The Conqueror (21 page)

‘God be thanked!’ The exclamation came from the Duke; he strode forward to Raoul’s side, and thrust him into his own armed-chair by the table. ‘I have been thinking you dead these three days, my friend,’ he said. His hand pressed Raoul’s shoulder slightly; he glanced impatiently towards his half-brother. ‘Wine, Robert!’

Mortain was already pouring wine into a horn from a costrel that stood upon the table. Hubert snatched it from him, and put it to Raoul’s lips as though he thought Raoul had no strength to hold it.

Raoul took the horn with the shadow of a grin, and drank deep. Then he fetched a sigh, and looked in rather a dazed way from one to the other of the three faces bent so eagerly over him. Gilbert, who had followed him into the tent, saw the blood trickling from under the bandage round his arm, and said suddenly: ‘I’ll go call the surgeon!’ and hurried out.

‘I don’t want a surgeon,’ said Raoul in a voice thick with weariness. He sat up, and looked at the Duke. ‘I could not come before,’ he said.

‘What tidings do you bring me, Raoul?’ the Duke asked. ‘Where lies Prince Eudes?’

Raoul pushed the damp ringlets back from his brow. ‘Fled – all fled.’ He gave a faint shudder. ‘There are ten thousand dead at Mortemer. I stayed to bring the tidings.’ He fumbled in the wallet at his girdle, and pulled out a sealed packet. ‘These from Count Robert.’

‘God on the Cross!’ Mortain cried. ‘Ten thousand dead?’

The Duke took the packet from Raoul and slit it open. While he read the despatch, and Mortain and Hubert plied Raoul with questions, Gilbert brought the surgeon into the tent, and this worthy laid bare an ugly gash on Raoul’s forearm, and began to bathe and tend it.

Hubert said, inspecting the wound: ‘That’s nothing. How did you come by it? Not at this fight at Mortemer?’

‘This scratch? Oh no, I had nothing to do at Mortemer. I was set upon about five leagues from here, I think.’ He looked down at his arm, which the surgeon was holding over a bowl, and said: ‘Tie it up, man! I can’t bleed like a pig all over the Duke’s tent.’

The Duke came back to the table, holding the despatch in his hands. ‘Don’t be a fool, Raoul,’ he said. ‘Do you suppose I mind a little blood?’ He sat down on one of the stools. ‘Well, Robert writes he has scattered the Belgic host, and holds Guy of Ponthieu captive. Now tell me how it went.’

‘It is all muddled in my head,’ Raoul complained. Again a faint shudder shook him. ‘I can’t get the smell of blood out of my nose,’ he said with a look of disgust.

‘Never mind about that,’ said Hubert. ‘Don’t you see the Duke is waiting to hear your story?’

Raoul smiled across at William. ‘Oh … yes! Well, when I reached Count Robert he was encamped by the Andelle and had got news from Ralph de Mortemer that Prince Eudes had marched into Mortemer-en-Lions, and was housed there with all his force … If you don’t give me something to eat I can’t tell you anything. I have been fasting since yesterday.’

‘Mass! Are you not famished?’ Mortain, appalled at such a privation, rose up hurriedly from his stool, and went to where the remains of the Duke’s supper still stood against the side of the tent.

‘Yes, but I could come by nothing because all the serfs are fled in terror of the French.’ Raoul took the bread and meat from Mortain, and fell to. Between mouthfuls he said: ‘I gave the Count your letters, beau sire. Then his spies came in with the news of Eudes being at Mortemer, and Robert, hearing how the French were busy sacking the place, and guessing that those who were not drunk that night would be lying with the bordel-women, gave orders for a swift march by night upon the town, and sent word to Drimcourt to advise De Gournay, and the Lord of Longueville.’ He drank deeply, and nodded at William. ‘All this as you would do it, beau sire.’

‘That was three days ago?’ said the Duke, consulting the despatch.

‘Yes, I think so. We fell in with De Gournay on the road, and came in sight of Mortemer before dawn, and surrounded it. Ralph de Mortemer was with us. He said the Castle held out still, but that made no odds. Eudes, and the other princes – Ponthieu and Montdidier, and Herbert of Vermandois, and the Count of Soissons – oh
yes
,
and Clermont, of course – were housed snug enough. It was just as Robert thought: they were all either sleeping off their liquor, or wenching, and kept no watch. We came up without a soul being the wiser.’

‘Did Robert follow my counsel?’ interrupted the Duke. ‘Drunk or not, they were fifteen thousand strong, as I judge.’

Raoul winced as the surgeon pulled the bindings tight round his arm. ‘Rest you, seigneur, he wasted no lives. All was done as we planned here. Robert set fire to the outlying houses, and had brands dipped in pitch flung into the town by the balistas.’ He broke off, staring before him as though he saw again that flaming hell.

‘That was well thought of!’ Mortain cried. ‘I’ll warrant the place burned merrily!’

Raoul gave a slight start, and glanced fleetingly towards him. ‘Yes.’ He drew a long breath. ‘It did burn quickly.’

‘But what then?’ Hubert asked, nudging him. ‘Were they all roasted alive, or did they fight?’

‘Some – those who were too drunk to move – were burned. Most escaped from the town. Robert’s men guarded the streets, but the French fought like men possessed. But they had no time to rally to their leaders: we cut them down as they tried to break out. Waleran of Ponthieu was slain: I saw him go down; Count Guy himself was taken, and Montdidier. Eudes escaped; I think Renault de Clermont too: I’m not sure. Mortemer was only ashes by noon, with charred bodies, and the reek of burned flesh –’ He got up suddenly. ‘Oh, I don’t want to talk of it!’ he cried angrily.

‘Holy Face, one would think you didn’t want the French to be slain,’ said Hubert, gaping at him.

‘Of course I wanted it!’ Raoul flung over his shoulder. ‘I would have fired the town with my own hands! But they did fight like heroes, and I suppose I need not enjoy hearing the screams of men roasted to death, need I?’

‘Go to bed, Raoul,’ the Duke said. ‘We all know that you fight like a wood-fiend during the battle, and turn sick as soon as it is done.’

‘God’s death, I am not sick!’ Raoul said sharply. ‘We have scattered the French, and I don’t care a stiver for aught else.’ On his way to the opening of the tent he paused, and said over his shoulder: ‘I slew two myself, very nastily. Those who dealt me this.’ He touched his wounded arm, and his rueful grin crept up into his eyes.

‘Slit their windpipes?’ inquired Hubert hopefully.

Raoul looked surprised. ‘No, ripped up the guts of one, and rode Blanchflower over the other. Gilbert, I’m so tired I can’t stand without reeling like a drunk Frenchman. Give me your arm, lest I be shamed before the whole camp.’ He went out, leaning on Gilbert’s shoulder, and not until they were in their own small tent, and he had stretched himself out on his pallet did he speak again. ‘It’s a pity Edgar could not have been there,’ he remarked sleepily. ‘He would have liked it much better than I did.’

‘I expect you liked it well enough while it was doing,’ remarked Gilbert matter-of-factly.

Raoul’s eyes had closed, but he opened them again, and looked up at Gilbert in a doubtful considering way. ‘Yes, I did – part of it. But some of it was horrible. Many of the Frenchmen had no time to put on their hauberks, and they had lost their weapons, so they were just hacked to pieces, and some thrust into the flames to perish. You wouldn’t have liked that. You wouldn’t have liked to hear the women screaming either. And there was one little child ran naked out of a house … Oh well! It is war. But I wish the child had not been one of our people.’

‘If the French had conquered there would have been more than one Norman brat slain,’ Gilbert pointed out.

‘Of course. I’m glad we have avenged ourselves. The French sacked and burned all they could lay their hands to on their march to Mortemer.’ His eyelids drooped wearily. ‘One hates them. Yet when you see them die like that you can’t help being a little sorry.’ He opened his eyes
again, and they were twinkling. ‘I expect my brothers were right, and I ought to be in a cloister after all,’ he remarked, and, turning on his side, was asleep almost at once.

He was the only man to sleep any more that night. As the dawn stole above the horizon the French were awakened in their camp by a horn winding eerily through the stillness. The guards grasped their gavelocs more tightly, listening and wondering. The horn sounded again, and a third time. It was close at hand, but the morning mists shrouded the trumpeter from view. Heads were raised; men scrambled up asking what was the matter, whether the Normans were upon them? and the Count of Nevers, disturbed by the sudden commotion, came out of his tent with a mantle thrown over his thin tunic.

‘A horn, lord,’ one of the guards told him. ‘Someone is without our lines. Ah! ah! what is that?’

Fulk of Angoulême came up with his rolling gait, and his hose all unbound. ‘What’s this?’ he snapped, but was checked by Nevers’s upflung hand.

Once more the sennet sounded, ending its call on a triumphant flourish.

‘Whoever it is must be upon that hillock,’ muttered Nevers, peering to where they could perceive the shoulder of a slight hill rearing up through the mist.

Across the intervening space a shrill voice flung its message. ‘My name is Ralph de Toeni,’ it cried. ‘I bring ye tidings!’

A murmur rose amongst the Frenchmen; Nevers strode forward, straining his eyes to pierce the dim light. The wind was blowing the mist in wreaths across the hill, and through it they could just distinguish the figure of a mounted man silhouetted in the faint light. Clearly his voice floated to their ears. ‘Hasten with your carts and carriages to Mortemer, and carry off your dead!’ he called. ‘The French have braved our chivalry; let them deplore the venture! Eudes the King’s brother is fled; Guy of Ponthieu is captive; the rest are slain or prisoned or dispersed. It is the Duke of Normandy who tells this to the King of France!’ A mocking laugh ended his speech; something fluttered on the end of his lance: it might have been a gonfanon. He wheeled his horse about, and disappeared into the mist, and the sound of the charger’s hooves was quickly muffled in the fog.

Several of the French soldiers rushed forward in the vain hope of catching the herald; their figures became shadowy in the mist, and one among them cried out suddenly in a voice of alarm.

Nevers leaped after them. ‘What is it?’ he shouted, dreading he scarcely knew what hidden peril.

The man who had cried out was pale with fright. ‘A hare jumped up almost under my feet, lord, and ran across the path. Ill-omen! Ill-omen!’ He crossed himself, shivering, and his companions drew close together in awed silence.

The sun was riding high when Raoul emerged from his tent, and there seemed to be a bustle of preparation on hand. He yawned, and went off to the Duke’s tent to hear what fresh tidings had been brought. He found William with his chief barons, and from the dust on his clothes it was evident that one of them, Hugh de Montfort, had just come in with news.

‘What now?’ asked Raoul of Grantmesnil, who was standing near the entrance.

‘The King is in retreat already,’ Grantmesnil whispered back. ‘Ralph de Toeni took the tidings to him, and De Montfort says the French have broken their camp, and are marching south.’

‘Brave King!’ chuckled Raoul. He made his way through the group about William in time to hear Tesson of Cingueliz say eagerly: ‘Let us fall upon his rear, beau sire! We will make a speedy end, I promise you.’

‘Let him go; he has enough to trouble him,’ the Duke replied. Then, as disappointed faces were turned towards him, he said: ‘What, am I to set all Christendom against me by striking down my suzerain? We will attend him to the border, Tesson, and cut off his stragglers, but there shall be no blows exchanged between Henry and me.’ He saw Raoul, and picked up a packet from the table. ‘Raoul, are you well enough to ride for me once more?’

‘Be sure, seigneur.’

There was a laugh in the Duke’s eyes
.
He looked significantly at Raoul, and said: ‘Then bear these to Rouen, and tell the Duchess Matilda that not one tithe of land, not one border-fortress have I let the King filch from Robert’s heritage!’

Three

Past Conches, the hold of Ralph de Toeni, hastened King Henry by forced marches, pressing south in dreadful dismay. When a sweat-stained scout had staggered into his presence with the confirmation of the Norman herald’s tidings, he had fallen down in a kind of seizure, with a thin line of froth on his lips, but he recovered as his physician laboured over him, and in a voice that made the princes round him fear for his reason he whispered a terrible malediction on Eudes who had failed him, and on William who had triumphed over him. He lay silent then while the princes murmured amongst themselves, and it was seen that his grey lips were drawn back from his teeth in a ghastly grin. Presently he rose up from the couch on which they had laid him, and though he shook as with a fever, he was able to direct what should be done. To those who would have sought an engagement with the Duke’s forces he returned a bitter answer. He was for France again, and the word went out to break camp. Ignominiously the King hurried out of Normandy; it was as though he looked continually over his shoulder like a beast hard-driven, listening for the baying of William’s hounds. Past Conches he hastened, over the Iton, crossing the Frontier between his holds of Verneuil and Tillières.

Spurring in his wake the Norman Duke frowned upon those two castles, and bit his whip-lash, and said suddenly: ‘I will have a donjon raised to keep a check on Tillières until such time as I am master there again.’ Thus the Castle of Breteuil had birth, and in the year that followed, stone by stone its impregnable walls rose upon the bank of the Iton. ‘This shall be your charge, William,’ the Duke said gaily to FitzOsbern. ‘Hold it safe for me, and you shall be Count of Breteuil.’

‘By God, I will!’ FitzOsbern swore.

A treaty was made and signed between King Henry and his vassal. The King was compelled to confirm William in all his conquests, to engage never again to assist his enemies against him, and at the chosen meeting-place the kiss of peace was exchanged between the two princes, one a shrivelled man with bowed shoulders and pouches under his eyes,
the other a straight-backed warrior so charged with vigour that the King seemed old and frail indeed beside him. They kissed, one with hatred in his heart, one with indifference. King Henry retired planning his vengeance, and Raoul de Harcourt, glancing over the four articles that made up the treaty, said with a quick look up under his lashes: ‘Do you think he will abide by this, beau sire?’

William shrugged. ‘Maybe. If he breaks faith with me he stands a traitor confessed, and I see my way.’

They had not done with fighting yet. Though the Hammer of Anjou had held off from Henry’s side in the late campaign he had not been idle. He had marched up through Maine to join Geoffrey of Mayenne in battering down that castle at Ambrières which William had built after the fall of Domfront. William’s cartel reached Anjou in his own County; the Norman gauntlet was flung down with an arrogance that made Martel grow purple with rage. Normandy announced that he would appear before Ambrières upon the fortieth day. Turning to Mayenne, Martel let a great oath, swearing that if he allowed William to seize Ambrières not Geoffrey nor any other should call him lord again. These were bold words, but uttered in heat. When the Norman chivalry appeared before Ambrières there was no sign of Martel to dispute their right.

The Duke went swiftly to work, and the Angevin garrison, knowing itself betrayed by its over-lord, surrendered at the first assault. The Duke built up the damaged keep, strengthened the walls, and after waiting some weeks for Martel to get the better of his fear and come to face him, withdrew into Normandy, and there disbanded his army, under orders to the men-at-arms to hold themselves in readiness to join him upon three days’ notice, should need arise.

The need arose just as soon as the Duke had foreseen it would. When intelligence was brought him that Normandy had sheathed the sword at last, Martel plucked up his courage, and entered into an alliance with his stepson, Duke Peter of Aquitaine, and with Odo, uncle to the young Count of Brittany. Aquitaine came fresh from the disasters of the previous year. He had seen a great King’s army cut to pieces; if he had led his men into Normandy contemptuous of her bastard ruler he marshalled them in retreat with alarm and a new respect born in him. Dimly Duke Peter realized that in the despised Bastard of Normandy he had come face to face with the one man in Christendom who knew how to use strategy in warfare. But when Anjou called upon him William’s force was disbanded. Duke Peter gathered his men under his rather draggled banner, and led them to join the man who long ago had earned for himself the name of the Hammer.

But the Count of Anjou’s hammer-blows had been struck at enemies who could resist only enough to give him some right to be thought a conqueror; he walked over their humbled forms to encounter one who stood in his path with a drawn sword, and stern eyes
watchful under his night-black brows. Anjou, after the first measuring of swords at Meulan, had retreated before this invincible young man, and he had never since then been able to rid himself of the fear that had crept under his armour of vainglory.

The three princes – Martel and Peter and Odo – marched boldly into Maine, never dreaming but that with William gone the garrison at Ambrières would surrender at the first blow. They tried to take the Castle by storm, and were thrown back with heavy loss. The lions of Normandy continued to wave above the squat keep, and from the ramparts the defenders taunted Martel with his failure to meet William upon the term-day.

The princes sat down to starve the garrison into submission. Duke Peter was in a restless, fidgeting mood, with ears on the prick, and eyes turned anxiously towards the Norman border. Martel said strongly: ‘Mark me if I do not speedily hammer down these walls!’ After ten days of rigorous blockade the garrison sent out a present of fresh meat and wine to the besiegers, and those who were with Martel when he received this gift feared that he would die suddenly of an apoplexy. He could not comprehend the spirit that prompted this gay piece of insolence, but when Ambrières had capitulated meekly to Duke William she had been held by men who dared not trust their over-lord to bring them relief. She was held now by men who knew beyond all doubting that their Duke would not leave them to struggle alone.

Nor were they mistaken. To Martel came scouts with shocking tidings: Duke William was on the march.

The three princes held a council, then another, and a third, unable to decide what were best to do. Day by day the scouts rode in: Duke William was coming in force, and swiftly.

Aquitaine saw Martel as a pricked bladder, and discovered a pressing need to make all speed to his own dominions. Martel cried out loudly that he was betrayed; blustered a little, boasted a little, and drew off his troops when Duke William was within half a day’s march of Ambrières. Odo went with him, willy-nilly, and Duke William arrived to find only smouldering camp-fires to tell of the enemy’s late presence in the district.

This time he did not retire until he had accomplished two things very injurious to the Count of Anjou. He besieged and took captive Geoffrey of Mayenne, and he extended his Frontier from that outpost of Ambrières, westward to a point south of Séez. Geoffrey was sent to Rouen to join that other illustrious prisoner, Guy, the Count of Ponthieu, until both should acknowledge William to be their suzerain, and Anjou, in impotent wrath, watched from afar the thrusting forward of the Norman border.

William caused his new castle to be built upon a height. When the plans were spread before him he looked at Raoul with a questioning lift to his brows, but Raoul shook his head. A faint smile passed between them: William turned to Roger de Montgoméri, and said bluffly: ‘Will you hold fast for me, Roger?’

‘Yea, lord, be very sure,’ Roger answered promptly.

Later, Gilbert de Harcourt burst out at Raoul as though he could not contain himself. ‘Is it true what FitzOsbern says, that the Duke offered this hold to you?’

‘He offered it, yes.’

‘You young fool!’ Gilbert cried. ‘You’d none of it?’

‘Of course not. He did not want me to take it, you know,’ Raoul said calmly. ‘What should I do with a border-fortress? Is that work for me?’

‘A proper man would ask no more,’ Gilbert replied.

Raoul laughed, and said with a gleam of mischief: ‘Content you, the Duke has a better use for me than to thrust me to a border-hold.’

‘Bowels of God, you set some store by yourself, Master Stiff-Neck!’

Linking his hands behind his head, Raoul tilted his chair back on its legs, and said lazily: ‘Well, men call me the Watcher.’

This was perfectly true, but it annoyed Gilbert to hear Raoul say it, just as Raoul had known it would, and he stumped off muttering to himself at his brother’s upstart ways.

Montgoméri called his new castle La Roche Mabille, for his wife’s sake, and set about the ordering of it at once. Looking south to the hazy distance that hid the County of Anjou from view, the Duke said with his short laugh: ‘If that windbag comes when my back is turned, Roger, send me his head for a
Hanguvelle
– a New Year’s gift.’

But it seemed that Anjou had had his fill of marching to and fro. No sign came from him then or for many days.

As for the Duke, he retired once more into Normandy, and reached Rouen in time to hear the bells pealing for the birth of his daughter Adeliza.

There were feasts to mark the event, and the great court of the palace saw miming and jousting. William made Wlnoth Godwineson a knight because he acquitted himself well, and unhorsed his man. He would have knighted Edgar too, but Raoul shook his head. Edgar would joust with the Normans in the way they had taught him, his eyes fairly sparkled with his zest for the sport, but Raoul did not think he would accept knighthood at Norman hands.

When he came out of the lists, hot, and flushed and victorious, Edgar impulsively: ‘I wish we had this way of fighting in England! To feel a good horse under you, and a lance in your grip – eh, that is a sport I have been glad to learn! I should like to ride into battle as you do.’

Raoul watched him drain a bugle-horn to the dregs. ‘Do you never ride into battle?’ he asked.

Edgar tossed the horn aside, and began to mop his hot face and neck. ‘No, we don’t use destriers as you do. And we have our battle-axes, of course, instead of your lance.’ He paused, and his animation died down. ‘The battle-axe is the better weapon,’ he said.

‘I don’t believe that,’ Raoul answered, to provoke him.

‘Of course it is better!’ Edgar said. ‘Why, man, I could strike your Blanchflower’s head from his neck at a single blow of my axe!’

‘A rude barbarous weapon,’ murmured Raoul.

‘You had best pray you may never have to meet it,’ said Edgar grimly.

At his words a shadow seemed to fall between them. Raoul was not looking at him, nor did he answer. Edgar thrust an arm through his, and began to walk with him towards the palace. ‘I don’t know what made me say that. Perhaps it will never happen. My father writes that the King has sent for the Atheling to come into England, so maybe it is he who will have the crown, and neither your lord nor mine.’

‘The Atheling? God send Edward names him his heir!’ said Raoul with a lightened brow. He pressed the Saxon’s arm. ‘If that should come upon us: my lance to your axe –’ He broke off.

‘I know,’ Edgar said. ‘Did I not say it four years ago when first I came into Normandy? Well, maybe it will not come after all.’

‘No. Not if Edward chooses the Atheling. Is it four years, Edgar?’

‘Four years,’ Edgar said. His mouth curled disdainfully. ‘I begin to think myself as much at home as Wlnoth and Hakon do.’

Raoul stopped, as though a sudden thought had occurred to him. ‘Edgar, is that true?’

Edgar shrugged his big shoulders. ‘It sometimes seems to me that I am all Norman,’ he said. ‘I joust with you, and speak your tongue, live with you, make friends amongst you, chafe because I may not ride to war with you, rejoice because your Duke has driven out the French –’

‘I didn’t know you felt like that,’ Raoul interrupted. ‘I thought – Edgar, the Duke would make you a knight, but I said you would not wish it. Shall I speak with him again?’

‘My thanks to Duke William,’ Edgar replied at once, ‘but I will never take knighthood from his hands. I am Harold’s man.’ He thought that this sounded ungracious, and added in a more docile voice: ‘It is not because I do not like Duke William, you know. I did not mean that.’

‘I know,’ Raoul answered. ‘Do you think I would not say the same? But for all that you do not like William, do you?’

It seemed at first as though Edgar were not going to answer, but after a moment he said: ‘No. That is – No, I do not like him. I can’t help admiring him, of course: no one could. But what has he to do with any man’s liking? Loyalty he may command; obedience he will enforce; but love – ? Oh, no, he does not look for that!’

‘Perhaps you do not know him yet,’ Raoul said.

Edgar looked at him with the hint of a smile in his eyes. ‘Do you think any man knows him, Raoul?’ Then, as Raoul was silent, he said: ‘Oh, he has great kindness for his friends, but never have I seen him try to win men to him as –’ He stopped.

‘As Harold does?’ suggested Raoul.

‘Yes,’ Edgar admitted. ‘I had Harold in mind. All men love Harold. But all men do not love William. They fear him, they respect him, but how many would count it happiness to die for him? FitzOsbern, maybe; Saint-Sauveur; Tesson; his cousin of Eu; yourself – those who are his friends. But I tell you the meanest serf would give his life for Harold.’