On 24 October in the year of Christ 1055, the King’s nephew, Earl Ralf, had drawn his army into battle formation two miles from the border town of Hereford. Facing him, the combined forces of Ælfgar’s mercenaries purchased from Ireland and the full ferocity of the Welsh. Before a single spear had been thrown, the Anglo– French cavalry that Ralf had taken so much pride in assembling had taken one horrified look at the mass of Celtic and Danish warriors, and fled. The Welsh that day had slaughtered almost five hundred of Hereford’s remaining defenders, among them Ralf de Mantes, and then, before autumn darkness forced them to retreat homewards, had sacked the town with a glut lust of killing and looting.
Before the doors of the Cathedral of Saint Æthelberht the clergy were murdered, their throats cut as they vainly attempted to defend the sanctity of their church; the building was plundered, desecrated and set to the torch. Women and children who had not been able to flee were defiled and taken into slavery, the old men butchered. Such was Gruffydd’s Welsh hatred and Ælfgar’s English desire for revenge.
Beginning to rely on Harold as his second-in-command Edward summoned his Earl of Wessex to raise an immediate army. With the practised and organised expertise of the English administrative system, the fyrds of Gloucestershire, Devonshire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Sussex, Shropshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire joined the survivors of Herefordshire at Gloucester. As the burnished golds and flaming reds of autumn trees began to be tossed aside by the bluster of the first frost-tainted winter winds, Harold led the army across the river Severn and entered Wales. Only to find that the Welsh, with their accumulated booty of livestock, slaves and treasure, had faded into the rain-misted hills, the sole sign of their passing the trampled, winter-wet ground.
For three days Harold sat encamped with his men, scouts returning as dusk descended with dispirited, cheerless faces, cold and sodden to the bone. Nothing. No sign of occupied habitation or human life, only the track of hare, fox and deer, the plaintive cry of a solitary buzzard. Though eyes had been watching for certain.
Did they chance moving further into unknown territory and, undoubtedly, a laid trap? Or retreat? Harold did not much like the latter choice, but common sense was a powerful persuader. The army could advance, shambling around those cursed hills, become weaker from lack of food, dispirited by overtiredness, never seeing the ambushes until the death sting of an arrow or spear announced their hidden presence. How deep into Wales would Gruffydd dare lead them? For how long would he play his taunting waiting game?
No, Harold was not a man to fight in fruitless circumstances; the fyrd were only obliged to muster for so many consecutive days of a year, their commitment ought not be pointlessly wasted. Men’s lives were too precious to squander on a face-saving disregard for practicality. Better to withdraw, attempt at suing for peace and wait for a more opportune moment to finish Gruffydd and his ally, the traitor Ælfgar.
Harold announced the order to break camp on the fourth morning. A heavy frost had hardened the ground overnight and the mature warmth of a late autumn was giving ground to winter’s bite. With relief, the fighting men of the fyrd began to make their way home. Harold marched into Hereford with his housecarls and a few chosen regiments, leaving a suitable number to protect their rear should Gruffydd decide to come out from hiding. What they met in that devastated town sickened every man.
They rode in silence through the battered gates, which had been fired and rammed. The horses were uneasy, flicking their ears and snorting at the clinging scent. Fire had spread so quickly among the timber, thatch-roofed buildings which were close-built, wall touching wall. Where once the market streets ran in straight-laid patterns, charred beams and broken houses and shops lay in a higgle-piggle of debris, the acrid pall belligerently lingering over and through everything.
Some of those fortunate ones who had fled at the first alarm had returned in ragged groups. Women and children stood or sat dazed and silent, watching, almost aimlessly, as Harold and his men rode by. One man, his clothes torn and dirtied, stood before a heap of soot-blackened timber, head bowed. He lifted his head as Harold reined in.
‘My wife was inside,’ he said. There was no emotion in his voice, his tone as blank as his eyes. ‘She was about the birthing of our fourth child. I had to leave her for the sake of the other childer.’
Harold nudged his stallion onwards, making no reply. What words could he offer? Words were futile – would they bring life back? Ease the horror, rebuild the devastation? As he rode, his fingers curled, tight, around the reins, his thoughts on Edyth and his own children. What choice would he have made? Abandon his woman to take the children to safety? Abandon them all to go, make a fight of it? Stay, and be killed with them? He swallowed hard to keep the vomit from rising higher into his throat, resisting the impulse to place his hand over nose and throat to mask the rancid smell of burnt flesh.
In the vicinity of the cathedral, virtually nothing was left standing. He dismounted slowly and stood, running his horse’s reins through his fingers, trying not to look but seeing all too much.
What remained of the clergymen was blackened and twisted, unidentifiable save for a single sandalled foot and a charred, eyeless and flesh-peeled skull. To the left, what had been a coppersmith’s shop – incongruous that, although fire-blistered and scorched, the painted sign of a copper jug still hung from a single standing post. Beneath, a pile of rubble. Harold turned away, closed his eyes, laid his forehead against his stallion’s crested neck. A hand showed from beneath the charred beams, the fingers clutching at empty air. Somehow the flames had barely touched it.
A young child’s pink and pudgy hand.
‘My Lord? What do you wish us to do?’ Brihtric Strongarm, Captain of Housecarls, spoke into Harold’s ear, his voice tight. Older than his earl by almost fifteen years, he had witnessed many atrocities and seen much death in battle, but he too had seen that hand . . .
‘He will answer for this, my friend,’ Harold vowed, clasping his fingers tight around Brihtric’s muscular forearm. ‘By God, I swear that Gruffydd will one day pay for this day’s work.’
‘And Ælfgar?’ the Captain asked, the quietness of his words betraying the rage that quivered in his throat and belly. ‘Did he not play his part?’
Harold made no answer, but his hand moving to grip the pommel of his sword spoke eloquently enough.
Little could be done for Hereford. Town folk salvaged what they could as they drifted back from their places of hiding, setting temporary shelters among the rubble and soot, finding unburnt wood to kindle fires for cooking and warmth. Harold’s men helped with the refortifying of the gates and the digging of a defensive ditch and earthworks. Some had wanted the cathedral cleared first, but Harold refused.
‘God has compassion for His children. He knows we must offer hope and shelter to the living first. The needs of the spirit can be taken care of later.’
He would see to it that corn and meal were sent to ease the immediate problem of hunger – from his own granaries if necessary. Word was sent also to the brothers from nearby monasteries to come and tend the sick and wounded. And, aye, do what they could for the shattered souls that needed to be cleansed of the horrors that had been witnessed.
6
Rouen – August 1056 Normandy was not at peace, but nearly so. While tempers rumbled over a miscellany of border quarrels, there was never any doubt now, after Val-ès-Dunes, Mortemar, Alençon and Domfront, that William’s position and title of duke could not be challenged. The great families who controlled the estates of the duchy might still vie for land, but were almost all entwined into William’s net of vassalage. He had not lost a single battle: to have the ‘luck of the Bastard’ was already a common-used phrase. To share in that luck by being one of his sworn men was rapidly becoming the prerogative of many an aspiring noble.
One issue remained to irritate William, one that was beyond his control to rectify. No manner of siege or warfare was going to set it aright; this requ
ired diplomacy, patience and tact, three traits that were notably absent from William’s authoritarian personality. Ralph de Tosny, while on a fashionable pilgrimage to Rome, had tried to help his lord, but he too had failed.
Duke William’s marriage to Mathilda of Flanders had been emphatically forbidden by Pope Leo, ninth of that name. He had married her anyway, through sheer obstinacy. The Pope was interfering in politics for reasons of his own and William liked it not.
Negotiation to lift Rome’s interdict moved with cumbersome slowness. De Tosny, a dutiful man of God, had attempted to contrive an interview with the Pope, but he had come from William and had not been granted audience.
With the toe of his boot, William kicked a log back on to the fire before it tumbled with a crackling belch of sparks and smoke from the edge. He had hoped that his new-found credibility after the victory at Mortemar might have influenced matters for the better. Apparently not.
‘So,’ he asked of Ralph, ‘in all other respects, your pilgrimage was successful?’
‘It was indeed, my Lord. Rome is a magnificent place. I could not begin to describe the splendours, the buildings, the history—’
‘Yet no doubt you will!’ Mathilda interrupted with a delightful laugh. ‘Your anecdotes will bore us grey-haired throughout the years to come. Whenever a wet day or deep snow keeps us confined to the hearth you will clear your throat and tell us of Rome.’
Eighteen years of age and Mathilda had blossomed into a wife any man would be eager to take to his bed. Short and inclined to plumpness – caused by an enjoyment of foods sweetened with honey and a dislike of exercise – she was nevertheless a handsome woman, with straight white teeth, fair skin and hair, and a quick, pleasing wit that flashed as bright as her sparkling eyes. The bearing of three children and the carrying of a fourth had accentuated the thickening of her waistline, but William had often expressed, in the privacy of their bed, that he preferred a woman to be well-covered. ‘Give me an oak tree to build a sturdy barn, not an ash for flimsy fencing.’
Some thought Mathilda to be haughty, others admired her for her fortitude, fairness and loyalty. That she was devoted to William, and he to her, was never doubted. Unusually William never strayed beyond the marriage bed, not in body, mind or eye. Some were adamant that such a ruthless man was incapable of any gentle emotion. A few jeered that his loyalty to the lady Mathilda was for her own ill-temper! Others made cruder references to his capabilities or inclinations . . . whatever the reason for his faithfulness, the marriage was successful and no damned Pope in Rome was going to rule otherwise!
William sipped thoughtfully at his wine. What more could he do to influence this implacable obstinacy? Already churches were being built, money pouring like wine from a cracked pot into the monasteries. The word of God was final in the law of the Church, and within Normandy William took care to ensure strict and direct control over the clergy.
Bishops – by coincidence, the Duke maintained – were appointed from the families of his more loyal vassals. His own half-brother Odo, though young, held Bayeux; Hugh, Bishop of Lisieux, was the son of the comte d’Eu; John, son of comte Rodulf, was Archbishop of Rouen; Bishop Geoffrey de Coutances was a Mowbray; and Yves, Bishop of Sées, stood at the head of the mighty de Bellême family. Patronage for founding religious houses had reached a new height of enthusiasm – Fontenay; the abbey of Lire; Saint Victor-en-Caux; the nunnery at Almenèches. All tactics designed to impress the Pope.
William glanced through the narrow windows of the great Hall of his castle at Rouen. The sky outside was clearing. Come the winter oiled linen would be placed over the openings, allowing in light but keeping out the worst of rain and wind. ‘The rain has ceased, I do believe,’ he said, the weight of depression lifting suddenly. ‘Come, de Tosny, I would see those horses you have brought me all the way from Rome!’
Sending a servant running ahead, de Tosny proudly conducted his duke, and the inquisitive company of men and women who had been thronging the Hall, to the stables, where waited three fine horses for William’s inspection: two bay mares and a pale chestnut stallion with a mane and tail as golden as Mathilda’s own hair. He was beautiful!
‘They are from the desert land of Arabia,’ Ralph explained. ‘Such horses are prized more highly by the desert men than their women.’
‘They are not as much the unintelligent infidel as we think, then!’ someone jested, causing laughter to swirl through the closepressed company.
The handsome beasts, with their graceful head and tail carriage, exquisitely shaped faces and wide, bold eyes, pleased William immediately. He strode forward to run his hand down their legs, across shoulder and rump. The mares should breed some fine foals. He stood back, arms folded, to watch the stallion prance and preen; a horse as fine as any he had ever seen.
He pursed his lips, nodded approval. ‘I would ride him!’ he announced, slapping his hands together, rubbing the palms. ‘Fetch saddle and bridle.’
Mathilda stood to the forefront of the onlookers with her eldest son Robert settled in her arms, his legs straddling her hip. The girl Agatha and the baby Richard were within doors.
‘Regarde le cheval, comme il est beau,’ she said to the boy, pointing at William as he mounted. ‘Does Papa not look handsome?’
Robert ducked his face into her shoulder. A quiet, shy boy, he rarely strayed far from his mother or nurse. Strangers and tall men with their deep voices frightened him. Women with their fluttering wimples smothered him. Already upset by the thunder that had raged overhead this past half-hour, he did not want to watch his father, for he scared him almost as much as this enormous, breathsnorting, hoof-clattering dragon of a horse.
Applause rippled through the admiring spectators as William put the stallion through its paces. ‘He is superb.’ William dismounted and patted the animal’s neck. ‘He is certainly a king among his kind
– I shall call him Solomon I think.’
‘For a stallion he also possesses an agreeable temper.’ De Tosny beamed. ‘He is gentle enough for a child to ride.’
‘Indeed, he is!’ On impulse William swung towards Mathilda, his arms outstretched to take his son from her. Robert yelped as his father lifted him, the sound rising into screams as he felt himself set on to the great beast’s saddle.
‘Take care, husband, he is a boy of delicate health.’ Mathilda’s hand reached forward to reclaim the lad, but William brushed her aside. She did not care for this harshness in her husband, a side to him that was unpleasant and distasteful, but rarely did she personally witness his deliberate cruelties.
‘He is delicate, madam, because you coddle him. Hush, boy! Do not make such a fuss.’
From the day of his birth William had not much cared for his scrawny son. His daughter, though a mere two years of age, had more mettle than did the lad. Mathilda spoilt the boy.
The stallion snorted and began to prance at the unfamiliar noise. The terrified boy struggled, arms flailing and legs kicking. His foot caught William’s mouth, sending his father staggering, blood bursting from a dislodged tooth. Robert, no longer supported, tumbled from the saddle as the horse skittered sidewards, the scream of fear rising as the ground rushed up to meet him.
Mathilda also screamed as she darted forward, distraught. She knelt on the puddled gravel, gathering him to her, stroking his hair as Robert flung his arms tight around her neck and clung to her. ‘Mon petit, my precious! Hush, hush.’
‘Damn the boy!’ William cursed, dabbing at his mouth. ‘Is he hurt?’
Through her streaked tears, Mathilda shook her head. ‘I think not, my Lord.’
‘Then why in God’s name does he squeal like a piglet about to have his throat cut? Has he no backbone in him, madam?’
Furious with her husband, Mathilda glowered up at William’s great height from where she knelt. ‘He is but a child,’ she scolded, ‘a small child who is afraid of such a big horse. Do you not remember being afeared of anything as a boy?’
William was di
sappointed in his son and embarrassed at this contemptible performance. He needed a son with the heart of a lion, the strength of an ox. Not this mewling mother’s-weed. ‘I was never afraid,’ he bragged. ‘I saw blood and faced death too often to offer heart-room to a woman’s weakness of fear.’ He turned away from his wife and walked abruptly back to his Hall.
He had not met Mathilda’s eyes. He had left her with the boy because she had looked at him and had known that he had lied.
7
Dives-sur-Mer The morning had begun warm and fine, with the tinge of late summer touching trees bearing the faintest traits of approaching autumn. The day’s hunting had been most enjoyable and rewarding for Duke William and his friends.
‘I would have a hawk such as yours,’ William de Warenne said in open admiration as the bird perched on the Duke’s wrist spread his wings in a flutter of annoyance. ‘My own bird is somewhat aged now. I have had her almost three years.’
‘Then you are fortunate – many good birds become lost or ensnared.’ William ran his finger down the bird’s soft breast feathers to soothe her. ‘She hunted well for you – the way she took that wild coney was a superb example of breeding and training.’
Will glowed at the praise. Some found the Duke difficult, but he had always found him congenial; quick-tempered, bien sûr, but what man of worth was not?
The second-born son, Will had soon realised that the family estate would pass to his elder brother and took the chance to improve his none-too-hopeful prospects by altering allegiance from his father direct to his duke. He was young, bold and daring, the sort of man that William was deliberately courting. Having distinguished himself in battle and shown especial loyalty, de Warenne had been rewarded with the castle of Mortemar and had become an especial friend to his namesake the Duke.
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