by Paul Finch
Isabel remembered Val-es-Dunes. She’d only been ten years old at the time, but no-one in Francia had not heard how the young and beleaguered ruler of Normandy had faced down a colossal horde of rebel nobles, meeting them head-on in the most murderous of battles, slaughtering them almost to a man.
“It was the same at Varaville,” Dagobert added, his eyes glazing.
Isabel recalled Varaville too, where a fresh invasion of Normandy, this time led by the king of France himself, had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Duke William.
“After that victory we were elevated to greatness,” Dagobert said. “From that day on, I swore our family would never look back … so every chance to obtain more was snatched at. We raided into the Ile de France, into Brittany, Flanders, terrorising all the Duke’s foes, real and imagined. And then, in the year of the Firedrake …”
He glanced up, as if expecting to see again that fearsome, hairy star that had appeared over England and Normandy on the Easter of 1066, glaring blood-red through the heavens, first on the eve of Letania Maior but lasting another seven nights, bathing land and sea in its burning crimson corona. ‘Comet’ some called it, ‘the Firedrake’ as it was known to the Normans; a harbinger of doom, a portent of the death of kings.
“In that year we accompanied the Duke on his crusade to England. England … which of all the great powers in this corner of the world, had never harmed us. Yet the opportunities for booty there were limitless. We’d have an entire kingdom, one of the oldest and wealthiest in Christendom, to divide among us. How could we refuse?”
They strolled on.
“Forgive me, my dear,” Dagobert finally said. “You are Angevin-born. The Norman ways must still be alien to you.
“As a child in Roche-au-Moine, you were goblin-men,” she replied. “Descendents of the Norse to be feared and hated. But now I know you better.”
He chuckled bitterly. “Goblin-men. It sounds strangely appropriate. We told ourselves that we’d spent our lives surrounded by enemies who were mightier than we. That our nation had been forged in a crucible of self-defence. But in truth we gazed out at ancient, wealthy lands, at the trappings of wealth and splendour. And we wanted it all. It was the world’s fault we had nothing, so the world would pay. Tenuous though the Duke’s claim was, we knew we’d fight for him. It was our duty and our birthright!” He shook his head. “That’s what I used to tell myself. ‘Piracy’, ‘pillage’ – those were words we chose not to hear. But little by little, I think some of us now are paying dearly for that sin.”
She glanced at him. “You can’t think God took Blanche in punishment for ...”
“My greed took her. I could have returned to Normandy once the war was done, and would still have had time to be with her. But I didn’t. I chose to stay on, to claim my share. In her last moments, she only had servants to comfort her. And once she’d gone, those same servants stripped her bedchamber, taking the rings from her fingers, the silk slippers from her feet.”
“It still wasn’t your fault.”
“Tell my sons. They hate me for it.”
“Dagobert, they don’t hate you.”
“Surely after today’s events, you can’t doubt it?”
“There must be more to Eric’s revolt than that,” Isabel said.
“If there is,” Dagobert replied, “we’ll never know.”
12
When the Roman people suppressed the Britons and set up their own cities and forts, we remained hidden in caves and in the mountain fastnesses. No longer did our warriors lead sorties against the lowlands, for we had witnessed the might of the Romans, and in any case we were pleased to see the usurping Britons yoked by conquerors of their own. At first the Britons resisted, and on occasion the Roman folk were slain in heaps, though at length the violence and mistrust of the Britons was their undoing. Unable to unify, unable to agree among themselves as to which of their rival chiefs should lead the fight, their resistance collapsed and they fell beneath the Roman heel, soon to be made a placid subject-race.
Eric was still against the wall, his arms pulled taut over his head, blood streaking his face and ragged clothes. Though his eyes were closed, he’d found sleep elusive with his joints so strained.
“Chained like an animal,” came a voice through the bars. “How fitting.”
Eric’s eyes snapped open. By the light of a torch, he saw Anselm, now with a woollen tabard over his robes of state and his purple hood drawn up to cover his tonsure.
“Why have you come here?” Eric asked.
“Why else? To look at you.”
“It can’t be an unfamiliar sight, a brutalised man.”
“Why, if you are not a rebel, did you serve on the king’s northern expedition under a false name?” Anselm wondered.
“You want the truth? I didn’t want to shame my family.”
Anselm was visibly stricken. “So you planned to turn against him all along?”
“I didn’t want the shame of having served with him.”
“And why call yourself ‘Wakedog’?”
“It’s a name I invented. I was asked who I was, so I told them. ‘Wake’ is an English word. It means ‘wary’ or ‘watchful’. Dog means dog.”
“Watchful dog?”
Eric smiled to himself. “Dog ... because I’d stay at the rear, following like a mongrel. Watchful of the orders being issued to me, wary of those whose company I found distasteful.”
“This Earl Hereward, they also call him ‘Wake’, do they not?”
“Yes. ‘Hereward the Wake’ … that is his epithet now. But there is no connection. I have never met him, nor any of his supporters.”
“Can you prove that?”
“No. You must trust me.”
“Trust you? You slew the Count of Valognes in cold blood.”
“It was God’s justice.”
Anselm looked startled. “God’s justice?”
“Something you know little about considering you claim to be a bishop.”
“Why do you consider that my vocation is not real? You think that, because father purchased this office for me, that devalues it?”
Eric laughed out loud. “Don’t you?”
“You know nothing about my Holy Orders, yet you’re certain they are false?”
“I see what you are, Anselm.”
“And what is that?”
“A suit of vestments. A set of jewelled rings, a walled house with a troop of knights.”
“Is that not the way of my position?”
“It is indeed. So maybe now you understand my opposition to you and all your kind.”
“And how about your opposition to the king and his kind?”
Eric hawked and spat. “Someone must oppose them.”
“Must?”
“There has to be a balance. For everything we’ve done in this land.”
“We lost six-thousand men at Hastings?”
“And how many did the English lose?” Eric wondered. “Not just then but afterwards, when their army was destroyed, their people yoked to our ploughs. Good God, we didn’t even leave them land to hunt in.”
“It’s good to have a conscience, but the Pope gave us his blessing ...”
“The Pope be damned!”
Anselm gasped to hear such calumny.
“And he will be,” Eric added, glaring through the firelight. “For his political opportunism. And his lies. And the deceit by which he condemned a Christian people to annihilation.”
“You speak sacrilege!”
“Don’t talk to me of sacrilege. I’ve seen churches sacked on our campaigns. Oh, don’t look shocked, brother. Hugh the Red specialised in robbing holy houses. They were only English so it didn’t count, he said. And what he didn’t value, he destroyed. So the chalices and croziers went into his bolsters, and the English gospels and almanacs, and the artistic works for which their church was so famous got used as toilet paper.”
“The prospect of this didn’t worry you in 1066
…”
“Well it did later, when I was made errant … forced to see the world for what it was. Something you and your simpering purple-clad prelates have never done.”
“How dare you!”
“The king ordered a holocaust and you did nothing, Anselm. That is why I consider churchmen like you to be worthless.”
Anselm put a gloved hand onto the nearest bar, and gripped it tightly. And Eric was suddenly fascinated to see tears welling in his older brother’s eyes.
“Just … just because we didn’t come nobly forward to be slashed down like sticks of wheat doesn’t mean we were complicit in the crime,” the bishop stammered. “Martyrs are made of very rare stuff.”
“Well, I suppose humility’s good for a few thousand years off in Purgatory.”
Anselm’s tears now fell freely. “There have long been feelings among the clergy that the king’s reprisals are too heavy-handed. Mass executions of innocents because of the actions of a few partisans are not acceptable. Not only that, the taxes and tithes he has imposed are crippling the populace. When the new archbishop arrives, we will make our views known. We’ll do anything we can to bring God’s law back to this land.”
Eric pretended not to be interested, but he couldn’t help listening.
“I may not be a saint,” Anselm said. “But I had friends in the English clergy whose dismissal distressed me. I was appalled by the waste of life. But above all, I resented the fact that this, and worse, has happened, purely to satisfy the ambition of one vain and dangerous man. Because William the Bastard would rather have been William the King. For this reason I consider that I am more than a suit of vestments, that my vows are proper ones, that my calling is true. For this reason, I have brought you these keys.”
To Eric’s astonishment, Anselm produced a small iron ring to which two keys were attached. He used the first to unlock the gate on the cell, and the second to remove the shackles from the prisoner’s wrists.
Eric sank to the floor. Initially he was too dizzy to stand. He flexed his fingers as the blood surged back into them.
Anselm mopped the tears from his cheeks as he left the cell. He pointed along the tunnel. “The door at the end there is open. Give me time to leave, then exit that way. You’ll find Reynald’s guards drugged. By my reckoning, you’ll have all night to get away.”
“Why have you done this?” Eric asked, rubbing at the welts in his flesh.
“Haven’t I just told you?”
“Anslem, I …”
“Don’t let us down again, Eric!” Anselm interrupted. “That’s all I ask of you.” And he was gone, striding away up the dank, stone passage.
“Wait …” Eric scrambled to his feet. “Wait … there are other things going on here. Things you don’t understand.”
Anselm was half way up the dungeon steps before he glanced back. “I understand only that you have disgraced our father.”
“Listen …”
“Never make the mistake of coming to me to confess, Eric. Because I swear, keeping quiet about who you are and what sins you’ve committed is one vow I’ll joyously break.”
13
Samain was the beginning of our year but was a solemn occasion, for the dread days of winter lay ahead. As the old year touched the new one, the two worlds touched as well, and godly beings would pass from the Sidhe and walk among us, terrible to behold. Also on this feast we prepared for the days to come by levying from the Nemeds, our slave-folk, two-thirds of their milk and corn produce, and two chosen children. The first of these youngsters we would take to the high place, and immolate on the stone altar of Crom Cruiach, Lord of the Mound; the second we would drown in the great cauldron in the temple of Totatis. Such terrible dedications we made in the hope that, together, these celestial beings would protect us during the coming months. Long had my people been haunted by prophecies that at some time in the future the dark days of winter would arrive as normal but would never end.
As Anselm had requested, Eric waited a few minutes before venturing up the dungeon passage. At the end of it, as expected, he found the two men-at-arms lying on top of each other, snoring like hogs. They had daggers and crossbows. Eric took one of the bows, but after a brief thought discarded it – he was still a knight at heart. He stole past them bare-handed, and headed up the next flight of stairs.
Several passages later he met another of Reynald’s men. The fellow looked so surprised to see him that he simply stood there, gawking, allowing Eric to slam a knee between his legs, rip off his helmet and throw him headfirst into a stone pillar. This fellow had a sword-belt at his waist. Eric checked that he was properly unconscious, took the sword and padded on.
The next person to learn that he’d escaped was his father.
Dagobert was alone in the great hall. He’d wandered the castle morosely for hours, sipping from the occasional goblet, saying goodnight to those few members of the household who were still awake. He now stood in front of the Korred’s cage, his face drawn, dark rings under his eyes. When he dragged down the canvas sheeting and exposed the monster, it appeared to be asleep. It was slumped in the base of the cage, though occasionally it would grunt and whimper. Its eyeballs rolled beneath their lids, and every so often its lips twitched and revealed the bulging, tusk-like incisors beneath.
“Do they keep you in there all the time?” Dagobert wondered quietly. “Do they poke you and prod you and throw you scraps from their tables? You aren’t so alone in that.”
As he stood there, he heard the clunk of the ring-handle on the main door. It now squealed awkwardly having been damaged by the force with which Drogo and his men had entered earlier. The door creaked open and banged closed again.
Dagobert turned, half expecting to find the last of the servants waiting to be dismissed for the night. But it was Eric who stood there, dirty, bedraggled and bloodied from his stint in the dungeon, but brandishing a naked sword. At first Dagobert was so stunned that he could barely speak.
“What … what in the name of God are you doing here?” he finally stuttered. “Good Christ, this abhorrence in the cage is more welcome than you are!”
“You will hear me out, father,” Eric said, approaching.
“Oh, will I?” Dagobert lurched to the nearest table, where his own longsword happened to be lying in its scabbard. He ripped it loose. “Will I!”
“Don’t make me hurt you,” Eric warned him.
“You knave!” Dagobert roared, going straight onto the attack, their blades clashing. The Korred, woken instantly by the sound of combat, leapt to its feet, grabbing the bars with talon-like hands.
“Careful,” Eric said. “You’ve woken your house-guest.”
“I’d wake the Devil it meant he’d take you!”
Dagobert hacked and slashed like a man possessed. Eric fended every blow, though not without difficulty. Both their faces were soon shining with sweat. A bench crashed over as they blundered past it. The Korred gave a whining, cat-like snarl, as if it could smell the blood that would surely soon be shed.
“You’re getting old,” Eric taunted. “One time you’d have had me by now.”
“I’d rather be old than a traitor,” Dagobert replied.
“Indeed?” Eric said, feinting a thrust.
Dagobert moved to block it, opening his guard and allowing his son to step in, lunge out with a quick hand and catch him by the throat. Choking, Dagobert struck at Eric’s side with his pommel, but Eric squeezed his throat all the harder and now pushed him backwards – until they came up against a pillar, at which point Eric pressed the point of his sword to his father’s belly.
Dagobert growled curses, the eyes livid in his blood-red face, but at last he released his weapon and it clattered to the floor. Eric promptly released him. For several torturous seconds, they glared at each other.
“What?” Eric said. “No more bluster. No more angry denunciations?”
“Would it make any difference?” Dagobert replied.
Eric lowered his
sword, walked to the table and poured himself some wine. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m leaving. But I want to ask you something first. Something I’ve always wondered about … why was I the only member of your house who wasn’t rewarded for his service at Hastings?”
Dagobert’s eyebrows arched, as if this was the last question he’d been expecting.
“Why was I turned out when our family had secured their honours?” Eric persisted.
“You know why. To divide is to weaken. The eldest takes all.”
“I also know that you promised me Ella.”
Dagobert looked even more confused. “This is all about a woman?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? You and mother had something special.”
“Don’t bring your mother into this …”
“Why not? She’s as much a part of us now as when she was alive.”
Dagobert pulled up a stool and slumped down onto it. “I wonder what she’d have thought about your actions?”
“I wonder what she’d have thought about yours? You promised me Ella so that we might settle our holding here at Wulfbury. Rolf was already married, Anselm a priest. It had to be me. But in due course something changed, didn’t it? Once you’d had time to brood, disinheriting me became the preferred option.”
“I never disinherited you,” Dagobert retorted.
“As good as.”
“What purpose would that have served?”
“How about vengeance?”
“Vengeance?”
“For knowing what I know.”
“Which, I’m afraid, is precious little …”
Eric hurled down his wine-cup. “Do you or do you not remember the shield-wall?”
The shield-wall.
That great bulwark of interlocked linden-wood frames, each bound with leather or painted animal hide, bossed and rimmed with iron. That was where the fighting was thickest that grisly day on the slope of Senlac Hill, near Hastings town. The Norman knights rode madly against the wall, living battering-rams, ploughing their way through, thrusting with their lances, hewing with their battle-swords, and all the while the English host fought back, raining axe-blows on their foes, cleaving mail and bone, horse-flesh, man-flesh, the ground below a trampled quagmire of gore and guts and reeking bowels.
