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

  At last he said, ‘If he should give me Judith – no, no, I would not.’ And once he had said it, he felt committed, even though none had heard but Thorkel.

  By the end of November William was back in Rouen. On the first morning of his return Waltheof sent Ulf to the ducal apartments with a request that the King would grant him an interview; but the King it seemed was busy and he had perforce to wait until the next afternoon before he was summoned.

  He entered the solar where William worked with his clerks to find him seated at a table laden with parchments while two men wrote busily. William flicked his fingers at them and gathering their papers they bowed and went out. As the heavy curtain fell into place behind them he leaned back in his chair.

  ‘My lord Earl, I am very sorry to have kept you waiting,’ he said pleasantly, and added, indicating the laden table, ‘as you can see I have a press of business to attend to after my absence. Now what can I do for you? No . . .’ he held up his hand, ‘there is a matter upon which I must speak to you first.’

  He nodded towards a stool and Waltheof sat down, wondering what was coming. William, as always, filled the room with his dominating presence.

  ‘Do you remember,’ he asked, ‘when we came to Normandy, I said I should find you a bride from among my own people.’

  Waltheof sat transfixed to his stool in astonishment. How could William know? But he always did – no doubt someone in this teeming palace had whispered a suspicion in his ear. Gould it be that William was prepared now to give Judith to him? He felt the every-ready colour flood his face.

  ‘Your grace is very kind,’ he said, as some reply seemed to be expected. ‘I remember – indeed, I do desire it.’

  ‘Good,’ the King answered in a business-like manner. ‘I have given the matter some thought, and I have come to the conclusion that Montgomery’s youngest daughter Sybil would be the most suitable. He had asked me to find a husband for her and agrees that this would be an excellent match. She is a pleasing girl and will no doubt . . .’ He must have seen the growing consternation in the English Earl’s face, for he broke off abruptly. ‘My lord, you look startled. What is amiss?’

  Waltheof could not speak. He had been so sure that William would offer him Judith, but – Montgomery’s daughter, the kin to Ivo of Taillebois!’

  ‘Well?’ William said loudly so that Waltheof jumped. ‘Well, my friend? Have you nothing to say? It is a noble match. The girl has a large dowry and her father is closer to myself than any, save my brothers and FitzOsbern. Her sister is married to my brother, Mortain, as you know.’

  Waltheof passed his tongue between dry lips. What should he say? What could he say? But words must come, he must face the King with the truth. Unconsciously he slipped into the Norman form of address.

  ‘Beau sire, I beseech you to excuse me.’ He saw the quick drawing together of William’s dark brows, but he went on, ‘I mean no insult to the lady Sybil who is, I am sure, both noble and gentle, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’ William queried. His voice was dangerously quiet now.

  ‘I do not wish to wed her.’

  ‘God’s Splendour, what have wishes to do with it? I have offered to ally you to the chief among my barons, and to make you kin to myself, and you do not wish it! Be plain with me, Earl Waltheof, and tell me why you do not wish that.’

  ‘I would be even closer to your grace than marriage with the lady Sybil would make me.’

  ‘Oh?’ There was an ominous silence. ‘Speak, Earl Waltheof.’

  He knew now that there was no chance, that William knew his intention and was angry – he saw it in every line of the strong face and in the still tense figure in the massive chair – but he had to go on now, to finish what he had begun. He drew a deep breath that seemed to dry his throat even more and fixed his eyes on two peregrines, hooded and quiet, on their stand behind the King’s dark head. ‘Beau sire, I asked to see you in order to beg for the hand of your niece, the lady Judith.’ William said nothing, only stared piercingly at him, so he went on. ‘I have come to have a great regard for her. I would make her my countess, share my life and lands with her – and I think she has a regard for me too.’

  He could not have said anything more disastrous for the King’s eyes snapped with sudden anger.

  ‘Ha! What work have you made with her while I’ve been in Flanders?’

  Waltheof sprang up. ‘None, sire, and I am shamed that you should think it. By the living God, I swear I have done no more than . . . he stopped abruptly. He had kissed her, had held her in his arms; knowing he had no right, he had declared his love.

  ‘No more than what?’ William queried, his eyes glittering in a manner that those familiar with him would have recognised at once. ‘Answer me, my lord.’

  Waltheof stood straightly, facing him. ‘I have declared myself, beau sire, though I know I should not have done so. I have told the lady Judith that I would speak to you and she – she let me think I might do so.’

  ‘No more than this?’

  Waltheof hesitated, but only for a moment. The kisses in the forest hut were harmless, though they had changed the direction of his life, and they did not concern this stern man. ‘No more,’ he said firmly, ‘nothing that would dishonour me, harm the lady, or offend your grace’s hospitality.’

  ‘Just as well,’ William answered tersely. ‘Even hospitality has its limits, my friend, and they would have been passed if you had made free with a member of mine own house.’

  ‘You have a poor idea of English honour if you think I would act thus,’ Waltheof retorted hotly. ‘Earl Edwin waits patiently enough for his promised bride.’

  ‘She is a child still,’ William dismissed that red herring and rising began to walk up and down, his purple mantle swaying about him. ‘And so is Judith. Even so, did you imagine I had no plans for her? My sister does not wish to see her wed overseas . . .’

  So they had discussed it, Waltheof thought.

  ‘ . . .and she favours the alliance with the Flemish count’s house which I proposed. My brother-in-law’s eldest son, Arnulf, seems a suitable choice. So there is an end of it. Put your mind to Montgomery’s girl and you will find joy in your marriage bed.’

  ‘Never!’ Waltheof swung round to face the pacing King, so shaken by his bitter disappointment, his anger at William’s suspicions, that he threw caution to the wind. ‘Never, my lord King. If I cannot have Judith I will wed no other.’

  ‘You speak like a boy,’ William retorted. He seemed slightly surprised at the intensity of the Earl’s reply. ‘I have offered you a Norman bride, daughter of one of the noblest of men, and with her you might breed fine sons to further the union of our people.’

  ‘I cannot,’ Waltheof said hoarsely. This interview had gone so awry that he could not yet order his thoughts, nor know what to say, and he grasped wildly at a straw. ‘If your grace feels thus about our two countries, would it not be even happier if your house and mine were joined? You are already united to Flanders and . . .’ he had not meant to plead, but he could not keep back the words, ‘Seigneur, I want none but Judith, and she desires marriage with me. My rank matches hers . . .’

  ‘God on the Gross, will you Englishmen dictate to me what I shall do?’ William exploded. ‘I am giving my own daughter to Earl Edwin, is that not enough? Whose spears won at Hastings – yours or mine? Judith shall make me an alliance elsewhere. I do not,’ he added cruelly, ‘need further to cement my personal relations with a conquered people.’

  Waltheof flushed a deeper red. ‘Conquered we may be, but unless you mean to destroy us all, you need our support, William our King. And is it naught to you that I would make your niece happy in her marriage?’

  ‘Men of our rank, Earl Waltheof, do not wed for love but for other considerations, as you well know.’

  ‘Yet I hear,’ Waltheof said desperately, ‘that your grace won the lady Matilda in the teeth of all opposition, even despite the Pope’s ban, that knowing she was the woman of your choice you
would have no other.’

  If he had thought to win William by this speech he was mistaken. The King slammed his fist down on the table.

  ‘Splendour of God, am I to be taken to task in my own palace? My wooing has naught to do with it.’

  ‘But your grace knows what it is to . . .’

  ‘My lord Earl, enough!’

  His tone was such that Waltheof was silent. For Judith’s sake he dared arouse William no further. The twitching brows, the tightening mouth were warning enough as William asked silkily: ‘Well, sir, will you take the lady Sybil?’

  They stared at each other. Waltheof felt the impact of William’s iron will bent upon him, but in the end he said what he must say. ‘Beau sire, I thank you for your offer, but my answer is no.’

  ‘Wine of Christ!’ William swore. ‘You dare much, my lord.’

  Waltheof did not speak. Now that it was done he could not think of the King’s wrath, or the consequences of arousing that dangerous commodity; he could only think of Judith when he had met her on the stair, of her arms about his neck and her kiss on his mouth, and the love between them that would not, now, be consummated. One of the peregrines gave its strange haunting cry that added a note of melancholy to this already desolate moment.

  William had flung himself back in his chair. ‘Go then,’ he said harshly, ‘go, my lord. But I would advise you to consider your position carefully. I had thought to make you one of my most trusted men in England – even more, that we might be bound in friendship. Think, before you throw all this away, for I hold your future in my hands. And ask any man here if he would willingly invite Normandy’s anger and see what answer you will get.’ He rang the bell and a page came running to hold back the curtain for Waltheof. There was nothing he could do but bow and retire.

  He went out, not knowing where to go, but only that he needed air to cool his hot face, to stem the rising tide of rage, the anger, the frustration, the bitter, bitter disappointment that engulfed him. He went to the spiral stair and up it until he stood on the battlements, high above the little grey town, where, with the fresh wind in his face, he took deep gasping breaths in an endeavour to control the wild desire to storm the Duchess’ apartments and carry his love away.

  But above his head the golden lions of Normandy flapped in the breeze, a reminder of exactly where he stood on this last chill afternoon of November.

  CHAPTER 5

  For two days he endeavoured, fruitlessly, to speak to Judith. When she came to supper that evening, she had looked pale and kept her eyes downcast; his heart ached for her, for he was sure her mother or her uncle had told her of his rejected offer. If they were making her wretched! But he could do nothing, nothing until he could speak with her.

  He was terse with his Norman acquaintances, refused a hunting invitation from Malet, and had little to say even to his friends.

  On the third day after that interview, Richard de Rules walking along the gallery above the hall encountered Thorkel Skallason.

  ‘What has happened?’ he asked bluntly and without preamble. ‘I thought at first the Earl was ill, but I am sure it is something other than health, and if any man knows it is you.’

  Thorkel told him. After all these months he had come to accept Richard’s friendship for his master, and when he had finished the Norman stood silent for a few moments, looking down to the hall below where the servants were setting up the trestles for dinner.

  ‘I wish I had known,’ he said at length. ‘I might have advised him. This would have been better handled through the Duchess.’

  ‘The Duchess?’

  ‘If anyone can move the Duke it is she. I don’t say she could have gained his consent if he is set against it, but it is possible. She has a fondness for her niece.’

  ‘If only my lord had never seen that sloe-eyed wench,’ Thorkel said, venting his anxiety in irritability. ‘God’s death, women are nothing but trouble and why he must fancy the King’s niece, I can’t imagine. If it had been some lesser girl . . .’

  ‘His rank is equal to hers. It cannot be that.’

  ‘No. It is as I once told him – only William disposes of William’s property.’

  ‘Perhaps that is the heart of it,’ Richard agreed. ‘I am very sorry', but the world is full of wenches.’

  ‘You do not know him as well as I do.’ Thorkel set his shoulders against a stone pillar, staring abstractedly into the busy hall below. ‘He is not cold, yet full of passion, as many Normans are . . .’

  Richard took this without offence, knowing that Thorkel meant no personal slur, and the Icelander went on.

  ‘When he gives his affection it is whole-hearted, as to you and to me. He has never been a wencher, nor had a taste for whoring, yet it follows that having given his heart to the lady, it is no light affair.’

  ‘I thought it might be thus. I am not so unobservant as you think.’ Richard smiled a little. ‘But you are right on the whole about us – our heads do rule our hearts, whereas in England it seems more often the other way about.’

  In the hall everything was now ready for dinner and as they began to walk along the gallery towards the stair .Thorkel wished, not for the first time, that they had never set foot in this vast, stone palace that chilled more than his bones.

  But if they hoped the Duchess might intervene for her niece, others who were less favourable had already been at work in the matter. At the dinner hour Mabille of Montgomery had contrived to walk past Earl Waltheof when he stood for a moment alone.

  Pausing, she shot him a quick look from her slanting eyes and said: ‘My lord Earl, you were not with us at the hunt this morning. The lady Judith’s palfrey strained a leg and she is most concerned for the poor creature.’

  Waltheof looked down at her, uncertain what she meant, or what she wanted him to say, but before he could answer she went on, ‘I heard her say that she would go to the stable after the dinner hour to see how serious the injury might be.’

  She gave him a lazy smile and moved on. The King entered then with Matilda, a tiny figure beside him, and with the Archbishops of Rouen and Canterbury, and there was a scuttling and pushing of stools and benches as everyone took his place. The Archbishop of Rouen said grace, but Waltheof heard naught of it and sat down mechanically, outwardly calm, but with his brain seething. What had Mabille meant – surely nothing less than that Judith wanted him to meet her? Yet a seed of doubt was there. Mabille had no liking for him, of that he was certain, nor had her kinsman, Ivo; why then should she want to help him, or Judith? Was it a trap of sorts? An instinct warned him not to go and yet, if Judith were there and he did not come – no, he could not contemplate her waiting in vain for him. He must go, but warily. And he wanted above all things to talk with her; it was worth taking almost any risk for that.

  Somehow he got through the interminable meal and presently as the trestles were being cleared, he slipped away from his friends and went out into the courtyard. It was a bright afternoon, the pale winter sunlight sending slanting shadows across the grey stone. He went under the archway that led to the stables and into the building that housed the ducal mounts. There were no grooms or stable boys about and from the noise and clatter coming from the serving men’s quarters he guessed they were still at their dinner.

  He fondled Balleroy, smoothing the fine grey head, and the destrier nuzzled against his neck for it was seldom that he came here empty-handed, but he said, ‘No, I’ve nothing for you today, my poor fellow.’

  Judith’s palfrey stood a few yards away, and presently he crossed over to it; one leg was undoubtedly swollen and he was relieved. That part at least was true and he reproached himself for his suspicions. He bent down to feel the injured leg and was gently rubbing the swelling when there was a soft step behind him. He turned to see her come in under the archway followed, to his annoyance, by an attendant.

  She saw him standing there and sharply told the fellow to take himself off.

  ‘But, my lady, I thought you wished me to . . .�
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  ‘Oh, get you gone, numbskull,’ she snapped. ‘I wish to speak with the Earl out of hearing so that your prating tongue cannot carry any tales to my lady mother. Get you gone.’

  The man went to stand outside with his back to the entrance and Judith laughed derisively. ‘My mother has given me a second shadow. Does she think we mean to run away?’

  ‘I wish we could,’ Waltheof said soberly. ‘If I might carry you to my own country . . .’ He held wide his arms and she came swiftly into them. It was a long while before they spoke.

  Then he said, ‘Mabille of Montgomery told me you would come, but I was not sure whether to trust her.’

  ‘No one can trust her, but when she said she would help us to meet, I could not bear to refuse.’