The Conqueror (30 page)

Both her hands were folded on Raoul’s breast; his cheek brushed hers. ‘Are you sorry now, little bird?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she confessed. ‘Not now.’

Five

The weeks slid into months, and still Earl Harold was honourably entertained at Rouen. Every sort of diversion was offered for his amusement, and no one spoke of his departure. Nor did he attempt to escape, though some among his followers thought he had opportunities enough. Alfric, when the Earl rode out to visit Wlnoth at Roumare, devised a plan for slipping away unseen from Wlnoth’s lodge, and riding for the Frontier. Harold, aware that his every movement was watched, and being reasonably sure that all the ports and Frontier posts had been warned long since, would lend no ear to the project. He learned through Edgar, who had received letters out of England, that King Edward was in good health, and the country quiet. He could afford to wait, and if his polite captivity irked him he was not the man to show it. So good was the mask he wore that even Alfric believed him to have grown careless, and wrung his hands over it in great bitterness. But the Earl was not careless. He told Edgar that if it had done no more for him this stay in Normandy had taught him to know Duke William and his subjects as he had never hoped to know them. By the end of six months there were few men of standing whom Earl Harold had not met. He saw such war-like barons as the Viscounts of Côtentin and Avranches, and said: ‘Good fighters, these, but no more.’ He made it his business to be on friendly terms with the Duke’s advisers, FitzOsbern, Giffard, the Lord of Beaumont, and others such. ‘Leal men, those,’ he said, ‘but o’erruled in all things by their master.’ He observed the lesser barons, men like the standard-bearer, Ralph de Toeni, and the Lords of Cahagnes, Montfiquet, and L’Aigle. ‘Turbulent men, needing a strong hand over them.’ So he dismissed them. But when the Prior of Herluin at Bec, who was one Lanfranc, came on a visit to Rouen, Earl Harold spoke of him in very different terms. ‘That man is more dangerous than all,’ he said softly.

Edgar was surprised. ‘I had thought you would like the Prior, lord,’ he said.

Then the Earl said something that seemed incomprehensible to his thegn. ‘I would he were my councillor,’ he said.

Edgar frowned. ‘He is very wise, I know. Men say it was he arranged the Duke’s marriage. I think he does sometimes advise William.’

The Earl looked at him, half-smiling. ‘Amongst all the nobles of this Duchy I have sought in vain for the one who stands behind the Duke, dropping subtle counsel into his ear. Now I know where this one may be found, and I promise you I fear him.’

‘A councillor! Does the Duke need one?’ Edgar said.

‘Not for government, perhaps, nor for warfare, but for deep crafty work – yea, he needs one,’ Harold answered.

‘What of Anselm?’ Edgar asked. ‘He too has a name for great wisdom.’

Harold shook his head. ‘A very holy man, that one, too holy to give the counsel Lanfranc’s subtle brain could devise.’

He said no more, but his words remained long in Edgar’s head. Edgar said once to Gilbert d’Aufay that he supposed Lanfranc to be much in the Duke’s confidence, and knew by Gilbert’s laugh how right Earl Harold had been. Foreboding stole over him; he saw his lord surrounded by foes using hidden weapons, and his helplessness to aid Harold made him short-tempered, and as resentful towards his hosts as he had been thirteen years before. Since each one knew his own master’s mind, and might not speak of it, an imperceptible estrangement began to grow up between himself and Raoul. Beneath all their friendly talk a knowledge of secrets lay. Edgar, trying not to let the policies of their leaders part them, thought bitterly that Raoul cared for no one now but Elfrida; Raoul, understanding what sore resentment lay in Edgar’s heart, tried to reach a hand to him across the gulf, and thought that Edgar’s devotion to his lord was turning friendship into enmity.

Once, gripping Edgar’s shoulders, he said: ‘Whatever is done, whatever path I may have to tread, you know that I did not choose that path, Edgar.’

Edgar shook him off, saying in a sullen voice: ‘You are a Norman, and William’s friend. Of course you must want the thing he wants.’

Raoul looked at him for a moment, then turned away. He left Edgar staring out of the window under lowering brows, and could only guess that beneath the scowl and the anger, the heart’s ties strove with pride of race and fealty. Later they met upon the stair, and Edgar turned and went back beside Raoul, saying awkwardly: ‘Forgive me: I have been out of temper these many days.’

Their hands clasped. ‘I know,’ Raoul said. ‘But whate’er betide, before God and the Blessed Virgin and the Pheasant, I swear I am your friend, both now and always.’

Autumn merged into winter, and light snow covered the house-tops. Edgar rode out to Harcourt with Raoul to present compliments and gifts to old Hubert upon his seventieth birthday, and Alfric said disgustedly to Sigwulf: ‘Edgar cares for no one but his Norman friends, and I believe he would sooner be among them than with us, his countrymen. He scorns Wlnoth for aping Norman manners, but though he himself may still wear his beard and his short tunic, he is for ever leaving us because he has promised to ride out with FitzOsbern, or must keep tryst with that loud-prating baron whose men shout Turie! when you meet them upon the road.’

In the New Year a fresh interest came to occupy the minds of Normans and Saxons alike. In Brittany the young Count Conan, who had thrown off his governors a year before, had already given signs betokening an intractable disposition. One of his first acts had been to cast his uncle Odo into prison, loaded with shackles. News had come to Normandy of this and certain other proceedings. He bade fair to be a tyrant as his father and grandfather had been before him, and it was whispered that he meant to renounce his fealty to Normandy as soon as might be. In the early spring of ’65
he sent his cartel to Duke William, announcing in the language of a young and boastful man, that he was no longer a vassal of Normandy, and would meet the Duke at the Frontier upon a certain date. It was thought that the Norman border-hold of St Jaques was the main object of his hostility, and messengers soon brought tidings that he was marching against the Mount of Dol, which held out for the Duke.

William received the Count’s cartel without the least sign either of surprise or anger. ‘All alike, these Breton princes,’ he said. ‘I have been waiting for this.’

By the time supper was laid in the hall below stairs the word had gone round that Normandy was for war again. Duke William took his seat at the board, and as the assay of the first dish was made, he turned to Harold, and said: ‘How say you, Earl Harold? Have you a stomach for battle at my side?’

This was so unexpected that every Saxon head was jerked up in surprise. The Earl waited before he answered till he had served himself from the dish one of the stewards presented on his knee. Watching him, Raoul wondered what lightning calculations chased one another through his mind. The eyes told nothing; the firm lips still faintly smiled. The Earl wiped his fingers on a napkin. ‘Why, with good will,’ he said calmly. ‘Have you a place for me, Duke William?’

‘I will give you a detachment of my troops to command,’ the Duke promised.

Edgar, who knew the customs of chivalry, was not so much surprised by the Duke’s request as his fellow-Saxons. As soon as supper was at an end he followed the Earl upstairs, and begged him to intercede for him with the Duke, so that he too might be allowed to ride to war. He could barely contain his soul in patience until he knew William’s answer, and when he saw Harold again the question fairly jumped from his anxious eyes.

Harold nodded. ‘You are to come,’ he said. ‘At first the Duke seemed little likely to grant it, but your friend Raoul added his word to mine, offering to stand as pledge for you should you be slain, and FitzOsbern too, and Hugh de Montfort. So between jesting and earnest the affair was settled. Wlnoth and Hakon must remain here. Hakon would be glad to go, but Wlnoth –’ He broke off, shrugging. ‘He is the only one amongst us six who seems to have no drop of Godwine’s blood in his veins,’ he said. ‘Let be for that: he is of small account.’ He glanced over his shoulder to be sure no one was within earshot. ‘Did you expect to hear Duke William make that request of me?’

‘No,’ Edgar said, considering it. ‘Yet it is often done. What was in his mind, lord?’

‘If I knew what William had in mind I should have no need to fear him,’ replied Harold flippantly.

Edgar frowned at that. ‘You do not fear him, lord,’ he said.

‘Do I not?’ The Earl laughed under his breath. ‘Well, maybe you are right. I suppose he wants to see me in the field, to observe what manner of commander I am.’ He lifted a quizzical eyebrow. ‘And since I also desire to see what manner of commander he is, I said that I would fight this war with him. So are we both served.’

‘You do not think’ – Edgar stumbled over the words – ‘you do not suspect that he may hope for your death in battle?’

‘No.’ Harold weighed it in his mind. ‘No, I think not.’ His sudden smile flashed out. ‘If he does, he will be disappointed, my Edgar. I do not mean to fall in this war.’

As soon as Elfrida learned of the coming expedition she was very much alarmed, and when Edgar made a mock of her fear, she sought comfort of Raoul, and was sure she would never set eyes on either of them again.

‘But, my heart, I have been in a-many wars and come safe through them,’ he pointed out. ‘This will be no more than a brief campaign, and you will see us back again before you have learned to miss us.’

This she could not by any means allow. Hiding her face in his mantle, she informed him in a muffled voice that she missed him the instant he left her presence. There could only be one answer to this, and he made it. But she was not done with fears yet. Fixing big eyes on his face, she begged him to take more than ordinary care of himself, for he was going to fight a terrible people, she said, who were bred to war alone.

This made him laugh; he wanted to know who had put that notion into her head, and she at once repeated all the fables told of the Bretons by old wives and other such credulous persons. She said that everyone knew that Brittany was full of fierce warriors, who behaved like barbarians, each man taking as many as ten wives at a time, and begetting upwards of fifty children, and living for nothing but rapine and bloodshed. When Raoul burst out laughing she went away very cross, with her little chin in the air, but she forgave him later, and would even admit that the tales she had heard might not be all of them true.

To reach Brittany the Norman army marched south to Avranches through a country rich with orchards and pasture-land, and crossed the treacherous sands under Mont St Michel to a place where the river Coesnon poured its flood into the bay. Here the passage was full of hidden perils; a man-at-arms, weighed down by his breast-plate and heavy shield, took a false step and disappeared half from view, sucked under by the greedy quicksands. His comrades tried to pull him out, but the sands were stronger than they, and the luckless spearman sank still further until only his shoulders and his thrashing arms remained above ground. He belonged to Earl Harold’s division, and the Earl was riding close behind, picking a careful way across the passage. He saw the disaster, and the unavailing attempts to save the victim, and flung himself quickly down from the saddle. The spearman’s comrades found themselves thrust roughly aside; the Earl planted his feet wide on the edge of the firm sand, and leaned over to reach the terrified man. Desperate hands clutched at his; men saw the Earl’s arm stiffen till one of the bracelets he wore snapped under the strain. The muscles stood out ribbed and hard down his powerful loins; the sands gave forth a sucking sound, as though loth to relinquish their prey; the Earl threw his whole weight back, and the spearman was wrenched clear, and dragged to firm ground.

The fellow grovelled at Earl Harold’s feet, kissing them with tears running down his cheeks; a great cheer rose from the ranks. Raoul, who had seen it all from the further bank, knew now why men loved Earl Harold enough to die for him.

The Earl paid not the slightest heed to the cheering. He pulled off the broken bracelet, and tossed it aside, and catching his horse’s bridle, sprang into the saddle again.

When his horse climbed the further bank he found that the Duke was waiting for him there. ‘Splendour of God, Earl Harold, that was nobly done!’ William said. ‘I have seen mine own strength surpassed for the first time.’ He laughed and looked the Saxon over with approval. ‘Yet I beg you will not again risk your life for a spearman, my friend,’ he said.

‘No risk,’ the Earl answered lightly. ‘I could not see the fellow drown, poor wretch.’

There was little talked of among the men-at-arms that day but the Saxon Earl’s huge strength. The feat made a deep impression on the minds of all who saw it. Duke William said to his brother Mortain: ‘Had I stood in his shoes and done that it would have been from policy, that those who followed me might be enflamed with respect for my prowess. Earl Harold had no such thought in mind, but the outcome is the same.’ He jerked his thumb towards the Earl’s detachment. ‘He has them with him now, which he had not before. You shall see how well they will do presently.’

Mortain grunted. ‘Silly work to take such risks for one spearman.’

Raoul, riding on the other side of William, interrupted to ask curiously: ‘The feats you performed at Meulan, then – deeds that made men call you hero: were those done from policy?’

The Duke laughed. ‘That was in my rash grass-time. Yea, policy for the most part.’

He spoke no more than the truth when he said that the troops he had given Harold were now with him. If they had been discontented before at being placed under a foreign leader, they now forgot that grievance and swore he was a man to follow. Such good feeling was there in the division, that when the army crossed the border into Brittany, and marched on Dol, the Duke had no hesitation in deputing Earl Harold to relieve the town.