The Conqueror Read online

  ‘Yea, that do I!’ Alfric answered, smiling at the recollection. ‘It was an ill hap that brought Edric across our path that day. How long ago it is! Edric was slain in the Welsh wars, God rest his soul. His brother’s son sits in his room to-day.’

  With his hand on the door-latch Edgar said, surprised: ‘How is that? He had at least one son when I left Marwell, and I heard that Dame Elgifu was childing again.’

  ‘Oh, he had a pack of brats, but they were lepers every one,’ Alfric replied. He stepped out of the room on to the turn of the stair. ‘I lose myself in this great palace,’ he complained. ‘Am I lodged near to you?’

  ‘Not far,’ Edgar said. He held up the candle so that its feeble light showed the way. ‘This tower is new built. It was finished only three years ago. They let me have my lodgings in it so that I might be close to my friend Raoul. He is the man with the smiling eyes whom you saw in the hall. He has been my friend these thirteen years. You must like him for my sake.’

  ‘With goodwill. But I think I shall not long be in Normandy. The Earl will hardly wish to tarry. No one knows how long the King may last, and if Harold were to be absent when he dies all might yet miscarry … What a huge, chill place this is! How can�you be at home here? It is as big as King Edward’s palace at Thorney, and as lofty as the great Abbey he is building there.’

  Edgar led the way along one of the galleries, and up another stair. ‘My father wrote me of the King’s Abbey. It is long a-building.’ He opened a door, and stood back to let his friend pass in. The room was lit by a single rush-light, but a sleepy page jumped up from a pallet at the foot of the carved bed, and put a taper to the candles on the table. ‘Have you all that you desire?’ Edgar asked. ‘If there is aught else tell me, and I will speak to the boy for you.’

  ‘Nay, there is aught,’ Alfric replied. ‘Sleep is all my need.’ He looked round him. ‘The Duke uses me with great pomp. This is a lodging for a prince.’

  Edgar wrinkled his brow. ‘Well, if I remember rightly, a prince did sleep here once. It was Robert the Frisian, Count Baldwin’s first-born, when he was here with the rest of the Flemish Court for the Duke’s nuptial rejoicings.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘He was a wild lad in those days, I can tell you. I sometimes think my lord Robert, his nephew, favours him. Gilbert d’Aufay and I had something to do in getting him to bed and keeping him there after one of the feasts. He was so drunk nothing would do, but he must try to pick a quarrel with Moulines-la-Marche, with intent, so he swore, to slit his gizzard. A good riddance had he done it, but of course it might not be. Gilbert and I strove with him.’ He saw that Alfric’s smile was perfunctory, and realized that a memory he did not share could hardly be supposed to amuse him. He picked up his candle again, and said rather flatly: ‘I’ll leave you; you will be glad of a night’s rest.’ He hesitated. ‘You do not know what it means to me to see you again after all these years,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘And to me,’ Alfric answered at once. ‘Why, it is so long we meet almost as strangers! Earl Harold must prevail upon the Duke to let you return with us to England, and we will teach you to forget all your Norman ways.’ Aware of the gulf that lay between them he tried to bridge it. ‘I have missed you often: indeed you must come back with us.’

  ‘I would I might.’ Edgar’s voice sounded rather desolate. He moved towards the door. ‘I have been an exile too long,’ he said sadly.

  He went back along the gallery to the stair that wound up past Raoul’s door to his own above it. Outside Raoul’s chamber he paused, and after a moment’s indecision lifted the latch and went in.

  The candle-flame held near his face woke Raoul. He blinked, and started up on his elbow, groping instinctively for his sword.

  ‘You are not in the field now,’ said Edgar, laughing. ‘And your sword, happily for me, is in that far corner. Wake up: it is only Edgar.’

  Raoul rubbed his eyes and sat up. ‘Oh!’ He looked at Edgar, puzzled. ‘But what are you doing?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing. I have just taken Alfric to his chamber.’

  ‘Oh, bearded barbarian, have you wakened me to tell me that?’ demanded Raoul indignantly.

  Edgar sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘I don’t know why I came in,’ he confessed. ‘Shall you ride to Eu with us tomorrow?’

  Raoul lay down again, and regarded Edgar with a sleepy twinkle. ‘All Saxons drink deep,’ he murmured, ‘and I suppose when friends meet after long absence –’

  ‘If you mean that I am in my cups, shaveling, you are at fault,’ Edgar interrupted. ‘Do you ride with us tomorrow? I wish you would.’

  Raoul seemed to be drowsing, but he opened his eyes at that, and they were wakeful all at once. ‘Yea, I ride. But I hardly thought that you would want me. You must have much to say to Alfric.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Edgar in his most expressionless voice. ‘But I want you to be there to greet my sister, and – and to see Earl Harold.’ The words sounded lame even to himself. Something ached in his breast; he supposed it must be his heart. He wanted to tell Raoul of its load of disappointment, yet could not. He thought Raoul would surely understand how bitter it was to find a gulf lying now between himself and the friend he had been so overjoyed to see. Alfric and he had been as strangers. Alfric had talked of an England which seemed more remote than the England of Edgar’s dreams. Names remembered by him were forgotten there; new men whom he did not know had risen in place of the old; he wondered whether he too were forgotten. For thirteen years he had dreamed of his own country and the comrades of his youth, believing that he would find his lost happiness again when his hands lay in theirs, and his feet stood firmly on English soil. It had never entered his head that constraint could lie between himself and such an one as Alfric. He remembered with a pang that he had had no closer friend, thirteen years ago. Yet reunion, long looked for, long desired, had brought only a deeper sense of exile. Alfric belonged to a dead past. Here, quizzically regarding him, lay the only friend who counted, the friend who shared his memories and could read his heart. He turned his head and looked down at Raoul with a queer little smile. ‘Do you remember,’ he said, ‘when the Flemish Court was here how the Frisian tried to knife William of Moulines?’

  Raoul laughed. ‘What, when you emptied a pitcher of water over the noble guest to sober him? Yes, I remember. Why?’

  ‘No reason,’ Edgar said after a slight pause. ‘And as for the pitcher of water, that is one of Gilbert’s lies. It was knocked over by ill chance, and if the Frisian was drenched it was more his fault than mine. And so he owned, upon the next day.’

  ‘Have it as you will,’ said Raoul sleepily. ‘I wish you would go to bed. First you tell me you have taken Alfric to his chamber; then you ask me if I ride with you to-morrow; and now you must needs know whether I remember a jest over ten years old. Was it for this that you woke me?’

  ‘Nay, but I did not wish to sleep,’ Edgar said, ‘so –’

  ‘So I must not either. All thanks, Saxon.’

  Edgar got up. ‘Alfric hopes Duke William may be prevailed upon to release me,’ he said inconsequently. ‘Do you think …?’

  ‘No,’ said Raoul, ‘because I shall beg him to hold you fast.’ He raised himself on his elbow again. ‘Edgar, you cannot leave us yet! Has Alfric thrust us all from your heart? – FitzOsbern, Gilbert, Néel, myself?’

  Edgar did not answer for a moment. His eyes looked straight into Raoul’s; he said at last in a low voice: ‘I think it is you alone whom I have for friends now. You need not have asked that.’

  All that he could not say lay behind the words; a friend would understand, he thought, and probe no deeper.

  There was a short silence; then Raoul said lightly: ‘And if you keep me awake any longer you will have one friend the less, Edgar als Barbe. That in your teeth!’

  The shadow seemed to retreat; the friend had not misunderstood. Edgar