The Conqueror Read online

  ‘Nay, lord, nay; but here we die like rats in a hole.’

  Guy huddled on his bed, gripping his mantle round him with twitching fingers. ‘Gayter la mort, gayter la mort!’ he muttered. His eyes, fever-bright, peered at the men about him. He gave a cracked silly laugh. ‘Eh, do you mock me, skeletons all?’ He was taken by a fit of shivering. ‘Skeletons from Val-es-dunes!’ he said, panting. ‘I know you, by God’s death! What, do you fleer at me? Dead men! dead men!’ He hid his face, and broke into hard sobbing.

  They succoured him as they could. He lay still on his bed, staring up at the rafters, heeding none, but raving to himself in a monotonous, dreadful voice that stretched the nerves of those who heard him to snapping point.

  Snow covered the ground and thin ice floated on the river when the end came. They brought the keys of Briosne to the Duke on the end of a lance, abasing themselves before him. He said only: ‘Let Guy of Burgundy come before me.’

  Guy came, carrying a saddle on his back in token of submission. He walked with difficulty, staggering under a load too heavy for his wasted limbs to support. At the Duke’s feet Galet brayed, and said: ‘Turn your ass out to grass, brother: it is a galled beast.’

  He was kicked sprawling. ‘Hold your peace, fool!’ the Duke said with a rasp in his voice. He strode up to Guy who knelt, awaiting judgment, and lifted the saddle from his shoulders, and heaved it away with a crash. ‘Stand up, cousin, and hear what I have to say to you!’ he commanded, and set his hand under Guy’s elbow, and raised him.

  Guy’s followers crept up to kiss the Duke’s hand when he had done speaking; the sentence was one of mercy: pardon for the lesser men; no more than confiscation of his lands for Guy, who was declared to be no longer a vassal of Normandy, but bidden, in a gentler voice, consider himself still the guest of his cousin.

  Guy found it hard to speak; he moved his lips soundlessly; a tear rolled sluggishly down his cheek. The Duke summoned up FitzOsbern with a jerk of his head. ‘Take him away,’ he said. ‘Let him be housed with all honour.’ He clapped Guy lightly on the shoulder. ‘Go, cousin,’ he said. ‘You have nothing to fear from me, I promise you.’

  Later, when opportunity served, Raoul kissed his hand, kneeling.

  William looked down at him with a smile lifting the corners of his mouth. ‘How now, Raoul?’

  ‘Beau sire, I have seen your strength, and your justice, but now I see your mercy.’

  William pulled his hand away. ‘Pish! Am I a cat to worry a dead mouse?’ he said disdainfully.

  Guy of Burgundy stayed till spring in the Court at Rouen, but it was plain he wished himself otherwhere. When the last snow melted on the hungry fields he craved leave to depart out of Normandy, and this being granted went away to his own land, a disappointed man.

  With the spring came the promised call from King Henry. King Henry sent to summon his vassal to aid him in a war against Geoffrey Martel, Count of Anjou.

  His need was urgent. A man labouring always under the conceit that his deserts were greater than his holdings, Martel had already caused some disturbance amongst his neighbours. The Counts of Chartres and Champagne could bear witness to this, and did so, with a great deal of noise. Maine, Normandy’s neighbour, lay under his heel, for he was guardian to the young Count Hugh and exercised his right to the full. Having vanquished and imprisoned for a space the noble Counts of Chartres and Champagne, he took it into his head he might become greater yet, and set about the matter very drastically. In the spring of the year he renounced his homage to King Henry, and followed up this gesture of defiance by marching into Guienne and Poictiers. After several engagements he seized the persons of both Counts, and held them prisoners until such time as they should be forced to agree to his demands. These were extortionate, but there was no hope for the Counts but in surrender. It was thought a significant thing when the Count of Poitou died four days after his release. Guienne survived: maybe he drank from another cup. Martel asserted claims to Poictiers and married – by force, some said – a relative of the dead count. Thus matters stood when King Henry sent for the Wolf of Normandy.

  At the head of his chivalry Duke William marched over the Frontier into France. Once more men who lived for little else put on their harness, and swore by the Mass that if that was the Duke’s temper he was a ruler after their own hearts.

  What King Henry made of it he kept carefully to himself, but it was surely now that he conceived his undying jealousy of his young vassal. If he had called on William only to fight under his direction he was soon to find who was the real leader of the expedition. It was Willam’s word that carried the day; it was he who laid an unerring finger on weak places in the King’s plans, and did not hesitate to condemn schemes that seemed a waste of time to his soldierly mind. King Henry might hide his chagrin under a silken smile; the French barons might glower their jealousy: William was left unmoved. They came to hate him, those proud Frenchmen, for his quick brain that outstripped theirs; for his clear foresight; for his reckless daring in the field, which cast the bravest of them in the shade; and most of all for the uncomfortable personality he had. All through his life men were to fear him and find it hard to meet the direct stare he bent upon them. Thus early the French were made aware of the ruthless strength of his will. The truth was he never swerved from his purpose, and would go to any lengths to achieve it. Own him master and he would be your good friend; oppose him and there could be only one outcome.

  ‘Jesu, he is stark!’ Roger de Beaumont said. ‘What shall come of it? I fear him, I promise you. Yea, I fear greatly. He is like no other man I have known. When is he weary? When does he ail? Bones of God, when will he fail of his purpose? Never, I believe! Eh, but he is hard!’

  But they were proud of him, the men who fought under his gonfanon. Prowess in arms was the surest road to a Norman heart, and feats beyond their imaginings William showed them. His men boasted of him, and told how he was first through the breach at Meulan, slaying with his own hand no less than three stout warriors in his impetuous rush; how he lost his bodyguard in a wild chase through dim forests, and how they found him after frenzied search, accompanied by four knights, and driving a score of prisoners before him. His fame spread. King Henry suggested with gentle concern that he risked his life too often. He spoke to deaf ears. A demon of recklessness possessed this Fighting Duke.

  When the war was ended, and Martel had slunk snarling back to his kennel in Anjou, King Henry hid his jealousy beneath a smiling front, and very warmly thanked Normandy for his aid, speaking fair words, and embracing him right cousinly. Maybe he guessed that Martel was already planning vengeance on the stripling who had done so grievously by him, and so was able to smile with a good grace. They parted with expressions of friendship; the Frenchman went home to nurse his spite; and the Norman marched back to his Duchy to find it exultant over his victorious return and very ready to live at peace with him.

  His fame had spread over Western Europe. From Guienne and Gascony, even from kings in far Spain came gifts of splendid destriers, and messages that were panegyrics on his skill and his courage. In one short trial of arms the Bastard of Normandy was become the hero of Europe.

  For a space peace reigned in Normandy, but Martel was not the man to let injuries go unavenged. Suddenly, without declaration of war, he struck a shrewd blow at Normandy’s pride. Marching up through Maine he seized the castle of Domfront, built by Duke Richard the Good, invested it, and swept on over the Frontier to the Norman border town of Alençon on the Sarthe. The town made no resistance, the Castle very little. Martel left a garrison there, laid waste the surrounding country, and returned home in triumph, carrying his plunder.

  This time Duke William asked no aid of France. Leaving Alençon to the east of him he did what no one had expected, and appeared before Domfront a full week before they had thought to see him there. Such swift methods shocked the garrison: they contrived to s