Those were the early days of Geoffrey's lordship in Normandy. Twice and
three times he came up from Anjou with his men-at-arms and his footmen
to take possession of his wife's lawful inheritance. Again and again he
was repulsed and driven back to his own dominions, but at the last he
prevailed, and the iron will of the man whose royal race was to give
England fourteen kings, forced Normandy to submission, and thereafter
he ruled in peace. Yet he was not so strongly established but that he
desired sound friendships and strong alliances to support him, and at
the same time he was anxious to obtain help for his wife in her
prolonged struggle for the English crown. In his office of Grand
Seneschal of France he generally caused himself to be represented by a
deputy; but he had lately determined to make a journey to Paris, in the
hope of winning over the young King Louis, and perhaps the beautiful
Queen Eleanor, who was feudal sovereign, in her own right, of Guienne,
Poitou and Aquitaine, and in reality a more powerful personage than the
King himself.
So it fell out that before Gilbert reached his destination he met a
great and splendid train riding toward him on the highroad, two hundred
horse, at the very least, and as many footmen, followed by a long line
of sumpter mules. The road was narrow at that place, so that Gilbert,
with his two men, saw that it would be impossible to pass, and though
it was not natural to him to cede the right of way to any one, he
understood that, in the face of what was a little army, it would be the
part of wisdom to draw aside. A thick growth of thorn bushes made a
natural hedge at that part of the road, and Gilbert and his companions
were obliged almost to back into the briers, as four handsomely dressed
outriders trotted past abreast, not without a glance of rather
supercilious inquiry, for they did not fail to see that Gilbert was a
stranger in their country; and, for a traveller, his retinue was
anything but imposing. He, however, barely glanced at them as they
passed him, for his eyes were fixed upon the advancing cavalcade, a
river of rich and splendid colour flowing toward him between soft green
banks. They were men who rode in peace; for though a standard rose in
the middle rank, it was furled and cased in leather, and the horsemen
who surrounded it were dressed in tunic and hose--crimson, green, rich
dark brown, with the glint of gold, the sheen of silver, the lightning
of steel, relieving the deep hues of dark cloth and velvet here and
there.
A length behind the furled flag rode a man and a boy, side by side, and
the next riders followed two or three lengths behind them. The man,
mounted on a huge white Norman weight-carrier, kept the off side of the
road, his great beast trotting leisurely with a long pounding step, and
an occasional lazy shake of the big white head with the iron-grey
forelock and the well-combed mane. The rider sat square and upright in
the saddle, the plain leathern bridle neither too short nor too long in
the light strong hand, that just moved perceptibly with the horse's
step. He was a man evidently of good height, but not over tall, of
surpassing beauty of form, young in figure, but past middle age if one
judged by his hard features and already furrowed brow; his deep grey
eyes looked steadily ahead from beneath black eyebrows which contrasted
oddly with hair that was already iron-grey. There was something
immovable and fateful about the clean-shaven jaw, the broad flat chin,
the wide strong mouth--something strangely durable that contrasted with
the rich softness of his splendid dress, as though the man, and what
the man meant, were to outlive the fashions of the world.
The boy who rode by his near side, a lad of little more than twelve
years, was both like him and unlike. Sturdy, broad, short-legged,
square beyond his age, any one could see that he was never to inherit
his father's beauty of proportion and grace of bearing; but there was
something in his face that promised all his father's strength and an
even greater independence. The grey eyes were the same, but nearer
together, and almost sinister in their gaze, even at that age; the nose
was already long and rather flat than sharp, and the large straight
lips, even and close set, would have seemed strong even in a grown
man's face. The boy sat upon his small grey Andalusian horse as if he
had lived a lifetime in the saddle, but his twelve-year-old hand was
heavier on the bridle than ever his father's had been.
There was something in the bearing of the two, father and son, so
kingly and high that Gilbert, who had been brought up in Norman
courtesy, involuntarily rose in the saddle as much as his long stirrups
would allow, and lifted his cap from his head, supposing, as was
natural, that he was saluting the lord of the lands through which he
was travelling. The other returned the salutation with a wave of the
hand, looked sharply at Gilbert, and then, to the latter's surprise,
drew rein, the lad beside him ranging back half a length so as not to
be in the way between the other two. For a few seconds neither said a
word. Then the elder man, as though expecting something of which the
younger was not aware, smiled kindly and spoke. His voice was strong
and manly, but clear and sweet.
"You are strange here, sir," he said, with something more like an
assertion than a question in his turn.
"From England, sir," answered Gilbert, bowing slightly in the saddle.
The elder man looked hard at him and knit his brows. Few English
gentlemen had refused allegiance to King Stephen.
"From England? And what may you be doing in Normandy, young sir?
Stephen's friends find little friendship here."
"I am not of them, sir," answered Gilbert, drawing himself up somewhat
haughtily. "I am rather of those who would shorten Stephen's reign by
the length of his life, and his body by a head."
The broad, handsome face of the man with whom he was speaking relaxed
into a smile, and his son, who had at first eyed Gilbert with distrust,
threw back his head and laughed.
"Then I suppose that you are for the Empress," said the man. "But if
you are, why are you not in Gloucester?"
"Sir," answered Gilbert, "being made homeless and landless by Stephen,
I chose rather to cut a fortune out of the world than to beg one of the
Queen, who has none left to give."
"You could fight for her," suggested the other.
"Ay, sir; and I have, and will again, if such gentlemen of Normandy as
you will cross the water and fight also. But as the matter stands
to-day, whosoever shall break the truce shall break his own neck,
without serving the Empress. And meanwhile I ride to the Duke of
Normandy's court, and if I may serve him, I will, but if not, I shall
go farther."
"And who are you, sir, that seek the Duke?"
"I am Gilbert Warde, and my fathers held Stoke Regis in Hertfordshire
from Duke William. But Stephen took it when I was lying ill of a wound
in Sheering Abbey and bestowed it upon another. And you, sir? I crave
your name."
"Geoffrey Plantagenet," answered the Duke, quietly. "And this is my son
Henry, who by the grace of God shall yet be King of England."
Gilbert started at the name, and then noticed for the first time that
both father and son wore in their velvet caps a short dry sprig of the
broom-plant. He sprang to the ground and came forward on foot,
bareheaded, and stood beside the Duke's near stirrup.
"Your pardon, my lord," he said; "I should have known you."
"That might have been hard," answered Geoffrey, "since you had never
seen me. But as you were on your way to find me and wished to serve me,
mount again and ride with us to Paris, whither we go."
So Gilbert mounted, and would have fallen back in the train among the
young squires, behind the five ranks of knights who rode after the
Duke. But Geoffrey would not let him take his place at once, for he was
glad to have news of the long struggle in England, the end of which was
to set a Plantagenet upon the throne; and he asked many questions which
the young man answered as well as he could, though some of them were
not easy; and the boy Henry listened with grave face and unwinking eyes
to all that was said.
"If I had been in my mother's place," he said at last, in a pause, "I
would have cut off Stephen's head in Bristol Castle."
"And let your uncle Gloucester be put to death by Stephen's wife?"
Geoffrey looked at his son curiously.
"She would not have done it," answered Henry. "There could have been no
more war, with Stephen dead. But if she had killed my uncle, well, what
of that? The crown of England is worth one life, at least!"
Gilbert heard and wondered at the boy's hardness, but held his peace.
He was surprised also that the Duke should say nothing, and the speech
of the one and the silence of the other clearly foreshadowed the
kingdom for one or both. But the boy's words seemed heartless and not
altogether knightly to Warde, who was himself before all things a man
of heart; and the first impression made on him by the precocious lad
was more or less a wrong one, since Henry afterwards turned out a just
and kind man, though often stern and unforgetful of offence. And
Gilbert was very far from guessing that the young prince was suddenly
attracted to him in the strongest possible way, and that in the first
meeting he had unconsciously laid the foundations of a real friendship.
After a time, as the Duke asked no more questions, Gilbert took it for
granted that he was no longer wanted, and fell back to his proper place
among the riders. The young squires received him with cordiality and
not without a certain respect for one who, though not even a knight,
had been so much honoured by their sovereign. And Gilbert himself,
though he felt at home amongst them at first, as a man feels with his
own kind, yet felt that he was divided from them by the depth of his
own misfortunes. One of them spoke of his home at Bayeux, and of his
father, and Gilbert's face grew grave; another told how his mother had
herself embroidered in gold the fine linen collar that showed above his
low-cut tunic. Gilbert bit his lips, and looked away at the rolling
green country. And one, again, asked Gilbert where his home might be.
"Here," answered Warde, striking the pommel of his saddle with his
right hand and laughing rather harshly.
He was older than most of them, for they ranged from fourteen to
eighteen years, and were chiefly beardless boys who had never seen
fight, whose fathers had fought Geoffrey Plantagenet until they had
recognized that he was the master, as the great Duke William had been
in his day, and then, being beaten, had submitted whole-heartedly and
all at once, as brave men do, and had forthwith sent their sons to
learn arms and manners at Geoffrey's court. So none of these youths had
slain a man with his own hand, as Gilbert had at Faringdon, nor had any
of them faced an enemy with plain steel in a quarrel, as Gilbert had
faced Sir Arnold de Curboil. Though Gilbert told little of his story
and less of his deeds, they saw that he was older than they, they felt
that he had seen more than they had, and they guessed that his hand was
harder and heavier than theirs.
As the day wore, and they rode, and halted, and dined together in the
vast outer hall of a monastery which they reached soon after midday,
the young men who sat beside Gilbert noticed that he could repeat the
Latin words of the long grace as well as any monk, and one laughed and
asked where he had got so much scholarship.
"I lay two months in an abbey," answered Gilbert, "healing of a wound,
and the nursing brother taught me the monks' ways."
"And how came you by such a wound?" asked the young squire.
"By steel," answered Gilbert, and smiled, but he would say no more.
And after that, two or three asked questions of Gilbert's man Dunstan,
and he, being proud of his master, told all he knew, so that his
hearers marvelled that such a fighter had not yet obtained knighthood,
and they foretold that if Long Gilbert, as they named him for his
height, would stay in the Duke's service, he should not be a squire
many weeks.
And on the next day and the days following it was clear to them all
that Gilbert was in the way of fortune by the hand of favour; for as
the company rode along in the early morning by dewy lanes, where
Michaelmas daisies were blooming, a groom came riding back to say that
the young Henry--the Count, as they began to call him about that
time--wished the company of Master Warde, to tell him more of England.
So Gilbert cantered forward and took his place beside the young prince,
and for more than an hour answered questions of all sorts about English
men, English trees, English cattle, and English dogs.
"It will all be mine before long," said the boy, laughing, "but as I
have never seen it, I want your eyes."
And every day thereafter, in the morning and afternoon, Gilbert was
sent for to tell the lad stories about England; and he talked as if he
were speaking to a grown man and said many things about his own country
which had long been in his heart, in the strong, good language of a man
in earnest. Henry listened, and asked questions, and listened again,
and remembered what he heard, not for a day only, nor a week, but for a
lifetime, and in the boy the king was growing hour by hour.
Sometimes, while they talked, the Duke listened and said a few words
himself, but more often he rode on out of the train alone, in deep
thought, or called one of the older knights to his side; and when
Gilbert's quick ear caught fragments of their conversation, they were
generally talking of country matters--crops, horse-breeding, or the
price of grain.
So they rode, and in due time they came to fields of mud left by a
subsiding river, and here and there green hillocks rose out of the
dreary expanse, and on them were built castles of grey stone. But in
the flats there were mud hovels of brickmakers and of people living
miserably by the river; and then all at once the ground rose a little
to the bank, with a street, and houses of brick and stone; and between
these, upon an island, Gilbert, rising in his stirrups to see over the
heads of his companions, descried the castle of the King of France,
with its towers and battlements, its great drawbridge, and its solid
grey walls, in those days one of the strongest holds in all the world.
Then they all halted, and the Duke's herald rode forward to the gate,
and the King's herald was seen within, and there was a great blowing of
horns and a sound of loud, high voices reciting formal speeches in a
monotone. After that there was a silence, and horns again, and more
recitation, and a final blast, after which the Duke's herald came back,
and the King's herald came out upon the drawbridge, followed by men in
rich clothes of white cloth, embroidered with gold lilies that shone in
the autumn sun, like little tongues of flame; and the Duke's standard
was unfurled to the river breeze, and the goodly train rode slowly over
the drawbridge at the end of the solid wooden causeway which spanned
the main width of the stream, and so, by the main gate, into the great
court of honour. And Gilbert rode close behind young Henry, who called
him his chancellor in jest, and would not let him ride out of his sight.
Within the court were great buildings reared against the outer walls;
but in the midst was the King's hall and dwelling, and in the porch at
the head of the steps which led to the main door, the King and Queen
were waiting in state, in their robes of ceremony, with all their
household about them, to receive their Grand Seneschal and brother
sovereign, Geoffrey Plantagenet. But Gilbert, looking boldly before
him, saw that the King of France was a fair, pale man with a yellow
beard, strong and knightly, but with dull and lifeless blue eyes; and
Gilbert looked at the lady who sat beside him, and he saw that the
Queen of France was the most beautiful woman in the world; and when his
eyes had seen her it was long before he looked away.
He saw a being so unlike all he had known before, that his idea of
woman changed from that hour for his whole life--a most perfect
triplicity of beauty, grace and elastic strength. Some have doubtless
possessed each separate perfection, but the names of those who had all
three are as unforgotten as those of conquerors and supreme poets.
Gilbert's eyes fixed themselves, and for a moment he was in a sort of
waking trance, during which he could not for his life have described
one feature of the Queen's face; but when she spoke to him, his heart
leapt and his eyelids quivered, and her image was fixed upon his memory
forever. Young though he was, it would have been contrary to his grave
and rather melancholy disposition to lose his heart at first sight to
any woman, and it was neither love, nor love's forerunner, that
overcame him as he gazed at the Queen. It was a purely visual
impression, like that of being dazzled by a bright light, or made giddy
by sudden motion.
She was as tall as the King, but whereas he was heavily and awkwardly
built, her faultless proportion made an ungraceful movement an
impossibility, and the rhythmic ease of her slightest gesture expressed
an unfaltering bodily energy which no sudden fatigue nor stress of long
weariness could bring down. When she moved, Gilbert wished that he
might never see her in repose, yet as soon as the motion ceased, it
seemed a crime upon beauty to disturb her rest.
Her face and her throat, uncovered to the strong morning light, were of
a texture as richly clear as the tinted leaves of young orange-blossoms
in May; and like the flowers themselves, it seemed to rejoice in air
and sun, in dew and rain, perfected, not marred, by the touch of heat
and cold. The straight white throat rose like a column from the neck to
the delicate lobe of the faultless ear, and a generously modelled line
sprang in a clean curve of beauty to the sudden rounding of the ivory
chin, cleft in the midst by nature's supreme touch. Low on her forehead
the heavy waves of her hair were drawn back to each side under the
apple-green silk coverchief that was kept in place by the crown of
state. But she wore no wimple, and the broad waves flowed down upon her
shoulders and hung behind her like a heavy mantle. And they were of
that marvellous living hue, that the westering sun casts through oak
leaves upon an ancient wall in autumn. All in her face was of light,
from her hair to her white forehead; from her forehead to her radiant
eyes, deeper than sapphires, brighter than mountain springs; from the
peach-blossom bloom of her cheeks to the living coral of her lips.
She wore a close-fitting upper garment of fine green cloth, embroidered
with a small design in silver thread, in which the heraldic cross of
Aquitaine alternated with a conventional flower. The girdle of fine
green leather, richly embroidered in gold, followed exactly the lower
line of this close garment round the hips, and the long end fell
straight from the knot almost to the ground. The silken skirt in many
folds was of the same colour as the rest, but without embroidery. The
mantle of state, of a figured cloth of gold lined with straw-coloured
silk, hung in wide folds from her shoulders, her hair falling over it,
and it was loosely held in place by a twisted cord of gold thread
across her breast. Contrary to the fashion of the day, her sleeves were
tight and closed at the wrists, and green gloves encased her hands, and
were embroidered on the back with the cross of Aquitaine.
Gilbert was standing two steps behind young Henry, who was on his
father's left, and was consequently directly opposite to the Queen, as
the boy bent one knee, and taking her gloved hand, touched the
embroidery with his lips. Gilbert was hardly aware that she was looking
into his eyes, while his own were riveted on her face, and when she
spoke, he started in surprise.
"And who is this?" she asked, smiling, as she saw what an effect her
beauty produced upon the young man.
Henry turned half round, with a step backward, and took Gilbert's hand.
"This is my friend," he said, dragging him forward; "and if you like
me, you shall please to like him, too, and tell the King to knight him
at once."
"You have a strong recommendation to grace, sir," said the Queen.
She looked down at the imperious boy's square face and laughed; but
looking up and meeting Gilbert's eyes again, the ring of her laugh
changed oddly and died away in a short silence. It was long since she
had looked upon so goodly a man; she was weary of her monkish husband,
and she was the grand-daughter of William of Aquitaine, giant,
troubadour, and lover. It was no wonder that there was light in her
eyes, and life in every fibre of her beautiful body.
"I think I shall like your friend," she said, speaking to Henry, but
still looking at the man.
And so Gilbert first met the Queen; and as she held out her hand to him
and he took it, kneeling on one knee, she unconsciously drew young
Henry close to her, and her arm was round his neck, and her hand
pressed his shoulder in a very gentle way, so that he looked up into
her face. But if any one had told her then that she should love the man
in vain, that she should be divided from the fair-haired King beside
her and become the wife of the broad-faced, rough-fisted little boy
whose curly head barely reached her shoulder, the prophet might have
fared ill, as readers of the future often do.
But meanwhile the King stood talking quietly with Duke Geoffrey, who
presently crossed to salute the Queen, not dreaming what strange
spirits had taken possession of the hearts of three persons in one
moment. For the third was Henry himself. When the Queen gave her right
hand to his father her other was still on the boy's shoulder, and when
she would have withdrawn it he caught it with both his own and held it
there; and suddenly the blood sprang up in his cheeks even to the roots
of his hair, and for the first and last time in his life Henry
Plantagenet was almost ridiculous, and wished that he might hide his
head. Yet he would not loose his hold on the Queen's hand.