Daughter of the Last King, page 26
part #1 of Conquest I Series
Emboldened by the confidence he was showing in me, I decided to ask a question that had been burning in my head since I first arrived. ‘Abbot Faricius, I believe you tended to my brother Idwal ap Rhys, who had been a prisoner at Shrewsbury. The king wrote to me of it.’
He bowed his head briefly and then looked back to me. ‘Yes, my dear, so I did.’
‘He … did he suffer terribly?’
‘He had been in a dungeon for eight years, child, and was damaged by it through a lack of food, exercise and clean air. He lived only two days in my care and could not speak I’m afraid but I saw the way he smiled at the sky and the passage of birds as he looked through the window of the infirmary, how glad he was to be out of the dungeon. The king sent a man who could speak Welsh, and that man told him that he was freed as a favour to you, his sister, Nest ferch Rhys, and that you were well. He understood that. At the last I had him carried out on a pallet to lie in the open air under the sun. He is buried with a headstone in the abbey graveyard. I will show you the place.’
I wept copiously at this description and the abbot, wisely, let me exhaust my grief. He poured a beaker of water for me and I struggled to recover myself.
‘Thank you.’ I was not finished with the abbot, however, and had another difficult question to ask him. ‘Father, do you think it right that the king should be bedding all these mistresses?’
‘The king must be right, my dear,’ he said, patting my arm, his eyes serious. ‘He is God’s anointed. If the girl is sick, or her pregnancy is hard – which it is not – then that would be my business. Nothing else! Nobles always have mistresses. It’s a given.’
‘Yes, but …’ I stopped. There seemed little point in holding this discussion with Faricius. He was delighted by Henry, who was his friend and benefactor, and saw nothing wrong in his behaviour. I had tried asking Sybil Corbet what her parents thought of her liaison, but her response had been similar to the one Faricius had given to me. They were very pleased with her, of course, she said, that she was so gorgeous and the king had been unable to resist falling hopelessly in love with her. She told me her father had no son and she and her sisters were joint heiresses. ‘Henry has promised to find me a good husband,’ she said, ‘but not for years and years yet. Not till we have had our fill of one another!’
I looked away, embarrassed at her lust and the image of Henry that it provoked for me.
When Sybil’s child came, it was a girl and born very small, but both mother and child fared well under Faricius’ care. Not long after the birth, I was pleased to see Haith on horseback returning through the abbey gateway, leading two other horses. ‘Lady Nest!’ he called out. ‘All well?’
‘Yes,’ I called back, not sure if he meant with me, or Sybil, or both.
‘More orders for us,’ he said, dismounting. ‘Queen at Winchester going to have baby soon. King says abbot and Nest should go quick to her.’
‘Of course. Will we go today?’
‘Tomorrow, early. Horses needs some hay today and Haith needs some ale!’ His big grin, and the point of his chin, turned his browned face into a perfect series of V shapes. The lines incised on his cheeks were testament to how often he grinned and laughed. He led the horses to their respite, and I looked forward to the addition of his conversation at dinner.
Sybil pouted at the news of our departure. ‘Well, what am I to do without Nest and Amelina? Who will look after the baby?’
‘You will, my dear,’ Faricius told her patiently. ‘Perhaps the king will send for you soon.’ He patted her small hand.
‘Of course he will,’ she said smugly. I tried not to imagine Henry embracing her gangling girl’s limbs.
* * *
Faricius packed up his instruments and herbs and we travelled to Winchester for the queen’s lying-in. Our journey this time was along the old Roman road through Milton, Compton, Hermitage, Donnington and Newbury where we turned off and went through Kingsclere to the hilltop royal hunting lodge at Freemantle to break our journey for the night. The place was covered in dustsheets and the caretaker and his wife did their best to accommodate us given they had received no notice in advance of our arrival. The following morning we were back on the Roman road, through Whitchurch, Sutton Scotney, King’s Worthy, arriving in Winchester as the sun went down.
Only a few days after our arrival, Queen Matilda’s travail began. Matilda endured two gruelling days of labour, but then at last, gave birth to a healthy boy in August who was named William and baptised by Bishop Gundulph. I fear that without Faricius’ skill, either the mother or the baby or both might not have survived. There was great rejoicing and bells rung everywhere in the kingdom for the birth of the king’s heir. Henry arrived a few hours after his son, and sat lovingly holding the enfeebled queen’s hand, as if he were not a great philanderer. She drifted, exhausted, in and out of sleep. After a short while, he caught my eye and gestured with his head that I should speak with him out of earshot of the queen. ‘How are Sybil and my new daughter?’ he whispered.
‘They are very well, sire.’ He nodded his thanks complicitly to me. He baffled me. He was blithely unfaithful and yet genuinely affectionate for wife, mistresses and all his children.
* * *
from The Copybook of Sister Benedicta
* * *
Westminster, Martinmas 1103
Dear Benedicta, Meulan has recently returned to court from Normandy carrying bad news of fighting near Almenêches between Bellême and Curthose. I beg you write to me with haste to reassure me you are well.
You know, no doubt, that we had Curthose at the English court last year when he came to plead for the reinstatement of Earl Warenne. We all wondered that the duke would damage his own cause in such a way, but Warenne seems genuinely committed to King Henry now. Henry and Meulan discussed the matter when I was present serving at the table. Meulan stated, disgust in his voice, ‘It does not occur to Duke Robert that his genial, easy-going personality might be used as propaganda against him. He simply believes he has the God-given right to be duke, he is a hero crusader and all will be well with the world.’
Henry answered him, ‘So we use the unruly state of Normandy against him? We moot it about.’
‘Yes,’ says Meulan, ‘and the distress of the Norman Church besides.’
‘Is the Norman Church distressed under my brother, then?’ asked Henry.
‘It is now we say it is,’ Meulan said. (Which is wickedness if not true, no? What say you Benedicta, as a venerable spokeswoman of the Norman Church?)
Henry looked concerned. ‘My sister Adela … she will side with me against Robert, I believe,’ he said slowly.
Meulan rushed in upon his thoughts. ‘And besides, Adela de Blois’ husband gained only a tarnished reputation on crusade. A rope-dancer he was called for what some saw as a cowardly escape from the walls of Antioch, whereas Curthose is declared a hero. That must grate upon the countess. You could subtly draw attention to it in your letters to her, perhaps, sire?’
Henry told him, ‘I will have to be extraordinarily subtle then. There is no idiocy in my sister.’ No, nor in mine, I thought to myself.
You will be saddened to hear that after the failure of Anselm’s mission to Rome to find a compromise on investitures acceptable to the king, the archbishop has been exiled to Normandy. The poor man has spent more time wandering than warming his toes in the archbishop’s palace in Canterbury.
King Henry has started to set his house in order in Normandy too. Meulan’s recent mission there was to stabilise the situation from Henry’s perspective. Since the deaths of William de Breteuil and of Curthose’s wife Sybilla, Henry fears instability increases again. Meulan went with a pretty task. Where many men have used swords, silver and aggression to win their arguments, Henry instead prefers to send girls as his secret weapon! Meulan’s mission, which he has successfully completed, was to betroth Henry’s illegitimate daughter Mathilde to Count Rotrou de Perche who was formerly an ally to Curthose, another illegitimate daughter Juliane, went to Eustace de Breteuil who has inherited there, and Meulan’s own one-year-old daughter Isabel is betrothed to Amaury de Montfort who stands to inherit Evreux before too long. This is the astute policy of the two of them – the king and Meulan – to bind the nobles of Normandy to Henry, to slowly win them away from Curthose. Evidently, Henry’s intentions do not end on the shores of England.
I was lately tasked as the king’s midwife on two occasions. I am a veritable stork, Benedicta, with all the royal babies I have been assisting to usher into the world. First there was the daughter of the king’s mistress, Sybil Corbet, who was birthed at Abingdon Abbey, and then I escorted Lady Nest of Wales and Abbot Faricius from there, to help at the queen’s own lying-in at Winchester. The king and queen rejoice, and all of England with them, at the birth of a son. I, however, am in tremendous anxiety until I hear from you. Tell me the fighting has not come near to you, with love from your brother Haith.
* * *
Monastery of Saint Evroul, Holy Day of the Immaculate Conception, 8 December 1103
Dear Haith, first I am safe. Abbess Emma & I have taken refuge at Saint Evroul, where the monk Vitalis, who I wrote to you of before, has been my kind companion & support. Alas, our abbey of Almenêches was indeed in the thick of fighting between Bellême & Curthose. The duke shamefully used our buildings as stabling for the horses of his rough mercenaries with no care for us. The abbess acted swiftly to place all younger sisters, including myself, working well out of sight & out of reach in the inner buildings, so that only the older nuns had to interact with these rude men & suffer their insults. Bellême responded to this incursion on his lands & the affront to his sister, the abbess, by arriving to drive out Curthose’s men.
Shortly after Curthose and his men had left, Sister Matilda & I were summoned to the abbess’ chamber. You can imagine my feelings, Haith, when I entered the room to be confronted by the sight of Robert de Bellême seated in the abbess’ chair, with my copybook of our correspondence open on the table before him. I stopped in my tracks so that Matilda behind me bumped up against me. ‘Sister Benedicta?’ she said, perplexed.
‘Yes – Sister Benedicta?’ said Bellême, ‘Don’t dawdle on the threshold, do come in. Do close the door behind you, niece,’ he said, his voice & face loaded with sarcastic politeness. Matilda glanced with a worried frown at me, & turned to do as he asked. I stepped up to the table & looked at Abbess Emma whose face was unusually pale but otherwise did not betray her emotions.
‘A ciphered book of letters, Sister Benedicta.’ Bellême said. We all looked down at the inked gibberish in front of him. ‘One of the other sisters saw you scribing the book & hiding it in the library. Quite rightly, she reported this to the abbess and luckily I happened to be here at the time. Your correspondence with your brother, Haith, I believe, Sister?’
I made no response.
‘You did not inform me, Sister Benedicta, that your brother is in service to King Henry,’ Abbess Emma said, & there was a tremor in her voice that I had never heard before.
‘I was unaware that my service to God required the revelations of my family résumé,’ I said, but regretted my tartness, since it brought an unpleasant smile to Bellême’s face.
‘Don’t be disingenuous, Sister,’ he said. ‘You have no doubt been selling secrets to the English king in these ciphers!’ He slapped his hand on the copybook.
‘I have sold nothing!’ I said furiously, ‘and I know no secrets.’
‘I cannot see what she could have told to harm you,’ the abbess said. ‘She knows nothing of your business.’ She tried to give me a reassuring smile, but I was not at all reassured by the fact that even his own sister was clearly terrified of the man sitting in front of me, accusing me of treachery. Imagine that our jesting with one another to write in cipher should bring me to this, Haith!
‘Someone else, in addition to Belmeis, betrayed me,’ Bellême said slowly, & looked down to leaf through the ciphered pages, ‘& here is the answer to that puzzle.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Abbess Emma asserted. ‘Sister Benedicta just does not have that sort of information to pass to anyone, even if she wanted to. I believe she is loyal to me, brother, & this is nonsense.’
‘It is a book code, I assume,’ he said to me, ignoring the abbess’ protestations. I could hear Sister Matilda breathing loudly through her mouth, close behind me. ‘Which book?’
Again I said nothing.
‘If you are lily-white innocent & these letters are not full of betrayals of me to King Henry, then why withhold their translation?’
‘The letters are merely exchanges of cheerful, mundane gossip between a brother & sister who love one another & miss each other’s company,’ I said, holding his eye, though it was hard to do, because I had heard the gruesome stories of his tortures of prisoners, like everyone else in that room.
He smiled. ‘And is there revelation here of Henry’s plot to murder his brother, William, the former king, in the New Forest, perhaps?’
I swallowed & tried to keep my countenance neutral, my mind racing all the while to try to remember if there was anything in our correspondence that could be evidence against either myself, you or Henry.
‘You have a guilty look, Sister. Perhaps you & Sir Haith have been writing to each other on King Henry’s plans to attack Normandy, hmm? The duke would be glad to have that evidence.’
‘There is nothing of the sort that you fancy in my correspondence, sir.’
‘So, again, tell me the book that deciphers it, my clerk can set to work & in no time you will be exonerated & I will be shamefaced & full of apologies.’ He waved his hand in mock apology.
‘I will not be bullied,’ I said, looking to Abbess Emma for support but not finding any there. ‘The letters are my private correspondence. They contain nothing of import regarding you or affairs of state.’
He sighed & looked down again at my copybook, closing it. ‘Sister Benedicta, I am a busy man & do not have time for this.’ He stood, came around the table toward me &, oh Haith, my heart was thumping then I can tell you, though I had no intention of giving an inch to the man. He gripped my upper arm painfully, pulled me with him toward the door, which Sister Matilda, her face flushed scarlet, opened deferentially.
‘Brother! Robert! What is it you mean to do with Sister Benedicta? I’m sure she is innocent of your charges!’ the abbess called out behind us as we stepped into the corridor & he began to hurry me along it. He marched me to the library, his face grim, ignoring the astonished looks of several nuns in the corridor who swiftly moved out of his way.
Inside the library, he let go of my arm. ‘You are mistaken, Lord Bellême,’ I told him, lifting my chin with as much outward bravery as I could muster. ‘You are completely mistaken in these accusations.’
‘As I have said, there is a simple way for you to prove that. Give me the book that deciphers your letters.’ He looked around the library. Two nuns who had been working on a manuscript gaped at us. ‘Get out!’ he said & they scurried to obey. He clearly had no inclination to proceed with politeness or gentleness. ‘Well?’
‘No. My correspondence is private & does not concern you.’
One of the nuns had left a candle burning on her desk. He picked it up. ‘Sister Benedicta, I grow weary of this charade. You are the scriptorium mistress, I believe? The keeper of this fine library?’
I said nothing.
‘I will count to five & then this candle will be set to these books and manuscripts,’ he told me calmly. ‘One … two … three,’ he pronounced slowly, his eyes on me. My mind raced. If I gave him the psalter to decipher the letters, surely, there was not much in our letters that could condemn me, or you, or King Henry. I tried to remember. Was there something that I could not let him have? The psalter in question sat innocently, close to my hand, neatly centred on my workplace, which I was standing next to. ‘Four …’ The door suddenly banged open & Sister Matilda hurtled through with the abbess close behind her.
‘Uncle, we are certain that Benedicta …’ but she could not finish her sentence as we all looked in horror at the flames licking at the parchments close to Bellême. Sister Matilda’s precipitate entrance had caused him to shift a little too close to the manuscripts he was threatening & the fire took no time at all to catch at the dry rolls & boards. It was spreading with alarming speed. ‘Fire!’ yelled the abbess, but even as she said it, we all backed away toward the door, knowing it was too late to attempt to put it out. The fire bellowed & bloomed along the shelves, licking into the corners, climbing the drapings, like a beast let out of Hell. I had slipped mother’s psalter into the sleeve of my habit as I backed toward the doorway. The abbess & Emma ran ahead down the corridor, raising the alarm to the other sisters & Bellême similarly fled to save himself & his men. I too ran down the corridor, looking back once over my shoulder, to see the flames bursting out from the library door, looking set to pursue me. I ran past the open door of the abbess’ study but skidded to a halt & swiftly retraced my steps, grabbed my copybook from her desk, threw it & my psalter into her satchel that stood leaning against a stool & resumed my flight, the satchel bouncing at my back.
I emerged into the courtyard coughing & fell into the arms of the abbess & Sister Matilda who gasped their thanks to God that I was safe & had not succumbed to the fire as they had feared as I was the last to emerge from the building. I saw Robert de Bellême mounted on his horse in the gateway. He took a last angry look at me & then turned his horse, to gallop away from the conflagration.
