The Conqueror Read online

The Earl felt an itching desire to get up and move about the small room. He curbed it and sat still, his eyes on William’s face. ‘It is time, and more,’ he said, as though he picked his words. He watched the Duke’s pen travel across the sheet, once, twice, a third time. He found that his fingers were drumming against the carven arm of his chair, and closed them on the hard wood to stay their fidgeting. He wanted the Duke to speak, but William went on writing. The Earl’s brain weighed and rejected phrase after phrase. He said at last, abruptly: ‘Be plain with me, Duke William: what is it you require of me?’

  The Duke raised his eyes at that, and laid aside his quill. Pushing the papers from him he linked his hands together on the table, and said: ‘Earl Harold, many years ago when I was an untried boy still in the care of my guardians King Edward dwelled in my Court and was my friend. In those days he made me a promise that if ever he became King of England, and begat no children of his own body, myself should be his heir.’ He paused, but the Earl made no remark. He was leaning back in his chair, his head resting against the dark wood. His face showed nothing but a calm interest. The Duke looked him over with a certain measure of approval. ‘Fourteen years ago,’ he went on, ‘I journeyed into England upon a visit to the King, when he renewed his promises to me, giving me as hostages, Wlnoth, Hakon, and Edgar, the son of Eadwulf. This I think must be known to you?’

  ‘I have heard it,’ Harold answered, expressionless.

  ‘The King is stricken in years,’ William said, ‘and I am not the only one who looks towards his throne.’

  The Earl’s eyelids flickered, but he said nothing.

  ‘There is Edgar, the child-Atheling,’ William continued after an infinitesimal pause. ‘I have little doubt there are many will seek to set him up.’

  ‘It is very like,’ Harold said. He moved his hand so that a ring of balas-rubies which he wore caught the sunlight; he studied it through half-closed eyes.

  ‘I need a man to hold for me in England,’ the Duke said, ‘guarding my interest until the time comes when Edward is called to his fathers – and after.’

  ‘Myself?’ There was a hint of steel in the Earl’s voice.

  ‘Yourself,’ William agreed, ‘bound by oath to uphold my claim.’

  The Earl smiled. He looked up from his ring, and found William’s gaze upon him. He met it full, and while a man might count fifty the long interchange of glances held, in a silence unbroken by any other sound than the high sweet song of a lark lost somewhere in the blue haze outside. ‘So that is why you are holding me,’ the Earl said at last, without surprise or heat.

  ‘That is why,’ William answered. ‘To be honest with you, Earl Harold, had you been other than you are I would not have spent these pains on the matter. I tell you in all frankness you are the only man I have met in all the years of my life for whom I have felt – respect.’

  ‘I am honoured,’ Harold said ironically.

  ‘You may well be,’ the Duke replied with a gleam of humour. He watched the last grains of sand trickle through the hour-glass upon the table, and turned it.

  ‘What bribe do you offer me, my lord Duke?’ Harold asked.

  The Duke’s lips curled. ‘Earl Harold, many things you may call me, but I beg you will not call me Fool. I keep bribes for lesser men.’

  Harold inclined his head slightly. ‘My thanks. I will word it thus: what reward will you bestow upon a son of Godwine?’

  The Duke considered him for a moment. ‘Harold, if you choose you may stand second to me in England,’ he said. ‘I will give you my daughter Adela in marriage, and engage to confirm you in the possessions you hold today.’

  If the Earl saw anything ludicrous in the offer of espousal with an infant years younger than the offspring of his own first marriage, he gave no sign of it. ‘Why, this is noble!’ he murmured. Again he studied his ring. ‘And if I refuse?’

  The Duke, knowing his man, replied: ‘Using no half-words, son of Godwine, if you refuse I shall not let you depart out of Normandy.’

  ‘I see,’ said Harold. He might have added that he had seen for many months, and long since weighed the chances of escape, and considered what must be his answer to the Duke’s demands. There was no smile in his eyes now; his lips had taken on a stern look. He drew in a deep breath, as though he had come to the end of a struggle that cost him dear, but his voice, pleasant as always, perfectly under his control, betrayed nothing of this. ‘It seems that I have no choice, Duke William. I will take the oath,’ he said.

  He told Edgar that night what he had done. Edgar lighted him to his chamber, and when he would have left the Earl at his door Harold said curtly: ‘Wait: I have something to tell you.’ He dismissed the sleepy page who was holding a taper to the candles on the table, and flung himself down on a chair that stood against the wall, out of the circle of light. ‘Shut that door, Edgar. I leave for England in a week, or maybe a little more, taking you and Hakon with me. Wlnoth remains.’

  Edgar stayed still by the door. ‘Leave for England?’ he echoed stupidly. ‘Do you tell me the Duke has relented?’ He sounded incredulous, but as a thought occurred to him he added with some eagerness: ‘Is this because you did so well by him in Brittany, lord? I know that he loves courage, but I never dreamed –’ He stopped, for the Earl had given a scornful laugh under his breath. Edgar took a quick step forward, trying to see his lord’s face. ‘What is the price of freedom?’ he demanded. His hand closed on the edge of the table and gripped it.

  ‘I have promised to swear an oath to him, engaging to uphold his claim to England,’ Harold said. ‘To deliver up to him when the King dies, Dover Castle, and to wed his daughter Adela as soon as she is of marriageable age.’

  ‘Soul of God, are you jesting?’ Edgar snatched up the heavy candlestick from the table and held it high above his head so that the light fell on the Earl’s face. ‘Are you mad, my lord?’ he said harshly. ‘Jesu, are you mad?’

  The Earl put up a hand to shade his eyes. ‘No, I am not mad,’ he answered. ‘I take the only road that leads to freedom.’

  ‘Swearing away a crown, a life’s ambition!’ The candlestick shook in Edgar’s hold. ‘What of us, the men who have trusted in you, followed you, died for you? God on the Cross, is it Godwine’s son who speaks?’

  The Earl moved restlessly. ‘Fool, do you not know that if I refuse to take the oath William will never let me go? What of you then, you who trust in me? Should I not fail you? Answer!’

  Edgar set down the candlestick with a crash. ‘Lord, you leave me without words, without understanding. Be plain with me, I beg of you!’

  ‘I have told you: it is the only way left to me. If I refuse I must remain a prisoner, and lose what I have striven for all my life.’ He paused, and added meaningly: ‘Have you forgot how I swore to you a year agone that I would escape his net, not matter by what means, or at what cost?’

  ‘What shall it profit you, this shackled freedom?’ Edgar said. He realized suddenly what the Earl’s words implied, and sank down on to a stool by the table, resting his head in his hands. ‘Oh, heart of God!’ he said. His fingers writhed in the strands of his hair. ‘I am dull-witted indeed,’ he said bitterly, ‘to think that Harold Godwineson would be torn asunder before he broke faith. Forgive me! I have fed on dreams.’

  The Earl rose, and stood before his thegn, leaning his hands upon the table that separated them. ‘Tell me, with whom shall I break faith: with William or with England?’ he asked sternly. ‘Speak! With one or other it must be. Shall I shrink from staining mine honour, and betray our England to this Norman tyrant? Is that what you would have me do? Is that work for Harold Godwineson? Torch of the Gospel, if that is the image you nurse of me, banish it and know me for myself, no puppet of your fancy! I stand for England, and England I will hold till the breath leaves my body. Think me what you will: though I break faith with all others, to England I w