The Firedrake (22 page)

“You don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. Believe it. He was my son. He was my only son. He was three years old, priest. Why should he have to die? Why didn’t I die? Why strike me through my son?”

“You fool.”

“Don’t judge me, priest.”

“I will judge you. Your pride cannot negate God’s law and God’s will. God has judged you.”

“Damn God.”

Lanfranc circled the table once and sat down. “Judge yourself, then. God is all-just. He measures all men. You cannot damn God.”

“Leave me alone.”

“You are already alone. You are a man living in a box, blind and deaf and dumb. But just because you can’t see doesn’t mean that everybody else is blind.”

“They taught you all the words, didn’t they? All the pretty little answers strung like—I wish to Christ I were blind.”

“Do you realize that she loves you?”

“Stop asking me questions.”

“You bought and paid for her. But she loves you. She is a human being, like you, and she is a creature of God, and she needs love. You need love. But you will not bend to that, you will not admit it, you will neither love nor live with her, you come to her when you are hungry.”

“Shut up. Shut up, will you?”

“I don’t think it’s my words that bother you. You need them. Do you know what kind of suffering you have put her through? Three children, all dead, a man who leaves when he wishes and never thinks of her, never talks to her, never shares anything with her—”

“Leave me alone.”

“If I stop talking, you’ll have nothing but silence, and you would be even more frightened of the silence. Come here, sit down. I know that you’re frightened.”

“You know all the answers. If something happens—there”—he jabbed his hand toward the ceiling—”if you want something, you know where to get it.”

“The same is true for you.”

“No.”

“Laeghaire. Listen to me. Think about this. God is all-merciful. Perhaps He meant to teach you something. To instruct you. Learn from it. An animal is something that cannot learn. A man learns. The learning will be hard for you because you are a man perhaps valuable to God. Be worthy of being severely tried. There is comfort for everybody. There is a place and a time for everybody. You have a right to grief. You have no right to destroy yourself by it.”

Laeghaire went slowly to the bed and sat down on it.

“Grieve,” Lanfranc said. “But let her share it. And let God share it.”

Lanfranc rose. He smiled. “And remember that he has an immortal soul.”

He left. Laeghaire lay down on the bed. He shut his eyes.

“I want at least five thousand men,” William said. “But them—them I can get. I need you to run errands for me. I need men I can trust to handle some details of this.”

Laeghaire said nothing.

“Are you alone? Do you have a squire? I can quarter you with my retainers, if you wish.”

“I have a woman with me.”

“Oh? Ah. The yellow-headed wench.”

“Yes.”

“Camp-followers. Then make a camp somewhere, within the city wall. I—what’s the matter?”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“My son died.”

“Your little boy? What happened?”

“He fell into the lower vault of the stable.”

“He was very—”

“I suppose he’s better off.”

“Do you still want to fight?”

“Yes.” Laeghaire raised his eyes. He looked up at William’s face. “Yes.”

“A stupid question, perhaps.”

“Yes.”

“You have my condolences.”

“Thank you.”

William circled the broad table and sat down. He leaned back. He looked out the window.

“It doesn’t ever really work,” he said. “A man knows that he has everything he wished for, but there is always something missing, or something gone. Even when you are happy you’re impatient for something.”

“I was happy.”

“Maybe. For how long? I say I will be happy when I have England. I don’t know.”

“Maybe it’s not in us.”

“You and me? Or the rest of the world as well?”

Laeghaire reached over onto the table and took an arrow that was there. It was a crossbow bolt, new, with clean feathers. “You answer that.”

“Why should we have to be different?”

“God’s… will.”

“God’s will. If I had waited on the will of God—Irish, I’ll give you land in England. I’ll give yon land in the south and in the north and the east. You can build castles and hold forests and every day you can ride out and watch your serfs working the land.”

“You have that now. Are you happy?”

“No. I want England.”

“Why?”

“I have blood right to it.”

“Blood. A wolf has blood. And you won’t be happy.”

“No. We’ll never be happy. But we can be great and unhappy.”

“I dreamed about England. About riding in an English field. I met a witchwoman and took her.”

“God’s Splendor. That’s a prophecy of a dream.”

“Is it?”

There was a knock on the door. William stood up. “I’ll summon you when I want you. I have much to do. Go pitch your camp.”

“Yes, my lord.”

He went back and made his camp, under the shadow of the wall around Caen. Hilde went about building a fire. She went for water. When she came back, be said, “William will pay me for this in land.”

She bent over the fire. “And you will be lord.”

“Yes.”

“And take a lord’s daughter for your wife.”

“No. If I live to take the land, I will have you for my lady. I promise it. I owe it to you.”

She turned. “Oh, Laeghaire. Laeghaire, thank you.”

She put her arms around him. He held her. After a while she left him and made their supper.

William sent him to the Dives’s mouth with Fitz-Osbern, to bring him information of the boats being drawn up there. Fitz-Osbern told Laeghaire a lot while they rode. He acted as if they had always been great friends. He told Laeghaire of how the old King of England had died of a long sickness, and how Harold had been named King by the Council of Ancients, but that many of the Saxon lords would not call Harold their master. This William’s spies had brought him.

“It might have been better if he had attacked when the old man was King,” Laeghaire said.

“No. The old man was holy. God would have struck us down. Why else was it that no raids, no wars, nothing, troubled his reign, and he a gentle king?”

“There was a war. Godwin threw out the Normans.”

“That wasn’t important.”

Laeghaire grinned.

“He holds much of the coast,” Fitz-Osbern said. “And all the men who come will have boats, too. Thousands of them.”

At the Dives they inspected the boats that had been built and even went out in them, a little way from the shore, to see if they were sound. Laeghaire said that was stupid, because if the boats had holes in them he and Fitz-Osbern would drown. Fitz-Osbern only shrugged. They poled the boats out a little, into the mouth of the river, and they did not sink.

There were seventeen boats there, but some of them belonged to the fishermen. The fishermen made camps on the shore at night, hung their nets, and cleaned fish. The shore stank of fish. Laeghaire and Fitz-Osbern made a camp with the fishermen and ate fish. They talked little. The fires were big and made the darkness of the shore seem immense. The water boomed evenly on the shore. The foam glittered in the firelight and glowed white of its own light all along the beach.

They slept wrapped in their cloaks. Laeghaire woke up in the night and went off to make water. He looked up at the sky. He cried out. Fitz-Osbern and the others woke and rolled out of their cloaks. They laughed at him, standing with his leggings down. He swore at them and pointed at the sky and they looked where he pointed.

“What is it?”

“Can’t you see it?”

The fishermen knelt down and prayed.

“It’s a star,” Laeghaire said. “It’s a star with a tail.”

“I can see it.”

He pulled up his leggings and tied the thong. “They can see it, can’t they? Back in Caen?”

“It’s an omen.” Fitz-Osbern crossed himself.

The fishermen were praying very loudly. He stared up at the monster star, with its huge tail all spread out like a cloak after it. He thought he could see it move. It was huge. It was brighter than anything else, brighter than the moon.

“What is it an omen of?” Fitz-Osbern whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“The Duke will know. Perhaps—”

“It’s about us. About the expedition.”

“Us? How could God make something that great just for us?”

“The Duke. God’s chosen. God is marking him. It’s for him.”

“Do you believe that?”

Laeghaire went off. He went down by the sea. He stood looking at the star. All out of nothing it had come. So huge out there. Maybe the wind just blew it together and it caught fire from the sun on the other side. Maybe it would be there forever. It was so vast, that sky, like the edge of another ocean.

“There was a star like that when our Lord Jesus was born,” Fitz-Osbern said. He was beside Laeghaire again. “A special star, like that one.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe this is the same one.”

“That one went away.”

“It could have come back. There are all sorts of stories in the old chronicles. Of stars like this one.”

“Not like this one.” He went away from Fitz-Osbern again, watching the star.

They prayed all night back by the banked fire. He watched the star. He lay down to watch it. He dozed off and woke starting up again. But by dawn he was so tired that he went to sleep on the sand. He dreamed of many things all pushed together, and over them all rode the star.

“Did you see it?” Hilde said. “Did you see it?”

“Yes.” He pulled the reins over the black horse’s head, looked up at the sky, and back to her. “Did you all see it clearly?”

“Yes. It was terrible. I wanted you to be here.”

She reached out her hand and touched his arm. “What did it mean, Laeghaire?”

“A sign from God, perhaps. About this.”

“Good or bad?”

“Good.”

“A boy came. From the Duke. I think he’s a Norman. I can’t talk to him.”

“Where is he?”

She turned and called, “Rolf.”

A young boy, about as tall as Hilde, came from behind the tent. He stood awkwardly. “My lord Laeghaire?” he said.

“Yes.”

The boy began to speak rapidly. Laeghaire said, “Slow down. My French is not very good.”

“I’m sorry, my lord. My lord the Duke said I was to attend you.”

“Do you have a horse?”

“No. But I have a dagger. He says I am to stay by your lady.”

Hilde was watching him, waiting for him to explain. Laeghaire told her in German. She smiled. “Your lady.”

“Good,” Laeghaire said to the boy. “Take this horse and put him to pasture.” He threw the boy the reins and went into the tent.

“We’ll be going down to the coast soon,” he said to Hilde. “And half the knights in Christendom will be there. The Duke wants you protected when I’m off on his business.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“It could be.”

“For me?”

“Yes.”

Rolf came in. “My lord, there is a man here from the Duke.”

Laeghaire went out. Jehan, the big Burgundian, sat in his high saddle, in half mail. Jehan grinned. “So you did come. I thought it was you.”

“Of course I came. Am I a man to let something like this go by? Come down and have wine.”

“I can’t; I am supposed to hie you straight up to his lordship the Duke of everywhere.”

“Rolf, go fetch me a horse.”

Jehan leaned back and let his reins go. He turned to watch the boy skitter away. “By the Virgin, you made some great name for yourself in Maine. They still talk about you in the halls.”

“ ‘That devil Irish.’ ”

“Well, something of that. According to some of them, arrows passed right through you without hurting you and you killed men with the looks of your eyes.”

“The perils of the profession.”

“How is your offspring?”

“Dead.”

“Ah. I’m always stepping into traps.”

“It doesn’t matter any more. What does he want of me?”

“Oh, your mighty arm, your quibbling tongue, your deep thoughts. Here comes your horse.”

Rolf trotted up with the brown stallion on a leading string. Laeghaire frowned. He said, “Next time you bring me a horse to ride to a council, bring me the black.”