But he could achieve little with a lost stirrup and imperfect balance and he threw his leg over the destrier’s shoulder, letting the horse dance clear as he slid to the ground to grapple with the two knights on foot, who had stood aside as their master rode in for the coup de grâce. William had denied them victory on their first clash, but policy dictated he did not long maintain his defiance, even though he felt the fight warming him. Notwithstanding his difficulties breathing, he could best these fellows, but this must be Henry’s day.
He felled one of the foot-knights and went for his arm-band, deliberately exposing himself as Henry kicked his own destrier forward and caught him a mighty blow across his flank. William toppled sideways and fell, the second foot-knight at his throat in an instant, a gleamingly sharp dagger at his throat.
‘Cry quarter, my Lord Marshal,’ the knight hissed in his face, and William sensed he was enjoying himself enormously but then the man was sent sprawling and Henry stood over him.
‘I said he’s mine!’
‘I submit…’ William began but Henry stamped his right foot on William’s already bruised breast and with the other flattened William’s sword blade so that his hand was pinned by the hilt and sank into the leaf-mould and soft earth beneath. Henry bent and, with a quick insertion and twist of his sharp sword, severed the white cloth about William’s upper arm.
‘You are my prisoner, William Marshal, and my ransom for you is everything you have in this world.’
William was in some pain now, gasping for his breath, but the Young Henry’s demand was as outrageous as it was dishonourable. He thought of the loss of his fine destrier which had fought with as much skill as he had trained it and panted: ‘Ten marks…’
‘Everything.’
*
That evening, after a Solemn Mass had been sung for the dead child, the Young King was in a middling mood. ‘I have the making of another son,’ he growled in William’s hearing, brushing aside offered consolation in a chilling reminder of the words John the Marshal had once used about William himself. The day of mourning was considered by most of both mesnies to have been rescued from the priests, and the Young King’s lost boy had been paid for by the mortal wounding of one of William’s knights and the severe injuring of another. Both were held to be accidents, plain mischances that occurred from time-to-time in the tournament, but Robert de Salignac had word that not all the King’s men had carried dull weapons and said so to William.
‘Did you not expect some treachery?’ William replied quietly. ‘Do not let word of this pass elsewhere from your own lips, I beg you.’
De Salignac stared at his friend, then nodded. The day’s events, extraordinary as they had been, had shown William to be a man of deeper understanding of more than the art of war for which he was already well known. This changing of the Young King’s mood, thought Robert de Salignac, was prowess of an altogether different form.
Thus, although the tone of the feast that evening was muted to a degree, there was an under-lying sense that something had changed beyond the Young King’s disappointment in his wife’s failure to present him with an heir. It had not been the fault of His Grace, for sure, and while some might piously ascribe it to God’s displeasure, there were others who thought it all the Queen’s. By all that they held dear, the truth was that it has been a good day.
After the submission of William Marshal, the herald Young Henry had had in his retinue had blown his horn for a cessation of the tournament. It had been, after all, nothing, much more than a game to most of them: friends against friends. This and the wine established a rich source of anecdote and the King’s men acknowledged that, for an outnumbered force, the Marshal’s men had executed a good plan with great cunning. But they had lost, had they not?
And the Marshal’s men toasted their own valour and coolness, and raised their goblets to their chief who sat in the post of honour at the Young King’s right hand. Henry beamed and joined the toast to William. He had said nothing to the Marshal throughout the meal, not even after William had first called upon his own following to acknowledge the King’s victory, but as he made to rise from the board, Young Henry leaned towards William.
‘Do not think I owe you anything by this day’s work,’ he said in a low voice. ‘And do not forget that all your horses and equipage are mine, even while you have the use of them. And now I am to my Lady that I may explain my absence was because of you.’
William re-seated himself in the wake of the Young King’s retiring, whereupon the noise of chatter in the great hall at Poitiers rose. In the hubbub Robert de Salignac leaned across the board towards William. William inclined towards him, cupping one ear.
‘You had made an enemy of him before this day, William,’ De Salignac said. ‘I had been minded to warn you, but the moment did not seem right until now.’
William shrugged resignedly and stared directly at De Salignac. ‘He repudiated our agreement over forfeits as regards myself. He has everything I own by way of arms…’
‘God’s blood,’ swore D Salignac. ‘I should have warned you sooner.’
‘Perhaps, but he is, like all his brood, capricious,’ William replied quietly. ‘He may change his mind in a week or two…’
‘Or may seem to.’
William smiled at his friend and rose. ‘I need air Robert…’
‘Shall I…?’
‘No, I would rather be alone until I sleep, but thank you for your thoughtfulness.’
Robert de Salignac watched the powerful figure leave the hall unaware that William was having difficulty breathing from the bruising and battering the Young Henry had given him earlier in the privacy of his chamber.
The Court went into formal mourning for three weeks at the end of which the Young King could stand it no longer and sent for Robert de Salignac. At the end of their conference De Salignac sought out William, a rueful smile upon his face. William was with Odo in the castle smithy where new sword blades were being forged for William and his squire. William looked up, seeing the expression upon De Salignac’s face.
‘I am commanded by my Lord the King to inform you that we go hawking tomorrow.’
‘What’s that to me? I have no hawk. ’Tis now the King’s.’
‘But I see you have your own sword,’ remarked De Salignac drily, nodding at the white-hot blade just then being drawn from the forge.
‘I must needs have something of my own for my own defence,’ William’s tone was grim.
‘But there is another matter that I am charged with.’ De Salignac gestured with his head and William nodded at Odo, the smith and his armourer, to continue with their work and withdrew alongside his friend.
‘Well?’
‘In all humility His Grace acknowledges the will of God as made manifest in the death of his son. It is not God’s purpose that he should yet have a son and he marks this as guidance to withdraw from all dynastic disputes, leaving these to his brothers. He believes, or is persuaded,’ De Salignac said sardonically, ‘that God in His infinite wisdom charges him to eschew all challenges to his father in his father’s lifetime and to better prepare himself for his own time by…guess what?’
‘Robert, I have played enough games with this King…’
‘We remain in Aquitaine until the turn of the year and then, my friend, we move to Normandy and the Vexin and go a-tourneying.’
‘What?’ scoffed William, ‘until the Old King’s demise?’
‘Presumably,’ responded De Salignac lightly. ‘A Holy mission. Our Lord King is contrite. In the death of his child and the sparing of his Queen, he is seized by a realisation of his own mortality and that for years past he has imperilled his soul by disobedience.’
‘The priests have been at him.’
‘Very likely. But the best news comes last.’
‘Oh, and what is that?’
‘That we – or rather you as his Marshal – make the most perfect preparations for his mesnie over the coming months that he, we, may enter the
lists as though new; that he wishes as a mark of his great favour that you combine your mesnie with his own…’
‘Is that not already the case?’ protested William heatedly. ‘God’s blood! But I have no mesnie, never have had beyond commanding a handful of friends like you. Besides he owns me and all that I have: my hawks, my horses, my…’
But De Salignac was holding his hand up for quiet, his eyes twinkling. ‘And that you be restored to all your possessions, hawks, horses, harness, the lot. He asks not one mark more in your forfeits. There! What say you to that? Shall you pole-axe the messenger, eh?’
William stared at De Salignac. ‘Huh, not one mark more, eh? He already has ten marks for every man he took, a dozen in number, one hundred and twenty in all.’
‘But none from you, eh?’ De Salignac guyed him. ‘Why Will, you are better at your numbers than heretofore.’
‘The destrier and the peregrine would have been hard to replace,’ he mused quietly.
‘Come, Will, are you not cheered by this news?’ De Salignac was puzzled at his friend’s slow acceptance at this change of fortune. The tournament offered a great opportunity for personal enrichment and, with an uneasy peace upon the land, they might have time to treat King Louis’ knights roughly.
‘I am wondering how long the whim will last, my friend.’
‘Well, a season might see us make up for the expenses of these last years of campaigning.’
‘True,’ responded William ruminatively. ‘And if it is God’s will one might expect a little longer, don’t you think?’
‘I think at the very least we shall have a span of time long enough for the Queen to be again impregnated and bring forth a sturdy son. Surely that would be God’s will.’
William nodded agreement and both men crossed themselves. ‘Yes, that would seem like God’s will made manifest.’
‘Then we must pray for it, and if not,’ added De Salignac mischievously, ‘perhaps another season until the Almighty makes his true purpose known’.
*
The Divine purpose was not revealed for three years during which the augmented mesnie of the Young King Henry and his Marshal acquired all the glory that a growing interest in the tournament could confer. These years were marked by large meets of the great magnates to assay their valour and luck, catching the fragile mood of the moment, earning the sanction of the Pope and the support of Kings, for prowess accrued in the tournament was a currency by which prestige was measured and dynastic settlements might be proposed and arranged. Vast tracts of the border marches between counties were taken over for these war-games, and the encampments of the opposing parties attracted even greater gatherings of humanity than earlier occasions. The fortunes of whole towns were often transformed by the sudden commerce of such large bodies of wealthy noblemen, though occasionally things got out of hand, the fighting spilling through the streets themselves. But it was the fortunes of the participants that formed the core of the matter and whilst the Young Henry threw himself into the tournament with enthusiasm, matters quickly went awry.
The Old King’s generous provision for his heir enabled his son to put into the field a splendid and well-equipped mesnie which created a magnificent impression when it arrived in the lists from whence the parties dispersed. Unfortunately it soon proved no match for the hardened exponents of the noble game, mostly the Flemish and French knights who fought under the banners of Louis of France or Philippe of Flanders. At an early encounter William, desperate to make captures and earn a useful share of the booty, led a violent charge during which he far outran the Young King. It was only when he rounded-to having cut off and savaged a portion of the enemy, that he realised he was himself isolated and had to fight his way out to rejoin Henry’s banner.
Humiliated by chagrin, he was obliged to submit to a public haranguing from the Young King in front of the mesnie as, deflated by defeat, it licked its wounds and counted the cost of failure.
‘It should not be for me to advise you that you should cleave to me, Marshal,’ Henry fumed. Nor did it help that Adam d’Yquebeuf stood beside the Young Henry barely concealing the smirk on his face and it was some days later that De Salignac quietly informed him that he suspected D’Yquebeuf of delaying the charge of the Young King, exposing William.
‘Why would he do that? The whole mesnie loses thereby…’
‘But D’Yquebeuf appeared the wiser man, for by not supporting you the King was bested. Had the King fallen in with your impetuosity without delay things might have fallen out differently. They are saying that D’Yquebeuf pointed out you were arrogant in leading the charge, that your station was subordinate to the King…’
‘He is right,’ William interrupted, ‘though I would it were not so. I had thought the King rode hard by me and took no thought of him lagging behind…’
‘D’Yquebeuf would oust you if he could,’ De Salignac said.
‘Even to the detriment of his own fortune?’ William was incredulous.
‘If he has persuaded the Young King that without you he would do better, then aye. He plays a long game, William, you must watch him. He has not forgotten the encounter outside Poitiers and is, in any case, jealous of you.’
‘If you are right, he could ruin me quickly,’ responded William, quite at a loss. ‘And there is little I can do about it.’
‘I will speak with him…’
‘No, I cannot allow you to do that.’
‘You cannot afford not to.’
‘No, Robert,’ William said, perceiving a way of out-witting D’Yquebeuf. ‘I will cleave to the King. Let the achievements be Henry’s alone; I too can play a long game.’
‘Very well,’ De Salignac nodded.
*
It was at Anet that providence changed in William’s favour, and changed through farce. Since that first humiliation William had kept close to the King, aware that the careful planning he had successfully employed in his earlier ambushes rarely worked in the wide-ranging mêlées as engaged in by Norman-French chivalry. Not that the performance of the Young King’s mesnie improved in any way, but William did not expose himself to folly or ridicule until the mesnie entered the lists at Anet. The chosen ground lay close to the confluence of the Rivers Eure and Vesgre, to the south of the Vexin and at the assembly at the lists there was a good deal of abuse from the French knights against whom Henry’s mesnie was arraigned. Whether or not it was over confidence on the part of their opponents, or the caution urged upon the Young King by William and Ranulf FitzStephen, but Henry held his forces back until a propitious moment offered.
William stayed his hand, deliberately cautious, watching both the Young King and Adam d’Yquebeuf who, gladdened by William’s apparent passivity beside the King, was eager to prove his own valour. It was Henry who gave the order to charge and William followed the King as they thundered downhill, couching their lances and driving right through the main body of the French so that they broke up and as they checked their horses to wheel about and set about the broken force to make their captures, the French fled in a precipitate rout, making directly for Anet and the crossing of the Eure .
With howls of frustration and cries of anger, most of Henry’s knights put spurs to their destriers and made after the French, sensible to the fact that if they did not do so then they were going to lose the best opportunity they had had all season of redeeming their heavy losses. Having seen D’Yquebeuf among their number, William attended to the securing of three or four prisoners and, with Odo at his side, rejoined the Young King. Henry, torn between two courses of action, wheeled his destrier round and round.
‘We must support them, my Lord King!’ William called.
‘Let us ride then!’
William, De Salignac and half a dozen others, including Odo, spurred their horses and made after the pursuit, clattering into the main street of Anet which had been deserted by its citizens for fear of inciting further outrage and damage from the warring parties. A few stalls in the market place still stood, the
majority had been flattened as the running fight had passed through the town. There was a desultory struggle between a French knight and one of Henry’s squires, and a wounded horse was trying to regain its feet as they briefly checked their pace before Henry, his blood up, urged them forward.
At a half gallop they swung round a corner beyond the square and came face-to-face with a mounted French knight, his brace of squires and a contingent of foot-soldiers. They wore the colours of Simon de Neuphle.
Henry checked his mount a touch, allowing the others to come up with him, whereupon he shouted: ‘We shall not pass them, yet we cannot retire…’
‘So help me God,’ roared William, ‘let us charge them!’
And with barely a second’s hesitation the lance points were lowered again and couched. Then, their destrier’s eyes ablaze and thunder of their hooves shaking the beaten mud of Anet, they rode the infantry down. The foot-soldiers fled, opening up to allow the handful of knights a way through, but as Henry struck sideways at one of the squires, who immediately gave ground and was followed by his companion, William dropped his lance and rode directly at the solitary knight, checking his destrier so that it caracoled, sitting back on its haunches, its sharply shod front hooves pawing the air in the face of Simon de Neauphle. Thrusting aside the lowered lance point with his gauntlet William leaned forward, the signal to his mount to lower his front legs, then reached out and caught the right-hand rein of his opponent, tugged the head of De Neauphle’s destrier round. Its head thus viciously jerked, the horse followed as William spurred his own horse onwards.
William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series Page 21