Chapter 29 #3
They rode past a merchant’s house, several-storeyed with wooden shingles; it was burning fiercely, the fire having spread from the warehouse next door.
A woman was striving to rescue her possessions from the flames.
William stared at her and felt his heart kick in his chest. Her face and waistline were softer and plumper, but there was no mistaking the way she held herself.
“Clara?” Gesturing peremptorily to his squires to help, William dismounted and hastened to her aid, snatching a quilt from her arms. The underside was on fire and as the smoke filtered through the slits in his helm he began to cough.
Jean hastened to help him unlace the helm and William dragged it off, red in the face and choking.
“Fetch me my pot helm,” he gagged at the squire.
“I can’t wear this.” He stamped on the quilt to put out the fire and felt dismay and shame as he gazed upon the singed embroidery beneath his boots.
Somehow, the sight of the charred bedcover was more distressing than the sight of the house burning in its entirety.
Jean came running back from the packhorse with William’s lighter helm which had an open face and a nasal guard. Clara had retreated to sit on a painted coffer in her garden and watch her home burn.
“You have to leave, the French are coming.” William strode to her, grabbed her arm, and hauled her to her feet. “They’ll be on us at any moment.” He turned to cough into his sleeve.
She shook him off. “They can’t be any worse than Henry of Anjou!” she spat and gestured towards the house. “It’s not the French who have fired the town! Stephen said this would happen.”
“And where’s Stephen now?” William snarled. “You must get out!”
“Don’t worry.” She gave him a look from the old days, gleaming with mockery and challenge.
“I’ve always chosen men who can take care of me.
We took the wine out of the city two days ago, and put our money in a safe place.
He’s gone to fetch the horses from the stables.
I…” Her face lit up and, gathering her skirts, she pushed William aside and ran towards a barrel-bodied merchant and a servant who were hastening towards them on horseback, with a palfrey and two packhorses following on lead reins.
William watched the man dismount and kiss Clara before boosting her into the palfrey’s saddle.
With the servant he set about securing the painted chest and the more portable belongings to the packhorses, his actions rapid and efficient.
Clara nudged her mount over to William and looked down at him.
Numerous fine lines webbed her eye corners, she had a double chin, but her gaze was still as dark and bright as his memory of her.
“I know you would have saved me,” she said in a gentler tone, “and I thank you, but as you can see, I did not need it.”
“No.” He glanced towards the man to whom he had lost her—a nondescript, broad town burgher with a paunch at his belt and unprepossessing features. William was both reassured and unnerved. “Godspeed you,” he said. “Make haste.”
“And you,” she said with a half-smile that held remembrance and farewell.
For a moment their eyes locked, and then she was reining away and her man was fastening the last strap on the packhorse and leaping to his saddle, nimble despite his bulk.
He nodded stiffly to William and without further ado clapped spurs to his mount’s flanks.
He, Clara, and the servant faded rapidly into the smoke like a dream and William turned back to his horse, feeling saddened, yet perversely lighter of spirit.
William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, rode up with his troops and confirmed to Henry that Le Mans was lost. “The French are pouring into the town through the gates, with the Count of Poitou at their head.” His breath tore in his throat. “Sire, you have to leave…”
Henry jerked as if struck at the mention of his eldest son and William flinched with him.
He knew that, of all things, Henry dreaded being brought face to face with Richard and humiliated.
What pride he had was bleeding, battered, and dying, but to have the final blows delivered by one’s own son, in malice, was not a coup de grace but ignominious murder.
“Go, sire,” William said. “I will hold them off.”
Henry looked at him, nodded once, and, without speaking, spurred away. William leaped to horse, ordered his squires to ride hard with Essex’s troops, and with a handful of other knights, took up his position as the King’s rearguard.
At first their way was clogged by people fleeing the town, their possessions in sacks and hand carts, across the backs of pack ponies or piled in ox wains, women weeping, children screaming.
William had curses heaped on him by wailing refugees as he pushed his way through.
He ignored them. Nothing mattered but seeing Henry to safety.
He saw no sign of Clara and assumed that she and her merchant had taken another road, for which he was glad. He would not have wanted to pass her.
Once clear of the suburbs and the fleeing people, they set their horses to a canter.
The King clung grimly to his saddle, his face ashen-yellow, but when Baldwin of Béthune enquired if they should slow the pace, he shook his head and insisted instead that they should increase it.
De Souville’s horse was lame and the knight was struggling to keep up.
Turning in the saddle to look over his shoulder and check de Souville’s progress, William saw a Poitevan knight hurtling towards the fleeing party, lance couched.
De Souville raised his shield and tried to rein his horse out of the way, but the knight turned with him and rammed him from the saddle.
As de Souville struck the ground, more Poitevans galloped up, dust flurrying from beneath their horses’ hooves.
The foremost was riding a powerful dun destrier with flaxen mane and tail.
Although the rider carried no shield, William recognised Richard immediately and his blood ran cold.
Levelling his lance, he pricked his stallion forward to bar the road.
Richard reined back so hard that his horse reared. “Don’t be a fool!” he roared across the ground between himself and William. “Stand aside!”
William fretted his destrier and prepared to charge. “My lord, you will turn back if you value your life!”
Richard laughed with contemptuous rage. “You would not dare,” he sneered and slapped the reins down on his stallion’s neck.
Without hesitation, William spurred his mount.
Richard’s eyes widened; he tried to draw aside, but William changed the angle of his lance and thrust with his full might.
It was a clean blow and it killed on the instant.
Abandoning his lance in situ, William snarled, “Let the devil take you, my lord,” and, wheeling about, galloped off up the road.
A shaken Richard extricated himself from the saddle of his dead horse and pulled back the knights who would have continued the chase. “No,” he said brusquely, “let them go. They’re on the run and we’ll catch them soon enough…and then we’ll have a reckoning.”