Lady of the English (40 page)
Perhaps England and Normandy do not want to be ruled from Blois and Boulogne…and France. Perhaps England would rather a king of the true blood sat on the throne, a grandson of King Henry and the king of Jerusalem.”
Maheut’s spine was as rigid as the back of her chair. Her eldest son had been betrothed earlier in the year to the French king’s daughter. “You would have people swear for an untested child?”
she scoffed. “You would further disrupt the country? People will swear to him and then perhaps think they no longer need to be loyal to their rightful anointed king. I say no and no.”
The bishop of Winchester had been watching the proceedings with sleepy eyes that nevertheless missed nothing. Now he rose to his feet and opened his broad, bejewelled hands in an encompassing gesture. “This entails a deal more discussion,” he said in his rich, carrying voice. “Time now to take stock and refresh ourselves. We must think upon these issues and gauge what to do in order to have a binding peace.”
Brian did not trust the bland, urbane bishop of Winchester.
He was consummate at playing one side off against the other, all for his own gain. It seemed to Brian that whoever offered Bishop Henry the most power would be the one to win his support and influence.
“I believe we must widen the discussion and take further consultation with our neighbours, and the Holy Father,”
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Bishop Henry said. “He may have more to say on this issue now that each side has put its case.”
Indeed, Brian thought cynically. Rome was for sale just as much as Henry of Winchester. With jewels and bribes, with promises of profitable deals from trade and commerce. With gifts to the Church and enticements of lucrative appointments.
The sacred manipulating the profane. The Church would claim to be a peacekeeper and arbiter of the rules, but only inasmuch as it suited those in ecclesiastical power. It made Brian feel smirched and unutterably weary.
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Thirty-seven
Wymondham Priory, Norfolk, Autumn 1140
K neeling before the altar of Wymondham Priory, Adeliza felt the baby kick, and pressed her hand to her womb in gratitude for the new life growing there. Her second pregnancy was as much a miraculous gift as her first. Today they were attending a mass followed by a feast to honour Will’s father, who had founded Saint Mary’s more than thirty years ago and now lay enshrined in the choir. Will had presented the priory with a silver chalice and candlesticks for the altar, his own weight in beeswax for candles, and five marks for distribution to the poor.
Following mass, Adeliza doled out more silver pennies to the folk waiting outside to see them in the bright November cold. Many hailed her as queen, which made her glow. It was so peaceful here that it was hard to believe there was so much strife in other parts. Three days ago, they had heard about the failure of the latest round of negotiations. The bishop of Winchester had returned from conferring with the French and his older brother Theobald, Count of Blois. All had agreed that the empress’s son, Henry, should be acknowledged as the heir to England and Normandy, but Queen Maheut had refused to countenance such a future, and, supported by her backbone, Stephen had dug in his heels too.
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Now the fighting would escalate. Adeliza hated it when Will went on campaign with the king. He had spent the summer fighting rebels in the Fens. She did not understand what Will saw in Stephen. Will in his turn was impatient with her attitude towards Matilda, and it created considerable friction between them.
Hands on hips, Will was looking at the priory. “My father often brought me here to watch them building this place,” he mused. “He laid some of these stones himself and I helped him, although I would only have been three or four years old. I want to do the same with my own sons. I want to build things and know that they will last beyond our lifetime. I want to enfold and protect what I have, and I will fight tooth and nail to do so.”
“I know,” Adeliza said, and shivered, because his words were both a comfort and a reflection of the times.
Immediately he was all concern, folding his arm tenderly around her shoulders. “You have been out in the cold too long.
Come, we should go within.”
She was glad of his support, but insisted on completing her duty of doling out the silver to the poor, who she knew had been standing in the cold for much longer than she had, and with less protection.
In the Prior’s lodging, Father Ralph, eager to please his patrons, had laid a fine table. The surplus pigs had recently been slaughtered and the main dish was pork garnished with apples from the priory orchard. Servings of stew, barley pottage, and blood sausages were sent out to the poor.
“We hear grave news from further south.” Prior Ralph dabbed his lips with his napkin. “The sacking of Worcester and the siege of Hereford are shocking. These are godless times when men desecrate graveyards to better position their siege machines and turn churches into fortifications when they are not burning them to the ground.”
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“It is indeed appalling,” Will agreed diplomatically. “Be assured, no harm shall come to the Church by my hand, on my honour. I will so vow at the altar before I leave.”
“I am glad to hear it. You are a good man, my lord.”
“I am not,” Will said gruffly, “but should I tear a cross from an altar or defile a grave, I would be dishonouring God, and I would never be able to look my wife in the eyes again or be at peace with myself.” He reached for Adeliza’s hand and squeezed it.
A young monk approached the table to announce that a messenger had arrived with urgent news for the Earl of Lincoln.
Adeliza exchanged a worried glance with her husband. Urgent news these days was seldom good. Will stood up with an apology to the prior for the interrupted meal. “I will see him in the guest house,” he said as he assisted Adeliza to rise.
The messenger was waiting for them and, kneeling, removed his cap. “Sire, madam, grave tidings. The Earl of Chester and his half-brother have seized Lincoln Castle and declared ownership.”
Adeliza stifled a gasp. Lincoln Castle was Stephen’s property but Will was Earl of Lincoln with administrative rights and privileges.
“Go on,” Will said.
“The earl and the sire de Roumare sent their wives into the castle to visit the constable’s wife and talk as women do. Then the earl and his brother returned with just a few men to escort the ladies home; but, once inside the castle, they overpowered the soldiers on the gate and threw the doors open to their own troops.”
Will absorbed the news with a set jaw. He dismissed the messenger, telling him to find sustenance and a fresh horse ready to set out again within the hour. Then he entered the guest house and breathed out hard. “Well, this makes my earldom a complete laughing stock, does it not?”
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Adeliza shook her head. To her, it was just another sign of Stephen’s unfitness for kingship. Men walked all over him because he had no authority.
“Stephen will have to nip this in the bud,” Will said. “He cannot allow Chester and de Roumare to do this to him—or to me.”
“It looks full blown already to me,” Adeliza replied. “As you say, this makes a mockery of your power in the shire.” Her exasperation overflowed. “None of this would have happened when Henry was king. He would have dealt with Chester and de Roumare long before now.”
“And well he might, but he left enough of a mess that we are all suffering for it,” Will snapped. “He was no saint for all you are forever making him out to be one. He should have left Matilda in Germany or married her to a Lotharingian prince and left England to Stephen. If there is war now, then Henry’s decisions and selfishness are the root causes of it.”
Adeliza recoiled as if he had struck her. “He was my husband and he was a great king.” She tried to steady her voice. “I will not be disloyal to him or to his memory, and you should not speak ill of him.”
“It is not disloyal to say he had faults. Were you never hurt by the number of bastards he sired on the string of women he took to bed under your nose? Did it never trouble your sleep that he blinded his own grandchildren because their parents rebelled against him? Or the manner in which he manipulated his daughter without a thought beyond his own schemes?” He gave her an exasperated look. “He was great because he was ruthless. Stephen for all his faults would never have done any of those things, and that is part of the reason I follow him. Henry exacted a price from us all, and we are still paying.” He made an abrupt gesture. “Enough. I will take you to Arundel and then I will go to the king and all this will be set to rights.”
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Adeliza’s throat was painful with tears. Stephen was inca-pable of setting anything to rights, whatever Will thought, but she held her tongue. Too much damage had been done already.
She pressed her hand to her belly, her emotions a solid, heavy block. “I beg your leave to retire,” she said shakily. “I need to rest.” With a gesture to her women, she left his side and disappeared behind the screened-off partition at the rear of the room where her travelling bed and chest had been set up.
Will rubbed his face and softly groaned. This news was a serious blow to his prestige and to Stephen’s authority.
Chester and de Roumare were half-brothers and similar to the Beaumont twins in their ambitions. They were a disruptive element when at court, and bad enemies to make. Thus far he had managed to avoid involvement in the power play of the Beaumonts and had scrambled his way through the issue of opening Arundel to Matilda while still supporting Stephen.
But now he risked being caught in the riptides involving the Chester faction. If he sank, his family sank too; his wife, much as he loved her, did not understand.
His favourite dog, Teri, padded up to him and licked his hand. He stooped to tousle the silky ears. Dogs were faithful and demanded nothing of you but food, exercise, and affection. Sometimes he found himself wishing he had been born a common kennel boy. Instead he had married a queen and climbed so high on fortune’s wheel that the distance to the ground was dizzying.
ttt
The green wood in the hearth of Lincoln Castle’s great hall gave off gouts of smoke and aggravated Will’s hacking cough as he huddled over what heat there was, feeling decidedly unwell.
The raw damp of the early December weather seemed to have permeated every crevice of the walls, and every joint and sinew in his aching body. He folded his arms inside his cloak and 321
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shivered so hard, he felt as if his flesh might leave his bones.
King Stephen was pacing the room like a caged lion. The half-brothers Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and William de Roumare watched him with steely eyes. De Roumare was playing with his dagger, tossing it end over end.
“Our mother’s family has a hereditary right to the custody of Lincoln Castle,” de Roumare said, jutting out a pugnacious jaw pocked with acne scars. “It should be ours. We have only taken what we are entitled to.”
Stephen whirled, the hem of his cloak flaring at his ankles.
“Lincoln Castle is a royal one even if its constables have served in the past by heredity,” he snapped. “You have no automatic right.” He gave de Roumare a hard glare. The latter sheathed his dagger, but continued to play suggestively with the hilt.
Ranulf of Chester pulled on his long, auburn moustaches.
“Then give us what we are due, sire. We have upheld your reign thus far, but you ignore us at your peril. Would you deny us our patrimony?”
“You have had lands and privileges from me in plenty already, without Lincoln,” Stephen said tersely.
De Roumare pivoted and stabbed his finger at Will. “Why make him Earl of Lincoln and not one of us?” he demanded.
“He is nothing but a jumped-up hearth knight who has ideas above himself because of his marriage to the dowager queen.”
Will started to his feet. “You insult me!” he said, his chest burning with the need to cough.
“No more than my brother and I am insulted that you are Earl of Lincoln and claiming the third penny of a shire that should be ours,” de Roumare spat. “You act like an amiable big dog with no brain between its ears, while all the time you are lying under your master’s table, taking the bones that belong to better men. No matter how many fancy castles you build, you are still nothing.”
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Rage flamed through Will’s body. “But at least I am faithful,” he snarled, and then had to turn aside to cough and then spit into the fire.
“Oh indeed,” de Roumare sneered. “This is why you harboured the empress in your bosom last year.”
“Peace!” Stephen roared. He glared at the brothers. “Since you feel so greatly aggrieved and I value your fealty, I shall heed your argument. De Roumare, you can take the title of Earl of Lincoln if my lord D’Albini is willing to accept that of Earl of Sussex instead.”
Will’s gut curdled. He felt insulted and humiliated, but was too sick and feverish to argue.
“And you will give me the right to Lincoln Castle?” pushed de Roumare.
Stephen ground his jaw. “Providing you swear me fealty and stay within bounds.”
The way that the brothers were staring at Stephen made Will apprehensive. His dogs had that air when they fought each other for dominance of the pack.
After a long pause, de Roumare stepped forward and bent his knee. “I do so swear,” he muttered. Chester followed suit.
“Oh get up,” Stephen snapped. “We will make it official tomorrow before all, and let this be an end to it. I will yield no further!”