by Ken Follett
One of William's squires was standing by the door, looking anxious. He was only a lad and he had probably never been inside a brothel before. He smiled nervously, not sure whether he was entitled to join in the hilarity. William said to him: "What are you doing here, you po-faced idiot?"
"There's a message come for you, lord," the squire said.
"Well, don't waste time, tell me what it is!"
"I'm very sorry, lord," said the boy. He looked so frightened that William thought he was going to turn around and run out of the house.
"What are you sorry for, you turd?" William roared. "Give me the message!"
"Your father's dead, lord," the boy blurted out, and he burst into tears.
William stared, dumbstruck. Dead? he thought. Dead? "But he's in perfectly good health!" he shouted stupidly. It was true that Father was not able to fight on the battlefield anymore, but that was not surprising in a man almost fifty years old. The squire continued to cry. William recalled the way Father had looked last time he saw him: stout, red-faced, hearty and choleric, as full of life as a man could be, and that was only ... He realized, with a small shock, that it was nearly a year since he had seen his father. "What happened?" he said to the squire. "What happened to him?"
"He had a seizure, lord," the squire sobbed.
A seizure. The news began to sink in. Father was dead. That big, strong, blustering, irascible man was lying helpless and cold on a stone slab somewhere--
"I'll have to go home," William said suddenly.
Walter said gently: "You must first ask the king to release you."
"Yes, that's right," William said vaguely. "I must ask permission." His mind was in a turmoil.
"Shall I tip the brothel keeper?" said Walter.
"Yes." William handed Walter his purse. Someone put William's cloak over his shoulders. Walter murmured something to the woman who ran the whorehouse and gave her some money. Hugh Axe opened the door for William. They all went out.
They walked through the streets of the small town in silence. William felt peculiarly detached, as if he were watching everything from above. He could not take in the fact that his father no longer existed. As they approached headquarters he tried to pull himself together.
King Stephen was holding court in the church, for there was no castle or guildhall here. It was a small, simple stone church with its inside walls painted bright red, blue and orange. A fire had been lit in the middle of the floor, and the handsome, tawny-haired king sat near it on a wooden throne, with his legs stretched out before him in his usual relaxed position. He wore soldier's clothes, high boots and a leather tunic, but he had a crown instead of a helmet. William and Walter pushed through the crowd of petitioners near the church door, nodded at the guards who were keeping the general public back, and strode into the inner circle. Stephen was talking to a newly arrived earl, but he noticed William and broke off immediately. "William, my friend. You've heard."
William bowed. "My lord king."
Stephen stood up. "I mourn with you," he said. He put his arms around William and held him for a moment before releasing him.
His sympathy brought the first tears to William's eyes. "I must ask you for leave to go home," he said.
"Granted willingly, though not gladly," said the king. "We'll miss your strong right arm."
"Thank you, lord."
"I also grant you custody of the earldom of Shiring, and all the revenues from it, until the question of the succession is decided. Go home, and bury your father, and come back to us as soon as you can."
William bowed again and withdrew. The king resumed his conversation. Courtiers gathered around William to commiserate. As he accepted their condolences, the significance of what the king had said hit him. He had given William custody of the earldom until the question of the succession is decided. What question? William was the only child of his father. How could there be a question? He looked at the faces around him and his eye lit upon a young priest who was one of the more knowledgeable of the king's clerics. He drew the priest to him and said quietly: "What the devil did he mean about the 'question' of the succession, Joseph?"
"There's another claimant to the earldom," Joseph replied.
"Another claimant?" William repeated in astonishment. He had no half brothers, illegitimate brothers, cousins.... "Who is it?"
Joseph pointed to a figure standing with his back to them. He was with the new arrivals. He was wearing the clothing of a squire.
"But he's not even a knight!" William said loudly. "My father was the earl of Shiring!"
The squire heard him, and turned around. "My father was also the earl of Shiring."
At first William did not recognize him. He saw a handsome, broad-shouldered young man of about eighteen years, well-dressed for a squire, and carrying a fine sword. There was confidence and even arrogance in the way he stood. Most striking of all, he gazed at William with a look of such pure hatred that William shrank back.
The face was very familiar, but changed. Still William could not place it. Then his saw that there was an angry scar on the squire's right ear, where the earlobe had been cut off. In a vivid flash of memory he saw a small piece of white flesh fall onto the heaving chest of a terrified virgin, and heard a boy scream in pain. This was Richard, the son of the traitor Bartholomew, the brother of Aliena. The little boy who had been forced to watch while two men raped his sister had grown into a formidable man with the light of vengeance in his light blue eyes. William was suddenly terribly afraid.
"You remember, don't you?" Richard said, in a light drawl that did not quite mask the cold fury underneath.
William nodded. "I remember."
"So do I, William Hamleigh," said Richard. "So do I."
William sat in the big chair at the head of the table, where his father used to sit. He had always known he would occupy this seat one day. He had imagined he would feel immensely powerful when he did so, but in reality he was a little frightened. He was afraid that people would say he was not the man his father had been, and that they would disrespect him.
His mother sat on his right. He had often watched her, when his father was in this chair, and observed the way she played on Father's fears and weaknesses to get her own way. He was determined not to let her do the same to him.
On his left sat Arthur, a mild-mannered, gray-headed man who had been Earl Bartholomew's reeve. After becoming earl, Father had hired Arthur, because Arthur had a good knowledge of the estate. William had always been dubious about that reasoning. Other people's servants sometimes clung to the ways of their former employer.
"King Stephen can't possibly make Richard the earl," Mother was saying angrily. "He's just a squire!"
"I don't understand how he even managed that," William said irritably. "I thought they had been left penniless. But he had fine clothes and a good sword. Where did he get the money?"
"He set himself up as a wool merchant," Mother said. "He's got all the money he needs. Or rather, his sister has--I hear Aliena runs the business."
Aliena. So she was behind this. William had never quite forgotten her, but she had not preyed on his mind so much, after the war broke out, until he had met Richard. Since then she had been in his thoughts continually, as fresh and beautiful, as vulnerable and desirable as ever. He hated her for the hold she had over him.
"So Aliena is rich now?" he said with an affectation of detachment.
"Yes. But you've been fighting for the king for a year. He cannot refuse you your inheritance."
"Richard has fought bravely too, apparently," William said. "I made some inquiries. Worse still, his courage has come to the notice of the king."
Mother's expression changed from angry scorn to thoughtfulness. "So he really has a chance."
"I fear so."
"Right. We must fight him off."
Automatically, William said: "How?" He had resolved not to let his mother take charge but now he had done it.
"You must go back to the king with a
bigger force of knights, new weapons and better horses, and plenty of squires and men-at-arms."
William would have liked to disagree with her but he knew she was right. In the end the king would probably give the earldom to the man who promised to be the most effective supporter, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the case.
"That's not all," Mother went on. "You must take care to look and act like an earl. That way the king will start to think of the appointment as a foregone conclusion."
Despite himself William was intrigued. "How should an earl look and act?"
"Speak your mind more. Have an opinion about everything: how the king should prosecute the war, the best tactics for each battle, the political situation in the north, and--especially this--the abilities and loyalty of other earls. Talk to one man about another. Tell the earl of Huntingdon that the count of Warenne is a great fighter; tell the bishop of Ely that you don't trust the sheriff of Lincoln. People will say to the king: 'William of Shiring is in the count of Warenne's faction,' or 'William of Shiring and his followers are against the sheriff of Lincoln.' If you appear powerful, the king will feel comfortable about giving you more power."
William had little faith in such subtlety. "I think the size of my army will count for more," he said. He turned to the reeve. "How much is there in my treasury, Arthur?"
"Nothing, lord," said Arthur.
"What the devil are you talking about?" said William harshly. "There must be something. How much is it?"
Arthur had a slightly superior air, as if he had nothing to fear from William. "Lord, there's no money at all in the treasury."
William wanted to strangle him. "This is the earldom of Shiring!" he said, loud enough to make the knights and castle officials farther down the table look up. "There must be money!"
"Money comes in all the time, lord, of course," Arthur said smoothly. "But it goes out again, especially in wartime."
William studied the pale, clean-shaven face. Arthur was far too complacent. Was he honest? There was no way of telling. William wished for eyes that could see into a man's heart.
Mother knew what William was thinking. "Arthur is honest," she said, not caring that the man was right there. "He's old, and lazy and set in his ways, but he's honest."
William was stricken. He had only just sat in the chair and already his power was shriveling, as if by magic. He felt cursed. There seemed to be a law that William would always be a boy among men, no matter how old he grew. Weakly, he said: "How has this happened?"
Mother said: "Your father was ill for the best part of a year before he died. I could see he was letting things slip, but I couldn't get him to do anything about it."
It was news to William that his mother was not omnipotent. He had never before known her unable to get her way. He turned to Arthur. "We have some of the best farmland in the kingdom here. How can we be penniless?"
"Some of the farms are in trouble, and several tenants are in arrears with their rents."
"But why?"
"One reason I hear frequently is that the young men won't work on the land, but leave for the towns."
"Then we must stop them!"
Arthur shrugged. "Once a serf has lived in a town for a year, he becomes a freeman. It's the law."
"And what about the tenants who haven't paid? What have you done to them?"
"What can one do?" said Arthur. "If we take away their livelihood, they'll never be able to pay. So we must be patient, and hope for a good harvest which will enable them to catch up."
Arthur was altogether too cheerful about his inability to solve any of these problems, William thought angrily; but he reined in his temper for the moment. "Well, if all the young men are going to the towns, what about our rents from house property in Shiring? That should have brought in some cash."
"Oddly enough, it hasn't," said Arthur. "There are a lot of empty houses in Shiring. The young men must be going elsewhere."
"Or people are lying to you," William said. "I suppose you're going to say that the income from the Shiring market and the fleece fair is down too?"
"Yes--"
"Then why don't you increase the rents and taxes?"
"We have, lord, on the orders of your late father, but the income has gone down nonetheless."
"With such an unproductive estate, how did Bartholomew keep body and soul together?" William said in exasperation.
Arthur even had an answer for that. "He had the quarry, also. That brought in a great deal of money, in the old days."
"And now it's in the hands of that damned monk." William was shaken. Just when he needed to make an ostentatious display he was being told that he was penniless. The situation was very dangerous for him. The king had just granted him custody of an earldom. It was a kind of probation. If he returned to court with a diminutive army it would seem ungrateful, even disloyal.
Besides, the picture Arthur had painted could not be entirely true. William felt sure people were cheating him--and they were probably laughing about it behind his back, too. The thought made him angry. He was not going to tolerate it. He would show them. There would be bloodshed before he accepted defeat.
"You've got an excuse for everything," he said to Arthur. "The fact is, you've let this estate run to seed during my father's illness, which is when you ought to have been most vigilant."
"But, lord--"
William raised his voice. "Shut your mouth or I'll have you flogged."
Arthur paled and went silent.
William said: "Starting tomorrow, we're going on a tour of the earldom. We're going to visit every village I own, and shake them all up. You may not know how to deal with whining, lying peasants, but I do. We'll soon find out how impoverished my earldom is. And if you've lied to me, I swear to God you'll be the first of many hangings."
As well as Arthur, he took his groom, Walter, and the other four knights who had fought beside him for the past year: Ugly Gervase, Hugh Axe, Gilbert de Rennes and Miles Dice. They were all big, violent men, quick to anger and always ready to fight. They rode their best horses and went armed to the teeth, to scare the peasantry. William believed that a man was helpless unless people were afraid of him.
It was a hot day in late summer, and the wheat stood in fat sheaves in the fields. The abundance of visible wealth made William all the more angry that he had no money. Someone must be robbing him. They ought to be too frightened to dare. His family had won the earldom when Bartholomew was disgraced, and yet he was penniless while Bartholomew's son had plenty! The idea that people were stealing from him, and laughing at his unsuspecting ignorance, gnawed at him like a stomachache, and he got angrier as he rode along.
He had decided to begin at Northbrook, a small village somewhat remote from the castle. The villagers were a mixture of serfs and freemen. The serfs were William's property, and could not do anything without his permission. They owed him so many days' work at certain times of year, plus a share of their own crops. The freemen just paid him rent, in cash or in kind. Five of them were in arrears. William had a notion they thought they could get away with it because they were far from the castle. It might be a good place to begin the shake-up.
It was a long ride, and the sun was high when they approached the village. There were twenty or thirty houses surrounded by three big fields, all of them now stubble. Near the houses, at the edge of one of the fields, were three large oak trees in a group. As William and his men drew near, he saw that most of the villagers appeared to be sitting in the shade of the oaks, eating their dinner. He spurred his horse into a canter for the last few hundred yards, and the others followed suit. They halted in front of the villagers in a cloud of dust.
As the villagers were scrambling to their feet, swallowing their horsebread and trying to keep the dust out of their eyes, William's mistrustful gaze observed a curious little drama. A middle-aged man with a black beard spoke quietly but urgently to a plump red-cheeked girl with a plump, red-cheeked baby. A young man joined them and was hastily
shooed away by the older man. Then the girl walked off toward the houses, apparently under protest, and disappeared in the dust. William was intrigued. There was something furtive about the whole scene, and he wished Mother were here to interpret it.
He decided to do nothing about it for the moment. He addressed Arthur in a voice loud enough for them all to hear. "Five of my free tenants here are in arrears, is that right?"
"Yes, lord."
"Who is the worst?"
"Athelstan hasn't paid for two years, but he was very unlucky with his pigs--"
William spoke over Arthur, cutting him off. "Which one of you is Athelstan?"
A tall, stoop-shouldered man of about forty-five years stepped forward. He had thinning hair and watery eyes.
William said: "Why don't you pay me rent?"
"Lord, it's a small holding, and I've no one to help me, now that my boys have gone to work in the town, and then there was the swine fever--"
"Just a moment," William said. "Where did your sons go?"
"To Kingsbridge, lord, to work on the new cathedral there, for they want to marry, as young men must, and my land won't support three families."
William tucked away in his memory, for future reflection, the information that the young men had gone to work on Kingsbridge Cathedral. "Your holding is big enough to support one family, at any rate, but still you don't pay your rent."
Athelstan began to talk about his pigs again. William stared malevolently at him without listening. I know why you haven't paid, he thought; you knew your lord was ill and you decided to cheat him while he was incapable of enforcing his rights. The other four delinquents thought the same. You rob us when we're weak!
For a moment he was full of self-pity. The five of them had been chuckling over their cleverness, he felt sure. Well, now they would learn their lesson. "Gilbert and Hugh, take this peasant and hold him still," he said quietly.
Athelstan was still talking. The two knights dismounted and approached him. His tale of swine fever tailed off into nothing. The knights took him by the arms. He turned pale with fear.
William spoke to Walter in the same quiet voice. "Have you got your chain-mail gloves?"
"Yes, lord."
"Put them on. Teach Athelstan a lesson. But make sure he lives to spread the word."