"You pigheaded— Nay, if you were not you, I would not love you. Because it is to your honor and to the whole country's good that there be a truce. Stephen's case is hopeless in the long run. You must know that. Why then should one Englishman shed the blood of another? The wounds of this war are already bitter enough. Will you urge more fighting and make them harder to heal when all is over? Have you not sated your lust for blood?"
"Aye, I am sated. I am too weary to be angry at life."
"Then for the good of us all, Rannulf, do as I ask you."
"For the good of us all, perhaps Stephen should never have been king. It is too late now. I am sworn to him, I love him, and could he have shown his love for me in a plainer way? Nay, Robert, I will urge nothing. If it be possible, I will hold my tongue. So much I can do to content—to content you. I can promise no more."
At first it seemed as if it would be possible for him to hold his tongue. He was shocked, when he was brought to Stephen, at the difference a few months had made in the king's appearance.
"Are you ill, my lord?"
"No more than usual," Stephen replied significantly.
Rannulf felt a sickening twinge of anxiety and intermingled with it an even more sickening twinge of hope. If Stephen should die . . . Horrified at his selfishness, he stopped the thought, but as Stephen began to explain the general situation, Rannulf's sense of shame eased and he could not help but wonder if the thought had been selfish. The king was at the end of his physical and mental strength. Fond as he was of Rannulf, it was clear that he could not have mustered sufficient decisiveness to bring the army to Crowmarsh. He confessed as much, citing Eustace's change of heart toward Rannulf and his son's desire to keep Rannulf out of Henry's hands.
Rannulf was to escape no part of the knowledge of how right Robert of Leicester was. Stephen had sunk low, indeed, even in the opinions of the men faithful to him. During the council, the obvious disintegration in the spirit of men who had such a leader was apparent. All of them, knowing their force was superior and that they held the advantage, still did not wish to fight. All urged truce.
All—except Eustace. Stubbornly, he urged battle, growing more and more excited as the barons, gaining confidence from their unanimity, grew bolder in opposing him. And Stephen was blown like a feather in a gale between the will of his son and the will of the barons.
"We need do neither—neither make truce nor fight," he mumbled at last in despair. "We can simply break camp and leave now without further parley with Henry."
There was a perfect, stunned silence. Aside from the shame of such an action, it was about the only thing they could
not
do with safety. At the first move to break up, Henry's forces would certainly ford the river and attack them as they retreated. As soon as the barons gathered breath, a howl of protest went up.
"I do not care," Stephen said, almost sobbing. "I care little whether we make truce or fight. I am not afraid to fight." That was true, Rannulf thought, watching the king. A man already in hell is not afraid to die. "What do you think is best to do, Rannulf? You have not spoken, and I have fared ill since I turned away from your advice."
Rannulf was so exasperated that he came within a hair of saying what was uppermost in his mind—that if Stephen wanted to do the best for everyone there, including himself, he should drop dead. Stephen was not fit to be king, nor, although his purpose was firmer, was Eustace. Robert had spoken the truth.
"I have too great an interest in the matter," Rannulf said. "I do not wish to rot in Crowmarsh, and if you mean to preserve that place, the Angevin must be driven away. My judgment, in this case, is of no value."
"Your judgment is always of value, Soke," Eustace snapped. "You would vote for fighting. Are we not the stronger?"
"Yes, but—"
"Will not your men issue out from Crowmarsh and attack the Angevin's rear?"
"Yes."
"You have forded the river. Is it now low? Can we not cross it easily?"
"Yes, but—"
"Are you willing to fight?"
"Yes." Rannulf, eyes on the ground, muttered the affirmative reluctantly.
"You see, we cannot take out the men or the keep will fall into Henry's hands. We must fight," Eustace urged.
"But who wishes to keep the mud hut!" a voice in the background exclaimed.
"The men must come out, it is true," said another.
"So make truce and tear down the useless bauble. It has no power over Wallingford now that Henry is in the field, as we have seen. It is good for naught but to pen up good fighting men who could be used elsewhere. If it be destroyed no one will lose by that—and the Angevin will gain nothing."
"Cowards all!" Eustace shouted, making the men hate him worse because of their fear that he had spoken the truth. "We have the advantage here. We have them both before and behind. Father, you must give orders that we fight. When will we have a better chance?"
"I must consider," Stephen replied, looking from Eustace to the scowling faces of his barons. If he ordered them to fight, they might all desert him.
As if the single additional evidence of Stephen's indecisiveness had catapulted him from his seat, Eustace leapt to his feet.
"Do not consider," he screamed hysterically, "decide! Cannot you see that your life hangs on this matter? Fight and you live. Yield and you die."
"My son, you are distraught," Stephen murmured dully.
"Father, I beg you. I will even beg you on my knees. We can win if you will only fight."
Stephen touched his son's face, but he did not look at him. He gestured at the men of the council, and they made haste to leave. Sensing their departure, Eustace abandoned hope and dropped his head onto his father's knees.
"Why will you make me bear the burden of your death?" he sobbed.
CHAPTER 22
William of, Gloucester smiled vaguely at the pretty young man who was fanning him. The boy was the greatest find he had ever made, so pretty, so very quick to learn, so totally devoted—and mute. Blessing of all blessings, he was born mute and had been treated worse than an animal until William had rescued him, seeing and desiring the prettiness under the dirt and bruises. He was worth a great deal more than the mere satisfaction of a desire when he was cleaned and taught a form of sign language. He could not read nor write nor speak—except to William himself—which made him the perfect tool and confidant.
"It is as I thought," William said to the receptive ears that could never find a way to relate what they had heard to a stranger. "They would be twenty years more settling this war if I let them go their own way, and I am bored with it. It is time to make an end. See this paper here, my child? It tells me that Stephen and Henry have made truce. Thank God, Leicester thought with me in that matter—even if for different reasons. That hothead Hereford would have started the fighting again, Stephen would have retreated to another hold, and heaven knows how we would have tempted him out another time."
A raised finger sent the boy running for cooled wine. William sipped, the pretty servant lifted his fan again, his eyes intent with interest.
"Aye," William mused gently, "I cannot think that aught more is needed. The truce is made, Crowmarsh destroyed, and both armies have turned their backs on each other. Dress yourself now in that garb of Eustace's livery which is laid ready and take this letter to the Lady Constance. It begs her to make ready for the king a favorite dish of his—smoked eels. Oh, yes, a great favorite."
Eustace stared into the leaping flames at Bury St. Edmunds. He could feel the sweat running down his face and back, his lips were cracked and painful with the heat, and he suspected that if anyone had laid a hand on his mail where it was nearest the fire the flesh would have been seared. Still he was not warm; still his teeth chattered with cold.
This was hell. He need fear nothing, for he had tasted the worst that could be—burning flesh and freezing soul. I have not done it, nor have I condoned it, he thought. I have no part in the plan. I have not even sent word to London of how matters went at Crowmarsh. I will take vengeance; no paper of amnesty or pardon will hold me back.
There was no comfort in those thoughts; there was no comfort in anything. Eustace was all too conscious that he could not look into his father's face, and that his father seemed to know why. Eustace had fled from Crowmarsh burning and pillaging on the way, but Stephen had followed him eastward and was again encamped before Ipswich. He was not encamped there for any reason, because he did not really prosecute the siege, but he might as well be there as elsewhere. He seemed to be waiting, not with patience and not with impatience, simply waiting, for the act that would release him from the pain of living.
"I will not go there," Eustace said aloud. "I will not go there." But he knew that if it did not happen soon, he would go.
For a week his determination held, the ambition of a lifetime combating his knowledge of a lifetime of freely proffered love. On the morning of the 17th of August, a letter came to him from his father, an ordinary letter of business regarding a charter for Fountains Abbey. It would be well, Stephen wrote, if Eustace would take the trouble to ride the ten or fifteen miles that separated them so he could sign the charter also. He was growing old and very tired, Stephen continued, the monks had been kind to him, and he would like to be sure that they would have no trouble with the charter.
When Eustace lifted his head from the parchment where he had laid it, the words were no longer legible, and the tears that had wiped them out had transferred the ink in comical smudges to his face. His struggle, however, was over. He would advise his father to abdicate the kingship and leave England to Henry. He would concur in the abdication, resigning his right to inheritance. They would retreat to the duchy of Blois and live out their lives in peace.
It would be impossible, of course, to explain in plain words what had brought about this change of feeling, Eustace decided, so he would not broach the matter to his father at once. He was able in his relief to greet Stephen with so light a countenance, with such clear peaceful eyes as he had not had since a child. Responding at once, warmth and life began to flow through Stephen.
They made out the charter and talked generally, reliving happier days in the past. Eustace rode out for an hour to look with renewed interest at the progress the siege engines were making. It would be a proud thing to fling Norfolk into Henry's face, to say that they had accomplished more than Henry could but would not strive longer with him for a ravaged piece of earth worth nothing. He returned, still greatly uplifted, to find his father at table.
"Sit down," Stephen said warmly, and thrust a dish across at Eustace. "I know you do not like eels, but you must taste these. They have a most pleasant and unusual savor, and your lady wife had the kindness to send them all the way from London by your—What is wrong, Eustace?"
Then everything happened at once. Stephen tried to snatch back the plate, his face white, his mouth distorted. Eustace, his eyes bulging with horror and remorse, managed to seize some three pieces of the eels and cram them into his own mouth. Stephen gave a choking cry and seemed to be trying to throttle his son. The servants pulled them apart, and one very handsome boy in Eustace's livery, seeing his master turn crimson and gag, silently pressed a goblet of wine into the prince's hands while the others continued to try to divert Stephen.
In haste to get the eels down before his father could force him to disgorge or before his courage failed, Eustace drank and flung the goblet away. Stephen burst through the servants, and for a few moments more father and son struggled together. All eyes were so intent upon this inexplicable conflict, that not a single person noticed how the handsome boy who had given Eustace the wine laughed perfectly silently and retreated gently toward the door until he had slipped away.
By the time the servants had presence of mind to run and bring the vassals, Eustace was writhing in convulsions upon the floor. Some leapt to restrain him, some bellowed to the servants to summon the physicians. All knew any measure was too late, for the young man's face was blackening as his breathing failed.
Rannulf first tried to urge Stephen away, and then, realizing that he would not leave his son to die alone even if the child knew him no longer, contented himself by removing all weapons from that place and watching the king to be sure he would do himself no hurt. It did not take Eustace long to die, but it took hours to convince Stephen that life was extinct and more hours to wrest the corpse from his arms.
When the vassals had done so, however, Rannulf was alarmed by the king's quiescence. He ceased to weep and sat with staring eyes the rest of that day and that night. At first they thought he, too, would die, but as the days passed, he grew gentle and simple. If they bade him eat, he ate; if they bade him sleep, he slept.
The news did not take long to reach Henry's ears, but for once the young duke did not seem certain of what to do. He could have fallen upon the king's demoralized forces, squeezing them between Bigod and himself, beaten them and taken Stephen captive. Such action had many advantages, but it would violate the truce he had just signed and it would certainly bring inveterate hatred to him from any man still faithful to the king.
"Besides," Henry said, looking into the faces of his councilors, "he is my cousin, and once, when he could have had me prisoner, he sent me money and let me go."
"We have broken so many bonds of faith already," Hereford said miserably, "what matter for one more? There is no need to treat Stephen harshly. He may be confined with all comfort and honor, or he may be sent back to Blois. We are all sick of this war, Harry. Make an end to it."
"But will it make an end to it? What of men like your foster brother, Leicester? If we won this battle and took the king, would Rannulf of Soke take pardon of me and be my man?"
Leicester did not wish to reply because he wanted to protect Rannulf. While he sought for a way to temporize, Gloucester leaned forward.