Stewart Binns - Anarchy

The King then bellowed at the top of his voice.

‘ Bring Lady Matilda! ’

He looked at me and spat his command.

‘Get to your feet! Your mistress approaches.’

I could not raise myself beyond my elbows, but I tried to respect her entrance as best I could, which I managed with no more than a lowering of my head. It was a weak gesture, little better than the ungainly nod of a drunk in a tavern.

Matilda walked in with her face hidden by a veil. I could not see her expression, but I could hear her heartfelt sobs. The King motioned to her to sit next to him.

‘Hail the next Queen of England. Bow to her! You, a filthy yard dog, who has the gall to fuck an empress!’

Matilda cowered, convulsed with spasms of grief.

‘The child of your foul coupling is no more. You came to her like a fiend in the night, for which you ought to have died. But she has pleaded that you be shown mercy.’

The King extended his hand to Matilda in a gesture of warmth.

‘I have consulted my seers here in Rouen and spoken to the Archbishop. All agree that the fecund seed of this rampant goat may have been the spur your fertility needed. Their wise judgement and your pleadings for him have saved his life.’

He turned back to me.

‘Your bestial tupping of my daughter has done me a great service. She told me about that strange amulet around your neck and all those ancient English legends about the Wodewose. She says you and your family have the powers of soothsayers. When I told my seers about you and showed them the amulet, they said that you have been able to conjure powerful forces to make Matilda fertile.

‘God help me for doubting my seers, but for my part, I think you just fucked the blockage out of her! The child is no more. But thanks to your little amulet and your big magician’s wand of a prick, Matilda is fertile after all. Her husband will soon arrive in Rouen to seed the furrow you have ploughed for him. Then I will have my heir.’

Still delirious from my ordeal, I was only half aware of what was being said. Matilda abandoned her place by her father and, despite my appalling condition, sat beside me, cradling my head in her arms to reassure me. She began to repeat the gist of the King’s diatribe, but with less invective, before he cut her short.

‘ Enough! Harold of Hereford, I am about to make you an offer no man could refuse – especially one in your current predicament. I assumed, entombed in my oubliette, you would die. Matilda begged me every day to release you, and eventually I relented and had you put in a dungeon. When you still didn’t die, I took it as an omen that I should think again, and I consulted the seers.

‘Matilda’s husband returns within the week. The resumption of the marriage must continue in the eyes of the world. The recent hiatus must be seen as no more than that – the succession to my throne depends on it. I have given you a vacant title and some landholdings. I have many illegitimate children; you will become one of them and be quoted in the registers as the Earl of Huntingdon. In the first instance, you will stay in your home in Aquitaine until the time is right for you to return to Normandy. By then, young Geoffrey should have given me a legitimate heir of the royal blood. If, in the meantime, there is any hint that your seed has come within a mile of my daughter’s loins, you will be a dead man. Once Geoffrey’s task has been performed, I care not in the slightest if my daughter takes you to her chamber as often as she likes – as long as no ill-begotten child results. And remember this, as my acknowledged bastard child, Matilda becomes your half-sister and any offspring you produce would be seen as the rotten progeny of an incestuous coupling.’

The King pushed back his chair and stood. In my disordered state, he seemed to have twice the dimensions of his earthly form.

‘You can have five minutes together now. After that, you may not see one another until Geoffrey of Anjou’s pips are firmly planted in my daughter’s belly.’

The King began to leave, but with one parting comment.

‘You are a lucky man, Harold of Hereford, now Earl of Huntingdon. The planets must have been in a rare alignment when you were born! Hold tight to that amulet – it has saved your life.’

The King left with a flourish and I heard the door of the Great Hall slam shut behind him. I tried to speak but was incoherent.

Maud embraced me.

‘My darling Hal, I’ve missed you so much. But you’re alive! That’s the most important thing. You will be safe now. My father will give you an escort to take you to St Cirq Lapopie, and I have arranged for Eadmer to meet you a few miles south of the city.’

I shook my head in disbelief.

‘Eadmer is fine; they didn’t guard him as closely as you. He escaped not long after you were captured. He’s been living in the forest ever since, but he’s well. Greta takes messages to him. When you are better, send word to me and I will arrange for you to come back to Rouen. I’m sure to be pregnant by then–’

I shook my head again, this time as violently as I could manage, and croaked a strangled, ‘No!’

‘We have no choice. It was your life in exchange for an heir. But more importantly, we can be together for the rest of our lives. It’s a small price to pay – and England’s future depends on it.’

Tears started to run down my cheeks.

‘Don’t cry, my beloved. He was going to banish you forever. Then he realized that he would do better to retain my loyalty by allowing me to see you. Not only that, but I suggested that if you happened to be one of his many bastard children, he could keep a close eye on you. I remembered the story about Estrith being your real mother, after all, and thought how easy it would have been for her to have been one of his secret conquests. He needs me and he knows he has to keep me content. He’s sixty-three years old and his grandson isn’t born yet; I will be Queen Regent for many years before the child is old enough to succeed.’

Maud was smiling, trying to muster my strength with her determination. I began to realize that she had created a very shrewd resolution to an apparently insoluble dilemma. I managed one brief question.

‘The baby?’

‘They took it. Oh, Hal… I fought with all my strength, but they took it away from me. They tried pennyroyal and all sorts of potions. But it was strong like you, and wouldn’t die.’

Maud started to sob.

‘Eventually, they used the instruments on me and pulled the little mite from my body. They hurt me so dreadfully, Hal… but not as much as they hurt you.’

She kissed me. I could taste her tears and feel her chest heave. But she soon recovered her composure.

‘Now we know what we have to do, and then we can be together. Soon I will be the first Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy – and you will be a noble earl and my secret lover. It’s worth waiting for! Go home to St Cirq Lapopie, get well and thank God for that prodigious seed of yours – it has solved all our problems.’

Despite all that had happened, and the fact that her duty would now force her to produce children with a man she did not care for, she appeared to be resigned to her fate. Although I hated the thought of another man in her bed trying to impregnate her, I realized that she expected me to have as much resolve as she had and to join her in thanking God for the only salvation that circumstances permitted.

Our five minutes together had passed and the King’s Constable appeared with several men to take me to a chamber in the royal apartments. My weapons and armour were there waiting for me, together with the coronet and ermine of an earl of the realm.

I had become a bastard to earn them, but a lucky bastard all the same.