The Devil is Loose Read online

  When the king was ready, Roger Malchat nodded at Marshal and des Roches, and they escorted Henry towards the isolated oak. The English riders remained near the edge of the field, as though unwilling to risk the derision of the French army.

  The thin-faced Philip Augustus approached, and his perpetual frown deepened as he noticed Henry’s discoloured appearance. He was clearly upset at the condition of his enemy, and he unclasped his own cloak, folded it and offered it as a pillow for the Angevin. ‘Climb down and be comfortable,’ he said. ‘On my word, brother king, I did not know it had come to this.’

  Marshal said, ‘You were told it had,’ but Philip turned away to snarl quietly at Richard. ‘So he is feigning, is he? He’ll come running at a woman’s beck, eh? You know your father, isn’t that what you said?’

  Richard shrugged inside his massive, silver-mail hauberk, but before he could reply they heard Henry growl, ‘Keep your pillow! England does not sit at the feet of France, never! I am the senior monarch, and I’ll not be put down!’

  His steward touched him on the arm to calm him, but Henry pulled away, grimacing with pain. ‘Well?’ he mouthed. ‘You’ve invited me here. And what for? To hear your terms. Then read them, messires, read them.’ He was puffed with pride and shrunken by illness, and his left foot had begun to kick involuntarily. It was a heart-breaking sight, but when Marshal looked at Richard to see if he was at all affected by it, he met only the angry gaze of the man he had unhorsed. Even in the rain, the Lionheart’s expression was clear and legible. We’ve a score to settle, you and I, when this is over.

  Marshal was tempted to return the exaggerated shrug, but decided against it. There was already enough enmity to go around.

  The King of France had tried to make things better for his enemy, but now he looked away and beckoned his chancellor. The man hurried forward from the sparse shelter of the tree. He slid to a halt on the wet ground, watched for Philip’s nod, then read aloud from the carefully prepared document. It was lengthy, framed by formality, and couched in precise, well polished language. But the gist of it was plain enough, and the opening words captured the bitter flavour of the piece.

  Holding the document so that only a few lines at a time exposed to the rain, the chancellor intoned:

  ‘Henry, King of England and Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou abides by the will and counsel of Philip, King of France and accepts that whatsoever Philip commands or ordains, that will Henry do to the utmost of his ability and without contradiction.’

  He twisted the paper, rolling it towards the top. Des Roches looked at his king, but the old man sat impassive, blinking water from his eyes, his left foot twitching. The chancellor found his place and continued.

  ‘In order that peace may be restored between Henry of England, Philip of France and Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, the following provisions must be met.’

  The chancellor rolled the parchment again, settled himself flat-footed on the grass, and read the terms. In the moments that followed, the invalid king learned his fate.

  He was henceforth to recognize his son Richard as his sole heir, and was to command his barons to swear fealty to him…

  He was to place Philip’s sister Alais in ward to Richard’s nominees until such time as Richard and Alais were wed… He was to accompany the King of France on Crusade to the Holy Land and was, in addition, to contribute 20,000 silver marks towards Philip’s crusading expenses…

  He was to surrender the territory of Auvergne and various scattered baronies, and make over the already captured citadels of Le Mans and Tours, plus two others…

  And, finally, he was to kneel before King Philip and renew his homage to him, and thus end the conflict abroad.

  The chancellor licked rain from the air, rolled and tied the parchment, then retired under the tree. He thought he had read the thing rather well, in the circumstances.

  Marshal and des Roches moved in as Henry swayed in the saddle. His body seethed with pain, and his mind was numbed by the immensity of the demands. In the name of God, what did they not want from him? This was not a treaty! It was a humiliation, the long-sought vengeance of a minor king and a treacherous son. And where was John in all this? What place was left for him? Poor John, known as Lackland, because in any queue he came second to Richard. What provision for poor young John?

  Unable to control himself, Henry jerked forward, slamming himself against the pommel of the saddle. His battle-crown slipped from his head, hit the back of his hand and fell to the ground. He pressed a stiffening hand to his face and the opposing forces heard him weep. It was an ugly sound, for he, less than anyone, was practised in sorrow. In all his life he had not apologized a dozen times. Until this past year he had possessed more fingers than failures, and had regarded defeat as some obscure and foreign disease to which he was, anyway, immune. He had ruled England and the great Angevin dominions for thirty-four years, the supreme monarch and administrator, the man against whom other kings measured their worth.

  And now it had come to this, to treason and vengeance and disgrace. A victorious reign, a lifetime, come to nothing.

  He let his hand fall away from his face. He took the helmet that someone had reclaimed for him and jammed it on as though it was a woodman’s cap. Then, in a dull, flat voice he said, ‘I accept the terms,’ and turned his horse. He had no more interest in the proceedings. One does not stay at the dice table when all one’s money has gone.

  But he was not yet allowed to leave. Richard leaned over and spoke quietly to Philip, then rode forward to embrace his father and exchange the kiss of reconciliation. Marshal and des Roches moved away, leaving father and son to make their private peace. But the knights were not too far removed to hear Henry mutter in his son’s ear, ‘I pray God I live long enough to see you utterly destroyed, as I have been, my sweet boy. You will burn forever, and be torn apart, and each morsel of your flesh—’

  Richard reared upright, roaring a laugh. Then, shaking his head with pleasure, he rode back to his lines. He would never again see his father alive, not that he cared a spit.

  Henry was taken back to Chinon. Papers were placed before him and, with someone to guide his hand, he affixed his seal. On 5th July, the day after the conference, he asked for a list of those who had conspired against him, or deserted him, or financed the enemy. There was nothing he could do to them, he knew that, but the names would make interesting deathbed reading.

  He took a sudden dislike to Malchat and des Roches, but he nodded when Marshal told him John had been by twice, only to find his father asleep. ‘Whatever I have lost,’ Henry croaked, ‘John will regain… No one sees as deep into him as I do… You protect him, Marshal, and he will establish you in the realm…’

  Next day a French messenger delivered the list to one of Henry’s servants. Henry told the man to read each name aloud, slowly, so that he would have time to recollect. But the unfortunate servant did not get beyond the first name, for it was that of Henry’s twenty-one-year-old son, poor John, known as Lackland.

  The shriek of anguish brought Marshal and others running to the chamber. Two of the knights caught hold of the servant and flung him against the wall. They wanted to know, quickly and brutally, if his plan had been to kill the king with a knife, or stifle him with a cushion.

  ‘Neither!’ the man screamed. ‘I was reading the list! This! Here! It was snatched from him and passed to Marshal, crouched by the bed. He looked at it, saw the first name and let his breath stir the parchment. If the signature was real, and not some cruel forgery, it explained John’s unseen departure from Le Mans.

  Beside him, Henry murmured, ‘Things may go where they will… I no longer… I want no more of them… I am finished with them now…’ Then he rolled heavily on to his side, his face to the damp stone wall.

  By nightfall he was dead. His physicians sought out Malchat and des Roches and Marshal, and announced that Henry had succumbed to fever, aggravated by blood-poisoning. The diagnosis was accepted, for neither the knight
s, nor the physicians, were trained to recognize a broken heart.

  Chapter Two

  Reckonings

  July 1189

  The thieves waited until Henry’s knights were at prayer in the draughty chapel at Chinon. Then they crept upstairs, attacked and murdered the men-at-arms who guarded the king’s chamber, and broke into the room. They plundered the treasure chest, carted away the clothes boxes, tore the weapons rack from the wall. Not content with that, they stripped the corpse, dragged the coverlet from the bed and left Henry’s naked body sprawled on the floor. It was the most profitable work they had ever undertaken, and they escaped unnoticed.

  The alarm was raised at the next guard-change and, while Marshal led the garrison in a foot-by-foot search of the castle, des Roches took a second group into town, where they kicked their way into every house and byre. They returned empty-handed, to learn that a tunnel had been discovered, leading southward from the cellars of the keep.

  The shamefaced members of the garrison denied all knowledge of the subterranean passage. None of them were among the original occupants of the castle, nor had they ever seen plans of the layout. On their oath they had not known of the tunnel’s existence. It was what it purported to be, a well-kept secret. That was how it had been designed, and—

  ‘Enough!’ Marshal snapped. ‘Don’t go on with it. I accept your ignorance.’ Armed with sword and torch, he made his way along the tunnel, closing his mouth against the rat-fouled air. He noticed that webs hung in tatters and the dust had been stirred and flattened underfoot. The ground was scored by the comers of the clothes boxes, and the low roof had been chipped, presumably by spear-tips. He counted his paces and, at one hundred and nine, emerged among thorn bushes on the rocky hillside. Here he found the boxes, emptied of all but an old belt and a boot with a broken heel. He pushed his way quietly clear of the bushes and stood, listening for the sound of muffled hoofbeats, or the chink of metal. But he was too late; the thieves were far and away, and with them the wealth of a king.

  He shouted up at the guards on the south wall, and workmen were sent out to block the hillside entrance. The same would be done in the cellar, in case the secret was known by the French. The empty boxes were carried back into the castle, as though that somehow minimized the theft.

  In a touching attempt to reinvest the king with at least a semblance of dignity, his sickened knights searched among their own meagre possessions. Someone produced a clean linen shift. Another gave a woollen cloak. A third offered a pair of unworn shoes. From elsewhere came a cherished ring, a carved wooden replica of the stolen sceptre and, most pathetic of all, a strip of yellow embroidery to serve as a crown.

  Inexplicably, Henry’s war sword had been discarded by the thieves, although they had taken the decorated scabbard and the belt with its elaborate silver buckle. So the bare blade was laid beside him.

  ‘He’ll use it,’ one of the knights said, ‘to extend the boundaries of heaven.’ His companions were not sure if the remark was prompted by admiration, or sarcasm.

  * * *

  By the time the sad work was complete, the sky was lightening. Marshal arranged for the murdered guards to be buried in the castle graveyard, then sent a servant to find Roger Malchat. While he waited for the steward to join him, he crossed the inner courtyard, hauled a rope-bound bucket from the well and doused his head with cold water. He needed sleep, not a drenching, but there would be no sleep today – unless it was eternal, induced by Richard’s sword.

  Malchat emerged from the keep, crossed the narrow entrance bridge, then stumbled as he descended the steps to the bailey. If the outer defences of Chinon fell to an attacker, the members of the garrison would retire to the keep. Then the wooden bridge would be chopped through, leaving the steps as an isolated pyramid, twenty feet from the wall. The heavy door would then resemble a shuttered window, fifteen feet above ground level. But until that happened, anyone wishing to enter or leave the keep had to traverse the unrailed bridge and scale the steep stone steps.

  As the steward approached, Marshal shook his head, spraying water. He tapped the bucket and said, ‘You, too? If we can’t sleep, we may as well be more awake.’

  Malchat hesitated. He had been with Marshal at prayer in the chapel, and had joined in the hunt for the thieves, but he had not attended the burial of the murdered guards. Instead, he had snatched an hour’s sleep in his chamber, from whence he had been roused by the servant. But one glance at Marshal’s dark, drawn face told him that Henry’s champion had not slept at all, and would not appreciate Malchat’s stolen hour. So, more in spirit of contrition than refreshment, he scooped water over his bald head and managed, ‘Yes, that’s right. Anything to help us keep going.’

  Marshal brushed his hands over his ears, squeezing the water from his hair. Then he nodded towards the gate that led to the outer bailey. ‘Come on. Let’s see the day in. It will be one to remember.’

  Given the choice, Marshal preferred to walk and talk. If necessary, he would argue across a table in a conference hall, or discuss from a high-backed chair. But he felt more at ease on the move. He believed that the motion of the body drove the blood, like the current of a millstream, and that blood turned the mill-wheels of the mind. None of his less agile friends had been able to convince him that monks and clerks did their thinking at a desk, and were often accounted brilliant. ‘One thought a day,’ he dismissed, ‘and a week to write it out.’

  Now, with Malchat hurrying to keep pace, he strode through the outer yard, signalled to the gate guards and went on to the path.

  Looking westward from the castle approach, it was possible to see the junction of the Loire and the Vienne, and the flat, fertile land between. Low cliffs hemmed the south bank of the Vienne, and there were hills to the north, beyond the Loire. It was a beautiful part of the country, at its most beautiful on this summer morning.

  Marshal walked to the edge of the path and gazed down at the town and the meandering rivers. There were still patches of mist on the water, but even as he watched they dissolved in the sun. The village and meeting-ground of Ballan were too far away to be seen, though his memory of them served well enough.

  Turning to Malchat, he said, ‘There’s something I want you to do; something we cannot entrust to a messenger.’

  ‘Yes, I can guess at it. To tell Duke Richard his father is dead.’

  Marshal nodded. ‘God knows if he’ll listen to you, or respond, but he must be told today. The king’s body is – well, there’s no delicate way to put it – it’s ready for the ground. So, if Richard wishes to pay his respects, he’d be advised to hurry. He will not take the word of any common messenger, and I, myself, would go, but—’

  ‘No, you will not,’ Malchat said firmly. ‘You saw the look he gave you at Ballan. He will either strike out at you before you are off your horse, or hold you for ransom.’ With a faint smile he added, ‘And for us the second course would be the worst. We’d have to put a value on you.’

  ‘That’s how I see it,’ Marshal said. ‘Duke Richard is anxious to make a reckoning with me, but he has nothing special against you. He’ll probably be free with his insults, but if you can close your ears to them—’

  ‘You forget,’ Malchat told him, ‘I was King Henry’s steward. If every insult heaped on me was a grain of sand, I’d be buried in a beach! There is nothing Duke Richard can say that his father has not already told me. Don’t worry, my friend. I’ll get there and back.’

  I hope so, Marshal thought. You’re worth too much to us to be savaged by the Lionheart.

  As they turned back towards the castle, Malchat asked, ‘When he comes here – if he comes, I should say – what will you do?’

  ‘That will depend on him.’

  ‘He’ll want an apology from you, that’s assured. From what I’ve heard, you made a prize fool of him at the bridge.’

  ‘I dropped him on his arse,’ Marshal said, ‘let’s be clear about it.’

  ‘Well then, when he demands his a
pology—’

  ‘When he does that, I shall tell him he’s damn lucky to be alive.’ He grinned at the astonished steward who had never until now regarded Marshal as a braggart. ‘Don’t look so miserable, Roger. He’ll adore me for it. You’ll see.’

  ‘Will he?’ Malchat retorted. ‘Well, I don’t. I’m already sweating like a kept cheese.’

  * * *

  During the morning the king’s body was taken from the upper chamber and laid in the chapel. It was where it belonged, and the chapel possessed the added advantage of being one of the coldest rooms in the castle. Henry may have craved warmth during his final hours, but it was not good for his corpse. As it was, the honour-guard was changed every hour – the limit of their endurance.

  While Roger Malchat made his way towards the French camp at Tours, Marshal sent other men in the direction of Le Mans and Alençon. They went unarmed, and dressed as common wayfarers, in the hopes that the French patrols would let them pass. Their task, other than avoiding arrest, was to learn the whereabouts of poor John. The commanders acknowledged that the invisible prince might still be with Philip and Richard; he must, after all, have put in an appearance in the French camp, in order to add his signature to the list of deserters. But with John Lackland, nothing was certain. For all they knew, he could be on his way to England, or, having suffered another change of heart, be assembling his father’s troops in Normandy. Or drunk in Orleans. Or at prayer in the cathedral at Chartres. Or in a haystack with a whore.

  In the event, the unarmed scouts failed to find John, though they did make contact with another of Henry’s offspring.

  Of the king’s five legitimate sons, only Richard Lionheart and John Lackland were still alive – if indeed John was alive. But Henry had also sired numerous bastards, and it was the most important of these, the thirty-seven-year-old Geoffrey FitzRoy, whom the scouts met on their way north.