The Anarchy, page 9
It was likely that Haith was holding in his hands the seed of all those deaths on The White Ship. Instead of sending Countess Adela’s note with the letter on to the king, Gisulf must have attempted to blackmail Waleran, who had ordered Gisulf’s murder. Waleran had not sailed with the ship, or sailed at all at that time, pleading that he had business to attend to on his estates and Henry had graciously let the new, young lord, who had just come of age, go free to flex his muscles on his own lands. Yet de Pirou had an association with Ranulf de Gernon rather than Waleran, and Haith could make no sense of that. Why had de Pirou been involved?
Haith puzzled over the mystery of The White Ship yet again. Stephen de Blois’ own sister, Matilda, had died in the wreck. It was hard to believe he would conspire to that. Stephen had been the third male in line for Henry’s throne before the wreck, and he was second in line now, behind his older brother, Thibaud. Ranulf de Gernon’s father had gained the earldom of Chester as a consequence of the death of his cousin Richard in the shipwreck. Perhaps there was motive there, after all. Perhaps it had been a conspiracy of several lords acting together.
As Haith sat tapping Adela’s letter against the edge of the table, his eye had fallen on the corner of another letter buried further down in Gisulf’s chest. Only three words were visible on that corner, but Haith immediately recognised the distinctive hand of the traitor Robert de Bellême. Haith fished it out and unfolded the two pages of this letter. De Bellême addressed King Henry from prison, where he had been confined after his last rebellion. He asked the king to allow him to return to his French estates, to at least allow his son to inherit his French estates, but supplication did not come easily to de Bellême, and Haith was soon reading recriminations against Henry’s treatment, and then,
That I should come to this because that whore-nun took it upon herself to steal my correspondence with de Montfort is unconscionable. That letter was taken by the nun Benedicta at Fontevraud after she had lulled de Montfort with a disgusting excess of sexual favours, or so he says.
Aghast, Haith dropped the letter as if it had burnt him. He sat staring at it on the floor, his heart beating as though he had run a great distance. He bent and retrieved the letter, reading the words again. Benedicta had indeed assisted Henry in the matter of convicting de Bellême with some correspondence. Haith had assumed it was letters from Bertrade de Montfort that she had supplied, not something from Bertrade’s brother, Amaury. He did his best to unread the words, ‘disgusting excess of sexual favours’, but it was impossible. He moved across the room to wrestle with the buckles on his saddlebag until it yielded to him the small, wrapped book de Montfort had given to him to convey to Benedicta. He tugged at the black fleece wrapping, shaking the tangling shreds from his hand to the floor. Ovid’s Amores. A finely bound copy. Hardly an appropriate gift from a man to a nun. Against his own instincts, telling himself no, Haith opened the cover and read the inscription.
Benedicta, I will never forget you and will always think of you, wherever you are in the world. I read and reread Ovid’s words: ‘thigh to thigh’.
The inscription was followed by the confident flourish of his signature: Amaury de Montfort, count of Evreux.
Haith resisted the urge to hurl the costly book at the wall. What had Benedicta done? What had she gotten herself into? He should have been able to protect her from it. And now, he could not follow her trail to Nest’s household, but instead must dance attendance on Henry, far to the north of the country. He dropped his forehead to the comfort of his large hand and closed his eyes, whispering, ‘my dear sister?’
A new thought hit him like the near-miss of a thudding boulder from a trebuchet. Were his suspicions that Stephen de Blois or Ranulf de Gernon or Waleran de Meulan were responsible for the sinking of The White Ship all completely wrong? Was it possible it was Amaury who had commissioned the murder of Gisulf to protect Benedicta? That it was this letter that had led to the wreck of the ship and the loss of all those lives?
9
Reunion
‘The bard, Breri, is a spy,’ Ida whispered, her eyes enormous with fear. ‘He has great powers of discernment.’
‘Well, he cannot see through walls or doors. Keep the door locked, Amelina, when I am out of the room. Trust no one to come in. If there is a knock, you must open the door and Ida must stay hidden from sight.’
Amelina nodded solemnly, and I gripped Ida’s shoulders reassuringly. ‘They will not discover you. You are safe as long as we all hold our nerve. Nobody is dragging you back to the cloister. I must go down to the feast now.’
Regardless of Ida’s account of his espionage for Countess Adela, it was an immense pleasure to listen to Breri’s songs at the meal. ‘My compliments on your new bard,’ I told Henry. ‘The Welsh singers are the best.’ I was seated next to the king and my foster-sister, Mabel, his hostess, sat on his other side.
‘Breri is not mine, alas. I cannot keep him, though I have tried,’ Henry grumbled. ‘He assures me he must go on into his homeland.’
‘To Wales?’
‘Yes. He is destined for Gilbert de Clare’s household at Pembroke, he says, and scorns the service of the king of England!’ Henry went on to speak obsessively of portents, forecasts, hermits and scryers throughout the rest of dinner. Mabel and I exchanged anxious glances. Such matters skirted close to magic and blasphemy.
‘Did you experience this great battering of hail in Wales, Lady Nest, just after Christmas?’
‘No, sire.’
‘Hail balls the size of my fist,’ he exclaimed, holding out a curled hand to me as demonstration. ‘They were hurled down hard from the heavens and punched holes in roofs, killed cows and sheep in the field. I had some collected afterwards, and those frozen shards shimmered of the Otherworld.’
‘It sounds … dramatic, sire.’
‘We have to ask, what did it portend? I have been warned there will be terrifying tribulation on the Earth, and very many illustrious people will succumb to destruction.’
The king’s chaplain called up the table to us from the far end, where he was seated: ‘We are occasionally afforded a glimpse of the Otherworld for our edification. At Ely, last month, for instance, there was a sign. A pregnant cow was ordered to be sliced open and three piglets were revealed. We must persevere in good and turn away from evil.’
Henry stared at his trencher for a while, seeming to ponder the chaplain’s words. ‘And Nest, I have had reports of stars streaming from the sky in brilliant rivers of light. Why would stars so fall from their orbits? I would know the secret causes of things.’
‘We cannot know the future, sire,’ Mabel stated.
‘And if we could, we might wish we did not,’ I added.
‘There are those with great wisdom,’ was all that Henry would concede on the point. ‘I have summoned Abbot Walcher of Malvern to me. He is famed for his knowledge of the heavens.’
‘I know of the abbot, sire,’ Mabel said. ‘His fame as a scholar and an astronomer is unparalleled.’
‘Yes,’ the king said. ‘Walcher writes to me that Muslim Spain has great aqueducts and fountains in the cities. And there are vast libraries of learning there that he has studied. He says it is not blasphemy to study the stars that have been ordained by God to influence the terrestrial world. Walcher has predicted solar and lunar eclipses using a device called an astrolabe. He can calculate the time of the new moon, which can be of great value for medicinal purposes.’
‘But we cannot reckon the grains of sand on the beach, the drops of water in the ocean, or the days of the world, sire,’ I said, feeling argumentative.
‘When he joins me,’ Henry continued, ignoring my interruption, ‘I will ask him to tell me what he sees in the heavens and their alignments with regards to deaths and births in my vicinity.’
‘But the abbot is not a fortune teller, lord king,’ I protested. ‘He is a scholar. I can tell you that there will be more deaths – there are always more deaths. And births.’ Alarmed by the direction of conversation, I did my best to divert Henry to a different subject.
After the meal, I returned to my chamber and told Ida about the peculiarities of Henry’s dinner conversation.
‘He was very sick when I last saw him in Normandy,’ Ida said, ‘after the maiming of his granddaughters. The king lost his wits for a while, Nest. He became obsessed with the powers of relics and greatly fearful of his own death. The loss of his heir, his other children and his wards on The White Ship must have placed even more pressure upon his sanity.’
‘He seems quite sane to me, but, just … overly reliant on these ideas of prophecy and dream, which I never knew in him before.’
Ida opened her mouth to respond, when there was a near inaudible scratch at the door. Ida’s eyes widened in alarm. There was something decidedly odd about that scratch. It was not the sound that a servant would make seeking entry. It sounded deliberately surreptitious. I gestured to Ida to conceal herself behind the curtains of the bed. I watched her feet disappear from view and heard the bed creak as she climbed up onto it. Amelina positioned herself at the foot of the bed, ready to ensure that no sudden draught might part the curtains and reveal our secret nun.
I rose and opened the door a crack. The tall, portly bard Breri stood there, a wide smile on his florid face. His lute was slung across his back, and he held a very large glass of wine in one hand and his bow in the other. I guessed he had scratched at the door with that bow. Had he been eavesdropping? Could he have heard Ida’s voice through this thick wood? Or heard our conversation about the king’s sanity?
‘Sir bard?’
‘You are the uchelwragedd, Nest ferch Rhys, I believe,’ he said in Welsh, meaning the noblewoman.
‘Yes.’
‘I am here with a message from the king and wonder if I might beg a moment’s audience with you, Principissa?’ He flattered, or mocked me perhaps, with the title of princess that I had used in court that afternoon to impress my rights, so ineffectually, upon the king.
‘What is his message?’ I asked, without opening the door any wider.
‘He asks that he might bestow a visit upon you in your chamber for a taste of fine wine and conversation. For old time’s sake, he declares.’ Breri spoke in a melodious Welsh and over-egged his words deliberately.
I could not allow the king to discover Ida here and sought quickly for a solution. ‘My ladies are sleeping after an arduous journey through foul weather. It would be better if I went to the king.’
‘I will convey your response to your king.’ Lascivious amusement danced in Breri’s eyes. He bowed to me, bending briskly, one foot forward, both arms quite straight and parallel with the floor, his bow held out to one side and his glass of wine to the other.
I wanted to slap the man for his impertinence, but I was caught in a quandary and could think of no other escape. Exposing myself to gossip and to Henry’s advances by going to his chambers was the last thing I wished to do. But there, it was done.
Ida and Amelina remonstrated with me in hushed tones when we judged Breri had moved away from the closed door.
‘It can’t be good for your reputation, my lady, to go to the king’s chamber!’ Amelina declared. ‘Will you buy your freedom from one unwelcome man in your bed by climbing into the embrace of another?’
‘In that moment, I could think of no other solution. I can’t let Henry in here with Ida here. Anyway, I doubt that I have any reputation left to cherish. It is in shreds already after my abduction by Prince Owain. And no, you fool, I have no intention of resuming my relationship with Henry. That is far from my mind.’
‘It can’t be right, surely,’ Ida said, more mild in her objections than Amelina, ‘to go to the king’s private chamber?’
I looked down at my dress. I was still wearing my splendid gown and jewels from the feast. ‘Undress me quickly, Amelina, from this finery and pass me that everyday dress there. Is it dry?’
‘This one?’ Amelina was aghast as she held it up in enquiry. ‘It’s dry, but you can’t wear this for an audience with the king,’
‘It’s perfect,’ I declared. ‘And get these ridiculous ribbons out of my hair.’ I began to tug at them myself. ‘I know what I am about. And that wimple.’ I pointed at a particularly unbecoming, plain wimple made from heavy brown wool.
Reluctantly, she did as I asked and I was soon clad in the drabbest clothes in my wardrobe. I took a breath, nodded to their anxious faces, closed the door quietly behind me, and heard them lock it as I had instructed. As I moved down the long, dim passage toward the king’s chamber, my candle guttered in a draught. I glanced back over my shoulder, sensing someone behind me, but could see nothing in the blackness beyond the circle of light circumscribed by my candle.
I found Henry relaxing in his shirt and britches before a fire with a glass of wine. With advancing age, he was losing the taut, hard muscles of his younger days, and the increased bulge of his stomach was evident. His robes of state were slung across a chest. He saw me at the door and gestured that I be admitted swiftly. Loitering on the threshold of his private chamber would soon set rumours flying around the court. A woman known to have been the mistress of this king and the abductee of a Welsh prince could hardly hope that she had a great deal of reputation to protect. Henry stood and dismissed the two servants, who had been packing up his possessions in preparation for his journey north tomorrow. He led me back to chairs set opposite each other and close to the crackling hearth, which was pungent with pinecones newly scattered on it. He poured wine for us, and we sipped, looking at each other for a long time over the rims of our beakers.
‘Are you unhappy, Nest?’
‘I persist.’
‘Me too.’ He refilled our beakers. Our stance and the atmosphere between us were redolent with memories of the old days, long ago, when we had been lovers, when I had been the king’s mistress and one of the most powerful women at court. I had been more powerful, at times, even than Henry’s first wife, Queen Matilda, who was gone now and blessed, at least, not to have to live through the loss of Prince William, as Henry must.
‘I am grieved beyond words for you, Henry.’
‘Thank you.’ We sat in silence, nursing our wine and our pains for a few more moments.
‘I intended to give you to Haith, you know, as you and he requested,’ he ventured, and I instantly held up my palm to him, begging him not to continue, but he did. ‘Like you, I thought he had perished on The White Ship. I am sorry for it, Nest.’
It was something, I supposed. I was glad I concerned him enough to apologise to me for my unpalatable marriage to de Marais.
‘Well, thank you for your sorry.’ I raised my beaker and smiled. He smiled in return, his gaze directed at my dimple, which had always amused and fascinated him. ‘Is Sheriff Haith travelling with your court?’
‘No. I haven’t seen him for a while and assume he is about his business in Pembroke.’
As far as I had heard, Haith was not at Pembroke, but I kept that to myself. ‘I am with child, sire. So de Marais has his heir. I have done my duty to him and that marriage and would go my own road now.’
‘Of course you are with child, Nest. You are always with child, my fertile Welsh princess!’ He pulled his stool a little closer to mine, so that our knees were touching. ‘How many sons do you have?’
‘Five.’
‘So far,’ he stated, nodding in the direction of my stomach. ‘If only I had married you, I would not be in this quandary, without an heir to the throne. I am truly glad to see you, Nest. You always gave me consolation and advice when others could not.’
Other women he meant. Well, I thought sharply, it was perhaps asking too much of the young mistress he had abandoned at Pembroke (as he had me, many years before) or a fourteen-year-old queen. ‘I hope the queen is well.’
‘Yes. Adelisa is a pleasant girl, but she arrived knowing nothing of the politics here or in Normandy and, I suspect, none of it is of great interest to her.’
‘She will be busy rearing your heir soon, no doubt.’
Henry said nothing for a while longer than I had expected. ‘If it pleases God,’ he said, at last. The poor girl. She had only been wed a year and already they were casting doubts on her fertility. No one could have the least concern about Henry’s own virility, despite his fifty-four years, in contrast to the queen’s youth. Henry’s trail of illegitimate children tracked all across Normandy, England, and Wales.
‘Adelisa will give me a son, but even if I live long, he is likely to still be a minor when he inherits the throne. I have to decide how best to safeguard him and the legacy of my reign. When that heir is born,’ he said, ‘I will need to think about the appointment of a regent for my son, after my own demise.’
