The Conqueror

by Georgette Heyer

  He was beside Raoul before Raoul could move a step to meet him. ‘My thanks to you, Raoul de Harcourt,’ he said. He held out his hand in a gesture of friendliness, and while his gaze scrutinized Raoul’s face, his stern lips curled upward in a smile.

  Words choked in Raoul’s throat. He had dreamed often of what he would say if ever the Duke noticed him above his fellows, but now that the moment had come, he found that he could not say anything at all. He looked quickly up at William; then, letting fall his spear, he dropped on his knee, and kissed the Duke’s hand.

  William glanced over his shoulder, as though to be assured that no one was within earshot. He looked down again at Raoul’s bent head. ‘You are the knight who guards my sleep,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, beau sire,’ Raoul muttered, wondering how he knew. He rose to his feet, and spoke the thought that was foremost in his mind. ‘Seigneur, your spear – should not have snapped.’

  William gave a short laugh. ‘A fault in the shaft,’ he said.

  Raoul whispered urgently: ‘Beau sire, I pray you have a care to yourself!’

  His eyes encountered the Duke’s keen look, and for a moment the glance held. Then the Duke gave a brief nod, and walked back to join the group that watched the skinning of the bear.

  Three

  After the bear-hunt Raoul began to feel an added hostility in the air, hostility now directed towards himself. Men looked scowlingly at the marplot; he had the dubious satisfaction of knowing that the plotters – if plotters they indeed were, and he had not allowed his imagination to deceive him – considered him a danger to the safe carriage of their plans. He went abroad thereafter with ears on the prick, and his dagger loose in its sheath. When an arrow sang past his head one day at a hunting of deer he thought only that someone’s aim was badly at fault, but when he tripped at the head of the stairway in the dark, and only by the veriest chance saved himself from falling headlong down, he began to realize that some man or other had good reason for wishing him out of the way. A log of wood had been laid on the second step, and it rolled over when he trod on it. That it had been meant for him he was reasonably sure, and he guessed from it that his ill-wishers were aware of his nightly vigil. He was always the first man to descend the stairway in the morning, and if he had not paused upon the top step, warned by an intuition of danger, he must certainly have pitched down the stair, and broken, if not his neck, at least a leg or an arm.

  He was not surprised therefore when Galet whispered a warning to him one evening before the supper-hour. Galet sat cross-legged on the floor, juggling with some sheep’s bones, and as Raoul passed him he said softly without raising his head or moving his lips: ‘Do not drink tonight, cousin!’

  Raoul heard, but gave no sign. He contrived at supper to empty the contents of his drinking-horn on to the rushes under the table at a moment when all eyes were turned towards the jester, who was performing contortionist feats with his ungainly limbs. Afterwards he pretended to drink from the empty horn, and watching under down-dropped eyelids he thought that he detected satisfaction in the face of Grimbauld du Plessis. A pulse began to beat unpleasantly hard in his throat; he had a feeling of apprehension that was almost a sickness, and the palms of his hands felt damp and cold. He shivered, and blamed the chill draught that swept through the hall. The candles guttered in the sudden gusts of wind, and threw odd shadows. Men’s faces appeared sinister in the uncertain light; all at once Galet’s caperings became macabre, and his shrill voice eldritch. Raoul wished that he would stop, for calamity seemed to brood over the sombre house. He set his teeth, and forced himself to join in the talk at his table, disgusted to find that he was so little the cool intrepid man he would wish to be.

  The Duke went up to his chamber after supper with Guy’s arm thrown round his shoulders. Guy’s light laugh sent a shudder through Raoul; he stared after them, his fingers tightening unconsciously round the narrow end of his drinking-horn. Thus, surely, traitors laughed.

  His right-hand neighbour was yawning. His eyes looked heavy with sleep; he complained in a thick voice of the hard day’s hunting, and lolled over the table like a drunken man. Looking round Raoul saw others similarly mazed. His throat felt parched suddenly. Grimbauld du Plessis was watching him across the room. Raoul got up with a lurch and a stagger, and went with unsteady steps to the stair.

  Grimbauld stood in his path, smiling at him. ‘Watch well, you Friend of the Friendless,’ he mocked.

  Someone sniggered. Raoul blinked owlishly, and put up a hand to rub his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said stupidly. ‘Watch – watch well. I will – watch well, Grimbauld – du Plessis.’

  Grimbauld laughed, and stepped aside to let him pass. Raoul went stumbling up the stairs with his hands on the rope.

  At the top, and out of sight, he gave a quick look to right and left of him. No one was in the gallery, but he could hear voices in William’s chamber, and knew that Guy of Burgundy was still with the Duke. He went to the edge of the gallery and peeped down through one of the vaulted arches at the hall below. Men were gathering into small groups. Some were dicing, some talking in low voices, and others drowsing with their heads on the table. The servers were still busy clearing away the trestles, and spreading pallets; and presently the Duke’s valet came up the stairs and went into William’s chamber. From the ambry leading into the hall came a muffled clatter of patins in the wash-tub; outside in the court the men-at-arms were still moving about. Raoul wondered whether their mead had been drugged, or whether they, too, were in the pay of the conspirators. There was no sign of Galet; he must have slipped away when the Duke went upstairs.

  Guy came out of the Duke’s chamber, calling over his shoulder: ‘Sweet dreams, dear cousin.’

  ‘Judas!’ Raoul thought, hating him.

  Guy shut the door, and paused for a moment, looking about him. Raoul saw him go to the edge of the gallery, and lean over. He made a sign to someone below, and went away to his own chamber at the opposite corner of the building.

  Raoul listened to his retreating steps. Should he go to the Duke, and warn him? Warn him of what? He bit his lip, feeling himself a fool. What could he say? That he thought the wine had been drugged? That he misliked the look of Grimbauld? It was of no use to carry such vague suspicions to a young man who only gave a laugh, and seemed to look right through one. He drew his cloak closer about him, and leaned rather disconsolately against the wall. When the household slept he might be able to find Galet, and hear what he had discovered. Then, if treachery stalked abroad indeed, perhaps between them they could contrive to smuggle the Duke away.

  A stir below drew him to the side of the gallery again. Humphrey de Bohun was going out, wenching, Raoul guessed. There was nothing unusual in that, for many of the Duke’s men preferred a night spent snugly in the arms of some loose bordel-woman to one on a hard pallet in the castle. Several of the knights went out with Humphrey, and the noise in the hall died down. The valet came out of the Duke’s chamber, and quenched all but a single torch at the other end of the gallery. He went clattering down the stairs, and across the hall to the kitchens.

  Men had tumbled on to their pallets without troubling to remove their tunics or their chausses. Only Grimbauld and some half a dozen others still sat at a table that had been pushed up against the wall. They were talking in whispers, all but Grimbauld and one Godfrey of Bayeux, who seemed absorbed in a game of chess. A sleepy scullion came out of the kitchen to put out the candles. Grimbauld and Godfrey played on in the light of a horn-lantern.

  There were still faint sounds of movement in the castle, but soon these ended, and nothing broke the stillness except the stertorous breathing of the sleepers, and once, coming from the world outside the castle, the long, far-off howl of a wolf.

  There was a click of ivory as Grimbauld gathered the chessmen together. He stood up, and said something to one of the men beside him, and picking up the lant
ern went towards the foot of the stairs.

  Raoul’s heart began to race. He drew back quickly to the Duke’s door, and sat down on the floor, holding his sword across his knees, and letting his head fall forward on his chest as though he slept. A glimmer of light shone on the bend of the stair; Grimbauld came into sight, holding up the lantern.

  If he means to slay me now, Raoul thought, I can at least make a fight for it, and shout to warn the Duke. God and His saints aid me!

  But Grimbauld, although he bent over him, closely scrutinizing his face, made no movement to touch him. After a moment or two he seemed satisfied that Raoul indeed slept, and went away again as stealthily as he had come.

  A light sweat had broken out on Raoul’s forehead. He lifted his head, frowning into the darkness. If Grimbauld meant to slay the Duke, why had he not stepped over the apparently drugged man at the door, and gone in to do the foul deed at once? There were six men to answer to his call; he surely ran no risk. But the scullions and the men-at-arms were within hail: Raoul had forgotten them. They could not all have been drugged, and if an alarm was given some at least would run in to the Duke’s rescue.

  He got to his feet suddenly. Why had Humphrey de Bohun gone out with his knights? And what connection with all this dark business had had that dust-stained stranger whom he had seen coming out of Guy’s chamber before the day of the bear-hunt? Guy must be implicated in this, and Guy would not move unless he had a strong following at his back. Some foul treachery was afoot, more serious than he had guessed. He tiptoed to the side of the gallery again, and strained his ears to hear what was being said below. The low voices were hushed; he could distinguish no words, but as he watched he saw the men draw their cloaks round them, and follow Grimbauld to the door.

  Raoul licked his lips; his hand clenched unconsciously on his sword. Grimbauld was unbarring the door. As it opened a cold air spread over the hall. The cloaked men went out one by one, and the door was softly shut behind the last of them.

  The single torch was still burning at the end of the gallery. Raoul pulled it from its socket, and went down the stairs, holding it high above his head. He bent over a sleeping form in the hall, and tried to shake honest Drogo de Saint-Maure awake. Drogo only groaned, and fell back on to his pallet.

  The torch flared in the still darkness; the smoke from it rose in a thin spiral to the rafters. Raoul thrust it into a niche in the wall, and went silent as a ghost to the door. As his hand grasped the heavy latch he heard a sound behind him, and turned sharply to see Galet slink into the hall from the kitchen.

  Galet was breathing hard, and his face shone with sweat in the torchlight. He flung out his hand to check Raoul. ‘Nay, nay, brother!’ he said in a shrill whisper. ‘You can do nothing there. They are gone to open the gates. There is a great company assembled not a league from the town, and at the appointed hour they will be here to seize our heron.’ He caught his breath on a laugh, and flitted to the stairs. ‘Come! and remember that a peacock may screech alarm. Oh, William my brother, now is the time!’

  Raoul drew his sword with a hiss of the steel against the scabbard. ‘Do you warn the Duke,’ he said. ‘I must saddle two horses. If I am seen – why, maybe I can lead them astray while the Duke breaks through.’

  ‘The Duke has a new fool,’ Galet said, jeering at him. ‘Alack, what will become of me? The horses are tethered beyond the walls, brother fool.’

  Raoul stared at him. ‘By the Bread, I think I am indeed the fool. You have been at work while I stayed wondering.’

  ‘Yea, yea, you are a child, cousin Raoul.’ The jester slipped up the stairs.

  Raoul snatched the torch from the wall, and followed hard on his heels. No sound came from the room at the far end of the gallery where Guy slept. Raoul’s lips curled back in something like a snarl as he looked towards that shadowed doorway. ‘Judas will lie close until his cut-throats have finished their work,’ he whispered. ‘If not – why, by the Face, I shall not be amort!’ He lifted his sword, and the light shimmered on the blue steel and threw the runes on it into relief.

  ‘Nay, does the jackal kill the lion’s prey?’ Galet lifted the latch of the Duke’s door and went in.

  The torchlight showed William sleeping on a bed of skins, with his cheek on his hand. Raoul closed the door softly behind him, and held the torch up so that the glare of it fell on William’s face. William’s eyes opened, blinking at the sudden light. They rested on Galet and grew wide awake in an instant. He raised himself on his elbow, frowning a question.

  Galet struck him on the shoulder with his bauble. ‘Up, up, William, you are a dead man else!’ he mouthed. ‘Soul of a virgin, wherefore do you sleep? Your enemies are arming all around you. Little brother, if they find you here you will never leave the Côtentin alive!’

  William sat up, thrusting him aside; he looked straightly across at Raoul. Light sparkled in his eyes; of alarm there was not a trace.

  Raoul said urgently: ‘Beau sire, the fool speaks the truth. They who mean your death are gone to open the gates, and your men lie drugged below-stairs. Seigneur, rise! There is no time to lose.’

  William threw back the rug that covered him, and stood up in his shirt and short breeches. He began to pull on his long hose. ‘So!’ he said, with a certain harsh exultant note in his voice.

  A queer lump rose in Raoul’s throat. This was a man to die for, even as he had dreamed in those far-off days at Harcourt. He caught up the Duke’s sword-belt and buckled it round his waist.

  ‘Haste, haste, brother, and follow the fool,’ Galet said, opening the door. ‘The horses stand ready.’

  William swung his mantle over his shoulders. ‘I am well served,’ he said gaily. ‘Lead on, fool.’

  ‘Yea, you are well served, my son, who have a fool and a child to guard you.’ Galet stole to the stairs and went down them with William and Raoul close behind him. As they rounded the last bend the torch showed the sleepers lying like dead men on the floor of the hall. Raoul heard William give a laugh under his breath.

  The moon had risen, and a pale light crept in at the windows; Raoul thrust the torch into the dying fire, and left it there. Over the sleepers they picked their way to the door into the kitchens. William trod boldly, and once his foot spurned an inert form as he passed. The drugged man moaned in his sleep, and again Raoul heard the Duke laugh.

  There was no one in the kitchen. Across one of the windows the wicker-lattice had been torn away. Galet pointed silently towards it.

  William nodded, and stepped forward, but Raoul was before him. ‘Beau sire, I will go first,’ he said, and climbed on to the bench beneath the window, and swung his leg over the sill.

  The moon sailed in a sky the colour of sapphires; here at the back of the house no man stirred. Raoul jumped down lightly, and turned to help the Duke.

  William was beside him in a moment, and lastly Galet. The jester put his finger to his lips, and led them to the wall that enclosed the house and its courtyard, and scrambled up, fitting, his feet into the crevices in the rough side.

  Over the wall they found themselves in the shade of great trees, outposts of the forest that crept up to the very walls of Valognes. A little way into the wood they came upon the tethered horses, William’s own destrier, Malet, and the big horse Verceray. William vaulted into the saddle, and leaned over to stretch down his hand to the jester. ‘Thanks be to you, Galet the Fool,’ he said. ‘Lie close, good dog, and look for me at Falaise.’

  Galet mumbled his lips over the Duke’s hand. ‘God keep you safe, brother. Away with you; you stay too long!’ He disappeared into the shadows, and the horses moved forward, side by side.

  The moon showed the rough road that led to the south. Malet bounded forward, snatching at the bit, and the sound of his flying hooves seemed to thunder in Raoul’s ears. After him sped Verceray, and for a while they rode thus, one behind the ot
her, galloping southwards.

  Presently, drawing abreast of the Duke, Raoul stole a glance at him, trying to see his face. The light was too dim for him to distinguish more than the jut of the nose, and the tilt of the proud chin, but he thought he caught a gleam of the eyes under the black brows. The Duke sat straight in the saddle, as though he rode for his pleasure. Raoul, himself still tingling with excitement, wondered at his calm. As though he divined what thoughts were passing through his knight’s mind, William turned his head, and said with the flicker of a smile: ‘This has happened to me before, many times, Raoul de Harcourt.’

  Raoul blurted out: ‘Are you never afraid, beau sire?’

  ‘Afraid? No,’ said William indifferently.

  They rode on shoulder to shoulder through the night. After a while William steadied the headlong pace, and again spoke. ‘Who opened the gate to let in my murderers?’

  ‘Lord, Grimbauld, with six others, lesser men.’

  The corners of the Duke’s mouth twitched with a sudden gust of anger. ‘Ah, foul traitor! By the splendour of God, there shall be a reckoning between him and me!’ The cold ferocity of his voice made Raoul shiver involuntarily. The Duke looked at him again, as though he measured his man. ‘This will be a hard ride. I must reach Falaise by morning. Will your beast hold up?’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ said Raoul stoutly, ‘as long as yours.’ He glanced behind him, over the heath they had crossed. ‘I hear nothing yet, beau sire.’

  ‘They will follow me hard,’ William said. ‘My fair cousin dare not let me slip through his fingers now.’

  Raoul regarded him in awe. ‘Beau sire, did you know then, all the time?’