King of the Wood

by Valerie Anand

  But the day spent on such mundane affairs also pushed back the world of Flambard’s sorceress mother, of rumours and unseen threats. Some new and exciting possibilities inherent in the treaty occurred to him and began to shape themselves into a scheme. He became once more king, campaigner and knight and these aspects of him were angry with Flambard for cozening them with nonsense. He had set out for Malwood in the evening in a temper. And here at Malwood, the world of visions had invaded; not the scrying bowl of Flambard’s dreadful old mother this time, but the very mind of Rufus; king, campaigner and knight, notwithstanding.

  Such diversions as hunting offered no refuge now. Hunting meant the forest and it was here that the danger lay.

  Rising, he stared out over the trees which encircled Malwood and knew with shame that he did not want to hunt in those woods from which his brother and his nephew had both been carried dead, the one with his windpipe smashed and the other with a crossbow bolt through the belly.

  He was horrified, knowing how his father would have condemned such a cravenness. But it made no difference. He looked at the treetops and shrank. He could not do it, could not force his feet to take him out there among them, or compel his tongue to order the hunt to proceed.

  He turned to FitzHamon, who was dressing. ‘We didn’t bring those envoys along just for a hunting party,’ he said. ‘There’s still a few things to discuss. We half-touched on them last night when Tirel wouldn’t let us finish. The envoys have some work to do before they start enjoying themselves.’

  ‘My lord will not hunt this morning,’ said the squire who had been sent out to inform the huntsmen. ‘He is caught up in matters of business. You’re to hold yourselves in readiness to hunt later, perhaps. But for the time being you may unsaddle the horses and return the hounds to their kennels.’

  Silently, shaken, Ralph also looked towards the sea of treetops below Malwood. With his mind, he said: ‘Herne?’

  ‘It can’t be done,’ said Henry exasperatedly. ‘And why we’re sitting here arguing about it as if it might, instead of using this excellent hunting weather, passes my under-standing. We’ve been over and over it. It’s impossible!’

  From the start of the meeting, he had declined to sit. Now he began to prowl restlessly about the hall. The two Aquitainian envoys who were present nodded. They had been protesting from the start, when Rufus unveiled his scheme like a piece of vast and incomprehensible sculpture. The senior of them, a pious and engagingly unworldly individual melodiously known as William Sans Sang because he was so pale that he seemed bloodless, said patiently: ‘Count Henry is right. It’s too grandiose.’

  ‘It’s far too grandiose!’ Henry’s angry prowl brought him back to the table. ‘Knock out Maine and Anjou, keep Christmas in Poitiers – as if it were merely York! – and then as if all that weren’t enough, you announce that you intend to keep Curthose out of Normandy too! I’m not poor-spirited, Rufus, that’s an insulting thing to say. I think it would be a very good thing if Curthose is not allowed to redeem Normandy. We’d gain, frankly, and so would the Normans! But we may not even be able to manage the first part of the plan, let alone the rest! I’m talking practical sense.

  Have we ever really conquered Maine? What if we meet a strong resistance? I know you get angry if anyone says so, but Helias is still there, still refusing to make any kind of terms. As for taking Anjou at the same time words fail me!’

  ‘I agree,’ said Gilbert Clare.

  ‘Especially,’ added Sans Sang with emphasis, ‘now that Fulk of Anjou has married his son to Helias’ daughter. The two of them will assuredly combine.’

  They were repeating themselves and were growing bored. Rufus, however, was becoming furious. ‘I am sick, sick, of the suggestion that it’s beyond me to master Maine!’ He glowered at them, head lowered. No one spoke. Several avoided his eyes. ‘My plans allow for the difficulties,’ said Rufus loudly. ‘We challenge Curthose only after Maine and Anjou have been dealt with. If we move quickly we can – we can, gentlemen! – see to them both and have Normandy embattled, with its chief lords on our side, before Curthose gets home from his nice long travelling honeymoon. What’s wrong with you all? Only a moment ago, I outlined an attractive agreement which could well win over Fulk without a fight, no matter who his son has married. Why don’t you listen? Were you all asleep?’

  ‘No, my lord,’ said FitzHamon. ‘But Fulk and Helias must know our plans by now. No one can assemble a fleet the size of ours in secret. Fulk will treat any advances with suspicion.’

  ‘Helias was preparing for further war against you, sir, before we even left England,’ said Sans Sang. ‘He was casting about for new allies, apart from Fulk. He’s been a widower for years but he’s not yet forty; there was talk that he was considering remarriage, to some lady with powerful relatives. He’s said to have remarked that it’s a shame our Duke’s daughters are too young. One of them, Agnes, promises exceptional beauty, you know. Helias is a good-living man but he much appreciates beauty in women.’

  The manner of Rufus’ life was widely known but Sans Sang was one of those individuals whose piety and un-worldliness protected him from certain kinds of knowledge as though he were a snail and they his shell. Oblique allusions, half-heard sentences which would have told much to less pure or more experienced minds had passed him by. When he saw Rufus’ face change as though some expunging agent had wiped out the king’s usual expression of cheerful pugnacity, leaving a blank, Sans Sang was visibly bewildered.

  In the tight silence, FitzHamon and Gilbert Clare studied the tapestries, while Henry threw himself into a seat and sat there, scowling and taut, as though he might at a signal spring to arms. They, if not Sans Sang, knew what Rufus’ imagination was showing him: Helias, with a lovely woman in his arms.

  Rufus stared inimically round at them. ‘We’re all hungry. We’ll take dinner early. We’ll resume these talks tomorrow.’

  The council adjourned, with relief.

  Over dinner, Rufus, after being silent for a long time, said:

  ‘We might hunt after all, when we’ve done with eating. You can demonstrate your marksmanship to our Aquitainian friends, Tirel. Let’s hope no accidents interrupt the sport this time.’

  ‘We had heard,’ said Sans Sang courteously, ‘that Sir Walter Tirel is an exceptional shot. We must try not to disgrace ourselves.’

  ‘Are they going?’ Oswin almost whispered it, coming up as Ralph led his horse out for the second time.

  ‘Yes. Someone said something to upset him, judging from the talk at dinner. He wants some sport to blow it away. What’s that you’re carrying?’

  ‘Six arrows. I want to present them to the king. I thought... a sort of courtesy.’

  If you were going to have an animal put down, you petted it first. ‘All right, go on in. You may make a few more sales while you’re there.’

  It was not every man of the Tun whom he would un-hesitatingly send to make a personal gift to the king but Oswin had been selling arrows to the royal hunting parties for years. Also, he had a natural poise, the result of lifelong competence in everything he did (Osmund would have dropped things and fallen over someone’s feet). He left Oswin to get on with it, busying himself with an examination of his horse’s shoes. He must cultivate ordinariness today as though it were a harvest on which his life depended. No one, afterwards, must be able to say: That man des Aix was behaving rather oddly, the day the king died, wasn’t he?

  Besides, he wanted to think. He had that one last choice still to make.

  He wondered, as he had done last May Day, how it was possible to be so leaden with dread and yet continue to move steadily towards the source of it. Within half an hour now, he would have made that choice; he would be one step closer to his terrible destination, and for all the shrinking within him, he would make that step, and all those that must follow.

  Not many of them now.

  Oswin came back, excited. ‘Do you know what he did? You’ll never believe that he said!’<
br />
  ‘Did he tip you? He does that sometimes, you know that.’

  ‘No! I said the arrows were a gift in honour of his first visit to Malwood and he examined them and said they were the best workmanship he’d ever seen!’ Oswin had gone pink and shy, like a girl with her first compliment. ‘And then he passed them to my lord Walter Tirel of Poix – he wouldn’t buy any of my shafts yesterday! – and told my lord Tirel to make good use of them. In front of everyone, he told my lord Tirel that they were the best …’ Oswin stopped short. ‘What is it?’ Ralph found that he was staring past Oswin, towards the treetops of the forest, and brought his gaze back. ‘You’ll understand later,’ he said.

  For Tirel was the man he would have chosen. The king’s friend, who could reasonably be given a shooting stand close enough to Rufus. The man who had once ousted Ralph in the king’s affections, to whom Ralph had for years been perforce polite. A man who, furthermore, had the dubious Gilbert Clare for a brother-in-law (Gilbert Clare might have put anyone up to anything). The roof was on the house and Herne had put it there. Tirel’s fine markmanship, thought Ralph, with a sudden, savage de-light, would be remembered now for ever.

  Rufus would come out at any moment. Ralph’s guts were still knotted but there was a lightness in his limbs and his heartbeat had quickened. It was going to happen. At least, if Rufus would only come before anything else could go wrong, a sudden change in the weather, an urgent courier recalling him to Winchester or…

  A mild hubbub at the gate, where someone – it looked like a monk – was apparently trying to gain entry, suddenly increased in volume. The monk’s voice, raised to a shout, carried across the courtyard.

  As one who receives a blow in the stomach, Ralph heard the brown-habited figure demand to see the king at once, because he had come to save King Rufus’ life.

  Mercifully, no one was looking at Ralph. All eyes were on the monk, who was now attempting to push past a couple of burly guards. One of them nodded to a third, who ran for the hall, reappearing a moment later with FitzHamon. The monk recognised FitzHamon’s aura of authority and made for him. The guards let him do so. He caught at FitzHamon’s sleeve. ‘I must see the king! I tell you it’s life and death!’

  Ralph’s hands bunched into fists. Herne leapt and raged in him like a fire. FitzHamon was asking something. The monk replied. ‘Abbot Serlo? You’re from Gloucester? Very well, come with me.’ FitzHamon hustled the monk towards the hall.

  ‘No!’ muttered Ralph, as though the very strength of his feelings could negate opposition. ‘No, no, no!’ Did the monk actually know something and if so, what? If not, then what on earth did this mean? With Oswin behind him, he followed to the threshold of the hall, arriving in time to hear FitzHamon announce to Rufus that ‘this man insists on seeing you’, and to see him push the monk, who fell on his knees, landing beside Herbert Chamberlain, who was crouched at the king’s feet, fitting skintight boots on them, as Rufus sat in a chair.

  ‘Oh, get up,’ said Rufus testily. ‘I don’t want rows of people prostrating themselves in front of me as if I were a heathen idol. What is it this time?’

  ‘He wants to tell you his dreams, my lord,’ said FitzHamon exasperatedly, producing instant merriment from Henry and Tirel, who were both standing close to Rufus. But across the room, Henry caught Ralph’s eye and in his face, anger and desperation were mingled.

  ‘You’ve had enough of other men’s nightmares? You think this monk and I should just share with each other?’ Rufus enquired jovially of FitzHamon. But his voice was up a pitch or two. Ralph folded his arms to hide his crossed fingers while he breathed a silent prayer. ‘Oh Herne, we are so near. Don’t let it go wrong now.’

  ‘Dreams are just dreams,’ said FitzHamon. ‘But this man – no, be quiet, Brother-Whoever-You-Are, I’ll tell it! – he comes from St. Peter’s in Gloucester, Abbot Serlo’s abbey. Serlo sent him, apparently. I have a great respect for Abbot Serlo, as you yourself have, my lord. I thought his message had better be delivered, although when you hear it…!’FitzHamon’s sentence trailed off into a snort.

  ‘All right, what is the message?’ Down the hall, Rufus’ eyes too sought Ralph’s and seemed to be seeking reassurance, as though at some time recently they had glimpsed some less than comforting expression there. Ralph lowered his gaze quickly.

  ‘The message,’ said FitzHamon expressionlessly, ‘is that he’s had the same dream three nights running. My lord, he dreamed that you walked into a chapel and tried to eat a crucifix and that the figure on the Cross kicked you in the stomach. Serlo thought you should know.’

  There was a moment of silence and then first Henry, and after him nearly everyone else in the hall, dissolved not merely into merriment this time but into guffaws. Ralph joined in. Red in the face and almost incoherent with anger, the monk banged a clenched fist into his other palm and bellowed. When he was at last heard, the first word to emerge from the hubbub was: ‘Danger!’ The laughter quietened a little. ‘There’s danger to you, my lord!’ the monk shouted. ‘Signs and portents everywhere! My lord abbot agrees with me; the dreams have a meaning. He wants me to warn you!’

  ‘Serlo shouldn’t let his monks eat cheese for supper!’ retorted Henry swiftly. The laughter broke out again.

  ‘Has Serlo gone mad?’ enquired Rufus. ‘Does he take me for a peasant, doing this or not doing that according to the dreams of monks or old women?’ His voice was hearty but his eyes were wretched. He can’t back out now, thought Ralph, suddenly exultant. He’d never hear the last of it. He daren’t change any plan now, daren’t refuse to hunt. They’d all remember Richie. I should have trusted Herne!

  ‘Give him a hundred shillings for his trouble, FitzHamon,’ Rufus was saying. ‘If Serlo won’t let him keep it, it can buy Masses for my endangered soul. I’m going to hunt. Tirel’s agreed to show our Aquitainian friends the meaning of a straight aim.’

  He looked towards the open door as he spoke, rising to his feet now that Herbert’s ministrations were over. This time, Ralph did not drop his eyes quickly enough. As they met the king’s, he knew, too late, that they were blazing with triumph and with something more; with the intentness that fills the eyes of the hunter or the stalking cat, the instant before the kill.

  And Rufus understood. Ralph saw the blood go out of his face as he identified his slayer, as he realised that the mercy he had refused to Cild was now in turn to be refused to him. But the whole court was laughing at the monk and jostling him as FitzHamon led him to a clerk who would pay him.

  And Rufus, who could not now in honour veer from any course which he had set, must be seeing the darkness he had dreaded all his life, yawning for him like the mouth of a black tunnel towards which he must inevitably go. As the king came slowly down the hall, Oswin gripped Ralph’s elbow. ‘I know that monk! It’s Ketel – you administered the Oath of Quittance to him when you first came to the Tun! He went to Gloucester, yes, that’s right!’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t broken the oath,’ Ralph whispered. ‘I think he’s served it. Shh!’

  With Tirel at his side, Rufus came level with them but went by without glancing towards them. He was making some remark to Tirel about the Aquitainians. ‘…mind you remember what I said, Tirel.’

  ‘I will, my lord,’ said Tirel, close at the royal shoulder. Tirel the scapegoat, to whom the king had given six new arrows from the Tun. The pattern is right, said Ralph’s jumping pulses. He was immune to pity now. Herne was in their midst.

  Rufus hesitated, once, just as they dismounted to walk, in single file, the last half-mile to the stand.

  ‘Monks dream. So do kings,’ he said abruptly to Ralph. ‘That nightmare I had. It was ugly. That’s a bad way to die, with a bolt through the guts. I saw Richie. The monk said the figure kicked…’

  ‘Nothing of that kind is going to happen to you, my lord,’ said Ralph quietly.

  ‘I hope not,’ said Rufus. As if the exchange had meant nothing, Ralph turned to Henry. ‘My lord, would you care to l
ead a separate party to a different stand? The Keeper of the Walk will show you. That way everyone will have a fair chance of shooting. We have plenty of beaters.’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘I thought that the king’s party should include my lords of Poix and Tonbridge…’

  ‘And FitzHamon,’ put in Rufus.

  ‘Of course. And with Count Henry…’

  No one demurred at any of Ralph’s suggestions. Smooth as an oiled key, the final arrangements slid into place. Henry, as he moved off, breathed: ‘Cild,’ so that only Ralph could hear him.

  But Rufus had sensed their thoughts. His eyes fixed themselves for a long moment on Ralph’s face. Then he walked ahead of Ralph, into the woods. He went proudly, as a royal stag should, even though Herne the Hunter was pacing on his spoor. As they went, the distance between them did not vary by as much as a stride’s length. They were locked together now into a fixed pattern, twins and opposites, like light and darkness, until one of them should be dead. And on Ralph’s brow was the weight of an unseen, antlered crown, as real as the weight of the kingdom’s crown on Rufus.

  From where Rufus stood under the oak he had been shown, he looked across a wide glade, broader than the one where Richie had died, with thin, gravelly soil, grass-grown, spread between two belts of trees. He could just see Tirel, about eighty yards away, half hidden by a clump of bushes. Ralph des Aix was nearer, motionless under a tall ash. In the distance, he could hear the beaters. These were the men, these the sights and sounds of a hundred other hunts. Everything appeared quite normal. Had he imagined it all, then: the ominous strangeness in Ralph’s voice and eyes, the menace that since last night had seemed to fill the air like coming thunder?

  Yes. Surely. This was an ordinary late afternoon shoot. Afterwards, there would be supper and in the morning, a further business session. He might well keep Christmas in Poitiers as he had planned.

  He might even see Helias again.