A Place Beyond Courage (24 page)
Dark amusement filled Matilda’s eyes. ‘Fairly said, but you must realise why I am suspicious. No one at my father’s court would play chess with you because you were devious and always several moves ahead.’
‘I am not several moves ahead now, Domina. I am backed into a corner.’
She nodded to herself. ‘Indeed you are, but still dangerous. Tell me, what happens if matters change and you find yourself with room for manoeuvre? Which road will you take? I am not prepared to offer you a bolt hole only to have you scuttering back to Stephen the moment he extends you a pardon.’
John contained his irritation at her tone of voice and choice of words. If he couldn’t cooperate with her now, he might as well throw himself from the battlements and have done. ‘I will not waver, Domina,’ he said. ‘I did not break faith with Stephen; he broke faith with me. Had the men on whom he relies for counsel not made it clear they would rather see me dead than continuing in my post, I would still be his man. I served your father to the best of my ability and held by my oath. If I swear to you now, only my death will unbind that vow.’
She exhaled through her nose and leaned back to contemplate him. ‘It may well come to that, and I may well demand it,’ she said. ‘Very well. I am prepared to take a chance and make you my marshal. Others here speak well of you and they will be depending on you to keep your oath.’ She gazed briefly at Brian FitzCount and Robert of Gloucester.
‘I will not fail,’ John reiterated. He knelt again and placed his hands between hers, and she leaned to give him the kiss of peace. Her smell was clean and astringent, and her hands were strong. He wondered what it would be like to lie with her. Even in the bedchamber, he doubted she would yield an inch of control. FitzCount might know, but on balance he thought not. And then he wondered how he was going to adapt to being ruled by a woman and decided the only way was to imagine her rule as an extension of her father’s.
That afternoon, while he was sitting at dinner with his new allies and familiars, Robert of Gloucester joined him between courses. ‘It’s good to have you with us,’ he said, smile lines creasing his eye corners. ‘We’re going to need you and every good man we can recruit.’
John glanced around the great hall. As well as Brian FitzCount, Miles the sheriff of Gloucester had renounced his fealty to Stephen, as had his son-in-law Humphrey de Bohun. But it was still more of a frugal gathering than a feast. ‘We are a little thin on the ground,’ he said.
‘Others will join us.’ Gloucester gave a confident wave of his hand. ‘Men desert Stephen daily. Like you, they don’t trust his justice or his strength. He’s too easily swayed by those around him - as you have cause to know.’ He pressed John’s shoulder. ‘At least my sister, for all that she is a woman, has a mind of her own and will not be ruled by the likes of the Beaumont brothers, or persuaded by the opinions of toads like Martel. And in the fullness of time, her son will inherit and we’ll have a king again.’
‘I know how strong-willed the lady is, and I will serve her as I have said,’ John said, managing not to sound irritated. ‘You do not need to convince me further. Had I been of two minds, I would not have come at all.’
Gloucester gave a wry smile. ‘Then I am glad you are of single purpose and that you are here.’ He moved on to talk to other men, giving each a moment of his time and words of hope and encouragement. John well recognised the ploy for he was accustomed to do the same among his own troops. To keep men keen and alert to your bidding, you had to win their confidence and approval. He noticed the Empress did not stir from her own place, but presided over the affair with regal formality, every movement and mouthful taken with her dignity in mind. But then she had Robert to apply the common touch - or as common as she required. He doubted Gloucester would go and rough it with the soldiers in the guardroom as was Stephen’s occasional wont.
Following the meal, the Empress retired to her chamber. John replenished his cup from a pitcher left standing on a side trestle and relaxed his tense shoulders. As he took the first swallow, Gloucester’s mercenary captain, Robert FitzHubert, joined him. The man was a few years older than John with a florid complexion. He lacked height but was so muscular that he walked wide-legged and his arms were forced away from his body by his bulk. The effect was compounded by thick leather vambraces worn at both wrists.
‘So you’re the lord of Marlborough now?’ FitzHubert said with a wolfish glint in his eyes.
John politely confirmed that it was so. He didn’t particularly want to socialise with FitzHubert but, since the mercenary was one of Gloucester’s senior soldiers, he allowed tact to prevail.
‘I hear you took on King Stephen and held out against him.’
‘I did what I had to do.’ John drank the wine, wondering where this was leading and how soon he could make his escape.
FitzHubert rocked back and forth on his heels. ‘I admire you for it. Takes a hard man to stand in the gale.’
John said nothing, but he noted the outsize spurs clipping FitzHubert’s fancy leather boots and the belligerent language of the man’s body. He was well aware that FitzHubert was sizing him up and assessing his chances. Beneath his urbane façade, John’s hackles rose.
‘This conflict is an opportunity for men like us to succeed. We can become lords of substance with lands and castles.’ FitzHubert clenched his fist and forearm under John’s nose. ‘Whatever I have gained is by the strength of my own endeavour.’
It would have been more comfortable to take a step back from FitzHubert, but John held his ground. ‘Strength is a useful thing to have,’ he agreed blandly, not adding that the intelligence and guile to harness that strength was even better. FitzHubert must have a glimmer of the latter traits or he wouldn’t be so high in Gloucester’s esteem, but that didn’t mean he was consummate. Even a wild boar had natural cunning.
The mercenary gave a wide smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I can see we are men of a kind,’ he said.
John swallowed his wine and sincerely hoped not.
18
Ludgershall, Wiltshire, March 1140
John looked at the foal, newborn and still damp but on its feet, albeit staggering like a drunkard. The groom had summoned him to say the mare was nearing the end of her labour, and he had been present to witness the birth, as had his eldest son.
‘A fine colt,’ the groom announced, looking pleased. ‘Be your heir’s first destrier, my lord.’ He winked at Gilbert.
John gave a grunt of amusement. ‘You’re a bit premature, Godwin, but I’ll keep it in mind.’ The foal delighted him. Its mother, of Catalan destrier stock, had been a gift from the Empress when she had taken him as her marshal. Since the role of the marshal had originally been that of horse master, it had suited her sense of occasion, but rather than a destrier, she had chosen to gift him with this Spanish mare, in foal to a Lombard stallion. The result, now seeking its dam’s udder, was equine royalty.
The mare swung her head and licked the infant with long strokes of her muscular tongue, making him totter and wobble. His coat was dark, but would change as he grew to become the same snow-silver hue as his dam’s.
Watching the mare, John thought that there were never enough horses. Finding beasts of the required quality in sufficient numbers was a logistical nightmare. He often lay awake, staring at the rafters, making tallies in his mind, trying to balance what came in against what went out, and not succeeding. With Henry that had never been a problem; there had always been the resources and a steady flow of income into the exchequer. Matilda’s wherewithal was in kind and often by way of promises taken on trust, and John knew how ephemeral promises were. But this one at least had the potential to be fulfilled, and the mare was young and would produce more offspring.
‘Can we show Mama?’ Gilbert asked.
‘Later,’ John replied, knowing that the sight of the after-birth would make her queasy. Nor did she like to go too near horses in case they bit or kicked. She would appreciate the foal better when it was out in the paddock with its coat dried out to a charcoal fuzz. She was the same with new-hatched chicks, grimacing at their wet feathers but cooing over them once they were fluffy balls of down.
With a parting look at mother and son, he nodded to the groom and took the boy back out into the stable yard in time to see one of his huntsmen arrive at the gallop, his horse sweating hard.
‘Men, my lord,’ he said without preamble. ‘Moving up the valley on the Devizes road.’
‘Whose?’ John asked, equally to the point. ‘How many?’
‘About fifty. From the direction, I’d say they belonged to Gloucester. Blue and red shields.’
John thanked the man and summoned Benet. ‘Ready the men,’ he commanded and hastened to don his mail and sword.
Aline watched him with miserable eyes as he shrugged into his hauberk. ‘What if they attack you?’
John jumped up and down to aid the descent of the mail over his body until the hem swished at his knees. ‘Then I’ll be ready for them.’
‘Won’t it be safer to stay here?’
He shot her a straight look from under his brows. ‘If I don’t challenge those who trespass on my territory, I am storing up trouble for later. A friend would send a herald to tell me of his presence on my lands, so I must assume until I know otherwise that this man and his troop are either ignorant, ill-mannered or enemies.’ He latched his scabbard to his belt.
‘I wish you wouldn’t—’ she started to say, then pressed her lips together.
‘Believe me, you are better protected than if I stayed behind my walls and pretended to be deaf.’ He tucked his helm under his arm and left the chamber, mail jingling as he strode.
As the air settled behind him, Aline sat down on the bench, feeling weak-legged and sick. He was so confident, so assertive. She tried to absorb his mood and motivation but they were so alien to her nature that not even a vestige would stick. All she knew was that the more he rode out and the more he risked himself, the higher became the chances of disaster. She still had nightmares about the siege at Marlborough. To have mercenaries and knights assaulting their walls with battering rams, trebuchets and fire arrows had unravelled her. She could not bear to think of it happening again. And the wounded ... dear Holy Mother, the wounded. She pitied them, she wept for them, but she could not stomach the sight of their injuries. Even when they mended there were scars and mutilations that made her ill to look upon, yet look upon them she must, or spend every waking moment in the bower.
John said he had a duty of care to his men. He saw them paid on the nail, fed, equipped and housed. If they died, he found their families a living within his domicile, and if they were too maimed to return to active service, he gave them alternative employment. It was one of the reasons his men followed him with such unquestioning loyalty. Aline admired him for it too, but it did not prevent her from hating to see the human cost of warfare under her nose.
The church was her solace and she relied ever more on her faith, although her entreaties were usually to the Virgin who was softer and more accessible than Almighty God. She felt the Virgin might lend a sympathetic ear to her pleas and understand her revulsion at the sight of blood and suffering. ‘Holy Mary, keep him safe,’ she whispered, clutching her prayer beads. ‘Let him come home unhurt.’
John rode hard, hit the Devizes road and caught up with his trespassers five miles beyond Ludgershall. It proved to be a mercenary troop led by Robert FitzHubert, who reined in and flashed a hard smile when he saw John advancing in his dust.
‘God’s greeting. You have come to join us, my lord Marshal?’ He spread his hand to encompass his men who were all watching John and his troop with wary eyes and hands close to weapons.
‘I have come to see why a band of armed men is riding through my territory without acknowledging my presence,’ John said coldly.
‘Ah.’ FitzHubert slackened his rein and removed his helm by its nasal bar. He polished a mark on the steel with the cuff of his gambeson. ‘I saw no need to trouble you.’
John wasn’t taken in by FitzHubert’s casual manner. Common protocol and good manners dictated that the mercenary should have sent a scout to report on his movements through an ally’s lands. ‘And that in itself is troubling, ’ John said.
‘Then I apologise, my lord. If I had known how keen you were, I would have called to pay my respects.’
John raised an eyebrow at that. He didn’t relish the thought of entertaining a man of FitzHubert’s ilk in his hall. ‘The courtesy of a messenger would have sufficed.’
FitzHubert made a contrite gesture that was expansive in execution and short on sincerity. ‘We’re heading to Devizes under the Earl’s orders to ruffle a few feathers. If we can take the town, so much the better. If not, then there are plenty of birds to be plucked in enemy territory.’
‘As long as you do no plucking in mine, I wish you good fortune.’
FitzHubert looked wounded ‘You are my ally. I would not dream of touching a single ear of wheat in your fields, or laying a hand to your villages.’
‘If you did I would bury you,’ John said, tight-lipped. ‘Send a messenger next time.’ He clicked his tongue to his stallion and turned for home. The space between his shoulder blades was sensitive with unease. It was the same feeling he had had on the day when the young knights of William Martel’s mesnie had thrown a lance at him on the road to Cary.
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