B0078XH7HQ EBOK (36 page)

It didn’t last long. Robert didn’t give up straight away, fought long enough to do himself credit, but he had known before he started that there could be but one outcome. Edwin watched it all happen as though very slowly, Robert’s parries becoming weaker as the earl’s blows became stronger, and then a manoeuvre forcing Robert to move his shield and leave himself open to the final blow. The earl’s sword, which Robert himself had lovingly sharpened, moved forward in a practised movement and ran him through. Edwin would never forget the noise it made as it entered his friend’s body, splitting and crushing the links of the hauberk and forcing and cracking its way through flesh and bone. The earl had chosen his spot well and struck accurately, and Robert had barely time to look up at his executioner before his eyes glazed over and he fell. The earl caught him in his arms and lowered him gently to the ground, before grasping his sword again, ripping it back and stepping away. In a hoarse voice he declared, ‘Justice has been done, and you are all witnesses before the Lord.’

Edwin stood as still as a stone as Sir Geoffrey moved away from him towards the earl. Martin had fled. All around him men were moving, were talking of what they had just seen, but all the voices became one rushing, echoing sound that washed over him as he stood. Still he stood as the earl took one last glance at his dead squire before moving away with his faithful castellan. Still he stood as the field emptied, leaving the body in the middle, to be tended by the priest. Still he stood as the soldiers placed the body on a stretcher and bore it away. Still he stood, unhearing, as somebody spoke to him.

It was the pain, more than the voice, that eventually brought him back to himself. The pain was in his hand, and he unclenched it slowly from around the ring, which he had been holding so tightly that it had imprinted the lion’s head on his skin. He looked at it in wonder, watching the face snarling on his palm.

The voice was still talking. He turned and looked at the speaker, taking a few moments to realise that it was William Steward. William tried to reach him once more, repeating his name over and over. Finally he was heard.

‘Edwin, I’m sorry.’

Edwin nodded and looked again at the field, now dark and empty. ‘He was my friend,’ he said, softly.

William spoke once more.

‘No … you don’t understand.’

He received a blank look.

‘Edwin, I’m very sorry, but your father has just died.’

Slowly, Edwin crumpled to the ground, and wept.

Edwin looked around him as the sun began its slow rise over the horizon. All around men were scurrying, packing and mounting, ready for when the earl should order them forward out of the gate. He looked around him, but could take in none of it.

The events of last night and this morning played through his mind. The logic of it still escaped him. He couldn’t think straight, could only arrange his thoughts in the most simplistic terms: a good man is killed by a bad man, who goes free; a bad man is killed by a good man, who gives his life in payment. It seemed a mockery of justice. The earl had overheard him expressing these sentiments to Sir Geoffrey, and had told him in a voice like stone that there was no justice, only politics. There had been a further conversation with the earl, in which the earl had said that Edwin was a valuable man to have around, and that he wished him to come to the muster at Newark, for who knew when he might need a quick mind about him. There had been the promise of being the earl’s man, the wages for which would be enough to keep his mother in comfort in her widowhood. His mother, who had been weeping over the body of her dead husband.

He tried to shake the image from his eyes, and to clear his mind he looked about him again. At Martin, who was bidding farewell to Mistress Joanna, and being given something by her which he stowed in the purse at his belt. At the boy mounted behind one of Sir Roger’s men, who on closer inspection turned out to be Peter, well and warmly dressed in what Edwin recognised sadly as one of Simon’s tunics. At Adam, who was proudly leading the earl’s warhorse to the rear of the baggage train, and being given some last-moment advice by Sir Geoffrey. And at the three coffins which were about to start a journey of their own. The largest and most ornate was accompanied by the squire David – subdued at last – who waited upon his master Walter, prior to beginning their trek home. The other two were plainer, one of medium size and one heart-rendingly small; they were loaded on to a cart ready to be taken down to the church in the village. Edwin reached unthinkingly under his tunic for the ring which was there, and grasped it tightly. The scenes washed over him in much the same way as the rays of the rising sun which touched his face.

At last the earl was there, accepting tearful adieus from his sister, mounting his courser and ready to lead the procession on its long journey. Sir Geoffrey was bidding him farewell. Edwin had already said his goodbyes – the final one to the cold figure of his father, looking younger in death now that the pain had gone out of his face, and the hopefully short-lived one from his mother, who wept all the more without knowing whether it was from sadness or pride. He had left her at the door of the cottage with her sister and with William Steward, before the first light of day broke the horizon.

The earl was signalling for the long line of horsemen and carts to move forward, and at last Edwin came to himself, ready to control his mount. He’d ridden short journeys before, mounted on a hack to accompany his father to outlying villages, but this long journey on a finer horse would be something of a challenge. He hoped he wouldn’t fall off and disgrace himself. He hoped he would be of some service to the earl. He hoped he would return to see his mother again.

He hoped the pain would go away.

What was it he’d thought to himself only a few short days ago, in his childish envy?
Honour and glory and a chance to see the world
. How strange that he would now gladly exchange it, exchange everything he owned or was ever likely to possess, for the quiet life he had then feared.

As his turn came, he put his heels to his mount and followed the earl out of the gate.

The early thirteenth century is a fascinating period of English history, full of action and intrigue. The events depicted here are set against the background of those which took place over the course of the twenty years or so just before and at the beginning of the new century.

Richard the Lionheart achieved many things during his reign, but in one of the most important aspects of medieval kingship, he failed: he did not father a son to succeed him. Thus when he died in 1199, there was no accord on who should rule next. Richard had been the second of four brothers to survive infancy: the youngest, John, was still alive; the eldest, Henry, had died childless; and the third, Geoffrey, had been killed in a tournament twelve years before. However, Geoffrey had left a son – Arthur, the Duke of Brittany – and, if the laws of primogeniture had been interpreted strictly, this son should have become the king. However, there were three main problems with this: firstly, these laws were not yet as fixed as they became later, and tradition held that the younger son of a king was nearer to the throne than a grandson whose father had never ruled; secondly, Arthur had never been to England and had no experience of life there or of how to rule such a difficult realm; and thirdly, he was twelve years old.

This set the scene for several years of civil war, with some lords – mainly those who hailed from Arthur’s lands of Anjou, Maine and Touraine – supporting him, and the rest of the barons – predominantly those of England and Normandy – backing John. The war continued in a savage vein for three years, until Arthur, by now fifteen years of age and becoming a more dangerous opponent, was captured at the castle of Mirebeau in July 1202. He was later transported to Falaise Castle and then on to Rouen, where he disappeared in April 1203, never to be seen again.

Even at the time, credible rumours circulated that Arthur had been murdered, that he had been blinded and his body thrown into the River Seine. Tellingly, John never denied these rumours, but instead got on with the business of being a king, undisturbed by further claimants to the throne. Trouble returned to haunt him later in his reign, though, in the shape of rebellious barons such as William de Braose. During de Braose’s rebellion against the king his wife and eldest son were captured; Matilda de Braose was told to hand over her other children into John’s custody, but she stated publicly that she would never place her children in the hands of a man who had murdered his own nephew. This shows either that rumours were still circulating, or that the truth was widely known but not commented upon, but it did little for Matilda herself: she and her son were kept captive in Windsor Castle, where they starved to death.

Towards the end of John’s reign, the barons lost patience with him still further, and he was forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215. Still dissatisfied with his conduct, they then sought to overthrow him, and invited Prince Louis, the son of the king of France (later Louis VIII) to invade and take the crown. The very idea of the lords extending an invitation to a Frenchman, a hereditary enemy, shows the lengths to which they were prepared to go to relieve themselves of John’s rule. However, during this invasion John died unexpectedly, leaving as his heir his nine-year-old son, Henry III. This caused many of the barons to undergo a change of heart – ostensibly because they could not justify levelling accusations of misrule against a new young king, but also in part because a child monarch would be much easier to control than a French prince who was a seasoned veteran.

Early in 1217, many of the lords had defected back to the royalist party, led by William Marshal, the regent, and by the Earl of Chester. However, Louis still had the support of a number of nobles, and was in control of most of eastern England. One of the most important strongholds was Lincoln, where the French and rebel English forces had taken the town, but not the castle. They were besieging it when William Marshal summoned ‘all loyal men’ to muster at Newark and then march to the relief of Lincoln.

One can only imagine the mixed feelings this summons may have caused to those who were wavering in their allegiance. One such noble was William de Warenne, the Earl of Surrey. When the civil war first broke out, he had sided with John, and was one of the royalists who were present at the signing of the Magna Carta. He later served as a royalist commander in Sussex (where he also held lands), and was appointed to take charge of the Cinque Ports in May 1216. However, just one month later the rebel army led by Louis was allowed to enter his castle at Reigate unopposed; later in the month Warenne came to Louis and offered him his support. Why did he change sides? His motives are not clear – perhaps he was hoping that Louis might restore his lands in Normandy, lost in John’s war there fifteen years before; or perhaps he had simply come to the conclusion that the royalist cause was doomed. A number of other lords such as the earls of Salisbury and Arundel defected at the same time, so his opinions were clearly shared.

Whatever his reason, his rebellion was short-lived, and, following John’s death in October 1216, he wavered again. In April 1217, he entered into a truce with the royalists; and then in May, the regent’s summons was sent out.

This sets the scene for our action, but the other events which occur and the characters who appear, with the exception of Warenne’s sister Isabelle, are entirely fictitious. There was no Earl of Sheffield, but it is plausible both that there were noblemen around who knew what had happened to Arthur, and that there were those who sought to cause trouble by proving that one earl or other was switching sides again.

Many of the aspects of life depicted in this book are based on real evidence. Noble families did send their children away at early ages to be raised and trained by someone else. For boys this meant working as a page and then as a squire, but the fear and nervousness felt by a seven-year-old packed off to a strange place far from home is not something which is normally read about. Girls, too, were sent away, either as child brides to be brought up by their husband’s family, or as companions to noblewomen of higher rank. Every child was a commodity to be used by the head of a family as he saw fit, and the experiences of the child and the treatment he or she received depended entirely on chance.

The lives of nobles and commoners at this time were almost completely separate. Life was hard for everyone, but for the common people it was particularly brutal. Agriculture was the main source of employment, and there had been very little technological advance for centuries: the process of growing enough food for communities to survive was dependent upon back-breaking manual labour, with almost everyone at the mercy of the weather. One bad harvest could spell disaster for many a community. Illness and death were rife: fewer than half of all children lived to see their fifth birthday; women frequently died in childbirth or after it; and both sexes and all ages were at risk of accident, sickness or infection. In times of war, the common people counted for very little: opposing armies saw them only as a wealth-producing resource, and it was considered well within the bounds of civilised behaviour to start an attack on a rival’s lands by killing his peasants and burning their villages.

However, the commoners were not – or at least not always – mere serfs to be slaughtered or bought and sold at will. A national system of justice was replacing long-standing local custom, and well-organised village communities knew their rights: any lord who sought to impose his whims upon his people might find himself involved in a long legal dispute. The process of trial by ordeal (whereby an accused person had to undergo a test such as plunging their hand into boiling water or picking up a red-hot bar) was starting to fall out of practice, to be replaced by trial by jury. Trial by combat, on the other hand, was still very much alive amongst the upper classes in 1217, so the earl’s battle is a plausible event. Indeed, the practice continued for well over another hundred years – in one famous incident in 1355 no less a personage than Robert Wyville, the Bishop of Salisbury, was challenged to a duel; he elected to have a champion fight for him, an incident which is depicted on the bishop’s memorial brass which can still be seen in Salisbury Cathedral.