Ann of Cambray (50 page)

‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘I am tied to Raoul of Sedgemont. Whether he wants me is another matter. But I have given my word to him.’

He ran his hand across his weary face again, making his hair stand on end; even his trim beard was overgrown and rough. ‘Then know this.’ His voice was stern as I remembered it at Sedgemont. ‘Be warned by what I say. The hawk has left the woods and flown eastward. If you would live, avoid him. Know, see, do nothing.’

‘How can that be?’ I cried, when his words sank in. ‘He could not have dragged himself upright. Geoffrey would not let him come.’

He pulled me back farther against the wall, the first real anger that I had ever seen in him flashing. ‘Now, God be damned,’ he cried. ‘Shout those words aloud for all men to hear and we are all dead. I give you fair warning that my men left at Sedgemont have sent me news. Work that knowledge to your best advantage. I care not if he lives to thrust his head into the noose. Save only this: as what befalls him will affect you. And that he drag not me with him for a woman’s sake. Ever have I kept myself clear of female entanglements. You make me see how right I was to judge them harshly.’

He paused, took breath. ‘Yet, God forgive me, I will still help you if I can. And if you need help afterwards, it is there for the asking. I cannot turn my thoughts off and on, any more than you. But look for no more signs from me, unless you come to seek them yourself.’

He turned and walked away, stiffly, upright, as one who had ridden hard and long. A good man he was, I thought. Once I might have warmed to such a one, who needed me. But not now. I turned myself, gathering up my skirts to slip between the crowds of men who stared and commented.

In the quiet of our chamber, I summoned in the three of Raoul’s guard and, with Cecile, held council what next to do. For if Raoul arrived before my task was done, then might all be lost at one throw. And Sir Gautier, like me, must bear his love in silence.

The next days are as a blur. I had set each man to watch a different gate, but there were seven gates to watch. I had Cecile loiter in the entrance halls to stop him if he reached this far. I could not believe he would come, unarmed, alone. I could not believe he would come openly, and how were we then to recognise him in disguise? I still attended on the queen, sat with her in her room, rode with her on fair days in the woodlands to the south, feasted at night in the Great Hall. I saw Sir Gautier in the distance, but never a look did he give me, never sign or word.

The queen seemed preoccupied. Yet once she bade me have patience, which might mean all or nothing. And at night, when we sat eating the food that was either too cold because the king came home late, or uncooked because he would dine early, I watched in vain for any friendly face, listened for any name that Raoul might have mentioned. The king lived to his reputation of restlessness. He was up before daybreak, hunting if it was fine, riding even on foul days, until sometimes he had saddle sores upon his legs as a horse does when it is overworked. At table he was equally distracted, sometimes spending the whole meal with his justiciars, letting the food congeal upon his golden plate. Sometimes he would get caught up in some point of custom or law with his new chancellor, Thomas Becket, the young man with the shock of black hair whom Cecile had first noted at the queen’s lying-in, and they would argue back and forth, while all of us sat silent listening to them.

Once the whole court was in an uproar at some jest the king had played, having torn off the chancellor’s cloak and thrown it to a beggar in the streets. Sometimes the king would rise without ceremony, half the court pouring out with him like water from a jug. At others, he would sit as under duress, playing with those new two-pronged forks the queen had brought from France, spearing his meat with them as if practising with a lance.

The queen seemed to pay no heed to these manners of his. She surrounded herself, at mealtimes especially, with people from her own country, like Sir Renier, with whom she would talk in their own language. What they said among themselves I cannot tell, but never by look or word did she show anger at the king. And when he returned, sometimes nonchalant, sometimes petulant like a schoolboy, she still showed him no emotion at all. Perhaps that was her secret. Or perhaps it was that he often seemed so much younger than she was, at times even younger than I, that kept him in some kind of check. A boy then, about boy’s tricks, until some gesture, some expression on his face, would reveal the full-grown lion lurking underneath.

As for the queen herself, in calm moments I trusted her; at other times I could not be sure. My foolishness it was, to think that I could have persuaded either of them to my will. For both were impatient with fools, disliked obvious flattery, were quick to grasp a point, and seemed to hold each other in some kind of contest beyond my comprehension. My only hope, however, was the queen: as long as she had the king in her control, all was not over.

Afterwards, I wondered. Had she known? Had she planned it so? That, too, is something we never shall speak of. I can only guess at it. All I do know is that Henry was well fed, well rested, well content, as much as it is in his nature to be so, when there was a scuffle at the door. A guard was bawling out a name, and then a man came striding to the table where we sat, Geoffrey hard behind him, his face still bloody where someone had beaten him.

And Raoul of Sedgemont came into the king’s Hall, into the lion’s den.

Was I the only one who stood as he came up? Did I say anything to him before Cecile pulled me down? I only knew that he was on his feet, thin and pale, with the scar of Maneth’s fist still scored across one cheek bone. He wore rough clothes: a leather padded shirt, no mail; he could not wear it yet. He had given up his sword at the gate, but his sword belt hung at his side. He could not use his right arm then, and I saw how he rested it upon the belt. And his look was fixed upon the king.

Henry, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy, King of England, leaned forward in his chair, both hands outspread upon the table, and looked at Raoul of Sedgemont.

Perhaps I would have gone to him then, but another hand grasped mine. It was the queen’s. ‘Leave them alone,’ she said. ‘We can do no more.’

‘So, Raoul of Sedgemont,’ the king said at last. ‘You come late to my crowning, sir.’

‘I am come late,’ Raoul said, ‘but I have come.’

‘For courtesy, you should have been sooner. What has kept you so long?’ When Raoul did not reply, ‘Ravaging the western borders, meddling with the Celts against my will, killing my companion.’

In the silence that followed, ‘It was fair fight,’ Geoffrey shouted out. ‘All who saw it will claim it was a fair fight, a Judgment by God. Save Maneth’s trick to blind my lord.’

I saw Sir Gautier start at his words, recognise him. But it was Geoffrey’s loyalty that betrayed him.

‘Peace with the Celts, my lord King,’ Raoul said, ‘lies within your command as with Stephen’s. If you wish it.’

He spoke carefully, choosing his words. I thought at first it was to avoid offence, but then realised it was weariness that made him slow. He swayed upon his feet as he talked, and his face was pale with fatigue. How long had he been on the journey here? When had he forced himself to leave the forest shelter? And why? Like Henry, he could ride nonstop—with broken shoulder scarcely knit, with wounds half-healed.

‘We thought you dead,’ Henry said. He reached out and drank a goblet of wine, a long choking drink, he who drank but seldom and then always abstemiously, having no taste for feasting.

‘No,’ said Raoul, with a flicker of a smile, ‘it is not so easy to bury old acquaintances. They rise when you least expect them.’

Henry drank again. For some reason, I was suddenly reminded of a time when I had burst into the Hall at Sedgemont to seek revenge. And here was Raoul, unarmed, in the midst of his enemies. I looked round for help, not knowing then de Luci, who was already whispering to the chancellor, not seeing Sir Gautier move purposefully behind the servants round the table’s edge.

‘There is the matter of Gilbert of Maneth,’ Henry said. ‘Murdered. Who judges that? And the taking of Cambray castle by force? And the seduction of the Lady of Cambray.’ A cruel thrust, that last.

I jumped to my feet again, Geoffrey with me. Together, we shouted, ‘Gilbert died in battle.’ Then I alone, ‘I asked that Cambray be taken. I accuse my liege lord of nothing. All I have comes from him.’

‘Now, there is loyalty,’ Henry sneered. ‘Whence comes such loyalty as that, my lord, that even in Sieux your men ever plot your return?’

‘Here, my lord King.’

The three men of Sedgemont stood forth from the back of the Hall. Weary they were with their fruitless vigil, still dressed in their worn clothes, still sharp and taciturn.

‘And how many more do you bring against me?’ Henry sneered again.

Raoul spread open his hands, moving his right arm painfully. At that simple, open gesture, the king’s temper overflowed. He pushed back his chair with a crash and stalked to the edge of the dais where we sat. His face was mottled with rage, so that the freckles stood out like dark spots and his cropped hairs bristled like a dog’s. With short neck thrust forward, his wide shoulders, he resembled a bull that would charge everything in its way.

‘When will you show such loyalty to us, Raoul of Sedgemont,’ he cried. ‘How often have you refused to submit to me?’

‘Since we first met,’ Raoul said calmly. ‘I think I can count the times as well as you.’

‘And if I force you to your knees,’ said Henry, ‘here before them all, that you should hail me rightful King of England, lord of all this land?’

‘Then you will force me to my knees,’ Raoul said as calmly as before.

They stood close to each other, of a height now that the king still kept to the platform, both breathing heavily, both panting.

‘And if I kill you for it,’ Henry said, the veins swelling on his face, ‘if I order my guards to run you through for a treacherous dog?’

I think he felt he spoke to Raoul alone, as if the rest of us did not exist.

‘Then you run me through,’ said Raoul.

‘I can have you cut down,’ Henry’s rage was frightful to behold; no man I had ever seen writhed so, rocked with anger as with pain, ‘a traitor, your head will rot above London gates.’

Mother of God, I prayed, he will kill him where he is before us all. I made as if to go to Raoul’s side, to throw myself before him and share the blow. It was the queen who caught me back again, with a grip like iron.

‘Make no move,’ she mouthed at me. ‘Say nothing. Do nothing.’

‘He will kill Raoul.’ I must have said it aloud. By her side, Sir Gautier stared past me, neither hope nor condemnation in his eyes.

‘Or Raoul will slay him,’ she suddenly cried at me. ‘Fool. You cannot interfere. They must battle it out between themselves. I have done what I can. But they must battle between themselves, with all the lords of England to watch and condemn what Henry will do. Oh God,’ she cried, and I had never seen her show fear before, ‘that I should be bound to such a man. Whether he kill Raoul or not, it will kill him. King he would be, must be, if he acts as a king. If he does not, he will be nothing, a madman, scorned by everyone. Oh, God,’ she whispered again, ‘it is himself he fights.’

I felt her fear, her involvement, her complicity, it could not be called love, for Henry, as strong and helpless as mine for Raoul. Here then was that thing which Sir Gautier had warned me of, that he and Raoul himself, that they all knew. The king was gnawing at his wrist as if to stop his hand from twitching to his sword.

‘He is no traitor, my lord King,’ four other voices rang out. They came from Geoffrey and the Sedgemont guard, who stood a solid phalanx to one side of the dais. Did their voices break the king’s concentration? Did he use them to vent his anger? With a howl, he shouted at his own guard, who leaped upon them, thrusting them back against the wall, sword points at their throats. They thrashed and kicked, the mass of men swirling back and forth until they all four were pinioned with spear shafts across their chests, their hands shackled.

King Henry turned his back upon them, clasped his hands behind him, tightly, and began to pace up and down. Below him on the floor, Raoul kept step, as I had seen him many times, both men prowling, watchful of each other, taut like string.

‘At Wallingford you bade Stephen refuse me as heir. You would not sign the Treaty of Westminster that followed. You came not to swear allegiance to me after it was signed.’ The long list of accusations gushed out. ‘What of Cambray, a border fortress thrown up without leave? What of my envoy slain? What of your raids across the Welsh border?’

‘And what of Sieux,’ said Raoul at the end, ‘taken and burned without cause? Your men hold it now without right. What of my men who were killed there?’

‘Casualties of war,’ Henry said.

‘Such as I would have avoided at Sedgemont,’ Raoul said. ‘It was unguarded. Your messengers had free entry. It was not I who struck against them. Your own friends did that.’ 

‘By whose right hold you Sedgemont?’ Henry said. He turned upon Raoul like a snake. ‘In whose name hold you those lands?’