Of the Ring of Earls (Conqueror Trilogy Book 1)

by Juliet Dymoke

  Bors came and sat by his master’s feet, his head on his paws, his yellow eyes watchful, but his lord did not bend to caress him as usual. It grew cold in the hall and Outy laid a mantle about the Earl’s shoulders. Judith was nowhere to be seen. Men spread out their pallets, but none slept; the light went and someone lit a rush dip. Waltheof had his head on his hand, looking down at the still face, the blood washed away now, only the bruises livid on the white skin.

  About midnight there was the sound of many hooves and his men came into the hall, Thorkel and Osgood and Hakon, followed by the men-at-arms, every one carrying spoil of some kind.

  They paused on the threshold and then the three came down the hall, looked down at the dead boy and crossed themselves.

  Waltheof said, ‘Is it done?’

  Osgood answered in grim satisfaction. ‘Aye, lord, it’s done. .The nest is cleared out, none live – only Cnut as you ordered.’

  Waltheof felt a muscle on his cheek quivering. ‘Only – only Cnut?’

  Hakon knelt in tears, his eyes on Ulf’s face. ‘I wish we could tell him he is avenged.’

  Only Thorkel said nothing. There was a white anguish in his face, not only for Ulf but for his lord and for what had been done in his name.

  Waltheof rose and went, unseeing, to the door of his chamber. It was open and he went in, shutting it behind him and leaning his back against it. He was drawing deep breaths as if he were half suffocated.

  Judith sat on the bed, her fingers gripped tightly together. ‘I did not know,’ she said, ‘I swear I did not know there was any danger.’

  He looked at her and did not seem to hear. At last he said, ‘I have done a terrible thing.’

  There were two high spots of colour in her cheeks. ‘But you have avenged the boy, and Earl Edwin. Those men deserved to die.’

  For the first time he looked directly at her, and he might have been staring at a stranger. ‘I have besmirched my honour – a thing I never did before.’

  Her colour deepened. He turned from her and cast himself down on the bed, his face buried in the bearskin. When she reached out a hand to touch him he did not move.

  Two days later they buried Ulf in St Olaf’s church in York, near the stone which covered Earl Siward’s remains.

  No one in that household could fail to see that relations were strained between the Earl and Countess. Meals became somewhat silent affairs; the Earl busied himself about the affairs in York, leaving his lady to her own devices, and there was an air of oppression over all.

  Waltheof himself could hardly have explained his own feelings, but the death of Ulf lay between them like a great gulf and neither could bridge it. Yet he longed to share the burden he bore with her – not only his grief at the death of Ulf who had been entrusted to him, but at the revenge, the bloody, devastating, and overwhelming revenge for which he would never cease to castigate himself.

  Once in despair he had gone to her, and kneeling beside her laid his head in her lap. ‘Judith, help me. I cannot live with myself.’

  She had said, ‘Why do you fret? Those men got their desserts.’

  In wonder at her lack of perception, he answered, ‘Do you think I am speaking of desserts?’

  ‘Men in high places must do hard deeds,’ she replied and he thought of William and was not comforted. He wanted gentleness and understanding; instead she thought him foolish to be concerned over men who were known despoilers and murderers. She could not see that their guilt had become only incidental to the inner conflict.

  He confessed himself to Walcher of Durham, but the Bishop, not perhaps surprisingly, seemed to think it a matter for congratulation rather than otherwise that the house of Carl would no longer attack his money wagons. So he laid a heavy penance on himself and the phrase, ‘Deliver us from blood-guiltiness, O Lord,’ ran in his head day and night, haunting him.

  Once Thorkel said, ‘My dear lord, you – we – must put it behind us. Worse deeds have been done by better men.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but none of you is to blame. It is I who must answer for it and God Himself knows how black a thing it is that I have done.’

  He slept badly, haunted by ill dreams and for a long time did not seek the comfort of Judith’s body. She lay beside him at night, equally strained, too proud to hold out her arms to him, too arrogant to see why he suffered.

  At last, three weeks after Ulf’s burial, when he had been holding an open air court for local grievances, he was still standing by the table, listening to his reeve, when a solitary rider came through the gate. It was Cnut Carlson.

  Waltheof looked at him and did not know what to say. Several of his men, including Thorkel, came to stand beside him, fearing Cnut meant him some harm. But one look at Cnut’s pale strained face left no suspicion of evil.

  He dismounted and came across to where the Earl stood. For a long while they looked at each other.

  It was Cnut who spoke first. ‘I think, my lord, you are blaming yourself more than I who have better cause.’ Waltheof waved his hand to the men about him to leave them to talk privately. ‘You have cause to hate me indeed.’ Cnut sighed. ‘I told you long ago the feud was none of my wishing. If I could have healed it I would. But Magnus ran on his end as a man on his own sword – the others too.’

  Waltheof sat down suddenly. ‘And what of you?’

  ‘I?’ Cnut smiled faintly. ‘I am doing what I should have done a long time ago. I am going to the monks on Lindisfarne, I shall take the tonsure there.’

  Waltheof stared down at his clasped hands. ‘Christ bade us pray for our enemies. Pray for me sometimes, if you can.’

  The last of the sons of Carl sat down beside him. ‘I know you, Earl Waltheof, and I know what must run in your head now. That is why I have come. You are not my enemy – the fault was ours for plundering your manors and for what we did to your man, though God knows I tried to stop them.’

  ‘I know. Ulf told me that before he died.’

  Cnut sighed. ‘For all that has happened I will spend the rest of my life in prayer and penance, but I wanted to see you before I abandoned the world, to tell you that it is over.’

  ‘Over!’ Waltheof repeated and shuddered. ‘Our great-grandfathers began it – now there has been blood enough to satisfy. It is over.’

  Cnut rose. ‘I must go. I want to reach Pickering by nightfall.’ He held out his hand and Waltheof took it.

  After Cnut had gone, he sat for a long time by the table still spread with its parchments. But presently he called Thorkel to him and told him to prepare the household for travel as soon as possible. Siward’s mantle had proved a weight upon him and he had a sudden urgent longing for Ryhall. Only there, in the familiar woods and fields, by the little river, might he find peace again.

  CHAPTER 3

  On an April afternoon in the year 1075, the King of England, attended only by his Chamberlain, Richard de Rules, entered his solar in Winchester palace, his face flushed, his step vigorous. With his growing tendency towards corpulence he took exercise and hunted even more than had been his usual custom.

  The Archbishop of Canterbury sat at the table, writing. He was nearing seventy now, his grey hair sparse on his domed forehead, but he was as upright and alert as ever, his keen mind dealing energetically with affairs of both Church and State, the King’s first man in England.

  William flung himself down in his chair. ‘The stag,’ he said, ‘is the most beautiful creature God ever made.’

  Lanfranc looked up with a faint, amused smile. ‘Why then, my son, do you hunt it so eagerly?’

  ‘Why?’ William stretched and flexed his muscles, ‘Because man was born to hunt. We have the instinct. Why did God give us that instinct if He did not wish us to use it?’

  Lanfranc laughed outright. ‘I shall not enter on a disputation with you, but that is the most nonsensical piece of illogic and well you know it.’

  William’s smile broadened as he caught Richard’s eye. ‘Perhaps it is – not all our instinct
s are good, eh? But no one shall harm my beauties. While they live they shall roam free in my forests. By the way I have brought you a calf, my lord. The hind was shot in error and I could not leave the creature howling, so I brought it back across my saddle bow. I am minded to give it to you.’

  ‘To me? Why, what should I do with a calf?’ the Archbishop enquired in surprise.

  ‘Well, you might let one of the kitchen maids feed it until it can wander in your woods at Canterbury, or you could slay it and let your monks feast themselves for once. You are strict enough with them, and Lent is over now.’

  Lanfranc laid down his pen and set his fingertips together. ‘I see you are in a jolly mood, my son. What has made you so light-hearted today?’

  William jerked his head towards the table where wine cups were set out and Richard filled one for him. ‘I am not too old for the sap to rise in me when the spring comes, and tomorrow I return to Normandy and my Queen whom I have not seen since All Saints tide. God knows my enemies are busy on my borders there, but for the while there seems to be peace here so I am free to go and take the best part of my army with me.’

  Lanfranc gave him a shrewd glance. ‘I think, William my lord, that Normandy will ever be your home, not England. Well, you may go with an easy mind. The north is quiet thanks to Bishop Walcher and Earl Waltheof and no other danger threatens, but there is one small matter needing your attention. It concerns Roger FitzOsbern.’

  ‘Roger? I thought he was behaving himself since you were forced to excommunicate him. Was his penance not sincere?’

  ‘I believed it to be so, that is why I readmitted him to the Sacraments. But he is wild and he needs curbing.’

  ‘He is not like his father,’ the King said abruptly. ‘My cousin William even in his grass-time was not so plain foolish as Roger. I think his title and his new lands have gone to his head. What has he done this time?’

  ‘Nothing, I am glad to say. No, this concerns his sister, the lady Emma. He would wed her to Ralph of Norfolk.’ William raised an eyebrow. ‘To the Staller? I did not know they had aught in common.’

  ‘Perhaps little but a desire for power and high place,’ Lanfranc said acutely. ‘They have been visiting each other this past year.’

  ‘Then forbid the match. I’ll not foment ambition in my barons.’

  Lanfranc gazed down at his fingertips. ‘On the contrary, my son, permit it and you will achieve your end in either of two ways. The lady Emma is a girl of character so she may calm two restless spirits – or if they plan some mischief this union will bring it to a head and we may quash it the quicker.’

  William gave a short laugh. ‘As usual you are right. You see quickly to the heart of any matter. Very well – write to Roger and sanction the match but bid him watch himself. Tell him that not even for the love I bore his father will I spare him if he runs against me.’ He glanced up at his Chamberlain. ‘Well, my friend, I will not press you to come to Normandy if you wish to see to your lands. You have not been to Deeping since last year.’

  ‘I thank you, beau sire,’ Richard answered readily. ‘I would go there if you can spare me.’

  William regard him thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Speaking of bridals it is time that you had a wife in your hall. There are a dozen girls at my court whom I could suggest to you.’

  Richard inclined his head. ‘I am grateful for your interest, sire, in truth I have been thinking of this myself. Perhaps when you return . . .’

  ‘Instincts again,’ William said smiling. ‘The spring gets in our blood, eh? Well, we will discuss it when I come back. You must make yourself a nursery full of children as I have done, though mine are not all blessings for they fight all day long. I never knew such a rabble for quarrelling and the Saints alone know what they will do when they are men and I am gone.’ He rose, calling for his page. ‘I leave everything in your hands, Archbishop. You have Richard here, de Warenne and my brothers Odo and Mortain to aid you. As for you, Richard, look to your wooing, and carry my greetings to my niece. Bid her bear a lusty son this time to rule her lands.’ In high good humour he went out leaving his Archbishop and his Chamberlain looking amusedly at each other.

  A few moments later the page returned bearing in his arms a small bleating calf.

  Richard began to laugh while Lanfranc looked at it in some exasperation. William’s jokes were rare and usually unpredictable.

  ‘And what,’ he asked, ‘am I to do with that?’ He got up and with a thin finger stroked the silky head.

  It was May before Richard discharged all his duties and was free to ride to Deeping. In Peterborough, purchasing some spurs that took his fancy in the market place, he encountered Thorkel Skallason and they walked together apart from the crowds.

  ‘My lord will be glad to see you back,’ Thorkel said. ‘It is a long time since you were here.’

  ‘How is he?’

  The Icelander was silent for a while, his eyes on the busy colourful crowd wandering between the stalls in the market. ‘Changed,’ he said at last, ‘since that business in Northumbria near two years ago.’

  ‘I know he blamed himself for that. He told me of it last summer. Ulf was dear to him.’

  ‘And the Countess sent the boy to his death.’

  ‘Unwittingly, surely?’

  Thorkel did not answer and Richard went on, ‘Anyway it is all past now. I’ve seen worse feuds and blood lettings patched up within a week in Normandy.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ .Thorkel agreed, ‘but he is changed for all that. Nothing has been the same since. I think the revenge he took is the one thing in all his life which has shamed him. And the Countess . . .’

  ‘Yes, what of her?’

  The Icelander hesitated, his pale eyes absorbed, searching. ‘I don’t know, but that too is not what it was. Perhaps the flame burned too high.’

  And you wish he had never wed her, Richard thought. He asked, ‘And now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Thorkel repeated. ‘You have heard she is pregnant again?’

  ‘Aye. Is the birth expected soon?’

  ‘Within the month. Please God it will be a boy this time. I think that would make things better for my lord.’ He shut his mouth hard on the last words as if he wished he had not said them, and Richard did not press him further. It was easy enough to guess at all that lay beneath the remark.

  They rode together to Ryhall to find that the Earl had sent Judith to Northampton, the house she preferred, for her lying-in, planning to follow her himself in a few days. He was out when they arrived but Outy told them he would return shortly and poured ale for Richard while he waited in the small homely hall.

  Away in the meadows, deep with lush grass and the first buttercups, where the red and white hawthorn flowers filled the air with their sweet scent, Waltheof was walking alone, and as he walked he prayed for the son they both desired so much. If it was a boy, he thought, he would name him Siward for his father. He would teach him to ride and hunt and fish and care for the things of earth as he did.

  He had snatched a few extra days in this place that he loved for it was Maytime, and as he sat by the river watching the slow-flowing water he let the beauty possess him, absorbing the life, the colours all about him. He was more thrown in upon himself these days and sought solitude as he had not done before. There had always been an inherent understanding between himself and Thorkel but now loyalty forbade him to discuss his wife with anyone. Before even his closest friends he must maintain his usual geniality and it was only when he was alone like this that he dared let his thoughts have free course, admit the ache in his heart. The old passion still flared between them, but he realised now that he had known nothing of Judith, the real woman, during those halcyon months in Normandy. A few snatched meetings and he was desperately in love with a sloe-eyed girl whose beauty turned his head. Now he knew her, saw clearly that she was of William’s blood with many of his characteristics; that from him she had received that streak of ruthlessness, the passionate nature ruled by a coo
l head, and what to her husband was compassion, friendship, warmth, was to Judith mere weakness.

  Since the affair in York she had not dared to disobey him but in a dozen subtle ways she made her will known, constantly reproving him for too gentle dealings, and he remembered that night at Aldby when he had first been afraid of losing her – because he had so much. He had lived through the killing time when so many Englishmen were laid beneath their own earth, he had led a rebellion against the greatest soldier in Christendom, fought for his lands and instead of losing them and his life into the bargain he had kept everything and won the bride of his choice. Now there was a cold fear in his very soul, a fear that he might be asked to pay a good measure, shaken down and running over, for all that he had had.