The Conqueror Read online

  ‘That my cousin of Burgundy would be pleased to see himself on my throne? Do you think me a fool, Raoul?’

  ‘Never that, lord, but you gave no sign, and when in my ignorance I sought to warn you, you seemed as though you did not care,’ Raoul said shyly.

  ‘Nor do I care,’ William answered. ‘Heart of God, have I lived Duke of Normandy for eleven years to be affrighted now by a parcel of rebels? Hark ye, Raoul de Harcourt! the first thing in life of which I have remembrance is of my uncle Walter carrying me by stealth from my palace at Vaudreuil to a poor hut in the forest, there to lie hid from mine enemies. Often has he taken me thus, for from my eighth year my subjects have conspired against me greatly. They put to death my guardian Thorkill, and they slew Count Gilbert, whom men called the Father of his Country. You have seen FitzOsbern, my Seneschal; his father, Osbern the son of Herfast, died in my service, slain at my door, and I a lad not yet in my teens. Spine of God, I have waded already through rivers of blood! I have learned to trust no man lightly, for those who should have defended me against the world have sought my death since the days of mine infancy.’ He broke off, and laughed sardonically. ‘Now it is Guy of the Soft Tongue who lifts up his head to strike a blow at the Bastard of Normandy! By my father’s soul, there shall be a bloody reckoning.’ He urged his horse to a gallop; the night wind stirred the curls of his uncovered head, and carried an end of his mantle streaming behind him in a dark cloud. He turned his head, and Raoul saw his teeth gleam in the starlight. ‘Stay by me, Raoul the Watcher. By the living God, you shall see this Normandy under my heel!’

  Side by side the two destriers pounded along the track. ‘Ah, lord,’ Raoul said eagerly, ‘it was for this that I joined your service. I am your man, to my death and after, my hands between yours, my sword at your call!’

  ‘So be it!’ William said, and he stretched out his square hand.

  The horses drew close, till Raoul’s knee brushed the Duke’s. Their hands met, and grasped hard. ‘Beau sire, crush this serpent of unrest, and let us have peace in Normandy!’

  ‘I will have war before I have peace,’ William said. ‘Splendour of God, it is time and more that this virgin sword of mine was fleshed! Hark ye, in a day, in a week, Normandy will be up and in arms against me. I can count upon this hand the men I know I may trust.’ His voice grated, and Raoul felt rather than saw his frown. ‘Falaise first, and then to France.’

  Raoul said aghast: ‘To France, lord?’

  ‘Yea, to Henry my suzerain, to demand his aid.’

  Memories of old sores crossed Raoul’s mind. ‘Seigneur, will you trust the French King?’

  ‘He is my suzerain,’ William said curtly. ‘He dare not refuse me.’

  They rode on, slackening the pace again as they plunged into the murk of a forest.

  ‘Who stands for you, lord?’ Raoul asked.

  ‘I shall see in a little space,’ William answered, with a kind of grim humour. ‘Of this western Normandy, perhaps none. Of Caux, and the Roumois, of Evrecin and Ouche, all the land east of the Dives, many.’ His horse stumbled over a tree-root, but was held together by a rigid hand. ‘I have had few friends in my life. My cousin of Eu stands faithful. They say he swore allegiance to me as I lay in my cradle. There is Roger de Beaumont, old Hugh de Gournay, De Montfort, whom you know. I have two uncles, half-brothers to my father: shall I trust them? Yea, while I can hold them in mine eye. In my childhood I had a friend in Edward the Saxon, he who is now King of England, but he could do no more than pray for me. Yet he loves me as I think few have. His brother Alfred dealt more in actions than in prayer, but he was a fool, and met his death at the hands of Earl Godwine. For the rest – I could name you more easily my foes. They are as numerous as the trees of this forest.’ He drew his mantle more closely about him. ‘Saw you one Ranulf de Briscassart at Bayeux, the Viscount of Bessin? He is a lean man and sour, and his eyes shift under mine. He stands for Guy. There is the Lord of Thorigny, him they call Hamon-aux-Dents. A bandog, that one, who would do me a mischief if he could. These are powerful seigneurs, but there is a greater who I think stands with them.’ He paused. ‘So be it. If he lives he will one day serve me. He is that Néel de Saint-Sauveur, Viscount of Côtentin, who came not to Valognes. If he came it would have been as my true vassal. He came not. We shall meet in battle.’ He glanced up at the stars. ‘Press on: we must cross the Vire before dawn.’

  When they reached the border at last the horses were sweating and blown. Fortune favoured them with an ebbing tide, but the dawn was stealing upon them as they breasted the current. The water washed the riders’ knees, and Raoul’s teeth chattered with the cold. The horses scrambled up the bank on the further side, and stood with trembling legs, and heaving flanks. William was watching the grey light creep above the horizon. ‘We must leave Bayeux to the south of us,’ he said. ‘I dare not enter that town. On! there is no tarrying here.’

  At St Clement they rested their horses for a while outside the little church. William, a religious man, went in to kneel a few minutes before the altar, with his strong hands clasped, and his gaze sternly devout. They mounted again almost at once, and now Raoul had difficulty in keeping up with the Duke, who forced the pace on ruthlessly. The last stars had disappeared as they skirted sleeping Bayeux, and the dawn-mist shrouded the town from their sight.

  The sun was striking through the mist when they came to Rie, with its castle standing by the road. William would have passed it by, but the bridge was down, and a man was seen to stand on it, scenting the morning air. He had watched the labouring horses come along the road from afar, curious to know what men these were who rode foaming destriers so early in the day. As they drew abreast at a stumbling trot he recognized the bare-headed figure on the black horse, and gasped, and ran out to stop the Duke. ‘Seigneur! Seigneur! hold!’ he shouted, and stood in the riders’ path with his arms flung out.

  The Duke reined in. The Sieur of Rie caught Malet’s bridle, and cried: ‘What evil befalls, lord? How is it you travel thus, alone and in disorder?’

  The Duke looked directly at him. ‘Hubert, dare I trust you?’ he said.

  ‘Yea, as God lives you may trust me, beau sire. Speak boldly! I am your man.’

  ‘Why then,’ William answered, ‘I am fleeing for my life. Do you seek to stay me?’

  ‘For as long as shall suffice you to break your fast, lord, and mount a fresh horse,’ Hubert said promptly. ‘Enter and fear nothing! If your enemies come up with you I will hold my castle in their teeth.’

  They rode over the bridge into the bailey of the castle, and slid down from the saddles. Old Hubert de Rie was shouting lustily for his servants; he swept the two weary men into the hall of his castle, and in a little while the place teemed with hurrying bondmen, some bringing raiment for the Duke, some kneeling to bind the straps over the hose round his legs, one presenting a basin of water for him to lave his face, another holding a napkin, a third standing by to offer a horn filled to the brim with wine of France. While they dressed him William spoke over their heads to Hubert, briefly recounting what had befallen at Valognes. In the middle of this there came in three young men, solemn-eyed, lanky youths, who knelt before the Duke while their father proudly told over their names to his liege-lord.

  ‘Behold your lord!’ he admonished them. ‘You will be his escort. On your lives, leave him not till you have brought him safe to Falaise!’

  ‘On our heads be it,’ the eldest of them said in a deep, serious voice, and put his hands between the Duke’s.

  So they rode at length to Falaise, leaving Hubert to lead the pursuers off the track. This he did so guilelessly that at the end of an hour’s tricky riding, when he left the hungry band, they still believed him their well-wisher, and zealously followed up the road he had indicated.

  At Falaise the Duke stayed only a night. The town was a loyal outpost in the middle of hostile terri
tory, and news came in soon enough. All the land west of the Dives was in open revolt under Néel de Saint-Sauveur, and Ranulf, Viscount of Bessin, while in Bayeux Guy, the son of Count Raymond of Burgundy, was declared the true ruler of Normandy by right of his mother, Alicia, the daughter of Duke Richard II. His manifesto was made public, wherein he denounced William as base-born and unfit to govern. William showed his teeth when he heard of it, and rode at once to Rouen, escorted by a bodyguard of picked men.

  The capital welcomed him with loyal alacrity. He was met with great pomp by his uncles, William, Count of Arques, and Mauger, the Archbishop of Rouen, riding in splendour at the head of the faithful vassals. Strangely in contrast to this cavalcade the young man in the plain tunic and flowing mantle reined in his horse hard upon its haunches, and stiffly returned the salute of half a hundred men. He lodged in the episcopal palace, and all that evening he sat in conference with his uncles: William, hostile, yet for the moment loyal; Mauger, sleek man, setting his finger-tips together, and regarding their whiteness in meditative silence. My lord Bishop kept great state, and housed his nephew royally. William lifted his brows at the wealth of gold plate and costly hangings, but said nothing. Raoul, wandering over the fine palace, caught a glimpse of an opulent lady, who wore silk and many jewels, but he also held his peace.

  At the conference it was decided that the Duke should ride to the Court of King Henry, who lay at Poissy, and there petition his aid against the rebels.

  The Count of Arques misliked the scheme, and spoke hotly of past wrongs. ‘Allancz al roy?’ he repeated. ‘Go to the King? Heart of a man, are we to forget how Henry seized Tillières? I would not trust the French Fox, no, not I!’

  But Mauger smiled, and said smoothly: ‘This is to bind him to us. He dare not refuse.’

  ‘So I think,’ the Duke said. His deep voice sounded oddly after Mauger’s silken speech. ‘I will not nurse up old hostilities towards my suzerain.’

  He was gone again the next morning, riding at the head of an escort to the French border in his usual headlong way. He made his knights feel breathless, but they admired him. It was a tired but a proud company that at length reached Poissy, and reined in before the drawbridge of the castle. A herald cantered forward to the very edge of the bridge, and shouted his announcement in a voice like a clarion: –

  ‘William, by the Grace of God Duke of Normandy, craves audience of his Most Puissant Majesty Henry, King of France!’

  Poissy was startled; as the Duke’s troop rode into the bailey men had already run to warn the King’s attendants of this unexpected coming. Within an hour of his arrival William was ushered into the King’s presence. He stalked in, attended by the Lords of Arques, Gournay and Montfort, and by three knights, of whom Raoul was one, and found the King seated on a dais in his chair of state, with his nobles round him.

  William’s hawk-gaze swept the hall. He advanced into the middle of the floor, and knelt stiffly, looking into the King’s face.

  Henry rose from his chair, and came down from the dais with his hands held out, and a smile that was a little twisted on his thin lips. ‘Fair cousin, we cry you welcome.’ He raised the Duke, and embraced him. ‘You come in haste who send us no word to expect you,’ he said, watching the Duke under his eyelids.

  ‘Sire, as my need is desperate so is my haste,’ William answered, coming more swiftly to the point than the Frenchman liked. ‘I am here to solicit aid from France in my Duchy.’

  Henry shot a quick look at Eudes, his brother. Then his eyes were veiled again, and he said gently: ‘What dire need is this, cousin?’

  Briefly William told his story, and at the end folded his arms across his chest, and stood awaiting the King’s reply, never taking his eyes from that secret face.

  The French nobles were whispering amongst themselves, covertly scrutinizing the straight figure before the King. William topped Henry by half a head and was built on lines that made the King look puny. He was dressed very simply in a tunic trimmed with gold, with his sword at his side, and his mantle hanging from his shoulders to his heels. Solid golden bracelets clasped his powerful forearms, and his cloak was fastened on his shoulder by a jewelled fibula. His head was bare, so that his strong, dark face could be seen by everyone in the hall. He stood squarely, and motionless, yet nothing about him argued repose.

  Henry plucked at his gown for a moment, pinching the rich stuff between his fingers. ‘We must speak more particularly of this, cousin,’ he said at last. ‘After we have dined you shall give me your company.’

  At the end of the council that was held all the afternoon in the audience chamber above the hall it was agreed that Henry should march into Normandy at the head of a French army, and upon a day appointed meet William with such ducal troops as he could raise. The Duke swept him along on the tide of his will; the French nobles caught the infection of his energy: the King found that his council was being swayed by his young vassal, himself driven relentlessly on whither he only half wanted to go.

  Upon the following day the Duke was gone again, as abruptly as he had come. The King watched his departure from one of the windows, thoughtfully stroking his long upper lip. At his side his brother Eudes said with a laugh: ‘By the Host, the Bastard seems to be a man, sire!’

  ‘Yea,’ Henry said slowly. ‘He must be bound to me more closely yet.’

  ‘So we march to aid him against his rebels, brother. Is that how it runs?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe,’ the King muttered. ‘I can use him, I think. Yes, I have work for the Bastard.’

  Four

  The Duke’s cavalcade rode into Rouen again to find it seething with armed men. The streets seemed to resound with the clash of steel, and the sun was bright on polished shields and the hauberks of the knights. The Duke’s faithful vassals were pouring in in answer to his summons to war. From Caux and Brai they came, day after day; from the Evrecin and the Vexin, from Roumois and Lieuvin, while messengers rode in at all hours with promises from Perche and Ouche, Hiesmes and Auge, to join the Duke on his march westward.

  A large company met the Duke on his entry into the town. Raoul saw his overlord, Roger de Beaumont, and guessed that his father and perhaps one or both of his brothers were in his train. There were many others, and amongst them a tall man whom the Duke embraced very warmly. This was Count Robert of Eu. He was accompanied by his younger brother William, called Busac, and by a numerous train of followers.

  Barons great and small thronged the palace. There was De Gournay, wise in war, with his boon comrade Walter Giffard, the arm-gaunt Lord of Longueville; young De Montfort; William FitzOsbern, the Duke’s Seneschal; the Lords of Crevecoeur and Estouteville, of Briquebec, Mortemer, and Roumare, all with their meinies, all bristling in hardiment. Day after day they streamed into Rouen, hounds straining at the leash, a leash held taut between a young man’s fingers.

  ‘Not bad, not bad!’ Hubert de Harcourt grunted, watching William de Warenne ride into the town at the head of his men. ‘But for every man of ours I’ll be bound the Viscount of Côtentin has two.’ He shook his head, glooming. ‘Do you see the Lords of Moyon and Magneville? Do you see Drogon de Manceaux, or Gilbert Montfiquet? Where are the Lords of Cahagnes and Asnières? What word comes from Tournières? Where is Saint-Sever? Where is Walter de Lacy? We shall pit our might against theirs on the day appointed. You will not see them before, by my head!’

  Feeling ran high against Grimbauld the traitor. The little loyal band of men who had followed the Duke to Valognes had rejoined him at Rouen, hot for revenge on the villain who had drugged them.

  Beside William, Count Robert and Hugh de Gournay advised, but he outstripped them. A demon of energy seemed to possess him; they panted behind him in the spirit even as Raoul panted in the body. Boy followed boy now in right earnest. In a night, the night of a wild ride, a queer bond of amity had sprung up between the Duke and the youngest of
his knights. Raoul rode behind William, slept at his door, attended him to his council, even carried his gonfanon when he galloped down the lines of his troops. Men lifted their brows; some sneered; some looked jealously, but he cared nothing for that while the Duke’s imperative voice called a dozen times in a day: ‘Raoul!’

  His father was puffed up with pride in the favour shown to his youngest born, and could not at all understand how it was that Raoul himself showed no signs of a reasonable conceit. That Raoul had no ambition beyond his burning desire to serve the Duke was a matter of astonishment to him, and some misgiving. Respect for William he could comprehend now that he had seen the Duke at work, but that Raoul should lay his boy’s heart with all its hoarded store of dreams at William’s feet seemed to him a strange unwholesome business. He frowned over it, and growled: ‘Sacred Face! lads were made of sterner stuff in my day!’

  The ducal army rode westwards to meet the French, passing Pont Audémer on the Risle, and crossing the Touque at Pont l’Evêque. Here and at other points along the march they were joined by reinforcements led by the barons from outlying districts. From day to day the Duke’s scouts brought him word of the French King’s advance. He had crossed the Frontier at Verneuil at the head of his levies, and marched to Hiesmes by way of Echaufour, and was on his way north through Auge to meet the Duke at Valmérie, a league to the south of Argences, and hard by the camp of the rebels on the plain of Val-es-dunes.

  William crossed the Méance at the ford of Berengier, north of Val-es-dunes. Not a baron in his army but had his gonfanonier at his side. Gonfanons and knights’ pennons stretched out in the breeze, a medley of proud colours led by the gold lions that waved over William’s head. The poor folk crowded out of Argences to watch the host ride by. There were open mouths and round eyes, and men nudged one another, and whispered: ‘There he rides! That is the Duke, he on the black destrier. Jesu! but he looks older than his years!’