Hawks of Sedgemont

by Mary Lide

  Now, although Earl Raoul had verged on quarrel with King Louis, that did not mean he and his son, or daughter, were denied the court. I had the impression that the earl had frequently been at odds in council with this king, yet like King Henry before him, Louis relied on the earl’s advice. And even if King Louis had shut his doors, I think Earl Raoul would have remained. He waited, as did all of the court, for the return of the King of England. And whichever king it was, young or old, Earl Raoul wanted his son, Hue. For again, whatever messages had been sent to Hue, wherever he was, ordering him to return to Sieux forthwith, I do not think that Hue’s obedience was something the earl had counted on. So while the earl waited, and Robert waited, and Gervaise, Lady Olwen took her place at court with the Queen of France.

  The present French queen was young, the third of Louis’s wives, and of the three, perhaps, the happiest, in that she was the only one to have borne him a son. Philip Augustus was then eight years old, a strong and clever child, they said, round and plump, as his mother was. And such rejoicing at his birth as never before, the city alight with bonfires, bells tolling all night long, that Louis, in his age, might at last have an heir, a don de Dieu, God’s gift. The happy mother of this gift was Queen Adela of Champagne, and such was her triumph that there was little that Louis would not give her. Since her son’s birth she had put on weight; there were some who said she was as complacent as a cow with calf and that when she strolled abroad upon the green meadows of her country estates, she looked as if she had been set down to graze. For it was true she did not like Paris, a city of smells and disease, and was happiest in her own rich lands of Champagne, where, like any country lass, she could dance and flirt and feel at ease. But she was also deeply religious and when in Paris spent much of her time in church (not in the great church of Notre Dame, being rebuilt these many years, but in one smaller, nearby, set about with grassy walks, which reminded her more of the churches in Champagne), where she prayed for a speedy return to her home. She seemed easygoing in those days, but it was said that underneath that placid air she had a will of steel, and of all the people in the court, she could bend Louis’s will to her own and, what was more, keep it so bent. She took a liking to the little maid from Cambray; she nurtured her, and learning soon, in a motherly way, of Olwen’s plight, she made a pet of her.

  So it was that my lady often went with the queen to Mass, in the great abbey church, and afterward walked with her along the riverbanks, where, as the spring now advanced, chestnut trees gave signs of bud and the grass grew almost as green as in the queen’s own lands. I never saw this queen close to myself, but Olwen often spoke of her, and once, when Gervaise remonstrated with her, she told him that the queen was kind to her, making the court alive with jests and song. “Many ladies of note attend her,” she told him, smiling suddenly in her old way. “As demure as in a nunnery, not a man among the flock. Those ladies crowd her hard, I think. Some praise her skin, all pink and white; some her hair, the color of her Champagne wines; all use flattery to win her support. I think she likes me because I do not ask her for anything, as those other ladies do. But when they beg, she opens her large blue eyes and says, meek as a mouse, ‘The king, my husband, must decide,’ although everyone knows she tells him exactly what to say. For so, they whisper, she controls him in his bed. But they say, too, that in secret King Louis still mourns his first wife, the love of his youth, that Eleanor of Aquitaine who left him to marry with King Henry of England. I think it sad that such love as once Queen Eleanor commanded should be lost.”

  “Not I.” Gervaise was adamant. “On the Crusade Queen Eleanor openly consorted with the Count of Antioch, a chevalier sans reproche, so strong he would ride his horse beneath a bridge and stop it short by reaching up and grasping the keystone. A holy war is not the place for carnal love.” So spoke Gervaise, who, the night before, had slept with two jades at once, who would be a Crusading knight himself!

  “That may be so,” my lady said thoughtfully, not willing to annoy him, “but, Gervaise, there are old ladies at the court who remember Queen Eleanor well. And one of them, who listens to me when I speak, often talks of her.” She suddenly bit her lip. “I do not know if I like that lady or not,” she confessed. “Sometimes soft, sometimes hard, but she is old and must be revered.” So she spoke, my lady, and so spoke Gervaise, who one day was to see that queen against whom he had spoken so roughly. Better he had not seen her to change his mind. But I leap ahead.

  Talk of Queen Eleanor worried me; I began to wonder if my lady’s father was at fault, to let her walk abroad. But the earl was preoccupied, and had any dared question him, as no one could, he would have said, with justification on his part, that his daughter was well attended (true, she had both maids and squire) and that in the queen’s own company what danger could approach? What indeed? Vipers can be found curled in the quietest place. But one thing was fact: Queen Adela’s demands kept Olwen at least away from Gervaise, and that seemed desirable. And my lady seemed more at ease, perhaps finding in those older women she had spoken of a replacement for her mother’s comfort, or perhaps, mingling now with other young ladies like herself, she felt she could let down her guard and feel free of cares. I was wrong, on all accounts. She went with one thought in mind, and danger was lurking there. As by and by shall be told.

  As for Sir Renier and his son, they dropped from sight, swallowed up in the city’s maw, the father at least. Bernard of Poitou I saw from time to time, when, as he had promised, he brought us news. But from the day of our arrival, a rumor spread like wildfire through the city streets. If in truth Sir Renier had revealed this story (and perhaps he did), it was certainly of general worth and showed there was skill left in that old forked tongue, even though he spoke so haltingly. It might well have earned him and his son places in the new court that Prince Henry would establish in his own right. All this, of course is surmise. I know only that the tale was told and ran on wind’s feet, in the way rumor has. And since it had all the marks of our Lord Hue stamped on it, from start to end, it may well have been true.

  All knew, of course, that Prince Henry planned to come to Paris when he could; the question was when and how. Since Christmas his father had held him trapped; the more he raged, the closer was he kept under watch. And we had heard that the prince’s entourage had been halved, more than one hundred noble youths and knights sent on their way; we knew that those who remained had hung on, unwanted appendages, neither allowed to serve the prince as they should nor granted honor as was their due. It was whispered openly that King Henry, jealous of their influence over his son, would have dismissed them all had he dared, and those he left in his son’s household he treated like a pack of serfs, beneath his contempt.

  All this was known, I say, and also how, since the conclusion of the treaty with the Count of Maurienne (that treaty which had so enraged Prince Henry with its terms), King Henry had kept the prince by his side. The prince was forced to eat and sleep and ride with the king. If the story be not denied, they even sat in the same privy side by side, were shaved by the same barber, bathed in the same water, a devoted father inseparable from his son. Such attentions drove the son wild. He strained to break away as does a colt, new-bridled. The chance now came. And this was the tale that engaged the Paris world, agog for gossip of the most scurrilous kind.

  The king and the prince had traveled slowly northward from Savoy, the king no doubt aware of all these stirrings throughout his land; his son determined to unite his father’s enemies under his leadership. They had reached Chinon, one of those forts of which baby John had just been made the proud owner. It must have galled Prince Henry to be lodged thus in a castle he had thought his own, a castle he had been forced to surrender without a fight; to have been led there like a child, by the hand, must have seemed double insult. Chinon is a large and formidable castle, one of the appanages of the house of Anjou. It was said of it that only King Henry himself could have brought it under siege, so strong it was, and certainly King Henry must
have felt safe enough there to relax his watch upon the prince. That was his mistake.

  Weary with a long ride and hunt, weary perhaps of having to keep one eye upon his surly son, that night the king went early to rest, fell asleep, and slept soundly and long, a man who boasted that he scarcely needed sleep at all but could ride and hunt and feast and ride again, always on the move, without sign of strain. (And in his youth such a boast was just. Many men had disappeared from Henry’s court, worn thin, worn away by Henry’s constant energy.) Imagine the king’s chagrin next day, his choler, his disbelief, on waking, to find the bed cold, the room empty, where the night before the prince had seemed to sleep, the prince fled and all his companions fled with him.

  The story of how all this was done is tinged with mirth, even though the consequences were grim. During the evening meal, when the king had shown signs of fatigue, or at least what would have been interpreted so in an ordinary man, such as nodding of the head, blurred speech, rubbing of the eyes, the word was passed among the prince’s remaining friends to prepare for a royal flight. In the dim hours before midnight, when in truth all honest men might justly lie abed, one of the prince’s close companions crept to the king’s own door and scratched at it. The guards saw him, of course, but since he came in all innocence, taper in hand, dressed only in his shirt, without his boots, seeming half asleep, they thought him a simple young man anxious to speak on some innocent matter with his master the prince. Unarmed, young, with a face as guileless as his lack of beard, no harm in him, he persuaded them to let him in. That young man was Hue.

  Inside the chamber the prince, who was waiting for him, slid out of bed, where he had been lying motionless as a block of wood. Together, ignoring the royal snores, they knotted the bed covers, slid down from an embrasure to a nearby wall, and hoisted themselves over its battlements. Whence a quick run took them down the outer steps, through castle corridors, snatching food and clothes as they ran.

  “Dear Christ, I’m starved,’’ the prince is said to have complained, his mouth full of capon. “My father is as niggardly with meat as he is generous with companionship.’’

  Hue, who had not eaten or drunk all day, such had been his efforts, his mouth equally stuffed with a ham bone, is reputed to have replied, “Aye, my prince. One you need to live, the other throttles you.’’ And they had both roared at their jest, as young men do.

  In a smaller courtyard the prince’s horses were standing bridled. Squires were waiting to strap on his armor, his spurs. While he armed himself, Hue, anxious that no delay mar his plans, sprang half naked onto his horse and urged it forward into the outer yard, where the castle guard, already alarmed, as well they might be, were gathering uneasily. Determined not to be gainsaid by them, Hue rode against them so furiously that they were obliged to retreat toward a gatehouse. From that safety point they argued, swore, and prevaricated, hoping to gain time until someone of importance should be roused to give them orders what to do. Angered by their insistence, when the prince appeared on horseback, Hue took matters into his own hands. One fast move, for which he was already famed, carried him from his horse onto the back of the captain of the watch, bearing him to the ground. The captain, although in full mail, was taken by surprise. With Hue on top of him, threatening to take off his head with his own sword, the poor man gave the order to wind up the portcullis, the inner gate, and let down the drawbridge beyond.

  This was done. Easy was it, then, for the prince and his entourage to gallop through, the road to Paris beckoning ahead. But easy also for the king and his men to follow in due course. That, too, was something Hue had thought about, and he had devised a plan. With the help of another of the prince’s companions, William, known as the “Marshal,” Hue had kept the exit clear while the prince and his companions had thundered across. Then, as some of the prince’s men hacked at the portcullis ropes, Hue and William together held up the heavy gate with its spiked bars until everyone had scuttled clear. Hue is not as tall as William (who is dubbed a giant, capable, ’tis said, of carrying a horse upon his back), but he is agile and quick. Together, then, he and this William heaved up the gate one last time, let it slip off their shoulders, rolled underneath before it came crashing down. Their squires had already led their horses through. They ran across the drawbridge to the other side of the moat, where the prince still waited for them.

  Hue now began to struggle into his hauberk, while the prince and his men mocked at him, accused him of fleeing from a maiden’s chamber, where her father slept; what maid had Hue seduced this time? His mail half over him, Hue’s head emerged in a mass of curls. He gave a great laugh and, seizing a spear, tied on a strip of red torn from the end of his Sedgemont coat. “This to remember me by,” he cried, “the rape of Chinon.” And he hurled the spear with all his might. It struck the end of the bridge in front of the jammed portcullis gate, and stayed there quivering, with its strip of red. Still laughing, he threw his arm about the prince, and they smote each other on the back like the boys they were at heart; then, spurring hard, they vanished in a cloud of dust.

  By the time the king’s retainers, arguing violently among themselves whose right it was to inform the king, had gone en masse to the royal chamber, huddled together like limpets on a rock, the morning was already come; the prince and his companions were long gone, riding at a gallop across the placid countryside toward the safety of King Louis’s lands. King Henry, rudely awakened, unwashed, unshorn, threw his cloak about him without a word, took the stairs three at a time, and running as lightly as a boy himself, vaulted into the saddle of his horse before his startled groom realized he was awake. But Henry is forty years old; his fresh youth is gone. He has not his son’s laughter or light jest. Grim-mouthed, in royal rage, he whipped his horse toward the gates, those of his guard whom he had not already booted from his path trying to saddle their horses to follow him. The cut ropes, the iron bars of the portcullis, thwarted him, as Hue had intended they should. It is claimed the king was so angry he almost tried to ride the bars down, as if energy alone could hew steel apart.

  On the other side of those bars lay the open drawbridge, spread across the quiet moat, the dusty, empty road, and there, as if still on guard, the spear with its arrogant scrap of red. Well, youth has advantage over age, and plan over surprise. But these were the things Henry could not forgive: the boys’ youth and their careful arrangements, insults these, which Henry’s revenge one day would repay. The third thing was Hue’s laugh. When told of it, the king must have remembered another boy, Hue’s father, Raoul, who years before had laughed in the same way. So although the king did not then know Hue, recalling only vaguely that young hothead who had led the prince astray at Montmirail, and having ignored the prince’s retinue deliberately these past months (a decision Henry was to regret), henceforth Henry was to remember Hue and mark him down. The more so when at last the portcullis ropes were repaired and the king could issue forth, he realized he was too late, not only to get Prince Henry back but to stop his other sons from escaping as well. The revolt of three sons, already rumored by Gervaise, was now substantiated, as was the more serious defiance of his queen. For these reasons alone Henry would not forget the red-haired lad who had laughed at him, especially as in consequence he now had to fight for his life and for his empire, which his sons were trying to break apart.

  I tell all this in detail, although then I do not think all details were known, only enough to set the city ahum with excitement. Not many men fooled Henry of England and lived to speak of it. But, I repeat, such was the rumor: that Prince Henry was already safely on his way to Paris, to be expected within the week, his two brothers and his mother, the queen, close on his heels. But how the prince did arrive, and how Earl Raoul looked in vain for his son Hue, that story will be told in time. For there was one other thing that was news, and true to his word Bernard of Poitou sent us notice of it: how, in anticipation of the arrival of the new English king, another prince came spurring in, the Welsh one, with his six men be
hind him. Unheralded, unlooked for, he was come to demand a new king’s justice. And that was the message my lady dreamed upon.

  Chapter 9

  Whatever King Louis might have felt about Celtic rights or Celtic wrongs (not much, I presume, since he let Henry take Brittany without raising a finger to prevent its loss), and however far off Wales might have seemed, a misty land cowering beneath a mountain weight, Louis was certainly not insensible to the effect of Breton help nor yet disposed to ignore a prince who was reported to have the ability to hold those fickle Bretons in line. Nor, in the final count, was Louis insensible to the promptings of his queen. For Queen Adela’s view of the matter was also heard, and she, like all of Paris, was to become enchanted by the prince, a sign of favor not lost upon the king (even less upon Gervaise of Walran, I may add, whose jealousy now began to reveal itself, perhaps with good cause). Nor was it lost upon Prince Taliesin, who would have scorned to use such favor and certainly never looked for it.