The Conqueror Read online

  A hush had fallen on his troop. He spoke at last, molten words that crashed into the silence and made it shudder. ‘By the splendour of God, I will deal with those knaves as with a tree whose branches are lopped by the pollarding knife!’ He swung his destrier round on its haunches; stratagem went by the wind; his rage consumed the men. Assault! assault! The gate-tower was to be stormed and taken, burned to ashes, and the men in it dragged out to face his vengeance. Words of counsel were humbly spoken; he tossed them aside. By God’s death he swore to raze the tower to the ground or never more to lead his barons into battle.

  The greater part of his men were with him; only some older heads feared defeat, and murmured of strategy. He swept these aside; he drew his sword flashing in the sunlight, and thundered: ‘Who follows me? Speak!’

  A full-throated roar answered him; he smiled, and Raoul saw his teeth gritted close.

  Of that desperate skirmish on the bridge Raoul retained afterwards but the haziest memory. Missiles hailed about the besiegers; there was a sortie and some hard hand-to-hand fighting, when shield was locked to shield in the tight wedge, and men fell with despairing cries into the river below. From the tower they hurled javelins and rocks; Raoul had his helmet crushed in from a stone that hurtled upon him, and fell, half-stunned, still grasping his wet sword. Feet trampled over him; he struggled up with a great effort, warding off his own comrades, reaching his feet at last, bruised and shaken, but whole, swayed by the press about him.

  They were up to the tower almost before he was aware, in a storm of missiles. Men came over the bridge with a battering-ram slung between them, a ram hastily made of a felled tree. Many hands bore it; there came the dull thud of its impact with the great door which closed the way under the arch of the tower into the town. For long the door held; those who drove the ram were dripping with sweat, and breathing in laboured gasps. Ever and again one of them fell from a javelin hurled from above; his place was taken at once, and the ram driven home again. The wood cracked at last, and split: the men of Normandy were in, under the arch, and battering down the smaller door that led into one side of the tower. It fell before the fury of their assault; they burst through the opening, and hacked their way up the twisting stair, up and up, over their own dead, till they drove the defenders from the stairhead, back into the guardroom above.

  In all thirty men were dragged out, prisoners for the Duke’s vengeance. He set fire to the tower, and the terrified inhabitants of the town fled to their homes, and those on the Castle-wall beheld the flames and the black smoke mounting higher and higher.

  The Duke’s baggage-train had reached Alençon by now, and men were busy setting up his tent, and preparing an encampment. The Duke stood at the bridge-head, terrible still in wrath, and watched the approach of his prisoners. Behind him his captains were gathered in angry support. His hands were blood-stained, gripping his red sword. He glanced down at it, and handed it to Raoul with a quick, impatient movement. Raoul wiped it carefully, and stood holding it, waiting to see what the Duke meant to do.

  All that remained of the garrison were driven at the spear-point to face the Duke’s wrath. FitzOsbern exclaimed: ‘Deal hardly, beau sire! Sacred Face, shall men who dare such insults be allowed to live?’

  ‘They shall live,’ William said, ‘in a sort.’ Raoul paused in his task of wiping the blood-stained sword, and looked up sharply, frowning. ‘As a tree whose branches are lopped,’ William repeated with deadly emphasis. ‘They shall go footless and handless, living tokens of my vengeance for all men to see, and fear, by Death!’

  A murmur of assent sounded from the barons; one of the prisoners gave a shriek of horror, and fell grovelling in the mud before the Duke. Raoul touched William’s arm. ‘Beau sire, you cannot do that!’ he said in a low voice. ‘Another man might, but not – not you! Not hands and feet both; you cannot maim them thus hideously!’

  ‘You shall see,’ William replied.

  ‘Rarely said, beau sire!’ FitzOsbern declared. ‘In this way men shall know you, and dread your anger.’

  Raoul’s fingers twisted round the heavy sword-hilt. He looked at the prisoners and saw some with defiant faces turned to the Duke, some kneeling at his feet, some silent, some blubbering for mercy. He turned again towards William. ‘Your justice …’ he said. ‘Your mercy … What of these?’

  ‘Tush, you fool!’ growled Gilbert in his ear.

  ‘Grant us only death! Ah, dread lord, give us death!’ wailed one of the prisoners, stretching his hands to William.

  Raoul struck Gilbert’s hand from his shoulder. ‘Give them justice!’ he said. ‘This cruelty is not for such an one as you, seigneur!’

  ‘God’s Son, the Watcher turns pigeon-hearted at the thought of a little blood-letting!’ someone exclaimed scornfully.

  Raoul swung round. ‘I will let yours with a high heart, I promise you, Ralph de Toeni!’

  ‘Hold your peace, Raoul!’ the Duke said angrily. ‘What I have sworn to do I will do, by the living God! Not you nor any man can turn me.’ He made a sign to the men who guarded the prisoners. There was a cry of despair, a broken prayer for mercy. A block of wood was dragged forward, and a bucket full of pitch. A writhing man was flung down by the block, and his wrists wrenched over it. The axe swung aloft, and descended with a sickening thud. A high scream of anguish rose throbbing on the air, and behind Raoul Gilbert gave a grunt of satisfaction.

  Raoul broke through the knot of onlookers behind the Duke, unable to bear the sight of the mutilation. A man stood in his way, trying to peep over the shoulders of his betters at the gruesome work on hand. Raoul struck him aside with a force that sent him sprawling, and thrust his way on through the crowd to the Duke’s tent.

  He found that he was still grasping William’s sword. He looked at it for a moment with a white set face, and suddenly flung it from him so that it fell with a clatter in a corner of the tent. A second tortured scream from outside made his gorge rise until he thought he must be sick. He sank down on to a stool, and buried his face in his hands.

  The screams and groans rang through and through his head; before his shut eyes gibbered the forms of maimed men, and the gloating faces of those who watched the execution.

  After a long time the hideous sounds ceased. There was a murmur of voices, and the tread of footsteps all round the tent.

  Galet crept in, and to Raoul’s knee. ‘Brother, brother!’ he whispered, and touched Raoul’s sleeve.

  Raoul looked up: ‘Fool, have you seen?’

  ‘Yea, it is a red vengeance,’ the fool answered. ‘But will you break your heart for a parcel of Angevin swine?’

  ‘Do you think I care for them?’ Raoul said bitterly. ‘If I break my heart it is for William’s shame.’ He fumbled at his sword-hilt and drew the blade from its sheath. His finger traced the runes graven upon it, ‘Le bon temps viendra! Ah, heart of Christ!’

  Troubled, the fool said: ‘Yea, but what shall this signify?’

  Raoul looked at him. ‘O fool, when shall this day’s work be forgotten? It is in my mind that down the years when men speak of William our Duke they will remember this vengeance and call him Tyrant. I tell you, there is a stain upon his shield now no deed of justice, no feat of arms can ever wipe away.’

  ‘He is a stark man in his anger, brother, but you have seen him merciful,’ Galet said, uncomprehending.

  ‘I have seen the devil let loose,’ Raoul said with a short laugh.

  ‘Yea, he hath a devil like all of his house, but he keeps it throttled six days out of the seven.’

  Raoul rose, and sheathed his sword again. ‘But the seventh is the day that shall live in men’s memories,’ he said, and went out, leaving the fool to scratch his puzzled head.

  He did not come near the Duke until some hours had passed. Appalled at what they had seen, the Castle garrison sent to offer terms of surrender. They