The Anarchy, page 24
The cry of a small animal in the night woke Haith, a mouse in the cruel claws of an owl perhaps, and he struggled to get back to sleep. The bells of the church rang out, adding to his inability to slip into drowsy unconsciousness. He grew tired of tossing and turning and sat up abruptly, swinging his legs to the edge of the bed. Haith slipped his cloak and boots on, determined to make a circuit of the abbey. He hoped a stroll would clear his head and allow him to find sleep on his return to his truckle bed in the abbey guesthouse. He felt carefully with his boot at the threshold. It was a pitch-black night, and he could not remember if there were steps here or not that he might tumble down and break his neck. He fumbled his way carefully along the dark path, stopping abruptly at the sound of a man’s voice, close by. ‘My love.’
Haith kept stock still. He could hear rustling, as if the man and his love stood against a hedge to Haith’s right.
‘You should not have come here, Amaury.’ Haith recognised Ida’s voice.
Haith could not retreat. They would hear him. He would have to wait it out and hope he remained undetected.
‘How could I not, when I heard you were here, received your note? I was so close. There was no choice in the matter.’
There was an interruption in their speech, and Haith imagined the silence might be bracketing a kiss. He could not lurk here in the dark while his sister engaged in a sexual tryst with this man.
‘It’s been a long time,’ Ida breathed. ‘I did not expect you to come to me.’
‘As I said, my love, no choice. I never forgot you, Benedicta.’ Amaury called Ida by her nun’s name, the name he had known her by when they were lovers. There was another silence. Haith took one silent step, backing away.
‘I have to ask you something, Amaury.’ Haith stopped moving.
‘We have no time for words, sweet Benedicta, only for this.’
After another long pause, Ida’s voice whispered through the darkness again. ‘Amaury,’ she was admonishing him. ‘No, listen. Stop. I mean to ask you it.’
Haith’s curiosity burned, but he started to move silently away again. It was not decent to eavesdrop on his sister. He would have to hope, instead, that she would tell him whatever she found out from Amaury de Montfort.
29
Circling
‘Take this, boy!’ Haith slapped the slopping bowl of water with its bloodied towels into the boy’s palms.
The young page was pale and alarmed. ‘Yes, Sheriff.’
‘Keep your eyes on the king and run for help if there is any change in his condition. Do you understand?’ Haith shook the shoulder of the shocked page. ‘I’m going for the doctor, but I will be back as fast as I can.’
The boy raised frightened saucer eyes to Haith’s face but nodded. Haith hesitated on the threshold of the king’s chamber. Where was he most likely to find the doctor? He took a chance that at this time of the evening, the man would have already retired from the hall and taken to his own quarters. He pulled Henry’s door closed behind him and heard the latch click back into place. The doctor’s lodging was on the other side of the castle since Henry rarely had cause to keep a doctor near, but he had cause now.
Haith jogged along the covered stone passageway. His own days of sprinting were at an end. He knew he would feel even this light run tomorrow in his over-worn muscles. He hammered with his fist on the doctor’s door. A female shriek and a blurred cry emitted from the room, ‘One moment!’ The king had no time for modesties. Haith tried the latch, but found the door locked. He hammered again. ‘Open up, now! The king has need of you!’ He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Several servants passing in the corridor behind him stopped to gape. The news would soon be all over the palace that the king was taken ill.
The doctor opened up and Haith glimpsed the bed-curtains trembling behind the man, but who he was in bed with was of no consequence. ‘The king is ill,’ Haith said in a low voice. ‘Get your medicines and instruments and follow me immediately.’ The doctor nodded, and they were soon back at the king’s bedside.
‘Wait outside,’ the doctor told him imperiously, having recovered his dignity on their rapid walk back to the king’s solar.
Reluctantly, Haith moved to sit on the bench opposite the king’s door. He put his head in his hands. This illness had come on swiftly, with no forewarning. Henry had been pushing himself even more than usual for the last two years, hellbent on ensuring the repair of the empress’ marriage. She had finally returned to Count Geoffrey last autumn, but there was still no news of an heir. The king worked tirelessly to lay the ground to ensure that Maud would inherit his throne. He had forced the barons to swear an oath to her again, before she returned to her husband in Anjou. But this time, there had been no ambivalence about it. They had sworn to recognize Empress Maud as the king’s heir in her own right. Over the last few months, Henry had been greasing palms and pouring argumentation into the ears of the archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Roger of Salisbury. Both men would be instrumental in confirming Maud on the throne in the event of the king’s death.
Haith lifted his head and stared anxiously at the closed door of the king’s chamber. The king had lost consciousness and fallen, hitting his arm and face hard against the carved wooden chest at the end of the bed. Haith had picked him up, carried him to the bed, and staunched the flow of blood from the wound on his cheek and mouth. Henry had regained consciousness quickly but lay moaning feebly at the pain in his broken face. The doctor was taking his sweet time in there.
‘Sheriff Haith!’
Haith looked down the passageway and saw Stephen de Blois approaching fast, followed by a retinue of men. The faces of Ranulf de Gernon and Waleran de Meulan were at Stephen’s shoulders, as they jostled to keep their places in the melee of men striding toward Haith. Stephen halted, and Haith rose to his feet.
‘What’s happened?’ Stephen demanded.
‘The king fell in his solar and has injured his face and arm. The doctor is with him, my lord.’
Stephen looked at the closed door and hesitated.
Waleran butted shoulders with Stephen to step forward and glare aggressively at Haith. Since Waleran’s return to court, he had been unremittingly hostile toward Haith, except in the king’s presence. Haith could only assume the hostility derived from a combination of his unwelcome presence at Pont Audemer before the rebellion and the threat to Waleran if Haith informed the king of du Pin’s role in the wrecking of The White Ship. ‘We should go into the solar at once,’ Waleran declared. ‘The king may have need of speech with his lords.’
‘It might be best to allow the doctor to make the king comfortable,’ Haith ventured. ‘I’m sure the doctor will come soon to tell us how the king fares.’
Ranulf stepped forward to join Waleran in an aggressive posture aimed at Haith. ‘It is hardly your place to tell us what to do,’ Ranulf snarled.
Haith ignored Ranulf and looked back to Stephen’s face. He had the authority here, as the king’s nephew. Stephen frowned, contemplating Haith. ‘We will wait. Give me room here,’ he pushed at Waleran and then Ranulf, who were crowding him. ‘And,’ he said, lowering his own voice, ‘we will have no raised voices in the vicinity of my uncle if he is sickening.’
Waleran’s face showed his displeasure at being told what to do, but he drew back from the confrontational stance he had taken toward Haith. He leant, instead, on the panelled wall beside Haith and faced the bedchamber door.
Ranulf was not so easily silenced. ‘You should be in the chamber, Stephen,’ he hissed.
‘Shut up,’ Stephen said with uncharacteristic rudeness. ‘Shut up, Ranulf. Let me think, here.’
Bishop Henry de Blois belatedly joined the throng outside the king’s door, rustling in his silken bishop’s robes. ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded of Haith.
Haith repeated the story of the king’s fall and the doctor’s examination. He watched Bishop Henry exchange a glance with his brother, Stephen. Haith saw glee flit across the bishop’s face and be concealed as quickly. The bishop turned a look of concern upon the gathered men. ‘We should pray for our lord king’s deliverance.’
‘Not here,’ Stephen said, irritated at the press of men in the hallway. ‘The chapel, perhaps, brother,’ he said. ‘You might lead the court in prayers for the king’s good health in the chapel, and I will wait and hear what Doctor Grimbald has to say.’
Bishop Henry flashed a look of annoyance at his brother, and Haith saw the alarm on Ranulf’s face at the suggestion. None of them wanted to miss any event that might occur in the king’s solar. Stephen turned to the crowding courtiers. ‘You will go to the chapel or the hall and await further news. You do no good creating a disturbance here at my uncle’s door, at his sickbed.’ Reluctantly, the majority of the men dispersed. However, Bishop Henry, Waleran, and Ranulf remained waiting alongside Haith and Stephen. There was an awkward silence. They were, no doubt, Haith mused, all brimming to speak of the possibility of the king’s death and what happened next but could not. Booted footsteps resounded loudly, and they looked up at the approach of Robert of Gloucester. Seeing their faces, Robert broke into a run. ‘Haith! What’s happened?’
‘Your father took a fall,’ Haith began, but Robert had burst through the doors of the king’s chamber before Haith could complete his account. Stephen, Bishop Henry, Waleran, and Ranulf seized their opportunity and entered the solar behind the earl of Gloucester. Haith judged he would do best to follow suit. The doctor looked up at the disturbance and they were confronted by the king’s glare from the canopied bed, his hands pale against the dark fur coverlet. In the shafts of light cast from the two tall windows at the side of the room, Haith could see that the king’s cheek and one eye had already coloured black with streaks of red. His lip was sorely split. ‘Father?’ Robert asked.
‘It looks worse than it is,’ Henry declared around his swollen mouth. ‘I tripped.’ He looked at Haith, daring him to gainsay the lie, and Haith merely raised an eyebrow out of sight of the lords. Haith bent to discreetly collect the cushions that had been swept from the chest in the king’s fall. He placed them on a bench set against the wall.
‘Doctor?’ Robert demanded.
‘The king was in some pain, but I have made him comfortable and there is no life-threatening injury here.’
There was a brief silence. ‘Thank God!’ Stephen declared.
Bishop Henry sank to his knees at the king’s bedside and clasped his hands in silent prayer.
‘There’s no need for fuss,’ the king said, ‘but, Robert, I will keep to my bed for a few days while the bruising heals.’
‘Of course, sire. Stephen and I can deal with the business of the court during your absence. There is no cause to worry over it.’ He looked to Stephen who nodded his assent, and the king likewise nodded.
‘Good.’ The king waved a weary hand. ‘I’m tired. Withdraw!’ he said. Bishop Henry rose from his knees and the lords moved toward the door. ‘Not you, Haith,’ Henry commanded, and Haith turned and moved back to the king’s bed, encountering the glares of Waleran and Ranulf as he crossed their paths.
When the doctor and everyone else were out of earshot, Henry contemplated Haith. ‘Vultures,’ he said.
‘They are concerned for your welfare, sire.’ Haith moved to the hearth and loaded more logs onto the fire. The afternoon light was beginning to dim, and he used the flint hanging at his belt to light the lamp dangling from a chain slung over a beam.
Behind him, he heard Henry snort. ‘Only concerned in so far as it impacts on their own welfare, with the exception of Robert, that is. I know that he truly cares for me.’
Haith turned back to the king. ‘He does, sire. You look like one of your exotic beasts, Henry, with your face piebald.’
Henry tried to laugh, but winced at the movement of his facial muscles.
‘Did you tell the doctor that you lost consciousness?’
‘I fell and hit my head,’ Henry said with determination, and Haith compressed his lips. There was a knock at the door.
Haith opened the door to a messenger. ‘An urgent missive from the empress,’ the young man told him. Haith took the letter with its red seal from the man’s hands, closed the door and took the letter to the king. ‘Open it for me, Haith.’ The king’s hands were shaking still with the trauma of his fall. Haith took the king’s letter opener from a side table and slid it under the seal. He handed the opened letter back to the king and watched his face light up. Even beneath the purple and black bruising, Haith could read what Henry’s face meant. The king looked up, his eyes dancing, holding the letter as if it were the precious host from an altar. ‘She is with child, Haith. At last. She is carrying my heir.’
30
Disturbance
The king held court at his new palace in Oxford, which he named Beaumont Palace. Haith, with some concern for his own safety, noted the sour presence of Earl Ranulf, who only rarely came to the king’s assemblies. The king had recently been building up the power of Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, with the barely concealed intent of balancing out the grip Ranulf and his half-brother, William de Roumare, exercised in the north of England. No doubt Ranulf was here to attempt to persuade the king to counteract these policies. The king, though, was, as always, eminently unpersuadable.
‘Here is a messenger from Le Mans, sire,’ the king’s herald announced, fighting to keep excitement from his voice. The buzz in the hall dropped to a sudden, still silence. A message from Le Mans must concern the empress who was due to birth her child. Queen Adelisa slipped a hand over her husband’s fingers reassuringly. King Henry reached out and took the ribboned scroll that the messenger proffered. He broke the seal, unrolled the parchment and read it through at what seemed like an interminably slow rate to everyone watching. Could the letter really be that long? The king rose slowly to his feet, his face giving nothing away.
‘My daughter, Empress Maud, sends word that she is safely delivered of a boy child.’
The court erupted in jubilant cries and whoops, and Haith joined them. The king and queen’s faces were wreathed with irrepressible smiles. Henry and Haith exchanged a delighted nod of acknowledgement. ‘Oh, at last,’ Mabel breathed softly next to Haith. ‘Oh, this is good news.’ Haith glanced in the direction of Stephen de Blois and Bishop Henry. They wore the same smiles as everyone else, but were they sincere? A child of Henry’s bloodline, if he lived, knocked away their hopes that the Blois family might step into the breach at the king’s death.
There were tears in the king’s eyes as he shouted over the cacophony. ‘We will celebrate!’ With difficulty, the noise and jubilations were hushed, and the king announced there would be a week of celebrations to herald the birth of the new prince. ‘He is to be named Henry,’ he said, and fell back happily onto his throne, shaking Adelisa’s hand up and down in his own.
As the king was quitting the hall a little later, he beckoned to Haith. ‘Attend me.’
Haith followed Henry to his chamber. They gripped joyful hands together. ‘I will cross to Normandy as soon as the weather permits and meet my new grandson,’ Henry declared. ‘And, Haith, you will go to Wulfric of Haselbury and ask for his prediction for my crossing. I would like to go myself, but I am piled to my eyebrows with work I must get done here before I sail. You can go, take him my gifts, and bring back his answer.’
‘I will go at once, sire.’ These days it was the king’s habit to consult with one of his favourite sages before making the sea crossing. Two years back, the king had nearly been shipwrecked making the crossing. Ever since the sinking of The White Ship, each journey between his kingdoms held a little more terror for the king. Reassurance from predictions, relics, and prophecies was all that could calm him adequately to place one foot before another to board a boat.
* * *
Before setting off to Somerset, Haith went briefly to his townhouse, intending to pack his saddlebags, since he would likely travel straight from Somerset, where he would find the anchorite to meet Henry at the port for the crossing. His steward greeted him at the door with an unaccustomed frown.
‘What is it?’
‘Sir, we are fairly certain we had thieves in the house last night.’
‘Fairly certain?’ Haith raised an eyebrow.
‘There was a rumpus that woke a number of us in the middle of the night,’ his steward explained. ‘We fetched torches and heard someone escaping through the back gate and running away down the lane, but we were too late to catch whoever it was. We’ve searched, though, sir, and found nothing amiss, so perhaps they were scared off before anything could be taken.’
Haith frowned in his own turn. He gave orders for his packing and the readying of two horses for the journey, and then went to his strongroom. Gisulf’s chest was there and at first glance, his letter to the king attached to the hasp appeared to have been untouched. However, when Haith handled the letter and hasp more carefully, he could discern signs that the letter’s seal had been broken and skilfully replaced with new wax and there were scratches on the lock of the chest suggesting that it too had been interfered with. He lifted the lid of the chest. Nothing had been removed, but he was certain that someone had read his letter and very likely had found the three most pertinent letters in Gisulf’s chest, which had sat on the top. They were still there, but some unlicensed fingers had sifted here. He turned then to his own casket, sitting on this desk, where he had secreted the letter concerning Amaury and Ida. He could not be certain, but he thought the ordering of things in this casket had also been disturbed, although nothing was missing.
* * *
It was a two-day journey to Somerset, and Haith stopped overnight to rest his horses and his own buttocks at Romsey Abbey. Abbess Wulfyn greeted him warmly, invited him to sit with her at her private dinner in her residence and complained bitterly of all the stone dust being generated by the building work Bishop Henry had commissioned at the abbey. Haith listened politely and made his excuses as soon as he could to get some sleep.
