The Conqueror (29 page)

Elfrida cried: ‘’Ware! oh ’ware!’ but it seemed that Raoul was prepared for the savage onslaught. His hand flew up; steel clashed against steel; Moulines’ knife fell with a clatter to the stone floor, and Elfrida saw blood spurt from a gash across his wrist.

Raoul stamped his foot down hard upon the fallen knife. The steel broke with a snap. ‘Get you hence!’ he said, more sternly than Elfrida had ever heard him speak. ‘More of this, and it is I who will approach the Duke’s grace.’

The Lord of Moulines, sobered by a little blood-letting, was already rather ashamed of his treacherous assault. He said angrily: ‘You provoked me to it. Carry what tale you will to the Duke: I am not done with you yet.’ He gripped his wrist between his fingers to stay the bleeding, rolled a hot eye in Elfrida’s direction, and went off towards the stairs.

Elfrida ran to Raoul’s side, quite overcome by such bloody happenings, and clasped his arm with both her trembling hands. ‘Oh, alack, alack, what will he do?’ she asked, raising her scared eyes to his face.

His hand covered hers. ‘Why, nothing, lady!’ he said. ‘You must not be afraid of him. I will see to it he comes not near you again.’

‘But it is for you I am afraid!’ she said. Her lips quivered. ‘He is so stark a man, and it is I who have brought it all upon you, and I know – I have been told how dreadful is his vengeance.’

Raoul looked first surprised, and then amused. ‘William of Moulines’ vengeance! Why, lady, you have no need to fear for my safety. I have known that hothead these many years, and this is not the first time there has been steel drawn between us.’ He saw that she was still pale and frightened, and drew her towards the bench. ‘I have a mind to let some more of his blood for alarming you so,’ he said. ‘Will you not rest here awhile? I will stay beside you, and keep off the ogre.’

The Lady Elfrida, who was stayed for by the Duchess, sat down upon the bench without demur, and smiled rather wanly at her preserver.

Raoul knelt, still holding her hands in his. ‘There, he is gone, child,’ he said. ‘You are quite safe. Presently, when you leave trembling, I will take you to the Duchess, and you will forget this unmannerly brawl.’

She looked shyly at him. In his eyes was a light that set her heart fluttering. She looked away. ‘Messire, you are so very kind,’ she murmured. ‘I thank you for your protection. Indeed, I – I have no words to tell you …’ Her voice faded away; she hoped he would not think her very silly, but was afraid he must.

There was a tiny silence. Raoul broke it, saying in a low voice: ‘You have no need to thank me. I would ask no more of fortune than to be allowed to serve you.’

Her hand jumped under his; she raised her eyes to stare at him. ‘Serve me?’ she echoed. ‘Me? I – thought you did not like me, messire!’ The words were out before she could stop them. She blushed rosily, and hung her head.

‘Like you, Elfrida!’ Raoul gave an odd laugh. He bent his head, and kissed her slight fingers. ‘I think I worship you,’ he said.

A tremor shook her; he could not read her face, but she did not draw her hand away. ‘If I were to journey into England, to seek out your father,’ he said, watching her, ‘could you find it in you to wed a Norman?’

This was swift work, too swift for Elfrida. She said faintly: ‘Indeed, messire, indeed – I think I must go to the Duchess, who stays for me.’

He rose at once, fearing that he had alarmed her. They walked slowly down the gallery. Elfrida’s hand lay on his arm. She stole a glance at him, wondering whether he would say any more, dreading lest he should, afraid that he would not. She searched in her mind for a phrase that should give him hope yet not dishonour her maidenly decorum. She could think of nothing, and they had almost reached the Duchess’s apartments. In desperation she said: ‘My father has granted me this boon, that I shall not be wed until my brother returns to England. It is a vow I made to Our Lady long years ago, messire.’

Raoul stopped, and faced her. ‘But when he does return, Elfrida?’

‘I do not know – I do not think that my father would wish to see me wed out of England,’ she said shyly.

She looked so sweet he had hard work to keep himself from kissing her there and then. She pulled her hand free of his hold on it, and drew back to the door of the bower. When her fingers clasped the latch she ventured to peep at Raoul again. She stood hesitating; the dearest little smile trembled on her lips; she said, breathless at her own daring: ‘I do not – dislike Normans – myself, messire.’

He started forward, but she was gone before he could reach her, and the door had shut with a clang behind her.

He sought Edgar in his chamber that night as the bell for
couvre-feu
was ringing through the streets. Edgar was seated by the table inspecting his hunting-spear by the light of a cluster of candles. He looked up as Raoul came in, and smiled.

‘Holà, Raoul!’ He pushed a stool forward with one foot. ‘Sit! I have seen nothing of you all day.’ He saw Raoul look significantly towards the page, who was collecting an armful of weapons for the chase, and stretched out a hand to grasp the boy’s shoulder. ‘Off with you, Herluin,’ he said. ‘Take that gear with you, and see there is no speck upon my spear when next I go hunting.’

Herluin said: ‘No, lord,’ in a meek voice, and sped forth.

Edgar looked inquiringly at his friend. ‘Something of moment, Raoul?’

‘Yes,’ Raoul answered. He did not sit down, but wandered over to the platform under the window, as though irresolute.

Edgar watched him with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘What dire happening are you going to tell me? You rode my horse Barbary out to Lillebonne this day: have you lamed him? Or is it that your good father will not send the greyhound from Harcourt that he promised me?’

Raoul smiled. ‘Neither.’ He turned, and came back into the inside of the room. ‘Edgar – could you see your sister wedded to a Norman?’

At that Edgar jumped up and caught him by the shoulders. ‘What, man, is that how it is with you? Yea, with goodwill, so you be that Norman.’

‘My thanks. And your father?’

Edgar’s hands fell again to his sides. ‘Maybe, if I spoke for you. I do not know.’ He sounded troubled all at once, and there was a frown in his eyes.

‘I have little to offer,’ Raoul said awkwardly, ‘because I have not cared to hold lands and a title. I have only my knight’s fee, but I think the Duke would advance me if I desired it. There was some talk of it, but I chose rather to stay at his side, and saw no good in the possessions he would have given me. But if I took a wife …’ He paused, and looked gravely at Edgar. ‘What do you say?’

For a moment Edgar did not say anything at all. He seemed to find it hard to discover words to express his thought. When he at last spoke it was hesitatingly. ‘It is not that. No man in Normandy has more power than you to become great in wealth and in puissance. Well do I know that the Duke would advance you if you but winked an eyelid. I have no fear that you might not find means to pay the morgen-gift.’ He grinned suddenly, but the grin faded. ‘It is not that,’ he repeated. ‘Because we have been friends long years, and because I know no man more worthy to take Elfrida’s hand in wedlock I would desire it – nay, I have desired it, above all things.’ He lifted a fold of the heavy curtain that hung round his bed, and began to pleat it between his fingers. ‘But these are dreams, Raoul: foolish, idle dreams.’

Raoul stayed silent, waiting for him to go on. Edgar looked up from his pleats. ‘So deep a gulf lies between!’ he said, as though beseeching Raoul’s understanding of all that he would prefer not to say.

‘Yet you have often told me how your father took a bride out of Normandy,’ Raoul said.

‘Yes. But it was different then.’ Edgar closed his lips firmly, unable to explain further.

‘Do you then forbid me to approach your sister?’ Raoul asked directly.

Edgar shook his head. ‘I would like too well to call you brother,’ he replied. ‘My word is for you, but I fear what the future may hold. Nor’ – he smiled faintly – ‘are betrothals thus arranged. You and she are not franklins to fall in love and wed at will, my friend.’

Raoul felt suddenly impatient. ‘Heart of a man, if the Lady Elfrida will trust herself to me I will have her in despite of every customary usage!’

‘There spoke the Norman,’ Edgar said softly. ‘Marauding, grasping, marking his prey!’

Anger rose in Raoul, but he curbed it, saying in a calmer voice. ‘That was not deserved. Though I speak wildly you know full well I will do nothing out of the honourable way.’

‘I do not doubt you,’ Edgar said. ‘But I see a weary road ahead.’

Spring was in Raoul’s blood, making doubts and forebodings so alien to his mood that again he was conscious of that stab of irritation. ‘God’s death, Edgar, can you not forget? What shall it signify to us little men if our leaders nurse ambitions? I will not think in this boding vein, I tell you!’

Edgar regarded him with the flicker of a smile. ‘Go your ways then,’ he said. ‘You know what it shall signify, Raoul. I have no more to say.’

Having wrung permission from Edgar to address Elfrida, Raoul wasted no more time. He found the lady shy, but she did not rebuff him. When he walked across a room towards her she always had a smile for him, and if his horse ranged alongside her palfrey at a morning’s hawking she would contrive to ride a little apart with him. It was not long before he spoke of love to her again: this time she did not run away. She knew that she ought not to listen to a man who had not her father’s sanction; she knew just what a modest maid would say and do, and yet she swayed ever so slightly towards him. After that who could blame him for catching her in his arms?

Thus they plighted their troth. Holding her hands in his, Raoul said: ‘I might send letters into England, to your father, yet I like that way very ill. A cold answer should I have, think you?’

‘I fear it,’ she answered. ‘It is true my mother was a Norman, but my father does not in general like Normans since the King has favoured those in England so much. If Edgar would speak for us perhaps he might look more kindly on you.’

‘Edgar will stand my friend. I will come into England as soon as may be after your return.’ A sudden fear seized him. ‘Elfrida, there is no pledge binding you?’

She shook her head, flushing, but began at once to explain how this had come about; for to be over twenty, unwed, un-cloistered, and not even betrothed, was a circumstance so unusual that it cast a slur upon a maid. She looked into Raoul’s smiling eyes, and said with quaint dignity: ‘Indeed, it is no fault of mine, messire.’

The smile grew; he kissed each of her fingers separately till she reproved him, saying that at any moment someone might come along the gallery and observe them. At that he let go her hand, and put his arm round her waist instead. She did not say anything at all to that; maybe since they sat upon a bench she found the support of an arm welcome.

‘Tell me how it was not your fault, my heart,’ Raoul said in her ear.

Seriously, with awe in her blue eyes, she told him how she had been betrothed when still a child to Oswine the son of Hundbert the Strong, master of eighty hides of land in the Earldom of Wessex.

‘Did you like him?’ Raoul interrupted.

She had hardly known him. She had never seen him alone, she said, for in England it was not customary to be private with a man until one was bound to him in wedlock. He had been a proper youth but he had died in a dreadful manner, just as she became of marriageable age. He had a quarrel with one Eric Jarlessen, a strange fierce man who came from Danelagh to live in Wessex. Elfrida did not know why they quarrelled, but she thought Oswine had done the Dane some injury. Then, one Shrove-tide, Oswine was smitten with a wasting fever, which some said was jaundice, since his skin took on a yellow hue; but though he swallowed nine lice fasting for nine days, and though a live frog caught on St John’s Eve was placed on his wrist to draw out the fever, it was all of no avail. The fever did not abate; the man wasted away day by day until at length he died, stricken in the very prime of life.

‘Then,’ Elfrida went on, slipping her hand unconsciously into Raoul’s, ‘certain men made accusations against Eric, among them being Hundbert, who was Oswine’s father. It was said that Eric had been outlawed from the Danelagh because he had practised abominations there, and was thought to deal in witchcraft.’ She made the sign of the Cross quickly, shivering. ‘These men declared that they knew him to have used
stacung
against Oswine – you do not know that word? It is when a man makes an image of his enemy, and sticks a thorn into it, praying for his death.’

‘Black magic!’ Raoul said. ‘Faugh! What was done then to Eric?’

‘At the shire-gemot he was hailed before the shire-reeve, and denying the charge, demanded trial. So a holy priest held in his hand two billets of wood, one with the Sacred Cross drawn on it, and the other quite plain; and Eric, having prayed God to declare thus the truth, boldly drew forth one billet.’ She shrank closer to Raoul. ‘And upon the piece of wood which he pulled from the priest’s hold was nothing, so that all men knew that God had declared him to be a perjured man, and that he had slain Oswine by
stacung
,
which is witchcraft.’

‘And then?’ Raoul said.

‘Some said that he should pay were-geld – that is the blood-wite that is placed on a man’s head if he be slain. Oswine was a King’s thegn, as my father is, so that the price of his slaying was as much as twelve hundred shillings, which perhaps Eric could not have paid. But the shire-reeve judged that the crime was too black to be wiped out with silver, and he ordered that Eric should be put to death by stoning. And this was done at Hocktide. I did not see it, but I was told. And that is why I am still unbetrothed.’