The Passionate Enemies (44 page)

‘That is what I am trying to do.'

‘Not through battle. We have had enough of battle.'

‘Do you fear battle?'

‘Nay, my lord. You know that well. I have spent so many years since my marriage away from my home.'

‘You could be said to have been guarding that home.'

‘I would there had been no need to do so. Nor would there have been had we had peace. You know how my beloved wife Adelicia could not endure the strife of the world and shut herself away in a nunnery. She is now dead and I a widower.'

‘As I am. We married saints, William.'

‘They were wise women, my lord. They wanted peace. They craved peace. They knew that the country needed peace. In their memory we must bring about that peace.'

‘When I have defeated the enemy it will come.'

Albini shook his head. ‘Nay. It will not come through war. My lord, you know that Henry Plantagenet has a claim to the throne as the direct heir of Henry I. Could you not enter into a contract with him?'

‘Give up the throne! You do not mean that. If you do you are a traitor.'

‘I have ever been your faithful servant. It is because of this that I make so bold as to suggest to you that you make a treaty with him. You to be King until your death and then Henry Plantagenet should be your heir.'

‘And my own son . . .?'

Albini shook his head. ‘I have put this to you, my lord. I beg you think on it. If you could make this treaty there need be no bloodshed on the morrow. Think what this would mean to this land.'

William de Albini bowed and went silently from the King's tent.

He could not rest. He thought of tomorrow's battle. He was getting old – forty-six. He had spent so many of those years in battle. He had no heart for bloodshed.

And yet to betray his own son Eustace!

A voice seemed to whisper to him: ‘But is Henry your son?'

One of his men came into the tent.

‘My lord, there is a woman without who would have speech with you.'

‘A woman! Who is this?'

‘An old gipsy woman. She says she must speak with you. She has something of the greatest moment to say to you. It is of the utmost importance . . . to you, sir.'

‘What should I want with an old gipsy?'

‘She will not go away, sire.'

‘Bring her to me.'

She was wrapped in a long cloak; her hair hung loose about her shoulders; there was mud on her boots.

‘Why do you come to me?' he asked.

‘Because I must speak to you, Stephen.'

There was something in the way in which she said his name that made him start.

He said to the soldier who guarded the tent: ‘Leave us.'

When they were alone, he went to her and took her by the shoulders. ‘Matilda,' he cried.

‘You know me then.'

‘Could I ever not do so? What do you here?'

‘I came to see you . . .'

‘How . . . You . . . in my camp.'

‘This disguise is good,' she told him. ‘All soldiers like to have their fortunes told. I am with my son's men and I broke through into your camp disguised in this way because I had to see you. It is not the first time I have broken through your lines. Once I was a corpse, then I escaped on the ice and now I come as a gipsy.'

The old excitement was creeping over him. Her fascination was as potent as ever.

‘Why, Matilda?'

‘To see you. It may be the last time, Stephen . . . That is why.'

‘Are you prophesying my death?'

She shook her head. ‘But we have been parted for so long and so many times. Our lives have been ones of brief meetings and long separations. Alas, Stephen, do you regret that?'

‘Never anything more. If they had given you to me . . .'

‘Much of the spice would have been taken out of life. Who knows, I might have come to despise you as I did my poor Geoffrey. But I waste time. I have come to ask you not to fight tomorrow. I want you to call off this battle. I fear that if you and Henry come face to face one of you will die, I love my son, Stephen. That surprises you. You did not believe I could love anyone. But in a way I love you and I love Henry. He is going to be a great king . . . a greater one than you could ever be. You are too kind and gentle for a king, Stephen. You are too eager to be friends with all men and that could mean you are no true friend to one. I have changed over the years, mellowed. I have accepted defeat for myself . . . but not for my son. So I ask you not to fight but to meet to parley, to make a treaty. Give him the crown after your death. You know it is his by right. You knew it was mine by right. I forfeit it to you, Stephen, if you will give it to my son when you die.'

‘Ah, Matilda, you forget. I had a good and faithful wife and she bore me a son.'

Matilda uttered an oath. She was the old Matilda again in her hatred of his wife. She had never forgiven that Matilda for being not the fool she had once thought her but a clever woman who could scheme for her husband.

She said angrily: ‘This battle is a cruel and unnatural thing. Is it fitting that a father should slay his own son and son to kill his sire?'

‘You are telling me that Henry is my son?'

‘You know how it was between us.'

‘Then he is!'

‘I will say no more,' she answered. ‘But I tell you this. If you fight tomorrow it will go ill with you, and if my son killed you I could not forgive him and if you killed him I could not forgive you either.'

‘Matilda, you must tell me the truth.'

‘The truth. What is the truth? Who knows the truth? There are so many sides to all questions that the truth is hard to find. For so long I could see but one point of view and that my own. And look to what that brought me. I lost London. My triumph was turned to failure. Stephen, do not fail as I did.'

‘Matilda, I would know . . .'

‘We would all know everything that were possible. I shall
go now. Think on what I have said. Do as I say. If you do not there will be such bloodshed for this England which my father and our grandfather made that they will never forgive you . . . and nor shall I.'

She lifted the flap of the tent and went out.

He started to follow her but changed his mind.

He sat down on his straw. Matilda, he thought. There was never one like her. She still spoke in the same arrogant manner, yet she had changed. What had changed her? Her love for her son . . . their son?

He buried his face in his hands and so remained for some time.

When he lifted his head he went to the door of the tent and called one of his soldiers.

‘Bring William de Albini to me,' he said.

When William came he said: ‘I have thought of your words. Let a message be sent to Henry Plantagenet. Tell him that I would parley with him in person at dawn. We will meet between the two armies and will ride out to each other singly.'

William fell to his knees. ‘I thank you, God,' he said, ‘for Thy great mercy.'

WHEN EUSTACE HEARD
of the Treaty of Wallingford a wild fury possessed him.

He screamed in his rage. How dared his father dispossess him in favour of Henry Plantagenet! His father was a coward who feared to fight. His father had given away his inheritance.

He shouted to his troops. ‘Shall we allow this? Let us march on the King. Let us march on the upstart Henry Plantagenet.'

But they fell away from him. They were as sick of war as others.

There were a few though to stand beside him then, for there were always malcontents in an army. There were many who were looking for the spoils of battle.

With a band of followers Eustace marched on to Bury St Edmunds and there he entered the monastery.

The Abbot received him and offered him and his men shelter.

‘What we. want,' cried Eustace, ‘is money that we may carry on the war against the King who has given my inheritance to the Plantagenet.'

The Abbot gently replied that he could give them nothing but food and shelter. To which Eustace answered roughly that it appeared to him there was much treasure in the Abbey and this could be used to provide an army.

Raging against his fate, Eustace was in no mood to reason. He wanted to vent his anger on someone. Had his father been at hand he would have tried to kill him. As it was he turned his fury on the monks.

Crashing into the chapels he took the gold and silver ornaments from the altars; he tore down the rich hangings for their gold and silver embroideries. He ordered that his men should take the corn from the Abbey granaries and in the meantime others should cook a feast of which he and his men should partake in the refectory.

The vaulted ceiling echoed to their ribaldry and Eustace thus attempted to ease his outraged feelings.

So violent had been his anger that while he was eating he choked suddenly and fell to the floor in a fit.

He was carried from the hall in a state of stupor and the next day he died.

This was retribution, said the monks, for his desecration of their abbey.

He was buried at Faversham beside his mother; and Stephen mourned him deeply.

He had, after all, been his son. He had long known that Eustace had not the qualities to make a good king but he could not forget the days of his infancy when he and the Queen had delighted in him.

And yet, thought Stephen, this makes the way clear for Henry.

He believed that it was right that Henry should follow him.

Stephen returned to his palace of Westminster and there he shut himself away for a while to think of all that happened and, as he said, to make his peace with Matilda his Queen.

He would talk to her as though she were with him, explaining why he had acted as he had.

‘It was peace, Matilda. No country can prosper without it.'

That had always been a belief of hers.

And Eustace? She would understand. ‘He would have been no fit king, Matilda. You will see that. And what happens when a country such as this one falls under the sway of a weak man?

‘You have seen what happened under me. I was no match for them all. I was no Conqueror, no Lion of Justice. I lacked their strength. They cared nothing for the approval of men; I craved it. They were prepared to be hated. I wanted to be loved.

‘That was my downfall. And now this young Henry is waiting, to leap into the saddle. I have confidence in him, Matilda, as I could never have had in Eustace.'

He was proud of the boy. How could he be otherwise? He would be a good king.

‘England will be as she was in the days of her greatness. This young man, this Henry, will lead her back to that path from which under a weak king she has strayed.'

He was living quietly, often in the past. But he had learned a lesson just as Matilda had learned hers.

They had one aim now and that was the success of the next King. They did not meet but he felt that their spirits were in accord.

Was she at peace? It was hard to believe that she ever would be.

Was he? Hardly that. But he was now quietly waiting for the end.

A year or so after the Treaty of Wallingford a sudden illness attacked him.

He thought: ‘It has come.' And he was ready, even eager, to go.

He lay in his bed. He had said good-bye to William, his young son, who had been concerned in a plot to assassinate Henry and had mercifully been discovered in time. His young daughter Mary prayed at his bedside.

William de Albini was there.

‘Farewell,' said Stephen. ‘This is my end. Do not grieve, I am ready to go.'

‘You are too young to die,' said William.

‘I have lived for fifty-one winters, that is enough,' said Stephen. ‘I shall go and join my dear wife and we shall lie together in the Abbey of Faversham which we built to the glory of God. Good-bye, William. Live in peace. Go to Boulogne and there care for the estates your mother left. That would be her wish. And Mary, my child, you should go to Rumsey and there you will discover whether it is indeed a life of seclusion you wish for. Fare you well. I go in good heart. My sins are great but God will forgive me.'

The priests were at his bedside and gratefully he took the cross which was thrust into his hands.

There were many to grieve for him. He had been a man who was greatly loved. The people in the streets mourned for him. The Londoners remembered that he had always had a friendly word for them. He had been a good man as men were, but a weak king in an age which needed a strong one.

So while they mourned for him the people of England looked to the future.

This was the end of the Norman Kings; the Plantagenet era had begun.

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