Time and Chance eoa-2

by Sharon Kay Penman

  August had been hot and dry that year and the gardens at Woodstock were wilting despite the best efforts of the manor gardeners. Rosamund Clifford and her guests were playing a game out on the green, and each time one of the women rolled her heavy stone bowl toward its target, it stirred up puffs of dust and left a rut in the parched, browned grass. Whenever Rosamund’s sister Lucy got a strike, she laughed and clapped her hands, attracting admiring glances from the gardeners laboring nearby. While she had none of Rosamund’s ethereal beauty, Lucy was a very pretty young woman, blessed with fashionable fair coloring and more than her share of feminine curves.

  The eldest sister, Amice, was neither as amply endowed as Lucy nor as radiant as Rosamund, and Meliora wondered if this was why there seemed to be so little warmth between them. Growing up in Cornwall, Meliora had squabbled and bickered with her own sisters more often than not. But for all of their jealousies and childish rivalries, they were fiercely devoted to one another, bonded by much more than blood. She sensed no such loyalties amongst the Clifford sisters and could not help recalling Henry’s acerbic opinion of Rosamund’s family. Rosamund, he’d once said caustically, must surely be a foundling. After a week at Woodstock with the Cliffords, Meliora found herself in hearty agreement with her king.

  Rosamund’s mother, Margaret, was seated in the shade of a nearby tree, sipping a cider drink and fanning herself languidly with a napkin. Upon completing her turn at bowls, Rosamund hastened over to Margaret’s side. Meliora wasn’t close enough to catch her words, but she was sure Rosamund was inquiring after her mother’s comfort. She had been running herself ragged since their arrival, doing all she could to make their visit a pleasant one. And her reward, Meliora thought indignantly, was to be buffeted by their unending demands and worse, to be interrogated and prodded and pestered for the smallest scrap of gossip concerning her royal lover.

  But Rosamund had shown a stubborn reticence whenever Henry’s name was dragged into the conversation. She willingly drew upon the resources of Woodstock to indulge her family’s whims. She listened attentively to the narration of their needs, promising to bring her brother Richard to the king’s notice, to seek a boon for Amice’s husband, Osbern Fitz Hugh, to pass on her father’s complaints about his ongoing troubles with the Welsh, to ask the king to allow her kinsmen to hunt in the royal forest of Clee. Yet when they pressed her for details of her liaison with Henry, she became tongue-tied, evasive, or shyly uncomprehending. She had yet to reveal anything but the most banal aspects of her new life as the king’s concubine. She had contributed nothing to the rampant rumors of an autumn confrontation with the queen at Woodstock. And she’d breathed not a word of her impending departure for Southampton, where she would take ship to join Henry in Normandy.

  Margaret Clifford got to her feet, announcing that the gardens were too hot for her liking. Her daughters at once abandoned their game of bowls and clustered around her. Meliora doubted if the queen herself had people dancing such deferential attendance upon her as Rosamund’s mother did. They were heading toward the great hall when a horseman rode in through the gateway. Meliora recognized him at once, for Henry used the same trusted courier for his messages to Rosamund; ever since Eleanor’s surprise visit to Woodstock, he’d become a sincere, if belated, convert to the doctrine of discretion.

  Catching Rosamund’s eye, Meliora jerked her head toward the rider, and then feigned a semiswoon, moaning that the sun was making her sick. None of the Clifford women appeared unduly alarmed by her distress, but she commandeered their aid by the simple expedient of stumbling and grabbing Margaret’s arm in a viselike grip. Wheezing and panting and thoroughly enjoying herself, she let her reluctant volunteers assist her across the bailey, giving Rosamund the opportunity to lag behind.

  She continued the charade in the great hall, gasping weakly for water, going limp, and indulging her penchant for theatrics. The stratagem worked quite well; it was some time before anyone noticed that Rosamund was missing. At Margaret’s insistence, Lucy ventured out into the bailey in search of her sister, reporting a few moments later that she was nowhere in sight. Meliora gave a satisfied sigh and graciously accepted an offer of ale.

  She was somewhat surprised, though, by Rosamund’s failure to return to the hall. As time passed, she felt a nagging sense of unease. If Rosamund had not resumed her role as hostess and dutiful daughter, it could only mean that Henry’s letter had conveyed bad news. Declaring that her sunsickness was much improved, she made an inconspicuous exit and went to find Rosamund.

  Margaret had already sent a servant to Rosamund’s bedchamber, to no avail, so Meliora did not bother retracing his steps. Shading her eyes from the noonday glare, she sought instead to reconstruct Rosamund’s likely movements. She’d have wanted privacy to read her letter, so she’d not have lingered in the gardens. It was too hot for her to have walked down to the springs. After a moment to reflect, Meliora headed across the bailey toward the stables.

  The barn was spilling over with shadows, the air still and pungent with the odors of sweat, dung, and horses. A plank had been laid across two overturned buckets and a meal set out on its rough-hewn surface-a chunk of cheese and half a loaf of bread-as if its owner had just been called away. A scrabbling in the straw and a pitiful squeak told Meliora that one of the stable cats had made a kill. Stallions nickered and snorted, and a restive dun gelding gnawed and slobbered on the corner of its manger. The country-bred Meliora made a mental note to mention to the grooms that her father had successfully treated this vice by removing the manger and feeding the horse on the floor. By now her eyes had adjusted to the gloom and as she moved forward, she glimpsed movement from the depths of an empty stall.

  “Lady Rosamund?”

  There was a long pause. “I’m here, Meliora.” Rosamund’s voice sounded as it always did, soft and slightly out of breath. But as she emerged from the stall, Meliora could see tear marks drying upon her cheeks. She clutched a sheet of crumpled parchment in one small fist; this one would not be joining the precious store of letters she kept secreted and locked in an ivory casket box under her bed.

  “He is on his way into Brittany,” she whispered. “He could delay no longer, for the Viscount of Leon has joined the rebellion against him.”

  “First waste the land, deal after with the foe.” That was a basic tenet of military strategy in God’s Year 1167. The castellan of Morlaix Castle had accepted it as gospel, as did most of the men who were trained in the arts of war. But the king of the English cared little for conventional wisdom. Instead of burning crops and sacking villages, then settling into a lengthy siege of the castle by blockading all access roads and controlling the countryside, Henry Fitz Empress had once again rewritten the rules of combat, relying upon speed, surprise, and a sudden assault.

  His army had appeared before the walls of Morlaix before his foes were even aware of their danger. No one knew that he’d penetrated this far into Brittany. The sleeping garrison had rolled out of their blankets before dawn to a waking nightmare, to find Henry’s troops breaching the walls of the town, encountering little resistance from the startled citizenry.

  The castellan had done the best he could, but his men were already spooked by Henry’s abrupt, unnerving appearance in their midst, already convinced they could catch a whiff of sulphur in the air. All knew the House of Anjou could trace its descent to the Prince of Darkness himself. They knew, too, about the formidable strongholds that had fallen to Henry in the past, able to recite the names like a litany of doom. Chinon, taken from his own brother. Thouars, said to be invincible, captured in just three days. Chaumont-sur-Loire, Castillon-sur-Agen, even the great fortress at Fougeres. How could Morlaix hope to hold out against one of the Devil’s own?

  Henry’s army wasted no time in storming the castle itself, seizing the momentum as he had the town. An iron-tipped bore was soon positioned at a sharp angle of the bailey wall, the men shielded behind a wooden penthouse as they turned the handles and began to drill into the
masonry. A huge battering ram was wheeled forward to smash into the portcullis guarding the gatehouse entrance, and mangonels were loaded with rocks, which were then catapulted into the castle bailey. But Henry meant to take full advantage of the chaos and confusion before the garrison could recover their equilibrium, and he ordered an all-out assault. Setting fire to sacks and brush, the attackers raced for the walls through a billowing smoke screen, braced scaling ladders, and started to scramble up onto the battlements.

  Had Morlaix been expecting an assault, there would have been cauldrons ready with boiling oil and water and heated pitch to throw down upon the enemy. The castellan urgently ordered fires to be kindled, but he knew time was not neutral, that it, too, served Henry Fitz Empress now.

  The castellan’s pessimistic premonition was not long in proving true. The portcullis was absorbing too much punishment to hold, giving way with a shriek of tearing metal, and the ram began thrusting against the next barrier, a heavy oaken door. The bore continued to grind away at the wall, sending up clouds of dust and debris. And more and more of Henry’s men had managed to heave themselves onto the ramparts, where hand-to-hand fighting had begun. But the castle’s fate was not yet determined, not until flaming arrows streaked across the sky above the bailey and a fearful cry went up: “Greek fire!”

  Few soldiers had actually seen this legendary incendiary in action, for its use was far more prevalent in the Holy Land. But all had heard of it, and all knew it was said to be well nigh impossible to extinguish, defying both water and sand, so combustible that it burned hotter than the fires of Hell itself. And it was known, too, that Henry’s father, Geoffrey of Anjou, was the one who’d introduced it to Christian combat during the siege of Montreuil-Bellay. The castellan’s hoarse, shouted denials went unheeded in the turmoil. The line of resistance wavered, then gave way. By the time the ram broke through into the bailey, Morlaix’s garrison was already in retreat.

  They ran for the safety of the keep, with Henry’s soldiers in eager pursuit. Recognizing that he was fighting a battle already lost, the castellan gave the command to withdraw. He and the last of his soldiers barely made it, for someone panicked and fired the wooden stairs while they were still climbing. They had no choice but to plunge through the smoke and shooting flames, stumbling inside mere seconds before the door was slammed and bolted shut.

  Morlaix’s Castellan was sitting on the steps of the dais, morosely surveying the great hall. So many rushlights and candles burned that smoke hovered overhead like a low-lying haze. Outside in the bailey, the sun still glowed in a brilliant blue September sky, but within the keep, the tightly shuttered windows had brought on an early dusk. Already the air seemed close and stale, and the siege had only lasted half a day. Henry had stopped his men from assaulting the keep, and the castellan understood perfectly why he’d done so: to give those trapped inside time to ponder their plight.

  The castellan was doing just that. He lacked neither courage nor experience, had been caught in sieges before this. He knew what misery lay ahead-rationing their dwindling supply of food, praying that the keep’s well would not go dry, never knowing when the next assault might occur, hoping in vain for rescue by their liege lord, the Viscount of Leon. Some of their men might be daft enough to believe Lord Guiomar would do battle with King Henry on their behalf. The castellan was not one of them. Guiomar had a reputation for “fearing neither God nor man” but he was as self-seeking as he was ruthless. In backing his father-by-marriage, Eudo de Porhoet, he’d assumed that he had little to fear for his western, windswept domains, confident that remote Leon would be spared the brunt of Angevin wrath. Now that the Devil was on his very doorstep, he would be rapidly reassessing his options, seeking to cut his losses whilst he still could. The castellan thought it only fair that he should do likewise.

  Rising to his feet, he called out for silence. “I mean to surrender the castle.” He was poised to justify his decision to the knights, if not the men-at-arms, ready to point out that Lord Guiomar had not the men to break the siege, and a garrison that held out till the bitter end forfeited any claims to mercy. But there was no need. Not a voice was raised in protest and the prevalent expression on the faces upturned to his was one of weary and profound relief.

  Henry’s half-brother Hamelin was jubilant. “Morlaix was said to be the strongest of that hellspawn Guiomar’s castles. Wait till he hears how you took it with such ease, slicing through the walls as if they were made of butter!”

  Henry was sorting through a sheaf of Guiomar’s captured correspondence and merely nodded absently, intent upon unrolling another sheet. He was only half-listening to Hamelin, for he shared little of his kinsman’s elation. Military victories were writ in water, as fleeting as memories, and while one might give him satisfaction or relief, it was never joy. In this case, he was pleased that Morlaix’s castellan was a sensible sort and not one of those glory-drunk fools who saw combat as the ultimate test of manhood. But he was under no illusions that Morlaix’s loss would come as any great revelation to Guiomar, another St Paul on the road to Damascus. Men of Guiomar’s ilk shed their loyalties like a snake sheds its skin. He surprised himself then by thinking suddenly of Thomas Becket.

  The great hall was a scene of bustling activity. The garrison had been confined until terms could be struck for their release, and nearby the castellan waited patiently for Henry to find the time to resume his interrogation. But there were still wounded to be tended and dead to be buried, on both sides, and the village elders to be reassured that the worst was over. Henry decided to order extra rations of drink tonight for his men, recompense for his not having turned the town over to them for their sport. The villagers could thank the castellan’s common sense for their reprieve. War was a punishment for the guilty, but also a lesson for those who’d not yet strayed. A castle or town taken by storm was fair game; one that surrendered could expect kinder treatment. It was as simple as that.

  Hamelin was still chattering on about the day’s events, but Henry no longer even made the pretense of listening, for he’d just discovered a letter to Guiomar from his father-in-law, Eudo de Porhoet, a letter that spoke with rash candor of a possible alliance with the de Lusignans, the most disgruntled of Eleanor’s Poitevin barons. Both Eudo and Guiomar would regret his careless failure to burn it, Henry thought grimly, setting the evidence aside for future use. Damn the de Lusignans! They were little better than bandits, using Lusignan Castle as a base for preying upon their neighbors and travelers. He would have to deal with their treachery next. He’d known about their plotting with the Count of Angouleme and other Poitevin rebels, but not that they’d been conniving with the Bretons, too.

  His spurt of anger was short-lived. What he felt mainly was a bone-weary discontent, salted with a sprinkling of mocking self-pity. This expedition into Brittany had already cost him more than he was willing to pay. He’d hoped to be able to spend all of September in Normandy, wanting to bid his daughter Tilda farewell when she set off on her bridal journey with the German ambassadors. That would have been a good time, too, to make his peace with Eleanor. And then there was Rosamund, surely the most neglected royal concubine in Christendom. It would be winter ere he could find time for her, too late then to have her brave a Channel crossing.

  Just then he caught a murmured exchange between the castellan and one of the wounded. While he did not speak Breton, finding it to be as incomprehensible a language as Welsh, he was familiar with phrases and words, one of which was Bro-C’Hall and another roue. He thrust aside Guiomar’s letters and got to his feet, wanting to know what the castellan had to say about the King of France.

  “My liege…”

  Henry had not noticed the newcomer’s approach. He glanced over his shoulder and the man hastened to kneel at his feet. Clad in the black of the Benedictines, his monk’s habit stood out in this hall full of soldiers. As he raised his face, Henry felt a twinge of recognition. After a moment’s reflection, he had a name… Stephen of Rouen, one of the mo
nks of Bec, a favorite of his mother’s. He started to smile, then saw the dusty, soiled condition of Stephen’s habit, saw, too, the monk’s reddened, sorrowful eyes.

  Stephen’s voice was low-pitched, hard to hear above the din of the hall. “My lord king, I am heartsick to bring you such grievous news. Your lady mother… she is dead.”

  The night was mild, starlit and still. A wind had sprung up within the last hour, cooling and damp against Henry’s skin. The air had a distinctive aroma that would ever after remind him of Morlaix: brine and seaweed from the harbor vying with the lingering smell of smoke and a heavy, sweet fragrance drifting from the gardens. He had not knowingly headed for the gardens, only realized that was where his wanderings had led him when he inhaled the scent of late-summer flowers. Aside from a crater in the center of the grassy mead, where a mangonel shot had dumped a large rock, and several smashed turf seats, the gardens appeared to have sustained little damage from the brief siege. Unless the moonlight was hiding unseen horrors, just as the perfume of blossom and herbs camouflaged the odors of blood and death.

  He was still in the gardens when Hamelin came in search of him. Uneasy about invading his privacy, Hamelin was making as noisy an approach as possible, wanting to give Henry advance warning. His heart was beating uncomfortably fast, his stomach churning with anxiety. What could he possibly say that would ease Harry’s pain? And yet, how could he not try? If only the queen or Rainald or Ranulf were here! What a jest that he should be the one chosen by God to offer comfort when he’d likely be tripped up by his own tongue.