THE EARL (A HAMMER FOR PRINCES)

by Cecelia Holland

  “Morgan, I’m going to find Rannulf.”

  Morgan waved to him. Fulk walked along the edge of the meadow toward Chester’s camp, watching the melee. The dust hung over everything in a thick cloud; from it came shouts and the crack of swords and the neighing of horses, but he could see only dim shapes twisting and lunging back and forth. A knight burst out of the cloud, grabbed a lance from his squire, and turned to fling himself back again. From the trees over Fulk’s head came the cheers of women.

  Rannulf was drinking a cup of Chester’s ale and watching the squires pack away his armor and unsaddle his horse. He saw Fulk and looked quickly down at his feet and his ears turned pink. “Hello, my lord.”

  “Fulk,” Chester said. “Come to reclaim your heir?”

  “I’m assuming he has reclaimed himself, my lord.”

  A splintering crash behind him whirled him around to face the melee. Chester shouted wordlessly. Two horses were down, thrashing, only a few yards from Fulk. One of the knights had jumped clear, but the other lay half under his horse. Its wide pale belly heaved and bounced across the knight’s body. Through its left foreleg the cannon bone showed, ragged-edged. The horse struggled to stand up and fell back and the knight screamed. Chester began to swear. Two squires rushed out and with one at the horse’s head and the other at its rump helped the horse to stand. On three legs, it stood trembling violently, above its rider, its whole body coated with dust and sweat and blood. Several other squires raced over to help the fallen man.

  "Our Lady,” Rannulf said softly.

  The squires got the hurt man’s arms over their shoulders and carried him away. Fulk did not recognize him and when he looked inquiringly at Chester he shrugged and turned away. The horse stood spraddle-legged, holding the broken foreleg carefully off the ground.

  “A shame,” Fulk said. “That’s a fine horse.”

  Another squire came up to the horse, patted it, talked to it, and bent over the bad leg. A little pool of blood was forming under the upraised hoof. Beyond the horse the fighting surged back and forth through the screams and the dust cloud.

  “Come back to camp,” Fulk said to Rannulf.

  “Remember you must pay me twenty marks,” Chester shouted.

  Fulk started back around the fighting. Rannulf walked beside him, his shoulders hunched. “You weren’t hurt, were you?” Fulk said.

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong? You can still fight. I’ll lend you the bay horse. What happened?”

  Rannulf turned away. “He drew me out of line and knocked me down. I hardly even struck a blow. Thierry took two ransoms. Did you hear?”

  “No. That’s his art, he should excel at it.”

  “I wish I’d struck him one good blow.”

  “Wait until the next fight. Did you learn anything?” He pulled Rannulf out of the way of a galloping horse.

  “Yes,” Rannulf said. “Not what I would have wanted to know.” He gave Fulk a sharp look and walked off ahead of him.

  Fulk grunted, irritated; he had thought that Rannulf was outgrowing his love of poses. He followed him into the camp.

  Leicester was there. He came forward and took Fulk by the arm and drew him aside. “The king’s army is approaching. He’ll reach Wallingford tonight. The prince wants us to go back to Crowmarsh.”

  “Is he going?”

  “Yes. He says the tournament may go on, but some of us must go back.” Leicester glanced around him. In a lower voice, he said, “The bishop will meet with Chester tomorrow morning. He says the king will agree. What do you think of it? Have we done it?”

  Rannulf was watching them. Fulk moved to one side, so that Leicester’s body screened him from his son. “Yes. They are all behind it, and unless someone betrays us to the prince I don’t think he can deny us—we will give him the solution and force him to accept it before he can divide us up.”

  Leicester had not been fighting; he wore leather breeches and a linen shirt and in all the dust and noise looked like a stranger. He said, “But if he should learn of it, you think he could—”

  “He won’t find out.” Rannulf was staring at them. “I fought your son, my lord. God is my witness, whoever trained him should be proud.”

  Leicester smiled. “I did. He’s cool-headed enough, isn’t he? And the arm on him amazes me.”

  “If he had a better horse—”

  “Oh, he likes that horse, he says it may be slow in turning but it’s stout enough to withstand any charge. You didn’t beat him, did you?”

  “We were separated. Tell him I enjoyed it and hoe to meet him again. We should go.”

  “Yes. Meet me at the crossroads.” Leicester waved his hand north and went off.

  “What did he want?” Rannulf said. Morgan had given him cheese and bread and a cup of wine.

  “The king’s army is coming. He and I and the prince are going back to Wallingford. You can stay—use my chestnut to fight, if you want, but be careful with him.”

  Rannulf was staring at him, his brows lowered so that they nearly met over his nose. Fulk shook his head and went off to get into his clothes, calling to Morgan to saddle up a riding horse for him.

  Prince Henry had ordered some of his men to camp on the far side of the river from Crowmarsh, near the gates of Wallingford, and Fulk and Leicester sent out scouts in pairs to patrol the road to the west. At sundown, the scouts came galloping back, shouting that they had seen the vanguard of the king’s army, and Prince Henry sent to his men across the river to withdraw back into the main camp.

  The tournament had ended. With the scouts still calling their news, every man in the prince’s army with nothing else to do rushed to the bank of the river to watch the king ride up. They lined the north side of the river from Crowmarsh and the burned fields opposite it to the clump of trees where Fulk had met the Bishop of Winchester. Many of them stood to their hips in the water, and all of them were shouting with excitement. Fulk and the other lords rode up and down behind the long, thick mass of men, and like them watched the fields on the far side of the river.

  The twilight deepened. A cool evening breeze rose out of the east. The broad plain across the river stretched empty to the trees at the horizon. On the walls of Wallingford, hundreds of people stood in the growing dark, and from the battlement of Crowmarsh Castle the king’s banners stretched out on the ripening wind. The army massed along the riverbank had quieted down, enough that Fulk could hear the crickets in the fields. He turned his horse and rode east, behind the lines of his men.

  “There! There!”

  The hoarse shout rose and broadened, and all along the river the army strained forward. In the dim light, the plain seemed empty as before. But all along its western and southern edge, banners and lances moved, hard to see at first among the trees, but quickly separate; horns blew, and toward them over the flat ground rode the vanguard of the king’s army.

  “It’s too late to fight them now,” Thierry said, behind Fulk. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

  Fulk looked over his shoulder at him. He had not heard Thierry ride up. He was wearing a collar of filthy scarves and ribbons, prizes taken from the lances of the men he had beaten in the tournament. Fulk turned straight again.

  The army had fallen quiet. There was no sound except the feeble cheering of the garrison of Crowmarsh, and, beneath that, the dim beat of hoofs. The king’s vanguard scattered over the field; a troop of them loped their horses down to the river and let them drink. They stared out from behind the nosepieces of their helmets at the men massed across the narrow strip of water.

  “Flemings,” Fulk said. “William d’Ypres’s men.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Mark how the girths on their saddles cross.”

  Thierry said nothing. Fulk pulled his horse’s head up and rode down the line, watching the field across it fill up with men. He felt Thierry follow him, but before he could wonder about it, horns in a wild chorus shrilled, at the far end of the king’s field.

  �
�Here he comes.”

  The horns blasted without pausing. The Flemings opposite Fulk twisted in their saddles to look back. All across the dark field men rode back toward the road they had come on. A little group of horsemen was galloping toward the river, coming from the road, and the Flemings gathered in a circle around them, like the shell around an egg. Banners rustled in the dark. At a hard gallop the little group of men crossed the field to the river, a hundred yards down from Fulk, and slowed their horses and let them drink.

  Rannulf rode up beside Fulk and Thierry. “The king,” he said. “God grant he doesn’t see me here.”

  "It’s a little dark to recognize you, don’t you think?” Fulk said, angry.

  Rannulf and Thierry looked at each other. Fulk rode away from them. The king, surrounded by his officers and his earls and his Flemings, rode at a walk along the riverbank, staring through the darkness at the men across from him. Fulk spurred his horse into the midst of the knights in front of him, forcing them to part and let him through, and rode down to the edge of the water, where the king could not help but see him.

  In the late twilight, the king’s gray horse shone blue. He wore mail, with a white surcoat over it worked with silver, and a short cloak thrown back over his shoulders. Fulk had seen him last in chains, after the battle of Lincoln, harnessed in chains like a bull. He was surprised to find himself so eager. Not my king, he thought, which made no difference.

  They rode up even with him: he saw York and—to his amazement—the Earl of Oxford, of course William d’Ypres, and the king’s son, Eustace, tall and broad-shouldered as his father. They paused, and the king looked across the smooth water at Fulk and threw his head back. For a moment Fulk thought he would speak, but after a pause the king rode on. The men around Fulk burst out in excited talk.

  Prince Eustace held back. “Stafford,” he called. “I’ll look for you, Stafford, don’t run when you see me in battle.” He gave a harsh laugh and cantered his horse after his father.

  Fulk reined around and rode up through his men to the higher ground. Tomorrow in the morning Chester would talk to Winchester—all to make Chester feel important, because everything was settled. Winchester had arranged it all, even that they were to confront the prince tomorrow, when the prince would certainly call a council to discuss the battle to be fought with the king. “Demand of him then that he accept our agreement,” Winchester had written, kingmaker to the end.

  Rannulf and Thierry were talking, their horses shoulder to shoulder. After Fulk had left the tournament, Rannulf had fought three times and although he had taken no one prisoner, he had not been captured again, either. He and Thierry turned and looked at him. Fulk gave them only a glance and rode away. When this was done, he would have leisure enough to deal with Thierry. and now he knew how. The moon was rising in the east, and he put his face toward it and rode back to his camp.

  "I cannot believe that you have come so far simply to betray me,” the prince said. His square face was turning purple; his hands plucked furiously at the paper on the table before him. “I will not do it! I will not do it!”

  Fulk, standing near the center o the crescent of barons facing him, noticed with a cool mind that surprised him how the prince’s pale eyes shone. No one spoke. Gorgeous in blue and silver satin, in silver fox fur, the Bishop of Winchester cleared his throat but did not speak.

  “Not now,” Henry said. “Not now, I will not do it now—are you all traitors? Is none of you honest? By God’s Passion, I will not endure it.”

  His nostrils flared, and his bright eyes stabbed at each of them in turn. Suddenly he leaped up from his stool and put both hands to his hair as if he meant to tear it. He stamped his foot. “No. No.”

  Fulk lowered his head to hide his smile. Beside him, Leicester shifted his weight from foot to foot, and beside Leicester, the bishop spoke at last.

  “My lord, it is the will of our loyal men that—”

  “My loyal men would bring me no such plan as this.”

  “That no more blood need be shed over—”

  “Hereford, my lord, do you consent to this?”

  “I do, my lord,” Clare of Hereford said calmly.

  “Traitor.”

  Hereford shrugged. Winchester took a step forward. “My lord, we have all agreed to it. Even the king—”

  “He is not the king. I am England’s lawful king. Even you admit it in this—this—” Henry snatched up the paper and wave it at them. But the high color was fading from his face; Fulk thought he would have to age somewhat before he could maintain such a rage for long. “You admit he is not the king.”

  “He is the king,” Winchester said. His voice grew steadier and more confident. “He is the anointed king of England, and a man, a mere man, defies him to the peril of his soul. For our souls, we want an honorable and lawful settlement of these wars, not a conquest.”

  “No,” Henry said, and now his face was dead white. “You cannot want a conquering king.”

  “My lord,” Leicester said suddenly, “nor can you wish to be one. The Great King came as a conqueror, and I mark that in those circumstances lies the root of all the wickedness that has come upon us in the last twenty years—that the Great King was no lawful king, but a conqueror. Do you, my lord, wish to pass on to your heirs such a gift as that?”

  “Fah,” the prince said. “Do you date speak law to me?”

  Leicester stiffened. “Sir, when you are gray as I am, you might presume to speak to me of law.”

  The semicircle of barons clapped and called out, “Yes, yes, spoken truly,” and nodded at the prince, who sat down again on his stool. His right hand clenched and opened again, trembling.

  “Mark you,” Leicester said, in a high, stiff voice. “All our law refuses us the right to take our own vengeance—our claims we must submit to litigation, or become outlaws. What is this war against the king but your vengeance? You are not beyond the law, and we will hold you to it, now that a just settlement can be made.”

  “But can it be made? You, Bishop, does your brother wish to treat with me? Tell me honestly.”

  “He will treat with you,” Winchester said firmly.

  “Does he wish to?”

  “His supporters wish him to. He will treat with you.”

  “So he is betrayed, like me.”

  Fulk said, “My lord, it cannot be treason to keep the law. This campaign has accomplished what we wished, to make the king realize that he must bend to the will of the kingdom.”

  “That is not what I wished.”

  The prince stared at him; Fulk met his eyes and saw in the abrupt tightening of the prince’s face that he understood what Fulk intended. Henry leaned forward heavily on the table. “But my will is not to be done, obviously.”

  Leicester said, “The king’s will is the good of the kingdom.”

  Henry did not answer. He looked slowly down the semicircle, from face to face, his hands knotted on the table before him. Under his fists the paper lay that Winchester, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the earls and barons of both sides had signed and sealed. Until the prince and King Stephen signed it, the paper meant nothing, Fulk thought, and an instant later he thought that it meant far more without their signatures.

  “Very well,” Henry said coldly. “I shall deal with this . . . brother of yours, my lord Bishop. But I shall not trespass against my honor, not one whit, in doing so. And if this should fail, the whole of England shall know who is responsible.”

  The bishop bowed; all his satin crinkled softly. “It will be my object and that of Theobald of Canterbury not to fail, my lord.”

  “When shall I speak with him? Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow, we believe, you ought to proclaim a truce between you—the king is willing to that, to allow us the next few months to negotiate.”

  “Old men’s work,” the prince said. “Wait. A truce. If I am not to have Wallingford—” He stood up again. “Stamford is in rebellion against me, am I to allow that to go unpunished,
for the sake of this truce?”

  “No, no, no.” Both hands raised, the bishop smiled and bowed again. “The siege of Wallingford shall end. The truce exists merely to keep you and my lord Stephen from fighting one another. In all the kingdom there is sufficient disorder to occupy you both for several years.”

  “Truce,” Henry said, mouthing it.

  Nobody spoke. Fulk’s stomach began to growl, and beside him Leicester laughed softly at it. Fulk pressed his hand against his belly.

  “Go,” Henry said. “I have agreed to it, have I not? What are you standing there for, staring? Go away. Leave me alone.”

  They rushed toward the door. For a moment no one could get out because of the mob, but at last they sorted themselves out and filed through the door into the gloom of the late afternoon. The sky was overcast; occasionally rain tapped on the roofs of the tents around them.

  “Excellent,” Derby said. He pumped Leicester’s hand. “You spoke so powerfully, my lord—I was much moved.”

  “Indeed,” said Winchester. “You alone won him, Robert.”

  The other men crowded around Leicester, stroking him with words. Winchester started toward his escort, the three knights and the clerk who waited around a small fire some way away. Fulk ran a few strides to catch up with him.

  “It was not Leicester,” Winchester said. “It was all of you, that you did not falter. He has a bad temper, that young man. Unattractive in a boy and vile in a king.”

  “He has a quick wit, too. I cannot believe that King Stephen took it all sweetly.”

  “Not the king. Prince Eustace. Stephen as he ages is giving up more and more to Eustace. Who is, my lord, fully the equal of your prince.”

  “You don’t know Henry well, I think.”

  “I hope to know him better.”

  “Yes. I saw Oxford with the king last night.”

  “I needed him there. He and de Luci are the finest of them, I think, and regard this agreement with favor. As for others, certain of them swear they will never accept Henry as king. William Peverel and the Earl of York.”