William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series Read online

  During these early formative years, Nicholas de Sarum’s sense of achievement would have been complete, had it not been for the influence of the Lady Sybil’s maid, Angharad. Nicholas was at a loss to understand why the Lady Sybil tolerated the Welsh woman’s presence. As far as Nicholas was concerned the bitch was too close to the Old Ways and it seemed to him that she had bewitched the Lady Sybil so that her Ladyship refused to accept the miracle of the boy’s baptism, persisting in her superstition that the child was cursed. He did not understand that in allowing the boy a close familiarity with Angharad, she reposed her own maternal duty, writing it off in delegation.

  By this argument Nicholas de Sarum saw in the boy a battlefield in which he, as God’s anointed, fought for the soul of William against the Devil’s agent, Angharad ap Gwyn. He would prevail, of course, but it was God’s will that he must fight for the boy’s soul and be ever vigilant when – which was rare, for the Lady Sybil kept her handmaid hard by herself – he saw the boy in the company of her Ladyship’s confidential body-servant.

  As for Angharad, she was aware of, but impervious to, the priest’s hostility which grew with the passing of time. She was safe enough from any accusations he might level at her, partly from her blameless life and the hours of devotion she gave to the Lady Sybil, which earned her also the high regard of her Lord, but because she had grown up in the Salisbury household and, despite their difference in rank, had always been close to her mistress. This too had earned her the approbation of her Master.

  Angharad ap Gwyn endured the Lady Sybil’s sharp tongue in the knowledge that her Ladyship was not autonomous, but a creature at Fate’s disposal. And such was the quality of their intimacy that the boundaries of birth both dividing and tying them, allowed Angharad to watch over the strange child to which her Mistress had given birth with the Lady Sybil’s entire approval. If William’s mother could turn her face away from her second son, it was knowing that Angharad would not; that between the surrogacy of Angharad and the devotion of the priest Nicholas, lay a means of offering the boy the opportunity her absent Lord would require of her. Contrary to the teachings of the Church, the Lady Sybil nursed a half-acknowledged faith that there existed in the Old Ways some palliation of the world’s miseries. It was the only way she felt able to mitigate her own sin in finding her husband revolting. God had been good to John the Marshal, raising him up, and therefore He must approve of him. It was not for the Lady Sybil to imperil her own soul by an excess of doubt, or her husband’s by a want of loyalty.

  Loyalty was what bound them; it was not unconditional like love. One could not love upon another’s bidding, but loyalty could be forged by sense and policy; it could – and should – be embedded in family for the general good. And in the absence of her husband, mindful of the vision of Angharad ap Gwyn, the Lady Sybil extended opportunity to her second son William, that he might indeed prove useful to her absent Lord.

  That the Marshal was rarely at home was in part a consequence of his restlessness and his desire to watch over his newly acquired lands and tenures. But it was also due to the burning of his face and the revulsion he read in his wife’s eyes when they were intimate. A once handsome man he found the whispering of sweet nothings to gain a woman’s acquiescence as repulsive as he knew any woman found his uttering of them from his twisted mouth.

  ‘Make my two boys worthy of my legacy,’ he had commanded the Lady Sybil on his first departure after the troubled birth of his second son, and both husband and wife had understood the meaning of the agreement this sealed between them. In due course they would lie together and more children would be born, but it was no more than dutiful, a manifestation of their dynastic loyalties. Such intimacies were intermittent. In the years of William’s infancy, the Marshal’s absences grew longer as the extended period of quiescence following the siege of Winchester and escape of Mathilda came to an end. Alas, the simmering uncertainties of a divided England again broke out in civil war.

  It became known as ‘The Anarchy’.

  *

  Soon after William’s fifth birthday, the Marshal rode out of Hamstead Marshal at the head of a body of men-at-arms and headed east, intent upon making his presence felt along the whole rich valley of the Kennet. He halted at Newbury where, summoning his tenants, he had his men throw up a palisade, selecting, as he had at Hamstead Marshal, an ancient barrow to use as the foundation of the stronghold. Here he installed his steward, Geoffrey, as constable, with orders to improve the fortifications and make of the place a proper motte and bailey castle, a crude version of Hamstead Marshal. This, the Marshal knew, would command the road between Oxford and Winchester where it met the track from Reading.

  Geoffrey, who called himself FitzJohn, had hardly completed the bidding of John the Marshal when he found Newbury under siege by King Stephen; a short truce had been negotiated of one day’s duration, after which the King demanded the surrender of the fortification. The bargaining permitted Geoffrey FitzJohn to send word to his Master and that evening a messenger, riding a mount lathered in sweat, rode into Hamstead Marshal. The horseman passed on the demands of Stephen and the circumstances in which Geoffrey shortly afterwards found himself. John was summoned by Stephen, first for erecting a fort without royal permission, and second for defecting to Mathilda. Geoffrey begged for relief of Newbury.

  John the Marshal strode up and down the hall muttering, while the messenger took meat and wine.

  ‘He who holds oaths cheap ought not to quibble when others follow his example,’ he growled to no-one in particular, referring to the King’s breaking of his own pledge of allegiance to Mathilda. ‘Had he done so he might never have brought this present pass upon the country or his own head.’

  At the far end of the hall the boy William, aware that something was up, stood amid his father’s hounds, watching. The Marshal paused in his pacing and called the messenger to him. Bending his head, the Marshal spoke in a low voice, the messenger nodded and made to leave as his Master called for a fresh horse. After the man had gone, the Marshal began giving orders and soon the castle was astir. It was clear the surrender of Newbury was not imminent, but what was afoot defied prediction.

  It was the following day that matters became clearer when the messenger returned. A few moments later William, chasing his older brother John and other boys round the bailey in a game of tig, was summoned to his father’s presence. The Marshal sat at the head of the table in the hall from where, when not eating, he dispensed the business of his fiefdom. Seeing the boy blinking in the gloom of the hall after the bright sunlight of the yard he beckoned him and William came towards his father. John looked at his wayward second son with something like approval. He tousled his hair and asked, a lop-sided smile upon his disfigured face, whether he was ready to do a knight’s service for his Lord.

  Studying his father’s seamed and rucked face with a seriousness that belied his years, and aware from his tutoring by Nicholas de Sarum that the question was important and bore upon his honour, the sturdy boy responded with a nod.

  ‘Give me your word, and willingly,’ his father responded.

  ‘Aye, father, I am ready to render you knight’s service if you ask it of me.’ The boy’s answer did not strike the Marshal as precocious. It was what was expected of him and the Marshal, smiling inwardly, made a mental note that Nicholas’s mentoring reflected his Master’s rise in the world. He looked up to fasten his one eye on the priest as he hovered, striving to determine what was happening.

  ‘You have schooled him well, Father Nicholas,’ the Marshal smiled.

  ‘I have but wrought your Lordship’s will, it being coincident with that of God, sir.’

  ‘Indeed, but ’tis well done.’ And again William had his hair tousled. ‘Well, Will, you must assemble your traps, I am sending you a hostage to King Stephen and a horse shall be prepared for you within the half-hour. You shall have the beast as your first…let us say palfrey, eh? If thou does this thing well and to my liking, mayhap I shall gi
ve thee a destrier, eh?’ The Marshal laughed, which made of his face a tortured grimace, and produced a noise of extraordinary quality that sounded very much like pain. The boy stood fascinated. Transfixed. ‘Go!’ his father prompted. ‘Go, say your farewells, and be quick about it.’ The Marshal rose to his feet and addressed the messenger, calling for four men-at-arms to escort him and the boy back to Newbury. Then he turned to the priest.

  ‘You shall convey him hence and see that the King receives him well.’

  Nicholas de Sarum bowed his head in acquiescence. ‘As your Lordship commands.’

  ‘You may return straightway. The boy must take his chance and you are needed here.’

  The boy in question was bemused by what exactly it was that was expected of him. William went directly to Angharad who soon learned that her darling was to leave the shelter of Hamstead Marshal.

  ‘I am to pack my traps,’ the boy repeated dutifully as his mother’s handmaid kneeled weeping before him. ‘What is the matter?’ he asked, his voice level, his demeanour undiscomfited by the outpouring of Angharad’s love and anxiety. It was far less interesting than his father’s behaviour. ‘I am to do my father knight’s service,’ he explained, as if it answered all. ‘It is what is expected of me…’

  Angharad shook her head and wiped the tears from her eyes. Into her mind’s eye had flashed the memory of the vision of the man on the horse who lifted three crowns upon his sword. There was something special about the boy, she realised with an intuitive certainty, and this moment had been long ago written in the stars.

  ‘Aye, ’tis indeed what is expected of you,’ she said, drying her eyes. ‘Bear yourself well.’ She leaned forward, kissed him on the brow and, pushing herself up from the rushes, stood, dusting her hands on her apron. He nodded solemnly, then stepped forward arms open and hugged her, his face buried in the smell of her none-too-clean apron. She pressed his head into her belly, repeating her injunction: ‘Bear yourself well, Will, and all will turn out well.’

  When he had gone she knelt again, the palms of both hands pressed down hard upon the bare, trodden earth of the old barrow, whispering words of the old prayers her grandmother had taught her and that she had brought out of Wales as a young girl.

  Half an hour later Master William rode out of Hamstead Marshal on his father’s gift, a small grey palfrey. The horse bore not merely a hostage for King Stephen, but John the Marshal’s conscience. Alongside William rode Nicholas de Sarum and the messenger, a man named Walter, accompanied by four men-at-arms in pot-helms and leather gambesons, each of whom bore sword and lance. Learning of William’s departure, his mother came down from her chamber in time to watch him ride out through the wooden gate. With the boy gone, the Marshal turned towards her, accompanied by their heir, John, his hand upon the older lad’s shoulder. The Marshal smiled his awful, drawn grin.

  ‘You have done your part well, my Lady. I told you he would come in useful…’

  ‘Whither does he go, My Lord?’

  ‘To the King as hostage against my good and acquiescent conduct.’ The Marshal chuckled.

  ‘And shall you act as the King wishes?’

  ‘The King shall not have Newbury…’

  ‘And the boy?’

  ‘We can make another, Sybil,’ the Marshal said quietly, his one eye staring gravely at his wife, his hand pressing the shoulder of his heir.

  *

  The King’s camp before Newbury was William’s first sight of an armed force. In truth, the army King Stephen had brought in haste before Newbury was not large, but it impressed the boy. Moreover, it was beyond William’s appreciation that it was largely composed of Flemish mercenaries under William of Ypres. The party from Hamstead Marshal had ridden in after dark and William’s first impression had been of the flickering of camp-fire flames upon a myriad of hard-bitten faces. He had been taken before the King as Stephen sat with his senior councillors taking wine before retiring for the night. Afterwards William recalled very little of that first encounter with the man in whose hands his very life now lay. He recalled a long table above which a row of solemn men regarded him coldly, but he understood the enormity of his plight. Having surveyed his hostage the King dismissed him, He was separated from Nicholas de Sarum and quartered with the king’s pages in a tent bearing the royal device and adjacent to Stephen’s pavilion. It seemed, for a day or two at least, a pleasant enough thing to render knight’s service. His fellows left him largely alone, though one appeared to have been charged with his welfare. William was well fed, allowed more wine than at home, and permitted to join the younger squires in their practice with sword and buckler. This the boy vastly enjoyed; unlike the wooden weapons at Hamstead Marshal, the King’s junior squires bore real swords, short-bladed and blunt weapons, to be sure, but swords whose heft and sweep spoke eloquently of power, if not just yet of death. Though it did not surprise William, his ability at five years of age to parry the thrusts of lads six or seven years his senior impressed his captors. Even at this young age his body had all but shed its puppy fat and he showed evidence of sinew and muscle in the making. In this respect he was his father’s son.

  Seeing this display of martial precocity, one observant noble mentioned to the King that: ‘the Marshal’s spawn was to be watched with care.’

  ‘Aye, as is his spy,’ added another, indicating Nicholas de Sarum whose presence had been forced upon Stephen and who was increasingly regarded with suspicion, the longer he stayed. ‘How long shall we hold him, Sire? As long as the boy?’

  The King nodded. ‘Aye. John the Marshal does not yet need to know we yet lack siege-engines and I would not seek to give him either comfort or encouragement. With his boy in our tender care John Marshal will stay his own hand and not trouble to hold Newbury…’

  *

  Caught-up in his martial exercises, William did not appreciate that Stephen’s sudden appearance before the hurriedly raised wooden ramparts of Newbury castle left the King at a disadvantage. To his untutored eye the thin siege lines behind their ditch and sharpened calthrops, the tents, the men-at-arms, knights, squires and horses – hardy roncins, palfreys and magnificent destriers – gave the boy the impression of a mighty war-host. In fact Stephen’s force was but a small retinue. The speed with which he had reacted to the news that his former Marshal and confidant had thrown-up a fortification and thereby made a direct challenge to the King, had meant that Stephen had left his French siege-engines behind him. Relying on surprise and the consequent immediate surrender of the garrison, Stephen had led a mounted column at a canter, only to find that the new works at Newbury were more substantial than he had bargained for. Nor were the garrison eager to give-up their charge and their defiance had led to Stephen prevaricating, exchanging the messages with the Marshal that had resulted in young William appearing as a hostage, and summoning his siege-train hither. Such decisive action, swiftly followed by stalling at the first set-back to his plans, was characteristic of the King, both in politics and war.

  War was not in those days à outrance. It was a matter of stratagems and sieges, marches and counter-marches, skirmishes and, if it came to pitched-battle – which it rarely did – of hostage-taking, negotiation and monetary ransom. Of course, the common soldiery could expect no mercy if they found themselves caught-up in an armed clash and on the losing side. If they survived the fight itself, or any wounds sustained therein, no-one had the inclination to care for prisoners unable to redeem their pathetic lives with pecuniary reward. Often they were simply ‘put to the sword,’ as the phrase had it. The high-born, on the other hand, unless they were extremely unfortunate, were relatively safe. In an encounter, an armed knight was to be surrounded, his retainers out-numbered and killed or captured. As for their chief, it was his personal capitulation that was to be secured. Both his person and his destrier had worth, the former for ransom, the latter as a prize for the victor. His other horses, the palfrey used for ordinary travel and the pack-animals called roncins, all added value to the t
riumph.

  By this means half-hearted peace accommodations were reached as ransoms were demanded, negotiated and paid. In these parleys alliances might be broken and others forged, and all took time, for war was as much about enrichment as strategy. The practice ensured the survival of great families, simultaneously making war an economic activity whilst encouraging a fluid confusion among them. Such had led to the marriage of John the Marshal to the Lady Sybil.

  As for the local peasantry, if they lay in the grain of the contending parties and owned their feudatory duties to the enemy, they found their crops trampled, stolen or burnt, their animals sequestered, their villages and hamlets looted or set on fire by a marauding enemy intent on pillage and forage. Worse still, if their overlord was taken, their taxes rose to fund his ransom and release. Before such ineluctable forces they cursed and wept, bowed their heads in submission and turned the other cheek in Christian humility. However, such enemy forces were never large and the extent of their destruction, though near-fatal for those implicated, was not widespread. Indeed, the greatest disruption to the majority was the overthrow of the balance of powers, those feudal impositions enforced upon the English people less than a century earlier by the Norman conquerors under William the Bastard.