The Conquest

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  There had been women available in Duke William's camp at Dives; a whole industry had been built up around servicing the needs of the large contingent of mercenary soldiers and keeping them happy in the field. Sometimes Rolf had availed himself of their sweaty charms – there had been a particularly athletic, if pungent fisher-girl at Dives, but for the most part he had practised abstinence. While Rolf had a weakness for women, it seldom extended to the sluts and harlots in the army's tail.

  He smiled and kissed her because that was what she expected, and followed her into the keep. A portion of his brain kept up a sensible conversation with Arlette while the rest busied itself itemising all the things that had to be done before the morning when the destrier herd would continue its journey to St Valery-sur-Somme.

  Arlette had prepared a farewell feast. He could see her hand at work in all the little fripperies and garnishes adorning the fare. There were a lot of small, dainty morsels and very little that could be heartily attacked. Concealing his irritation, Rolf sat down in his carved chair. His chaplain blessed the food, although Rolf doubted the ritual would make the fare any more substantial, and having muttered their 'amens' everyone began to eat.

  Rolf engaged himself in conversation with Tancred, his overseer, who was to have sole charge of the herds at Brize for the next two months at least. Tancred was a cheerful, able man in early middle age. He was also one of Rolf's vassals, and had a hall and lands of his own six miles away at Fauville-sur-Risle. He had risen to his status of senior overseer by dint of hard work and a natural talent with horses, which was rewarded by a ten per cent share in the price of each horse that Rolf sold. He was a widower with a ten-year-old son whom he intended to inherit this lucrative post in the fullness of time.

  'Where's young Mauger tonight?' Rolf looked around for Tancred's sturdy, blond-haired shadow. His overseer took the boy everywhere with him, showing him how things were done, teaching and explaining relentlessly.

  'He's gone with one of the grooms to see the horse herd and look at the camp fires. I'm joining them later, but I knew you'd want to see me first.' Tancred smiled. 'The lad was that excited when you all arrived. It's not something he'll see twice in a lifetime.'

  'No,' Rolf agreed with a slightly more rueful smile of his own, and settled down to discuss the mundane but necessary details which would ensure the smooth running of the stud during the coming months. Arlette might have preferred more delicate conversation on this last night than covering mares and selling yearlings, but Rolf was bound by the limits of diminishing time, not by his sensibilities, or more to the point, by hers.

  In the private chamber above the hall, Rolf eased his sword from its scabbard and held it up to the candlelight. Fingers wrapped around the leather grip, he swung the weapon and felt the power leave his arm and enter the steel. What would it be like to strike out at an enemy in battle? To know it was kill or be killed? He had been involved in minor skirmishes when called upon by the Duke to perform his obligatory forty days of military service, but he had never gone further than perfunctory blows and vigorous spear waving. During the month at Dives-sur-Mer there had been plenty of opportunity to train and he had taken full advantage, setting out to learn as much as he could about the Danish war axes he would be facing across the narrow sea. He had even bought one from a mercenary who claimed to have killed its former owner. The curving blade, mounted upon a haft of ash wood five feet long, gleamed viciously at him from a corner of the room.

  Rolf sheathed his sword, propped it against his long kite shield and hefted the axe instead. It was much heavier than the sword, far less easy to control and more tiring to wield, but once a rhythm was established, the increasing speed of the whirling axe, up and round and down, meant certain death for anyone who stood in its path. Mail was no protection. The only defence was agility and a fast spear. Spreading his legs, Rolf swung the axe and imagined himself on a battlefield.

  Arlette entered the chamber and screamed. Abruptly she stifled the sound against the back of her hand, but it was too late, and their baby daughter awoke in her cradle and started to howl as if giving vent to her own battle cry.

  Feeling guilty and irritated, Rolf lowered the axe, and then set it down with his other weapons.

  'Can't you keep those things in the armoury?' Arlette demanded as she stooped over the cradle and lifted Gisele out.

  'Everything has to be checked. I have to make sure that nothing is weak or damaged.'

  Arlette sniffed. 'Let a servant do it.' She rocked the baby in her arms. 'It's all right, poupelet, Mama's here, Mama's here.'

  'Would you trust a servant with my life?'

  She said nothing, but he saw the pain grow in her large, grey eyes.

  'I always check my weapons myself, you know that.'

  'Yes, Rolf, I'm sorry. I just don't like to see them in our chamber on the eve before you go to war.'

  'I've finished now anyway.' He took his winter cloak from its peg on the wall and threw it over the weaponry. He wished that she had not seen him with the axe.

  'Thank you,' she said with a shaky sigh of relief.

  He shrugged and came to look over her shoulder while she tucked the baby back in her cradle. The child was already Arlette's replica in both looks and mannerisms: the same martyr's grey eyes, the same silver-brown hair. Of himself he could detect nothing. The infant's eyelids drooped. 'Mama,' she said softly as her eyelids closed.

  Rolf stared at his wife. She returned his bold look with a darting glance, and blushed. His scrutiny descended to the rapid rise and fall of her small breasts beneath the blue robe. He cupped one in his hand, seeking the tender peak of her nipple, and lowered his lips to the rapid pulse in her soft, white throat. His other hand caught her by the haunches and pulled her against the urgent warmth of his crotch.

  Arlette gasped and pushed at him. 'Rolf, not here, Gisele might wake up again!'

  'Damn Gisele!' he muttered through his teeth. Arlette went rigid in his arms. For a single moment Rolf contemplated throwing her on the floor beside the cradle and taking her whether she willed it or not. Not once in their seven-year marriage had he succeeded in winning a spontaneous response from his wife. Her mother had told her that men were beasts in their lust for copulation, and Arlette had embraced that belief so early in her life that now it was an irrevocable facet of her character. The occasions that she did respond to his lovemaking were always marked by a visit to the confessional on the following day.

  The moment's threat of violence passed. Resisting the temptation to prove her beliefs right by ravishing her where she stood, he led her by the hand to their bed.

  In the morning, Rolf attended mass in the village church of Brize-sur-Risle and then departed to break his fast at one of the camp fires in the fields by the river meadow.

  'Do you not wish to eat in the hall?' Arlette asked, the disappointment huge in her eyes.

  Rolf shook his head. 'Much as I would enjoy your company, I have too much to do in the field.' He sugared the lie with a kiss, which ended prematurely as he saw a young knight walk past, his hand on his sword hilt. 'Ho, Richard, wait a minute, I want a word about that new horse of yours!'

  The touch of Rolf's lips still tingling on hers, Arlette watched her husband run to catch up with Richard FitzScrob, one of the knights helping to escort the destrier herd to St Valery. Rolf's hair shone a bright, autumn-red against the grey of the September sky. She heard him laugh and saw him slap FitzScrob's shoulder with a slender, energetic hand. His stride was long and arrogant, his blue cloak swirled, revealing a flash of yellow lining as the two men mounted up and rode away together in the direction of the river.

  Ever since Duke William had fixed his mind upon taking the English crown away from Harold Godwinson, Rolf had been acting as if there was a demon in his brain. For weeks on end he had been absent, inspecting and purchasing horseflesh, making plans to transport the animals across the narrow sea, his expertise avidly sought. There was no room in his life for anything else.
r />   Arlette was miserably aware that the more she tried to hold onto him, the further he slipped from her grasp. He said that she was his place of safe anchor, but it was difficult to watch him yearning to be gone from her harbour and to know that he might never return.

  She thought of the urgency of his lovemaking last night, of the weak pleasure that had flooded her limbs as he moved within her. Sometimes, despite what the priests and her mother had taught her about such feelings being the work of the devil, her body would respond unbidden and she would have to stifle her cries against her hand, or compress her lips. Last night had been such an occasion. Even to think of it now softened her loins. Arlette tightened her jaw and quickened her pace.

  As she made to enter the hall, two squires emerged bearing some items of Rolf's baggage. The second youth wore Rolf's shield on his back, slung from its long strap. In one hand he carried a spear; in the other he gripped the Danish war axe.

  Brought face to face with the weapon once more, Arlette knew that it was a portent. She stared with revulsion at the gleaming, curved blade. The squire stood aside to let her pass, and as she did so, it seemed that she felt the cold touch of the axe across the back of her neck.

  In the hall by the fire, Berthe, the wet nurse, was suckling Gisele. Keeping them company was Berthe's great-grandmother Ragnild. No-one knew how old Ragnild was, but by general reckoning, she had seen at least fourscore winters. She had once been the village midwife, but swollen joints and the general debility of advancing years had put an end to that occupation more than five years ago. Her mind, however, was still as sharp as the knife she had once used to sever umbilical cords, and the villagers continued to seek her out for advice, for herbal remedies, and because she could read the runes.

  Normally Arlette would not have dreamed of consulting Ragnild about anything, for it went against all the teachings of the Church, but today she was in sore need, and her state of grace was already smirched by last night's abandon.

  Walking directly to the fire, she stood before the old woman. 'I want you to read the rune stones for me,' she demanded without preamble.

  Ragnild sucked her gums. Her skin was as wrinkled as oak bark and her eyes were so deeply set that they looked like small caverns sunk in weathered stone. 'And what would you be wanting with the pagan old ways, mistress?' she asked. Her voice was cracked, but its depths held the remains of a once alluring huskiness.

  'Please, I will pay you well.' Ill at ease, Arlette unpinned her silver cloak brooch and put it in the old woman's misshapen claw. 'There is something I have to know.'

  'And praying on your knees will not give you the answer, hmmm?' Ragnild gave a wheezy chuckle in which there was more than a hint of malice. Berthe joined in until the old woman rounded on her. 'Go and suckle the child elsewhere, you useless slut. Me and my lady has business together.' She stowed the brooch in her pouch, and brought forth a small drawstring bag. Glowering, Berthe left the fire and went to sit at a trestle table on the other side of the fire.

  Arlette looked round the hall and shifted from foot to foot. Already she was beginning to regret the impulse that had made her speak to Ragnild.

  'Rest easy, my lady, no-one's looking, they're all too busy this morning. It won't take but a moment.' Ragnild blinked up at Arlette through the twirling hearth smoke. 'What's your question?'

  Arlette licked her lips and clutched her cloak together at the throat where the clasp had held it. 'Lord Rolf, will he be safe?'

  Ragnild smiled contemptuously and shook a score of bleached white stones onto the hard earth floor at the side of the hearth. Each stone bore an angular rune and she leaned over the pattern in which they had fallen, squinting shortsightedly, the edges of her dirty linen wimple concealing her face from Arlette's view.

  'Well?' said Arlette nervously as the silence stretched out.

  'Pick up the stones for me, daughter, my hands are none too nimble,' Ragnild commanded in a softer voice than she had thus far used. Its lack of vinegar filled Arlette with foreboding and she hastened to do Ragnild's bidding.

  'What is it, tell me!'

  Ragnild shook her head. 'Peace, wait a moment. You have the stones in your hand? Now, throw them again, yourself.'

  Arlette tossed them, and watched them land, their pattern more scattered this time. Ragnild hung over them, her breath hissing between her lips. 'You ask me if your husband will be safe,' she crooned. 'The runes say that Odin's ravens will glut themselves on many battlefields in the months to come, but that they shall not feed on the flesh of Brize-sur-Risle.'

  Arlette was flooded with relief and actually found herself smiling at the revolting old woman. 'Then he will come back to me?'

  Ragnild's leathery face was impassive. 'He will come back to you, mistress.'

  Arlette gathered up the runes and hastily returned them to their grubby linen bag. Now that Ragnild had given her reassurance, she wanted desperately to escape from her.

  'They say our Duke has moved harbours to be closer to English soil,' Ragnild muttered as Arlette turned away. 'Beware lest others do the same. The axe will chop the mooring rope clean in twain.'

  But Arlette did not hear, for the priest had entered the hall, seeking to break his fast, and she was already hurrying towards him as if towards a haven.

  Rolf was dining on bread, cold sausage and watered wine at one of the camp fires when he saw a dishevelled, exhausted-looking Aubert de Remy join the host and gratefully take a cup and a portion of food from the soldier in charge of the provisions. Excusing himself from present company, Rolf hurried over to the travel-weary merchant.

  'You are haunting me.' Beneath his smile, Rolf's curiosity was as sharp as a knife.

  Aubert returned the smile in a preoccupied fashion and took a gulp of the wine. 'I wish I had the time,' he groaned wearily. 'It was long after dark when I rode in last night, and I plan to be well ahead of your horse convoy by dusk. One of your grooms is saddling me a remount even now.' He rubbed his buttocks. 'God, my arse has more callouses than a leather-worker's palm!'

  'You are bound for St Valery then?'

  Aubert nodded and looked at Rolf from beneath his frizzy grey brows. 'I sailed into Dives last night on a Flemish trader. The narrow sea is empty; Harold has disbanded his fleet and sent his southern troops home. He hasn't been able to keep them provisioned in the field.'

  'It was anticipated.' Rolf felt slightly cheated. Although it was good news, it was expected, and the tension in Aubert's manner had led him to believe that something more spectacular was afoot. 'So now we pray for a southerly wind.'

  'There is more.' Aubert glanced round and lowered his voice. 'Harold might have disbanded one army, but he's gathering a fresh one on the march even as we speak. I have heard that the Norwegians have landed in the north of England. King Harald Hardraada has put forward his own claim to the English crown, and Harold's rebel brother Tostig is with him.'

  The Scandinavian element in itself was no surprise. In Normandy it had long been known that the King of Norway also desired to be the King of England, but that he should attack now, aided by Tostig Godwinson, put a new twist on the thread. Thoughtfully Rolf drained his wine. 'So when we land on England's shore, we may not have the English to face, but the Norwegians.'

  'Yes.'

  Rolf's spirits lightened. The odds against Norman success were considerably diminished by Aubert's news. 'Whatever happens can only be to our advantage,' he said. 'Our army will be coming fresh to the fight, and whoever wins, Harold or Hardraada, he will have taken a softening punishment from the other side.'

  Aubert nodded. 'And the winner will also have to march south to meet our army — providing that the winds allow us to sail and we don't all founder in mid-channel.'

  A groom led a chestnut courser up to the camp fire and tugged his forelock to Aubert. Aubert acknowledged him and groaned once more. 'I never want to see a saddle or the sea again after these last few days,' he complained as he finished his food in two swift bites. Wiping his hands
on his chausses, he reached for the bridle.

  Rolf chuckled. 'God speed you on your way, and may it not be too rough on your backside!'

  Grimacing, Aubert gingerly lifted himself into the saddle. Adjusting his stirrups, he suddenly paused and looked at Rolf. 'Felice is still in England,' he said sombrely.

  'Could you not get her away?'

  'She is with child, Rolf, and not carrying well. I did think about it, but if she had made the journey home with me, she would likely have miscarried and perhaps died. You know how dangerous these matters can be.'

  Rolf knew that Aubert had resigned himself to the fact that Felice was barren. To have it proven otherwise, to know that she was at such risk must be devastating. Aubert adored his vivacious, dark-eyed wife. She was his pride and joy. 'I am sorry to hear it,' he said gravely. 'So she is still in London?'

  Aubert fiddled with the leather stirrup strap. 'I am afraid that she is, and I am known for a spy there. My Saxon neighbour, the armourer — he and his wife have taken Felice to the convent of St Aethelburga for refuge, but I know that Harold has set a watch on the place lest I should go there seeking my wife. I would go to her if I could, but what use would I be to Felice and the child as a corpse?' He sighed heavily and, straightening in the saddle, drew on the rein to turn his horse around. 'I tell you, after this campaign, I am never going to be other than a simple wine merchant ever again!' Saluting Rolf, he guided the chestnut around the camp fire, and urged him into a trot.

  Rolf rubbed the back of his neck and watched him leave, glad that he had no such burdens of his own to bear. River mist smoked around the horse's forelegs with ghostly effect. A blood-red sun pierced the dampness of the autumn morning and splashed mount and rider with ruddy gold. When they were out of sight, he turned back to the camp fire, and gave the command to begin moving out.