Hawks of Sedgemont

by Mary Lide

  “So say all conquerors,” she cried. “And only the city of Nantes did. They asked Henry’s brother, Geoffrey Plantagenet, to rule them. It was after his death that Henry took the whole of Brittany as a gift from God, made himself duke, banished the reigning one, and betrothed his third son to the infant daughter of that exiled duke to make all seem just. No one asked what the Bretons thought or what the Breton lords wanted.”

  Each time she used the word “Breton” she might as well have said “Welsh.” Both were Celts, similar in speech and history, and she defended them. And when, halfheartedly, Gervaise tried to reason with her, her logic defeated him.

  “Razing castles, killing, seizing land does not make a conqueror true owner of the earth. Nor does it mean that Bretons have no rights left of their own.” Unable to answer her, Gervaise clamped his mouth up tight. But, I thought, when she was a bride, such talk would win her a good clap, and I grieved for her in advance.

  Presently, however, she turned back to him and spoke of more pleasant things, and so their tiff, if it could be called that, was patched about; and Lord Gervaise, in turn, to please her, spoke of chansons de geste, those old stories of heroes trapped by war and love, betrayed by treachery, killed by deceit. On the outskirts of their discourse I heard his voice cut, like steel, through the pleasantries, and heard him speak of such betrayal, such treachery, with a familiarity, almost a disinterestedness, as if one day they would become commonplace. And I grieved again for the Lady Olwen, who, having thought to escape one trap, was perhaps now more closely hemmed in by a second one.

  And so we rode along, trying to avoid each other’s dust, through an autumn sun that no longer seemed bright, already on the wane, harbinger of winter ahead. The forest floor was knee-deep in leaves, and the bare branches met, like ribbed bones, overhead. We seemed to have been moving forever like this, figures in a fresco that Henry might have had depicted on his palace walls, caught in a painted forest that had no end. And I thought suddenly, we all are suspended here, each of us making a little bid for escape; what will the future hold for us: for Lady Olwen, grown now to womanhood, for Robert, hiding his thoughts, for Gervaise of Walran, lusting after fame and love, and for Urien the Bard, watching them all, helpless to alter anything? And already in France there were three other young men, each caught, too, by his own destiny: Hue, who would bind himself to Prince Henry, that royal prince aching for his own liberty, and from the western Breton lands, a western prince, Taliesin, chosen since birth to fulfill his father’s revenge. What fates held their lives in hand, to make or mar?

  At the forest’s eastern rim we parted, Lord Gervaise and his men riding onward to Canterbury, we turning north, veering slightly west again, toward Sedgemont, still two days hence. The parting between Lord Gervaise and his friends was as might be expected, the lady with genuine goodwill, no more; he with many sighs, regrets—genuine, too, in their way, as he had been trained by some Norman tutor to show his chivalry. And between him and Lord Robert, their comrade’s grasp that showed they had been brothers-in-arms and might, as Lord Gervaise suggested, one day come to closer kinship. Certainly the idea had been sown, perhaps too well; I could see that Lady Olwen herself began to realize that, and she lapsed back into silence again.

  We were to spend that night in an abbey, carved out by the Benedictine monks within the confines of the forest, a rich and revered place, with its acres of land carefully plowed and its meadows, where fat cattle grazed, thick with clover. The abbey of Stefensforth was also large, well built of stone, with buildings that spread over many rods, both new land and deeded land, whereon had been built walls, stables, courtyards, and such, as well as inner quadrangles, cloisters, and refectories, to say nothing of the great abbey church itself, where day and night prayers were said for departed souls and candles burned and incense smoked and bells tolled for worship. Yet despite the richness, the luxury, or perhaps because of their excess, I felt an air of constraint, a lowering of the spirit rather than an uplifting. And here occurred the second event, more an exchange of news at first than incident, of great import to us yet also of such general concern that henceforth all men should remember it. There is no doubt it changed our lives, for ill, for good, who can judge which, but change it did.

  We were well received, perhaps too well. As I have explained, an earl’s entourage travels in style, and although the ladies were bestowed outside the walls, as was suitable, no luxury was spared for them or us. I cannot speak of the monks or their lives, but any comfort lacking where we were must not yet have been thought of, and when we joined the abbot at his feast, it was true he and his monks had a fat and comfortable air, well larded about the ribs. The Abbot of Stefensforth was a man of middling height and age, as richly dressed and richly attended as any lord. He had his falconer bring his falcon into the hall; each time she tried to fly, the falconer soothed her with loving words, the only female thing inside this place and she as illegal as any other one. Praise God, the falconer kept her well away from us, else she might have swooped to snatch the meat from our own mouths. Well, I speak the truth; I did not like that abbot, whose face was lined with fat and whose close-set eyes were pouched with it, and who was dressed in red silk like a veritable prelate.

  As he ate his way though sixteen courses, both meat and fish, he grumbled without cease about his peasants, then his vassals (for he had vassals like any lord himself), and finally his neighbors, great lords all, who hunted over his lands without restraint. He never mentioned, of course, where he hunted with his hawk, and as it turned out, his anger had grown most hot because the barons, daring to flout the abbot’s laws (by supporting some of Henry’s own), had allowed a miller to build a mill to threaten abbey rights. The abbot took gulps of wine as he rehearsed this grievance, numbering his complaints aloud on his bejeweled fingers with each draft.

  “Such insolence,’’ he cried, “to defy me. Our mill has sole charge of grinding grain. God’s face,” his own grew red, “I swore on the holy cross, a portion of which I have in my church, that before a villein of mine would use the barons’ mill, I’d tear it down, stick and stone. For who, noble, serf, or freeman, would use my mill when there was a second one? I soon brought them around, praise God.”

  He leaned forward and signed his thanks in another cup of wine. “I spread out all the sacred relics that we own—not all, that is, only those that have proved most efficacious: a silver cross with the thigh of Saint Boniface, a gold pax containing the ashes of Saint Cyprian, and other relics of purest worth. ‘See these,’ I told those proud lords. ‘Look your last. If you rebuild your mill to my ruin, these holy objects shall be sold to pay my debts.’ ” He drank again. “And so I won. And so will God’s justice be done, even against King Henry’s greedy justiciars, who try to rob us of our rights and, worse than any lords, whom they defend, try to cheat and outrank us Churchmen by taking away those laws God gave us.”

  There was a silence at the end of his tale. The monks looked complacent, and those of noble birth, uncomfortable. Even Robert hastily speared another piece of meat and began to chew, at a loss as to how to reply. But the wine had loosened the abbot’s tongue; he leaned forward, trying to grasp Robert’s arm in a familiar way.

  “Is it not so, my lord?” he insisted. “You and your father were present at Montmirail, at that last meeting between King Henry and our holy archbishop, Thomas à Becket, God rest his soul, who gave his life to protect the Church. You were witness how the archbishop tried to spare the prince from his father’s wrath, when, for some boyish prank, the king had clouted him to the ground.”

  From my place where I did my lord service as a page, waiting on bended knee, offering him ewer and water to wash his hands, I pricked my ears. Here again came talk of Montmirail to plague our thoughts. And ever since I had heard of this great Becket, he had interested me, a commoner born, raised up from low degree by his wits to be the friend of kings and Henry’s chancellor. Yet once he became Henry’s chief bishop, all that friendship had t
urned to bitter enmity, and the archbishop himself had been cut down like an ox in its stall, murdered in Canterbury Cathedral before his own high altar. Robert was muttering almost beneath his breath, “ ’Twas more than a prank, a drunken jest that went awry. ...” when the abbot interrupted him, wiping his hand across his face, dripping with sweat and fat.

  “Drunk or not,” he cried, “the prince was but a lad, feeling his oats; no need for his father’s pride to humble him. And was not Becket the only one who dared intervene, raising the prince to his feet and telling Henry that he should desist? ‘This is no way to end a holy feast,’ the archbishop is supposed to have said, ‘a time when all men should be on their knees, praising God for his many gifts, even that greatest gift of all, His son.’

  Seeing his guests’ blank looks, the abbot began to laugh, spluttering into his wine as he explained the joke (which being somewhat obscure did not make his listeners smile). “Becket meant,” he wheezed, “that the meeting at Montmirail began on January sixth, the feast of Epiphany, when the three wise men brought their gifts to the infant Christ. But more than that, he rebuked the king for stupidity. For when the king had presented his three sons to his French host, to turn a compliment and flatter King Louis, Henry had likened the princes to those same wise men, bearing gifts to the ‘King of Kings,’ a blasphemy, since no earthly king can resemble our Heavenly one, and as any child knows, the wise men’s gifts in no way brought the recipient joy.”

  When still no one laughed, the abbot hastened on. “In any case, a third rebuke, that Henry should treat his son in such shameful wise. And how did Henry answer Becket’s mildness? With more anger, more blasphemy, telling Becket to pray rather to God himself to preserve his archbishopric. ‘I’ve yet a second archbishop at York,’ the king is supposed to have snarled, ‘who will serve me better than you. He’ll crown my son king in your stead.’ As in truth this was done; but so much in haste, so contrary to holy practice and common law, that even the king’s nobles were dismayed, which was why a second crowning was needed this year, performed by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Becket now being dead. But consider this, my lord,” and the abbot latched his hand in the folds of Robert’s sleeve to draw him close, “consider how news of this open brawl has been received, with the young prince sprawled like a strawman between king and prelate. And more, think how the prince must have felt to see Becket again, his benefactor and friend. For Becket had been as a father to the prince, had reared him in his own household, lavished affection and praise on him as his real father has never done. Henry was not even present at his son’s birth, as Becket was. Think, too, what that prince must have felt, two years later, to learn of Becket’s dreadful death.”

  He paused to mouth another cup of wine while his monks crossed themselves. “All the world knows,” the abbot then cried, “that Becket came to Montmirail to make his peace with the king and to forgive Henry for the malice that had exiled the archbishop in the first place and had hounded him from church to church, not even granting him the right to sanctuary. I saw Becket but once myself, a tall, thin man, who, they say, putting all splendor aside, wore a hair shirt beneath his robes and walked barefoot in sandals like a simple priest. But I remember his eyes, dark and burning with righteous zeal. And so, I think, both prince and king remember him at Montmirail, raising his hand whereon the golden ring of his office gleamed, to intone, ‘You risk your soul, Henry of Anjou.’ Our great archbishop is also supposed to have warned the king, ‘Defying me, you defy God. There can be no crowning without me, nor holy writ nor church service. I uphold the laws of Mother Church, whose appeal is to eternity. Your rule is temporal and dies with you. God hears my just plea, not yours.’ ”

  Once more the monks of Stefensforth paused in their munching long enough to murmur and nod. “And so God has,” the abbot went on smugly. “For although Henry ordered Becket’s murder when the archbishop returned to Canterbury, has not God found ways to punish the king? This May, at Avranches, did not the papal legates catch up with him, albeit he had skulked for two years in Ireland to avoid them? And was not that penance worse than what was done at Canterbury, where he was forced to strip his clothes and let the monks flog him like a common thief?” He gave a grin. “That has put the mighty Henry where he belongs,” he cried, “at the mercy of the Church, which will show him little mercy in its turn.”

  He grinned again, and now across his face there crept a malicious smile. “As little mercy as others whom he has grievously wronged will show him—even that young son, the Young King, whom he has twice crowned yet never given lands or wealth fitting to the prince’s rank and lawful inheritance.”

  His echo of Earl Raoul’s words was startling, the more so that after ordering another flagon of wine, the abbot at last came to the point. “Your father,” he said, “the Earl of Sedgemont, is one to whom Henry has done ill. No doubt the earl will join with us in showing Henry what our feelings are, a king who has usurped too much power, who has belittled all our ancient rights, and who has taken Church and noble lands for his own, with the help of his newfangled laws.”

  Lord Robert continued to chew slowly; a pheasant’s wing had never tasted so tough. “It was a grievous death,” at last he said, careful to avoid offense, but the abbot banged his fist, scattering dishes and making the table jump.

  “A sin,” he cried, “a sin, a sin. That we shall make Henry answer for. And his enemies shall take heart to see him tumbled in the dust.” He lowered his voice and hissed in my lord’s ear. “It will give excuse to many English lords who have been searching for a way to show their support for Henry’s son, the new Young King. I wonder only that they have not risen before. Perhaps now they will.”

  At Robert’s elbow, where I had been listening avidly, I shuddered at the abbot’s words, so that the wine ran and dripped upon the white tablecloth. The abbot frowned.

  “God’s life, my lord,” he said, sending one of his own servitors scurrying. “You are ill-served. Your state deserves greater respect.” He paused again. “There are men who would accord it to you,” he whispered, “great lords, princes, who think highly of you if you would but join with them. You are the older son, you deserve such courtesies. I hear you were not permitted to attend Winchester. I hear your younger brother was.”

  Robert set his goblet firmly down amid the litter of broken meats. “What my father does or does not do,” he said, “is my father’s choice. And between my brother and me is complete trust.”

  The abbot’s eyes, under their layers of skin, grew hot, as men’s do when they lust for confidence, avaricious for it as a woman is. “We speak as friends,” he whispered again. “Henry, the Old King, is doomed. God has given us a new one. The new Young King is already gone ahead to France and has promised to return after the Yuletide to meet with us. He will win King Louis to his cause. England will have need of men like you.”

  Robert suddenly stood up. “You speak treason, my lord abbot,” he cried. Beside the abbot he looked tall and young.

  “Treason, God’s teeth,” the abbot spluttered. His look, in a flash, turned venomous, his white hands, with their many rings, held in the air as if in supplication. “You speak too blunt. Treason is not a word friends of the Church would use. But since treachery is a label that the king would have put on Thomas à Becket when he said, as men report, ‘Will no one kill that treacherous priest?’ well, then, perhaps treachery is not so bad a thing. For what is treachery to a king already dishonored, deserving to be excommunicated, outside the laws of God and man? You talk with the naïveté of a child. As your father’s heir you could speak for him.”

  “My father’s advice is well known,” Robert said, grave as a monk. “Long has he kept to his word, as he gave it last at Montmirail, neither for nor against. Neutrality he keeps, and so shall I.”

  But when we had withdrawn, Robert raged as only a young man can, striding back and forth along the silent cloisters, leaning on my arm as he sometimes still did from habit, although he topped me b
y a good foot, stopping sometimes to hurl curses that must have made those holy walls shake. “Play with me,” he cried, “that abbot is a fool to try to make me ally to his treachery. For treachery it is, despite his devious arguments. Yet other fools will listen to him. But never the Earl of Sedgemont nor his sons. Nor am I so young that I do not know what he has in mind, to spread ill will between Hue and me. God’s wounds, and all because the abbot nurses a grievance against the king as large as his belly and as full of chaff. For once when Henry spent a night here, the abbot, thinking to ingratiate himself, complained of the local bishop. It seems the bishop had taken offense at the abbey’s riches and display, especially in the matter of food. ‘Ten courses is all the bishop allows,’ the abbot is said to have whined, ‘whereas before I scarce made do with twice that amount.’ They say King Henry looked at him, round and about as a man might do examining a horse’s girth. ‘Twenty courses,’ the king exclaimed. ‘At court, my lord abbot, we do with three. So shall the bishop order you.’

  I had to laugh. “But, my lord,” I said worriedly when we were safely back inside, guards posted at our door, the Lady Olwen and her ladies, without the walls, well guarded, too, “that abbot may be a fool, yet he knows some secret, I’ll be bound.”

  Robert looked at me keenly. “Urien the Bard,” he said, much as his sister might, or Dylan, but without Dylan’s mockery, “you have sensed what men older than you seem determined to ignore. Aye, I know what the abbot wants. War. Civil war, as we have had in the past, twenty years of it. You heard my father speak, you know what he thinks.”

  That word sank like a stone against my heart; I could feel its coldness like a weight, a coldness that is with me still.

  “But the abbot is a holy man,” I stammered. “Why should he want war?”