The warm, comforting certainty that the vision had given her came back to her now, calming her fears and giving her the courage to lift up her skirts, walk towards the fire and, without the slightest hesitation, step on to it.
She did not hear the gasps as she took her first two paces upon the embers, whose red glow could clearly be seen beneath her feet, while small flames flickered and danced around the hem of her robe.
But neither did she feel the fire.
There was no agony, no sweet, sickly smell of burning flesh, no screams of torment coming from her mouth.
She simply walked as gracefully and regally down the embers as she had done on the day she had walked down that very aisle when she became King Canute’s wife and queen. She walked as if there were sweet-scented flowers strewn before her, rather than blazing coals.
She took three steps, four, five . . . and as she walked, the certainty spread through the host of onlookers that she was going to survive, and the mood of all but a very few of the people turned from apprehension to optimism and then to wild joy. She took eight, nine, ten, eleven and finally a twelfth pace, and then she stepped down from the fire on to the cool limestone slabs with which the cathedral was floored . . .
. . . and kept on walking, hardly conscious that there was anything different beneath her feet. For she was walking towards the light, just as the saint had told her to do.
Emma of Normandy, dowager Queen of England, walked through the doors of Winchester Cathedral and stood at the top of the stone steps that led down to the yard, where all her people could see her, and applaud her, and bathe her in their love. For she had been confronted with an ordeal, and she had turned it into a triumph.
10
Conteville and Rouen, Normandy
William had often been told the story of how his parents had met. He could recite it all by heart: how Robert, the rebellious younger son of the late Duke of Normandy, had seized the castle of Falaise against his older brother’s wishes; how he and his best friend Herluin had been returning to the castle from a hunting trip when they saw three young maidens dancing in a clearing in the woods; how they’d both fallen in love at first sight with one of the girls – an angel in a dark blue cloak with hair as golden red as the autumn leaves on the trees all around them. Robert had talked to the girl and asked her to come to the castle that night. He had told her to use the postern gate, a half-hidden entrance behind the keep, for that way she would not be seen. But Herleva had defied him and insisted on walking through the main gate itself, for she refused to act as though she had something to be ashamed of, and her spirit had won Robert’s heart as much as her beauty and he had led her through the great hall, packed with guests, men-at-arms and castle staff, to a seat at his high table.
‘By God, William, you should have seen your mother that night,’ Herluin would say if he was telling the tale. ‘She was magnificent! She may only have been a humble tanner’s lass, but she walked with her head up and her eyes surveying the room as proudly as a duchess.’
Herleva’s version of a young girl’s first entrance into an aristocratic household was rather different. ‘Oh, I was so scared, you can’t imagine!’ she told her son. ‘All those people were staring at me, and I could feel their eyes like a hundred pinpricks on my body. My knees were shaking so badly I could barely put one foot in front of the other. But your father was so kind. He took my hand in his, reassured me and gave me strength. I had been dizzy with excitement ever since I’d first seen him. But it was then that I really fell in love.’
It was at this point that William invariably stopped listening, and if either his mother or his stepfather ever tried to suggest that his parents had conceived him that very night, he would clamp his hands over his ears and shout at them to stop.
If truth be told, he had little interest in sentimental nonsense about seeing girls and falling in love. He liked the part of the story that only Herluin could tell, for it concerned what had happened earlier that same day, before the two young men came across the dancing girls.
Robert and Herluin, along with some other young noblemen and their retainers, had been out hunting for boar in the forests around Falaise. They had come across a magnificent specimen, a giant with razor-sharp tusks, and had chased it through the trees. ‘He was a cunning old beast, you could tell,’ Herluin had told William, ‘and I dare say he’d have got away from our hounds. But although boars are big, and fierce, with extremely sharp hearing and noses as sensitive as a dog’s, they have one big disadvantage. They can hardly see at all. They’re like an old man who has to screw up his eyes just to see his food at dinner, so although they run very fast, they find it surprisingly hard to see where they’re going.
‘And this turned out to be a very serious problem. For in these woods was a great hole in the ground so large and so deep that the local people used to call it the Mouth of Hell. Plenty of horsemen, out riding at night or in bad weather, had fallen in there over the years and killed themselves.
‘Well, the boar was in a terrible panic, being chased by our hounds, and he couldn’t see very well, so he crashed through the undergrowth and went straight over the side of the Mouth of Hell. He should have been killed, but a tree growing out of the side of the hole broke his fall. So there we were, up at the top, and there he was, halfway down. Most people would have just cursed their luck at losing such a prize and ridden away. But not your father, oh no. He saw a narrow path clinging to the side of the rock, barely wide enough for a man to walk down. It made me dizzy just to look at it, and the dogs felt the same way, because they really didn’t want to set foot on it. But your father was determined to go down and kill that boar, just him and a couple of dogs, Bloodfang and Snow. And by God, he did it, too. He trapped the boar against the side of the hole, so that it had no choice but to charge him, and when it did, he just stood there, not flinching at all as the great beast came right at him, and speared it with his lance. But that wasn’t enough to kill it, so Robert chased after it, jumped on its back and cut its throat with his knife. He was still on top of the boar when it collapsed and died. It was quite incredible, the bravest thing I’d ever seen.’
William loved thinking about his father standing his ground as the great boar charged. He’d only been a very young man at the time, in his eighteenth or nineteenth year by Herluin’s reckoning. Of course, when William had first heard the story, he’d only been a very small boy himself, so eighteen seemed impossibly old and grown-up. But now he was sixteen, only two years younger than his father had been.
‘Am I as big as Papa was when you met him?’ he’d asked his mother recently.
She’d smiled and said, ‘Well, I have to tilt my head up almost as far to look you in the eye as I had to do with him, so you can’t be very much shorter. He was broader in the shoulder than you are, but that’s just age. All boys fill out as they become men. But I think you’ve got a bigger build than him. You’re sturdier, more solid, more like your uncle Richard in that respect, though not like him in any other way, thank the Lord, because he was a vile man.’
‘So do you think I could kill a boar, the way Papa did?’
Herleva’s good humour vanished from her face. ‘No, I most certainly do not. And don’t you dare try. Do you hear me?’
William had said nothing. He hated being told about things he couldn’t do, and if anyone else tried it, he would tell them that he was the duke and could do whatever he liked. But his mother was different. She was the only person in all Normandy that he felt he ought to obey, and he didn’t like upsetting her because that only upset him too. Even so, he really wanted to kill his first boar, and do it single-handed, the way his father had done.
Herleva let him stew for a few seconds, then she took his hand in hers and spoke more gently. ‘Really, my darling, I’m serious. Your father was brave and impetuous, and I loved that because I loved him. But the truth is, what he did was
crazy. He could have killed himself. Nine times out of ten he would have done. And in the end, he went on that pilgrimage, which was another mad idea, in my opinion, and it did kill him. I don’t want to lose you. I know there will be times when you have to go into battle; that’s your duty, and I won’t try to stop you. I’ll just be like all the other mothers, praying to God every night to bring my boy back to me safe and sound. But promise me, William, that you won’t go looking for danger. Believe me, it will come looking for you often enough.’
William had nodded sullenly and muttered, ‘All right.’
William returned to Rouen, where he stayed for the next few months. Then news came that an ambitious baron, Thurstan the Dane, Viscount of Avranches and Exmes, had taken advantage of the chaos that still gripped Normandy to seize Falaise Castle with more than a hundred armed men. The steward of the castle was William’s grandfather Fulbert, who had been given the job by Duke Robert, for it was not fitting for his heir’s grandfather to remain a mere tanner. It was not clear whether Thurstan had taken Fulbert and his wife Doda prisoner or was allowing them to continue with their duties as before. The couple were both now approaching their sixtieth year and were thus quite elderly, so their health was a matter of some concern to anyone who cared about them.
‘I want to come with you!’ William had said when Ralph de Gacé immediately declared that he was summoning the Norman militia to go to Falaise and lay siege to the castle.
‘I don’t think that would be a good idea, Your Grace,’ Ralph had said, in that way he had that sounded fawning but felt incredibly condescending, in fact insulting, to William’s ears.
‘Why not?’ William replied. ‘I’m sixteen now. That’s old enough to go on my first campaign. Falaise is a ducal castle, so it’s my property. And it’s where I was born, so I want to get it back. And . . .’ he was rattling out his arguments one after another in a continuous stream so that Ralph had no chance to contradict him, ‘my grandparents might be in danger and I want to know if they’re all right.’
He was sure that he’d made a convincing case, but Ralph just ignored it all. ‘I’m sorry, Your Grace,’ he said, ‘but sieges are hazardous in the extreme. Not only do they involve all the normal dangers of war, but also illnesses and fevers of all kinds, which kill even more men than swords and arrows. No, I’m sorry, but it’s just too great a risk. Do you not agree, cousins?’
Ralph had addressed those words to Archbishop Mauger and his brother Talou, Count of Arques, who were also sitting in council. As always, Mauger was twitching with nerves, while Talou just looked sullen and bored, but both were happy to agree with Ralph, if only because they took pleasure in any opportunity to do the precise opposite of what William wanted.
‘This may take several weeks, even months to sort out,’ Ralph said. ‘I won’t even be at the siege myself for much of the time. I mean, once the noose has been drawn around a castle, there’s really nothing to do but wait until the men inside are finally strangled.’
‘They aren’t strangled,’ William snapped. ‘They die of hunger or thirst. Everyone knows that.’
‘It was just a figure of speech . . . Your Grace. Look, why don’t you go and visit your mother and half-brothers at Conteville? You haven’t seen them for a while, and I’m sure your mother is missing you.’
William had continued to protest, but it hadn’t done him any good. Ralph had assembled the militia and led them off down the road going south to Falaise, while he had been sent west to Conteville. And of course it had been great to see Mama, and he always liked spending time with Odo and Robert, but he was still seething about the way Ralph had treated him, and it cast a cloud over everything he did.
11
Conteville
Herluin waited three days for the black mood that was now hanging over the whole family to dissipate, but when William’s air of resentful gloom remained as deep as ever, he reached a decision. ‘Right, boys, I’m going to take you all hunting. Some of the farmers are complaining that there’s a boar in the woods up by Saint-Pierre-du-Val. Apparently he’s coming out at night and digging up their turnips. I think it’s time we went and dealt with him, don’t you?’
That had cheered William up all right. He and his brothers talked of nothing else for the rest of the day, and leaped from their beds when they were woken before dawn to get ready for the hunt. The only person not thrilled by the prospect of fresh boar meat for dinner was Herleva. She had caught William just as he was heading out to the stables and made him promise, on his word of honour, not to do anything stupid, and on absolutely no account whatsoever to try to kill the boar by himself.
William had promised. But as they rode out, he became more and more cross about being forced yet again to turn his back on glory. The way a man made his name was by his feats of hunting and fighting, everyone knew that. But how could he make his name if people kept stopping him from doing the very things on which his reputation depended?
He looked down at the Alaunts, pure white hunting dogs who were nothing but muscle, fur and bone, with teeth that sliced into their quarry and clung to them as cruelly as any iron trap. They looked as pent-up and bad-tempered as he felt, growling at their handlers and snapping at each other as they criss-crossed the land where the boar had been foraging, searching for his scent.
Then suddenly they were racing across the fields, barking and yelping with excitement as they went, with the mounted hunters hot on their trail. William’s mood had changed as swiftly as the dogs’. He was completely caught up in the thrill of the chase, determined to take the shortest, quickest route across country, no matter how high the hedges or how wide the ditches his mount had to jump. His father had put him on his first pony when he was barely old enough to walk, and he had spent his entire life with the finest stables in the duchy at his disposal. So it was no wonder that he was a magnificent horseman, and thus no surprise that when the dogs found the boar and cornered it, William was the first hunter on the scene, a long way ahead of the rest.
He looked down from his saddle at the beast, barely thirty paces away, grunting, pawing the earth and readying itself for the fight. He grinned with delight at the size of it. That thing must weigh as much as two men – maybe three, he estimated. I bet it’s even bigger than the one Papa killed!
Just to wound such a magnificent creature would require a nimble horse, a first-class rider and some brilliant spear work. For a lad of sixteen it would be a feat that would earn him the respect and envy of all his peers. But William hardly considered that possibility for an instant. In fact, he barely thought about anything at all, and certainly not the solemn promise he had made to his mother, as he sprang down from the saddle, took his spear in both hands and held it out in front of him, advancing on the boar while the dogs growled and flashed their teeth at the quarry, their hackles raised, just waiting for his command.
William knew how his father had set up his kill. He had taken up a position, set himself to aim the tip of his spear at the centre of the boar’s chest, and then let the force of its charge do the work, so that the hurtling beast impaled itself on a virtually motionless spear.
For years, William had dreamed of doing exactly the same thing. Now his chance had come. But the boar did not play its allotted role in the drama. Instead of hesitating and giving William time to set himself, it charged at once, its spindly legs powered by the huge bunched muscles in its shoulders and haunches and the mighty heart beating within its barrel chest.
Robert of Normandy had told Herluin how time had seemed to slow down as his boar came at him, and his vision had become so sharp that he could distinguish individual hairs on the animal’s coat and flecks of spittle in its mouth.
But for William, taken by surprise before he could steady his mind and senses, as well as his body, there was none of that. He was overwhelmed by the size of the animal; the pace at which it came towards him, far faster than any r
unning man; and the size and deadly sharpness of its tusks. All these sensations came to him in a single indistinct blur, and he panicked and hurled his spear. It glanced off the boar’s flank, scarcely even grazing it, not slowing it or diverting it in any way as it ran inexorably towards him.
William’s head was filled with the shriek of the animal’s outraged squeal, the thunder of its charge, the smell of it, the sight of it, all jumbled and twirling in his mind so that for a second he was as immobile as a frightened rabbit.
The boar was almost on him when finally, with barely a heartbeat to spare, he threw himself to one side, out of its path.
If the animal could have kept running, all would have been well. But the ring of dogs blocked its path with their snarls, their bristling fur and their drooling teeth. Now the boar was as panicked as William. It came to a skidding halt, turned, caught the scent of the fallen boy and charged again towards that.
William was lying on the ground, half winded. There was no way on earth that he could evade the boar a second time.
His fingers scrabbled for the dagger that hung from his belt, as if that could defend him against a creature that was so much bigger, faster and stronger than him. His mind was suddenly quite calm as the thought came to him that he was done for. And now that sense his father had described – the slowing-down of time itself, the extreme acuity of vision – finally fell upon him as he waited for the impact of the boar’s racing body against his, and the stab of its tusks through his skin.
The Leopards of Normandy: Duke: Leopards of Normandy 2 Page 28