To expose the essence of the man seemed to demand the imaginative freedom of the novelist, rather than the dry rigor of the historian for whom the sources are, in so many respects, unclear or conflicting.
PROLOGUE: THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN 1185
‘You are sad, William,’ Robert de Salignac said, breaking into his companion’s thoughts.
William Marshal turned from the flaming glory of the sunset and stared at the amused countenance of De Salignac. His sun-burned and weather-beaten face was further ensanguined by the blood and fire blazing on the western horizon. They had been through much together and knew each other’s minds, or thought they did.
‘Do you not find this hour induces contemplation?’ William said, seeing behind the familiar face the high and jagged peaks of Corsica aflame before the diurnally revolving sun plunged them into night.
‘Not as much as those I spend at night sleepless in this accursed vessel,’ responded Robert as the ship rose and fell to a low swell, compelling him to grasp a rope stay. ‘I am sick of rats.’
William chuckled and looked aft to where the watch stood at the tiller. Poor Robert had never quite conquered sea-sickness. He looked up. There was barely enough wind to fill the single sail, but the pennon at the masthead, made of lighter woollen cloth, lifted languidly to a faint breeze.
‘There’ll be a wind afore midnight,’ one of the seamen remarked familiarly, reading William’s mind as ably as De Salignac as he coiled down the tail end of the lee sheet he had been easing at the behest of the mariner in charge of the deck.
‘How do you know that, fellow?’ asked De Salignac sharply, as if reproving the man for his apparent lack of respect in addressing his superiors without invitation.
The seaman straightened up, rubbing his hands together and shrugged. It was clear the man did not much care for rank; why should he, belonging as he did to a fraternity without whose expertise these gilded fools could not accomplish their ‘Holy’ doings in Outremer? He spat to leeward. ‘Why, ’tis always the way at this season, my Lords,’ he said simply before, looking round to see that all was secure, he made his way forward and took his night-station as lookout.
William grinned at his friend as they two men settled on the hatchway just abaft the mast to enjoy the twilight, delaying the moment they must seek the discomfort of their palliasses and attempt to sleep amid a tumult of rodents in the foetid stench of the hold.
‘The Master expects to make land the day after tomorrow if all goes well, but this bight, or whatever they call it, is known for the mistral, a contrary wind for us,’ De Salignac remarked. ‘We should have disembarked in Sicily…’
‘What do you intend to do, Robert?’ William asked, cutting across De Salignac’s argument.
‘You know well what I intend to do, for you have asked the question often enough and my response now will be no different. We shall meet our fortunes jointly…’ Then it struck De Salignac that perhaps William’s persistence in asking the question indicated he had something else in mind, something brought to the fore as they approached the end of their voyage from Acre. ‘Unless of course you have no need of me. What shall you do? I see something troubles you.’
William sighed. ‘You have some land, Robert…’
‘’Tis but a small parcel. Not much larger in value than your own rents in St Omer.’
‘Pah! To hold rents is not the same. I am landless and I…’
De Salignac studied his friend, noting the change that two years in the Holy Land had wrought; that and the death of his patron and friend, the Young King Henry who had died prematurely and laid upon William Marshal the obligation of taking his cloak to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. De Salignac had long ago sensed William’s desire to detach himself from the service of the Young King’s father, King Henry II, known as Curtmantle. It was only now that he realised the depth of William’s desire not to return to the turmoil of the Angevin Court.
‘Why then did you not stay in the Holy Land?’ he asked, the question direct, like a lance point to William’s heart. ‘We rendered the Templars knightly service and the offers of…’
‘I know,’ William broke in, as if unwilling to admit he had made a mistake in embarking upon this voyage that would return him to the hatred, division, factionalism and sheer folly of the familial disruptions between Henry and his turbulent sons. ‘But after the death of Young Henry I owe allegiance to Queen Eleanor and, whatever I am to make of what remains of my life, must either serve her or obtain from her permission to return to the Holy Land and join the Templars.’
‘When we departed no man knew where Henry Curtmantle kept his Queen mewed up.’
‘Someone will,’ William said shortly. ‘Her Grace will be in southern England. De Salignac said nothing. England, south or north was unknown territory to him, a reputedly wet and miserable land whose barons were in constant quarrel. ‘After recovering my destriers from Henry Curtmantle, if they live, I must seek her out, that is why I ask what you will do, for I cannot ask you to accompany me into England.’
‘If once the King divines your intention he will thwart you.’
William shook his head. ‘He has no interest in me, a landless knight banneret. Two years and time has moved on. There will be others who have claims on the King, younger men. We are no longer young, you and I,’ he concluded wistfully.
De Salignac stared at William. It was almost dark now and the shadows about his face showed his strong features in an oddly fascinating beauty. ‘The matter of a lack of land troubles you deeply, does it not.’ It was a statement not question and William shrugged, staring over the ship’s rail to where the sea began to ripple with the first stirrings of the predicted wind.
‘With it I might be one thing; without it I am compelled to be something else.’ William looked up at De Salignac, dropping his voice. ‘Would it not be better to serve God in the Holy Land, than return to military servitude to the feckless House of Anjou? God knows the Kingdom of Jerusalem is in grave danger and Gerard de Ridefort made it clear to both of us that, should we wish it, we would be welcome in the order.
De Salignac nodded. He had been less enthusiastic than William to accept the honour bestowed upon them by the Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, but he appreciated the crisis of conscience that now beset his friend. A twinge of guilt that his reluctance might have dissuaded William from staying led him to temporise. ‘Is not the Kingdom in better hands now that the younger Baldwin is on the throne? Surely he is better than the Leper, his uncle?’
But William was not listening. He shook his head and suddenly looked at De Salignac, whose face was little more than a pale oval in the encroaching darkness. ‘I could not in all honour stay, Robert, not after Baldwin’s mother remarried following the death of her first husband. Guy of Lusignan has long been an enemy since the ambush that killed my own Uncle, Earl Patrick of Salisbury, and he stands now high in the favour of Baldwin the Fifth.’
‘Ah, I had forgot, though you have told me the story often enough.’
‘So, I must come back, ransom my war-horses from the King and then seek-out Her Grace, Queen Eleanor.’
‘He will not let you, Will. The old fox will attach you to his mesnie, mark my words.’ De Salignac rose, stretched and yawned. ‘I fear that, like any other lump of cargo aboard this creaking nightmare, I must consign myself to my bed, such as it is. I am no natural channel-crosser like you Englishmen.’
‘I shall wait awhile, Robert, but thank you for your counsel.’
‘I have given you none but more thought to ponder gloomily upon, I fear,’ remarked De Salignac, patting William on the shoulder. ‘But it will bear a different look in the morning.’ William made no response and De Salignac paused a moment, and then said quietly. ‘We are redeemed by our pilgrimage, Will. What is past, is past.’
After his friend had gone below William Marshal remained on deck. There was something quite mystical about this crepuscular hour which he had come to love and revere. It compe
lled a man to take stock and he suddenly envied the common seaman who stood at his post at the bow, a dark shape against the last of the sunset. Such men, mused William, inhabited a world of extremes: danger to be sure – they had endured a tempestuous outward voyage – but also moments like this and the thought conjured up such evenings in Outremer when it was possible to think one walked directly in the footsteps of the Apostles, if not the Christ himself. God forbid that the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell to the forces of the Turk; the soldier in him told him that it was likely; the believer said it was impossible. It had been God’s will that the forces of Christendom had ousted the unbelievers and established Charlemagne’s line in the Holy City; it would be God’s will that the Frankish Kingdom would endure until the Second Coming. No-one of faith could doubt this.
Where then should he follow the Master? In the ranks of the Templars, where a novitiate had been offered him, or in Normandy; or England, the land of his birth? During his years in Outremer, he had found his thoughts ran often upon England.
‘An old man’s thoughts,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I shall be, what? Forty soon enough.’ And rising to go below he knew he must first go back to Henry Curtmantle. ‘Without land, I have only my horses,’ he murmured.
PART ONE: HENRY CURTMANTLE 1186 - 1189
CHAPTER ONE: THE LOYAL KNIGHT 1186 - 1187
‘FitzMarshal, you are welcome.’
‘My Lord King...’ William bent over the extended hand of King Henry II and kissed the heavy bejewelled ring.
‘Stand and let me see you.’ William straightened up and returned the King’s scrutiny. Henry Curtmantle was sixty-three years of age; even seated, his powerful, thick-set frame showed something of its former glory but he was now marked by age and, William suspected, the onset of disease, for there was a curious pallor upon him and his hair was thin and grey.
‘You did your duty by my son, FitzMarshal?’
‘Aye, my good Lord. Mass was said for his soul at the Holy Sepulchre and his cloak laid there as he instructed me.’
Henry nodded gravely. ‘That is well done William,’ he said, his tone softening into intimacy. ‘And now you shall join my mesnie for there is much to be done and to honour thy return and seal our bargain I return to you your destriers. No man has ridden them save for exercise.’
‘My Lord…’ Despite his conflicting emotions William was touched. He had no desire to rejoin the King’s household, though the only alternative was a return to an impoverished life in England, but this was a different Henry; a man diminished by age. William felt the strange tug of loyalty and duty, a refinement of his sensibilities formed by his experience in the Holy Land.
‘You are much changed,’ the King remarked. ‘Is the experience of the Holy Places such as to effect a change of heart?’ The King’s tone was almost one of awe and in an intuitive flash William realised Henry was thinking of his own mortality. At the same time he recalled the curious world of Outremer: the great Frankish castles, the imposition of feudal authority by a shaky regime for which the teeming population of the bazaars and souks gave not a thought. He thought too of the near barren hills rising from the lush green of the river valleys, of the mystery of the Holy Places which had once seemed so secure under Christian rule but which were now under an ever-present threat of the Turk and the new faith.
‘One is touched by God, Sire, almost as much as by the sun.’
‘Give me your hand, William. I would touch one who had prayed at the tomb of the Christ.’
***
After a long ride north during which Robert de Salignac had left him at Cahors, William had found the King hunting at Lyons-la-Forêt in Normandy in March 1186. Despite the emotion of that first encounter he quickly found out that matters, though different in detail, remained much the same in substance. The King’s rages were as notorious as his surviving sons were disobedient. Among the knights of the King’s retinue he found old friends in Robert de Tresgoz, Peter FitzGuy, Gerard Talbot and Baldwin de Béthune and in the days which followed they acquainted him with the turmoil engulfing the House of Anjou.
‘Truly they are the Devil’s spawn,’ William, Baldwin de Béthune confided in him one night as they lingered over their wine, referring to Henry’s three surviving sons. ‘The Count of Poitou is a born rebel, Geoffrey of Brittany is as cunning as his father, while the Lord of Ireland, huh,’ Baldwin harrumphed and raised his eyebrows at the grandeur of the title, ‘is a born incompetent. They used to call him Lackland but I think of him as lacking bone.’
‘John is what? Not yet twenty?’ William remarked.
‘Think of yourself at twenty, William,’ Baldwin riposted. ‘No-one would have called you spineless.’
‘Perhaps not,’ William laughed, ‘though Richard should know better being ten years his brother’s senior,’ he added seriously, ‘and he stands as heir to Henry.’
‘Only if Geoffrey does not rob him of his inheritance.’
‘How could that be? He has proved himself able and ferocious in the field.’
‘Aye, but how long do you think Richard could tolerate being shorn of the powers he presently enjoys? Remember how Curtmantle kept the Young King dallying in constant expectation and what it did to that noble Prince.’ Baldwin sighed and went on: ‘And recall too, how often Richard has been in rebellion against his father…’ Baldwin de Béthune raised his hand for silence as William made to speak. ‘Oh, I know that you will say that he always acted in the interests of his mother and the steward-ship of Aquitaine but you know too that that is only part of the whole. The Lord Richard is a man of great lusts: for women, for blood, for power and yes, I know some fools say, for men or boys too, though I think that a canard.’ He paused, before saying: ‘I think your sword will be much employed for as Henry grows older and, God help me for saying so, weaker, so much does Philippe of France grow in stature and puissance. He has too great a hold over the King’s progeny for any good to come of it all, for the moment they fall-out with their father, Philippe offers them sanctuary and understanding, Richard worst of all…’
‘Understanding?’
‘Aye, William, understanding. Incredible though it must seem to you, and probably to Philippe who can pursue his policy of aggrandisement at so cheap a price, they are like curs when whipped, John especially, curs that bite the hand that would feed them.’
William shook his head. ‘That is something I profoundly misunderstand,’ he said ruefully.
‘So do many of us,’ responded Baldwin draining his glass, rising and yawning. ‘You know, in the King’s private chamber in Winchester His Grace has had a fresco executed which shows an eagle being torn to pieces by its own eyasses. What can one make of that, eh? And all will be the same in the morning.’
William sat on, staring at the dying embers of the fire in the ante-chamber until the cold of the northern night made him shiver. ‘Jesu Christ,’ he murmured, crossing himself, ‘I am unused to this.’ Though whether he referred to the chill after the warmth of the Outremer or the intrigues of the House of Anjou he was himself not entirely sure.
***
But if the internal wrangles of the Angevins seemed unchanged William found himself in a new milieu. For all his age and creeping infirmity, Henry retained the most splendid Court in Europe. Since he was King of England, Duke of Normandy and overlord of the western half of most of France, Henry’s was an itinerant Court, constantly on the move, constantly prey to supplicants and place-seekers, intrigue and the importunate tradesmen who pursued the sums of money owed them. When static the King’s Court resembled the worst aspects of a grand tourney, being populated by as many whores as courtiers such that the King’s household included two whore-masters to control them. Sundry other odd posts included entertainers, troubadours and jesters, and a petomane called Roland the Farter who could simultaneously whistle, leap in the air and break wind with a noise like a trumpet.
Falconry, stag-hunting and intermittent warfare now occupied William, for the ambitions of Phili
ppe II of France kept up a near-constant bush-war burning along the land-borders and in the marches such as Berri and the Vexin, the latter land separating Normandy and the lands Philippe directly ruled himself. Faced with such a powerful vassal as Henry, a King in his own right in England, the younger French King was determined to destroy the House of Anjou and draw under his own royal hand the vast tracts of land of which Henry held the fief. Chief among Philippe’s grievances was the unmarried state of his half-sister the Lady Alice who had, some seventeen years earlier, been delivered up into Angevin custody and betrothed to Richard of Poitou and Aquitaine, Henry’s second son. But Henry had denied Richard his intended wife and debauched the lady himself and thereby rendered any attempt of Philippe’s to secure a dynastic claim on Angevin lands as useless since, even if Richard did marry his father’s cast-off mistress, the union could and would be declared incestuous by Holy Church.
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