The Last English King

by Julian Rathbone

Chapter Twenty-One

  Dawn brought a light breeze from the west, the crew bustled, Wulfric dropped a canvas bucket over the side and dowsed his companions, the sail was unreefed and presently they were off again, but straight into the red eye of the rising sun. Harold climbed down to the main deck and hammered on the master’s cabin door. It was barred on the inside. He called for Wulfric and together they broke it down. The tiny cabin was foetid with piss and booze and the master still snored, cradled in a hammock. Wulfric tipped him out on to the floor and they dragged him up steps on to the poop.

  ‘Why,’ asked Harold, ‘are we going east when we should be going south?’

  ‘The wind is blowing from the west.’

  ‘But not from the south-west. You could trim the sail to bring her head at least a third of a circle towards the south.’

  The master, figuratively, changed tack.

  ‘We did well yesterday, I swear it, Lord Harold,’ he blustered, ‘due south the whole way. We are off the beaches of Normandy, five leagues to the south lies Arromanches and inland Bayeux. If this wind holds we’ll raise Le Havre by noon.’

  ‘You’re lying. At least in part. Off Selsey we were heading east . . .’

  ‘The wind changed my Lord, I swear it, as soon as we lost sight of land.’

  ‘If you fail us, we’ll chop you up and throw you overboard. Maybe, even, we won’t pay you.’

  Walt, towelling the salt water out of his hair stopped, looked up at them from the deck below. His head was knee high to the men above him.

  ‘But he’s already been paid.’

  Harold looked down at him.

  ‘Not by me.’

  ‘By a clerk. Yesterday. He gave him a bag. There was coin in it.’

  ‘Just when was this?’

  ‘Yesterday. Towards mid-morning. While we were waiting for you.’

  Harold turned to the man by his side.

  ‘Take him back to his cabin, Wulfric. Get to the bottom of this.’

  Wulfric the Cruel. The ship sailed on. With no expression on his face, the helmsman let the sun climb to his left as he edged the course degree by degree to a more northerly bearing.

  Presently a stain grew along the starboard horizon, the gulls came back, a gap in the land-fall indicated a wide estuary and they could see small black dots, fishing boats, not a lot bigger than coracles. The sailors trimmed the sail, the helmsman pulled the prow back a few degrees on to a bearing almost due east and the estuary opened in front of them. There was a small port or fishing village on the north bank and, a little further upstream, a larger town on the other.

  Meanwhile grunts, gasps, thuds and occasional short screams came from the master’s cabin.

  ‘Le Havre,’ Walt suggested.

  Timor frowned.

  ‘Too small,’ he said. Timor read easily, talked to people and often found out things about where they were going before they got there.

  At that moment the master gave a terrible scream which ended on a strangled cry. Wulfric reappeared, ducking below the lintel of the cabin door. In one hand he had a purse which he tossed to Harold.

  ‘Fifteen pieces of gold, ‘ he said.

  In the other hand he had the master’s head which he tossed overboard, then he wiped his big hands down his already bloody kirtle.

  ‘That’s not the Seine,’ he said. ‘That’s not Le Havre. It’s the Somme. He told me that much. And just upstream on the south bank is St Valery which is where his worship was paid to put us down. I need a wash.’

  And again he slung the bucket into the water and pulled it in.

  Harold, pale with anger, climbed up on to the focs’l. Walt and Daffydd followed him.

  ‘Ponthieu,’ he said, ‘is not Normandy at all. It is the domaine of Count Guy of Ponthieu. And we are sailing into his territory uninvited, unannounced, and armed.’

  ‘Can’t we turn away,’ Walt asked, ‘sail out again?’

  ‘I think not. The wind is against us, and look . . .’

  Behind them, already only half a mile away, two long-ships, fast, sleek and black, oars dipping in unison, were in pursuit - or, like sheep dogs, driving them further in.

  ‘Uninvited, unannounced, but not, look you, unex-pected,’ Daffydd remarked.

  Some three weeks later Duke William welcomed them in the great hall of his castle at Rouen. He made them walk up the long high hall to the dais where he sat throned with his council of viscounts and churchmen about him. He was wearing a coronet above hair much shorter than the English fashion, a long ring-mail hauberk covered with a surcoat across which pranced the lion passant regardant of Normandy, gauntlets, boots. He had a sword on his belt, the scabbarded point of which rested on the floor at his feet, and on whose pommel his left hand rested. This, Harold recognized, was, unless customs were different in Normandy, an act of discourtesy -- one does not welcome a distinguished guest bearing arms.

  He was clearly, even sitting down, a tall man, taller than Harold, but thin and not as solidly built. He had a well-trimmed moustache which came to points which looked as if they had been shaped with wax of some sort, and a small triangular beard - both darker than his hair. His general good looks were marred by baggy eyes and a large, high-bridged nose. His complexion was ruddy, outdoor ruddy, not booze ruddy. He was, at thirty-six years old, six years younger than Harold. He came down into the hall with a long, loping stride, taking a slightly curved approach. Walt was put in mind of a wolf he had seen in the Welsh mountains, scouting across snow towards their encampment.

  ‘My dear ’arold, my dear coz,’ he cried, attempting English but with a strong Norman accent, ‘at last we meet,’ and he put his hands on the English earl’s shoulders, kissed him on both cheeks, and then stood back to look at him. ‘I ’ave ’eard so much about you, and all good. Please to meet my chief ministers. No need for your men to come too . . .’But they were already crowding round Harold, ready to move up with him, and he had to wave them back.

  With one foot on the step William froze, blood rushed to his face. ‘Imbeciles,’ he shouted, in Norman French. His voice screeched on the last syllable like a chalk on slate, ‘did I not tell you to clear the table?’ His hand made a great sweeping gesture which ended behind him, almost catching Harold on the ear so he had to lean back to avoid it. ‘All these parchments, ink and slates, all fiddle-faddle, get it out of here, cannot you see we have a guest, perhaps the most impotent, I mean important guest who has ever graced this hall?’ And again his voice fluked up almost to a scream on the last word. ‘Council is over. I tell you council is over! Wine? Yes, wine, of course. And water. Of course.’

  He turned, put a clinking arm round Harold’s shoulder and almost pulling him on to the dais, tried out his English again.

  ‘You see, ’arold, I cannot bear mess and muddle. Everything in its place at the right time. Council we had, council is over. Guest time is here so out with the parchment-work and in with a little light refreshment. Could you kindly tell your men to stop gossiping amongst each other like washerwomen at a village spring? Please?’

  He returned to his throne, which was set on a step that raised it a foot above the other chairs, and motioned to Harold to sit opposite him. His English now exhausted, he slipped into Norman French, which Harold understood well enough, but speaking slowly, and too loud, the way people of his sort do when speaking to foreigners.

  ‘How is my royal cousin, Edward. Not well I . . . understand.’

  It was almost as if he had used the word ‘hope’.

  ‘Not well. But not so ill either. He has given up mead and sweet fruits. He’ll live a few years yet. He sends you warm greetings.’

  ‘A few years? With the Mead Illness? A year or so at most. So it is the greatest good fortune we should meet now and have the first of what I am sure will be many most useful little chats. But first my commiserations on your so unfortunate landfall. I hope Guy Ponthieu treated you well?’

  Harold shrugged.

  ‘No? Ah, the wine. A little wa
ter too? No? I always take a little water with my wine before dusk. A clear head, you know? Where were we? Guy Ponthieu. So lucky for you I had the wherewithal to pay the ransom he demanded. An inordinate amount. Bishop, how much was it?’

  The cleric who had remained in his seat next to him cleared his throat.

  ‘A king’s ransom, my lord.’

  ‘No, bishop. NOT a king’s ransom. But a worthy one all the same. A hundred in gold?’

  The bishop inclined his head, but failed to commit himself. William went on:

  ‘I really do believe he would have hanged you if I had not been on hand to pay for your release. Of course, although Ponthieu is not Normandy, he is my vassal. But then again, he was in his rights, quite within his right . . .’

  He pulled off his gauntlets, plucked a knife from amongst a bowl of apples that had arrived with the wine and began to poke his nails.

  ‘In a way,’ he said, and suddenly it was almost a growl, ‘you could say I bought your life. You owe me, ’arold. What should we say is the measure of your debt?’ Yet again the voice grew harsh, fluked up at the end of each phrase. ‘Vassalage, shall we say? Shall we say, dear ’arold, dear coz, that from this day you are my vassal, you are . . . my man?”

  Silence fell. All the Normans were watching Harold, their gaze steely but expressionless. A shiver ran up his spine. He straightened in his chair and met the Bastard’s eye.

  ‘Here in Normandy and wherever you may rule by law and with the people’s consent I shall remain for ever your humble but truest vassal.’ And without flinching he stared the Bastard down.

  ‘Very well, very good. Very well said.’ The Duke rose. ‘Later we’ll talk of this. For now my chamberlain will show you to your quarters.’

  A fortnight later they were hacking west through the Norman bocage from Caen towards Mont St Michel and Dinan. William and Harold rode together, with their standards beside them (Walt bore the gold dragon of Wessex for Harold), though William usually contrived to keep the head of the big black stallion he rode just in front of the gelding he had lent Harold. Behind them, with a great jingling and jangling, came six or seven hundred ‘knights’, or mounted soldiers well-armed, then a column of foot soldiers, another thousand perhaps, and finally a caravan of, mule-drawn waggons. Marching thus they seemed unable to make more than ten or at the most twelve miles a day, stopping often so stragglers could catch up, or while officers consulted each other about the route.

  Slow, but, Harold had to admit, very well ordered. Maps had been drawn, instructions given, marshals appointed who, when the way became too narrow to accommodate the whole host, sent elements of it off on loops or parallel paths. A midday stop was always arranged in advance, usually in the shelter of a castle. There were a lot of castles, especially as they approached the Brittany border, where the lord or seneschal would turn out with some pomp and feed the entire army at his own expense. Or rather at the expense of the villeins and serfs who worked his land. And then the same would happen again at nightfall.

  The country was much like that of the English south-west, particularly parts of Dorset - apart from the settlements. The main buildings were almost always larger than those in English manors or villages, and many of the barns especially were built not of timber frames with wattle and daub or plank between, but of stone, brick, or mortared flint and many were turreted and had arrow slits. Indeed almost anything of value was walled, fenced or fortified and the great halls were not so much halls as keeps or small castles. Even the churches and abbeys, which were truly often magnificent compared with the thatched affairs prevalent in England, looked to keep people out rather than welcome them in.

  And the people! They looked thin, bowed and sullen and their huts and cottages were like those of the meanest English serf. None came out to cheer their duke as he rode by - which certainly was not the case in England if an earl was making a progress through his country or the King himself. Worst of all, if there were cattle in the fields or pigs or even sheep, there was also always an armed man in attendance as well as the herdsman.

  Every village they went through had a gibbet as well as a cross at its centre, and more often than not a gibbet laden with rotting gibbet fruit.

  ‘Order, you see,’ Duke William bellowed above the clatter of hooves when they passed the third or fourth of these and Harold could no longer hide his distaste, ‘order and discipline. Everything in its place and a place for everything.’

  There were stocks too and even jails. There were almost no jails in England, outside the larger towns. When a village or manor took care of its own wrong-doers, and carefully judged them at a moot where an individual price was set for each offence, from murder to petty pilfering, what need was there for jails? If a man could not pay he was made a serf until he or his kinsmen bought his freedom back, not shut away to fester uselessly in a tiny cell. But here in Normandy there was no point in setting a fine since none but lords had the means to pay - for all that was surplus to a man’s basic requirements belonged already to his lord.

  And what was the purpose of this progress, this march through a land that flowed with milk, honey and misery? Conan, Count of Dinan had refused to acknowledge William as his overlord, thus obstructing Williams policy of creating buffer zones between Normandy and his neighbours, especially the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy, with both of whom he had been fighting for almost two decades. And wherever he could arrange it the lords of these buffer zones paid tribute to him rather than to France or Burgundy. Guy of Ponthieu was one such to the north and east and this Conan of Dinan another, to the south and west.

  Presently the countryside became flatter with outcrops of rock and the pasture sourer. Crossing a rise, a new landscape spread below them. A wide, forked estuary with sands and mudflats glimmered beneath the westering sun, marking a right-angle in the coastline. To the north the low cliffs and beaches faded into the mauve distances of the most southerly part of the Cherbourg peninsula, while straight ahead a much lower, flat area of salt marshes and reed-beds stretched to the west - a carpet of browns and greens shot with silver ribbons of water. It was dominated by St Michael’s Mount, perfectly visible even at ten miles, with its Norman keep ringed with turreted walls above a small settlement of fishermen and sheep-raisers. An especially delectable mutton was raised, as it still is, on the salt grasses and reeds around it. Being on the very end of the right bank of the river Couesnon, and reachable only by a causeway covered at high tide, the castle marked the most westerly extremity of Normandy and protected the Duchy from Breton incursions along the coastal plain. Or was meant to.

  In fact it was in a state of siege since Conan had camped a small army at the end of the causeway and for some weeks the garrison had had little to eat but fish.

  William reined in, shaded his eyes, chewed his bottom lip for a moment.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Very good,’ as if everything he could see had been arranged in advance, according to his instructions and was exactly as he would want it to be. Then he raised his right arm behind his shoulder and brought it over and down in a gesture he clearly imagined could be seen by the whole army winding up the slopes behind him, but in fact was visible only to the fifty or so men nearest to him. He shook his reins, touched spurs to his horse’s flank and began the descent towards a small village that lay beneath a pall of smoke on the more southerly fork of the estuary.

  The village, Pontaubault, had been burnt that morning: bodies lay in the lanes --the men with their throats cut, children impaled, women with their genitals ripped open, indicating the final rape had been done with a sword or spear. William was very angry. Not out of horror or pity for his vassals but because his army would now not be fed that night and because this atrocity was a direct insult to his name, his power, his title and his prowess, a point that was made explicit by a message slashed across a plastered wall: 'Bienvenu, Bâtard!’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A sullen grey silent dawn, with a thick chill mist over the marsh
es. Only a bittern or two boomed in the distance, just as they had all through the night - an eerie, goose-pimpling sound. The men stirred, armour clinked, harness jangled. On William’s orders a couple of trumpets were sounded to get the whole army standing to arms. The men grumbled -- no supper and now no breakfast.

  ‘Breakfast,’ William shouted, from the back of his black charger, making it wheel and waving his sword above his head, ‘will be provided by Count Conan. Forward . . . March!’

  Even from the backs of their horses they could see very little of what lay in front of them. Apparently, according to a guide, they were moving into a roughly semi-circular plain bisected by the Couesnon with a diameter of ten miles or so. The landward end of the causeway to St Michel was at the centre of its arc. It was flat and filled with reed and bull-rush beds as well as pasture of coarse grass. Much of the vegetation was up to five feet high and the whole area was riven with shallow channels and narrow dykes that split off from the main stream and sometimes returned to it. Even without the mist it would not have been easy to guess where and how Conan had deployed his troops.

  The first intimation was a shower of arrows from a bed of bull-rushes. This did little harm as it was directed at the leading files all of whom were adequately armoured, and in any case they were fired from the small bows the fowlers of the neighbourhood used -- accurate but without much weight or penetrating power. However, William’s big black stallion took one in its haunch and he was off as if the Duke had given him a smack with his crop, hurtling through swamps, fountaining black mud to head-height and higher, sending birds wheeting into the air, jumping the wider brooks that came his way. In one of the latter they, he and his passenger - one could not fairly say rider at that point -- came across a large coracle into which an oldish man was hauling a net alive with eels. The sight brought the horse up dead, snorting and quivering, and William was at last able to gather the reins into his left hand and draw his sword. With one massive stroke he severed the man’s head and, as it rolled into the bottom of his tiny boat, pierced it with the point. With it thus impaled he hacked back to his troops.