Ann of Cambray (26 page)

‘He was a man of sense,’ Lord Raoul said. ‘All men of sense must deplore what civil war will bring.’

‘But not ambitious men,’ my uncle said. ‘They welcome it.’ They looked at each other, not needing me now, speaking to each other face to face.

Suddenly Raoul smiled and stretched out his hand.

‘Men of good sense are many years in the making,’ he said. ‘My lord, I am young, but I know a man of sense when I see one.’

My uncle grasped his hand in his great paw. ‘Then hope I to know one in the making,’ he said, and he too smiled, showing all his ill-formed teeth. He gestured to his men, who moved forward, their cloaks hanging to their heels. Outside in the warm sunlight, they swung themselves up into the saddles of their small ponies, not in the Norman way of Raoul and his men, who had to manage shield and sword and were weighed down with a mail coat about their knees, and who rode stiff legged in their high saddles as if standing upright. These horses were so small that if Raoul had ridden Norman style, he would have trailed his legs upon the ground. Yet my uncle did not look so misplaced, for all that.

On an impulse, I stepped forward and curtsied, holding out to him some of the flowers that had been wound into my hair.

He took them without speaking at first, the lines upon his dark skin showing deeper in the sun.

‘Daughter of my sister,’ he said at last, ‘who was the light of our threshold, why stayed you away so long from us? I came to see for myself that you lived, that you were who you claim to be. For all my previous doubts, I see my sister alive before me again. What news shall I give your kinsfolk?’

‘My uncle,’ I said, ‘tell them that I have been growing under wardship to the Lord of Sedgemont in his care, as was right and fitting. Now am I come to get Cambray, as also is right. Tell them that I am well, and that I await them here.’ Again I heard Raoul let out his breath. My uncle nodded, saluted, wrapped his cloak and reins around his right arm, and trotted off, a small shapeless bundle followed by his men. At the main gates, his footmen, who had been crouching in the grass, leaped to their feet and ran beside him towards the open moors.

We waited until they had disappeared over the crest of the hill. Then Lord Raoul turned to me. Before all his men, he put his hands about my waist, lifting me from the ground to swing me up.

‘Now, by my troth,’ he said, ‘that was well done,
ma mie.’
And he kissed me full upon the lips.

He set me down hastily and turned to the others, drawing his lords apart.

Before I had left them they were already discussing, explaining, assessing what had been done, what achieved. I walked slowly away, my women a distance off, and wandered towards the first embankment, the one I had burst through on horseback how many weeks ago now? It was already spring, and I had scarcely noticed, one of those spring days when the sky is so pale blue it seems to shine with a light of its own. I sat among the grasses at the foot of the great bank, wondering, as I always did whenever I passed by, what manner of men had first thrown it up, and why; twined flowers that grew there into garlands; presently, not thinking, simply sitting and waiting. But the day had already paled, the smoke of the campfires darkened the pale blue, the wind grown chill, before he came.

‘Come, Lady Ann,’ he said, ‘your hand. Walk awhile beside me here.’

He helped me to my feet, then paced beside me, forgetting sometimes to match his steps with mine, so that before long I was hard put to keep up with him.

‘That kinsman of yours,’ he said abruptly, ‘this uncle. What do you remember of him?’

‘I recall many things,’ I said, ‘simply, none clear. I would not have remembered him if you had asked me. Seeing him, I think I do.’

‘And his standing?’ he said.

‘Standing?’ I asked. ‘He is a great lord. My mother was a princess of their race.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, almost impatiently, ‘they are all great princes. But privy to what master then? Who serves he?’

‘I do not know,’ I said. ‘Whoever are highest in these parts.’

He made a gesture. ‘And who are they?’ he said. ‘They change from day to day.’

‘No different then from your Norman kings,’ I said.

He smiled down at me and bade me walk on. I watched him now as we went. It suddenly seemed to me that although this was the time of day when the work was done, all was still confused about us. The great gates were not yet closed. Even as I looked, I saw men gallop out. And Lord Raoul himself: I did not remember he wore his mail coat beneath his robe before, or that he had his spurs upon his heels, or fingered his dagger hilt so as he walked.

‘It is good news then, my lord,’ I said.

‘Aye,’ he said, not listening to me, watching in his turn. ‘Those horses are too close tethered,’ he bawled out suddenly, leaning over the bank. The men below scurried to obey.

‘You do not expect treachery, my lord?’ I asked at last.

‘I do not expect anything,’ he said. ‘The work today was well done. Now comes the night. One must be prepared.’ 

‘My uncle came in good faith,’ I said hotly. ‘You told me there was no trap.’

‘Yes,’ said Raoul. ‘For all our flattery of each other, I believe he is a man of sense. But he also spoke the truth in this: he is but one among many. He made no promises on others’ behalf. What he tells me, and how they respond, is in God’s hands. But he has also seen how we are deployed, our strengths, our weaknesses.’

‘You did not have to let him come into your camp if you feared him,’ I cried angrily.

‘That also is true,’ he said, ‘but then he might not have come at all. One plays one chance against another, sets one thing against the opposite. That is the way of the world.’ 

‘Not mine,’ I said. ‘Does it not tire you, my lord, always outguessing your friends and foes?’

The scorn in my voice must have touched some nerve. ‘I have long been used to it,’ he said shortly.

‘So you said once before,’ I said.

‘I also told you,’ he said, ‘if you but remember, that although we may scheme and plan, events outside our control are not so nice as to wait upon our ordering.’

‘I remember many things,’ I said, ‘including that you have had your enemy within your grasp and let him go.’

‘Where heard you news such as that?’ he said, coming to full stop. ‘Not at my table or in my camp. But if you mean that Henry of Anjou escaped from us, that I would not argue with. But I did not let him go.’

It was a distinction that was fair, but I was angered.

‘And at Crowmarsh,’ I said, ‘what happened after that to send you trailing back here to this makeshift camp?’

He said evenly, although I saw how he bit his lip to hide his rage, ‘Since you speak of what I do not care to talk, well then, the king would not fight. Would you have had us turn against him and the Angevins both? So peace was signed.’

‘And you signed it?’

‘There were good points to it, even those that your uncle spoke of today, to tear down those unlicensed castles that have sprouted everywhere, and to send back the mercenaries, be they Flemish or Gascon, who feed on the English lands. I counselled for the truce at Wallingford.’

‘And you signed it.’

‘I did not counsel, I did not sign the treaty that followed, at Westminster.’

‘What treaty? I have not heard of it,’ I cried.

‘No doubt,’ he said, dryly, ‘you were still in your priory, I think. It made the king’s new heir. Henry of Anjou will be king when Stephen dies. But I, and thus my vassals, did not agree to it.’

‘But that cannot be,’ I said, facing him squarely. ‘King Stephen has a son, Prince Eustace. He will rule after his father . . .’

‘The prince died in August,’ said Lord Raoul, ‘as he lived, a violent man by violent means. Without him, there is no other heir.’

Here then was news that Giles had breathed no word of.

And yet I had already guessed he knew more than he would say. Now Lord Raoul confirmed my belief.

‘But Stephen has other sons,’ I cried. ‘They should rule . . .’ 

‘His one other son is William,’ Lord Raoul said evenly, ‘who has had no part of these affairs, not being an ‘ambitious man’ as your kinsman would say. By his marriage he has acquired great wealth, and Henry of Anjou has sworn to uphold his lands in France. He has no real need or ambition for a crown. So Henry will have it.’

Only then did the implication of what he was saying sink in.

‘But the other nobles will not have it so,’ I cried.

‘The treaty was signed at Westminster, lady. Eustace died last August. In November, Stephen recognised Henry of Anjou as his heir. The lords and barons of England have been summoned twice to pay homage to him as the next in line.’ 

‘But you, you did not?’

When he did not reply, I suddenly remembered Giles’s reluctance to speak of the second meeting with the king. A fear grew in me.

‘Did you not do homage to Henry with the rest?’ When again he did not reply, ‘That was wrongly done.’

Then his anger did break out, the more because he knew better than anyone the complications of that refusal, the anger it would have caused to Stephen and Henry both.

‘Rot me’, he cried, ‘but you will teach me how to use my sword, or bestride my horse. What was the first cause of all these long and bitter wars? Think! That we nobles should pay homage to an heir before the reigning king was dead. You once were brash enough to tell me it was because we would not have a woman on the throne. Man or woman, it matters not; acceptance of an heir over a living king foments unrest, destroys the peace, breeds revolution and sedition. Whatever the Treaty of Westminster would have achieved is already lost. The old Earl of Sedgemont said as much to his king. And I have said it to mine.’

‘And no doubt to Henry of Anjou himself, who was overjoyed at the telling.’ He did not reply to that jibe.

‘But Stephen is your friend,’ I cried. ‘He will surely stand between you and Anjou?’

‘While he lives, perhaps,’ he said, and I knew from his tone how little faith he put in that. ‘Such oaths make mockery of oath taking. Stephen has put his own life in jeopardy that now his enemies have reason to get rid of him. It has made Anjou a pawn of other men’s desires, who will use him to advance themselves.’

He caught my glance and held it this time.

‘Like the Lord of Maneth, who seeks to outdo all those other faithless lords who ravage in the east as he himself ravages the west. It is not only the Celts who will take advantage of our stupidity, lady. All over England are there such men. I think you should know that as well as I. Maneth began his plots against you in your convent only after he saw which way the die would fall. God’s teeth,’ he cried, ‘why should they wait for Stephen’s death to make Henry king? Maneth may seem less dangerous than the others, that is all, because as long as we remain here in our ‘makeshift camp’, as you call it, he is not free to throw all his weight on Henry’s side. And if this treaty with the Celts is made, well, that may contain him. They like him as little as I do. And I shall have fulfilled the charge Stephen, in his anger, laid upon me. He will not ask anything else of me, who has defied his wishes. But if the Celtic treaty fails . . .’

‘Then what?’

‘You are good at advice,’ he snarled, ‘so advise me what to choose. Shall we sack Cambray to rid it of the Celts and bring your kinsmen about our ear? Shall we attack Maneth and thus close against his ally, the next heir of England, Henry of Anjou? Or shall we turn against a king who has already thrown his kingdom away?’

‘There must be some other choice than those,’ I said, refusing to let him see how his words affected me. ‘You paint a gloomy picture, my lord.’

‘Yes,’ he said, for once not turning aside my words with a jest. ‘By the Mass, were I truly a man of sense, I would show my back quick enough to them all. There are other struggles, other battles. Overseas, I could find a better war. But look not apprehensive. I have not turned coward yet, although the world looks beckoning. Forget what I have said. Let me thank you instead for your help. You spoke me fair this day, you looked fair. And you did not say we had mistreated you at Sedgemont. That, at least, was gently done.’

‘Did you expect that I would?’ I said.

‘Ah, that I cannot tell,’ he said, ‘except you are ever ready to place me in the wrong. Would it not please you, lady, to have me proved a coward, a man of no faith?’

We had come full circle now in our pacing, and he was waiting to hand me down from the path, towards my tent. The light was almost gone, yet the air was golden with reflected sun and the wind blew about his hair as he stood below me, one foot still upon the bank. Suddenly I saw the differences that had not been there a year ago: the tiredness, the frown between those wide-spaced eyes, the shadow beneath them that picked up the high cheek bones, the disdain that hid bitterness, the pride, which showed through. Beneath his robe, the mail coat curved and shimmered and his golden spurs glittered at his heels.

Many were the things I have regretted not saying, a thousand things could I have said then.

‘I did not think it would matter how I judged you, my lord,’ I said coldly, all the gladness of the day already wasted away. ‘You follow your own desires without let or hindrance from me.’

It was not only desires of state and governance that I spoke of.

And he knew it.

‘Hold yourself in readiness, then, my lady,’ he said coldly, formally. ‘We shall see what this night brings forth.’

And he strode away, already putting thoughts aside, shouting to his squire to bring his sword and belt, calling for his horse, his guard. I watched him go without kindly word. That was not well done either.

I do not know who slept well that night. I know he did not sleep at all and all the camp kept uneasy watch. I lay full clothed upon my bed, running over and over in my mind the events and words of the day until they blurred to one, and when at last I closed my eyes, my dreams were dark, uneasy, full of anxious partings and harsh words that need not have been said. Long after I have remembered that time, how pride kept me from repenting of my anger. Yet had he not set double watch, kept the gates himself, with extra guards along the outer banks, they would have overrun us as we lay. As it was, they took the outer watchtowers by stealth, one by one, but there were enough men who survived to give the warning.