Conquest II

by Tracey Warr

  ‘That Norman nobody? I expect he’s dead, don’t you?’

  The thought of Gerald lying dead and bloodied at Cenarth Bychan clutched at my heart but I kept my feelings from my face. He poured and held a beaker of wine out to me. I shook my head. ‘I will retire now.’

  ‘A pity,’ he said, but let me go.

  The following day we rode on further into the mountains. Owain gave me one of his tunics to wear over my shift and I cobbled together additional layers of wrappings for my children, but still neither I nor they were equipped for the cold ride and William and Maurice told me plaintively that they were hungry and freezing, whilst Henry gritted his teeth, suffering in silence. The soldiers muttered and I began to be alarmed at a growing sense that there was a lack of clear direction in Owain’s plan. To these soldiers my children were Norman whelps. The Normans had shown no mercy to the Welsh and these Welsh warriors in their turn had no compunction to do any differently. All that kept us safe for now was my status and the ransom value of the King’s son.

  ‘Where are we heading to?’ I asked Owain.

  ‘Into the mountains.’ His mood had turned sour with the increasingly bad weather. Snowflakes circled in the air and a bitter wind blew my hair into my eyes and pierced my cloak.

  ‘Is there another lodge ahead? A village?’

  ‘No questions!’ he said, kicking his horse on abruptly.

  We came to another abandoned-looking building just before dark, this one in an even more ramshackle condition than the first. The soldiers had just succeeded in getting the fire to take and were warming some meagre supplies and a few rabbits killed in the woods, when we all turned to the drumming of a fast rider approaching. The man, jumped from his horse at the doorway and spoke rapidly and low with Owain there. A few of the men close to Owain, who could hear the words of the rider, looked displeased and stared in my direction. I took a deep breath as Owain came towards me. ‘It seems that your husband, FitzWalter, lives. There was some uncertainty but it is confirmed now.’

  I nodded, showing no emotion, and seeing no indication on his face of what this might mean. I kept silent.

  ‘We have received a demand for your return and the return of your children,’ he said, turning away from me, speaking in a low voice, as if speaking to himself. He walked back to confer with his men.

  Although I could not hear what they said, their stances and the tones of their voices gave the impression that there was some dissatisfaction amongst them. I supposed that Owain had hoped that if Gerald had been killed in the attack, then he could take me as his wife, and the bards would sing of his prowess at besting the Normans, would make of us a new romance. What he had ever intended to do with my children, I could not think. It made no sense except to infuriate Gerald and the King and he surely had already succeeded in that. Although Henry was in Normandy he would soon know about our abduction and he would even now be giving orders for countermeasures. But would any of it be in time to save the lives of my children?

  ‘The oldest boy! The King’s son at least!’ I heard one of the men shout at Owain.

  I could stand the uncertainty no longer and I walked to the group of men, who turned to stare at me with hostility. ‘What is it that you intend? I demand to know.’

  ‘You demand!’ Owain began, exasperated.

  ‘Owain,’ the man who had shouted patted the air in a conciliatory fashion, and Owain nodded to him. ‘We are thinking to hand over the children in exchange for a ransom,’ the man told me. They were hoping to avoid severe repercussions, was more the truth of it. ‘An offer of ransom has been made.’

  ‘From whom? On what terms?’

  ‘Richard de Belmeis, King Henry’s bishop and sheriff, has sent word that you and the children should be handed over to the Norman castellan at Cardigan Castle and a handsome ransom is offered for you. They offer the exchange at a place not far from here at daybreak tomorrow.’

  ‘I didn’t do this for a ransom,’ Owain sneered. ‘I’m not a merchant. I’ll not lose face over it. I’d sooner hang them than return them.’ He turned his back and stalked off. Several of the younger men followed him. The man who had spoken to me shrugged and looked anxiously at the remaining men. I returned to comfort the boys and to feed Angharad, my mind whirring at what this meant and what I could do, trying not to panic at Owain’s threat. The older, wiser men, at least, knew that if any harm came to the King’s son, and indeed to the family of the castellan of Pembroke, the Norman retribution would be harsh.

  I set a sleeping Angharad down and told the boys to watch over her. I followed where I had seen Owain go and found him sitting alone in the cold hall at the long, scarred table. He was thumping his dagger repeatedly into the wood. He looked up at me, his eyes bleak. ‘Well?’

  ‘Will you accept this ransom offer tomorrow morning?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I took you and I will keep you.’

  ‘Will you let the children go to the castellan at least?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Is it worth the retribution that you will bring down on yourself, on your father’s kingdom?’

  ‘Keep silent. I have not asked for your counsel.’

  He was in a corner and he did not like it. It was not the outcome of his dashing raid that he had expected and now he sulked like a small boy who had not won a race. He threw the dagger from hand to hand, staring moodily at it. I could not leave the lives of my children in those hands.

  ‘If I submit to you, will you hand my children over to the Normans in the morning?’

  His hands stilled and he looked up at me. After a long moment of silence between us, he nodded his head.

  ‘Give me your word,’ I said, ‘that you will return them unharmed.’

  Lust hungered on his face, stopping his mouth. He nodded.

  ‘Speak it.’

  ‘I promise you, Nest. I promise you that I will return your children in the morning, unharmed. I promise you.’ He stood swiftly and gripped my arms, meaning to embrace me, but I pushed him forcefully from me.

  ‘No. Not now. When I see the children in the safekeeping of the castellan. I know his face.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said, his eyes intent, full of a suppressed triumph. I saw how he imagined that he could salvage something from this debacle, that he could bruit it about that the wife of the castellan of Pembroke, the Princess of Deheubarth, had given herself to him, how that would make him a hero in the eyes of the younger warriors.

  Early in the morning I roused the children. I sat and fed Angharad again, longing to keep her with me but Amelina would find a wet nurse and they would all be safer returned to Gerald. I thought of him kissing me playfully on the stairs at Gaer Penrhôs and wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. I tucked a brief note to Gerald inside Henry’s jerkin. ‘Give this to your father,’ I whispered in his ear. The short letter merely informed Gerald that I was well and glad Prince Owain had seen fit to grant my request and return our children to Pembroke. I could not run the risk of saying anything else that might jeopardise them if the note were discovered. I told them they were all going home to their father and I would follow soon.

  We rode downhill again and emerged at the edge of the trees where a small unit of Norman soldiers were camped waiting for us. With relief I recognised Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare, who commanded Cardigan Castle on the King’s behalf. My three little sons were deposited on the ground, ranged in front of the heavy Welsh warhorses, where they looked terribly small and vulnerable. I dismounted and carefully fitted Angharad to Henry’s arms and kissed the top of his head. He was not yet five years old and barely strong enough to hold her. ‘Walk carefully with her,’ I whispered to him.

  FitzRichard nodded to me, looking us over, seeing that we were all unharmed. He held up two bulging saddlebags and one of Owain’s warriors kicked his horse forward, took the saddlebags and returned to sling them across Owain’s pommel. We heard the chink of the coin within. ‘Only the c
hildren!’ Owain called to FitzRichard. ‘Princess Nest of Deheubarth has opted to remain with her kin and countrymen.’ FitzRichard looked at me in surprise but I kept my face expressionless. I saw him glance with uncertainty for a moment at little Henry. I knew that he would not risk the King’s son in a skirmish with Owain’s warriors. He nodded. I dipped my head and smiled encouragement to Henry and he stepped towards the Norman soldiers, holding his arms up awkwardly to keep his baby sister safe. His two brothers half-ran behind him, tripping on stones and over their own feet. Maurice, who was snivelling, looked back at me, and William dragged him by the arm to keep in step with Henry. I willed them on. Go, go! As they got close to the Normans, a hairy soldier jumped from his horse and took my daughter from Henry. ‘Don’t worry about the bairn,’ he yelled to me. ‘I’ve got three of my own.’ I bit my lip, my eyes and mouth clogging with tears.

  The children were lifted onto saddles and the horses wheeled away from me, with Henry bent round his saddle-companion to look back at me for as long as he could. I watched the road until the small cavalcade was no longer in sight. I turned back to Owain and a cloud passed over his face at something behind me. When I turned back to the road, I saw a messenger riding fast towards us. Owain took the scroll the messenger held out to him from the saddle. This messenger wore the blue griffin livery of Cadwgan. Owain read and frowned, turned his horse without speaking or glancing at me. Still clad in my nightgown, Owain’s tunic, and Gerald’s fur cloak I remounted and followed Owain.

  11

  Quandary

  In her cell at Fontevraud, Benedicta set a flame to the wick laid in a small ceramic lamp filled with fat. When the wick burned steadily, she hung the lamp from a metal stand on her desk. The puddle of light produced was restricted, but she needed only a small area of illumination for the blank parchment before her. The flickering pool of light she sat in seemed to turn the darkness beyond to a deeper shade of black, to conceal the edges of the room and her narrow bed in the corner, where her headveil and wimple lay discarded. Everything, she thought, narrows down to this. Me, my thoughts, this blank page.

  The study of Baudri’s poetry at the Countess’s court in Chartres and her own readings of Ovid’s works had piqued her interest. She thought she might try her hand at writing something herself. She picked up her quill and dipped it in the brown gall ink she had made for the library supplies and wrote at the top of the page,

  Under a waning gibbous moon,

  She had spent some time looking at the moon this evening, as she did most evenings as she walked back after the compline service. She thought of the moon’s shifts through its phases. Soon it would change to a waning crescent and then disappear altogether into black before emerging again with its waxing crescent, then waxing gibbous and then the splendour of the full moon. She thought of the full moon shining on leaves and grass, reflected over and over in the brook. She thought of Amaury de Montfort’s face.

  Benedicta shook her head. By what association? Why should she equate the full moon with him? The brilliant blond of his head perhaps. She frowned and returned to her poem. Under a waning gibbous moon. And now what? In the library, she had read about the Greek scholar, Pytheas, who claimed the ocean tides were controlled by the moon and she had studied a text by the Ancient Greek geographer, Strabon. He wrote that the sea swells with the rising moon and retreats with the declining moon. She pondered on the knowledge of flood-tides and ebbtides, which had been so important for survival in her time as a small girl in Flanders. Bede wrote that the tide ebbed because the moon blew on the water.

  It was hard to know the truth of the matter, she thought, but she had observed for herself the relentless to and fro of the waters, and the equally relentless roll of the moon from dark to light and back again. Now she imagined Amaury de Montfort lying on his back on a moonlit beach, rolling slowly onto one hip towards the sea to look at something before him. Was this a poetic metaphor that she should write down – moon – tide – Amaury?

  In her imagination, Amaury now had his back to her. Was he looking at the swelling waves that might rise and cover him, listening to the rattle of the brown and white pebbles as the sea dragged them intermittently back and forth, back and forth? She imagined moving closer to the prone man, curious to know what he saw. As she moved closer in her mind’s eye, she could see over his body, and she saw herself lying naked before him in the shelter of his broad back, the curve of his hip. She was the object of his gaze. Beyond her was the dark sea. ‘Oh!’ Benedicta put down her stylus, folded the parchment with its one paltry line of brown writing and stood up, looking desperately around her cell. Perhaps she should go out and walk before the midnight service, but perhaps she was moon-mad. Perhaps to expose herself to the moon would make matters worse. She was afraid to lie down on her pallet, afraid to close her eyes when even open they were determined to betray her.

  The refectory was noisy with the clatter of plates and the low hum of speech. Benedicta sat alone, not wishing to gossip or speak to anyone today. She was perplexed. She pondered her experiences of Countess Adela’s court where a woman exercised real power. Coupled with her experiences here at Fontevraud, where she saw the consequences of the injustices perpetrated against women, from the lowliest misused whore to the discarded noble wives, alongside the impressiveness of the rule of Prioress Petronilla and her staff of nuns – all these things gave her pause for thought. What was her own purpose? Her scope, her role? What could she achieve? The memory of her own naked, untouched body, reflected in the mirror at Chartres, floated into her mind. Unused and useless.

  Benedicta shook the memory from her head, told herself she felt some zeal for her task as spymistress for Countess Adela and King Henry. It was an honour that such illustrious people should invest their trust in her. She believed, from Haith’s accounts and her own observations, that Henry was a good King, was making all efforts to rule well for the people of England and Normandy. It felt good to have an endeavour that was necessary, that she could pursue with all her powers of observation and intellect. She must focus on that.

  ‘Come to see me when you finish eating, Sister,’ the Prioress told Benedicta at the morning meal. ‘There is a letter for you.’

  Benedicta smiled. It was likely from Orderic!

  ‘The monk who brought this says it is from the monastery at Ouches,’ Petronilla said, handing over the thickly wadded package to Benedicta and clearly curious about it.

  ‘Yes. Father Orderic there was confessor to myself and Abbess Emma when we stayed at Ouches, after the destruction of Almenêches. We were there for two years or more.’

  ‘Ah, yes. You keep in touch?’

  ‘Yes. He is a historian and we write occasionally to exchange views on our reading matter.’

  The Prioress clearly would have liked to be told more but Benedicta bobbed her head and left quickly, pushing Orderic’s package into the safety of the tight sleeve of her underdress. She walked briskly to the church for the terce service. After that she would have two hours before sext. Time enough. Leaving the church soon after, she made her way to the library and took Dudo’s book from the shelf, concealing that in the more copious sleeve of her habit, and hurried to her cell. She needed privacy for the job of deciphering. She broke the seal and unrolled the parchment, looking at Orderic’s spidery text tiptoeing many-legged across several sheets of parchment. Yes, he had understood her hint about the cipher. After an hour, she sat back from the labour of decoding and read Orderic’s answer through in full.

  Dearest Sister Benedicta,

  You pose an interesting question and I have enjoyed hunting down an answer for you. I do not ask your reasons for posing this question but entreat you to take care and always to guard your soul in your endeavours.

  I studied the genealogies and charters of the de Montfort family and know their history. The motives of men are never clear and straight but I hope that this answer will satisfy you. There are several grounds for enmity between these two men: King Henry
de Normandy and Lord Amaury de Montfort.

  First, they are close kin but in the eyes of Henry’s family this should not be the case. Amaury is cousin to Henry through his mother, Agnes d’Évreux, who was cousin to Henry’s father, Duke William (called The Conqueror or The Bastard, depending on your standpoint). Amaury’s mother was abducted and forced to marriage by his father, Simon de Montfort. Henry’s family continue infuriated at that and consider the de Montfort’s claim to kinship with them, therefore, in great disfavour. The de Montforts, on their part, argue that they are descended directly and legitimately from Rollo (although in truth, Rollo and his descendents of Northmen had so many concubines it is hard to see how anyone might claim such a thing), whereas Duke William was the illegitimate son of Duke Robert of Normandy. You see, we are already swimming in the murky waters of old resentments, dear Sister Benedicta, and we have not reached the current generation yet!

  Benedicta, leant back smiling to herself at Orderic’s voice that she heard so clearly in his letter.

  Second, When King Henry’s father, Duke William, invaded England and made himself king there, Amaury’s father was not amongst his supporters and so the family did not benefit, as so many other families did, from the invasion of my poor land.

  Benedicta frowned at Orderic’s own expression of alliances here. His mother was Saxon and his father a Norman clerk in the service of the Montgommery family, but he always thought of himself as English, as the underdog.

  Amaury’s father was one of the few Normans who gained no English lands and riches. I imagine there was some disgust at that.

  Third, the seigneurs of the castles of Montfort and Epernon, close to the border with the French king, were vassals of the de Beaumont family who, as you know, abandoned their own allegiance to the French king in favour of King Henry. This left Amaury with a difficult decision. To follow his overlord Robert de Beaumont (known also as de Meulan), to the English court – where the de Montforts had no lands but might gain some – or to break with his overlord and keep his allegiance to the French court – where his sister’s star was in the ascendant. Of course, he chose the latter, even though his sister’s course was so fraught and is now done, and all her great power as queen is fizzled out with the death of her paramour, King Philip. Now de Montfort has recently jilted de Beaumont’s daughter, Isabel, to whom he was betrothed long ago, and is negotiating a marriage to a princess of Hainaut so his alliances remain firmly this side of the English sea. And since that is so, he is a supporter of the dispossesed boy, William Clito, the son of the hapless former Duke of Normandy who languishes in King Henry’s prison. I hope you are still awake, Sister! And I hope these are reasons enough for your probing mind!