The Conqueror Read online

  ‘A rude barbarous weapon,’ murmured Raoul.

  ‘You had best pray you may never have to meet it,’ said Edgar grimly.

  At his words a shadow seemed to fall between them. Raoul was not looking at him, nor did he answer. Edgar thrust an arm through his, and began to walk with him towards the palace. ‘I don’t know what made me say that. Perhaps it will never happen. My father writes that the King has sent for the Atheling to come into England, so maybe it is he who will have the crown, and neither your lord nor mine.’

  ‘The Atheling? God send Edward names him his heir!’ said Raoul with a lightened brow. He pressed the Saxon’s arm. ‘If that should come upon us: my lance to your axe –’ He broke off.

  ‘I know,’ Edgar said. ‘Did I not say it four years ago when first I came into Normandy? Well, maybe it will not come after all.’

  ‘No. Not if Edward chooses the Atheling. Is it four years, Edgar?’

  ‘Four years,’ Edgar said. His mouth curled disdainfully. ‘I begin to think myself as much at home as Wlnoth and Hakon do.’

  Raoul stopped, as though a sudden thought had occurred to him. ‘Edgar, is that true?’

  Edgar shrugged his big shoulders. ‘It sometimes seems to me that I am all Norman,’ he said. ‘I joust with you, and speak your tongue, live with you, make friends amongst you, chafe because I may not ride to war with you, rejoice because your Duke has driven out the French –’

  ‘I didn’t know you felt like that,’ Raoul interrupted. ‘I thought – Edgar, the Duke would make you a knight, but I said you would not wish it. Shall I speak with him again?’

  ‘My thanks to Duke William,’ Edgar replied at once, ‘but I will never take knighthood from his hands. I am Harold’s man.’ He thought that this sounded ungracious, and added in a more docile voice: ‘It is not because I do not like Duke William, you know. I did not mean that.’

  ‘I know,’ Raoul answered. ‘Do you think I would not say the same? But for all that you do not like William, do you?’

  It seemed at first as though Edgar were not going to answer, but after a moment he said: ‘No. That is – No, I do not like him. I can’t help admiring him, of course: no one could. But what has he to do with any man’s liking? Loyalty he may command; obedience he will enforce; but love – ? Oh, no, he does not look for that!’

  ‘Perhaps you do not know him yet,’ Raoul said.

  Edgar looked at him with the hint of a smile in his eyes. ‘Do you think any man knows him, Raoul?’ Then, as Raoul was silent, he said: ‘Oh, he has great kindness for his friends, but never have I seen him try to win men to him as –’ He stopped.

  ‘As Harold does?’ suggested Raoul.

  ‘Yes,’ Edgar admitted. ‘I had Harold in mind. All men love Harold. But all men do not love William. They fear him, they respect him, but how many would count it happiness to die for him? FitzOsbern, maybe; Saint-Sauveur; Tesson; his cousin of Eu; yourself – those who are his friends. But I tell you the meanest serf would give his life for Harold.’

  They walked slowly on in the shadow of the curtain walls. Neither spoke again until they had rounded a corner of the chapel in the inner bailey and stood beneath the towering keep itself. Then Edgar, looking up at a narrow window set in the grey stone, said on a lighter note: ‘Well, I’ll wager there at least lies one who feels no love for William.’

  Raoul glanced up. ‘The Count of Ponthieu? No, but he will have to bend to William’s will whether he likes or whether he hates him, just as Geoffrey of Mayenne bent.’

  ‘What of the Archbishop?’ inquired Edgar. ‘Is he to bend too?’

  ‘Mauger!’ Raoul said. ‘I think his course is run.’

  They began to mount the steps leading up to the great door. Edgar said, chuckling: ‘William FitzOsbern told me yesterday how he found Mauger when he went to wait on him last. Did you hear of it?’

  ‘No, but maybe I can guess.’

  ‘It made even our sour-faced Albini laugh,’ said Edgar. ‘You know how FitzOsbern can tell a tale. He said they told him that the Archbishop was at his devotions, but in he would go, to await Mauger’s leisure. Some fool of an usher, not understanding what was whispered to him by the steward, led William straightway to the Archbishop’s closet, and called his name. In William marched, just in time to see fat Mauger scuffling his leman off his knee, and trying to look as though his fingers had been busy with his rosary instead of paddling in her neck.’

  ‘God’s eyes, in his very closet?’ demanded Raoul, half-scandalized, half-entertained.

  ‘In his closet,’ nodded Edgar. ‘It was that red-haired wench, Papia, that used to drive the swine to market every Friday, the wench who ran from Moulines-la-Marche when he would have taken her. Don’t you recall her? Well, she’s housed in Mauger’s palace now, decked out in silks and gold chains, as grand as the Duchess herself.’

  ‘A bondman’s slut!’ Raoul said disgustedly. ‘So that was what Galet meant by his jest last night! Well for Mauger if this does not reach the Duke’s ears.’

  ‘Oh, the Duke is bound to hear it,’ Edgar declared cheerfully. ‘All the Court knows.’

  ‘Then we shall have a new Archbishop at last,’ said Raoul.

  He was right, but the Duke did not choose to make his uncle’s amours the reason for his deprivation. Although Lanfranc had obtained the dispensation for William’s marriage with Matilda, although the master-masons were still labouring over the plans of the two monasteries that were the price of it, and two infants had already been born of the union, Archbishop Mauger had not abated one jot of his disapproval. His ambitions, which had been frustrated by the fall of his brother of Arques, had gradually resolved themselves into a malevolent desire to see his too-powerful nephew laid low. Some said that letters passed between him and the French King; be that as it might, when the news of the King’s flight reached Rouen the Archbishop changed colour, and those who stood near him saw that his pouched eyes held an expression of sickly hatred. He had been accounted a subtle man in his prime, but he was old now, and disappointment had blunted his wits. He chose this inauspicious moment to denounce the two-year-old marriage as though there had been no sanction obtained for it in Rome, and to excommunicate Duke William from the Church.

  It was the pretext for which the Duke had been waiting. His heavy hand fell on the Archbishop at last: Mauger was deprived of his see, and bidden depart out of Normandy in twenty-eight days. He was succeeded by one Maurilius, monk of Fécamp, a man of many virtues, and as famous for his abstinence as Mauger had been famous for incontinence.

  On the day that Mauger set sail for the Island of Guernsey Galet twitched Walter of Falaise’s stool from under him as he was about to seat himself at the Duke’s board, and stout Walter sat down with a thud among the rushes. ‘God’s belly, if I do not break your skull for this, fool!’ Walter rumbled, aiming a blow at him.

  Galet skipped out of reach, crying shrilly: ‘Eh, there is another of Brother William’s uncles down!’

  The Duke’s lips twitched; the Court broke into open merriment, and Walter picked himself up from the floor with a good-humoured grin, and a shake of his honest head.

  Four

  Ahart of twelve, lord!’ cried one of the huntsmen above the sound of the mort. He bent over the still breathing animal, and drew out his hunting-knife. FitzOsbern said disgustedly: ‘I’ll be bound that’s the brute I could not bring down yesterday. All the good fortune is with you, beau sire.’

  But William was looking at his bow as though he saw it for the first time.

  ‘I wish I could shoot as he does,’ Edgar told Raoul. ‘I have rarely seen him miss.’

  Raoul answered rather absently. He was watching the Duke, wondering what thought had occurred to him to make him suddenly so abstracted.

  The Duke had an arrow in his hand; he balanced it on his finger