The Anarchy, page 25
Haith had heard the king speak of Wulfric of Haselbury before but had never met the man in person and was curious to see what he would encounter. A boy fishing in the river pointed toward the church in answer to his enquiry. ‘You’ll find the hermit on the north side of the church,’ he told Haith, in answer to his enquiry, ‘like as not sitting in a cold bath wearing chain mail,’ the boy smirked, and Haith smiled back. ‘Don’t offend him, though,’ admonished the boy. ‘He can give you the paralysis, you know, if you deserve it.’
‘I’ve no intention of offending him,’ Haith responded.
Wulfric was not sitting in cold water in chain mail. Instead, he was working on binding a book. The man was gaunt from years of fasting and had alarming black bags under his eyes from nights without sleep. He was in his early fifties and spoke in a heavy Bristol accent.
Haith greeted Wulfric politely and offered the gift of a splendid prayer book that the king had sent.
‘The king needs to know something?’ Wulfric asked, desirous of returning to his bookbinding.
‘Yes. His daughter has birthed a son, an heir, in Anjou, and the king intends to cross the British Sea to greet his new grandson. He asks for your prophecy for his journey.’
Wulfric touched his fingertips together and closed his eyes. Haith contemplated his tonsured head for five minutes or more as the hermit communed with himself, or his God, however it was he arrived at his prognoses.
‘He will go, but he will not come back; or if he does, it will not be safe and sound,’ Wulfric pronounced.
Haith stared at him and then repeated the words, aghast. ‘He will go, but he will not come back; or if he does, it will not be safe and sound?’
Wulfric nodded calmly. ‘You have it.’
‘I can’t tell him that.’
‘Those are my words. That is what he asked for.’
Haith left the cell and put his foot into his stirrup, his heart sinking. What could he tell Henry?
* * *
Haith rode into Fareham at dusk. He had left very early in the morning to make the journey in one day, but he wished he had broken his journey and prolonged it, to give himself more thinking time about how to convey Wulfric’s prophecy to the king. He found the king in the hall with Bishop Alexander of Lincoln and Bishop Nigel of Ely, both nephews to Bishop Roger of Salisbury. The court had been at Fareham since May and Haith had already heard from the gossip of his serving man that Henry had been giving many benefits to the bishops, including a new bridge at Newark for Alexander. All this munificence, Haith was sure, was intended as a means of controlling and diminishing Earl Ranulf.
‘Ah, welcome back, Haith. What does Wulfric say?’ Henry asked.
‘He says, you will go, and you will come back, safe and sound.’
Henry smiled. ‘All is well, then.’
When he could have private speech with the king, Haith asked, ‘I wondered, sire, did you have any interesting bards at court before you left Westminster?’
The king cast his eyes to the decorated ceiling, trying to remember. ‘Ah, yes!’ It came to him suddenly. ‘That Welshman was there, who used to be bard to my sister Adela. He is really very good.’
‘Breri?’ Haith asked.
‘I think that’s his name, yes. Very talented.’ Haith compressed his lips. It was no doubt Breri then who had rifled through his belongings at his townhouse and by now Ranulf, Waleran or whoever was in pay would know everything Haith knew.
* * *
At the beginning of August, the king and Haith boarded the ship at Portsmouth, readying to sail. Haith spent a great deal of time wondering at his own lies concerning Wulfric’s prophecy and if he would do better to tell the king word for word what the hermit had divined.
‘Come look at the sky, my king,’ the ship’s captain called down the wooden steps to the king’s chamber. ‘It is extraordinarily strange.’
Haith and Henry made their way rapidly up on deck. A sudden, huge cloud had appeared, turning daylight prematurely to dusk, so the sailors had to light candles to go about their tasks of preparing the ship for departure. The wind died down entirely. ‘The doldrums,’ Haith breathed.
‘The day darkens over all the land,’ the king pointed, his voice trembling.
‘Don’t look at the sun directly,’ Haith told the king. ‘The light is too fierce and will burn your eyes.’ They stood on the deck with many other members of the court, watching the darkening sky. It was midday and the sun slowly disappeared behind a black disk, leaving them plunged into darkness. A priest beside the king voiced a prayer in a low, monotonous tone.
‘What does it mean, Haith?’ the king asked.
‘The evils of men and women are visited upon us,’ the priest declared.
‘The End of Days?’ Henry said, shivering at the sudden loss of the sun’s heat as well as its light.
‘The sun will return, surely,’ Haith murmured.
‘I’m glad I’m with you.’ The king gripped his arm.
‘It will come back,’ Haith said firmly. They were all plunged into complete darkness, and it was as if the world had stopped completely. There was no birdsong or other sound. It was like the blackness behind closed eyes at night. Haith was aware of Henry standing beside him. He was aware of all the others lining the deck, standing in fearful silence, but he could see nothing. A faint breeze lifted the hair around his ears. ‘Yes! See!’ the king cried. A sliver of light began to appear at the back edge of the black disc. The disc slowly moved across the face of the sun. There were shouts now all along the ship’s side, welcoming the return of the dazzle of light. The return of clarity felt like being reborn, like having one’s eyes pinned open to look on the world at the first dawn. Haith turned to smile at the king. There were tears of joy and relief streaming down his face. ‘This loss and return of the sun shows how your reign is reborn with the new prince,’ Haith said.
Henry clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Are you become a prophesying anchorite yourself now, Haith?’
31
Henry FitzEmpress
Haith threw the ball to the red-haired child. ‘He is very early to be walking and catching balls,’ Ida remarked behind him.
Here, in this small child, was the consequence of the empress’ reconciliation with her husband and King Henry’s fragile hope for an heir.
‘The king says his grandson is a prodigy, and he certainly lives up to that.’ Haith had to bend quickly to the left to catch the ball that the boy had returned with a hard but wild throw.
The boy could barely get his chubby arms around the ball and grew frustrated at his failed attempts. He kicked the ball in anger and his expression swiftly changed to pleased surprise as the ball trickled toward Haith, and his kick was rewarded with a laugh from Haith and Ida.
‘Shrovetide football, is it?’ exclaimed Haith.
‘He’s going pink in the sun,’ Ida said. ‘We should take him in.’
Haith nodded, looking at the boy’s round, freckled face. ‘I have a feeling he won’t respond well to that. Give him a few more minutes.’
Haith and Ida had accompanied the king to Argentan to meet with Empress Maud on her journey to Rouen, but the empress was carrying another child and was unwell. They had remained in Argentan longer than expected to give Maud a chance to recover her strength and the delay had given them all ample opportunity to get to know the prodigy, Henry FitzEmpress. At last, King Henry had his wish: a grandson and an heir of his own direct bloodline.
Haith turned to see the king emerging from the palace, clapping his hands to the child. ‘Throw it to me!’ he called out, but little Henry showed off his newfound kicking skill instead, losing his balance and falling over backwards. Ida rushed to right him and comfort him, but there were no tears and he needed no comforting. Instead, he looked furiously at the ground that had unfairly moved beneath his feet and come up to meet him. He screwed up his face and looked down in surprise at the blood starting to ooze from a graze on his knee.
The king laughed. ‘Well kicked, darling!’
‘I not darling! I Henry!’ declared the podgy toddler, stamping a foot.
‘Indeed, indeed you are,’ laughed the king. ‘You are Henry.’
A maidservant came out and whispered into Ida’s ear and Haith noticed his sister’s expression sobered. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘The empress is not well. I will see if I can be of assistance.’
Haith frowned as his sister disappeared inside. Empress Maud had been sickening throughout this pregnancy. ‘Ida thought the boy was getting a little sunburnt,’ he told the king. ‘Should we play inside, sire?’
‘Oh, yes. No sunburn for my boy. That hurts, doesn’t it, Henry, and you’ve already got a poor knee.’ The king beckoned the child to him. ‘No hurt shall come near you, my darling boy, my darling Henry!’ the king amended hastily as the child opened his mouth to express his dissent again at being called anything other than Henry. He was hale, hearty and strong-willed, and they were all in his thrall.
* * *
The empress recovered enough to make the ride from Argentan to Rouen but had then taken to her bedchamber again for the last few months of her pregnancy. The midwives plied her with their remedies, trying all and sundry in their efforts to help her regain her strength for the birth. Outside in the courtyard, the women of the household sat under a canopy in the shade of a tree, weaving for long hours into the evening, taking full advantage of the light. Ida was washing Henry FitzEmpress in a half-tub. A thankless task, reflected Haith, since the boy would be smutted and grubby again minutes after he left the tub. In the meantime, he swirled and splashed and got everything and everyone around him saturated. Laughing and struggling with her slippery, wriggling captive, Ida lifted little Henry from the water and wrapped him in towels on her lap. ‘You are a special parcel, a special gift,’ she told him.
‘I a parcel,’ his eyes gleamed mischievously from a gap in the towels.
‘You are sweetness in my lap.’ He pouted at that. It was too saccharin for his liking. He threw off the towels and ran naked and giggling from Ida. He began to score a picture on the wall with a piece of chalk left by one of the masons. ‘Stop that, Henry! You know it is naughty!’
‘But I drawed a picture of you, Idooo,’ he inveigled her and Haith could not help but laugh.
* * *
The empress was in long and arduous labour for three days, and Haith and the king sat anxiously waiting for news. Ida was among the women assisting at the birth. At last, they heard a baby’s cry, and the king was able to sigh his relief. ‘You have a brother or sister, Henry,’ the king told the little princeling, who stood at his knee, playing with a wooden toy horse.
Ida emerged from the bedchamber carrying a swaddled baby and showed him to the king. ‘It is a boy, sire.’
‘He will be named Geoffrey, after his father,’ the king said, and angled the swaddled bundle downwards so that his clamouring brother could also see the baby. Both Henrys studied baby Geoffrey. The king smiled, but little Henry frowned.
‘Where’s my mama? I want my mama. She is my mama.’
‘You will see her soon, Henry,’ Ida told him. ‘But she is tired and sleeping now.’
Little Henry flung his arms around himself in a sulking gesture and protruded his bottom lip. ‘Soon, boy!’ The king ruffled his wild, red hair.
Little Henry ran to the far end of the hall, galloping his horse in the air. Ida glanced anxiously at Haith and addressed the king again. ‘The midwife is concerned for the empress, sire. The birth has gone hard with her, and she is sick with fever.’
The king’s smiles turned to an expression of concern. ‘I will come and sit with her.’ He glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Keep an eye on little Henry, Haith.’
‘Yes, sire.’
Ida and Henry retreated with the new baby, and Haith looked back toward Prince Henry. If Maud should die, the king had already laid plans that he would take the boy back to England with him and raise him at his court as his heir, regardless of what the wishes of the boy’s father, the count of Anjou, might be.
32
Portents
While the king remained at Rouen, Haith was happy. Surely the danger in Wulfric’s words was related to Henry’s return to England. As long as the king stayed in Normandy, Haith persuaded himself that his inaccurate report of the hermit’s words was warranted. If the king decided to set sail for England, then he would have to wrestle with his own conscience again as to whether or not to give Wulfric’s precise sentence to Henry.
Haith entered the hall and was horrified to see Breri sitting at the hearth, tuning his lute. He sat down at some distance from the bard, next to King Henry, who was occupied with a pile of correspondence before him on the trestle. Haith kept an eye on the bard for a while, vaguely aware of Henry shuffling papers. ‘Nest!’ the king said suddenly, in a tone of disapproval.
Haith looked at Henry in alarm. ‘What is it?’
‘Bad news from Wales, borne by this bard,’ Henry gestured in Breri’s direction.
‘Bad news?’ Haith felt his world begin to tip and placed both his palms flat on the trestle, his arms spread, to steady himself. ‘Nest is not ill or …’
‘No, no, would that it were as simple as that,’ Henry said testily.
Haith took a deep breath. ‘What is it, sire?’
Henry said nothing, gathering up the papers into a neat pile and stood with them, slotted firmly under his armpit. ‘Nest is in health. We’ll talk about it later.’ Haith watched Henry’s back, as he disappeared up to his solar. He looked back to the bard and encountered Breri’s smug gaze.
Henry had no cause to ‘kidnap’ his grandson, after all. The empress recovered from her sickbed after the birth of her second son, but she had been sorely ill for quite some time. Now she was recovered, both small princes were back with her and her husband in Anjou, but relations between the king and his daughter and son-in-law grew colder every day. Geoffrey and Maud demanded the castles the king had offered as dowry, but Henry showed no sign of handing them over. ‘They all wish me dead before I am so,’ the king grumbled. And now what mischief had Breri brought with him over the sea?
* * *
In November, the court moved to Saint-Denis-Le-Ferment, where the hunting was good at this time of year. Haith had left the lodge with the rest of the hunting party early that morning and Ida was alone with the king. She was surprised when King Henry asked her to pass his apologies to the others because he was feeling too unwell to hunt today. The king was usually the most avid of all in the chase, but perhaps the frigid November air was getting to his ageing joints and chest. Ida sifted through the correspondence just delivered by the fast courier and passed most of the papers to the king’s clerk. One of the letters, however, was addressed to her, and she sat frowning in distress at it.
To my most dear friend, Ida de Bruges, Nest ferch Rhys, Lady of Llansteffan. Ida, I quake to tell you I have been summoned to attend Lord Richard de Clare at Cardigan Castle and fear he may have obtained evidence concerning the shining element. He invites me to the betrothal of his daughter, Alice de Clare, to Prince Cadwaladr. This is a surprising match, but Gwenllian tells me Cadwaladr is in close allegiance with Ranulf de Gernon, the earl of Chester, who is uncle to Alice de Clare. It seems Prince Cadwaladr is furthering his own interests in Wales in league with de Gernon. It makes some sense. Sadly, Welshmen have conspired with Normans before now to gain ascendancy over other Welshmen. I am so afraid, Ida, that I might be constrained by de Clare and my sons to live again with my husband, Stephen de Marais, or worse.
By ‘the shining element’ Nest meant the goldmine and her letter expressed in a roundabout way that she was afraid she might be accused of helping her brother’s cause. Ida looked up with concern in the direction of the king, wondering if and how she could broach Nest’s peril to him, but it was not certain that Nest had been exposed and the king would hardly take kindly to Nest supporting her brother treasonously against him in the mining enterprise. Ida would have to wait for more definite news from Nest before attempting to intervene with the king. In any case, the king was not in fine enough fettle himself to be offering help. He had been concerned by a series of what he saw as alarming portents in the sky and had been confined every day for several hours, consulting with his astrologer.
The king waved a hand at the clerk, who had asked him a question concerning the new batch of correspondence from England. He coughed uncontrollably for many minutes and was unable to speak. Ida tried to suppress her memory of one of Amelina’s ‘quotes’: A dry cough is the trumpet of death. When the coughing finally subsided, the king was alarmingly grey in the face, with lurid red streaks traversing his cheeks. Everything about his appearance, Ida thought, indicated a coming fever. ‘Sire,’ Ida asked, ‘would you be more comfortable abed? Should I send for your physician?’
He nodded, and that alone was cause for great concern. The king was usually so robust and not at all given to wallowing in physical aches and ailments as some people did. Ida helped him to stand, but he cried out in pain. ‘Sire?’ Ida asked him in alarm.
‘My stomach,’ he gasped. ‘It’s an agony to move, but let’s get to it.’ He gritted his teeth on the pain as Ida helped him to the bedchamber. ‘Send for Archbishop Hugh of Rouen and my son, too, Ida.’
Ida looked at him, alarmed. If he wanted the archbishop, he feared for his life. ‘Your son, Robert?’ she asked, and he nodded. ‘Tell Haith to take care of Nest, to see that no harm comes to her.’ Ida nodded, too alarmed to ask him to expand on what he meant. ‘I’m thirsty, very thirsty.’
