The Last Conquest

by Berwick Coates

  Gilbert whistled. ‘You worked for the Hautevilles?’

  ‘Ah – you know of them?’

  ‘My master Lord Geoffrey is their bishop.’ Gilbert dropped his voice. ‘It is said that he and the lady Sybil of Hauteville were once lovers.’

  Sandor tried to look severe. ‘Who is telling the story?’

  ‘Sorry, Sandor.’

  Gilbert did not hear the whole story, much as he wanted to. He drifted in and out of sleep, and each time he woke he had to try to piece together disjointed fragments

  ‘Master Roger of Hauteville has a mind deep beyond his years. If I would tend his horses, he would promise me the adventure . . . Campania, Apulia, Calabria . . . I truly thought he was the greatest of men . . . until I met one greater, who surpasses even his brother Roger in guile, who sleeps always with one eye open, like this . . . Robert the Guiscard, the mightiest of all the sons of Tancred of Hauteville . . .

  ‘You think Bruno is tall? Or the Bloodeye? Pah! They could not kiss the Guiscard’s shoulder . . . His eyes can glitter like sparks off the anvil . . . His wild Normans follow him because he always is lucky, and he is his own man, and follows nobody . . . he has plans to move over the sea to Sicily . . .

  ‘But they know only fighting on land, and they try to carry horses over the sea and it is a mess . . . But the Guiscard is willing to learn . . . he must be patient, he must prepare, he must think ahead. Your Duke has learned much from the Guiscard . . .

  ‘He put his head on one side and he look from the corner of his eye, like this . . . We learn before from the land, he says, so we learn now from the sea. We learn from those who know . . . we learn from the Greeks . . .

  ‘He sends me to see a man called Alexius, who has travelled to Crete and Greece, to the land of the Golden Fleece and the golden city of Constantinople . . . I think I know about horses, but I am like a child before him.

  ‘Skander, he say to me – he call me Skander – you do not pour horses into ships; you build ships round horses. Engineer does not tell you where to put horses; you tell engineer how to build stables at sea. You do not take sailors and make them into grooms; you take grooms and make them into sailors. You must have space and time and food and water – plenty . . .

  ‘We build the right ships and we take horses for the Guiscard and we have many adventures . . . One winter I travel home to Hungary, but my mother is dead and my brothers do not need me. I return to Sicily . . .

  ‘And then, after the winter, comes a messenger from your duke. He has sent word that he prepares a great force for England. He seeks knights, good knights. But even more does he need knowledge. He must carry horses over the water. His messenger speaks with Alexius, but Alexius will not leave his sun in the south.

  ‘The messenger asks where he can buy such knowledge, and Alexius says there is only one man, and this I know because I taught him . . .’

  There was a pause. Gilbert woke up at the silence.

  ‘And?’

  Sandor shrugged. ‘He found me.’

  Taillefer snorted in his sleep, turned over, clawed his blanket up higher, and settled down again.

  Gilbert gazed into the embers. He glowed with the Sicilian sun. He felt the juice of magic fruits on his tongue. He burned with longing – to sail with Alexius, to taste the salt of the Inland Sea on his lips, to set traps with the Guiscard, to conquer rich cities with Roger, to be the boon companion of those other brothers of Hauteville – William of the Iron Arm, Humphrey, Drogo, Geoffrey, Serlo. In that moment of magic conjured up by his friend, he was ready to neglect his duty, forget his duke; to banish Adele and Hugh from his mind, to cast out all thought of Adele’s dishonour and his own shame; to turn away from the quest that had helped to bring him to England.

  He was almost angry when the spell was broken by a dark shape looming out of the night shadows. It was hooded and it seemed to float. Gilbert screwed up his eyes. It stopped in front of him.

  ‘You are Gilbert of Avranches?’

  There was just enough flame in the fire to hint at the sharp features of Sir Baldwin’s clerk, Brother Crispin.

  Gilbert sat up.

  ‘Yes.’

  Crispin kept his hands folded in his sleeves.

  ‘I come from Sir Baldwin de Clair. Perhaps you remember me.’

  Gilbert nodded slowly. He could still hear the monk’s sniffs of disapproval inside Baldwin’s tent.

  ‘I have news for you. A ship arrived today from St Valéry, carrying supplies. There were also many priests aboard. One of them came from your garrison at Rouen. You know Father Amaury, I believe.’

  Gilbert nodded again, his mouth going suddenly dry. Great Jesus! Was it Adele or was it Hugh? Babies could be carried off so easily. How many strong men had he seen weep at the death of their first-born in the cradle. Tiny and helpless, they were like fledgeling birds teetering on the edge of a lofty nest; the smallest chance, the slightest whim of an angry God, could sweep them away like leaves in the wind, and no grief could bring them back.

  He struggled to keep his voice level. ‘I have heard him say Mass, yes.’

  He did not wish to admit that Father Amaury had heard his confessions of shame and guilt and jealousy and cruelty, heard them many times. Was he now to receive God’s punishment for his savage emotions? Adele had suffered enough from them. Was it now his turn? Had his prayers and fasts not been sufficient?

  He strained forward to catch the faintest glimmer of emotion on Crispin’s hatchet features. After an eternity, he fancied he saw something that could be called a twinkle in the eye. Then a tremor ruffled the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Be of good cheer; it is good news. You have a son called Hugh?’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’

  ‘Your wife sends you a message. She says that, God willing, and in the fullness of time, you will have a second son. She asks you to think of a name, and she sends her love.’

  Gilbert looked this way and that.

  ‘Are you not pleased?’ said Crispin.

  ‘What? Oh. Yes. Yes. I am pleased.’

  Sandor laughed. ‘He looks as a man does when a horse kicks him.’

  Brother Crispin allowed himself the luxury of a smile. ‘I have noticed a similar effect many times in these circumstances. The condition is rarely serious and usually cures itself. Father Amaury warned me to expect it.’

  Gilbert felt his face burn.

  ‘What did Father Amaury say? What did he mean? Why is he not here?’

  Crispin drew himself up.

  ‘I have told you all that Father Amaury told to me, almost word for word. He is not here because he crossed the Channel today, and Father Amaury has not crossed the Channel before. When I last spoke with him, he told me he is not looking forward to crossing the Channel again.’ Another glimmer of a smile flitted across Crispin’s bleak face.

  ‘When he is well again, you may speak with him yourself. Now I must go. I have duties with Sir Baldwin. He wants the new supplies counted and recorded. Then I have my daily obligations to fulfil. The Blessed St Benedict allowed a certain flexibility in the timing of Holy Office prayers for those brothers whose duties carry them beyond the walls of their monastery, but he did not allow unlimited time for clerics under the vow of chastity to revel in news concerning motions of the flesh, however righteously connubial they may be.’

  He pursed his lips, bowed slightly, and faded into the night.

  Sandor gazed after him, smiled, and shook his head.

  ‘I thought he was dry like an old stick. But the sap runs in him. It is good.’

  ‘You mean you understood all that?’ said Gilbert in amazement.

  ‘No. Not the words. But the man – him I understood. He is good. He is a man who sees. Is your priest Amaury like that? Does he see?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gilbert awkwardly. ‘He sees.’ He tried to change the subject. ‘Why is he here? Brother Crispin talked about a boatload of priests. Why, in God’s name?’

  ‘You have answered yourself. You sai
d, “in God’s name”.’

  Gilbert frowned. ‘I still do not see.’

  Sandor began bustling him towards the rough sail-canvas shelter he had built near the horselines.

  ‘There will be soon a battle. You have not fought in a big battle before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I tell you – before a battle a man thinks. On the morrow I may meet my God. I must be ready. There are many thousands of men in this camp. Your Bishop Geoffrey and Bishop Odo can not hear the confessions of all. Duke William is a good captain and a good son of the Church. There is a time for a captain to stop thinking of a man’s weapons and to think of his soul. William has provided these priests for the souls of his men. He wants them at peace in their mind when the battle comes, ready to go to Heaven. If they are not ready to go to Heaven, they will be afraid of going to Hell, and they will avoid death. They will run away, and the Duke will lose.’

  Gilbert felt his first real twinge of mortal fear. Such thoughts had not come to him before. Now, in the dark, with the memory of Crispin’s black, looming figure in his mind’s eye, and Sandor’s words in his ears, he began to think. Of a hundred black, looming, faceless figures. Of horrible wounds. Of pain inconceivable. Of the pit. The scarlet, roaring pit . . .

  This would never do. Fear was a fact – that was what Ralph said. A man had to learn to live with it. Like the weather.

  He caught sight of Sandor smiling.

  ‘What is it?’ said Gilbert, annoyed.

  ‘Where I come from,’ said Sandor, ‘men laugh at Christians.’

  ‘Why?’ Gilbert now felt annoyed in another way, and he still did not know the cause of it.

  ‘Why?’ said Sandor. ‘Because their Creator of the World is poor and humble and weak. Because they pray for help in battle to a man who surrendered to his enemies and let them kill him.’

  Gilbert stared. ‘You mean you are not a Christian?’

  Sandor put up both his palms in mock horror. ‘Ach! I do not say that. I live with Christians. I share their God as I share their food. It is a way to friendship.’

  Gilbert frowned, not entirely satisfied.

  Sandor fussed round him and tucked under his head a pillow that smelled like a saddlecloth.

  ‘And now I must do my last duty. Two horses have been stolen – maybe more. I must be watchful. I have my ideas about the thief.’

  Gilbert now smiled. ‘Sandor, you can not stop thieving in an army.’

  As he stood up, Sandor showed one of his rare traces of anger.

  ‘I can stop thieving of my babies. I worry and I watch. And I care all the time. As the Duke thinks of his men and their souls to keep them content and so win, I too think of my horses and their souls.’

  Gilbert stared again. ‘Sandor, horses do not have souls. Any priest will tell you that.’

  Sandor looked solemnly down at him. ‘There are souls and spirits in all things.’

  Gilbert had just enough light to see the Magyar’s eyes glow. The squat, bow-legged figure looked a grotesque, stunted mass from where he lay. A ripple of unease ran along the back of Gilbert’s neck.

  Sandor’s voice sank to a whisper. ‘Have you never stood in darkest forest, lone, beside a pool? Or waited on a hilltop, chill, above the silent mist? Or listened in a cave that hides deep in a mountain’s heart? The spirits are always there for the man who has eyes and ears and an open head.’

  Gilbert swallowed. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘You talk to your dogs?’

  ‘I – I did – yes.’

  ‘You know why. So you know why I talk to my horses. Sleep now. You have much to do in the dawn.’

  When Sandor left, Gilbert searched hard for sleep. His body was certainly ready for release, but his mind would not grant it.

  Sandor’s misshapen figure loomed over him once more, whispering in the shadows. Brother Crispin, and a hundred other Brother Crispins, reared up in the darkness beside the burning abyss. In an effort to escape, Gilbert raced again through the Duke’s council meeting, and saw the hard, tense faces in the flickering candlelight round the table. No mercy there either.

  Fear changed to rage as he remembered the Bishop of Bayeux; Odo’s spotty face seemed well built for sneering.

  ‘Master Senlac.’

  Gilbert’s face burned. Let him jeer while he had the chance. Just wait till the battle, and Odo was unhorsed and facing a maddened Saxon housecarl with one of those hideous axes that could cut a man in half. He would be only too grateful then to have Gilbert of Avranches straddling his body and fighting off the enemy. There would be no more ‘Young Master Senlac’ then.

  Gilbert shut his mouth tightly. He would have the measure of Odo, just as the Duke did. Odd that it was the Duke’s voice that he recalled first – that, and his darting eyes. They had come to rest only when he turned to deal with Bloodeye.

  Gilbert shuddered. There was something evil about Blood eye. He had seen mercenaries before, and he had seen cruelty, and he had seen death. Men like the Flemings he understood; he hated them only as he hated the savagery of a wild boar. He expected little else.

  Loutish young Normans like Capra and Pomeroy did not puzzle him either. Probably dragged up as pedlars’ bastards or cottars’ brats, with no decent family background, they had never known anything else except avarice and deceit and violence. They revolted him, but they did not frighten him.

  Fulk was different.

  For a start one could not despise him. His size, his immense strength, his brimming confidence, even his insolence, all proclaimed him to be a man. Gilbert knew his fighting record too; nobody could accuse him of cowardice. He had served in the armies of King Philip of France, and the Emperor himself – in Flanders, Franconia, Saxony and Swabia, as far as the Eastern Mark and Poland. Further still, some said. Sandor claimed that Fulk had once fought against the Magyars. There were many camp stories about him – that he could read and write; that he had had his own mother locked up because she was mad; that he did not drink.

  Then too he had the natural habit of command, and wore it as naturally as a monk did his tonsure. His own men obeyed him without question.

  Yet Fulk’s soul ran deeper than that. In a man from whom one would expect boasting, one found that he said rather less than he meant. There was a light in the eyes that was not simply lust or avarice or humour – though he could be funny, very funny. It was as if . . . as if, in the middle of his duties and his commands and his jokes, he was thinking of something else all the time; as if his present life and everything in it did not really matter. Mystery stared out of him through his eyes – one blotched and disfigured, the other pale, staring, fish-like.

  Gilbert could not explain, and so he feared with a superstitious fear. If he had been forced to put it into a few words, he would have said that he knew Fulk to be evil as surely as he knew Rowena to be good. He had no other way to express it.

  It was not mere gratitude for what she had done for him. Nor was it lust, though he had to admit that he found her body rich and desirable. He had lain on those sheepskins and watched her, and Godric, and Edith, and the others. He had seen patience before, and kindness, and love, but this was different, and he could explain it only by calling it goodness. He saw it, and he knew that Godric saw it.

  Perhaps he was simply far from home. He turned restlessly. He felt sick at the thought of what might happen at the mill if the wasting parties decided to destroy it. There was a good chance, of course, that it would be on one of the avenues to be left in order to draw on the Saxons. The building and the machinery would be valuable, and the valley was rich with food.

  Would such a consideration deter a man like Fulk? Orders or no orders? He turned over again. And what of his quest? Should he not stay loyal to that too? How much attention had he given to it in the last two or three days? Crispin’s news had brought it all bubbling to the surface.

  Somewhere in England was the man who had forced Adele. When she first told him, he had not known how to vent his ra
ge. Because Adele was there, and not her ravisher, she had been the one who suffered . . .

  ‘Why did you not tell me at the start?’

  ‘I – I hoped it would not be necessary.’

  Gilbert struck her.

  So that was why she had been so passionate, so demanding, so consuming. She had made his senses spin with excitement and desire, taunting him with novel delights even as he lay back spent. There had been no caress, no trick, no sensation that she had not been willing to lavish upon his trembling body.

  Not only was he possessed; he was flattered. To think that she loved him that much. He heard garrison louts boasting of the love feasts they enjoyed in the brothels of Rouen, and bemoaning the dull primness of their wives, and all the while he hugged himself with secret delight. He put up with coarse jibes from his fellows about his tiredness and lack of energy because he knew they were only jealous. When Adele told him she was with child, his pride knew no bounds.

  It was then that the whispers began to reach him. At first he paid no attention. He knew Adele was no virgin; in a garrison town like Rouen, it was difficult to find one. She had made no secret of that. Indeed, they laughed at what she called her first try, and he boasted of one or two clumsy young conquests of his own.

  But soon the trickle of rumour became a steady stream, from stable boys and kitchen maids and valets and grooms and women-in-waiting. It reached the stage where he could not lean on a bridge or rest by a pump or drink in a guardroom without seeing winks or nudges or hearing broad hints dropped. just loudly enough for him to hear.

  Each time he made up his mind to ask Adele, when they were alone, she drowned his senses once more with her intensity, and her vows of undying love. When they rested together afterwards, she talked incessantly of the coming son – she was sure it was going to be a son, because she knew he wanted a son – until he fell asleep.

  She was right, and she knew how much. And Gilbert knew that she knew. Getting a wife was not hard; getting a son was. He knew that his mother would disapprove of any woman he married because she would not be good enough for her son. But any grandson, he knew too, would bring tears of joy and pride to both his mother and his father. Wives did not make a man immortal; sons and grandsons did. It was because Adele understood him so well that he felt the anger rising within him. She was using his own deepest cravings against him.