Fire and Steel

by Anita Mills

  “William.” Guy moved to clasp his man awkwardly, holding him briefly and planting a solemn kiss on his cheek. “You are the only father I have ever known. I pray you never fear to speak your mind to me.”

  Embarrassed by a flood of emotion that threatened his composure, William patted Guy clumsily on the shoulder. “Here, now—’tis unseemly,” he responded gruffly. “’tis proud I am to serve you.”

  “I pray for your safety as well as Catherine’s.” Noting the reddening of the older man’s eyes, Guy eased his arm about William’s shoulders. “Come, let us walk the wall together this night, that we may see what we have made.”

  37

  When he rode into Rouen, Guy was surprised to find no signs of an impending council, and it worried him to have been summoned alone. After sending Alan to apprise the ducal household of his arrival, he took lodgings in the city and awaited Henry’s pleasure. It did not take long. Within hours, a messenger brought word that Guy was to present himself for audience forthwith. Again he chose to go as a warrior lord rather than a courtier.

  “God’s blood, Rivaux! Art fearsome this day!”

  Guy swung around before he reached the doorway to the audience chamber. “Brian! Jesu, but I’d thought you’d be on your way to the Condes by now.” His face broke into a crooked smile that lifted the scar on his cheek. “Linn goes there next week.”

  “Aye, I had that of Cat’s letter.”

  “She wrote to you of it?”

  “With your seal affixed. Do you not know what your lady wife does?” Brian demanded, grinning.

  “Cat keeps me meek—these are but the trappings of my rank.” Guy laughed. Sobering abruptly, he returned to the matter at hand. “Then you know about Aislinn’s babe? We fought to save it, but it was too small. We ate mutton for a week after, because ’twas thought the skins of freshly slaughtered lambs might give it warmth. In the end, I think it was just too small to suck.”

  “’Tis probably God’s blessing she died, then, for Mayenne would have used the babe to keep Linn’s dowry,” Brian pointed out. “But I am sorry for Aislinn—’tis hard for a woman to lose her babe.”

  “I doubt he will give it back anyway.”

  “Aye, he will—now that Earl Roger has returned to Normandy.”

  “De Brione is back? I’d begun to think he’d moved to England, and his return was but a rumor. I know that Cat does not know of it, but she will be glad enough to find him at home.”

  “He is here—my father summons him also.”

  “Then there is a council.”

  “Nay, but ere he is done, you may wish he had called one. Come on—I am on my way in also, but for a different reason: I mean to beg to go.”

  Puzzled, Guy stood back to let him pass, and then followed. The room was almost empty except for the ever-present clerks in their plain priest’s robes, who sat scratching their pens constantly in the execution of Henry’s writs. It was said in Normandy that learning was a dangerous thing. In the less than six years since Tinchebrai, the Conqueror’s youngest son had managed to issue more writs than his illustrious father and his ineffectual brother had in all their years put together. And that did not count what Henry issued in his English kingdom.

  The duke was standing, overshadowed by the taller Roger de Brione, and both men turned to greet Guy. Henry’s eyes traveled over him, pausing briefly on Doomslayer, and a faint smile curved his mouth.

  “What say you—did your daughter not get herself a fine husband?” he demanded of Roger.

  “Aye, though I did not think it at the time,” de Brione answered. Turning to Guy, he could not resist asking, “She is well?”

  “She is well but for the babe. I am sending her with her sister to the Condes to be with Lady Eleanor for her lying-in.”

  “And if she is delivered of a son, he will be too spoiled for anything ere you get him home,” Henry interrupted. “But it sorrowed me to hear of the Lady Aislinn—may God grant her infant peace.” Looking back at Roger, he added, “Count Hugh disputes it and accuses Rivaux of hiding his heir from him.”

  “’Tis a lie, and well he knows it. I could have sent the babe’s body back to Mayenne, but I was not certain he would even give her Christian burial,” Guy retorted.

  “He does not want to give back Linn’s dowry, no doubt,” Roger muttered dryly. “But if he thinks I will not sue for it, he is mistaken.”

  “Aye, but there is time to settle that later. For now I am more concerned with putting an end to Robert of Belesme’s continuing encroachments on my duchy.” Henry glanced to where the clerks sat, and added significantly, “Writs avail me not where he is concerned.”

  Guy and Roger exchanged surprised glances at the duke’s open admission that he could not control Belesme. And Guy experienced a sense of unease as it occurred to him why Henry had summoned them: he expected them to make war on Belesme. Each time Henry had come to power, first in England and now in Normandy, he’d attempted to destroy his old enemy, and despite his successes in expelling him from his lands, Henry simply could not rid himself of Belesme forever. And the hatred between the violent and vicious count and the man who’d sought to rule him had reached such a state that Belesme now considered any town, any castle, and any loyal vassal a target for merciless revenge. It was still a source of comment and distrust that he had merely stripped Rivaux of food and supplies the fall before, when scarce a baron in all of the duchy had not lost men and crops to him.

  Waiting until he was certain of their full attention, Henry proceeded, “Aye, there can be no peace in Normandy whilst he is free to strike at will. I dare not be gone from this duchy for fear of the anarchy that arises from his raids. The time has come, my lords, for him to face my justice,” he finished dramatically.

  “You wish our levies—so be it.”

  “Nay, Roger, ’twill not serve. He knows he cannot face an army, and he will flee to fight elsewhere rather than chance a pitched battle.” Henry paused for effect and then continued, “What I am asking is that between you who have the skill to do it, you seek the means to take him prisoner and return him to Rouen.” Henry’s brown eyes were calculating the effect of his request as they shifted from Roger to Guy. “Aye, there’s not many to ask for such a task, and well I know it. But you have both fought the Welsh and know how to counter raids. And aside from you, there are few in Normandy willing or able enough to go after him and fight as he does.”

  “Or foolish enough,” Guy muttered. “Jesu, but he is like quicksilver, floating about, aiming a blow, and fading to fight again another day.”

  “And he inspires others to anarchy!” Henry snapped. “Any petty landholder with ten mounted men thinks to rape and steal, knowing full well that if he burns the place and kills everyone, ’twill be blamed on Belesme. But I am not fool enough to believe that even Robert can be all over the duchy at the same time, and ’tis what some would have me think. Aye—last week, he was reported in the Vexin and the Contentin on the same day. Now there are village priests who preach that he is the Devil made flesh, and that there is no way to defend against him!” Henry snorted derisively. “’Tis a good way to fill the parish coffers, but prayers are foolish when ’tis only steel he respects.”

  “’Tis impossible, Your Grace—he would have to be cut off from retreat and followed across lands belonging to other barons. And with no base in Normandy, he will be hard to find.”

  Looking at Guy, Henry’s eyes and voice suddenly grew cold. “I know Earl Roger has the stomach for it, but I am not so certain about you. Lest you forget it, my lord of Rivaux, you came back to Normandy a pauper and were given your patrimony—aye, and your other possessions also—in return for your loyalty. Am I to think you too craven for the task I give you?”

  “The Welsh Marcher lords would refute that,” Roger cut in abruptly. “Nay, he is but concerned to be away from his wife before her lying-in.”

  Surprised by his father-in-law’s defense of him, Guy met Henry’s gaze with equal coldness. “The
re is no man living who has ever called me craven, Your Grace,” he told him evenly.

  There was something in those strange flecked eyes that made Henry’s blood chill. Not even the Conqueror’s son was proof against the controlled anger he saw there. Even as he watched, the gold warmth faded to green spikes that spread from the pupil. It was the color, he told himself later—the green reminded him of Belesme. “I did not accuse you, my lord—I asked,” he told the man before him, backing down.

  “An army is useless,” Roger mused, barely aware of the confrontation before him. “It gives too much notice and is too unwieldy to fight as Robert now fights.”

  “Aye, but if he is cornered, he will fight. And I know not how old he is, but I’d not like to meet him in single combat.”

  “He is forty-six, Brian,” Roger answered. “And still he has skills like none other. He can punish a man with any weapon chosen until ’tis a blessing to die.”

  “Yet you bested him once, my lord, and could do so again,” Guy ventured.

  “Aye, but I’ve not spent every year since in constant warfare as he has done,” Roger admitted. “And had I not fought for Lea, I do not think I could have done it then.” He fell silent, mulling in his mind the prospect of taking to his saddle for weeks and months against his life’s enemy. Then he slowly summed up his liege’s expectations. “What you would ask of us is that we bring him in alive by any means we choose, is it not?”

  “Aye. I give you my writ authorizing his arrest.”

  Grimly weighing his chances, Roger nodded. “Then so be it.”

  Henry watched him, his brown eyes intent. Realizing that he could not in good faith refuse his liege lord without raising suspicion, Guy let out a heavy sigh. “Aye, so be it.”

  “I’d go with you.”

  Almost in unison, they turned to stare incredulously at Brian, and he reddened but did not answer. “You have to take men-at-arms, Roger—I’d ask that you take me.” The air was heavy with things unsaid as Roger and Henry shook their heads. “I know what you would say to me—that I am untried and indifferent in arms, and you both love me too well to see me fall.” Brian stopped and turned to appeal to Guy. “Tell them…tell them, my lord, that I am not the same man who left the Condes last year.”

  Knowing full well that Brian desperately wanted the approval of both men, Guy felt a sudden kinship for him. “Aye. Aye…you can ride with me.”

  “You’ll not be sorry for it, I swear to you.”

  Once it was agreed on, there was not much left to say. Henry promised to subsidize them through remission of rents and taxes not to exceed the cost of men and arms, directed the issuance of writs allowing them pursuit throughout Normandy, and bade them collect whatever they needed to be in their saddles within the week. Then he dismissed them, admonishing them to practice care against Belesme’s cunning and treachery. Having been a victim already of his cunning, Guy considered it an unworthy reminder.

  Withdrawing into a deserted alcove to ponder what they’d promised, the three men debated the best approach. Guy spoke first, asking his father-in-law, “How many men are in your escort?”

  “I brought but twenty men-at-arms and five bowmen. And in yours?”

  “Thirty-one. I have enough enemies that I rarely travel with fewer. And of those, all but my body servant and four archers are knights and squires. Brian?”

  “The men I brought to Rivaux belonged to my father,” Brian admitted. “There is but myself and my squire, and I have money enough for mayhap a pair of mercenaries.”

  “Less than sixty then,” Guy calculated. “And I doubt Belesme can have many more than that now—mayhap a hundred at the most. Nay, I’d not have mercenaries unless Earl Roger wishes it. I prefer to stand with mine own men.”

  “Then we are agreed,” Roger murmured appreciatively as Guy considered their forces.

  “Most of mine have been with me since Tinchebrai, and followed me into Wales, so there’s naught to fear that they will break and run if we meet Belesme.” Guy stopped for a moment. “God’s bones, but I’d thought to be planting crops at Rivaux now, but instead it appears I will be living in my saddle.”

  “The telling of the tale will be in whether we can not only find Robert but also take him,” Roger observed to both of them. “We must make certain that we lay a better trap for him than he does for us. I wish I had killed him the one time I could, for God’s justice has been slower than I’d expected.”

  But Guy stared unseeing for a moment, hearing Belesme again as he’d heard him at Rivaux, saying, “To kill your father is forbidden you,” and wondered if he could commit the sin of patricide when the need arose. They’d been ordered to bring him in for Normandy’s justice, but Guy knew Belesme would choose to die rather than be taken. “Aye, I wish you had killed him also,” he admitted somberly.

  Roger, who had been absent from the Condes for nearly a year, left them to write to Eleanor of the quest for Belesme. Brian watched him go with an almost bitter twist to his smile. “He does not expect much from me, does he? ’Tis as though only you and he go, but then, he fostered me and thinks he knows my skill. I suppose ’twill be years before he can think of me as aught but a whoremaster and a sot.”

  “Nay. You mistake the matter—he loves you well.”

  “But ’tis not the same as respect, is it?” Brian reminded him. “When I would have had Catherine for wife, he refused me, saying we were of the wrong tempers for each other, when in truth he did not want me for his son. Now I fear he will say the same of Linn.”

  “Cat tells me he gives her the choosing this time, so full half your battle is won there.”

  “Aye, but I’d earn her,” Brian sought to explain. “’Tis difficult to understand, I suppose, but I’d have him think me worthy of her.” His eyes met Guy’s, revealing inner pain. “But I’d not expect you to know how ’tis for me—you are much admired for everything. There’s none to doubt you.”

  “You mistake the matter then, Brian FitzHenry, if you think that. I have spent my whole life striving to win the love of others. You at least have had that.”

  “Aye, they love me but find me wanting.”

  “God’s bones, but what a sorry pair of fellows we are, if we’ve got naught to do but dispute how we are loved.” Guy draped an affectionate arm around him. “Come, we’ll see to our equipment and share a skin of wine in my lodgings. You know,” he added almost cheerfully, “now that I know ’tis not Cat you want, I find I like you.”

  38

  “There is that about this place that I cannot like,” William muttered as he raised his hand to halt them.

  Ahead the road narrowed where it entered forest, and behind them was the ford they’d crossed over a swollen stream. With the cart carrying Catherine and her sister, ’twould be impossible to effect an orderly retreat if the need arose. He detached two riders, ordering them to go ahead and return.

  Catherine, already made miserable by the rough jostling of the cart, followed his gaze anxiously. Somewhere in the thicket a horse whinnied, sending a shiver of apprehension through her. Despite her lord’s strictures, she wished she had ridden a horse.

  “You expect trouble, Sir William?” she asked with a calm she did not feel.

  “My bones warn me that we are watched. Garay,” he ordered his squire, “take the cart back until…Oh, Holy Mary!” He wheeled his horse, shouting, “Draw the column to cover retreat! Archers! Cover your lady!”

  Rivaux’s two riders emerged from the forest with green-shirted men in pursuit. “’Tis Belesme,” someone yelled. “’Tis Belesme!”

  The cart bounced over rocks and broken limbs, swaying so wildly that Catherine clung tightly to the side while trying to hold Aislinn. “And ’twas said riding horseback would harm the babe,” she muttered.

  But Aislinn, white-faced with fright, sat rigidly, praying under her breath, “Mary, Mother of God, intercede for us…Merciful Father, deliver us.”

  William kept his retreat as orderly as possible, gi
ven that Guy had the more seasoned men with him. As the first of the pursuers reached him, he swung his mace expertly and caught the man squarely at the side of his helmet. Reeling from the blow, the fellow lost his seat and fell, to be dragged by his horse, bouncing along the ground before being trampled by the ensuing melee.

  The skirmish was engaged as the Rivaux men sought to block their attackers from reaching Catherine’s cart. “For Rivaux and St. Stephen! For Rivaux and St. Stephen!” someone shouted to rally them. William feinted with the mace and then swung wide to catch another, who slumped in his saddle and clung to his pommel, stunned. “God aids us!” he yelled above the din. “’Tis not Belesme—’tis Mayenne! ’Tis Mayenne!”

  “’Tis Mayenne—’tis Mayenne! Sweet Jesu, ’tis Mayenne!” The cry went up and grew. “For Rivaux and St. Stephen! Let us take Mayenne!”

  The cart hit the rocky ford with a bounce, snagged its wheel, and tottered crazily before turning over. Aislinn was flung clear and scrambled up frantically to find her sister. “Cat! Cat!” The last thing Catherine thought before she hit the water was that she would lose the babe.

  William saw the wagon axle break, but could not draw off for the men that surrounded him. His heart sinking, he swung furiously to clear the way, sending two more of Mayenne’s men to the ground. When one sought to disembowel William’s horse, he was knocked from behind by a Rivaux man and sent sprawling on his own sword.

  “Draw off! Draw off! ’Tis Belesme!”

  Incredibly, the green-shirted men who attacked them were now scattering, breaking off contact to flee. William spurred his horse toward the ford as riders splashed across and thundered past him in pursuit. When he reached the overturned cart, two had already reined in, and one had slid down to lift Aislinn from the water.