Stephen’s half-drunk ramblings lifted a curtain on the King’s thinking from which, entirely without knowing it, the respectful and attentive William drew lessons in political thought and strategic logic. He was often tolerated in council meetings, a cup-bearer to the King upon whose discretion, being a half-prisoner, could be better relied upon than one of the sons of Stephen’s fickle nobles. By this proximity to Stephen, William acquired a knowledge both of the geography of southern England and of the means by which it should be seized and governed.
Only once was this almost idyllic apprenticeship disturbed and this occurred in the opening of the final campaign that ended ‘the Anarchy,’ in the late summer of 1153. Stephen’s retinue rode through an anonymous and burning village beside the upper reaches of the River of Thames not far from Wallingford. Bored with the slow business of besieging, short of provisions and troubled by rumours of a relieving force approaching the staunch Angevin stronghold, the King had been engaged in a sweep through the countryside to forage what he could and deter the approach of any of the Mathilda’s forces. They found little of the former and nothing of the latter and, frustrated, the order had been given to burn the next village to persuade the peasants to yield up their hidden stores of grain. While this act of uncalled for brutality was in train, Stephen ordered a halt so that his horses and those who rode with him might drink from the village well.
Turning to William on his pony he said, ‘go with the men, lad. Root around and see what you can find that might be of use. Try first the priest’s house.’
William did as he was bid, taking himself off, his dagger loosened in its sheath for fear of ambush by the angered peasants. As he approached the priest’s house beside the low church he wandered into a cottage. The crude door had been torn from its willow hinges, the thatched roof had been burnt, what remained of the blackened rafters had collapsed and the cob-walls were blackened by the ferocity of the fire. He had no idea what had drawn him first into the cottage rather than progressing directly to the priest’s dwelling, other than the cottage seemed to offer him a short-cut, but once inside he heard the mewing of kittens and found a litter of them in the meagre fire-place. Five were already dead, but two remained, staring about them with sightless eyes. William bent towards them and put out his hand. The first he picked up, dark and ill-marked, with a pallid flash of white across its nose, was so thin that he was astonished it still lived. The other seemed more robust, struggling up onto uncertain legs, a tiny wobbling and mewling body of orange-tawny fur that screamed at him, demanding that he succour it in its extremity.
Something about its aggressiveness startled William and he did not touch it but rose from his feet and hurried out of the cottage, leaving it crying indignantly after him as if aware that the passing boy was its last chance of life, its mother having abandoned her litter, disturbed by the horrors of military rapine. Ignoring the pleading screeches, William half-ran across the small plot of kitchen garden to the priest’s house. He was already too late; the men-at-arms who rode in the King’s escort had beaten him to it and the place was turned upside-down with that speed and efficiency than only troops could achieve when on the march. He was about to return to the King’s side when he bethought himself of the ginger tom-kitten. It was almost, he recalled afterwards, as though the little beast had called him back; certainly he was drawn to return exactly the way he had come, through the soot-stained cottage.
The kitten stood where he had left it, mewling furiously, standing upon its wobbling legs, its small orange tail upright as a lance. Though still blind, it sensed William’s presence, even his height and appeared to glare up at him. He stared down at the dead litter and noticed that the dark kitten with the white slash had joined its siblings, the trauma of being handled having been too much for it. The small ginger tom was, like William, alone in the world.
On an impulse he stooped, picked it up and tucked it inside his gambeson. He felt it wriggle and grow still, as though it too had given up the ghost until, a moment later, he felt the prickle of tiny claws and heard the contented thrum of a purr. He had no idea how he might feed the little animal but returned to his place in the King’s train.
Stephen saw, but took no notice of the lad’s return. It was entirely characteristic of him to initiate something and then abandon it to others and William felt no need to report his failure to find anything of worth in the priest’s house. If the King wished to know he would ask, but in his own good time. Besides, it was obvious the boy had brought nothing back with him and the little cavalcade soon moved off, back towards the siege-lines of Wallingford.
In fact William found a ready supply of milk from the King’s kitchen, feeding it to the animal dripping it from a straw into the hungry little maw. At first he did this secretly, but after a few days it became known that he was harbouring the kitten and there were those among the younger squires who came and briefly stroked the tiny mite, and those that smiled indulgently before throwing down a sword and demanding that he spent his time on a better occupation in sharpening their weapons.
As the kitten grew, William fed it scraps and, once it could see, it rapidly learned how to catch mice and roved further than William’s bed-place. Even the King got to hear of it and it accompanied William to the King’s tent for games of ‘knights,’ drinking from a bowl the king himself placed upon the ground for it.
But one evening a knight William knew only as Godfrey FitzHugh, a man supposedly known for his devotional character, came deliberately to the boy and demanded to see the animal. William innocently held the tom-kitten out to him and he took it, holding it as though in distaste, causing William a sudden pang of alarm.
‘You are marked, are you not?’ Godfrey FitzHugh asked, adding without awaiting a reply, ‘disrobe and show me!’
The peremptory tone had William stripping off before he realised he was doing as he was commanded. He had no consciousness of the birth-mark other than that his fellows had remarked upon it from time-to-time. As he had grown he had revealed it less often, but it had never troubled him as it did now as FitzHugh moved behind him to inspect the naevus. William felt himself suddenly spun round by the shoulder, almost losing his balance.
‘That is the mark of Satan,’ hissed FitzHugh with awful vehemence, bending to the boy’s face. ‘And this,’ he added, thrusting the ginger tom into William’s face so that he could feel its breath and sense its terror as it struggled and mewed in FitzHugh’s grip, ‘is witch-craft. It is how you have beguiled the King and damned his cause you cursed imp…’
And with a flick of his other hand, he twisted the little mammal’s neck so that William heard the snick of the snapping spine. FitzHugh flung the lifeless body at William’s feet. At that moment William recovered himself. Although tears welled into his eyes, his sudden emotion turned into a cold fury. In an instant that surprised FitzHugh the lad’s dagger was in his right hand and he lunged at the knight. FitzHugh dodged backwards, feeling a sharp prick on his exposed arm.
‘Get ye gone from here this instant!’ William said with a voice of such imperiousness that it astonished FitzHugh.
‘Why you damned little…’
But he never finished his sentence for, in attempting both to avoid William’s dagger and lug out his own, his heel caught and he fell backwards.
‘Guard!’ bawled William while FitzHugh lay a-sprawling. Even before the discomfited knight had struggled to his feet Stephen himself came into the hut where William was quartered.
‘What the devil?’ the King roared, seeing the armed boy standing over the embarrassed knight.
‘Aye, Sire, ’tis devil’s work, the boy is bewitched,’ cried FitzHugh, regaining his feet. ‘See, he attacks me…’
‘Only after you killed my tom-cat,’ retorted William unabashed in the King’s presence, and indignant with fury.
‘And why would you do that, FitzHugh?’ Stephen asked.
‘And you believe the boy, Sire? He was casting a spell over you, having killed the
familiar for the purpose. See, see the mark of Satan on his shoulder…’
‘That is a lie, Sire!’ William cried, but Stephen ignored his outrage, continuing to confront FitzHugh.
‘I have never had cause to doubt the boy told the truth at any moment of our acquaintance,’ the King said quietly, stepping forward, his gloved forefinger turning William so that he might examine the boy’s birth-mark. He made a scoffing sound and ruffled William’s hair. ‘If that is the Devil’s work, FitzHugh, I am no judge of anything. It has more the appearance of a noble lion rampant. I am inclined to think it a mark of God’s favour and I bid you ask the boy’s pardon and admit to a mistake arising from your…’ the King paused, as if unwilling to give FitzHugh credit for such a thing, but concluded his sentence: ‘religious fervour.’
‘Sire, I…’
‘It is a simple command, FitzHugh, though I do not press it. You may leave my service on the morrow, or still the boy’s fear, for while you have an animus against him, you also have it against me.’
The King, who had been passing the hut when he heard sounds of commotion, had been followed into it by others, many of whom were suppressing laughter. FitzHugh, it seemed, was not popular and was now humiliated by his peers in the King’s retinue. For a moment William felt almost sorry for him as he looked first at the King and then his barons. He could not find it in himself to apologise to a mere boy and, in a flourish of wounded pride, drew himself up, bowed to the King and left, pushing through the nobles clustered in the door. Here he turned.
‘God save you, Sire, for you will see soon enough that I have failed to do so.’
There was a silence after he had gone. William looked down at the dead kitten and bent to retrieve it. As he stood, holding the still warm body he felt the King’s hand again upon his shoulder, and the King felt the deep sobs wracking the boy’s body. They came without tears, but it was plain the lad was fond of the dead kitten. And why should he not be? Besides himself, the creature had been his only friend.
‘Go bury it, Will, then come to my tent and play of knights. Thou hast made an enemy of FitzHugh, alas.’
‘Sire,’ William mumbled and Stephen saw that he remained dry-eyed, finding pleasure in the sight. There was steel in the lad, as well as feeling. Had God willed it, he would have wished for a son of such mettle.
‘Come my lords,’ he said, and swept from the hut, leaving William to his sad task.
By the following morning Godfrey FitzHugh had ridden out of the King’s camp; though none knew whither he had gone, most supposed it was to join the Angevins.
*
The King did not refer to the incident when they played ‘knights’ that evening but he did some months later as the year rolled on. The marching and counter-marching had come to an end and there had of late been comings and goings of a different nature, strange noblemen under escort riding in and out of the King’s quarters so that the army was full of rumours. Although nothing had been said, the wild speculation was that peace was at hand, that that very day the King had reached an accommodation with his enemies and there was upon the faces of his counsellors something that suggested all now awaited an outcome from elsewhere. That evening Stephen, who seemed suddenly old, was more than usually ruminative and more than usually drunk, letting William win two games of ‘knights’ and conceding victory of the second with a weary resignation.
‘You have beaten me again, Will,’ he said, his speech slurred, reseating himself beside his goblet.
‘No, Sire, you let me win,’ William responded simply.
Stephen leaned on his elbows and rubbed his beard as William made to stow away the now battered straw figures.
‘Leave them, lad. Come, sit beside me.’ William sat, cross-legged at the King’s feet and looked up at Stephen. ‘D’you recall the day I sent FitzHugh from the camp for killing your kitten?’
‘Aye, Sire, I do.’
‘And I said you will have made an enemy of him?’
‘That too.’
‘You must walk carefully in the world, Will. Your father, a brave and bold man did not. He betrayed me and I might have had you killed in vengeance.’
‘But you did not, Sire.’
‘No.’ Stephen paused. ‘Do you know why not?’
William shrugged. ‘I hoped that it was because you took a liking to me,’ he said candidly, ‘and that you might let me render you the knight’s service my father sent me to undertake?’
But the King’s inebriated brain was running on its own track. ‘Do you know why your father deserted me, Will?’
‘No, Sire, but from what I have learned since I suppose that he considered you had broken your oath to serve the Empress Mathilda, if, indeed, you ever swore such an oath.’
Stephen stirred at the effrontery and then recognised the diplomatic tag at its end. He knew it was what his enemies and some of his friends said about him. ‘I had hoped to bring England peace. England cannot be ruled by a woman, least of all by a woman of Mathilda’s disobliging stamp. But I brought only ruin and this,’ he paused and William recognised the symptoms of wine-bibbed regret, ‘this anarchy…’
‘Is it not to end, Sire?’ William asked, ‘for that is what all the men are talking about.’
Stephen nodded. ‘Aye, so it would seem, and you shall be returned to your father as soon as matters are concluded to our satisfaction.’
‘Then you will have brought peace, Sire,’ William said simply, lightening the King’s mood.
‘Think you so, Will?’ he asked cynically with a smile.
‘Aye, Sire.’
Stephen reached out a hand and ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘When you are fully grown to manhood, Will, I would have you remember to treat such barons as Godfrey FitzHugh with some circumspection. It is they who cause anarchy by their self-interested schismatics. Cleave to the crown to avoid the troubles that have overtaken our Kingdom in these late years.’
William frowned. The king’s logic seemed bibulous. Had not his father clung to the crown which he thought lay upon the rightful head of Mathilda? Or was he a schismatic? Then another thought supervened.
‘Sire, I am only a second son. Wherein lies the opportunity for me to disdain men like FitzHugh?
Stephen seemed to pull himself together, stirring upon his seat and shoving his goblet from him. ‘You are marked by more than some accident. FitzHugh sensed it, but wrongly interpreted it. It is in my mind that you may not always be the second son. Now,’ Stephen straightened himself, ‘the hour is late and much hangs upon the morrow. Do you bring me that sword and belt that lie upon my chest.’
William did as he was bid. The weapon, lying in its scabbard and wound about by a studded belt, lay upon one of the several chests in the King’s quarters. It was not the King’s, for it was short, fitter more for a lad. Handing it to the King he was bidden to stand still while Stephen girded him with the belt, scabbard and sword, the weight of which William felt suddenly like a burden of responsibility. Then Stephen clenched his right fist and gave him a gentle blow on each shoulder, thereby dubbing him.
‘The sword is steely and sharp and made for you. You have done me knight’s service, Will, and in your father’s name. You will be with him in a sennight. Now rise, help me disrobe and then get you to your bed.’
It was in fact ten not seven days later that William rode out of the King’s camp and turned his horse’s head towards Hamstead Marshal. The gelding was a second present from the King, a handsome bay palfrey that marked Stephen’s favour and an implied pardon to John the Marshal. With an escort of two mounted men-at-arms from the King’s body-guard, William rode through the frost-hardened and bare November countryside, Stephen’s gifted sword at his hip. He had no sensation of going home, for he had been away too long, cast off by both his parents and this sense increased with every mile he rode.
CHAPTER THREE: M’SIEUR GASTE-VIANDE 1154 - 1160
The King Stephen who had sent him back to Hamstead Marshal was a shadow of the vigorous
man who had ordered a noose about his neck upon their first acquaintance. It was widely rumoured that a fatal sickness lay upon him, compelling him to acquiesce to the demands of the noble barons on both sides who in their own interests sought an accommodation between the two contending parties. Even the ecclesiastical rivals, Archbishop Theobald and Henry, Bishop of Winchester, had for some time been preaching peace. Having secured the estates of his second son, Earl William, Stephen had ended ‘the Anarchy’ by conceding to the combined wishes of most. The Treaty of Wallingford afterwards ratified at Westminster in the Abbey-church of Edward the Confessor, Stephen acknowledged as his hereditary heir the Angevin Duke Henry of Normandy, son of Mathilda and Geoffrey of Anjou. The matter of the succession being thus settled, all lands were returned to their seigneurs, all grudges were supposedly buried, and all was restored to its pre-war state. The ‘adulterine,’ or counter-castles, erected without regal authority were to be dismantled and, in due course, all signs of John the Marshal’s wooden fortification at Newbury where young William had discovered his father’s perfidy, were removed from the face of the earth.
Something of the oddness of William’s period as a hostage bore down upon the boy, for he looked much older than his six or seven summers – he was not sure. On his departure from Stephen he had sat upon the palfrey upright, the sword at his hip and a cloak about him over a hauberk of light mail. One of the mounted men-at-arms bore a small portmanteau of his personal effects, which were meagre enough, but contained, coiled-up, the noose that had for many weeks been about his neck.
Neither of his parents was at Hamstead Marshal when he arrived and at first no-one recognised him, refusing him entry. Eventually Nicholas de Sarum was summoned and, throwing up his hands in wonder and delight, fell upon his knees to praise God for the deliverance for which he had daily prayed, he assured William. The Lady Sybil, he explained, had gone to Marlborough, his father was in the Angevin camp, attending the young Duke Henry.
William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series Page 6