The Leopards of Normandy: Duke: Leopards of Normandy 2

by David Churchill

  But William put the sharp tip of his lance right through Hardret’s throat, finding the one vulnerable spot between his hauberk, or coat of iron mail, and his helmet. The force of the impact lifted Hardret right out of his saddle, skewered like a roasting chicken, and dumped him on the earth behind his now riderless horse, stone dead, before he had been able to land a single blow on the duke. William threw away his lance, drew his sword and started laying about him, more than holding his own, until his own men caught up with him and he disappeared into the chaotic, swirling melee of the battle.

  But as well as William was fighting on his side, Falconhead was matching him on the other. He drove his men between the French and Norman forces, trying to divide them so that each could be picked off separately, and as the corpses piled up in his wake, it seemed as though he might very well succeed.

  For his part, Haimo was in something close to the furious fighting trance that his old grandfather, who was still at heart a Viking, had told him about back when he was a boy. ‘Berserker’, the old man had called it, describing a heady, almost drunken frenzy in which one fought without conscious thought, hardly knowing what was happening, yet somehow creating an uncontrollable force that no man could resist. Haimo had charged through the French army shouting ‘Saint-Amand!’ as he went, sometimes stabbing with the point of his lance, at other times swinging it like a staff at men’s heads. Then, as if emerging from a thick forest into a sunlit clearing, he saw the king, perhaps twenty paces away, and there was nothing at all between them but bare earth.

  Longtooth Haimo gave another war cry as he spurred his horse onwards, lowered his lance and aimed it straight at the king.

  Henry heard the shout, and just had time to turn his body enough that Haimo’s lance did not pierce his mail hauberk but instead was deflected to one side. Even so, the blow had the full force of a charging knight behind it, and the impact was enough to send him reeling in his saddle. His men raced to help him, and hands reached out to grab him so that he would not fall. But his horse panicked and reared, and the hands that had meant to help him back into his saddle actually pulled him out of it, so that he fell to the ground, right under the feet of all the men and animals around him.

  The shock of the blow of his lance against the king’s armour seemed to jolt Haimo from his trance. Suddenly he was very aware of where he was and how many French there were around him, with none of his own men in sight. He pulled his horse this way and that, trying to find a route back to the rest of his army, but there was no way out, just a ring of men around him, a ring that was closing ever tighter.

  He drew his sword and tried to cut a path to safety. But there were too many enemies in his way, too many swords outnumbering his. He did his best to parry them with his shield, but then he felt his horse giving way beneath him as it was wounded, followed by the first excruciating pain of a blade entering his body, and another, and another . . . and then nothing at all.

  The Badger was watching the battle like a gambler at a wrestling match, waiting to decide which man would get his bet. He saw the king go down, and was just about to order a charge against the exposed right flank of Duke William’s force when there was a flurry of activity at the point where Henry had fallen. As his men lifted the monarch back up on to his horse, a great cheer went up from the French ranks.

  That decided it. The Badger’s knights were unscathed and their mounts were fresh. His foot soldiers had been standing still, waiting to be called into action, while their counterparts on either side had been fighting and dying. They had the power to turn the tide of the battle, and now he cut them loose and led them right at the heart of the rebel army.

  Guy and Falconhead saw the Badger coming and knew that he had come down on William’s side. Somehow they were able to turn their men to meet the new threat and with Falconhead seemingly tireless and invincible, it seemed that they might yet defy the odds and carry the day.

  But then Rannulf of the Bessin, who had spent the whole battle desperately feigning activity while avoiding any serious action, finally lost his nerve completely. The threefold threat of William, Henry and now the turncoat Taisson was too much to bear. He called for his men to form around him and galloped from the field, racing towards the River Orne.

  Still Falconhead fought on. But the sight of Rannulf’s retreat did for Guy of Burgundy’s courage too, and he turned and fled. With that the whole rebel army collapsed, and what had just a few minutes earlier been a disciplined force of brave fighting men became a disorganised, mindless rabble.

  The rebels ran, and William and the king pursued them across the plain and all the way to the banks of the Orne, hacking down the stragglers as they went. There were bridges across the river, but the press of men was far too great and most of the rebels could get nowhere near them. Instead they were forced into the surging waters and even those few that could swim were weighed down by their armour. Into the river they went, by the tens, the hundreds, man after man, for even if they stopped and tried to surrender, the duke’s men still pushed them into the cold, cruel water.

  And so, as the sun set, the waterwheels of the mills up and down the river were jammed by corpses. And all the way across the plain of Val-ès-Dunes, the birds came to pick at the bodies of the dead and fight among themselves for the tastiest morsels of human flesh.

  11

  Conteville

  Nigel Falconhead survived the rout at Val-ès-Dunes and escaped to Brittany, where he settled down to exile, secure in the knowledge that it was unlikely to be a long one. Sooner or later Duke William would forgive him his treachery and allow him back into Normandy. He was simply too good a soldier to waste, provided, of course, that he was willing to put his skills to work for the duke rather than against him. And if that was the deal that had to be done, Falconhead was happy to make it.

  Guy of Burgundy, meanwhile, raced to his castle at Brionne, which stood right at the geographical heart of Normandy. The very last thing William wanted was to have an enemy in the depths of his duchy, but Guy had chosen a good bolthole in which to bury himself. The River Risle ran through the middle of Brionne, not as a single stream, but splitting into a number of rivulets. The castle was built on a small island, entirely surrounded by two of these rivulets, which both acted as a natural moat and guaranteed the castle a constant supply of fresh water. The island also provided land within the castle walls on which vegetables could be grown and a few pigs and chickens kept: not enough to keep its occupants well fed, but adequate to keep starvation at bay for quite a while.

  William had no one inside the castle walls to help him as his grandparents had done at Falaise, and even he could not find a way past Brionne’s defences of water and stone. So, unable to prise Guy out of Brionne, William made sure he was imprisoned within it. He built forts and siege towers on either side of the island so that the castle was completely blockaded, and then set off to deal with all the other castles that had been built without ducal permission during the years of lawlessness and anarchy. One by one the symbols of baronial power were demolished, and those that remained became symbols of William’s power, for they only existed by his authority, and anyone who possessed a castle was thus, by definition, his man.

  A year after the battle, with his position as secure as it was ever likely to be with Guy still holding out at Brionne, William received a message from Herluin, asking him to come to Conteville. His mother was not well and wanted very badly to see him.

  Herleva was waiting to greet William outside the castle keep as she always did. But when he walked over to greet her, William was shocked by the dramatic change in her appearance. Her face, normally so full of life, was desperately pale, with gaunt shadows under her cheekbones. Her sky-blue eyes were clouded by pain and fatigue, with deep black rings beneath them, and when he reached out to hug her, the flesh seemed to have wasted away from her body, leaving just dry, brittle bones. Even worse, she winced and gav
e an involuntary little gasp as he held her, and he realised that whatever it was that ailed her was keeping her in constant pain.

  Herleva saw the look of distress on William’s face. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said, forcing an unconvincing smile. ‘I’m just having a hard time eating very much at the moment, and I don’t seem to be able to get a good night’s sleep. But I’m sure it’s nothing and I’ll soon be well again, God willing.’

  Faced with a problem, William’s instinct was to challenge it, solve it, or failing that, batter it into submission. ‘Why did no one tell me you were ill before now? I would have come. I would have done something.’

  ‘I didn’t want you distracted. I knew you had other things to worry about. And there really isn’t anything you could have done.’

  ‘Nonsense! I’ll find you the best doctors in Christendom,’ William insisted, trying to convince himself as much as her. ‘We’ll summon apothecaries to give you medicines and priests to drive the evil spirits from your body. We’ll—’

  Herleva reached out a hand, its mottled grey skin so thin that the blood vessels beneath could clearly be seen, and laid it on William’s arm to calm him. ‘Hush,’ she said. ‘I don’t need anything but good food, rest and prayers. If you want to help me, pray for me . . . and talk to me, my darling. Tell me how you are.’

  And so, since she was the one person on earth who could command him, William sat with his mother and talked, basking in her absolute, unconditional love for him, knowing that with her he was always safe and always understood, and feeling deep within the cold tentacles of fear as he tried not to think about what life would be without her.

  She knew, of course, what was going through his mind. ‘You need someone else, you know, as well as me. Someone who’ll love you and you can love in return. You need a wife.’

  ‘I haven’t got time to be thinking about things like that, Mother,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’ve got Guy to worry about. Geoffrey of Anjou is causing trouble along our southern borders. Then there’s Henry . . . from what I hear, he’s worried he helped me too well. And—’

  ‘Enough!’ Herleva snapped, and then had to take a couple breaths to regain what little energy she possessed. ‘I know exactly how many troubles a Duke of Normandy has to deal with. But marriage isn’t a distraction from your duties. It’s a duty in itself. In fact, finding the right woman and having children with her is the most important thing you will ever do. Without sons, you will have no heirs. Without heirs, the House of Normandy withers away. William, listen to me . . . I believe . . . no, I know, I’ve known since before you were born that you are going to be the greatest duke that Normandy has ever had. Your rule will spread far from here, across the seas. I saw it in a dream on the night I first lay with your father, a vision of a dynasty, growing from the seed we had planted.’

  ‘Mother, please, you’re exhausting yourself, you must rest . . .’

  ‘No! I have all eternity in which to rest. So listen to me now. You know that I have been corresponding with Adela of Flanders. She and I are agreed that her daughter Matilda would be a perfect match for you.’

  ‘Matilda? I’ve seen her. She’s just a child!’

  ‘That was years ago, you foolish boy,’ Herleva said, and this time she smiled in a way that gave William a heartbreaking glimpse of the woman she had always been. ‘Matilda’s now in her seventeenth year, so quite old enough to be your wife. A match with Flanders would make political sense. And much more importantly from everything Adela tells me, the two of you would be the perfect match as man and wife. You need someone strong, William, to bear the load you will place on them. Matilda is petite. You will be far stronger than her in body. But she has strength of heart, of character and of will. Go to her, marry her, give her sons. That will make me feel better than any apothecary’s potion ever could.’

  12

  Bruges

  ‘Welcome to Flanders, Your Grace. I trust your journey was not too tiring.’

  ‘Not at all, thank you, Count Baldwin, and you too, Lady Adela. May I say how grateful I am for your kind invitation.’

  William gave a little nod of his head to the countess, in courteous recognition that she was by birth a princess of France and the sister of the man to whom he owed his present prestige. The victory at Val-ès-Dunes had not only made him undisputed master of Normandy – though he knew that it would not be long before someone, almost certainly his uncle Talou, would try to threaten that mastery – but it had also transformed his standing among the rulers of the lands that surrounded the duchy. The last time he had been in Bruges, he had been a young supplicant. Now he was a neighbour to be respected and even somewhat feared.

  ‘May I introduce my brother, Odo of Conteville, and my cousin and steward William Fitzosbern?’

  Adela greeted them both graciously before replying, ‘And may I, in turn, present my daughter Matilda?’

  So here was the reason for William’s visit. He had only possessed the vaguest recollection of Matilda: a tiny figure dashing past him en route to her mother’s throne, then pausing to watch as he left the room. Now, as he exchanged courtly greetings, he took a closer look.

  ‘I just hope Matilda takes after her mother rather than her grandmother Constance,’ Herleva had said to William when he stopped off at Conteville en route from Rouen to Bruges. ‘I only ever set eyes on Constance of France once, at Richard and Adela’s wedding. She was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen: dark eyes, as fierce and knowing as a cat’s, olive skin, raven-black hair. My God, she was magnificent, but absolutely terrifying. She was King Robert’s third wife. After she married him, she had his previous wife, Bertha, murdered because she feared they were still in love.’ Herleva had laughed at a memory that had suddenly come to mind. ‘Fulbert, the Bishop of Chartres, once wrote that the only time he ever trusted a word Constance said was when she was threatening violence. When Henry became King of France, Fulbert refused to go to his coronation because he knew Constance would be there.’

  Matilda did not look like a particularly frightening prospect to William at first glance, for she was still barely bigger than a child, and her skin was fair, rather than olive. But as he examined her more closely, he wondered whether she did take after Constance after all, for her hair was black and her eyes were dark and feline, and looked straight at him without the slightest pretence of feminine deference or modesty.

  ‘Good day, Your Grace,’ she said, and even curtseyed, which was more than he was strictly speaking due. Yet for all that, her tone and expression made it perfectly plain that she was not impressed by what she saw. William, who was always sensitive to the slightest hint that he was being belittled or insulted, felt his hackles rise at her impudence.

  He took a small step towards her, the better to emphasise the difference between his height and physical presence and her diminutive stature. But Matilda did not quail or take a backward step. She merely tilted her head a little more, so that she could still hold his eyes with hers, and said nothing. She did not have to. Her silence was challenge enough.

  William had no idea how to deal with this wordless defiance. A man would have backed down, for William’s reputation was such that only the very bravest or most foolhardy would risk provoking him. But this was a girl, half his size. He could hardly just run her through with his sword.

  Perhaps Adela sensed the duke’s puzzlement, not to mention the sudden tension between her daughter and the man to whom she was about to be betrothed. For now she said, ‘I’m sure you gentlemen will want to be getting on with your discussions. Come along, Matilda, it’s time we rejoined the ladies.’

  William watched the two of them walk away. He and his companions were about to negotiate the terms of a marriage contract that would bind him to Matilda for life. Well, Count Baldwin wasn’t going to get his seal on the agreement without an exceptionally generous dowry. Any man who ties hi
mself to that little terror, he thought, had better be damn well paid, because by God, he’ll earn it.

  ‘You might as well know now that I’m never going to marry that illegitimate oaf,’ Matilda told her mother as the door to the council chamber closed behind them.

  ‘You’ll marry whomsoever your father tells you to marry,’ her mother replied. She gave a short, sharp sigh of irritation as she considered her daughter’s wilful fondness for unsuitable men. ‘You’re not still swooning over that Englishman, are you, Matilda? I thought we’d put paid to that one long ago.’

  ‘You said you didn’t want me having anything to do with him. I didn’t say I agreed. Anyway, Brihtric’s not just “that Englishman”. He was King Edward’s ambassador to Flanders. And even if he doesn’t have a fancy title, he’s got estates all over England, from Gloucestershire to Cornwall.’

  ‘Do you even know where those places are?’

  ‘No, but I know that it’s like saying from here to Paris. And his lands cover almost four hundred hides . . . And before you ask, yes, I do know what a hide is. I’d be a rich woman if I married him.’

  ‘You’d be a commoner, and you and I both know that you couldn’t care less about Brihtric Mau’s estates or his rents. You just took one look at his broad shoulders and strong arms and sparkling blue eyes and fell for him like a cow in season looking at a prime bull.’