The Lion's Legacy (Conqueror Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  The child, she thought, would hold them both, satisfying dynastic ambition and domestic need, and she clutched at the midwife’s hand. ‘Will it be soon?’

  ‘Oh aye,’ the old woman said and bent to her task. ‘Another ten minutes, lady, and you’ll be a mother.’

  She gave her a billet of wood to hold between her teeth and as she set about the delivery Maud lay with her eyes wide, watching the woman’s face, wrinkled, engrained with dirt; she felt the sweat on her forehead trickling down and someone wiped it away. She had not known it would be like this, a tearing apart of every muscle, every part of the body that no longer seemed to be hers, taken over by forces so strong that they conquered her, she who had always ruled herself and others, and she fought that domination because she hated it.

  It was dawn and the wild wind had dropped. In the stillness that followed one cry was wrenched from the Countess. Panting and hot, she held on and then at last there was a slap and a cry and she heard the woman say, ‘A boy, my lady, a fine healthy boy.’

  She collapsed against the pillows, swallowed up in a wave of relief, of triumph. She hardly heard the women of her bedchamber crooning over her, congratulating her, soothing her. The midwife, her voluminous sleeves rolled up, turned her attention to the child, rubbing the little limbs with salt to dry them and honey to comfort the skin. Then she took a pull of wine into her own mouth and bending over the child expelled a little into the tiny puckered mouth. The baby swallowed, gurgled and cried and the woman said in a satisfied voice, ‘That’s it, my fine master. Now you’re a man for the world.’

  Sinking into sleep, barely aware of the women sponging her body, Maud thought of all those men waiting below, of her father in far-off England. Now they could rejoice for a son was born to the houses of Normandy and England and Anjou.

  They named him Henry after her father and a few months later when the old King journeyed from England, they took him to Rouen to show him to his grandfather. It was high summer, the corn standing in the fields and comparative peace leaving men free to set about the harvest. The King kept a strong and ruthless hand on the reins for all his sixty-five years and however some might resent the curbing of their freedom, others of lesser degree rejoiced that seed-time and harvest came and went without wild armies trampling the very source of life into the ground. Disdaining the uncomfortable horse litter, Maud rode her big grey horse. She was a superb horsewoman, and knew herself to be at her best in the saddle; she could outride quite a few of the men at her court – which gave her considerable satisfaction – and when long ago Geoffrey had remarked in annoyance that she should have been a man she, for once, had heartily agreed with him.

  She glanced down at Emma, the wet nurse, who sat a palfrey by her side carrying the child carefully while a man-at-arms held the bridle. The baby was strong and from the beginning had shown his spirit, bellowing lustily for his food, screwing up his little fists, his blue-grey eyes staring curiously out at the world, his small sturdy legs kicking at the swaddling clothes.

  Both Maud and Geoffrey were with reason proud of him. So many infants were lost at birth or soon after, but this child had a secure hold on life. ‘He will keep his inheritance,’ the Count said. ‘Mark me, wife, he will be a worthy successor to your father and mine.’

  As the long cavalcade approached the walls of Rouen she lifted her head to gaze at the towers and turrets of the great cathedral, the churches, the ducal palace that was so much home to her, built by the old Conqueror whom she had never known, though tales of his stirring boyhood and youth, his prowess as a fighting man, his statesmanship, his wild courting of her grandmother, had filled her own childhood.

  It was a fine place, teeming with seneschals, butlers, ushers and stewards, all falling over one another today to minister to the vast retinue the King had brought with him, and the courtyard was crowded with horses and gear, all stowed wherever there was some space. Chickens and ducks, soon to be a part of the royal banquet, still scuttled wildly about, tripping the unwary; fletchers were busy preparing arrows and spears for the next day’s hunting, scullions ran from the well with buckets of water for the kitchen, or carried great logs to the fires that were needed despite the warmth of the August day.

  Geoffrey drew rein and glanced at his wife. ‘This court gets more like a market every time I see it. Must your father bring every able-bodied lord and knight with him as well as every servant?’

  ‘It is fitting,’ Maud said and drew in her mouth.

  In the courtyard half a dozen grooms ran forward to hold their horses as she and Geoffrey dismounted. She took the child from his nurse and holding him in her arms walked up the steps to the great door of the castle. It was open to the afternoon sunshine and as she entered the hall she paused, knowing she made a regal, matriarchal figure and wanting to create an impression on the assembled baronage whose fealty, she was shrewd enough to see, was of doubtful tenure.

  ‘That’s right, wife,’ Geoffrey said under his breath. His lazy smile mocked her. ‘Be sure they all see you thus – with their future lord in your arms.’

  ‘You want it as much as I,’ she retorted in a low voice, but she did not take her eyes from the long hall hung with gonfanons and tapestries, the trestles cleared away and the lords of Normandy and England standing about in groups. They all turned as she entered and as an usher cried out, ‘The Count and Countess of Anjou,’ they formed two long crowded lines for her to pass through.

  But it was at the dais at the far end that she was looking, at the royal chair before the rich red arras, that chair which had earlier seated Duke Richard the Fearless, Duke Robert the Magnificent, Duke William Bastard, his sons Robert and Rufus in their turn. Now its occupant was her own father whom she loved and sometimes hated, whom she obeyed and against whom she frequently rebelled, whom she resembled strongly, but whose wisdom and patience she had not succeeded in cultivating. She looked directly at him now and as she walked slowly towards him, elegant in her saffron gown, her long dark hair bound with golden fillets, she was aware that all eyes in the hall were upon her as, she thought arrogantly, they should be.

  Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy, stood to meet her, his hands held out. The dark mane of the Lion of Justice might be thinning over his forehead, but his brown eyes were as alert as ever and his stocky body brisk and active. An energetic life using every faculty both mental and physical had kept him fit – neither his constant hunting, travelling, statecraft, nor his attention to his many mistresses had worn out the sheer vitality of the man. For thirty-four years he had ruled England in peace and for twenty-eight of those he had been Duke of Normandy, unseating his incompetent brother Robert at the battle of Tinchebrai, and now he waited proudly to greet his first legitimate grandson. He admitted with his usual good humour to more bastard children and grandchildren than he cared to count but this boy was his heir, flesh of his flesh, true descendent of kings, to hold in the future what he held now and he hurried down the steps, his long purple mantle trailing the rushes, the rich jewelled belt of his tunic swinging to his feet.

  Maud bent the knee, graceful in every movement, and when she rose laid the child in his arms. ‘Here is your grandson, sire.’

  He took the babe as one used to and fond of children. ‘My daughter, I have waited for this day.’ He touched the soft downy cheek, studying the small face with a sudden hunger in his own. ‘By the death of Our Lord, Aaliz,’ despite the formality of the occasion he used her childhood’s nickname, ‘here is your brother’s image!’

  The crowd of barons who had swarmed forward to see the new prince were suddenly quiet for none of them had heard the King speak of his dead son for thirteen years and the memory of that tragedy still cast a shadow.

  Henry himself, looking down at the boy who had opened his eyes and was staring back in like manner, fell silent too. With the child in his arms he was transported back to the birth of his own son, borne by his Queen Eadgyth-Matilda, whom he had loved. He had waited long and patiently for
her during his youth, freeing her at last from the nunnery where she had lived, almost the prisoner of her dominating aunt. It had been a love-match, and despite the mistresses he took in later years it remained so until Eadgyth’s death. Two years after that their son, their only son, William, in whom all his hopes were centred, had been drowned in the Blanche-Neuf, crossing from Normandy to England – a stupid, wasteful, needless accident, caused by an excited party of youths overcrowding the ship, getting drunk and getting the sailors drunk. That day was scarred on to his memory so that nothing ever could obliterate it.

  But because he was as he was, Henry had forced himself to bury his grief, to carry on the business of kingship. Though he had not wanted to put another woman in Eadgyth’s place he had married again to try to provide England with an heir. His new wife was Adeliza, daughter of Duke Godfrey of Louvain, but to his sorrow she had given him no child and all his hopes were now pinned upon his daughter. He was not blind to her faults – she was arrogant and tactless but she had beauty and charm and as often as she offended she could still recall men to her side with one lift of her copper-coloured eyes or a curve of her beautiful mouth. A fine woman, he thought, and a daughter to be proud of, a Queen to succeed him, What matter if the barons had been reluctant to swear allegiance to a woman? He had made them do it and Maud would be a match for them if she did not antagonise them too greatly. He had tried to teach her that tact and good humour were of more use than bludgeoning one’s way to a goal, but now that she had a son, a boy to inherit all that he held now, surely none would dispute her right?

  He stood, holding the child high in his arms. ‘Come, my lords,’ he called in his carrying voice. ‘Come and see your new prince. You shall all give him your fealty, swear to be his men.’

  They came, crowding about the dais, some cheerful and honest, others smiling but hiding their secret doubts, one or two even showing their unwillingness, elbowed aside by the more eager. First among them was Maud’s half-brother, Robert of Caen, Earl of Gloucester. Taller than his father, distinguished in features and limb, a man in his early forties with the physical strength of the Norman royal house combined with his mother’s burgher characteristics of calm common sense, he had been born of a love union. Had he not he would have been the King’s heir and filled the place admirably – but Henry, for all he loved Robert as his first-born, had never considered that a bastard might succeed him, and Robert himself would in honour have repudiated the suggestion in favour of his legitimate sister. He came, smiling and open-hearted to kiss her, greet his brother-in-law and remark jokingly that surely no other babe had ever been so eagerly welcomed. The father of several himself he took the child and handled him with assurance.

  His cousin Stephen, young with fine looks and smiling blue eyes, pushed forward. Stephen was Count of Boulogne and Mortain, the son of Henry’s sister Adela and thus also a grandson of the Conqueror.

  Henry watched Stephen through narrowed eyes. Fond as he was of his nephew he had never had any intention of setting him in his dead son’s place and behind Stephen, as always, stood Stephen’s brother, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, a man with great ambition, quick-witted and devious. These two might try to seize the child’s inheritance and he let his eyes wander over his barons, testing their allegiance. How was it, he thought, that a man could live for sixty-five years and still not be sure of them? He knew his subjects as well as a man could, but he could count on the fingers of one hand those on whom he could place complete reliance.

  The long line moved forward, and Maud spoke to them all as they came, but she was looking for one face in particular. It seemed he was not there.

  She turned to her father. ‘Where is the lord of Wallingford?’

  Henry sent her a swift acute glance. ‘I cannot entirely denude England of important men, even on such an occasion, and my constables are needed there. He and Miles of Gloucester stayed to be about their duties.’

  Had Brien resented that, she wondered? She did not answer her father, whose intelligence she had never been foolish enough to underrate, and turned away to greet the Earl of Chester and his lady. Ranulf aux Guernons, thus nicknamed for the large moustaches he favoured, had recently married her niece Sibyl, Robert’s daughter, but even though she smiled and talked to the newly wed couple, her mind was not on what she was saying.

  She had wanted Brien here today to share in her triumph. He had shared so much in the past, he alone understanding her misery when she came home from Germany, a stranger to her own land, lonely and ill-tempered as she always was under stress, he alone aware of how she loathed that second marriage. She who never wept, deeming it below the dignity of a princess who would have preferred to be a man, had wept then in secret, in a small walled garden, wept in despair and frustration after seeing her bridegroom for the first time. The awful indignity, the shame of being allied to a conceited, silly boy of fifteen – she who had been an Empress – had overwhelmed her, temporarily drained her courage, so that she sought a place where she might weep in private.

  Brien had found her there, had held her hands while the storm wore itself to a weary halt. The kindness he had shown her then was a rare thing, she thought, in the world in which she lived, where men strove and seized and women were pawns to be used in the games men played for power. She had thanked God that it was he and no other who had sat beside her then, that never by word or sign had he shown afterwards that he had seen her weakness. And he would have rejoiced with her today, that at least she had been blessed with a healthy son – but she need no longer look for his long face with its finely shaped features among this crowd, nor would she hear his low-pitched voice asking, as he would have done, for her own health first before that of the man-child she had borne.

  Resolutely she put away her private disappointment and stood beside her father as, with his grandson in one arm, he stepped forward on the dais and held up the other for silence. Then he cried out, ‘Here is my heir, true heir of my body, of William my father and the line of Normandy. I command you all, swear again your fealty to my daughter and to this my grandson.’

  There was an answering shout and in satisfaction Henry cradled the child, his dark head bent over the fair one before he shot a quick look at Maud who stood, proud and regal beside him. What matter if she were a woman, he thought, and thrust aside the old grief for his lost son.

  ‘This is my legacy,’ he said and his harsh voice disturbed the child who began to cry. The old Lion of Justice rocked him in his arms and as the assembled lords came to swear their oath to his heir he cried out again, ‘This is my legacy to you all.’

  The long line of men shuffled forward, hot in the crowded hall as the old Henry stood resolute with the young Henry, quiet now, in his arms. For a brief moment Maud caught her cousin Stephen’s eye and wondered whether if it was imagination or whether she had seen a challenge there, startling and swiftly hidden.

  Two years and three months later King Henry was dead and men forgot their promises to him. Count Stephen with the aid of his brother Bishop Henry of Winchester and acting with surprising alacrity seized the throne of England. He was crowned and anointed before his cousin the Empress Maud had time to assert her claim, and in the face of this audacious deed the barons submitted to the new King.

  Stephen reigned for nineteen troubled years – the legacy that, in fact, King Henry bequeathed to England by trying to force his subjects to accept a woman and a child as his heirs. This is the story of the most brutal and turbulent of those years, until the will of the Lion of Justice was finally fulfilled.

  BOOK 1

  THE CLEVER BRETON

  JUNE– SEPTEMBER 1139

  O strong of heart, go where the road

  Of ancient honour climbs . . .

  Boethius

  Chapter 1

  The priest of Swyncombe, in the lordship of Wallingford, was a little man, small in stature and small in importance. He ministered to the people of the manor, to peasants and freemen, to the swineherds and cowmen, and
seldom went beyond the vill, the church and his own small house of wattle and daub with a thatched roof and beaten earth floor, but he was comfortable enough and grateful for the living. He had not been particularly well schooled and did not understand the meaning of all the Latin words he intoned so sonorously on Sundays and holy days, but he understood the significance of what he did, the meaning of his office, and that perhaps was all that mattered. Appointed by his lord’s steward, Amauri de Beauprez, mainly because his foster brother Ingelric was son to the knight who held Huntercombe in the honour of Wallingford, he had never yet seen his patron, but today as he emerged from his house he was awaiting the summer inspection usually carried out by that lord himself. As far as his tithes and dues were concerned Master Alfric was not worried – these had been given by the previous owner, Miles Crispin, to the abbey of Bec in Normandy, and all monies were correct and locked in a chest ready to be sent thither. However he was concerned that he himself should please his new lord for he liked Swyncombe, tucked into a fold of the Chiltern hills, a fresh green place with good yielding farmland and generous people who kept him well supplied with eggs and vegetables and new-baked bread, good people who gave to their priest as they would give to God, and he had no desire to be sent elsewhere. Yet he knew himself to be a simple, ignorant man and he had heard that Brien FitzCount was not only lord of Wallingford but a Constable of England, constantly at court, a companion to King Stephen, and a great scholar as well, a man learned in the classics, in theology and philosophy about which Master Alfric knew very little.