Knight's Honor (39 page)

Henry leapt ashore, too, laughing when he was splashed, without accepting the hands proffered to help him and mounted his horse with an agile spring, again ignoring the cupped hands ready to lift him into the saddle. He laughed and talked incessantly, as much to the men-at-arms as to the important men beside him, and stopped to jest also through an interpreter with the serfs around a Maypole. He has not changed a hair in two years, Arundel thought, frowning, and what was excusable in a boy of sixteen was less acceptable in a man who had come to make war to seize a throne.

If he had been present several hours later, when Hereford put his demands before Henry, Arundel would have felt quite differently, for Henry had sufficient dignity when he felt it necessary. He also had very winning ways and great charm so that it took all of Hereford's great power of determination to stick to his point. Henry yielded at last, signing and applying his seal to the charters, because he had no choice. He needed Hereford just then far more than Hereford needed him. His manner, having granted the demands, did him great credit, for he did not hold what Hereford had wrested from him against his liege man. Henry was not a grudge holder. He could do and say truly fearsome things in a rage, but cool, he was even too forgiving of an injury, especially to those of whom he was fond.

Late that night when even the bonfires that celebrated the coming of summer had died, Hereford and Henry were still hard at work. Arundel, more and more convinced that they were mad, nodded in his chair as the two fair heads bent together over charts and parchments on which plans of action, supply routes, escape routes, men and arms available, and even descriptions of terrain were detailed. Arundel had never seen anything like that in all his years of fighting and could not understand, although both obligingly explained, separately and in chorus, what they were about.

"Waste of time," he growled. "Let us attack where they are weakest and it is most convenient to us and take his keeps. When we have reduced him to nothing, he will yield."

"No doubt," Henry replied rather sharply, "and you will also have reduced the country to nothing. I do not come here for sport.
 
I came first because there is power and profit in this land. Of what use is it to be king of a ruined realm? I wish to win, but I wish to spare the country as much as I may, that I may have something of value over which to rule."

CHAPTER 13

FROM ARUNDEL'S KEEP THEY RODE WEST TO SALISBURY, HENRY WITH
those men he had brought with him and Hereford with his troop. They rode as quickly and silently as possible, starting in the evening and riding through the night. At present neither had any desire to be noticed. They were not strong enough a group to hold off a determined attack, and some men of this part of the country were strongly in favor of Stephen. Such partizans would have been happy to take such a prize as Henry of Anjou. At Salisbury they picked up more troops and started on their way north. Hereford himself might have chosen to rest a day at Salisbury, but Henry seemed only invigorated by labor. No effort seemed to tire that squat frame, no problem to cloud his good humor. At Devizes they did stop—Henry suggested they stay long enough to eat and change horses.

"My lord," Hereford protested, "I urged haste, but indeed you need not have taken me so seriously."

Henry blinked and looked surprised."I am in no special haste, Roger, but where there is nothing to do, I can see no reason to dally."

Hereford began to laugh helplessly. "A few months away from you and I had forgot. My lord, the men must sleep, even though you apparently need it not—and I must sleep too. Furthermore, if we ride at this pace we will outstrip our own couriers to Scotland. Stay, I will find a wench to amuse you while the rest of us, weaklings that we are, snatch a few hours of rest."

"You would need to be quickly refreshed if you were to sleep only while I tumbled a wench. By the by, Roger, I do not believe I wrote to you that I have fathered a son. Geoffrey I named him. A very likely boy he looks, though I had not time to stay long to observe him."

"You named him for your father?" Hereford was laughing again. Somehow that seemed a little outrageous.

"Well, he did not think it a bad idea.” Henry laughed too. “No, I gave the child the name common to the eldest-born of our family. When I am king I will bring him here. I would have been Geoffrey too but for the need to remind England that I am the heir of Henry Beauclerc through my mother. Go. You are asleep where you stand."

Hereford did not, however, go to sleep. He snatched the short period of freedom to dictate a letter to his mother, for he thought Elizabeth would stay at Chester. He bid Lady Hereford to make provision for entertaining "he whom I bring" and a large number of retainers, urging the man he dispatched to make all haste and providing him liberally with gold to buy new horses so that he would not need to rest his mounts on the way. His note was a bare two lines, terse and cold, although he did not mean it to be. He had certainly gotten over his rage and had almost forgotten in the press of other duties that he had been angry.

An equally brief note went to Walter, merely to say that he would not return to the siege and that Walter should continue to follow the plans outlined as best as he could until he had further word. He fell asleep at the table eventually, his head pillowed on his arms, while he thought he was considering whether to write then to Elizabeth at Chester or to Chester himself, or wait until he had a little more freedom in Hereford.

They rode again that night but fortunately not far. Gloucester was at Bristol and wished to offer Henry his support personally. Henry was not fond of William of Gloucester, being repelled by the same characteristics that offended Hereford, although for different reasons.

"Is it worth it, Roger?" he had asked when the message came. "His father I would have ridden through hell to speak with—even Phillip—but William … Of what value is he to us? Might it be a trap?"

"A trap? No. He is firm enough in your cause. I cannot believe that there could be any chance of that. And certainly he can be of great value, for I lead only his mercenary troops. He gave me his promise some months since that when we returned from Scotland he would summon his vassals to fight with us against Stephen. You know, my lord, I cannot command those forces without his will and presence. It would be most unwise to offend William of Gloucester."

"So be it. I too would not desire bad blood between us. He is, after all, my cousin, but I wished to be sure. Faugh, he makes my skin crawl though. What kind of a man is it that would allow another to do his fighting for him? I hear he looks with lust not only upon women …?"

Hereford made a moue of distaste. "That is true enough, and well I know it. There are times when I would be glad to have a face like Gaunt's. Nay, what troubles me most is that he
likes
to play the spy."

"I know, and I cannot help but wonder if that is not a disease too deep in the flesh now to cure. Will he, when I am on Stephen's seat, continue to play the spy, only now against me, for the love of the dirty game?" Henry's eyes were hard and narrow with suspicion. "Upon such a man it is never safe to repose too much trust."

Nonetheless, Henry of Anjou's opinion of Earl William did not prevent him from exerting the full power of his Angevin charm when they met. So successful was he that William's eyes hardly strayed even once to Hereford, who sat in grateful silence for a time and then excused himself. That charm, although it enchanted him when turned upon himself, made Roger uneasy when it was displayed for someone Henry plainly disliked and distrusted.

It was true that Henry would usually keep a verbal promise, but that was largely because he almost never made one. Young as he was, he was a past master at the suggestive hint, the understanding smile, the glance that offered much without words. It was only when he was cornered and forced that he would speak or write a definite commitment. Hereford shrugged and acknowledged that a king without the art to keep his subjects faithful by hope of gain would need to be a bloody tyrant and keep them subdued by fear. In the end, it was the subjects, not the king, who were to blame. If they would keep their oaths to support him with honesty, he would not need to resort to procedures that certainly bordered on the dishonorable to control them.

How had he ever become involved in this affair, Hereford wondered. Where was the difference between Stephen, who promised with his mouth, and Henry, who promised with his eyes? Why had he not sat quietly on his own lands? That last question answered all the others. Things had grown so bad in Stephen's reign that a man could not sit quietly on his own lands.

The difference between Henry and Stephen was not in their honesty, in that Hereford admitted there was little to choose between them, but in their basic characters and conceptions of kingship. Stephen was weak and desired the trappings of royalty. So long as men called him king, he cared little what they did, whether they fought among themselves or the stronger oppressed the weaker. Henry was strong and desired the power of royalty. Under his hand, by guile or by force, the barons would live in obedience if not in quiet. So long as his own personal interest was not at stake, Henry had a strong sense of justice, and, moreover, for his own great pride's sake, no man would cry to him for redress in vain. What he was doing was right and good, Hereford reassured himself; it was only because he was tired that his heart was so heavy.

A good night's sleep and a bright morning made that seem almost true as they set off again. They ate and rested a while at Gloucester, leaving the Earl there with a sense of relief, and rode on again through the gathering dusk and on through the dark toward Hereford. Roger knew every foot of this road, night or no night, he had ridden it so often. He regretted not having asked Elizabeth specifically to return. She would have been useful in entertaining Henry. Catherine, Hereford decided, he would have to keep isolated because his lord would surely forget the courtesy due a noblewoman if the noblewoman showed any signs of encouragement. Besides—his eyes grew reminiscent, and he smiled—he could use some entertainment himself. He laughed aloud, and Henry, who had been silent for all of five minutes, turned to him quizzically and eagerly.

"I was thinking," Hereford replied to the look, "that I have been startlingly faithful to my wife. In four months of marriage—at least two of which we have been separated—I have not even looked at, not to mention touched, another woman."

"Is that something to laugh at? In your case I would suggest an immediate consultation with a good physician. Do not tell me you are in love with her."

Hereford laughed again. "Yes, I do love her, as a matter of fact, but truly, I fear, it was not love but exertion that kept me pure. Nonetheless, my lord, I am moved to reprove you—by your leave, of course—for your misspent life."

That sent Henry off into giggles. "Four months of holy wedlock and he wishes to reprove me. Roger, we shared the same whores in France, and even I was brought to admire your work. You have bettered me by one in the matter of bastards—and in the years in which you fathered them too. If you turn sanctimonious on me, I will hang you for a traitor. Still, who could better reprove me from a wealth of experience? By all means, you have my leave."

Both men were fatigued, both very young, and both overburdened with responsibility. The sweet spring air, the silent, starry night were headier than wine, and, drunk with the momentary release of tension which they knew would return all too soon, both became very silly. Hereford proceeded to preach a sermon on the joys of chastity that would have edified a saint; Henry, listening in awe, nearly fell off his horse with laughter.

The same sweet air and peaceful night were not affecting Elizabeth in a similar manner. She had returned from Chester just in time to witness the arrival of Hereford's courier, and the fact that he brought not even so much as a verbal greeting to her broke the peace that she had been achieving so slowly and painfully. Her mother-in-law's frantic activity to ready the castle for Henry's reception only embittered her further, for there was nothing for her to do. More bitter than gall was the knowledge that she was not even the lady of the keep, not even worthy to help in the labor of preparing for an exalted guest, more surely exalted because he was unnamed.

Possibly she might have regained some equanimity and sufficient reason to realize that her husband had not meant to slight her had she been able to vent her emotions. That solace was denied, however, by her pride, for she would not weep before the other women of the keep. She could not even creep into bed to cry herself to sleep, because she did not know what bed to go to. If the guest was Henry, which both women suspected, there could be no doubt that Hereford's own bedroom would be yielded to him.

Where Roger would decide to sleep then was anybody's guess. He might decide on the semi-privacy of his mother's quarters just above the main hall; he might wish for greater proximity for ease of communication and choose to sleep in the hall itself; or, he might wish to be free of the exhausting presence of his guest and choose to go to the solar of the old keep. In any case, Elizabeth was not even sure that he would wish her to share his bed. She had worked herself into such a state that when the exhausted foreriders arrived to announce that Lord Hereford was a few minutes behind them, she fled from the hall up to the women's quarters. Whatever happened she would not be shamed by being slighted before the man she believed would be the next king of the realm. She would come down only if Roger sent for her, and sent for her civilly.

Lady Hereford did not see Elizabeth leave and quite honestly forgot all about her in the joy of welcoming her dearly beloved son and the excitement of welcoming Henry of Anjou. Elizabeth stood in the stairwell, listening. She heard the confused noise of arrival, a man's voice which she judged rightly to be Henry's, and her husband's light laugh. She heard servants come with food and wine, but Hereford never even mentioned her name, and no servant came with a summons to her. Fury replaced guilt and self-reproach; whatever she had done, she had meant no harm and did not deserve this. Step by step she was drawn down those stairs by her rage and her curiosity until at last she stood just beside the foot of the stair.