Aliena thought the dinners at the castle must have been unpleasantly tense, with the leaders of opposing armies around the same table. She wondered how Richard could bear to sit down with Earl William. She would have taken the carving knife to William instead of to the venison. She herself saw William only from a distance, and briefly. He looked anxious and bad-tempered, which was a good sign.
While the earls and bishops and abbots met in the keep, the lesser nobility gathered in the castle courtyard: the knights and sheriffs, minor barons, justiciars and castellans; people who could not stay away from the capital city while their future and the future of the kingdom were being decided. Aliena met Prior Philip there most mornings. Every day there were a dozen different rumors. One day all the earls who supported Stephen were to be degraded (which would mean the end of William); next day, all of them were to retain their positions, which would dash Richard’s hopes. All Stephen’s castles were to be pulled down, then all the rebels’ castles, then everyone’s castles, then none. One rumor said that every one of Henry’s supporters would get a knighthood and a hundred acres. Richard did not want that, he wanted the earldom.
Richard had no idea which rumors were true, if any. Although he was one of Henry’s trusted battlefield lieutenants, he was not consulted about the details of political negotiations. Philip, however, seemed to know what was going on. He would not say where he was getting his information, but Aliena recalled that he had a brother, who had visited Kingsbridge now and again, and who had worked for Robert of Gloucester and the Empress Maud: now perhaps he worked for Duke Henry.
Philip reported that the negotiators were close to agreement. The deal was that Stephen would continue as king until he died, but Henry would be his successor. This made Aliena anxious. Stephen could live for another ten years. What would happen in the interim? Stephen’s earls would surely not be deposed while he continued to rule. So how would Henry’s supporters—such as Richard—gain their rewards? Would they be expected to wait?
Philip learned the answer late one afternoon, when they had all been in Winchester a week. He sent a novice messenger to bring Aliena and Richard to him. As they walked through the busy streets to the cathedral close, Richard was full of savage eagerness, but Aliena was possessed by trepidation.
Philip was waiting for them in the graveyard, and they talked among the tombstones as the sun went down. “They’ve reached agreement,” Philip said without preamble. “But it’s a bit of a muddle.”
Aliena could not bear the tension. “Will Richard be earl?” she said urgently.
Philip rocked his hand from side to side in the gesture that meant maybe yes, maybe no. “It’s complicated. They’ve made a compromise. Lands that have been taken away by usurpers shall be restored to the people who owned them in the time of old King Henry.”
“That’s all I need!” Richard said immediately. “My father was earl in King Henry’s time.”
“Shut up, Richard,” Aliena snapped. She turned to Philip. “So what’s the complication?”
Philip said: “There’s nothing in the agreement that says Stephen has to enforce it. There probably won’t be any changes until he dies and Henry becomes king.”
Richard was crestfallen. “But that cancels it out!”
“Not quite,” Philip said. “It means that you are the rightful earl.”
“But I have to live as an outlaw until Stephen dies—while that animal William occupies my castle,” Richard said angrily.
“Not so loud,” Philip protested as a priest walked by. “All this is still secret.”
Aliena was seething. “I don’t accept this,” she said. “I’m not prepared to wait for Stephen to die. I’ve been waiting seventeen years and I’ve had enough.”
Philip said: “But what can you do?”
Aliena addressed Richard. “Most of the country acclaims you as the rightful earl. Stephen and Henry have now acknowledged that you are the rightful earl. You should seize the castle andruleas the rightful earl.”
“I can’t seize the castle. William is sure to have left it guarded.”
“You’ve got an army, haven’t you?” she said, becoming carried away by the force of her own anger and frustration. “You’ve got the right to the castle and you’ve got the power to take it.”
Richard shook his head. “In fifteen years of civil war, do you know how many times I’ve seen a castle taken by frontal attack? None.” As always, he seemed to gain authority and maturity as soon as he began to talk about military matters. “It almost never happens. A town, sometimes, but not a castle. They may surrender after a siege, or be relieved by reinforcements; and I’ve seen them taken through cowardice or trickery or treachery; but not by main force.”
Aliena was still not ready to accept this. It seemed to her a counsel of despair. She could not resign herself to more years of waiting and hoping. She said: “So what would happen if you took your army to William’s castle?”
“They would raise the drawbridge and close the gates before we could get inside. We would camp outside. Then William would come to the rescue with his army and attack our camp. But even if we beat him off, we still wouldn’t have the castle. Castles are hard to attack and easy to defend—that’s the point of them.”
As he spoke, the seed of an idea was germinating in Aliena’s agitated mind. “Cowardice, trickery or treachery,” she said.
“What?”
“You’ve seen castles taken by cowardice, trickery or treachery.”
“Oh. Yes.”
“Which did William use, when he took the castle from us, all those years ago?”
Philip interrupted: “Times were different. The country had had peace, under the old King Henry, for thirty-five years. William took your father by surprise.”
Richard said: “He used trickery. He got inside the castle surreptitiously, with a few men, before the alarm was raised. But Prior Philip is right: you couldn’t get away with that nowadays. People are much more wary.”
