‘Then . . . ?’ Mathilda dared to prompt.
‘Then I had to go.’
‘Go where, William?’
He looked out of the window, as if the answer might be in the clouds that were scudding across the moonlit sky.
‘To my duty, of course. I went to become a duke.’
‘You were seven?’
‘Yes.’
‘How . . . how did it feel?’
‘Feel?’ He thrust the baby back at her. ‘It did not feel, Mathilda, it just was.’
‘But you must have . . .’
‘It did not feel. This sort of talk is why my men do not trust female regents. But no matter. You must sleep, my Mora, and I must return to my men for we have a war to fight and I will not let Henri get to my daughter’s door.’
And with that, he planted a kiss upon her head, so hard that she felt it might dent her skull, and strode fiercely from the room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rouen, July 1053
Mathilda kicked up one of last year’s rotten apples as if it might somehow pierce the gloom of the day but it simply broke in an ugly mess against the nearest tree, making Emeline squeal crossly. For weeks the sun had refused to shine as it should at this time of year and little Robert had been going mad cooped up in the palace. They’d brought him out to the orchard at the rear of the Tour de Rouen in the hope of running some energy out of him but all they seemed to be doing was getting him muddy. Mathilda tugged impatiently on his tunic as he tried, yet again, to climb one of the lower trees, and looked to the low skies for patience. When would this non-summer ever end?
The French had invaded in force, piercing Eastern Normandy on two fronts with a clear aim of pincering in on Rouen as William’s troops chased the attackers around the countryside beyond. La Barbe had suggested that Mathilda and her ladies withdrew to Caen in the west, out of the path of the invaders, but Caen was a stark, drear city and its people amongst the most rebellious even in Normandy and Mathilda had condemned a move there as madness.
As a result they were stuck, helpless, within the city and to make matters worse the unseasonable damp had turned the streets into rivers and filled the air with the perpetual sound of water dripping off sodden roofs in fat, angry splatters. Mathilda could not begin to imagine how it felt for the poor soldiers of Normandy out in this night and day as they struggled to defend their duchy and tried to be grateful for her pretty palace but it was hard. Adela, although thankfully still with them, was a sickly, troublesome child, Robert was a bundle of frustrated energy, and Emeline was worse than either of them.
‘Why do they not just camp the army here?’ she fretted now, climbing onto a tree-stump to peer uselessly over the wall that separated the Tour from the rest of the city. Ever since Hugh had mercifully recovered and ridden out on the tail of the army she had taken to searching the horizon as if the enemy might pop up at any moment. ‘Why is William ducking around the duchy chasing the enemy’s tail instead of meeting them head on?’
‘He is weakening them,’ Mathilda told her, dutifully repeating what William had told her before he left. ‘He is picking off foraging parties and breaking up their units.’
‘But why?’
‘Why?’ Della asked, pausing from chasing her own two boys around the trees, skirts rucked up around her ample hips to reveal boots that were far from elegant but enviably waterproof. ‘Because they outnumber us three times over, that’s why.’
‘Lord help us!’ Emeline wailed. ‘We’re doomed. Why did we even come to Normandy? I knew this war-addled duchy was trouble when I was dropped here as a child. Did I not get out as soon as I was able? And was I not right to do so? So why on earth am I back in this godforsaken city waiting to die?’
‘Rouen is a beautiful city,’ Mathilda said, pulling Emeline away from the wall.
‘It’s not as beautiful as Bruges though, is it? It hasn’t her pretty canals, or her curving bridges or her safe encircling walls. Rouen sits on the big, fat Seine, just a boat ride from Paris, and we sit on her banks, waiting to be taken. We must do something, my lady.’
Mathilda put a comforting arm around her. She did not like seeing sunny Emeline this way.
‘You are missing Lord Bertrand,’ she suggested, trying to tease her out of her gloom.
‘I am not.’ Emeline stamped her foot then hung her head. ‘Beg pardon, my lady. I am all out of sorts. I’m sorry. I am done with Lord Bertrand. I know he is useful to you but the Bellemes are as strange as a lily pad of three-legged frogs.’
Mathilda looked her up and down curiously.
‘It matters not, Emeline. I am sorry I ever asked you to get close to him. You should find someone nicer to cheer you up.’
Emeline smiled wanly.
‘Maybe. It’s just all these wars and rebellions – they press on me like giant’s feet. Sometimes it feels as if ever since we came back across the Narrow Sea in ’51 things have been going wrong and now here we are with thousands of vengeful Frenchmen all but at our door. Even Raoul marches on us.’
‘Raoul d’Amiens fights with the French?’ Mathilda pictured him delivering her damned wedding casket and shivered. ‘Why has he turned upon us?’
Della tutted.
‘You are as suspicious as the duke your husband, my lady. Raoul has not “turned” on anyone; it is simply that he is Henri’s man. He is not so much against us, as for the French.’
‘Yet there is some treachery,’ Emeline put in, ‘for the French have taken Mortemer in the north of the duchy. It is held by Raoul’s son-in-law, Lord Evelin, is it not? Convenient, hey, for an invading army to have relations with a key to the gates?’
Mathilda grimaced. It was convenient indeed and she dreaded William’s response.
‘Come,’ she snapped, ‘let’s get inside.’
The others needed no second asking.
In the end, however, holding Mortemer did not aid the French victory as much as lead to their defeat, for a Norman battalion reached the city on the very night the French occupiers discovered Lord Evelin’s wine cellars and drank them dry. The Norman soldiers were too well trained to miss such an opportunity and, firing the town, they massacred every last Frenchman as they came stumbling out of the flames. The news was enough to send the rest of Henri’s troops scurrying back over the border and suddenly, as if God had sent a wind to blow the enemy away, Normandy was safe once more.
The women, even Emeline, danced with joy when the news came and then all was a fluster to prepare for the victors’ return. But when William finally reached Rouen, it was at first light and everyone was abed. Mathilda started awake to find her husband standing over her as if dropped there by God.
‘William!’ she stuttered, fighting to shake sleep from her brain. ‘Welcome.’
She reached for him, still only half-certain that he was truly there, but he put up his hands to stop her.
‘I am dirty, Mathilda.’
‘I care not.’ But there was a strange, pale wildfire in his dark eyes and she hesitated. ‘You are well?’
‘I am well.’
Still he stood there as she awkwardly threw off the covers and rose to fetch him ale from the jug on the sideboard. There was no sign of Emeline or Cecelia but with William in this mood, she was glad they were alone. She nervously held it out to him.
‘The French are defeated?’
‘Yes, and fled for home – but you knew that, did you not?’
‘Of course I knew that, William. Your messengers came with the news.’
William took a sudden step forward, his armour creaking alarmingly as if his very limbs were made of metal, and Mathilda started back, knocking the ale down her pale linen shift.
‘They reported that you were not surprised to hear it.’
‘Well, no. You told me that you always win, William, so why should I be surprised?’ He faltered but still looked distrustful. He was searching for someone to blame, she saw, and she was first to hand. She placed the cup aside and rushed t
o him but he put up his hands to hold her off.
‘I hear, Wife, that you have been writing to King Henri – our enemy.’
Mathilda swallowed. He looked so big standing over her in the dawn light, his eyes full of anger.
‘I have, William.’ He blinked, surprised, and she stepped closer. ‘Of course I have. He is my uncle and I thought I might be able to appeal to him on your behalf. So yes, I have written to him wanting to know why he has turned against you – against us. I have written to my mother too but her answer was empty.’
‘And Henri’s?’
‘Henri sent no answer at all.’
‘How do I know that? How do I know you are not plotting with him? How do I know your slut of an attendant is not taking information into French beds?’
‘William! Why are you talking like this? Of course I am not a spy. I am your wife, mother of your children.’
‘But are you?’
‘William?’
‘Maybe it was not his allegiance to Emperor Heinrich that prevented the Pope from sanctioning this match, but some pact with King Henri. Maybe it has been there all along to offer you a way out of our marriage.’
Mathilda could only stare at him, amazed. Truly, he saw treachery everywhere.
‘You think I would besmirch my honour and that of my children for politics? I am not a man, William; I do not think that way. Your interests are my interests for I am Duchess of Normandy and want only to serve her as you serve her. Who has been speaking to you, William? Who has been saying this of me?’
He looked to the window opening through which the skies were lightening in a soggy pink over Rouen’s myriad roofs and spires.
‘Lord Bertrand,’ he admitted eventually. ‘He said Emeline was liaising with some Frenchman. He said she was passing information – and he should know, Mathilda, for has she not been sporting in his bed these last few months?’
‘Lord Bertrand? Oh, William, Emeline is not with any Frenchmen. She is forever drooling over Raoul d’Amiens but he has refused her.’
‘Raoul?! Raoul is a serpent.’
‘No. William, surely . . .’
‘You would defend him, a Frenchman?’
Mathilda gulped.
‘No, William. Of course not, not if he has done you wrong.’
‘Wrong?! He fought against me, Mathilda. He was at Mortemer.’
Mathilda tasted bile in the back of her throat.
‘I heard. He is, then, dead?’
‘No. He’s a serpent, I tell you. He wormed his troops into the place via his treacherous son-in-law, Lord Evelin, and then when it all went wrong he got that damned man to sneak him out. They are both safely over the border with Henri and no doubt laughing at me as we speak.’
‘They will hardly be laughing, William, for they are defeated. Routed. They are the ones who are laughable.’
‘Maybe. We’ll see. But are you sure Emeline has not had word from him? After all, she is French too.’
‘And my devoted servant. Truly, the only person Emeline is spying on is Mabel and that is why Bertrand is sewing these doubts. He is hitting out because it was he who told us Mabel had poisoned Hugh and now he is afraid for his own skin.’
William sighed and seemed suddenly to deflate like a punctured bladder.
‘You may be right. I apologise.’ He took her hands in his, rubbing her fingers with his own dirty, calloused ones as if he could ease all the tension of war out into her care. ‘I am tired, my Mora, that is all, and hurt by France turning upon me. But I should not have taken it out on you. You are my partner, are you not?’
‘Of course. I am here for you in everything, William. Come to bed and let me soothe . . .’
But her words were cut off by a blood-chilling cry of pain from somewhere outside the main Tour. They both looked urgently round as it came again, cutting the dawn air like a blade with a run of terrified curses riding in its wake. William stared, frozen for a moment, then ran, Mathilda on his heels, though she soon fell behind. She could hear William barking out commands but still the cries continued, interspersed with hammering and shouting and when she finally ran into the yard she saw Cecelia pressed against the stable wall, crying into the wood.
‘What’s happening?’ she gasped.
‘Emeline,’ she choked out and at the name Mathilda’s heart seemed to climb out of her throat.
She looked to the barred stable door. Fitz was hacking at it with a rough axe he must have picked up from the woodpile but, like everything in William’s palace, the door was built solidly and resisted even his strength. Still the cries came from within and now Mathilda could hear Emeline’s dear tones in them and tried to run for the door as if she could do with her hands what Fitz could not with his axe. Cecelia pulled her back, jabbering manically.
‘He said only that he wanted to see her. I told her not to go. I told her to wait until the court was risen but you know Emeline.’ Her words were drowned in a new set of sobs. ‘I went with her. I insisted, but what could I do? He just grabbed her, my lady, grabbed her by her hair and dragged her inside and, and . . .’
‘Who, Cee?’
‘Lord Bertrand.’
She paused as they all heard a scrabbling at the bolt. The screams had stopped enough for them to catch the sound of the lock rasping back and a new cry, lower and bubbling with blood. Then silence.
The courtiers who had all come running, most of them still in their nightwear, stood staring as William slowly stepped forward and pulled back the door. There, lying skewed across the hay-strewn threshold, his eyes staring sightlessly up at the lightening sky and blood running out from his throat, was Lord Bertrand. Mathilda’s eyes flew past him and found Emeline, shaking and covered in blood and locked in the arms of Hugh de Grandmesnil.
‘He attacked her,’ Hugh cried. ‘He dragged a poor, helpless woman into the stables and attacked her with a whip like a coward.’
The horses, tossing their heads in the stalls behind, whinnied agreement in an eerie chorus.
‘How did you get in, Hugh?’ Mathilda asked, looking at the paltry splinter marks Fitz’s axe had made in the door.
‘Trap at the back. In case of fire. Don’t want the horses burning, do we?’
‘Er, no. Thank you, Hugh, thank you so much.’
He shrugged.
‘Anyone would have done it. That man had evil in his eyes. I saw it.’
‘You did?’ Mathilda asked curiously, looking from him to Emeline, supported by his strong hold.
‘Yes. I woke early and, er, wanted to check on the horses. I saw Emeline go into the stables and thought the gentleman did not look, well, gentle. I . . . hovered. Just in case, you understand.’
Mathilda thought she did understand.
‘Well, thank the Lord you did. We are all in your debt, are we not, Emeline?’
But the poor girl just broke into sobs.
‘It was my fault. All my fault.’
‘That’s not true, Emeline,’ Cecelia cried. ‘How could it be your fault?’
She took a step forward to go to her friend but faltered at the body blocking her route. The blood from Bertrand’s throat was congealing now but the red was reflected in the dew-damp cobbles like a hellish pool.
‘He said I was a cruel little tart,’ Emeline choked out, ‘and I am – I am! He said I exploited him. He said I was a temptation sent to corrupt him from his duties. He said, he said . . .’ More sobbing. ‘He said if I was so free with my body he could be free with it too and he was right.’
‘That’s not true, Em,’ Mathilda insisted, her heart breaking.
She steeled herself to step over the dead Bertrand but she was too slow. For now Hugh was taking Emeline’s arms and moving her oh so gently away from him and all but lifting her so that she had to look into his eyes.
‘That is not true, Emeline,’ he said and his voice seemed ten times firmer and more determined than Mathilda’s. ‘And you must never, ever think it. Bertrand had no right to attack you. None. Y
ou are far, far too good for him as he proved this morning and he has paid the price.’
Emeline looked up at him.
‘You saved me, Hugh.’
‘Of course. I would, I hope, save any woman falling foul of such a man, but especially you.’
‘Why?’ It was more a breath than a word.
Mathilda crept up to William who was watching as fascinated as the rest of the court as Hugh pulled Emeline even closer, his eyes locked on hers.
‘Because I love you. Have done so for ages.’
The women in the yard gave a collective sigh of joy. Mathilda felt it run across her flesh like a slippery silk, almost too soft to bear. She could find no words to speak and could only watch as William stepped firmly over Bertrand’s corpse and patted his cavalry captain awkwardly on the back. Both Emeline and Hugh looked startled.
‘You are looking, Hugh, to marry?’ William asked, his voice strident and somehow overly purposeful after the hushed exchange of the couple still locked together.
‘I am,’ Hugh agreed, ‘if the lady is willing?’
The ‘lady’, uncharacteristically shy, could only nod but it was enough for Hugh who claimed her lips with his own as the men yelled ribald encouragement. Mathilda felt herself sway and had to lean against the rough wood of the stable. Her legs, already weak with William’s harsh accusations, felt as useless as a new-born foal’s, and as men rushed to drag Bertrand’s corpse from the stable door and close it delightedly on the newly betrothed pair, she made for her chamber.
She was glad for Emeline, of course she was, and so, so grateful to Hugh for saving her from who knows what dread attack, but the glow in the couple’s eyes seemed to burn her shuddering heart. Why had William come home from war ready to suspect her of treachery and Hugh had not even for one moment believed loose-living Emeline had done anything wrong? The answer was clear – love.
She thought of how often she had seen the pair seek each other out in dances, of how Emeline had complained so fondly about Hugh’s equine conversation and how worried she had been when he’d been poisoned. She remembered Hugh’s doting eyes on Emeline when she was dancing with the young Saxon in Westminster that fateful Yule in 1051 when she and William had been talking crowns, not love, and realised the earnest cavalry captain had been looking for this opportunity for a long time.
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