‘I have come here to find Jarl,’ the young woman said.
The woman who had once called herself Jarl for professional purposes, but who had for many years been known only as Jamila, said nothing. Her immediate instinct had been to say, ‘There is no Jarl here,’ and slam the door, but then she had been struck by the young woman’s eyes. They were very beautiful, with soft grey irises, and there was something feline about both their shape and the way they looked at her. They were simultaneously knowing and yet mysterious, as if they saw everything but revealed nothing.
‘Who is asking?’
‘My name is Mabel of Bellême.’
‘And why do you seek Jarl?’
‘Because I wish to learn from her.’
As she spoke, Mabel looked at Jamila with a cool insolence that seemed to say, ‘I know your secret. Why are we even pretending that you are not her?’
But Jamila was not yet ready to reveal her true self. Her reply was noncommittal. ‘Jarl? That is a strange name for a woman. Do you know what trade she practises?’
‘Yes.’
Mabel said that one word with absolute conviction. Clearly she knew precisely what Jarl did and was determined to do the same. Her eyes were the proof that she would be a worthy apprentice. Jamila looked again at the slender limbs, the dusty skin and the sun-bleached hair and saw herself, many years ago, on the road that had taken her from Damascus to the sea.
‘You have found the one you seek,’ she said. ‘You may come in. But I am afraid that I only have room for one guest.’
Behind Mabel there stood a scrawny, exhausted-looking donkey and beside it an old man with unkempt hair, matted with dirt and grease, who gazed around him with a simpleton’s vacant, gap-toothed grin. Jamila could see that he was scrawny to the point of emaciation, for he was dressed in nothing more than a short kilt made of rags, and she wondered what kind of ill-treatment and deprivation he must have endured to be reduced to such a state. When she looked at him, he gave her a servile nod of the head.
‘Do you have a barn, or a stable?’ Mabel asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Then the donkey can spend the night there.’
‘And your slave?’ Jamila used the word for she knew that no paid servant would ever descend to such a state of wretchedness.
‘Oh, the stable will do for him too. Where is it?’
‘Behind the house,’ Jamila said. ‘Follow the path and it goes straight there.’
Mabel turned to address the man. ‘You heard her. Don’t just stand there like a gibbering idiot. Move!’
‘Yes, ma’am, God bless you, ma’am,’ the poor creature said, and as he scurried off, dragging the donkey behind him, Jamila realised that he was absolutely petrified of his mistress. He had good reason to be too, for a moment later, Mabel reached down, picked up a pebble and threw it at him, as hard and as accurately as any man. The hapless slave didn’t see the stone coming, so the howl he gave as it hit him on the shoulder was as much one of surprise as pain.
Mabel laughed. Then she said to Jamila, ‘He needs to be kept in his place, that one. Can you believe it, he thinks he’s the Count of Bellême.’
Jamila understood then that there was a flinty cruelty in this young woman that she had never herself possessed, and for a moment she considered changing her mind and refusing Mabel entry. But then she thought of all the things she had done and the people she had killed, and realising that she was in no position to judge anyone, she said instead, ‘Won’t you come in?’
Book Four:
The Hungry and the Hunted
Autumn 1046–Spring 1048
1
The castle of Saint-Saveur-le-Vicomte, on the Cotentin peninsula of Normandy
Goles was a fool, an itinerant halfwit jester with sheep-shit for brains: a goggle-eyed, beak-nosed, big-eared buffoon whose presence was of no more consequence to the half-dozen men in the great hall than the dog greedily licking its balls before the blazing fire. Like a dog, Goles grovelled on the floor beneath the table, scavenging for discarded scraps and smacking his lips with exaggerated relish as he set about the shreds of flesh still clinging to chicken bones and sucked out the last soft morsels of marrow from the vertebrae of oxen.
Had not his hands both been gripped around the leg of lamb that was his latest trophy, Goles could have reached out and touched the boots of soft Spanish leather that clad the feet of Guy of Burgundy. His head was so close to the young aristocrat’s cloak that every time Guy moved, the breeze from it wafted against his face.
‘So we’re agreed,’ Guy said. ‘The Bastard dies tonight.’
‘You’re sure we have to do it now?’ asked another voice, which Goles recognised as Nigel Falconhead, Viscount of the Cotentin, whose castle this was.
‘Yes, we may never again have an opportunity like this. He’s just a few leagues away. The lodge has no walls or even a stockade, and William has no more than half a dozen men to guard him. It must be tonight.’
‘Yes, tonight! Tonight!’ Goles piped up. ‘Go to Duke William and pledge your love for him tonight!’
There were a few desultory chuckles around the table, but all Goles received from Guy of Burgundy was a sharp kick, to which he reacted by flinging himself backwards and somersaulting twice, in a comic flurry of wildly waving arms and legs, before landing in a heap of rushes and food scraps swept up by the servants before they had been dismissed to leave the men in peace. A broomstick was propped up against the wall, next to Goles’s scrawny sprawled body. He reached for his hat and stuck it back on his head before crawling back towards the table, murmuring, ‘Poor Goles, poor, poor Goles. Be a good boy, Goles, and maybe the master will give you a penny instead of a kick.’
Guy of Burgundy paid him not the slightest attention. ‘I must know that you are all with me. You must swear on your honour and your lives that you will not falter, or back down – that you will see this thing through until the duke is dead. Nigel?’
Silence fell around the hall. Goles muttered, ‘I’ll swear. The fool will swear.’ Then Count Nigel steeled himself and said, ‘I swear. The duke dies, or I do.’
‘Good man. How about you, Grimauld?’
Goles was kneeling, but he sat back on his haunches and straightened his back enough to be able to see across the table. Like the duke they were plotting against, these were all young men, none of them more than twenty-five and one or two – including Guy himself – barely twenty. Grimauld de Plessis’ face still bore a few white-tipped red spots, and the scars of many more. But despite – or perhaps because of – his immaturity, he did not hesitate before answering, ‘I swear it. If I get the chance, I’ll stick the Bastard like a fat pig on a roasting spit.’
They all knew that Grimauld’s boasts were empty. William of Normandy was younger than any of them, but his reputation as a strong, fearless, brutally effective fighting man was growing stronger with every year. However much they wanted rid of him, none of them doubted that he was a fearsome opponent.
Goles let out a series of loud porcine grunts and called out, ‘I’m Duke Piggy! I’m the son of a swine and an unmarried slut! Roast me, Grimauld, roast me!’
This time even Guy of Burgundy joined in the laughter. But then his face grew serious again. He reached into the purse that hung from his belt, fished out half a penny piece and said, ‘Enough, Fool. Let me buy your silence.’ He flicked the coin across the room, Goles chasing after it on all fours.
Guy drew oaths from three more men. The first was Ralph ‘the Badger’ Taisson, Lord of Thury, so called because his lands were said to be so extensive that he could, like a badger, go to earth anywhere he chose. After him came Rannulf, Viscount of the Bessin, and Haimo de Crèvecoeur, Lord of Torigni, Évrecy and Creully, who was nicknamed ‘Dentatus’, or ‘Longtooth Haimo’, in honour of the unusually large front teeth that were revealed whenever he opened
his mouth. As they looked around the table, crashing their goblets together in one toast after another, each proclaiming death to William and success for their rebellion, yet surreptitiously wondering who among them would be the first one to repudiate his oath, not a man noticed that the hall was just a little less full than it had been a few minutes ago. The plotters were still at the table. The dog, now asleep, still lay snoring by the fire.
But both Goles and the broomstick had vanished.
Goles was nobody’s fool. Any idiot could stand beside a table, swear wine-soaked oaths and crow undeserving boasts about their prowess, but it took sharp wits to make quick jokes, and a lithe, nimble body to tumble across hard floorboards and come away unbruised. And Goles possessed a finer character than his social superiors. His loyalty was won not by the promise of personal gain, but by acts of kindness and fair treatment. He had performed many times for Duke William’s mother Herleva, and she had borne no resemblance to an unmarried slut. On the contrary, in her beauty, her dignity and her generosity she had seemed to Goles like the finest of ladies. Her son he knew less well, but the very least that could be said was that he had never done Goles any wrong. And so the fool wanted the duke to survive, for his mother’s sake if nothing else.
He scurried from the hall, broom in hand, let himself out of the keep and trotted down the steep slope of the mound on which the heart of the castle stood. An expanse of open land dotted with thatched wooden buildings lay between it and the castle walls. The sky was clear and the full moon cast black shadows across the blue-grey ground, making it easy for Goles to find his way to the gatehouse. He passed the stables on his way. At this time of night they would normally be dark and silent, but he could see the light of torches coming from them, and the flickering shadows of people and animals moving about inside. He could hear the horses whinnying and their grooms trying to quiet them. They were getting ready for the attack.
The castle’s great oak gates had been closed since sunset and would not open without Count Nigel’s express command. But there was a sally port cut into one of them, just big enough to let one man squeeze through, its specific purpose to allow movement in and out after lock-up. A nightwatchman stood beside it, clad in a hooded hauberk of chain mail with an arming sword at his waist. He towered over Goles like a great boulder of muscle and bone, exuding a dull-eyed miasma of truculent, obstructive stupidity.
‘Where are you going, Fool?’ he barked.
Goles looked up at the sky. ‘Isn’t it a lovely day?’ he said breezily. He lowered the broom and mounted it so that it was grasped between his legs. ‘I thought I’d go for a ride.’ He slapped his own backside hard and cried, ‘Giddy-up, Golesy! Giddy-up!’ all the while skipping up and down in a stationary trot.
‘You want to go out?’ the nightwatchman asked.
‘Of course! I’m going for a ride, aren’t I?’
The nightwatchman thought for a moment. ‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
Goles felt a sickening lurch in his stomach. If he didn’t get out of the castle, the duke would die. He had to find a way to change the man’s mind. He put on his most gormless expression and scratched his head, ‘Can you help me solve a puzzle?’ he asked.
‘Dunno.’
‘Well then,’ Goles continued, ‘here’s what I don’t understand. You’re on the inside of the wall, am I right?’
An impatient sigh. ‘Yes.’
‘And your job is to stop people on the outside of the wall getting to the inside where you are.’
‘Suppose so.’
‘And I’m on the inside, which is where you don’t want people to be, and I want to get to the outside, where you want people to stay. So since I’m here when I should be there, and there’s nobody there who shouldn’t be here, isn’t it your job, since you don’t have anyone who’s out there to stop coming in here, to kick me out of being in so that I can’t come in again from being out?’
The nightwatchman made a brief, frowning attempt to make sense of Goles’s words, then gave up the struggle and snarled, ‘Shut it, Fool. I don’t have to listen to this nonsense.’
‘Oh, but you do. I’m a Fool and it’s my job to talk nonsense, just like it’s your job to stop people out there from coming in here and to get rid of people like me who are here but ought to be out there.’
The nightwatchman’s right hand curled into a mailed fist. ‘I told you, Fool, I won’t listen to no more of this nonsense.’
‘You don’t have to. Just open the door and let me take my horsey for a nice ride and you won’t hear another word from me ever again.’
Silence fell.
‘Or I’ll stay here and keep on talking, and if you want to hit me . . .’ Goles started hopping from toe to toe and weaving his head, ‘you’ll have to catch me first.’
The nightwatchman’s hand moved faster than Goles had expected. But the punches never came. Instead, he found himself grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged towards the door. As he struggled and gibbered, living up to his feather-brained reputation, the nightwatchman turned the heavy iron key in the sally-port lock and drew back a pair of massive bolts, top and bottom. Then he opened the door a little and gave the writhing fool a kick in the backside that would have done a bucking stallion proud.
Goles flew forward, genuinely out of control this time, and smashed against the studded oak door, which swung open, crashing back against the main body of the gate. He ended up lying face down on the rutted, hoof-marked dirt outside the castle wall. His arse and lower back were in agony from the kick. His arm, shoulder and skull all hurt where he had hit the sally port. He was winded, and as if that were not enough, the nightwatchman threw the broomstick at him like a spear and hit him on the head once again, leaving him dizzy and dazed.
Goles could not remember a time when so many different parts of his body were screaming with so much pain. But as he got to his feet, dusting himself down and leaving both the broomstick and his hat on the ground behind him, he did not care. He was out of the castle, and that was all that mattered.
Goles had spent his entire adult life walking through Normandy looking for someone, somewhere to give him food, shelter and maybe a penny or two in exchange for entertainment. He knew every road, lane, bridleway and path in the duchy, and on a night like this he’d have no trouble finding his way from Saint-Saveur-le-Vicomte to the hunting lodge near Valognes where the duke and his party were staying. But he had one fearsome enemy: time.
Valognes was about three, maybe four leagues away. Goles knew that a league was measured as the distance a man could walk in an hour. A fit young man could probably run almost three leagues in that time on a good path over flat country. But how fast could a horse go, carrying a large, fully armoured man? Goles had no idea. He’d never ridden a horse in his life, and the only thing he knew about them for sure was that a poor man going by foot did everything he could to stay out of their way.
As he imagined the sound of thundering hooves on the earth behind him and the sight of sword blades glinting in the moonlight, Goles broke into a frantic, full-pelt sprint. It was only when he started to breathe heavily that he realised that he had to pace himself. He settled into a steady, loping run, and as he ran, he tried to work out how far behind him the plotters would be when they too left the castle. Guy must have got them all to swear their loyalty to him by now. But they had to have a plan for what to do next. If Guy had already conceived one and it sounded good, he might be able to persuade the others to agree to it in no time at all. But if he was uncertain, or unconvincing, and they started arguing, well, they could still be there in the morning. And even once they were all agreed, they had to get themselves and their men on the move. The grooms were already at work in the stables, but how far had they got? And what about the soldiers: were they ready and waiting to go, or still fast asleep in the barrack house?
Goles’s poor dazed, overworked brain tried to work out all the possible permutations, until his head was spinning with calculations he couldn’t solve. But no matter how hard he thought about it, one fearful conviction became ever more deeply lodged in his mind: he wasn’t going to make it in time.
2
Saint-Saveur-le-Vicomte and Valognes
Guy had hunted with Duke William many times, even staying once or twice in the lodge where he now lay sleeping. He knew exactly what had to be done to ensure that the building was surrounded, William’s escape routes were cut off and the kill could be accomplished as cleanly as possible. He had even thought about ways to delay the final blow. He wanted William to keep fighting long enough to take some of the conspirators with him. It would suit Guy very well to have fewer men wanting to be rewarded and ready to start new rebellions of their own if they felt he had been insufficiently generous. Let them all fall, just as long as he himself was still standing.
This was not, of course, a point that he raised during the swift, decisive explanation of his plan that he delivered once he had secured the others’ commitment to the plot. He spoke with a confidence and certainty that brooked no contradiction, knowing that if a leader did not demand obedience, but simply acted as if no other view than his own was even conceivable, people would almost always go along with what he said.
Longtooth Haimo and Ralph Taisson both had questions about their respective roles in the action, but they were simply seeking clarification rather than challenging his ideas. All in all, Guy was pleasantly surprised by the ease and speed with which the other lords had acquiesced to his commands. When they all left the keep, filled with good cheer about what the night had in store for them, they found their horses fed, watered and about to be saddled. The dozen knights Guy had picked for the task were adjusting their gear, checking their swords and bows and swapping foul-mouthed soldierly banter. There was no note of apprehension in any of their voices, no sense that they were trying to persuade themselves, against the evidence, that all would be well. These men were highly trained, experienced warriors, many from landowning families and even minor nobility. They were upbeat and confident, genuinely looking forward to a fight they would win.
The Leopards of Normandy: Duke: Leopards of Normandy 2 Page 33