The Leopards of Normandy: Duke: Leopards of Normandy 2

by David Churchill

  Things were going so well, in fact, that they were ready even sooner than Guy’s most optimistic expectation.

  ‘Let’s go!’ urged Grimauld de Plessis, as desperate as ever to prove his eagerness for battle.

  Guy wanted to strike in the early hours of the morning, when William and his men would be sleeping most deeply and slowest to react. But when he looked up at the moon, it was still less than halfway through its journey across the night sky. If they left right away, they would be too early. Then again, he thought, there was no purpose in keeping the men waiting too long, or their enthusiasm and energy might peter out and be wasted.

  ‘Soon,’ he told Grimauld. ‘We’ll be setting off soon.’

  Goles was deep in the forest of Valognes, the only thing keeping him running his terror of what might happen if he tarried for a single instant. Here there were only occasional shafts of moonlight to break the deep darkness of the looming trees, and in that darkness lurked all manner of dangers he could hardly bear to even contemplate: wild animals like wolves and bears, and even wilder men, be they outlaws and brigands, or foresters out looking for poachers. And then, of course, there was Guy of Burgundy and his men. If they should encounter him along the way, they would realise at once what he was doing and waste no time in silencing him for good.

  So Goles did not dare stop. But neither could he keep running much longer, not when the burning pain in his legs was so intense that they felt as though they were on fire and might at any minute give way completely, like the timbers of a flaming building. Not when he was breathing with the desperation of a drowning man coming up for air, when it did not matter how many rasping, heaving gulps he took, there never seemed enough to ease the agony in his lungs or slow the frenzied drumming of his heart.

  His pace slowed until he was barely running at all, then just walking, then standing still, with his hands on his knees and his head bent over and retching. But then he heard, or thought he heard, a movement in the undergrowth, and the slow, steady breathing of a predator, and suddenly all his discomforts were forgotten and he was off and running once again.

  Guy of Burgundy feared nothing as he cantered down the same forest track. There was no man or animal for miles around who would dare confront a company of knights as powerful as the one he now led. They had passed through a scattering of hamlets along the way, and he relished the knowledge that in every one of them the peasants would have been quaking in fear, dreading that they might be the target of the horsemen’s wrath, knowing that if the knights were minded to do them harm, they could kill every man and rape every woman and there was nothing whatsoever to stop them. But filthy, lice-ridden peasants and their gap-toothed, saggy-breasted wives were not the sport that Guy and his men were after this night. They had a far mightier trophy in mind. And they were closing in upon it now. There was not much further to go. It was time to slow their advance and proceed with slow stealth and caution. Hardly conscious of what he was doing, Guy flexed his fingers. William of Normandy was so close that he could almost touch him.

  3

  When Goles arrived at the hunting lodge, he barely had the strength to beat his fist against the door, or the breath to call out for someone to let him in. It took several attempts before he could make enough of a sound, one way or the other, to wake anyone inside. The first response he received was the barely articulate protests of men who had been disturbed and wanted to be left alone. But after he had shouted, or at least gasped, ‘The duke is in danger. For the love of God, open up or you will all be killed!’ and managed to do so loudly and clearly enough for someone to make out what he was trying to say, the door did open a fraction and a bleary-eyed face peered out at him.

  The eyes blinked. Their owner rubbed them and then scowled as he said, ‘I know you. You’re that fool, aren’t you? What’s your name?’

  ‘Goles, my lord.’

  ‘Well you can piss right off out of here, Goles, you son of a pox-ridden whore. What in the name of Satan do you think you’re doing waking us all up? Do you think it’s some kind of a joke? Get out!’

  Goles fell to his knees and held up his hands in prayerful supplication. ‘Gracious lord,’ he said, though he knew full well there was not a drop of noble blood in the other man’s body. ‘I swear upon the blessed Virgin Mary that I am telling the truth. Guy of Burgundy is coming here, with five other great lords and their men, all mounted and well armed. They have sworn to kill Duke William tonight. They met at Saint-Saveur-le-Vicomte. I know. I was there. You have to believe me. I saw it all!’

  The man at the door hesitated. He looked past Goles into the dark mass of the forest that rose up just a stone’s throw from the lodge.

  ‘I don’t see Guy of Burgundy, nor any other lords or knights. Can’t hear anything either. I think you’re lying. I think you’re spreading slanders about your betters. I think you need a good whipping, just to beat some damn sense into you.’

  ‘No, sir, no, sir, please, I beg you, I’m telling the simple truth!’

  Goles was desperate. He had been through so much to get here, and it was all going to be in vain. Guy’s men would arrive at any moment. William and all his party were going to die. Goles was going to die.

  ‘I must see the duke!’ he begged. ‘I must!’

  The man at the door stepped on to the threshold, his fist cocked. ‘I told you, get out, or—’

  ‘What’s going on out there?’

  The question cut through the air, stopping the man dead in his tracks. He seemed to lose all interest in Goles, and spun round towards the inside of the lodge, saying, ‘Your Grace . . .’ And as those words were spoken, Goles’s heart soared. For now he knew whose voice it was. And now, for the first time, there was hope.

  William had spent most of his life as a pawn in other men’s games, to be fought over, attacked or defended according to the strategies and interests of each particular player. His victory at Falaise had changed all that and made him, for the first time, an active player in the game rather than a passive piece on the board. Yet even if he was at last in charge of his own destiny, the threats that had long surrounded him still remained, and he knew it. Just two months past his nineteenth birthday, he was as hardened by bitter experience as a man twice his age. He could count the people he truly trusted on the fingers of one hand, and assumed that anyone he met was his enemy until they proved themselves his friend. The first question he asked himself whenever he was spoken to was ‘Why is this man lying to me?’ He always kept his sword in easy reach of his bed, and even as he slept, some part of his mind was alert to any sign of danger.

  So when the sound of Goles’s pleas, however faint, penetrated the upstairs room that William had taken for the night, he was out of bed in an instant. He came down the wooden staircase and into the lodge’s great hall wearing nothing but a nightshirt over his breeches, but with his unsheathed sword in his right hand, ready for whatever threat might confront him.

  ‘Bring him in,’ he said, when he was told about the fool outside who was spouting an improbable tale of plots and imminent death. Goles was picked up off the threshold, manhandled into the hall and thrown to the floor in front of the duke. Half a dozen men emerged from the shadows and formed a ring around their leader and the sweat-soaked, panting figure sprawled before him.

  When Goles looked upon William, he saw a man from whom all trace of boyhood had vanished. The duke was tall, but not exceptionally so, broad in the shoulders, with long, strongly muscled arms and legs. His red hair was cut short at the front and shaved up the back of his neck and the lower part of his skull: the style of a man with no personal vanity at all, who wanted to be as cool and comfortable as possible when his head was clad in a hood of leather or chain mail beneath a steel helmet. His facial features were strong enough to make him look older than his true age, though not particularly handsome. But good looks, like smartly barbered hair, were an irreleva
nce to William. For what struck Goles, as it did all who met the duke, was the overwhelming force of his will. You could see it in his eyes, the set of his jaw and the coiled tension of his body. It radiated from him like light and heat from the sun, an almost physical sense of power, determination, competitiveness and an absolute, uncompromising refusal to back down over anything, ever.

  His voice was all of a piece with the man: gruff, steely, unbending. ‘What do you want?’

  I want to save your life, thought Goles. But how on earth was he to do that? How could he persuade the Duke of Normandy to listen to a man whose whole livelihood depended on talking nonsense? How could he convince him that he was speaking the truth and that his motives were pure?

  Goles got unsteadily to his feet and stood before Duke William, wondering what to say next.

  The duke looked down at him, waiting to hear the first lie.

  In the forest just beyond the hunting lodge, Guy of Burgundy brought his horse to a halt and dismounted, taking care to slip to the ground as silently as possible. All around him his men did the same. He gestured to them to cluster round him, and then, keeping his voice at a whisper, he addressed them.

  ‘Duke William lies sleeping just beyond those trees,’ he said, pointing down the path. ‘You all know what to do. If you follow your orders, neither he nor his men can escape. Are you with me?’

  There were eager nods and whispers of assent.

  ‘Good,’ said Guy. ‘Then follow me now, and by morning I will be your duke.’

  With those words, he set off down the path towards the hunting lodge, on foot this time, his heart pounding with tension and pent-up aggression, steeling himself for the fight.

  He felt no fear of what was to come. He had thought of everything, he was sure of it. Close behind him, two men, picked for their size and strength, were carrying the battering ram with which he planned to smash his way into the lodge, breaking down the door before anyone inside had time to respond. He would catch William napping, and they would fight for real after all those years of practice. Then he would kill the usurping bastard and take the dukedom to which his own, unsullied bloodline entitled him.

  Then, while he and his men were still hidden from the lodge by the trees all around them, Guy heard the barking of a hunting dog, and then another joining in, and then more still, until the whole pack was yapping and snarling and howling loud enough to wake the dead, let alone their masters asleep in the lodge. He muttered a bitter curse under his breath and picked up speed. They had lost the advantage of surprise, which would make matters harder, but still he had the edge in numbers, and no matter how much of a racket those blasted hounds made, there still wasn’t time for William and his companions to get properly prepared for battle. Even if any of them had brought helmets, shields or chain-mail coats with them, which he very much doubted, they could not possibly get them on in time.

  But why had the dogs barked? The thought struck him out of the blue, and nagged at him as he ran. He had made sure that he and his men were downwind of the lodge, so the animals could not have picked up their scent. And they had moved as silently as was humanly possible. No one had made any sudden noises – certainly nothing that would wake a sleeping dog. So why were they barking? And why was it getting louder?

  He burst from the trees just thirty paces from the door of the lodge, which stood in a clearing, the main building forming one side of a U shape, with outbuildings and stables on the other two sides and an open yard between them. The moon was quite full, bathing the walls of the lodge in a pale blue-grey light and picking out Guy and his men as they ran, casting deep shadows on the ground beside them. There was enough light for a good archer to hit a target, even a moving one, and windows in the lodge walls for them to shoot from. Guy tensed himself for the first arrow, for he was in the lead and would be the natural target.

  But no arrows came. He saw no figures at any of the windows and heard no bowstring twang, no fluttering of feathers in the air. And then he noticed something else. The door to the lodge was open.

  They’re coming out to meet us. Good! Far easier to cut them down out here than have to fight our way through a crowded building.

  Yet no one emerged through the door. In fact, there were no signs of life anywhere in the building. Guy reached the open door and ran through into the hall. The remnants of the night’s fire cast a dark amber light over the room. He stopped, tensed, looked around. This could be a trap! he realised. They could just be hiding, waiting to come out and catch us unawares.

  He waited. Nothing happened. He shouted, ‘Come out, William! Come out and fight! Or are you a coward as well as a bastard?’

  Guy knew full well that of all the sins of which he could accuse his hated cousin, cowardice was the least plausible. No one in Normandy, no matter how much they despised their duke’s illegitimacy, doubted his courage. He raised his voice even more and bellowed, ‘William!’

  There was no reply, no sound at all aside from the onrushing feet of Guy’s own men and the distant barking of the dogs.

  Guy strode deeper into the hall and found nothing except for the discarded bones around the dining table. He sent Longtooth Haimo with several of his men to search the outbuildings, while he led the rest through the few additional rooms that the lodge possessed, becoming more frantic with every one of them. They were all as empty as the Lord’s tomb on Easter morning. Slowly it dawned on Guy. Those dogs had not been barking because strangers were approaching, but because their masters were leaving.

  Haimo returned from his search and found Guy back in the hall. ‘The dogs are in the kennels, going crazy. But apart from them, there’s nothing. The horses have all gone. So have the servants and huntsmen. How the hell are we going to find them now? They’ll have gone off through the woods. They could be leagues from here by morning.’

  Guy let Haimo whine on. He was thinking. Then he said, ‘I don’t give a damn about servants or huntsmen, or anyone else. The only one I care about is William of Normandy. And I know exactly how to find him. Come with me.’

  They ran through the building to the room William had been using as his bedchamber. It was strewn with his discarded clothes and possessions. Guy picked up a pair of his shoes and held one of them up to Haimo’s face. ‘Smell that,’ he said.

  ‘Mary Mother of God, that’s disgusting!’ Haimo exclaimed.

  ‘Good. Because if you can smell the bastard’s cheesy feet, then the hounds will feast on the odour. They’re Alaunts. They chase scent. Let’s set them to chase this.’

  Goles had been too tired to run. It was all he could do to find an oak tree on the edge of the clearing in which the hunting lodge stood and climb up on to one of its lower branches. There he sat, with his back up against the trunk. There were no leaves to hide him, but as long as he remained quite still, he knew that no one would notice him. And so he saw Guy of Burgundy and his men dash across the open ground to the gaping door. He heard Guy’s muffled shouts and the silence that greeted him, and sensed the confusion that must have gripped him when he realised that his quarry had fled.

  The thought that he, a mere fool, had outwitted that arrogant, treacherous weasel had delighted Goles. But his pleasure was short-lived. For it was not long before Guy had reappeared in the yard between the lodge and the outbuildings, summoning his men and issuing a series of sharp, clear orders. One group ran to fetch horses, another to gather up the dogs, while Guy and his fellow nobles stood and debated William’s likely escape route.

  Valognes stood at the heart of the Cotentin peninsula, which jutted out of western Normandy. As long as the duke could be contained within the peninsula, he would be trapped, with the sea on three sides and only a relatively narrow neck of land opening out into the main body of the duchy. He would, of course, be well aware of that, so he would try to get off the peninsula as quickly as possible.

  Guy drew a crude
map in the dirt with his boot. ‘This is where we are,’ he said, digging his heel in. ‘There are basically two ways he can go. South-east towards Bayeux and Caen. From there he could carry on towards Rouen, or go south towards Falaise.’

  ‘He’s got the militia to help him in Rouen,’ Count Nigel pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but he’s got a castle and his peasant family in Falaise,’ said Haimo.

  Guy took control again. ‘We mustn’t get ahead of ourselves. He could be going due south towards Coutances and Avranches. If he does, he’ll be making for Brittany, hoping to get shelter and support there. Ah . . . here are the dogs.’

  Three of Guy’s men had emerged from the kennels, each holding two dogs, their white coats gleaming silver in the moonlight. They were straining at their leashes, desperate to be off in search of their masters. Guy walked up to each dog and held the boot under its muzzle, letting it get a good long whiff of William’s scent. The dogs started yelping with excitement, pulling even harder against their leads. They knew this scent. They couldn’t wait to go and find its owner.

  ‘Mount up!’ said Guy, and all but the three men holding the dogs swung up into their saddles. He looked around and saw that his men were almost as eager for the chase as the hounds. Then he called out, ‘Let loose the dogs!’

  The Alaunts were released from their leashes and streaked away like spectral white demons of the night, with Guy and his men riding hard behind them. They all disappeared down a track, the same one Goles had watched William take not so very long before.

  The duke was a fine rider, everyone knew that. Goles assumed that his horse must be the best in the duchy, for how could any lesser man dare to have one that was better? He had an advantage over his pursuers. But it was a very slender advantage, and he was just one man against a company of soldiers and a pack of hounds. If they should ever catch him, he would be as helpless as a lamb attacked by wolves.