The Conqueror Read online

  Upon the affair of Count Eustace at Dover Godwine had taken up arms in support of the injured citizens, and matters had for a while looked very ugly. The King in a hurry convened his nobles at Gloucester, but when Godwine and his sons appeared in force a few miles from the town and refused to attend the Convention without an army at their backs, Edward grew more than ever uneasy, and summoned a fresh Convention in London. London had a comfortable habit of loyalty. Thither came the nobles of the land, headed by Siward, the great Earl of Northumbria, and Leofric of Mercia, with his calm son Alfgar. These men looked on the power of Godwine’s brood with jealous eyes. With them in support King Edward pronounced sentence of banishment over the heads of Godwine and his two sons, Harold and Tostig. His eldest son, Swegn, had been banished some time before for various turbulent dealings that culminated in his abduction of no less a sacred person than an abbess. He was not felt to be a loss.

  At the same time as he triumphantly outlawed Godwine and his sons, Edward bethought himself that here was at last a good opportunity for putting away his Queen. He shut her in the nunnery of Wherwell, possessed himself of her treasure, and was able to feel himself more nearly a monk than he had done for many years. The lady made no complaint; possibly she knew her kindred well enough to be sure that though they fled now, they would very soon return. Earl Godwine set sail with Tostig for Flanders; but Harold, a man of independent habit, departed into Ireland with a few followers.

  Having succeeded in outlawing the two men who most troubled him, King Edward thought himself now secure. In a mood of uplifted complacency he cured a poor woman of an ulcerous sore by laying his hands upon her, and was more than ever convinced of his own miraculous powers.

  It was in such a mood of mild triumph that William found him. When the Duke of Normandy had been ushered with great ceremony into the King of England’s presence Edward had come down from the High Settle and clasped the Norman in his arms, and embraced him many times. With tears in his eyes he tried to trace a resemblance in this stern, handsome man to the impetuous boy he had parted from ten years before. He wandered into a reminiscent vein, as old men will do, and recalled many incidents of William’s childhood, from his birth onwards. The Duke smiled, gave him at least half of his attention, and kept the other half busy observing all that went on around him.

  At a convenient opportunity Edward related his news, not forgetting the healing of the ulcer. He was pathetically gleeful at what he conceived to have been his strong handling of the situation, and he looked with simple pride in himself at one who at the age of twenty-three had also a reputation for handling situations strongly.

  Approbation was clearly expected; William gave it, but a smile hovered round his mouth. In contradiction to this there was a look in his eyes that might almost have been a frown. He said slowly: ‘So I am not to meet Harold Godwineson.’

  Edward seemed to think this a matter for congratulation.

  Being somewhat deep in William’s confidence Raoul had very well understood the meaning of that shadow of a frown. William wanted to see Earl Harold, a warrior as famous in England as himself was famous through Europe. Knowing of that old promise made to William by Edward that if he died childless the Duke should be heir to his throne, Raoul suspected William of a desire to measure the man who might in the future play no small part in his life. The reason of William’s visit to England he could guess, and all these imaginings he thought fairly confirmed when he learned that they were to carry back to Normandy with them two close relatives of Harold, and one thegn of importance who held lands under him. Obviously then Harold nursed pretensions to the Crown of England, and Wlnoth, Hakon, and Edgar were hostages for his good behaviour.

  A rather cold feeling stole over Raoul. He peered into the future and could see only clouds veiling William’s destiny. They were thunderous, he thought, shot with swift lightning, like everything else in his life. He wished suddenly that Edward would beget an heir of his own body, for William belonged to Normandy. England was alien and unfriendly, a land of golden-haired dogged men who looked with sullen eyes upon all foreigners, and wore flowing locks and long beards like barbarians; who drank themselves to sleep at night; had little learning; lived in rude houses; and built mean towns. Raoul had heard that they were loose-living. A Norman at the Court of King Edward had told him several scandalous stories. It was said that when a noble got one of his bondwomen with child he would very often sell her into slavery to far Eastern merchants. Raoul only half-believed that, but he had not liked the Saxons, and he had been glad to see the white cliffs of Dover fading in the distance.

  He was roused by a hand on his shoulder. Looking round he found that the Duke had come silently out of the cabin. ‘You are wakeful too, beau sire,’ he said.

  The Duke nodded. He pulled his mantle close about him to ward off the cold breeze. ‘Very,’ he answered. His arm lay along the bulwarks, clasped by thick bracelets which shone gold in the moonlight. ‘I am for Flanders,’ he said abruptly.

  Raoul smiled at that. Two years ago, after the fall of Domfront, they had journeyed into Flanders, to the Court of Count Baldwin the Wise at Brussels, and there had set eyes on the Lady Matilda, my lord Count’s daughter. A strange thing had happened then. As the lady sat beside her father, her pointed face framed in the braids of her pale hair, and her hands clasped like white petals on her gown, she had raised her eyes to the Duke’s face, and observed him in a kind of aloof thoughtfulness. Her eyes were pools of light, hazel green. The Duke had stared back; Raoul, behind him, had seen how he stiffened, and had watched the slow closing of his hand. In one deep interchange of glances William had made up his mind. Later, in his chamber, he said: ‘I will make that lady Duchess of Normandy.’

  FitzOsbern blurted out: ‘Beau sire, she is already wedded to one Gherbod, a Fleming.’

  The Duke had thrown him a look of impatience, as at an irrelevancy. ‘She is the woman for me,’ he said crudely.

  FitzOsbern, disturbed to see the lion bent on stalking another beast’s prey, tried to interest him in the lady’s sister Judith, who was considered the more beautiful of the two. He dwelt upon the limpid blue of her eyes, and the richer curves of her body until he saw that the Duke was not listening to him. Matilda, a white slim lady, remote and inscrutable, had captured a heart no woman had touched before. The image of her face with its secret eyes and slow-curving smile glimmered day and night before the Duke’s hot vision.

  It was found upon inquiry that the lady was widowed, and had no mind to a second marriage. There was much dark work done, hints let fall, and evasive answers returned. The Duke swept back to Normandy, and announced to his Council his intention of taking a wife to himself. At this there was satisfaction to be seen on all but one face. The one belonged to Archbishop Mauger, who had his own reasons for wishing his nephew to die a bachelor. The Duke followed up his announcement by naming his intended bride. She was felt to be a sage man’s choice; her father was a haut prince, and powerful: to clasp hands of alliance with Flanders would be a politic thing for Normandy.

  Affairs began to move, but tentatively, in a manner unusual in the Duke’s dealings. Secret embassies journeyed to and fro between Rouen and Brussels and achieved small success. Count Baldwin returned answers that drove his neighbour into a fume of impatience. Not only was the lady too lately widowed to think of espousals, but there was also some question of affinity likely to be displeasing to the Church.

  Archbishop Mauger fell upon this with zeal. From him came the first check, on the grounds of Papal objections. In his opinion there could be no dispensation for such a marriage. No doubt he saw the way clear, knowing his nephew. The Duke rendered deep respect to the Church, and the tenacity of his nature might well lead him to remain a bachelor rather than wed any but the lady of his first love. A subtle man, Mauger, but he underrated the tenacity he thought he gauged so well.

  The lion began to show his teeth. The