The Conqueror Read online

  Hugh de Gournay wrenched out an arrow that was stuck fast in the thick leather of his tunic. ‘My thanks, beau sire,’ he said with grim humour.

  William’s charger was standing amongst a heap of scattered treasure. A battered chalice glinted in the dust; a length of sendal shimmering with gold thread was trodden and twisted under the restless hooves; vessels of silver, jewelled chains, a gleaming fibula, lay spoiled upon the road, dabbled in the blood of a disembowelled horse that sprawled incongruously beside them.

  The Duke was watching the retreat of the French vanguard across the river, but he turned his head when de Gournay spoke, and saw the arrow. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked. ‘I am sorry, Hugh: that was not as I meant it.’

  ‘A scratch, no more. It was almost spent when it reached me. But must your bowmen find marks amongst your own men, beau sire?’

  The Duke laughed. ‘Nay, that shall not happen again. Yet will you say my bowmen did not win the day for us?’

  ‘If they were ordered aright,’ said de Gournay, cautiously feeling his shoulder, ‘they might do well enough.’

  ‘What, do you uphold the archers at last, Hugh?’ inquired Count Robert of Eu, who had come up, picking his way across the dead. He removed his helmet, and threw it to his squire. ‘If the dolts had but held their hands when they saw us engage the French we should have lost scarce a dozen men, I believe. How say you, Walter?’

  The Lord of Longueville grunted. ‘Well, I saw some of our men struck, but that was because redeless serfs loosed the shafts. Now if there were a body of skilled archers, schooled under new captains …’ He pursed his lips, planning the formation of such a body.

  Robert stole an expressive look at the Duke. There was a smile hovering about William’s mouth. ‘Shall my archers be kept then, Walter?’ he asked innocently.

  The Lord of Longueville, interrupted in his meditations, said: ‘Kept? Oh – ah! kept! Why, all Christendom will use archers after this day’s lesson! Would you use them no more because they are as yet unskilled, beau sire? Nay, nay, we must devise how best to order them.’ He nodded kindly at his young master. ‘You must have patience, seigneur, and you shall soon see a very different body of bowmen at work.’

  The Duke bowed. ‘My thanks, Walter,’ he said gravely. He picked his way over the debris on the road, and murmured in Robert’s ear as he passed: ‘Give Walter and old Hugh de Gournay but seven days and they will be sure my arrows had birth in their own brains!’ He rode on to see what prisoners had been taken; the Count of Eu lingered long enough to hear the start of a dispute between these two boon comrades, Giffard and de Gournay, over the best way to dispose a troop of archers, and then unobtrusively drew off.

  The remainder of the King’s army was in full retreat. All the plunder, the forage, and the accoutrements of war were lost to Henry, and it seemed as though the disaster had affected his brain. When he spoke at last it was to urge a speedier flight. High words passed between him and the Count of Anjou. Martel said blusteringly: ‘At least it was not I ordered this craven retreat. No, by the body and bones of God! Had I the command I would have faced the Bastard in battle.’

  At that the King fell into a fit of dreadful laughter, and reminded Martel of his old retreats from Domfront, and from Ambrières. In such melancholy fashion did these two allies at length part company. The crippled host reached the border, and passed into France and safety. King Henry had pitted his might against Normandy for the last time.

  It was soon seen that the ruin of his hopes had seriously affected his health. He seemed to have aged ten years in a day, and displayed a listlessness that shocked his nobles. He was forced to sue for peace with Duke William, and while his councillors laboured to mitigate the humiliating terms demanded he sat apart, huddling his mantle round him, and staring into space. The terms were read to him; he nodded his head as though here were no great matter. Only when the article was reached that gave back Tillières to Normandy did he show any signs of chagrin. Then his mouth twitched, and his faded eyes blazed suddenly with some of his old passion. But the brief fit passed; he assented to all, and bade his councillors see that the peace was soon sealed.

  In Rouen the Duchess lay again in William’s arms. She was crushed against the rings of his hauberk, but seemed not to heed the steel bruising her flesh. She said eagerly: ‘You have won back Tillières, lord?’

  ‘I have won back Tillières, according to my word,’ he replied.

  She was in a glow: eyes, cheek, and heart. Her mouth invited his caresses. ‘Ah, William, you are worthy to be the father of my sons!’ she crooned.

  He held her from him, gripping her arms unmercifully. ‘Is it burgher-blood that is mingled with yours, wife?’ he said.

  There was a harsh note in his voice, but if she remembered the seven-year-old insult it was but fleetingly. She hardly heard what he said; she was brooding over his triumph. ‘O Fighting Duke, if I were but a maid again!’ she said. ‘You might take me then, a conqueror’s guerdon!’

  She could enflame him still, driving everything but his love for her from his head. He caught her close to him, saying softly: ‘Shall I not take you though you are maid no longer, my guarded heart?’

  ‘I am all yours,’ she said, laying her hands on his breast.

  Hardly a year later Normandy was rid for ever of her two great enemies. King Henry, who had fallen into a sickness after the signing of the peace, lingered through the winter and the spring, but died at last, worn out with grief. His death was followed in a few months by that of Martel. It was as though Duke William had sapped their life-blood.

  Martel left his county divided between his two sons. ‘Nothing to fear there,’ said William.

  Philip, King Henry’s son, inherited the Crown of France, but since he was still a child King Henry’s will named Baldwin, the Count of Flanders, Regent during his minority. In death King Henry had sought to redeem the follies of his life. No abler man�could have been found to hold the reins of government, none more honest, none further-sighted. But vassals in Auvergne and Vermandois, Aquitaine and Gascony, Burgundy and Angoulême, heard of the King’s choice with dismay.

  If Baldwin was to govern France, Normandy was freed from her last puissant enemy. For thirteen years Duke William had stood upon the defensive, his peace threatened first by his own rebel barons, and then by France and Anjou, hedging him round with spears. Now, at the age of thirty-two, he stood secure. East of him Ponthieu rendered homage; west, Anjou was cleft in twain by Martel’s will; south, France was governed by a wise Count who was Duke William’s father-in-law.

  It was with misgiving that the vassals journeyed to swear their oaths of fealty to King Philip at his coronation. Last of them all came Normandy, and men who had never seen the Fighting Duke out of battle-harness now saw him surrounded by a retinue the Court Chamberlains were hard put to it to house, and magnificent in a way that cast the noblest of the vassals in the shade.

  ‘Well, wife, well,’ said Count Baldwin, using no ceremony, ‘it seems to me that our daughter chose wisely when she chose Normandy for spouse.’

  ‘He is grown too arrogant for me,’ the Countess, a Frenchwoman, replied: ‘Where shall all this end, my lord?’

  Count Baldwin stroked his beard. ‘It is in my mind,’ he said slowly, ‘that it is not yet begun.’

  ‘Why, how should that be?’ she asked.

  Looking at her thoughtfully, the Count said: ‘We have seen him beat back all who would have snatched from him his heritage. How stands he now, think you?’

  ‘Safe, God wot!’ she answered.

  ‘Yea, yea,’ he nodded. ‘And shall that content him? I fear it may not, wife.’

  Part IV

  (1063–1065)

  THE OATH

  ‘Harold, ye cannot deny that ye swore an oath to William upon holy relics.’

  Speech of Gy