The Young Lion (42 page)

He returned the King’s embrace. Against his chest his uncle’s body trembled. ‘My son refuses to take the crown,’ Stephen whispered.

Prince, prelates and scribes all jumped to their feet as the King crumpled in Henry’s arms. Henry bent, put a forearm under Stephen’s knees and carried him back to his chair.

William burst into tears. ‘Father, forgive me!’

After a couple of cups of wine the King recovered. ‘You’ve saved the country more agony, son. Your decision is virtuous,’ he said. William’s face was red with shame.

Stephen made a faint gesture towards a bench that Henry took to be an invitation to himself and Guillaume to sit. ‘Sire,’ he asked, ‘what are your terms?’

The King remained mute. It’s God’s will, he thought. I must adopt this ruffian as my heir. ‘First, cease your blockade of our ports.’

Henry asked to speak alone with Guillaume. They strolled to the end of the chamber where Henry hissed, ‘What’s he talking about? I issued no order to block English ports.’

‘I did,’ Guillaume said. ‘When Rachel was murdered, and you left us for two weeks, Ranulf and I agreed we had to maintain a pretence that you were leading the rebellion. I issued an order in your name that our ships were to seize all English ships attempting to reach France, Flanders, Andalus, even Wales. The Bretons joined in and the men of Aquitaine. Henry: we’ve seized thirty large trade ships and a sizable treasure in iron and grain.’

‘We keep it.’ They turned to resume the parley. ‘What happened to the sailors?’ Henry suddenly asked.

Guillaume looked at him sideways. ‘Unfortunately …’

‘How many?’

‘Just the captains, mostly,’ Guillaume said. ‘The rest we put ashore in Normandy.’

‘I require you to return English ships and goods seized at sea,’ Stephen announced.

Henry sighed. ‘Lord King, I regret to say, those goods have been treated as the booty of war and already dispersed.’

‘Lie number one,’ Winchester whispered to Canterbury.

‘I’d say, round one to the Plantagenets,’ Theobold replied.

The bargaining continued through dinner and into the afternoon. In other parts of the palace knights and noblemen of both factions lounged and fretted; some played backgammon, some got drunk, others speculated the war was ending, and what they might do with themselves in peacetime.

‘They’ll be arguing over castles,’ men told each other.

They were. Henry had demanded the Domesday Book be produced plus clerks who had studied it. County by county, town by town, the properties were noted and their title of ownership established. ‘My great-grandfather did not have this document drawn up from whimsy,’ Henry said.

‘No,’ Stephen agreed. ‘He did it to assert the King’s ownership of England.’ Every inch of ground, every tree, forest, river and stream, was declared property of the King. In the forests, the deer, the wolves, the bears and wild boars were his; in the rivers, the fish and badgers. In the skies, the birds. Including and especially the swans. All belonged to the King.

Henry said, ‘You benefited from his foresight for two decades, sire.’

Stephen slumped in his chair. ‘These castles to which you object …’

‘There are fifteen hundred of them!’ Henry shouted. ‘You’ve allowed the building of castles on crown land. As though they’re no challenge to the throne. They are! I won’t have it. Every new castle must be torn down.’

Stephen closed his eyes. William gave him another cup of wine. At length the King said, ‘I couldn’t stop them.’

You didn’t stop them, you weak fool, Henry thought.

‘A majority belong to my supporters,’ Stephen added.

‘That’s unfortunate for them,’ Henry replied. ‘But my terms will be as severe on my own supporters as on yours. Every illegal castle will be demolished.’

Stephen shook his head. ‘Impossible,’ he said. ‘I’ve promised barons and earls –’

‘And butchers and bakers,’ Henry muttered. Many castles were small, rubbishy things made of wood. A few flaming torches and some spadework would dispense with them.

‘– that in my negotiations with you, I would guarantee their castles.’

‘Let’s walk out,’ Guillaume said in Catalan. ‘It’ll save his face.’

The brothers rose and bowed. ‘Sire,’ Henry said, ‘I gave you my word that we’d lift the blockade of English ports. As you cannot give your word that the rule of the King shall once more become the law of England, I fear we can progress no further. I withdraw my promise on the blockade. The war continues.’

With bows to the clerics, he and Guillaume turned on their gilded heels and left.

Outside the door the Archdeacon stood waiting. ‘What, lord Duke? Is the war not …’

Henry gave him a curt nod. He and Guillaume strode through the audience chamber where waiting knights rose in commotion. In the courtyard Henry ordered: ‘Our mounts.’ The Normans who had escorted them that morning scrambled after them.

‘Two men only. The rest of you, stay here,’ Henry commanded. He and Guillaume clattered off into a black November night.

‘The tavern?’ Guillaume asked.

The entrance of the noblemen caused an uproar among the patrons. The proprietor, wearing a long dirty apron, ran to the door to welcome them. ‘My lords, please, please …’

‘Ale for everyone,’ Henry announced. ‘Large or small, whatever they like.’

Fifteen minutes later when two Saxon knights arrived in the doorway and looked inside they could barely see through the throng of people who had come rushing to the tavern to see ‘the Anjevins’ but more importantly to drink free ale. The Saxons shouldered their way through to the centre of attention, a bench where Henry sat and Guillaume, having been handed a badly tuned citern, had begun to sing.

Behind the burly Saxons, his head turning left and right as if he had suddenly woken to find that while asleep he had landed on the moon, was Prince William. ‘Great Prince of England! William! My darling friend!’ Henry shouted. There was stunned silence throughout the tavern. After a moment people turned to each other. ‘The war’s over!’ they whispered. Then they yelled, ‘The war’s over!’ Men kissed each other. Women began to cry.

Henry jumped onto a tabletop and clapped his hands. ‘People of England! Peace has won her victory!’ he shouted. ‘England has peace with honour!’

As the words left his lips men ran outside to the hitching post to mount their horses; others to the cathedral. Bells began a wild, joyous pealing of hope, praise and joy. People in other towns heard them and men on horses galloped from village to village, spreading the word. Soon all the bells within a hundred leagues pealed the news. All night they rang, a fire of chimes across the country, spreading in every direction until people’s ears buzzed. ‘Peace has come! Praise the Lord! THE WAR IS OVER!’

After half an hour in the tavern, Henry and Guillaume had walked together through the town with Prince William, telling him of their adventures in Winchester when they were lads. A curious crowd trailed after them. ‘Let’s find the barn,’ Henry said.

‘I’d prefer to find the girls,’ Guillaume answered. He glanced at the Prince, whose eyes were white on four sides of his pupils. ‘Fancy a Winchester girl in a barn, Your Highness?’ he asked.

The Prince looked around. ‘All these people!’

‘Our guards will keep them at bay.’

The Prince giggled. ‘I’ve never … I mean, I’m not a virgin. But I’ve never …’

‘They do smell sometimes.’ Henry turned to a Norman guard. ‘Fetch us three pails of warm water, some cloths and a pitcher of honey,’ he ordered. To William, in Latin, he said, ‘Give her a spoon of honey. It makes her mouth taste nice and her breath good.’ He and Guillaume surveyed the crowd, searching out pretty faces.

‘How about those two?’ Guillaume suggested.

‘And the dark one over there,’ William added. He felt drunk with excitement as his Saxon knights led the young women forward.

Henry bowed. He now spoke English fluently. ‘Ladies, your beauty dazzles us and steals our hearts. Does any one of you find herself inclined …?’ The young women’s eyes moved from the gorgeously attired foreigners to their own Prince and back again.

‘What if they’re married?’ William whispered in Latin.

‘Husbands regard it like putting a fine stallion across an ordinary mare. They boast of being cock-brothers with nobility.’

Guillaume smiled reassuringly at the slender youth.

‘I want him!’ the dark girl cried looking at Guillaume.

‘Beautiful lady,’ he answered, ‘His Highness the Prince will honour you far more than I. Be as wise as you are lovely.’ He grabbed William’s wrist and held his hand to her.

‘Are you really William, son of our King?’ she whispered. He nodded. Henry and Guillaume could see he was so timid he might bolt. They grabbed a woman each and headed for the barn.

‘Is any one of you a virgin?’ Henry asked. They all shook their heads. ‘Are you with child?’ They shook their heads again. ‘And you are all eager to play with us?’ Their eyes shone with excitement. Henry motioned to the Saxons to close the barn doors behind them. ‘Are you bleeding?’ he asked as an afterthought.

‘I’m bleeding a little,’ Guillaume’s girl said ruefully.

‘I don’t mind at all,’ he answered and kissed her forehead.

‘I’ve never done this before,’ William said. ‘Father will kill me.’

Henry clapped him on the back as they undressed. ‘On the contrary. He’ll be delighted. You’re helping to seal the peace.’

What Henry and Guillaume knew, but were too polite to mention, was that Eustace’s destruction of St Edmund’s Abbey had been not just a wicked crime, but among the ordinary people of England a disaster for the House of Blois. Curses had been uttered from pulpits. Women spat on Eustace’s standard. Men openly urinated on his tomb.

When his son returned after dawn the next morning the King looked as dour as a wet cat.

‘Where’s your other shoe?’ he asked.

‘Forgive me, Father …’ William began.

‘No! I don’t forgive you!’ the King shouted. ‘You’ve spent the night rutting with female villeins in a barn! An orgy, with those Anjevin louts. Have you gone mad?’

‘They enjoyed it,’ William answered.

‘Who enjoyed it?’

‘The townspeople. They spent the night outside the barn, making wagers.’

Stephen pressed his fingers to his eyebrows so the heels of his hands covered his mouth. Behind his palms he could not stop smiling. If I’d planned a way of announcing the war was over, and of cheering the souls of the common people, I could not have invented something better myself, he thought. ‘This is a disgrace to the House of Blois. And your reputation,’ he said.

His son looked affronted. ‘But I was the winner. The blacksmith carried me around the town square on his shoulders and everyone cheered.’

‘May God have mercy on you! It’ll be dog-fighting and bear-baiting next. Go and bathe. Then attend chapel.’

Had his father not been so sour-faced, William would have told him that the people had cheered, ‘Our Prince! We love our Prince William!’ But his father knew this already and was well pleased.

The story of the Winchester barn turned into songs that began, ‘Prince William, Duke Henry, Lord Guillaume, ho-ho!’ and spread through the taverns of England.

At midnight on Christmas Eve, King Stephen announced: ‘I present to you my son and heir, Prince Henry of England and Duke of Normandy.’ He embraced his adopted son. Henry embraced Prince William. A thousand people cheered. In their hearts many uttered curses.

Henry wrote to Eleanor:

He did not burden Eleanor with intelligence that his new brother, William, had given him.

One night after supper in the palace of Bermondsey there had been a quiet tapping on Henry’s door. William stood outside, shoeless to conceal the noise of his footsteps. He slipped into the chamber and only when the door was closed by the Norman guard posted outside it and he had peered around to make sure they were alone, did he speak.

‘Henry,’ he whispered urgently, ‘you’re to be assassinated.’

‘Where and when?’

‘You’ll be invited to ride to Wallingford, and past all the castles you destroyed in the valley of the Thames. It will be framed as “a victory parade” for you. But when you get to the small bridge that was the life-line into Wallingford, your escorts will motion you to cross it first. It will have been weakened overnight and will collapse. You and your horse will fall into the river.’

‘Is that the only plot?’

‘There may be others.’

‘Poison?’

‘I don’t think so. They want an assassination that appears to be an accident, something that happens in broad daylight.’

Henry was silent. Is this a trap? he wondered. Has William changed his mind about rejecting the throne? The Prince’s breathing was fast and shallow. Henry invited him to sit beside him on the bed. He placed his hands on the slender shoulders and
looked into his face. He slowed his own breathing until he saw that William’s breath had fallen into rhythm with his. ‘Brother,’ he said, ‘have you told me the whole truth?’