Scarlet (2 page)

T
hane Aelred was as fair-minded as the Tyne is wide, and solid as the three-hundred-year-old oak that grew beside his barn. A bull-necked man with the shaggy brown mane of a lion and a roar to match as may be, but he treated his people right and well. Never one to come all high and mighty with his minions, he was always ready enough to put hand to plough or scythe. Bless the man, he never shirked the shearing or slaughtering, and all the grunt and sweat that work requires. For though we have lived a thousand years and more since Our Sweet Jesus came and went, it is a sad, sad truth that sheep will still not shear themselves, nor hogs make hams.

There’s the pity. Toss a coin and decide which of the two is the filthier chore.

Under Aelred, God rest him, there was always a jar or three to ease our aching bones when the day’s work was done. All of us tenants and vassals who owed him service—a day or two here, a week there—were treated like blood kin whenever we set foot on the steading to honour our pledge of work. In return, he gave neither man nor maid worse than he’d accept for himself or his house, and that’s a right rare thane, that is. Show me another as decent and honest, and I’ll drink a health to him here and now.

Not like these Norman vermin—call them what you like: Franks, Ffreinc, or Normans, they’re all the same. Lords of the Earth, they trow. Lords of Perdition, more like. Hold themselves precious as stardust and fine as diamonds. Dressed in their gold-crusted rags, they flounce about the land, their bloody minds scheming mischief all the while. From the moment a Norman noble opens his eye on the day until that same eye closes at night, the highborn Frankish man is, in Aelred’s words, “a walking
scittesturm
” for anyone unlucky enough to cross his path.

A Norman knight lives only for hunting and whoring, preening and warring. And their toad-licking priests are just as bad. Even the best of their clerics are no better than they should be. I wouldn’t spare the contents of my nose on a rainy day to save the lot of them . . .

S
orry, Odo, but that is God’s own truth, groan as you will to hear it. Write it down all the same.

“If it please you, what is scittesturm?” Odo wants to know.

“Ask a Saxon,” I tell him. “If bloody Baron de Braose hasn’t killed them all yet, you’ll learn quick enough.”

B
ut there we are. Aelred is gone now. He had the great misfortune to believe the land his father had given him—land owned and worked by his father’s father, and the father’s father before that—belonged to him and his forever. A dangerous delusion, as it turns out.

For when William the Conqueror snatched the throne of England and made himself the Law of the Land, he set to work uprooting the deep-grown offices and traditions that time and the stump-solid Saxons had planted and maintained since their arrival on these fair shores—offices and traditions which bound lord and vassal in a lockstep dance of loyalty and service, sure, but also kept the high and mighty above from devouring the weak and poorly below. This was the bedrock of Saxon law, just and good, enforcing fairness for all who sheltered under it. Like the strong timber roof of Great Alfred’s hall, we all found shelter under it however hard the gales of power and privilege might blow.

The thanes—freeholders mostly, men who were neither entirely noble nor completely common . . . Willy Conqueror did not understand them at all. Never did, nor bothered to. See now, a Norman knows only two kinds of men: nobles and serfs. To a Norman, a man is either a king or a peasant, nothing else. There is black and there is white, and there is the end of it. Consequently, there is no one to stand between the two to keep them from each other’s throats.

The Welshmen laugh at both camps, I know. The British have their nobility, too, but British kings and princes share the same life as the people they rule. A lord might be more esteemed by virtue of his deeds or other merits, real or imagined, but a true British prince is not too lofty to feel the pinch when drought makes a harvest thin, or a hard winter gnaws through all the provisions double-quick.

The British king will gladly drink from the same clay cup as the least of his folk, and can recite the names of each and every one of his tribesmen to the third or fourth generation. In this, King Raven was no less than the best example of his kind, and I’ll wager Baron de Braose has never laid eyes on most of the wretches whose sweat and blood keep him in hunting hawks and satin breeches.

Like all Norman barons, de Braose surveys his lands from the back of a great destrier—a giant with four hooves that eats more in a day than any ten of his serfs can scrape together for the week. His knights and
vavasors
—hateful word—spill more in a night’s roister than any hovel-dweller on his estate will see from Christmas Eve to Easter morn, and that’s if they’re lucky to see a drop o’ anything cheerful at all.

Well, de Braose may never have shaken hands with one of his serfs, but he knows how much the man owes in taxes to the nearest ha’penny. That’s a kind of talent, I suppose, give him that.

I give him also his shrewd, calculating mind and a farsighted sense of self-preservation. He could see, or maybe smell, the right way to jump a long way off. The old goat rarely put a foot wrong where his own vital interests were concerned. The king liked him, too, though I can’t think why. Still and all, royal favour never hurts a’body while it lasts. Making it last: aye, there’s the grit in the loaf.

So, when William the Conquering Bastard got himself killed in a little foray in France—took an arrow, they say, just like poor King Harold—
that
upset the apple cart, no mistake. And Thane Aelred was one of those ruddy English pippins as got bounced from the box.

Aye, heads rolled everywhere before the dust settled on that one. Stout Aelred’s lands were confiscated, and the good man himself banished from the realm. All of us vassals were turned out, thrown off the land by the king’s stinking sheriff and his bailiffs; our village was burned to the last house and pigsty. Aelred’s holding was returned to forest and placed under Forest Law, devil’s work.

Most of us, myself included, lingered in the area awhile. We had nowhere else to go, and no provision made for us. For, like the others in Aelred’s keep, I was born on his lands, and my father served his father as I served him. The Scatlockes have been vassals ever and always, never lords . . .

Y
es, Odo, that is my real name—William Scatlocke,” I pause to explain. “Y’see, it’s just some folk have it hard with such a ragged scrap between their teeth, and
Scarlet
has a finer sound.”

“I agree,” says he.

“Splendid,” I tell him. “I will sleep so much better for knowing that. Now, where was I?”

Odo scans what he has written, and says, “. . . you were telling about Forest Law. You called it the devil’s work.”

A
ye, and so it is. Forest Law—two perfectly honest and upright words as ever was, but placed together they make a mad raving monster. See now, under Forest Law the crown takes a piece of land useful and needful for all folk in common and at a stroke turns it into a private hunting park forever closed to common folk for any purpose whatsoever. Forest Law turns any land into king’s land, to be used by royals only, them and their fortune-favoured friends. The keep of these so-called parks is given to agents of the crown known as sheriffs, who rule with a noose in one hand and a flamin’ hot castration iron in the other for anyone who might happen to trespass however lightly on the royal preserve.

Truly, merely setting foot in a royal forest can get you maimed or blinded. Taking a single deer or pig to feed your starving children can get you hung at the crossroads alongside evil outlaws who have burned entire villages and slaughtered whole families in their sleep. A petty thing, hardly worth a morning’s sweat, as it may be. Yes, that dark-eyed deer with the fine brown pelt and tasty haunches is worth more than any fifty or a hundred vassals, be they serfs or freemen, and there’s a fact.

Forest Law is what happened to Thane Aelred’s lands—hall, barn, sty, granary, milkhouse, and mill all burned to the last stick and stake, and the ashes ploughed under. The age-old boundary stones were pulled up, and the hides taken off the registry books, and the whole great lot joined up to the lands of other English estates to be declared king’s forest. Aelred himself was hauled away in chains, leaving his poor lady wife to make her way as best she could. I heard later he and his were dumped aboard a ship bound for Daneland with other miserable exiles, but I never really knew for sure. The rest of his folk were turned out that same day and herded off the property at the point of long Norman spears.

Those of us without friends or relations we might flee to for aid and comfort took to the greenwood. We aimed to live off the land in spite of the threat of death hanging over us if we were caught. As one of Aelred’s foresters this was no great hardship for me, but others who were not used to such stark conditions suffered mightily. Cold and fever took a heavy toll, and the sheriff ’s men took more. They killed us whenever they could, and chased us always.

I
t was no kind of life, Odo lad, let me tell you.” He glances up with his big dreamy eyes, his soft mouth caught in a half smile. “You would not last above three days.”

“I might be stronger than I look,” says he.

“And looks are ever deceiving,” I reply, and we go on . . .

E
ventually, with winter coming on and the sheriff and his men growing wise to our ways, the few of us that had survived those many months broke company and drifted off to other parts. Some went north where the Harrowing had desolated the land; in those empty parts it was said honest folk might begin again. Trouble there was that too many dishonest folk had gathered up there, too, and it was fast becoming a killing ground of another kind.

Me, I decided to go west, to Wales—to Wallia, land of my mother’s birth.

I’d always wanted to see it, mind, but there was more to it than whim. For I had heard a tale that stirred my blood. A man, they said, had risen in defiance of the Norman overlords, a man who flew in the face of certain death to challenge King William himself, a man they called King Raven.

CHAPTER 3

Lundein

C
ardinal Ranulf de Bayeux stepped from the small, flat-bottomed boat onto the landing stone set into the soft shore of the River Thames. The rank brown water was awash in dung and garbage, awaiting the estuary tide to rise and bear it away. Pressing the cloth of his wide sleeve against his nose, he motioned impatiently to his companions as they clambered from the boat.

Two men-at-arms had travelled down to Lundein with the cardinal and they followed his lead, remaining a few paces behind, the red pennants atop their spears fluttering in the breeze. Clutching the skirts of his scarlet satin robe to avoid the mud, Ranulf tiptoed up the embankment to the wooden walkway that led to the city street and passed the walls of the White Tower. The new stone of that magnificent fortress glowed in the full light of a warm sun, a blazing milky brilliance against the yellow leaves and dazzling blue autumn sky.

King William had returned from Normandie two days previous and had summoned his chief advisor straightaway—no doubt to review the accounts which Ranulf carried in a velvet pouch beneath his arm. It had been a good year, all things considered. The treasury was showing a small surplus, for a change, so Ranulf was to be congratulated. Thanks to his tirelessly inventive mind, the king would have money to pay his bribes and his troops, with a little more besides.

Oh, but it was becoming ever more difficult. The people were taxed to the teeth, the nobles likewise, and the chorus of grumbling was becoming a deafening din from some quarters, which is why Ranulf—a man of the cloth, after all—could no longer travel about the land alone, but went with an armed escort to protect him from any who felt themselves particularly aggrieved by his efforts on the king’s behalf.

William, of course, was ultimately to blame for the resentment festering throughout his realm. It was not that the king was a spendthrift. Common opinion to the contrary, William the Red was no more wastrel than his father—a man who lived well, to be sure, although far less so than many of his barons—but war was a costly business: much expenditure for piddling little gain. Even when William won the conflict, which he usually did, he almost always came away the poorer for it. And the warring was incessant. If it wasn’t the Scots, it was the Bretons; and if not foreign troublemakers it was his own brothers, Prince Henry and Duke Robert, fomenting rebellion.

Yet today, if only for today, the news from the treasury would please the king, and Ranulf was eager to share this good news and advance another step towards reaping a substantial reward for himself—the lucrative bishopric of Duresme, perhaps, which was empty now owing to the death of the previous incumbent.

Cardinal de Bayeux and his escort passed through the wide and handsome gate with but a nod to the porter. They quickly crossed the yard where the king’s baggage train still waited to be unloaded. Ranulf dismissed his soldiers and commanded them to remain ready outside, then entered the tower and climbed the stairs to the antechamber above, where he was admitted by the steward and informed that the king was at table and awaiting his arrival.

Entering silently, Ranulf took one look at his royal patron and read the king’s disposition instantly. “His Majesty is displeased,” declared Cardinal Ranulf from the doorway. He made a small bow and smoothed the front of his satin robe.

“Displeased?” wondered William, beckoning him in with a wave of his hand. “Why would you say displeased? Hmm?” Rising from his chair, the king began to pace along the length of the table where he had lately enjoyed a repast with his vavasours. The king’s companions had gone, or been sent away, and William was alone.

“Why, indeed?” said the king, without waiting for Ranulf ’s reply. “My dear brother, Robert, threatens war if I do not capitulate to his ridiculous whims . . . my barons find ever more brazen excuses to reduce their tributes and taxes . . . my subjects are increasingly rebellious to my rule and rude to my person!”

The king turned on his chief counsellor and waved a parchment like a flag. “And now this!”

“Ill tidings,
mon roi
?”

“By the holy face of Lucca!”William shouted. “Is there no end to this man’s demands?”

“Which man, Sire, if you please?” Ranulf moved a few paces into the room.

“This jackanapes of a pope!” roared the king. “This Urban—he says Canterbury has been vacant too long and insists we invest an archbishop at once.”

“Ignore him, Sire,” suggested Ranulf.

“Oh, but that is not the end of his impudence,” continued the king without pausing to draw breath. “Far from it! He demands not only my seal on a letter of endorsement, but a public demonstration of my support as well.”

“Which, as we have often discussed, you are understandably loath to give,” sympathised the cardinal, stifling a yawn.

“Blast his eyes! I am loath to give him so much as the contents of my bowels.”William, his ruddy cheeks blushing hot with anger, threw a finger in his counsellor’s face. “God help me if I ever suffer one of his lick-spit legates to set foot in my kingdom. I’ll boil the beggar in his own blood, and if Urban persists in these demands, I will throw my support to Clement—I swear I will.”

“Tell him so,” suggested Ranulf simply. “That is what the Conqueror would have done—and did, often enough.”

“There! There you say it, by Judas!” crowed William. “My father had no illusions about who should rule the church in his kingdom. He would not suffer any priest to stick his nose into royal affairs.”

It was true. William’s father, the Conqueror, had ruled the church like he ruled everything else on his adopted island. Not content to allow such a wealthy and powerful institution to look to its own affairs, he continually meddled in everything from appointing clerics to the collection of tithes—ever and always to his own advantage. Ranulf knew that the son, William the Red, was peeved because, try as he might, he could not command the same respect and obedience from the church that his father had taken as his due.

“Mark me, Bayeux, I’ll not swear out my throne to Urban no matter how many legates and emissaries he sends to bedevil me.”

“Tell His Eminence that his continued attempts to leech authority from the throne make this most sacred display of loyalty a mockery.” Cardinal Ranulf of Bayeux moved to a place across the table from his pacing king. “Tell him to stuff the Fisherman’s Ring up his sanctimonious—”

“Ha!” cried William. “If I told him that, he would excommunicate me without a second thought.”

“Do you care?” countered Ranulf smoothly. “Your Majesty holds Rome in contempt in any of a hundred ways already.”

“You go too far! My faith, or lack of it, is my own affair. I’ll not be chastised by the likes of you, Bayeux.”

Ranulf bowed his head as if to accept the reprimand and said, “Methinks you misunderstand me, Sire. I meant that the king of England need spare no thought for Pope Urban’s tender feelings. As you suggest, it is a simple enough matter to offer support to his rival, Clement.”

William allowed himself to be calmed by the gentle and shrewd assertions of his justiciar. “It is that,” sneered William. The king of England surveyed the remains of his midday meal as if the table were a battlefield and he was searching for survivors. “I much prefer Clement anyway.”

“You see?” Ranulf smiled, pleased with the way he had steered the king to his point of view. “God continues to grace your reign, Sire. In his wisdom, he has provided a timely alternative. Let it be known and voiced abroad that you support Clement, and we’ll soon see how the worm writhes.”

“If Urban suspected I was inclined to pledge loyalty to Clement, he might cease badgering me.” William spied a nearby goblet on the table; there was still some wine in it, so he gulped it down. “He might even try to woo me back into his camp instead. Is that what you mean?”

“He might,” confirmed Ranulf in a way that suggested this was the very least William might expect.

“He might do more,” William ventured. “How much more?”

“The king’s goodwill has a certain value to the church just now. It is the pope who needs the king, not the other way around. Perhaps this goodwill might be bartered for something of more substantial and lasting value.”

William stopped pacing and drew his hand through his thinning red hair. “The pope has nothing I want,” he decided at last. He turned and stumped back to his chair. “He is a prisoner in his own palace. Why, he cannot even show his face in Rome.” William looked into another cup, but it was empty so he resumed his search. “The man can do little enough for himself; he can do nothing for me.”

“Nothing?” asked the cardinal pointedly. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing I can think of,” maintained William stubbornly. “If you know something, Bayeux, tell me now or leave me alone. I grow weary of your insinuations.”

“Given Urban’s precarious position—a position made all the more uncertain by the king’s brother . . .”

“Robert?” said William. “My brother may be an ass, but he has no love for Rome.”

“I was thinking of Henry, Sire,” said the cardinal. “Seeing that Henry is courting Clement, it seems to me that Urban, with the proper inducement, might be willing to recognize the English crown’s right to appoint clergy in exchange for your support,” suggested the cardinal. “What is that worth, do you think?”

William stared at his chief justiciar. “The wheels of government grind slowly, as you well and truly know,” he said, his pale blue eyes narrowing as he considered the implications of his counsellor’s suggestion. “You are paid to see that they do.”

“Yes, and every day a pulpit stands empty, the crown collects the tithe, as
you
well and truly know.”

“A tithe which would otherwise go to the church,” said William. “Ultimately to Rome.”

“Indirectly, perhaps,” agreed Ranulf. He buffed his fingernails against the sleek satin of his robe. “Urban contests this right, of course. But if the pope were to formally relinquish all such claims in favour of the crown . . .”

“I would become head of the church in England,” said William, following the argument to its conclusion.

“I would not go so far, Sire,” allowed Ranulf. “Rome would never allow secular authority to stand above the church. Urban’s power ebbs by the day, to be sure, but you will never pry that from his miser’s grasp.”

“Well,” grumped the king, “it would amount to the same thing. England would be a realm unto itself, and its church an island in the papal sea.”

“Even so,” granted Ranulf gallantly. “Your Majesty would effectively free the throne of England from the interference of Rome for good and forever. That would be worth something.”

“How much?” said William. He leaned across the table on his fists. “How much would it be worth?”

“Who can say? Tithes, lands—the sale of benefices alone could run to—”

William might not understand the finer points of the papal dispute that had inadvertently thrown up two rival claimants to Saint Peter’s golden chair, but he knew men and money. And clerics were the same as most men in wanting to ease the way for their offspring in the world. A payment to the church to secure a position for an heir was money well spent. “Thousands of marks a year,” mused William.

“Pounds, Sire. Thousands, yes—thousands of pounds straight into your treasury. It would only take a letter.”

William looked at the empty goblet in his hand, and then threw it the length of the room. It struck the far wall and tumbled down the tapestry. “By the Blesséd Virgin, Flambard, you are a rascal! I like it!”

Returning to his chair, William resumed his place at the table. “Wine!” he shouted to an unseen servant lurking behind the door. “Sit,” he said to Ranulf. “Tell me more about this letter.”

The cardinal tossed the black velvet bag onto the bench and sat down; he cleared a place among the crumbs and bones with the side of his hand. Choosing a goblet from those on the table before him, he emptied it and waited for the servant to appear with a jar. When the cups were filled once more, the king and his chief advisor drank and discussed how to make best use of the pope and his predicament.