The Devil is Loose

by The Devil is Loose (retail) (epub)

  There was a growl of dismay from the barons, and Richard asked the question that was already on their lips. ‘Where is Pernel? Is he following you?’

  ‘That stinking turncloak? He is why we have lost Rouen!’ He sensed the barons move forward, and knew they did not believe him. Robert Pernel had a scabrous skin, but he did not stink more than most, and he had never been disloyal in his life. And who was the squirming Softsword to level such an accusation? More details, sire, and they had better be convincing…

  Richard was equally astonished by John’s outburst. ‘You blame Pernel for the loss of Rouen? How’s that?’

  ‘Very simple. And keep your officers back, brother. I never speak well under pressure.’ He waited for the barons to withdraw, then said, ‘I heard what happened at Freteval, but it’s a pity you didn’t drown Philip while you were about it. As it is, he dried off and came against Rouen with the largest force I’ve ever seen. As soon as Pernel saw the king was there in person, he set out to capture him. At least, that was his claim, and he supported it by taking two hundred of our best men with him.’

  ‘Pernel made a sortie, to capture Philip?’

  ‘Well grasped, brother, but it’s not what I said. I said, it was what he claimed to be about. In my opinion, he had quite a different plan in mind. I think it was his intention to leave me caged in Rouen, while he made his peace with the Frenchman. I would have been Pernel’s dowry! How perfect, don’t you see? He weakens the defence by two hundred men. The French take the city, and me with it. And, when you are told of the loss, you also hear that Pernel has been captured, and so appears blameless! How perfect, or it would have been, had I not escaped.’

  One of the knights could stand it no longer. Robert Pernel was his hero, and he would not allow the Crusader to be disgraced by a creature like Softsword. With a shout of anger he ran forward and cuffed John on the shoulder.

  ‘Liar! Pernel would never do that! He would not do it, I tell you! But you would! You’d do it, and worse!’

  With a quick glance to make sure Richard was moving to the rescue, John lurched to his feet and engaged in a squalid shoving match with the knight. The king barged between them, hurling the knight back among his peers. ‘Keep your places!’ he roared. ‘This is not the yard.’ Then he resettled John in his chair, and again called for wine and a physician.

  The terminals of the chair were carved to resemble a currant bush and an apple bough, and Richard threatened to crush the fruit as he leaned over his brother. ‘What you say distresses me. This is not the Pernel we know. He has fought off so many attacks against Rouen, and he never turned against us in his life. But we’ll leave that aside for the moment. Tell me how you came to be mauled like this, and all swollen out. You say you escaped—’

  John hooked a smile on his lips and raised his bandaged hand in a plea for patience. Fear and fatigue were positive ingredients in his make-up. He had experienced them so often that, like a habitual drunkard, he knew how they would influence him, and how he would behave.

  Fear, for example, could always be masked by anger or irritation. And fatigue was as much the residue of battle as of flight. Thus, a man who fights to a standstill is indistinguishable from a deserter who runs until he drops. Particularly so if they are both bruised and bloodied.

  ‘Mauled, you call it? Swollen out? Is that all you’ll allow, brother Richard? A bitter, step-by-step defence of Rouen, which is not a favourite city of mine, let me say, and that’s the best you can do?’ He thought it expedient to include the barons in his tirade, and twisted in the chair, pointing his bandaged hand at the knight who had cuffed him.

  ‘You messire! You’re very quick to strike a wounded man. But what if he strikes back, eh? What if he has fought his way free to bring you the news, and is tired of your far away criticisms? You were not at Rouen, were you, or have you some magic powers, that let you see at such a distance?’ He fumbled for his dagger, and tried to break Richard’s grip on the chair arms. ‘Almighty Christ! I will not be called a liar, and assaulted at will!’ He struggled in the chair, but Richard restrained him without difficulty. Nevertheless, his indignation impressed the barons. Softsword was not one to draw a dagger when he could draw a measure of wine, but he seemed sincere enough in his fury. Perhaps there was some truth in his story. It was hard to believe, though stranger things had happened. And Pernel would certainly be well rewarded, if Philip had laid hands on John. It was an unlikely tale, but not impossible. Every man would turn his cloak, if the price was right. Even Pernel.

  Richard waited until John had sunk back in the chair, then turned to his barons. ‘There will be no more outbursts, from any of you. My brother insists that Robert Pernel has weakened the defences of Rouen and allowed Philip to capture the city. When I heard it, I was disinclined to believe it. But now I am not so sure, and I’ll tell you why.’ He placed a hand on John’s shoulder and stood over him, part protector, part gaoler. Then he gave his warlords his own extraordinary reasons for swallowing the bait.

  ‘Prince John is a young man puffed with vanity. He always was. He admires his reflection, and lifts himself on his heels. We all know what he is, the way you know I am a born soldier, the way I know you—’ singling them out ‘—you like dice, and would bet your entire family on a single throw. And you; you dislike conversation, yet talk to your horses. Others of you will ride miles for a wrestling match, or a woman with black skin, or a river stocked with salmon. Each to his own. But with John— Well, look at him.

  ‘Look at the prince. Is this how he thinks of himself, bandaged and with a face like a bladder? He won’t like to hear it, but look at his silly heels, snapped short. Do you really believe he would go this far, just to further a lie? He’s my brother, and I love him, but I do not give the boy that much credit.’

  There was a growl of voices and the shuffle of feet, but no one responded. Once again, King Richard had taken John by the hand and led him out of the maze. He knew John – as John – was quick and cunning, and master of deceit. But brother John, ah, that was a different animal. He was just a vain and foolish child, albeit a child of twenty-six. Richard would always find excuses for brother John, and would always step between him and his accusers. He had to, for he could never accept that Plantagenet blood, his brother’s blood, was tainted. If John was at fault it meant that Richard’s brother was at fault, and that brushed too close to the king. It would also mean that the Lionheart had been hoodwinked all these years, by a boy in silly heels.

  The wine arrived, brought in by the physician. John sipped it gratefully, while his wounds were dressed. He ignored the assembly, and took silent pleasure in the wine and the way things had gone.

  The barons had not wanted to believe him, but Richard had persuaded them, or rather, deflected their aim. He had accepted John’s story, and given his reasons. If the barons were to challenge it, they must also challenge their king. But it was obvious that none of them would step forward and cuff the Lionheart.

  ‘You’re fortunate,’ the physician remarked. ‘None of your teeth have come loose, and your hand is only skinned. Soak a glove in cold water and hold it to your face. It will reduce the swelling. As for your scalp, if you daub it with this ointment, the hair will grow again. I don’t know how you did this, my lord—’

  ‘Fighting my way from street to street, that’s how.’

  ‘Oh.’

  And again, for the benefit of the Unbelievers, ‘Step-by-step.’ He did not add that his injuries had been sustained in an effort to bore a path through the panic-stricken townsfolk, who had just learned that both their garrison commanders had disappeared.

  * * *

  After Rouen, King Philip made other gains in the north. Aumale fell to him, and Vernon. Further south, a second French army threatened the citadel of Châteauroux. Treaties were made, lasted a few months, then were broken. They took on the aspect of breathing-spaces, and both sides used them to reinforce their armies and review their tactics. The Capetian and Angevin empires te
etered between expansion and annihilation, but the border remained like a string, pushed in from this side, pushed out from that.

  More riders had arrived from Rouen, each with a different story. Some said they had seen Robert Pernel leave the city at the head of three hundred men, but others claimed he had gone out alone, or with fifty, or not gone at all. John encouraged the confusion, though it was finally accepted that the Crusader had made a sortie, and had been captured. It was also agreed that Rouen had been subjected to a heavy barrage of rocks and fireballs, and that no one could remember Prince John fighting his way anywhere, step-by-step. Naturally, with the city falling about their ears, they could not swear he had deserted them, only that they, themselves, had not seen him in the mêlée.

  Once more afflicted with doubts, Richard had waved them away. Why was it, he wondered, that all John’s stories raised contradiction in their wake? If he said he had had cold meat for dinner, there would be fish-bones on the plate…

  But John knew Richard too well. If the king was to be finally convinced of his innocence, he knew he must prove himself on the field.

  It was no easy task for Softsword to harden his blade, but, during the fading months of 1194, he led several successful raids in Touraine and along the borders of Aquitaine. The way he told it, he had stopped the French in their tracks.

  He was aware of Richard’s suspicions, and encouraged him to verify the stories. No victory was as glorious as John’s description, but Richard acknowledged his brother’s need to exaggerate. He had probably exaggerated King Philip’s insults, and Pernel’s treason. But, so long as one took what John said with a pinch of salt, he could be believed. It was an enormous relief to Richard, knowing that his brother was not the liar people maintained. He was a boy with an unfettered imagination and a craving for attention, and there was nothing so terrible in that. With proper guidance, young John might yet turn out to be a worthy Plantagenet. After all, it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he would one day wear the crown of England. In another thirty or forty years…

  * * *

  They heard of further French advances.

  ‘You know who we need?’ Richard asked rhetorically. ‘What do they call him, the Arab. William Marshal. He must have recovered from his affliction at Nottingham, and he knows Normandy as well as anyone. Send for him. And his companion, des Roches. England is safe for the time being; nothing will happen there. It’s here we need the strength, and Marshal’s just the man to take John under his wing.’

  One of his attendants had the temerity to say, ‘It was not an affliction at Nottingham, lord king. You two fell out over the hangings, if you remember.’

  ‘No, I don’t remember.’

  ‘You took his prisoners, and hanged them as an example to the rebels. If you want him to rejoin you, you should send him some assurance that you still love him.’

  ‘He knows it,’ Richard snapped, ‘else he would not still be alive. Now that you’ve refreshed my memory, I remember him coming at me with a sword. Hardly an act of affection, would you say?’

  The attendant waited, braving the king’s gaze. Then, with a characteristic change of mood, Richard twisted a clawed signet from his finger. ‘Here. Do you think he’ll regard this as love enough?’ He held up the massive ruby, engraved with the three leopards of England. It was a priceless gem, and easily recognizable as the property of King Richard. For one thing, no other western monarch took such a size in rings.

  The attendant nodded, and agreed to deliver it to Marshal.

  * * *

  Knights and nobles continued to arrive from the fiefs of Poitou and Aquitaine. Eager to join Richard in the defence of their lands, they reaffirmed their loyalty to him, told him how many men they had brought, then pitched their tents around Loches. The fact that they exchanged stone fortresses for flapping tents was, in itself, a measure of their fidelity.

  They rode in at all hours of the day and night, and, one evening in mid-December, the king was informed that two men were waiting in the antechamber.

  He had just returned from a victorious skirmish on the border, and was in an expansive good humour. The French force had been chased off without difficulty, and one of the chevaliers had taken an arrow in his buttock. This had caused paroxysms of mirth among the English, who conveniently forgot their own saddle-bound scars. They had trotted back through a bitter east wind and, when he had reached the castle, Richard emptied several flasks of wine in an effort to combat the cold and damp. He was now seated at the head of the dining-table, flanked by his brother and senior commanders.

  He cut a wedge of salt-cured pork, washed away the unpleasant taste with more wine and told the servant to bring in the visitors. ‘If any more arrive, keep them until morning. But I’ll see these two.’

  He thought it might be Marshal and des Roches, then realized that the emissary could only just have reached England. The sky above Loches threatened snow, so it would be worse in the north, and the messenger might be delayed several days at the Channel port of Barfleur. But, even with the country turning white, the Arab and his massive, half blind companion should be at Loches by Christmas.

  He chewed another piece of pork, threw it back as gristle on to his plate and turned to welcome the visitors. The first man was tall and cadaverous, the other stooped over, as though he spent his life writing in a poor light. They were both considerably older than the king, yet wore helmets, hauberks, the full outfit of war.

  Coming forward from the shadows, the first man mouthed, ‘Ayay uh Ahuse,’ then waited patiently for his companion to clarify, ‘…Aimer of Chaluz, my lord king.’

  ‘Eyeoun uh—’

  ‘…He is the Viscount of Limoges.’

  Aimer gibbered something else and, while his companion repeated it, Richard stared at the hollowed cheeks and the hideous, misshapen mouth. And, inside the mouth it seemed, a divided palate.

  Clarifying Aimer’s words, the scholarly-looking knight said, ‘…My Lord Aimer would have joined you sooner, king, but he was taken with fever.’

  For an instant, Richard’s expression hovered between curiosity and repulsion. Then some sound Aimer made amused him, and he commented, ‘It must have been a grave bout, Limoges, to leave you speaking another language. Ayay?’ he mimicked. ‘Ayay uh Ahuse? I’ll never master that!’ He leaned back in his chair, one red-robed arm curled over the back rest, his smile seeking a response among his guests.

  Aimer spoke again, and the translator replied, ‘… It may cause you amusement, king, but you should thank God you are not afflicted.’

  ‘I do!’ Richard agreed. ‘My speeches would scarcely have the same ring, would they!’ Again he tried to copy the impediment. ‘I-yam-ee-ying. You understand? I am the king. Did you understand that?’ He laughed spontaneously, drunk and delighted.

  Aimer looked at him, the viscount’s eyes chiselled from an effigy. He uttered more sounds.

  ‘…My Lord Aimer wishes you to know that he came here in good faith, to offer you his support against the French… He did not come to be ridiculed, and does not see how this… how this improves you in the sight of your guests.’

  ‘It doesn’t yet!’ the king roared. ‘But it will when I’ve learned the language! Don’t look so pious, whatever-your-name-is. Come here and teach me. I swear, I never heard such a thing!’

  ‘…Nor will you again. Do you think that Lord Aimer, or any of his house, will serve you after this? No, by God, we will not… You fight on without us, and the devil guide you! You are no monarch of ours, Richard Plantagenet, not from today!… You are not halted in your speech, but there is a serious deformity in your mind!’ The words were rapped out as clarification of Aimer’s mouthings, and then the men turned and strode from the hall.

  The senior barons, who were so often noted for their cruelty, sat huddled in embarrassed silence. Several of them had day-to-day dealings with Aimer of Chaluz, and they knew him to be a quiet, melancholic man, with a sympathetic manner that had evolved from his o
wn affliction. But, as they had just heard, he could also be enraged.

  There was not yet absolute silence in the hall, for Richard was still chuckling at the novelty of Aimer’s words. As his laughter diminished, John excused himself from the table and hurried after the visitors. The appalling treatment the king had meted out had given his brother an idea, and he felt sure the Viscount of Limoges would be receptive. The details eluded him for the moment, but the foundations were there, and Aimer was just the man to help him build on them.

  * * *

  Marshal moved the ring into a circle of candlelight, so that Isabel and their sons could see it. The two young boys looked up at their parents and saw by their expressions that it was not the time to snatch and grab. Marshal told them the ring belonged to King Richard of England, and that it was now the property of the House of Pembroke. Then, as Isabel explained to the children that the animals were not dogs, but leopards, more like large spotted cats, Marshal asked the messenger, ‘Are you quite sure he intends us to keep it, his own signet?’

  ‘He does, Earl Marshal. As I told you, it’s a token of his love, though I daresay he’ll want it back if you refuse to join him. And don’t concern yourself about its power. It has none. One of his advisers told him of a good way to raise money. You know his appetite for coins. Well, somebody suggested that, if he changed his seals, he could out-date all earlier grants and titles. With respect to you and the Lady Isabel, even you will need Richard’s new seal on your deeds of property. For which you will have to pay a fee. But, even if the leopards don’t growl, it’s still a rare gift, the ring.’ He had been made sufficiently welcome at Pembroke to risk adding, ‘It occurred to me to sell it, and say I’d lost it on the way.’