The Conqueror

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘Beau sire, do you like him?’ Raoul asked curiously.

  ‘Yes,’ replied the Duke, without hesitation.

  Raoul blinked. ‘And yet you will use him thus!’ He shook his head. ‘I do not understand that way of liking.’

  ‘He is the first of all mine enemies for whom I have felt respect,’ said the Duke. ‘I am a greater man than he is, because I think he has the heart you say I lack, but he is a man, which France was not, and Anjou was not, and certainly Guy of Burgundy was not. Yet for all his strength, and for all his craft, you will see that Harold will not prevail against me, for when his heart is moved he will follow its impulse, sweeping aside the colder counsel of his brain. That I shall never do. Like me the less if you will, but grant me this: I do not fail.’

  ‘No, you do not fail,’ Raoul said. He smiled. ‘I will not like you less, William my lord. But Harold, has he not asked you why you hold him captive?’

  ‘No, and will not. I do not hold him captive; I entreat his company a while longer, and my Duchess beguiles the time pleasantly for him.’

  ‘Yes, but he must surely guess that something you want of him!’

  ‘But as little as I desire to tell it does he desire to ask it of me. Too hasty speech today might ruin all his plans and mine. He waits, hoping for guidance, or some lucky chance; and I wait, biding my time.’

  He had fairly plumbed Earl Harold’s mind. When he threw himself upon the Duke’s protection the Earl knew very well that he was walking into a snare from which he would not easily escape. The Duke’s courtesy did not deceive him, and when William said: ‘Let me not hear you talk of leaving us soon, Earl Harold,’ he knew just how he stood, and wasted no dignity upon further argument. No restriction was put upon him, he was the Duke’s honoured guest, but about his person were placed Norman servants who, he did not doubt, had strict orders not to let him from their sight. He lifted a thoughtful eyebrow at these gentlemen and made full use of them. Earl Harold’s Norman servants were kept hard at work to fulfil all his behests; they groaned in the spirit, and had an uneasy suspicion that the Earl was amusing himself at their expense.

  It seemed he had a way of amusing himself, however hazardous his position. No shadow of anxiety wrinkled his brow, no trace of resentment marred his easy address. One day he would ride out with the Duke with his tercelet on his wrist, flying at the brook for mallard; another day he would accompany Robert of Mortain to hunt deer at force, with a fine horse between his legs, and fleet greyhounds coursing to bring down the wounded bucks; a third day he would be absent till sundown with FitzOsbern, or Hugh de Grantmesnil, boar hunting in the depths of the forest of Quévilly. He took part in jousts, and showed how a Saxon wielded his great battle-axe; he was present at feasts, laughed like a man without a care in the world at Galet’s quips, gave a purse filled with saluz d’or to Taillefer, the Duke’s favourite minstrel, and was on the best of terms with his hosts. But escaping once from a company of his new associates he went away to his own apartments with his arm flung across Edgar’s shoulders, and when the door was shut and he knew himself unwatched the smile was wiped from his face, and he said abruptly: ‘I am a prisoner.’ He moved silently to the curtain that shut off his bed-chamber and pulled it back. No one was there. After a swift glance round the room he came back into the solar and sat down on a chair covered with marten-skins. He brushed the soft pelts contemptuously with his hand. ‘Lodged nobly, and nobly served, but as much a prisoner as though chains still fettered my ankles as they did at Beaurain.’ He laughed, and looked lazily up at Edgar. ‘What, so long a face? Laugh, man, it is a good jest.’

  ‘Lord, FitzOsbern, whom I would trust, swore to me no harm was purposed towards you!’ Edgar said, disregarding this behest.

  ‘Why, not the least in the world!’ Harold agreed. ‘Was ever man so courteously used as I? Servants at my commands – stand away from the door: one may be listening there – horses, hounds, and hawks for my pleasure; sports devised to while away the time for me; feasts in mine honour; a Duchess to lure my thoughts from England: what more princely entreatment could I desire? But if I ride abroad a spy rides behind me.’

  Edgar gave a little shiver, and said in a low voice: ‘If that is so, lord, then touch no food or drink the taster has not first assayed!’

  A gleam of amusement shone in Harold’s eyes. ‘You think I stand in danger of being poisoned? I am sure I do not.’

  ‘If William is holding you captive, lord, you can trust in nothing here in Normandy!’ Edgar said, with a kind of suppressed violence. ‘Poison has not hitherto been his way, no, nor lack of chivalry, but he has set his will upon the getting of a crown, and I tell you nothing, nothing will be let stand between him and his purpose! I have not believed it, but it is true that when certain among his foes died suddenly, disloyal men whispered –’

  ‘Oh yes, yes!’ Harold said impatiently. ‘I have no doubt men whispered that the Duke had sent his foes a subtle poison. So have men whispered about me, with as little truth. Leave poison to lesser men: neither William nor I deal in such base tools. Not my life is threatened, but my freedom, which is more precious.’

  Edgar went to him, and dropped on his knee beside his chair, grasping his hand. ‘Dear my lord, if I might but give my life for yours, or stay a prisoner for ever that you might be freed!’ he said. He raised Harold’s hand to his lips. ‘Ah, what accursed hap cast you on these shores!’

  ‘Why, Edgar, what is this?’ the Earl said gently. ‘Your life for mine? We shall go hence together presently, and laugh at this day’s boding.’

  Edgar rose up from his knee, and began to pace about the room. ‘What does Duke William want of you?’ he threw over his shoulder.

  Harold was playing with a long chain he wore about his neck. ‘He has not told me,’ he said, watching the swing of the golden links. ‘Nor have I asked him.’ He began to smile a little. ‘And I do not think I shall ask him.’

  Edgar stopped short to stare at him. ‘Is it not England?’

  ‘Well, of course it is England,’ Harold answered. ‘But he has not said so. And that is what I do not understand.’ He paused, and added thoughtfully: ‘Nor dare I ask.’

  ‘Dare!’ Edgar exclaimed. ‘What words are these on Harold’s tongue?’

  ‘Wise ones, I promise you. I must wait. Some chance word may yet show me the Duke’s intent. Is it to hold me until Edward is dead, and himself crowned King of England? I do not think it. Never a Saxon would bow his neck for William’s yoke while Harold was known to live. No, William is not the man to make so great a blunder.’ He bit one of the links of his chain reflectively, his eyes narrow as though they tried to probe the future. ‘Something to bind me,’ he said at last. ‘I have never needed to walk more warily. Maybe Ponthieu was after all the less dangerous foe. But William is more generous.’

  ‘If you will own him master,’ Edgar said dryly.

  ‘You have him wrong. He knows I should never do that.’ He let fall his chain, and turned his head to look at Edgar. ‘For many years I have desired to meet William of Normandy, and I will stake my honour he has also desired to meet me. Well, we have met, and measured each one the other, and behold! we are agreed we like each other very well, and will fight to the death.’ He laughed, but was grave again very soon. ‘This I swear to you: while there is life in me William shall never wrest England from Saxon hold. When you see him crowned King of England I shall have taken the swan’s path.’ He saw the frown in Edgar’s eyes, and said: ‘So little faith in Harold?’

  Edgar started. ‘Liege-lord!’

  ‘You frown.’

  ‘Not from want of faith in you, lord. But you lie in William’s power, and I am afraid because I know him. Maybe you will say, as Alfric says, that I am become like a Norman, holding their Duke in too great respect, but –’

  ‘Alfric is a fool,’ interrupted Harold. ‘I see little of t
he Norman in you, though you use their tongue unwitting, and have made friends amongst them.’

  ‘Alfric does not like that,’ Edgar said, glad to be able to unburden his sore heart. ‘He finds me changed, grown apart from him, and he will not see that my Norman friends are not – But it is of no moment.’

  ‘Alfric can never see a Norman without wanting to come at his seax,’ said the Earl. ‘Let him be; he will soon leave grieving over you to shake his thick head at me for liking in their own land a people I would drive from England at the sword-edge. As for William, I say you cannot hold him in too great respect. But hold me also in respect, and do not fear for me at his hands.’

  ‘There is something else,’ Edgar said, hesitating. ‘Something my sister has told me that I misliked. She spoke of a strange awesome prophecy. Lord, what dire fate is predicted for England?’

  Harold lifted his brows. ‘Do you set store by such things? If you had lived at Edward’s side all the years I have known him you would pay little heed to dreams and prophecies. The King feeds upon them. When last I saw him he had had a vision of the Seven Sleepers turning upon their left sides after two hundred years upon the right.’ His eyes were brimful of merriment. ‘This, he assured me, is an omen dreadful to mankind, presaging earthquakes, and pestilence, and famine, changes in kingdoms, victories of the Christians over the pagans, and nation rising against nation. All this for seventy-four years, if my memory serves me, at the end of which time the Sleepers will turn back upon their right sides, and I suppose we may expect a little peace.’

  ‘The prophecy I have heard is stranger than that, lord,’ Edgar said seriously. ‘My sister said it hath been known since the time of Vortigern, who was King over the Britons. It tells of a vision Vortigern was made to see in a pond, foreboding the coming of the Saxons to England – and other things.’

  ‘What, do men remember that old prophecy again?’ Harold said. ‘Yea, I know it, but I had not heard it was talked of in these days. It was made by one Merlin, a Churchman, but it contained nothing but wild words. Vortigern saw a red and a white dragon in a pond which fought together, the red triumphing over the white, and driving it to the edge of the water. There was something beside, concerning two vases, and two rolls of linen, but what they did in the pond I cannot tell you. The red dragon is said to have been our Saxon emblem, and the white the Britons that held England before us. I forget what else there was. It was writ down, I think, but it was of less moment even than Edward’s dreams.’

  ‘Lord, my sister tells me there has been seen a stranger flitting through the south country whom some thought to be mad, and others were sure was no human form, but a wood-fiend. And he has appeared to men, and repeated the old prophecy, saying that a people shall shortly come in ships and in tunics of iron, taking vengeance on perversity.’ He paused, trying to recall the words Elfrida had repeated. ‘“There shall come two dragons,”’ he said slowly, ‘… two dragons –’

  ‘What, more dragons?’ Harold murmured. ‘This is worse than the devils Edward predicts will wander through the land.’

  ‘“And one,”’ Edgar went on, unheeding, ‘“shall be slain by the arrows of envy, and the other shall perish under the shadow of a name. Then shall appear a lion of justice at whose roar the�insular dragons shall tremble …” What may that portend, lord?’

  ‘God knows; I do not.’ The Earl rose to his feet, and Edgar saw that he was frowning. ‘I do not like this prophecy,’ he said, ‘and less do I like the man who spreads it abroad.’

  ‘Lord, what bodes it?’ Edgar asked in a hushed voice.

  ‘Nothing. But when men lend ear to such ravings then are suspicion and alarm bred. I would I were at home.’ For the first time he showed his inward fret. ‘Holy Cross, was ever so great a mischance as my ship’s foundering off Ponthieu? You tell me tales of a man or fiend who should be seized and heard of no more were I in England. And who knows what silly work the Saint will busy himself with while I lie caged in Normandy? Gyrth and Leofwine are too young to take my place at his side; Tostig would do me a mischief if he could; and if the King were to die on a sudden –’ He stopped. ‘This is to no purpose. Edgar, a warning in your ear! Let no word concerning the future escape you. All Christendom knows that I stand beside a crown, but I have not said it, and I want no man of mine to prate that Harold will be King when Edward dies. It is understood?’

  ‘Yea, lord, it is understood. Yet I do not see …’

  ‘The Witan will choose me for King because I am the people’s hero. I have no other claim. If it were known that I aspired openly to Edward’s crown there would be an outcry raised against me by every other claimant, even perhaps by Holy Church. Guard silence, I charge you.’

  Edgar nodded. ‘On my life. But if the Duke will not let you go, lord? What then?’

  An indomitable look came into Harold’s face. ‘I shall go,’ he said. ‘I know not how, or when; I only know that I shall be in England again before the King dies, because all hangs on that, and I must not fail.’ There was a ring of certainty in his voice. He said strongly: ‘No matter what the cost, no matter by what means, I shall escape from Duke William’s net.’

  Four

  Raoul was not the only man in Rouen who had lost his heart to Elfrida. She very soon had a court gathered round her of ardent gentlemen who swore to the chagrin of the Norman maids that blue and gold were the only colours for a damsel. She had not been used to court life, and at first she regarded her worshippers doubtfully, and was shy of their wooing. They found her modesty irresistible, and redoubled their efforts to please. She had posies of eglantine and sweet-briar laid at her door; verses were left where she would be sure to find them; trinkets offered to her upon the bended knee. Once Taillefer of the golden voice sang a song in her praise at the dinner hour, and was pretty well covered by the gifts tossed to him by the lady’s suitors. But Elfrida blushed red as her little shoes, and would not raise her eyes from her lap. One or two damsels, slighted for her, were as spiteful as they dared to be, but discovered that meek as she was she could still hold her own if her anger were roused.

  It was not many weeks before she had grown accustomed to be hailed Star of Beauty, White Doe, Golden Desire, and she soon learned to listen undismayed to catalogues of her charms recited without regard for her blushes by gentlemen of a poetic turn of mind. When Baldwin de Meules first made his rhymes to her she turned a startled reproving pair of eyes upon him, for he informed her that her limbs were bathed in moonshine, and her bosom whiter than the swan’s. But she soon found that he meant no harm at all, and she schooled herself not to draw back in the way that made the Norman ladies sneer at her. At the end of two months men might drown in the sea of her eyes, or be made faint by the perfume of her hair, or be slain by her vestal glance without awaking anything more than a mischievous crow of laughter in her. This was thought to be her only fault – if she had a fault at all, which some denied. She had a disconcerting and apparently unquenchable habit of letting a giggle escape her when a man was most in earnest. What heightened the fault in her was that it was well-nigh impossible to refrain from joining in her mirth, so infectious was it. Some drew off in a huff: she laughed the more, naughty little chuckles that made one’s lips quiver in spite of one’s annoyance; some reproached her: her eyes showed a hundred dancing lights. Her laughter had to be endured, even shared, but she could never get her court to see wherein lay the real jest. For her this lay nearly all in the reflection that she, who had always considered herself a very simple maid, was being wooed as a peerless beauty by a dozen gentlemen who should have known better.

  Edgar, who had started to play the watch-dog over her, abandoned the task at the end of the first month, and devoted himself to the service of Earl Harold. He had very little opinion of the knights and vavassours and damoiseaux who flocked round his sister. They were mostly young men whom he remembered as lads hardly out of women’s care, and
he said scornfully that they were untried, full of tricks and silly fancies. Elfrida, who stood in some awe of her large brother, said demurely that though her admirers might not be of such consequence as Edgar’s haut friends, yet she could not suppose that such cronies of his as bluff FitzOsbern, or William Malet would feel the smallest interest in a maid so young and unimportant as herself. Edgar, who had very soon seen what effect her beauty had had on men of all ages, said nothing more, not wishing her to grow puffed up in her own conceit.

  Her court grew, but there was one who did not join it. Surrounded by her subjects, Elfrida cast wistful glances towards Raoul de Harcourt, who held apart. She had had little speech with him; he had never offered posies to her, nor extolled her loveliness, nor striven for a place at her side. She met him sometimes if she sought her brother’s company; often when she knew him to be with Edgar she would make an excuse to join them, but though he smiled, and kissed her hand, he nearly always retired to let her be private with Edgar. Such conduct naturally determined her to know more of him. Had he tried to find a way to catch her interest (which he had not) he could not have found a surer snare. She had liked him at first sight: she had had no very pleasant time in Ponthieu, and his had been one of the first faces she had seen after her release which held kindness and welcome. Since he was Edgar’s friend he had a claim on her regard; she was ready to be on easy terms with him. It seemed he would not: she did not know how to read his aloof conduct, and the more she watched him, the more she wondered about him, the greater grew her desire to know him better. She thought that perhaps he did not like women, and since he was unmarried, and, according to the notions of one-and-twenty, no longer young, this seemed a probable answer to the riddle. But very often she would see him looking at her from afar, and she soon noticed that when he entered a room where she sat his eyes would search for her as though by instinct. She began to be afraid that he was too exalted a personage to seek her company. He seemed to be of great consequence, for he always sat at the Duke’s table, and not only did her young suitors speak to him with deference, but he was obviously held in affection by both the Duke and the Duchess. No one under the rank of the Duke’s kin – and not by any means all of these – was permitted to go in and out of the ducal apartments at will as Raoul did. Elfrida had admirers with grandiloquent titles, who displayed great magnificence, but she was shrewd enough to see that the quiet Chevalier de Harcourt was of more account than these. Very high seigneurs called him friend, and stiff-necked barons such as de Gournay and Tesson of Cingueliz, who used the most brief of addresses towards any whom they thought below their degree, would hail Raoul without a trace of this haughtiness. He was always arm-in-arm with some puissant baron, thought Elfrida. Edgar had said that none stood closer to the Duke, save it be his brother of Mortain, or his Seneschal FitzOsbern. She supposed that she must not expect so remote a man to be interested in her. But although, being a sensible maid, she made up her mind she must not wish Raoul to approach her, she went on wishing it, secretly, because there was no other man in all this teeming Court whom she liked so well.