King of the Wood

by Valerie Anand

  Edith, with her fingers tight on his, said: ‘Don’t go too far away!’

  On his way out, he said to Christina: ‘Treat her very kindly. Her brother is a close friend of King Rufus, you know.’ Christina looked at him as though she knew exactly what instructions from Count Henry were worth.

  They were worth as much as his status in England, as his brother’s landless liegeman, was worth.

  Nothing. And the knowledge was eating him like acid.

  The gathering at which the treaty for the future of Maine was to be settled was ceremonious. Rufus was on the dais, in his Chair of State. Beside him was a table, with the treaty laid out on it together with pen and ink. A wine flagon and a set of goblets had been set there too, for the customary pledging after a document of such importance was signed. Henry and Curthose’s son Richie stood behind Rufus. The barons made an avenue leading to the dais. Near it, two on each side, were FitzHamon and Tirel, Meulan and Belleme. The quartet did not resemble each other. FitzHamon towered over Tirel; Meulan’s showy gold embroidery on crimson was a startling contrast to the svelte and feline elegance of Belleme’s silver and dark blue. But they were all watching the king with the same intensity. On his side, Rufus when he came in ignored them all impartially, greeting only his brother and nephew. He looked as if he had not slept for a fortnight.

  When Helias was brought in, nor did he.

  He had an escort but they fell back to let him walk alone to the dais. He knelt at its foot, was bidden to rise, and did so. Silence fell.

  ‘Well, sir!’ said Rufus, in hearty, encouraging tones, at last. Silence then fell again.

  Helias’ expression suggested that he wished he knew what he was supposed to say next. He glanced at the table with the treaty on it. Then he took a deep breath and with great formality said that he accepted that Rufus was now lord of Maine, and reminded him that his, Helias’, service and fealty were among the terms offered in the agreement now awaiting signature. He wished to serve Rufus in arms in the hope of one day earning the right to hold Maine as his vassal ‘…the liegeman of a king who has bested me in honourable warfare.’

  ‘He hasn’t seen the mess round Le Mans yet,’ Meulan muttered, cynically and just audibly..

  ‘You have already, unofficially, accepted the terms,’ Helias said. ‘May we now sign our names to them? And will you strike off my chains?’

  It was a courtly, polished speech and deserved a kindlier reception than Rufus’ observation that Helias wasn’t wearing any chains. There was laughter.

  ‘A man with his turbulent history,’ Meulan remarked, ostensibly to Belleme but loudly, ‘shouldn’t be trusted as a liegeman. He ought to be in fetters now and stay in them for good.’

  Helias whitened. He turned his head. ‘When I’m a free man, tell me again that I’m untrustworthy. Say it to my face if you dare.’

  ‘That will do!’ Rufus crashed his palm onto the table and as he did so, caught the edge of a goblet. It fell onto the floor at Helias’ feet. Helias stepped back quickly. He and Rufus stared at each other. Rufus said nothing. Helias glanced at the nearest page with a silent command to him to pick the goblet up.

  ‘Before you make threats under my roof,’ said Rufus, ‘you might remember that you are s… still in my power.’ I

  ‘Yes. Fortune’s on your side there,’ Helias agreed. The air was tense. It was as if they all knew that something was happening under the surface, but did not know what. All they had seen was Helias retreating from a harmless fallen goblet as though he were afraid of it, and Rufus apparently waiting for something to be said or done, which had not been said or done. The page who had picked the goblet up, replaced it on the table. The assembly waited.

  ‘If you refuse both my honourable fealty and my freedom,’ said Helias, ‘if you withdraw now from the terms of the treaty, then I shall only say that I shall escape if I can and that I will then do my utmost to perform all that the Count of Meulan so gratifyingly expects me to perform anyway!’

  Again the hall waited. The guards looked at Rufus, as if expecting him to order them to seize Helias. But he did it himself, springing from his chair and off the dais, to grab the Count of Maine by the upper arms and shake him. ‘You will, will you? You… you… oh, you fool, you! G… get out of my sight! Out! Out! To hell with the treaty!’ He spun Helias to face the door. It was clear that he took pleasure in having his hands on the Count, however briefly. ‘Out! Go where you like, do as you like! Do you think it makes any difference to me?’ He was shouting at the top of his voice and his final push almost sent Helias onto all fours. Richie laughed. Rufus flung himself away from the Count, back to the table, snatched up the treaty and tore it across, resisted by the strong vellum, but powerful enough in his anger to defeat it. Helias recovered his balance and whirled round.

  ‘Thank you, my lord; I accept my freedom gladly.’ He was shaking, perhaps with rage, perhaps with relief. ‘May I have the customary safe conduct to your borders, at the nearest point to my personal estates?’

  ‘Yes! Now go!’ Rufus bellowed. He stumped back to his chair. For a moment he stood with his back to the hall, staring at the chair as though he did not know what it was. When at last he resumed his seat and faced the hall again, Helias had gone.

  PART VI

  IN WHICH WILD HUNTSMEN ARE ABROAD

  1099 – 1100 AD

  One The Stag King April 1099

  Two Orion’s Belt June 1099

  Three I Have Sinned Aug-Oct 1099

  Four The Four Horsemen Feb 1100

  Five The Revelations of St John and

  Others Feb-March 1100

  Six The Holy Executioner May 1100

  Seven Rumour Summer 1100

  Eight A Day in the Death of King Rufus

  2nd August 1100

  Epilogue August 1100

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Stag King

  April 1099

  ‘Where is the Lady Edith? I want to see her.’ Henry had been pacing the quiet guest room when Abbess Christina came in. When his man arrived with the news that there was a white cloth in the ivy on the wall of Romsey Abbey, he had been in the mews of Winchester Palace, consulting with the falconer about an ailing peregrine. He had come just as he was, in the old clothes he wore in mews or stable, patched at the elbows and splashed with mutes. He had saddled his own horse, shouting for his men, but not waiting for them; they had had to catch him up on the way. Striding about the austere chamber with its smell of cold stone and incense and meditation, he was like a leopard in a boudoir. The abbess folded her hands inside her sleeves, largely to conceal the teeth marks in one of them, and said: ‘The Lady Edith is unwell, I regret to say. You cannot see her today.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  Abbess Christina’s eyebrows said: is it any of your business? Aloud, she said: ‘A fever of some kind. I will tell her you called and asked after her.’

  ‘That won’t do. I insist on seeing her.’

  ‘I am sorry, Count Henry, but it’s impossible. Please sit down. You’ve evidently ridden a long way. I will send for refreshments…’

  He had five men with him. They stood in a group near the door. He turned to them. ‘Come on.’ They accompanied him as he pushed past Christina and strode out into the abbey grounds. He looked up at the main abbey building. ‘Edith! Where are you?’ There was silence, although some half-scared, half-excited faces were peering from various windows and doorways. ‘Count Henry!’ The abbess had pursued them. ‘This is most improper! You are disturbing my nuns’ hour of private prayer…’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Henry. He strode twenty yards along the side of the building, stopped and shouted again. ‘Count Henry! I shall complain to the bishop…’ Henry held up his hand. But the silence was unbroken. He shook his head and made for the arch through which lay the rose garden and cloister. Christina did not try to stop him, but stood aside, hands once more folded, head up. There was something faintly triumphant in her attitude. He halted in front o
f her, stared into her face, swung round and made instead for the kitchen block. He was rewarded, as he glanced back at her, by a visible dimming of her assurance. ‘This way, lads,’ he said. ‘We’re getting warm.’

  He had stood in the kitchen courtyard and shouted only twice when he heard it, faint, and apparently coming from underground, a girl’s voice calling, or crying, and a dull thumping as though she hammered on a door.

  ‘Very well.’ Christina stepped into his path. Her eyes were hard with anger. ‘You think highly of the lady Edith and I had no wish to distress you, or embarrass her. But she has behaved herself very ill. Yes, she is incarcerated, until tomorrow. It is a matter of monastic discipline and…’

  ‘Monastic horseshit,’ said Henry. ‘Where is she? ‘It’s this way, sir,’ said one of his men, who had been questing like a hound meanwhile, to establish the direction of the sound. ‘Over here – yes, look, there!’

  Beside the kitchen was a shallow, stone-lined pit, with steps, giving entrance to a wooden door beneath the building. The door was bolted on the outside. It shook to the pounding of someone within, and Edith’s voice, muffled but now intelligible, cried from beyond it: ‘Henry!’

  He was down the steps, yanking back the bolts, in an instant. He was in, kneeling on a cold flagstoned floor, holding her. She cried out at his touch but as he quickly released her, clutched at him with fingers chilled and quivering, as if afraid he would vanish.

  ‘Edith. Oh my darling. What has she done to you?’ His eyes adjusted to the gloom of the little underground room. It was a cell, he saw, a stone box, with nothing in it but their two selves. And Edith had no clothing beyond a dirty sleeveless shift of white linen, and there were bruises all over her arms, plum-coloured fingerprints of violence amid the gooseflesh. The back of the shift was streaked with her dried blood, and in places had stuck to her body.

  ‘She beat me, and threw me in here. Yesterday. But I knew it was going to happen. I put out the signal. I knew you’d come…’

  The trust in her voice shook him even more than the exhausted tears into which she now dissolved. One day, please God, she would be his wife, living close to him. And one day, for sure, she would learn what he was, how little to be trusted in so many ways. She would know of his black furies, in which he could kill as easily as treading on a beetle; she would learn that although it was true he loved her, he would never be faithful, never think of a world full of young women as other than a garden full of fruit for picking.

  But in certain ways he would be trustworthy. Indeed he would. ‘I said I’d come and I kept my word. Let me lift you – gently now. This will never happen to you again, I swear it. Never. Believe me.’ He raised her, carefully, not to hurt her, and she clung to him as he carried her outside and up the steps from the sunken area, to where Christina stood, a pillar of black-draped wrath, with his men watchfully beside her.

  ‘What did she do?’ he enquired contemptuously of Christina. ‘Murder someone? What a shame it wasn’t you. Someone give me a cloak. She’s freezing.’

  ‘She committed disobedience and then blasphemy,’ said Christina. ‘You approve of such things, Count Henry?’

  ‘She tried to make me say I’d ask the king’s leave to take vows. She tried to make me wear the veil again. She put one on my head. When she’d gone out, I took it off and threw it on the floor but she came back and caught me. She said I could have two days to decide whether to obey her or not.’ Edith moved in his arms and put her lips against his ear. ‘That’s when I put out the sign.’ Someone offered Henry a cloak and in response to his nod, laid it carefully over her. ‘The two days were up yesterday,’ said Edith. ‘But I didn’t give in.’ She spoke loudly now. ‘I call you all to bear witness. I didn’t give in! I bit her!’

  There were admiring murmurs from Henry’s men, who would one and all have knocked unconscious any wife or daughter who defied them as Edith had defied Christina, but could pay homage to sheer guts when these were not a personal affront.

  ‘I heard your voice,’ Edith said, her face upturned to her rescuer. ‘I was half-stupid, lying on that floor. She said I should have no food or water till tonight. I was in a dream ... or a nightmare. But I heard your voice. It woke me. I made myself kneel up and bang on the door and scream for you to find me.’

  She was shivering and the shivers might well be genuine incipient fever. ‘The infirmary!’ Henry snapped at Christina. ‘Take us there. At once!’

  He stood over the Infirmarian Sister himself, barking orders, till Edith had been given wine and hot meat broth with some bread soaked in it, a draught to reduce fever and another to ease pain, had had her weals dressed and bound with pads of soft cloth, and was safely in bed, lying on her stomach with a light rug over her and a brazier lit to warm the room.

  She was frightened when she realised he was leaving her, but she was growing drowsy and he gave her all the reassurance he could. ‘It won’t happen again. I’ll tell you why.’ He whispered. Edith’s eyes widened and she gave what might have been a shaky chuckle. He kissed her in farewell.

  And then turned to Christina, who had stood in the room, majestic in her resentment, but silent now. ‘Madam, come with me.’

  He did not leave it to her to decide whether she would do as he said, but grasped her upper arm and walked her out into the open air. She did not resist and he knew that she too was afraid. She might have laws behind her that declared her person sacrosanct; she might have the power of the bishop at her back. But laws were only words on parchment and the bishop wasn’t here. Henry and his men, with years of violent lawlessness behind them, were.

  Her shoulders were stiff and her profile stony. Edith’s phenomenal courage, Henry thought, was possibly drawn from her mother’s side of the family as well as her father’s. Christina undoubtedly had nerve.

  And then, as he reached his men, who were waiting outside, and stopped and jerked Christina round to face him, he knew, out of a long and extensive experience, that she was disturbed by him in another way, that in the grip of his hard male fingers was something of which Abbess Christina had been deprived, and that behind her fear and her affront, was a dreadful unadmitted hunger. And the desire to yield.

  Henry, outrageously, grinned into his victim’s face, be-fore he looked at his men.

  ‘A moment ago, the Lady Edith called on you all to bear witness to her words. Now I ask you to bear witness to mine. Listen to me, Mother Abbess.’ He turned back to Christina, ‘I leave Lady Edith in your care but henceforth she is to be treated only with tenderness. If she is mistreated in any way, I shall know. Oh yes, I shall be informed. I have my methods. And if word reaches me that Edith has been hurt in any way while she is here, I shall come and what you did to Edith yesterday, I shall do to you, myself.’

  He allowed himself a count of three in which to enjoy the horror and the heat rushing into the abbess’s face, before he let go of her, gestured to his men who were grinning just as he was, and strode away with them to the gate. Their horses were tethered outside it. The Abbess Christina, standing rigid with shock in the midst of her own abbey buildings, did not move, until after their hoofbeats had died away.

  Rufus was out of Winchester, on a progress in fact to the north-east, to meet Edith’s brother King Edgar, who was about to pay a state visit to England. Henry, riding as if possessed, thundering through villages where empty streets and silent houses were clear signs that Rufus’ court had been before him, and that those inhabitants who had not hidden away with their goods and livestock were now crouching indoors to nurse the shock of loss and impotent anger, caught up at nightfall. ‘At another blasted abbey,’ he said aloud, dismounting at its gate.

  The king was already in his bedchamber and when Herbert the Chamberlain, in response to Henry’s furious insistence, had admitted him, Rufus’ reception was grudging.

  ‘What is it, Henry? Even if there’s a Viking invasion we can’t do much about it until dawn.’

  He then sat on the edge of his couch, ch
unky and fulminating in his blue gown, while Henry, his words punching the air like fists, explained what he had come for.

  ‘You’ve asked me this before. I told you no,’ said Rufus. His pale hard stare reduced Henry from the status of Count to that of younger brother with a tendency to get above himself. ‘You’ve chased after me to ask me that, when you’re supposed to be in Winchester representing me? Where there are three separate functions within the next seven days at which you’re needed? You’ve no business here. You may not marry Edith of Scotland. Is that clear?’

  ‘Why not? Her brother’s on his way south; it is a perfect moment to ask for his agreement and…’

  ‘It’s my agreement that’s essential. I am King of England and Edith is living in England and both she and you are living here at my expense. I pay Romsey Abbey for her upkeep; I pay you a salary. Your marriages, both of them, are in my gift and I’m not granting it.’

  ‘Why not? Rufus, I’ve just told you in what state I found her. I don’t like leaving her there, even after the threats I made. Have you no pity?’

  ‘I could ask you the same question. Withdraw your suit and she will be in no danger. She can become a nun and probably that would be best. Yes, I said she wasn’t to take vows without my consent, didn’t I? I must release her from that.’

  ‘But why can’t we marry? For the love of God, Rufus!

  She’s the daughter of one king and the sister of another. I’m the son of one king and the brother of another. If Curthose doesn’t come back…’

  ‘What has that to do with it?’

  ‘There’s no point in tiptoeing around it. If he doesn’t come back, I’m your heir.’