The Conqueror Read online

  ‘A good thought,’ William replied. He was shown the child wrapped in her bearing-cloth; his eyes rested on her indifferently enough, but all at once gleamed. He said with a laugh: ‘Rood of Grace, here is your very image, Mald!’

  ‘Robert was the stouter babe,’ she answered.

  But a year later a second boy was born to Normandy, and there were public feastings, and the Court kept night-rule for nearly a week, while Matilda lay crooning over her babe, and dreaming of the future that should be his. He was not a robust child; he cried fretfully for hours together, and not even the chaplet of mistletoe he wore could preserve him from the convulsions that from time to time attacked him. The physicians were never far from my lord Richard’s side, and it seemed as though Matilda’s ears were always on the prick for the faint echo of his wail. My lord Richard absorbed her attention for many months; she had little to spare for the Duke’s archers; little even for the news of King Henry’s secret activity. Her husband had no interest outside these two pressing matters.

  It was known that Henry and the Hammer of Anjou had once more joined hands in an alliance against Normandy. Once more a great host was assembling; once more plans were laid for the plundering of William’s Duchy; once more William called his knights together, and made ready to defend his own.

  The French and the Angevin forces were expected to cross the border in the springtide of ’58, this being a season always suitable for warfare; but King Henry, aware of his vassal’s preparations, used a cunning of his own, and held off for several months.

  ‘He will delay until I have disbanded my force,’ William said after three months of waiting. ‘So be it!’ To the dismay of his councillors he disbanded his army then and there, keeping only a small force round his person.

  Men who had grumbled at the cost of keeping a large army idle now shook their heads at such reckless tactics.

  ‘The King will sweep into Normandy, and what hope have we with half our strength lost?’ De Gournay demanded.

  The Duke spread his plans out upon the table, and it was seen that he had had rough maps drawn of his Duchy. De Gournay grunted: ‘What shall this avail us?’

  ‘Friend Hugh,’ said William, ‘is it known to us that the King means to march up through Hiesmes with the whole of his force, striking northward to Bayeux – here?’ He laid his finger on the map.

  ‘Yea, it is known.’ De Gournay gave a chuckle. ‘He will never again venture in two divisions against us. If that Frenchman we seized spoke truth Henry means to turn east from Bayeux to ravage Auge. What then?’

  The Duke made him look at the map. ‘Here I may catch him, or here, or even here.’

  ‘What, are we to play the same trick again?’ inquired Count Robert of Eu. ‘Is he to march up unopposed? The corn is standing, William: he will do great injury.’

  Mortain gave a great yawn. ‘Oh, we beat him before! Where shall you lie, William?’

  ‘Here, in mine own town.’

  They bent over the map, and saw his finger upon Falaise, his birth-place. De Gournay rubbed his nose. ‘Well … But he will pass you to the west if he make Bayeux.’

  ‘But I shall lie between him and Auge.’

  ‘If he means to reach Auge he must cross the Orne and the Dives,’ said De Gournay. ‘The Orne at Caen, certainly; no hope of an ambush there. The Dives –’ He broke off, and looked sharply at William. ‘Ha, do you plan to take him at the ford of Varaville, seigneur?’

  ‘Where else can he cross the Dives?’ William said. ‘Not at Bavent, nor at Cabourg. At Varaville, where the tide runs in faster maybe than he knows, we may hope to catch King Henry and that Angevin dog, Martel.’

  ‘Normans and French have fought before at Varaville,’ said Walter Giffard. ‘But why must we wait for him to reach thus far, lord? There are other places where we might catch him.’

  ‘A score,’ the Duke agreed, ‘but none so sure. If he heads for Varaville, as I think he will do, I have him at my mercy.’ He rose up from the table, and clapped the Lord of Longueville upon the shoulder. ‘Bear with me, Walter,’ he said, smiling. ‘I have not yet led you to defeat.’

  ‘God’s light, that thought was not in my mind, beau sire!’ Walter said in a hurry. He coughed and exchanged a look with De Gournay. ‘What part in this will your bowmen play, seigneur?’

  William laughed. ‘Trust me, they shall win the day for us, old war-dog,’ he said, and saw his councillors go off shaking their heads at what they deemed his folly.

  In August, when the corn was on the ground, King Henry broke the Norman border again after a truce of four years, and plunged into Hiesmes with Bayeux for his goal. At his side, swollen with the self-esteem no reverse could abate, rode the Count of Anjou, a gorbellied man with a choleric complexion. With him were joined his two sons: Geoffrey, his namesake, called Als Barbe, and Fulk le Rechin, crabbed and surly, picking quarrels with friend and foe alike. King Henry had something to do in keeping the peace between this bellicose trio and his own barons. France might join hands with Anjou in a common cause, but no Frenchman had any love for an Angevin. Squabbling broke out very early in the allied camp, and upon more than one occasion daggers were drawn between the rival men-at-arms, and ill-feeling flared high between their leaders.

  Anjou was for battering down the donjons they passed upon their route. King Henry, observing fosses newly cleaned, and walls impregnably repaired, would waste no time in fruitless sieges. If he could sack Bayeux and Caen and ravage the rich land of Auge he would then be in a position to dictate terms to Duke William. This he told Martel, but the Count, who had become bull-headed with increasing years, was too easily diverted from his goal by the sight of a fortress held by some enemy. He was for turning aside to wrench from Montgoméri’s hold that castle of La Roche Mabille which had galled his pride for three years. Curbing his exasperation King Henry weaned him from this project only to see him blunder along a fresh trail. He had an old grudge against one Walter de Lacy, and since de Lacy’s hold lay upon their road, or very near to it, Martel could see little sense in leaving it unmolested. He devised a plan for splitting their force in twain, with himself at the head of one half to lay siege to such castles as housed men towards whom he nursed a personal spite, and King Henry at the head of the other half to march on to Bayeux.

  It was not likely that the King, with the disaster of Mortemer in his memory, would agree to such a plan. Martel was dragged off his quarry again, and lured northward with promises of plunder for his reward.

  The French followed their usual custom of war upon this march to Bayeux, trusting to get absolution for the atrocities they committed. Unfortified towns, hamlets, bondmen’s dwellings were spoiled and burned; any man found lurking in hiding was slain in such a way as to make good sport for the soldiery; the women were seized and shared amongst the men-at-arms. No religious qualms hindered the King from sacking the abbeys and monasteries he found, but for the most part the monks, forewarned by their vigilant Duke, had carried their treasures to places of safety. Martel, incensed at such miserly ways, flew into a passion, and seized the person of an abbot, threatening to see whether torture would induce the good man to reveal the hiding-place of his treasure. Scandalized Frenchmen intervened: this was going too far. It needed all King Henry’s eloquence to convince the Count that such dealings could end only in his excommunication.

  In such wise the invading force made its way north through Hiesmes to the Bessin, but however his men might plunder and burn, however careless Martel might grow, King Henry saw to it that whenever he lay in a town the guards were vigilant all night. King Henry had no mind to be burned in his bed as had been the unfortunates at Mortemer.

  Hearing from his scouts of the strict watch kept by the enemy, Duke William laughed, and said mockingly: ‘What, does the King think I have only the one ruse in my head? Come, come, you must be schooled, O timid King!’