The Young Lion Read Online Free

died. The Empress Matilda was the only surviving legitimate child of King Henry the Lion – and the old tyrant had forced his barons to swear fealty to her. The thought of a female king made Eustace’s stomach heave. What were they? Druids? True Christians would never countenance such a perversion of the natural order, created by Almighty God. Unfortunately, many did pay homage to her and the disputed crown had led to years of civil war between the ‘Stephen faction’ and the ‘Matilda faction’.
    The King did not dare show the letter in his hand to Eustace. The son of the Empress had the gall to ask Stephen, as his kinsman, for money to pay his mercenaries and sail home. ‘He wishes to call on me, to apologise,’ he told his son. ‘Who’s the mother of the other youth, I wonder?’
    The Crown Prince snorted. ‘A laundry maid? A countess? One of his own nieces?’
    Geoffrey the Handsome, as Matilda’s husband was known, was now thirty-three years old and said to have already sired as many bastards as the Lion. He was known for wearing a sprig of yellow broom in his hat. Stephen thought flaunting a roadside weed as if it were a peacock feather sheer effrontery.
    Prince Eustace beckoned a guard and murmured an order. ‘Watch this,’ he told his father.
    The guard sauntered out to the glare of the courtyard below, where Henry and Guillaume had dismounted and were now sitting on the horse trough, which like the gateway to the palace and the lintel of its doorway, was inscribed with the initials HR, Henricus Rex . Beside the initials, masons had carved a lion, its body in profile, its huge head turned, eyes glaring. Young Henry took a deep breath. Etched on a wall beside the doorway was a list of his grandfather’s successful battles. He felt naked as he read them, ashamed of his folly in attacking southern England without a proper plan of battle. Failure was inevitable, he now understood.
    His ancestors had built most of the palaces that were still in good repair in England, as he had observed when he passed through the countryside, and his grandfather, the Lion, was the greatest builder of them all. ‘I shall build something greater,’ he promised himself.
    The thought calmed him a little. He had felt strong and bold as he and Guillaume rode up the hill from the town that morning, its houses still blackened from the fire six years earlier when his mother had captured the Usurper Stephen. To get there she had walked three leagues through snow with her shoes on backwards, had reigned as ‘Domina of the English’ for a few months and almost succeeded in having herself crowned.
    The guard Prince Eustace had summoned carried a pitcher of light ale into the courtyard. ‘It’s a hot day. Have a drink, Anjevindog.’ He flung the pitcher at Henry’s face. As the boy’s eyes closed to avoid the ale, the guard threw a punch at his nose. But Henry was agile and the blow caught only his left eyebrow. A rivulet of blood mixed with ale ran down his cheek.
    Henry turned his back on the guard and Guillaume did the same.
    In the dark of the palace King Stephen turned in embarrassment to his son. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘he’s only a boy.’
    Eustace was enraged. He had wanted Henry – as honour demanded he should – to strike the guard back. Members of the regiment would then have had an excuse to beat him properly, there in the courtyard, where everyone could watch. ‘A boy who wants my throne,’ the Prince replied. ‘Your throne, father,’ he corrected himself.
    The banners of noble houses hung from the ceiling of the tall, dim audience chamber, the Winchester Palace keep, one floor below. Built of stone, it had resisted Matilda’s fire that had destroyed wooden buildings and it remained cool even in the height of summer. Courtiers and princes of the Church filed in to take their places, according to rank, for the midsummer court. The bishops and a few of the older earls and barons sat on benches, but mostly the