She saw William look again to the weathercock but the bird’s head was still set to the north, facing bravely into the teeth of the wind blowing from England. Even if any man would dare the waves that threw themselves in a perpetual tantrum onto the shore there would be no way of getting to England with the wind so determinedly in their faces. Even the spy boats were stranded so that William’s stream of information – his campaign lifeblood – had dried up. Harold was gone from his camp on the southern shores, they knew that much, but no one knew where. The Viking could have attacked anywhere down the east coast and they would be none the wiser. Had the gamble of waiting turned against them? The possibility was making everyone irritable and William most of all.
‘I thought God was on our side,’ he’d moaned to Mathilda as they’d huddled in bed together last night, their bodies finally warm, though the covers steamed.
‘He is, William. This weather must have some purpose.’
‘This weather is keeping us from England.’
‘Then the time must not be right to go. Have faith.’
He’d kissed her.
‘You are right, my Mora – you are always right. Do we not have the Pope’s blessing?’
‘We do.’
‘And did we not dedicate our dear Cecily to God’s service?’
‘We did, William, and many others followed our example.’
It had been a fine day and Mathilda had thought she might burst with pride as Cecily, still only eight, had walked up to the altar of La Trinité in a pure white dress, flowers woven through her hair. She and William had been waiting there for her and William had taken her up in his arms before everyone and declared loudly that he was dedicating her to the Lord and Cecily had smiled around, as composed as a child twice her age, as other young ladies had been ushered forward to join her.
Mathilda had been at great pains beforehand to explain to Cecily that she would come to La Trinité often to see her and that she would have lots of friends and learn wonderful things and Cecily had accepted all this easily. She was used, Mathilda had realised, to not seeing her mother for long periods when she travelled with William and her little room at La Trinité was a charm for her – a constant place that she could call her own.
She would share it with Mabel’s daughter, Sibyl, and although that made Mathilda a little nervous she could only hope that if Sibyl shared her mother’s interest in the natural world, she did not share her ruthless use of it. She’d glanced to Mabel that day and, for the briefest of moments, had been locked in maternal feeling with her. It had been a peculiar experience but life, it seemed, was more complicated than it looked when you were young.
The only issue had come when Cecily had asked, ‘What happens, Mama, when it is time for me to marry?’
Mathilda had been forced to explain that if she went on to take full orders she would never marry.
‘But how then,’ Cecily had demanded, ‘will I run my own household?’
Mathilda had kissed her.
‘Maybe you can run the household at La Trinité, Cecily. Maybe you can be her abbess.’
‘Abbess?’ The little girl had rolled the word around her tongue, trying it out and, it seemed, liking it. ‘Yes, I shall be that.’
Mathilda prayed she was right. There was no reason why she should not be, as long as Normandy stayed in William’s hands, as long as he did not lose it on a fool’s venture to another land. She shook herself. She must not think that way. Just because there were mutterings around the damp campfires did not mean she had to succumb too.
‘Overreaching themselves, if you ask me,’ she’d overheard one man saying to his fellows this morning as they fought to swallow soggy bread. ‘What’s wrong with being Duke of Normandy anyway?’
‘You tell me, Luc. You signed up to this mission.’
‘For all the joy I’ve had of it.’
‘So far. Come, man, don’t you want to bash the Saxons?’
Mathilda had crept away, grateful for the second man’s positivity, but horrified by his attitude. Is that all this was about to them – a glorified tavern brawl? But then she’d reminded herself that it didn’t matter how they felt as long as they helped William to win. Why should they care for promises and oaths and laws of succession? They cared only for food in their bellies, coin for their families and, it seemed, bashing the Saxons – if they ever got the chance.
The camp was strung out across the vast plains around the Somme estuary at St Valery and having reached the eastern edge, Mathilda turned to look back across the whole port, trying to picture it as it would have been when it was first built six hundred years ago, full of Roman trading vessels and yachts. It was perhaps not as far distant as she imagined for today St Valery was crammed with boats, albeit ones rough-hewn for war. Hugh’s horse ships were moored in tight lines all along the stone walls at the river mouth, jostling each other in the winds as if as eager to be away as the men. There were one hundred and forty of them, newly built and designed to carry twenty knights and their mounts – nearly three thousand fine cavalry and all ready to go, if only the wind would turn.
The myriad other boats were a less regular lot. The richer craft were drawn up on the banks of the river around the Mora, still shining in the angrily iridescent rain. The rest were on the far bank, or held at anchor in the middle of the River Somme, fishing vessels alongside trading craft, alongside the new transport boats every man in Normandy seemed to have been crafting since their lords pledged to provide them back in January. They were simple boats, their only job to get soldiers over the Narrow Sea and hopefully, once victory was secured, back home again in triumph. That moment, though, seemed horribly far off.
‘Will this wind never cease?’ someone asked and she turned to see William coming towards her with Fitz, Fulk and Hugh in tow.
They ranged out at her side, peering at the mist-shrouded water as if they might somehow see all the way to the other shore, and Mathilda looked fondly at them. These were William’s core men, the companions who had been with him all his reign – his bodyguard, his elite officers, his loyal supporters. They drew closer, a tight circle, every one of them a head taller than Mathilda who felt giddily enclosed within their damp, masculine formation.
She remembered the night she’d first met them all at Eu – Fitz bounding over like a puppy, great big Fulk being teased about Mabel, Hugh already caught in Emeline’s spell, though they had not realised it at the time. They’d been boys then, eager and impetuous, convinced of their invincibility, and over the years they had proved themselves justified in that conviction. They had grown together into the men that now stood with their backs to the first Norman navy as the Narrow Sea lashed mercilessly at their dreams. They were more grizzled, perhaps, and more sober, but still invincible and desperate to prove it. All, perhaps, bar one.
La Barbe was joining them now, moving painfully slowly and leaning heavily on his stick, his son Robbie hovering solicitously at his side. Mathilda looked anxiously at her old friend. The chamberlain’s back was stooped so he seemed nearly as short as her, and the lines in his gentle face were pronounced, as if some cruel force was etching them deeper in with every dark day.
‘Roger – you are not well.’
‘I am not ill, my lady, but no, I am not well. I will be little use in battle, I fear, save perhaps to organise the supply carts.’
No one spoke. The truth of this statement was too plain and they had never been men to duck the truth.
‘I release you, Roger,’ William said.
‘No.’
‘Please. You have served Normandy loyally and well and will continue to do so but you are right – the frontline is no place for you and to put you there would endanger others.’
Mathilda flinched but Roger just bowed his head.
‘I meant it about the supply carts,’ he said quietly.
‘It is an important role.’
Roger looked up at William and the two men’s eyes met.
‘Not that i
mportant,’ Roger said sadly, ‘but I will do it all the same.’
But now Robbie was stepping up at his father’s side, standing taller than him and far straighter. Mathilda remembered his father pointing him out as a toddler in the rushes on her very first day in Normandy and now he was a man. Time had gone too fast; what if it was running out? She fought down the foolish thought. This is why women did not go to war. Men were far more focused on the fighting than the outcome, as Robbie was now proving.
‘Let me go in your stead, Father,’ he was begging. ‘Please. I can fight, you know I can, and I am strong. I will carry your standard against the oathbreaker and your men will follow it.’
There was a long pause. The wind whipped across the flatlands and between the men who stood watching La Barbe as he looked at his son, at his future. Finally he nodded, clasped Robbie’s hand.
‘You are a good boy – a good man. I will be proud for you to carry my standard. Though your mother,’ he added wryly, ‘may kill me for it far quicker than any Saxon.’
The men laughed, the tension broken, but William held up a hand.
‘No Saxons will be killing any of us, or being killed by us either if this wind does not change. So, my lords, what do we do?’
His men looked back, unflinching.
‘What can we do?’ Fulk asked. ‘We have to wait until the winds turn.’
‘We could disband?’
‘No!’ Not a moment’s hesitation.
‘We’ve come this far,’ Fitz said, ‘so we must see it through.’
‘The men are ready,’ Roger agreed.
‘The horses too.’ Hugh.
‘If we let them go now,’ Fulk said, ‘only half will return again in the spring. We must wait.’
‘And pray,’ William added. ‘Let’s call a service. It will draw the men together and we can speak to them – if I can make myself heard over this damned wind!’
They all nodded, clasped shoulders a moment, and then went off to organise their troops. There were some eight thousand men ranged down the estuary and clearly not all would be able to get into the church further up the river, or even in front of it, but at least inland it was slightly more sheltered so they might be able to hear the speakers better. Mathilda just prayed William could find the words to rouse the troops for they had been here for fourteen long, soggy days and by the looks of the skies they were not in for a break yet.
She traced her way wearily back to her pavilion where she found Emeline flapping her gowns in a desperate attempt to shake some of the moisture from them.
‘Ruined,’ she wailed when she saw Mathilda.
‘It’s just water, Em. Where’s Cecelia?’
Emeline wrinkled her nose.
‘She went for a walk. Something about seaweed and fishermen. I don’t know what. I swear she’s going dotty these days. Perhaps we should find her a husband?’
Mathilda laughed.
‘A man is the answer to everything, is it, Em?’
‘Of course not. They are fun though, are they not?’
‘Not so much at the moment.’
‘No. All Hugh does is fret over his precious horses. I swear he’d sleep in those stables of his if I let him, even though the roof leaks and it smells to high heaven.’
‘They’re beautiful horses.’
‘They are that. Shame they have to go to war.’
‘Em?’
Emeline turned away.
‘I just worry, Mathilda. This isn’t like a rebellion or a siege. This isn’t even like defending against the French. We’re the invaders this time and that’s not something our men are used to. It’s all new. Horses across the sea, foreign soil, pitched battles – Normans don’t do that, so what if they can’t do that?’ She rubbed a hand across her forehead, as Mathilda watched, helpless. ‘Oh, never mind me. I know the cause is just. It’s this waiting, that’s all – too much time to think.’
That was it exactly. All the heat and the passion and the drive had been taken out of the mission to England, sucked down into the mud of St Valery, and in its place doubt and fear had room to creep in.
‘We are to have a service,’ Mathilda said but just got a dull ‘oh, good’ in return and she turned thankfully as the flap lifted and Cecelia stepped inside, shaking water from her hem.
Seeing Mathilda she smiled a surprisingly broad smile and ran forward.
‘I’ve been talking to fishermen, my lady.’
‘You have?’
Mathilda raised an eyebrow; maybe Emeline was right and Cecelia did need a husband.
‘Not like that! They are well versed, as you might imagine, in the matter of tides and winds . . .’
‘Fascinating,’ Emeline said.
‘And weather.’
‘Weather?’ Mathilda looked at Cecelia more closely and even Emeline put down her gown and came over. ‘And what do they say?’
‘The seaweed pops, my lady.’
Emeline groaned.
‘See, Mathilda – she’s going dotty.’
‘I’m not,’ Cecelia said, putting impatient hands on her broad hips. ‘They hang seaweed in a sheltered place. If it is moist it will rain . . .’
‘No?!’
‘Emeline, listen! It’s to do with the moisture in the air. If it is dry, there will be no rain or the rain is going to stop.’
‘And it is dry now?’
‘Exactly. That’s why the pods will pop. And there are sheep in the sky and the flies are gone.’ Emeline spluttered. ‘Sheep, Emeline. If you look to the west, you will see that not all the clouds are leaden any longer. Some are softer, woollier – empty of water.’
‘And the flies?’ Mathilda questioned, intrigued.
‘Flies come lower when there are rainclouds so if they disappear it means they are happy back up in the sky again, or so they tell me. It may not be entirely accurate but all the signs are there – the weather is turning. The rain is stopping and the winds will shift round.’
‘When, Cee?’
‘Soon. Tonight, most likely. Dusk, they tell me, is when most changes occur.’
‘They have told you a lot,’ Emeline said, grudgingly impressed. ‘How peculiar.’
‘How wonderful,’ Mathilda corrected her. ‘I must find William – now. Come along, quick. We can use this, don’t you see? We can use this to draw the men out of the mud.’
‘Are you gone dotty too, Mathilda?’ Emeline gasped as Mathilda pulled them both outside where she could swear the rain was already dissolving into a half-hearted drizzle.
‘No,’ Mathilda said cheerfully. ‘On the contrary, I feel sane for the first time in days. To the church!’
She found William as swiftly as she was able in the crowds but he thought her mad too when she made her suggestion.
‘A procession, Mathilda?’
‘Of St Valery’s bones, William, yes, to ask God’s blessing on us and his assistance with the weather.’
‘Yes, yes, I see that but Mathilda . . .’ He pulled her aside, his voice lowered to a harsh whisper. ‘What if it doesn’t work?’
‘It will work.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Seaweed,’ she said with a grin.
‘Seaweed?’ he echoed faintly, but he did as she asked.
Slowly the men gathered along the open river bank, shuffling reluctantly into two lines running out from the stone church.
‘What’ll that old saint do?’
‘God’s given up on us anyway.’
‘We’d be better off at home.’
Mathilda ran around supervising the lifting of the casket holding St Valery’s holy remains and Odo, ever one for drama, mustered all his clerics into their best robes to create a decent show. In all the fuss few noticed that the rain had more or less stopped and that far out at sea the water was, for the first time in ages, an optimistic green. William, however, was one of the few.
‘Seaweed?’ he whispered again to Mathilda as they prepared to walk solemnly behind the casket, th
e papal banner before them, a little worn but flapping proudly in the lighter wind.
‘Local lore,’ she whispered back. ‘Signs of change.’
‘Not God’s hand?’
‘God’s hand is in all things, Husband. All we are doing here is showing that to those who find it harder to understand.’
William shook his head.
‘You’ve always been the clever one, Mathilda.’
‘And you the brave. You will be able to sail now. Are you ready?’
He took her hand, tucking it into his arm as the procession began to move forward, the men cheering despite themselves at Odo’s grand show.
‘I am ready, Mathilda. I have been ready, I think, all my life – now I just need to make it happen.’
It was hailed as a miracle. The procession was barely halfway down the river bank when the clouds parted and a shaft of sunlight fell, not on the saint himself – that would, perhaps, have been too much to ask – but upon the boats moored mid-river, as if lighting their way forward at last.
‘’Tis a sign – a sign!’
‘God blesses us!’
‘The time has come.’
The men snatched at the good omen like starving creatures at bread. They would need no dragging from the mud, Mathilda realised, for they were keen to scramble from it and needed only the slightest encouragement to do so. St Valery was hailed all the way up the river and back and no sooner was he safely returned to his rest in the church than men were running to sharpen their weapons and polish what armour they had. And then, as dusk settled in a thin line of pink across the camp, the weathercock on the church creaked, sighed almost, and swung slowly and deliberately round to the south.
‘We sail tomorrow,’ William declared and then the frenzy really began.
William ordered the cooks to make a feast with all they had left and stews bubbled in vast pots over fires that flared at last, as if keen to finally show their true colours. He ordered barrels broached and the men, bellies full and heads swimming, swung as easily as the weathercock from grumbling to anticipation. There was far less talk of God’s displeasure around the huddled groups and far, far more of bashing the Saxons, and the Norman camp finally settled to sleep a happier, more positive place than it had been since it had limped into St Valery over two weeks ago.
The Conqueror's Queen Page 32
