The White Cross
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR ON KING RICHARD’S LANGUAGE
I apologise to any reader who may be offended by King Richard’s deliberately shocking use of language in this novel. In fact the historical records show his habit of profanity to be very much a part of who he was and how he acted.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
PROLOGUS
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
BOOK FOUR
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
SORTILEGUS
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
EPILOGUS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Copyright
THE
WHITE CROSS
Richard Masefield
For all the young people of Chailey Heritage School,
their families and teachers, who have taught me so
much during the years it’s taken to write this novel
PROLOGUS
Fontevraud, Anjou: July 1189
ATONEMENT
‘Christ’s Holy Shit!’
Six startled nuns, their Abbess and the Primate of all England cast up their eyes to cross themselves as the obscenity rings through the Abbey Church.
‘God’s bollocks!’ Duke Richard adds profanely, as stooping to enter the low crypt he clamps his mouth to breathe as little as he can of its polluted air.
Tall candles cast giant shadows across the walls and ceiling of the chamber; five candles to represent the wounds of Christ, with between them on a pinewood trestle his father’s naked corpse. Henry, the second king of England of that name, has always seemed the kind of man who never would grow old and die. But having done so anyway is not a pretty sight. From its breastbone to its genitals the old king’s body has been opened like an oyster. Where a proud paunch once rose, a stinking cavity now gapes; and from the buckets on the floor containing his internal organs the stench of putrefaction rises.
For a long moment Duke Richard stares down on his father’s ruin.
Henry gutted on a slab, he thinks disgustedly, then turns on the three men whose task he’s interrupted. ‘Cover it,’ he barks at the lay brothers who’ve been charged to purify the royal remains for burial. ‘Cover it and then get out!’ And fumbling with the foetid buckets, hurrying to drape the corpse in the plain cloak it’s worn for its last journey down from Chinon, the embalmers tread on each other’s heels to scramble up the narrow stairs.
To leave the live king with the dead one.
‘Stinking vultures! Cringing, shitting little jackals!’ Duke Richard saves the main force of his anger for the old man waiting for him in the abbey nave; a thin, round-shouldered figure in the black and white pied robe of a Cistercian abbot. ‘God’s teeth, those creatures stink of Henrys entrails!’ The Duke’s metalled boots ring on the flags as he strides forward. ‘They claim the Body Royal is indestructible, yet stink to heaven of his guts!’
‘The bodies of all men from the lowest peasant to the greatest emperor are subject to corruption of the flesh, my son; death comes to all of us in time.’ Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury turns back his cowl to show the kindly, undernourished face of a committed Christian, its tonsured cranium already freckled with the spots of age. ‘I’m sure the Abbess would have spared you this, if you’d but thought to…’
‘I tried to fold his arms onto his chest, what’s left of it,’ the Duke interrupts him. ‘But they were set. Dear God, I had to break them, man; and when I looked into his face, his eyeballs moved! I tell you that my father’s eyes moved in his skull and black blood trickled from his nose!’
‘You broke his joints?’ A second shock. But Baldwin hurries on to tell the Duke that, distressing as they are, such things have no significance. ‘No, none at all.’ He pats the royal sleeve placatingly. ‘Involuntary emissions are by no means unusual I believe in the embalming process.’
‘My father cursed me on his deathbed. You heard him, Baldwin; the old fox blames me for his fall.’ The Duke spits violently and with a hand that trembles, wipes the spittle from his tawny beard. ‘God’s teeth, if I know aught of Henry he’s cursing me from the road down to hell!’
Which maybe isn’t so far from the mark, the old archbishop thinks, remembering how desperately the son and father fought each other for control of Aquitaine; how Richard leagued with France and his own brother, John to wrestle from King Henry an empire great as Charlemagne’s – to leave the poor man in the end with only England and six foot soil at Fontevraud in which to lay his bones.
No, when it comes to treachery there isn’t anyone more dangerous to kings than their own relatives, Baldwin tells himself; and how could anyone, and least of all the man before him, forget King Henry’s frightful deathbed malediction:
‘I curse the day that I was born! I curse my devil’s brood of sons! I call on Heaven to curse Richard’s soul! May God and all His saints deny it its eternal rest until I am avenged!’
‘My son, it is from recognition of our sins and our imperfect nature that we achieve enlightenment,’ he says aloud with a deliberately disarming smile.
Which rather brings us to the point, he dares to think; a princely penitent, a priest and a religious house – the three conspire. Now is the time and place for Richard to repent his sins, recant his shocking oaths on God’s private anatomies, and kneel before me in a state of true contrition.
The old archbishop tucks his hands into his sleeves, considers the stone pavement, and waits. But when it comes, Duke Richard’s next assault upon the silence of the abbey is scarcely in the form of a confession.
‘If I’ve deserved my father’s curse, then I’ll atone for it in battle,’ he states baldly. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Archbishop; but are we not promised a remission of all penances for riding on croisade? And haven’t I agreed to undertake the quest myself when you have crowned me at Westminster – and won’t God’s blessing follow, as night follows day when we have freed the Holy City from the Turk?’
A full head shorter, more than twice his age, and of less than half Duke Richard’s splendid bulk, Baldwin acknowledges his duty, nonetheless. As Primate of England, he is the Church personified for Richard as Thomas Becket was for Henry; and even if the Duke should work himself into a purple fit and pull the abbey down about their ears, he will stand firm – he’s almost sure he will.
‘No please…’ Archbishop Baldwin has a habit of apologising for authority before asserting it. ‘No please.’ He holds up a deprecating hand. ‘Please understand that God’s forgiveness must depend on whether you undertake the task for His greater glory, or for your own, my son.’ He pauses for effect. ‘Can you be sure that coin and territory, that your own reputation, are to play no part in this great unde
rtaking? Can you say honestly that temporal gain…’
‘Is not my business as the King? By heaven, that is something you will never hear from this king, Baldwin,’ Richard bellows inches from his face. ‘Fine words from a Church that seeks to govern every step we take, with a snub-devil of a Pope set over it who’s living like an Emperor in Rome! It seems to me Pope Clement needs reminding who I AM before his bishops dare to tell me what I can and cannot gain from a croisade.’
Not yet thirty-two, the Duke has reached the very peak of manly strength and vigour. His hair is damp with sweat and sticks to the muscles of his neck in auburn spikes. Sandy lashes intensify the greenish colour of his eyes. There is a moment’s silence while he fills his lungs.
‘I am by right of birth Duke of Aquitaine, of Normandy and the Guienne, Count of Anjou, Poitou, Maine, Touraine, La Marche and the Auvergne,’ Richard declaims as if the Pontiff and all his cardinals are in attendance, rather than an audience of one ‘I am the Lord of Brittany, of Gascony and of the Vexin, heir to Toulouse, Abbé of Saint Hilaire – and in case Clement has forgotten, very soon to be crowned King of England by yourself, Archbishop, and overlord of Wales and Scotland in the bargain.’
‘Which proves exactly what, my son?’
‘Which proves I’M NOT EXACTLY UNIMPORTANT! Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Undoubtedly it does.’
Baldwin, who cares nothing for appearance, makes a pretence of smoothing down the loose folds of his robe. ‘But where is God in all this worldliness, my son? Where is true repentance?’
‘Christ’s blood and wounds, is not Jerusalem God’s city? Was not my own great-grandfather crowned king there? If I owe Henry anything I’ll settle it in Outremer,’ Duke Richard shouts, ‘and lift his curse by winning back the Kingdom of Jerusalem for Christendom!’
‘The Good Lord grant it so.’
But Richard hasn’t finished. ‘You’ll see, I’ll get a son there on the Latin princess, fuck her senseless…’
Baldwin winces.
‘Fuck her senseless in the Holy City to spawn a prince there who’ll be holier by birth than Clement and his cardinals and all the Church’s bishops set together! Then by the Virgin’s tits, I’ll make a better and more valiant Christian king than Henry is or was or ever could be!’
The Duke’s eyes glitter in the torchlight. A rampant lion on his red tunic claws the air. Archbishop Baldwin sighs. He knows the man before him can read Latin and compose a ballad in Occitan or French, has had the benefit of learned tutors in his mother’s courts, is well grounded in the scriptures on the one hand and in the strategies of warfare on the other. His valour renders him a hero in the eyes of every man alive; and yet like every other pampered prince he has been spoiled. Accustomed all his life to praise for anything he turns a hand to, Duke Richard’s used to grabbing all he wants, in bedchambers and at the chase and on the battlefield.
Just like his father after all, thinks Baldwin glumly. And God help us if like Henry he’s defeated.
But Richard can’t envisage anything but total victory. His arrogance is unassailable. ‘I’ll make my mother Regent while I’m away abroad. I’ll mount the noblest croisade that the world has seen, sell homages and land, whole towns to finance it. I’ve sworn to take Jerusalem, and by heaven that is what I will do! I’ll found an eastern empire great as Alexander’s. I’ll slay with my own hand the devil Saladin; and you’ll be there Archbishop to bless me in the undertaking!’
‘My Liege I will. No please, decrepit as I am you know that I’ve already sworn to share with you the perils of croisade.’
‘So you have, man. So you have!’ The Duke claps a hand on his archbishop’s shoulder with so hearty a benevolence he all but brings the old man to his knees.
‘By heaven though we’ll make a thing of it! Your Church may judge that I’m in need of spiritual improvement. But have you heard the character the people give me in the common taverns from Winchester to Rouen?’
Embarked now on his favourite topic, which is to say himself, Duke Richard laughs exposing large horse teeth. ‘They claim that I’ve the muscles of an ox, the balls of a ram and the courage of a Barbary lion!’
Ignoring Baldwin’s pained expression he gives his narrow shoulder-blade a bracing little shake. ‘So what d’ye think, Your Grace? Am I more likely to sung of in their ballads at the end of the croisade as Dickard Ramsbollocks, or Richard the Confessor?
Or will it be King Richard Lionhearted?’ he offers as an afterthought.
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER ONE
‘Elise, you’re slumping, dear. Do try to sit up properly.’ Maman’s voice, as ever at my elbow with some fresh idea of how I might improve.
And do they all, all mothers, have to go on treating daughters as incapable until their teeth rot and their hair turns grey? As if we could forget the proper way to dress or talk, or walk or sit or ride or stand, or when to raise our eyes or lower them – as if they’d ever let us!
‘But if you must ride out without a veil you might at least set your cap straight, my love?’ Her fourth appeal on that worn topic from where she sits behind me pulling down her own straw hat to shade her eyes. ‘It’s, well it’s slovenly, Elise, as if you doubt your own importance.’ Beneath the brim her own pink face looks worried and exhausted.
‘My sister Garda says it’s quite the thing these days to wear the fillet tilted, Maman.’ (She doesn’t actually. But I’m sure the Blessed Virgin will forgive the little fib. I mean she’d have to be a little lively, wouldn’t she, to cope first with the Angel Gabriel then with a jealous Joseph?) I’m smiling helpfully at Maman on her palfrey, with one hand on the reins and the other feeling for my little pie-dish cap to make sure of its jaunty angle.
Behind the anxious parent, Hodierne on her mule has disapproval writ all over her grim face.
‘Making an object of yesself as usual.’ That’s how she’ll put it afterwards, I’d stake an oath. She can be very tiresome when she puts her mind to it, can Hod – although I’m glad that the old fusspot is to stay with me when I am married, because I’ve never known a time without my nurse in train, and wouldn’t want to try it.
But best for now to leave the crabstick to her scowls and keep my eyes on Countess Isabel’s closed litter five horses and two bearers up the line. Movement. Clomping hooves and tramping feet, the chinking sound of metal harness, wheels turning, timber creaking, hunched shoulders (and not just mine by any means); the sights and sounds of a great household on the move – ahead of us the winding road which in the end will bring us into Lewes. And Jésu, what a journey!
Did I say that out aloud?
We’ve been eleven hours now on the road from Reigate Castle, if you include the halts. Nesta, my little jennet mare, is pretty near as weary as I am myself, and is it any wonder if we slump? They say that life’s a journey of a kind, and if it is I’d say I am a fair bit down that road as well. Because at nineteen, as Maman never ceases to remind me, I’m older by five summers than she was when she married Father. (Not that even she could claim the thing to be my fault, with two sisters to be settled first.)
Oh God, I’m SO uncomfortable! My back aches like the plague. The insides of both my legs are raw, and if we don’t arrive at Lewes or some other stopping place in the next quarter-hour, there’ll be no help for it whatever Hoddie has to say. I’ll simply have to leave the line and hoist my skirts, up there somewhere behind the elder bushes.
Mon Dieu, just think of Maman’s face!
Below the track we have to follow, the River Ouse keeps company with us on our left hand – a breeze, the smell of mud, the sharp cry of a seagull. The moon looks like a threadbare linen patch on the pale fabric of the sky. Across the valley a huddle of daub cottages – stone church, a herringbone of fields, cattle in the meadows, geese on the shore… Are they a sign we’re nearly there? Will there be feather beds in Lewes, and hot bricks for our feet? Heavens, even thinking of them is a comfort!
Of all the castles in the bar
ony, they say that Lewes is the one most favoured by the Earl and Countess de Warenne.
‘The place is on a hill with sewers which remarkably perform the function they’re designed for,’ the Countess Isabel is meant to have said of Lewes castle after she’d named the drains of Reigate the most abominably foul in England. Which I suppose means that we have to thank My Lady’s faith in sanitation for bringing us a full week earlier than planned to Sussex – and to my wedding vows.
We have the gift of a fine saddle in the cart that holds my wardrobe, to be given to my bridegroom when we meet. Blood marries land they say. I have the blood, he has the land – although in truth we haven’t all that much of either. On Maman’s side I am related to the Countess as a minor cousin several times removed. And if through Father I can claim descent from Aquitaine, it has to be confessed that he first came to England in the Old Queen’s train – not as her kinsman but her page!
As for Sir Garon de Stanville of Haddertun, the young man they are to glue me to, we’re told his property includes two Sussex manors held in his mother’s right, a stretch of marsh, some managed assarts, upland grazing for five hundred sheep and hunting rights in woodlands bordering the Wealden Forest. He has two small estates in other words. I have my blood-tie to the Warennes, and that’s all there is to it!
Matrimony is contractual, Maman says, a trade like any other.The base love of the flesh disorders sense, she says, and has no part in marriage. Women as a rule should save affection for their children, Maman says, and treat their husbands with respect. ‘We wives just have to make the best of what we find, or else we’re bound to be unhappy.’
Which might be good enough for Maman. But not for me, because I plan to be as fond a wife as any man has yet to wed – and make Sir Garon love me whether he intends to or no!
Holy Saint Mary, can you see how earnestly I mean that?
But are we here at last, and is this Lewes Fortress, looming like a crag above the trees? Thanks be to God, I think it is! Yes, there’s the blue and yellow chequer of Warenne flying bravely from the keep. I feel as if I’m flying with it, I am so excited!