King of the Wood

by Valerie Anand

  The others could obey Rufus if they liked. They weren’t his lovers. Ralph was.

  From the corner of his eye he saw that Gilbert Clare had mounted after all and was following. But the black was fast and outstripped him. Coarse grass flowed back beneath. Rufus had changed course to avoid a dangerous patch of soft sand and had lost some of his lead but he was still far ahead and one of the enemy knights had broken away from the rest, was charging him, spear levelled…

  In the frame between the black horse’s ears, Ralph saw them meet, evade each other’s spears, circle and charge again. The girth on which he had taken a chance was loose after all. The saddle was slipping. Rufus and his adversary met again, leaning from their horses to strike at each other. The piebald reared. Ralph was closing up. He was near enough to see the great blood-poppy flower on the piebald flank before his own stupid saddle slithered under the black’s belly and dumped him on the ground.

  He fell rolling, got to his feet. Rufus had been thrown as well and one foot was caught in the stirrup. He was being dragged like a felon, behind a bucketing, wounded stallion. Henry’s knights were closing in to kill. Ralph ran. Clare had come face to face with the same sucking sandbar which had made Rufus swerve and his horse had balked. Rufus’ horse had collapsed. A blade flashed in the air above the king. ‘No, no!’ Ralph heard himself sobbing. Rufus was shouting, on a hoarse and urgent note Ralph had never heard him use before. He tried to shout too:

  ‘Hold back, he’s the king!’ and hoped to God they could hear him.

  Panting, stumbling, spurs and boots nothing but hindrances. Ralph caught up just as the threatening sword was lowered. Rufus, still attached to the dead horse, was wrenching at the stirrup iron. His foot had slipped right through it. He was covered with dirt and swearing horribly. The erstwhile foe had all jumped off their mounts and one of them was helping him.

  ‘Get back!’ said Rufus, catching sight of Ralph and responding ungratefully. ‘I said don’t follow me!’ He shook his released foot to make sure it was unhurt and got up. One of Henry’s men offered his horse and Rufus mounted. Henry’s knight glanced towards Ralph. ‘We heard him shout out who he was before we heard you. We wouldn’t dare harm the king. We don’t want to end up on a gibbet with Count Henry and Duke Curthose shaking hands in front of it!’

  ‘Ralph, go away!’ Rufus barked. Ralph retreated to catch the black horse, which was grazing. He busied himself with adjusting the saddle. A gust of laughter made him glance back. Rufus was clapping an enemy knight on the shoulder. Gilbert Clare rode up and remarked: ‘We might as well have let him be. Well, that’s one mouth fewer for Henry to feed.’ The knight whom Rufus had amiably buffeted was kneeling with his hands between the king’s.

  ‘I thought it was water they were short of in the Mont,’ said Ralph acidly but Gilbert had already ridden out of earshot. He mounted and walked the black back towards the camp. Rufus thundered past, his new liegeman behind him. ‘Damned nursemaid!’ he shouted.

  In the camp, the dealer was waiting, with a crowd round him. One face seemed to spring from the rest. Ralph pulled up, half-glad to see Richard and half-doubtful. He had known that Richard was here, part of a contingent sent by de Warenne. But he had had a return of embarrassment and had kept their encounters to salutations exchanged at a distance. Richard’s face, however, was friendly as he said: ‘That was a near thing. You don’t have an enviable job.’

  That could have had more than one meaning. Was Richard far enough away from the royal circle not to have heard the gossip, or was he obliquely referring to it? Richard’s grey eyes however were tranquil. Ralph wished that Richard could know, and yet not to reject him. But he could not think how to approach the subject and did not try.

  ‘He’s still got to pay for that piebald horse,’ he said. Everyone, including Richard and the dealer, laughed.

  In the pavilion where dinner was communally eaten, Ralph still had only a modest place. Rufus did not mix business with pleasure. To be the companion of his nights did not change one’s place in the political hierarchy. Ralph did not mind this for it fended off jealousy. Gilbert Clare might make the occasional barbed remark; the Count of Meulan, who resented anyone close to the king (he only tolerated FitzHamon because of a quirk of personal liking for him), might pointedly take precedence in doorways. But the rest treated him with the casual courtesy he had noticed at once and they respected his prowess at shooting and horsemanship. Occasionally, people even asked him to put in a word with Rufus about this or that. He helped if he could, but with caution. He was afraid of being presumptuous. He had never dared yet, much as he would have liked to, to ask for anything for himself.

  Therefore it was not until dinner was over that the king caught his eye and gave him the tiny nod which was a signal between them. After dark, Ralph took a lantern and went to the royal tent. The guard outside and the chamberlains in the outer compartment as usual behaved as if he were invisible. He shed his clothes and slipped quietly under Rufus’ rugs. The king had drunk heavily at dinner and the wine-smell at once enveloped him. Hot, powerful arms closed round him. But when Ralph (‘like a well-trained whore,’ he thought to himself at times) attempted to arouse the king, the response failed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ralph whispered. In interactions between king and subject, if the king ran the subject through by mistake, the subject would still be the one who had to apologise.

  But no. ‘N… not your fault,’ Rufus muttered gruffly. ‘I’m pleased with you. You’re a dear good boy. Beating that dealer down by four marks. Wonderful.’ The matter of paying for the deceased piebald had been the only conversation they had had since morning. ‘I’ve something to say to you,’ Rufus whispered.

  That could mean anything from ‘I’m making you Archbishop of Canterbury’ to ‘You’re under arrest.’ Ralph waited.

  ‘I’m in your debt,’ Rufus said at last. ‘I owe you my thanks.’

  ‘Your thanks, my lord?’

  ‘You came to save my life today. I didn’t thank you then. Couldn’t. Had to pretend I was angry with you, in front of Henry’s boys. But… sweet Christ,’ said Rufus, pressing a heavy arm down across Ralph’s chest, ‘I wouldn’t say this except that the wine’s talking, but I’ve never been so bloody glad to see anyone in my life.’

  ‘But, my lord, when you called out who you were, they put their weapons up at once. You saved yourself. I did nothing.’

  ‘You were there and you had a sword. They were excited. When that blade was up in the sky over me, I thought it was the last thing I’d ever see, till I heard you shouting. However much I bellowed that I was the king. I was frightened. I’m ashamed.’

  He rolled over, burying his face in his arms. Ralph, not knowing what to say, did his best. ‘Anyone would be afraid at such a time.’

  ‘Not a knight, Ralph. And not a king.’ Rufus’ voice was muffled. ‘We must be able to stand face to face with death and look him straight in the eye. We’re told that when we’re children. And I can’t!

  ‘My lord!’ Ralph was alarmed now. Tomorrow, if Rufus remembered this conversation at all, he might well regret it. But he was sorry for Rufus. He tried again. ‘Most men have secret fears. I’m afraid of…’He didn’t quite know what he was most afraid of. Dying still landless was a thought that appalled him. But to say that was like asking for favours and much as he desired land, he had never dared to say so to Rufus. His voice died away. Rufus, who had hardly been listening, plunged on.

  ‘I’ve wanted to say this for years. Never could get drunk enough at the right moment. I’m afraid of death. Understand? Not all the time; it’s mostly all right till the last moment. I can go into battle first, cross swords, all that. But then when I’m close to it, suddenly – I see what might happen and… first time was years ago. I was just a boy. Henry and I got into a fight with Curthose and his friends, and someone pulled a knife on me. I snatched it off him. My father praised my speed. But I was only so quick because I was frightened, Ralph! I saw that knife and
I saw the sword today and I knew how it would feel if it went into me and I knew that behind it was nothing but a great darkness ... or else hell, I don’t know which. They’re the same, maybe. Can you imagine not existing? Could you bear not to be alive? To be cast away into blackness? I hate darkness. I sleep without a lamp on principle, did you know that? To defy the fear. But it never leaves me.’

  ‘My lord! Ralph made the king hear him this time. Rufus stopped. ‘Everyone feels the same,’ said Ralph firmly. ‘We all feel queasy at some point in a battle. With most men it’s when they’re waiting to begin. With you, perhaps it strikes later. My lord, in the morning you’ll wish you hadn’t told me. But I shall have forgotten it by then.’

  ‘You’re a good friend, Ralph. I trust you. You’ve got loyalty and good sense. Let’s talk of something else, then. I’m being nagged right and left to put a new Archbishop into Canterbury. Suppose I made Ranulf Flambard Archbishop?’

  ‘Risky,’ said Ralph, recognising that he was being required to play up to a joke. ‘He might set fire to the cathedral.’

  A chuckle rewarded him. ‘You’ve heard his newest nickname, have you? Not just Flambard, the Cresset, now. People call him Passe-Flamme because he sets other men ablaze with his ideas. I wouldn’t have got this army mustered and over here as fast as I did without him. He had everyone working twenty-five hours in the day. No, perhaps not Canterbury for our Ranulf. I couldn’t spare him, anyhow. Come to that, I can’t spare Canterbury! It’s valuable. But it was a glorious thought.’

  Rufus laughed out loud. Ralph laughed too and beside him, Rufus’ desire awoke at last.

  ‘Your brains have gone begging, Curthose,’ said Rufus coldly. He sat in Curthose’s tent, feet planted squarely on the floor, knees apart and hands planted squarely on knees. Curthose gazed serenely back at him, a lazy arm stretched along the back of his settle. He glanced at the tent’s open flap as a ship under oars went past on the high tide, probably bound for the mouth of the River See beside which Rufus’ camp lay. Beyond the ship, far away cross the sparkling water which now hid the sands, was the dark and battlemented cone of the Mont.

  ‘It’s not a matter of brains. It’s a matter of feeling,’ he said. ‘How could I refuse an appeal like that? It wouldn’t be chivalrous.’

  ‘This is a siege. The idea is to bring young Henry to heel! We get him to the edge of surrender and what do you do?

  Send in water? Rufus thundered. Meulan, sitting near him, nodded vigorously.

  ‘Only water, not food,’ said Curthose pacifically. ‘He won’t last long without food. The patrols are properly organised now and he can’t forage any more. But we can’t let our own brother die of thirst.’

  ‘He wouldn’t die of thirst, you wantwit! He’d surrender. That’s the p… point! That’s what we’re bloody here for!’

  There was a curious imaginative strand in the characters of all three brothers. ‘There’s something symbolic about the place he chose for his final stand,’ Curthose said.

  ‘Symbolic of what?’ snorted Rufus. His imagination worked differently.

  ‘Well, look at it. Go on, look. What do you see?’

  ‘I see what looks like a distant molehill with a lot of water all round it. At low tide, it’s sand. Well?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I see. I see isolation. I see dignity. We’ve taken everything from him, Rufus. And to fight back, he’s picked not only the strongest fortress he can find, but the loneliest. I think he’s feeling lonely. And I’m beginning to feel conscience-stricken.’

  ‘You mean you’re sorry for the little brute. I’m not. You forget what we’re thrusting him out for, aren’t you? I sent him off with short shrift because he only came to me when he was dissatisfied with you. I don’t like faithlessness. Then he went back to you and you locked him up for a while and we thought he’d learned his lesson. He came to you when Rouen was in danger…’

  ‘Well,’ said Curthose, although his hand caressed his jaw as he spoke, ‘he did.’’

  ‘Yes, in his own way! He knocked you unconscious, had you rowed out of the city and led your troops himself! If he’d stood on a pile of boxes in the m… marketplace and said: “Good citizens of Rouen, how about me for duke instead?” he couldn’t have made himself plainer. You said as much, if I remember! And now you’re s… sorry for him?’

  ‘Yes, I am. He did save Rouen. Sometimes I imagine him riding away with just a handful of friends and a pack mule for company and I don’t like to think what’s churning on in his mind.’

  ‘Bah! He’s got money hidden away still. He’ll make himself a life in France, or Brittany, out of our way. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it, when you withdrew his lease and gave the lands to me? The sooner he goes, the better. We’ve other things to do, or you have. What about Maine? Weren’t you going to bring Helias to heel as well as Henry? I’m supposed to help you by the terms of our agreement but if I’m kept waiting about much longer…’

  From where Meulan was sitting, he could see Rufus’ tents, pitched on the higher ground near the north-east corner of the bay. The ship had indeed been going there; it was already drawn up from the water. And above Rufus’ great white tent, a flag was being hoisted. ‘My lord,’ said Meulan, ‘they’re signalling for you.’

  ‘Scotland!’ said Richard of Fallowdene disgustedly to Ralph. ‘I was hoping to get home. I left my wife expecting. I suppose the Scottish king invaded because he thought King Rufus was out of the way. And what’s to happen to Count Henry?’

  ‘He’s surrendered,’ said Ralph. ‘The envoy’s with the king now. They ran out of food.’

  Firmly, he pushed aside the sudden vision of the mosaic floor at Aix, which Richard’s casual reference to going home had inspired. It had gone through him like a swordthrust. He wished he had a home, even if he did have to go there via Scotland. Would he ever, he wondered, win or earn one?

  He might justly say that he’d earned one already. But on that subject, Rufus was silent.

  The shutters of Abbot Anselm’s windows were open and the summer world outside poured in; the scent of green things growing, the bleating of the abbey’s sheep, the brightness of the sun. It looked like a promising season, for once.

  But in some minds, the prospect of a reasonable harvest meant only an invitation to new extortions, and that before the corn was even ripe.

  His old friend the Conqueror, that remarkable mixture of the bloodthirsty and the pious, had given Bee lands in England. Bee had appointed an English agent to look after them. The report now lying on Anselm’s desk was liberally strewn with words in extra thick ink and large lettering.

  Extortion. Intolerable burden. Insatiable rapacity…

  The English agent, in fact, was in hysterics.

  A final phrase, in the blackest ink of all, glared at Anselm from the page. Only your personal intervention…

  He doubted whether that would have much effect either, from all he had heard of Rufus and his grasping financial adviser Ranulf Flambard. There was a war on, too. Wars always meant more taxes. But if anyone could have influence at all on this outrageous new demand, he supposed it was himself. He at least had the authority to agree terms on the spot.

  He could refuse a plea from a frantic nobleman wanting to save his smirched soul by founding a monastery, because others could advise him just as ably. But this time, if anything at all could be done, he was the one who could best do it.

  Only it would take him straight into the arms of those who wished to keep him in England as harness-mate to a truculent, irreverent, sodomite king.

  Well, no one could actually force him to accept Canterbury, he reminded himself. He could go to England purely to attend to his abbey’s financial affairs. He could visit that penitent old killer of a nobleman and give him the advice he desired, which could include a few swingeing penances. He could then ignore all other blandishments and come home.

  Rufus’ irreverence and avarice might even turn out a blessing. Rufus wasn’t going to allocate C
anterbury unless somebody made him, and who in the world was capable of doing that?

  This was a disgraceful way to think. Rebuking himself, Anselm went to kneel at the priedieu which stood against his office wall. He looked up at the Rood which hung above. If he went to England, he must not cling to Rufus’ scandalous faults for protection, but strive to mitigate them, for the sake of Rufus’ own soul, whatever might result. He need not decide to go immediately – no, surely not that. That too was a kind of vainglory, to think that nothing could possibly be done about these shocking demands unless he did it in person. He might, with propriety, make one more attempt to settle the matter through an intermediary. But if that failed…

  He closed his eyes and let his spirit go, out of the flesh and into the heart of the Mystery which was the Trinity, which was sacrifice and despair and redemption, which was the blazing light at the heart of all darkness, and from which he could not be alienated.

  Wherever he went and whatever he was, or did, or was made to do, the Mystery would be with him still and it would sustain him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Female Children 1091

  ‘Mother, it’s too early, the baby’ll die!’

  ‘Three weeks. Richard was earlier than that. The baby will not die,’ Wulfhild contradicted her, rolling up her sleeves. ‘We’re into September.’ And a fair, silver-gilt September at that, the mists clearing every morning before a sun which within fourteen days would bring the wheat to perfection if only it held. They’d have a saleable surplus this year, with luck. It wasn’t going to be spoilt by the loss of this child. ‘Gunnor, take her arm and keep her walking till I say she can lie down. Alice, you’ve been a good girl all summer and done what I told you. Just keep it up a few hours more and you’ll get your reward. Stoke the brazier, Editha, and get that water hot…’