The Young Lion (7 page)

After they had eaten and washed themselves, they rested their palms on the stones once more, and once more were filled with waves of energy. Before they remounted, Douglas lifted Henry’s right hand, touched it first to his forehead then to his lips. Henry felt him say, ‘You did it. You freed yourself.’

I love you more than I can ever say, Henry thought. Douglas nodded.

Returning home, they slept one night in a swineherd’s hovel. The swine were as friendly as dogs, and in the freezing weather, deliciously warm companions.

At dawn, six and a half days after they had left the castle, they returned. Henry bounded to the bedchamber where Guillaume was seated on the sleeping platform; with one look at him, Guillaume knew. He wrapped his arms around his brother, squeezing him against his chest. Tears of happiness ran from his eyes, but then he began to laugh. ‘God’s feet, Henry, you stink!’ he said. ‘What’d you fight? A giant turd?’

The interpreter, who was back in his allotted place at the end of the sleeping platform, fell into a fit of sniggers.

‘Where was that brat the night I left?’ Henry asked in Catalan.

‘They found him blindfolded and tied up, lying in a corridor. He was as furious as a wildcat. Our Highland friend, I think …’

It took Henry half a morning to wash off the travel soil and the swine smell, to have himself barbered, and to find a valet with the skill to manicure nails.

People said that to become a royal knight David, at the age of seventeen, had entered a cave high in the mountains and stayed there for three days, where something had happened that caused him to lie in a faint so long that the Highlander who accompanied him despaired of his life. But a huge white stag had appeared, a crucifix between its antlers and, bending its head, it breathed into David’s nose. Immediately David sat up and the stag vanished.

When Henry was dressed he sent James with a message to Douglas and together they presented themselves to the King.

As they entered the audience chamber, David rose to embrace his kinsman. Like Douglas, he held Henry by the shoulders to stare into his face.

‘I’ll knight you in the morning,’ he said.

Within an hour Aelbad had sent by pigeon a one-word message to Prince Eustace: ‘Tomorrow.’

Post-riders galloped all afternoon carrying news that the next morning, in the great hall, a royal knighting ceremony would take place. It was a miserable day of cold wind and rain. The Anjevins were happy to stay indoors playing dice games and, in Guillaume’s case, singing to an audience of cow-eyed girls. Henry was unable to hold a conversation for more than a few minutes or to concentrate on the game. Mostly he sat staring at the fire, reliving his arm thrusting through the Lion’s mouth.

The King entered before supper and took him aside. ‘There’s no war like the one you fight against yourself, lad. Against the chaos of your desires, and the things you didn’t even know you feared.’

Heavy rain overnight and during the early hours of the morning cleared to a radiant day. It was Whit Sunday – the Feast of Pentecost – and everyone wore some scarlet in their dress in honour of it. The altar cloth and the priests’ chasubles were the colour of flames and as many candles lit the altar as on Easter Sunday. After Mass the crowd of more than five hundred moved into the great hall of Carlisle Castle. Henry had changed his dress to the official colours of Anjou: a blue tunic embroidered front and back with three gold leopards. He had a blue velvet hat and gold boots. David sat on a dais at one end of the hall on a throne carved with unicorns. From the
other end Henry, with Guillaume and Douglas pacing behind him, progressed in measured steps towards it.

Before the throne Henry stopped, knelt and removed his hat. ‘I am your man, sire. My life is at your service,’ he said.

His eyelids fluttered. He felt an enormous pressure descend on him, crushing him into the earth. Suddenly it released and his being expanded into an eternity of peace. In the hall silence was absolute.

‘Saint Andrew is with us, lad,’ the monarch whispered.

Through closed eyes he imagined the saint’s white cross. But for King David and for Douglas, the Guardian of Scotland appeared in his natural guise, a gigantic white stag with a cross between its antlers poised in the air above the throne. The stag raised a hoof and pressed down on Henry’s head. Henry bent to the ground. The stag lifted its hoof. Henry’s head rose. It pressed its hoof down again. Henry bent then rose again. A third time it pushed him into the earth.

Henry was aware of pressure and release, pressure and release. He did not feel David lay a sword first on one shoulder, then the other.

Raising his voice the King cried, ‘I present to you Sir Henry, Royal Knight of Scotland!’ He spoke in Gaelic, then Latin, French and finally, English.

As Sir Henry straightened, stood and re-donned his hat, he seemed to himself so alive he could see for a thousand miles.

And something else had happened but he did not immediately recognise it. Then he felt it. A burden he had unknowingly carried his whole life had lifted from his shoulders: I’ve conquered the curse of Father Bernard, he thought.

David pressed a sword into his hands. Its gold hilt had a ruby cross above the letters
HR
, fashioned in sapphires. Henry knew it well; he had used it to slaughter the Lion.

‘This sword,’ the King announced, ‘was made by Henry of England to celebrate his victory over the French. May it bring victory to the arm of his grandson!’

Henry turned to the throng and with the sword aloft shouted in Gaelic, then French, ‘With this, and my life, I defend King David and all the Scots!’

Whooping and yelling from the Highlanders at the back of the hall burst into the skirl of pipes: a regiment of thirty pipers and drummers marched forward, turned, and conducted the new knight through the cheering crowd. Lady Edith and Sir William Walter were in the front row; she dabbed at her cheeks with a tiny handkerchief. Other men and women shed tears, some swept up by the pageantry, others in a state of awe, sensing the presence of the Guardian. Knighted men remembered their own ordeals, the terror of combat against a strong enemy. But they were ordinary knights. They had not endured the secret ordeal of a royal knight, and some of their tears were for themselves: they would die never knowing. Some people were simply moved by the special music of Pentecost Sunday. By nightfall God’s Truce would be over and the fighting season could begin. But for today, a festive tournament was planned.

There was no sign of rain although the wind was stiffer than yesterday’s. ‘Real tournament weather!’ David said with relish.

Outside the castle the tournament field was bright with standards, caparisoned horses and tents. From tent peaks the pennants of many great houses flew, straight as boards in the wind. Knots of men, nobles with retinues of knights, conversed inside and outside their tents. The pretty girl with whom Henry had flirted at the banquet was surrounded by young admirers. Henry waved to her and she waved back, but he had no chance to stumble through another English conversation with her because he was listed to ride in the tournament. Sixty knights took the field, thirty
on each team. Around the fighting ground drummers beat out, at first quietly and slowly, then with increasing noise and vigour, a pounding song of war. The joy of battle rang in people’s ears and lit their eyes.

Knights manoeuvred their horses into position and, having picked the man they would attack, wrenched their visors over their faces. The drumming rose to a frenzy. Stallions screamed and reared. King David waved the banner of St Andrew up, then down.

‘The war god loathes those who hesitate!’ he shouted. ‘Charge!’

The caparisoned stallions thundered forward, their knights steering them at the enemy they had chosen. The noise was deafening. Lances crashed against shields, warhorses screamed, men yelled at each other.

Heiresses leaned against the barricade, cheering and calling, ‘Hain-ree!’ or ‘Gee-om!’ or names of other men they favoured. But most were applauding for the brothers.

The Highlanders yelled and twirled as Henry charged his opponent. When he unhorsed the other rider, the Scots gave terrifying cries of triumph.

It was the rule of a tournament that as soon as a knight was unhorsed, his opponent would stop, dismount, protect him from being trampled by other horses and help him to his feet. Nobody was meant to be killed or badly injured, although it was easy to break a limb in a fall. Lances were baffled on their tips to minimise damage. Often, after a de-horsing, the two opposing knights walked to the edge of the field and drank together before they returned to the fray. The man Henry unhorsed wore a red tunic over his armour with a griffin as his banner. When he pulled his visor open Henry saw he was not a Scotsman. His hair was the colour of straw. He thought it polite to address him first in Latin, but the knight didn’t seem to understand so
Henry changed to French. After a drink they shook hands, rehelmeted and returned to the melee. Each chose a new opponent for their next charge. Henry unhorsed another three riders from the other team. His fifth opponent was on the ground almost the moment his lance struck the other’s shield but, unbalanced by the weakness of his opponent’s resistance, Henry fell forward onto his horse’s neck. The horse reared, twisted and crashed its front hooves onto the knight’s chest. Spectators began to shriek.

Henry leaped to the ground to assist the injured knight. Guillaume galloped over, dismounted and knelt beside Henry. A few other knights stopped fighting, but most continued, unaware of what had happened. Henry ripped off his right gauntlet with his teeth to open the man’s visor. He pulled off the helmet to feel for a pulse in his neck. There was a flutter. He slipped his arm inside the man’s hauberk. And recoiled.

‘I’ll get a priest,’ Guillaume said, but he did not need to because already Douglas was striding onto the field, a priest running after him. The drummers beat out the signal to stop the tournament, and gradually the knights of both teams dismounted and gathered around the dying man. Henry felt deeply remorseful and ashamed.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said as the priest recited the last rites. ‘Please forgive me.’

He had not controlled his horse. He had killed a knight during the festival of Pentecost. The dead knight was carried off and the tournament resumed, but Henry, followed by Douglas, made his way to the King to apologise.

‘Sire, I cannot tell you how shamed I am …’

The King nodded curtly. ‘I was watching,’ he said. ‘When you charged, your opponent, whoever he was, dropped his shoulder so there was no power in his defence against your thrust. I think he meant to be unhorsed and to unhorse you. You didn’t see this, but he thrust his lance at your horse’s neck.’ He turned to Douglas
and spoke in Gaelic. Douglas fetched the horse and led it over. ‘Examine its left side, at the jugular groove.’

The horse’s caparison had been slashed by the knight’s lance. When they lifted the cloth, they saw the animal was bleeding. The blow had missed its jugular by a fingernail.

‘So his lance was unbaffled. Now, it may have been accidental …’ David continued, looking at Henry, ‘but your horse didn’t seem to think so.’ There was a query on David’s face.

Henry nodded. He sent a picture to the horse of the knight’s lance aimed at its neck. The horse flashed back a strange image: a demon, dancing in flames.

‘Take this animal to the physician,’ David said to a page, then in Gaelic he addressed Douglas. ‘That was an attempt to kill Henry. He was meant to fall, and his horse to land on top of him, dead.’ Douglas’s eye glinted. ‘He’s not to return to the tournament.’

Turning to Henry he said in French, ‘Sir Henry, why don’t you sit here with me for a while? And invite your brother to join us? You’ve been on the field almost two hours and you’ve both fought well. The tournament will continue until nightfall. Sheer madness. But young men love to tourney.’ As an afterthought he added, ‘And girls love to watch them. Oh, there’s Edith …’

Lady Walter looked just as lovely in daylight, Henry thought. Her hair, he could now see, was neither flaxen nor red but a mingling of both. She had eyes of a beautiful light blue, a colour special to the English. Her blue velvet gown had long, wide sleeves lined with soft brownish fur. Sir William paced behind her, his bald head protected from the cold with a squirrel hat.

‘I didn’t like the look of that at all, sire,’ he said to the King. ‘I’ve watched many tournaments, and that …’ He shook his head so the drooping flesh of his cheeks flapped from side to side.

His wife nodded. ‘Of course, I don’t understand a thing, but …’ She turned her lovely eyes first to the King, then Henry. ‘Anyway,
Sir Henry, William and I have a festivity planned for this afternoon at our hunting lodge. We’re holding a singing competition. Did your brother tell you?’ That was what she tried to say, but as she spoke in French it was almost gibberish. She turned to Guillaume, who had just arrived. ‘Did you tell Sir Henry?’ she asked in English.

‘Sorry. I forgot. The hospitality in Carlisle has … overwhelmed me.’ He had a wry smile that made Henry ask quietly in Catalan, ‘How many?’

‘Five,’ Guillaume mumbled. ‘They’re ravenous up here.’ In English he said, ‘I explained to my brother that while he was away fighting Highland bears I was dancing with beautiful women.’ He turned his brown eyes towards Lady Walter. ‘Most fortunately for me, I even danced with you, my lady.’

She blushed. In her execrable French she asked, ‘Have you told Sir Henry about the relic we have for him?’

Guillaume shook his head. To Henry, again in Catalan, he said, ‘She wants to lie with both of us. This afternoon or tonight. That’s what I was meant to tell you.’

‘Wonderful!’ Henry exclaimed in English.

The King’s expression was crotchety. He had a strong intuition they were not talking about singing competitions and relics. Guillaume, in swift French, apologised to him for speaking Catalan, then went on to describe, as Edith had described to him, the gold clasp for a man’s belt that workmen had discovered in the burnt ruins of the hunting lodge the Walters had recently rebuilt. The original lodge had belonged to King William Rufus and it had passed to his brother, the Lion. The clasp, found amid ashes, was of two lions with front paws interlocked. Each lion was inscribed
HR
.

‘We think Sir Henry should have it,’ William Walter said.

‘Most generous of you,’ the King and Henry replied in unison.

Other men were making their way towards the group seated around the royal dais. David introduced the Earl of Essex, another man whom Stephen had betrayed and gaoled along with Ranulf, and Abbot Murdac, the man denied the archbishopric of York, for whom they would wage war. The young Earl of Hereford and a number of lairds from Scotland joined them. Henry looked around for James but the boy had vanished again. Several of the Scots spoke French and translated for those who did not. Like their monarch, they got to business without preamble.

‘Your claim to England is legitimate. We want you,’ one said. ‘We won’t stand for Eustace as our neighbour.’

‘His father taxes every oat that crosses the border,’ another said.

‘And our venison.’

‘And our salmon.’

‘And our silver!’

An Englishman said, ‘Stephen’s bleeding Scotland because his vassals won’t pay him. They build castles. There’s no law in England. The magnates and New Men are a law unto themselves.’ He pronounced ‘New Men’ as if it were a disease.

‘If there’s a bad season the peasants will starve,’ someone added. ‘They barely have grain to feed their own people.’

‘Stephen won the war of succession against my mother,’ Henry responded. ‘He’s lost the peace.’ He felt a timid pull at the back of his tunic. It was James.

‘My lady would like to speak to you.’

Edith Walter’s eyes were lowered as if the presence of such august company had overcome her natural aplomb. ‘Sir Henry, do you agree that we set out for the lodge in, say, half an hour?’

‘An hour,’ Henry said. ‘I need to get out of this hauberk.’

‘An hour, then. There’s no need for formality. You don’t have to wear a sword.’

In Latin the King said, ‘A knight always wears his sword, lad. Even to singing parties.’

Henry nodded. ‘Will you join us?’

Switching back to English David answered, ‘I’m the tournament judge. I regret to say, Henry, I’ve deducted twenty points from your side because of the accident with your horse. I think the others will win.’