Then four sergeants came through the tower from the west wall to provide assistance. Outnumbered, the enemy knight said, “Will you give quarter?”

  “Certainly,” Robert said.

  The knight handed Robert his sword, while one of the sergeants helped the wounded man to his feet and relieved him of his sword.

  The other sergeants looked over the wall at the enemy.

  “What’s happening?” Robert asked

  “They’ve given up. We’ve won.”

  For now, Robert thought.

  De Born’s men had captured eight of the enemy and driven off the rest. The man whom Robert had knocked off the wall died from the fall. Robert stared down into the dead knight’s face. He was much older than Robert, with white strands in his black beard. The quality of his equipment was poor. The sleeves of his padded jacket were stained and frayed; his helmet was dented in several spots. He had a missing front tooth. Robert wondered what his name was, but his friends did not volunteer it, and he did not ask.

  After the king’s army withdrew to the forest, de Born allowed the captives to leave, bearing their dead upon their shields.

  When the gates were closed again, de Born summoned Alphonso and Robert to explain why Alphonso had not remained in the tower. He listened to the explanation with a frown, but when they were done, de Born clapped Alphonso on the shoulder. “You did well.”

  Alphonso grinned. “I had them handled before Robert butted in.”

  “I’ve no doubt of that,” de Born said with a smile, although nobody believed this, not even Alphonso. “I’m hungry. There’s nothing like fighting to give a man an appetite. Let’s go see about some dinner.”

  “Do you think they’ll try again?” Robert asked.

  “They might. We’ll have to keep an eye out.”

  After the failed escalade, King Henry took a different course. He began to build a wooden siege tower at the edge of the forest. Construction required a full week. When the tower was finished, it rose thirty-five feet, a full ten feet above the walls of the castle. Its timbered sides were covered with hides to ward off any pitch or oil the defendants might try to apply to it. Archers at the top would be able to shoot down on de Born’s wall, sweeping it clean of any defenders. The floor beneath had a wooden drawbridge that would be lowered to the parapet when the tower, which rested on great wooden wheels, was pushed close, enabling an attacking force to rush across and seize a foothold.

  When the siege tower was finished, the king had it pushed to within forty feet of the ditch. All that remained was to fill in the ditch so that it could be brought to the base of the wall.

  De Born went to the top of the gate tower and gazed across to the siege tower, where Duke Richard stood, enjoying the view.

  “Will you give terms?” de Born asked.

  “Had enough, have you?” Richard called back.

  “I am weary of fighting.”

  “You had your chance. There will be no terms.”

  De Born was quiet for a moment. “I will come out after dinner. A man shouldn’t have surrender on an empty stomach.”

  “Fair enough,” Richard replied, unwilling or unable to prevent his thin lips, a gift from his French mother Eleanor, from curling into a triumphant smile.

  During dinner, de Born made arrangements for Alphonso to escape through the sally port, since the king had not brought enough men to surround the castle. Alphonso did not want to leave, but de Born told him, “You will go. I don’t trust Richard’s mercy. When my head comes off, yours is likely to be close behind. You and your brother are to take care of your sisters, understand? No argument.”

  Alphonso cried at this order, while de Born offered escape to the remainder of the garrison. The village archers and hired men-at-arms took him up on the offer, but the five knights and Robert refused to go.

  After dinner de Born retired to his chamber, emerging a couple of hours later with his black hair curled, and wearing his finest clothes, a ring on every finger.

  When de Born reached the main gate, the entire population of the castle about him, he paused. “There is something I forgot to do. You two,” he motioned to Robert and Alphonso, who had not yet departed. “On your knees.”

  Robert knelt with Alphonso at his side, uncertain what to expect at this unusual order.

  “You both fought well,” de Born said. Raising his voice to all he added, “You all fought well, and I am proud of everyone of you. But you two,” he continued, addressing Robert and Alphonso, “deserve special merit. Our enemies deceived us by hiding in the houses of the village and thought to take us unaware while we were preoccupied at the gate. You two singlehandedly prevented that. So, in my last act as the lord of Hautefort, I make you both knights.”

  De Born clapped Robert and Alphonso on the sides of their heads. They looked at him, slack mouthed, not believing what had just happened. He said, “That’s it. We’re done. You can get up now. Alphonso, get the hell out of here. And you who are going with him, get moving.”

  De Born waited a quarter hour to give Alphonso a head start on his escape. Then he said, “All right. Open the gate. Let’s go say hello to the king.”

  At word of the impending surrender, the enemy army sat down in the field, while King Henry and Duke Richard retired to a tent at the edge of the wood to await de Born’s appearance in greater comfort than bare grass afforded.

  De Born and the others had to descend into the ditch, since the wooden bridge across it had been taken down, and when they climbed out, enemy knights surrounded them.

  Robert was surprised that William Marshal was with them.

  “I’ll have your weapons, gentlemen,” Marshal said, as the other knights took the swords and daggers of de Born’s companions.

  “Nice day for a surrender, don’t you think, William?” De Born said.

  “No day is a good day for a surrender. And this day will probably end in an execution.”

  “Ah, well. Would you be the one to do the honors? I know your hands won’t shake at the prospect of separating my head from my body. Quick. That’s how I like my executions, especially when I’m the one being executed.”

  “There are so many volunteers for that I’m not sure I will be favored. If you would?” Marshal gestured toward the siege tower. “Please come over here while we summon the king.”

  Over here, meant the bottom floor of the siege tower, where the captives were made to sit on the floor.

  After a considerable time, Henry and Richard came up on horseback. They dismounted at the foot of the siege tower, and climbed the ladder to the bottom floor.

  De Born and his men came to their knees. “Good afternoon, your grace,” de Born said.

  Henry grunted and began pacing in front of the kneeling men. Richard sat down on a barrel of crossbow bolts.

  Henry stopped pacing and stood over de Born. His massive shoulders hunched with tension, and his long muscled arms and powerful hands flexed. His reddish blond hair needed a combing. His gray eyes were dull, and his ruddy freckled complexion was pale and drawn. He wore expensive mail, the double meshed variety that would stop an arrow, and which had mail mittens and leggings so that the king was protected from collar to toes.

  “My lord,” de Born said, “may I present my retainers. I ask that you deal leniently with them. What they did, they did out of love for me.”

  Henry glanced at the others without interest. Richard, however, noticed them and a spark of recognition lit his eyes at the sight of Robert, whose stomach trembled.

  “Bertran,” Henry said, “you used to boast that you never used but half your wit. Now you will need more than you ever possessed to explain yourself here.”

  “That’s true, my lord,” de Born said. “I have said so, and it was true.”

  “What have you to say for yourself now?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “It appears that your wit has finally failed you.”

  “Yes, my lord. My wit failed on the day I learned that your son, the Young King, had died.”

  Henry turned away, his face pained at the mention of his oldest son, whom he had dearly loved. He knew that young Henry had loved de Born. He went to a wall and peered out an arrow slit. He had heard the story of Young Henry’s death, and in his mind’s eye, he saw his son lying on a hardwood floor and a bed of ashes, followed by other visions: the boy as a newborn, as a child of seven with his first pony, when he broke his arm falling from an apple tree at ten, the time he nearly drowned while swimming in the Thames at Oxford, on his wedding day, at last New Year’s they had their quarrel, on the wall at Limoges when he had shown real defiance for the first time. Henry had held such memories at bay, but the cascade of recollections caught him by surprise and was more than he could stand. He sank to the floor and cried for the first time since he had received the news of the death of his beloved son.

  Everyone thought for a moment he had fainted, and a servant was summoned with a bowl of water to wash his face. Henry leaned his head back and let the man wipe his face with cool water. It felt good. But he was king, after all, and he had things to do and he could not indulge himself in this way for too long.

  So he pushed himself to his feet and confronted de Born again. He said, “Sir Bertran, you had good right and reason to forget your wits for my son. He loved you better than any man in the world.” Better than he loved me, Henry thought bitterly. Not that I didn’t give him reason. I gave him position but no power; I made him king in name but not in substance. While his brothers Geoffrey and Richard were a duke and a count with real powers over lands and peoples, that boy had only his immediate entourage and his crown, a useless circlet that in the end brought him no happiness. It was a crown of humiliation, not of kingship. He fought against me to make it real, to erase the humiliation of his impotence. But I had to treat him so. I could not trust him — he was good boy, but so feckless, so heedless, so wasteful of everything given to him. How could not I think that he would not waste England? A kingdom must be nurtured like a field, the power and the wealth derived from it coaxed and cajoled from its bosom. The boy never understood that, he never listened when I tried to teach him. What was I to do?

  Yet now, facing the reality of irreversible loss, Henry was overwhelmed with the sense that he could have done better. Unlike his mother, the Empress Matilda, who had fought a long and bitter war with King Stephen over the succession to the throne that tore England apart because she could not admit to herself that she was wrong, Henry was aware of his capacity to make mistakes. He had made plenty in his long life, and had tried to learn from every one.

  So now it was time to atone for his mistake with Young Henry. Here was the last thing he could do for that beautiful, proud, rebellious, fractious boy. He sighed and said, “For your love of him, Bertran, I will give you your life, your lands and . . . and all that you have and hold.”

  Richard’s head jerked around at this pronouncement. Henry knew that, like him, Richard had been pulled two ways over the problem of de Born. Like his older brother, he had liked de Born. But de Born, with his nettlesome songs and his urge to provoke rebellion, could be infuriating. And Richard was not as quick to forget an anger as his father. He had wanted de Born’s head. To Richard’s mind, rebels should be shown no mercy, and in a royal breath their victory here was pushed aside. But to Henry’s relief, Richard said nothing.

  “Thank you, my lord,” Bertran said, bowing his head, withholding the smile of relief that threatened to spread across his face.

  Henry shuffled out of the tower. He waved a hand behind him at de Born without turning his head. “I will have five hundred marks sent to you for your damage.”

  The king got perhaps thirty yards from the siege tower when a figure stepped out of the ranks of his army and called to him.

  “My lord king,” the young man said. “I beg your indulgence.”

  Henry blinked. He turned to Richard. “Who is that?”

  “Eustace, son of Roger FitzWalter, on the wrong side of the bed,” Richard said.

  “What is it?” Henry said to Eustace.

  Eustace came forward and made his submission. Then he rose and said, “That man is an outlaw against the king’s peace in England and against my father. He has committed murder. I would have justice against him, by your leave.”

  Henry turned to follow the direction of Eustace’s finger.

  It pointed at Robert Attebrook.

  CHAPTER 9

  Hautefort castle, Perigord

  August 1183

  “You accuse him?” Henry asked, buying time so he could think. His head felt thick, full of sadness. Young FitzWalter’s words almost sank into the mush without leaving an impression. He did not want to deal with it now. He didn’t want to deal with anything now. He just wanted to go to a dark place and lie down and not think about anything. But FitzWalter’s accusation hung in the air, a palpable thing, full of menace.

  “I do,” Eustace said. “I accuse him of the murder of a knight in my father’s service, Ralph, our cousin, and a man-at-arms, Jermain. He was one of our villeins at the time,” Eustace added.

  “So.” Murder was a serious business. Henry turned to the young man in question, seeing him for the first time.

  The young man, who couldn’t be yet twenty, burst out, “I was never any man’s villein. We were always free!”

  “I did not ask you to speak,” Henry snapped. He was beginning to warm to the matter. His head lifted and his shoulders straightened. His nostrils flared as he breathed. At the transformation, the boy looked frightened. Henry almost smiled at the fear he inspired.

  “Your grace,” de Born said, “he came to me a free man, of low estate it is true, but by his excellent service I have made him a knight. He fights well and bravely. He and my son alone held off the duke’s own assault.”

  “It’s true, your grace,” a knight several ranks back in the king’s army shouted. “He’s the one who knocked Osbert off the wall and killed him.”

  “That is a lot of work for any man,” Henry said. He glared at the boy, who did not shrink but returned the gaze, hands behind his back. Henry found himself beginning to like him. Henry liked capable men. But he checked the impulse. He could not allow himself the feeling. He had a case to decide. It presented knotty problems, legal and political. There was the question of how to try the boy, foremost whether as a villein or as a knight. If he was a villein, he had no rights to trial before the king; villeins found justice in their lord’s manor court, where this boy would get none. On the political side, he had to placate the FitzWalters. He needed their help in men and money for his wars, help they grudgingly gave, like all the English barons. On the other hand, he could not afford to let them become too independent, because a powerful independent nobility undermined royal power; so curbing the independence of the barons had been one of his central objectives.

  Before he could say anything, Marshal said, “Your grace, may I speak?”

  “What is it, William?”

  “I know him.”

  “Eustace?”

  “No, the boy. Robert. I don’t believe he ever was a villein, even if he was born in a low estate. He participated in a tournament last summer and took a prize.”

  “Really?”

  “My horse.”

  “How did he manage that?” This surprised Henry, since he had never known Marshal ever to lose at a tournament.

  “There was a set to at a stream. He made off with it in the melee. But as a point of honor, he and his lord returned the horse. And he gave Young Henry good service, especially at the end. And he fights well.”

  That the boy had served Young Henry well weighed in his favor. And for Marshal to say that a man fought with skill was indeed rare praise. “He is a knight, then?” Henry asked de Born.

  “In my service,” de Born said.

  As far as Henry was concerned, this settled the matter of the boy’s estate. Henry asked Robert, “Did you kill those two men?”

  The boy stiffened. Then he said, “I know one died outright. I don’t know about the second. But I admit I shot them both.”

  Henry welcomed the confession. It showed the boy’s courage and honor. And it left Henry having to decide on a punishment.

  “I will award the FitzWalters compensation. Twenty pounds sterling.”

  It was an enormous sum, enough to buy a knight’s fee. Its very size was harsh because if the boy could not pay, he could be handed over to the FitzWalters in satisfaction of the debt. He waited to see what would happen next, expecting de Born to offer the fine.

  But de Born and Robert exchanged glances. Robert held up a hand. De Born smiled sadly.

  “May I have a few moments, your grace?” Robert said.

  Henry frowned, a bit surprised at the request. “What for?”

  “To collect the fine.”

  Henry nodded, curious about what had passed between de Born and Robert.

  The boy entered the castle and emerged a short time later riding a fine stallion.

  Robert dismounted and handed Henry the reins. “Will this do, your grace?”

  Henry appraised the horse. It was not just any animal, but fit for a warhorse. “How did you get him?”

  “A gift.”

  “From whom? It is as expensive a gift as I have seen in a long time.”

  “I’d rather not say, your grace.”

  “Well, suit yourself. It doesn’t matter.” Henry passed the reins to Eustace, who did not look the least bit satisfied at having such a fortune deposited in his hands.

  “I declare that the debt is satisfied,” Henry said, glad that the matter had ended so well. “Your outlawry is removed. I’ll have my clerk draw up the pardon.”

  He turned away, at last free to indulge his grief. He remounted his horse, and went down hill to camp.

  The king’s army departed and the quiet of summer returned to Hautefort. The siege tower was dismantled and the timber given to the villagers to help rebuild houses that had been damaged during the fighting.

 

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