Lady of the English (42 page)

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Brian was in the thick of the fight when a massive roar went up. Stephen’s centre had collapsed. The backbone that should have stood, including the forces commanded by William D’Ypres and five senior earls, had fled the field, leaving Stephen marooned on foot and horseless at the hub of an assault from all sides.

Brian brought his sword down in a slashing arc and as it bit through flesh, he felt sick; and because of that, he increased the pressure, trying to expunge the feeling and push forward.

Again and again his blade flashed and he urged his men on in an aggressive voice that disguised his fear and disgust but sounded like battle rage. It was as if he were outside his body watching a stranger in black armour trample and hack and destroy. It was like slaughter day in a butcher’s shambles. Blood ran down his sword blade and the men opposing him were as cattle. He was doing it for Matilda, he told himself, for a promise he had made that he had to keep. All this was happening for a purpose, for 331

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the greater good. And when it was over, he could wash his hands and the building of a proper reign could begin.

He swung his sword again. His stallion stumbled on a body; Brian grabbed the rein to steady him and, as the horse regained his balance, heard a massive roar erupt from the centre.

“The king is down, the usurper is taken!”

He watched the royal standard toppling beneath a surge of troops. Stephen’s men were either falling or fleeing. Brian glimpsed Stephen on his knees, surrounded by the dead and wounded of his own side and by opponents he had brought down in a final, desperate flurry. Blood crawled from a wound under his helmet and his mouth was open as he gasped for breath.

Gloucester arrived to take him into custody and Stephen, dazed and mumbling, yielded to him. Having converged on the person of the king and his banner, the Angevin army began to spread out again, and the pursuit and punishment of the vanquished began.

Brian checked his men and was relieved to discover that the wounds were mostly shallow cuts, bruises, and broken fingers that would heal quickly. For himself, he felt as if a heavy darkness was pressing down on him, winding black tendrils through every orifice in his skull. The roars of victory only served to aggravate the burning nausea in the pit of his belly.

Miles FitzWalter joined Brian as he rode towards the city walls. “I sometimes think you a bit of a courtier,” he said, a hard grin on his face, “but you fought out of your hauberk just now.”

Brian said nothing. Miles did not realise how close to the truth he was. Brian was still not sure he was back inside his hauberk, and in fact he didn’t want to be because of the terrible weight of it, as if it were a coat of sins.

“God has well and truly spoken. Did you see de Meulan and Bigod fleeing the field like cowards? And even D’Ypres?” Miles bared his teeth and laughed.

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Brian could almost see the battle heat rising off him.

“Stephen should have stayed behind those walls and waited for reinforcements,” he said.

“Useful for us that he did not. Now we must keep him securely locked up and see to it that the empress takes her rightful place as queen.”

“Indeed.” Brian’s thoughts turned to Matilda. Already a messenger would be galloping to Devizes with news of their victory. Would it light her with joy, or would the news settle a burden across her shoulders, like this hauberk across his own?

Miles rode off to see to his affairs, and Brian made his way into the town. The gates hung wide and the stench of smoke from blazing thatch filled the air. There was going to be retribution aplenty for the citizens who had supported Stephen and not the beleaguered garrison. Everywhere he looked people were fleeing, trying to avoid the incoming troops.

His destrier started to limp. Brian dismounted to look, and discovered the stallion’s knee puffy and hot from a strain sustained in the fighting. Not wanting to ride on and worsen the injury, Brian ordered his squire to fetch his remount from the back of the ranks.

A band of soldiers rounded the corner, their manner one of clandestine haste. Brian’s men drew their freshly sheathed swords and pointed their spears. So did the other group, their fear palpable. Brian stared at Will D’Albini, who returned the look and drew himself to his full height.

Brian swallowed his gorge and made a swift gesture. “Go,” he said. “We have not seen you. Stephen is taken and your cause is defeated. Make haste and watch your road because if Miles FitzWalter catches you, he will have you in irons or turned to corpses faster than the bishop of Winchester can say a paternoster.”

D’Albini’s hazel eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why would you do this for me, my lord?”

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“Because I am not your enemy, Will. Before all this happened, we were friends. You allowed my lady to land at Arundel and that deserves acknowledgement and recompense. I have seen a surfeit of bloodshed today and victory is won. What difference will taking you make? Just go, and be swift about it!”

“Thank you,” Will said stiffly. “I will not forget.” With a curt nod, one soldier to another, he moved on.

“Will they escape?” asked a knight.

“I do not know, but I have given them their chance.” Brian heaved a troubled sigh. “I have often shared bread and company with Will D’Albini, and we were companions sent to meet the empress when she came home from Germany. I will not raise my sword against him now, nor barter him for ransom. Enough is enough. I gift him to his wife and his family.” A little of the darkness eased, but only to grey, and the weight remained.

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Thirty-nine

Lincoln, February 1141

S tephen was put on a horse the day after the battle and taken south to Gloucester. He was concussed, bruised, and shivering, even though wrapped in a heavy fur-lined cloak.

There had been serious debate as to whether he should ride in a cart, but that would have slowed the journey and Robert wanted him in their stronghold territories as swiftly as possible.

Stephen too had insisted he would ride because only women, the infirm, and servants rode in carts. In the end, they had given him a bay gelding, strong and sturdy with an even stride.

“I am an anointed king,” Stephen told Brian, who was riding beside him to make sure he did not fall. He was certainly in no condition to attempt an escape. “Whether you kill me or imprison me for life, it does not alter that fact. Nor that my army is still intact and will regroup to sweep you aside.”

“They deserted you,” Brian said.

Stephen gave Brian a shrewd glance from a livid purple eye socket. “They expected me to leave the field too,” he said.

“They will continue the fight, and so will my wife. Your empress will never cast down the crown from my Maheut’s head. I may be your captive, but this is far from the end of the matter.”

“It is a matter that should never have begun in the first place, sire. I do indeed pray that this is the end.”

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Stephen looked scornful despite his battered countenance.

“You do not like to soil your hands, do you, Brian, but warfare is a dirty business. My cousin will use you up until you are dust trickling through her fingers, and then she will say it was only her due, and you will have no one to blame but yourself for your choice.”

Brian said nothing, but he was unsettled by the prophetic wisdom in Stephen’s words. Yesterday’s battle was still working its way through him both physically and mentally and his thoughts remained bruised and dark. When he told himself that this was the beginning of Matilda’s rightful rule, he felt satisfied and vindicated, but when he thought that it might be the beginning of even harder fighting, he felt sick. He had promised to give her his life, but sometimes he wondered what he had set upon himself.

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It was dark outside; the February dusk had closed in an hour since and in the chapel of Gloucester Castle, the pools of candle flame were the only source of light. Matilda looked up from her prayers to Saint James, Saint Julian, and the Blessed Virgin Mary and regarded her chancellor and chaplain, William Giffard. His face was naturally laconic and difficult to read even without the candle shadows casting deep hollows in his cheekbones and eye sockets.

“Domina,” he said, “there is news from Lincoln. The Earl of Gloucester’s messenger is here.”

She was aware of the cold tiles beneath her knees, the heat of the candle flames, and the chill beyond their ovals of light.

Her heart began to bang against her ribs. Ever since Robert and her commanders had taken the road to Lincoln, she had been poised on the edge of a precipice.

“Domina, he says the Earl has won a great victory and Stephen is taken prisoner. He is being brought to you.”

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“A great victory?” Her voice caught in her throat.

“Yes, domina.” A faint smile broke across his features. “The king’s earls deserted him. Even William D’Ypres fled the field, but Stephen would not, and he was struck down and captured.”

The words filled her mind but grasping their meaning beyond the superficial was impossible. Robert had won. Stephen had lost. For a moment she stood in a void. She had been striving for so long, pushing and pushing, and now suddenly, out of her sight and her presence, victory had been secured and a crown was hers for the taking.

“Domina?” Giffard touched her arm in concern.

She drew herself together. “Bring the messenger to my chamber,” she said. “And gather the household together in the hall so that I may talk to them.”

When he had left on his errand, Matilda lit another candle to add to those already burning, and knelt to give thanks and pray for the strength she would need in the months to come.

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Robed like a queen, her gown glittering with precious stones, her imperial crown set on her head, and her father’s sapphire ring glowing on her finger, Matilda gazed down at Stephen who had been brought to kneel before her in Gloucester Castle’s great hall. His head was bowed and she could see where his hair was thinning at the crown, exposing the freckled pink scalp. The bruises from Lincoln mottled his face in varied hues of purple, magenta, and yellow. He was robed in a plain tunic of brown wool and the only jewellery about his person was a gold cross at his breast and the garnet brooch pinning his cloak.

He was a man, just a battered, ordinary man, and he was in her power. She sat above him on a throne and he was at her feet.

This was a moment she had been anticipating yet somehow the reality did not measure up to her expectations. Somehow she felt as if she had been waiting too long. This diminished, 337

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bruised man evoked little emotion in her beyond irritation and contempt, yet she had wanted to feel so much more.

“God has spoken,” she said imperiously to Stephen. “You took what was not yours, and when offered a treaty, you refused the terms that would have secured peace. Now, by the will of God, you are brought before me in your defeat.”

Stephen slowly raised his head. “I am justly humbled by God for my sins,” he replied in a rusty voice, “but accepting the crown of England is not one of them. God has shown his displeasure in my deeds as king by delivering me to my enemies, but I have faith that He will yet have mercy and that He has spared my life for a purpose.”

“Perhaps to repent for the rest of it,” Matilda said coldly.

“You are to be taken to Bristol and kept there for the rest of your days, however long or short that span might be.”

She could see Stephen’s body shaking with rigors and his complexion under the rainbow of bruises was grey. “You will be given what you need for sustenance and prayer.”

His lip curled. “Do not be misled by the sight of my condition. It is only temporary and will abate sooner than you think.

I am answerable to God, not to you, and I am an anointed king, chosen by the barons of this land. You will not move me from that position whatever you do to me.”

Matilda looked at her father’s ring on her hand and felt the weight of the diadem on her brow. These had far more meaning than Stephen and his empty words. He was unimportant. She was a queen now, and she would use the formal force of the law to deal with this. “You will leave on the morrow for Bristol,” she said, as if he had not spoken, “and there you will stay—for the remainder of your days.” She looked at him and then straight through him, and, rising from the throne, walked majestically from the room, not waiting to see him taken away.

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Henry FitzEmpress, almost eight years old, was testing the paces of his new mount, Denier. The dam’s Spanish breeding had given the little chestnut fire in his feet. Henry loved the feel of the wind streaming past his face, even though it was cold enough to sting his eyes, because it gave him a feeling of speed.

On a swift horse, he was invincible.

His father had started taking him hunting, and Henry had also begun his military training, fighting with a shield made to suit his size, and a wooden sword. He loved every minute.

Indeed, the only thing he ever found difficult was staying still.

It was always a trial when he was in church and expected not to fidget in the presence of God. By contrast, flying on a horse was easy.

His father was waiting in the stable yard to greet him when he returned from his ride, his groom following several paces behind. Henry showed off by drawing rein in a dramatic slide of hooves, and leaped from the saddle almost before the pony had stopped. He flashed his father a broad smile, exposing gaps at the front where new teeth were growing in.