Of the Ring of Earls (Conqueror Trilogy Book 1)

by Juliet Dymoke

  Sitting in the hall of his castle on the east bank while his men repaired the broken walls, William called his captains to him.

  ‘These people of Northumbria,’ he said, ‘are descended from the Vikings and from Duke Rollo’s race as I am myself, and they have turned on us who are more their blood than the Saxons. They shall know what they have done. Beyond this city no house is to stand, no building is to be left. Burn everything that supports life.’ He glanced round the startled faces. ‘You are not to kill, except where you are resisted, but you are to lay waste this countryside so that men may see and feel what it is to defy their anointed king.’

  He glanced round the assembly. Hard men they were, used to castle life, and to warfare, but nevertheless they looked at him askance, shifting uneasily. Even one or two who had been at Alençon years before where his vengeance had been stark indeed, heard him in some horror.

  ‘Beau sire,’ William de Warenne said, ‘it is winter. The people will starve.’

  ‘Is that my fault?’ William queried harshly. ‘They have brought this on themselves.’ He stood up with finality, releasing the map so that it rolled itself up, as Yorkshire might be wiped from the face of England. ‘I myself,’ he added, ‘will march on Earl Waltheof.’

  * * *

  The voice of a herald, breaking eerily through the heavy mist on a January morning, echoed across the marshes, calling the Englishmen from sleep.

  ‘William of Normandy, King of England, to Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton! He bids you and Earl Gospatric to surrender yourselves and your men into his hands. He gives you two weeks to consider your answer. If you do not surrender the might of Normandy is here to crush you.’

  His horn sounded again and then there was silence. In the English camp across the river Tees men had tumbled from sleep, tent flaps had opened and the better born came out into the cold morning air, all listening, strung to a pitch of anxiety by the weeks that had gone before.

  Waltheof appeared dressed only in his tunic, followed by Thorkel whose pale face was still flushed with sleep.

  ‘What in God’s name was that?’ the Icelander demanded.

  Waltheof’s eyes were raking the mist, trying to see the far bank. ‘Didn’t you hear? Only what we have expected these many days. The Normans are there, on the other bank, and William himself is with them.’

  ‘The King?’ Thorkel stood still, staring, but he could see nothing either – only the sluggish river, grey in the dawn light, the mist shifting. A gull flew across with a mournful cry, breaking the stillness. He shivered. ‘If William is there . . .’

  Waltheof said nothing. All the significance in the world lay in those four words. Several of his men had come up now, all peering into the mist and Outy, seeing his master only half clothed in this biting morning, went back to his tent.

  Richard de Rules, his mantle thrown hastily about him, came hurrying up. His captivity was so nominal now that the guard on his tent had merely held the flap open for him.

  ‘Is it the King?’

  Waltheof nodded silently.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He bids me surrender.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  Waltheof shrugged. ‘I am not alone in this.’ But he was – or very nearly. All the high hopes, all the promise of final victory after York fight lay in the dust, had been thrown away, wantonly dissipated, wasted in a manner that roused in him seething, impotent fury.

  That night after the taking of the city it seemed that they failed. Quarrels had arisen among them all and the men supplies, arms, all that was needed – except leadership, discipline, order, the things that the Normans had in abundance.

  Their Danish friends wanted nothing but plunder and had proved useless; the risings in the south and west had failed. Quarrels had arisen among them all and the men of Northumbria having gone home with their Norman plunder showed no disposition to come out again in the bitter winter weather. All spoke cheerfully of carrying on the fight in the Spring but Waltheof knew more perhaps of the Normans than most and he knew that William would never let the season of the year deter him and that if they did so he would inevitably be the final victor. But it was Gospatric’s defection that was most wounding of all. Thinking of his cousin, Waltheof s anger rose. They had spoken bitter words to each other.

  ‘The fighting is done for the moment,’ Gospatric had said. ‘William is too strong for us. How can we beat a man who has done what he has done in the last weeks? I don’t propose to die for no purpose.’

  The quarrel flared and he rode out towards Durham and was now in Lindisfarne with Bishop Aethelwine. Maerlsweyn was gone too – he who had been Harold’s friend and one of the soundest men in England. The heart had gone out of them all and the Atheling lacked the courage, the strength to prove himself a rallying point. Waltheof had done what he could, but it had been useless, for not one of the other leaders upheld him. Now he had only his own hearth-men with him and a few scattered adherents, including Scalpin, the last of the Saxon house- carls.

  The Earl shivered, rubbing his bare arms in the chill air, and accepted the mantle that Outy brought him. The mist was beginning to clear a little and as it shifted he caught a glimpse on the far bank of men and horses, tents and baggage, and briefly a fluttering standard that he recognised all too clearly.

  He became aware that Richard too had seen the golden lions of Normandy.

  ‘What will you do?’ Richard repeated and laid a hand on Waltheof’s arm. ‘My friend, I beg you . . .’

  Waltheof shook his head. ‘I have two weeks. I will send to Gospatric.’ It would be pointless but he must do it, must make one last effort. At least his position here was good. Their camp was on a promontory of land, flanked on the east by the sea and on the rest of its perimeter by marshes, broken land accessible only by a path barely twenty feet across at its widest point, and thence by a narrow track only known to natives of the area. They had good stores of food and he could hold out here for months if need be – but to what end? Unless he had some support in the final reckoning he would achieve nothing.

  He called for Osgood and sent him to Lindisfarne to apprise Gospatric of the situation, but he had little hope and went heavily to his tent to finish dressing.

  As the days passed he and his men had nothing to do but watch the Normans on the farther bank of the river. Their neat camp, the occasional sorties, the hunting parties, were all evidence enough of a well-ordered force and the guards posted along the river bank watched the English camp incessantly. William could move with phenomenal speed if he wished, but he also knew when to wait, when to allow time to fray the nerves of his enemies. As the days went by Waltheof felt his own grow jagged – there must be an end, and soon, but what should it be?

  The weather worsened as the January days followed one another. Bitter frost hardened the ground so that the sea birds cried sadly overhead and hovered about the camp looking for scraps.

  One evening under cover of darkness, a figure flitted through the hidden paths. It was a Northumbrian from York and he brought intelligence of the King’s march north through the snow-covered country of Cleveland. ‘The whole land is wasted,’ he told them. ‘The Normans have been sent out in scouring parties all over the shire and everything in their path is burned and destroyed. If you could see it, my lord,’ he turned to Waltheof, ‘it would freeze the flesh on your bones. Men and women and children are starving, dying of hunger for the Normans have taken everything. Not a house is left, not a barn, not an animal.’

  He paused, shaking, and someone thrust a costrel of wine into his hand. He drank deeply and looked round the faces surrounding him, seeing the horror, the impotent anger, the frustration and wretchedness mirrored there. After a moment he went on, ‘Our people lie in the empty fields, by the roadside. I passed a woman dead, with a dead child still at her breast, and none to bury them.’

  Outy Grimkelson, hardened fighter that he was, swore at him. ‘You bring these tiding to drive our lord to surrend
er. Such things cannot be true.’

  The man shook his head wearily and without offence. ‘Am I a Norman to tell you lies? Why, only a few miles from here there is a man roasting his own dead child for food.’

  There was a sudden, choking sound as Ulf stumbled away, retching violently.

  Hakon said, his own face greenish in the wintry light, ‘What are we come to if we eat our own flesh?’

  ‘Jesu!’ Thorkel was standing rigid beside him. ‘Are they devils, these Normans? They cannot call themselves Christian men.’

  The man shrugged. ‘They take no life unless they are resisted – but what man would not resist when the very sustenance for his wife and children burned before his eyes. Ploughs and scythes and seed are all gone – there will be no harvest next year nor for many a year – even the dogs and cats and horses are eaten.’

  ‘How can they?’ Waltheof asked in anguish. ‘Battle is one thing, but war on women and children is another. Christ, how can it be done?’

  ‘In truth, my lord, some Normans do not like it, but they will hold to their master whatever he does and indeed his courage cannot be denied. Some of us followed the army to see what would happen. We thought they might die in the snow, not knowing the land, but the King kept all together, he put strength into every man and on the march he often walked with them, and carried other men’s arms as well as his own when they grew weary. He was once lost in the hills and we hoped we might take him, but we could not find him, and then he walked into their camp with but four knights with him. Oh, he is a great man and much to be feared, for he is without mercy now. He says that after this no man will dare to rebel.’

  Richard de Rules had come to stand with them and he had been listening to the talk. He saw the hatred, the loathing in their faces. Yet he saw also the indomitable figure of William walking through the snow, encouraging the faint-hearted and the weary, always a leader a man might trust. But to these men here the King was a bloodstained conqueror. He saw murder in their faces, there were angry mutterings and one man came towards him, the curved knife they called a seax in his hand.

  ‘No,’ Waltheof said sharply, ‘leave him alone.’

  The man fell back and Richard opened his mouth to speak, closed it again and let his hands fall to his sides. He went back to his tent.

  Presently Waltheof came in to find him. He felt sick and weary, nauseated by all that he had heard, and at the moment Richard was more Norman than friend.

  ‘You call him lord,’ he said bitterly, ‘but I tell you he has earned the hatred of all Englishmen as never before.’

  Richard leaned his chin on his folded hands. ‘I cannot excuse what he has done now. I can only tell you that in all the years I have known him I have been proud of William’s justice. He does not kill fallen enemies, that is not his way. But once before, at Alençon when men rebelled wantonly, he punished them in a manner to strike terror into them all. Handless and footless they went, the men of Alençon, and yet because of it all the rebels at Domfront and other places yielded. The Duke spared life and limb then and no more blood was shed.’

  Waltheof sat down on a stool. ‘Are you trying to justify what he is doing?’

  ‘No, but he is my master and will always be so, and . . .’ Richard added with a touch of defiance, ‘if it ends rebellion there will be no more blood lost here either. We have drenched the land with it, but this will make an end.’ He leaned forward, his hand on Waltheof s arm. ‘Believe me, my friend, for I will still call you so whatever you may think of me, peace is what I want. This country is mine now and I want no more fighting. Do not hate me for what William has done.’

  Waltheof sighed. ‘I do not hate you. But when I think of what is being done out there . . .’

  ‘Yield yourself,’ Richard urged him. ‘You will find William merciful I am sure of that. You heard what that fellow said of William’s courage – he admires it in others too. If I could persuade you . . .’

  Waltheof got up. ‘I must make up my own mind.’

  But at the moment he did not know what he would do. He went out through the camp, feeling every man’s eyes on him, aware of their trust, knowing that they would follow him whatever he chose to do. They sat disconsolately by their fires, huddled against the chill wind, rough tents of skin and any other shelter they might make rigged against the winter cold. One man was blowing on his fingers as he played at draughts, another making some sort of meal in a cooking pot, another polishing his axe, all trying to make the weary hours pass. They looked up as he went by, watching him expectantly and he felt the weight of their trust as he left the camp behind, to walk alone by the bank of the river in the biting wind, the ground like iron beneath his feet, the thin reeds stiff, the ice cracking where he trod. He could think of nothing but the ghastly pictures conjured up by the Northumbrian’s tales – the torture of a land, of a people, of the wholly innocent.

  Snatches of prayer broke from him. If only God would show him what to do – surely He would have mercy on this stricken country? He was utterly perplexed, his mind a whirling chaos. Was this terrible visitation a punishment? Was God so angry that He even scoured St Cuthbert’s land with His anger? Lord God, aid! St Guthlac, pray for us! He repeated the words over and over, his hands clasping and unclasping as he walked – but there was no answer, only silence and the wind and the sound of the ice moving at the edge of the freezing river.

  There was a little oratory set on a projection of land where the river widened into the sea. He had been here often in the last weeks and to this he directed his steps now. It was a lost lonely place where a hermit priest lived in a wattle hut next to the tiny chapel dedicated to that saint of the islands and the sea, Aiden of Lindisfarne.

  Osmund the priest was making a thin soup of dried peas and beans. He looked up and was about to speak but seeing the expression on the Earl’s face he said nothing, but merely watched him with a deep compassion on his lined face.

  Waltheof ducked his head and had to bend almost double to enter the low door of the oratory; it was very small, scarcely more than ten feet long, with a stone altar and a plain stone cross, curiously carved. He cast himself down before it, full length on the beaten earth floor, his head on his arms. There was no refuge but God and he lay there, every ounce of spiritual strength summoned in Supplication.

  He did not hear the priest enter nor see the old man sign a Benedicat over his head.

  * * *

  The next day Osgood returned, bringing with him Gospatric’s answer which he plainly misliked.

  ‘He bade me tell you, lord, that he sees no possibility of a good end now, and that if you submit yourself to the King he craves that you will do so also for him. He sends this ring that you may stand proxy for him.’

  Waltheof stood in silence, the heavy ring that he knew well lying in his palm. So Gospatric had not even the courage to come himself. His disgust rose that they should be of the same blood. ‘He will not come?’

  ‘No, lord,’ Osgood said in equal disdain. He said nothing of the hard words that had passed between him and his lord’s cousin when he had not hidden his anger that none of those who had met in Siward Barn’s manor remained with the Earl now. ‘He has sent his wife and children to Scotland and is following them with all speed. He says if you decide to flee he will see you at King Malcolm’s court.’

  Waltheof’s lip curled. ‘Did he think I would?’

  ‘It seems not, lord, for he insisted I brought the ring.’

  It was the final blow. If his own cousin who had led the attack on York with him could not stand by him in this then there was nothing further to be done. The idea of flight he had never considered. He could not, would not live on foreign soil. But what was the alternative?

  He saw Richard de Rules looking anxiously at him. De Rules wanted him to surrender, he knew that, for the Norman saw an England in which both sides intermingled and lived in amity, but as far as he was concerned this was a dream that his generation would hardly see. Yet it was his duty to
try to bring it about? Was it his duty to his own people to stay with them, to fight with word if with no other weapons for some sort of settlement for them? But would William permit him keep his freedom, let alone his earldom?

  Abruptly he swung on his heel and calling Thorkel over his shoulder strode away from the group.

  In stricken silence Hakon and Ulf watched them go.

  Then Hakon said viciously: ‘I could slit Gospatric’s throat. Couldn’t even he stay loyal?’

  Ulf looked cold and utterly miserable. Had he won his manhood only to have it end in a Norman prison, or in death? ‘Why did they all desert him? I would have died rather than leave him.’

  Hakon smiled a little. ‘You are a child still and do not know the selfish ways of men who think only of their own gain.’