if disagreeable; he would make peace with Stephen, and help rid the country of the hated Angevins.

  Naturally, had Stephen died in place of Robert, Earl Ranulf would have thrown his weight behind Matilda, beloved Angevin. Either way, the price would be the same.

  So with Earl Robert’s body scarcely cold in the ground, the king found himself with an unexpected ally, and free to turn his attentions to the south. He made his first target Wallingford-on-the-Thames for, like Alyse, he sensed what would follow.

  ‘She’ll come here now,’ Alyse forecast. ‘She has to, for you are the last of the triumvirate.’

  Brien shook his head. ‘She knows better. She has steered clear of me ever since— since the day I saw the colour of young Henry’s hair. She knew then that I would want no more to do with her. Besides, there are others she can approach. Baldwin de Redvers—’

  ‘The empress may not wish to see you, but I repeat, she has to. Baldwin’s a good man, though whenever I hear of him he’s dug deeper into his holdings in Devon. He’s become a creature of property, and he’ll only fight if he is directly threatened.’

  ‘And we have not, eh, my love? We remain unhampered by an extensive domain, or an embarrassment of riches.’ He gave a wry smile, and accepted her nod.

  ‘It’s true, we have hardly prospered. But that alone should prove to you how important you are to Matilda. She will come to you, not because you have the wealth and weaponry, but because you are the only man with the power to raise flagging spirits, and remind them why they fight.’

  Glancing out of the solar window, Brien said, ‘Those are snow clouds. I hope they break soon. A good deep fall might block the roads.’

  ‘Whom do you wish to deter, Stephen or Matilda?’

  ‘Both of them. Everybody. Wouldn’t that be satisfying?

  No visitors, all winter. Just us and a blazing fire. I swear, if we were not interrupted, we could teach Alan to read by February.’

  Alyse put a hand on his arm. ‘It’s an attractive picture,’ she said, ‘and I feel as you do. But she will come, husband. You may as well make ready for it. I have. At least, I’ve made the attempt.’

  Brien lowered himself into one of the box chairs. ‘Yes,’ he sighed, ‘I’m not blind to it. And it’s not her arrival that worries me. Nor even the demands she’ll make. It is the answer I’ll give her that matters.’

  Alyse nodded and looked down at the rush-covered floor. ‘Can you say what it will be?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  Alyse thought, yes, you do. And so do I. And so does Matilda. That’s why she’ll come.

  * * *

  Varan limped across the bailey. He saw Sergeant Morcar and forced himself erect, but there was too much pain in his left side, and he let his shoulder droop again.

  ‘What in hell are you staring at?’

  ‘Nothing, Constable, nothing. I heard the alarm bell. I’m on my way to the gate.’

  Varan snarled something under his breath, furious that Morcar had slowed to keep pace with him. The sergeant asked, ‘Do you think it’s Stephen? I mean, his men?’

  ‘When I can see through walls I’ll let you know. Yes, it’s Stephen; no, it’s not. How should I know?’

  Morcar pressed a hand to his wind-chapped lips. Old Stone- head was in a vile mood today. And not just today. He’d been like this for weeks, since the advent of winter. It must be because his muscles had stiffened. It happened to old men, and Varan – Constable Varan – was nearing seventy. Christ, he must be one of the oldest men in the country, apart from a few lame priests. Anyway, it gave him the right to bare his teeth.

  The alarm bell tolled again. Varan and his protege climbed Alyse’s Tower and watched the Empress Matilda ride towards them, bringing with her the first flurries of snow.

  * * *

  They faced each other for the first time in five years, the forty-five-year-old Lady of England, and the Lady of Wallingford, four years her junior. The last meeting had taken place in deeper snow, and Matilda had then been exhausted after her incredible escape from Oxford. The years since then had been long and arduous, but she had completely recaptured her looks, and Alyse could see why men chose to lay their lives, like horseshoes, on the anvil of her desires.

  The empress looked ready to be courted, to be adorned with jewels, or set up in some fine, fire-warmed castle. Somehow she had evaded the marks of time, as one man always escapes unscathed from battle, as a single pupil goes unpunished when the entire class is chastised. She had been left out by age, and looked now as she had looked when she first set foot in England.

  Alyse and Brien knelt before her, then escorted her into the keep.

  ‘You remember this chamber?’ Alyse asked. ‘You slept here, for an hour or so, on your last visit.’

  ‘I remember it clearly,’ Matilda nodded, and proved her point by adding, ‘The shields have been moved on to that other wall, and someone has woven you a new log-basket.’ She smiled at Brien. ‘You know the circumstances of my last visit, don’t you, Greylock?’

  ‘I know them, though I was away at Wareham. Greeting your son.’

  ‘So you were. No doubt you’ve heard of his latest escapade.’

  ‘Accounts arrive,’ Brien told her. ‘We heard how Stephen furnished him with money, and you did not.’ Something within him clawed for release. He wanted to remark on her beauty, to let her know he still admired her russet hair, her carriage, her unrivalled hauteur. Images flooded his mind, and he could see her now, and
on her first visit to Wallingford, when the garrison had chanted over and over, ‘Mat-ilda! Mat-ilda!’ and in Anjou, in the firelight of Count Geoffrey’s castle, where she had stood naked before him, so long ago. This Matilda made room for that Matilda, moving and circling, allowing him to disrobe her, smiling because her husband was a fool to have imagined Fitz Count more trustworthy than any other man. Then he heard Alyse say, ‘That’s true, is it not? Empress Matilda once told us that her son Henry threatened to grow grey hair, you remember that? And now our own sweet Alan seems set to become a redhead!’

  Brien assimilated the cheerful lie, and the images faded and he saw insincerity corrode Matilda’s smile. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘indeed it is. Whereas we thought Prince Henry would be a miniature Greylock, we now see young Alan with the colouring of Anjou. It’s strange how appearances can mislead, eh, my lady?’

  ‘Isn’t it,’ Matilda managed. ‘But time presses, and we must not reminisce. I shall leave before nightfall—’

  ‘That’s as well—’

  ‘Oh, you welcome my early departure?’

  ‘—with Stephen’s troops in the area.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I see. Well, Fitz Count, I’ve come to you with one object in mind; to advise you that you are now my senior baron—’

  ‘But I am not. There are many earls ahead of me on the list. Baldwin de Redvers—’

  ‘A yokel! A peasant baron, imprisoned by his own boundaries. What has he ever done for me? It’s you who will lead—’ She saw Brien’s raised hand, and the flat of his palm, and stopped.

  ‘Let us all be seated,’ he said, ‘and then I shall answer you. Will you sit there, Empress, near the fire? Alyse, beside me here?’ He indicated the chairs, saw his wife’s faint smile, and Matilda’s expression, alert and suspicious. He stayed on his feet, and thereafter ignored Alyse. He had been haunted long enough by the reality and the images of the magnetic Angevin, and now he would show his wife that he could stand close to the lodestone of his past and resist it. He might never again have the chance to say what he wanted to say. He might never again find the courage to say it. So the time was now, in his own house, in the warm.