Fires of Winter (44 page)

Matilda told me angrily that she was not a netted fish and that if she remained the whole shire would soon rise to support her. I did not deny this, although I heard fear in the strident tone of her voice and knew I could play on it. But the fear woke a thread of sympathy in me, and I hoped for a moment that I could bring her to see that it would be best for her as well as best for the king if she accepted his offer to be taken to Bristol. So I told her more gently than I had intended what I had heard Bruno say about the mercenaries and Queen Maud's ships.

“Then let them bring down Arundel,” she cried, her voice even more strident with what I now recognized was fury, not fear, because her face blazed red with rage and fear is a pale, cold thing.

Later I learned that Matilda's one great virtue was her courage; whether or not she felt fear I do not know, but she never showed it, and if she saw any chance to win what she desired, I believe she would face down the devil—or God—without blenching. At the time I had no way of knowing this. All I knew was that she would be safe no matter what happened to everyone else in Arundel—that she did
not
know it and did not believe Stephen's promises did not occur to me. Thus, all I could recognize in her cry of defiance was a gross selfishness that destroyed what little sympathy had touched me, and I determined to use any weapon I had to get her to leave. The first was to paint her humiliation when Arundel fell.

“Oh, madam,” I whispered, covering my face with my hands, “what a shame that would be, to see you dragged out of the rubble and driven away like a stray dog. I could not bear it.”

That touched her. She jumped to her feet and turned on me so enraged that I thought she would strike me. I stepped back and that seemed to remind her I was an envoy, not a servant girl.

“What choice have I?” she spat. “I know they are all lying. I have been sold like a slave. If I go now, my dear cousin Stephen will cast me into prison.”

“No, madam!” I exclaimed. “I am sure it is not so because the queen—”

“I am the queen!” Matilda shrieked.

“Yes, madam.” I curtsied and bent my head, chagrined to have made so stupid a mistake. “Forgive me,” I begged, most sincerely because I could not manage her if I offended her. “I meant Stephen's wife. But I am sure you are to be taken safely to Bristol. Why else should Maud be so furious? At first she would not listen to the plan and called the bishop of Winchester a traitor for offering it. She could not stop my husband from bringing me, but I fear she will write to Stephen opposing your release. Perhaps the king, who is the kindest of men as you know, madam, wishes you gone to Bristol so that you will be saved the humiliation of bowing to Maud and calling her madam.”

That bit hard too. Matilda was a very handsome woman, with a proud stance and a good figure. To see herself bowing to homely, dumpy Maud must have cut like a sword slash. “Why should I believe you?” she snarled at me, again raising a hand as if to strike. “You are one of Maud's ladies now and fawn on her just as you do on me, no doubt.”

“No, I do not!” I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing after that indignant remark burst out. It was not only true but implied I feared and respected Matilda more than I did Maud without needing to say so and lie. In addition it led naturally to an explanation of why I was Maud's lady if, as I hoped Matilda believed, my heart was Matilda's. “I have been as much Maud's prisoner as her lady,” I said—and it was perfectly true in the past as I put it. “My father and brother died fighting against Stephen, and my lands were taken from me.”

“Oh.” She thought that over without a word of sympathy for my losses, staring at me with an eye that only weighed and measured me to see what my adherence to her would be worth, and then nodded. “You have a good reason to want me to go free and I will give you another. I tell you now, sooner or later I will take the throne—or my son will. Stephen is a fool. He does not know how to rule. If you have told me the truth, I will give back to you some part of the lands Stephen has reft from you. If you warn me now that this is a trap, I will give them all back.”

“You tempt me to lie to you, madam,” I said very low, “but you would find me out. There is no trap. You will reach Bristol soon and safely.”

Bruno

I can only thank God that the weather that October was no exception to the general rule. The dry, bright days were a benefit and permitted us to advance swiftly toward Bristol. I must say also that despite her arrogant manners the empress did not slow us down. She rode as hard and fast as any man, and the only thing she did not complain about was the distance we covered. Perhaps she was afraid Stephen would change his mind. It was no secret that his army was following our track west.

Aside from that, Empress Matilda was all empress, at least to me. Waleran had appointed me to be in charge of lodging and victualling—I think out of spite, although the reason he gave me seemed logical. He said he would not trust the task to any of Winchester's men, who might deliberately place us where we might be betrayed to Matilda's supporters, and on the other hand, Winchester would undoubtedly protest if he appointed any of his own people. There was just enough truth in that, added to the fact that I had no other duties, to keep me from refusing; however, I knew the “honor” would expose me to Matilda's wrath.

There was some justification for her complaints about the lodgings. I did not dare arrange for her reception in places that would have been usual for a queen, like the great abbey hospices, where I feared she might flee into the church, claim sanctuary, and wait for her brother to bring an army to rescue her. Nor did I dare stop in the keep of any great independent vassal; I had no idea any longer which of them might cast us into the lowest floor of the donjon—or cut our throats—to please Matilda, and the loyalty of any man grew more suspect the farther west we rode. Thus we were confined to those few keeps held for the king by men of unimpeachable loyalty or to those small places that would not dare challenge the might of the army that moved west a few days behind us.

I never replied to her tirades on that subject; if she had the brain of a pea she would have understood why I chose the places I did, and Melusine agreed with me that Matilda was stupid. Not that there was anything wrong with her ability to learn; she could read and write, which was a feat far beyond any ordinary woman. It was more as if she
would
not understand anything that did not fit into life as she planned it, as if she
could
not look ahead and see any outcome to a plan that she had not arranged—until disaster struck.

Matilda was a very strange woman. She never said please or thank you; she
ordered
Melusine to tell me nothing of what she said to the bishop of Winchester or Waleran—and she never seemed to realize that an order delivered in her overbearing manner was sure to inspire just the opposite of what she desired in any normal gentleman or gentlewoman. Had she forgotten that Melusine was not her servant and there was no way she could hurt her? Or did she believe the greatness of her station awed all into instant obedience? I suspect there were some things Melusine did not tell me; I am sure, for example, that Matilda had said she would return Melusine's lands to her when she was queen, but by then I do not think Melusine would have wanted Matilda as queen, even to get back her lands.

The empress gave me orders too, most often to beat servants who had not responded quickly enough to her wishes or had not anticipated them. Usually I simply drove the servant out of the chamber, which seemed to satisfy her without doing the servant any harm. If poor Edna had been whipped each time Matilda ordered it, the girl would not have had a sound place on her body.

Once, however, the empress went too far and ordered me to burn a shop where a merchant had refused her a bolt of cloth without payment. Naturally the man then offered the cloth, but I would not take it nor burn the shop, and I told Matilda that King Stephen did not permit his subjects to be defrauded. She simply raised her voice to overpower mine, not seeming to hear me when I said I was not her servant and would do what I believed was my duty to my master, King Stephen.

That time I thought I would come into conflict with Waleran, who arrived in response to Matilda's high-pitched commands. I think he would have agreed to burn out the merchant, but he saw my hand on my sword hilt and instead threw a handful of coin at the man and gestured one of his men to take the cloth. Waleran de Meulan was not afraid of me, although I think I could have won a man-to-man battle, but there were too many witnesses. Waleran would not have wanted the king to hear of his acquiescence to Matilda's demands, which would have disgusted Stephen or, worse, perhaps made the king suspicious.

I do not think Waleran was tempted by the empress's offers—not then, although it was those veiled temptations to treachery that Matilda forbade Melusine to mention to me, as if I would not have guessed without telling that Matilda was wooing both Waleran and the bishop of Winchester. I never gave the matter much thought because I could not conceive that any man in his right mind who had spent a week in Matilda's company could believe for a minute that she could rule. I do not blame myself for not reporting her long conversations with her escorts to Stephen; he would, as I did, have assumed such talk could bear no fruit. Moreover, Matilda must have given Waleran one order too many, for he turned back to join Stephen's army when we reached Calne, leaving Winchester and myself to finish the journey with her.

In one way that made matters easier, removing any chance of another open confrontation, but I did not want Matilda to complain too bitterly to Winchester about my behavior. Thus, most of my attention was given to getting around the empress's unreasonable demands without angering her more than necessary. I do not think I could have succeeded without Melusine, who most often interposed herself between us by carrying Matilda's orders to me. I fear I would have lost my temper and taken that idiot woman over my knee, which she surely deserved, but Stephen could not have overlooked such an offense against his cousin's high birth. And Melusine and I had our nights together, for another order Matilda gave Melusine that she would not obey was to forsake my bed and sleep in her chamber to serve her during the night. Abed Melusine turned all Matilda's tantrums into subjects of laughter.

That made it possible for me to face each new day, but I have never been more relieved than when, about midway between Bath and Bristol, we met Robert of Gloucester by arrangement and handed Matilda over to him. As soon as his force was in sight, she ordered Melusine to come with her. I do not know why I seized Vinaigre's rein and held her back. Melusine looked at me most strangely, but she made no protest, and Matilda rode ahead with the bishop of Winchester without a backward glance. I do not think she realized Melusine had not obeyed her until the groups were separating. Then I heard her voice raised although, shrill as it was, I could not make out the words. I saw Gloucester look toward us, and laid my hand on my sword. He sent a man after the bishop of Winchester, who also looked toward us as he answered, but the man rode back to Gloucester. I saw Earl Robert shake his head at his sister and then turn his horse back toward Bristol though Matilda had not moved and I could still hear her voice.

The men Gloucester had brought moved out into the road to fall in around her, casting long shadows that reached toward us. I almost backed Barbe to avoid the touch of those dark fingers. That was foolish; shadows could do no harm, as Matilda herself was no threat. But Matilda's claim to the throne with Robert of Gloucester to control her was another matter entirely. I saw the shadows touch the bishop of Winchester, who was watching the group move away—Matilda was now either silent or speaking quietly and was riding beside her brother—and I wondered how many more slights Winchester would endure from Stephen, brothers though they were. For a moment I thought the bishop was about to ride after Gloucester, but he turned back and came toward us.

“Lady Melusine, did you tell Empress Matilda that you wished to be her lady?” he asked when he reached us. “She seemed convinced that you wished to leave Sir Bruno.”

“I do not know how she can have thought that, my lord,” Melusine replied calmly, although her voice sounded strange to me. “She knew I would not take night service because I wished to be with my husband. I may have said I was glad to be able to serve her. I could not with civility say other than that.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the bishop said, but rather absently, as if his mind was elsewhere. “Well, then, let us return to Bath,” he added more briskly after a moment, “and decide whether we will continue on together.”

There was no question in my mind but that my duty was to join the king at once, since he was in action in the field, and of course I could not take Melusine with me. I told Winchester that if I had to, I would send her east with my three men and Edna, but I was relieved and grateful when Winchester said he would take her to the queen. I thought Melusine would also be pleased; however, when we were alone in our quarters, she unleashed a blast of fury that made no sense to me. For the first time in our marriage, she would not listen, although I explained until I was hoarse that when the king was fighting, my place was at his side, not escorting my wife about the country. At last, unable to think what else to say, I assured her that she would be perfectly safe with Winchester—at which point she slapped my face and I stormed out and slept in the stable loft.

We parted only a shade more civilly. When I lifted her to her saddle, I said one more time, “I am sorry not to be able to take you myself, Melusine,” and she replied, “Do not trouble yourself, I understand very well,” and turned Vinaigre toward the bishop of Winchester's mount. I cursed Empress Matilda all the way from Bath to Wallingford, where I joined the king. Perhaps it was unjust to blame the empress for my quarrel with Melusine, but I had never known my wife to be unreasonable before. It was as if a poison flowed out of Matilda and fouled everyone who came near her.

I was in the mood to kill when I rode into the king's camp, but there was no action at Wallingford. Stephen had tried some feints, but the keep was plainly too strong to take by assault without great loss. When I arrived the army was engaged in building two small wooden keeps at no great distance from Wallingford from which Stephen's men could prevent Gloucester's vassal from dominating the area. That did not improve my mood. Had I known, I could have escorted Melusine to the queen. I did not endear myself to anyone over the week it took to make the little keeps defensible, but the work went faster when anyone saw me.

Fortunately, as we marched west toward Bristol, which only meant another siege that would give me no relief, a keen-witted captain of a troop of foragers brought word that the enemy-held keep at Cerney was ill guarded. We were upon the place that very night, and the next day took it by storm. I had killing enough that day, for I was first up a scaling ladder, and I had three—one through the throat, one through the belly, and a third over the wall after I lopped off a hand—before I got onto the walkway. I did not count the full total, but Stephen awarded me an extra share in the loot so I must have made a mark during the assault. After that day's work, I felt somewhat better, and two days later I felt even more cheerful, seeing the prospect of more fighting when a deputation from the town of Malmesbury came and begged Stephen to rid them of the tyrant who had taken Malmesbury keep by a mean trick.

Stephen had heard the keep had fallen into the hands of Robert Fitz Hubert, but he had done nothing because the man was kin to William of Ypres. However, on hearing of the abominations Fitz Hubert had inflicted on the town and the surrounding countryside, even Ypres was disgusted and had not a word to say in the defense of his kinsman. He did not protest when the king garrisoned Cerney and changed the direction of his march from southwest to northwest, but that did me no good. I was foiled of the chance to relieve the fury that tore at me because, the town having opened its gates to the king, Fitz Hubert cravenly yielded the keep without a blow being struck.

In deference to Ypres, Fitz Hubert was allowed to go free and all—except me, and I knew I was in the wrong—rejoiced that so strong a place and one so near rebel strongholds had fallen into the king's hands undamaged. There was a bright feeling of confidence in the councils called to determine where next to strike. I stayed apart as much as I could and held my tongue, for I felt like a black crow ready to caw disaster.

I know that one man's black mood cannot call down ill upon others. Often enough bad news came when I was in the best of spirits, but I could not shake off a feeling of guilt when trouble struck. The king, having taken the advice of the other leaders of the army, had determined to take Trowbridge. This, with Malmesbury and Cerney, would give us a half circle of strongholds from which powerful attacks could be launched at Bristol. Moreover, taking Trowbridge would be a sharp stroke against Miles of Gloucester—an ungrateful devil who had declared for the empress as soon as she landed despite the favors Stephen had done him—because it was held by Humphrey de Bohun, Miles's son-by-marriage. We were camped within a few miles of the place considering when and how to attack when a few ragged and bloody men arrived with the news that Miles had marched a large force, almost as strong as Stephen's army, around our rear, had attacked and demolished the keeps the king had built to control Wallingford, and threatened to attack London.

I was on duty in the king's tent, and I saw the sudden bleakness in the faces of every man there. William of Ypres's lips thinned to nothing; Waleran snarled an obscenity; Geoffrey de Mandeville looked down at the ground with a face turned to stone. Although I was no great leader, I had been in the king's service long enough to understand that it was not the setback of the destroyed strongholds or the loss of men that troubled Stephen's vassals. Had it been the men of Wallingford and local supporters who inflicted the defeat, the king's men would have been angered and annoyed but not deeply disturbed. What struck them so hard was that Miles had been able to march an army halfway across England without a word of warning from the shires through which he had passed.