The Conqueror Read online

  The house seemed dark after the bright sunlight in the market-place. My lord Count halted on the threshold, blinking in the smoke of the fire, and looking about him for Herleva.

  She came to him with a quick step, and at once he let go his cousin’s arm, and gripped her round the waist, lifting her off her feet in his hardy embrace. Some soft lovers’ talk passed between them, too low to be heard by the men who stood behind the Count.

  ‘Lord, you shall see your son,’ Herleva said, and she took Count Robert by the hand, and led him to the cradle in the corner where the babe lay.

  Count Robert, whom men called the Magnificent, seemed to fill the hall with his splendour. His mantle brushed the rushes into little heaps as he passed, and the jewels on his arms glittered as the firelight caught them. Still holding Herleva’s hand he stood beside the cradle and looked down at the child of his begetting. There was some eagerness in his eyes, as he bent over the cradle, and a chain which he wore round his neck slipped forward, and dangled above the child. The babe stretched out clutching hands towards the treasure, and as though wondering whence it came he lifted his eyes to Count Robert’s face, and gave him back stare for stare. It was seen that the two pairs of eyes were much alike, and that the child had the same dogged look in his face that all the Norman Dukes had had as their birthright since the time of Rollo. A kinsman of the Count, young Robert, the son of the Count of Eu, whispered as much to the black-avised man at his elbow. This was William Talvas, Lord of Belesme. Talvas, peering over the Count’s shoulder at the child, muttered something that sounded like a curse, and upon young Robert of Eu looking at him in surprise, he tried to turn it off with a laugh, saying that he read hatred in the child’s eyes, and saw therein the ultimate ruin of his house. This did not seem very likely to young Robert, and he suspected that the Lord of Belesme had drunk too deeply of the barley-mead up at the Castle, for whereas the babe before them was a landless bastard, William Talvas held lands in France and in Normandy, and was accounted an ill man to cross. He looked so blankly that Talvas coloured, and moved away, himself scarcely understanding the meaning of his sudden outburst.

  Count Robert was delighted with his son. ‘Why, this is very bone of my bone!’ he said. He turned his head, and once more addressed the man whose arm he had taken outside. ‘Edward, tell me if I have not bred a noble son!’

  The Saxon Prince moved forward, and looked smilingly down at the babe. In contrast to these Normans he was very fair, with long, blond ringlets, and a pink complexion. His eyes were of northern blue, rather weak, but very amiable. His younger brother, Alfred, who stood now in the doorway, was of the same type, but he had more purpose in his face, and he did not smile so easily. Both bore themselves proudly, as indeed they had a right to do, being the sons of the dead King Ethelred of England. One day, when Cnut, the Danish usurper, was safe under the sod, they meant to go back to England, and then Edward would be a king. Just now, as he looked up at Count Robert, he was an exile, a dependant of the Norman Court.

  ‘You shall swear to love my son well, all of you,’ Count Robert said, with a challenging yet genial look round. ‘He is little, but he will grow, I promise you.’

  Edward touched the child’s cheek with his finger. ‘Indeed, I will love him as mine own,’ he said. ‘He is very like you.’

  Count Robert beckoned up his half-brother, and made him take the child’s hand. ‘You shall honour your nephew, William,’ he said laughingly. ‘See how he grabs at your finger! He will be a mighty fellow.’

  ‘It is always so with him,’ Herleva said softly. ‘He grasps as though he would never let go.’ She would have liked to have told the Count of her dream, but in the presence of these nobles she did not care to speak of it.

  ‘A fierce boy,’ William said, jesting. ‘We shall have to look to ourselves when he is grown.’

  Count Robert pulled his great sword from its sheath. ‘A warrior, if he is a true son of mine,’ he said, and laid the sword down beside the child.

  The flash of a jewel on the hilt caught the babe’s eye, and he left stretching his hands to the necklace round Count Robert’s neck, and at once grasped the sword by the cross hilt. Duxia, who was hovering in the background, quite overcome by such a noble assembly in her house, could scarcely restrain an exclamation of horror at the sight of the gleaming steel within the child’s reach. But Herleva looked on smiling.

  The babe had one of the cross-pieces of the hilt fast in his hands, whereat there was much laughter from the watching barons.

  ‘Said I not so?’ Count Robert demanded. ‘He will be a warrior, by the Face!’

  ‘Has he been received into the Church?’ Edward asked gently.

  He had been baptized a month ago, Herleva said, in the Church of Holy Trinity.

  ‘What name is he given?’ inquired Robert of Eu.

  ‘He is called William, lord,’ Herleva answered, crossing her hands on her breast.

  ‘William the Warrior!’ laughed the Count.

  ‘William the King,’ Herleva whispered.

  ‘William the Bastard!’ muttered the Lord of Belesme beneath his breath.

  Herleva slipped her hand in my lord Count’s. They stood looking fondly at their son, William, who was called Warrior, King, and Bastard, and the child crowed with delight at his new plaything, and twined his tiny fingers about the heavy sword-hilt.

  Part I

  (1047–1048)

  THE BEARDLESS YOUTH

  ‘Thus from my infancy I have been embarrassed, but by God’s mercy I have freed myself honourably.’

  Speech of William the Conqueror

  One

  Hubert de Harcourt gave his youngest son a sword upon the day that he was nineteen. ‘Though I don’t know what you will do with it,’ he said in a grumbling voice.

  Raoul had worn a sword for several years, but not such an one as this, with runes on the blade, inscribed there by some forgotten Dane, and a hilt wrought with gold. He twined his fingers round the cross-pieces, and answered slowly: – ‘By God’s grace, I will put it to good use.’

  His father and his half-brothers, Gilbert, and Eudes, laughed at that, for although they were fond of Raoul they thought poorly of his fighting power, and were sure that he would end his days in a cloister.

  The first use he found for the sword was to draw it upon Gilbert, and that not a month later.

  It fell out very simply. Gilbert, always turbulent, and, since the days of his outlawry after Roger de Toeni’s rebellion, more than ever a malcontent, had picked a quarrel with a neighbour not long before, and between these two a rather one-sided warfare raged. Raoul was too well-accustomed to such happenings to pay much heed. Raids and pillages were everyday occurrences in Normandy, and barons and vavassours, lacking a strong hand over them, behaved very much as the old Norse fighting blood directed them. If Geoffrey of Briosne chose to come in force and ravage Harcourt lands, Raoul would put on his battle-harness to defend them, but Harcourt owed fealty to the Lord of Beaumont, a haut seigneur, and Geoffrey, who held his land of Guy, princeling of Burgundy, was disinclined to risk an engagement.

  It was hardly a month after his nineteenth birthday that Raoul rode out one afternoon on his horse Verceray to the small market-town not many leagues distant from Harcourt. His errand was to buy new spurs for himself, and it pleased him on his return to take the shorter road which led him across a corner of Geoffrey de Briosne’s land. Some thought of the enmity between Geoffrey’s house and his flitted across his mind, but it was growing late in the afternoon, and since he hardly expected to meet any of Geoffrey’s men-at-arms at this hour, he thought he might well trust to his new sword and Verceray’s swift hooves to guard him from any sudden danger. He was unattended, and wore nothing over his woollen tunic but a cloak to keep him warm in the chill spring evening, so that it would probably have gone hardly with
him had he chanced on any of his enemies. But it was not an enemy whom he was destined to meet.

  The sun was setting when he turned aside from the rough track to follow a footpath that ran beside some freshly ploughed fields on Geoffrey’s land, and the level rays made the curves of sod glow redly. An evening quiet had fallen, and now that the town had been left behind, everything was very silent. To the west the river Risle ran between sloping banks, and to the east the ground stretched undulating to some low hills in the distance that were now fading in the blue evening mist.

  Raoul rode along at a gentle pace, picking his way. As he rode he whistled between his teeth, and mused on this pleasant country of the Evrecin, thinking it would be a good place for a man to live in and cultivate, if only he might be sure that his harvest would not be seized by a hungry neighbour, or his house burned by pillaging soldiery. This thought was in his mind when his attention was caught by a red glow a little way to the east of him, behind some trees that grew in a dell beyond the ploughed lands. There was a smell of burning carried on the light wind, and as he looked more closely he saw the quick leap of flames, and thought that he heard someone scream.

  He reined Verceray in, hesitating, for he was not upon his own ground, and it was no concern of his if a serf’s hut caught fire. Then it flashed across his mind that perhaps some men of Harcourt might be responsible, and impulsively he set Verceray at a canter across the fields that separated him from the vale behind the trees.

  As he drew nearer he heard again, and this time unmistakably, that tortured scream. It was followed by a confused sound of laughter which made Raoul fold his lips tightly together. He knew that brutal laughter; he had heard it many times in his life, for men laughed thus wildly when they were drunk with bloodshed. He spurred Verceray on, never pausing in his indignation to consider what he should do if he were to find himself suddenly in the midst of foes.

  The flames were roaring fiercely as Verceray thundered down the slope, and in the hellish light Raoul saw a cottage burning, and men in leather tunics brandishing torches. A pig ran squealing from out the burning house into the garth; one of the soldiers rushed after it shouting a hunting cry, and drove his lance through its back. Tied to a sapling by his wrists was a peasant, obviously the owner of the ruined cottage. His tunic was slit from neck to girdle, and his back was bleeding. His head rolled on his shoulder, and there was foam on his grey lips. Two men-at-arms were flogging him with their stirrup-leathers, while another stood by holding a dishevelled woman by her arms. She seemed half demented; her dress was torn across her shoulders, and her hair, escaped from the close cap, streamed about her in wispy strands. Just as Raoul came crashing down into the middle of the group she shrieked out for God’s sake not to kill her good man, for she would fetch her daughter, even as the noble seigneur commanded.

  She was allowed to go, and a man who sat astride a great roan destrier, cold-bloodedly observing all that was going on, shouted to his servants that they need not finish their victim off yet awhile if the woman kept to her word.

  Raoul reined in Verceray so hard that the big horse was wrenched back almost upon his haunches. He twisted round in the saddle to face the man on the roan destrier. ‘What beastly work is this?’ he panted. ‘You dog, Gilbert! so it is you!’

  Gilbert was surprised to see his brother. He made his horse move towards Verceray, and said with a grin: – ‘Holà, and where did you spring from so suddenly?’

  Raoul was still white with his passion. He pressed up to Gilbert, and said in a low voice: – ‘What have you done, you devil? What reason had you? Call off your hounds! Call them off, I say!’

  Gilbert laughed. ‘What business is it of yours?’ he said contemptuously. ‘Holy Face, but you are in a rare temper! Do you know where you stand, you silly dreamer? That’s not one of our men.’ He pointed to the bound serf, as though he had satisfactorily explained his conduct.

  ‘Let him go!’ Raoul ordered. ‘Let him go, Gilbert, or by God and His Mother, you shall rue it!’

  ‘Let him go, indeed!’ repeated Gilbert. ‘He can go when that old slut brings up his daughter, perhaps, but not before. Have you gone moon-mad?’

  Raoul saw that it was useless to bandy more words to and fro. In silence he wheeled Verceray about and rode up to the captive, pulling his knife from his belt to cut the rope that bound the man.

  As soon as Gilbert perceived that he was in earnest he stopped laughing and cried out angrily: – ‘Stand back, you young fool! Hands off my meat! Here, you! pull him off that horse!’

  One of the men started forward to obey the command. Raoul’s right foot left the stirrup and shot out, to crash full into the man’s face, knocking him clean head over heels. No one else made any movement to come at him, for although these men were Gilbert’s own bullies they knew what respect was due to Hubert de Harcourt’s other sons.

  Seeing that no one else was advancing upon him Raoul leaned over in the saddle and sawed quickly through the rope that bound the serf’s wrists to the tree. The man was either dead, or swooning; his eyes were shut, and his face grey under the flecks of blood. As the last strands parted he fell in a heap on to the ground, and lay there.

  Gilbert had spurred angrily after Raoul, but the shrewd kick that had stretched his servant flat brought back his good humour, and instead of storming and swearing as he usually did when crossed, he clapped Raoul on the shoulder, and sang out: – ‘By the Rood, that was neatly done, cockerel! I swear I didn’t know you had it in you. But you are all wrong, you know. The dirty bondman has been hiding his daughter from me this past week, and I’ve been obliged to beat him till he’s three parts dead before I could learn where the wench was hid.’

  ‘Keep your foul hands off me!’ Raoul said. ‘If there were justice in Normandy you would hang, you hound!’ He slid down from Verceray’s back, and bent over the peasant. ‘I think you have killed him,’ he said.

  ‘One lousy knave the less, then,’ said Gilbert. ‘Not so free with your tongue, Brother Priest, or maybe I’ll school you a little as you won’t like.’ The scowl had descended on his face again, but at that moment he caught sight of the woman who had gone off to fetch her daughter, and he forgot Raoul’s audacity. ‘Aha!’ he cried, ‘she was not so far away!’ He jumped down from the saddle, and stood waiting with a flushed face and hot floating eyes for the two women to come up with him. The elder woman was dragging her daughter by one wrist, but the girl cried, and hung back, turning her pretty face away as though she were afraid to see the lustful eyes that watched her so greedily. She was very young, and frightened, and she kept calling in a fluttering voice on her father to aid her. Her startled gaze fell on his inert body, and she gave a whimper of horror. Gilbert caught her and pulled her close up to him. His eyes devoured her while she stood shivering, and he brought up one hand to her throat, fondling it. She shrank away, but his grip on her tightened, and his fingers closing on the neck of her gown tore it away suddenly from her shoulder. ‘Well, my shy bird!’ he muttered thickly. ‘So you come at last, do you? I have a mind to you, my girl, I think.’

  There was a movement behind him. Gilbert jerked up his head, but was too late to fend off Raoul’s blow. It took him unawares, a tremendous buffet that knocked him clean off his balance. He and the girl went down in a sprawling heap. The girl scrambled up in a moment, and ran to where her father lay, but Gilbert stayed propped on his elbow, glaring up into Raoul’s face.

  Raoul’s sword was out, and shortened for the thrust. ‘Lie still!’ he snapped. ‘I have something to say before I let you up.’

  ‘You!’ Gilbert spluttered. ‘You nithing! you insolent whelp! God’s belly, if I do not crack your skull for this!’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ Raoul retorted, ‘but for the present you will be very ill-advised to move a finger. You can tell that scum you keep for bodyguard to stand still until I have said my say.’ Then, as Gilbert only swor
e at him, he added in a matter-of-fact voice: – ‘It will be better for you to do as I bid you, for by the Cross I am in a mood to stick you like a pig with no more ado!’

  ‘Stick me? Why – why – Holy Virgin, the whelp is bewitched in good sooth!’ Gilbert gasped. ‘Let me up, you young fool! God’s eyes, if I do not flay you for this!’

  ‘First you shall swear to let the wench go,’ said Raoul. ‘Afterwards it shall be as the better man decides.’

  ‘Let the wench go at your bidding? Ha, now you provoke me!’ Gilbert cried. ‘What traffic have you with the girl, Master Saint?’

  ‘None. Do I kennel with serfs? I shall certainly slay you if you don’t swear. I will count up to twenty, Gilbert, and no more.’

  At the eighteenth count Gilbert left blaspheming and growled a reluctant oath. Raoul drew back his sword then. ‘We will ride home together,’ he said, keeping a weather-eye on his brother’s sword-hand. ‘Mount, there is no more for you to do here.’

  Gilbert stood hesitating for a moment, his fingers gripping the hilt of his sword, but Raoul clinched the matter by turning his unarmed back to him. His first blind fury having had time to abate, Gilbert knew that he could not draw steel upon a young brother who was not expecting it. Astonishment at Raoul’s conduct again consumed him, and as one in a bewildered muse he got upon his horse, trying to puzzle it all out in his slow brain. His roving eye caught sight of the sly grins upon the faces of his men, and flushing angrily he rasped out an order to get to horse. Without waiting to see what Raoul would do next he clapped his spurs into his destrier’s flanks, and set off at a canter through the trees.