“Deer droppings? That explains why you smell so ripe,” she teased, and Henry grinned, for being dirty and bedraggled was part of the fun. “Go bathe and then you can come back and teach me all about the mysteries of deer dung,” she promised, and he began grumbling good-naturedly about taking a bath, bargaining for a lesser washup, not conceding defeat until Ranulf weighed in on Maude’s side.
“You need not bathe, Harry, not as long as you stay downwind at supper,” he suggested, and Henry grinned again, for he was old enough now to laugh at himself. But Maude turned to look at her brother in surprise.
“‘Harry’?” she echoed. “Where did that come from?”
“You did not tell your mother yet, lad? He wants to be called ‘Harry’ from now on.”
Just as Henry had feared, his mother’s brows slanted downward in a disapproving frown, and he said hastily, “Why not, Mama? I’ve always hated Henry; it sounds like the name of a priest or…or some peddler’s nag. It is just not a heroic name, Mama. I like ‘Harry’ much better, and that is the way the English say Henry, and since I’m to be king of the English, I ought to have an English name, and-” At that point, he broke off, not having run out of arguments, just out of breath. But before he could rally, Maude shook her head.
“Henry is what you were christened, and Henry you will remain. Nicknames are undignified.”
Ranulf started to speak, stopped himself. Henry was not as prudent. His disappointment was too sharp to swallow; instead, he let it out in anger, saying accusingly, “That is not fair! It is my name, not yours!”
“That is so,” Maude conceded coolly, “but it is also so that you are ten years old. Once you are grown, you may call yourself whatever you choose. Until then, you must make do with Henry.”
The obdurate look on her son’s face was one she was becoming all too familiar with. “It is not fair,” he said again, but this time as defiance, not complaint, and when Maude showed no signs of relenting, he turned away abruptly, deliberately knocking over a chair on his way to the door. But he did not get far. His mother’s voice froze him in his tracks.
“Henry, I will not abide such churlish behavior, and you well know it. Go and take your bath-now!”
Ranulf had watched in astonishment, and as soon as Henry had gone, he admitted, “That is the first time I’ve seen the lad flare up like that. Has he done this before?”
“Yes, I am sorry to say. Once when he did not get his way, he broke a pitcher.”
“So…he inherited his share of the infamous Angevin temper, after all.”
“Tempers can be controlled. Geoffrey controls his. No, Ranulf, these fits of temper are not a tainted legacy of the blood. Henry was not given to tantrums, not whilst he was in my care. These sprang up in my absence like weeds, and took root once he saw how well they worked. I suppose it was only to be expected, for Geoffrey was always overly indulgent with our sons, and whilst he was off waging war in Normandy, there were few to say no to Henry or his brothers. That is another reason why I agreed to put Henry into Robert’s keeping, for I knew Robert would never brook disobedience or deliberate mischief.”
“Indeed not,” Ranulf agreed ruefully, remembering his own apprenticeship under Robert’s tutelage; his brother was even more of a disciplinarian than Maude, with no tolerance for tomfoolery. “Robert will set the lad straight if anyone can. But if you do not mind my meddling, I think you were too hard on him about the name. What harm in letting him call himself Harry? Did you never want to change your name? I did, for certes!”
“Truly?” Maude sounded so puzzled that it was obvious this particular childhood craving had eluded her altogether. “What did you want to be called?” she asked curiously, and Ranulf hesitated.
“I’ll tell you only if you promise not to laugh. I was so bedazzled by the hero’s exploits in The Song of Roland that-Maude, you are laughing!”
“No, I am not,” she insisted, untruthfully and unconvincingly. “Roland Fitz Roy…I cannot believe our father countenanced that!”
“You do not think I ever asked Papa? No, that was whilst I was still a page in Stephen’s household, and if memory serves, he called me Roland for nigh on a fortnight-and with a straight face, too-till the whim passed.”
“He would,” Maude said tartly, but she fell silent after that, and Ranulf hoped she was pondering what he’d said; if Geoffrey had to learn how to rein Henry in, she needed to learn how to slacken those reins. Changing the subject, he asked her about Geoffrey’s last letter, and she told him of her husband’s victorious siege of Cherbourg. All of Normandy south and west of the River Seine was now his, she reported, but with a discernible lack of enthusiasm. He understood why; as much as she wanted to see the duchy conquered for Henry, it had to rankle-that Geoffrey was succeeding spectacularly in Normandy, whilst her English campaign was mired down in controversy, buffeted by setbacks and shadowed by defeat.
From Normandy, their conversation shifted to the latest news from the French court. Urged on by Eleanor, the French king had invaded Champagne to punish Count Theobald for championing Raoul de Peronne’s repudiated wife, and the resulting carnage had been shocking even to an age inured to bloodshed and civilian casualties. When the French army had swept into the town of Vitry-sur-Marne and laid siege to one of Theobald’s castles, the frightened townspeople had taken refuge in their church. But when the town was fired, the wind shifted and the flames spread to the church. Within moments, it became an inferno, and few escaped; more than thirteen hundred bodies were later found in the smoldering ruins. The young French king was a horrified eyewitness, and his sleep was said to be haunted by those dying screams even now, six months after Vitry’s fiery death throes. But the king’s anguished conscience had not bidden him to withdraw his troops from Champagne, and the campaign continued.
It was, Ranulf and Maude agreed, incredible folly-fighting a war to vindicate an illicit love affair. When her own peace was troubled by memories of the terrible suffering in Winchester, Maude confided, at least she knew her cause was just; her son’s kingship was worth fighting for, even dying for.
Henry chose that moment to reenter the chamber. His mother and uncle scowled at sight of him, and his disgrace stung anew, for their good opinion mattered greatly to him. “You could not possibly have taken a bath already,” Maude said suspiciously, and he readily admitted that he had not.
“The servants are fetching the bathwater. But I did wash my face and hands and even my neck…see?” he said, tugging aside his tunic to show a patch of newly scrubbed skin. “I came back, Mama, to say that I was sorry for being rude.”
Maude’s mouth softened. “You deserve to be forgiven, then. But do you know what I would value as much as an apology? Your promise that it will not happen again.”
Henry hesitated. “I’d rather not, Mama,” he said at last. “I cannot be sure I could keep that promise. And if I could not, then my sin would be twofold-rudeness and bad faith, too.”
“Very scrupulous of you, Henry,” Maude said dryly. “But I would suggest that you try to mend your manners in the future, that you try very hard.”
“I will, Mama. I will not throw any more chairs about. And I’ll make no more mention of names, will not ask you again to call me Harry,” he said solemnly, and then heaved a wistful sigh. “Papa will agree, and I’ll just have to settle for that.”
Ranulf coughed to camouflage a laugh, while Maude wavered between exasperation and amusement. “I may not know as much about military tactics as your uncles, but that is one I do recognize-divide and conquer, no?” Henry grinned at being caught out, and she beckoned him forward. “Fortunately for you, your uncle Ranulf has been pleading your case, and he would have made a worthy lawyer, for he convinced me that Harry is a fitting name for an English king.”
“Thank you, Mama! And you, too, Uncle Ranulf!” Henry beamed at them both. “But you’d best write and tell Uncle Robert that you agree. I asked him last week, and he looked at me like I’d lost my wits!”
> Henry had no time to savor his triumph, for a sudden commotion had erupted out in the bailey, demanding investigation. Darting across the chamber, he knelt on the window seat and leaned recklessly out the window. “Armed riders,” he reported breathlessly, “lots of them! And one of them is your friend, Uncle Ranulf-Gilbert Fitz John!”
Gilbert bore an urgent summons for Ranulf and Maude’s household knights. “You know, my lady, how Stephen tried to recapture Wareham Castle, but backed off once he saw how well defended it was. He has since moved into Wiltshire, and he is now at Wilton.”
Ranulf and Maude exchanged glances, for Wilton was only twenty-one miles from Devizes. “What does Robert think he has in mind? An attack on us?”
“Possibly. Earl Robert’s spies have warned him that Stephen has sent out writs, summoning his lords and vassals to Wilton. In the meantime, he has taken over the nunnery, is using it as an outpost whilst he builds a castle. He could then isolate Salisbury, since the river crossing is at Wilton, and threaten all our holdings in the west. But he has made a grievous mistake, madame, for Wilton cannot withstand a siege, not yet.”
“Robert means to take him by surprise?”
Gilbert nodded. “He sent me to fetch you, Ranulf, and as many men as Lady Maude can spare. He wants us to ride on to Marlborough and alert John Marshal. He and Lord Miles will join us there, and then swoop down upon Wilton without warning.” Gilbert smiled grimly. “God Willing,” he said, “it will be another Lincoln.”
Wilton was situated at the conflux of the Rivers Nadder and Wylye. It had a prestigious past, for it had once been a royal borough of the Saxon princes. It was still an important town, with a thriving market, the wealthy and renowned abbey of St Mary, which regularly drew pilgrims to its shrine of St Edith, and the hospital of St Giles, founded by a queen, the old king’s Adeliza.
But Stephen’s arrival had shattered the security and threatened the prosperity of its citizens. The market had attracted customers from all the neighboring villages, but no more, for few were willing to visit a town occupied by soldiers. The local tradesmen suffered, too, and their shops remained shuttered. The town’s Jews had been the first to flee, for they knew from bitter experience that they were the most vulnerable in times of upheaval. Some of the citizens-those with daughters or young wives-had sent their families to the greater safety of Salisbury. The dispossessed nuns had found shelter at the nearby nunnery in Amesbury. Most of the townspeople, though, had nowhere to go.
And so they kept indoors as much as possible, watched the slow progress of Stephen’s castle, and prayed that once it was done, he and his men would ride off and leave them in peace. But as soured as their luck seemed to them that June, it was about to get far worse.
The first day of July got off to a bumpy start for Stephen; he had an uncomfortable audience with the abbess of St Mary’s Abbey, and his charm and promises had not placated her in the least. Then one of their scouts reported that armed riders had been spotted to the north. Since the three closest castles in that direction-Ludgershall, Marlborough, and Devizes-were all hostile, Stephen dispatched the Earl of Northampton and a contingent of Ypres’s Flemings to investigate and engage the enemy if need be. He was just sitting down to dinner with his brother the bishop in the abbey’s great hall when a bleeding youth burst in, breathlessly gasping out his bad news as he stumbled toward them. The Earl of Northampton had run into trouble, for the force was larger than they’d expected. They’d skirmished with the enemy and were attempting to retreat back toward the town, but they needed help, and fast. By then chairs were being shoved back, trenchers pushed aside. Within moments, the hall had been emptied of all save the bishop, his clerics, and servants. The other men were already out the door, shouting for their horses.
Galloping out of the abbey precincts, Stephen led his men up East Street and onto the road north. It was a hot day, the sun at its zenith, for it was almost noon, and their horses kicked up clouds of dry, choking dust. Stephen could feel sweat trickling down his ribs, and even before the town receded into the distance, his head had begun to throb under the weight of his helmet. Fighting in the heat of high summer was almost as debilitating as a winter campaign. But he was usually impervious to the discomforts of weather, and he wondered if he was beginning to feel the aches and woes of age; after all, he was forty-seven now, and his youth was long gone.
“I’m getting too old for all this excitement,” he said wryly to William de Ypres. But the Fleming, who seemed as ageless to Stephen as Wiltshire’s eternal oaks, merely glanced over at him with a bemused frown, his every thought already focused upon the coming conflict. And then they heard it, the clamor of fighting up ahead. Spurring their horses, they charged forward.
They came upon a scene of chaos and impending catastrophe. Northampton and his men were in retreat, with their foes in close pursuit. “Holy Christ,” Stephen breathed, for he knew at once what he was seeing. This was no foray into hostile territory, no scouting expedition to test Wilton’s defenses. He was facing an enemy army, and even before he saw it, he knew whose banner they were flying. Only one man could have assembled a large fighting force with such deadly speed and accuracy-just as he’d done at Lincoln.
Ypres had come to the same appalled conclusion. “God smite him,” he swore, “it is that misbegotten hellspawn, Gloucester!”
Stephen hastily unsheathed his sword. By now Northampton’s men were almost upon them. Within moments, they’d been sucked into the battle. There was so much confusion that men struck down their own comrades by mistake, for it was no easy task, identifying the enemy in the midst of a maelstrom. Dust clogged their throats, stung their eyes, and the glare of the sun on the metal of chain mail and swords was blinding. Horses reared up, savaged one another as they collided, and when they fell, dragged their riders down with them. Stephen was soon splattered with blood. So far none of it was his…yet. But they were outnumbered, off balance, and if defeat was still inconceivable, it was also inevitable.
“My liege, you’ve got to get away whilst you still can!” William Martel had fought his way to Stephen’s side. “You cannot let them take you-not again!”
“He is right!” Although Ypres was close enough to grab Stephen’s arm, he had to shout to make himself heard. Knowing Stephen’s stubborn streak was apt to surface at the most inconvenient times, he was already anticipating opposition, and rapidly assessing the arguments most likely to convince. Scorning appeals to common sense or safety, he chose to remind Stephen, instead, that “You promised your queen! You vowed no more Lincolns!”
Stephen realized the truth in their entreaties, but flight was an alien instinct, for his code of chivalry had always been long on gallantry, short on realism. His hesitation was almost fatal; a shout went up, one of recognition. “Jesu, the king! There, on the roan stallion!” Ypres seemed almost ready to snatch at his reins, and the other man’s urgency prevailed over Stephen’s own doubts. Swinging his destrier about, he gave the command to retreat.
As Stephen raced his qualms and his enemies back toward Wilton, his steward flung himself into the breach, fighting a desperate rearguard action to save his king from capture, just as Robert had done for Maude at the Le Strete crossing. Because of William Martel’s courageous, doomed stand, Stephen and Ypres and the others were able to reach Wilton. By the time Robert had fought his way into the town, it was too late. Wilton was afire and Stephen was gone.
Robert refused to believe it. At his urging, his men fanned out through Wilton’s narrow streets and lanes, forcing their way into homes, shops, and churches. They concentrated their search upon the commandeered nunnery, and soon flushed out fugitives from the battle. They dragged out sanctuary seekers from the town’s eight churches, infuriating the parish priests. And they discovered coffers and chests for the plundering at the abbey, belongings left behind by Stephen and his men. But they could only confirm the worst of Robert’s fears, that Stephen had indeed escaped.
At the guildhall, Robert was timidl
y accosted by Wilton’s leading merchants, seeking to deter him from taking out his anger upon their town, in case he was so inclined. They were much relieved to find that he was not, although the damage done-deliberate or not-was already considerable; a number of the houses were in flames and his soldiers had engaged in some selective looting even as they pursued the hunt for Stephen.
The merchants, eager to curry favor with their new conqueror, were able to provide eyewitness accounts of Stephen’s flight. He had ridden into the town at a flat-out gallop, they reported, pausing only to warn the bishop of his peril. He and the Fleming and the Earl of Northampton had then raced off down the road to the south, with the bishop and his retainers not far behind. They were not sparing their horses, could not long maintain such a killing pace, they predicted, but Robert spurned their crumbs of comfort, for he knew Stephen’s brother had a castle less than ten miles away at Downton, where they could obtain fresh mounts.
He went through the motions, sending John Marshall off in pursuit. But it was an empty gesture and he knew it. Stephen had only to avoid the main roads, then circle back and head for safety at Winchester. He’d had his chance and it had come to nothing. In time, he’d accept the loss with grudging grace-but not now, not yet.
Miles was herding prisoners into the marketplace, arguing all the while with several indignant priests. At sight of Robert, the bolder of the two strode over to lodge a complaint against this breach of sanctuary. Robert responded for once not as a diplomat, but as a hunter robbed of his prey, and he rebuffed the priest with a brusque reminder that not all churches could claim the right of sanctuary. The priest retreated, but his banner was snatched up then by a new adversary, no less determined.
“My lord earl, a word with you!” The voice was educated, peremptory, female, and furious. Bearing down upon him was a tall, stately nun, garbed in the stark black of the Benedictine order, coming at such a brisk pace that her flowing garments and wimple caught the wind, giving him the incongruous image of a ship under full sail. He knew without being told that this was the abbess, a woman with a legitimate grievance. But he was in no mood to hear her out, and he started to turn away, leaving Ranulf to mollify her if he could.
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