The Firedrake (25 page)

“It’s the great ones who change things,” Laeghaire said. He could hear the horns blasting. He went out and rode back to get Hilde.

So they sailed to Saint-Valéry, on the mouth of the Somme. Hilda was sick all the way, and Laeghaire held her in his lap so that she would not slip under the hoofs of the horses. They went ashore at Saint-Valéry and camped, and during the night the wind came up in a full gale and veered around the circle. By dawn it was blowing steadily from the southeast. By the time the sun was fully up, the orders were out to board the boats again.

Laeghaire and Rolf led the horses onto their boat. The black horse kicked and reared. He broke from Rolf’s grip and charged across the boat and came up on the edge and snorted, pawing at the rail of the boat. He backed up in a wild rush and knocked over several barrels.

“Catch that horse—”

Laeghaire threw the stallion’s lead rope to Rolf. He shoved away two men that stood bewildered before him. He shouted, “Clear this boat.” The black horse was bucking on the deck. His hoofs rang on the boards. Barrels and a bale of hay skidded under his hoofs. Laeghaire dodged them and caught the rope. The horse reared. He bolted. Laeghaire braced himself. The horse dragged him a few feet. He reached out and wrapped his arm around the mast. The horse came up hard on the end of the rope and fell. Laeghaire ran to him and sat on his head. He shouted for more rope. Immediately there were men around him, dodging the horse’s striking hoofs. He took a rope and hobbled the horse and stood up. The horse got to his feet and stood, shaking his head.

“What happened to him?” Rolf said.

“Nervous.” Laeghaire took the horse to the back of the boat and tethered him.

“He was all right yesterday.”

“He gets a little wild sometimes. Besides, I led him on yesterday. Get the stallion up here.”

The stallion came on quietly, steadily. Laeghaire turned to look back. The whole shore was dark and swarming with men and horses. They floundered in the shallow breaking waves and howled for help. A horse broke loose and dashed back up the beach, and twenty men chased it, shouting and waving their arms, and the horse neighed, wild-eyed, and bolted on. The boats that were filled were moving away to make room, and the swarm spread out, pushing into the water, bobbing on the waves.

Laeghaire went back for Hilde and brought her on the boat. He stayed there with her for a while and they watched the crowd. She was flushed and happy. “It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful.”

The boat next to theirs shoved off. The sails opened. The canvas snapped taut. The horses quivered and arched their necks. Three men sat on the rail, their legs trailing over, and shouted to the people on the next boat.

“I have to go with William,” Laeghaire said. “Rolf will take care of you.”

“Why do I have to stay here?”

“Because I said so.”

“Cast off,” somebody shouted.

Laeghaire shouldered through the mob. He could smell the sweat of excitement on them. He pushed away from them, vaulted the rail, and waded ashore. The beach was almost empty now. He stood a moment, looking at the empty beach. Horse tracks and men tracks and scattered dung littered it, as far as he could see. A forgotten piece of equipment lay on the sand up by the hightide line.

“I’m going to England,” he said.

He smiled at the empty beach and spat into the sand. He turned and walked down the beach toward William’s boat. It was the last to cast off. The blue banner stretched out on the wind. He waded out and hoisted himself over the rail.

Guy was immediately beside him. Guy’s eyes were bright and his mouth worked. He pulled Laeghaire’s sleeve. “Isn’t it exciting?”

“Hunh.”

Guy turned on him. “It is. We are all going on a great adventure.”

“You sound like a child.”

“I’ve never gone far from my own place before. I’ve never left Normandy.”

“You’ll leave once too often, if you take up fighting for pay.”

Guy was angry. He turned and bulled his way through the massed knights. They stepped aside and called angrily after him, but he never turned; he went straight on and out of sight. Laeghaire stood at the rail and watched the waves and the fading shore.

He was violently sick as soon as they reached the rough water. The sight of the chopping waves and the gulls that followed them made black dots jump before his eyes. Half the others were sick too. They lay on the deck with their heads over the edge and vomited into the crisp blue sea. Or they lay in the middle of the deck and now and then stumbled to the edge, trampling on the men prone beneath them, because William did not wish his boat fouled.

Laeghaire recovered quicker than most of them and sat with his back to the mast, weak-legged, listening to the sailors tell stories to the knights. One of them had seen a sea serpent. He swore it was five hundred yards long and that it had three heads. The knights made appropriate noises. They moved carefully, watchful of their light stomachs.

Nobody ate anything all the day. By nightfall, Laeghaire was ready to try something. He got up and walked around, feeling much steadier and stronger. He found Guy playing the fingers game with an archer and said, “Do you have anything to eat?”

“There’s meat up on the foredeck.” Guy held up his clenched fist. He counted. Laeghaire stepped by him. On the foredeck he found a small fire and meat on skewers. The Duke sat cross-legged on the deck with his hands greasy from eating. William was talking to a man in a jongleur’s clothes. The jongleur said something and William laughed.

“Tell your jest to the Irish,” William said. “He’s the great wit of my captains. Irish, come here.”

“My lord.”

The jongleur reached for his lute. He sat back and began to play. William glanced at him.

“I saw you were sick,” William said to Laeghaire.

“Yes.”

“No fit place for a knight. What do you know of Wessex? What is Pevensey?”

“Old fort. Very old. Roman, maybe. Nothing but a bunch of stone walls.”

“Has it got a harbor, or a bay, or anything?”

Laeghaire shut his eyes. Wessex. “No. Not Pevensey. There is a harbor a little way up the coast from it.”

William’s head turned. “Guy.”

Guy came up to the foredeck.

“Is there a town near Pevensey? Northeast of it? Go on, Laeghaire.”

“It’s a fishing village,” Laeghaire said. Parts came back to him. He tried to fit them together. “Two rivers, and a low sandspit between them—that’s the town. Very well protected. There are hills just inland of it, good rolling hills.”

“Yes,” Guy said.

“Hastings,” Laeghaire said.

“Yes,” Guy said.

“Good,” William said. “We will occupy that town, if we can.” He paused. His eyes burned steadily on Laeghaire. “You have a good memory, Irish.”

Laeghaire nodded.

“From this town, if we can take it, we will attack all the country around. My lord d’Avranches.”

D’Avranches swung his head toward them. He was a broad-faced Norman and William’s greatest lord. William told him what they would do. D’Avranches listened calmly. He asked a few questions and turned away. He got up and went slowly down the deck, crowding men out of his way. He met the lord of Warenne, a way down the deck, and stood talking. William’s eyes stayed angrily on him.

“Someday,” he said, “I will make him a little less dangerous.”

“When it suits you, my lord,” Laeghaire said.

William laughed. “I hope your sons’ sons are as good as you, when my son’s son is on the throne.”

“Your Grace.”

“When you raid, Irish, burn and loot. Whatever loot you take is yours. You’ll need it, to furnish your earldom.”

“You are kind, Your Grace.”

“I’m not King yet.”

“Who doubts?”

William smiled. “Tailleford,” he said. He turned to the jongleur. “Tailleford, play us a war song.”

In the twilight they bound torches to each corner of the boat and to the top of the mast. The other boats also did so. Slowly, the torches multiplied, spreading out, glimmering on the water between the boats. The bits of fire, blown by the wind, stretched on and on and on, deep into the haze, past sight, and still went on. The sun was down, and the blackness closed in around them, but on the deck of William’s boat the light filled all the corners.

Laeghaire went to sleep on the foredeck, with his cloak wrapped into a bundle under his head. He woke up in the false dawn. The deck was littered with sleeping men. He went to the side of the ship and made water. On the way back to his place, stepping over the bodies of the sleepers, he paused by the mast and drank from the wine skin there. It was still chilly from the night air. He stood a moment, rolling the water on his tongue. The ship rolled slightly under his feet. He went back to his place. William sat in the bow, asleep, leaning against the angle of the rail. Laeghaire rested his weight against the rail and studied William. He smiled in his sleep. His hair was redder and his skin glowed in the first light of the sun. There was gray in his hair. The ridge of his cheekbone showed through the skin there.

He’s only a little older than I, Laeghaire thought. We are neither of us young men any more. I am nearly forty. He was born to it, what he is, and I was born to what I am. And our sons …

He watched William come awake. He woke easily, stretching, saw Laeghaire and grinned. His eyes were half closed. Laeghaire saw them glitter. William got up and went down the deck. He yawned and moved his shoulders, loosening his muscles. His shadow ran over the men lying dull asleep on the deck, of the ship; his shadow was long as the boat, from the sun that had just risen.

The English coast was long and low and gray. They moved swiftly on into it, the hundreds of little boats, nosing through the faint mist. Laeghaire watched the coast move in toward him. The features of this shore defined themselves and grew slowly familiar, as if he were coming home. He thought it might be that. He would have an earldom here, and a castle, and lands and serfs. He would have his own band of retainers. He would have his own knights and his own tenants. He would sit in the King’s council, and when they spoke of him, he would be Laeghaire, Earl of Such-and-Such, not Laeghaire of the Long Road. When he died he would have six sons to carry his coffin to the churchyard of the church he would build, and his daughters with silvery hair would weep for him. He would never leave his land.

“All in my hands,” be said, and Guy turned to look up at him.

“Will you build real castles, knight?”

“Yes. Of solid stone. Get along, serf.”

They nosed in against the beach, and the shock of their landing toppled two men into the water. The others cheered. They leaped off in droves, laughing. They drew their swords and hacked at the soil. Laeghaire climbed over the rail and felt the strong land under his feet and shouted. He almost fell over; the land seemed to move under him like the deck of a ship. He turned to help Guy down.

“Any more noise,” he shouted, “and we’ll have the Saxons down on us.”

Guy, laughing, ran a few steps backward. He turned and flung up his arms. “The Promised Land.”

William climbed over the rail before they put out the plank. He jumped. He took a step and stumbled and fell on his face, in full sight of all his men.

Guy gasped and put his hand to his mouth. Fitz-Osbern leaped to help. The Duke shook him off. He stood. He raised his hands; he had sand on his sleeves. He cried, “I have seized England with both hands.”

His voice rang in a stony quiet. The men cheered suddenly. They turned, relaxing, reassured. The horses were coming off the boats, clattering down the gangplanks. Laeghaire saw William turn, say something to Fitz-Osbern, and walk up the beach, apart from the others. Laeghaire jogged through the crowd, wheeling by horses and laughing men. He found Hilde and Rolf, standing by the boat, watching the freed horses fly off the plank to the solid ground. Laeghaire put his arm around Hilde.

The brown stallion came easily down the gangplank and stopped, and Rolf went to bring him. The black horse galloped down with a neigh and kicked up his heels. The other horses began to neigh.

“Listen. They are cheering for us.” Jehan rode up, grinning. “The Duke wants you, as usual.”

Rolf was saddling the black horse. Laeghaire drew Hilde in between the horses and trotted off to William.

“That Roman fort is about a hundred paces down from here,” William said. “Get some men together and make an earthwork in it.”

Laeghaire went back, mounted the black horse, and rode around collecting men. He took the largest groups he could find, the archers and the foot soldiers, who had nothing to do. They got spades from the supply boat and followed him up to the fort. The fort was almost overgrown. Laeghaire took his lance and drew a circle around it, riding with the lance dragging in the soft earth. The men bent and began to dig. They talked incessantly. Laeghaire rode back and ordered up some knights to guard them. The sun rose higher; it would be hot. He took his feet out of the stirrups and relaxed, watching the men dig.

Below, on the beach, the rest of the army was getting organized. The boats drew off and were anchored offshore. Laeghaire could see the men gathering around the banner staff blessed by the Pope. He saw a band of knights gallop off to the east, along the coast, going to find Hastings.