Conquest 03 - Knights of the Hawk

by James Aitcheson

A frown descended upon Morcar’s face, as if in his eyes I were a mere gnat, for whose buzzing he cared little. ‘Are you leader here, or is he?’ he asked, gesturing at Lord Robert. ‘Which one of you should I be speaking to?’

  ‘To me,’ Robert said before I could open my mouth. ‘I speak for the king.’

  ‘Then tell him what I have just told you.’

  ‘What if he has a different strategy in mind?’

  ‘Then of course he is free to pursue it if he wishes, but he will not succeed,’ Morcar said, swelling out his chest and drawing himself up to his full height. ‘Without my help he faces an impossible task. I have more than a thousand spears at my command. Without those spears he cannot succeed.’ He glanced at me. ‘That’, he said, speaking slowly, ‘is what gives me the right.’

  ‘You ask a lot of our trust,’ said Robert. ‘You say you will do nothing until we reach the other side of the bridge. By then our army will be committed. If you decide not to make good on your promise—’

  ‘That is a chance you must take. From what I hear, the king is determined to press ahead with this latest assault regardless of whether he has my support or not.’

  I frowned. ‘How do you know this?’

  He grinned. In the torchlight his teeth gleamed as white as a Welshman’s, and I wondered whether he obsessed about cleaning them in the same way. Certainly he seemed to think highly of himself; there was a look of self-satisfaction about him, as if he had us all acting according to his desires.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how I know it, only that it is true, and you have as good as confirmed it for me.’

  Robert glared at me, but I knew that Morcar was only trying to taunt us. He wouldn’t risk appearing foolish in front of us by saying such a thing unless he could be reasonably confident he was right. Possibly he had gleaned that knowledge from Godric after his return to Elyg, or it was merely an assured guess. Whichever, I was fast taking a dislike to his arrogant manner.

  ‘Come, though,’ said Morcar. ‘Let us not sow any seeds of suspicion between us. You have my word that I will fulfil my part as we have discussed, and as surety of my good faith, I give you my nephew as hostage. Should I break my word, you may kill him. Is there any greater guarantee I can give you than that?’

  That was why Godric looked so frightened, then. He already knew what his role would be. Although, I thought, should Morcar fail to keep his side of the agreement, his nephew’s death would be scant vengeance for the loss of hundreds of Norman knights.

  ‘Uncle—’ Godric started to protest.

  ‘Go with them, nephew,’ Morcar said, interrupting him before he could continue. ‘You will be safe. Upon my own life I swear it.’

  The flatness of his tone gave the lie to his reassuring words. Somewhat hesitantly the boy stepped forward, and not for the first time I felt something close to sympathy for him. He was but a playing-piece in a game he was too young yet to understand, although he knew well enough the penalty if he happened to find himself on the losing side.

  ‘I also present to your king a gift that I hope he might take pleasure in,’ Morcar said, smiling, and he gestured to his hearth-troops, who brought forward two women.

  I say they were women, but really they were no more than girls, both in the early flush of womanhood and probably around as many in years as Godric. So alike were they that they had to be twins. They were slim, delicately featured and obviously unmarried too, for their hair, wavy and chestnut-brown, was not braided and covered but instead hung long and loose to their waists. Were it not for the tears in their eyes, they might have been great beauties. Both were shaking, and not just, I suspected, because it was cold and their dresses were thin.

  ‘Their names are Acha and Tuce,’ Morcar said. ‘I forget which is which, but I’m sure they will tell you, if you care to ask.’

  Robert gestured for Hamo’s men to down their bows and seize both Godric and the twins, which was probably wise, before one or more of them decided to make a bid for freedom and lose us in the mist.

  ‘Bind them,’ he said, and then to Morcar: ‘Why should King Guillaume take any interest in these girls?’

  ‘Why do you think? For the same reason as any other man would.’

  ‘In all the years of his marriage he has never taken another woman to his bed. I thought you might have known that.’

  ‘So he says. You know as well as I that, kings or not, we all have needs, and these are the prettiest of all my slave-girls. But if he doesn’t want them, perhaps he will let you have them, Robert Malet.’

  If my lord was surprised that Morcar knew his name, he did well not to show it. ‘Have you any other gifts for us, or is our business here finished?’

  ‘I have nothing more to say.’

  ‘Very well. With any luck our paths will cross again soon.’

  ‘I look forward to it, and to meeting King Guillaume in person.’ Morcar grinned again, and I caught another gleaming flash of his teeth. He had a look in his eyes, at the same time both rapacious and sly, that put me in mind of a wolf. If I didn’t trust him before, I trusted him less then. ‘I fervently pray, too, that your father recovers soon from whatever ailment it is that troubles him.’

  Robert opened his mouth but no sound came out. Before he could find the words with which to reply, Morcar had turned on his heels and marched away, beyond the marker stone into the darkness. As he did so his hearth-troops closed ranks about him, protecting his rear and flanks and keeping a close watch upon us, until the mist closed around them and I lost sight of their torches in the gloom.

  ‘He seems to know a lot,’ Eudo remarked after they’d gone. ‘Do you think he has spies in our camp?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Robert said. ‘Even if there are, it’s unlikely that they would be able to get near enough to the king to find out anything of much worth. He keeps close counsel, as you know.’

  ‘What about Brother Atselin?’ I asked. ‘He’s a weasel, if I ever saw one.’

  ‘The clerk, you mean?’

  ‘He’s part of the royal household, and has the king’s ear,’ I pointed out. ‘I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him, lord.’

  Robert looked sternly at me. ‘There are many men you don’t trust. That doesn’t make them all traitors. No, I don’t believe there’s any spy in our midst. All Morcar’s looking to do is sow doubt in our minds and that of the king. To turn us against one another, to make us hunt for enemies where there are none, to foment further dissent in our ranks and so strengthen his own position.’

  There was sense in that, I supposed. I only hoped he was right.

  ‘Come on,’ Robert said as he turned in the direction of the inlet where the willows grew, where Baudri and the others were waiting with the boats to take us back to Brandune. ‘Let’s leave this place.’

  Eight

  FORTUNATELY THE KING seemed to be satisfied by Morcar’s terms and the gift of the two slave-girls, for the next morning, under cloudless skies and a fierce sun, we made ready to quit Brandune, and I prayed it was the last we would see of that fetid cesspit.

  Awaiting us was Alrehetha, where the bridge was being rebuilt. Most of our host had already assembled there, and we were among the last few hundred men to make the journey, along with the king and his retinue. A token force would be left to guard the boats moored there, together with enough provisions to keep them fed. Everything else we took with us: bundles of firewood, timber planks, sacks of grain to feed our horses, barrels of salted fish and pickled eels, spare spearheads and mail hauberks, all of which were loaded on to carts or sumpter ponies. With us, too, travelled all the leech-doctors and fletchers, wheelwrights and armourers and priests who attended upon an army, as well as the ever-present rolls-keepers who recorded every last bundle of wool and roll of cloth taken from the royal storehouses, every chicken and goose placed in a cage for the journey, and made a tally of every cart and haywain as it was harnessed to a team of oxen and sent on its way to join the main column.

  And among th
ose rolls-keepers, as always, was Atselin. He sat at his usual desk in the yard outside the king’s hall, except that a canopy had now been erected above his head to shield his bald head and his precious parchments from the sun and the rain. He was overseeing the other clerks, who scurried about from building to building with bundles of scrolls under their arms on which presumably were written lists of goods, which they brought to him for his approval and his seal. A crowd was forming about his writing-desk and I hoped to escape his attention as I made my way past, towards the paddock where my destrier, Fyrheard, was grazing.

  I wasn’t so lucky. My gaze must have lingered a little too long. Even as I looked away, he called my name. For an instant I hesitated, deciding whether to heed him or pretend I hadn’t heard, but then he called a second time, louder this time, and I realised I couldn’t ignore him. Sighing, I turned and made my way over as, with a wave of his hand, he dismissed the queue of grumbling underclerks.

  ‘What do you want, Atselin?’ I asked, without so much as a word of greeting. He would not have offered me that courtesy, and I saw no reason why I should do any differently.

  He did not look up but continued to scrawl, squinting intently at the page. The grey of the goose-feather quill in his hand matched the crown of hair around his tonsure.

  ‘I merely wished to congratulate you,’ he said, although there was no warmth in his voice. ‘I understand that Morcar agreed to the king’s most generous offer.’

  I frowned, suspecting some manner of snide remark to follow. ‘That’s right. What of it?’

  ‘Nothing, save to remind you that you are fortunate that your idea was successful, that young Godric remained true to his word and that his uncle was willing to listen to what he had to say. But don’t expect that King Guillaume will grant you or your lord any special favours because of it.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘The king still remembers how you defied him by venturing out on your little raiding expedition without his approval. Your good fortune changes none of that. Don’t forget, either, that had your plan failed, it would have been on your head. He would have given up a valuable hostage for no good reason.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ I said. ‘He had no intention of keeping Godric prisoner. Had I not spoken when I did, the boy’s corpse would be swinging from the highest branch overlooking the fens as a warning to his countrymen. We wouldn’t have Morcar on our side but instead would surely be marching towards almost certain defeat.’

  Atselin’s quill stopped, his hand suspended above the page, but still he did not look at me. ‘You think very highly of yourself, Tancred of Earnford.’

  ‘You were there,’ I said, almost spitting the words. My blood ran hot, as it always did whenever I found myself trying to reason with this weasel. ‘You were there, in Robert’s hall, when the boy’s fate was decided. So tell me, monk, which part of what I’ve said isn’t true?’

  I waited for long moments, but no words were forthcoming. Instead he dipped his quill in the inkwell and carried on writing as if I weren’t there.

  ‘Speak to me, you miserable, shit-stinking rat,’ I said, and snatched the parchment he was working on out from beneath his hand. ‘Am I or am I not telling the truth?’

  At once he leant across the desk, trying with his free hand to claim the sheet back, but I held it just out of reach.

  ‘Give that to me,’ he said, wearing a tired expression on his face.

  ‘First apologise, and answer me.’

  He stared at me as if I were speaking in some foreign tongue. ‘Why should I apologise to you?’

  ‘Why?’ I echoed. ‘You call me over only to sneer at my deeds, and then you all but accuse me of telling lies. That’s why.’

  He rose from his stool and made another attempt to grab at the parchment, but I was too quick for him, and he succeeded only in getting a fingertip to it.

  ‘No more of these games,’ he said. ‘Give that back to me now.’

  ‘Or what?’ I challenged him.

  In the brief time I’d known Atselin, I had never seen him roused to anger. Always he had maintained a serene expression, as if he had seen all there was to see in the world and there was no longer anything that surprised or vexed him, but there was fire in his eyes then, and in his cheeks, too, which were burning red.

  ‘I will offer you some advice, Tancred. You do not wish to get on the wrong side of me.’ He spoke though gritted teeth. ‘You do not want me as your enemy.’

  I’d heard words to that effect before, although not from his lips. I gave a snort of disdain. ‘Am I supposed to take that as a threat?’

  ‘It is a warning. Heed it or ignore it, as you wish.’

  ‘Do you think I’m frightened of you?’ I asked. ‘You, with your quill and your rolls? What are you going to do? Drown me in ink, perhaps, or else bore me to death by reciting your records?’

  Atselin’s eyes were like knives. ‘I’m not concerned whether or not you fear me. But I will tell you now that I’ve suffered enough of your insults. For too long I have tolerated your boorish manner and withstood your contempt. No longer.’ He made another attempt to seize back his precious sheet of vellum, and this time I was too surprised by his outburst to stop him. ‘Now, leave me in peace,’ he said. ‘The morning is wearing on and I have work I must attend to.’

  I gave him a final glare, but he was unmoved, and so I left him to his parchments, striding away towards the paddock as the clerks in their black robes once more descended, crowding about his desk with scrolls and writs for his attention.

  As I walked away, I tried to make sense of what Atselin had said. From what I recalled, we’d been assured of reward as long as our ploy worked and Morcar agreed to join our cause, but the monk had suggested otherwise. Had the king since changed his mind on the matter? If so, it seemed strange that the first any of us would learn of it was from Atselin. Unless he were lying to me, but what reason would he have for doing so?

  And what did he mean by his threat, or warning, or whatever one cared to call it? I didn’t know, but resolved to keep my distance from the monk over the coming days: not because I feared him, but because I had no patience left for such distractions. Soon we would be riding into battle, and if I was to make it through alive, I wanted to be as ready as possible, to spend every moment I could honing my sword-skills and imagining what I would do when we met the enemy battle-lines. Nothing else mattered. My own fate, not to mention those of my knights and companions, depended on it.

  The march to Alrehetha took the rest of that day, and all of the next, too. Though the route was probably only thirty miles, we were prevented from travelling as swiftly as we would have liked by the baggage train, which was forever drawing to a halt whenever an ox fell down lame, or a horse lost its shoe, or an axle became detached from one of its wheels and we had to move the offending haywain or wagon off the track so as not to block those that were following. But the king was determined that we would not spend more than one night separated from the rest of our host, and so any who dawdled and fell too far behind the main column for no good reason were visited by his household guard, who spurred them to greater pace with threats of violence upon their persons.

  Those were not the only reasons for our slow progress, however. Barely had we been riding an hour that second morning when we spied the smoke rising to the north and west. At first it was no more than a dark smear in the distance but then, as we came closer, it became possible to pick out individual columns of black, roiling cloud, billowing some distance beyond the woods: not just a single spire but many, in a jagged line stretching all the way to the far horizon and beyond.

  Straightaway the order went out to halt while the king sent out parties of knights to scout the road ahead, to investigate those burnings and, if possible, root out those responsible for the savagery. They came back some hours later, with dire reports of entire vills that had been put to the torch, barns and storehouses sacked and all the inhabitants slain, but otherwise empty
-handed, save for one band which had managed to find two souls alive and unharmed: a thin, white-faced man in his middle years, and his ancient mother, who had no teeth and seemed half-mad for she was constantly muttering to herself. He spoke of a band of wild men who had come upon them from the marshes, led by a black-haired, bow-wielding demon of incredible height, whose eyes were a window upon the depths of hell, and whose arrows were bolts crafted from its flames.

  ‘Hereward,’ I said, after Robert had finished relating this information to us. ‘This was his doing, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Who else could it be?’ he said with a shrug, before riding on to seek out his other vassals and pass on the news. He was there when the two marsh-dwellers had been brought in, having been summoned by the king to offer his counsel. I wondered if that was a sign that his reputation was once more on the rise, though it went against what Atselin had told me. At the very least the king no longer seemed to regard him with the same contempt as he had but a few days ago, and I hoped that was a sign of better fortune to follow.

  ‘You mentioned before that there is no love between your uncle and Hereward,’ I said to Godric once we were back in the saddle. ‘Why is that?’

  The king had entrusted him for now to Robert’s care and protection, and so he rode with us, having finally been relieved of his bonds. None of us thought him likely to attempt an escape, not with so many pairs of eyes watching him. Besides, even though he seemed to be a more adept horseman than he was a fighter, I doubted he would be able to outpace us.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious, lord?’ Godric asked.

  I shrugged. Perhaps it was obvious to him, but it wasn’t to me.

  ‘To begin with, as you know, it was Hereward who led the rebellion. When we arrived two months ago, however, he was made to surrender his leadership and give his oath to my uncle.’

  ‘He was made to give his oath? How?’

  ‘That was what my uncle demanded, in return for his support and the men that he’d brought. At that time, Hereward and his allies had gathered a sizeable army, but they saw that if they were to fight King Guillaume then they needed Morcar.’