The Anarchy, page 14
‘I have asked you all to attend me,’ I declared, ‘because I am in dispute with my husband concerning the management of my estate.’
De Marais’ expression darkened, but he began by trying for a conciliatory tone. ‘My dear wife,’ he cajoled, ‘as I have requested in my letters, I need you to return to your duties at Cardigan Castle now that you have birthed our first child. And I need you to sign the charters I have drawn up regarding your estates at Llansteffan and Carew.’
‘I intend to stay here in Llansteffan. The king has given me leave to do so,’ I said bluntly.
De Marais could not keep the fury from his face and de Londres turned back to me with surprised consternation showing on his.
‘And,’ I continued, emphatically, ‘I will dispose of my own lands as I see fit.’
‘Mother,’ my son, Henry, leapt in before de Marais could respond, ‘no one wishes to take what is yours, but it is our duty to be strategic in its use to support the king’s interests here in Wales.’ He winked at me out of de Marais’ line of vision to indicate he intended to support me and to mollify and manipulate de Marias to suit us.
‘These are wise words,’ de Londres ventured.
‘I know that you are right, Henry,’ I said. ‘I have decided to gift Carew to you, William,’ I announced to my second son. Carew was too redolent of my former life with my first husband, Gerald, for me to bear to ever live there again. It was the place I associated most with my marriage to him. ‘You are of age to make your own household as Henry already does at Arberth, which was gifted to him by the king.’ It did not hurt to name our connection to King Henry as often as possible.
William smiled his delight at the prospect of his independence. Added to his stewardship of Pembroke Castle on behalf of Gilbert de Clare, my gift of Carew created him a considerable power in the region. I saw de Londres nod his recognition that I was within my rights to grant that demesne to my son and that he approved of the appointment.
De Marais, on the other hand, was furious. My gift significantly diminished the income from the estates that I brought to our marriage, to him. ‘And Llansteffan?’ he demanded.
‘Llansteffan, I will keep in my own hands. The king has given me a charter confirming my ownership and permitting me to reside here.’ I flourished the charter and passed it to de Londres to examine. I listened to my husband breathing heavily through his nose as de Londres read. De Londres looked up from perusing the parchment, smiling lopsidedly at me, in recognition of my stratagem. Then de Marais and my sons, one by one, read it through. ‘My son, Maurice, will be my castellan here.’ Now Maurice was as pleased as his brother William. I knew my attachment to Llansteffan was irrational. It was where my brother, Goronwy, had been killed by the first Norman invaders. It was where I had loved Haith. I knew my husband, and even my sons, saw my ownership of it as nominal. Strategically, they viewed it as theirs, Norman territory, but I did not see it that way and in law, it was mine. Maurice would be the custodian of Llansteffan, but it belonged to me, and I would enforce that at law if I had to.
‘These decisions seem lawful to me, and in the king’s interest,’ Henry declared swiftly, ‘and I am happy to support them. What do you say, de Londres?’
‘Yes, I am also happy to support Lady Nest’s decisions regarding the disposal of her estate and confirm that this is the king’s seal and signature commanding it so,’ de Londres stated firmly.
It was done. De Marais could not argue with this ratification of the document that I brandished when it came from both my son Henry and from the royal official. There was nothing he could do to gainsay me or argue with me. He was caught in a bind, not wishing to lose any further face in front of these men, anxious not to affront my sons, who were of importance in the region. My clerk had already drawn up the charter confirming my disposal of Carew to William, and we duly witnessed it. Maurice told me he would collect his gear from Carew and return to me and his new duties with haste. De Marais was poleaxed by the swift sequence of events and looked more shocked and floundering than angry, although that would undoubtedly come later.
‘Might I have a word with you, Lady Nest?’ de Londres asked.
‘Of course.’ I led him to a seat at the hearth. From the corner of my eye, I watched de Marais ready to depart with great fuss and irritation. My sons kept him corralled and headed with him toward the door and the stables, while de Londres consulted with me on the coming harvest and the next tax collection. I waved to my boys as they turned smiling to me at the threshold and regretted their departure, wanting to celebrate our ridding of de Marais with them, but at least I could also watch my husband leave and hope to never see him again. De Londres refused my offer of a bed at Llansteffan for the night. He was a long way from his own base at Ogmore, but he told me he had business at Kidwelly and must go on there before nightfall.
‘Rebellion against the king is brewing in Normandy,’ de Londres told me, ‘led by Waleran de Meulan and Amaury de Montfort. And there is news that the rebels’ hero, William Clito, has married Sybil, the daughter of the count of Anjou.’
I frowned. ‘Such a marriage furthers Clito’s claim to the duchy of Normandy significantly.’
‘Yes,’ agreed de Londres. ‘Many of the lords from the south and west of Wales have been called to arms to the king and we will be rather thinly spread in the meantime. I thought, as a significant landowner here, Lady Nest, I should inform you about this. Your sons are already aware of it.’
We, I thought. He imagined that because my sons comported themselves as Normans that he could presume to also include me in this Norman ‘we’ who were holding the land against the rebellious Welsh. I longed to ask de Londres if he had any news of Haith. No doubt, he would know where the sheriff was and what he was about, but I knew that such a question would break the bounds of decorum and I could not speak Haith’s name, much as I wanted to.
After de Londres had taken his leave, Amelina came into the hall with my new son in her arms and handed him to me. I looked down into his sweet face. ‘And here is another Norman,’ I said in a gentle tone, touching my fingertip to his soft cheek. He pursed his tiny mouth at me in response and I smiled into his eyes. ‘Another sweet, sweet Norman.’
II
1123–1129
‘One generation is going away, another is coming. There are men like the leaves of a tree, the leaves of the olive tree, the laurel tree, or any tree that still retains its mantle of greenery. Thus the earth bears men, as one of these trees bears leaves; it is covered with men, some of whom die, whose others are born to succeed them. The tree always has its bright dress; but see below how many dry leaves crowd you.’
13
The Crow
Haith squinted through the sheeting rain, looking up at the rebel commander standing on the parapet of Pont Audemer Castle. The man had his back to the besiegers and was gesticulating at his troops, confident that the trebuchets and arrows of the king’s forces were not yet in range. Concentrating, Haith blocked out the noise of the wind, the soldiers’ shouts and the tramping and snorting of horses all around him. He struggled at the control rope of the Crow with his companion, straining to keep both balance and direction in the swing of the enormous weight of the grappling iron. Haith focused on the position of the hook and their target standing unaware on the castle wall. The Crow was incredibly difficult to control. The thing was like fishing, but with the weight of a bell rather than a feathered bait. Each tiny move on their part resulted in a major jerk from the grapple so that it swung wildly, too far one way and then the other, yet gradually they manoeuvred it nearer to the castle commander. Amid the smoke and noise of war engines being trundled into place, the commander had not noticed the huge iron claws veering toward him as if they had Saint Vitus’ Dance. ‘Yes!’ Haith shouted as they found their target. Haith could see the soldiers close to the commander waving their arms in panicked signals. The commander turned too late to find himself hooked by the barbed iron talons of the Crow. ‘Swing it!’ Haith yelled. Together, he and his companion slewed the commander from the castle wall. After a brief and desperate struggle to keep a hold on the Crow’s embrace, the commander plummeted the long drop to the stony ground. He did not rise.
‘Let go!’ Haith shouted. He and his companion released their grip on the crow’s ropes and the blunt end of the pole swung up wildly into the air, recoiling against its wooden brace as the heavy iron claws slammed down into the ground. Haith swallowed, keeping his eye on the still body of the commander at the foot of the castle wall. He staggered, unprepared, when his companion slapped him hard on the shoulder in congratulations. The king was fond of his constantly developing engines of war. Haith had to concede that, on this occasion, the ingenuity of the engineers had proven its worth. Leaderless, the garrison would soon surrender, yet it seemed a cowardly way to engage in combat, at long arm’s length and no risk to one’s self. This seemed an unseemly way for a brave soldier to die.
The siege had gone on and on, well past the usual battle season, and into this wet and frigid winter that both sides were forced to contend with. Haith hugged his gloved hands beneath his armpits, but they were excruciatingly cold. On his side of the wall, the troops and horses stumbled in semi-frozen mud. On the other side of the wall, inside the castle, he guessed the well and pond were frozen solid and the food supplies were exhausted.
Two years ago, Haith had been inside the castle wall he was staring at, that they were working so hard to breach. He remembered the great hall where he had sat watching the cheerful preparations for the weddings of Waleran de Meulan’s three sisters and where he witnessed the arrival of the rebel leader, William Clito. He imagined the great hall would be a much sorrier sight now. The line of maids strewing sweet herbs before the marriage feast came vividly to his mind. Fleetingly, he wondered if the forward maid with the dimples was still in there, and how she might have fared amid the boulders that had crashed relentlessly into the courtyard for the last few months, or the arrows that had rained unkindly on the castle defenders.
When they first arrived in Normandy in the summer, the king refortified his strongholds all across the duchy: at Rouen, Caen, Falaise, Argentan, Arques, Gisors, Vernon, Exmes, Vire, Gavray, Domfront and Ambieres. Henry spent most of his time in Rouen with Queen Adelisa and left the front-line duties to the earls of Chester and Gloucester and to his familia regis, which included Haith. The king’s extraordinary arsenal of siege engines to be deployed against the rebels was under Haith’s management: ballistas, mangonels, wooden towers on wheels, engines that hurled stones and javelins, and now the iron hand of the crow. William Clito had been attacking in the south and there was news in September of Waleran, Amaury and the other rebels at La Croix-Saint-Leufroy. From then on, the autumn was stormy in Normandy with thunder, rain and war.
In October, Henry grew impatient and set out with a vast army, summoning one of the rebels, Hugh de Montfort to him, demanding that he hand over the castle of Montfort-sur-Risle. Hugh, however, evaded the king, escaping from the castle before the arrival of the royal army. He had left Montfort-sur-Risle in the command of his heavily pregnant wife, Adelina, one of Waleran’s sisters. Amaury de Montfort and William Crispin failed in an attempt to capture Gisors from the king. Earl Robert and Earl Ranulf had been, in turn, attacking Amaury’s lands around Evreux. King Henry, usually so considerate toward women, had relentlessly besieged Adelina in Montfort-sur-Risle, burnt the town, fired Brionne and then marched to lay siege to Pont Audemer, which had held out until now, until the middle of December.
* * *
The king called his council to attend him in his tent to announce the capitulation of the Pont Audemer garrison. Haith strode up the hill toward the royal pavilion, which was pitched on a rise to preserve it from the worst of the icy puddles and muck. The king’s flag flew from the pinnacle of the brilliant blue and red striped tent. Two servants stood at the entrance, securing the tent flaps back to allow the members of Henry’s war council to crowd inside. The king was sitting on a portable throne and nodded to Haith. ‘Good fishing with the Crow, my friend!’ he called out. When his commanders were assembled, the king addressed them: ‘You all know that the garrison has surrendered and you will have heard the gentle terms I have given them for their valiant, if misguided, efforts.’
Not so gentle terms, thought Haith, for those many who had already died. He had overseen the bodies inside the castle being loaded onto carts that morning and then seen them off to be ferried out to the lime pits for burial. The dimpled maid had been among the dead. He had recognised her in the pile of corpses despite the ghastly greenish pallor of her face. Her delicate neck had been pierced with the uncaring gash of an arrow.
‘We have reports from Gisors,’ the king continued, ‘that Amaury de Montfort and William Crispin attempted to take the fortress by subterfuge, but they have been repelled.’ A cry of victory went up from the assembled men. ‘I have decided to call a truce for Christmas,’ Henry declared.
‘But should we let up now, sire,’ asked Stephen de Blois, ‘when we are so close to hammering the rebels into the ground?’ Stephen was an enthusiastic soldier. Haith could not recall ever feeling enthusiastic about war. Bowel-droppingly terrified, anguished, exhausted, nauseatingly disgusted. Those were his feelings about war, but it was not ever anything that could be dodged or run away from. It had to go on until the king called a halt, as he was doing now, and Haith sent up a grateful prayer for that. There was no need for anyone to offer an argument against Stephen. Every man there, including Stephen, knew the king did not change his mind. Stephen’s bluster was just part of his constant efforts to prove his worth to the heirless king.
‘Our troops are exhausted and sick,’ King Henry declared. ‘Fighting this late into the year is doing neither side any good. The people of Normandy, my people, are suffering from the ravages of war on the land all around us. They need a chance to recover themselves, so that there is no starvation next year. There will be respite for the Christmas period. We will return to Rouen, and return to the battlefield to obliterate the rebels in the spring.’
All nodded and murmured their needless assent. Henry’s councils were never occasions for debate. They were simply vehicles to convey information on decisions he had already made. In truth, all the king’s soldiers, apart from Stephen de Blois, had little stomach to continue the fighting in this unseasonable season. Apart from the question of the succession, de Blois had other reasons for excessive battle zeal. His father had been accused of cowardice during the first crusade and Stephen went to great lengths to ensure the same accusation could never be laid at his door.
* * *
Haith accompanied King Henry and Queen Adelisa inside Saint Romanus chapel in Rouen,but halted just inside the door to allow them to proceed toward the altar in privacy. They removed their heavy winter cloaks and loaded them over Haith’s proffered arm and heeled off the boots they had worn to cross the muddy courtyard outside. The king and queen stood in their plain linen shifts, and in the cold silence of the chapel, their breath showed white around their faces. It made Haith shiver just to look at them. The differences in their ages and physiques were emphasised by their state of undress. Henry’s undertunic was taut across the girth of his belly, while Adelisa’s slender, girlish body was swamped in the voluminous folds of her shift. As the king and queen processed solemnly toward the altar, wearing chaplets of white flowers on their heads, their bare feet slapped against the stone slabs of the nave. The tiny chapel was lit with a thousand candles for the royal visit and a small choir of novices sang softly under the discreet direction of a monk. To Haith’s right, candlelight glinted on the gold leaf of a book of hours, open on a stand. From the walls, large colourful paintings of saints and the holy family looked down on Haith with doleful eyes. A solitary priest stood at the altar, ready to raise the lid of the reliquary and allow the royal couple to touch the preserved remains of Saint Romanus. The king and queen prayed to the saint to intercede for them and grant them a son. The saint’s mother, Felicite, had lamented her barrenness until she was visited by an angel and Henry was sure that the saint’s bones could help them.
Saint Romanus was known for many miracles: levitation, quelling a flooding river, resisting the temptations of a demon cavorting as a naked woman, and vanquishing a dragon. To Haith’s left, a wall-painting depicted the saint confronting the dragon with a crucifix. The dragon had batlike wings, a long neck, and breathed fire from its curiously human-looking face.
The cathedral at Rouen had been struck by lightning some years before and there was plenty of work for stonemasons, carpenters, and fresco artists there now. It would be a long time before it was rebuilt and could be used again. In the meantime, many of its treasures, including the relics of Saint Romanus and the tombs of the early dukes of Normandy – Rollo and William I – were temporarily housed here. It was strange to see the ducal coffins placed on the floor like mere packing crates.
Haith tried but failed to suppress his curiosity about the relics that Henry and Adelisa were so reverently huddled around up there. A mummified penis, perhaps? More likely a finger bone, or dried out tongue, or a vial of blood. It was rumoured there were numerous churches claiming to house Christ’s holy prepuce, but it was forbidden to speak about that. Haith had to part company with Henry on the efficacy of relics. He could not give credence to this worship of bits of old bones and leatherised flesh, but he kept his opinions to himself.
The king and queen completed their entreaties and were coming back down the aisle toward him. Henry was intent on his hands joined in supplication before him, but Adelisa lifted a white face to Haith and sent an agonised glance in his direction. He did his best to send her a reassuring smile in return. This relentless and seemingly hopeless pressure to be fertile with an ageing man could not have been what she had imagined as a young girl, dreaming of her future husband.
