For the Good of the State

And always good at starting things, but never finishing them properly. And he had a shifty streak, I know… But not really a bad chap—probably would have made a good fast wing three-quarter on a club rugby tour. And good value in the pub afterwards…

although I certainly wouldn’t have let him organize the tour, I agree.’ Sniff. ‘But if that’s your period, Tom, the man you ought to study is John Marshall, the father of my great hero, William Marshall—John Marshall goes right the way through the whole Stephen-and-Matilda anarchy period. Right down into my period too, actually. Because he turns up at the Council of Northampton in his old age, as a back-room fixer in Henry II’s showdown with Thomas Becket. It’s a bloody marvel someone hadn’t topped him by then—he was a bad bugger—a real Norman… Whereas my William was the best knight in Christendom.’ Sniff. ‘An interesting thing is that our own dear Jack Butler is the living and actual reincarnation of my old William. Which is why I dedicated my little book on William to our Jack, of course.’

Now that was curious—and in a much more real way. Because, according to Harvey, Colonel Butler had got the director’s job in Research and Development a few years back, when Audley himself had been in line for it. Yet Audley’s affection for his rival was evident.

‘Yes.’ Audley paused as the motorway warning signs flashed in the headlights, offering them London or The West, among closer and homelier advice, plus the mileage information that Bristol and Exeter, and therefore Nikolai Andrievich Panin, were still a long Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State way away. ‘Yes, the great comfort of William Marshall —“the best knight that ever lived”, was what Archbishop Langton said of him after he died, Tom; and Langton knew him pretty damn well, too—

the great comfort is that, quite contrary to the custom-and-practice of the age… the Norman Age, and our age too… William always played a straight bat—kept faith, was always loyal to his salt, and his King, and his God—but came out on top of the heap, nevertheless!’

Tom was still thinking of Colonel Butler: to inspire this sort of affection in a devious old devil like Audley, he must be something special.

‘But I still have a sneaking admiration—or a sneaky admiration—

for William’s father, who was generally thought to be a right blackguard: “a limb of hell and the root of all evil”, is how he’s described in Gesta Stephani. Do you recall that, Tom?’

Tom was saved from having to reply by the problem of filtering off the almost-empty A34 on to the racing westwards traffic of the motorway, which was escaping from London all the faster because its drivers were already late for their weekends at this hour of the evening.

‘He was a good soldier—and a brave one… Left for dead, minus an eye from molten lead, covering Matilda’s retreat to Ludgershall… Maybe he did change sides a time or two—like your friend Ranulf of Caen… And he certainly wasn’t very fatherly to young William, at the siege of Newbury—Newbury, wasn’t it?’

Mercifully, Audley didn’t expect an answer now, but merely sniffed his characteristic sniff. ‘I reckon he knew Stephen was far Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State too kind-hearted to execute his hostages… But then Stephen is a good example of your fundamentally decent chap who is also a fundamental idiot, when it comes to politics… So perhaps John Marshall wasn’t so unspeakable at Newbury, when Stephen threatened to hang little William before the castle wall—you remember? And John said he had hammers and anvils to forge a better son than William—? “Hammers and anvils”, indeed! Dirty devil!’

Was that in Gesta Stephani! Tom put his foot down, irritated by his inadequacy. ‘I’m more into fortification than politics, David…

actually.’

‘Ah… yes…“ Audley settled himself down. ’Now… that is a rather impressive motte at Oxford, isn’t it? Just opposite that architectural monstrosity of Nuffield College—”the spirit is willing, but the fleche is weak“, don’t they say? With Oxford Gaol in the bailey— and St George’s Tower at the back? Is that Matilda’s Castle?‘

Was he being tested? ‘There were shell-walls in the Oxford motte.

And Gesta Stephani says there was water all round, plus marshes—

the Gesta says Stephen swam the river under fire, to take the city…

Doesn’t it, David?’

‘Does it? But he didn’t take the castle… Would his siege-works have been roughly where Nuffield College is now?’ For a moment Audley sounded genuinely interested. ‘But then the water-table at Oxford must have been very different then—to get a wet-moat up round the mound, surely? Don’t you have to go uphill, towards the appalling Westgate shopping centre?’ Then his voice faded. ‘Not Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State that it matters… since Matilda got away, down her rope, in the snow, to Wallingford Castle—didn’t she—?’

Wallingford had been the key strong-point on the upper Thames, the great strategic medieval honour of the region—

Damn! What the hell was Audley up to?

‘In the snow…’ Audley murmured the words to himself, but with a different emphasis, as though they had reminded him of some other White Christmas in Oxford, long after the Empress Matilda had contested Oxford and England with Stephen of Blois ‘… in the snow in Oxford? But now we have Russians, with snow on their boots, on Exmoor… But why on Exmoor, Tom?’

Audley had got there simultaneously, though in a different way. ‘I don’t know, David. But that’s where he wants to meet you.’

‘I believe you. Because, for the time being… and maybe for your dear mother’s sake… I choose to believe you. But also because I don’t really have much choice, at this moment—do I?’

They were settled in the fast lane now, with uneven lines of red rear-lights stretching far ahead of them, to be overtaken, while a matching line of yellow-white headlights whipped past them on the oncoming lanes to the right. So there was the twentieth century and sudden death a few yards away; but there was the twelfth century, with all its very different, yet nonetheless human, calculations of ends against middles, and loyalties and affections, still in the background of both their minds. And he had nothing to say about that.