The Winter Crown (16 page)

Despite her words of caution to Henry, Alienor was delighted at the Chancellor’s achievement. This great gathering of resources made her heart sing with fierce pride and anticipation. Toulouse must fall to such an undertaking, and perhaps when she finally sat in state in the great hall of the Château Narbonnais as her ancestors had once done, and dispensed justice as Lady of Toulouse, she would know that everything had been worth it, and the world set to rights.

In another chamber within the palace complex, Isabel de Warenne was bidding farewell to her husband as he prepared to ride out. The army bent on seizing Toulouse was leaving Poitiers in full martial array for the benefit of the townspeople and their duchess. Isabel had seldom seen William in full armour, which he usually reserved for the battle camp far from home, and it gave her a frisson of fear and pride to see him clad in his hauberk with his surcoat of chequered blue and yellow silk, his swordbelt latched at his waist. He had recently lain with her, and she was praying that this time there would be a child.

‘You look very fine,’ she said, and touched his arm where warm flesh was now covered by hard steel rivets.

He gave her a drawn, preoccupied smile. ‘I am going to swelter in all this. I hope we don’t have to ride too far before we stop to take it off. We haven’t even set out and all I can think is that I’ll be glad when this campaign is over.’

She gave a small shudder. ‘I will be too.’

‘Yes.’ He looked down, his lashes thick and dark. Her heart turned over. She wanted to smooth the frown from his brows and make everything all right.

‘I shall miss you,’ she said. ‘Take care of yourself until I join you in Toulouse.’

He eased the neckband of his mail coif with a forefinger. ‘I dreamed of you last night,’ he said. ‘I knew you were there; I could feel you, and smell your skin; yet I couldn’t see you or find you. And then I woke up and you were leaning over me with your hair tickling my cheek.’

‘I am here,’ she soothed. ‘I will always be here.’

He took her in his arms and kissed her again, hard, almost desperately. When he released her, she staggered, moved and unsettled by his vehemence. While she was still regaining her balance, he left her, pausing at the door for a final look over his shoulder before he ran down the stairs to the courtyard.

Isabel went to the window arch, the imprint of his kiss still damp on her lips, and her stomach queasy. She hated the time of parting. She could remember her father setting out to join King Louis on the road to the Holy Land, and he had not returned. Indeed, he did not have a grave. His bones lay bleaching somewhere on the high slopes of a mountain in Anatolia where he had been slain by Turks and left to rot. He too had worn his armour as he bade farewell and marched out with that single last glance over his shoulder. Men and their wars. How she hated them.

Henry set out for Toulouse in brave array at the head of a long streamer of armoured knights, banners rippling on spears in the summer morning light. The townsfolk had lined the road to witness the spectacle and threw flowers, or leaned out from their balconies and spinning galleries to cheer their support. Others ran out with gifts of food for the soldiers: bread, wheels of cheese, chunks of smoked sausage. A sunburst of pride lodged in Alienor’s heart as she watched Henry on his prancing white stallion, every inch the conquering hero before he had even left the walls of Poitiers behind.

Harry stood at her side wearing a coronet on his brow, his face shining at the sight of such martial pageantry. Hodierna held the infant Richard on high to watch his father ride out and Richard waved his arms and shouted loudly.

‘When you see your papa again, Toulouse will be ours,’ Alienor told her sons.

‘When will that be?’ Harry wanted to know.

‘Soon, my love,’ Alienor said, drawing a deep breath and feeling equal amounts of exultation and anxiety. ‘Very soon.’

In the late afternoon, the summer day was airless and laden with heat. Flickers of dry lightning turned the clouds a strange shade of milky purple. Thunder had been rumbling since noon, but still there was no respite of rain. Henry’s army was busy making camp within sight of the walls of Toulouse and the city too was outlined in eerie flashes of light.

Hamelin felt the pressure of the thunderstorm as a thick headache, clogging his skull. It had been a long, hot day in the saddle and his shirt and tunic were sodden with sweat. Mosquitoes whined around his moist skin, and he batted at them with the back of his hand.

Henry stood gazing at the city with his legs apart and his hands clasped at his belt. The expression on his sunburned face was fixed and determined. At his side, Becket eyed the walls with the sharp gaze of a hawk intent on its prey.

Although there had been successes along the way, nothing had gone quite to plan. The hope that Raymond of Toulouse would be intimidated by the size and strength of the army riding against him and surrender had not been realised. Instead, he had dug in his heels and ignored all threats, demands and gestures of diplomacy. Henry had continued to pressure him; Cahors had been pillaged and burned as a warning, but Raymond had just reinforced his walls and stocked his larders.

Louis had offered to mediate, but Henry had brushed that aside, knowing all Louis wanted to do was prevent the assault on Toulouse. Louis’s sister Constance was Raymond’s wife and Louis had a vested interest. However, Louis himself had once tried to seize Toulouse twenty years ago when married to Alienor, and thus was caught in a moral cleft stick.

‘Well, my lords,’ Henry said. ‘Here is the nut to be cracked.’

Grimacing, Hamelin rubbed the back of his neck with a water-soaked cloth. The city supplied itself from the river, and the span of its walls meant it would be a massive undertaking to surround it; even given the numbers they had, their time was limited. Despite all the gathering of provisions and the organisation that had gone into preparing this campaign, Henry had only budgeted to pay his mercenaries for thirteen weeks. When that money was gone, so was the campaign.

‘It can b-be done,’ Becket said, grim-faced with determination. ‘We came here hoping that Count Raymond would negotiate, b-but with the expectation that we would have to fight.’

Hamelin glanced at him. All the organisation had been Becket’s and his reputation was staked on the success of the undertaking. Henry demanded miracles and thus far Becket had performed them. But Hamelin had his doubts about Becket’s ability to achieve this particular one. His stammer was prominent today and that was not a good sign.

‘I shall give Raymond of Toulouse my ultimatum tomorrow,’ Henry said. ‘And unless he replies by noon, he will suffer the consequences.’ He turned aside to give orders to one of his engineers about the siege machines. Already they were being assembled from the component pieces in the supply carts. ‘I want them ready for Raymond to see when he rises in the morning.’

The sky by now had bruised to the colour of charcoal and the dry lightning was like a hammer striking an anvil. A hot wind swept across the camp, and blew the sides of the tents like bellows. Henry’s adjutants had managed, with much effort and extra tent pegs, to raise and secure the royal pavilion, a great circular affair of red and gold canvas with enough room for Henry’s bed and accoutrements.

‘Come,’ Henry said brusquely, ‘we have a campaign to plan.’ He sent squires and heralds to summon the other lords of his advisory circle and entered the tent. From one of the chests that had recently been carried in, he removed a rolled-up plan of Toulouse and spread it on the table, weighing it down with a cup, a knife and a large loaf of bread. Lamps had been lit because it was so dark, and the flames ghosted with each swirl of breeze from the tent flaps. Hamelin went to pour himself wine from the flagon standing on the coffer. It was raw, fresh from the vineyard, but he gulped it down anyway.

One of Henry’s scouts dismounted outside the tent in a lathered flurry, crying aloud that there was news.

‘Sire.’ Panting with exertion, the man knelt and bowed his head.

‘What is it?’ Henry demanded. ‘Quickly, tell me.’

‘It is Toulouse, sire,’ he gasped. ‘The King of France has arrived and is preparing to defend the city against you.’

‘What?’ A look of utter astonishment crossed Henry’s face. ‘How can that be?’

‘Sire, it is true, I swear it. One of our spies in the city managed to get a message to me. Even now Louis’s banners are being raised on the battlements of the Château Narbonnais.’

‘By the bleeding hands of Christ, I do not believe this!’ Henry shouldered out of the tent to stare through the purple gloom at the city walls, the lightning dancing over the crenellations.

‘The whoreson,’ he spat as Hamelin joined him. ‘The poisonous Godforsaken toad-eating whoreson. All the time he was pretending to mediate he was planning this … this treachery!’

Hamelin was not surprised. Louis was often mistaken for a pious, mild-mannered weakling who would rather back down than stand firm in a crisis, but that was far from the truth. Louis was the kind to survive through devious stratagems while biding his time. A man who would give ground, stepping back until his heels were on the edge of the battlefield, but who would never leave it, waiting his moment to lunge. A man who lost the fights but won the wars; the most dangerous kind of all.

Becket joined Henry too. ‘We should still lay siege to the city, sire,’ he said.

Henry stared at him. ‘Have you lost your wits?’

Becket looked bemused. ‘No, sire. We have this great army at our command and the full impetus to take Toulouse. If we stumble now, the enterprise will all have been in vain.’

‘Who is this “we”, Thomas?’ Henry sneered. ‘When last I looked, I was the King of England and you were my chancellor – my servant. I was not aware of any change in our circumstances.’

Becket flushed, but stood his ground. ‘Sire, I apologise if I offended. I thought everyone in this enterprise had the same goals.’ His gaze widened to include Hamelin. ‘Surely it is a waste to withdraw just because the King of France has taken up residence in the city.’

Hamelin said nothing and buried his face in his cup. Even if Becket could not see it, he certainly could and was not about to get himself mauled in the lion’s den.

Henry flashed Becket an angry glare. ‘I thought you had knowledge of the law, or are you being deliberately blind, Thomas? It is an act of treason for a vassal to attack his overlord and that is precisely what I would be doing if I launched an assault on those walls now. It would set a dangerous precedent. Any noble with a grievance against me would see it as sanction to take up arms and claim he was only following my example.’

‘B-but you have fought Louis of France often before,’ Becket protested, looking perplexed.

‘I have never been the first to draw sword. I have always defended myself vigorously against Louis and will continue to do so. What I will not do is attack my liege lord and risk the long-term consequences … and Louis knows that very well.’ Henry turned his glare from Becket to the lightning-battered walls of Toulouse.

‘But if you attacked, Louis would not want to be your prisoner,’ Becket argued. ‘That would be a terrible humiliation for him. He would flee Toulouse rather than face capture, and we could always turn a blind eye and let him go if it looked as if he was going to be caught.’

‘And why would he do that when he is causing the most damage by staying where he is?’ Henry curled his lip. ‘He knows what he is doing; he knows very well indeed.’

‘Perhaps if we drew him out from Toulouse?’ Hamelin suggested.

Henry shook his head. ‘He would not take the bait. I wouldn’t in his position. God’s body, I should have seen this coming, or one of us should!’ He turned a burning look on Becket.

Hamelin could sense the heat of Henry’s rage and frustration burning outwards from his body. He was so seldom outwitted that he had no mechanism for coping with failure other than lashing out. That it was Louis who had done the outwitting was even more humiliating.

‘Leave the siege camp assembled for now,’ Henry said brusquely. ‘We’ll lay the countryside waste and take the castles where we can. Even if we do not draw Louis off, we’ll make him and his brother-in-law pay dearly.’

Lightning flickered throughout the night, but still without rain. An hour before dawn the sky splintered with dazzling white veins of light, one of which struck from heaven to earth and scorched the ground in front of the English tents, killing three sentries where they stood, and to the encamped men it was a sign of God’s wrath, and a portent of things to come.

In Poitiers Alienor was enjoying the golden weather of early autumn, mellow and fine. The sky was as blue as the coat on a shield, and all the colours were set and solid, as if painted in a church. Poitiers was beautiful at all times of the year, but this was one of Alienor’s favourite seasons, with the last drops of the summer nuanced by the faintest melancholy of autumn.

There had been no recent news from the battle campaign, and she was waiting on tenterhooks. Reports received had been of the journey there, and the successful taking of Cahors, but information concerning the main objective had not been forthcoming.

This morning she had ridden her palfrey for exercise, imagining how it would feel to parade in triumph through the streets of Toulouse, her inheritance restored. She wanted this so much that it hurt like deep hunger, but there was nothing she could do to influence the outcome except pray.

Her sons were in the stable yard having their riding lesson and she was present to watch, encourage and give advice. Harry’s brown pony was sturdy and placid. Richard’s shaggy piebald had short legs and the toddler was being closely watched by an attendant, ready to grab him if he fell. Richard beamed like the sun and although he was only two, sat as straight as an arrow. ‘See me, Mama, see me!’ he shouted.

The sight of him crowing like a little rooster, his ruddy golden hair floating in the breeze, gladdened her heart and made her laugh. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘and everyone will indeed see you, my love, because one day you will be Count of Toulouse and Duke of Aquitaine!’