by Mary Lide
She arched her eyebrows and looked at him slantwise. “I thought you knew,” she cried. “Why else imprison him? I speak of Hue.” The king’s look gave him away. Satisfied she had his attention, she hurried on. “He planned your son’s escape; he escorted me. Why should he help us except to help himself? Have you not considered whose son he is?”
Henry cried, “Raoul knighted him last summer; he allowed Hue to join Prince Henry’s household. Hue is the son of the Lady Ann.”
“And the son,” she told him quietly, “who would have killed Raoul for not being the father that he claimed. Raoul has not come for him now, has he?” She leaned forward and pulled at his sleeve, twisting the knife that had been used against her, but in reverse. “Son of that virtuous Lady Ann,” she sneered, “but by whom? If not yours, then Geoffrey Plantagenet’s!”
She let that thought sink in, not the idea of bastardy itself, but the loss of Henry’s trust in a lady he had always in his heart believed. “No doubt,” Eleanor went on after a while, “Ann hid the real facts from you, as from her husband, no need to boast aloud her lover’s name. But think, great king. If Hue is Geoffrey Plantagenet’s get, then he is bastard heir to all of Geoffrey’s lands in Brittany. Why else,” and now her voice did grow low, insistent, “why else, think you, these Breton lords have come to rescue him?”
She looked at him, triumph for a moment darkening her eyes. “Get rid of them, get rid of him; then will your own sons feel safe,” she said. “Then will their revolt be done.”
And so she told him of her plan.
Chapter 13
The queen’s plan was simple, and so she made the king feel. To each of his objections she had an answer pat, so that when he finally said, “But not the little maid, I’ll not have her harmed,” she knew she had caught him fast. And perhaps it was to the king’s credit that at first he demurred, saying he wished to consult with his councillors.
“Very well.” Queen Eleanor rose to leave. “Talk all you wish. You’ll be here until Christmas before they give an answer straight.”
That, too, was true, and so he knew, and since she knew his need for haste, expediency now being the most important thing, she brought him to agree.
First she told him bluntly he would never outfight the Celts; not because he was not strong enough but because shadows cannot be fought with steel. “Bribe the Bretons,” she told him. “Offer them gold from the treasury at Falaise. Give them the border castle of Dol in perpetuity. Tell their leaders, the Viscount of Leon, Ralph de Fougères, and the rest, that they can keep the lands they’ve won—you can always win them back again. And get rid of the Welsh prince who controls them.”
At the king’s quick, appraising glance, she said, “Offer that prince, also, what he wants—a little sentence or two of apology, some Welsh borderlands, which also you can recover at will. And the three hostages his father claims.” She paused for effect.
“Three he wanted, give him three. You have them here: Lord Hue of Sieux, Gervaise of Walran, and the Lady Olwen. And take them back, too. Have them ride under escort, not telling the prince who they are, not telling them why they are being used, and at the time of exchange, plant men before to ambush the prince and seize him with his prisoners.”
She suddenly laughed. “A nice touch,” she said. “A Plantagenet bastard as bait to catch a Welsh prince, what alliance could withstand that plan? Let none of them leave the place alive, prince and his hostages, have done with them.”
That was when the king cried, “I’ll not have the little maid harmed.”
“No,” she soothed. She sighed. “Then let her go. Make it seem as if Taliesin has tricked your men, not you his, and send her at least back to Sieux under escort, as is fit. That way Raoul of Sieux will feel in your debt (if he lives, which I doubt); so shall your promise not to hurt her be kept.”
But the king only smiled, and for a moment his eyes gleamed. “No,” he repeated softly, “I’ll not have her harmed. I’ve plans for her myself.” And he jutted his head forward dangerously, as a bull does, and stared at his wife with his hot gray eyes so there was no mistaking what he meant. Well, there was little she could do about that, then, not having taken his lusts into consideration, save shrug her shoulders and pretend she did not care, but it dimmed her pleasure to be sure. And when after a while he shot his last question at her: “And you, madame, what do you get?” she snapped at him, “Freedom in Poitiers for me and my son,” which was a mistake on her part again, to admit to wanting anything.
I do not know that this is exactly what was said or how it was arranged. I do not say Queen Eleanor thought all would go according to her plan. The difficulty with human affairs, as she well knew, was that at the last moment those humans might change their minds, might grow balky or act too soon, but these possibilities she took into account. For although she planned to use Gervaise as pawn, she did not afterward hesitate to give away to him as much of her plan as she thought he should know, working on his jealousy of Prince Taliesin so that to betray the prince would seem a virtue, twisting things enough so that she would appear a saint, a friend, who wanted to make amends for past wrongs by helping him and the Lady Olwen rescue Hue. It was the prince, she cried, who with the king had agreed to a trade, Falaise freed in return for hostages. So she deceived Gervaise until in the end he agreed that his betrothed and her brother should be used to catch a man he had come to hate. He believed her when she told him he alone had best reason for killing the prince. He believed her when she told him the king would honor him. She never told him, of course, that he, too, was to be used as bait, or that she had no desire to save anyone; what she did not tell him was more important than what she did.
I have said Henry was no fool. He saw the sense of her plan at once, and at once he acted on it. But he had an idea or two of his own, and he did not tell his queen everything. Nor did he give the order to begin until he had, in secret, made one last visit to Hue’s cell. They say he came without fanfare and stood in the shadows, gazing through the iron bars. Hue sat in his accustomed place, his hands bound and taped in front of him. Eagles or hawks sit with such a look when their wings have been clipped. They say the king kept his face covered with a cloak, so he should not be recognized, and there he stood for a long while looking at the young man whose death he now arranged and who reminded him of his own boyhood, until with a sigh, he spun on his heel and went away. But to the Lady Olwen the king came openly, striding up to her where she sat, listless, by the courtyard wall. He looked down at her, royal then in his red and gold, with the lions of England stamped upon his surcoat, his red hair uncovered. “Your offer that you made, lady, is remembered. Prepare now to honor it.” And that, too, was a statement to cause alarm.
The next morning the truce began, a truce flag was raised, and royal courtiers were sent to the Breton camp as had been decided upon. It did not take those Bretons long to accept, the more so that day because for reasons of his own Prince Taliesin was absent from the council, as shall be explained. Over the years Henry had come to know these Breton lords. They were vain-glorious, inconsistent, and distrustful, and their weaknesses were such that he could use them. His bribes of gold, of lands, of castles, set their suspicions flaring—after all, who could say which man had captured which castle alone? In good humor they would have admitted that Taliesin’s insistence had been responsible for a large part of their success and that they owed much to him and his bowmen. Now they began to let their jealousy of him show, afraid that were he there, he might claim more than anyone. In after years, to salve their consciences, they used to swear that the prince was an adventurer, like all the others Brittany has been cursed with, and their loyalty to him, as his to them, had been suspect from the start. All these hidden conflicts Henry’s offer played upon, and since, in the final instance, a fish in a net is worth two in the pond, the Bretons agreed to disband their camp and begin their retreat back to the borders of Brittany and Dol (which many of them now maintained they should never have lef
t).
In this way, shrugging their shoulders over Prince Taliesin’s fate and the fate of his men, they left the prince to find his own way home. (And some of his men did reach their own land. But many more died, caught now between these contending treacheries. The remainder, clinging to the hope that Prince Taliesin would be found alive at Falaise, came there looking for him, an opportunity Henry did not miss. He employed them as mercenaries himself, thus making the Welsh bowmen part of the English defense. But those Welsh soldiers never saw their prince again; the Celtic alliance was broken, and the siege of Falaise ended forthwith.)
I have spoken little of Taliesin these past weeks, although he was so close at hand that sometimes if the Lady Olwen could have cried his name he might even have heard her. Deliberately I have not talked of him. What should be said of him, a warrior, engaged in the greatest exercise of the war, all his energies pinned on it, all his abilities at full pitch, either to hold back the temperamental Bretons or urge them on. Wiser than his years in council, he was, after all, a young man, careful not to offend yet in his own way burning to succeed. If he thought at all of Olwen, he must have imagined her safe at Sieux. But perhaps he did not think of her. Perhaps, like my mistress herself, he kept thought down. In the midst of war and death, personal desire seemed painful, too real, to let intrude upon the present world. What then of Taliesin this momentous day?
The prince was well aware of the treacherous nature of the king. He would suspect some trick when the king’s messenger arrived, the same who had brought the news of the Celt advance and who now carried the news that would drive them away. The poor man sweated in his heavy robes of purple and gold, fidgeting with his staff of office, surrounded by these wild cutthroats, who, he thought, would as soon gut a man as look at him, while Taliesin had him read aloud, carefully, point by point, what the king’s offer was. The message to Taliesin was clear enough. King Henry knew the best way to tell a lie was to speak as much of the truth as can be told, and what he offered must have made the prince feel as if he saw a light at the end of a dark and lonely road. If suddenly he realized that, at last, against all hope, his quest was done, that he could go home honorably to Afron, that he could go honorably to Sieux, well, he may be forgiven his little moment of triumph. And if he never thought ahead—who those hostages were, how he was to get them back, what his father would do with them—having grown used to living day by day, he perhaps had lost the inclination to search the future as carefully as he should. And knowing, as he did, that the king had to break the siege soon, it seemed reasonable this was the way the king would choose.
To the king’s offer then: Henry made no bones that he would not humble himself before a man half his age, for whose country he had only contempt, albeit he had failed to invade it twice. He did admit that his treatment of his hostages had been “over-hasty,” a nice euphemism for killing them. He offered borderlands north of Chester (making of its present overlord another enemy), and finally he suggested hostages of his own in recompense. He did not lie about their status: offspring of a count, an earl, a border lord. He only omitted to give their names, or to explain that one was the lady whom Prince Taliesin wanted, too. He also omitted two other things. The first was that he had resolved to ride with his men himself, and himself rescue the Lady Olwen. The second, of minor significance—he omitted me.
Now why King Henry chose to go out on an expedition of this kind is hard to explain. It may well be that, fretted by inactivity, the idea appealed to him, the more because it was the sort of venture that in his youth he would have enjoyed. Perhaps he feared his queen and, at the last, could not trust her not to try and cheat (as indeed she did, for if she planned for Gervaise to do the rescuing, neither would Henry have the chance to keep the lady as he intended). Perhaps he simply wanted to ensure there was no mistake and that the two men were taken alive and handed over to him. Perhaps he wanted to impress the lady and ensure no blame fell on him. I think beyond all these reasons lay his simple curiosity to see in action this prince who had almost bested him once before. But most of all, it was a personal challenge, to pit his aging strength against youth, which on all sides now appeared to threaten him.
As for me. When Lady Olwen was told to leave, in haste, hurried along while still dark into the main courtyard, where horses and men were prepared; when Gervaise rode up on his bay horse, his forehead furrowed, his cheeks wet with sweat, although the day was young; when Hue was led out, nay, dragged, toward a horse, how could I be left behind? The soldiers had bid my lady ride astride, no hardship for her, and enveloped her in a long heavy cloak such as soldiers wear, with a hood drawn low to hide her face, so that she was indistinguishable from the men. Gervaise was dressed in the same way, so were all who were to accompany us, we, of course, having no idea of what was planned, and Gervaise knowing only snatches of it. But when Hue was hoisted upon his horse, his half-stifled cry as they thrust the reins into his broken fingers gave me the chance to dash forward and offer to lead him. They laughed, threw me up in front, and told me to ride instead. “God’s mercy,” behind me I heard Hue groan, part in anguish, part mockery, “the manikin to take me by the hand.” But when I leaned against him and he felt the outline of my little sword (which I had thrust, unbeknownst to anyone, beneath my shirt), then he laughed no more.
We clattered out of the main gate openly, a flag of truce borne in front of us, six Norman soldiers in line, all cloaked and hooded over their mail, we in the middle, then six more behind, fitting escort for a delivery of prisoners under treaty. But when we had gone down the steep incline and come within the edge of the woods, where today no one waited for us, the spearmen, bowmen, Celtic outposts, all withdrawn as the Bretons leaders had agreed, in the thick underbrush we found more of the king’s men waiting, positioned there secretly, at night, ready to set the ambush that would surround Prince Taliesin.
Behind me in line rode the Lady Olwen, her horse led along by a Norman knight. Terrified at what this activity meant, obviously relieved that Hue was not to be killed on the spot, my lady said not a word, biting her tongue to keep her anxieties to herself, hoping against hope perhaps that Hue would be freed, never for a moment imagining that she would see Prince Taliesin, and never in such wise. But her looks at her brother were eloquent, to comfort and reassure him. She had not ventured into the cells since that first day, not wanting to impose her presence upon him; and the way he threw back his head, as if scenting out the fresh air, the morning dews, all the summer day beginning to brighten around us, made her begin to think her prayers were to be answered. Cruel was that king to have planned such a trap.
In front of us rode Lord Gervaise astride his own horse. Although like the rest of us he wore heavy cloak and hood, I noted his nervousness at once, unlike any I had seen in him; he fingered his sword hilt as if estimating how long it would take him to unsheathe it. What he had been told by then I did not know, but something he knew, to make his round, innocent face withdraw into its hood with a peaked look, and his blue eyes, what glimpse I caught of them, seem hunted, almost furtive.
Hue noticed, too. “What devilry?” he muttered in my ear, and shifted himself so that the blade of my knife was within reach. And well he did. For having advanced out of sight of the castle walls, to the wood’s edge, the Norman escort stopped in their tracks. At a sign from their hooded captain, they showed their true intent. Wordless, they bound our wrists and thrust gags into our mouths, efficiently and fast. They did this to all of us, even Gervaise, whom they also disarmed (I suspect he had not expected that), but at least I had time to hiss to Hue to remember the Cambray men still abroad, and to begin to whistle the bird’s call, before they thrust the thong into my mouth.
Their captain gave a sign, and again we moved forward, silently now, toward the meeting place. It had been well chosen, for Henry knew Falaise and its hunting grounds. A rocky defile, ridged with trees, it lay east of the castle, on the side where the Celts had previously kept but scanty watch, having judged the spo
t a barrier of itself. It was far enough from the castle not to seem dangerous, inside the perimeter that the Celts had kept so that we did not appear to be trying to escape, and our main escort was small to be in keeping with its purpose. (And afterward we learned that in his thorough way, Henry had ordered a feint be made to the south by the rest of his household cavalry from Falaise, to draw away what might remain of the Celtic troops and to keep them occupied at this time.)
The path wound in and out, following the course of a wood-land stream that presently, as the gulley steepened, began to fall in short cascades, widening at the foot of two ridges into a deep pool. On either side wooded slopes spread to contain a kind of scooped-out hollow, long and flat, although hemmed in with trees. And on the southern rim Henry’s ambushers began to filter out, slipping silently among the thick underbrush, waiting until Prince Taliesin appeared. And thither now we descended the rocky path, we four prisoners gagged and bound, almost blinded by those heavy hoods, the bait with which the trap was to be set.
Almost all of us, that is. Beneath the folds of thick cloth, I felt Hue reach cautiously for the edge of my knife. I cannot explain to you with what agony his wrists and hands had already been tied, nor how with exquisite pain he now untied them, rubbing the edge of the thongs back and forth against the knife, the blade itself, by turns, slipping and digging against my backbone, so that in the end we were both streaked with blood from a score of cuts. Nor can I explain with what careful, drawn-out, torturous effort he untied the gag in my mouth. I felt him shake with it, as, at each turn in the path, or curve, he tore at the knots with his bleeding nails, or forced his fingers to bend and move, all beneath that heavy cloak so that no one saw. But it was done; I could speak and yell, and his broken hands were locked about the hilt of the knife, all done before we plunged down that last incline in a slide of stones. And there, at the far end of the open space, Prince Taliesin was waiting for us.