The Conqueror Read online

  A wandering chapman brought her the first news out of Normandy. Twice a year he made his journey from Rennes, through France and Normandy, over the border into Ponthieu, on to Boulogne, and then slowly north to Flanders. His long baggage-train of sumpters entered Brussels later in the year than was usual; he had fine cloths, and cunningly wrought jewels in golden settings; fancies from the East; trinkets out of Spain; enamel of Limoges, but he would not show his merchandise to the eager ladies of the town till the great ones at the Palace had picked them over. He spread embroideries before the Countess and her daughter; the bower-maidens cried out in admiration, but Matilda lifted a fold of the stiff cloth, and let it fall again. ‘Bah, I can do better with mine own needle!’ she said.

  The Countess chose some of his wares, and bade him seek out her Chamberlain for payment. She went away, and the chapman showed Matilda mirrors of silver with enamelled backs, cases of filigree to hold a lady’s comb; two-pronged forks to use at meat; jars of precious perfume out of Araby. She turned them over with her white fingers while he told her what had taken this noble lady’s fancy, or provoked that one’s envy.

  ‘What do the ladies buy in Normandy?’ she asked.

  He was voluble; his talk led him into snippets of scandal, slyly told; and from there to larger issues was no great step. ‘Normandy is unquiet, lady, and the roads not safe yet for an honest merchant. I lost two sumpters in Hiesmes, and had one of my rogues done to death by the robbers. But the Duke will amend all yet.’ He twitched a carpet from his pack and spread it out. ‘Lady, this I kept for you to see. Two I had when I set out from Rennes, but one the Duke’s grace purchased. He would have taken the other, I believe, but I withheld it.’ He began to point out the worth of the carpet, but she interrupted him with a question: did Duke William set much store by such things?

  Ah, but he was a very noble prince; he required always the best, and would pay for it without demur, unlike some others one might name, if discretion permitted. The Count of Boulogne now – ! the sentence was ended by a shrug and a grimace. It was not thus with Duke William, harder to please, but no haggler over the just price. This year, alack, he had had poor fortune with him, for he was busy with his affairs. ‘They loom great, lady, I promise you.’

  Out tumbled the tale of Busac’s revolt. She drank it in with parted lips; her bosom stirred with the leap of her heart. ‘He conquered?’ she said faintly.

  ‘Be sure, lady. He is too swift for his enemies. A great prince, a wise and terrible lord. Gracious lady, deign to look upon these turquoises, fine stones each one, fit for a queen to wear.’

  She made some purchases, dismissed him then and sat on into the dusk, her brain busy with his news. From the sound of it Duke William had put her from his mind while he grappled larger problems. She could fancy him in one of his storms of energy, intent only upon the affair of the moment, deliberately setting other matters aside. She cupped her chin in her hands. Would he remember her when his sterner work was done? The doubt teased her; she could find no answer to it, and stirred uncomfortably. He must remember it, remember even though he never saw her face again.

  The months passed. Word came from Judith in bleak Northumbria, but no word came from Normandy. Under her outward calm Matilda was in a fret of impatience. She had hugged the conviction that William would assail her barriers again, and planned her defence and his undoing. He held off still: was it to make her yearn for him, or did he no longer desire her?

  The chapman came again; she panted for his news, and had cold comfort. The Duke had been in a jovial mood when the chapman saw him; he had bought jewels made for a woman’s adornment. The chapman cocked a knowing eyebrow: bridals in the air, one might suppose. Closely questioned, he could tell little. It was thought in Normandy that the Duke meant to take a wife; some names were hazarded, but who could tell which fair lady would be the fortunate one?

  Matilda showed a white hungry face. Her maidens found her in an unblinking stare, with her eyes wide as a cat’s, and they were afraid, for when she looked just so she was most dangerous. But she paid no heed to them, and very soon recovered her calm. There was nothing to tell them of the turmoil raging in her breast. While she might still fancy William yearning for her she could rest content; talk of his marriage was like a whip-lash flicking the instinct of possession in her. She curled her fingers like claws: if she had him here now! if she could but come at the fair unknown! She was very sure she hated them both, and in a hidden fever waited with ears on the prick for fresh tidings out of Normandy.

  The year passed. If the Duke kept silence to punish her, he was succeeding in his aim. Uncertainty kept her wakeful at nights; she was sharp with her maidens, impatient with those elegant courtiers who sang her praises. There was one, a noble Fleming, who laid his heart at her feet; she smiled upon him, and he fell on his knees to kiss the hem of her gown, calling her Frozen Princess. Exalted, Unattainable! She looked at him and saw instead William’s hawk-eyes, and thereafter was done with the poor man. Eh, this was no way of love, to grovel at a woman’s feet, lost in a poet’s ecstasy! A man should fight for what he desired; seize and not supplicate; hold fast, not stand in awed worship. The luckless suitor was dismissed; it is doubtful whether she thought of him again once he had left her presence.

  The next news that came out of Normandy had nothing to do with marriage, but with warfare and conquest. Count Baldwin, hearing of the doings at Arques, of the French King’s discomfiture, of Count Guy-Geoffrey’s flight from Moulins before ever the Duke arrived there to recover his property, stroked his beard a long while, and said slowly: ‘Here is a man, the only one I have known, who can rule his destiny. My daughter, you did very ill for yourself when you spurned William of Normandy.’

  She made him no answer, but listened attentively to all the talk of the Duke’s achievement that was running round the Court. It was asserted by those who knew something of Normandy that the Count of Arques had been William’s most dangerous enemy for some years back. Men demonstrated to one another what must have happened if the Duke had not reached Arques before King Henry, or if he had failed to send the Count’s band flying back to their stronghold. Count Baldwin, hearing all these speculations, said dryly: ‘Messires, there are two men in Christendom today who deal not in that uncertain word if. One is Duke William; the other is myself.’

  Rebuked, his courtiers fell silent. Count Baldwin looked pensively out upon a vista of placid fields. ‘We shall hear more of Normandy,’ he remarked. He brought his gaze away from the window, and benevolently surveyed his Court. ‘Yea, much more,’ he said. ‘Val-es-dunes, Meulan, Alençon, Domfront and Arques: he will be growing puffed-up, I fear me. Here are no defeats, nay, not one.’ He shook his head sadly.

  His son, Robert the Frisian, said with a significant smile: ‘Do you think that King Henry will be content with this encounter, lord?’

  ‘I doubt it, I doubt it,’ Count Baldwin sighed.

  ‘I shall own myself surprised if we do not soon see France sweep into Normandy to take a bloody vengeance.’

  ‘You are a man of foresight, my son,’ said the Count humbly.

  From what they could hear in Flanders thereafter it seemed that the blow that had cleaved William of Arques from his allies had gone a fair way to settle the unrest in Normandy. Desultory news of politic measures – the strict enforcement of the Truce of God, the banishment of some malcontents, and the elevation of tried men – drifted to Brussels through various channels, and showed one anxious lady how detached from her Duke William had become. She saw him striding on to great deeds, leaving her behind him, swept always forward on the tide of his own energy. At once she stretched her hands to delay him, to have him catch her up and bear her with him into his tremendous future. She shook with her overpowering impulse to call him back to her; the Guarded Heart was quivering and defenceless, for Duke William had made her afraid at last, as one is afraid of the unknown.