The Conqueror (15 page)

In the bower her ladies flew to succour Matilda, with little crooning noises, and fluttering hands. She was looking at the bruises on her wrists; they were alarmed to see her so rapt and still. Judith drove them out, slamming the door upon their protests. She came back to Matilda, and knelt by her. ‘Child, you would not be warned,’ she said.

Matilda’s lips twisted into the semblance of a smile. ‘Do you pity me, Judith?’

‘Not I, sweetheart. You have come by your deserts.’

Matilda straightened her body with a grimace of pain. ‘What did they do to him?’ she asked.

‘Why, what should they do to such an one as he?’

‘Nothing,’ said Matilda. ‘But they might have slain him. I wonder, did he think of that?’ She lifted her hands and considered her bruises again. Her calm broke; she cast herself on Judith’s breast, crying piteously: ‘Ah, ah, he has hurt me, Judith!’

Four

There was an air of expectancy about the Norman Court for many days after the Duke’s flying visit to Lille. The tale of his doings there leaked out, and was whispered in various garbled versions from one man to another. But no man thought fit to mention it to the Duke himself. Some confidently prophesied that Count Baldwin’s cartel of war would come, but these were proved to be wrong. No one knew what Count Baldwin said or thought when he returned from that fateful day’s hawking and found his daughter bruised and prostrate, and his Court seething with impotent fury. Whatever his feelings he was not the man to allow these to thrust him unwarily into hostilities. He was a powerful prince, and no craven, but he quite definitely did not want to go to war with his Norman neighbour. ‘There is one man in the world,’ said Count Baldwin, ‘who has the art of war at his finger-ends, and that man is Duke William. I have said enough.’

His nobles considered that he took Normandy’s daring too meekly; the Lady Matilda nursed her sore sides, and spoke no word; Count Baldwin wrote careful letters to the Duke in Rouen, and digested his answers with a thoughtful eye. He judged it politic to tell his daughter she was a ruined woman. She propped her chin in her hands, and looked at him without apparent dismay.

‘Matilda,’ said her father, ‘what prince will pick up that which Normandy has mauled? By the Saints, you were best in a nunnery, it seems to me.’

Matilda said: ‘What prince would dare stretch a hand towards that which Normandy covets?’

‘You mistake the matter, girl,’ said Count Baldwin. ‘Normandy has done with you.’

‘Nay, he will know no peace until I lie in his bed,’ answered Matilda.

‘This is forward talk,’ frowned the Count, and left it at that.

In Rouen it was thought that the Duke must have abandoned all thought of marriage with the Flemish lady, but Lanfranc was not recalled from Rome. Archbishop Mauger, eating dulcets in his palace, spent a long hour of meditation upon this, and contrived to send word to his brother, the Count of Arques, who was, by reason of the ducal garrison about him, virtually a prisoner in his own wind-swept castle. Mauger was uncertain of the Duke’s mind but he feared the tenacity of his nature.

Upon the ride back to Eu the Duke had said with a confident ring in his voice: ‘I shall have her yet, but by God’s eyes
she shall find no softness in me!’

‘If that is the mind you are in,’ had answered Raoul tartly, ‘it seems to me you had best look for a bride you can love, and forget the Lady Matilda.’

The Duke said: ‘I have sworn to have Matilda, and none other. Either for love or for hatred she is mine.’

‘A difficult conquest, William,’ was all Raoul would say.

‘Trust me, I shall conquer,’ the Duke replied.

That was the only mention he made of Matilda for many a day. He had other matters to occupy his thoughts, and upon his return to Rouen he plunged into an orgy of work, thrusting the marriage question to the back of his mind. Civil and ecclesiastical reforms held him busy for the rest of the year, drawing some groans from his hard-driven barons, and from Edgar, Thegn of Marwell, a grudging admiration. Edgar said slowly: ‘Yea, I see he is indeed a ruler. I thought him only a man of blood.’

Gilbert d’Aufay, to whom this was addressed, laughed, and inquired what had provoked the tribute. They were seated by one of the upper windows of the palace at Rouen, which looked over the Seine to the Forest of Quévilly beyond. With his eyes on the far trees Edgar replied: ‘These new laws, the way he uses with men who are dangerous to his Duchy. He is very crafty; very politic.’

‘You have been watching him close, my Saxon,’ said Gilbert.

Edgar hunched his shoulder; a shadow flitted across his blue eyes. ‘What have I to do now but watch other men’s deeds?’ he said rather bitterly.

‘I thought you were content enough,’ said Gilbert.

‘Not content. Never that,’ Edgar answered. He saw that Gilbert looked a little hurt, and added: ‘Rest you, I do very well, and maybe I am no longer so grievously exiled since I have your friendship, and Raoul’s.’

‘And others too from what I hear. But it is always Raoul with you.’ Gilbert cocked up a quizzical eyebrow. ‘You make a brother of him, do you not? Do you understand each other so well?’

‘Yes,’ said Edgar uncommunicatively. He lifted a corner of his mantle, and drew it across his knees. ‘I never had a brother,’ he said. ‘I have just one sister, Elfrida.’ He stifled a sigh. ‘She was a little maid when I left her, but I doubt she will have grown now.’

‘Maybe you will be free to return to England ere many months,’ Gilbert said, in an awkward attempt to console a homesickness he could plainly see.

‘Maybe,’ replied Edgar, expressionless.

But gradually the desire for England was growing less in him. It was impossible to live for so long in Normandy without beginning to feel himself at home there. He had made friends; unwillingly he was interested in the affairs of the Duchy. A little sadly he thought that he was becoming like Wlnoth, a Normanized Englishman, and when Busac’s rebellion broke upon Normandy he forgot he was a Saxon and a hostage; he only knew that he had stayed for so long in the Norman Court, and entered so often into talk that was all of the Duchy’s weal that an attempt to overset the Duke’s peace made him as indignant as his hosts. He saw the messenger arrive covered with dust, and an hour later met Raoul in one of the galleries of the great palace. Raoul said: ‘Have you heard what has chanced? William Busac has invested the Castle of Eu against the Duke.’

‘Who marches against him?’ Edgar asked eagerly. ‘Will it be the Lord of Longueville, or the Duke himself? I would I might go too.’

‘Oh, the Duke himself,’ Raoul answered, carefully ignoring the last part of Edgar’s speech.

They walked on down the gallery together, discussing the affair, wondering which barons were likely to join Busac, and which of them would be against him, until suddenly Edgar realized that he was talking as though he too were a Norman, and broke off, feeling himself neither Norman nor Saxon, but for the moment only a young man who wanted to ride to war with this other young man, his friend.

The Duke made short work of Busac, hotly assisted by the rebel’s brothers: Robert, who had rashly entrusted the Castle of Eu to his care, and Hugh, Abbot of Luxeuil, who journeyed expressly to Rouen to urge the Duke to take strong measures. This was superfluous advice; the Duke had already departed for Eu, where, after the shortest of sieges, he took the Castle by storm, imposed penalties upon the quaking garrison, and sent Busac into banishment. It was soon heard that Busac had sought refuge in the King of France’s Court, and had been received with kindness. That was significant enough; the King was beginning to show his hostility towards Duke William.

Busac’s rebellion was one of many signs of unrest. With Val-es-dunes fading into a four-year-old memory Normandy began to lift up her head again. The Duchy was not wholly William’s yet, and well he knew it. The greater part of his nobles might be with him, the serfs and burghers were his to a man, since he gave them rigid justice, but there were still those who preferred the old lawless way of life. In various districts brigandage was rife, private quarrels were settled by burning and death, and grasping barons seized what they could whenever they thought the Duke’s back safely turned. His hand was heavy on those who overset his peace, but throughout the second year of Edgar’s exile tiny disturbances, like the scum bubbling in a simmering pot, occurred continually. It might be no more than the raiding of a neighbour’s land; once it was a murder at a wedding-feast; once a band of brigands who made fifty miles of country unsafe for honest men to live in, but whether it was murder or brigandage it was always a sign of unrest, skilfully and secretly fomented by the man who lay so low at Arques.

Nearly a year after the happenings at Lille it was heard that Earl Godwine had joined forces with his son Harold. Next it was heard that King Edward had been pleased to inlaw Godwine and both his sons, and to bestow on Tostig, lately wedded to his Judith, the vacant Earldom of Northumbria. There came a new light into Edgar’s eyes; even Normanized Wlnoth boasted that King Edward dared not oppose his kindred. Duke William appeared to bestow no more than a fleeting attention on the news, but in the seclusion of his chamber he struck his hand down on the table, and said in open exasperation: ‘God’s death, was there ever so great a nithing as Edward?’ He thrust his hand in Raoul’s arm. ‘None, I am very sure, but you need not say that I said so.’

Earl Godwine was not long to survive his reinstatement. In the spring of the New Year word came of his death, and a strange tale was brought by the merchants from England. It was said that the hand of God had struck Earl Godwine down at the King’s board. He had called to his son Harold to bring him wine at the feast which was to mark his reconciliation with Edward. As he approached, bearing the drinking-cup, Harold almost fell, with a foot caught in some obstacle. Throwing out his right leg he recovered his balance, whereupon the Earl, in great spirits, quoted an old proverb: ‘One brother helps the other.’ King Edward, not so elated, said gloomily: ‘Ah, so would my brother Alfred have helped me had he lived, Earl Godwine.’

The Earl had heard more than enough of Alfred’s death. It was not his custom to pay any heed to the charge so often flung at his head, but upon this occasion he had drunk enough to make him resent the King’s words. Breaking off a piece of wastel bread, he looked Edward angrily in the face, and said in a loud voice: ‘O King, if I had aught to do with Alfred’s death, may this morsel of bread choke me!’ With that he boldly thrust the bread into his mouth, was taken by a kind of seizure, very dreadful to behold, and fell down with foam on his lips and the bread stuck tight in his throat. An hour later he was a dead man, and King Edward was shaking his head in a way that showed he was not at all surprised.

But all this interesting news from England, even the growing power of Harold, could not keep the Duke’s attention for long. He was busy with the breaking of his fierce colt Normandy.

Trouble drew him to the unquiet Côtentin; while he lay once more at Valognes a messenger reached him on an all but foundered horse, tumbled from the saddle, and delivered a sealed package into his hands.

The Duke was on the point of setting out with Saint-Sauveur upon a journey still further to the west. He was armed and cloaked; a straining squire held his horse; his knights were gathered around him. He slit the package with his dagger, and spread out the frail sheets of cotton paper.

FitzOsbern covered two pages with his account of disaster. No sooner had the Duke crossed the Vire than the prisoner at Arques struck at the safety of Normandy. He had won over the garrison set about him, and was now master of the Castle, and was rapidly reducing the surrounding land of Tallou to a state of miserable slavery.

The Duke’s face darkened; he let a great oath, and crumpled the letter in his hand. Néel de Saint-Sauveur asked anxiously what had befallen, and was told in a few words. The Duke tossed the crumpled letter to him; he spread out the sheets and read them, while the others gathered in the courtyard whispered together, and wondered what would come of it.

The Duke had taken Malet’s bridle from the lad who held it, and before the Viscount of Côtentin had finished reading the Seneschal’s message he was in the saddle, his horse sidling and dancing in a fret to be off. ‘Now I shall see which of you is ready!’ quoth the Duke. ‘Now I shall see who will follow me! To Arques, messires!’ He gave Malet his head, and the black horse sprang forward. Men jumped quickly out of reach of the plunging hooves; the Duke was away.

Upwards of fifty men streamed after him; six only were still with him at the end of that nightmare journey. They rode from Valognes to Bayeux, their numbers dwindling. At Bayeux the Duke had a brief interview with his young half-brother, the Bishop, and was off again in an hour. His knights followed him doggedly, knowing that his haste was not wanton. Reinforcements might even now have joined the Count of Arques, and if the jealous King of France were marching to his aid, as rumour whispered, the Duke’s only hope of staving off a bloody campaign was to reach Arques before him.

They passed by Caen, and rode on towards Pont Audémar. There Gilbert d’Aufay dropped out upon a foundered horse.

‘Eh, Gilbert, are you done?’ Raoul called to him.

‘A curse on this brute; he can no more,’ Gilbert answered. ‘Who rides still with William?’

‘Néel is here, with two of his men; de Montfort holds close; the Viscount of Avranchin; myself, and some others yet: maybe a score. If I tarry I shall never catch William this side Seine.’

‘Go then. If I can come by a horse I will follow you.’ Gilbert waved him on, and began to rub his aching limbs.

At Caudebec Raoul’s horse sank under him. The Duke rested his little troop by the river bank, and got news from a scout of a loyal band of three hundred men who had sallied forth to oppose the Count of Arques. Raoul was sent off to the capital with a message for FitzOsbern, and Saint-Sauveur rode beside him a little way at a walking pace. ‘Go with God,’ he said, smiling. ‘I will play the Watcher for once, ill though you may like it.’

Raoul shook his head. ‘Nay, there is no more strength in me,’ he confessed. ‘I am done, and must have failed in another hour. Do not leave him, Chef de Faucon, for by this hand I tell you he will not pause though every man of you falls out upon the road.’

‘You have no need to fear me,’ the Viscount promised, and rode back to rejoin William.