LATER THAT NIGHT THE king’s bastard son Robert, Earl of Gloucester, was awakened from a deep sleep by Brian FitzCount.
“Sorry to wake you, Robert,” Brian whispered, “but the King suffers from one of his nightmares. He complains of sharp pains in his belly and is calling for you.”
“A moment. I’ll meet you outside.”
Groggy, Robert rubbed his eyes, rolled his stocky body out of his pallet, fumbled for his tunic and boots, then tiptoed through the pavilion, stepping over the sleeping bodies of his cousin, Stephen, and the de Beaumont twins. Outside, he knelt by a wooden bucket, then splashed his face with water until he was awake. Hastily, he slipped the tunic over his head and pulled on his boots.
“What happened?” Robert asked Brian as they made their way through the quiet camp. Usually, either Brian or himself tended the King when he was ill. Tonight the duty had fallen to Brian.
“I was playing to the King on my lute, soothing him for sleep as I often do. He slept, but then the nightmare started. The usual one.”
“Perhaps there was too much excitement today,” Robert suggested, “what with the arrival of his daughter and all.”
“More likely the stewed lampreys he ate, which his physicians warned him never to touch again. Remember how sick he was the last time he had the dish? But when he wants something, who dares to cross him?”
No one, Robert thought. As they approached the King’s tent Robert heard his father groaning, and saw the anxious faces of the guards flanking the entrance. Inside, the King lay tossing on a feather bed, his face beaded with sweat. A squire, crouched by his side, sponged his face with a damp linen cloth. A single candle threw a long shadow across the dim interior.
“Father, Sire, I’m here.” Robert knelt beside the bed.
“My son!” Struggling to a sitting position, the King clutched Robert’s shoulder with clawlike fingers. “God give me strength, I had that terrible dream again—”
“Prepare a posset of wine mixed with a few drops of poppy,” Robert whispered to the squire, who withdrew to a corner of the tent. “Tell me, Sire.”
Breathing in labored gasps, the King fell back against the pillows. “Always the same dream. Peasants and knights assault me with lance and billhook.” His voice dropped. “They torture me and—” His eyes grew wild, and he touched his groin with a trembling finger.
Robert took his father’s hand in both of his. “Calm yourself, Sire.”
“Is it God’s judgment, Robert?” The voice was barely audible now. “Is it? Is it?”
“No, Father,” Robert said soothingly. “Naught but a nightmare. From eating stewed lampreys against your physicians’ orders. That’s all.” He dared say nothing else, although the King suffered similar nightmares so often that, in his heart, Robert concluded it must be a judgment from God.
The squire appeared, holding out a wooden cup. “The posset, my lord.”
Robert propped his father up against the pillows, took the cup, and lifted it to the King’s lips.
The King turned his head away, wrinkling his nose like a petulant child. “How do I know it’s not poisoned,” he muttered. “Perhaps you work in league with my enemies, seeking to destroy me before my work is done. Drink it yourself first.”
Without hesitation, Robert lifted the cup to his lips and took a small swallow. He handed it to Brian, who did the same. “There. Perfectly safe. Do you drink now.”
The King watched them suspiciously for a few moments before taking a wary sip. Robert watched him carefully as he drank the rest. After a short while the King’s eyelids began to droop.
“Robert—” The King’s eyes flew open as he clutched Robert’s arm. The deep dark eyes, so like his own, fixed him with a compelling intensity. “You must promise me—nay, swear to me upon the soul of your dead mother, whom I loved above all other women—that you’ll protect and stand by your half sister under all circumstances.”
“Of course, Sire.” Such an odd request. Why would the King think Maud needed protection, Robert wondered uneasily; yet there was no denying the urgency behind the plea.
“You too, Brian.”
“Of course, Sire,” Brian replied.
“Swear now. Wait.” Fumbling under the pillow, the King pulled out a crystal vial containing a milky liquid. “On this holy relic—Our Lady’s milk. Swear on this.”
Concealing his surprise, Robert placed his hand on the vial. “I swear, Sire, on the soul of my dead mother and upon this holy relic, to obey your wishes regarding my half-sister.”
Brian also swore.
The King’s eyes glazed. “I know I can trust you, my son, and Brian too, not to betray me when I’m gone.”
Brian and Robert exchanged startled glances. Betray the King after his death? How would that be possible? It must be the poppy dulling his father’s wits, Robert decided.
“I would never betray you,” he replied, in the gentle voice he used to allay the unfounded fears of his children.
“You are the child of my heart, Robert,” the King whispered, his eyes closing, “and I bitterly regret I cannot make you my heir, for you are the best suited to be king. But the church, the people, the magnates, no one will accept a bastard ruler. Only a child I’ve begotten on an anointed queen. You understand, my son—” The harsh breathing became regular as the King’s head lolled to one side.
Greatly disturbed, Robert rose to his feet. “Let me know if he wakes again,” he said to the squire.
Brian picked up his lute and together they left the tent. Outside, they breathed deeply of the cool night air.
“What can he have meant, that the heir must be the offspring of an anointed queen?” Brian asked. “Stephen isn’t the son of a queen. He’s not even in the direct male line of descent from the Conqueror, yet everyone expects him to be the King’s successor—unless the Queen produces a son.”
“One can take no notice of what my father says when he’s in such a sorry state,” Robert said. “His wits are so befuddled that he forgets William is dead. His words make no sense otherwise.”
“None whatsoever,” Brian agreed. “I wonder where he got that bogus relic.”
“Bogus?”
“Come, over the years I’ve seen enough vials of virgin’s milk to have nursed a hundred Christs. I didn’t think the King was so gullible.”
“What a man believes is his own affair. Who are we to judge?” Robert said, unable to shake off his feeling of distress.
He had long ago accepted the fact that he could never be the King’s heir. Yet mention of it stirred up old longings, forgotten dreams once cherished.
“What troubles you?” Brian asked.
“Surely it is a hard lesson God has set me, to know I’m ideally suited for a great task and be denied all opportunity for fulfillment.” He had not meant to speak of his feelings; the words had come forth before he could stop them.
Brian reached out and laid an understanding hand on Robert shoulder. “You would make a splendid king, in my opinion, better than Stephen.”
“Stephen will do very well,” Robert said quickly, not wanting Brian to think him disloyal, although he was inwardly gratified.
“Well enough,” said Brian, with an ironic twist to his voice. “He’s a great warrior and unsurpassed in the hunt. Well-loved, charming and personable. But there’s more to ruling the Norman realm than killing men and beasts.”
“He will rise to the task, I’ve no doubt,” Robert stated firmly. Nothing was served by dwelling on what he could never have.
He looked up at the shadowed sky lit by a full moon. With God’s grace, he would be home in time to oversee the gathering of the harvest.
“I cannot stop thinking of that oath we swore to protect my half-sister,” Robert wondered aloud. “I would stand by her, oath or no, should she need my aid.” A warm smile hovered about his lips. “I loved her when we were children. You never saw anyone with so much spirit, far more than William ever had, God rest his soul. She has grown into a lovely, impressive woman, don’t you think?” He yawned.
“Indeed. Go to sleep, I’ll join you anon.”
As Robert entered the pavilion his eyes fell on Stephen’s sleeping face. A wave of affection rushed through him. Despite their amicable rivalry and his occasional twinges of envy, he and Stephen were part of the same Norman family tree, root and branch, nourished by the same sap. It was unworthy of him to begrudge Stephen the crown. After all, how many bastards were as well-favored as himself? Indeed, how many men could boast of loyal companions, fruitful estates, a castle full of sons, and a devoted wife? Life was good to him; he wanted for nothing, and he owed it all to his father.
Before allowing himself the luxury of sleep, Robert knelt by his straw pallet, closed his eyes, and clasped his hands in prayer. From the fullness of his heart, he offered up his thanks to God for all the blessings showered on him, praying to be kept free of the driving spur of ambition, asking only to be made worthy of his great good fortune.
Outside the pavilion Brian FitzCount, wide awake, gazed up at the harvest moon. He wondered what Robert would say if he told him that he thought Maud the loveliest woman he had ever set eyes on, and that she stirred his blood and piqued his interest as no woman ever had. Cool and detached, Brian was aware that he had rarely given his wholehearted affection to anyone other than the King, Robert, and Stephen, and never his heart.
Unlike Robert, he did not look forward to returning to England, to his dull wife and his childless castle at Wallingford. But his duty lay with the King and where the King went, Brian followed. Brian was a bastard son of the King’s old friend, Count Alan of Brittany, and Henry had taken Brian in as a child, educated him, married him to a Saxon heiress, and made him castellan of Wallingford Castle. Brian knew how much he owed his benefactor, and never begrudged the King his years of selfless service.
He sat down on the ground, his back against a tree, his lute propped between his knees. As Brian’s fingers idly plucked the strings his thoughts returned to the oath he and Robert had sworn and to the King’s strange ramblings. When the most likely explanation finally came to him, he was stunned: Jesu, the King, despairing of ever having a legitimate son, meant to make his daughter his heir! Instantly Brian rejected the thought. It was impossible; without precedent, unheard of. In England no woman had ever inherited the throne, not even in Saxon times. The King could not intend such folly. On the other hand, that would explain the oaths. It would certainly explain why Maud, her husband barely cold in his grave, had been recalled so hastily from Germany. Instinct told Brian that if what he suspected was true, Maud was as ignorant of her father’s plans as everyone else.
A guard walked by and raised a hand in greeting. What would the man say, Brian wondered, if he told him his suspicions? Laugh, no doubt, and claim Brian the worse for wine. He could not imagine either the commonfolk or the magnates allowing the King to go through with such a scheme. And yet, in all his years with King Henry, Brian had never seen him fail in his purpose, nor falter in his intent. Whatever the cost, he was relentless in pursuing his goals. Well before Brian’s time there were incidents to chill the blood. He let his thoughts rove backwards in time, remembering the tales he had heard, not spoken of openly, but whispered in dark corners.
At the death of William the Conqueror, thirty-eight years ago, Henry’s eldest brother, Robert, became Duke of Normandy. His second brother, William Rufus, became King of England. Henry, the youngest, was bequeathed silver but no land. In 1100, thirteen years later, King William Rufus was killed, hit by a chance arrow while hunting in the New Forest. His timely death—then or now no one believed it an accident—had proved most expedient for his younger brother. Whether Henry’s hand had drawn the bow or he had arranged for another to do it, the result was the same: King William Rufus was dead; Henry was able to seize the throne without opposition.
Six years later he had crossed the channel, attacked his brother, Duke Robert of Normandy, defeated him in battle, then took the duchy for himself. But he had not killed his eldest brother, choosing instead to imprison the former duke in a Welsh fortress, where the unfortunate wretch remained to this day. Thus both Normandy and England were again united under the control of a single ruler, as they had been in the Conqueror’s time.
These were but two in a long life crowded with similar incidents, which made King Henry neither better nor worse than many another monarch in Europe, but gave every indication that, by one means or another, what he wanted he would have.
If the King did indeed mean to force his daughter on an unsuspecting nobility, then he was making a grave error, Brian thought, one that would cost the land dear after his death. However, it would take a braver man than himself to tell that to his sovereign. He wondered what Maud’s reaction would be when she found out what lay in store for her, and Stephen’s response when he discovered that he would be supplanted by the woman he found so appealing.