A Place Beyond Courage (61 page)
Henry was frowning towards Stephen’s army massed on the far side of the river. ‘If not a fight, then we must have a decisive peace,’ he said, tight-lipped. ‘I will not ride away with a piddling broken-backed truce between us. I would rather fight single-handed to the death than come away from this with nothing.’
‘Then it has to be peace, sire,’ John said.
‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ Patrick scoffed.
John slid his brother-in-law an irritated look. ‘I made the choice to have peace with you,’ he said.
‘Hah, that was Gloucester’s idea!’
‘Was it?’ John raised his brows, and turned his focus back to Henry. ‘Unless we are assured of victory today, sire, we cannot afford to fight - nor can they. The only way they will give battle is if Eustace forces the issue, but Leicester won’t follow him, nor will Arundel.’
Henry pursed his lips. ‘And how many would follow me, I wonder?’ He glanced over his shoulder at his assembled ranks. ‘Very well. Let’s see if we can run with a parley.’ He turned to his uncle, Reginald of Cornwall. ‘Go to the bridge under flag of truce with my lord of Gloucester and the marshal. Let Stephen take down his siege castles and depart from Wallingford, and I will withdraw from our entrenchments, but only if the King is willing to sit down with me and discuss a lasting alternative that will bring true peace to the land.’
‘You were right, boy,’ Henk said to William. ‘There won’t be a battle today - praise God. The lords have spoken between themselves and now Duke Henry and the King are talking.’ He made a face as he threw down his lance and shield beside the baggage cart. ‘No one wants to push his luck and I don’t blame them. Course,’ he added, ‘there might be a battle between the King and his son. Can’t see the lord Eustace going anywhere near peace talks with the man he’s been trying to kill for the past several years.’ He sat down by the edge of the cartwheel and took the horn of ale that Mariette gave to him.
‘Well, hasn’t Stephen been trying to kill Henry too?’ Mariette asked.
‘No, just shed him off his back like a burden.’ Henk took a swallow of the ale and looked at William. ‘Saw your father though.’
‘Where?’ William looked at him with anxious curiosity.
‘On the bridge with a passel of other nobles before the King and the Duke came out to talk alone. Had his arm in a sling but it obviously wasn’t a serious injury.’
Henk swilled down the rest of the ale. ‘So that says something to me when a man the likes of your father, who’s done what he’s done to keep on fighting, suddenly comes forth to stand in no man’s land and talk terms - eh?’
William nodded. He wasn’t quite sure about the meaning of Henk’s words, and he didn’t like to think of his father being wounded, but at least he was all right. Perhaps he was meeting on the bridge to negotiate for William’s return.
‘So, are we staying, or are we going?’ Mariette asked.
‘How should I know, woman?’ Henk flashed her an irascible look. ‘All I can say is that unless matters change in a moment, we won’t be fighting.’
‘Might as well eat then.’ Mariette went to fetch food from the back of the cart. William had been thinking about going back to the King’s baggage train, perhaps via a quick look at the front ranks to see if his father was still there, but decided to eat first. Mariette gave him bread and honey and a handful of early blackberries that she had plucked from a hedgerow.
William saved a piece of bread for his pony and was feeding it to him when shouting and the sudden thunder of hooves made him look up. Henk snatched his spear and shield from beside the cart and strode to William’s side.
It was Eustace and his personal conroi. William watched the powerful roan stallion thunder down the pathway between the baggage tents, nostrils flaring red, mouth open against the bit. Eustace had spurred it so hard that there was a bleeding gouge on its flank. They were past in a flash, but William still had time to see that Eustace was very angry about something. He was so furious that he was ahead of his banner-bearer who was struggling to keep up.
‘Hah, that answers it!’ Henk laid down his weapons again. ‘It’s peace then.’
William wasn’t sure he understood Henk, except that the word ‘peace’ might mean he was able to go home. Tentatively he voiced the notion as folk from the baggage section gathered to stand in Eustace’s dust trail and watch the King’s son gallop out.
Henk laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. ‘I reckon you’ll have to be patient a while longer, lad,’ he said gently. ‘We’re not there yet, not by a long way.’
Unable to use his left arm, John had to mount his courser from the right-hand side, which proved awkward but manageable with the aid of a mounting block. All around him other lords were assembling their men and their baggage, preparing to move out as the sun rose above the eastern horizon.
Stephen’s army had departed the previous night. In this morning’s dawn, all that remained was a detail of mercenaries and labourers, demolishing the siege towers at Crowmarsh. Supplies had been allowed into the beleaguered garrison at Wallingford and as Stephen’s forces left, an almighty roar had swept from the walls to the Angevin army below.
Henry and Stephen had agreed a truce and, more than that, had agreed to meet and begin detailed peace discussions. It didn’t mean that the struggle had stopped. The truce was fragile and was certain to be broken in places, but still there was optimism in the air - like the first awareness of returning light after a long winter. Precarious, cold and wan, but alleviating the darkness.
‘Do you think it will last?’
John’s lips thinned with irritation. Patrick had come up on his blind left side where he was further incapacitated by the injured clavicle. He suspected it was deliberate but forced himself to be civil. Awkwardly turning the horse using his right hand, he faced his brother-in-law. ‘It will last providing we are resolved not to let it falter.’ He pointed towards the siege works. ‘That has to be a sign of commitment. Could you imagine this happening last year?’
Patrick looked. ‘No,’ he agreed.
‘Last year I was under siege at Newbury and Stephen was determined to bring down Wallingford whatever the cost. Now what was the prize is no longer worth it. Men want peace now, not when they are laid in their graves.’
‘Amen to that.’ Patrick crossed himself. ‘What about Eustace though? He’s not for a settlement.’
‘He’ll have to be in the end. He can’t hold out against everyone.’
Patrick tugged on his moustaches. He had started cultivating them in imitation of Ranulf of Chester’s magnificent set of whiskers but with less success. ‘His father will be stubborn about yielding up Eustace’s right to be King. It won’t be easy.’
‘He’ll do it though. He has no choice.’ John looked at Patrick. ‘What won’t be easy is deciding who has what. Lands have changed ownership throughout the war. Men have had titles confirmed by one side and not the other. You were made Earl of Salisbury by the Empress, not Stephen.’ He didn’t add that as marshal to Stephen he had never been replaced and that his own position was currently more secure than Patrick’s. So much was obvious without rubbing it in. If peace was made, then the exchequer would resume its routine business and he would be a vital part of it.
Patrick bristled. His stallion side-stepped and bucked, responding to his increased tension. ‘But I will be confirmed,’ he said forcefully.
John dipped his head. ‘I have no doubt of it, but there are others in similar positions who are going to be disappointed and will have to make compromises. Some men have become too powerful in their small domains. There will also have to be agreement whereby adulterine fortifications are torn down or put into royal hands.’
Patrick gave him a sly glance. ‘Well, that would include Newbury,’ he said.
John studied the reins. ‘If it does, it does. After the pounding it took there’s not much of it left anyway.’
‘And Ludgershall?’
He refused to rise to the bait. ‘It’s pointless speculating. Once we sit down to hammer out a truce, then we’ll decide.’ He looked again towards the siege castles on the Crowmarsh bank. He hadn’t seen William yesterday, although he had hoped for a glimpse. There had been several youngsters running around Stephen’s camp as they made ready to leave. Any of them could have been William; he had been unable to tell from a distance. It would have been too easy to fix on one and comfort himself by pretending he recognised him. Besides, even at this stage it would be dangerous to show too much interest in his son’s wellbeing before men of whose motives he was not sure.
‘Hah,’ he said to his horse, digging in his heels. Mercifully Patrick didn’t follow him.
49
Marlborough, Wiltshire, August 1153
John crouched by the low mound of dark earth in the corner of Marlborough’s bailey. It was a sunny spot where Doublet had been wont to sit on a summer’s day, a marrow bone grasped between her forepaws as she rasped and gnawed at the contents. She had been a pup the year he defied Stephen. Fourteen years. A long life for a dog of her kind. ‘She was the best,’ he said. ‘There won’t be another like her.’
Sybilla touched his arm. ‘No,’ she agreed, not attempting to offer him platitudes. ‘There won’t.’
He rose to his feet. He had arrived home at dusk yesterday evening, and when Doublet had not hobbled to greet him, he had known with a pang of deep sadness that she was dead. Old and stiff as she was, her sudden departure in his absence had caught him off his guard. The other dogs had wagged to meet him, including three generations of her line, but it wasn’t the same.
Margaret had laid a bunch of daisies on the grave together with a smooth stick of just the right size from a beech tree near the river. Her solemn gravitas was both touching and amusing, and he gently stroked her brown curls. Stuck in an army camp, forced to fight and discuss war and strategy day upon day upon day, he missed the tenderness of women in his life. Whores and washerwomen performed their functions, but it wasn’t the same as being embraced by the joy and warmth of family. Sybilla was in the eighth month of her pregnancy and he had felt the baby in her womb throb and kick against the palm of his hand as they had lain in bed last night. Another boy, she said. Pray God for peace and a whole family by the time he was old enough to speak his first words.
They were returning to the keep, Sybilla’s arm through his and Margaret skipping in front of them, when a messenger galloped through the gate, flinging down from the saddle even as he slewed to a halt. Sybilla’s grip tightened and John’s stomach somersaulted. He braced himself to withstand yet another blow.
‘My lord, Eustace, Count of Boulogne, is dead!’ the man gasped as he bowed. ‘In Cambridge, at the hand of Saint Edmund!’ He crossed himself.
John stared.
Dead? Eustace was dead?
The notion was as impossible to grasp as a wet eel.
Dead? Eustace was dead?
The notion was as impossible to grasp as a wet eel.
‘He raided the monastery at Bury and took away all the food in the monks’ cellar for himself. When he sat down to dine on it, he suffered a seizure and died. Everyone said it was the wrath of the saint.’
Sybilla gave a shiver and crossed herself. John refused to be superstitious and didn’t.
‘They’re bearing him to Faversham to lay him beside his lady mother. I’ve to carry the tidings to Salisbury next.’
Sybilla rallied and told the man to water his horse and go to the kitchens for bread and ale before he rode on. John gave him a silver penny for the news.
‘Very fortuitous,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Very fortuitous indeed.’
Sybilla gave him a quick look. ‘You think he was poisoned?’
‘It’s as likely as falling victim to the wrath of a saint. I do not suppose men will investigate too closely . . . they didn’t when old King Henry died.’ He turned towards the keep. ‘People will also say it’s a sign that God favours the old King’s grandson for the crown.’ He slipped his arm lightly around Sybilla’s waist. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘in the light of what we’ve just heard, we might consider returning to Hamstead for your confinement.’
William lay on his pallet in the squires’ tent and fidgeted. It was very late but he had left his toy sword in the King’s pavilion and he knew he’d never be able to sleep unless he had it by his side. It made him feel safe and grown up, and pretending to be the latter helped him cope with all the bewildering things that were happening around him. There was supposed to be a truce, but even so, the fighting hadn’t stopped. King Stephen and Duke Henry had just agreed to stay away from each other while their representatives held talks. Henk had told him that Henry was besieging somewhere called Stamford, and King Stephen wanted to teach Hugh Bigod of Norfolk a lesson and had brought his army to Ipswich. A lot of his earls had gone home, but Henk and the other mercenaries were still with him.
The other boys were all asleep. William pushed off his blanket and eased his feet into his shoes. Throwing his mantle over his chemise, he felt his way to the tent flap, the excuse ready on his tongue, should he be stopped, that he needed a piss. Outside the guards clustered around their camp fires, talking, mending their equipment, making music. Here and there the higher voice of a woman lifted on the air, and the occasional raucous laugh. William slipped silently between the tents, pretending he was Lion. No one ever heard a hunting cat on the prowl.
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