Conquest II

by Tracey Warr

  I started as Gerald came up behind me, his arm snaking about my waist, and I quickly placed my hand on top of his to show that I wanted his arm there.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘Milking in progress but the goat had other plans?’ We turned at the sound of horses at the gate and watched Gruffudd returning from one of his barely concealed reconaissance forays. ‘There is bad news,’ Gruffudd shouted across the courtyard to us, although his excited expression belied his statement. Gerald and I waited for him to dismount and we all moved together to the hall.

  ‘Cadwgan has been killed by his nephew, Madog, at Welshpool,’ Gruffudd said, as soon as we were seated.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Gerald said. ‘He was a great and fair ruler.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, hanging my head and thinking of the elderly man who had been kind to me on several occasions.

  ‘King Henry has given the rule of Powys to Owain,’ Gruffudd said abruptly. I took in a sharp breath.

  ‘That is … surprising,’ Gerald said, and swiftly shifted the conversation elsewhere.

  What was Henry up to? Owain would give him and my husband trouble. Surely the King realised that. He could have given Powys to Owain’s uncle, Maredudd ap Bleddyn, who would have been a much safer ally. Now with Owain in power, Gruffudd would feel more encouraged to make the attempt for his own kingdom. I frowned, perplexed that I could not speak of it either to Gerald or Gruffudd without being disloyal to one or the other. That evening, when Gerald came to sit with me, I made a determined effort to get him to stay beyond a conversation, and this time my blandishments and affection were rewarded with a return from him. He spent that night with me, and I was glad to be close with him again at last. But when we lay on our backs afterwards, our legs and fingers twined around one another’s, staring at the waving reflections of moonlight on the water projected onto the ceiling, I knew that we were both thinking of Owain and Gruffudd and that there could be no speech of it between us.

  18

  Black-clad Life

  ‘I had looked out upon the wide kingdoms of the Earth as if I were caught up in ecstasy, flying far and wide through words …. Now, however, I will return exhausted to my black-clad life.’ Benedicta read Father Orderic’s words aloud and looked up at him, her brown eyes brimming with pleasure. She put the parchment down so that she could bring her hands together to emphasise how much she enjoyed his writing. Orderic was pleased with her response and modestly tried to suppress the smile of satisfaction that crinkled the corners of his mouth. His tonsure ringed his bald pate in a narrow band, his eyes were rather close together, and he had large ears that stuck out from a long face. His thin neck rose exposed from his cowl, and Benedicta noted that one side of his chin was rather badly shaved. Orderic was no beauty on the outside, but he was all beauty inside, she considered, as she contemplated her friend.

  ‘I would not wish to complain of my own “black-clad life”,’ Benedicta said. ‘After all, I have seen a little more of the world than most other nuns. Yet there are areas of life, of experience, that are closed off to me.’

  Orderic nodded. Like her, Orderic had come to monastic life as an oblate, as a young child.

  ‘I wonder if I might speak with you, Father, about a matter that is troubling me?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Orderic stuttered, a look of mild alarm entering his expression.

  Benedicta had arrived at Ouches in February in King Henry’s entourage. The King required her to stay in the monastery guesthouse whilst he went to Alençon to meet with the Count of Anjou, saying that he would have need of her. Benedicta acknowledged the King’s order and wrote again to tell Abbess Emma at Almenêches of the continuing delay in her return. She was not sorry to spend more time in the company of Orderic.

  When Haith came to visit her, she asked him to explain the King’s command. ‘Why does he have need of me? Do you know?’

  ‘Henry wants to betroth his heir, William Adelin, to the daughter of the Count of Anjou. He has opened negotiations to make it happen.’

  ‘But how will I assist?’

  ‘The child, the Count’s daughter, will come to Henry’s court in England to be educated, and to learn the language and her duties under the tutelage of the Queen. She is a mere two years old.’

  ‘She travels with a nurse, surely? With her own entourage of servants?’

  ‘Yes, certainly, but most of them are also unable to speak English or to read and write. I persuaded Henry it would be wise to place you with the princess’s household.’

  Benedicta grinned at her brother. She had learnt a little English from his letters but she was by no means an expert in that tongue. Yet. She could learn it. ‘Well, that is a delight! So, am I to go to England then?’

  ‘Perhaps! We’ll see. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have to see if Fulk d’Anjou will actually stand up to his promise and hand over his daughter and her dowry.’

  Henry and Haith set off to Alençon to meet with the party of Count Fulk and Benedicta waited for news. King Henry had emerged the victor in the recent struggles against King Louis, the Count of Anjou, and the rebel Norman lords, including Amaury de Montfort. Fulk d’Anjou had given homage to Henry for the county of Maine and Louis had agreed to Henry’s dominion over Bellême, Maine, and Brittany. Henry, on his part, had ceded nothing, and had still evaded giving King Louis homage for the Duchy of Normandy. The French king had lost substantial ground to the English king in this conflict.

  Benedicta scraped at the residual hairiness on the parchment she was preparing for Orderic. She had shivered with Orderic through the cold winter, as they wrote side by side in the cloister, but now early flowers were trying to bloom, shoots were appearing in the herb garden, and spring was on its way. Benedicta had been able to give Orderic some scribing assistance in his work on the history of the Normans. The monastery of Ouches was on a small river called the Charentonne, isolated in a tangled forest on Normandy’s southern march, and not so far from Almenêches. She went walking with Orderic in the forest collecting materials for their inks and seeing sometimes a silvan landscape, sometimes the choking smoke of charcoal burners and iron-ore miners. At the edge of the forest they looked out on a group of peasants at work in the fields making ditches and repairing the fences.

  ‘What is it you wish to speak to me about, Sister?’ Orderic asked, his cheeks tinged a little pink. ‘I am not accustomed to taking confessions from female religious persons,’ he warned. ‘You might be wiser to consult with another priest.’ Orderic’s long pale face was inscribed with two lines on his cheeks, formed by worry or concentration. His head, ringed by his tonsure, was so white it looked as if it might be possible to see through to his brain beneath.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Father,’ Benedicta interrupted. ‘I don’t have a problem with my black-clad life in that way. I would far rather spend time with a good book than a bad man.’ Benedicta’s laughed at her own joke, and crossed her fingers at her lie.

  ‘Oh!’ Orderic blushed a deeper shade of pink.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s spying that worries me and I needed to speak with you about it.’

  ‘Spying!’

  ‘Yes. I have been so employed by the King and Countess Adela. I passed information to them that I overheard concerning the King’s enemies.’

  Orderic frowned. ‘But this is loyalty rather than spying surely. You are safeguarding the realm.’

  Benedicta sighed. ‘I wish it were that simple. I wish I were as innocent as you are, Father. I fear I have lost my brother’s good opinion as a consequence of my actions.’

  ‘Speak honestly with your brother. If you have lost his good opinion, you will regain it with honesty, for he loves you and you cannot lose that.’

  Benedicta swallowed, hoping that Orderic was right.

  ‘Perhaps, Sister, it is not only your anxiety about the honourableness or no of spying, or your fears for your brother’s affection that concern you.’

  Benedicta stared at
him. He could not know about Amaury. Nobody knew. She hardly believed that it had happened herself.

  ‘You have an enquiring mind, Sister,’ Orderic said, tentatively, searching her face to see if he should continue. ‘A thirst for venturing, even.’

  Benedicta nodded, relieved. If it was just that he saw in her face, she was safe. ‘I am nosy, you mean?’ she laughed.

  ‘Curious and adventurous, yes,’ he said. He looked into her face some more. ‘The religious life is not for everyone, Sister. It is possible to be pious also as a layman or laywoman.’

  ‘I know that, Father.’ Benedicta frowned.

  ‘To leave the monk’s or nun’s habit is not to leave God,’ Orderic said, looking meaningfully into her eyes. ‘Each must find their own path to heaven in life.’

  ‘I … I have no thought of that, Father.’

  He nodded slowly and turned their talk to the book she was currently reading.

  In March, the King and Haith returned to leave the small Angevin princess and her household at Ouches. The King was evidently very pleased with the progress of his negotiations. The Count of Anjou had dowered the child with Maine, so at last that territory had been returned to Henry, and he was always happy to win lands by marriage rather than by war. The King and Haith rode out on campaign again to besiege the castle of Bellême, where the garrison was holding out against the King.

  Benedicta diligently spent a few hours each day with the tiny princess and her nurse. The girl was known as Mahaut and had great brown eyes and glossy brown curls. She was Bertrade’s granddaughter and kin to Amaury, and Benedicta could see something of their looks in the girl’s small face. She was an affectionate child but there was little that Benedicta could do as a tutor with a pupil so young. The nurse herself had no capacity for learning, and the two ladies accompanying Mahaut seemed horrified at the notion that they should either read dusty tomes or learn the gruesome language of English.

  Benedicta received a letter from Sister Genevieve telling her that Bertrade had left Fontevraud and was on her way to her own new abbey in Haute-Bruyères. She received a second piece of news with great sorrow. Abbess Emma de Montgommery had died at Almenêches. Benedicta wished that she had been with the Abbess at the end, had spent more time with her. She felt no especial pull now to return to Almenêches, and with Bertrade gone from Fontevraud and Bellême incarcerated, Countess Adela had no reason to send her back to Fontevraud either. Benedicta found herself both aimless and homeless.

  19

  London

  Benedicta hugged little Mahaut to her, keeping them both warm in the fresh sea breeze. Although the boat rode up and down steep waves, Benedicta was enjoying the sea journey and did not feel at all sick. It must be her Fleming blood. Every Fleming, Frisian or Netherlander had reason to feel they were acquaintanced with the sea. They lived half their lives in it up to the knees, if not the neck. The Normans too had grown accustomed to traversing a transmarine domain. The sea was at the centre of the Norman lands rather than at its edges.

  Haith bent to her. ‘Are you feeling ill, Benedicta? The child is well?’

  ‘I feel fine, Haith, truly. And Princess Mahaut is also well, aren’t you?’ She tickled Mahaut beneath her ear where it made her giggle. Benedicta was very fond of Mahaut, but she could not say the same for the child’s affianced husband. Prince William Adelin was a spoilt, over-indulged boy, very different in character from his father. ‘Is he like his mother in character?’ Benedicta whispered to Haith.

  ‘Not at all,’ Haith whispered back. ‘The Queen is pious, cultured and static.’

  Benedicta laughed. ‘You and your pronouncements, Haith! What do you mean, static?’

  ‘If the Queen can remain in her chambers, excepting to go to mass, then she is happy. She has no desire for more.’

  ‘If I had her wealth and freedoms,’ Benedicta said, ‘I would ride all over the kingdom, looking about me.’

  ‘I know it!’ Haith said, casting his eyes to the sky and throwing his long arms up in the air.

  King Henry’s truce with the Count of Anjou had led to a cascade of other reconciliations. Amaury de Montfort, the Count of Évreux, and his Countess Helwise were all pardoned for their revolt. Benedicta was glad for Amaury’s sake. Henry and King Louis of France met for peace talks near Gisors and Henry agreed that his son, William Adelin, would do homage to Louis for Normandy, Maine and Brittany. Henry had won out and cut the ground from beneath his enemies.

  Orderic had written that King Henry’s fame flew through the four parts of the world, and Benedicta observed for herself that although the King certainly indulged his two great passions for women and hunting, he had a third passion and that was his work, his duty as king. His drive to enact his dominion, to set all to rights, set him apart from – and above, Benedicta considered – his two older brothers. The eldest, Robert, the former Duke of Normandy, had been a brave fighter and crusader but, all said, he was too indolent, too forgiving, to govern the unruly Normans, who required an iron fist. Henry’s other older brother, William Rufus, had inherited the military zest of their father William the Conqueror, but Rufus was not interested in reaching peace with anyone, or in the administration of peace. Until his untimely death, Rufus had been happy to be perpetually at war. King Henry, on the other hand, curbed his capricious fellow Normans and sought peaceful resolutions. Benedicta still felt rather awed in his presence. There were aspects about the King, this great friend of her brother, which she was growing to like and admire. In turn, that made her feel a little better about her spyings and lyings.

  After the ship docked at the English port, they rode to Winchester, where they stayed for one night and then they travelled on to London. Haith, Mahaut and Benedicta were to be accommodated in one of the King’s fine townhouses, which fronted onto the river Thames. The ladies of Mahaut’s household were used to the life of a great city, having grown up in Angers, but everything around her was a wonder to Benedicta. The King did not delay long in London, pausing a few days only to greet the Queen and then he travelled north on business, leaving Benedicta’s brother with her for a while.

  Mahaut’s ladies, like the Queen, were happy to stay sewing and gossiping, finding out everything they could about the community in their new home. They made it plain that they had little interest in Benedicta’s teaching and could see no point in becoming mistresses of Latin verse and literature. They were sceptical of Benedicta’s value to their charge. ‘The Princess Mahaut’s business, Sister Benedicta,’ they said, ‘unlike yours, is to make babies and we assure you she will know how to do that when the time comes.’

  Since there was little demand on her educative skills, after a few hours reading and writing each morning with Mahaut, she left the child in the Queen’s chambers and travelled about the city instead, with Haith, as he went about his business. The King had allowed a palfrey for her use, and a river boat – as if she were a lady.

  At Michaelmas, the great bell of Saint Paul’s was ringing to call the citizens for the thrice-yearly Folkmoot. The citizens of London elected a sheriff and Haith had been proposed. ‘I won’t win. Not any chance,’ he told her, but she waited at the townhouse, hopeful, to hear the outcome, pacing up and down, kicking her habit forward with each step, watching her crucifix on its long strand of beads swing back and forth.

  At last, Benedicta heard Haith at the door and stepped into the corridor to see him hanging his cloak on a peg. ‘Sheriff Haith de Bruges?’

  ‘No,’ he smiled wryly. ‘I told you, won’t win. London not keen on Flemings.’

  ‘Why not? You are a good, honest, hardworking man,’ she said, indignant.

  ‘Easiest to show you.’ He reached again for his cloak and plucked hers from its peg. He had bought the cloak for her when they arrived in London, saying her old mantle was shabby and threadbare. This dark blue cloak was a very fine one, too fine for a nun, Benedicta considered, but she slung it around her shoulders nonetheless, admiring every time the heft and hang of it, t
he intricate embroiderery around the clasp.

  The King’s house where they stayed was on Knichtrider Street, not far from the river, and in view of Baynard’s Castle. Benedicta’s nose was constantly assaulted by the scents of Saint Paul’s bakery and the hops in the brewery. She glanced guiltily at Baynard’s Castle as they passed. Her treacherous eavesdropping had deprived the Baynard family of it. As Father Orderic had advised her, she decided to speak with Haith about her sense of guilt.

  ‘Don’t feel that, Benedicta. If we had not discovered Baynard’s treachery in time, it could have been disastrous for Henry. If Bellême, de Montfort and William Clito had mounted an invasion of England, then London could have easily been turned to their support and all would have been lost.’

  She felt a little comforted by that.

  ‘You need to realise what service you have done for King Henry, Benedicta.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps, but there is no threat of invasion.’

  ‘No, but there could be. Henry is a great King because he is never complacent.’

  Haith led her down to Dowgate, where an important shipment of luxury goods was coming in. The ship’s arrival was being overseen by the incumbent sheriff who ensured order and proper procedure. First, the King’s chamberlain arrived to deal with the shipowner to see what was on offer that might be needed in the King’s household. After him came the merchants of London. ‘Now, see, here are the merchants from Oxford coming next,’ Haith told her, ‘and after that the men of Winchester. And last of all the foreign traders. Foreigners like you and me!’ After watching the trading and order of things, Haith led Benedicta to the nearby cookshop, at Vintry, to get venison pies. Benedicta knew that she would never go hungry in his company. Haith was always hungry. ‘Long limbs!’ he laughed when she teased him about it. ‘Big brains!’ he said, touching her head. They sat together eating, watching the river. Benedicta would not have imagined, a few years ago, sitting in her cloister, that they could be so reunited, and here, so far from Almenêches. ‘Are you missing your nunnery?’ Haith asked her.