"Take Eustace." The word passed from mouth to mouth. "It matters not whether we win or lose, so long as the prince be taken, alive and if possible unhurt. Whoever has him, let him break for Bristol, risking no chance of rescue."
Take Eustace. The sentence was more easily said than the deed done. It was plain from the moment the forces joined battle that Eustace and his men had little trust in their informants. Usually the prince, a brave and hardy knight, fought well to the front of his army. Not so this night. Eustace held back or was held back, surrounded by the best of his men, and obviously the whole troop had been on their guard against just such a surprise as was planned.
The first rush, led by Henry while Hereford held about half the force in reserve, did not demoralize the oncoming men as expected. Eustace's army closed ranks and struck back fiercely. The rear guard, no doubt instructed in advance of what to do in such a case, fanned out at a gallop and, bursting through fields and woods, attacked Henry's flank with determination. Henry's forces wavered and fell back under the impact at first, but the shouts and curses of their leader, who was setting them a brilliant example by hewing down every opponent within his reach, and the knowledge that reinforcements were at hand rallied them.
Hereford became more and more nervous, straining his ears to pick out single sounds in that cacophony until his eyes started. Amid the crash of underbrush, the clangor of metal on shield and hauberk, the shrieks and groans of the wounded and dying, and the fierce shouts of encouragement from the captains of both parties, he was terrified that he would miss Henry's voice calling him into action. The only reason he held back at all, once it became apparent that his men would not be used to pursue the fleeing or cut down a last-stand guard around Eustace, was that he knew Henry to be very jealous of sharing the glory of a victory.
Hereford did not miss the call when it came, but Henry's pride had delayed until almost too late. By the time Roger led his men into the fray, they could prevent Eustace from forcing Henry to retreat, but they could no longer turn the tide into anything less than a major defeat. Much blood was shed before this became apparent to the embattled leaders of both parties, for they were too busy fighting for their own lives to consider the general situation.
With the coming of full day, however, the stalemate became obvious. Eustace had the stronger force, had suffered fewer casualties, and had a little advantage in the ground, but Henry's troop was on friendly territory only a few miles from a major stronghold that could resist a far greater army than Eustace's. One more desperate charge was rallied by Henry in a last attempt to take Eustace prisoner, but the young prince defended himself ably and his men made a solid wall around him that even the ferocity of the Angevin could not pierce.
That attack nearly spelled disaster for Henry. His men followed him in a thin wedge through Eustace's line, and, while he tried to break the guard around the prince, his own path of escape was very nearly closed off. Hereford launched himself personally at the group closing in behind his overlord, his vassals following closely and desperately, and they hewed a new opening through which Henry was finally forced to withdraw.
That was the end as far as the rebel army was concerned. They had suffered far greater losses than the king's men, and the objective of their struggle was unobtainable. To stay and fight longer was senseless; they could not win, and they could lose all. Obedient to the new orders being shouted from troop to troop, they broke contact and retreated in good order toward Bristol. A brisk rear-guard action was fought while Eustace's men still thought that they could turn a retreat into a rout, but Hereford had excellent control over his forces and the prince soon abandoned the pursuit because he had no desire to come any closer to that passionately rebel city.
"He knew," Henry panted furiously, "he knew. He was prepared to meet us. That ambush was no surprise."
"Mayhap." Hereford was depressed, aching from the battering he had taken, "But I think not. Eustace has been under arms for several years now, with his father and alone. Stephen is a fool, but not in matters of war, and taught his son well. He would need to be very foolish indeed to come so far on such information as William's and not guard against attack. The fault is mine, if there is a fault, in being too eager to think all would fall as we desired. I should have known it was too easy."
"Holy Mother, I am sore all over. Can we bring more men out from Bristol and fall upon him again?"
"We can try. You will not find him, I think. Eustace planned to take us at Dursley, which is not specially strong, or hoped to catch us unprepared on the road. He will never attempt Bristol. Stephen did that with the whole army and failed. I suspect he will make the best speed he can back to Oxford now. He has suffered less loss than we, but he still needs time to lick his wounds."
"Curse you, Roger, let us turn and try again then."
"If you will, my lord, but the men are tired, and their hearts, I fear, will fail them."
"It is your heart that fails—"
Hereford turned with blazing eyes. "That is the second time you have called me coward. If I do not suit you, find another who will so readily shed his blood and spend his substance in your cause."
Henry was not angry at Hereford but at the failure of their plans. He controlled his temper with an effort, therefore, not desiring to inflame his equally frustrated companion any further. "Nay, I know it is not your failing. I do but strike out at you because I am enraged and you are dear to me. What is now best to be done?"
Dully, Hereford stared between his horse's ears for a while. Finally he spoke in a dead voice. "I will send to Bath, Devizes, and Shrivenham and urge our men there to take him if possible or at least to harry him. The more men he loses, the better will be our chances of seizing him."
Eustace, as Hereford knew he would, won safely back to Oxford and gave his opponents every reason to regret his escape bitterly. He remained at that stronghold, instead of returning to London, issuing out to raid the countryside often enough to keep both Hereford and Henry continually occupied with protecting what was theirs. Everything they desired to accomplish, such as the taking of Faringdon, hung mid-air while they first raced southward to aid John FitzGilbert protect Marlborough, then north again to reinforce Devizes from which they had drawn the troops to aid John. Possibly it was just as well that Hereford was too busy to think, or his courage might well have faltered under the accumulation of failures. Even the news from the north, which at first had been hopeful, began to grow worse.
Elizabeth's couriers arrived with good regularity, seldom failing a day unless Hereford outstripped them. She had accomplished her purpose so well that Chester agreed to attempt a defense of the position Henry's adherents held in Yorkshire. Unfortunately his forces, even augmented by Elizabeth's men, were not sufficient to stop Stephen, who, once aroused to action, was a very adequate warrior. First one and then another stronghold fell.
Chester was no man to remain steady in the face of adversity, and soon Elizabeth's letters took on a note of weariness and desperation. She could not hold her father longer, she wrote to her husband one blazing day in July, he would return to Chester. "I have prevailed so far over him," her letter ran. "that he will offer Stephen no truce, nor will he travel south to aid or hinder your efforts. More I cannot do. Not knowing your wishes, I ride to Chester with him and, unless you have further commands for me, I will stay, endeavoring to stiffen his purpose toward your cause. Sealed under my hand on this 12th day of July, Elizabeth Hereford."
Dropping his head into his hands, Hereford stared dully at the earth between his feet. Commands for her, he thought wearily; he wished he had some for his own men that would have some profitable purpose. But the true nightmare had not yet begun.
When Chester left Yorkshire, Stephen too was freed. The king was an exceptionally good-natured man, slow to anger and slow to take any type of action. Once aroused, however, he seemed to have been driven insane. He descended upon the south of England, not to fight Henry but to destroy completely the already rava
ged land. No restraints at all were placed upon the royal troops; they had license to commit every atrocity and special instructions to scorch the earth. Wherever they arrived, not a hut remained standing, not a blade of the newly reaped or standing crops was permitted to survive, not a beast suitable for work or food escaped destruction. What they could not consume themselves, they heaped together and set aflame. The men and children were slain outright, the women used, then slain. A black horror of burnt hovels and vegetation and putrefying bodies covered the land.
Hereford rode one way, Henry another, but nowhere could they catch the king or bring his troops to stand and fight. They rode through the burning days and sultry, smothering nights of one of the hottest summers England had known in a long time. They rode until Hereford looked like a gaunt wraith with burning, horror-filled eyes and until even Henry's iron limbs twitched and shuddered when he fell off his horse to snatch the unrestful slumber of exhaustion and despair. Hopeless of conciliating or vanquishing Salisbury and John FitzGilbert as well as Henry of Anjou and the Earl of Hereford, Stephen had determined to destroy them by starvation, and he was well on his way to accomplishing his purpose.
Roger of Hereford pushed off his helmet and unlaced his mail hood. His golden curls were a muddy brown, so soaked was his hair with filth and sweat, and his face was wet with mingled rivulets of perspiration and unashamed tears. Once more he was too late, and the fields and hamlets around the great keep of Devizes itself were nothing but smoking ruins. He sat and sobbed like a tired child, too hopeless and helpless even to be angry. Within the keep, a half hour later, he found Henry, also sobbing and half hysterical with rage and frustration.
"We were here," he shrieked, "here, right here, yet we saw nothing. heard nothing, until all at once the entire countryside was in flames. I swear by the bloody hands and feet of Christ that we were not above half an hour in arming and issuing forth after them. They melted away like smoke before our very eyes. We combed the countryside; we looked under the very stones seeking them. The devil must be his partner; the devil himself alone could perform such works of evil."
Or God, Hereford thought, sinking into a seat, silent and sick. Stephen was God's anointed king. Had they offended the Almighty by opposing him? Was this their punishment—to starve, to see their lands rot? Henry continued to rave, storming up and down the great hall; Hereford sat silent, possessed by that one horrible thought and incapable of voicing it, studying his dirt encrusted hands as if he could read the future in the streaks and smears of filth.
"My lord." William Beauchamp put a hand on his master's shoulder and shook him gently. He often had to do that these days to attract Hereford's attention, and his heart ached at the dull, lackluster look of the blue eyes that turned up to his. This will kill him, Beauchamp thought, remembering the vibrantly alive man he used to serve who before this had laughed in the face of every adversity. "Letters, my lord," he said; there was nothing else to say.
"My wife?"
William handed over several brief notes from Elizabeth. Her father was still doing nothing, sulking in his favorite castle, hunting, and complaining to his daughter, but he was possessed, said Elizabeth, of a "black and bitter bile" which boded his attachment to his son-by-marriage’s cause little good. Chester, Elizabeth wrote, must be forced into some action, and she pleaded with Roger to tell her which way to push him to separate him irrevocably from the king lest he leap into action that would do just the opposite. Hereford did not even feel a quiver of emotion as he read. He was too played out, mentally and physically, to feel anything, even his wife's appeal for help.
Roger did not even notice or care what was written between the lines, of how Chester's behavior, together with his own bad news or sullen silence, was wearing on Elizabeth's nerves. He merely put the letters aside and reached for the others William still held. At least all was well with his own lands; Stephen had not yet had time to turn his attention to them, and his mother wrote only ordinary news and asked only minor advice about serfs' misdoings and good or bad crops. Thus, far he had been spared the blow of personal loss. Apparently Stephen was saving his property for the deathblow to Henry's attempt.
The seals on the last two letters brought a frown to a countenance that previously had been rigid with exhaustion. One had been written by a clerk for his sister Anne, the other the Earl of Lincoln's. He tore open Anne's letter first and read hastily. Casting the parchment aside with a low exclamation of irritation he then virtually devoured Lincoln's missive.
"Oh, God," he groaned aloud, "that was all that was needful. I warned him—I warned him."
Startled by a sound from Hereford, whom he had begun to think had lost the power of speech, Henry came away from the window out of which he had been moodily staring. "What more can have befallen us?"
"Not us, praise Mary. This blow is mine alone, a personal one. I did not tell you when I spoke to you of Nottingham that I was there because my wife was taken by Peverel. I regained her in a trial by combat with de Caldoet who was Peverel's champion and whom I took prisoner. I yielded him to the Earl of Lincoln for private reasons, warning Lincoln that de Caldoet was a treacherous cur. How he has done it, I know not, but he has wrested several strongholds from Lincoln and turned the city itself against its master."
"Why should you care?" Henry asked impatiently. "From what I hear of Lincoln his vassals are looking for any excuse to turn on him. If Lincoln willingly took de Caldoet and you warned him, it is no problem of yours."
"Lincoln is the father of my sister's husband, and as such has blood claims upon me. My sister Anne is married to his third son, Rannulf. He asks my aid, relying upon that bond, and, what is more, here is a letter from my sister, frantic because her husband has answered his father's call to arms—most rightly—and she is with child."
Henry stopped his restless movements and stared at Hereford, his gray eyes narrowing. "Well, do you send him aid?"
"Have I the men?" Hereford asked bitterly. "Can I spare so much as a cook's helper from our task here? I can do no more than write to my mother to squeeze the serfs. Belike she can wring some gold from them to send him, or perhaps I could borrow of Chester for Lincoln is Chester's … Merciful Christ," Hereford cried suddenly, starting to his feet, and the words carried no blasphemy but a note of prayer and entreaty.
He spoke no more aloud, shaking his head in reply to Henry's questions, for he had not yet confided in Henry the tale of Chester's vacillation, but his thoughts continued the sentence. Merciful Christ, perhaps de Caldoet's treachery is the answer to our troubles with Chester. It is true that Lincoln and Chester do not overly love each other, but for this kind of trouble—the revolt of a servitor—I am sure Chester will go to the support of his half brother. Then, if Elizabeth can spur them on, they will not stop with subduing de Caldoet, but will ravage the province. She might even be able to urge them south to attack Nottingham. God willing, such action may draw Stephen north and leave us only Eustace to deal with.
"Roger, I am speaking to you. Would not Lincoln already have appealed to Chester?"
Henry's sharpness jolted Hereford into speech. "Perhaps. I cannot tell. There is no hatred between them, only little love. However, Chester takes time to decide things, and even if Lincoln has written he knows that Chester will not act at once, specially to part with money. I am quicker to say yea or nay. You must pardon me, my lord, I must write to Chester, to Elizabeth, and to Lincoln to find out what I can do and what is going forward—oh, yes, and to poor Anne too. Poor child. I can offer her little comfort save my assurances that her husband is doing what is right, and little enough will she care for that."
The sun had set and the moon was high before Hereford was through with his correspondence for by and large the letters were difficult to write. Elizabeth's was the easiest. He gave her flat instructions as to what he wished done and told her the plain unvarnished truth about the seriousness of their situation without any attempt at beautiful words or phrases. She was to drive her father to
support Lincoln and even ride north with him if necessary, but under no circumstances was she to take part in the fighting, and, if possible, she was to leave once Chester seemed well involved and return home to Hereford. He was afraid, of course, that if Chester and Lincoln should by some chance be beaten that she would be taken prisoner.
The beautiful words Hereford reserved for his letter to Anne, striving to raise her courage and build her resignation with a combination of sympathy, reason, and praise. That he would not be successful was a foregone conclusion, but he guessed correctly that seeing his seal when the clerk read his words would be of some comfort to her.
Before Hereford started writing to Chester, he sat for some time gently pulling his ear and running his hands through his hair. He needed to relate Lincoln's situation and apply what pressure he could to Chester, without hinting that there could be any benefit to himself other than personal satisfaction. That was not so difficult; what held him back was the struggle with his conscience about whether he should say that he was asking Chester to fight for Lincoln because he was personally occupied with Stephen in the south. Literally, of course, this was true, but to say it was to suggest that he would keep Stephen where he was if he could, which certainly was not true. Hereford sighed and wrote. This war had now made a liar of him also. Radnor was right when he said that once you were drowned in the mud it was easier to keep sinking lower. Would there be anything left of him, Hereford wondered, when it was over?
Last of all and most difficult was Hereford's letter to Lincoln, which must contain sympathy and encouragement without any direct promise of aid and certainly without indication that he planned to use his sister's father-by-law as a cat's-paw in his rebellion. If Stephen did ride north to stop Chester, Lincoln would suffer great losses, win, lose, or draw.
In spite of his revulsion at his own dishonesty, Hereford saw his last courier ride off with a certain sense of satisfaction. At least he was doing something, attempting to direct events rather than being swept along like a helpless chip of wood on the tide of circumstance. As he returned to the great hall where the exhausted men-at-arms slept strewn over the floor on straw pallets or on the bare rushes alone, Hereford's brain started to operate again. He had been pursuing a vanishing foe for so long that the reality of his effort had become entangled with the hopeless and unending pursuit of the phantoms of his recurring nightmare. If he was not to go mad, Hereford thought suddenly, he must stop this dream action and break free of his sense of inevitable futility because it was plainly leading him to the defeat of exhaustion and starvation that Stephen planned.
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