by Mary Lide
And such was the hold of that memory, I say, that all the rest that had gone before seemed a child’s nightmare. And in the days afterward, when we fought to save Robert’s life, and when he, such was his strength, fought us so that we had to tie him to his bed, then came forth those dark shadows in full force. They haunted me as they haunted him. Then knew I what evil Lord Hue’s accusations had set loose. And when at last my master slept, and all about us lay still, save for the crying of the gulls and the distant wash of the sea, I dared ask the Lady Olwen, who, turn and turn about with the Lady Ann, kept watch. “Lady, what happened then at Montmirail? What is Montmirail and where is it, that my master remembers it?”
“Montmirail.” Lady Olwen repeated the name thoughtfully, her eyes dark. “Montmirail is a castled town on the border of King Henry’s lands in Maine and the lands of the French king, not far from Sieux. Two kings met there in 1169. It was January, the start of a new year, the start, they said, of a new peace between King Henry and King Louis of France.” Her soft voice was soothing to my ears, as perhaps it seemed to the sick man, although the tale she told was of war and deceit and how the French king resented Henry’s strength and Henry’s lands, which almost hemmed him round. Yearly, she said, the English king laid claim to more of France, until, like a stand of trees, France had been reduced to a central core, hacked away by woodcutters around the edge. Finally, to placate the French and display good-will, Henry had agreed to meet at Montmirail and, to show King Louis he meant no harm, had offered to divide his lands among his sons, who would pledge allegiance for them to Louis as their overlord. “A subterfuge, this,” she tried to explain, “as all men know. Henry had no intent of making his sons independent of him; quite the contrary, he used them as puppets to convince King Louis of good faith. Now Louis, they say, dislikes King Henry, the more that Henry did him once great wrong by marrying Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, who hitherto had been Louis’s own wife. But in many ways King Louis is said to be naive, simple as a child when it comes to state affairs, never deciding what to do until the last and then immediately regretting his choice. They say he wanted to believe in Henry’s peace because he felt he should, and despite his councillors’ advice, he welcomed Henry full-heartedly, believing everything said by a king whose deviousness is a commonplace.” And the Lady Olwen told me how King Henry, on the other hand, was confident he could easily hoodwink the French, remembering how he had managed the sack of Andely and despising Louis for a weakling. “For the sack had been a scandal and a disgrace,” she said solemnly. “Henry, advised by his mother no less, allowed King Louis to recapture Andely, a town in France. Henry himself had occupied Andely first, and Louis was discouraged by constant defeat. As a sign of contempt, Henry withdrew his troops so that the French king could advance and claim a victory. No wonder Henry had little respect for his host at Montmirail; no wonder he thought he could outwit the French.”
Robert stirred and moaned. When he was quiet again, Olwen went on. “Among those present at the gathering, Prince Henry, the Young King, as he is now called, was most conspicuous. He came reluctantly, being easily wearied of diplomacy, and found means at once to send a message to my brother, Hue, just as he did recently to Cambray. Princes have such means. My father being already at Montmirail, Hue claimed there was no one at home to forbid him, so he set out. But Hue certainly knew my father’s wishes and hopes. For my father was at Montmirail in dual role. In England, as earl and warden of the marcher lands, he sits upon the king’s great council and frequently is called for advice. As Count of Sieux in France, he attends King Louis in a similar way and often gives advice to him, the more so because Sieux is important to the French, acting as buffer state between Louis’s territories, east, and Henry’s lands, west and south. Since Sieux also serves as a gateway between Normandy and Henry’s other lands in Anjou and Maine, you can understand its importance to King Henry, too.
“But my father hoped for peace at Montmirail; he wanted to persuade both kings to come to terms, mainly because their wars threatened Sieux’s neutrality. And he himself, preserving the careful balance he has long maintained, did not commit himself to either side. The last thing he expected was for his sons to intrude, to change that balance of power or support one faction above the other. As Hue now did.”
She sighed and shifted on the floor by Robert’s bed.
“I think the prince sent word to Hue because, being bored, he wanted company pleasing to him,” she continued, “and because, knowing as he must have done how his father was using him as a sop to Louis’s pride, he craved friends who cared for him in his own right. As for Hue, I am sure he went with no other thought in mind but to see Prince Henry again. Attended only by the messenger, Hue rode in secret to Montmirail, passed the outposts without restraint, boldly, as if he had every right to be there, wearing our scarlet coat with the golden hawks as proudly as a prince himself. Our colors are well known; the guards let him through at once, and skirting the town, he went straight to where the English court was encamped in pavilions outside the walls. King Henry and his men were settled at one side of a vast spreading field below the castle of Montmirail (which, within a month, Henry was to purchase in defiance of its rightful owner, the Count of Blois, one of Louis’s greater lords). The day was warm for January, and the prince and his retinue were seated at the pavilion door with the prince’s wife and his younger brother Geoffrey, all three in silence on huge carved oak chairs. The prince was idly pulling his hound’s ears, while his little wife tried in vain to think of something to amuse and Geoffrey sulked. You did not know Prince Henry was wed?
God’s breath, he has been married since he was a child, against all laws of Church and state, to a French princess, Margaret, one of Louis’s daughters by his second wife.” (Not Eleanor’s daughter, she hastened to add; King Louis had three times been wed, but only one wife, his third, had given him a son, although daughters he had in plenty from his other marriages.) “They say Prince Henry is fond of his little wife and treats her well, but he prefers hunting and fighting, and he prefers Hue’s company most of all. His face lit up when Hue appeared. Hue reined back his horse, its sides and legs foam-flecked where he had ridden it hard.
“ ‘Greetings, my prince,’ Hue cried, and saluted him. ‘You sent for me, and here I am.’
“ ‘God’s teeth.’ The prince bounded to his feet and ran to meet his friend, all unbraced, his shirt sleeves untied. His air of listlessness was gone; he laughed up at Hue, and his red-gold hair blew free where he had snatched off his cap. They say he has a smile as open and candid as a child’s. ‘By the living cross, you are welcome as the buds in May.’
“Overcome with pleasure at the prince’s greeting, Hue flung himself off his horse, and he and Henry hugged each other like the boys they were, although later the prince complained that Montmirail had made him old. Having to sit all day and hear his father and father-in-law discuss eternal love (all lies) and listen to Churchmen preach on the advantages of peace (not likely to last long) would age any man, he said. In any case he was overjoyed at Hue’s prompt response. ‘I thought they’d never let you free from Sieux, ’ he said. ‘I thought your father had bolted you up.’
‘Not come?’ Hue cried in his extravagance, never thinking of consequence; comes a thought into his mind, he speaks. ‘By the Mass, my lord prince, you might as soon look for my death or order it than I fail you when you ask. Here I am.’ And he dropped down on his knees in the litter of beech leaves, thrust out his hands, and took the prince’s between his own. ‘I am yours. All that I have is yours, and Sieux is yours. Before God I pledge allegiance to you, to be your man. Blood oath I swear.’ And before the prince could stop him, he drew his dagger, pushed up his sleeve, and cut through the skin so that the drops of blood rolled down his arm upon the ground.
“ ‘Get up, get up,’ the prince urged him, embarrassed, looking around nervously. He knew that Hue’s ‘all’ was a nothing and that Hue had no right to swear such an oath. Hue has no la
nds of his own, and certainly Sieux is not his to swear away. The prince, older and wiser, realized that and saw, too, how his courtiers whispered and nudged, a new scandal to fuel the gossip already spreading like wildfire. Yet thus was the oath sworn, out of love, and cannot now be forsworn.
“Thinking fast, the prince drew Hue up and, keeping an arm around his neck as a friend, led him inside the tent, without a word of explanation to the other courtiers. Inside, he and Hue stayed awhile, at first arguing, then breaking into laughter at some joke, the little Princess Margaret left alone, she and Prince Geoffrey trying to pretend nothing untoward was afoot, the others of the prince’s retinue straining to hear what was being said. Presently the prince called for wine, ordered his new horse saddled, had his falconers bring out his new falcons for display. He and Hue mounted up and rode off with scarcely a backward glance, hunted all afternoon and well into the night, missed a feast, and were so missed themselves that a massive private quarrel arose between King Henry and the prince, which only an archbishop was able to restrain. Such was King Henry’s rage that he clouted his son to the ground when next they met; no worse, I warrant you, than the Count of Sieux did with his sons. But Hue could not be gainsaid. ‘Such a day,’ he afterward maintained, ‘such a hunt; and such a vow, well worth the stripes I got.’ ”
“And how do you know all this?” I asked my lady at the story’s end. For I was curious, too, with youth’s curiosity. I had not yet learned that watchers do not always learn what they want; knowing does not always bring content.
“How?” Lady Olwen repeated my question slowly, then answered it simply. “How? Robert told me. The hunting party almost ran him down. And the whipping Hue received,” she added, “not half the one that my father ordered Robert, on the grounds that he, being older, should have shown more sense.”
She looked aside as she caught my expression. “How?” she said. “Because Robert had come to Montmirail, too, to see Prince Richard, of course.”
The force of that “of course” remains with me still. And so now I heard another name that day, one that all men were to repeat, of the Prince Richard, Henry’s second son, the prince I was to come to know best and most dislike, when he in turn became king, the prince that Robert of Sieux was to follow to the end of the world. Strange, I suppose, when you think of it, that the younger brother should cleave to the older prince and the older brother to the younger one, but so it was, and the ties were made. And Robert’s devotion to that younger prince no less, and in some ways more, than the bond between Prince Henry and Hue. I can wait. I remembered Robert saying that to his father. Now I learned what my master waited for and for whom, proof of his patience indeed. And proof, if proof I needed, of how his heart was taken and his allegiance sworn.
My lady began to explain. “Four sons Henry has; Prince Henry is the first, he whom Hue will serve and accompany as part of his entourage. The second is Richard, whom Robert longs to serve and would have joined in Poitiers had not he felt his duty here at Cambray. I do not like that prince myself, like to an ox, with gold-red hair and big bones, strong enough to rip a man’s head off; sweet-tempered, they say, until he is crossed, then violent as his father is. The third son, Geoffrey, is a sneak. He told his father where Prince Henry went; he told my father that Robert was there. The fourth son is John, his father’s favorite, as yet too young to want or hold land but one day craving it. Those younger princes bide with their mother in Aquitaine, who loves her second son best of all.”
Olwen suddenly gave me a smile, her eyes bright with sympathy, as if she had guessed what effect her words had caused.
I saw her hesitate, as if she did not wish to cause more pain, as if she knew talk of this bond between her older brother and the king’s second son would mean that even with Lord Robert I could not stand first. But I outfaced her and bade her go on, pride hiding what grief there was. And so after a while she did.
“Richard and Robert had also arranged to meet at Montmirail,” she said at last. “They planned to hunt as their brothers did. Robert has known Richard longer than Hue has known his prince, although they do not blare it for the world. Richard’s greeting to Robert was less than Prince Henry’s, no doubt, but the pleasure was not less. Extravagance may be for show; there is still true sentiment in things unsaid. ‘There’s a herd of deer outside Montmirail,’ Richard told Robert when he rode in. He was already mounted himself, twitching at the bare tree branches with his riding whip. ‘You’re late, but I will race you for the biggest buck.’ And when Robert asked him how things went: ‘I’ve had my fill of statecraft. They’ve given me Aquitaine, which already was mine, since birth, by my mother’s gift. And they’ve given me a princess to be a bride.’ Robert said that Richard laughed then. ‘Alice,’ the prince cried, ‘Alice, by God, sister to that Margaret, Henry’s wife, so already my sister-in-law, and a more whey-faced pair of wenches I’ve yet to meet. God’s bones, I’d sooner bed with a wet fish. Brother Geoffrey has been sitting whining all day that no one pays him so much heed, his betrothed still a babe-in-arms, years until she’s grown, and only Brittany to come with her. At least my Alice is more of marriageable age, and she is a princess of France.’ He laughed again. ‘But incest somewhere, I’ll be bound, and betrothal isn’t a marriage bed. Thank God for Holy Mother Church. Some Churchman will sniff out an impediment to save me yet. I shan’t get my head stuck in that noose. In truth, I prefer my boarhound to a wife, clinging around my neck with a pack of wet-bottomed brats. And you, sweet friend’ (for in private, when he is alone, they say, the prince speaks as affectionate as any maid), ‘to serve as testimony to that, seeing you dislike womankind as much as I.’
“Off they went hunting then—the woods at Montmirail are famous for game—but being more circumspect than their brothers, they returned in time and heard the outcry when King Henry discovered his namesake was gone. Not that the king really cared, you understand; the whole performance was just a show, peace talk, oath-swearing, marriage treaty, son-beating, and all, to persuade the poor French king that Henry’s sons were loyal allies. You see what games were played at Montmirail: King Louis convulsed with envy of King Henry for taking his lands, for taking his wife, for having four great sons by her; and King Henry expansive, overloud, trying to convince Louis of his friendship and loyalty, a lion persuading a jackal to dine. No wonder Prince Richard, too, was weary of the farce. Robert said Richard scarcely spoke to anyone, ate and drank a lot, belched mightily in the face of a French priest (for to avoid being seen, they sat at table, far from the kings, below the salt). Before the feasting’s end Richard had dragged Robert off to listen in private to his latest troubadour, songs that we should not try to understand and you should not imitate even if you could. Robert was in disguise, you see, wearing a pilgrim’s cloak with hood and shawl, not out of fear but to avoid unpleasantness, unlike Hue, who had blazed forth like a beacon in his finery.
“Now God alone knows where Hue and Prince Henry went that day or what they did that night, but come sunrise, when all the camp was still abed, the prince, having sent Hue back to Sieux, thank God, returned alone but drunk, reeling in his saddle with the haunches of a fat deer draped behind. He tossed the head with its branching horns to the startled guards as he rode through. ‘Fit those horns on the newest cuckold,’ he cried, and on reaching the center of the field, swaying in his saddle like a ship at sea, he began to bellow out a scurrilous love song like to match with anything Richard’s troubadours could produce. Afterward he claimed he sang to please his wife; poor soul, I hope she never heard a word. But since Robert told me it was a song about a monk, thrice wed, whose third wife kept him on a leading rein, there was soon no doubt he meant it as a satire against the French king, whose nickname is ‘Monk’ and whose third wife is noted for her managing ways.
“At the end—God knows how he kept words and tune in mind—the prince laughed. ‘I’m back,’ he cried to the world. ‘Here is the Prince of England returned, your future king. Where is your welcome for a ki
ng?’
“By then the French and English camps were both aroused and humming with intrigue. Men came flocking out to see the sport; so did Robert himself; so did the courtiers, whispering agitatedly, all news, they say, filtering first through their ears, their love of gossip being counted cause of many of our present woes. The prince’s voice rose to a peevish note, loud enough to ensure there was no mistake, like to wake everyone from the dead, including the two royal kings. ‘Henry the Younger am I, one day England’s king, already proclaimed Duke of Normandy, Count of Maine, Count of Anjou and Touraine, overlord of Brittany, which I gladly deed to brother Geoffrey to cure his sulks, and Duke of Aquitaine by rights, although brother Richard’s already set his foot on it, and now promised the service of the young Count of Sieux—by God, almost all of France. So why am I here, to do allegiance for what is mine? Rather I think King Louis should bow down to me!’ ”
She paused again to let me consider her words. “A scandal, then, of the gravest kind,” she said, “threatening to undo all of Henry’s work, certainly guaranteed to rouse all of King Louis’s fears, and certainly no way to hush the matter up. King Henry, who is usually afoot before the dawn, lay abed, pretending to know nothing of the affair, while Louis’s spies ran back and forth like ants, carrying tidbits of bad news. But when King Henry met his contrite son (for sober, the prince was abashed to hear what drink had claimed for him), Henry did not pause for speech, simply knocked him down, mad with rage.”