The Passionate Enemies (20 page)

Here was the raging Lion of Justice, the King who had taken over a disordered country from Rufus and by his stern and almost always just laws brought back order and prosperity to the land.

Matilda bowed her head. She knew when she must obey. She must curb her dislike of the boy they had chosen for her husband; she must marry him, bed with him; and do everything in her power to give the King the grandson he insisted he must have.

So the marriage took place in the presence of the King and when it was over Henry showed his great relief to Roger because the first step in their plan was achieved.

Matilda was determined now to get a child quickly. She knew her father and she realized that if she did not soon provide the heir he would consider disinheriting her. He had stressed the fact that the people would be glad to see her replaced and this was the candid truth.

She was not popular with the people – her sex and her character were against her. She knew that the people liked Stephen and that she enjoyed no such popularity.

Stephen had always ingratiated himself with the people – highly or lowly born. He had always courted popularity which was something she had never done. He wanted the people to be on his side because they liked him; she wanted them to support her because they feared to do otherwise.

Stephen was never out of her thoughts, Stephen whom she wanted passionately as a lover and who was yet her rival. For if her father disinherited her to whom would he look but to Stephen? His nephew was the Conqueror's grandson; his wife Matilda was of royal Saxon blood. She was able to bear children. There had been a son, little Baldwin who was dead – but there was a daughter, Maud, who lived and they would get more sons.

Matilda wanted to laugh aloud because the situation amused her. Stephen, the man she desired with a passionate longing, was her great rival. She was determined to have Stephen as her lover and at the same time she was going to fight him for possession of the crown.

It was her relationship with Stephen, and that only, which would make her endure the embraces of the hateful Geoffrey of Anjou.

She had seen the death of her first husband with her own eyes. She was truly married to this boy and no matter how they disliked each other they must get a child.

In the bedchamber they faced each other.

‘It is, alas, a necessity that we get a child,' she said.

He scowled at her.

‘Oh, come, little fool. I am a beautiful woman and when you are now scowling you are not uncomely. Do not imagine that this matter is any more to my taste than yours but we have to get a son.'

Geoffrey understood this.

She took his hand and with a show of amiability led him to their bed.

Stephen had joined the King's entourage. He was reckless now and so was Matilda.

‘We have missed so many opportunities,' she said to him. ‘that if we miss another we deserve to be parted all our lives.'

He was still afraid. What if there was a child?

She laughed.

‘Who should know but us two? If there were, Stephen, and he were a boy, he would be King of England one day.'

How those words moved him! She was never sure whether they or his passion for her swept away his fears.

The passionate attachment! How delightful it was! There would never be anything like it for either of them again. They could not know how long it would last. At any time the King would settle his affairs in Normandy and return to England.

Each day they feared he would announce his intention to depart. She was delighted that his presence was needed in Normandy. This was the time of great excitement. She and Stephen were meeting whenever possible. A clandestine love affair was all to her taste. It was only the excitement of her encounters with Stephen that made it possible for her to do her duty with the boy they had chosen for her husband.

She glowed with a beauty that she had not possessed before. Whenever she was in an assembly where Stephen was, her eyes would seek him out and a great triumph would fill her. For years she had mourned because they had not married her to Stephen but would she have had it otherwise? Would not marriage have made something mundane of their relationship? Now every meeting was an exciting adventure because they could never forget the fear of discovery; the fact that their passions urged them on to greater daring added such a fillip to their fierce pleasure as could never have occurred in the nuptial chamber.

Only because of this could she endure her relationship with the inexperienced boy whom she despised.

Destiny had brought her and Stephen together, had parted them and brought them together again. Lovers and rivals. And always she wondered: Does Stephen's seed live within me? Shall it be his son or Geoffrey's who inherits the throne?

She was happy as she had never been before.

People – what blind fools they were! – said: ‘Matilda has grown contented with her marriage.'

The King was satisfied. Matilda was living in at least outward amity with her husband; those whose duty it was to keep him
informed, assured him that they shared the marriage bed and were indeed endeavouring to make the union fruitful.

With fresh warnings to Matilda that it was imperative for her to get a son, he returned to England.

Stephen, naturally, must return with the Court.

So this was the end of that first passionate phase. The lovers took a long and sorrowful farewell.

‘Stephen,' she said, ‘we overcame our fears, did we not, and was it not worth it?'

‘I would have willingly died rather than never lived as I have these last months.'

‘This is not the end, Stephen. Our destinies are entwined. Who knows – I may carry your child. That would not be an impossibility, would it?'

‘Is it so, then?'

‘I know not,' she answered. ‘I do not even know that ‘I am with child, but if I should be there would be the question, would there not? Stephen's or Geoffrey's? What if that child should become a King of England?'

He embraced her. She saw the speculation in his eyes. He had failed to achieve his ambition but it might be passed on to his son.

She wondered then how often the thought had occurred to him at the height of his passion: ‘Shall it be my son?'

This was there at the root of the pleasure. The uncertainty, the discovery of each other's minds as well as bodies.

‘What shall I do without you, Stephen?' she asked.

‘Or I without you.'

‘Wait,' she said. ‘There will be other times.'

So Stephen left for England and Matilda was left alone with her young husband.

WITH A MORE
peaceful period the King's obsession with his sins returned. He drew closer to Adelicia who was the one who could best comfort him.

She was accustomed now to his waking at night and calling out to her. The nightmares were growing more and more frequent.

One night he arose shrieking and picking up his sword began to slash at the hangings.

Adelicia, awakening startled, dashed from their bed to restrain him.

‘There is no one here,' she assured him. ‘Come back to bed, Henry.'

She drew aside the hangings to show him that no one was hiding there. He put down his sword and sat up in bed covering his face with his hands.

‘I saw Barré there, Adelicia. You remember Luke de Barré. He was my friend. We went adventuring together in the days of our youth. He wrote verses against me, inspiring my enemies and worse still laughing at me. I ordered that his eyes be put out.'

‘I know,' said Adelicia. ‘He was punished for his sins.'

‘But he had been my friend. Somehow I think he meant no great harm. He loved words, Adelicia, and words commanded him sometimes. He would say something and I would challenge him. Then he would say: “But see how beautiful that sounds. I must say it because it is poetry.” And I ordered his eyes to be put out . . . his eyes, Adelicia, the most precious thing he had, for he loved the flowers and the trees, the grass and the sun more than most men do. He glorified them. And I ordered his eyes to be put out! He killed himself rather than lose them. And now he comes to haunt me.'

‘It was but a dream, Henry.'

‘They come at night . . . men I have killed. How many men have I killed in my lifetime, think you, Adelicia?'

‘It often happens that a King must kill if he will survive.
This is not murder. It is statescraft.'

‘Wise little Adelicia. I have not loved you enough. I have not made you happy.'

‘You have done your best and I have not been unhappy. My great regret has always been that I have been unable to give you the son you wanted.'

‘Oh, Adelicia, stay awake. Talk to me until the dawn comes.'

It was sad and disquieting to see a great and powerful man so reduced to fear by the terrors of the night.

In the morning Adelicia sent for Grimbald, the King's physician, and at the risk of displeasing Henry told him of these nightly hauntings.

Grimbald wished to speak to the King and Adelicia confessed to her husband what she had done.

‘You did it out of your care for me,' he said gently. ‘I will see Grimbald.'

He explained to the doctor: ‘I am sorely disquieted in the dead of night. Sometimes it is husbandmen who surround my bed with their tools in their hands ready to strike me. I have done much that is wrong against them. I have taxed them to pay for my wars. I have taken their homes to make my forests. I have punished them severely for trespassing in these forests and. trapping and killing the animals. They are dreadfully mutilated men, Grimbald, who stand round my bed. And I have caused those mutilations. I see knights and fighting men. They come at me and they are so real that I rise from my bed and take my sword.'

Grimbald nodded. ‘My lord, you are beset by a surfeit of conscience. You remember now deeds which seemed to be necessary at the time you did them. Now they return in the quiet of the night to haunt you. If you were not a mighty King I would prescribe a visit to the Holy Land. There you could obtain absolution of these sins which worry you. But you cannot do this for your duty lies here with the country you govern. God would not wish you to leave it.'

‘My grandfather Robert the Magnificent went on a pilgrimage and left my father but a boy of seven as the Duke of Normandy.'

‘The great Conqueror could easily have been killed in his childhood had God not preserved him for a great destiny.' Grimbald crossed himself and bowed his head since it seemed he had spoken ill of the dead and the sanctified dead at that because all knew that Robert the Magnificent had died during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land and thus expiated the sins of usurpation and murder.

‘And I and my brothers would never have been born,' said the King. ‘But I have no son in whose hands I could place my kingdom, only a daughter, and I doubt not that were I to go and leave the sceptre in her hands there would be trouble.'

‘Nay, my lord, you must stay in that place where it has pleased God to put you. But you could reform your ways wherever you consider it possible. Be a faithful husband.'

‘I am too old to be otherwise, Grimbald, so there would be little virtue in that.'

‘Pray frequently. Found a few abbeys. Devote yourself to the Church, for you are suffering not from a sickness of the body but a display of conscience which comes to us all as our years increase.'

‘I have done much to prosper the abbeys,' Henry said. ‘I and my wives have founded several. Rahere, one of my minstrels, founded the priory of St Bartholomew and I have aided him in this. He built a hospital adjoining the priory and much good was done to the sick and dying. In the field near Clerk's Well to the north of my city of London, Jordan Bliset founded a priory for Benedictine nuns and there also much that was good was done. My first wife Matilda was unflagging in her efforts to help the poor. She built many hospitals. St Giles of Cripplegate was one and poor lepers were given succour there. She built churches and even bridges, such as Bow Bridge, and although these might not be said to have been made for the glory of God they brought great comfort to the people.'

‘This is good,' replied Grimbald, ‘but you still feel this need for repentance. You will do so until you have founded more abbeys and brought greater good to the Church.'

The King thanked his physician and went away to discuss with Adelicia what else they could do for the glory of God and the saving of his soul.

In spite of his efforts to win salvation the King continued to have disturbed nights and these were having a marked effect on him. He looked his age; his temper was even more violent and more easily aroused.

Sometimes he told Adelicia he believed God had deserted him. He had spent his life in making England great and God had taken his only son and refused to give him another. He greatly feared that God was displeased with him.

Again and again Adelicia pointed out what benefits had come his way. He liked to hear them listed and he would nod and say ‘Yes, yes. There was that.' He liked her to keep an account of how many abbeys he and his family had founded. He took a great interest in them and enjoyed going through their accounts.

But again and again his melancholy overcame him. Then one day there came some joyful news.

Matilda was pregnant.

‘It may well be,' he told Adelicia, ‘that God is at last answering my prayers.'

That Christmas, which was spent at Windsor, he fell sick. He could not leave his bed and there were no festivities. Adelicia herself nursed him, for who but a wife, she asked him, should be at her husband's side at such a time?

He was even more melancholy in sickness. It seemed clear to him, he said, that God had forsaken him. Yet how could he take a pilgrimage to the Holy Land? God must understand that he had a country to govern.

Early in the year a terrible fire broke out in London and more than half of the city was wiped out.