King of the Wood

by Valerie Anand

  ‘I am delighted to meet you at last, my lord.’

  ‘…our younger brother, Count Henry…’

  Henry, exchanging greetings, noticed that Rufus was standing very still, and glanced sideways at him. Rufus was standing not just still, but rigid, blanched, as if a thunderbolt had struck him. His eyes were fixed on the Count of Maine as though he had lost the power to with-draw them and the pupils of his eyes had expanded so that they seemed pale no longer, but dark as midnight as he looked at the man whom he had last seen blithely mounting a horse beside Fulk of Anjou, in the courtyard of St. Gervais Abbey near Rouen, while from his father’s death chamber, Rufus watched.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Desperation 1096

  In the great hall of Rouen, Rufus sat enthroned in the chair which had originally been made for his father (walnut, with carvings inlaid with walrus ivory). Henry stood beside him. The barons were assembled. Curthose had ridden away and his nobles now looked to Rufus as their duke. This should have been the mightiest moment of Rufus’ life. He could have wept.

  Last night, in the privacy of his chamber, he had. Helias of Maine was kneeling before him, making a request. He had made it first to Curthose but Curthose had said: ‘Rufus is acting duke. Speak to him when I’ve left.’ Now, in his vigorous baritone and with his courtly turns of phrase, Helias was obeying. He was only seven feet away. It might as well have been seven leagues.

  ‘…formally, then, I make this plea. My lord king, I desire to leave my home to fight the infidel. When I am absent, in the Holy Land, I ask for a treaty of peace between us. I know that in your eyes, as in Duke’s Robert’s, Maine is part of Normandy. When I return, we will settle this dispute by arms or diplomacy as you or the duke decide. But while I am away, I beg that Normandy will respect my frontiers and leave my people in peace.’

  There were a few snorts of laughter, principally from Belleme and Meulan, who were nearest to Helias. Their amusement was immediately justified.

  ‘No,’ said Rufus.

  He knew very well how he appeared to others. It was a poor joke on the part of fate that a barrel-shaped, paunchy, red-faced man with long light hair that didn’t go with his pugnacious face, and a gruff voice and a stammer, should suddenly become the inappropriate housing for a passion so pure in its unmixed love, so oceanic in its depths, so searing in its cruelty.

  It was three days now.

  Three days since he had made Helias a personal gift in the form of a fine bay destrier with gold-studded tackle. Three days since, standing with Helias at the animal’s side, he had covertly (he had taken such care to make sure no one else could see) taken Helias’ hand and drawn it to him and pressed the lean hard palm against himself, there.

  Only to have it firmly withdrawn and to hear its owner say quietly: ‘My lord, I think you do me honour in your fashion. But it is not my fashion. Forgive me. I should not accept this horse from you. I will do so only if you think it best, to avoid talk.’

  ‘Keep it,’ said Rufus, the only words he could force out, and stepped back to let Helias mount.

  Helias now was looking up at him with a line between his frank and luminous brown eyes. His lips were pressed tightly together. He was waiting for Rufus to answer.

  He was not thinking about Rufus except as a possible obstruction and Rufus knew it. Inside his mind, Helias, cross on breast, was already couching his lance against the heathen.

  He was already kneeling in wonder and worship on the ground where the Cross had stood. He was welcoming with generosity infidels who had been so moved by the valour and piety of the crusaders that they had abandoned heathenism and embraced the one true faith.

  And because of this very thing, even more than when Rufus first laid eyes on him, long ago at St. Gervais, Helias represented a vision.

  As a boy, Rufus had seen the world as a golden globe filled with the figures of splendid men whom he must emulate. Now all that golden radiance had gathered itself about one gallant, courtly form, so infinitely desirable, so strong, that to join oneself to it would, surely, mean safety for ever from the darkness outside. This was the reality, of which all other loves, including Ralph des Aix (especially Ralph des Aix who physically resembled Helias) had been only the reflections.

  And all Helias wanted was to go to Palestine and fight for God.

  Rufus wanted to kill him where he stood. Or else to put his arms round that magnificent body and hold it still. If Helias went out of his reach…

  He had just one weapon.

  ‘You are refusing me?’ Helias asked.

  ‘You are free to go to the Holy Land,’ said Rufus, wondering what he would do if he were taken at his word. ‘Go where you please.’ That had the right ring of in-difference. He hoped it would deceive his barons. ‘But before you go, hand over to us your city of Le Mans and the County of Maine. We shall be a good lord to them. On your return, you may do us homage for the right to govern as our vassal.’ He sat back, praying that the sweat on his forehead had not been noticed, to await the result of this.

  Helias frowned. Well, what did the fool expect? Rufus thought with a rush of anger, though he knew it to be the reverse side of love. He had said no to the king. Did he look for favours? ‘We intend,’ said Rufus pompously, since Helias did not answer him, ‘to restore as one estate all that our father had. We owe it to his memory.’

  ‘You hear the king,’ said Meulan maliciously.

  ‘I think,’ said Helias, ‘that the argument would be best settled before I go. I ask, my lord, that a court be appointed to decide between us. I will abide by its decision. I can tell you now what my own plea will be. I shall plead that I inherited Maine from my forefathers as you inherited your lands from yours and that I wish to pass it to my children unencumbered by heavy dues of fealty.’

  His voice was frank. He had not used the word children with any intent to underline the difference between himself and Rufus.

  But a dagger jabbed at random may go home by chance. For a moment, Rufus could not speak or move. His face scorched. He was afraid to stir in case he lost control, ordered Helias’ arrest, or snatched out his own dagger and yielded to that terrible, diabolical temptation to kill what he loved so that it should torment him no more.

  His barons were watching him. They guessed he was in love. But it would only matter if they thought he couldn’t control it.

  ‘There will be no court.’ He let the heat sink out of his face and kept his voice level. That first instinctive move to use Maine as a means of controlling Helias’ movements, had been sound. ‘We offered you friendship,’ he said, ‘as lord to vassal. But it seems it isn’t g…good enough. So you will learn instead how it f… feels to have us for an enemy. Our plea, Helias of Maine, will be made with swords and lances and a multitude of arrows. What have you to say now?’

  Helias studied him. Rufus in return let his eyes travel over the Count’s person, almost as blatant a caress as if he had run his hands over Helias’ body. Helias understood. This time it was his face that flamed. He sprang to his feet and faced the barons.

  ‘I’ve this to say. I wanted to fight the infidel but it seems the foes of Christ are everywhere! If I go to Jerusalem now, I throw my county to the wolves. Very well. I stay. But I shan’t give up the Cross. On the contrary, I shall place it on every garment I possess. I’ll put it on my shield and helm, on my armour and the saddle and bridle of my horse. Whoever attacks me, attacks a soldier of Christ. I bid you all good day.’

  He marched out of the hall. Rufus watched, hating to see him go, triumphant because he would not now go far. He would stay in Maine to protect it and while he was there, within reach, there was hope. There was hope.

  Henry exchanged glances with Meulan and rubbed a pensive forefinger across his square chin. So Rufus was in love again, and not with Edith of Scotland.

  Edith, very likely, was safe, and Rufus would have no son. ‘That,’ said Henry as one who carefully adds brushwood to a promising young blaze, ‘is a remarkable man
. I find him most impressive.’

  ‘It’s over,’ Richard said.

  Alice said: ‘If only she hadn’t disliked me so. I did try.’

  ‘I know. I think she had to live through too many changes.

  After the Conquest, she fought so hard for the manor I think she felt it was hers by right for ever. It’s not your fault.’

  It was hard to believe that Wulfhild was gone. To the very end, he had thought she was too tough and too irascible to die.

  ‘The new hall is so handsome,’ said Alice, ‘and she never had a chance to enjoy it.’

  The new hall was handsome. Richard, planning it, had decided on sleeping space on an upper floor, with the old resthouses kept as storerooms. There was a stone-built kitchen and dairy at one end of the hall, and pleasing tapestries and furnishings had been bought. On the stretch of wall which had no hangings because tools and weapons hung there, were painted decorations in the latest fashion, with bright-coloured zig-zags. And after all that, there was still silver in the coffers.

  But during dinner, two days after they took possession, Wulfhild had collapsed and when she came to, her right side was paralysed. She had never left her bed or spoken clearly again.

  A week ago now, Alice had borne a second daughter, Beatrice, and Richard went to break the news to his mother. Whether she was not pleased that the child was a daughter, or whether it was simply that the arrival of new life through the medium of Alice was something she now resented, he did not know. But Wulfhild sat up, mouthing and glaring, and then fell back, senseless once again, this time not to recover consciousness at all, before, forty- eight hours later, slipping into death.

  ‘Poor Mother,’ said Alice earnestly and thought she meant it. But even as she spoke, her mind was travelling round the fine new hall, admiring all its delectable detail and rejoicing because (although it had a one-armed steward for whose condition she genuinely sorrowed), her home was now indisputably her own.

  Rufus never forgot he was a king. Henry had to give him his due for that. When upheavals on the Welsh March called him home to England, he left Normandy, and Helias, and went.

  But he must have felt as though he had left half of himself behind, for when the chance came, even though it meant a November crossing, he returned.

  ‘And I confess defeat,’ said Anselm. ‘He is on his way to the coast now and ultimately, I fear, to Helias. He’s going to make war on him but what the war is a substitute for, I dread to think.’

  ‘As bad as that, my lord?’ Abbot Serlo of Gloucester had heard rumours of Anselm’s intentions and taken time after a London Council to come to Canterbury and assure himself that gossip lied. Only to make the melancholy discovery that it did not. ‘I know he’s not amenable to reason but…’

  ‘He’s not amenable to anything! He only appointed me out of fear. When he was ill at your abbey, he was frightened for his soul. When he got better, the fear went. And now I must go. I need advice. I’m going to Rome. Without Rufus’ permission, but he won’t grant it, and I can’t go on as I am. I’m leaving secretly.’

  ‘If he won’t give you permission to go,’ suggested Serlo, ‘perhaps at heart he knows he needs you?’

  ‘He does need me. That’s why I’m going, to ask for help, to find out how best to serve him. I’m coming back. I’d be betraying him if I didn’t. Listen, Serlo. Not long ago, when I was travelling with my household, some young men of my escort did some hunting along the way and a hare they were chasing took refuge under the legs of my horse. The poor thing’s eyes were bulging with fright and its heart was hammering so that its whole body shook. All it wanted was to live, just to go on having the grass to run on and the sky above. I made them call off the dogs and let it go. You’ll find this hard to believe but Rufus reminds me of that hare. He’d burst out laughing if I said so, but it’s the truth. He was being hunted down by death at Gloucester and he called to me for help then. Now he thinks the hounds are off his trail, but they’re not.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’ Serlo’s perennially worried face sank into deeper worry lines than ever.

  ‘Nor do I, quite,’ Anselm admitted. ‘I was anxious for him before the barons started their revolt. I saw that coming and I thought that that was the danger I was afraid of, that I sensed approaching. But he’s dealt with that and still I can sense danger.’

  Anselm would have been horrified if anyone had suggested that he had powers of scrying; he condemned all such practices as witch-craft. But like many who spent their lives in contemplation of otherworldly matters, he had acquired spiritual vision without knowing it. He tried to make sense of his own instincts. ‘No one can live as Rufus does, offending all the laws of God, and avoid a reckoning. But there’s something about him that makes me want to save him. Only I don’t know how. So I’m going to ask the Pope’s assistance. Perhaps His Holiness can tell me what to do.’

  ‘It will be a rough crossing,’ said Serlo. The drenching rain and the buffeting wind were bad even for November.

  ‘I know.’ Anselm nodded as he heard the weather driving against the walls of the Archbishop’s Canterbury palace. ‘You have to be desperate to face the Channel in this!’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Love and War 1098

  ‘Letting the horses out of the stable,’ said Helias of Maine to his standard bearer as they galloped side by side, with a squadron of knights in close formation behind them, ‘was a stroke of genius, Harvey.’

  ‘I like horses. I couldn’t set fire to the stable while they were inside it,’ said Harvey de Montfort reasonably.

  ‘No. And while they’re stampeding all over the countryside they’ll keep a lot of people busy, and on foot, rounding them up again. Admirable and decent. I like horses too. But by God I don’t like Robert of Belleme. It sticks in my gullet. That was my countryside that I’ve just been into as a raider as if it were enemy territory. And I’d like to know where Belleme is now.’

  ‘So would I,’ Harvey agreed. ‘That raid was too easy.’ He was right. They had swooped close in to one of the Maine fortresses which Belleme had seized from Helias, in order to deal in exemplary fashion with a smallholder who had been supplying Belleme with victuals ‘unpaid, unforced and unasked! as the outraged Helias put it when his intelligence service brought in the report.

  And it had been too easy. They had met no patrols, drawn no sortie from the castle. It was a change in an expected pattern and with a man of Belleme’s malevolent brilliance, changes were usually for the worse.

  Now, riding back to base at Dangeul, the castle he had built north of Le Mans to provide an extra bulwark between the city of Normandy, Helias’ nerves were on the stretch.

  His eyes continually raked the wide commonland around them. Belleme was campaigning under orders from Rufus and Rufus was in Rouen, awaiting the outcome. Rufus would not desist from hounding Helias and Helias, whose stomach clenched into a ball and shouted for help whenever he thought about it, knew why.

  And while Rufus’ rough parody of a wooing was in progress, with Belleme as marriage broker, it was very strange indeed that Helias should be able to enter what was now Belleme’s territory unchallenged, extraordinary that a stretch of commonland in that district should lie so calm and shining under the April sun, with the gorse serenely flowering and the anemones in bloom, as though Belleme were nothing but a legendary ogre invented to scare naughty children.

  Belleme was no legend. He was very real. But where the hell was he?

  The gorse grew denser and became scattered with birch trees. Another mile and the birch gave way to oak and elm. During the recent tense years, with so many men away from home, under arms for fear of Norman attack, homely matters had often gone overlooked, including the practice of cutting back woodlands for a bowshot on either side of main tracks. Bushes and saplings grew close to the path. Helias did not like this. Those bushes could easily conceal men.

  Or, he added grimly to himself during the one and a half seconds it took his horse
to turn a somersault, accommodate a trip-wire, coloured to match the dust of the track and strung at the level of a horse’s knees.

  FitzHamon was over forty and also overweight and was developing a tendency to wheeze. The ash-laden air round Le Mans made him cough at the end of every sentence while he explained to a simmering Meulan that although it was no doubt true that Meulan’s Marshal of Horse was a rogue and a liar who ought to be impaled for his habit of regularly swindling his employer, on this occasion he was being more or less honest. ‘My feed bills are the same. Oats really are that expensive now.’ (Hack) . ‘You can see why,’ said FitzHamon (hack) . ‘There hasn’t been a harvest left untouched for leagues.’

  Helias was a prisoner in Rouen but his removal had not left Le Mans either leaderless or vulnerable. The misanthropic Fulk of Anjou, who for so many years had been gnawing at Maine’s southern border, like a surly dog with a very old bone, had seen the chance of fresh meat and pounced on Le Mans with an enthusiastic growl the moment Helias was gone. His resistance was quite as able as anything Helias could have mounted. Rufus, arriving on the field to take charge of it in person, had been driven to somewhat over-desperate expedients.

  ‘It’s food for men as well as for horses.’ Walter Tirel had been walking at FitzHamon’s side when Meulan whizzed out of his tent like an infuriated wasp and waved a tally in their faces. ‘There’s nothing left in the district for either, so it’s all having to be brought in and even so, it’s hard to get. The weather’s created shortages too.’

  ‘We’ve burnt every barn and granary and acre of standing corn for miles to starve out Fulk and now we’re starving ourselves out instead. I said it was stupid,’ said FitzHamon and lost what he had to say next in a paroxysm of such violent coughing that Meulan said: ‘You need a drink. Come into my tent.’