The Conqueror (11 page)

‘Who knows? Beware him, beau sire! I have heard already a murmur of excommunication. How then would you stand?’

‘By the Christ, as I stand now!’ the Duke said, his anger flaring higher. ‘If Mauger thinks to find my hand gentle on him for the sake of our kinship he will learn to know me better yet. God knows I will be gentle while I may, but if he will have me for an enemy, why, so be it!’ He unclasped his mantle, and cast it swirling from him. ‘My trust is in Lanfranc for that part of the business.’ The furious look was dispersed by a sudden smile that showed the boy still in him. ‘For the rest, my Raoul, I will trust in myself, and go to Flanders.’

‘Well said,’ Raoul agreed. ‘I will have a little wager with FitzOsbern on the outcome.’

The Duke lay down on the bed again, propping his head on his hand. ‘You will certainly win, Raoul,’ he said with a laugh.

‘As to that, beau sire, are you so sure which side I take?’ Raoul murmured.

The Duke sat up with a jerk. ‘Now by my father’s head, if you are to doubt me – !’ he began, but broke off as he saw Raoul laughing at him. He flung himself down again on the skins. ‘Wager as you will: he who lays against me loses,’ he said, and shut his eyes for sleep. There was just enough defiance in his voice to tell one who knew him well that for once he was not certain of success.

Two

Of the three hostages Edgar was the most bewildered by all he saw in Rouen, and gave the least sign of it. Wlnoth, with characteristic easiness, exclaimed at every novelty and quickly accustomed himself to the new life; Hakon blinked at a strange world but was too young to speculate upon it. Only Edgar remained an exile, lonely in the midst of a shifting mass of foreigners.

For long afterwards he was to remember how Rouen had first appeared to him, a lovely city against whose grey walls the Norman Court shone in splendour. In the Duke’s Castle, no homely building of wood, but a vast stone palace, were high vaulted halls, and many arches ornamented with chevrons carved in relief. Edgar’s home in Wessex was built all of wood; inside the walls were covered with crude paintings and curtains to hide the rough surface, so that the house seemed friendly and warm when one stepped into it. In the Duke’s palace were also hangings of woven stuff, but they were different from the Saxon
wahrift.
They were made of stiff tapestry, cunningly embroidered, but though they might be rich with gold thread, or glowing with red and purple silks, they were never bright with a medley of sharp colours such as a Saxon loved. They were used to cover archways or to line bed-chambers, but where the master-masons had worked mouldings on the walls no hangings hid these from sight. Edgar would walk down long echoing galleries, and think he felt the chill of the stone in his flesh.

At table it was long before he ceased to look for the boiled meats his palate craved. He could not stay his stomach with the dishes Normans liked. He wanted to see haunches of English oxen roasted on the spits, and instead the servers displayed cranes farced with queer pungent spices; porpoises dressed with frumenty; rose-mortrews, an unsatisfying mess of powdered chicken and rose-leaves; jellies dyed with columbine flowers; unwholesome subtleties such as dolphins in foyle, marchpane garnished with figures of angels, and white leaches embellished with hawthorn leaves and red brambleberries. Even the boar’s head, which was borne in with trumpeters going before, was spiced till he could barely recognize its true flavour. He ate of peacock, a royal dish, and esteemed it less than the stubble-goose; he watched the Duke’s carvers lift swans, sauce capons, unlace conies, dismember herons, and wished that instead of serving such rare food as this they were breaking good venison, or slicing plain boiled sheep’s flesh.

The meats were served on silver dishes; the salt-cellars were gilt within and without, standing sometimes a foot high, their covers encrusted with jewels; fine surnappes of linen out of Ypres covered the tables; wine was not poured into horns, but into gold cups, or glass vessels tinted amber and blue and red, with spidery threads laid on, or gouts blown in their smooth sides. Pages of the Diaper scurried hither and yon; seneschals, stewards, ushers, chamberlains saw to the comfort of the Court. There were chairs to sit upon, elaborately carved with griffins’ and eagles’ heads; foot-stools embroidered with lions or flowers; beds with straw mattresses, soft reindeer-skins for chalons, and curtains on rings that slid along rods. Even the palace windows were glazed with crystal or beryl. Edgar knew that in King Edward’s palace at Westminster there were such windows, and in great Earls’ houses too, but at Marwell shutters kept out too strong a wind, or panels of horn set in wooden calmes.

In Normandy men wore long tunics of rich cloth; each one had his squire and his pages to attend him, so that the palace teemed with all these people, and servants quarrelled and fought, and fell over one another in their numbers. Splendour, wealth: Edgar’s heart cried out for the ruder life in his English home. These Normans lavished money on the ornamenting of their houses and their persons and their monasteries, but in England men set little store by stately buildings or costly plate so long as platters were piled high and drinking-horns brimmed over. From scorn at their extravagance he passed to wonder at their curious austerity. They were at once more violent and more temperate than the Saxons. A Saxon thought no ill of eating to satiation and drinking to stupor; a Norman who showed himself glutton or drunkard was regarded with contempt by his fellows. In England men were slow to anger, but in Normandy swords flashed out at a word, and enmity flared high upon small provocation. Where their hatreds and their ambitions were concerned the Normans were barbarous in their ruthlessness as no Saxon would have stooped to be, but whereas in England it was becoming less and less the fashion to love learning and give honour to the Church, in Normandy men were strict in all religious observances, and a mere knowledge of reading and writing was no longer considered sufficient for any man of degree.

It was all strange to Edgar, and desolatingly alien. Unlike Wlnoth, who in one week had his hair cut short and his tunic made longer in imitation of his hosts, Edgar obstinately preserved his flowing curls and his golden beard, and continued to walk abroad in a tunic that barely reached his knees. He was prepared to dislike every Norman he saw, and had no difficulty in finding many worthy of his scorn. There were those like Archbishop Mauger, licentious men, smooth-tongued, lapped in luxury; there were cruel intemperate men like the young Lord of Moulines-la-Marche, who tortured pages for his sport. But there were also men of De Gournay’s kidney, shrewd and roughly faithful, who commanded respect; there were eager impetuous men like FitzOsbern; wise politic men such as Lanfranc; friendly men like Raoul de Harcourt and Gilbert d’Aufay, whom it was hard to withstand. Like bees about a hive they swarmed before Edgar’s wondering eyes; great names echoed through the lofty palace: Tesson of Cingueliz; Saint-Sauveur; Giffard of Longueville; Robert, the Count of Mortain, half-brother to the Duke; Odo, his brother, who came now and again from Bayeux in episcopal splendour; Robert, the Count of Eu, whose gay laugh contrasted oddly with his brother Busac’s scowls; William Malet, part Norman, part Saxon; D’Albini, the sleek cup-bearer; Grantmesnil, Ferrières, Montgoméri, Montfort, Estouteville: on and on rolled the sum of names, bewildering, grandiloquent, all haut seigneurs, some with ambitions that made them dangerous, some with swords fretful in their scabbards, some arrogant, some quarrelsome, all splendid restless figures, plotting, grasping, shouldering their way through a world that seemed hardly large enough to contain them. Amid the blaze of magnificence they created the Duke stood out, a man of a hundred moods, wise as Lanfranc, or impetuous as FitzOsbern, but always sure of himself, seeing his path clear ahead of him. One could hate him, but it was not possible to despise him. Edgar, whose hands had lain between Earl Harold’s, would never render to Duke William liking, but respect was forced from him against his will. This he must give, but while he gave he knew that William cared nothing for the applause or the condemnation of any man. There was cold steel in the Duke, he thought, and at once his mind winged to Harold, his dear lord, who carried a warm heart in his breast, and drew men to him whether they would or no. Maybe the greater man stood aloof, remote from the gentler human weaknesses: Edgar’s love for Harold cried hotly
No
to that, but gradually as he came to know William a little chill fear stole into his loyalty. The Duke might have moods of gaiety, of unexpected kindness, but nothing would ever be allowed to stand between him and his purpose. Edgar suspected that he would go to any lengths to achieve his ends, sweeping aside all scruples, all mercy, while with a relentlessness that had in it something overwhelming, he bent or broke men to his own unbending and unbreakable will.

Yet he commanded devotion, devotion of such men as Raoul de Harcourt, who had coaxed Edgar into friendship. In a mood of sullen homesickness Edgar said: ‘You think he cares whether you give him allegiance. I am very sure they are nothing to him, either friendship or enmity.’

Raoul laughed at him. ‘Oho, do you know him so well? I thought you were too proud to notice any Norman.’

‘You are pleased to mock at me, but you know that is not so,’ said Edgar, reddening.

‘When you thrust your chin up under that fine beard of yours, of course I mock at you,’ Raoul answered. ‘I never knew there were such stiff-necked men in England.’

Edgar grew redder still. ‘If I have lacked in courtesy, I crave pardon,’ he said.

‘O Saxon barbarian, you grow more haughty still!’

Edgar’s fist clenched. ‘You shall not call me that – Norman shaveling!’

‘Shall I not? But you may call me shaveling with my good will.’

Edgar sat down on a stool near the bench along which Raoul sprawled, and gave his head a rueful shake. ‘You seek me out to laugh at me, I believe,’ he said. ‘Or to make me lose my temper and behave like the barbarian you think me.’

‘Oh no, I have wagered with Gilbert d’Aufay that I will make you leave hating Normans, that is all,’ Raoul assured him.

‘I don’t hate Normans,’ Edgar said. ‘I told you that my mother was one. I don’t understand them, and it is not very pleasant to be an exile in a strange land, but I am not such a fool that I would hate a man for not being a Saxon.’

‘Nobly said,’ Raoul applauded lazily. ‘Soon you will even like us.’

Edgar looked down at him with a lurking smile. ‘When you will be serious I do like you, as you very well know,’ he said. ‘You, and Gilbert, and many others. You have shown me much kindness; for which I thank you.’

Raoul saw Gilbert d’Aufay crossing the hall, and hailed him. ‘Gilbert, here is Edgar giving us thanks for our kindness. He is very proud to-day.’

‘He is always very proud,’ said d’Aufay, strolling towards them. ‘He told me I was an idle dog because I bade him go hawking with me this morning. They do not hawk in England, Raoul.’

‘Nay, I said no such thing!’ protested Edgar. ‘We love sport as much as you do, and maybe more. But I was not in the humour for it.’

Gilbert sat astride the end of Raoul’s bench. ‘Well, there is to be a welcome end,’ he said. ‘We are leaving you for the while, from what I hear. Is it so, Raoul?’

Raoul nodded. ‘It is so. You are to be rid of us both, Edgar. The Duke is journeying into Flanders, and we go with him.’

‘I am sorry,’ Edgar said. ‘I shall miss you. Will it be for long?’

‘Who knows?’ Raoul said, with a shrug of his shoulders.

The slow smile crept into Edgar’s eyes.
‘I suppose the Duke knows, and if any other does it is you,’ he said shrewdly.

‘You see more than one would guess,’ chuckled Gilbert. ‘Of course he knows, but you will never prevail on him to tell.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Raoul. ‘Do you think William our Duke tells his secrets to any man?’ He glanced towards Edgar. ‘Perhaps we shall see Tostig, who, they say, is at Count Baldwin’s Court.’

Edgar gave a snort. ‘What is that to me?’ he said. ‘I am no man of his.’

‘Oh?’ Raoul’s brows began to lift. ‘But you are Harold’s man, are you not?’

‘Harold is not Tostig,’ Edgar said curtly.

‘I believe you dream of this Harold of yours,’ remarked Gilbert, with a sly look. ‘He is to you what his love is to another man.’ As Edgar made no reply to this, but only coloured up in the betraying way he had, Gilbert said innocently: ‘What is he like? Is he like Wlnoth?’

‘Wlnoth!’ Edgar exclaimed indignantly. ‘Harold is like no other man. If ever you see him you will know why it is folly to compare him with any one of his brothers.’ As though regretting his outburst he shut his lips on further speech, and only replied to Gilbert’s teasing with a furious look under his brows. Raoul rose up from the bench in a minute or two, and moved away to the stairs, saying over his shoulder: ‘Come, Saxon, else you will be at poor Gilbert’s throat.’

Edgar followed him up the stairway into the gallery.

‘You are too serious,’ Raoul said gently. ‘Gilbert means no harm.’

‘I know.’ Edgar leaned his big shoulders against one of the arches. His head was golden against the grey stone; his eyes very blue. ‘I am out of temper,’ he said. ‘I have seen Wlnoth habited like you Normans, and aping your manners, and it has made me angry, and sore – here.’ He touched his breast fleetingly.

‘Why?’ Raoul asked, looking down absently into the hall below them. ‘He is young, and he does not feel like you that we are his foes.’ He turned his head, and found Edgar’s eyes steadily fixed on his face.

‘Can you say that you are not our foes?’ Edgar said in a low voice.

‘Is that how you think of us?’

‘Not you, no. Your Duke is my foe because I am Harold’s man, and England’s. I know why I am here, why Wlnoth is here, and Hakon. But you shall never hold Harold on such a rein as that.’

Raoul did not reply. He was looking at Edgar in a rather startled way, wondering how much he knew, or guessed. Edgar had folded his arms across his massive chest; the hairs on them were pale gold, like his ringlets, and his crisp beard. ‘King Edward can will his throne away,’ he said, ‘but Duke William will only reach it across our dead.’

His deep, rather rough voice echoed faintly round the stone gallery. A queer silence followed it, and over Raoul, like a sudden chill, stole a feeling of prescience. He saw Edgar at his feet, with his golden curls dabbled in blood, and his vigorous limbs sprawling and limp. He lifted his hand to his eyes,
and covered them as though to shut out a dreadful vision.

‘Why, what is it?’ Edgar asked.

‘Nothing.’ Raoul’s hand fell. ‘I am not your foe, not England’s. My desires lead not that way.’

‘No, but you will follow your master as I shall follow mine,’ said Edgar. ‘Perhaps you won’t want what he wants, but I think that will make small difference. We have chosen, you and I, to follow two men from whom there can be no turning back.’ He seemed to shrug. ‘What are they, our little loves and hatreds? Do you call yourself my friend? You will be swept from me to serve William’s ends when the times comes.’