The Conqueror Read online

  A girl’s voice cried shrilly: ‘God aid, beau sire! Death to your grace’s enemies!’

  There was a cheer, a shout of ‘God aid! God aid!’ The Duke rode by looking straight between Malet’s ears.

  The French had heard Mass at Valmérie at daybreak, and marched out to Val-es-dunes, where the rebel army was drawn up along the bank of the Méance. Over the high ground at Argences rode the ducal troops, and saw at their feet the plain of Val-es-dunes, without hill or valley or wood, sloping gently to the east in wind-swept bareness.

  ‘A fine place for fighting,’ remarked Count Robert, riding abreast of William. ‘Néel has chosen his ground well, by the Host!’

  Raoul looked at the silver gleam of the river, and thought: There will be blood on the water, and dead men floating down the stream. Who of us shall wake to-morrow?

  It was plain no such misgiving crossed the Duke’s mind. He spurred his horse to a gallop, as though eager to come upon the field of battle. Verceray leaped after, and the wind unfurled the gonfanon Raoul carried, and showed the lions golden on a blood-red ground.

  The King of France rode out from his lines to meet the Duke. One of his nobles accompanied him; he wore a red mantle over his ringed tunic.

  Everything is red today, Raoul thought. And shall be redder yet, God wot!

  Verceray stamped restlessly, and champed at the bit; the wind shivered the silken gonfanon, and bent the grass underfoot in flitting shadows. Raoul looked towards the rebel army, drawn up in battle array at some distance. There too standards fluttered aloft, and the sun caught the tips of a wood of spears, so that they flashed dazzling points of light. The quiet plain stretched as far as the eye could see, and the Méance ran on untroubled, crooning its song. Suddenly Raoul found himself wishing that this tranquillity might remain unspoiled; in his mind he could see the ground torn up under the charging horses’ hooves, and dead, bleeding men lying on the river banks; and hear, drowning the twitter of birds, the shouts and the groans and the clash of battle. He gave himself a shake, for these were womanish fancies, and men were born, after all, to fight. He fixed his eyes upon the Duke again, who was sitting with one hand on his hip, and his head bent towards the King.

  Henry was pointing to a band of horsemen, nobly caparisoned, who held apart alike from the rebel troops and the ducal army. ‘Do you know who those men may be, cousin?’ he asked. ‘They rode up a short space before yourself, and stand thus aloof. On whose side will they fight?’

  William put up his hand to shade his eyes from the sun, and looked under it at the gonfanon fitfully displayed in the wind. ‘On my side, I think, sire,’ he answered. ‘That is the emblem of Raoul Tesson, the Lord of Turie-en-Cingueliz, and he has no quarrel or cause of anger with me.’

  There was a movement in the little troop, and a man was seen to come out, and ride at a canter towards the ducal army.

  ‘Raoul Tesson comes himself,’ William said, still shading his eyes. He spurred Malet forward in front of the lines to meet the solitary rider, and sat watching under bent brows Tesson’s approach.

  The Lord of Cingueliz came up with a shout of ‘Turie!’ that rang out fiercely across the plain. His mantle floated behind him, and he had a glove clenched in his right hand. He reined in his destrier with a jerk. ‘Hail, Duke of Normandy!’ he said, and no man who heard him knew whether he mocked or no. His bright eyes looked full into William’s.

  ‘What do ye want of me, Raoul Tesson?’ the Duke said calmly.

  The Lord of Cingueliz rode up close. The Duke sat unmoved, but Raoul, anxiously watching, loosened his sword in the scabbard. ‘This!’ said the Lord of Cingueliz, and his right hand came up, and he struck the Duke across the cheek with the glove he held. He laughed harshly. ‘It is done!’ he said, and reined back.

  There had come a growl of menace from the Duke’s men behind him; spears were couched; there was a movement to press forward. The Duke flung up his hand to check the rush. His eyes did not waver from Tesson’s face.

  Tesson cast an unconcerned glance at the angry barons, and looked smiling back at William. ‘What I have sworn to do I have done,’ he said in a clear voice that carried far. ‘I have acquitted myself of my oath to strike a blow at you wherever I should find you. Henceforth, beau sire, I will do you no other wrong, nor ever raise my hand against you.’ He touched his helmet in a stiff salute, and wheeled his destrier to ride back to his waiting men.

  The Duke laughed. ‘Thanks be to you, Raoul Tesson!’ he called after him, and rode back to King Henry’s side.

  ‘That was well done, by my head!’ Henry said, kindling. ‘They are fierce dogs, those men of Normandy.’

  ‘You shall soon judge of that, sire,’ the Duke promised.

  Heralds from either side rode out, and back again. The Normans, led by William in person, the Counts of Arques and Eu, and the Sieur of Gournay, were on the right wing; the French, with their King and the Count of Saint-Pol at their head, formed the left wing. Facing them, the men of Bessin followed the gonfanon of Ranulf of Bayeux; and the wild Côtentin troops chafed behind Néel de Saint-Sauveur, he whom men called Noble Chef de Faucon. Raoul saw his standard, azure and argent, gleaming blue across the plain, and marked how he bestrode a restless destrier, and how his lance glittered as it caught the light.

  He wound Verceray’s bridle about his wrist, and took a firmer grip on the gonfanon he carried. He felt breathless, as though he had been running hard, and the blood drummed unpleasantly in his ears. His lips were dry; he licked them, and prayed that he might bear himself as became the Duke’s knight, in this his first fight.

  The sharp order to charge rang out, and he saw Malet bound forward, and followed close. Suddenly he was excited, not breathless any more, and not afraid.

  The thunder of hooves was all about him; a great roan head drew abreast of him; he caught the swirl of a blue mantle, and the hard glitter of a shield, but his attention was fixed on the man who rode Malet so furiously into battle. Ahead of them the opposing troops were galloping towards them. Raoul wondered what would happen when the crash of meeting came. A shout of many voices dinned in his ears; he found that he too was yelling: ‘Dex Aie! Dex Aie!’

  The noise of hooves grew louder as charge answered charge. Borne on the wind came the cry of the men of Bessin: ‘Saint-Sever! Sire Saint-Sever!’ and the clarion call of Hamon-aux-Dents, roaring out: ‘Saint-Amant! Saint-Amant!’

  The two armies came together with a crash that brought both sides to a jarring halt. Shield clashed against shield; in a tight pack men hacked and hewed, and the maddened destriers struck out with their plunging, steel-shod hooves. There was a man down, trampled under foot; Raoul heard him scream, and gritted his teeth. His grasp was sticky on the shaft of the gonfanon, his arm fast in the enarmes of his big kite-shaped shield. He forced Verceray on after the Duke, struggling through the press. Someone cried out that the King was down; there was a scuffle ahead; the Duke drove his lance home with all his great strength, and a horse fell. Raoul saw its red distended nostrils as it sank, and the terror in the dilating eyes. Then that faded, and he was warding off a spear-thrust with his shield. Verceray reared up before a man on foot who was desperately fighting with his lance among the slain. Raoul wrenched the big horse aside, and cut downwards with his sword. Blood spurted up over his leg; he swept on, over the dead, hacking his way to the Duke’s side.

  ‘Saint-Sever! Sire Saint-Sever!’ With a howl the man who shouted slashed at the gonfanon Raoul guarded so jealously. Raoul’s sword whirled aloft and hissed down through the air in a flash of deadly blue steel. The gonfanon was safe still, and a rebel went armless. Raoul shook the sweat out of his eyes, and shouted: ‘Death! Death! Le bon temps viendra!’

  A man drove at him in a wild charge; he flung up his shield, and saw Grimbauld de Plessis’ dark face, with a smear of blood across one cheek. Then Hubert de Harcourt’s spear took G
rimbauld unawares, and knocked him out of the saddle. Hubert was shouting: ‘Dex Aie!’ and ‘Yield, yield, false knight!’ Raoul saw his brother Eudes press forward; then he himself swept on, waving the gonfanon, close beside the Duke.

  William was fighting with an energy that seemed untiring. Foam from Malet’s mouth spattered his person; his helmet was dented from some glancing thrust, but under it his eyes were sparkling. He had thrown away his lance and fought now with his sword, hand to hand with Hardrez, the finest warrior of Bayeux. The veteran’s sword clanged against his; he yelled out his lord’s battle-cry of ‘Saint-Amant!’ and as he shouted the Duke’s blade beat his down, and the point was driven home to his unprotected throat. Blood gushed over his tunic; he fell with no more than a gurgle, and a riderless horse plunged desperately in the mêlée.

  For how long the skirmish lasted Raoul did not know. He kept beside the Duke with a kind of bloodthirsty tenacity, snarling between his clenched teeth as he guarded the gonfanon from the many attacks made upon it. It was bloodstained and foam-flecked and the shaft was greasy in his hand, but it waved still over the Duke’s head.

  Absurd words thrummed in Raoul’s brain: ‘Redder yet, God wot! Redder yet!’ The shifting mass of riders passed like phantoms before his eyes. Sometimes one phantom would come close, and he struck it mechanically. Once he saw Guy of Burgundy’s face in the thinning press; it was livid, and the eyes glared, but it vanished, and new faces swam before his vision, always changing, as faces change in uneasy dreams. Now and then the shrill scream of a wounded horse rose high above the uproar; sometimes one voice rang out in a rallying call.

  The men of Cingueliz, holding off until the first jarring charge was over, had spurred forward at a well chosen moment, and fallen upon the rebels’ flank. They were mingled with the Duke’s troops now, and ever and again that ferocious yell of ‘Turie!’ sounded above the cries of ‘Dex Aie!’ and the deep ‘Montjoie!’ that came from the French lines.

  Ranulf, the Viscount of Bessin, was the first to leave the field. As the heap of slain that littered the field grew, and the ducal troops pressed on, mowing down the rebels, he lost heart. William’s dark face seemed to trouble his over-wrought mind. He fought on doggedly, but when Hardrez, his beloved vassal, fell before the Duke, terror seemed to possess him. With a dreadful cry he cast his shield and lance from him, and rode away like a madman, bending low on his horse’s neck, urging him faster, and faster still across the reeking plain.

  Beside Raoul, withdrawn from the now desultory fighting, the Duke laughed suddenly. Raoul started: the sound of the Duke’s laugh seemed to recall him to himself. He drew a shuddering sigh; the red glare went out of his eyes; he looked with a touch of horror at the man who could laugh in the middle of such carnage.

  The Duke was pointing with his wet sword towards the flying figure of Ranulf. ‘God on the Cross! – like a goose with neck outstretched!’ he said. He glanced at Raoul, amusement gleaming in his eyes.

  Reaction all at once came to Raoul; he began to laugh in helpless gusts. He pulled himself together as the Duke’s horse moved forward, and rode after, biting his lip. He found that he was shaking like a man in the grip of an ague. For the first time, now that he had done with fighting, he became aware of the smell of blood, and was seized by a fit of retching.

  Guy of Burgundy followed Ranulf next, riding with the remnant of his men, and trying as he went to twist his scarf round his blood-boltered arm.

  Néel de Saint-Sauveur alone of the rebel chiefs fought on with a kind of grim desperation. Hamon-aux-Dents lay dead on the field, spread-eagled where he had fallen. He it was who had killed his second horse under the King, but even as Henry sprang clear Hamon went down before the lance of a Norman knight.

  ‘Splendour of God, I have a place about me for such a man as that!’ the Duke cried, watching with kindling eyes the invincible figure that fought on under the azure gonfanon.

  The Méance was already swollen with the corpses that drifted down its current. Man after man, casting spear and shield away, took to the river, some to struggle to the further bank, others to drown miserably in the tainted water. The Viscount of Côtentin was forced at last to own himself beaten. He drew off, rallying his men round his standard, and rode from the field, orderly even in retreat.

  Some Norman and French chevaliers would have followed to cut him down. The Duke rose in his stirrups. ‘No!’ he thundered. ‘By the living God, I charge you let that man go!’

  God be thanked there are to be some still left alive! thought Raoul, trying not to look at the body that lay at his feet. It drew his gaze irresistibly. Once it had been a man, with a face for laughter or for tears. It had no face now: only a battered horror that had been crushed and torn by the hooves that had plunged over it.

  The Duke saw Raoul staring, and glanced down to see what held his gaze. His brows twitched together, and that was all the sign he gave either of repulsion or of pity. ‘Come!’ he said briefly, over his shoulder, and rode on to meet the King.

  Henry was flushed and breathless. ‘By my faith, you are cool, cousin!’ he exclaimed as the Duke saluted him. ‘Nobly done, Normandy. Yours is no virgin sword this hour!’

  The Duke wiped it on a corner of his torn mantle. ‘Nay, I have blooded it,’ he said.

  Henry took off his helmet, and passed his hand over his hot face. ‘I have work for you, Normandy!’ he said.

  ‘I am your grace’s vassal,’ William replied formally.

  ‘We will speak of this when we have rested,’ the King promised. ‘Sacred Face, my belly is parched!’

  ‘By your leave, sire, I have no time now for resting,’ said the Duke.

  The King stared at him. ‘Holy God, have you not had enough?’

  ‘I have a fox to smoke out of his earth,’ William said. ‘Guy of Burgundy has surely fled to his hold at Briosne. I like to finish my work, sire.’ He smiled at Count Robert of Eu, who had ridden up. ‘Do you follow me, Robert?’

  ‘Yea, to hell’s mouth,’ the Count said gaily. ‘Let us at all costs cut the Burgundian off from his supplies. It is well begun, but must be better ended.’ He beckoned Hubert de Harcourt forward. ‘Cousin, here is one who holds for you a prisoner you will be glad to shackle.’

  Hubert uncovered his head, and showed a red sweating face and bloodshot eyes. ‘Lord Duke, it is the contreytour Grimbauld,’ he said. Raoul grinned to hear the note of respect in his bluff voice.

  ‘Ha! Is it so indeed?’ William cried. ‘Let Hugh de Gournay carry him in chains to Rouen.’ He nodded at Hubert, and said jovially: ‘Your family serves me well. Be sure mine is no short memory.’ He turned again to the King, and raised his hand to his helmet. ‘Give me leave, sire. When I have finished my work, call on me for your need. I shall not be slow in answering. Raoul, follow me!’ He wheeled about, and rode back to the body of his army.

  Hubert stared after him, blowing out his cheeks; then with a ‘Haro!’ and a slap on his destrier’s steaming neck, he cantered after William, saying with a deep chuckle: ‘Ha, God! We are away again! Then haro, haro! follow this Fighting Duke!’

  The Count of Eu, riding beside him, laughed, and said: ‘Is that your mind, old war-dog?’

  ‘By God, it is!’ said Hubert.

  The King of France was left stroking his beard. ‘You are hot, you are hot,’ he muttered. ‘Yea, but your brain is cold, by the Face! I see my way. Be sure I shall call upon you, Normandy; be very sure of it.’ He became aware of Saint-Pol, blinking at him. ‘What, are you there, Count? How do you say? Shall I pit Normandy against Anjou?’ He laughed soundlessly.

  Saint-Pol turned it over in his slow mind. ‘That is to breed enmity between them,’ he said. ‘Geoffrey Martel is a vengeful man.’

  ‘Yea, why not?’ the King said sharply. ‘Let the Norman wolf aid me against the Angevin fox. I perceive there is a cold devil in that man. Let the
fox harry the wolf after. Thus the wolf grows not too great.’ He saw that Saint-Pol was plainly at a loss, and twitched the Count’s mantle. ‘Look you, Count, I want no puissant wolf upon my Frontier,’ he said.

  Five

  They smoked the Burgundian fox out of his earth at length, but the affair was not so quickly settled as might have been hoped. The donjon at Briosne was no hill fortress, but it was none the less a safe hold for that. A square squat hall, it stood upon an island in midstream, and kept watch over the Risle. The Duke came, frowned, bit his whiplash with his strong white teeth, and gave out certain brisk orders. In a little space the besieged looked from the loop-holes at two wooden castles, one to the east, the other to the west. The Duke had sat down on either bank to starve his cousin into submission.

  It was said that Guy of Burgundy let a great laugh, and counted himself saved already. The donjon could hold against a blockade until the winter; he may be pardoned for supposing that William’s patience would wear out sooner. But he mistook his man. The Fighting Duke knew when to act in fiery haste and when to hold his impetuous temper in on a tight rein. If Guy counted upon fresh disturbances in Normandy to lure William from his post he was disappointed. Néel de Saint-Sauveur had retired into Brittany, and was pronounced a wolf’s head, and his estates confiscated; Ranulf of Bayeux had fled no man knew whither; the Lord of Thorigny was dead at Val-es-dunes; and Grimbauld du Plessis rotting in a dungeon at Rouen, soon to die also, in his fetters. For the rest, Normandy wanted time to catch her breath. She began to know her Duke, and lay low for a while, licking her sores.

  It is believed it was the Duke’s relentless patience that prayed upon Guy’s nerves. He began very early to be in a fret, and was often seen to chew his nails right down to the quick. He was prepared for assault, confident he could withstand it; but his volatile temperament writhed under the torment of slow waiting. There were anxious hearts at Briosne these days, and men stared over the river at the ducal camps, and each day courage ebbed, and hope died a lingering death. When winter crept on, and bones pressed through covering skins, despair stalked through the dark castle, and men crouched apart in corners, hugging their cloaks round them against the bitter cold. No one spoke any longer of the raising of the siege. Only his friends besought Guy on their knees to render up the keys of the castle. Guy screamed at them in a wild fury that they wished him dead.