The Wolf at the Door

by The Wolf at the Door (retail) (epub)

  Men yelled at him to hurry before the French made their sortie from the tower, and two of the knights caught hold of him, hustling him towards the narrow central bridge. Still in the southern bailey, he wrenched himself free and stood blinking amid the pools of rainwater, the hissing wreckage of fire-balls, the snapped and angled shafts of a thousand arrows. Then, when the yard was empty of all living defenders, he unbuckled his sword-belt and let the strap and weapon fall to the ground. He would join his garrison in the keep and tell them that the siege was not yet over. But he would accept his own personal defeat here, within sight of the gate he had just abandoned.

  * * *

  After that it was a matter of time. So anxious were the defenders to gain the safety of the keep that they left the central bridge intact. The invaders waited until the last of the garrison had fled, then emerged from the chapel tower. Risking death from the flints and arrows that still riddled the open ground, they dashed across the bridge and lifted the massive gate bars from their rests. Then they cavorted in the entranceway, shouting as they identified themselves in their shifts and rabbit-skin shoes.

  An hour later, Philip’s army had taken possession of all but the innermost yard and the corrugated keep. Siege-machines had been brought up the zig-zag path and were already at work, using the stones of Gaillard against itself.

  On 27th February French miners began tunnelling into the base of the keep, shoring the tunnel as they went. By 4th March they were deep enough in for their purpose and withdrew, having first smeared the props with pitch and set them alight. That same evening the weakened tunnel collapsed, bringing down a wedge-shaped section of the wall. An assault force of knights and nobles waited until dawn, then hacked their way into the breach.

  On 6th March 1204 the castle that Richard Lionheart had claimed he could defend if it were made of butter, the castle that King John had said would outlast them all, this finest of border chateaux, surrendered to Philip Augustus.

  It had been built to stand for ever, insolent and impregnable, and was now not quite seven years old.

  * * *

  At Rouen, it was as though the twin had died. Marshal and Briouze each reacted in his own way, the older man limping off to the privacy of his quarters, Briouze threatening to lead the entire garrison of the city – now! – and trap the French king – now! – within the walls of his new-won fortress.

  But he did not implement his threat, aware that the garrison lacked everything necessary for an attack. Where the catapults and mangonels, the supplies of shafts and quarrels, the tents and hoardings? And more than that, where the fighting spirit of these military refugees? Most of them had abandoned their own castles and sought sanctuary at Rouen, and what little determination was left had been channelled into the defence of the city. The garrison did not want to attack, whatever the prize. They were conditioned by too many defeats, too many shameful memories. Let the French come to them and they’d fight the enemy toe-to-toe. But they were no longer interested in sniffing out a battle.

  When they had recovered from the shock, the joint commanders made ready to withstand the greater impact of a full-scale assault. It could come at any time, for less than ten miles separated Rouen from its fallen twin. A break in the weather; that seemed the most likely portent.

  So the warlords were intrigued when ten days of clear spring skies failed to reveal the French army on the hills. But they were far more mystified by the reports that began to come in. King Philip had garrisoned Château Gaillard, and the army was striking camp… It was on the move, though not directly towards Rouen… It was travelling due west and well beyond sight of the city…

  ‘They’re circling,’ Briouze commented. ‘They’ll get around behind us, so Philip can tell them-we stand between them and their homeland. That’s what he’ll do. He’ll encourage his troops to destroy us on their way back to France.’

  Marshal had nothing better to offer, and they waited to hear that the enemy had turned north and crossed the Seine. When that happened the alarm bells would be rung.

  But the patrols reported otherwise. The army had reached Brionne, fifteen miles from the city, and was continuing westward… Then it had turned, not towards Rouen, but in the direction of Argentan, a further fifty miles to the south…

  ‘It seems,’ Marshal said, ‘that King Philip has an aversion for this place. It’s the second time he’s ignored us.’

  ‘But why, when we had his breath on our necks? I mean no discourtesy, though I doubt that even your reputation—’

  ‘No,’ Marshal agreed drily, ‘not even mine would terrify a king and his army. But I think I see what he’s about.’ He reached down to massage his stiffened leg. It ached constantly these days, and he had taken to sleeping with a heated stone against his knee. A poor substitute, he acknowledged, for Isabel de Clare.

  ‘Yes, I can guess at his plan. And if I’m right, we shall one day surrender the city without a blow being struck.’

  ‘Not whilst I command it!’ Briouze retorted. ‘And I did not expect to hear you, of all men—’

  ‘Nor did I, William, not until today. But think on this. We’ve been left alone for a reason, isolated if you will, ignored in favour of weaker citadels and less stubborn forts. But what’s to happen when all Normandy has fallen to the French, as I fear it must? Rouen will be left, with the enemy camped in the fields, and our grain barrels hollow to the fist. We are a magnified version of Gaillard and, although Roger Lacy managed to evict his civilians, we can hardly expel the thousands from here. King Philip has no need to force us out. Our appetites will do the job for him.’

  ‘Unless King John brings an English army to our aid.’

  Marshal nodded, but only out of affection for Briouze.

  * * *

  The story was told of a rider whose horse trod on a sharp stone, reared and threw him. The dazed man picked himself up, examined the animal’s hoof and was kicked in the head for his troubles. As he staggered backwards he tripped over the coping of a bridge and fell into the river. He was about to drown when he felt firm ground beneath his feet. But the ground was really the back of a great fish, which swallowed him. The moral: that misfortune loves company.

  It was to prove true for the Earl of Pembroke. Château Gaillard had fallen, the fate of Rouen was as good as sealed, and now he received the heartbreaking news that his friend and patroness, the dowager Queen Eleanor, lay dying at Fontevrault.

  It might perhaps be a welcome release, for the woman who had once been Queen of France and later Queen of England was eighty-two years old, far beyond the normal span.

  She and Marshal had exchanged many letters over the years, but the note that was brought to him at Rouen had been written by a clerk. Nevertheless, the tone was unmistakably hers.

  ‘I hear that Richard’s Insolent Castle has lost its smile. It was the last enduring monument to my son, though I am not stricken by the loss. You could not save it, my dear Marshal, so I have long accepted that it could not be saved.

  ‘The mothers and sisters of this Order are too brighteyed for my liking, and it pleases them to blame my illness on the winter. I know they are wrong, but we humour each other and chirrup like birds in a tree.

  ‘I shall not ask John to visit me. He has not done so since he, and you, rescued me from Mirebeau, and he would only come in order to apprize my wealth. He shall have it, less what I have set aside for the Abbey, and I pray that he spends it on something other than boots. Did you know he once owned twenty-seven pairs, and that each was higher in the heel? I have often wondered what difference it would have made to things, had he matched his elder brother in height and stature. Most likely none, for they had nothing in common but the colour of their hair.

  ‘The defence of Rouen must be your paramount concern, William Marshal, though I admit I listen for your footsteps. Are you as lean and foreign-skinned as ever, or have you grown pale with the worries of our shrinking kingdom? I hope not, for you looked well as the only Arab at court.


  ‘If there is no risk in a visit to Fontevrault, come and see me. But if you cannot, hide the truth. Say you will be here before long, and I shall keep my ears pricked and have wine put by.

  ‘I ask God’s blessing on you, Marshal, as I have always done. And you must do as much for me.’

  She signed herself simply, ‘Aliénor d’Aquitaine’.

  The warlord discussed the request with Briouze, who agreed that he should not only hasten to Queen Eleanor, but go on from Fontevrault to England. ‘The king himself may not be inspired by your presence, Earl Marshal, but with luck you’ll rally the barons. Tell them that Rouen can hold out for – how long was it we said?’

  ‘Two months, under siege.’

  ‘For two months, and that they’ll have the chance to rout the entire French army.’ With a grim smile, Briouze added, ‘The irony is that although King John will listen more readily to me, the barons won’t listen to him. One day, perhaps, and for the sake of Rouen it had better be soon, we shall all pay heed to each other. Meantime, do what you can to enliven our peers.’

  They bade farewell and embraced, and Marshal left his pock-marked companion to hold the citadel, as Roger Lacy had once held its twin.

  Of the thirty or so knights who had ridden from Pembroke a year before, eighteen had survived to keep him companythe journey south. They were lightly armed, and planned to run from the first signs of trouble. Their target was the Abbey of Fontevrault, not a skirmish with a French patrol.

  But they were halted anyway, within a few miles of Mortagne, and the escort remained at a discreet distance while their suzerain heard what the lone messenger had to say. The man handed him something, then turned and rode back the way he had come, leaving Marshal to dismount and limp from the path, his face buried in his hands. He was gone a long time and, when he returned, the escort noticed that he had discarded his spurs in favour of another pair, these of silver.

  The riders turned westward, towards Barfleur and England. Towards the court of King John and the earldom of Pembroke. Towards their families, and away from the lands in which they and not the French were called enemy.

  * * *

  And in England they discovered that the barriers were up. John and Isabelle were in mourning for Eleanor, though it was rumoured that they used onions to embroider their grief. True or not, they were inconsolable, and refused to attend any further councils-of-war. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, was gravely ill, and so, deprived of the leaders of the Church and State, the majority of the barons had returned to their fiefs.

  Those few who could be cornered told much the same tale; whether friend or critic of the king, they insisted that the situation had changed with the fall of Château Gaillard. Before that, yes, they had been willing to join an army of liberation, and help drive the French out of all the overseas dominions. But now things were different. If Château Gaillard could be taken, then the French must be invincible, and it made better sense to defend the island itself than risk annihilation in some Norman wasteland. ‘There’ll be an invasion, Marshal, no question of that. But it will have Philip’s flag at the masthead.’

  And the people of Rouen? Will you send a message of hope to them?’

  ‘I’d tell them to join us here, that’d be my message. In the greatest natural stronghold in the West. Let’s see the French make a ladder long enough to reach the top of an English cliff!’

  ‘A good point,’ Marshal said bitterly, ‘though it did not quite deter Duke William, the man they called the Conqueror.

  But his efforts were to no avail. The castle gates had been bolted, the windows shut tight. Let the French come to them, and they’d fight the enemy toe-to-toe… That again, and this time on the very doorstep…

  On 24th June, William of Briouze surrendered the citadel of Rouen; as Marshal had said, without a blow being struck. On the other side of Normandy, Falaise capitulated.

  Six weeks later the French king accepted the keys of Poitiers. The rest of the country was already in the capable hands of the Lusignan brothers, Hugh’s brown hair streaked with grey, Ralf’s nose disjointed where Marshal had crushed it at Mirebeau.

  Tours fell. And, in the summer of 1205, the fortresses of Loches and Chinon and all of Touraine.

  The Loire valley now played host to France. Anjou and Maine were overrun, and it only remained for the French army to link up with their allies in Brittany. They did so the following spring, though were unable to tell the Bretons what they most wanted to know – the whereabouts of their liege-lord, the arrogant young Arthur. It was a mystery, and it needed to be solved.

  Meanwhile, England crouched on the cliff-top, honing its blade and watching for the fish.

  Chapter Eight

  Wolf at the Door

  July 1208–August 1213

  If the weather was fine, as today, Marshal and his family spent the last hours of daylight outside the walls of Pembroke. More often than not they left their horses in the stables and strolled alongside the estuary, or walked the three miles over the hills to visit their neighbours in the great coastal fortress of Manorbier.

  Its castellan, Gerard de Barri, was just eighteen days younger than Marshal and, at sixty-three, never tired of deferring to ‘my more experienced friend’. In return, Marshal enjoyed prefacing a story with the reminder that ‘this was probably before your time’. Harmless banter between men who had known each other for twenty years, and liked what they knew. Fortunately, Isabel de Clare got along well with the Lady Nesta, and the children of Pembroke with the offspring of Manorbier.

  Situated in the most westerly shire of England, and all but severed from it by the restless principality of Wales, the two families were at a remove from the intrigues of court. Nevertheless, both men made regular visits to Oxford or Canterbury or Windsor, gave their advice if it was asked for, then returned home at the first opportunity. The heavy-set Gerard de Barri had once been secretary and tutor to the young Prince John, but it was Marshal who remained in demand. Four or five times a year he was summoned by the king, and on each occasion he found John more nervous, more overbearing, more suspicious of those around him. And with good cause, for he was making enemies as assiduously as a baker makes loaves.

  Two years had passed since the fall of the overseas dominions, and in that time the king had managed to alienate the majority of his barons, scandalize the court, and engage in a personal vendetta with the head of the Christian Church, Pope Innocent III.

  The planned invasion of the lost territories had foundered for lack of support, and the nobility were still anchored to their fiefs, embittered by the taxes that had been levied upon them. They were convinced that the king’s demands were fraudulent. What he really wanted was to impoverish them; to force them to sell their lands, then come begging to the court, tugging at his sleeve.

  The Church had more dramatic reasons for concern, for thanks to King John they had just been put out of business.

  The problem had arisen with the death of Marshal’s contemporary, Hubert Walter. The monks of Canterbury, privileged to choose the next Archbishop, had elected their prior, a rotund and easy-going man named Reginald.

  But King John had other ideas, and foisted his own candidate, John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich.

  Both men hurried to Rome to seek the blessing of the young Pope, only to find that Innocent III also had someone in mind. An Englishman, to be sure, but one who had studied in Paris and preached throughout Italy. His name was Stephen Langton, and he counted the Pope as his most intimate friend.

  The dispute had dragged on for almost three years. King John had scorned Reginald as ‘that fat favourite of Canterbury’, and denied all knowledge of Langton. The Pope had also brushed aside the corpulent prior and rejected John de Grey as ‘the king’s key to the offertory boxes of England’.

  The dispute had turned rancorous. John sent a group of his loyal barons to evict the monks of Canterbury and seize its considerable treasury. The action was dangerously akin to his father’s tre
atment of Thomas Becket, though the monks had the good sense to leave without a fight.

  Pope Innocent was aghast. He’d had dealings with John before, and had reprimanded him a dozen times at least for his malevolence towards the English clergy. He warned John to desist, or risk the sanctions that only Rome could impose. John laughed in the emissary’s face and issued a warning of his own.

  ‘I know little of your Pope, and care less. Added to which, I know nothing of his nominee, save that Langton did all his learning in France, our enemy’s land, and all his teaching in Rome. On the day we seek an outsider as primate of England, we shall let you know. Until then, Langton would be advised to stay away.’

  Later, with mock astonishment, he told his companions, ‘Word’s getting around. Now all the foreigners are trying to invade us!’

  But his comments brought no smiles to the lips of the papacy, and they issued the first terrible sanction against England. Unless John submitted, and allowed Stephen Langton to occupy his rightful place as Archbishop of Canterbury, the kingdom would be denied religious protection. In short, the Pope would proclaim an interdict, and bar the people from their God.

  It had been the prime topic of conversation at Pembroke and Manorbier, for the interdict was now three months old, and the people of the isolated shire went in terror of their souls.

  * * *

  The chuchyards were in impeccable condition, for they had now become the aisle and the altar. But the doors were locked, the candles snuffed, the relics draped as though to hide them from the shame.