It was the start of a pattern. In it, outsiders such as Belleme (for all his power and ruthlessness) and Gilbert Clare who bit people (for all his uncertain temper) would be supporters, catalysts, stalking horses but never more than that, always subsidiary elements in a design whose centre was a fraternal triangle.
CHAPTER THREE
Brotherly Love 1078
In the summer of 1078, Henry was rising ten. Far away in Normandy on the smallholding of Aix, Peter Longshanks was worrying over the future of his younger boy, Ralph. Rufus had turned eighteen and no one now played tricks on him.
The Conqueror himself came to watch Rufus’ first testing in arms. He saw his third son unhorse the future Count of Meulan with a lance, be unhorsed by Curthose and then pick himself up to try again and this time keep his saddle though Curthose won on points. As Rufus was six years younger than his opponent, this was highly creditable. To the friends who had accompanied him, the Conqueror said: ‘He’ll do.’
And: ‘Reckon you’ll do,’ said the beefy FitzHamon between gusts of laughter after an incident in which, on account of a dispute over the ownership of an ornamental dagger which had formed part of a complicated barter transaction, Curthose and Belleme lay in wait for Rufus and dumped him in a pond.
The next day, Rufus waited in ambush on the roof of a barn and slid down the thatch to land on Curthose’s shoulders as he rode past, carrying him straight out of the saddle to the ground and winding him so that Rufus with-out difficulty could lug his elder brother to a convenient horse trough and duck him.
Belleme, who had been riding just behind Curthose, chased the loose horse and brought it back. Its owner, massaging bruises and wiping water out of his eyes, thanked him. But Rufus, seemingly indifferent to any bruises of his own, eyed Belleme in a way which said you next so unmistakably, that Belleme judged it politic to apologise for the pond.
He was building a reputation as one who if attacked would hand you back your investment, doubled. His peers said – after a time it was with affection – that young Red wasn’t frightened of anything.
It gave him confidence, as did his sound health. He needed that. People said of Rufus that ‘he would do’ and ‘wasn’t easy to frighten’ but they never said ‘he’s hand-some’. He was not.
He would have liked to be. But comb his ginger hair as sleekly as he would, and dress as richly as he might, he would never attain the good looks which Curthose took for granted and Henry was already developing. Their skins tanned smoothly in summer; his turned ridiculously red. They had dark eyes with depth; his were ‘like water’, Henry once commented with the tactlessness of immaturity, not intending to wound, and they were trimmed, moreover, with white eyelashes.
None of the trio would ever be tall but Rufus knew early on that he was the worst proportioned of them all, too broad for his height, almost barrel-shaped.
‘But you just remember,’ said Meulan (who wasn’t handsome either), ‘no one’s going to laugh at you once you’ve knocked them off a horse, and no one of common birth is going to laugh anyway. If you’re a knight, even a landless one, churls have to respect you and if you’re a king’s son, even knights have to.’
‘So I should hope,’ said Belleme, strolling up and joining in. ‘Especially the churls. Imagine the chaos if we weren’t here to control things. They’re there to do our bidding so don’t ever let one get away with impertinence. Has anyone been impertinent?’
‘Not yet,’ said Rufus.
‘If any villein offered insult to me.’ said Belleme, ‘I should…’ He enlarged. They listened, impressed by his inventiveness. Henry came up with little Gilbert Clare and listened to Gilbert Clare make the only comment, a suggested improvement on one of Belleme’s more sordid recommendations. ‘Dear saints,’ said Meulan, surveying him, ‘listen to the child. And he looks like a cherub.’ After which, the conversation dissolved into laughter.
Curiously, the Conqueror never gibed at Rufus about his personal appearance, reserving that for Curthose. Rufus was grateful. He had admired his father from the beginning and by the time he was eighteen, he had come to love him. It was for the Conqueror that he strove to be always the foremost in the charge when they practised war tactics, the strongest swordarm, the longest-enduring through the struggle and swelter of their exercises.
From his father and from the knightly instructors whom the Conqueror chose, he learned that it was his duty as a king’s son to be the most relentless foe in the siege, the most magnanimous when an enemy sued for peace, the swiftest to the aid of any vassal who called on him. And that he must never give his word unless he meant to keep it and that then he must keep it until he died.
The tales of valour with which his instructors illustrated their lessons kindled his powers of fantasy in a more healthy way than Brother Philip had, but very strongly. His imagination was more vigorous than most of his associates knew. He saw the world that he inhabited, in his mind, as peopled with splendid figures such as his father, all moving about within a golden globe of light, the radiance of nobility.
Occasionally, when wine had loosened his normally hesitant tongue, he would try to put this vision into words and his friends did not laugh, for their own vision of the world was similar if fainter (except for Belleme, whose mental world was full of images of torment and faces twisted in terror or agony).
But of the horrifying darkness which surrounded this radiant globe, the blackness which engulfed people when they died, and spawned the monsters which haunted his worst dreams, he did not speak. They would have laughed then.
Certainly Curthose would. Curthose occasionally allowed jealousy to surface. ‘Why does Father sneer at me and never at you?’ he said once, resentfully.
‘By the time I came along, you’d got him used to stumpy sons. I was less of a shock,’ said Rufus, and prepared to dodge a punch or parry a retort.
Curthose, however, only shook his head. ‘No. I’ve never been what he expected. Only I’ve never been able to work out what it is he expects. But if I had,’ said Curthose discontentedly, ‘he’d let me hold land in my own right now. God knows I’m of age. One of these days, he and I are going to quarrel badly.’
In the summer of 1078, they did.
The root of the quarrel lay far from England, in Anjou, to the south of Maine. Where tradition, handed down for years after the event, insisted firmly and hilariously that the disgraceful events of that summer owed their origins to Fulk the Surly of Anjou’s bunions.
That was certainly over-simplification. Maine – from the Conqueror’s point of view – was consistently troublesome, full of disobedient vassals who at frequent intervals embattled themselves in their castles and refused to acknowledge his lordship or send him their dues. Matters were due to come to a head again soon, anyway.
But chance, the flick of a cosmic penny, decreed that the precipitating agent in 1078 should be a restless and hard-ridden horse stepping heavily on one of Fulk’s deformed feet as he dismounted after a day’s hunting.
Fulk was not then very old but he was far gone in misanthropy already, with the humourless facial lines and grainy skin of a much older man with a lifetime’s practice in sullenness behind him.
He was not immune to passion; in fact, he was susceptible and had a wife whom he had married for desire as much as for her dowry. Unfortunately, his wife, who was a pretty, cuddlesome thing with small gleaming teeth and a sharp wit like a kitten’s claws, had not desired him in return, had been married to him against her will and never changed her attitude. Seeing Fulk limp as he entered the hall, she exercised her wit at his expense with an unfeeling remark about waddling ducks.
Fulk said that if she were any sort of a wife, she would bring him hot water with salt and medicinal herbs in it, to bathe his feet.
His wife said that she was not a servant, but with frigid courtesy called a page and passed the instruction on.
Fulk said further derogatory things about his lady’s short- comings as a wife and the lady complained
about his bad temper. Old scores were dragged up and the quarrel grew furious. The page brought the footbath and Fulk’s wife, making a distasteful face at the sight of her husband’s admittedly unlovely feet, withdrew to her private bower, her maidens and her embroidery. Fulk soaked his feet, fulminating, until an unexpected guest was announced.
The guest was a man called Count Rotrou of Perche, which was a Norman province adjacent to Maine. Rotrou was bound on a visit to relatives in Anjou and was seeking a night’s lodging. In the course of the evening they spent together, Fulk, directing his unassuaged rage into the channel which most conveniently presented itself, became bad-tempered about politics.
He spoke disparagingly of King William who in his capacity as lord of Normandy was Fulk’s rival for Maine, and demanded to know why Rotrou remained faithful to him. ‘His tide’s ebbing in Maine. He’s in England too much. Absentee landlords never prosper. I could take the place over tomorrow if it wasn’t for the likes of you, sitting next door waiting to rush in on its behalf. What do you get out of it?’
‘Peace and quiet,’ said Rotrou, who was not a bellicose man.
‘What kind of talk do you call that? I’m talking about real rewards. Land, wealth! I’d see anyone was paid who’d as much as promise to keep his nose out of Maine while I move in. As for anyone who’d actually put men at my disposal, he could expect riches. Can’t you see,’ said Fulk with a snort of angry laughter, ‘that I’m making you an offer?’
If Rotrou agreed, he thought, Maine would fall into his hands like an apple in October. And his wife wouldn’t dare sneer at the feet, however noisesome and misshapen, of a man who’d taken a province away from mighty William. She’d kneel and kiss them.
She’d fall in love with him, at last.
He bribed and bullied halfway through the night. And when his visiting was done, Rotrou went home, formally switched his allegiance to Fulk, and demonstrated the same by sending fifteen fully accoutred knights to Anjou.
William, with an army, was across the Channel in what to Fulk and Rotrou seemed only ten minutes.
***
‘Only,’ grumbled Henry, ‘when are we going to do any fighting? We ought to have seen blood by now. Father said we’d learn from being at a real war. What war? He’s just brought his army across to scare the enemy, if you ask me. He spends all his time in council trying to negotiate a peace.’ Henry, though young, was politically sophisticated. The situation annoyed him but he understood it. ‘This place,’ he complained, ‘is so boring.’’
The remark was justifiable. The town of L’Aigle, where the Conqueror had grimly planted himself just to the north of Rotrou’s territory, Perche, was small and dull. Even the castle was small so that as men came in to join him, the Conqueror had moved himself and his immediate entourage out, and into lodgings in the town. As Henry had observed, he was spending much time shut away in council meetings from which his sons were excluded, which meant that they were left to their own devices.
Curthose, who considered himself more than mature enough to join the councils, and was accordingly offended, had attempted to retrieve his slipping dignity by forming a miniature court of his own, consisting mainly of the older boys. He had withdrawn to separate lodgings and was rigorously keeping his juniors at bay.
Which at least offered opportunities for diversion.
‘We could go round and see Curthose again,’ Rufus suggested.
‘The last time I went, he said he’d skin me alive if I annoyed him again,’ said Henry. ‘You’d think his rotten lodgings were a palace. It’s only a merchant’s house. He’s just a show-off.’ In his small sunburnt face, the brown eyes lit up with mischief. ‘Yes, let’s go round there and irritate him properly,’ he said.
It was afternoon and in a sky of intense continental blue, the sun was blazing. Their father was in council yet again and everyone else was apparently asleep. The merchant Cauchois’ house, where Curthose was staying, was only a hundred yards away along the dusty street. The gate was languidly ajar and within it was a small paved court with a fishpool. Beyond this was the house. It had a terrace and here their brother, on a high-backed settle which had been dragged out of doors, was snoozing, chest bared to the sun. His host, Messire Cauchois, solid and bald, scalp flaring scarlet in the heat, was seated at a table, playing a very slow game of backgammon with Belleme. Others of Curthose’s circle lounged or sprawled on the warm stone of the terrace itself. A second small table held a jug, and goblets.
‘Oh, no,’ said Curthose, opening one eye at the sound of their footsteps. ‘You’re not here. I’m hallucinating. It’s the sun.’
‘We’re come to see you,’ said Rufus unnecessarily. Cauchois glanced round, decided to let the Conqueror’s offspring sort out their own disagreements and turned back to the game.
‘I thought,’ said Curthose, ‘that I’d make it clear that you weren’t wanted. I’m too lazy to throw you out today but behave yourselves if you don’t want me to wake up. You may have a drink.’
Henry was already inspecting the jug. ‘It’s fruit juice,’ he informed Rufus. ‘Would you believe it? Curthose our big brother is drinking apple juice like a lady.’
‘Shut up,’ said Curthose, ‘and sit down.’
‘My game,’ said Belleme. Cauchois, who had let it happen because he was distracted, said irritably: ‘I’ve got dice and some more backgammon sets upstairs. I suggest our visitors find a game to occupy them. Go up and help yourselves, Messires. You know the way. You’ve been here before. Stay out of my bedroom next door.’
‘And off this terrace. Stay up there,’ said Curthose.
The staircase led up from the end of the balcony. Rufus and Henry, who had indeed seen the upper room before, clattered up enthusiastically. It adjoined Cauchois’ bedroom and had once been his wife’s solar but since her death it had become a storage and amusement room. Its wallhangings depicted lively hunting scenes and there was a table with a backgammon board let into it. Chests contained an enthralling mixture of old clothes, dog leashes, falconry tackle, tallysticks and the like, and a tall cupboard held a fascinating miscellany of backgammon and chess sets in gleaming wood and walrus ivory, several pairs of dice, a box of polished shells which were of no apparent use but looked and felt pleasing and squeaked agreeably when nibbed together, some spare candlesticks and some earthenware bowls in colourful designs. Because they had been told not to, they poked inquisitive noses into Cauchois’ bedroom but found nothing interesting there beyond the evidence that his servants were well-trained. The bed was made up neatly and a silver water ewer already stood in place beside it. They wandered back to the cupboard.
‘It’s too hot for chess or backgammon,’ said Rufus. ‘How about dice? They’re all torpid on that terrace so we may as well play here. What shall we use for stakes?’
This was a problem. After some thought, they produced a silver penny, a brooch, an ornamented belt and a gold ring between them, and laid them out on the table. Henry said his shoes had cost a lot and offered them but Rufus said they wouldn’t fit him and he didn’t propose to set up a footwear stall in L’Aigle market. ‘Let’s start with my penny against your brooch,’ he said.
Half an hour later, when the stakes had moved back and forth between them with a pendulum-like regularity for some time, and each had ritualistically accused the other of cheating but not bothered to make an issue of it because of the heat, they tacitly broke off and roamed to one of the small arched windows. Nothing had changed below. ‘How scarlet Messire Cauchois’ head is,’ Rufus whispered. ‘I bet it’s sore. He must long to pour cold water over it.’
There was a pause.
They gazed at each other. For a moment, despite the differences in age and feature and colouring, their faces were stamped with the selfsame diabolical intent. They were visibly brothers.
‘There’s water in the bedchamber,’ said Rufus. ‘I dare you.’
‘Let’s throw dice for it. Lowest score does the deed.’
‘Do
ne.’
The dice they were using were wooden, painted red, with white spots. ‘Me first. I thought of it and I’m the elder,’ Rufus said. ‘Double six. That’s it. You can’t beat that.’
‘Do it properly! I want my throw.’ Henry joggled the dice in their cup and tossed them on to the table. ‘See? Another double six. Do we throw again?’
‘There’re bowls in that cupboard. A bowl of water each? Fetch that ewer.’
A moment later, the peaceful scene on the terrace was shattered as a double cascade of water from the windows above curved through the air to drench not only Cauchois’ bald head but the backgammon game, Robert of Belleme, the slumbering Curthose and little Gilbert Clare, who was allowed in Curthose’s coterie because (according to Henry) he was such a crawler.
Cauchois swore and mopped his head but did not seem disposed to retaliate. Curthose and Belleme, on the other hand, leapt up with a simultaneous yell. ‘It’s those young devils upstairs!’ Belleme glared at Curthose as though the outrage were his fault. ‘They think they’re above you and not only because they’ve climbed a staircase, by the look of it.’
‘Rufus and Henry?’ Curthose spun round, craning his neck. ‘Listen, you up there…’
‘Quick, Rufus, while his mouth’s open.’
A second stream, aimed expertly at Curthose’s protesting upturned face, described a glittering arc. Indignant speech changed to wild spluttering, while Curthose’s fashionable hose darkened with wet. Meulan, propped on an elbow on the terrace, exclaimed: ‘I’d get them for that!’ and beside him, FitzHamon laughed. Cauchois, alarmed, began to say: ‘Just a moment…’ but Curthose, shaking his fist at the upper window, was already making for the stairs. The others followed. Cauchois, exclaiming anxiously, brought up the rear.
King of the Wood Page 4