Lady of the English (16 page)
“Who has objected?” She was well able to guess. “Salisbury?”
Her father nodded. “As you would expect. And where he goes, so too does the bishop of Ely. Waleran de Meulan must swear too, now that he has been released from prison.”
Matilda watched her father’s fists clench. He was always one step ahead of the game. He would use diplomacy first, but back it up with threat and force. “And what of the house of Blois?”
she asked. “I hear you have promoted my cousin Henry to the see of Winchester.”
He shrugged. “He is an able administrator and will serve you well when the time comes. Stephen and Theo are your cousins, 119
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as is Stephen’s wife. It is a good thing to encourage their support by nurturing them. I foresee no difficulty in having them retake the oath.”
“And in having all keep it? If you are making everyone swear again, is it only for legality’s sake, or are you trying to double-bind people because you fear they will break their bonds?”
His face darkened. “No one will gainsay me,” he said. “No one will break their bonds.” The clenched fist tightened and the force of his stare made it clear that he included her in the equation. “You will give me strong grandsons to follow in my stead and they will rule with guidance from me, and then from you and their kin should that be necessary.”
Matilda did not ask what would happen if God chose otherwise because she knew it would only provoke his temper. She would go to England and a second time men would kneel to her and bestow their oaths for whatever their owners felt they were worth. Kings and bishops and magnates. And then she would return to Geoffrey and the petty Angevin court, more than 350 miles from England and 120 miles from Rouen. If God did choose otherwise, what chance did she have?
ttt
Her cloak flapping around her body, Matilda stood beside Brian FitzCount on the wall walk of Northampton Castle and gazed at the town laid out to the west below the hill on which the keep stood. The first autumn winds were shredding the leaves from the trees and the river Nene ruffled under the walls in quenched shades of grey and blue. If the wind continued like this, her sea crossing would be brisk and unpleasant, but probably short. In her chamber her women were packing her chests ready for her journey. Feeling hemmed in, she had left them to their task.
Once more the barons had knelt to her in homage and vowed to accept her as her father’s heir and once more she had 120
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doubted their sincerity. Feeling their reluctance, she had faced it with a set jaw and unbending gaze. If they wanted her to be as stern as a king, she would not disappoint them.
Brian leaned against the palisade. “The oath is retaken, domina,” he said. “You will be a queen one day.”
Matilda said nothing. They had spoken little since her return to England; two people skirting round each other because of all the traps lying in wait if they did begin to talk on a level beyond that of servant and vassal. Brian had not spoken of her marriage, but then what could he say? He did not know the full extent of what Geoffrey had done to her. Rumours were rife, but in England no one had seen the bruises. No one had watched her crawl because she could not stand up. And, when all was said and done, Brian was a man.
She was aware of how close to her he stood. Separate but within touching distance. Their cloaks billowed against each other, performing a wild mating dance. She risked a glance at him. His dark eyes were fixed on the river where a fisherman was busy pulling his boat to shore and sorting his catch. She observed the curve of his collar bones above the line of his shirt and the strong, masculine swell of his Adam’s apple.
“Do you know how many times I have wished I had stayed in Germany?” she asked.
“I am glad you did not,” he said without looking round.
Matilda gave a slight shake of her head and felt sad. How could she expect him to understand or go beyond his own desires? He said he was glad, but she had been talking of her feelings, not his.
She looked at his hands: the gold rings; the long, elegant fingers; the smudges. “You still wear your ink stains,” she said.
He took his gaze off the river and turned a little to give her a half-smile. “Robert and I have been working on an audit of the exchequer for your father, and I have been writing some thoughts on the vows that men swear.”
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“Indeed?” She raised her brows.
“All in your support,” he qualified. “Some may say their oaths are not valid because they were made to a woman, but that is an excuse. Any oath taken before God, to whomsoever it may be, is binding. Nor was the allegiance sworn under duress.
There were enough here today to have banded together and refused had they so desired, but no one did.”
“You sound as if you expect some men to renege if the chance arises.”
Brian grimaced. “There are many opportunists amongst us—
and we both know who they are without speaking names.”
“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes in thought. “One day I will have to choose the men who serve me from among those gathered here. But their strengths and weaknesses will be difficult to judge when I am so far away in Anjou.”
“Surely your husband will not object to correspondence that keeps you aware, because it will be in his interests too. Your father and the queen will write to you often, and the Earl of Gloucester. So shall I.”
She said impatiently, “Reading the written word of another is not the same as judging for oneself. My stepmother acts her part so well that it has become the truth for her. She moves among people with a smile and a kind word. She is solicitous of my father and sweet to everyone, but how much of that is a façade she has been forced to adopt? How much will my father conceal or change to suit his own interests? I want my truth as it is, all unvarnished.”
“You don’t have to approach every difficulty as if it has to be bludgeoned into submission. Ice melts in sunlight when it does not do so in the frozen dark. Your stepmother knows this and it is what makes her so fine a peacemaker.”
Matilda drew a steadying breath. “If men serve me as they should, then I will deal honestly with them, but I would have 122
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everyone tell the truth and not creep around it as if it is something we fear to awaken.”
Brian gave her a long look, and the expression in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine. Just one move from either of them, and their hands would touch and their fingers mesh.
She made a tight fist, resisting the urge to reach out. “Would you follow me if I were queen?” she asked. “Would you think England a laughing stock if a woman sat on the throne? Would you consider it an affront to the natural order?”
He shook his head. “I would rejoice.”
“Then you are either the bravest man I have ever encountered, or you are lying to me.”
“I am neither brave, nor a liar,” he replied, the yearning look still in his eyes. “I am merely your servant and your father’s servant.”
“My father’s first though.”
“Because he is the king and he has raised me, but if you were queen, it would mean he was no longer here.”
Matilda walked several paces along the battlements, putting distance between them. The sun was a splash of gold melting into the horizon. “Indeed, my father did raise you on high—by marrying you to Maude of Wallingford.”
Brian nodded, wary now.
“How old were you?”
He looked down. “I do not remember; it was long ago.
Perhaps sixteen.”
“And how old was your wife?”
His voice roughened. “Twice my age, as you know, and a widow.”
A colder evening wind blew across the battlements, making Matilda shiver. “And what did you think when you married her?”
“As I said, it was a long time ago.”
“But not something you would forget, and I know your memory is keen.”
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He made a face, plainly uncomfortable. “I was grateful to your father. I was born without a patrimony and he raised me at court and gave me one. I have always tried to do right by Maude, but it was a match made for convenience—as most are.”
“And what did your wife think of being married to such a youth?”
Brian flushed. “I never asked her. What would be the point?
We are yoked to each other for better or worse and it is our duty to pull the plough in the same direction. We do as we are bidden.”
“‘As we are bidden,’” Matilda repeated and shivered.
Tomorrow it was her duty to return to her plough and her mismatched companion.
“You will be a queen,” he said softly. “A great one.”
She read the longing in his eyes and was glad she had put distance between them. “But once I was an empress. My father does not want me to be queen. He wants my sons to be kings.
So does Geoffrey, and that is one of the reasons he has asked for my return. It is always about the power of men.”
His voice dropped lower still. “You do not know what power you wield.”
She drew a deep breath to steady herself. “Brian, I do,” she said and walked towards the entrance that led down to the safety of the rooms below, knowing that she should probably not have used his name because in some ways it was even more intimate than a touch.
“I will serve you to the last drop of my blood.” His words curled after her on the wind, and felt like a portent of harder days to come.
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Fifteen
Forest of Loches, Anjou, September 1131
B reathing hard, Geoffrey reined in his sweating mount and patted its hot chestnut neck. He gazed round, trying to get his bearings, but they were deep in the forest and far off beaten tracks. The trees rose around him like stately cathedral columns and arched to form barrel-vault canopies above his head. The first leaves of autumn fell in a slow confetti of rust and green-gold. He had outridden the rest of the hunt while in hot pursuit of a ten-point stag and now had lost both. Only Bruin remained with him, and the hound had obviously lost the scent because he was snuffling in circles.
Geoffrey tilted his head and listened, but there was no sound beyond the rustle of leaves and, somewhere, the harsh call of a jay. He reached to blow on his hunting horn, but cursed to find it missing from the hangers on his baldric, for it meant he could not summon aid, and the item was carved from elephant ivory and valuable.
He turned the horse in the direction from which he had come and sought the path, all the time listening for the horns of the other hunters, but heard nothing. A promising path turned out to be a deer trail that only led him deeper into the forest.
Once, his straining ears caught the sound of a distant horn, but he was unsure of the direction, and it did not come again.
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Geoffrey was pragmatic. He knew eventually he would find his way out, but still felt a glimmer of anxiety at being lost in the forest, away from the safety of his companions. The night would be cold, and he had neither provisions with him, nor the wherewithal to make a fire. He turned the chestnut towards the setting sun, because at least it was a known direction.
After a while, he began to smell woodsmoke and his hope rose, mingled with caution. The scent strengthened and moments later, Geoffrey rode into a clearing where a charcoal burner was tending one of his clamps. The smoke was mostly the product of the louver over the cooking fire in his hut, but white tendrils also swirled gently from the covered charcoal mound itself.
The man bowed in deference to Geoffrey’s obvious rank, but did not kneel. His eyes were as bright as speedwells in his soot-smudged face, and he kept his fist clenched tightly around the rake in his hand.
“How do I find my way out of this place?” Geoffrey asked.
“Do you know which way leads to Loches?”
The man leaned on his staff. “If I did not know, I couldn’t sell my charcoal there, could I?” he said, and began issuing a string of directions by way of various trees: the big oak, the twisted lime, the hazel coppice with the rabbit warren in its roots.
Geoffrey’s nostrils flared with impatience. “Take me yourself,” he snapped. “These are not directions for a man unused to these woods.”
“Messire, I dare not leave the clamp lest it flares up again.”
The burner gestured to the smoking mound. “This is my livelihood.”
“Christ, I’ll pay you for it; I’ll pay you what you earn in a month; just show me the way. You can ride pillion.”
The man pondered for a moment and then, with a curt nod, laid down his rake and brought a stool so that he could 126
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mount up behind Geoffrey. “It’s that way,” he said, pointing a grimy hand.
The path twisted and meandered like a hungry snake, but the charcoal burner navigated with confidence, using various obscure landmarks that were obvious only to himself. Geoffrey realised uncomfortably that he was a stranger in his own land.
Here, in these woods, this man had the authority of knowledge while he possessed none. “What do ordinary men say of the Count of Anjou?” he asked curiously as they rode along.
His companion shrugged. “It is not my place to speak, messire, but were I to do so, I would say that men do not yet know what to think of him. He is a young man and still to come into his full flowering. It is said he should watch those who serve him lest they are serving their own ends. When the count visits his castles, his bailiffs take goods to provision the place from the local people, promising to pay them, but they never do. It has happened to me with my charcoal before now, but if folk complain they are beaten or imprisoned. Perhaps these men think that they can gain advantage because their lord is inexperienced, but it was an abuse of his father’s day also.”