The King's Spies

by Simon Beaufort

  ‘He knows I am aware of my duty,’ said Geoffrey, anticipating what was coming next. He was not mistaken.

  Henry jerked his dark curls at the knights who rode in a protective circle around him. ‘You saw for yourself that the men who guard me are less than adequate. Can I persuade you to leave Tancred and join me? There are very few Jerosolimitani who are English born, and it seems a pity to see them in the service of foreign princes.’

  ‘You have good men here,’ said Geoffrey, aware that they were listening. ‘They will serve you better than I could.’

  ‘An ambiguous reply,’ said Henry, smiling at the implication that Geoffrey’s services would be found lacking if he was forced to abandon Tancred. ‘But consider my offer well, Geoffrey. I would like the prestige of a Jerosolimitanus in my court, and would pay handsomely for it. I know you own Rwirdin manor, but it is a paltry place and too close to the rebellious Welsh. There are better estates in my power to give loyal retainers.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Geoffrey, wishing the King would accept that he had already vowed allegiance to Tancred, and was not in the habit of breaking his word because he was offered a few farmhouses and a field of sheep. ‘But I cannot break my oath.’

  ‘Geoffrey the Loyal,’ said the King, a little too caustically for Geoffrey’s liking. ‘Still, you cannot blame me for trying. I like the way you remain faithful to Tancred, even though you have better offers elsewhere. Good knights are not easy to find, especially ones with your talents. There are not many soldiers who are literate, and since I read myself, I know how useful it can be. Now, what of this archer? Who was he and why were you chasing him?’

  ‘Just a brigand, sire,’ replied Geoffrey. He was relieved to discuss something else until it occurred to him that Henry should not have known the man was an archer, because bow and arrows had been abandoned in the woods. All Henry saw was someone running and Geoffrey in pursuit. The knight’s heart sank when he realized there was already some plot in operation that saw Henry planting bowmen on the London-to-Westminster road with orders to shoot. He wondered whether they had been instructed to fire at anyone, or at Crusader knights in particular.

  ‘I have striven to eradicate robbers from my highways,’ said Henry. ‘Particularly this one, which I use myself. Are you sure you do not know what he wanted?’

  Geoffrey regarded him warily, uncertain what the King was asking. Had he heard about the trouble at the Crusader’s Head, and thought the attack might be connected to the murder of Hugh? Or did he know that Matilda had invaded his bedchamber and suspected he had been recruited to serve the House of Montgomery-Bellême? Or was the attack nothing to do with Geoffrey, and Petronus was the target? The monk had been hit, after all, although the arrow had taken him high in the shoulder, so he should have survived. Geoffrey recalled Durand falling from his saddle, and wondered whether his squire had been killed, or whether he had an injury that would heal, too.

  ‘I suppose the robber saw our saddlebags and decided to take his chances,’ he replied cautiously.

  ‘No sane brigand attacks a knight.’ Henry’s face was unreadable again. ‘Even one who is alone.’

  ‘I was not alone,’ said Geoffrey, suspecting that the King knew all about Roger, Helbye, Durand and Ulfrith, and was probing his honesty. Again, he discovered he had read the King correctly.

  Henry smiled. ‘You came with Sir Roger of Durham and three servants. My spies saw you disembark at Dover, and have been watching you ever since. Perhaps Roger would like to enter my service, if you will not. Where is he?’

  ‘Chasing the other robber, I expect,’ said Geoffrey, not wanting a clever man like Henry to get at someone so openly trusting as Roger. The bluff northerner might well find himself sworn into Henry’s service without even knowing what he had done. ‘The archer you killed shot a monk called Petronus, who delivers messages from Abbot Ralph of Sées to Bishop Maurice of London.’

  ‘I see,’ said Henry flatly, and Geoffrey could not tell whether he already knew Petronus’s business, or whether he was merely uninterested in such details. ‘Did Roger stay with this Petronus, then?’

  ‘I could ride back and find out.’ Geoffrey started to move away from Henry, but the King reached out and grabbed his bridle.

  ‘It does not matter. Ride with me. It is always pleasant to converse with an old friend.’

  Geoffrey was not sure that was how he would describe his relationship with the King. He did not know how to respond, so said what was on his mind, aware that Matilda’s ale was still in his system, because he still did not feel as sharp-witted as he would have liked.

  ‘It is a pity the archer is dead, because I wanted to question him.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Henry. ‘A peasant would have nothing to say to you, and his death means one fewer outlaw breaking my peace.’

  Geoffrey’s thoughts were in turmoil. Was the robbery a chance attack by peasants desperate with hunger and need? But it would have to be a very desperate and needy man who would ambush fully armoured knights from such an indefensible place, and he could not imagine any sane robber taking such a risk. He pondered again whether Henry had deliberately prevented the archer from speaking. There had been no need to shoot the man, and Geoffrey had an uncomfortable feeling that there was a reason for his death, and that the King knew what it was. It was not a pleasant thought, and he wondered uneasily what new dangers he was about to face.

  ‘The attack was odd,’ he said cautiously, not sure how far he could take the subject. ‘The man was not a dedicated outlaw, or he would have chosen his quarry and his position with more care. I think he wanted to kill someone in my party.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Henry. ‘Roger, because he is a son of the outlawed Bishop of Durham? Petronus because he carries messages from Abbot Ralph – a vassal of my enemy Robert de Bellême – to Bishop Maurice, whose loyalty to me may also be in question? Your squire Durand, for attempting to seduce any man he meets with his golden curls? Or you, because you are here to do me a favour?’

  Geoffrey did not like the sound of the word ‘favour’. He was confused, but could only conclude that if the bowmen had been hired by Henry, then Geoffrey had not been their target. He did not think the King would bother to murder Roger, because Roger had inherited none of Flambard’s cunning intelligence, and was no threat. So, was the intended victim Petronus, because he carried messages between two enemies? Or had the archers been hired by someone else – the Bellêmes for example – to prevent Geoffrey from carrying out whatever ‘favour’ the King intended to demand?

  ‘Let us discuss this peasant no more,’ declared the King. ‘We should talk about happier matters. You are doubtless wondering why I have asked you here?’

  ‘Yes, sire,’ said Geoffrey, hoping that the King would state his request, accept his reasons for refusing, and let him return to Tancred.

  Henry laughed when he saw Geoffrey’s wary expression. ‘You are already thinking of excuses to refuse me, and you have not even heard me out.’

  ‘I will do your bidding if I can – assuming it does not interfere with my oath to Tancred.’

  ‘It will not affect Tancred one way or another,’ said Henry. ‘I want you to help win a battle for me. It will be against the Earl of Shrewsbury at his fortress at Arundel.’

  The sun was at its zenith by the time the King and his hunters arrived at Westminster. The palace and abbey stood on the island of Thorney, formed where the Tyburn Stream split into two encircling arms before flowing into the Thames. Neat strip fields surrounded the settlement, but did not extend far into the marshes, which were the domain of sedge, alder scrub and honking waterfowl. Wooden bridges spanned the streams in several places, giving access to a complex of chapels and halls that made Geoffrey slow his horse to admire them.

  Dominating all was the Benedictine church, built by the saintly Edward the Confessor. It was a grand affair boasting three towers that were full of bells, all ringing in a discordant jangle to announce the monks’ offices. On its so
uth side ranged a cloister, halls for sleeping and eating, chapter house, administrative quarters, gatehouse, kitchens, brewery, bakery and storerooms.

  Nearby was the palatial hall built by Rufus. It was by far the largest Geoffrey had ever seen, and walking through its main door was akin to entering a cathedral. Great timber posts divided it into nave and parallel aisles, and every available patch of wall had been painted, mostly with hunting scenes. He stood for a moment, King forgotten, as he admired the clever design of the roof and the gallery below the upper-floor windows.

  ‘My brother was disappointed with this,’ said Henry, bemused by the knight’s obvious admiration. ‘He said he wanted a great hall and instead was given a bedchamber.’

  ‘Then he must have owned a very large bed,’ replied Geoffrey, thinking that Rufus had been unfair.

  ‘I do not like it personally,’ said Henry, gazing around disparagingly as he removed his hat and flung it at a waiting squire, who fumbled and dropped it in his nervousness. ‘It is too big for most purposes, and too small for others.’

  He strode to the far end of the hall, where clerks and scribes filed piles of documents: the affairs of state were being carried out, even while the King hunted. He stopped randomly to inspect the work, an unsettling practice that Geoffrey was sure would encourage high standards.

  While his knights stacked their weapons and went towards a table laden with food, Henry led Geoffrey to the hearth. He snapped his fingers at the anxious squire, a thin man in his early twenties, with dark curling hair and pale skin that made him look unhealthy. The young man regarded his monarch uncertainly, as though he had no idea what he was expected to do. He advanced warily, holding the hat in front of him, as if he anticipated the King might like it back again. Geoffrey felt sorry for him – he had been a squire himself once. He made a drinking gesture, to tell him Henry wanted wine. Sighing with relief, the fellow shot away.

  Henry watched in exasperation – Geoffrey’s help had not gone unnoticed. ‘He will never make a squire or a knight. I do not know why I persist with him.’

  ‘I have one of those, too,’ said Geoffrey, thinking of Durand and his monkish habits. He considered asking Henry if he would like to swap, because he thought he could do a lot more with the clumsy lad than he would ever be able to achieve with Durand.

  ‘Your squire is the son of a man who saved Tancred’s life,’ said Henry, to show Geoffrey that his spies were efficient information gatherers. ‘But mine – Philip – is a hostage to good behaviour.’

  Geoffrey was familiar with the practice of disgraced nobles leaving their children in the care of enemies as security for friendly relations. He supposed the King had a number of them, all doing their best to please him, so they might be spared should their relatives breach any agreements.

  ‘That is Philip the Grammarian’s bastard,’ Henry went on, watching the squire reach a table and gaze helplessly at the array of wine jugs on it. ‘He should have followed his father and become a priest, because he is good for nothing else. You must have known Philip; he was a Crusader.’

  Geoffrey had indeed encountered Philip the Grammarian on the Crusade. He was one of Bellême’s brothers, and it was rumoured that his family had forced him to leave home because he was so dissolute and dangerous that they did not know what else to do with him. Geoffrey recalled that Philip usually wore the robes of a monk in the hope that they might save him in the event of an attack. He had drunk, looted and raped his way to Antioch, and had died during the siege there more than a year before Jerusalem had fallen. Many had heaved a sigh of relief when he had been killed, and Philip had been neither missed nor mourned.

  ‘We seldom spoke,’ said Geoffrey, declining to admit any acquaintance with a man who had possessed not one redeeming feature.

  ‘But you met him?’ asked Henry, regarding the knight with interest. ‘His family is proud of his contribution to the Crusade. They say he died protecting vital supplies from Turkish bandits, and claim he was successful, because the raid was thwarted and Antioch eventually fell.’

  ‘Is that what they believe?’ asked Geoffrey, startled.

  Geoffrey had been detailed to oversee the burial of the dead after that particular fight. The skirmish had been one of many during the nine months that the Crusader army had camped outside Antioch, and he found his memories of individual attacks blurred. But he recalled the one in which Philip had been killed for two reasons. First, the man had slunk away to save his own skin, leaving Geoffrey fighting alone. And second, Geoffrey had seen Philip’s body, and knew that the fatal wound in his back had not come from a Turk’s curved blade, but from a Crusader’s straight one: Philip had been murdered by someone on his own side.

  ‘Do you know otherwise?’ asked Henry. He was an astute man, and Geoffrey supposed that no matter how short and uninformative his answers, the King would always read more in them than he was comfortable revealing.

  ‘I barely recall that particular battle,’ Geoffrey lied, thinking that the safest option was to deny all knowledge of Philip. ‘I was not with him when he died, and I have no idea how he comported himself during the attack.’

  ‘He had the reputation of a man who preferred lying with women to fighting,’ said Henry, which Geoffrey thought was rich coming from a man who had no mean reputation among the ladies himself.

  ‘I never saw him fighting,’ said Geoffrey, trying to be noncommittal.

  ‘I thought as much,’ said Henry in satisfaction. ‘The man was a coward, and probably burned to death inside his tent when he should have been standing with his comrades. Philip was no hero – not if his son is anything to go by.’

  ‘How did he come to be with you?’ asked Geoffrey, trying to shift the emphasis of the discussion.

  ‘Bellême gave him to me when his invasion of England failed last year. Philip the father was obviously not in a position to object, and young Philip is an acknowledged member of the House of Montgomery-Bellême. However, the illegitimate son of a dissolute priest is not someone of any great value, and I think I was cheated.’ Henry gave a wry smile.

  Geoffrey agreed. The Bellême clan seemed to have a number of illegitimate sons wandering around, so the bastard child of a fourth brother would be no great loss. Geoffrey doubted whether the prospect of young Philip hanged would prevent his uncle from rebelling if the mood took him.

  ‘Philip is in no danger from me,’ said Henry, reading Geoffrey’s thoughts. ‘Look at him! He is all fingers, elbows and bewildered eyes. It would be like slaughtering a kitten. However, I would dearly love to turn him into a warrior. That would teach Bellême a lesson.’

  ‘I think you have a lot of work ahead, sire,’ said Geoffrey doubtfully, watching the squire walk towards the King carrying a brimming cup in both hands, tongue thrust between his lips as he concentrated. He had not even learned that wine was to be brought in a jug on a tray with more than one goblet, so the King would not be obliged to drink alone.

  Henry gave a gusty sigh. ‘He cannot remember how to perform even the most basic of tasks. If he cannot be taught how to serve wine, then how will he deal with a sword?’

  ‘With great difficulty, I imagine,’ said Geoffrey, amused.

  ‘I do not suppose you would oblige?’ asked Henry, taking the goblet and sipping its contents. He winced, and thrust the goblet back, so it slopped over Philip’s tunic. ‘This is servants’ wine! You cannot serve your monarch the nastiest brew from the kitchen! Fetch me something decent.’

  ‘I already have Durand, thank you,’ said Geoffrey, watching the lad trip over a loose flagstone and fall to his knees in his haste to be away. ‘But he is worse, because he would rather be a monk.’

  ‘They are the worst,’ agreed Henry. ‘Well, I expect you are wondering when we will come to the crux of the matter: why I want you to fight Bellême? You want to know what I have in mind.’

  Geoffrey nodded.

  ‘It is quite simple,’ said Henry. ‘You will inveigle yourself into the Earl’s service whe
n he appears at my Easter Court at Winchester next Saturday. He will then return to his castle at Arundel to lick his wounds and you will accompany him. And then I want you to make an end of him for me.’

  Four

  Geoffrey fought not to gape as the implications of the King’s words sunk in. He wondered whether he had heard him correctly, but saw from the amused expression on Henry’s face that he had. Henry was laughing, knowing that such a request would result in exactly the kind of reaction he was seeing. Geoffrey wondered how he could decline the King’s generous offer and still leave Westminster alive, and cursed himself for a fool for allowing himself to be put in such a position.

  ‘You wish you had not obeyed my summons,’ said Henry, reading his mind again. ‘You want to be in the Holy Land, among the flies and the dust. However, you owe me your allegiance, Geoffrey. Your little manor is in my realm, and you would not want me angry with you.’

  Geoffrey shrugged, affecting a nonchalance he did not feel. ‘I seldom visit Rwirdin, so it would not distress me greatly to know you had seized it.’ That was true, at least. He had only ever visited it once and he was not especially attached to it.

  ‘But it would distress your sister to lose it,’ said Henry maliciously. ‘You dislike your brother, but you are fond of Joan, and she needs Rwirdin’s income to support her castle at Goodrich.’

  ‘She can look after herself,’ said Geoffrey. Joan was a formidable lady, who took after their warrior mother, and Henry would have bitten off more than he could chew if he attempted to play games with her.

  ‘The Welsh are rebelling again,’ said Henry softly and in a way that was vaguely threatening. ‘Prince Iorwerth’s men mass all along the Marches, ready to attack English manors on the other side. Joan’s estates are on that border, and the rivalry between your family and the Welsh goes back many years. You would not like me to be tardy in offering assistance when the Welsh strike, would you?’

  Geoffrey regarded the King with dislike. It was true that the truce between his family and their Celtic neighbours was an uneasy one, and it would take little to provoke outright warfare. The Mappestones had few trained troops of their own and, although they could withstand a local invasion, they would certainly be overwhelmed if their neighbours recruited the Welsh princes who were ripe for rebellion. Men like the fiery Iorwerth were able and cunning fighters, who would swoop down on Goodrich like a hawk on a rabbit, burning fields and villages, stealing livestock and killing the inhabitants. It would be over before the English knew it had begun, and Geoffrey did not like to think of Joan lying with her throat cut, just because Henry had dallied over sending reinforcements.