Lionheart by Chris Manson

Author:Chris Manson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chris Manson

13 August 1189

Portsmouth

The day dawned on a beautifully calm sea, but as we approached Portsmouth towards midday, the wind suddenly began to get up and the sea, from being as flat as a Flanders’ field, began to swell into waves some six feet high.

The ship’s captain made a bad joke about the tide turning with the ascent of the new King. I cannot quite recall what he said, but I do remember his sudden alarm when I turned a baleful glare on him. I had not meant to, but clearly I had struck fear into him, when I had simply been staring into the middle distance, focused on the task ahead. I smiled slightly at his discomfiture. I generally try not to revel in my power, for that way lies the madness that consumed my father. But sometimes it amuses me in a small way.

I had sent Hubert ahead of me to make the necessary preparations. His first task was to release my mother from her imprisonment at Winchester. After discussion with her, he had identified what he thought would be a successful way to strike a clear break with the past. As soon as our ship docked, I moved ashore into a pavilion set up on a pier. There, he quickly briefed me on the plan.

He and my mother had determined that the chief foci of resentment towards the end of my father’s reign were Stephen of Tours and Ranulf de Glanville. Stephen of Tours had been one of my father’s most ruthless ministers in exploiting the new and improved methods of tax raising, and he was well known for having enriched himself hugely. In general, I have been reluctant to turn on my father’s men when they can be useful to me. There are few who can truly inspire their men and they are valuable to me. Men such as Stephen of Tours, however, who is little more than a scheming, venal bookkeeper, are two a penny, and can be found under virtually every stone I could care to turn over.

He was brought into the pavilion, and he looked in a sorry state already. Chains in front of him bound his hands, and his legs were also chained together, with just enough give to allow him to shuffle forward and make the beginnings of a bow to me.

I turned to one of my stewards and demanded that more chains be brought. If we were going to go to the effort of humiliating this man in order to make a symbolic statement, then we had to make that statement as loud and as explicit as possible. It was no good to us if the crowd thirty yards away could see only a bedraggled figure following us. They had to see that he was loaded down with chains. By the time my stewards had finished with him they would barely be able to make out the man beneath all the chains.

Now, of course, he needed a cart to travel in, so there was a delay while a humble cart was found.

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