The Young Lion

by Blanche d'Alpuget

  The men smiled indulgently. The King answered for them all: ‘Young warriors do not pay attention to the appearance of children. What’s more, you already look different. You’re taller, for one thing. Your nose is slightly longer. They won’t remember your face.’

  He left the chamber and Eustace said, ‘Aelbad will be Chancellor of England one day. Might even become a bishop. Meanwhile, how do we insert him into King David’s camp?’

  ‘That I can arrange through a churchman in the area,’ Winchester said. He turned to address the King. ‘As what we propose is designed to ensure the succession, perhaps our Prince should call together the men he’ll need to execute the plan?’

  ‘No!’ Stephen said.

  ‘No!’ Eustace echoed.

  Both terrified of the FitzEmpress, the Bishop thought. The Prince was not at all settled down by his marriage to the sister of the King of France, but remained so skittish he was capable of any folly.

  ‘No, no, no!’ the King added. ‘My son must not in any way be connected to this. It could reflect on his honour.’

  At length they concluded that the Chancellor, Robert of Ghent, was the man to set the process in motion. He would summon eight of his most presentable Saxon guards, men who could pass as knights, and explain to them an ambush in Carlisle was to be arranged. ‘They must know French,’ the Bishop added. ‘If they speak only English they’ll fall under suspicion, even up there. The FitzEmpress is not stupid. Neither is his brother.’

  ‘That sly bastard!’ Eustace said. ‘He’s a second pair of eyes in the FitzEmpress’s head. We’ll need to dispose of him as well.’

  Douglas’s stay with the Anjevins lasted a month. Geoffrey, Henry and Guillaume took their Highland visitor hunting in the autumn woods, where Douglas liked to dismount and walk through the forest, his footfall as silent as a wolf ’s. Sometimes he stalked a stag or a boar for hours with just two hounds to accompany him. He talks to them, somehow, Henry thought and remembered the horse master’s words about pictures. Eventually a hound would return and lead them to where Douglas had felled his quarry. By the time they reached the Scotsman, he would have skinned, dressed and readied for the spit whatever it was.

  After the hunt they would bathe together, either in a lodge in the forest or in an oak tub in the Duke’s apartment in Rouen. Hot water and soap astonished Douglas, as did the second part of the after-hunt ritual: lying on trestles to be massaged with oil, before their beards and moustaches were trimmed and their finger- and toenails clipped. Douglas found their customs fascinating. After three weeks in Normandy, he had his own beard cut square to just a hand’s breadth beneath his chin and his moustache cut back to the width of his face. But his red-brown hair was inviolate. Sometimes he wore it loose like his hosts wore theirs, falling to their shoulders. His fell almost to his waist. Every few days he re-plaited it into a score of shining serpents, each one tied off with a length of wool in any colour that took his fancy: purple, orange, green – colours delighted him as if he were a child.

  One day when he and Henry went hunting alone they returned at nightfall, tired and bloody, with two boars so large they needed a horse each. It was enough meat for the whole garrison. The men walked, leading the horses and the exhausted hounds.

  Henry was planning to rinse his face and hands and go to sleep, but Douglas indicated he wanted to bathe. In the tub in Henry’s apartment, they lay together in silence, swishing the dirt from themselves while a bath servant with a pail poured warm water over their heads. After a while Douglas flicked the man away. Alone now, he beckoned Henry to move closer to him, then slowly pulled his forehead against his own. A jolt of lightning made Henry shudder the length of his body. He had a sensation of sky walking. Behind closed eyes his mind raced with images: mountains taller than he had ever imagined, purple islands, shining rivers, huge red fish leaping into the air and wonderful animals, some of them white, living in snow. Most amazingly he could hear Douglas’s voice speak a language he understood. ‘This is my country,’ Douglas said inside Henry’s head. ‘I’ll show you the Stag.’ Henry fell beneath mighty hooves that trampled him until he suffocated.

  He felt himself being jerked upright in the tub, Douglas’s hands in his armpits. He opened his eyes, gasping for air. The doors to a miracle had opened. The world he saw around him now seemed a grey shadow.

  ‘What happened? Where was I?’ he asked. Although words – French, Gaelic – came out of their mouths, it was just as on the first day they had met: neither understood anything the other said.

  At the Rouen docks early the next morning a sea fog hung down to the water of the Seine, making it difficult to tell where the air ended and the river began. Douglas knelt and kissed the hands of Geoffrey, then Henry, then Guillaume. From his belt he unfastened his double-headed axe, holding it up to Henry with two hands. Moments later he stepped onto a red-sailed ship and vanished in the fog.

  Henry rubbed away the tears running down his cheeks. ‘This axe …’ he said, ‘this axe …’ He could not finish the sentence. They knew the axe was the most precious possession Douglas had.

  ‘Let’s go to the tavern before we return home,’ Geoffrey said.

  ‘Bit early for a drink, isn’t it?’ Henry replied.

  Geoffrey gave no answer, but mounted his horse and rode to the main tavern in the town where the owner and the servants rushed to greet them. ‘We’ll have breakfast,’ Geoffrey announced. ‘And cups of your best wine.’ His sons regarded him with curiosity, but he would say no more until their food and drink were served. Then, in Catalan, he said, ‘I have disturbing news. I discovered it while you were out hunting with Douglas …’

  ‘He’s not …?’

  ‘No, no. He’s the finest soldier I’ve ever seen. And a man of crystal integrity. Our problem is within our own household. One of our servants is a spy for France. For the Seneschal, in fact.’

  ‘God’s teeth!’ Henry said. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The horse master told me,’ Geoffrey said. ‘But he was nervous in telling me, and said if I asked you, you’d explain.’

  Henry was thoughtful. ‘Have you questioned the servant?’

  ‘Not yet. We may be able to turn him and send them misinformation.’

  ‘If it’s the man I suspect,’ Guillaume said, ‘his whole family lives in Burgundy. They’re vassals of the Seneschal.’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Geoffrey said.

  ‘We’ll never turn him,’ Henry muttered. ‘How does he take his messages?’

  ‘Perfectly simple. He’s our post-rider. He takes mail each week to Gisors and is then given safe passage through the Île de France. Our garrison in Gisors all know him. As do the French on the border.’

  Henry smiled. ‘Papa, if you will leave this to me and the horse master I believe we can solve the problem without causing suspicion in Paris.’

  A few days later the post-rider had just crossed into the Île de France when his horse reared, threw him, and in a frenzy of panic, trampled him to death. This took place just feet from the French frontier guards. They were too frightened to approach the stallion. He turned and trotted back into Normandy where the horse master, riding hard, managed to catch him.

  When he heard what had happened, Geoffrey squinted at Henry. ‘Would you care to explain that?’

  ‘No,’ Henry said.

  Geoffrey sighed. ‘We don’t know how many more spies are under our roof.’

  ‘How many do we have under theirs?’

  ‘Three. But all servants.’ They were strolling in a field outside the castle, but even there took the precaution of speaking Catalan. Geoffrey turned suddenly to face Henry. ‘I’ve not wanted to burden you with this because you’re training so hard and so successfully. But the fact is before the end of next year King David will have won or lost his war against Stephen, and you, God willing, will have returned to Normandy as a royal knight. But by then King Louis will be back in France. And the Seneschal, maybe even Suger, will persuade him to attac
k Normandy and the Vexin. They’re desperate to regain “their” half of the Vexin. We must secure a highly placed spy in Paris.’

  It was a month’s rough voyage for Henry and Guillaume up the English coast. Their ship put to shore only after dark, using muffled oars. Stephen and Eustace, they knew, would have watchmen posted along the coast. They travelled with eight horses and a dozen infantrymen who had fought in England in the past.

  Douglas was on the wharf at Berwick and rushed at Henry as he stepped ashore. Behind him a troop of Highlanders uttered blood-curdling hurrahs. ‘All the size of bears, but hairier,’ Henry said to Guillaume.

  ‘If I’m to be eaten, I’d prefer it to be a bear,’ his brother replied.

  Acting as interpreter was a child who reminded Guillaume of the page in Winchester whom he had seen kick the little dog, but that child was a southerner and this one came from Scotland. Towering over the boy was the magnate, Ranulf de Gernons, Earl of Chester. His broad, handsome face was enhanced rather than marred by a broken nose he had incurred on account of King Stephen. Having heaped upon Earl Ranulf castles and titles, Stephen had invited Ranulf to court one day and arrested him. He was held in irons until he agreed to relinquish his castles and honours. On release he rode to Carlisle to offer homage to King David of Scots.

  As they travelled west towards Carlisle the Earl explained to Henry their battle plan. They would attack on two fronts: while David struck south, Ranulf and his army would strike across the Pennines. Their causus belli would be Stephen’s recent defiance of the Pope. The Pope had approved Abbot Murdac as Archbishop of York, but under the sway of his brother, Stephen had refused.

  ‘So we fight not for ourselves, but for the Pope?’ Henry asked.

  The Earl looked aggrieved. ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’

  This, Henry thought, is a battle of poor strategy. Men will fight only in rage against the enemy, or in euphoria for glory. ‘Tell me about Douglas,’ he said.

  ‘He’s commander of the Highlanders. It was they who stormed the castle of Carlisle. It’s thanks to them Scotland captured this part of England. How old do you think he is?’

  ‘Twenty-five?’

  Ranulf laughed. ‘He’s almost fifty.’

  ‘He trained with our regiment,’ Henry said. ‘I’ve never seen such skill in hand-to-hand fighting. And he sits well on a horse.’

  ‘Were he not a barbarian he’d make an exceptional knight.’ Ranulf spoke with an earl’s casual disregard for other ranks.

  Henry wanted to strike him. He waited for his temper to cool. ‘One night we rested our foreheads together and he sent pictures into my mind. I felt I was being trampled to death by a stag.’

  Ranulf reigned back his horse so hard it flattened its ears in temper. His expression was incredulous and for a moment he stared at Henry, breathless. He bent to whisper, ‘That’s magic they know in the Highlands. Merlins, we call them. The Highlanders have a name for them, but there’s no English or French word for it. They know about …’ he crossed himself.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Things we don’t believe in.’ Still whispering he added, ‘King David will be very impressed to learn of this. Especially about the stag. It’s something …’ He made a quick, shaky movement with his fingers to show it was an issue too close to the boundaries of paganism to pursue.

  Guillaume rode up beside them. ‘Did you notice our interpreter?’ he asked Henry.

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s something about him I don’t like,’ Guillaume continued, in Catalan.

  ‘What’s the background of our interpreter?’ Henry asked Ranulf.

  ‘Little James? He’s an orphan. Lady Walter kind-heartedly accepted him when a local priest pestered her to take him on as a page. I borrowed him because he speaks several languages. Lady Walter, well, you’re sure to meet her. Her father was a miller. She had an enormous dowry and married a knight, William Walter. He fought hard for Stephen, who rewarded him with a great deal of land. Some of it, unfortunately, mine.’

  Guillaume said, ‘I’m confused. Whose side are they on?’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Ranulf said. ‘We live in such confusing times. Edith and her husband abandoned Stephen because he did the wrong thing by them too. Stephen didn’t need the Walters, not once Earl Robert died and the Empress Matilda abandoned her claim to the throne. The Walters couldn’t go to the Matilda faction, they felt, so they did the next most honourable thing and went over to King David. When Edith and Sir William acquired property up here she discovered she needed a Gaelic interpreter. The priest brought young James. I heard him interpreting one day and asked if she’d loan him to me. He’s the most quick-witted child I’ve ever met. And he sings with a voice as clear as silver.’

  ‘What exactly made Sir William and Lady Walter abandon Stephen?’ Henry asked.

  Ranulf’s expression darkened. ‘Stephen promised William he’d make him an earl, and a son would get preferment in the Church. But you know, my dear Henry, how duplicitous he is. He’s ruined half of England with his double dealing.’

  You supported him for years, you thick-headed arsehole, Henry thought. Aloud he said, ‘It’s a tragedy. Only the French find it comic.’

  Ranulf gave a hearty laugh. ‘Oh, that’s a good one. I like that!’ The conversation reverted to warfare and James rode up beside them.

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you, sir?’ he asked Henry.

  Guillaume bent to his sculpted white ear and answered in Latin. ‘When we want you, we’ll call you. Meanwhile, piss off.’ He watched as the small ear turned red.

  ‘I do not understand your language, sir.’

  Your ear tells me otherwise, Guillaume thought. He repeated what he’d said in French, adding, ‘Understand that, you little swine?’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was two days before they reached Carlisle. A cold wind blew across the plain around the castle as a post-rider galloped in with news of the imminent arrival of visitors from across the sea.

  King David had been monarch of Scotland for twenty-five years and always on excellent terms with the Lion. In those days there was no fight between England and the Scots; instead, as he’d remarked to his Seneschal, ‘We traded, we prospered, we learned from each other.’

  While David prepared himself to ride to the gate to welcome his young kinsman, he wondered if insolence were still Henry’s ruling passion. Everyone in Scotland – everyone in England, Ireland and Wales, maybe even in the Île de France – had heard the story. At Edinburgh’s fairs, players set up stages with Stephen on a throne. Young Henry enters and the King throws a cup of ale in his face. Then Henry slaps the King’s face with a salmon. The King falls off the throne. Henry gives an elegant bow, shows his leg to the ladies and, to raucous cheers from the audience, rides off with bags of gold.

  David knew that was not precisely how the event had occurred, but it was enough to make his nephew a hero among ordinary Scots.

  He waited at the gateway mounted on a horse caparisoned with St Andrew’s Cross. He had dressed in a deerskin riding cloak over a padded tunic of summer blue, the same colour as the background of the cross. Unicorns pranced on pennants that flew from the castle’s peak.

  Despite persistent, subtle questions to Earl Ranulf and others, Henry had no idea what his test for knighthood would be. As the broad, squat outline of Carlisle Castle came into view his apprehension began to rise. The bleakness of the day and the reputed hardness of the King he must impress heightened his nervousness. Outwardly, he was as calm as a pond on an autumn day.

  He caught sight of David, and leaped to the ground so as to approach on foot, his hands held ready to help the monarch dismount.

  ‘Greetings to you, sire, from Anjou, Maine and Normandy,’ he offered in Gaelic.

  David’s hard, shrewd features coloured at the courtesy. They have charm, these Anjevins. The same thought was in both minds: one day this man may be my enemy. I’ll treat him well.

  The Kin
g remarked, ‘Gaelic’s a difficult language. Your interpreter has tutored you well.’

  Henry gave a slight bow.

  He and Guillaume now loathed the boy, who over their days of travelling had disappeared at inconvenient moments, lost things, and when he slept at Henry’s feet, farted – deliberately, Henry believed. He had already whacked the boy across the ear for wandering off without permission.

  ‘I asked him to teach me a few sentences but my pronunciation, I fear …’ It was a prompt for David to tell him what his challenge would be, but the old man just nodded and gave his thin-lipped smile.

  That evening he held a banquet at which he and Henry formally and publicly exchanged gifts. Henry had brought the King a pectoral crucifix of lapis lazuli. David gave Henry an eating knife with a handle of deer horn mounted on finely wrought silver. He invited him to eat from his own silver platter and, heads close together, got to the point immediately.

  ‘If God be with us, my forces and Ranulf’s will take the whole country north of Humber and Trent. But what after that? Stephen is still England’s King, and weak. The country is disintegrating. The English baronage – even families of the trading class – are setting up petty fiefdoms. Catastrophe for England, but catastrophe for Scotland too. The only beneficiaries are the French.’

  ‘Who support and finance Stephen. It’s in the French interest for England to bleed. To death, if possible,’ Henry answered. ‘They’re happy to spend gold on a war they want to last forever.’

  ‘Precisely.’ The King stared hard at Henry, who dropped his gaze to his lap. Will he tell me now, he wondered. But David said nothing.

  ‘What of Prince Eustace?’ Henry asked. ‘I met him once and thought him … unstable.’

  ‘“My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions,”’ the King replied.

  As a youth David had been considered barbarous because he came from the Highlands. But while he was still young his family had sent him to the court of the Lion to be educated, and there he had not only smoothed the wildness of his nature, but had adopted genuine Christian piety. He could never entirely master his emotions, however. Furious embarrassment flooded his face.