The Passionate Brood (9 page)

Having so often acted as confidential scribe, Robin had in some matters been more in King Henry’s confidence than his own sons. Because he knew just how many pennies there had been and for what wise improvements they had been saved, he felt that those fine, insatiable ships were robbing England. He kicked at the coffer beneath him with an aggressive heel. “I believe John, in one of his more inspired moments, suggested that you could buy off the King of France with some of this?”

Richard sprang from the chest as if he had been stung. “Does he take me for a Judas, blast him? God’s money—given sometimes in spite of grim necessity! You saw those two old men just now. Does he suppose I’d touch it if I were starving?”

Robin began rolling up the map; absently, as if he were trying to tidy his thoughts at the same time. “Yet we all know there
are
plenty of self-seeking humbugs in this,” he said, slowly. “People out for notoriety, and bored barons who want to dodge a lot of dull routine duties at home.”

“And, unfortunately, I must use them. But to me it’s all real. The loyal comradeship—the thrill of adventure. Choosing the job I’m best at, if you like. But there’s something more to it than that. A sort of dedication of one’s strength, I suppose…” Richard laughed self-consciously. “I’m afraid I’m not very good at dissecting my soul!”

“That’s one of the things I love best about you.”

The page who was serving them had gone to his dinner, and Richard lingered to refill their tankards. “I never could talk to Henry about it,” he said. “Of course, he was just as eager to go. But I never quite knew what he
believed.
To be a man’s friend one must walk more familiarly about his mind.”

“Can even the keys of friendship give so much freedom?” debated Robin doubtfully.

“Assuredly,” answered Richard. “Why, I can even appreciate your cursed independence about a title. At least it proves there are some men who can’t be bought.”

Robin flung a melodramatic arm, tankard and all, about his shoulders. “Why, Richard, your new state is saddening you already with horrible suspicions! Or were you just thinking of Ann’s accommodating brother?”

“No. Just that however much other men may flatter me you will always be at hand to call me a f-fool!” said Richard, spluttering over his wine with the force of the impact.

“Not that you will ever listen!” laughed Robin.

“No. But I shall always know that you are right.”

Hearing a commotion in the street, they turned in time to see John slide from his horse before the open doorway. “I’ve just rounded up my hundred and fiftieth Jew,” he announced from the sunny pavement. “At a castle a hundred that means Nottingham and half the battlements of Marlborough. Bring him along, you fellows!”

Because he was a Jew, Richard did not bother with any formality. “What’s he worth?” he asked, going to the window seat to pick up a little model ship he had been making for young Arthur of Brittany, his dead brother Geoffrey’s boy.

“A small fortune as a goldsmith and half as much again by usury, no doubt,” answered John.

“Half of it will help to victual my ships,” said Richard, squinting along the tiny hull to make sure it was straight.

To their surprise the goldsmith answered up in his own defence. “Most of the money I have lent has been to impecunious knights wanting to fit themselves out for your Crusade,” he said. “And if you take half my profits it will ruin my business.”

“It may save your worthless skin,” taunted John. He had helped himself to a drink and would have thrown the dregs in the man’s face had not Robin shot out a hand and spoiled his aim. “At least this man works for his keep, and harsh handling can’t cow him,” he pointed out. “Must he be less generously treated than that lily-livered old humbug with his expedient gout?” He interfered so seldom that the men-at-arms withdrew their grimy fingers from the goldsmith’s yellow robe immediately.

“But he’s a Jew!” protested Richard, looking up in astonishment.

Robin smiled at him disarmingly, and pointed to the flaming emblem on his new white surcoat. “So was the Man whose cross you wear,” he said quietly.

Richard stood staring, the half-made toy in his poised hands. “I suppose you’re right,” he admitted grudgingly. “Let him pay only a quarter, John.”

“May the God of my fathers grant me an opportunity to show the gratitude—”

But Richard cut short the man’s thanks. “Better thank my foster-brother,” he said shortly. It occurred to him that he had been saying that very often of late.

One of the soldiers touched the Jew’s arm, almost respectfully. Both of them waited while he bowed first to the King and then to Robin. John laughed at the pointed omission of himself. “Anyone would think it was I who wanted to spend his beastly money on war horses!” he said, indefatigably refastening his cloak as soon as they were gone. “And thanks to you, Robin, I shall have to go out again to earn a couple of castles fit for my bride to live in while you two are away.” Actually, it had been suggested that he should live in Anjou or Maine during his brother’s absence, but by feigning forgetfulness he hoped to make others forget, too.

Richard roused himself from an unpleasant reverie. “You still want to marry Avisa of Gloucester?” he asked.

John kissed amorous fingertips to her charms. “Is she not blonde and rich?”

“And the granddaughter of a Saxon thane,” murmured Robin, realizing that there was nothing the youngest Plantagenet could possibly have thought of which would ingratiate him more with the people.

“Then I must arrange the marriage before we sail. It’s high time you settled down,” agreed Richard surprisingly.

John went out grinning covertly because that was all he asked of life, and it was Richard himself who was so incapable of settling down. But at the doorway his jauntiness deserted him. He lowered his voice, passing close to Robin. “
You
know what it would mean to me, leaving England. For God’s sake don’t say anything that might make him change his mind!” For once he spoke sincerely, appealing to Robin’s generosity and admitting his influence. He knew well enough that neither Robin nor Johanna was to be moved by a show of devotion or a sudden desire for domesticity. Richard might allow himself to be gulled, but they always saw his ulterior motives with such uncomfortable clarity.

Robin neither promised nor denied. His eyes were on the beloved figure of Richard. He knew how he was feeling. He had taken up his small nephew’s toy again and, for some moments after they were alone, the silence was broken only by the savage whittling of his knife.

“You’ll soon be known in every tavern as the King’s better self!” Richard began. But it was not like him to be sore for long and after a moment or two he threw aside both bitterness and knife. “I’m starving!” he declared, linking an arm in Robin’s. “For pity’s sake, let’s go and get some food.”

As they rode up to the Castle the women of Reeve Hall Street waxed quite sentimental over their close comradeship. “Both of a height,” they said, smiling after them, “and so inseparable!”

Up at the Castle, after the midday meal, Richard drew Robin from the crowded hall. Together they went up a short flight of stairs to the room Henry the Second had had built for himself behind the dais. It was a serviceable, well-lit room. Instead of the central hearth that used to smoke the beams at Oxford, a fireplace had been built into the wall, its wide arch decorated with the zigzag carving beloved of Norman masons. An armoire still held some of the late King’s possessions, and before a large work-table stood the massive chair of state from which he used to receive messengers and merchants from his duchies across the Channel, as well as deputations of seamen from the Cinque Ports.

Richard and Robin were particularly intrigued by the small glazed window over-looking the hall. Except in cathedrals, glass was a novelty to them. It had the queer effect of making the people down below look as if they were doing everything in dumb show. Officers, members of the household, guests, and all manner of people who fed at the royal expense were sitting or standing about in groups before dispersing for their afternoon occupations.

“Just look at John!” chuckled Robin. “One can’t hear a word he is saying, but I warrant by the way he’s prodding that poor hound around he’s giving those giggling girls an hilarious account of his Jew hunt.”

“Yes. And now he’s got to the part where he’s mimicking me,” said Richard. “Am I
really
as pompous as that?” He took off his crown and strolled over to the open window on the sea side. The harsh screech of gulls and the deep beat of surf made a diapason of invigorating beauty. Sheer down below scarped the white cliffs of Dover, laving the folds of their dazzling skirts in a greenish-blue sea. Seen from such a height, submerged rocks showed like a shadowy brown girdle beyond the flying spume. The impregnable pride of those white cliffs stung sudden salt to Richard’s eyes. Like Johanna, on the eve of departure he realised the dearness of England. But there was his fleet in the bay. Thirteen war ships, with fifty galleys and innumerable flat-bottomed boats for conveying the horses.

He leaned out, the breeze ruffling his hair. In the clear midday light the harbour itself looked like some miniature model with black dots of men scurrying back and forth provisioning toy ships. One of the black dots was Mercadier who, at King Henry’s order, had shipped him off to Navarre. He was now superintending the lading of armaments, and although the great catapult they were slinging aboard must have weighed several tons, they were handling it as carefully as if it were a baby. A keen fellow, Mercadier. Good, keen fellows, all of them. He must go down presently and help. It warmed Richard’s heart to know that they liked to have him there. He didn’t just stand about, wasting their time, like some royal personages; but was often able to make practical suggestions. And since the day he had lifted a crossbeam no one else could shift, they sang more lustily when he was about and strained their muscles to live up to his amazing strength.

With such willing work they should be ready to put to sea by mid-Lent. Disputes, deferment, and disappointments were done with at last. Life had never seemed so good. Richard hummed a stave of a song. “Now if I were a mason—” he began, looking down with a critical eye upon some feature of his father’s fortifications.

“Oh, spare me!” laughed Robin, bisecting an apple with his splendid teeth.

Richard drew his mighty shoulders back into the room. “What I
really
wanted to talk to you about was this question of a title,” he said, “You can’t go about the world for ever labelled just ‘the King’s Conscience’ or ‘the Friend of the Unfortunate.’ Nor just ‘Robin.’”

“It’s a good enough name,” asserted its owner, with his mouth full.

“I know. But only
one
name. We Normans always have two.”

The familiar harangue left Robin unimpressed. “I will take my father’s name as well and call myself Robin Neckham if you like, but I don’t need a title,” he reiterated stubbornly. Ever since Richard’s accession he had been dodging one. He felt that it would set him apart from his own people.

“Oh, I know you’re a better man than most of us without one,” agreed Richard, with a friendly grin. “And here at home everybody knows that to slight you is to slight me. But abroad—with Philip of France and Leopold of Austria and all the haughty hangers-on they’ll be bringing—” He spoke almost diffidently, watching the flight of a gull with exaggerated interest. “You know, Robin, this is the first time I’ve been in a position to offer you anything—and it might make things out there a lot easier for you when you’re trying to persuade them to use this new crane you’ve invented for our sieges.”

“Generous red-head!” Robin’s jeering voice was rough with feeling. Tossing aside his apple core, he clapped a hand to each of Richard’s shoulders, swinging him round so that he could look levelly into his eyes. When at last he let his hands fall reluctantly to his sides, it was as if he released something unspeakably precious. “But I am not going crusading,” he said, turning away.

“Not
going
? You not going?” echoed Richard, rubbing a shoulder where his ringed mail had been pressed painfully into his flesh.

Robin stood by the table, blindly turning over the captains’ orders which he had brought up from the Reeve Hall. He knew the words by heart; but he saw the captains, a gallant company, sailing away without him. “Do you suppose the Queen will send me her distaff?” he asked flippantly.

Richard watched him, frowning uncertainly. “Don’t try to be funny, Robin—at a time like this—”

Robin put down the parchments and faced him. “On the contrary, I was never more serious.”

“Serious…” With a flurry of white and crimson, Richard was beside him. “Am I mad? Or have we travelled so far apart in thought—or what?” he demanded incredulously.

“No. It is just that you were wrong about friends walking familiarly in each other’s minds. You see, although you and I have lived, eaten, joked together whenever you have been in England, we must still conserve two separate consciences in the sight of God.”

“But we’ve always talked about this…”

Robin smiled sadly. “You talked—and I listened. Dreading this inevitable hour.”

Richard’s fair skin went red with anger. “You mean, you let me talk my heart out about the battles I meant to win, the castles I meant to build. While you sniggered secretly, like Ann. You let me prattle about my life’s dreams—damned funny, I expect they were—about things I’d never have told another living soul. And all the time…”

Robin put an arm about his shoulders, shaking him gently. “My God, man, you don’t think this decision of mine was easy, do you? But England will have to bleed for this crusade of yours. One of us has got to stay.”

“Isn’t John staying?” Richard shook off his arm impatiently, and began pacing up and down with emphatic, Latin gestures. “And am I not buying his loyalty with the lands he always lacked? You heard him making some ridiculous wager about it this morning. Nottingham, Derby, Marlborough—all the western counties—” “He covets land so much it might have been wiser to listen to Longchamps, Bishop of Ely, and send him abroad until your return.”

“It seems so unnatural to turn him out, and it will be pretty lonely for my mother without any of us. After all, if John marries and settles down—”

“He’ll offend the barons just as he infuriated the chieftains when your father sent him to Ireland.”

“He was younger then,” said Richard testily. Like the rest of the family, he was rather tired of hearing about their youngest’s delinquencies.

“But he still mocks at the things most people hold sacred.”

Richard felt he was being side-tracked into a discussion about something of minor importance when his mind was seething with something that concerned himself. “Henry always said that was a kind of complex due to Becket’s idea of bringing him up for the priesthood,” he explained hurriedly.

“Henry was probably right. But that hardly explains about more secular things—like play-acting with your crown, for instance.”

“Oh, that!”

Robin was shocked by his indifference. “Even your father, who would have given him your inheritance, never let him touch the crown of England!” he remonstrated.

“But it isn’t,” laughed Richard shortly.

Robin felt himself behaving like a peasant—being heavy and tedious. He lifted the circle of gold reverently from the table, turning it so that each big jewel caught a prism of richly coloured light. “You mean—this is fake?”

“We never take the real one round the country.” Richard spoke impatiently, his mind on the main issue of their argument. His family use of the word ‘we’ seemed to exclude Robin, and the fact that John must have known it all the time made him feel a fool. “I never coveted it, as you know, until I met Berengaria,” went on Richard. “But at least I have the grace to remember that it must be very precious to you Saxons because it belonged to Edward the Confessor.” He sat down again in the late King’s chair, thereby quite unconsciously stressing still further the purely private nature of their equality. “To counterbalance John’s levity I could leave William Longchamps as Chancellor,” he said, drumming thoughtfully on the arms. He had never attempted to hide the fact that he trusted Longchamps of Ely more than any of his English councillors and that in itself was sufficient to make the Bishop unpopular.

“Is it wise, Richard?” Robin debated, as they often did upon such matters. “He is devoted to you, of course. But you know how the people call after him in the streets ‘bandy-legged little foreigner’.”

But Richard had been called upon to bear too much. The difficult decision Robin had been digesting for weeks was still new and sour in his mind. The state chair creaked beneath his anger. “Now, by God’s wounds, you’re trying to taunt me with my own Angevin blood!” he cried.

Robin stepped back. His whole manner changed. Richard had never spoken to him like that before. They frequently cursed each other roundly, but without the hurt of misunderstanding. “Anyone would envy rather than taunt you, I should think, Sir,” he said, with cold formality. “But because I was born plain Saxon I can’t help seeing things through their eyes. And my curse is that the gift of learning your father gave me lays upon me the obligation to use my tongue in their defence. They don’t want war.”

“But they gave their money,” protested Richard.

Having been made to feel momentarily like any other subject, Robin was able to see an every-day companion from a new angle. “Don’t you know that you are a very glamorous person, Richard?” he said, smiling in spite of himself. “In every age some dominant leader like you bewitches nations into war. It’s so fatally easy.”

“Easy!” snorted Richard, who had been working harder than any of them to get it going at all.

“All the trappings and excitement, I mean. If only someone could dress up Peace as gorgeously people might realise that there’s plenty of adventure in building a bridge across the Thames as your father did, or planning a town that wouldn’t burn like dried tinder. They might even see scope for devotion in fighting the plague. And cattle and crops, you know, often call for as much courage as any visionary crusade.”

“You call it visionary! To get back the Cross from the hands of Saladin? To drive out the infidel dogs whose unbelieving breath defiles the Holy City?” cried Richard, using in all sincerity the claptrap phrases of recruiting priests.

But Robin shrugged his shoulders. Like John, he was too insular to be much moved by them. He had lived among people to whom such phrases were a cult, but it was Hodierna who had really brought him up. And in spite of his strength and hardihood he had read and studied deeply. “Why must the women and children of this country starve to secure a plot of sun-scorched land that grows no corn?” he demanded. “A relic that strains the credulity of any thinking man?”

“Now
you are
blaspheming against the things which others hold sacred!” accused Richard. Clearly he felt as badly about it as Robin had felt about the mishandling of the crown.

“Oh, Richard, I know these things are sacred to you,” said Robin, sweeping aside a pile of parchments to sit on the table beside his chair. “But to my practical mind they are—just things. How can the spirit of Christianity be confined within any one city? How
can
it sanction so much suffering?” He spoke quietly, urgently, striving for complete mental clarity between them. “You can’t suppose I wouldn’t give my right hand to be beside you in the bloodiest fight,” he went on, seeing the bleak look on Richard’s face. “But it seems to me there will be far more urgent crusading to be done here at home. Hodierna has often told me about what went on during the Civil War. She saw children starve to death and her young sister dragged by Stephen’s soldiers to the streets. It’s things like that that hold me back.”

It was things like that that were unanswerable. Richard sighed, seeing the rent in their sympathies widening past repair. He got up heavily, and stood helping himself absently from a platter of fruit. “I always counted on your coming…” he said, half apologetically.

“I too have had my disappointments,” Robin reminded him.

“I know. If only I had become king when Henry died I might have been in time to save Johanna from that travesty of a marriage.”

“Even so it couldn’t have made any difference to me—a peasant—and I was vile enough to be glad it
was
a travesty.” With so many conflicting loyalties, Robin always found it difficult to speak about the matter. Even now, he changed the subject “What I meant was I had always counted on your carrying on the great work for my people which your father began.”

“My father!” Richard threw his apple untasted to the circling gulls. “Bah, Robin, don’t preach!”

“The wrong he did you blinded you to his wisdom,” Robin persisted. How often had he seen him sitting at this very table, choleric and conscientious, working when he might have been hunting—never too tired to explain his system of economics to any youngster who was genuinely interested! Because he had known no father of his own, Robin’s hand pressed gently on the chair back where that greying red head had so often rested. “
He
saw the opportunities of peace,” he said. “Not many men would have had the energy to take over an island full of wrangling breeds and weld them into a united nation.”