by Mary Lide
He laughed. ‘It was the coldest place I nave ever known, not built like Cambray, but made to let in every sea wind, with a smell of fish that tainted even the most luxurious of feasts. We went straight to the king’s chambers. They were at least heated, so much so that those who attended upon him there either broiled within or froze without. King Stephen was sitting propped on cushions, wrapped in furs and robes, before a blazing fire. Yet even so he complained of the cold, and the hand he gave me was as cold as ice. Jesu, did I think him aged the year before? He was but fifty-and-eight, but his years sat heavily upon him so that he suddenly seemed shrunk beneath them, withered, that I had to hunt for the man whom I had known. He knew me at once. There was even a ghost of his former smile as he greeted me almost in his usual courteous fashion. Yet the contrast between this tired old man and the young Henry who would replace him had never seemed so obvious, not even a year ago.
‘ “Nay, lad,” Stephen said, in his easy way—I told you he was noted for his charm, “never kneel to me. These stones were made for horses. So, Raoul, we meet again as friends.”
‘ “My lord King,” I said, moved by his words, “we parted never as enemies, I trust.”
‘“God willing,” he said. “Good friends may have their outs but never come to enmity. Speak no more of that. And put the cares of border life behind you. Tell us more cheerful news.”
‘The gesture he made was a parody of his former self. I noticed how his accent had thickened as if, as concentration lessened, he had reverted to the speech of his childhood at Chartres. And there was something in his expression of his mother, that stern Adela, who had sent her husband to his death to atone for cowardice. I had not noticed the likeness before, and did so now perhaps because his eyes had sunk and stared out as hers used to beneath her heavy brows. Others noted the resemblance, who knew her well, a fiery woman, a daughter of that first duke, William of Normandy. They say of her that had she been a man, she would have been as great a warrior as her father and brother both. But perhaps it was only that Stephen suddenly spoke so much of her, how she had nurtured up her sons to make them famous, had trained Stephen for court life, his younger brother for the church, that he seemed to take on her looks. They say that dying men turn to the past for comfort, ignoring the present. But although he spoke so much of former times—of her, of his brothers, his wife, his sons — and moved restlessly as with pain, his mind was clear. That first night he was content to have me by his side as if to relive for us both what had been better days. He spoke of old battles he had fought as a young man newly come to the English court, after the death of the king’s son in the White Ship disaster. And then he spoke of all those battles of the early years of his reign, of the great battle of the Standard against the Scots in the earliest days when the Celts were routed within two hours; of the first battle of Lincoln three years later, a cold February day in 1141, when he had fought as a man possessed, on foot, laying about him like some Viking with his double-headed axe. But it was the other nobles who finished the tale, reminding him that, despite his heroic stand, he had been captured at the end, laid low by a coward’s stone thrown out of the crowd of men who ringed him round. That day had been the lowest ebb of his life. Yet the Empress Matilda had shown her true colours after, refusing to show any mercy to him, her defeated cousin, ignoring the rights of his lords and barons, refusing even to stand to greet her ally, the King of Scotland, because of self-pride, flaunting her victory to her own disgrace.
'Out of that defeat, Stephen had risen higher than before. "For see, my lord King,” they soothed him, when these details seemed to distress him, although I do not think they told him for malice, rather because they thought he would be pleased that they remembered, too, “although that treacherous stone cost you your freedom, the imprisonment did not last long. The citizens of London rose on your behalf, and drove the empress and her crew out of the city just as they were about to sit down to a victory feast. And at Winchester next, your own queen and wife besieged them round with so strong a hold that when they tried to make a dash for freedom, the empress’s half brother, Earl Robert of Gloucester, was captured himself and the army cut to pieces.”
‘“True, true,” Stephen said, mollified, “and so was I exchanged for Robert of Gloucester, his life for mine. It was a slight setback only; my men remained loyal to me when I was a prisoner of that bitch. And she escaped with scarcely her life then and only one man followed her. But she kept me in chains while she had me.”
'And so the long list of battles continued: Wareham, Oxford, Lincoln again, where he rescued me and where he held triumphant court at the Yuletide, although I remember little of it myself, being still ill of my wounds. So many battles then, to be refought, so many parts of England to be recalled in blood. But never word of Malmesbury, or Wallingford. Never word of Henry of Anjou.
‘It drove me wild,’ Raoul went on, ‘that the king could not keep his mind upon the present. Even then, you see, I hoped that something could be saved from this morass. He could have made some provision for the future, not left us all adrift. There were the mercenaries, to give an instance. They could have been disbanded if he would have given the word. He could have tried to bring order to the council, reassessed the position of the exchequer, whose records had fallen all to pieces—where were the revenues of this once-rich land gone, but into the pockets of greedy men? He could have given orders to the law courts. What use of laws if no man enforces them? He could, at the very least, have moved against the worst offenders like the Lord of Maneth, whose name has become a curse word in the land. He could have comforted those who have suffered most from this anarchy. He could have redeemed his name.
‘But the other lords who had humoured him with their attention when he talked of old times were not so sanguine as I was, nor were they patient in their judgment of him when we were alone. I thought if we could force the king to listen to us, we could at least set up a council to advise him, but they were not even willing to try that. They named him shallow, inconstant, blind to unpleasantness, withdrawing from it as his father had done. I had thought as much myself. Yet I could not give up hope so easily.
‘One man of consequence who was there, Richard de Luci his name, justiciar of London and the eastern countries, a patient, forceful man, yet sensible, took me aside one day upon the outer walls. The wind was keen and had driven everyone indoors except the guard, and they kept but fitful watch.
‘“A storm is brewing,” de Luci said, leaning against the wall, head bent to keep it from the wind that blew like some harbinger of winter although we were still only halfway into October. He is a short man, old and shrewd. He nodded at the specks of white that flecked the air, perhaps sea spray, perhaps flurries of snow. “From the north. There will be no crossing of the Channel yet.”
‘When I did not reply, “Do you expect another crossing?” he asked me bluntly. I did not pretend to misunderstand him.
‘ “The king has been sick before,” I said carelessly, hiding my concern, for it pained me to have to speak of him as if in secret. “So close was he to death before that all were prepared to hail his son, Eustace, as king. But he recovered then, and drove his enemies from the country. He will do the same again.”
‘ “What a man can do at forty he may not at fifty,” de Luci said. “Even you, Lord Raoul, may find that out one day. What will you do if he does not recover?”
‘I told him I was not willing to talk of it.’
‘ “Come, come,” he said impatiently at that, “you need not be uneasy with me. Here we are at last safe from spies, Henry’s spies. Look not so amazed. He has them planted everywhere.”
“I am not afraid to speak what I think,’ I told him, ‘but grieved to think of it. Not only for myself, my lord, although you know what peril we sit in. But we have had one sort of rule here in England since the time of William the Conqueror. A Norman-French rule it has been, based on Norman ways, spread over that Anglo-Saxon, Celtic underlayer. I know not the law a
s you do, my lord, but I do know that without the Norman nobles, William would never have won England at all. With their help, he gained a kingdom, as did his son, Henry, first of that name, as did this King Stephen. All three kings have acknowledged their debt to us Norman lords. They accepted that they were first among equals, bound to us as we were to them.”
‘ “I do not deny that you are right, Lord Raoul,” de Luci said. “I have heard it said before that kings need advice from their lords since they are partners together. But since the study of law is my delight, I have wondered, in my turn, what will happen when the new king’s laws run not in harmony with what we want. This Treaty of Westminster disturbs me, too, although for different reasons. For I have begun to be troubled by this thought—how the new king will interpret it. Does not the treaty state that those lands that have been unlawfully seized by some ‘intruder’ are to be restored—quae direptae erant ab invasoribus? Now who, by God, is to say which man is an ‘intruder’ on a piece of land, who to say our own castles are legal or not legal, or our powers that we think justly given under another have not been usurped? You see my point, Lord Raoul. Henry can use that treaty as he wishes, against us as for us if he chooses. I have come to believe as you do, that we were fools to agree to it. We may have signed our own lives away.”
‘He did not speak for a while, staring out at the grey-flecked sea, as if to will it into order.
‘ “A king who picks and chooses his laws,” he said at last, putting our fears clearly as a lawyer may do, “a king who interprets law as best suits him is a danger to the realm. For who else will advise him if we do not. And who will take our place when our power is gone.”
‘What he said was what all men must think on. Yet, in some way, it gave me comfort, that I was not alone.
‘De Luci is a stout-hearted man, honest, true. He stayed with Stephen almost to the end. He had administered Stephen’s decrees as best he could during the worst parts of the wars. His fears were thought out, well argued. But he had no solution to them either.
‘A cry came from a room beneath, making us spin round, hands on sword hilts. It was a false alarm, a soldier cursing at some underling, but it made us both frown. You see how uneasy was the time, how ripe for disorder. In former days such carelessness in the king’s guard would have merited death.
‘ “Best part now,” de Luci said, reluctantly letting go my arm, which he had clutched as if to brace himself against the gale. “We shall be noticed. But there will be chance for talk hereafter. Watch yourself, Raoul. You are a marked man.”’
11
The next week must have been hard and strained for the men left at Stephen’s court. Although the news of the king’s illness was kept secret, his flushed face and disjointed speech were marked by many. Some who had vowed to remain with him found their resolution slipping and made uneasy excuses to return to the safety of their own keeps. Others, standing less on ceremony, went quietly in the night, hoping their absence would not be noticed. Those who were left tried desperately to hold the king to business in hand, to keep the affairs of government alive. But without his cooperation, little was possible.
His mercenaries in London ran riot again. News of that did not spread to Cambray, but did certainly among the heir’s men, slouching openly now about the court, scratching and cursing themselves as they waited insolently in the town below. Their speech, with its much more French pronunciation, alone should have distinguished them, but the younger ones wore the short cloaks that Henry of Anjou had made fashionable and pinned sprigs of broom in their caps in honour of the Angevins, openly proclaiming themselves, although none dared yet affect the Angevin crest. But the king would not, or could not, assert himself. Yet one day, while speaking of his brother, the Bishop of Winchester, whom he had refused to make archbishop, he began to talk wildly. It was a betrayal, Stephen had cried, a slight the brother had never forgiven. Yet, without his aid, Stephen would never have been made king.
‘And I have put a slight on you, Lord Raoul,’ Stephen said at last, turning painfully on his side. His hair was thin and straggled about his wasted cheeks, all lustre gone. Once he too had set the style among his younger knights; once they had cut their hair long as he did, worn his clothes, affected his style of speech. ‘I have not repaid your love as I should. Those titles which were your grandfather’s should have been your father’s had he lived. I gave no such honour to you, although I have made earls aplenty who have not stood by me. Raoul, at Malmesbury, at Wallingford, you would have fought Henry alone had I not prevented you. And together, lad, we could have beaten him as we did once before, is that not so? Yet I never honoured you. The lack must be remedied.’
He drank deeply, calling often for more wine, which he downed with a gulp, as if parched, although his physicians had forbidden it. Yet what he said was not wine induced, nor was his mind befuddled. Out of the doubts and fears that had gnawed at him, he spoke.
‘But how could you have defied me at the last?’ he cried painfully. ‘Raoul, that was ill done to deny what I could not avoid.’
‘My lord King,’ Raoul knelt beside the dying man, giving him his shoulder to lean upon that he might breathe more easily, ‘should I lie to you for comfort?’
‘They all lie,’ the tormented voice ground out. ‘Physicians, friends, children, all. You never did. And you were right. It was an evil day when I signed the Treaty of Westminster. Yet I do not want to hear your truths. They are too great a weight. This Henry has been a weight about my shoulders all these years. Cursed have I been with him since his birth. And cursed with my own son who could do nothing right. And cursed with my own ambition that drove me to seek the crown. I could have made a good king, boy, had they not hounded me with their wars and jealousies.’
‘My lord King,’ Raoul said, ‘you will be remembered for your generous spirit.’ He could have said more, but his grief overtook him.
Stephen’s face softened. ‘You always thought well of me,’ he said. ‘I should have been more worthy of it. And I should honour you as you deserve.’
All about them held their breath, were shocked or relieved at Raoul’s noncommittal reply. It was the last time they spoke. Soon afterwards, the king sank into a swoon from which he never woke again.
It was de Luci who spoke of this, later, telling how he had berated Raoul for his diffidence, as they walked again along the windswept walls.
‘For such titles are not easily come by,’ he had said, speaking kindly to avoid offence. ‘You are too modest, my friend. Or too proud. It is an unfortunate combination.’ Raoul did not answer at once, staring moodily over the grey, heaving sea.
‘Come, it was not weakness that made the king speak as he did, but truth. And all know it.’
‘I had my French lands to content me once,’ Raoul replied at last.
De Luci smiled, his prim, almost hesitant smile that he wears when he makes a telling point. ‘That has been perhaps half the trouble,’ he said. ‘You see, Raoul, how I cling to my little piece of English land. But for the most part, we nobles veer from one country to the other like weather vanes. You were reared in France, as was Stephen. Henry, that most French of men, was mainly brought up here, in western England. Perhaps he will understand its worth at last. As I think you do, my lord, although you pretend otherwise. My lord.’ He turned to him abruptly. ‘What is the enmity between you and Henry? Has it foundation?’
Raoul brooded again before he spoke. ‘It is of long standing,’ he said, as once he had said at Cambray. ‘I hold it not in my keeping as it seemed to have lodged in his. A children’s encounter, that was all. I was older. He overbearing. I tossed him in a bush. Since then, we have never met as friends. It was years ago.’
De Luci, in turn, brooded. ‘You are not wed, my lord?’ he asked then, abruptly. ‘Childless? That is as well. I shall send my own wife and children away, bestow them with my vassals who can be trusted to hide them. I advise all those with kinfolk to do the same. Send word now to that end lest we be
caught before there is time.’ He turned then to others who had come out to join them.
‘My lords all,’ he said, his voice carrying even in the wind, a small man with an air of authority, ‘I advise you all to prepare.’
‘What shall we do?’ said one. ‘Go back to our own lands? Resist? Await him here?’
All knew who the ‘he’ was.
De Luci slapped Raoul on the back.
‘It is in God’s hands,’ he said. ‘As in a battle, none knows why or who will be saved. I cannot advise you to the right course. But if you shut yourself up, be assured he will pull your walls down about you. I myself will go back to my keep, throw open the gates, and await him there. We have shed enough blood as it is. He cannot murder us all.’
There was a mutter at that. What else could they do, that small group who remained with their dying king, that he should not die alone, unfriended? They were all resolute men. Yet many parted there who would not see each other again. De Luci clapped his arm about Raoul once more.
‘If we do not meet,’ he said, ‘I will tell you freely I have been proud to be your friend. If Stephen had been more like you, we would not be here like this today. May God have you in His keeping, my lord.’
They parted hurriedly then. Some rode to their castles through the storm. Much good it did them; Henry came after them. Raoul remained to the last, although finally de Luci took his own advice and departed also, but he had dependents he must care for. Raoul stayed to bury his king. And so the end came for Stephen, King of England, whose reign is remembered also for grief.