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

  If Richard was hurt, he gave no sign of it. ‘Why not? You know I want to settle here, you know I want to be near your land. What could be better? You must see that Hugh’s daughter could not hold the place herself – there are too many marauding men about for it to be possible.’ He sat down on the bed. ‘I will be a good lord to the people there, and I swear to you that they will not regret the day I came.’ He thrust the parchment into Waltheof’s hands. ‘See – William has made his mark on it himself, it is mine for life and my heirs hereafter. Would you not rather it was I that had it than a Bellême, or worse? And I can keep a check on Ivo, can I not?’

  Waltheof took the parchment and turned it over but he did not need to see William’s mark nor the other signatures to know its import. Yet he was astounded that Richard should have asked for it without reference to him – but why should he not? he thought bitterly. Friend Richard might be, he was conqueror too.

  ‘And what of Athelais?’ he asked harshly.

  ‘She is your ward to give, is she not, and well dowered? She is part Breton too and would be a suitable bride. The King was telling me I should take a wife and in this way she could stay on her father’s land, and her dower could be used there.’ He rolled up the parchment again, replaced it in his saddle bag and slid into bed beside his host. He could not fail to notice the tension in his companion’s still figure. ‘At least let me see the girl tomorrow. If we agree, would you object?’

  This proposal seemed even more surprising and Waltheof lay down again, his hands behind his head. ‘I must think of this. Such an idea never entered my head. But,’ he turned to look at Richard, ‘I’ll not force any girl into a marriage she would find distasteful. Would you expect me to?’

  ‘No. Many might, but not you. Only there is no harm in considering the matter is there?’

  Waltheof seemed to hear an echo of his own words to William. He shook his head. ‘She is no milk and water wench. If she will not have you, she will not.’

  ‘And I take no girl against her will.’

  ‘She has red hair and a temper to match.’

  Richard laughed. ‘.Then I would tame her. I am not easily put out.’

  ‘She says she hates all Normans.’

  ‘Then must I change her idea of us.’

  Waltheof gave a wry laugh. ‘I see you are determined. Well, we will ride over tomorrow.’ And he turned on his side, prepared for sleep.

  There was a long silence. Then Richard said. ‘Tell me I have not spoiled our friendship by asking for Deeping. I did it because I wanted it, but I see it might have been better done.’

  Waltheof flung himself over on his back. ‘If you had not had it some grasping Frenchman might have ruled there, but God have mercy on us all if William is going to deal thus with our laws.’ He hunched the clothes over his shoulders and shut his eyes for sleep.

  But long after Richard’s breathing was quiet he lay awake, aware that he had been boorish. Yet, thinking of the land under William’s hard rule, he wondered if he had been a fool not to join Edwin and Morcar in the summer. But the rebellion had been ill considered and worse executed and Ulfcytel had told him not to be foolhardy, but stay quiet for the moment. If they were to succeed against William it would have to be a concerted effort by every Englishman who could bear arms, not isolated risings that served no general purpose.

  His mind turned to thoughts of Judith – who was neither wed nor betrothed. But she was still as remote as ever, separated from him by long miles of land and sea, no more than a memory – yet a living memory so vivid that he could conjure her before his eyes, smell the perfume of her hair, feel her warm arms about his neck, her mouth on his, and words from the Scriptures ran always in his head, describing the biblical Judith and his own – ‘there is not such a woman from one end of the earth to the other that is her equal in beauty . . .’

  His peasant girl, Elfgive, was pregnant now. She had a luminous quality about her, for to her simple way of thinking her life had been crowned in that she should bear her Earl a child – yet for all the nights he lay with her and for all the thoughts of the child to be born of his flesh, there was an unreality, a transience about this relationship. It was Judith who was reality and who lived by day in his waking thoughts and by night in his dreams, and the longer he was away from her, the stronger grew his intensity of longing. Nothing, it seemed, could ever exorcise her from his mind and heart.

  They rode to Deeping in the morning in a rather cool silence and there received the reception that Waltheof had expected. Athelais met them in the hall with her mother’s widowed sister, her maids, her steward and servants. She was haughty to Richard before she heard their errand and afterwards treated them to an exhibition of temper that surprised Waltheof. Several dishes were broken and stools sent awry as she stormed down the hall and at last Waltheof caught her wrists and forcibly held her still. If she could have freed herself he thought she would have struck him.

  ‘How could you?’ she spat the words in his face. ‘You of all men! If you think I’d ally myself with a thieving plundering Norman – I’d sooner die than mingle my blood with such scum.’ She struggled wildly, but could not release herself from his grasp. ‘Oh, let me go – let me go.’

  ‘Not until you are calm,’ he told her. ‘I fear for Messire de Rules’ life while you are in so black a mood.’

  ‘As well you may,’ she hissed. ‘If I had a seax . . .’

  ‘God forbid,’ he broke in hastily. ‘Athelais, I can do nothing about this manor. The King has given the land away, but he cannot and I will not force you into marriage.’

  ‘By Our Lady and all the saints, I’d rather enter a nunnery,’ she retorted furiously. ‘No Norman will ever . . .’

  Richard had been watching this scene in astonishment. In Normandy such a girl would have tasted the whip and then, as far as he was concerned, been won by the kind of passion few women could resist. It was unfortunate that his reaction should have been laughter, but the sight of the girl trying to beat her way out of Waltheof’s hold in order to attack him seemed wholly ridiculous. At last he said, ‘Mistress, I assure you I would be no ill lord to you. You could be worse served.’

  His laughter was the last straw and at that Athelais burst into hysterical tears. Her aunt came forward, clucking sympathetically, but Waltheof waved her off and, furious at the whole stupid scene, strode away down the hall and out into the courtyard, leading Athelais by the hand with such force that she broke into a stumbling run to keep up with him.

  There, the cold air seemed to calm her and at last, shivering and drawing long shuddering breaths, her sobbing ceased. Waltheof, subduing the desire to shake her, held her firmly.

  ‘Child, you do yourself no good. I have promised you shall not be forced into an unwanted marriage, but Messire de Rules is a good man. I know that you think there are no good Normans,’ he added, seeing her about to retort, ‘but he is honest and kind and he will deal fairly with your people here.’

  ‘He laughed!’ She could hardly bring out the words. ‘He laughed and I could kill him.’

  Waltheof sighed. He wished Richard had controlled that mirth which was ill timed, to say the least. ‘You are being foolish. Do you think I like what is being done today in England? But we have to live with our new masters.’

  ‘Not I’ she snapped. ‘There are Englishmen left yet, thank God.’

  ‘My good girl,’ he said frankly, ‘if you wait to find one who is not in rebellion, or fled the country, or stripped of his lands, it will be many a weary day before you wear a marriage ring. Best take the Norman. He is my friend.’

  ‘Friend!’ She poured a world of scorn into the word. ‘I will never take him.’ She glanced up at her tall companion and caught hold of his arm. ‘My lord, we are both left very much alone. Long ago I thought – if I could stay always under your care . . .’

  They had begun to walk together across the courtyard and for a few moments the full meaning of what she said did not dawn on him.


  She went on. ‘I have often been to Our Lady’s shrine at Bracebroc to pray for you. I have taken gifts and,’ she hesitated shyly, ‘I laid a branch of spindleberry at the root of a broken oak tree. My mother told me such an offering to the wood spirits would keep a man safe.’

  ‘Child,’ he interrupted, ‘that is pagan nonsense. There are no wood gods, nor demons either, but,’ he broke off to look down at her, ‘I stand your guardian, nothing more.

  ‘Nothing?’ she faltered and her eyes filled. He paused a moment, still staring down at her in surprise. ‘I did not know you had such thoughts concerning me – and surely you must know that a union between us would be impossible.’

  ‘Impossible? Oh, how?’

  ‘We are within the forbidden limits of kinship – did you not realise it?’

  She stood very quiet now, her eyes turned from him. ‘No, I never thought of that. But sometimes Holy Church does grant dispensations, and if . . .’ When he shook his head firmly, she gave another sob. ‘Then it is true, there was a lady in Normandy?’

  ‘How did you know?’ he asked harshly. He would have the hide of any of his men who had indulged in tittle-tattle.

  ‘Oh, one of my maids heard it, but if you tell me it is false . . .’

  ‘It is true,’ he answered and for a while they walked in silence. She glanced up at his face and seeing his expression dared not pursue the matter further. She gave a little, hopeless sigh. ‘How different things were when Harold was king.’

  ‘You may well say so,’ he agreed. ‘I am very sorry, my dear, but if you will not take Messire de Rules, then I can see nothing for it but for you and my cousin and any ladies you may wish to take with you to go to my house in Northampton. You may stay there until we can find a husband you will take.’

  ‘I love this place. I have always lived here.’

  ‘Then marry de Rules and your children will inherit your father’s lands.’

  A shudder shook her. ‘No – no – no.’

  He could get no other answer from her.

  For three days Richard rode over his new property hide by hide. He found out exactly what each man paid for his land or his cottage, how many baskets of apples or loads of hay were due, how many days’ work each man put in on the lord’s demesne. He visited every freeman, every cottar and serf; he made himself pleasant, told them they would get justice from him but at the same time made it plain that he was now their lord. For the most part he met with a passive acceptance for the fact that the Earl of Huntingdon approved his arrival carried a good deal of weight. He visited Croyland, met the Abbot Ulfcytel and left gifts of money and a silver chalice at the steps of the altar. ‘I will be a benefactor to this House,’ he told the monks and thereby pleased them.

  At the manor of Deeping he ordered repairs to the hall and the pulling down of the wooden chapel in order that a stone building might be erected in its place. Then leaving his steward with some twenty men-at-arms to back up his authority, he prepared to journey on to York.

  Before he left he sought out Athelais and her aunt Gerda in the hall where their baggage was being packed and stood before the girl, his arms folded on his chest.

  ‘Well,’ he said more harshly than he meant to speak. ‘You have seen how I will order things. Your people will prosper. If a man works honestly for me, he’ll not starve.’

  She folded her hands in her lap. ‘That is well. It seems, Messire, that I have no choice in the disposal of my property but as regards my person I will not be bought by a gift nor a promise of food and clothing.’

  He flushed angrily. She was wearing a blue gown today over a white chemise and her unbound hair made a mantle of red about her shoulders. Her beauty went to his head, had indeed done so on that first day he had seen her, but her temper and spiteful tongue irritated him to such an extent that he longed to slap her.

  ‘I have no intention of buying a bride. If I took you to my bed, lady, it would be an act of charity since I swear I’d find little joy there.’

  Dame Gerda said: ‘For shame, sir!’ but for all the notice he took she might not have been there.

  ‘You shall not have the chance to find that out,’ Athelais flashed back. ‘As soon as Earl Waltheof can arrange it we shall be gone to Northampton, but I shall not forget you have taken my heritage.’

  ‘Not I,’ he retorted, ‘you have thrown it away. Do you think a mere girl could rule here in these troublesome times? I thought you were wise enough to see that.’

  ‘If I could have kept a Norman from it I would.’ She flung the words at him. ‘You are a nation of pillagers, lechers, defilers of holy places . . .’

  ‘Stop!’ He seized her wrist. ‘Be silent, girl, or I’ll silence you, by God. I’ll not hear my countrymen insulted. Deeping is mine and I will prove that a Norman can care for land and the people on it as well as any. You could have been mistress here still, but after what you have said, I swear . . .’ his voice shook, and he could not have told why he was so angry, he who rarely lost his temper. Looking round he saw and seized a small silver reliquary that stood on the high table. ‘I swear by whatever holy thing is here, that if you wish to return it is you who must come to me. I’ll not ask you again.’

  She was staring wild-eyed at the box in his hand. ‘That holds a bone of St Guthlac, our own saint. Take your Norman hand from it, blasphemer.’

  He was very pale as he set down the box. ‘I am a Christian man and no blasphemer. I will hold to my oath. If you want Deeping then it is you who will have to . . .’

  ‘Never, never!’ she cried out, ‘do you think I could so shame myself?’

  ‘Then do not blame me if you never see this place again.’ He turned on his heel and walked away down the hall and as he went he heard her low hissed, ‘Thief!’

  CHAPTER 2

  In a January snowstorm Waltheof, with only Thorkel for a companion, began to climb the slope to the Bishop’s palace at Durham. He did not wish to make an ostentatious entrance, and had left his men two miles out of the city at a manor belonging to Siward Barn, a Danish thegn whom he had known for many years. He had received a message from his cousin Gospatric, couched in somewhat obscure terms, but meaning that many were ready to rise and the leaders should meet to discuss plans. As the north was still untouched by the Normans he had come – no harm in talk, he thought, and he could rely more on Gospatric, Maerlsweyn and the rest than Edwin and Morcar.

  The snow was falling fast now and a wind whipping the flakes into their faces as they breasted the hill.

  ‘And you like this!’ he exclaimed, laughing.

  ‘I grew up in the snow,’ Thorkel said, his face cheerful beneath his hood. ‘When I was a boy I remember little else but snow – although in the summer when the thaw came the low ground would be green and the ice would melt so that little streams became torrents rushing down the hillside. But mostly it was snow and ice.’

  Waltheof held his mantle close about him. ‘I think if I had to choose a season to remember it would be May. In May England is at its best, the meadows deep with fresh grass and buttercups and the sky is a blue then that it never has at any other time.’

  ‘“A time to be born and a time to die,”’ Thorkel quoted, the mysticism that was never far from the surface rising to over-ride the practical. ‘A season for everything – but what do the seasons reck of our passing?’

  Waltheof was still pursuing his own thought. ‘My father told Outy to teach me to love the things of the earth, but I think it was born in me. And in May the hawthorn is in flower and all the summer before you.’

  ‘Then it is not the time one would want to die,’ Thorkel paused, snowflakes resting on his pale lashes as he gazed into the white wilderness about them. ‘I would rather choose to close my eyes in winter, on snow, for I’m sure I opened them for the first time on a scene like this.’

  Waltheof said nothing. He was thinking of what it might be like to wake on a May morning and know that one would not see the enchanted dusk, heavy with the promise o
f greater profusion, of harvest and rich woods. Would it be bearable when one loved the earth and its beauty as he did? Yet there must one day be a dawn when one would not see the darkness fall. Only for him, not in May, please God, not in May.

  He shivered again but this time not from the cold. Then he straightened his back, relieved to see the bulk of the church ahead of him. ‘I don’t know why we are talking of dying, unless it’s the effect of holy Aethelwine’s domain.’ Swinging along beside him, silent in the deep snow, Thorkel answered, ‘What does the time or place matter? Wasn’t it blessed St Monica who said that God would know well enough from what place He might raise her?’

  Waltheof nodded, wondering why it was he never had to explain anything to Thorkel. It was as if their very moods were akin.

  They found Bishop Aethelwine in a dither of apprehension and wringing his hands as he paced his draughty hall, his robes disturbing the rushes on the floor. He clearly regarded the Earl of Huntingdon’s arrival as an added problem sent by an unsympathetic Providence to harass him.