Devil's Brood (19 page)

Henry got to his feet as he heard the door close behind Willem. The aroma of roasted venison wafted off the trencher, but he was not tempted; his gorge rose in his throat at the very sight of the sliced meat. He could not imagine ever taking pleasure in a meal again. Ever taking pleasure in anything. As he turned away, he saw that his son had not gone with Willem. Geoff still stood by the door, clutching a wine flask to his chest, looking so young and wretched that Henry’s frozen heart felt the first thawing. He did not welcome it, did not want to feel again.

“You need not stay, lad.”

Geoff hesitated, but he stood his ground, and then he found his tongue and his words came tumbling out in a desperate rush. “I brought you wine, Papa. I thought…thought it might help. Getting drunk, I mean.”

Much to his surprise, a ghost of a smile flitted across Henry’s lips. “Believe it or not, Geoff, I’ve never gotten drunk.”

“I have,” Geoff said earnestly, “and it does chase the hurt away.” Venturing farther into the chamber, he held the wine flask out to Henry, and inhaled audibly when his father took it. Geoff was still in shock, too. He’d always liked the queen, for she’d been good to him. Her kindness had puzzled him at first, but he decided she did not mind his father’s straying since it occurred whilst they’d been long apart, during those sixteen months when he’d been in England fighting to claim the crown that was rightfully his. But she was now Jezebel in his eyes, one with Delilah and Bathsheba, all the wicked women of Scriptures, and he harbored a savage hope that she, too, would end her days as Jezebel did, in ignominy and shame, carrion for hungry dogs.

“At least now you know why Hal and his brothers were so easily led astray,” he said, and then tensed, afraid he’d overstepped his bounds. But his father showed no anger and he was emboldened to continue. “She turned them against you, Papa. They would never have heeded the French king’s blandishments if she had not urged them on.”

As unwelcome as it was, that was the first logical explanation offered for why his sons had become his enemies. Hal’s defection to the French court was a festering wound, one he suspected he’d take to his grave, for it could never heal if he could not understand why it had happened. Richard and Geoffrey’s treachery was even more incomprehensible to him. But if it were all Eleanor’s doing, it suddenly made dreadful sense. She had stolen his sons away, turned them into weapons to use against him. And fool that he was, he’d never seen it coming, never suspected for even a moment that she was capable of such a vile, unforgivable betrayal.

“Papa…do you want me to go?”

Henry looked at his son and then slowly shook his head. “No, lad, I want you to stay.”

T
HEY’D NOT TALKED,
passing the wine flask back and forth as they watched the hearth log burn away into ashes and cinders and glowing embers. Eventually Geoff had fallen asleep in the floor rushes, not stirring even as Henry tucked a blanket around his shoulders. A pale grey light was trickling through the cracks in the shutters, and Henry guessed that dawn must be nigh. He’d not slept. Nor had he been able to follow Geoff’s advice and drown his sorrows in spiced red wine. He’d passed the longest night of his life locked in mortal combat with his ghosts, calling up and then disavowing twenty years of memories. He would banish that bitch from his heart if it meant cutting her out with his own dagger. And when at last he allowed himself to grieve, he did so silently and unwillingly, his tears hidden by the darkness, his rage congealing into a core of ice.

Geoff was awakening, yawning and stretching, blinking in bewilderment to find himself on the floor. Remembrance soon came flooding back, and he jerked upright, his eyes frantically roaming the chamber in search of his father. “Papa? Papa…are you all right?” He immediately cursed his clumsy tongue. How could a man be all right with a knife thrust into his back?

But when Henry answered, his voice was level and measured, revealing nothing of the night’s turmoil. “I am well enough, Geoff,” he said, rising from the window-seat and moving to the hearth, where he sought in vain to revive a few sparks. “I have need of you this morning, lad.”

“Anything, Papa, anything at all!”

“First, I want you to fetch my squires. Then find Willem and tell him that I shall be holding a council meeting this afternoon. Lastly, I want you to go to a house on St Catherine’s Mount, close by the church of St Paul. I shall give you a letter to deliver to the lady dwelling there. Tell her to start packing her belongings, that I will be sending a cart. I want her moved into the castle by nightfall.”

L
ETTER FROM ROTROU,
Archbishop of Rouen, to Eleanor, Queen of England:

Greetings in the search for peace.

Marriage is a firm and indissoluble union…. Truly, whoever separates a married couple becomes a transgressor of the divine commandment. So the woman is at fault who leaves her husband and fails to keep the trust of this social bond…. A woman who is not under the headship of the husband violates the condition of nature, the mandate of the Apostle, and the law of Scripture: “The head of the woman is the man.” She is created from him, and she is subject to his power.

We deplore publicly and regretfully that, while you are a most prudent woman, you have left your husband…. You have opened the way for the lordking’s, and your own, children to rise up against the father.

We know that unless you return to your husband, you will be the cause of widespread disaster. While you alone are now the delinquent one, your actions will result in ruin for everyone in the kingdom. Therefore, illustrious queen, return to your husband and our king. In your reconciliation, peace will be restored from distress, and in your return, joy may return to all. If our pleadings do not move you to this, at least let the affliction of the people, the imminent pressure of the church and the desolation of the kingdom stir you. For either truth deceives, or “every kingdom divided against itself will be destroyed.”…

And so, before this matter reaches a bad end, you should return with your sons to your husband, whom you have promised to obey and live with. Turn back so that neither you nor your sons become suspect. We are certain that he will show you every possible kindness and the surest guarantee of safety….

Truly, you are our parishioner as much as your husband. We cannot fall short in justice: Either you will return to your husband or we must call upon canon law and use ecclesiastic censures against you. We say this reluctantly, but unless you come back to your senses, with sorrow and tears, we will do so.

Eleanor did not reply.

T
HE BISHOP OF WORCESTER’S
ship approached the Norman coast at dusk and anchored in the Seine estuary. Two days later, Roger disembarked at the Rouen docks, and he was admitted to the king’s riverside castle as the noonday sun reached its zenith. As usual, he traveled with only a small retinue, and they were quickly settled in. Roger then went in search of his cousin the king.

He soon learned that Henry was absent, off hunting in the Roumare Forest. The great hall was empty, the inner bailey all but deserted. He assumed that the barons with Henry were part of the hunting party, and Archbishop Rotrou would be found in his own palace close by the great cathedral. But there was something eerie about the silence, the lack of the customary hustle and bustle and organized disorder that heralded the king’s presence. Not wanting to go back to his cramped, stifling chamber, he found himself wandering aimlessly about the castle grounds, as if movement could keep his troubled thoughts at bay.

Had Fortune’s Wheel ever spun so wildly? His cousin had begun the year as the most powerful king in all of Christendom, only to be struck down by one calamity after another. The betrayal by his queen and sons had opened the floodgates, inundating him in wave after wave of defections and desertions. Anjou and Maine were, for the most part, loyal, but Brittany, England, and Normandy were in peril, and Roger could not help wondering if Henry was being punished for the death of the Church’s newest saint, Thomas of Blessed Memory.

Roger’s own nephew, the Earl of Chester, had joined the Breton rebels. The Earl of Leicester, son of Henry’s former justiciar, was with Hal, as was his cousin, the Count of Meulan. The Chamberlain of Normandy had treacherously gone over to the enemy, bringing with him more than one hundred armed knights. The Earls of Derby and Norfolk had thrown in their lot with the rebels, and other English lords were under suspicion, including Roger’s elder brother William, Earl of Gloucester. For the most sinister aspect of rebellion was that the king’s vassals need not openly declare for Hal to do Henry harm; they need only do nothing. And that was what many of them were choosing to do, waiting to see who was likely to prevail, father or son.

England was rife with rumors and speculation, fed by the news coming out of Normandy. In June a two-pronged assault had begun upon the eastern border. Philip d’Alsace, the Count of Flanders, and his brother Matthew, the Count of Boulogne, were laying siege to Driencourt while Louis led a French army against Verneuil. Should these two fortresses fall, the road to Rouen would be open to them. As alarming as that was, Henry’s English supporters were alarmed, too, by his apparent inactivity. He’d been at Rouen for more than three months, the longest he’d ever been in one place during his entire reign, and by all accounts, he’d been passing most of his days hunting deer, not rebels.

Concern for Henry’s mental state had been one of the reasons for Roger’s trip to Rouen; the other was the cloud of suspicion hanging over his older brother. He did not want William to be tarred with Hugh’s brush, nor did he want his sister, Maud, to be banished from royal favor. It was not her fault that her son had turned to treason, and he hoped to make Henry understand that.

The sun was high overhead, radiating heat rarely felt in England, and Roger was heading back to the great hall when a shout echoed from the battlements: riders coming in. He halted, hoping it might be Henry returning from the hunt. It wasn’t, but the new arrival was a welcome one: William de Mandeville, the Earl of Essex.

Once they’d exchanged greetings, Willem turned his horse’s reins over to his squire, smiling when Roger asked why he’d not gone hunting with the king. He’d been meeting with some of the routiers, he explained, as a new contingent had just arrived from Brabant.

Roger was not surprised to hear that, for he knew such mercenaries were the backbone of his cousin’s army. Rather than relying upon the grudging military service given by his vassals, Henry preferred to hire professional soldiers, and such men were always easy to find. Despite the disapproval of the Church, routiers from Brabant and Flanders and even Wales were available for those lords with enough money to engage them. Debating that point with Roger, Henry had insisted that routiers made superior fighters because they could be mobilized at once, they would serve as long as they were paid, their desire for plunder gave them enthusiasm for their work, and their fearsome reputation often weakened enemy morale. Roger had not been convinced by his cousin’s arguments, for he still thought it immoral for a man to earn his living by killing fellow Christians. But now he felt a flicker of relief, so worried was he about Henry’s plight. At least he’d have routiers on hand for the defense of Rouen should it come to that.

“I hope you are bringing good news about the siege of Leicester,” Willem said, and Roger was pleased to reply in the affirmative. Henry’s justiciar, Richard de Lucy, and his uncles, Rainald and Ranulf, had been besieging the city and castle of the rebel Earl of Leicester since early July, and Roger was now able to tell Willem that the townspeople had surrendered. The castle still held out and a truce had been struck till Michaelmas. Roger’s other news was not as encouraging, though. De Lucy had ended the siege of Leicester Castle in order to hurry north, where the Scots king had been staging bloody border raids.

“Now it is your turn, Willem. The last we heard in England, the sieges of Driencourt and Verneuil were still continuing. Tell me they have not fallen.”

“I would that I could. Driencourt fell to the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne last week, and they moved on to Arques. The siege of Verneuil still goes on. The town is composed of three wards, called burghs, each with its own walls and ditch. The French have taken the first two, but the third and the castle still hold out.”

Roger stared at the other man. “Jesu, how can you sound so calm? Arques is less than twenty miles from Rouen!”

“First of all, Rouen is well defended, no easy prize for the taking. Secondly, the Flemings suffered a great reversal at Arques. The Count of Boulogne took an arrow in the knee, and the wound has festered. His brother was so distraught that he halted their advance whilst Matthew’s injury is treated.”

Roger did not see that as such a “great reversal.” He’d met the Count of Flanders, and he thought Philip was the most formidable foe that Henry was facing, far more ruthless than Louis. How long would his brotherly concern last?

“I do not understand why Harry has taken no action! Why does he linger here at Rouen, doing nothing? Why did he not try to relieve the sieges of Verneuil or Driencourt?”

Willem’s smile was one of patronizing patience; he was wryly amused that people were always so quick to make uninformed judgments about military matters. As clever as Roger was, had he ever led an army, planned a campaign? “The king was wise enough to see that he had to wait for his foes to move first. Beset on so many sides, he has to fight a defensive war, and he understood from the first that Normandy must be protected at whatever cost. If he were to lose Normandy, many of his English barons with lands on this side of the Channel would join the rebellion to save those estates. Moreover, he’d be forced to choose between England and Anjou if Normandy was taken.

“Trust me, Roger, it has not been easy for him to wait like this. He is a man accustomed to seizing the initiative. Trust me, too, that he has not been ‘doing nothing.’ He fortified all his border castles, often using his hunting as a means of sending confidential messages or holding clandestine meetings. He has more than five thousand Brabançon routiers at his command, and he made a swift, secret trip to England this spring to bring back money from the royal treasuries at Winchester and Northampton, so he can hire more if need be. When the time is right, he’ll strike back, and when he does, I have no doubt that he will prevail.”

“From your lips to God’s Ears,” Roger said lightly, but he was greatly reassured by Willem’s cool certainty, for he respected the earl’s grasp of strategy and battle lore. “Tell me, Willem. How is Harry coping…truly?”

Willem shrugged. “It is hard to say. He has never been one for confiding, has he? I am guessing that he draws strength from his anger, at least during the daylight hours. How he fares alone at night is between him and the Almighty.” The sun was hot upon his face and he touched Roger’s arm, saying, “Let’s find some shade in the gardens, and you can tell me about the new Archbishop of Canterbury’s thwarted consecration.”

Roger grimaced. “That was a disaster. All was in readiness for the ceremony and on that very day we got a letter from Hal, claiming that the archbishop’s election was invalid because he’d not given his approval and warning us that he’d made an appeal to the Holy Father. So we still lack an archbishop until we hear from Rome, which is most unfortunate—although I’ll admit that I thought the monks had made a poor choice in Prior Richard. Oh, the man is laudably inoffensive, with the virtue of realizing his limitations, but he is hardly a worthy successor to St Thomas.”

Willem thought that Prior Richard’s appeal might have been the fact that he was so very different from the volatile, intense, martyred archbishop, but he was too tactful to say so to Roger, knowing he and Becket had been friends. Opening the gate into the gardens, he asked if there was any chance that Hal’s ploy could succeed and the Pope take his side.

Roger shook his head. “I see Louis’s fine hand in this appeal to Rome. He was outraged that Harry was able to reconcile with the Church so easily, and he’d like nothing better than to stir up more trouble between Harry and the Holy See. But the Pope thought it was in the Church’s best interests to make peace with so powerful a king and he—”

Roger stopped in mid-sentence, distracted by the sight meeting his eyes. Five boys were racing around the gardens, laughing and shrieking. The object of their amusement was a young blindfolded woman, laughing, too, as she stretched her arms out, trying to catch them as they danced around her. Both men smiled, for they’d often played Hoodman Blind themselves in their youth. Roger assumed that the children were some of the sons of the nobility being educated in the king’s household, and as he drew closer, he recognized one of them from Henry’s Christmas Court at Chinon: his uncle Ranulf’s youngest son, Morgan.

Morgan recognized him, too, and ended the game by crying out, “Cousin Roger!” As he dashed over to embrace his kinsman, the other children began to back away, seeing that the fun was over. The woman removed her blindfold, and at once dropped down in a deep curtsy. She was very pretty, with blue eyes and fair skin, too well dressed to be a nursemaid. She was obviously known to Willem, though, for he strode forward and gallantly kissed her hand, then glanced back at Roger with a glint of mischief.

“My lord bishop, may I present the Lady Rosamund Clifford? My lady, this is the king’s cousin, the Bishop of Worcester.”

Rosamund flushed as she and Roger exchanged stilted greetings, and she quickly made her excuses, her withdrawal from the gardens so hasty that it was practically an escape, the boys trailing in her wake. Roger gazed after her, taken aback. So this was the infamous Rosamund Clifford.

Reading his thoughts, Willem grinned. “She is not as you expected, is she?”

“No, she is not,” Roger conceded. “I thought she’d be more…more sultry,” he said. “Eleanor was a great beauty, after all, when she was younger. I suppose I imagined Rosamund to be cast in the same mold.”

“I know. The lass is comely enough, but she is no Cleopatra. She is soothing, though, and mayhap that has its own charm.” Willem laughed softly. “Much has been said of the queen, but I daresay none have ever called her ‘soothing,’ have they?”