THE EARL (A HAMMER FOR PRINCES)

by Cecelia Holland

  Morgan shook his head. “You weren’t listening,” he said calmly.

  “None of you obeys me. I—”

  He lifted his head, his stomach knotted up. Someone had screamed behind them, far behind. An animal, perhaps, or someone laughing. He pulled his horse out of line and galloped back along the side of the road, past the army.

  The knights immediately behind him watched him in surprise. One shouted, “What is it?” Roger had seen him ride off and was following him, and Fulk left it to him to stop the column. He could see already that the men at the rear of the line were turning to ride back the way they had come, and they were drawing their swords.

  “My lord,” Roger shouted, behind him. Fulk waved his good arm at him impatiently; he had the reins caught in the fingertips of his right hand. The road curved to the left, ahead of him, and the whole rear third of the army was galloping ack along it, past the curve. Now he heard the shouts of men fighting, and spontaneously his lungs filled with air and he shouted. He took the reins in his left hand and headed the bay along the edge of the road around the curve.

  Men in the trees were shooting arrows down into the knights on the road below them. Three men were sprawled in the dust. Two loose horses galloped past him; one had an arrow in its flank. The knights in the road had their shields raised. There was no way they could fight back.

  Fulk jerked his horse to a step; he had no shield. The tail end of the column had obviously been ambushed. They were trying to ride out of the rain of arrows but the men galloping back to help them blocked the road. Arrows slithered down into their midst. Some of them were rising around in the forest, shaking their swords and trying to climb the trees after the bowmen.

  “Turn around and go on,” Fulk shouted. You—Jordan de Grace, go up the road and stop them from—”

  He spurred his horse hastily up the road a little; an arrow had grazed his cheek. “Stop them from blocking the road. Ger moving, you.” He put his hand to his face and it came away with a great smear of blood on the palm. But he could feel nothing. Knights galloped past him up the road.

  One man, stripped of his hauberk, had managed to climb two thirds of the way to an archer in the high branches of an oak beside the road. The other bowmen were screaming to their companion to watch out. The knight scrambled up the last yard of the trunk in a rush and before the man could turn stabbed him and threw him down. The knights in the road cheered. The bowman’s body turned once in the air, bounced off a branch, and hit the road with a crunch.

  “Ride off,” Fulk shouted. If they took it into their minds they would stay all day to kill one more. They heard him, and covered by their shields rode after the rest of the army. Fulk dodged a volley of arrows. He waited until the last man was out of bowshot and riding up the road, and crossed to the shelter of a tree with no archer in it.

  He could see the men in the trees moving. They knew he was there, but they were leaving—they probably knew he had archers in the vanguard of his army, and they wanted to get out of the way. One by one they slipped down from the trees and ran off into the forest. A few of them dashed out to steal a cloak or a helmet from a fallen knight—nothing more, they were helpless on the ground, where a mounted man could run them down. They were outlaws, not King Stephen’s men or men of any baron, only outlaws. They even left their dead lying in the middle of the road.

  When they were gone, Fulk jogged his horse out into the road and counted the bodies. There were five of the. He caught a loose horse that was standing in the ditch and galloped up to the army, which had stopped and was waiting for him, and sent men back to get the corpses. They could be buried at Bruyère-le-Forêt.

  Roger was riding up and down beside the army, shouting. Fulk reigned up close enough to listen. Roger waved his arms and pointed with his whole arm down the road. “Now you have learned to ride close together, haven’t you? And when you are attacked, you don’t all bunch up together and stand around stupidly, do you? You take orders and clear the road so we can move along it, don’t you? Answer me.”

  “Yes,” the knights mumbled. They stirred, trying to make their lines orderly. Roger shouted some insults.

  “If you’re attacked from the trees, ride out of range. Are you idiots? Are you boys who have never been to a war? You’re all mad. Now, ride out. Who was in command back there—de Grace? Come here, I want to talk to you. Ride out, I said.”

  Jordan de Grace moved out of the tangle of riders and waited, and Fulk and Roger rode down on him from opposite directions. The column of knights, in much better order than before, trotted away beside them.

  “It was my fault,” Jordan de Grace said, as soon as Fulk was close to him. “I know it. Don’t abuse me.”

  “What happened?”

  Morgan came up beside Fulk and straightened his sling. Jordan cleared his throat. “We were in loose order and they started to shoot—those men in the trees—and they seemed ahead of us. My horn blower was shot before he could sound the warning.”

  “My lord,” Morgan said, you’re covered with blood.”

  Fulk said, “It isn’t serious, let it go. Roger, did de Brise stop?”

  Roger nodded. “He’s close enough to hear when somebody stops. My lord, if the outlaws were ahead of Sir Jordan’s men, we—”

  “Must have ridden right under then,” Fulk said. “I suspect they stayed well out of sight until we had passed. Keep watch on the trees. We’ll change the order of riding tonight, at Bruyère.”

  He met Jordan’s eyes. “I’ll expect all my captains in the great hall at Bruyère before we eat. Now suppose we go, You keep your men together, my lord, will you?”

  “I will, my lord,” Jordan said. “Thank you.”

  Fulk grunted. His arm hurt and his throat was raw with dust. With Roger trailing after him and Morgan beside him he trotted up the road toward his place in the column.

  Thierry, he saw, was no longer singing and making jokes, although his friends still clung to him.

  The porter of Bruyère leaned out over the gate. “Is that Roger de Nef? It is. My lord! Wait a moment.” Roger had sent a messenger ahead of them so the drawbridge was down, and they rode onto it, two by two, while the porter cranked the portcullis up.

  Bruyère-le-Forêt stood on a hill at the edge of the forest, looking out over the plowed ground of its manor. Inside its great wall stood another, with three towers on it; Fulk had taken advantage of King Stephen’s uncertain control to build the outer wall with its double gate and dig the ditch around the top of the hill. While the teeth of the iron portcullis rose slowly into the arch of the outer gate, he studied the new wall. When the wars were over, the king would surely order all unlicensed castles to be torn down, but Fulk hoped enough of Bruyère-le-Forêt was honest that he could excuse the rest as mere additions. With the new wall and the ditch, Bruyère could withstand anything but a prolonged siege. They rode in under the portcullis.

  Between the two gates there was a little paved court, with a rowan tree growing in it; in the shade of the tree Robert Molin was standing, a smile on his face, and when Fulk stopped he came up to greet him.

  “My lord. I’m very pleased to see you again. Did you find enough room for your men? What happened to your arm?”

  “I broke it. The army, save what you see, is camped between here and the village. I hope you told the villagers to keep their daughters in.” Fulk dismounted and shook Robert’s hand. “You look well. I’m glad. How has the spring gone for you?”

  “Oh—” Robert shrugged. He was watching the knights ride through the gate into the main courtyard. “Will you come this way, my lord? The spring came and went, I hardly knew it was here. Ulf can take your horse.”

  Fulk gave his reins to the groom and followed Robert to the ladder up to the rampart. An old war wound had crippled him in the left leg, and he walked with a hitch of his shoulder, dragging his bad foot after him. Fulk kept his strides short. They climbed up onto the top of the inside wall and started along it toward the nearest of the
three towers.

  “Prince Eustace came through twice,” Robert said. “Once I got enough men together to chase him, but he burned two villages and drove off their beasts. The villagers have been using our oxen to plow and I think they’ve planted every field they are supposed to, although I haven’t been there to see. You have your uncle with you.”

  Fulk nodded. Thirty feet below, in the courtyard, Thierry and Simon d’Ivry stood among the chickens and geese, peeling their saddles off their horses’ backs. The other knights staying in the castle were walking their mounts around to cool them off. The kitchen maids, with bread and fruit hidden in their aprons, were strolling nearby, laughing, their cheeks red as apples.

  “We met some outlaws, in the forest northwest of here,” Fulk said, watching them. “Do you know anything about them?”

  “Yes.” Robert stopped at the door to the tower and opened it and stood aside. “Knights gone to robbery and murder. Did they attack you? I wouldn’t have thought them strong enough.”

  “They were not. We were lax.”

  Fulk went into the great hall. A fire was burning here—outside, it had been warm, but indoors the chill of the coming night soaked out of the walls. The warm, dry breath of the fire drew him, and he went to stand on the hearth.

  “I was sorry to hear of the death of my Lady Margaret,” Robert said. “You have my sympathy and the sympathies of all your people here, my lord.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We have some guests in the castle—travelers, the Lady of Highfield and her retinue, and some knights of Lincoln. But if you would prefer not to greet them, I am sure that they would respect—”

  “No. Ask them to have dinner with me. I have to talk to my captains before then. You must have matters to talk over with me, shall we do that after dinner?”

  “Yes. I’m glad you came, as I said. There are instructions I must have. Do you want ale?”

  “Please.”

  Morgan came in through the courtyard door. Fulk sat and let him pull off his boots. “I thought you expected to have wine this year—from those new vines?”

  Robert gestured to a page to get them ale. “A blight killed the grapes.”

  “Damn this kingdom . . . unh.” He wiggled his toes, freed from the narrow boots. “There’s nowhere to grow good wine grapes.”

  “You’ll like the ale.”

  A page brought a cup to him, and Fulk tasted it. “I do.”

  He sipped the ale, which was thinner than Stafford’s, but brighter. Morgan, with a page at his right side with a candle, was moving around the hall lighting tapers. Fulk leaned back. This hall, with the three painted shields over the hearth, the blackened oak furniture, comforted him. He finished the ale and rose.

  “If you will ask my guests to dinner, Robert, “I’ll go to the chapel.”

  “I will, my lord.”

  “Morgan, send for me when the others get here. We’ll talk later, Robert, when I am spiritually uplifted.” He went out the door Morgan had come through and down the stairs to the courtyard.

  Through the grille on the little window in the wooden door, he could see the twilit courtyard; the serving women were shooing the chickens down into the lower courtyard, and some of the knights who had come with Fulk were washing down their horses near the wall. They splashed each other and threw wet rags across the horses’ slick backs, laughing. Fulk opened the door and went out into the late evening warmth.

  Thierry and his young men were carrying buckets of water up from the well in the lower courtyard. Fulk crossed their path, and they quickly turned aside. Fulk lengthened his stride. This could not go on much longer, something would happen to break it apart. He went to the old wall and let himself through the low door into the other courtyard.

  Here it was quiet; the angle of the old wall nearly cut this courtyard in half, and all the noise of the stables and the chicken coops, cow pens and pigsties lay at the far end. The chapel, a small round building, stood just before the junction of the new wall and the old. They had left the rowan trees and holly thickets standing all around it, to keep it cool in the summer. When Fulk went in, the chapel was empty, and he shut the door behind him and walked up toward the altar.

  Except for the altar cloths, the necessary gold vessels, and the gilt altar itself, he had never given anything to this chapel. Every time he came here he decided to find statues for it and commission a painter to decorate the inside wall, but nothing ever came of it. He knelt down at the alter, fixing his gaze on the Crucifix.

  My Lord God, he thought, and smiled, remembering how as a child he had prayed solemnly, My Lord, this is me, Fulk. He crossed himself. Accept my prayers although I am full of wickedness, cleanse me in Your mercy.

  Prayers for Margaret. He said them to the Virgin and to Margaret’s favorite, Saint Anne. If she were alive she would be telling me how fine Thierry is and how much I should not hate him. He prayed for her soul and wondered all the while where it was. She had been a godly woman and was in Heaven, doubtless, singing with the angels. He could not imagine Christmas or Easter without Margaret nagging at him over policy. At the end of his prayers, he added a short prayer addressed to her, telling her that he missed her.

  He confessed his sins, thinking about each and trying to feel repentant for striking Simon, trying to ride Thierry down, and plotting to kill Thierry. For that he asked no absolution because he was still contemplating it. He prayed for Rannulf, in Prince Henry’s army, and for his other son, Hugh, and his daughter, Madeline, and his grandchildren; he had to struggle to remember the names of the two new babies. Rannulf’s son was Gregory, but Madelaine’s daughter he could not recall. He had not been there for the christening, because they had been attacking Warwick Castle. Cecelia. He prayed for Cecelia and crossed himself. He liked to pray for his children and grandchildren; it gave him a feeling of confidence to think of them.

  Morgan still had not come. He sat back on his heels, meditating on Christ’s Passion. He preferred to think about the Last Supper rather than the Crucifixion—the example of Christ faced with betrayal was, he thought, more valuable to him. Thierry was giving him provocation to annoy a saint, and he had to make sure that what he did was not for vengeance but simply to protect himself and his family. He thought about Christ’s mildness toward Judas and Judas’s suicide. Too little place was made for Judas in the Church’s order of things. He was absolutely necessary and in a way his repentance had been noble. And to betray God in the flesh was a fascinating crime. Somewhere in the Holy Testament someone accused Judas of thievery and of hot temper. Perhaps in some way Christ had slighted Judas, and the betrayal had been vengeance. To repay injury in the face of the most horrible punishment was certainly noble.

  To think that was clearly a sin. He onfessed it and prayed more, contemplating how much each of his sins betrayed Christ as much as Judas had. He should go on Crusade, once the wars were over. The Earl of Worcester, Leicester’s twin brother, had died in the Holy Land. I shall make a pilgrimage. If only to Rome. He wondered if Thierry had made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James while he was in Spain.

  “My lord,” Morgan said, behind him. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m coming.” He crossed himself again, prayed for forgiveness for letting his mind stray during prayers, and went out after the boy.

  De Brise said, "Whatever the order, we have to tighten up the column. Especially in the forest.”

  “Yes. Exactly.” Fulk sipped ale and put his cup down. “Sir Roger and I have discussed this somewhat, but I will do nothing without hearing your advice first, of course. We spoke of putting you, my lord, in the rearguard, with the archers and wagons immediately after you, the bulk of the knights in front of them, and Sir Thierry and his followers in the vanguard.”

  Thierry was lounging decoratively against the wall near the door. He smiled and bowed his head. “We are honored.”

  “But if you’re attacked you are not to go chasing anybody into the forest. You’d be ambushed with
in yards of the road. Jordan?”

  “My lord, could we not divide the archers and put them half in the rear and half in the front?” Fulk looked over at Roger, who nodded.

  “I think we could,” Fulk said. “Godric, what do you say?”

  “We’ll march where you put us, my lord.”

  “Good. Are there more questions?”

  “When shall we reach Sulwick, my lord?” de Brise said.

  “In three days at the most.” Fulk drank more ale. His stomach was groaning with hunger, and at the far end of the hall he could see the pages laying out trenchers and setting up tables for dinner. “Sulwick is a wooden tower surrounded by either a wall or an earthworks, lightly garrisoned, that controls the road from Suffolk to middle England. For those of you who were not present at my first council, we are ordered to take Sulwick and hold it to prevent any surprise attacks on Prince Henry while he is at Bedford. Since we have no siege equipment, we have to storm it. Otherwise we’ll be held up for days or even weeks. We’ll talk about that before we do it, of course, however briefly."

  De Brise said, “How long will we be in the forest?”

  “Another day and a half. Keep your lines tight, Guy.”

  Everyone laughed. De Brise joined in after he had decided that it wasn’t an insult. Thierry wandered over toward Fulk. The others were talking or moving over to the table.

  “Thank you for giving us the vanguard,” Thierry said. “You surprise me.”

  “Not at all,” Fulk said. “You’ll have more latitude for making mistakes. Don’t make any, uncle. I’ll give you one warning.”

  Thierry laughed. He went to the door, called and waved to Jordan de Grace, and left. Immediately, the visitors came in—two or three knights and their squires, and a tall gaunt woman with three pages and two waiting women. Fulk settled back in his chair.

  Smiling, Robert Molin led the lady toward him. Fulk stood up. She towered over him; she wore her hair in the new fashion, tucked under a coif, and her gown was richly embroidered all around the hem. Her sleeves, snug at the wrist, spread out like wings back to enormous armholes. Fulk bowed over her hand.