The Conqueror Read online

  The Court was gathered in idle groups in the hall, awaiting the noble guest’s appearance. When he came round the bend of the stair, Count Baldwin went forward to meet him, taking his lady and his sons Robert and Baldwin with him. As she held out her hand to the Duke the Countess observed with an inward smile how he shot a quick look round. He kissed her fingers, and asked leave to present the Counts of Mortain and Eu to her notice. The lively Countess made little of Mortain, an honest young man of few words, but she was pleased to allow the Count of Eu to lead her to the high table.

  The Lady Judith came forward at her father’s bidding, and made her reverence to the Duke. She sent William an inviting glance out of her large eyes, but met with no more response than an unsmiling bow. She had a habit of chuckling deep in her white throat whenever anything amused her, and she chuckled now. ‘Lord Duke, I am happy to see you here again,’ she said demurely.

  The Duke thanked her, and having touched her hand with his lips, gave it her back again, and turned to Count Baldwin, who was speaking to him.

  Baldwin had beckoned to a lusty young man who was lolling against one of the chairs, and now made him known to the Duke. He was Tostig Godwineson, a man of William’s own age. He came up with a swagger, and looked the Duke over with bold unabashed eyes. He had a florid complexion that flushed easily, and features that were handsome in despite of their irregularity. He looked to be something of a fire-eater, which indeed he was, and it was evident that he held himself in no small esteem. Count Baldwin informed William that he was lately become the betrothed of the Lady Judith.

  William’s eyes kindled. ‘Ha!’ His hand shot out, and gripped Tostig’s. ‘I wish you joy in your spousing, and pray mine own may not prove more laggard.’

  The Count stroked his beard at that, but said nothing. He led the Duke to an armed chair on his right hand, and looked down the hall to the curtained arch through which his other daughter had just come. The Duke’s eyes followed the direction of his glance; those who watched him saw him stiffen like a hound at the leash, and lean forward in his chair as though he would leap up from it.

  The Lady Matilda came slowly up the length of the hall, bearing the wine-cup of ceremony between her hands. Her gown was of green coster, with long hanging sleeves, and a train that brushed behind her over the rushes on the floor. Under a veil of green, bound on her brow by a jewelled fermaille, her hair gleamed palely gold, and hung in two braids almost to her knees. Her eyes were downcast to the cup she bore; her lips were red in the cream of her face, still and folded.

  She came up to the high table, and to the Duke’s side, and lifting the cup said in a voice that was like the ripple of a brook: ‘Be of health, lord Duke!’ She raised her eyes and looked fleetingly at him. It was as though a green flame stabbed him. As she bent the knee, and put her lips to the cup, he rose quickly to his feet. A tremor shook her; she took a step backward from him, but recovering in a moment, held out the cup with only the faintest blush in her cheek to betray her sudden alarm. Her vision seemed to be obscured by a blaze of crimson and gold, and a dark face that drew her eyes against her will.

  William took the cup from her. ‘Lady, I drink to you,’ he said in a voice that rang deeply in her ears. He turned the cup with a deliberate movement that was watched by many, and set his lips to the place where hers had sipped.

  He drained the cup in the middle of a profound silence. All eyes were upon him, all but my lord Count’s, who studied a salt-cellar on the table with an air of abstraction.

  The Duke set down the cup, and held out his hand to the lady to lead her to the seat beside him. She laid her own in it, and as his powerful fingers closed over hers her eyelids fluttered. The silence broke. As though recalled to their manners those who had watched the little scene began to talk again, and looked towards the Duke no more than was seemly. For all the heed he paid to the others at his table he might have been sitting alone with Matilda in a desert. He was half-turned away from Count Baldwin, leaning his right arm along the carved wood of his chair, and trying to induce the Lady Matilda to talk to him.

  She seemed strangely loth. She gave him yea or nay for the most part, and would by no means look at him.

  Count Baldwin occupied himself between his dinner and Robert of Mortain, who sat opposite to him; Tostig leaned sprawling in his chair, and between courses fondled Judith’s white hand. He drank deeply, and as time went on grew flushed and noisy. His boisterous laugh sounded above the hum of chatter more and more frequently; he began to call healths, and slopped some of the wine from his cup over his tunic.

  ‘Waes-hael,’ he shouted, staggering to his feet. ‘Drinkhael, William of Normandy!’

  William turned his head. A slightly contemptuous look crossed his face when he saw how Tostig reeled, but he raised his cup in polite response, and drank the Saxon’s health. Turning back to Matilda he said: ‘So Tostig has set the spousing-ring upon your sister’s finger? Do you know why I have come again into Flanders?’

  ‘My lord, I have small understanding of the affairs of state,’ Matilda said in a cool meek voice.

  If she thought to turn him by such an answer she mistook her man. He smiled. ‘I have come rather upon an affair of the heart, lady,’ he said.

  She could not resist the temptation of replying: ‘I had not supposed, my lord, that the Fighting Duke had interest in such matters.’

  ‘Before God,’ William said, ‘I think I have interest now in nothing else.’

  She bit her lip. Under cover of the table the Duke’s hand closed suddenly over both of hers, crushing them in his hold. Her pulses leaped under his fingers; an angry colour mounted to her cheeks. The Duke’s smile held a hint of satisfaction. ‘Ha, is there fire beneath your calm, my fair?’ he said in a quick low voice. ‘Tell me, are you all ice, or does the blood run hot in your veins?’

  She pulled her hands away. ‘If I burn it is for no man,’ she replied, looking at him disdainfully. His ardent gaze beat hers down; she turned her face away.

  ‘By my head, you shall soon eat those words, lady!’

  ‘Lord Duke,’ she said, ‘you speak to one who has lain already in the marriage-bed.’

  He cared nothing for that; she thought his laugh betrayed the base blood in him, and curled her lip at it. But he was to startle her yet. ‘Found you a man strong enough to break down your walls, O Guarded Heart?’

  She looked up quickly, and her eyes seemed to search his face. With a shiver she folded her hands across her breast as though she made a barrier against him. ‘My walls stand firm, and shall stand so to the end, please God,’ she said.

  ‘Do you fling down your gauntlet at my feet, lady? Are you a rebel proclaimed? What have you heard of me, you who call me the Fighting Duke?’

  ‘I am no subject of yours, fair lord,’ she said. ‘If I am a walled citadel indeed, I lie beyond your borders.’

  ‘So, too, lay Domfront,’ William replied. ‘Domfront calls me master today.’ He paused; she found herself compelled to look at him. ‘As you shall do, Matilda,’ he said deliberately. ‘I pick up your gauntlet.’

  Her cheek flamed, but she judged it best to hold her peace. He might see that he had gone too far by the way she turned from him to bestow her attention on her brother Robert seated a few paces below her. If he did see it had no power to abash him. She felt his glance possessively upon her, and was glad when the banquet came to an end. She went upstairs to the bower with the Countess and her sister, and they saw how her eyes brooded, and how she stroked the thick rope of her hair in the way she had when she was put about. The Countess hesitated on the brink of speech, but in the end went away to her own chamber with no word said. The maids of honour sat down to their stitchery, but when one of them would have given her embroidery to Matilda she put it aside with an impatient gesture, and withdrew to the window, and began to draw patterns with her finger upon the horn-panels, wr