The Greatest Knight (50 page)

“You ride light, my lord,” said the captain of mercenaries who was in charge of the gate. He toyed with his sword hilt.

“The rest of my troop are following,” William answered in a neutral voice. “They’ll join us at Nottingham.”

The mercenary nodded and said nothing, but William could sense him questioning on whose side. No one offered him hospitality, but William didn’t cavil. He knew the game that was being played, and he was adept at it. He dismounted from his horse and threw a blanket over its sweating back, gesturing his knights to follow suit. He made soldiers’ small talk and waited with an outward show of aplomb, although within himself he was fidgeting like a man sitting on a nest of red ants.

The messenger eventually returned with the instruction that William was to be brought to King Richard’s pavilion. William Longchamp had accompanied the messenger, and there was a supercilious smile parting his full black beard. He was obviously bent on enjoying this moment and on paying back old scores.

“You’re hanging in the balance, Marshal,” Longchamp said, malice glittering. “I hope for your sake that you’re in an eloquent mood.”

William looked stonily at the Bishop. “I have hung in the balance before, and survived. Either the King knows me well enough by now, or he doesn’t. Words, no matter how eloquent, will not alter that.”

Longchamp’s upper lip curled. “No, they won’t,” he said in an insinuating voice. “And the King is waiting to hear them and make judgement.”

William gave his horse into the keeping of Roger D’Abernon. “I am ready,” he said impassively, “and I do not fear to be judged.”

“The garrison at Nottingham is still refusing to yield to the King,” Longchamp said as he limped at William’s side through the camp towards Richard’s pavilion. “It’s strongly held but no match for us. The pity is that the justiciars ever returned it to John in the first place.” His voice was bland, but since William had been the justiciar responsible for Nottingham’s custody and subsequent handing over to John during peace negotiations, his words were neither innocent nor indifferent comment.

“I did as I deemed fit,” he said curtly.

Longchamp gave a nasty smile. “You’ll need to do better than that, Marshal,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” William retorted. “Others seem to have escaped lightly enough, when you consider the abuses they perpetrated in the King’s absence, even down to forging documents and misusing his seal.”

Longchamp glittered him a narrow look. “I committed no acts of treason. I cannot say the same for your brother and yourself.”

William clenched his fists and held on to his temper by the finest of frayed threads. Mercifully they arrived at the King’s pavilion and Longchamp ran out of baiting time.

William hesitated as he gazed upon the billowing canvas, painted scarlet and gold and crowned with a great bronze finial. Behind the guards, the tent flaps were drawn back to show an interior draped with hangings of Damascus silk. A fur-covered bed was positioned on the left-hand side in the tent and a long trestle surrounded by stools and benches on the right. In the centre was the King’s chair, surrounded by an assortment of weapons, including his hauberk on a stand of beechwood poles. The floor was covered with a thick layer of green rushes, amid which spring flowers—cowslips and young daisies—gave splashes of colour. William’s stomach turned over. Richard emerged from a curtained-off area at the far end of the tent, adjusting his hose. There was a frosting of silver in his apricot-blond hair and harsh lines graven into his features by sun, wind, and the privation of captivity. He was seven and thirty but looked ten years older. His shirt and tunic, open at the throat, revealed wiry auburn curls, but despite the dishabille, he still had the presence of a king. Swallowing, William entered the tent and knelt. The green smell from the rushes rose around him and he clenched his fists. It was more than forty years since he had played as a small boy in King Stephen’s tent, innocent, unknowing, his life in the balance. If not for that long-ago day, he probably wouldn’t be here now.

“Leave us,” Richard commanded the servants and guards. “You too, my lord Bishop.” He waved his hand at Longchamp.

“But, sire, you need witnesses and I—” Longchamp began, plainly desperate to remain and watch as his rival was humiliated.

“I said leave us,” Richard said in a peremptory tone. “This is a private matter between myself and the Marshal.”

Longchamp hesitated for an instant, then bowed and swept out of the tent, his cloak creating a cold draught behind him.

“You are late to the meet, Marshal,” Richard said after a moment, gesturing him to his feet. “I had expected you sooner.”

“I travelled as fast as my horse would bear me, sire.” William resisted the urge to wipe his damp palms down his surcoat.

“But without your troop?”

William rose and faced Richard. His scalp was tingling. “My troop will come to Nottingham and be waiting. Currently they are under the command of my nephew and escorting my brother’s funeral cortège to Bradenstoke.”

Richard steepled his hands at his lips and paced the tent for a moment like a restless, hungry lion. “Your brother,” he said at length. “Yes, I heard that he had died, and I am sorry for it. The pity is that it was in rebellion against me.”

“He was loyal to your brother, sire.”

“Who is fickle and does not know the meaning of the word loyalty. Tell me, Marshal, were your own loyalties strained?”

“Not beyond breaking point, sire.”

Richard looked at him and William looked back without flinching. “I received letters in Cyprus, saying that you had betrayed me, that you had gone over to my brother’s side. And I heard the same again when I landed in England.”

“Whoever wrote them lied,” William said with a meaningful look over his shoulder towards the tent entrance from which Longchamp had so recently flurried out. “I have never revoked my allegiance, once given.”

“Yet you owe that allegiance to my brother for your Irish lands and your fief of Cartmel.”

“But not for Striguil and Longueville, sire, nor for my post of justiciar. Yes, I supported the lord John when the Bishop of Ely overstepped his authority, but that was on the instructions of your lady mother and the Archbishop of Rouen, who were in turn acting on your authority.” He made a throwing gesture with his right hand. “Either you have trust in me, sire, or you do not, and it ends here.”

Richard grunted. Reluctant amusement curled his lips. “I have heard plenty of persuasion on your behalf from my mother and Walter de Coutances,” he said. “In truth, enough to burn my ears off. And you have been eloquent in your own way if your contributions to my ransom are any statement of intent.” Richard clicked his fingers and an attendant poured wine into two cups. William’s glance flickered. For a moment it seemed as though there were two spectres in the tent with him and Richard: King Stephen, hollow-eyed and gaunt, beset by burdens but still finding a smile for a fair-haired little boy who looked not unlike William’s own four-year-old son. The smell of the rushes under his feet rose in nauseating green waves.

Richard handed the brimming cup to William. “There are few people in the world to whom I would give my trust, and my brother is certainly not amongst them, although he has his virtues nonetheless and I can still use him. Whatever you think of my chancellor—and I admit that Longchamp is part weasel and part snake—he is completely dedicated to my service and I find him valuable. But you, Marshal…” He paused for effect and William held his own breath. “You could have taken my life and you held back,” Richard said. “You could have set the South-west alight by joining in rebellion with my brother. You put me before your own kin. Some say that it is all in order to serve yourself, my chancellor especially; but then he lost his skirmishes with you and he doesn’t take kindly to being humiliated. My mother says that you are the most loyal man she knows…and that a king should value loyalty above all else.”

William had known that the words were bound to emerge. He had borne the remembrance of his meeting with King Stephen in dreams for almost all of his life, and as well as memory it had been premonition; he realised that now. He waited to drink to loyalty in the wine trembling in his cup and hoped he would not be sick.

Richard nodded thoughtfully. “My mother is wrong,” he said. “Or wrong in her choice of word at least…”

William stiffened. This was not how the scene was supposed to play out.

“I do value loyalty, but I value your integrity more. There’s a difference of shade. It was integrity that kept you by my father and sent your lance through my stallion’s chest…and it is what brings you here today. You will do what is right and just.”

William wasn’t so sure of that. True integrity would have seen him at Bradenstoke, burying his brother with all due ceremony, rather than attending a mass at Cirencester and cutting off to ride here. It was necessity and self-service that brought him to Huntingdon, but if Richard desired to give it a different word, then so be it. Loyalty, integrity, necessity. All were valid; all had shaped his life, and in different concentrations would continue to do so.

Richard raised his cup. “To the future,” he said.

William forced a dark smile. “Whatever it may hold,” he replied, thinking he could manage to drink to that.

Epilogue

Portsmouth, May 1194

William looked down at his sleeping daughter in her cradle. She was making small snuffling sounds and her little fists were like furled spring leaves. She had been born whilst Richard was besieging the now capitulated Nottingham Castle; arriving at Striguil to find mother and baby safe and well had been a gift beyond price to William.

She had been christened Mahelt and at almost six weeks old the furrowed, rumpled look of the newborn had been replaced by the pink and white rosiness of a healthy, well-nourished infant. Her hair was brown like his, and she had his eyes, too. Every time William looked at her, he was captivated. His sons were less enamoured. Will and Richard were more interested in their toy swords and hobby horses than their baby sister. Will in particular, being the eldest and most aware, was also wildly excited at the notion of a sea crossing.

William glanced from the cradle towards the open door of the long timber hall in which they were lodged as his sons ran past, giggling and playing chase, their nurse in hot pursuit. There had been some terrible storms at the end of April, and Richard’s attempts to embark for Normandy had been thwarted by slanting rain and high winds that whipped the sea into a frenzy. Once he had put to sea and been beaten back into harbour. Today, however, the wind was warm, earth-scented and blowing towards Normandy, a perfect day for a crossing.

“My lord.” His daughter’s nurse curtseyed to him and then stooped over the cradle to lift the baby out and wrap her in a snug travelling blanket. Mahelt made a soft protest and her brow puckered a whim, but she did not waken. A serjeant-at-arms picked up the cradle and carried it away towards the wharf and the nurse followed him, crooning softly to the baby.

Isabelle, who had been outside supervising the carrying of the last pieces of furniture and baggage down to the ship, now poked her head round the door. “Are you ready?” she asked. She was wearing an Irish mantle of thick plaid edged with squirrel fur and a sensible wimple of heavy tabby-woven silk. There was amusement in her gaze and exasperation…and sympathy. She knew how much he hated sea crossings.

William secured his cloak pin and squared his shoulders. Warm or not, the breeze was still boisterous and would freshen at sea. He smiled at her. “Yes, I’m ready,” he said and stepped out into the sunshine.

Isabelle looked up at him, her eyes layered with the blue tones of a summer sea. Placing her hand over his wrist in formal fashion, she secretly circled her thumb to his pulse beat and gently pressed, conveying deep affection and support.

Together they walked down to the ship, and despite being accompanied by an entourage of knights and squires, grooms and maids, children and nurses, they might as well have been alone—lovers, familiar but newly met in the bright spring morning.

A lone galley remained at the jetty, its wash strake lined with green and gold shields, and red dragon banners flying from the top of the mast and the deck shelter. The sea glittered in the bright morning and most ships had already embarked, including those belonging to Richard and Eleanor. A crowd had gathered on the jetty and William’s own horse transport had just cast off from its moorings. By narrowing his eyes, he could see Rhys on the deck and his nephew, Jack, who had opted to sail with the horses and his new black destrier.

He inhaled deeply of the salt-tanged air and crossed himself. It was not so much the notion of the sea journey that made him do so, as the awareness that he wanted to enjoy his wife, his family, and their lands to the full, with all the vigour of the life that was surging in his veins as strongly as it had done when he was a youth at Drincourt. The shrouds he had brought from Jerusalem were packed at the bottom of his travelling coffer, but he hoped he would not need them until his children were grown, and his cup drained to the lees.

Author's Note

William Marshal is one of England’s unsung heroes and perhaps the greatest knight of the Middle Ages. He is a well-known character to academics and enthusiasts of the medieval world, but outside that circle few people are aware of this fourth-born son of a minor aristocratic family who rose from obscurity to become a champion of the tourneys, the confidant of kings, a great magnate, and eventually regent of England (saving the country from bankruptcy and an invading army at the same time). He might have been entirely forgotten were it not for a narrative poem commissioned shortly after his death which details the story of his life and which itself disappeared from knowledge for centuries and was only rediscovered in the 1890s.

I have wanted to tackle aspects of William Marshal’s story for some time, but have only now found the space to write it. I said to my editor that William Marshal had stuffed so much living into the suitcase of his life that it bulges at the seams, and to cover every incident would probably take thousands of pages and still have moments left over. I have perforce had to streamline his tale and cover the most important incidents.
The Greatest Knight
explores the early part of this fascinating life. A second novel,
The Scarlet Lion
, is linked to the first but not dependent, and covers the doings of his later years (see excerpt from
The Scarlet Lion
on page 537).

I have filled in one or two gaps in William’s life with my own imagination, but have tried to stay true to the spirit of his character. For example, it is not known whether William had a mistress, made casual arrangements with women, or was celibate before his marriage. However, the historical evidence suggests that he liked and respected women and that women liked him. The
Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal
tells us that a woman helped him out when he was a wounded prisoner by giving him bandages inside a loaf of bread to bind his wounds. I decided to develop this character into Clara and to make her stand for the women William might have known before his marriage to Isabelle de Clare. The Histoire also tells us that he went to the aid of a woman in Le Mans whose house was burning down during Henry II’s last stand to defend it (and the smoke from the quilt got inside his helmet and half-choked him!) so again I used Clara to bring the story thread full circle.

The jury is still out on whether or nor William had an affair with the Young Queen Marguerite. The general consensus is that it was possible, but unlikely. However, the rumours did seriously affect William’s career for a time and led to his banishment. The more likely cause of his fall from favour was the fact that such was his charm and prowess that he took away the spotlight from the Young King who, by his nature, would have taken a very dim view of being eclipsed. Rather like the sporting heroes of today, the great tourney champions were much in demand and sponsors would pay vast sums of money to have them on their “team.” The world of high earnings, transfer fees, hero worship, and celebrity that, for example, we associate with modern-day football was a concept already embraced by the followers of the tourney circuit in late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Europe. William Marshal was the David Beckham of his day! I should add here that William did have a destrier named Blancart and the incident with the stallion having too tender a mouth for the bridle is reported in detail in the
Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal
.

No one knows what William did on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. That part of his life is a mystery, although he almost certainly underwent a spiritual crisis following the death of his young lord and the robbing of the shrine of Rocamadour. His pilgrimage clearly affected him for the rest of his life. He did indeed bring home the cloths with which he intended to drape his coffin when the time came for him to die. The foundation charter for his priory at Cartmel has a curse written into it to protect against anyone plundering or desecrating the church. I can’t help but think that this is in some way tied up with the looting of the shrine at Rocamadour and William’s determination that nothing like that was going to happen to his own foundation.

There was an age gap of approximately twenty years between William and Isabelle de Clare, but they seem to have been very compatible. William seems to have valued his wife above and beyond her role of producer of children and keeper of the domestic hearth. As mentioned in the novel, he retained his own smaller knighthood seal and although clerks styled him an earl in their documents, he never called himself one until King John made him Earl of Pembroke in his own right. Having dwelt in the household of Eleanor of Aquitaine and remained her lifelong friend and confidant, William was accustomed to women with the ability to wield power and think for themselves and appears to have encouraged these traits in his wife. Incidentally, Striguil is better known today as Chepstow.

The character of Wigain is an interesting one. He is known to have been the Young King’s kitchen clerk and he is also known to have kept tallies of William’s wins in tourneys. However, he also ranged further afield and was entrusted with doing more than just counting the number of capons that passed through the kitchen door, for he is found hundreds of miles away from his master in the company of the Bishop of Norwich and the advocate of Béthune among others. What he was actually doing is not explained, but with such hints at other activities, I felt justified in giving him a wider role beyond the kitchens, and I enjoyed developing his character. I must confess that in the interests of keeping the character list within acceptable bounds, I gave Wigain the task of messenger to King Henry II on the death of the Young King, when the toing and froing was in fact undertaken by various ecclesiastical personages, including the Bishop of Agen and a monk of Grammont.

William’s relationship with his eldest brother, John, seems to have been an uneasy one. When John inherited the Marshal lands from their father, he was in a position to help William out, but he didn’t. Later, William took John’s illegitimate son (also called John, but rechristened Jack in the novel for the sake of the author’s sanity!) for his squire, and advanced the youth’s career and standing, but when John Marshal was killed in rebellion against King Richard, William distanced himself from his brother and paid only lip service to the burial rites. Henry Marshal rose in the church to become Bishop of Exeter. Not a great deal is known about his relationship with William and they do seem to have led largely separate lives. Henry was involved in a deep quarrel with Henry II’s illegitimate son, Geoffrey, who became Archbishop of York, but to feature the squabbling of these two contumacious priests in the novel would have made the story three times as long! Ancel Marshal disappears from the record after 1181. There is a strong suggestion that he joined the household of his cousin, Rotrou Count of Perche, following the tourney at Lagny-sur Marne, but that is all that can be said.

For readers who are interested in the story of William Marshal and would like to read further I can highly recommend Professor David Crouch’s revised biography:
William Marshal, Knighthood, War and Chivalry, 1147–1219
(Longman, 2002, ISBN 0 582 77222 2).

Although I consulted a multitude of books and sources whilst researching the novel, here is a select bibliography of some of the most useful, aside from Professor Crouch’s book.

Appleby, John T.,
England Without Richard 1189–1199
(G. Bell & Sons, 1967).

Eyton, Revd R. W.,
Court, Household and Itinerary of Henry II
(Taylor & Co., 1893).

Flanagan, Marie-Therese,
Irish Society, Anglo-Norman Settlers, Angevin Kingship: Interactions in Ireland in the Late Twelfth Century
(Clarendon Press, 1989).

History of William Marshal
, Vol. 1: Text and Translation (II. 1-10031), ed. by A. J. Holden with English translation by S. Gregory and D. Crouch (Anglo-Norman Text Society, 2002, ISBN 0 905474 42 2).

Kelly, Amy,
Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings
(Harvard University Press, 1950, ISBN 0 674 24254 8).

Labarge, Margaret Wade,
Mistress, Maids and Men: Baronial Life in the Thirteenth Century
(Phoenix, 2003).

Meade, Marion,
Eleanor of Aquitaine
(Frederick Muller, 1978, ISBN 0 584 10347 6).

Painter, Sidney,
William Marshal: Knight Errant, Baron and Regent of England
(Johns Hopkins Press, 1933).

Tyerman, Christopher,
Who’s Who in Early Medieval England
(Shepheard Walwyn, 1996, ISBN 0 85683 132 8).

Warren, W. L.,
Henry II
(Eyre & Methuen, 1973, ISBN 0 413 38390 3).

As always, I welcome comments, and I can be contacted through my website www.elizabethchadwick.com or by email to [email protected].

I also post regular updates about my writing and research on my blog: http://livingthehistoryelizabethchadwick.blogspot.com. There is also a friendly, informal discussion list at [email protected], which readers are very welcome to join.