A Place Beyond Courage (63 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Chadwick

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical

BOOK: A Place Beyond Courage
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A bold speech. Here was the hostile resentment John had half expected from his son.
‘But then,’ Henk added, ‘I remind myself that even if a stoat is always a stoat, its colour changes in winter.’
‘Your point?’ John asked curtly, his arm still around William.
‘The stoat does so in order to survive and to fool its enemy. I see in you now what I did not see before because you hid it too well. For what it’s worth though, I tell you that you have already hammered out the best - and forged it in the fire.’
John gave him a sharp look, but found a mordant smile. ‘An apt comparison,’ he said. ‘And you are right. I couldn’t make this one over again.’
 
By the soft light of a ceramic candle torch, Sybilla looked down at William, slumbering on a pallet beside his older brother. John joined her, slipping his arm around her waist, and for a long moment they gazed in silence at the child-adult lying in the stead of the little boy they had given to Stephen, his wooden sword and shield propped at his bedside. Then before the light could disturb his sleep, Sybilla lit the way to their bed, set the torch in the canopy holder and drew the hangings fast around her and John.
‘He is changed, but in the way that a shoot grows stronger and becomes a sapling,’ she murmured as she unpinned her veil and removed her hair net. ‘He’s learned to hold things inside and to sit still and listen for a minute, and that is not all to the bad.’ Her tone was steady, although it took an effort. She was still reeling from the emotional impact of having William suddenly returned to them. From being half empty she was suddenly full to overflowing and striving to adjust.
John said nothing, his expression closed.
‘He is resilient, more so than us, my love.’ She set her hand over his and squeezed. ‘He doesn’t have guilt to deal with as we do.’
John looked down and linked his fingers through hers. ‘It was when he asked where Doublet was . . . Christ . . .’
‘Yes, it’s the small cuts that come the keenest.’ Her throat tightened. ‘He is past the time and age now to sit in my lap. Before he stood by my side as a small boy and held my hand. Now he’s taken steps away from me on the road to manhood. Someone else has had that part of his life and it will always be a hole within me.’ Through the threat of tears she forced a smile. ‘For him it’s different. He’s a hero home from adventuring - and ready to set out again come the dawn. I can see it in him.’
They finished undressing in silence. Beyond the bed curtains, one of the younger children whimpered in sleep and was soothed by the soft murmur of a nurse.
Sybilla prepared to snuff the torch, but John caught her back and drew her down to him. ‘Leave it,’ he said.
Sybilla leaned over him. The light fell upon the left side of his face and she traced the damage with gentle fingertips. The past was indelibly marked in the thick ridges of scar tissue, still anger-red. And contrasting with it, the fine-grained skin still taut to cheekbone and jaw. The straight nose, the firm mouth that had a soldier’s uncompromising line, yet could be as subtle as silk upon her skin. It was several weeks since Ancel’s birth and much longer than that since they had lain together. ‘John?’ she breathed as he bit down gently on her forefinger.
He reached to stroke her hair and, like his lips, the fingers that could grip and wield a sword to such devastating effect were now tender and slow-moving. ‘Comfort me,’ he entreated. ‘Make me believe this night is a new beginning and not the end.’
‘There has to be an end to what is begun,’ she whispered, her breath in his. ‘Surely you have the stamina to finish - and then start again.’
He laughed softly at the innuendo. ‘With you, yes. But . . .’
‘Then you believe already,’ she said, ‘but since there is still the matter of comfort . . .’ She kissed him. ‘Whatever happens, we’ll survive.’
Epilogue
 
April sunshine spilled across the grass in pale gold streamers of light. For the first time since winter, there was true warmth in the rays and the air had a balmy feel that said spring was finally here.
 
Holding his stallion’s bridle, John stood in the place where a year and a half ago a mass of siege tents had faced his keep at Newbury. There was nothing to show. The grass had grown back and sheep cropped the area. Most of the villagers were going about their normal business - relearning it after the years of uncertainty. A contingent of men, youths and small boys were busy at work on the keep. An ox team was hauling away timbers and the industrious sound of hammering and general demolition carried across the ditch to John.
William and his older brother ran across the grass, play-fighting with their swords. A black adolescent pup gambolled in their wake, trying to nip at their heels. John watched the older boy create unnecessary flourishes and the younger one go straight in with elegance and economy. Add that to the promise of height and strength and one day William was going to be utterly formidable. One day . . . John glanced uneasily at the patch of ground to his right where the gallows had stood. Nothing remained, but he could still feel the shadow of a life almost ended before it was begun - and at his behest.
Sybilla joined him, wrapping her arm around his. ‘It will soon all be gone,’ she said. ‘Every last timber and stone. In time even the memory will fade.’
‘I won’t be sorry,’ he said. ‘I am glad to set an example for the peace and see it torn down.’ It had been a relief to receive the joint command from Henry and Stephen to demolish Newbury. Almost as much of a relief as the permission to retain Ludgershall as it was, to remain castellan of Marlborough at least for now, and to keep for his lifetime the manors he held in royal demesne. His position as hereditary marshal had been confirmed. He was to sit at the exchequer in Westminster when the next session was held, and the cogs of organised government would begin to turn again in earnest. His eldest sons would come with him to court and learn the tasks and duties of the Marshalsea. His namesake would be trained in knighthood and governance so that he could take on the duties of Ludgershall and the lands his mother had brought to the marriage. And William . . . He watched the child stop on the perimeter of the ditch and stare up at the castle, then, with a joyful yell at the top of his lungs, leap down and begin scrambling up the other side, the pup striving at his heels. His older brother hesitated but after a moment followed.
‘He’s a natural leader,’ Sybilla said with pride in her voice. ‘And fearless.’
‘A woman at a fair once told me I would beget greatness, ’ John mused. ‘I thought she was a mad old hag in search of favour, but now I wonder if she was right. I feel that he is marked by fate.’
Sybilla shook her head. ‘Not so.’ She smiled at him. ‘Like his father, he will carve his own - they all will. Of that I am certain.’
Having gained the palisade at the top of the bank, William turned and waved to them.
‘You see,’ Sybilla said, her voice filled with strength and optimism. ‘This is a new beginning for all.’
He made an amused sound, but inside he was touched and proud . . . and a little humbled. In mutual companionship, they moved towards the diminishing remains of Newbury and let their mounts crop the fresh grass along the top of the ditch.
Author’s Note
 
While writing two novels about the life of the great William Marshal,
The Greatest Knight
and
The Scarlet Lion
, I had read about his father, John FitzGilbert the Marshal, as part of my research. I began to ponder upon the man who had fathered William and it wasn’t long before that pondering became a stronger notion that really he deserved a novel of his own.
 
John is, of course, notorious for that famous ‘anvils and hammers’ speech in
L’Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal
: ‘Mais ils dist ke ne li chaleit de l’enfant, quer encore aveit les enclumes e les marteals dun forgereit de plus beals.’ (‘He said that he didn’t care about the child because he still had the anvils and hammers to forge even finer ones.’) At first glance, it didn’t look promising as a character study - a father who could give up his son, watch him being led to the gibbet and speak of him with such indifference. Many people will have looked on John Marshal with disgust for those words and will have perhaps concluded that children in the twelfth century were an expendable commodity. However, there is much more to that speech and to John Marshal than meets the eye, and it was the story behind the story that I set out to tell.
The conventional sources show John as the senior royal marshal from the year 1130 when he would have been about twenty-five years old. His father, Gilbert, was the marshal before him. The pair of them had fought against two challengers in a public trial by combat to prove their right to the title some time before this, and had won. So John was not only an able administrator, but skilled in combat too. His duties as marshal were many and varied and included keeping order at court, organising transport and lodging when the court was on the move, responsibility for the royal kennels, stables and mews, keeping tallies of wages owed to the King’s mercenaries and taking custody of debtors at the exchequer. He was also responsible for the keeping and the regulation of the royal prostitutes. Later in his career, chroniclers would call him ‘cunning’ and marvel at his abilities as a builder of castles, a deviser of strategies and as a hard soldier in the field. The
Gesta Stephani
forthrightly calls him a ‘scion of hell and root of evil’ but, it has to be said, is somewhat biased in its reportage. It may just have something to do with his extracting tribute and labour from the Church lands within his jurisdiction, not to mention being a supporter of the Empress rather than Stephen for whom the
Gesta
has a bias.
In the twelfth century, aristocratic marriages were a matter of business. One looked for a partner with advantageous lands and prospects. Often there was strong competition for the most likely heirs and heiresses. Love and affection were bonuses and not part of the equation. When John FitzGilbert married Aline Pipard, he was doing the best he could for himself at that time in his career and with the resources available. Had the war between Stephen and Matilda not taken place, he would, in all probability, have lived out his life with her. However, desperate times call forth desperate measures. Faced with his eventual destruction at the hands of a more powerful enemy, John took the expedient of divorcing Aline and marrying into his opponent’s family. By doing this, John took the pressure off himself and his lands. The inheritance of his two sons by Aline Pipard remained stable and Aline herself was not disparaged when she remarried Stephen de Gai, uncle to the Earl of Gloucester. Had John not made the alliance with Patrick of Salisbury, it would almost certainly have led to his death and his sons, small boys at the time, would have been put in uncertain wardship. By making the new marriage, he stayed in control.
John’s stand at Wherwell Abbey is another incident in his life that is often remarked upon by historians. Versions of the event in primary sources are confusing, and in the secondary ones they are numerous, as everyone has an opinion on the subject. This being fiction, I have chosen to pick my way through the differing accounts in a way that best suits my narrative. One version (
L’Histoire
) suggests that the Empress was at Wherwell and that John was supervising her retreat. Another account says that she was nowhere near the abbey and that John was at Wherwell trying to get supplies through to Winchester when events overtook him. What is certain is that John lost an eye in an intense and literal firefight at the abbey with the men of Stephen’s mercenary captain William D’Ypres.
Coming to the famous and infamous events at Newbury, there is strong speculation that Newbury Castle was in fact Hamstead Marshal, which lies only four miles to the west of Newbury today. Archaeological digs in the Newbury area have yet to turn up any sign of a castle site. However, I have gone with the older traditional notion of there having been a castle at Newbury, although I have been deliberately vague about naming its site. Many of the castles from the troubled years of Stephen’s reign were temporary edifices, hastily thrown up to combat local threats or extend power bases. As soon as a peace was agreed, these ‘adulterine’ castles were ordered to be torn down. I suspect that if Newbury Castle did exist (which I like to think it did), it was one of these adulterine fortresses. It wouldn’t have stood for long - a couple of years at the most - and would therefore have left little mark on the landscape. I have said John was known as a man with a talent for castle-building, and therefore he must have been seen to be doing so. I suspect Newbury was one of his many projects.
Concerning John’s behaviour towards his small son William as a hostage, the evidence is interesting. Stephen is known by history to have been gentle and chivalrous towards women and children. John would have associated with Stephen at the court of Henry I when Stephen was still Count of Mortain. After Stephen became King, John served as his marshal for several years before their rift. He would have been well aware of Stephen’s nature and that knowledge would have lessened the gamble he took with William. While William was a hostage, a Marshal retainer was sent to the camp in secret with a brief to keep an eye on the little boy. I have called the servant Tamkin in the novel, although his name appears to have been ‘Wilikin’. This is purely in the interests of avoiding confusion with William, whom Stephen called ‘Willikin’ too. Sending a trusted servant to keep an eye on William is not the act of someone immersed in callous indifference. My own belief is that John found himself between a rock and a hard place and did the best he could in the circumstances. He had to act for the good of the majority.

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