by Mary Lide
Bringing up the rear were the younger knights, the squires, among whom rode Lord Hue. They spurred their horses to make them leap and cavort, prancing through the courtyard before they in turn thundered across the moors, which spread before them purple and mauve in the morning sun. But it seemed to me, who watched him, that Lord Hue looked pale and kept his eyes downcast. A few days’ solitude in the Cambray cells had quieted him, a salubrious effect which, although I was sure it would soon wear off, had at least given him time for thought. I was both glad and sorry to see him go; I had the feeling it might be long before we met again. So even after the gates were bolted close, I stayed to wonder what the future held for Hue, for us, until I became aware that I did not watch alone. A silent, hooded figure stood in the shade, staring intently into the eastern haze as if she, too, were looking for some sign. It was the Lady Ann. I was suddenly embarrassed, as if I had intruded upon some secret watch. True, she planned to follow more slowly with her own mounted guard and her womenfolk within the week, but she stared after her lord as if at a parting that might never end. I had a vision, an insight, of all the other partings she must have known, the long waits, the loneliness.
Abashed, I crept silently down the steps so as not to disturb and took my accustomed place at Robert’s feet.
The fever fit was on him, and he shivered under his rugs. When it was done, he turned painfully and asked, as if he had not yet understood, “Are they gone?”
“Aye, my lord.”
“All, all?”
“My lord, your father, your brother, and all their guard.’’
“And Cambray?”
“Bolted up, my lord, the watch in place, its guard here left to Dylan’s charge.’’
“Praise be to God.’’ And he lay back, as if satisfied.
I stared at him. Jealous for him, zealous of his rank and place, proud—too proud, I dare say—of my own, I blurted out, “It is not just to leave you behind.’’
His gray eyes, like his father’s, flicked open, and his gaze was such that I flinched. “My brother has rights as have I,” he said. “If you would serve me, never speak of them again. Between my brother and me no quarrel is and, please God, will never be.’’
But later, when the castle leeches had done their best (or worst, for in their absence he still could jest, saying he thought an old Celtic hag with her potions and chants could cure him faster than their remedies), when they were done, regretting that anger flash or, perhaps, the fever abating for a while, he became conscious of where he was and what this day’s work would entail, and he began to speak. It may simply have been, as I have noted since, that there often comes a time in the lives of men, even those most taciturn, when they feel obliged to say what is in their minds, as if out of their habitual silence a wave of longing overwhelms them to explain their plans, their hopes, their secret selves. Or it may have been that he felt that first touch of sickness or death that now threatened him and wanted, somehow, to make a testament of himself. In later years I have often met men, both highborn and low, who poured out their histories in a flood, as if through my words they could leave a record of themselves; but never, I think, like this, this time when Lord Robert entrusted his thoughts to me. For it was not only what he knew and thought but why, and what he believed would result, and I, although too young to understand, too callow, perhaps, to appreciate his confidence, nevertheless had the sense to remember it, so that in time it would be pieced together, complete. Although God knows it was not a confidence to give joy.
Nor did Lord Robert speak all at once, you understand; his words were laced through with fever’s fret, sometimes making sense, sometimes senseless. I pick them out from memory, selecting those that are of most import. I do remember thinking at the time, how strange that he, who was by nature reserved, cautious, should reveal such a gift for words, to break the silence he had long imposed upon himself.
By now we had moved into the hall. The fires were lit; the restful sounds of castle life had closed us around; Cambray’s great walls surrounded us within their arms. The fret of the sea was a distant sound, a background to all the other familiar ones: the hum of bees, the doves in their cote, the rustle as the hounds settled among the dry rushes on the floor. The air was warm with the scent of clover and mint, and the pale blue smoke curled about the open rafters overhead. Danger, treachery, revenge were far off, shadows in an empty room. Yet beneath all of Lord Robert’s talk they waited, coiled to spring.
“Between my brother and this English prince,” Robert began. He was lying on his side, his face pale, his hair matted with sweat. From time to time I brushed off the flies. Wounds smart. Now my lord learned that to his cost. “Between Prince Henry and Hue is a bond so strong that brothers they might seem beneath the flesh. They have known each other since boyhood, and through the years has their friendship grown. If anyone should attend the prince at his crowning time, it should be Hue.”
He hesitated. “My father does not think so,” he admitted, “although in his youth my father swore a similar oath of loyalty to his king and himself lived and fought, yea, risked his life and happiness for such a vow. He is the last man to break a promise he has made, or to condone unfaithfulness in his sons. Hue’s oath was sworn to the prince as blood pledge, blood bond, that even Church law would not deny. What if it was made between the sons of bitter enemies? It still stands. Myself, I do not believe that quarrels should stretch so far to shadow our lives. For sometimes it seems they do. That oath my father swore has won him the enmity of the man who is now King of England. Yet one day, I think, there will be other kings, other lords, who will need our friendship and cherish it.”
For a long while he did not speak. I thought he slept. Then he said abruptly, “But not in my father’s time. For there is something you should know if you would serve our house. There is hatred, implacable, between King Henry of England and my father, Count of Sieux. Perhaps once, as children, it was not so. As you know, or do not know, poor Urien, never having seen the lake, the river, and the cliffs of Sieux, our lands in France and those of Henry adjoin, the river forming a natural boundary. When Henry was a boy, son of a count, and my father was a boy, grandson of an earl, they used to ride along the riverbanks. King Henry was younger; he wanted my father to notice him; he wanted, I think, my father’s respect; he coveted praise as a blind man covets sight. Failing to obtain it in sufficient wise, he ordered it. No one, man or boy, puts a curb chain to my father’s head; no one, lord or king, orders him. He and Hue are alike in that. The more my father ignored the boy who swaggered before him, the more the boy swaggered. Yet, I think, despite himself, Henry longed to model himself on my father, whom he secretly admired. Well, when both were grown to man’s estate, and civil war broken out for England’s crown, as you have heard, my father swore an oath of allegiance to one claimant to the throne, King Stephen, whom he loyally served. Henry, the Count of Anjou, who also claimed the crown, never forgave my father for not supporting him. So deep was Henry’s resentment, in fact, that upon finally gaining the crown, he moved at once to declare my father’s lands forfeit and my father a traitor, meriting a traitor’s death.”
For a while Lord Robert lay silent, contemplating. Then he smiled. ‘‘Outlawed, wounded, threatened with death, landless, my father was rescued by the Lady Ann.” He almost laughed, although pain cut the laugh short. “Ann of Cambray,” he said. “There was a gallant soul. Young, alone, unknowing of courtiers’ ways, she fought to save her lands and his, outfaced the king and outwitted him. And the only person at the time who could give her aid was Henry’s queen, Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, by whose efforts was my mother’s wish obtained, to restore Lord Raoul of Sedgemont and have him marry her.’’ He smiled again. “The king thought it a great joke to insist they wed,’’ Robert said, “my father being in truth a noble lord, owner of many lands and titles, and my mother, of lesser rank, his vassal and ward. The jest in fact lay upon the king, for my mother was already great with child. The child was E
arl Raoul’s own, and I was that child. You see how Hue spoke close to truth. A few months’ difference, and he indeed would have been the first legitimate son. But so Earl Raoul and the Lady Ann were wed and went to Sieux, where I was born. Yet, after all, Henry had the last word. Previously he had seized my father’s castle at Sieux, early in those wars. Now he destroyed it, tore it down, stone by stone. And the queen became an enemy. The gifts of the queen are made in expectation of recompense; and having first supported us, the queen had counted on my father’s support in a new conspiracy against the king. For it is commonly believed that Eleanor had allied herself with the main conspirator, Geoffrey Plantagenet, her husband’s brother and her paramour.’’ He suddenly looked at me. “You are too young, sir page,’’ he told me, “to know anything yet of paramours. But remember the name of Geoffrey Plantagenet. And remember, too, the name of Boissert Field, where the conspiracy was planned. De Boissert and his daughter, Isobelle, sought revenge against my family on the queen’s behalf because we would not join with them.’’ These names I had heard before, cried out in anger in this same hall. I had heard of Geoffrey Plantagenet, now dead, cut off for his sins in his prime, the man of beauty and vice, paramour to the queen, brother to the king, and the man to whom the Lady Ann’s reputation was tied.
“That Geoffrey,’’ Robert said, “lusted for my mother. When she repulsed him, in his anger he used her to win his brother’s favor back, and so helped Henry capture her. That was at the start of the Welsh wars. She escaped, fled across the border to her Celtic kin, where she remained until Hue was born, but my father stayed to fight with the king. There are those who claim she gave away the Norman plans to the Celts, to my father’s detriment. And Henry boasted to my father that my mother had slept with him himself.” The silence that followed those words was again fraught with all those dark things better left unsaid. But Robert said them, broke them out of his deep thoughts as old wounds break and tear apart.
“They say,” he said, “that Hue is not my father’s son. And in his rage, Henry hurled these accusations at Earl Raoul. Yet I think, deep down, the king still admired my father and wished him well. Finally a truce was called between the two, which continues until this day. But with the queen never was peace so made. That is why, although my father will never bear arms against the king, there is no reconciliation possible, and neither he nor Henry could wish their sons friends. Yet friends they are, brothers of the soul.”
When he had been silent for a long while, I ventured to ask, “And how began that friendship between those sons?”
A third time he smiled. I think his words brought to life that castle far away, those meadowlands, that lake, of Sieux. “Prince Henry and Hue met hunting,” he explained. “My brother loves to hunt, as you know, and it is Prince Henry’s prime occupation, as it is for all Angevins. One autumn day, when the river was in spate, when the meadow flats on either side were waterlogged, Prince Henry came riding with his hawk along the boundary of his father’s lands in the region called Maine, far from home, whilst on the other side of the river, on Sieux land, Hue hunted alone with one old huntsman and his hounds. Prince Henry had ridden fast and had lost his way. He had cast off his hawk and lost her as well, and angry with himself had come galloping across those drowned fields in a spray of mud. The falcon was his favorite. She sat on his wrist on a gold-embroidered glove, and the hood with which he covered her eyes was scarlet, with small, bright threads caught in a tuft on the top. From time to time he caught sight of her swooping down from the sky in a great burst of speed. He might have stopped to admire her skill and verve had not those glimpses urged him to redouble his efforts to catch up with her. In the end, outdistancing his own guards, he, too, rode alone, until he came to a place where the river branched into several twisting threads. These he forded or plunged through, the horse’s haunches almost enmired, until the main river blocked his path. And on its far bank, the northern one, he espied his hawk, held by another boy like himself.
‘Stop,’ Hue shouted, for Hue it was, as the prince spurred on his horse. ‘You trespass on the lands of Sieux.’ He paused to stroke the bird’s breast—you know the way he has—making clear he would claim her as his own, and in truth she sat on his naked wrist, something the prince would not dare allow. Beside Hue the old huntsman muttered and tried to tug at his master’s sleeve, and his greyhounds panted on their leash.
“Prince Henry was furious. ‘Sieux be damned,’ he cried, ‘I’ll take back my hawk.’ He rode breakneck into the stream. Although his horse was a fine bay with long, thin legs, bred for hunting in the river flats, it was not meant to swim, nor was it easy to control in a fast-flowing flood. Losing footing it began to panic and fought the current, almost unseating the prince. Hue watched the struggle for a while, curious, I think, about the boy who rode so fast and carelessly against him. But realizing that the horse was being swept downstream, where there were eddies and pools and sudden rocks that could dash both horse and rider to bits, Hue sprang off his own horse and, first giving the hawk to his huntsman, leapt into the river in his impetuous way. Hue knows how to swim, and the prince did not. Not many men do who live inland, but Hue had been trained at Cambray. He judged instinctively when to go with the current or when to fight; he was not afraid to dive; he knew how to hold his breath and how to flail with his arms and legs. In short, it was not difficult for him to seize the horse’s head and by tugging at the bridle turn it athwart the stream. Within minutes, by dint of pull and tug, he had brought Prince Henry back to shore, on the southern shore, that is.
“The horse heaved itself out and stood trembling, its sides dripping with gravel and mud, its crimson trappings scraped and torn. The prince, still mounted, panted, too, wiping the water from his eyes. On foot beside them, Hue shook himself like a dog and prepared to swim back. But the prince prevented him, seizing his arm and drawing his hunting knife. ‘Now, by Saint Martin,’ says he, threatening Hue with the knife, ‘this is the southern bank, my father’s lands. You have my hawk, but I have you.’ For the first time they sized each other up. They might have gazed into a glass. Each saw himself in the other’s face—same red hair, same dark eyes, same fair white skin. They were of the same height, both shivering in their hunting coats, both blue with cold.
“ ‘By the rood,’ Hue said with a laugh. ‘God’s wounds, you are churlish, sir, to give no thanks. I should have let you drown.’
“ ‘And you, young sir.’ The prince could be lordly in his turn. ‘What makes you speak so bold? You’ve but one huntsman with you. Bid him bring my hawk across, and I’ll let you free. If not, I’ve a score of men behind me somewhere, enough to cut you down if you try escape.’
“Now Hue had noted at once the richness of the prince’s gear, his embroidered saddlecloth, his gold sword belt, all signs of nobility. And he noted, too, the way the prince spoke, his voice of command, for all that he was young. A curiosity took him afresh to know who this boy was. At the same time the prince was curious in his turn, used, I suppose, to flatterers and surprised at not being instantly recognized. When Hue sang out his name and rank, proudly enough, the prince was equally startled.
“ ‘Hue, son of the Count of Sieux,’ he repeated with a frown. ‘God’s breath, your father’s name is known to me.’
‘What should you know of him?’ Hue asked.
“ ‘Enough.’ The prince was curt. Yet he sheathed his knife, clambered down from the high saddle that alone had kept him in place, and began to remove his short Angevin cloak. ‘Enough. My father is Count of Maine.’ He did not need to add the other titles his father has: Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Duke of Brittany, and King of England.
‘Jesu. ’ Even Hue was speechless. He was standing on one leg trying to take off his boot, and he limped to a boulder and sat down. ‘Then you must be Harry Plantagenet.’
“So that is how they met, Prince Henry and Hue. The huntsman, muttering beneath his breath (for huntsmen do not much care for hawks, venery bei
ng their only charge), gingerly carrying the prince’s bird and leading Hue’s horse and hounds, rode off to find an easier ford. On a stretch of dry sand between the banks of reeds, the two boys lit a fire from driftwood and hung up their clothes to dry. When the prince’s guard came galloping up, beside themselves with anxiety, they found both naked before the fire, enjoying a goose roasting merrily on a spit, while nearby the huntsman, equally concerned for Hue, struggled to keep their gear from being scorched.
“But afterward that huntsman is supposed to have said, being an old man and free of speech, ‘Lord love us, but you’re peas of a pod. Whichever count fathered you, I’d swear you came from the same bed.’ A remark that Hue has never forgotten, just as he has never forgotten the prince. They met henceforth whenever they could, although their fathers bade them keep away. And when last they met, they met as men and even greater mischief wrought. Three years ago that meeting was, at Montmirail. Yet I myself think both fathers wrong to try to keep the sons apart. Such brothership between men is rare, and I suspect that in Earl Raoul’s heart, as in the king’s, there is regret that never between them will such a bond be known. And especially for the king is that true, for that is what he most wished to have.”
So spoke Lord Robert that summer’s day at Cambray. And I have never forgotten either what he said. His words made sense, although I could not have myself put the sense into words. For such a bond I myself envied, longed for, and yet was never destined to know.
He was silent after, done with his words. Yet I was often to think of them and ponder their meaning to myself. For now the fever took full hold, and as it mounted and flared, so in his delirium he let fall other secrets, which, although at the time I did not know all they meant, I have kept secret ever since. For sometimes Robert called upon his father to rescue him. And sometimes, too, upon that Isobelle de Boissert who wanted to wed Earl Raoul, and having failed at that, plotted against the Lady Ann and against her newborn son. “They said I was too young for remembering,” once Robert panted out, suddenly sitting up and grasping at my tunic with his free hand, “but I remember everything.” His eyes were open, but he did not see anything in the room, and his voice was taut with a horror that was visible only to him. “Never woman passes but I do recall: the sickly taste, the cloying smell, the redness of that mouth whose smile hid death. Women stole me away; women’s malice used me for vengeance. Poison was the curse they put on me, poison was my death they planned.”
