Lady of the English (26 page)

Matilda did not believe he would because she was strong in the regions she did control, but even so, she dared not ignore the possibility.

Geoffrey’s campaign thus far had met with mixed fortunes.

He had taken Carrouges and Asnabec with ease. Montreuil had resisted, but Les Moutiers had surrendered. Geoffrey had been 200

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on the point of seizing Lisieux, when de Meulan had arrived with a strong contingent and barred his way.

As the dawn brightened in the east, Matilda’s reinforcements rode at a trot towards Lisieux, twenty-five miles away. She quelled the urge to increase the pace. They had to conserve the horses’ energy in case they had to fight when they arrived. She was praying that the sight of the troops, well equipped and led by seasoned captains, would make Waleran withdraw.

Her captain, Alexander de Bohun, had sent scouts ahead on faster horses and as her army approached Lisieux, one of them returned at a sweated gallop. “Madam, the town is burning! My lord of Meulan has fired the suburbs and the flames have spread!”

Matilda lifted her head. Distantly she could indeed smell smoke on the wind.

The scout patted his trembling horse. “The Count of Anjou has turned to Le Sap instead.”

Matilda’s eyes darkened. “What?”

De Bohun said, “Neither side will risk a pitched battle, domina. If de Meulan has fired Lisieux, either it is to destroy the means by which our army can supply itself, or because he cannot control his men. We do not have enough soldiers to ride into Lisieux ourselves and face de Meulan.”

“Le Sap. How far is that?”

“About nineteen miles to the south,” said de Bohun. “If we push the horses harder, we can be there in a little over two hours.”

“Then push them,” she said grimly. If they could take Le Sap, then at least it would be a base from which to renew assault on Lisieux once Geoffrey’s troops were bolstered by her reinforcements.

De Bohun gave the order and Matilda had her remount brought up: the strong white gelding she had ridden on the day she fled her marriage from Geoffrey. That smooth pace and stamina would stand her in good stead now. Around her 201

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the soldiers who had spare horses took the opportunity to change them and those who did not retired to the back of the column. De Redvers bowed as he handed her a costrel of wine and a drinking horn inlaid with silver. “To your health, domina,” he said.

She took a few fortifying swallows. “If we had arrived half a day earlier, we could have made a difference,” she said in frustration as she returned the horn.

“Perhaps,” de Redvers said with a shrug, “but you cannot look back. With good fortune, the Count of Anjou will have succeeded at Le Sap, and if Meulan has burned Lisieux, it benefits us, because it will not endear him to the people.”

By the time they arrived at Le Sap, the sun was westering at their backs, and once again there was smoke in the air, powerful and pungent. Bodies of men and animals littered the road.

Many houses in the small town were ablaze and the church was writhing in flames while the priest stood outside with his deacons, wringing his hands and weeping to God. On the castle walls, Geoffrey’s lioncel banner flew with those of his allies: Talvas, Aquitaine, Vendôme, and Nevers. Knights and serjeants were busy making billets. A miserable crowd of prisoners huddled against the castle walls, their wrists and ankles clamped by fetters.

A makeshift gallows had been erected and several corpses dangled from it, their necks tilting to touch their shoulders.

One man had been mutilated too, his entrails hanging out in slick bluish ropes. The smell of the butcher’s shambles, bloody and rich, joined the raw stink of smoke and Matilda covered her face with her wimple and gagged.

“Domina, thank Christ you are here.”

She turned at the touch on her arm and faced Geoffrey’s close friend and ally, William Talvas. His face was smirched with grease from his hauberk and there was a superficial nick under one cheekbone that had dried in a beaded black line.

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She eyed him askance. “It seems I did not arrive in time for Lisieux, but you appear to have taken Le Sap—if rather messily,” she added with a pointed glance over her shoulder at the burning church.

“We sent for aid because there is sickness in the camp.

Many of the soldiers have the bloody flux and cannot fight and there are wounded from our other battles. We badly need the replacements.”

“Where is the Count of Anjou?” She had expected to see Geoffrey before now, striding about, directing operations in his usual high-handed manner.

Talvas rubbed the back of his neck. “That is another reason I am glad you are here. He has been wounded. That man we hanged—he hurled a javelin from a whip sling and it struck Geoffrey in the foot. He’s in the solar chamber having the injury seen to by a chirurgeon.”

Matilda fought down panic. She could not afford to lose Geoffrey now with so much at stake and their sons so small.

“How bad?”

Talvas shrugged. “He’ll only be wearing one boot for a while.”

Matilda hurried off in search of her husband and found him lying in the solar as Talvas had said. He had drunk the best part of a flagon of wine and was still drinking. Red stars flushed his cheekbones and his eyes were opaque with pain. His hair was plastered to his head with dirt and sweat, its colour closer to dingy brown than bright gold. He lay on bloodstained sheets, clad in his battle-soiled shirt and braies. The chirurgeon was washing his hands in a bowl of red water. On a table at his side was an unfolded bundle of the tools of his trade, including several fearsome-looking needles. Geoffrey’s leg, heavily bandaged, was propped up on several pillows. “Dear God!”

she gasped.

He turned his bloodshot gaze towards her. “Ah, my sweet 203

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wife. I was wondering when you would arrive. I am afraid you are too late to do anything save gloat over my condition.”

“Why would I want to do that when you are fighting for my interests?” she snapped. She was more shaken than she wanted to admit. “How bad is it?”

He made a face. “My foot has a slit in it like a gutted herring.

I cannot walk; I cannot ride. Christ, I’ll have to use a forked branch for a crutch like one of those beggars at a monastery gate—probably for weeks.”

“Is this true?” Matilda turned to the chirurgeon who gave a doleful nod.

“I have done my best, domina, but the count will be unable to sit a horse for several days and certainly not set his foot on the ground.”

She folded her lips together and turned back to her husband.

Anxiety made her waspish. She did not want to think about William le Clito, who had died from a minor wound in the hand that had festered and poisoned his blood. “Then what is to happen? You cannot stay here in this burned-out shell, and Waleran de Meulan is in the vicinity with seasoned troops.”

“I have injured my foot, not lost my wits,” he spat. “I am perfectly aware of the whereabouts of de Meulan. Since when have you acquired the knowledge to command in the field?”

“Since you asked me to bring you reinforcements from Argentan,” she retorted.

“Which did not arrive soon enough. If you had pushed faster, I could have taken Lisieux.”

Matilda’s eyes flashed. “We came with all the haste we could muster. If you had wanted us sooner, you should have sent for us in better time. That is your lack, not mine, my lord.”

He pushed himself upright. “Christ, hold your tongue, you sour bitch. Do you know how hellish this campaign has been?

Do you know how much sweat and blood it has taken to push 204

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this far while you have been sitting safe behind your high walls at Argentan, and then, after one day’s ride and no fighting, have the bile to tell me I have failed?” His voice ended on a ragged note and tears of fury shone in his eyes.

She made an impatient throwing gesture. “The fact remains that you did not take Lisieux and this place is not secure.

Someone needs to plan what happens next. I have brought you reinforcements and supplies, but not enough to feed all of your men and mine. We will have to send out foragers, but how far afield will they have to go?”

Geoffrey looked away into the shadows of the bed. “I will talk to you no more,” he said hoarsely.

The chirurgeon came to the bed and felt Geoffrey’s brow.

“He has a fever, domina,” he said. “Better to return in a while when he is rested.”

“Very well,” she said. “But decisions have to be made.”

ttt

That night, Matilda barely slept. There was constant toing and froing in the camp. Scouts arrived by lantern-light and departed again. The men played music round their fires, drank, told tales, and grew loud. Brawls broke out and were mostly settled with the whips and fists of the commanders. The wounded groaned on their pallets. Some died. The fire from the burned church subdued to glowing embers, but the stink of smoke hung on the air. Matilda checked on Geoffrey a couple of times, but the chirurgeon had dosed him with syrup of the white poppy to give him ease, and he was deep in a drugged sleep. Many of the troops were sick with bloody bowel motions. William Talvas had fallen victim in the night, and had retired to groan in his tent. Towards dawn, Matilda gave up on sleep and, gritty-eyed with tiredness, went to mass. The morning light did not make the situation look any better and more men were falling sick.

Without Geoffrey to lead the campaign it was going to founder.

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Matilda went to him following her prayers and found him sitting up, awake and aware, in great pain and full of bad temper.

“The campaign will have to cease until the spring,” he growled.

“I cannot lead the troops. Talvas has the flux, and William of Aquitaine does not have the authority. If we press on now, it will be a disaster. We have made some gains; let us consolidate those.”

She was tempted to beat him about his bad foot with the fire poker. “So you give up after two weeks? Will your allies still be willing to campaign with you in the spring after this? We have planned this for so long, and now you turn tail and run like a whipped cur!”

“I am not running anywhere,” he snarled. “I will not have you impugn my courage. We have no choice but to withdraw.

Do you not see? Pah! Of course you don’t, because it is ever your way to be blind and stubborn if something does not suit you. If we advance as we are, we face disaster, even with the reinforcements from Argentan. Christ, you foolish bitch, we will be destroyed in the field and there will be no spring campaign at all, no duchy and no England. Is that what you want, because that is what you will get!”

Matilda stared at him. She knew he was right, but she was still furious and sick with disappointment. If there was dysen-tery in the camp, there was the danger that Geoffrey might succumb to its ravages, and while she had no love for him, she needed him, and so did their boys. But not like this. She turned to leave, pausing at the door. “Pray, what message shall I bring to our sons at Argentan from their illustrious father?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I do not need you to bear my messages. I shall visit as soon as I am able and speak to them myself.” His voice softened slightly. “Tell Henry I will take him riding when I come. And tell the little ones that I hold them in my prayers—even if they are too young to understand.

The baby…does he look like me?”

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Her instinct was to lash out and say no, but it wasn’t true and she believed in the truth above all things. “He has my hair and your eyes,” she said, “and he thrives.” She left then, and for a moment had to hide in a corner and compose herself. It took an effort, like lacing up a garment with frozen hands, but she succeeded in pulling everything taut, and when she arrived in the great hall, she was filled with regal vigour and purpose, and no one would have guessed how close to weeping she was. She could not afford the softness of a woman. In a man’s world, she had to have the heart and stomach of a man.

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Twenty-four

Normandy, May 1137

W ill D’Albini handed the woman a coin in exchange for the small pile of laundered shirts and braies she had placed on his coffer. He was no fop, but he liked clean underwear, and finding a decent laundress was always one of his first priorities once he had dealt with his tent and his horses.

“Rushed off my feet, I am,” she said as she tucked the silver penny in the pouch at her belt. “Those Flemings think a shirt gets washed and dried faster than you can toast bread on a stick.” With a shrug of her ample shoulders and a belated curtsey, she stumped from his tent.

Will’s lips twitched. Leaving his squire to place the fresh shirts in his travelling coffer, he followed the woman out into the bright summer morning and gazed at the bustle of the camp. The king had crossed from England to Normandy in March in order to secure the province and treat with King Louis of France. A campaign was being organised to march on the castles held by the empress and force her out, but it had been hampered because Geoffrey of Anjou had crossed the border with a large army and was ravaging the Hiémois. He had destroyed Bazoches-au-Houlme, razing the church, which had been full of folk taking shelter. William D’Ypres, Stephen’s chief mercenary captain, had attempted to bring Geoffrey to LadyofEnglish.indd 208

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battle, but many of Stephen’s Norman lords were reluctant to obey the command of a bastard Flemish mercenary with a shady past. There was tension in the camp and frayed tempers.