Chase (ChronoShift Trilogy) (23 page)

The sword’s bearer was the leader of these columns of soldiers, a tall, stately knight.  His face was snarled in fury.  Long, reddish locks of hair bounced recklessly as he struggled to wrench free his sword.  The man was strong, but the sword had gone deep.  Still, he had it free in a few seconds.

He wore no armor save the same mail that all the others wore over a brown leather tunic.  His weapon was simple in style. When it came to intimidation, however, the power and skills in his arms more than made up for any lack of fancy trappings or symbols carved into its hilt.

Still crouching, Mark raised the tip of his own sword, pointing it at the man's face.

"What is your name?"

"Sir Randolph DeCleary.  ’Tis good you know it, seeing he is about to end your miserable life."

"Mark Carpen.  Pleased to meet you."  He straightened, slowly, to face his enemy on equal footing.

"I've no care to know the name of a thief," DeCleary spat.

"I am no thief."

"Thief, bandit.  You fight the Earl's men, which makes you an outlaw.  Same thing."

"Seems the thief is the one who would steal a man's life while his back is turned."

Randolph curled his lips in distaste, but his eyes were ferocious as he raised his blade high to attack.  "Why don't you flee back into the darkness, you coward?" he snarled.

The knight swung.  Mark parried effectively, but the sheer force of the blow sent shudders throughout his arm.  This was going to be a hard fight.

Surely, Mark could defeat this man by out-thinking him.  He was strong, but that meant he would be slow and methodical.  If Mark were swift, he could take him.

His thesis shattered as the man pulled back his weapon and redirected the attack with a speed that seemed to rival lightning, yet the force behind it was no less than the first.  Mark was barely able to move his own sword in time to block the blow.

Again and again the knight swung.  First at Mark's head, next at his feet.  Then, he would lunge for his belly.  Mark found himself jumping, ducking, and twisting as much as he parried.  Randolph's sword was like quicksilver, darting here and there, hammering tremors wherever it struck.  The man's skill was completely unexpected.  Mark knew he'd be lucky to get in even one offensive blow and he was tiring far too quickly.

Swords don't look heavy, but now he knew differently.  This kind of fighting used muscles he hadn't even known he had.

A brief hole opened in Randolph's defenses, and Mark took a desperate shot for the knight's feet.  DeCleary had been expecting this though.  In fact, he'd set it up on purpose.  Deflecting the attempt with ease, he countered with a vicious swipe of his own at Mark's ankles.  Leaping onto one hand, Mark kicked out with both feet at the knight's stomach.

It was the only satisfactory blow Mark had landed and thankfully, it sent DeCleary sailing onto his back.

Mark stood wearily.  The fight had taken more out of him than he'd realized.  He partially rested his weight on the hilt of his sword once more, as he had been doing right before the fight began.  Seeing his companions were just standing there watching the whole thing unfold, he waved them in.

"Hardy, Ty.  Little help?"

The fallen knight grunted and jumped to his feet.  "Have you no honor, you coward?" he spat.

Mark cocked an eyebrow and stared at him.  This man thought about battle in a completely different way than he did.  Mark had been trained to win at any cost.  This man had been trained to sacrifice his very life if honor demanded it.

"What I find dishonorable," Mark replied sternly, "is a man who fights for evil in the name of honor."  Motioning to Ty, he said, "Knock him out, but don't kill him."

Ty feigned an attack and as Randolph turned toward him to face it, Mark advanced.  Randolph turned back halfway, ready to defend two fronts simultaneously.

"You are a brave one," Hardy muttered as he slammed a log into the back of Randolph's skull, who collapsed neatly to the earth.

"Tie him up," Mark ordered.

"That
was
a bit cowardly, wasn't it?"  Ty asked mischievously.

"I've got no problem admitting the guy was better than me with a sword.  We're not here to prove anything.  We're here to make sure the Smith family keeps their property and isn't murdered in the process.  Just get him trussed up.  It's time to meet Lord Geoff."

August 4
^th
1100, Colchester, England

Lord Geoffrey de Mandeville was a man used to his luxuries.  As the Earl of Essex, though the title was still not officially his, he held rights to one of the most important and most densely populated earldoms in all England.  He'd fought alongside William the Conqueror against the Saxons at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and had been one of his most important supporters.  Noblemen like Geoffrey were given lands by William after the conquest of England was done, lands taken from the estates of the vanquished Saxons.

Geoffrey, however, had been closer to the king than most. He'd been given the important lands of Essex just outside London, including the city of Colchester, which was the oldest city in England.  King William had also made him Sheriff of London and Middlesex, and Constable of the Tower of London, very important and prosperous positions.

William died during the siege of Mantes in France in 1087.  While on his deathbed, he apportioned his estate between his three living sons.  That he had not named his oldest son, Robert Curthose, as the new king, and instead bestowed the crown on Robert's brother, William Rufus, was no surprise.  Years before, Robert had flown into a rage when his younger brothers, William and Henry, dumped some nasty bedpan water on him from a balcony.  He physically scuffled with his brothers over the prank and when his father refused to punish them for it, he mounted an armed insurrection against his father, the Conqueror, in order to steal the crown from him.  The rebellion quickly failed.

William disinherited Robert and the young man spent the next decades in exile in Normandy.  In addition to this bad blood, the king saw a lot more of his own character and personality in his second son than he did the older.  Rufus had always been his favorite, so he made him the new King of England before he died.

Robert had not been completely cut out, however, as his mother had pled with William to not abandon him.  In the end, William left his estates in Normandy to Robert, giving him the title of Duke.  The youngest son, Henry, had received a large sum of gold with which he was to buy land.

So, William Rufus became the second Norman king of England, and at first, Lord Geoffrey, along with most of the other nobles, was glad.  Rufus did think and act a lot more like his father than Robert.  Robert was the weakest of the three brothers and nobody wants a weak king.

Still, there was a problem.  Rufus was greedy.  Greedy to the extreme.  He taxed his kingdom like no other king before him had.  He employed Robert's former aide, Ranulf Flambard, to find new and creative ways of taxing his nobles and the people.  Flambard, unfortunately, turned out to be very good at his job.  The taxes Rufus imposed on his kingdom were wide-ranging and heavy.

Rufus purposely left a number of key church offices vacant for long periods of time so he could collect the income for the accompanying properties himself.  Rufus cared more about the gold in his pocket than he did people's souls.

The high and burdensome taxes, combined with his ruthlessness, his contempt for English culture and anything not Norman, his perpetual animosity for the church, and rumors about his homosexuality, insured that William Rufus soon became one of the most reviled kings in English history by nobles and commoners alike.

And Lord Geoffrey de Mandeville had an extra reason to be irritated with Rufus.  The young king repeatedly placated him with promises of the title of earl, yet he never would make it official.  Geoffrey was tired of waiting.

The king treated him like a child, not the noble earl he actually was.  Refusing Geoffrey a title he so obviously deserved was a repeated slap in his face, and an unwise way to treat a man as important as he.

There were enough subjects living in Essex that he could raise an army of several thousand within a couple of weeks if needed.  Maybe even four or five thousand if pressed hard enough.  The king could wage a war without him, but Essex was key to any force he wished to put into the field.  The number of serfs available to Geoff for general labor were also numerous.

Geoff also had one of the only stone castles in southern England.   Granted, he had to recognize that he partly owed that to the king.  Rufus had allowed Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, to be his architect.

Gundulf had also built the White Tower in London for Rufus' father, William the Conqueror, and was the most reputed builder in the kingdom.  Still, Rufus' father was actually the one who commissioned both Colchester Castle and the Tower, but at least Rufus hadn't removed Gundulf from the project once his father was dead.

That Geoff wasn't an earl in any official sense yet did not stop him from using the title.  It was only a matter of time.  Especially now that Rufus was dead and his younger brother Henry was king.   Especially since Lord Geoffrey knew a little more than he should about that wonderful event.

The official story going around was that William Rufus had been killed by
accident
while on a hunting expedition in the New Forest.

It was no accident.  It was also no accident that the murder had occurred in the New Forest and on a hunting trip.  Robert Curthose's illegitimate son, Richard, had been killed in a different
accident
on a hunting trip in the New Forest, almost exactly one year before in 1099. That accident had also been no accident.  Rufus had flown into a spontaneous and momentary fit of rage at his older, exiled brother, and killed his brother's son out of spite.  All the gentry of England knew what had happened, but it was said to be an accident.  A number of others had perished similarly in the New Forest recently.  Geoffrey knew that was the reason for the location and context of Rufus' murder.

Henry, Rufus' younger brother, wanted to be king.  He'd garnered the support of enough of the nobles who despised Rufus to execute his plan in safety, but there was still the matter of his older brother Robert.  If William Rufus was dead, Robert would want to claim the crown for himself.  Fortunately, Robert was still en route back from the Crusade in the Promised Land.  Henry knew that if he struck fast, he could assume the throne with little or no opposition.

They blamed it on Walter Tyrell, though of all those in the hunting party that day, Henry, William of Breteuel, Gilbert and Roger de Clare, Walter Tyrell, and Robert Fitzhamon, Tyrell was the only one who was not a member of the conspiracy to remove their regent from office through violence.  It was said Tyrell accidentally shot the king in the chest with an arrow when a stag for which he was aiming suddenly crossed their path.  The truth was Tyrell was nowhere near the king in the forest that day.  It was Tyrell's servant, Raoul, D'Equesnes, who'd fired the fatal shot.  Two days later, Tyrell had already fled the country, some said for Normandy.

Geoffrey knew that Henry had orchestrated the whole thing.  He'd paid Tyrell's servant, D'Equesnes, a great sum of money for the deed.  Most of the noble families in lower England not only knew what really happened, but they were tacitly on board with the plan as well.

Lord Geoffrey de Mandeville's condition for keeping silent was that he be given the title of earl as soon as possible, along with a few other considerations.  The other nobles required an immediate lowering of taxes and the imprisonment of Ranulf Flambard, architect of the heinous tax system.  Henry would be crowned tomorrow and he'd fulfill that promise shortly after.

As Constable of the Tower of London, Geoffrey was in charge of keeping this new and important political prisoner locked up, which lent him even more prestige in the eyes of the rest of the nobility.

Yes, the future looked bright indeed.  He would soon be an earl for real.  Finally.  Taxes would be lowered.  His new and beautiful castle was finally finished.  They had a different king, one who was indebted to many for his new position, including Geoffrey himself.  It had been a good week so far.  With one exception, of course.

Lord Geoffrey kept the enormous fireplaces in his castle constantly blazing with timber brought in by the peasants to keep the chill from his aging bones at night, even in August.  Animal skins covered the floors of his private chambers and the great dining hall.  Tapestries dressed the stone walls in bright reds, purples, and golds.

His most favored men-at-arms and knights slept along the floor of the dining hall, though he limited the number of those he "favored" in order to inspire greater service.  The best portions of food he reserved for himself, his children, and his wife, whenever she was in good standing with him that is.  He himself dined on delicacies nightly.