‘Yea, that do I!’ Alfric answered, smiling at the recollection. ‘It was an ill hap that brought Edric across our path that day. How long ago it is! Edric was slain in the Welsh wars, God rest his soul. His brother’s son sits in his room to-day.’
With his hand on the door-latch Edgar said, surprised: ‘How is that? He had at least one son when I left Marwell, and I heard that Dame Elgifu was childing again.’
‘Oh, he had a pack of brats, but they were lepers every one,’ Alfric replied. He stepped out of the room on to the turn of the stair. ‘I lose myself in this great palace,’ he complained. ‘Am I lodged near to you?’
‘Not far,’ Edgar said. He held up the candle so that its feeble light showed the way. ‘This tower is new built. It was finished only three years ago. They let me have my lodgings in it so that I might be close to my friend Raoul. He is the man with the smiling eyes whom you saw in the hall. He has been my friend these thirteen years. You must like him for my sake.’
‘With goodwill. But I think I shall not long be in Normandy. The Earl will hardly wish to tarry. No one knows how long the King may last, and if Harold were to be absent when he dies all might yet miscarry … What a huge, chill place this is! How can�you be at home here? It is as big as King Edward’s palace at Thorney, and as lofty as the great Abbey he is building there.’
Edgar led the way along one of the galleries, and up another stair. ‘My father wrote me of the King’s Abbey. It is long a-building.’ He opened a door, and stood back to let his friend pass in. The room was lit by a single rush-light, but a sleepy page jumped up from a pallet at the foot of the carved bed, and put a taper to the candles on the table. ‘Have you all that you desire?’ Edgar asked. ‘If there is aught else tell me, and I will speak to the boy for you.’
‘Nay, there is aught,’ Alfric replied. ‘Sleep is all my need.’ He looked round him. ‘The Duke uses me with great pomp. This is a lodging for a prince.’
Edgar wrinkled his brow. ‘Well, if I remember rightly, a prince did sleep here once. It was Robert the Frisian, Count Baldwin’s first-born, when he was here with the rest of the Flemish Court for the Duke’s nuptial rejoicings.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘He was a wild lad in those days, I can tell you. I sometimes think my lord Robert, his nephew, favours him. Gilbert d’Aufay and I had something to do in getting him to bed and keeping him there after one of the feasts. He was so drunk nothing would do, but he must try to pick a quarrel with Moulines-la-Marche, with intent, so he swore, to slit his gizzard. A good riddance had he done it, but of course it might not be. Gilbert and I strove with him.’ He saw that Alfric’s smile was perfunctory, and realized that a memory he did not share could hardly be supposed to amuse him. He picked up his candle again, and said rather flatly: ‘I’ll leave you; you will be glad of a night’s rest.’ He hesitated. ‘You do not know what it means to me to see you again after all these years,’ he said awkwardly.
‘And to me,’ Alfric answered at once. ‘Why, it is so long we meet almost as strangers! Earl Harold must prevail upon the Duke to let you return with us to England, and we will teach you to forget all your Norman ways.’ Aware of the gulf that lay between them he tried to bridge it. ‘I have missed you often: indeed you must come back with us.’
‘I would I might.’ Edgar’s voice sounded rather desolate. He moved towards the door. ‘I have been an exile too long,’ he said sadly.
He went back along the gallery to the stair that wound up past Raoul’s door to his own above it. Outside Raoul’s chamber he paused, and after a moment’s indecision lifted the latch and went in.
The candle-flame held near his face woke Raoul. He blinked, and started up on his elbow, groping instinctively for his sword.
‘You are not in the field now,’ said Edgar, laughing. ‘And your sword, happily for me, is in that far corner. Wake up: it is only Edgar.’
Raoul rubbed his eyes and sat up. ‘Oh!’ He looked at Edgar, puzzled. ‘But what are you doing?’ he said.
‘Nothing. I have just taken Alfric to his chamber.’
‘Oh, bearded barbarian, have you wakened me to tell me that?’ demanded Raoul indignantly.
Edgar sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘I don’t know why I came in,’ he confessed. ‘Shall you ride to Eu with us tomorrow?’
Raoul lay down again, and regarded Edgar with a sleepy twinkle. ‘All Saxons drink deep,’ he murmured, ‘and I suppose when friends meet after long absence –’
‘If you mean that I am in my cups, shaveling, you are at fault,’ Edgar interrupted. ‘Do you ride with us tomorrow? I wish you would.’
Raoul seemed to be drowsing, but he opened his eyes at that, and they were wakeful all at once. ‘Yea, I ride. But I hardly thought that you would want me. You must have much to say to Alfric.’
‘Yes,’ said Edgar in his most expressionless voice. ‘But I want you to be there to greet my sister, and – and to see Earl Harold.’ The words sounded lame even to himself. Something ached in his breast; he supposed it must be his heart. He wanted to tell Raoul of its load of disappointment, yet could not. He thought Raoul would surely understand how bitter it was to find a gulf lying now between himself and the friend he had been so overjoyed to see. Alfric and he had been as strangers. Alfric had talked of an England which seemed more remote than the England of Edgar’s dreams. Names remembered by him were forgotten there; new men whom he did not know had risen in place of the old; he wondered whether he too were forgotten. For thirteen years he had dreamed of his own country and the comrades of his youth, believing that he would find his lost happiness again when his hands lay in theirs, and his feet stood firmly on English soil. It had never entered his head that constraint could lie between himself and such an one as Alfric. He remembered with a pang that he had had no closer friend, thirteen years ago. Yet reunion, long looked for, long desired, had brought only a deeper sense of exile. Alfric belonged to a dead past. Here, quizzically regarding him, lay the only friend who counted, the friend who shared his memories and could read his heart. He turned his head and looked down at Raoul with a queer little smile. ‘Do you remember,’ he said, ‘when the Flemish Court was here how the Frisian tried to knife William of Moulines?’
Raoul laughed. ‘What, when you emptied a pitcher of water over the noble guest to sober him? Yes, I remember. Why?’
‘No reason,’ Edgar said after a slight pause. ‘And as for the pitcher of water, that is one of Gilbert’s lies. It was knocked over by ill chance, and if the Frisian was drenched it was more his fault than mine. And so he owned, upon the next day.’
‘Have it as you will,’ said Raoul sleepily. ‘I wish you would go to bed. First you tell me you have taken Alfric to his chamber; then you ask me if I ride with you to-morrow; and now you must needs know whether I remember a jest over ten years old. Was it for this that you woke me?’
‘Nay, but I did not wish to sleep,’ Edgar said, ‘so –’
‘So I must not either. All thanks, Saxon.’
Edgar got up. ‘Alfric hopes Duke William may be prevailed upon to release me,’ he said inconsequently. ‘Do you think …?’
‘No,’ said Raoul, ‘because I shall beg him to hold you fast.’ He raised himself on his elbow again. ‘Edgar, you cannot leave us yet! Has Alfric thrust us all from your heart? – FitzOsbern, Gilbert, Néel, myself?’
Edgar did not answer for a moment. His eyes looked straight into Raoul’s; he said at last in a low voice: ‘I think it is you alone whom I have for friends now. You need not have asked that.’
All that he could not say lay behind the words; a friend would understand, he thought, and probe no deeper.
There was a short silence; then Raoul said lightly: ‘And if you keep me awake any longer you will have one friend the less, Edgar als Barbe. That in your teeth!’
The shadow seemed to retreat; the friend had not misunderstood. Edgar
chuckled, and went out, oddly comforted, with a retort flung over his shoulder. But Raoul lay awake for some time after he had gone, frowning at the shaft of moonlight that lay across the foot of his bed. ‘O William my seigneur,’ he said softly, ‘I wish you had not taken Edgar, for I think you have spoiled his life.’
In the morning the night’s misgivings seemed absurd. Edgar rose with a feeling that he had been unjust to Alfric. In a day or two, he thought, their old relationship would return; meanwhile his sister and his Earl lay hardly more than a day’s ride distant from him, so that there was room for nothing in his breast but a strange, leaping excitement such as he had not known since his boyhood’s days. He began to be in a fidgeting mood as soon as he learned that the Duke would not set forward upon the journey until after the dinner-hour, and could hardly be brought to realize that no good purpose could be served by hastening to Eu any sooner.
‘Even as it is you will arrive in advance of the Earl,’ FitzOsbern assured him. ‘Consider, Edgar! If our envoys reached Count Guy this morn, as I think likely, the Count must send to Beaurain to release Harold, and I shall own myself surprised if you see him before tomorrow noontide.’
Edgar detained him. ‘Stay, William! What if Count Guy will not release Harold?’
FitzOsbern burst out laughing. ‘Why then, we shall carry our arms into Ponthieu! Rest you, he is not so great a fool.’
‘What message sent the Duke?’ Edgar asked anxiously.
‘A brief one,’ FitzOsbern replied. ‘He bade Guy render up your Earl sur peine de cors et d’avoir.’
Edgar was frowning. ‘A brief one … Arms into Ponthieu. Why should he care so much what befalls Harold?’ He drew back from FitzOsbern. ‘There is something I do not see, some danger threatening. William, as you love me, does the Duke mean any harm towards Earl Harold?’
‘None in the world,’ FitzOsbern answered promptly. ‘Now do not be in a fret for nothing, Edgar. No harm comes to Harold of which I know aught, and I am Seneschal here, and not quite ignorant, I believe.’
Just before the dinner-hour Wlnoth Godwineson rode in with several gentlemen of his household. From a window in the gallery Alfric saw him enter the base-court, and called to Edgar: ‘Here is a fine creature ridden in! Did ever you see such a pretty youth? Who is it? How can you admire these Normans?’
Edgar looked over his shoulder. In the court Wlnoth had dismounted, and was shaking imaginary dust from his long cloak of vermeil. ‘That is no Norman,’ said Edgar with grim satisfaction. ‘That is none other than Wlnoth Godwineson, my friend. Best come down and give him greeting.’
‘Wlnoth! that popinjay!’ Alfric gasped. He followed Edgar down to the hall, unable to find words to express his disgust.
Wlnoth entered by the great doors as they rounded the last bend of the stairs. Alfric saw that the cloak of vermeil was lined vert, and clasped on one shoulder by an ouch of emeralds set in gold. He wore a close-girt tunic of sendal reaching almost to his ankles, and purfled with a design of cinquefoil, vert on white. His boots were made of soft cheveril; a scent of musk hung about him; and he wore a great many rings and bracelets. He greeted Edgar with a white hand uplifted. ‘I am come hotfoot,’ he said in the Norman tongue. ‘So Harold lies shackled on these coasts! Sire fires gart!’
‘Has Alfric Edricson a place in your memory, Wlnoth?’ Edgar asked unemotionally, and pushed Alfric forward.
Wlnoth gave his hand to Alfric, and said a few graceful words. He spoke Saxon like a foreigner, and it was plain that he had little interest in his countrymen. He soon made an excuse to leave them, and passed on up the stairs to the gallery, negligently playing with the light whip he carried and humming a snatch of song under his breath.
He and Hakon were both of the party that set out for Eu that afternoon. Hakon rode alongside Edgar and Alfric, but Wlnoth cantered ahead with his Norman friends. To Edgar’s annoyance they rested the night at Arques, but in spite of this they reached Eu next day in good time.
Count Robert, warned of their arrival, was awaiting them with news of Ponthieu’s approach.
‘We will ride to meet him,’ said the Duke. ‘Does he bring all his captives with him, as I bade?’
‘So I understand,’ Count Robert answered. ‘A squire came in an hour back with a message from Guy promising obedience. He escorts the Earl in person. I am told they ride very friendly together, their tercelets upon their wrists, as at a day’s hawking.’
This was found to be true. Less than an hour’s ride out of Eu the Ponthevin party was sighted, led by two men who rode side by side, apparently on terms of complete amity. The cavalcades drew nearer; beside Raoul Edgar was leaning forward in his saddle to look more closely. Raoul heard him say: ‘He is the same: not changed, not changed one jot!’
The Duke’s small meinie was halted on the road, all but himself dismounted. Count Guy and his companion spurred their horses on in advance of their escort, and rode up in a cloud of dust. Through it Raoul saw Earl Harold, a giant of a man sitting his horse as though he were part of it. His mantle streamed out behind him, blue as his fearless eyes; his fair hair was tossed by the wind; he wore a crisp golden beard, neatly trimmed; but what drew men’s notice towards him was the muscular strength of him, and the quick smile that never seemed to be far from his lips.
He reined in his horse before the Duke, and bowed low over its wither. ‘Hail, Normandy!’ he said. His voice was clear and pleasant; he spoke Norman with only a faint accent.
The Duke was sitting easily, a hand on his hip. His straight gaze seemed to absorb Harold. He pricked forward until his horse almost brushed the Saxon’s. ‘Greeting to you, Harold Godwineson,’ he said. His hand left his hip; he stretched it out to Harold.
Harold took it in a firm clasp. For a space the grip held. Those watching saw the ribbed muscles on each powerful arm, the gold bracelets both men wore glinting in the sunlight. Blue eyes looked full into grey. Gilbert d’Aufay whispered suddenly in Raoul’s ear: ‘Thus two great ones meet at last. How fair he is! how dark our Duke!’
‘Harold’s thanks to Normandy for his aid,’ the Saxon said. He turned to the Count of Ponthieu, who stood a little apart, and said with the flash of a smile: ‘Count Guy makes me full amends for what has passed. I would recommend him to your kindness, lord Duke.’
‘Your Earl is generous, Edgar,’ Gilbert murmured. ‘I would rather have recommended him to the Duke’s justice.’
‘That is not Earl Harold’s way,’ Edgar said proudly.
William was looking at Count Guy. The Count rode up close. ‘Seigneur, I have obeyed,’ he said, with a certain dignity.
William smiled a little. ‘Ask what ransom you will of me, Count: it shall be paid,’ he replied.
Guy flushed in quick surprise, and stammered a few words of gratitude.
‘And that,’ whispered Gilbert triumphantly, ‘is Duke William’s way, my Saxon.’
‘Ride to Eu with us, Count: we will make terms, you and I,’ William said. ‘Earl Harold, I have here three men of yours you will be glad to meet again.’ He crooked a finger towards the Saxons in his train, and Harold swung himself down from the saddle.
‘Wlnoth!’ he cried, and strode forward a pace, opening his arms to the brother so many years his junior. He caught the elegant Wlnoth by the shoulders, and held him away from him, looking into his face with eyes alight with laughter. ‘Out, you are grown from a babe to a man!’ he said. ‘What, Hakon? My little nephew, you are become a very maypole, dwarfing me, I swear!’ He embraced them, and saw Edgar upon his knee beyond them. Wlnoth and Hakon were put aside; Harold went to Edgar and pulled him to his feet. There came that warm look into his eyes, that unsuspected gentle note into his voice that made men love him. ‘Now here is one who has changed little,’ he said. ‘Edgar, my friend, God be thanked I find you still the same!’
‘And you, lord,’ Edgar said, the
words choking in his throat.
Harold did not let go his hands. ‘I have your sister in my train. I have been an ill friend to you to lead her into danger. But she has taken no hurt, and is a brave maid, worthy of you.’ He released one of Edgar’s hands, and clasped Alfric’s. ‘My thanks, Alfric: you have done well by me.’
The Count of Ponthieu’s escort had come up; strange knights were all amongst the Normans. Harold led Duke William to a litter slung between horses, and presented Dame Gundred to him.
‘What think you?’ Gilbert inquired of Raoul.
‘Of the Earl? I see why Edgar loves him so well.’
‘So do I,’ nodded Gilbert. ‘Someone told me he is older than William. I should not have thought that. Where is Edgar? Oh, gone to meet his sister, I suppose!’
But in a few moments Edgar was at Raoul’s side again, an eager hand on his arm. ‘Raoul, I want you to come to my sister. She is a woman grown, and I left her a little maid! I had not realized – But come! I have told her of you, and she is wishful to know you, my friend.’
Raoul beckoned to his squire to take his horse’s bridle. ‘With all my heart,’ he said, and followed Edgar towards the second litter.
‘Elfrida, I bring you Raoul de Harcourt,’ Edgar said. He held back the curtains of the litter, and looked proudly at Raoul.
‘Lady –’ Raoul began easily, and broke off, staring. The words of welcome died on his lips; manners went by the wind: Raoul de Harcourt was looking into the sweetest face he had ever seen.
The Conqueror Page 25
