Hoping that the hinges wouldn’t squeak, he slowly pushed open the door of his father’s bedchamber. A reassuring sound met his ears, the snoring of his father’s squires. The hearth had burned low, the firelight dying down to a feeble glow. His father’s favorite wolfhound, a massive beast the size of a pony, raised her head, then tipped her tail in drowsy greeting. Leaving the door ajar, Henry moved toward the coffer at the foot of the bed. He was cautiously lifting the lid when his father’s voice suddenly cut through the darkness: “Just what are you looking for?”
Henry froze, shock robbing him of all speech. Before he could stammer out a response, a woman’s voice came floating from the bed. “I do believe I’ve found it, my lord. I was but browsing. Now, though, I think I’d like to buy!”
Henry was stunned and, for a too-brief moment, joyful. Almost at once, though, he realized his mistake, one foolish enough to make him blush. How could he have thought Mama had come home? If she were back, all would know it. Crouching down behind the coffer, he tried to make sense of this. Why was a strange woman in Papa’s bed? She was speaking again, an unfamiliar voice, sounding young and eager to please. Papa was laughing at what she’d said. Henry didn’t like it, not at all, that Papa should be laughing in bed with this unknown woman. He wanted to go away, to forget what he’d heard. But he was trapped, unable to move until they went back to sleep. And to his horror, he now heard his father say, “Fetch me that wine cup on the table, Nan.”
The bed curtains parted and a woman’s tousled head poked through. She had tumbled masses of unruly flaxen curls, and Henry could not help thinking of his mother’s glossy, neat braids, black as a raven’s wing. Having assured herself that the squires slept, the girl swung her legs onto the floor, scampered over to the table, and snatched up a goblet. Henry had a lively curiosity about women’s bodies. Not only were they formed differently than males, but people acted as if there was something sinful about female nakedness, and he still remembered a puzzling sermon he’d heard that summer, in which the priest had railed about daughters of Eve and whores of Babylon and Satan’s lures. Now, though, he averted his eyes, did not look up until the woman had climbed back into bed.
“Good lass. You cannot imagine how pleasant it is to have a biddable bedmate for a change.”
The girl giggled. “Your lady wife would not have fetched you wine?”
“Not unless she’d poisoned it beforehand.”
Another giggle. “Surely she could not be as bad as all that? I have to admit, though, that I was right glad when she left. She could stab someone with her eyes, God’s Truth! Do you think, my lord, that she will be gone long?”
“If God is merciful,” Geoffrey said wryly. “No, you need not fret about my she-wolf of a wife, Nan. She’s like to be bogged down in that English quagmire for years, and even if she does manage to defeat Stephen, her victory might not be worth much after she and Stephen get done with their crown-clipping.”
“I…I do not understand.”
“You do know about coin-clipping?”
“Is that not what the Jews do?”
“Not just the Jews, anyone with a sharp eye for turning a profit. They file the edges off the coin, and melt the clippings down to make a counterfeit coin. Anyone caught clipping coins in my domains does not live to regret it. But just as the clipped coins are worth less, so is a tarnished crown. For proof of that, we need look no further than the double-dealing by Hugh Bigod and Robert Fitz Hubert. Think you that either one would have dared to defy the old king like that? When pigs fly!”
The first name was vaguely familiar to Nan, the second name not at all. “This Hugh Bigod…was he not the king’s man?”
“More than that, lass. He perjured himself to God and the Archbishop of Canterbury, claiming that Maude’s father had repudiated her upon his deathbed. But he came to feel cheated, for he believed Stephen owed him more than he’d gotten, and this past June he rebelled. Stephen swooped down on him and seized one of Bigod’s castles, but freed Bigod to wreak more mischief if he chose. He did, and rebelled again in August. This time Stephen decided to buy his loyalty. Can there be a better reason for rebelling?”
Raising his voice, Geoffrey launched without warning into a mimicry of a peddler’s spiel. “Are you discontented with your lot in life? Has your barony begun to seem paltry and insignificant? Do you yearn for your own deer park, wine from Cyprus, oranges from Spain? Well, then, do not delay. Defy the king, gain yourself estates, castles, mayhap an earldom!”
Nan joined in his laughter, even though the humor eluded her. She laughed at all of Geoffrey’s jokes, whether she understood them or not. “What of the other man, this Fitz…Herbert?”
“Fitz Hubert. He was one of Stephen’s Flemish hirelings, mayhap the worst of a bad lot. Last October he turned on Stephen and seized Malmesbury Castle. Stephen snatched it back, but—surprise of surprises—he then agreed to let Fitz Hubert go. It seems he was a kinsman of William de Ypres, and he prevailed upon Stephen to show his cousin some undeserved mercy.”
“Was that the end of it?”
“Of course not. Fitz Hubert promptly hied off to Maude at Bristol. But he soon saw he could do better on his own and by a ruse, succeeded in getting hold of Devizes Castle. When Righteous Robert—my saintly brother by marriage—sent his son to take command, Fitz Hubert drove him off. Using Devizes as a refuge, he and his brigands set about terrorizing the countryside, plundering and raping and burning as they pleased. It then occurred to him that if he’d done so well with one castle, how much better he could do with two, and he set his eyes upon Marlborough. But he overreached himself there, for Marlborough was held by a man named John Marshal, and that one could teach the Devil himself about guile.”
Nan clapped her hands, like a child hearing a bedtime story. “What happened then?”
“Marshal pretended to believe Fitz Hubert’s cock-and-bull tale about forging an alliance, lured our greedy Fleming to Marlborough, and cast him into the castle’s dungeon. He then agreed to turn Fitz Hubert over to Brother Robert for five hundred marks. Robert dragged the Fleming back to Devizes, where he swore to hang him if he did not order the garrison to surrender. But Fitz Hubert balked and Robert, ever a man of his word, hanged him outside the castle walls. Meanwhile, the garrison had decided they did not truly need Fitz Hubert, and so they spurned all demands for surrender. Instead, they waited until Robert’s forces withdrew, and then yielded the castle to Stephen, for a right goodly profit!”
Geoffrey and Nan laughed so loudly that Henry feared they’d awaken the squires. He huddled against the coffer, holding his breath, but those blanketed forms by the hearth didn’t stir.
“So you see, sweet, it is every man for himself in England these days. And it’ll get worse ere it gets better. Stephen and Maude have opened the floodgates, and all they can do is let the tide carry them along, whilst trying to keep their heads above water. Not that it would break my heart if the lady drowned! But whether she survives or not, she’ll not be coming back to bedevil me. Now…enough of these English lunatics. We’ve more interesting matters to discuss. When are you going to make good your offer?”
“Offer?” Nan echoed coyly. “What offer was that, my lord?”
Henry did not hear his father’s murmured response, only the woman’s laugh. There was an intimacy to their conversation now that was different and disquieting. Making no further attempts at concealment, Henry got to his feet. He no longer cared if he was caught or not. With a deliberation that verged upon defiance, he turned away from the bed, started toward the door.
His father had once told him that ice could burn. He hadn’t believed it; now he did. The coldness within him was numbing, seemed to have seeped into the very marrow of his bones. He’d never felt like this before, did not even know how to describe it. The word desolate was not yet in his seven-year-old’s vocabulary. There was anger, too, but it was unfamiliar anger—not hot, more like the ice that burned. He had not comprehended all that he’d overhe
ard, but he had understood what mattered. His mother was not coming back.
12
Westminster, England
December 1140
GOFFREY’S cynical assessment of English affairs was more accurate than he knew. Even as he predicted coming chaos, the Earl of Chester was plotting a royal murder.
Chester had not forgiven Stephen for bestowing upon Harry of Scotland the disputed Honour of Carlisle. When the Scots king’s son took as his wife a half-sister of the detested Beaumonts, Chester’s fury reached the flash point. He’d never been one to bother about consequences, and he had no fear whatsoever of the king’s wrath—not this king—for Stephen had repeatedly shown himself to be a believer in second chances, even third, fourth, and fifth chances. Once he made up his mind to take action, Chester turned to the only man he truly trusted, his half-brother, William de Roumare.
William de Roumare was nine years older than Chester, and of a less volatile temperament. He was famed not so much for his own accomplishments as for his fortuitous dockside decision not to sail on the White Ship. Although he was ambitious, even his ambition seemed a pale echo of Chester’s ravenous hunger for power and prestige. The two brothers were very close, but there was no doubt who dominated, and William de Roumare became a willing accomplice to Chester’s vengeful scheme.
Their plan, as reckless as it was ruthless, was to ambush Harry of Scotland and his Beaumont bride as they made their way home from a Michaelmas visit to Stephen’s court. Fortunately for the Scots prince, one of their conspirators had a weakness for wine, and did some rash bragging to a bought bedmate. The young woman was shrewd enough to realize both the value and the danger in such information, and she wasted no time confiding her perilous, prized secret to the most trustworthy of Stephen’s inner circle, his queen. Matilda was appalled, but acted swiftly to frustrate Chester’s murderous intent, persuading Stephen to provide Prince Harry and Adeline de Warenne with a royal escort all the way to the Scots border.
They were then faced with a Draconian dilemma: what to do about the Earl of Chester. There was no easy answer, for this would-be assassin was also the most powerful lord of the realm. As furious as Stephen was with Chester’s treachery, he and Matilda reluctantly concluded that there was no way to punish him for it. The crime had been thwarted, evidence was lacking, and who’d take the word of a drunken hireling over his highborn lord? An earl might be charged with rebellion, but a felony? No, they’d have to find another way to deal with this overmighty, unscrupulous subject, however little they liked it.
Resorting to the tactic that had become a habit by now, Stephen sought to buy Chester’s loyalty. At the time of the old king’s death, there had been no more than seven earls in his domains. In the five years since Stephen had claimed the crown, though, he’d bestowed no less than sixteen new earldoms. Four had gone to the Beaumonts and their kin; in the past year alone, he had created six new earls. Adding a seventh to that list, he conferred upon William de Roumare the earldom of Lincoln.
He then returned to London, confident that he’d outbid Maude and the brothers were his, but with a sour taste in his mouth, withal. He had yet to learn that for some men, “more” is never “enough.” Instead of rejoicing in their new family earldom, Chester and his brother fumed, for Stephen had not included the royal castle of Lincoln in his grudging grant. And as their king rode south, they began to lay plans to remedy his omission.
CHRISTMAS EVE revelries at Westminster were lavish that year—deliberately so, as if rich fare and dramatic spectacle could somehow validate Stephen’s contested kingship, as if roast goose and spiced red wine and a baker’s dozen of minstrels could make people forget the burning of Worcester, the sacking of Nottingham, the newly dug graves, and the uncertain tomorrows that lay ahead. The great hall of William Rufus had been adorned with so much greenery that it resembled the forest in which Rufus had met his death, decorated with evergreen boughs and holly and beribboned sprigs of mistletoe. The meal had been so bountiful that the leftover goose and venison and bread and eel scraped from the trenchers would feed Christ’s poor for days to come. The entertainment was equally extravagant: a woman rope dancer, a daredevil who juggled daggers, a Nativity play that offered not only the requisite shepherds and Magi but even a few sheep as props. Then the last of the trestle tables were cleared away and the dancing began, the irresistible, exuberant music of everyone’s favorite, the carol.
Matilda danced so many carols that she began to get dizzy, and when the circle started to form for the next one, she begged off, moving to the sidelines to catch her breath. She had no need for center stage, would have been quite content to watch her husband have fun. But she was still keeping an eye upon her son and his bride; Eustace and Constance had been given permission to attend the evening revelries, although it was well past their bedtime hour. Constance had withdrawn to a cushioned window seat, Eustace had followed, and only Matilda saw what happened next, saw Eustace deliberately pour his cider down the front of Constance’s gown.
Constance gave a scream, quickly choked off, and began to brush ineffectually at the spreading stain. Eustace laughed, then turned to saunter innocently away. Before he could make his escape, though, his mother was there, with a napkin for Constance and a low-voiced but stinging rebuke for him. He flushed, insisting it had been an accident, that Constance had jogged his arm. But Matilda was not mollified. Sounding like the queen and not at all like his mother, she said coldly, “Do not make your misdeed worse by lying about it, Eustace. When the carol ends, go to your lord father and ask if you may withdraw. Then go to your bedchamber straightaway, and if you wake Will, you’ll have reason to rue it.”
Eustace started to argue, but then thought better of it. He was not a stupid child, and he well knew which of his parents could be gotten around, which one could not. Giving Constance a baleful glance that promised future retribution, he stalked off to do as his mother bade, and Matilda turned her efforts to comforting her daughter-in-law.
Constance was the older of the two children, eleven to Eustace’s ten, although none would have guessed it by appearance, for Eustace was a swaggering, handsome boy, as yellow-haired and bold as a Viking, tall for his age, and Constance’s fairness was ethereal, even fey. She had the flaxen hair and blue eyes and shy nature of her elder brother the French king. Like Louis, she yearned for approval, and like Louis, she could be surprisingly stubborn. But most of the time she was quite biddable, eager to do what was expected of her, fearful of disappointing…fearful, too, of Eustace.
They had been betrothed that past February, wed on the last Sunday before Advent. Constance would be raised at the English court, learning the customs and ways of her new homeland, and when she and Eustace were of an age to consummate their marriage, they would share a bed. It was a common arrangement, but Matilda was already uneasy, sensing that they were poorly matched, this little French fawn and her wolf-cub son.
It was not easy to admit, for Eustace was her flesh and blood and she did love him. For some time, though, she had been troubled by what she was seeing in her son. He had known how Constance had looked forward to this evening—a chance to attend the Christmas fête, to sit at the high table and take part in the carol and wear a grown-up gown of moss-green silk. In spoiling her pleasure, Eustace had been playing no mere prank; it was a meanspirited act, the act of a bully.
Matilda had tried at first to find mitigation for her son’s misbehavior, tried to convince herself that she was exaggerating the significance of his petty sins, sins common to all boys of spirit. But once her eyes were opened, she saw shadows at every turn. Her younger son had too many bruises; no child fell down that often. Four-year-old Mary had begun to shrink back whenever Eustace was nearby. Her own spaniel would not approach the boy, and Stephen’s favorite greyhound was equally wary. There was an awkward incident involving a one-legged beggar who claimed Eustace had stolen his crutch, an accusation he’d hastily retracted upon learning the boy’s identity. And then there was th
e day when Eustace was seen flinging a cat from an upper-story window. He’d been quite forthright when confronted, admitted the deed freely, explaining he wanted to see if the cat would land on its feet, as folklore held. But Matilda had been unable to repress a queasy suspicion that he’d hoped to see the cat splatter upon the hard ground below.
She did not want to bother Stephen; he had enough on his trencher as it was. After the cat episode, though, she felt she had no choice. Stephen hadn’t liked what he heard, and he’d given Eustace a stern lecture about the obligations of the highborn, the need to protect those too weak to protect themselves, the duties imposed by chivalry and Christianity, duties which no king’s son could shirk. Afterward, he’d assured Matilda that the lad was quite attentive and whilst denying any wrongdoing, promised to make them proud of him. Boys that age ofttimes went astray, it was to be expected, but they outgrew it, for certes he had.
Matilda very much wanted to believe him, but she could never imagine Stephen—no matter how young—tormenting small children or dumb animals. She no longer shared Stephen’s implicit faith that all would always turn out for the best, and she could not help asking unsettling questions. What if Eustace did not outgrow it? What sort of king would he make? What sort of husband?
She’d engaged a new nurse for her children, one who understood that her duties included a discreet surveillance. But Constance was another matter. If her suspicions about Eustace were correct, the girl’s marriage would be a wretched one. She’d become very fond of Constance, and it distressed her enormously to think of her vulnerable daughter-in-law wed to a brutal husband, and he her own son. Pray God she was wrong, that they had not done Constance a terrible injustice, for she did not believe a crown compensated for all of life’s maladies. She would have to teach the lass to speak up for herself, to show more backbone. A pity the child had not come under the sway of her brother’s wife, for no one would ever call Eleanor of Aquitaine docile or sweetly submissive.
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