The Conqueror (8 page)

‘Is it your work that Martel holds off from me yet?’ William asked.

‘Mine, beau sire. I have done some small damage in Anjou, as I think. Now I come to you, my life in my hands.’

The smile curled the Duke’s mouth fully now. ‘I have a place about me for such a man as you, Néel,’ he said. ‘My thanks: I am well repaid.’ He looked towards the Seneschal.

‘FitzOsbern, let fitting quarters be given to the Viscount of Côtentin.’

Néel rose up quickly. ‘Seigneur!’ he said unsteadily.

‘Take back your lands of me, Chef de Faucon,’ William said. He got up, and came round the corner of the table with his hand held out. ‘Let the past lie dead: I would rather have you for my friend than for my foe.’

The Viscount bent and kissed his hand. ‘Seigneur, I am your man,’ he promised, low, and turned, and went out without another word.

The Duke lifted an eyebrow in Raoul’s direction. ‘I can sometimes win men,’ he said, ‘even though they call me stark.’

After this, news was soon brought of Martel’s approach. Doubtless the Castle garrison soon got wind of it, and lifted up their hearts. As for William, he sent out his Seneschal and young Roger de Montgoméri with an escort to meet Anjou and learnt his business. These two heralds came back in a bristle of vanity, and told faithfully what had befallen.

It seemed they rode up, waving the herald’s banner, and were taken straight before the Count himself. They found him swollen with arrogance, and reported him to be a man of full habit of body, with veins that rose up on his forehead when he was enraged. He greeted them with proud words, displeasing to them, and bade them tell their master he would meet him in battle upon such a day. Then, being enflamed by his own choler, and (said FitzOsbern) fretted by the maggot of vainglory that ate his brain, he burst out in a loud voice to tell them how the upstart of Normandy might know him upon the field of battle, by the red mantle he would wear, and the housings of his destrier.

This was to add fuel to a growing fire, as may be supposed. Without pausing to consider William FitzOsbern retaliated in kind. He said that in his turn the Duke would wear the purple of his high standing, and a circlet round his helm, and bestride a bay stallion sent to him by a King of Spain.

‘Furthermore, seigneur,’ FitzOsbern told, ‘we said that if he were still in doubt he might know you by the golden lions that waved about your head, and by the stout warriors who gathered round you, very hot to avenge the insults sustained by you. I believe it to have been well said. I marked him to change colour.’

‘For my part,’ said young Roger, ‘I believe it was not the answer he looked for. He seemed much put out, and chewed his beard, and glanced about him this way and that.’

Galet looked up from his seat in a corner of the tent, and said: ‘Why, the dog of Anjou is a great one for barking. Take a whip out and you will see him slink back to his kennel.’

So it proved indeed. The Duke led out his army upon the term-day, but got no word of Anjou. It was heard later that he had withdrawn his troops in haste, and was marching homewards with a strong rearguard. He was the first of many to prefer an ignoble retreat to a meeting in arms with Duke William of Normandy.

What Domfront made of it no one knew. As for William he gave his sardonic laugh and returned to the business of reducing the Castle.

Martel having put himself out of court, as it were, the Duke leaped into one of his sudden swift actions. Leaving a small force at Domfront he led the remainder of his troops on a night ride to Alençon. He went by way of Menhendin and Pointel, and an arduous business he made of it. His chevaliers sweated behind him; some fell out on the road upon foundered horses, but the bulk kept on doggedly, setting their teeth in a determination not to be outdone by the tireless man who led them.

They appeared before Alençon in the morning light, grimed and sweat-stained; and stared through the lifting mist across the river at the town which lay beyond. The town itself was unfortified, but the Castle, with its straight road leading down to the gate-tower over the bridge of the Sarthe, governed all. Above its crenellated battlements floated the standard of Anjou.

‘Wine of Christ, if I do not have that down!’ the Duke swore.

Straightway he dismounted, and knelt at his prayers, for he was never one to forget what was due to God; and his men knelt with him. That being done, he rose up again and bathed his face in the river, and bent his heavy considering frown on the gatehouse that guarded the bridge. While he stayed thus, pondering, the people of Alençon had leisure to observe his force. Men gathered on the further bank of the river, and heads were seen to draw together in excited conference.

Those who kept the gate-tower marked the strength of the Duke’s army, and seeing that he had brought no siege-engines with him, thought themselves safe in their stronghold. Gaining arrogance with their feeling of security, they began to consider themselves already victors and some among them shouted out injurious words, and made signs betokening their derision.

The Duke noted these things with a gradually darkening brow. He gave curt orders, and his men formed up in battle array. The Duke was conferring apart with his captains, biting his whip-lash as he always did when he saw a difficult task before him, and carefully observing the disposition of the town. The men in the gate-tower, conceiving their jeerings to have gone wide of the mark, bethought themselves of a good jest, and one likely to touch the Duke’s pride nearly. There was a bustle, and a running to and fro; then a growl of fury ran through the Norman troop, and men clapped their hands to their swords.

Raoul found his brother Gilbert spluttering beside him. ‘Ha, God!’ Gilbert stuttered. ‘See yonder! The lousy dogs!’

Raoul looked round and saw the defenders on the bridge hanging hides and furs over the battlements, and thwacking them with long sticks, and the flat of their swords. He flushed with quick anger, as the meaning was made plain to him. ‘Cross of Christ, what foul insolence is this?’

‘Hail to the Tanner! Hail to the noble Tanner of Falaise!’ shouted the men on the tower. ‘What, are you there, byblow of Normandy? How is the trade in furs with you these days?’

William’s head was jerked up at that. He thrust his horse past Néel de Saint-Sauveur, who would have shut the sight from his eyes if he could, and came in full view of what was doing on the bridge. Men saw his knuckles grow white with the fierce gripping of his hand on his sword-hilt, and his mouth twitch with the rising tide of his rage. Rigid he sat, still as a stone upon his destrier; he was ice-cold, but with fire blazing under the frozen surface.

A hush had fallen on his troop. He spoke at last, molten words that crashed into the silence and made it shudder. ‘By the splendour of God, I will deal with those knaves as with a tree whose branches are lopped by the pollarding knife!’ He swung his destrier round on its haunches; stratagem went by the wind; his rage consumed the men. Assault! assault! The gate-tower was to be stormed and taken, burned to ashes, and the men in it dragged out to face his vengeance. Words of counsel were humbly spoken; he tossed them aside. By God’s death he swore to raze the tower to the ground or never more to lead his barons into battle.

The greater part of his men were with him; only some older heads feared defeat, and murmured of strategy. He swept these aside; he drew his sword flashing in the sunlight, and thundered: ‘Who follows me? Speak!’

A full-throated roar answered him; he smiled, and Raoul saw his teeth gritted close.

Of that desperate skirmish on the bridge Raoul retained afterwards but the haziest memory. Missiles hailed about the besiegers; there was a sortie and some hard hand-to-hand fighting, when shield was locked to shield in the tight wedge, and men fell with despairing cries into the river below. From the tower they hurled javelins and rocks; Raoul had his helmet crushed in from a stone that hurtled upon him, and fell, half-stunned, still grasping his wet sword. Feet trampled over him; he struggled up with a great effort, warding off his own comrades, reaching his feet at last, bruised and shaken, but whole, swayed by the press about him.

They were up to the tower almost before he was aware, in a storm of missiles. Men came over the bridge with a battering-ram slung between them, a ram hastily made of a felled tree. Many hands bore it; there came the dull thud of its impact with the great door which closed the way under the arch of the tower into the town. For long the door held; those who drove the ram were dripping with sweat, and breathing in laboured gasps. Ever and again one of them fell from a javelin hurled from above; his place was taken at once, and the ram driven home again. The wood cracked at last, and split: the men of Normandy were in, under the arch, and battering down the smaller door that led into one side of the tower. It fell before the fury of their assault; they burst through the opening, and hacked their way up the twisting stair, up and up, over their own dead, till they drove the defenders from the stairhead, back into the guardroom above.

In all thirty men were dragged out, prisoners for the Duke’s vengeance. He set fire to the tower, and the terrified inhabitants of the town fled to their homes, and those on the Castle-wall beheld the flames and the black smoke mounting higher and higher.

The Duke’s baggage-train had reached Alençon by now, and men were busy setting up his tent, and preparing an encampment. The Duke stood at the bridge-head, terrible still in wrath, and watched the approach of his prisoners. Behind him his captains were gathered in angry support. His hands were blood-stained, gripping his red sword. He glanced down at it, and handed it to Raoul with a quick, impatient movement. Raoul wiped it carefully, and stood holding it, waiting to see what the Duke meant to do.

All that remained of the garrison were driven at the spear-point to face the Duke’s wrath. FitzOsbern exclaimed: ‘Deal hardly, beau sire! Sacred Face, shall men who dare such insults be allowed to live?’

‘They shall live,’ William said, ‘in a sort.’ Raoul paused in his task of wiping the blood-stained sword, and looked up sharply, frowning. ‘As a tree whose branches are lopped,’ William repeated with deadly emphasis. ‘They shall go footless and handless, living tokens of my vengeance for all men to see, and fear, by Death!’

A murmur of assent sounded from the barons; one of the prisoners gave a shriek of horror, and fell grovelling in the mud before the Duke. Raoul touched William’s arm. ‘Beau sire, you cannot do that!’ he said in a low voice. ‘Another man might, but not – not you! Not hands and feet both; you cannot maim them thus hideously!’

‘You shall see,’ William replied.

‘Rarely said, beau sire!’ FitzOsbern declared. ‘In this way men shall know you, and dread your anger.’

Raoul’s fingers twisted round the heavy sword-hilt. He looked at the prisoners and saw some with defiant faces turned to the Duke, some kneeling at his feet, some silent, some blubbering for mercy. He turned again towards William. ‘Your justice …’ he said. ‘Your mercy … What of these?’

‘Tush, you fool!’ growled Gilbert in his ear.

‘Grant us only death! Ah, dread lord, give us death!’ wailed one of the prisoners, stretching his hands to William.

Raoul struck Gilbert’s hand from his shoulder. ‘Give them justice!’ he said. ‘This cruelty is not for such an one as you, seigneur!’

‘God’s Son, the Watcher turns pigeon-hearted at the thought of a little blood-letting!’ someone exclaimed scornfully.

Raoul swung round. ‘I will let yours with a high heart, I promise you, Ralph de Toeni!’

‘Hold your peace, Raoul!’ the Duke said angrily. ‘What I have sworn to do I will do, by the living God! Not you nor any man can turn me.’ He made a sign to the men who guarded the prisoners. There was a cry of despair, a broken prayer for mercy. A block of wood was dragged forward, and a bucket full of pitch. A writhing man was flung down by the block, and his wrists wrenched over it. The axe swung aloft, and descended with a sickening thud. A high scream of anguish rose throbbing on the air, and behind Raoul Gilbert gave a grunt of satisfaction.

Raoul broke through the knot of onlookers behind the Duke, unable to bear the sight of the mutilation. A man stood in his way, trying to peep over the shoulders of his betters at the gruesome work on hand. Raoul struck him aside with a force that sent him sprawling, and thrust his way on through the crowd to the Duke’s tent.

He found that he was still grasping William’s sword. He looked at it for a moment with a white set face, and suddenly flung it from him so that it fell with a clatter in a corner of the tent. A second tortured scream from outside made his gorge rise until he thought he must be sick. He sank down on to a stool, and buried his face in his hands.

The screams and groans rang through and through his head; before his shut eyes gibbered the forms of maimed men, and the gloating faces of those who watched the execution.

After a long time the hideous sounds ceased. There was a murmur of voices, and the tread of footsteps all round the tent.

Galet crept in, and to Raoul’s knee. ‘Brother, brother!’ he whispered, and touched Raoul’s sleeve.

Raoul looked up: ‘Fool, have you seen?’

‘Yea, it is a red vengeance,’ the fool answered. ‘But will you break your heart for a parcel of Angevin swine?’

‘Do you think I care for them?’ Raoul said bitterly. ‘If I break my heart it is for William’s shame.’ He fumbled at his sword-hilt and drew the blade from its sheath. His finger traced the runes graven upon it, ‘
Le bon temps viendra!
Ah, heart of Christ!’