Of the Ring of Earls (Conqueror Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  CHAPTER 6

  In the morning he rose early, sent Elfgive home with a purse and a kiss, and rode out to Deeping to see its lord, Hugh of Evermue, and express his sympathy for the loss of Hugh’s steward, Con, who had fallen at Stamford. He found him in his hall, propped on a pallet by the fire, cushions supporting him. He was suffering from a wasting sickness and coughed incessantly.

  By his side stood his daughter, Athelais, a girl some fifteen years old, with rich bronze hair and a tall well-made figure. She curtseyed to the Earl and bade him welcome, holding out a greeting cup to him. He drained the wine and set down the cup, turning to her father.

  ‘How do you fare, my lord?’

  ‘Poorly,’ Hugh shifted himself uncomfortably. ‘No one can cure my sickness. It is good to see you safe returned, Earl Waltheof. Tell me all the news.’

  For a long while they sat talking, the girl Athelais at the foot of her father’s pallet. Her mother was dead and she was an only child so that with a sick father she spent more days in the great hall with him than in the ladies’ bower.

  Hugh listened eagerly to the Earl’s description of the doings at York and still more intently to the tale of the fight on Telham ridge. When Waltheof had finished he drove one fist into the other.

  ‘I thank God that I was too ill to fight, for He alone knows for which side I would have stood. I thank Him too for the first time that I had no son to send.’

  Waltheof stared in silence at the old man, uncertain how to answer this outburst, but Athelais had no doubts.

  ‘I would I had been a son and then I would have stood under the banner of the Dragon.’ She spoke passionately, her hands clenched. ‘If every Englishman had gone to the King’s aid . . .

  ’

  ‘You forget I am not an Englishman,’ her father interrupted sharply. ‘I may have lived here these many years and served King Edward, Jesus rest his soul, but I am Breton born and my cousin Count Brian would have led the Breton troops. Would you have me fight against my own kin?’

  ‘Others have had to do so,’ her voice was shrill with scorn. ‘It is only cowards that will not . . .’

  Her father seized her arm in a hard grasp. ‘Be silent, girl. God knows how I spawned such a vixen.’ He glanced at Waltheof and a faint smile came into his eyes. ‘If I should die before she is wed, my lord, you will have the bestowing of her and may the saints aid you.’ He released her arm and Athelais stood silent, a deep flush staining her cheeks.

  Waltheof saw the red marks of her father’s finger on her arm, and he smiled gently at her. ‘She will make some man a good wife.’

  ‘Ha!’ The Lord of Evermue flung up his hands in a derisive gesture, but his laugh was goodnatured enough. ‘I tell you, Waltheof, she should have been a boy.’

  ‘You may thank God she is not,’ Waltheof said, ‘or she might lie dead on Telharn ridge.’ And to Athelais he added, ‘What’s done is done, and now we must live with it. So I go to the Duke.’

  She gave him a strange look that he could not fathom and later when he left she walked with him to his horse. Her hands were clasped tightly together. ‘God go with you, my lord. I would I might go too.’

  ‘To William Bastard? I thought you hated all Normans?’

  ‘So I do, but by learning about them, we shall know how to defeat them.’

  ‘Upon my soul!’ he burst out laughing. ‘I think your father was right and you should have been a boy, but,’ he put up a hand to touch her thick copper-red plait, ‘that would be a shame.’

  He was still laughing as he rode off and did not see her eyes fill with tears that she was too proud to shed, nor did he see that she stood by the gate for a long while, until he was out of sight.

  He rode on to Gelling and spent a sad half hour with Gundred, Alfric’s widow. She seemed most distressed over the future of her son, bereft of his father’s guidance. The boy, Ulf, was twelve years old, a sturdy lad with his father’s smile and thick curling hair.

  On an impulse Waltheof said, ‘I have need of a page. Could you spare the boy, Gundred? I’ll take good care of him and train him as Alfric would have wished.’

  She stood still, holding fast to her son’s shoulder and for a moment he thought she was going to refuse. But then, seeing the sudden leaping excitement in Ulf’s young face, the relief from grief, she released him.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I could not do better for him.’ So Waltheof rode to Peterborough with the lad, mounted on his pony, as proud as a peacock to be in his lord’s service.

  For four days the little company of Englishmen rode together, Edwin and Morcar with Magnus Carlson and his brother Edmund, Maerlsweyn, the Sheriff of Lincoln, and Edric Guilda, called ‘the Wild’, from Hereford, on an errand none liked but all agreed needful at this moment.

  They reached Berkhamstead at last, where the Duke had sent word that he would receive them.

  There was a fair manor there that had belonged to Harold with a great hall and many outbuildings set in gently sloping land, the fields cared for, the woodlands and pasturage rich in summer time, bare now under the grip of winter.

  But there was no lack of colour here for the tents of the Duke’s army stretched as far as they could see, standards and banners set before those of barons and knights, and a great concourse of people gathered.

  ‘Surely there has never been such a host,’ Thorkel said and Outy spat expressively.

  ‘Like peacocks they are, strutting and proud,’ he muttered, ‘God defend us from such popinjays.’

  Thorkel glanced at Waltheof riding a few paces ahead of him through the lines of Norman tents. ‘At least our Earl will hold his own among them.’

  Waltheof had dressed with particular care that morning. He wore his fur-lined mantle and his Earl’s robes, a saffron pelisse and tunic stitched with gold and green and white at the neck and hem, delicate tracery for which the women of England were famed. His under tunic was white and his hose bound with thongs, he wore his sword but he was bareheaded, his fair hair neatly combed and his beard trimmed by Outy who was determined that his lord should outshine all the rest.

  As he rode through the ranks of Normans he looked neither right nor left, not wanting to betray curiosity, but pictures formed themselves in his mind of strong square-set men with blue eyes and short hair shaved to the crown of the head behind – which accounted, he thought with grim amusement, for the rumours that had spread through England in October that the Norman Duke had brought an army of priests with him.

  The Normans were richly apparelled in tunics longer than the Saxons favoured, with numerous attendants, and brightly coloured gonfanons fluttering everywhere. If these were his barons and knights, what was Normandy himself like, Waltheof wondered?

  At length they came to the great hall and liveried grooms stood forward to hold their horses. At the doorway two knights led them through the throng to the far end where a dais had been set up with a chair upon it for the Duke himself. One knight escorted Edwin and Morcar forward and as the second turned to Waltheof there was a moment of instant recognition.

  Then the knight said awkwardly in Saxon, ‘I hoped I would see you here – I asked for this duty today. I wanted to thank you for sparing my life on Senlac field.’

  Waltheof looked down at him, seeing a slight young man with very blue eyes and neat hair as black as a rook’s wing, cut short in the Norman style. He was smiling diffidently, uncertain how his overture of friendship would be received.

  For a moment Waltheof was back in the ravine, remembering the holocaust of emotion that had seized him then, the killing he had done. Why had he spared this one among so many? At last he said in Norman, ‘I speak your tongue. There were enough slain.’

  The knight sighed. ‘I lost my father and my brothers that day. My mother will bless your name that I am alive to go home.’

  Waltheof thought suddenly of Gytha, Earl Godwine’s widow, who mourned five sons. He had seen her briefly in London, a proud, broken woman who yet would not show h
er sorrow to the world. He heard she had gone west to Exeter with three of Harold’s four sons by Edith Swan-neck. ‘There are enough to mourn,’ he said. ‘What is your name, Norman?’

  ‘I am Richard of Rules.’ the young man told him. ‘My family hold lands near Falaise, the Duke’s own town. Will you come with me, my lord?’ He led the way up the hall between lines of high-born Normans, and Waltheof followed, attended by Thorkel, very fine today in scarlet mantle and white tunic, Osgood, Hakon and young Ulf Alfricson carrying his lord’s helm.

  Over his shoulder the Norman knight said, smiling, ‘The Duke will be glad you speak his tongue for he knows none of yours. William Malet of Graville, who is part Saxon, translates for him.’

  ‘I know Malet,’ Waltheof said. ‘He came often to King Edward’s court.’

  At the end of the hall, near the dais, the little knot of Englishmen stood together, the men from the north joined by Edgar Atheling, the two Archbishops and Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester. The latter came over at once to greet Waltheof.

  ‘I am glad to see you,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I was afraid that, for love of Leofwine, you might attempt something that, just now, could be naught but foolhardy.’

  ‘So the lord Abbot of Croyland assured me,’ Waltheof said quietly so that none might hear their conversation. ‘My lord, I am glad to see you too.’ Wulfstan, he thought must be the best loved man in the kingdom, a holy man full of wisdom and kindliness. He had been Harold’s friend and confessor and must mourn him as much as any. His sad yet calm countenance at once revealed his grief and the faith which over-rode it.

  Maerlsweyn came up to them. ‘God send we are not on a fool’s errand,’ he said. ‘Our fathers fared well enough under a foreign king, but will the Bastard be another Cnut to us? It seems to me that he has inveigled here every man of standing left in England. If he gave the word we could all be dead men.’

  ‘That is not his way,’ Wulfstan said. ‘See, here he comes.’

  Two horns sounded, a hush fell on the assembly, and as a herald cried out in a stentorian voice, ‘William, by grace of God, Duke of Normandy,’ from the curtained recess behind the dais, William himself came into the hall and took his seat on a chair draped in purple cloth. He wore a crimson tunic, edged with gold and his mantle was of gold cloth both in and out that shimmered when he moved. Round his dark head was a circlet of gold and golden bracelets gleamed on either strong forearm. He was magnificently built with powerful shoulders and broad strong hands. His eyes, black and snapping with vitality, stared straightly at the packed throng of men, and he sat upright in his chair, his hands clasped on the arms.

  Waltheof’s first impression was of strength, of overpowering personality. Involuntarily he thought, a man, by God! Whatever one might think of him there was no doubt that the Bastard was the strongest presence in this hall, nor could Waltheof take his eyes from the Duke.

  And into his head came all that he had ever heard of William, how he had raised his duchy to be the most orderly and best governed state in Europe, how he had become a generous patron of the Church and fostered schools and learning, how he could claim for friend such men as Lanfranc, the brilliant Abbot of St Stephen’s at Caen.

  Hope began to rise, inexplicably, hope that all might yet go well and impulsively he turned to Bishop Wulfstan. ‘The Duke is . . .’ he began and then could find no words to express his thought.

  ‘ . . .a very great man,’ Wulfstan finished the sentence. ‘It seems God’s will that we should be in his hands.’

  Archbishop Stigand, overhearing this, said coldly, ‘We would have avoided much burning and pillaging if we had accepted it sooner.’

  A hot anger seized Waltheof. ‘God forbid, my lord, that Englishmen should bow too meekly to an invader. If we had not fought, what shame!’

  ‘Remember where we are, my son,’ Wulfstan broke in quietly. ‘Recriminations are useless now.’

  ‘I ask your pardon,’ Waltheof said, but it was addressed more to Wulfstan than to his superior.

  There was a stir now as Aldred moved forward, leaning upon his staff, having been persuaded to take upon him a task no one wished Stigand to perform. The latter walked with him, his narrow face sharply vigilant, though even he deferred to the suitability of Aldred to speak for all.

  The Archbishop halted before the Duke’s chair.

  ‘My lord Duke,’ he said in a loud voice that all might hear. ‘We are come, the chief men in England, churchmen, earls and thegns, to own that you have defeated us in fair battle. We appealed to God to judge between us and He gave you victory. Now we need a crowned king to govern our land for it has ever been our custom, and we beg you to accept this holy office. As we place ourselves and our lives and well-being in your hands, so we ask you to be a good and just lord to us. Your kinsman, Edward of sacred memory, was a great king and ruled us well. Will you follow him, William, Duke of Normandy?’

  William rose, and Waltheof thought fleetingly how nobly he carried himself, almost as if he would throw his title of Bastard in the teeth of all men.

  ‘I am sensible, my lord Archbishop,’ he answered in his harsh, ringing voice, ‘of the honour you do me. But I cannot hastily accept so great a responsibility.’

  ‘What else did he come for?’ Thorkel whispered in his lord’s ear and Waltheof shrugged.

  ‘I would consult with my chief advisers,’ the Duke continued and left the dais, attended by some dozen noblemen and prelates.

  Rather hesitantly Richard de Rules came up to Waltheof and began to point out various Norman notables.

  ‘That is his half-brother, Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux,’ he said, pointing to a tall darkly handsome man, with vivid brown eyes and a keen intelligent face that bore an expression that was a mixture of scorn and pride as he accompanied his brother from the hall. With him was a shorter stockier man, nobly dressed, with a more pleasing but similar countenance, whom de Rules indicated was the Duke’s other half-brother, the Count of Mortain. He pointed out the Duke’s cousin and close friend, his High Steward William FitzOsbern, Count of Breteuil, a lean man with a cheerful mien who wore gay clothes and was saying something laughingly to an elderly baron with white hair, whom the Norman identified as Walter Giffard, Lord of Longueville, the hereditary standard bearer and one of the Duke’s closest supporters. He also pointed out Roger of Montgomery and William of Warenne, both frequently in attendance on their lord; Hugh de Montfort, the Constable; Hugh of Grandmesnil who owned vast lands in Normandy; Haimer, Vicomte of Thouars, famed as a fighting man; and William Malet, half Norman, half Saxon, a square set man plainly dressed whom the Duke kept by him as an interpreter.

  ‘There at least is one familiar face,’ Waltheof said. ‘I heard it was he who . . .’

  ‘Who bore your King to his burial by the cliffs at Hastings?’ Richard queried gravely. ‘Yea, and I saw it done with honour and solemnity as befitted so great a warrior. If you had fears for the way in which Harold was laid to rest you may dispel them, my lord.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Waltheof said. It was something, but not enough. Surely one day William would allow them to bear Harold to hallowed ground? But de Rules was still pointing out famous men and he tried to pay attention, but the names rolled on, too numerous to take in. He could not understand this delay and consultation. However it was only a short time before the barons returned and finally the Duke himself to take his seat again.

  It was Haimer of Thouars who spoke for the Norman council. ‘Beau sire,’ he began in Norman, ‘we your people are honoured that you should consult us, and indeed we did not need over much deliberation to give our answer on such a point. We followed you overseas, though our terms of service did not demand it, and it is the desire of every man whose hands have laid between yours to see you crowned King as soon as maybe. It is for this end we came, for this end we fought, and for this end many of our number died. As for the people of England, you see here the highest in rank bent upon the same errand. They see in you a great ruler, a mighty Prince,
a Christian man and one fitted to wear their crown. Seigneur, it is your duty to accept and I am proud that I have the joyous office of spokesman, that I may be the first to hail you – William, King of England!’

  The Normans took up the shout until it echoed round the hall and was taken up by those outside. Waltheof could not bring himself to shout at first. His throat felt dry and constricted, and the words would not come, but gradually the Englishmen about him raised their voices and at the third calling he forced himself to cry with them. ‘Hail, William, King of England.’ It was such a little time, he thought, since he had shouted for Harold and with what different emotions. He turned to look at Wulfstan and saw the Bishop’s eyes were full of tears; Edwin and Morcar seemed eager – looking to their own future, he thought with unusual cynicism – but Maerlsweyn was frowning heavily; Edric the Wild tossed off the words and it was obvious he meant nothing by them, while young Edgar looked flushed and embarrassed, recalling no doubt when these same men had once shouted for him. Waltheof felt sorry for the boy and gave him a reassuring look.