A Place Beyond Courage (53 page)
‘Because it is too late for that and we are not strong enough on our own. It’d be safer to walk along the edge of a cliff with a gale at my back. Don’t you see, there is no place for me at Stephen’s side, whether I feign or not. Stephen owes me nothing but his resentment. I would have to bend myself backwards to do his smallest bidding, whereas Henry will owe me more than he can repay.’
‘And will he not resent it?’
‘No, because Henry is like his mother - he uses men to the best of their abilities and he will reward loyalty into the next generation. I am certain of that in the same way I am certain that Stephen will not. Our only chance is buying Henry time and we have to buy it now, not bide it.’
‘Even if it costs us a son?’
His jaw muscles were as tight as iron, carving deep grooves down his cheeks. ‘It won’t cost us a son.’
‘You cannot be certain of that.’
He drew forward a sheet of parchment and trimmed a quill. ‘You either trust my judgement, or you don’t, Sybilla.’
She stared at him. That was it: the end of the matter; and he had put it with unembellished clarity. A matter of trust. She had wanted him because he was the best, his reputation as a soldier legendary. She could think of no other man she would desire as her life-mate. But the very strength of the qualities she admired in him gave her a difficult field to hoe and never more so than now. She could strike the trestle with her clenched fist, ask him if he trusted
her
judgement on the matter, but it would be fruitless and damaging. If she didn’t believe in him and that they would come through, what was left except threadbare rags? Whatever else, Sybilla was not prepared to be a beggar.
her
judgement on the matter, but it would be fruitless and damaging. If she didn’t believe in him and that they would come through, what was left except threadbare rags? Whatever else, Sybilla was not prepared to be a beggar.
He said, without looking up from his work, ‘I’ve sent Tamkin to keep an eye on William from a subtle distance. You don’t think I’d leave him unwatched, do you?’
Sybilla swallowed deep in her throat, too overcome to speak. She should have known he would have some kind of contingency plan to hand, although what Tamkin could do should it come to the crux, she didn’t know.
William’s kitten suddenly leaped on to the trestle and paraded itself in front of John on tiptoe, purring fit to explode. John wasn’t that enamoured of cats. As far as he was concerned they existed to rid the keep of small vermin and provide soft fur for lining cloaks and hoods. Essential but only tolerated, unlike his dogs, which could be depended on for loyalty and unswerving affection on his terms, not theirs. However, instead of swiping the little creature off the trestle, he put out his hand and gently scratched the top of its head.
‘He called it Lion,’ Sybilla said in an emotion-cracked voice.
‘Ridiculous name,’ John scoffed, but when it curled up in his hat and went to sleep, he left it there.
Sybilla set her arms around his neck and laid her cheek against the top of his spine. ‘I do trust you,’ she said, ‘but I still fear for our son . . .’
John said nothing, but he put up the hand not holding the quill and squeezed her fingers.
The night was moonless but the stars shed a weak glimmer of light and John knew the trackways well. He was accustomed by now to moving troops quietly in the dark. Often it was the only way to gain an advantage over the enemy. Stealing a march; the element of surprise. He had left Aranais in the stable and was riding his black courser, Serjean. The men who were mounted all had dark horses too and no man wore pale clothing. As well as a dozen archers, twelve footsoldiers, eight serjeants and two knights, a string of supply-laden pack ponies followed in procession. All the archers carried full quivers and more arrows were loaded on the ponies. There were pots of powdered lime, spears, axes, ropes, barrels of pitch and various other paraphernalia of siege warfare. Some of the pack beasts were laden with sacks of oats and flour, bladders of lard, flitches of bacon and barrels of salted cod. John had promised Benet the men and supplies to hold out and intended giving them full measure.
The air was scented with the green aromas of earlier rainfall and the trees and hedgerows dripped with dark jewels as the troop wound its way through the night on narrow pathways and came to the keep at Newbury. His scouts had reported that the King had taken his army and retreated a short distance, but a force remained outside the walls and would do so throughout the truce, observing but making no hostile moves. John had expected this. He knew that even with his plans laid for stealth, a report would go to Stephen that he had brought supplies into the keep; but since it had been under cover of night, it would be difficult for Stephen’s scouts to report just how much had been restocked and of what nature. Tomorrow night was set to be moonless too, and the one after. By the time the truce officially ended, John intended Newbury to be stuffed so full with troops and supplies that men would have to squeeze sideways into the latrines to piss.
Most of the enemy’s camp fires were banked low, showing little more than a glow of lazy red like a half-sleeping dragon’s eye. There was little sound from the direction of their tents and just the occasional stamp and snort of a mount at the horse lines. Nevertheless a couple of watch fires still blazed on alert and some soldiers were gathered around them in conversation.
John sent three men forward to give the signal for those within to let down the leather scaling ladders and open the postern gate in the palisade. From the direction of the fires, John could hear Stephen’s men laughing over a jest one of them had made. They were toasting bread on sticks and enjoying each other’s conversation rather than watching the keep. John would have kept his own men on a much tighter rein and was glad that Stephen’s captain was not as diligent.
The pack ponies were unloaded by the men-at-arms and the goods hauled in by grapnel and basket. Then the burden-free ponies were turned around by their drover and led back to Hamstead to collect another load. John supervised, then spurred Serjean up the steep incline. He felt the stallion’s hindquarters bunch and strain with effort. Then they were at the top and squeezing in through the postern.
John dismounted and flung the reins to a groom. Benet shouldered his way forward, started to bow, but John caught and clasped him hard instead.
Benet gave him a mirthless, torchlit smile. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you were coming,’ he said.
‘It’s taken some organising. There’s more on the way.’ John’s reply was terse as he strode towards the gatehouse.
‘I’ve shored up and repaired where possible and the men are in good heart, but we could not have held them against another determined assault without the aid you have sent.’
‘We have to stave them off for as long as we can.’ John glanced over his right shoulder at Benet. ‘That is not negotiable. We fight until we have nothing left.’ He mounted the stairs to the gatehouse tower that looked out on Stephen’s skeleton camp.
‘And when that happens?’
‘We cross that bridge when we come to it . . . and then we burn it.’ John stopped short as he saw the fair-haired musician sitting at one of the trestles, his bright tunic and striped hose looking incongruous amid the leather and mail of the fighting men. ‘Well?’ John said and suddenly he was breathing hard.
Tamkin had risen to his feet at John’s entrance. Now he bowed. ‘I have seen him, my lord. A Fleming and his woman are looking after him and they are treating him well. He seems in fine fettle. There have been no tears. Indeed, he has been allowed to ride his pony around the camp and he talks to the men about their weapons and what they do as soldiers.’ Tamkin’s lips quirked. ‘He also keeps asking when he’s going to see the King.’
John found himself smiling too and although he felt pain somewhere at his core, there was a lessening of anxiety. If they were treating William well, it was a good sign. ‘I would not expect him to cry or make a fuss,’ he said proudly. ‘He will hold his head up whatever happens.’
And so will I.
And so will I.
‘They seem much taken with him,’ the musician added. ‘If he keeps that charm into manhood then his future’s assured. He’ll have patrons vying with each other for his services.’
John looked rueful. ‘He’s got to live to manhood first,’ he said, but he was not displeased by the musician’s assessment of William’s character. The child had little else to protect him just now except that sunny, endearing nature and the King’s weakness. If John had misjudged the latter, he would have to live with the consequences for eternity.
42
King Stephen’s Siege Camp, Newbury, Berkshire, July 1152
William sat at the trestle in Henk’s tent, swinging his legs and breaking his fast on the bowl of oat frumenty that Henk’s wife Mariette had set before him. She had sweetened it with honey and a scattering of raisins and William was savouring it to make it last. There wouldn’t be anything else to eat until late in the afternoon when Henk returned from his duty. Apparently their dinner today was duck. A brace of mallards dangled from a pole at the tent entrance, feathers ruffling in the morning breeze.
Mariette was busy with her laundry, slamming Henk’s shirts and braies in a large wooden tub of lye soap, along with the garments of soldiers from neighbouring tents, from whom she earned a coin or two. She was a buxom, florid-faced woman with a gap-toothed smile and twinkling brown eyes. Unlike his mother, who always smelled of rose water and cinnamon, Mariette carried with her a pervasive odour of lye soap and earth and there was a pungent smell from her armpits when she had been pummelling her washing. He couldn’t understand a lot of what she said because her French had a heavy Flemish accent, but she was kind to him and seemed to think he needed feeding up - which he didn’t. He was still delighted to eat whatever she put in front of him, for which he received much hair-tousling and praise and even the occasional odoriferous embrace. Henk called her a foolish woman and told her not to get fond, but he had allowed William to look at his weapons, touch his mail shirt and burnish his helm and shield boss, which William had thought very exciting.
He had a small bed a bit like his one at home, boxed in and stuffed with straw. A sheepskin cover went on top and his mother had sent his favourite quilt with his baggage roll - the one with the red whorls of embroidery. He quite liked living in a tent, although it was not what he had expected. He had thought he would be lodging with the King in a luxurious chamber - bigger than the one at home, with fine hangings and goblets of silver and gold. But when he had arrived at the camp, the King wasn’t there and his army hadn’t been very big. They had told him the King had gone somewhere else and that he would have to stay here until he returned. Then the mercenary captain had given him into Henk’s charge and he had been brought to this tent. Every day he asked when the King was coming back, but it had been ages and still no sign of him.
William scraped his bowl clean, resisting the urge to pick it up and lick it out because such behaviour was appalling manners and not tolerated at home, even if he’d seen some of his father’s soldiers doing it. Suitably fuelled he was now ready to leave the tent and go out and about the camp. He liked to gallop the big brown pony they had given him, talk to the men and play-fight with the youngest squires. Being in the company of the soldiers all the time made him feel like a real soldier too, especially when they sparred with him or let him join them in contests of throwing the stone, at which he was good.
Mariette was singing a washing song as she pounded and scrubbed, but on seeing William emerge from the tent, she dried her hands on a cloth and set them to his shoulders. ‘Don’t wander too far,’ she told him, ‘and don’t dirty your clothes. Your father’s going to be coming for you today when he gives his castle to the King.’
William wasn’t quite sure he had understood her. ‘I am going home?’
‘God willing,
mijn kleine
.’ She smoothed his hair with her rough red hands.
mijn kleine
.’ She smoothed his hair with her rough red hands.
‘But I haven’t seen the King yet.’
‘You will today. He will be here soon. Mind what I say, don’t go far now.’
William was excited at the thought of seeing the King at last - and his father too. ‘How soon?’
‘Am I an oracle to know? Heavens,
jongen
, go and play.’
jongen
, go and play.’
‘What’s an oracle?’
‘Someone who knows everything. Now go on and stop bedevilling me!’
William started to dash off, then ran back into the tent for his wooden sword and shield. The King might want to see them and he wanted to show his father that he had practised with them every day. If his father was coming to fetch him, he would soon be home again. He could play with Lion and show his mother the bone whistle given to him by one of the soldiers. He would surprise his older brother with the wrestling move Henk had taught him, and he would be able to teach little Margaret one of Mariette’s laundry songs.
He was watching the knights practising at the quintain and imagining himself as big as they were, clad in mail and riding a destrier like his father’s magnificent Aranais, when the King arrived. There was a flurry of trumpets and the knights charged off from their practice to go and greet their sovereign lord. William dashed after them but the King’s men were arriving in such numbers that he couldn’t tell who was who and there was no one who wore a crown or looked much like his notion of royalty. He saw many fine warhorses and knights in full mail. Some wore surcoats of bright silk over their hauberks and one lord even had a pack of hounds running beside his stallion. When William tried to squeeze forward for a better look, he was shouted at by a scowling arbalester and told not to be a nuisance. He had just decided to climb to the top of one of the trebuchets facing the castle walls for a better view when Henk scooped him up by the scruff and bore him back to Mariette. ‘Stay put,’ he commanded. ‘They’ll be coming for you in a little while.’
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