by Paul Finch
“Is he learning anything, Turold?” Count Dagobert asked, approaching across the stable yard. Despite his fifty years, Dagobert was a powerful, foursquare figure, and his seamed, leathery face and head of close-cropped iron-grey hair gave him an air of respected authority rather than venerable age. He was clad for the hunt in a fur-trimmed cape, leather trousers and a rich worsted tunic. Behind him, two grooms brought a pair of saddled horses from the stable-blocks, hooves clipping on the straw-matted cobblestones.
Turold, who as well as being Trewan’s tutor, was household champion at Wulfbury, nodded. “He improves every day, my lord.”
“Two or three minutes, father,” Trewan said excitedly. “I lasted two or three minutes longer than normal.”
Dagobert scruffed his son’s sweat-sodden hair. “Well done indeed. Now … Turold, if you please.”
Turold nodded again, signalled to an attendant, drew off his mail gauntlets and unlaced his hauberk. Dagobert climbed into the saddle of the first horse, one of the grooms handing him his long, steel-tipped spear. A curved horn, a hunting-bow and a quiver filled with arrows already hung on his animal’s flank.
“My jousting’s improved too,” Trewan said. “Turold thinks I’ll be ready for the tourney before the year is out.”
“One thing at a time,” Dagobert replied. “Trot along now. You’ve lessons with Isabel.”
The boy pulled a face. “Reading and writing … I hate it. It’s a priest’s device.”
“Nonsense. We should all have learned many years ago.”
“But why,” Trewan asked, “when I’m training to be a knight?”
“Because your mother wished it.”
Trewan continued to protest. “Rolf and Eric never learned to read and write.”
“Get along, sirrah!”
Trewan hurried to do as he was bidden, head bowed. Turold had now removed his battle-harness, to reveal his own hunting-clothes underneath. He swung up into the saddle. His horse too was equipped with a horn and hunting-bow. While one attendant carried Turold’s helmet, coat and gloves away, another handed him his spear.
“So?” Dagobert wondered. “Does he show promise?”
“He’s a trifle reckless, my lord. But we’ll soon break him of that.”
Dagobert nodded as if satisfied. They spurred their beasts forward and left the stable yard, following the muddy track around the southern wall of the keep, and descending through the huddle of thatched outbuildings to the gatehouse, where the drawbridge had been lowered in anticipation.
In the upper room inside the gatehouse, Gilbert glanced sidelong at Eric. “Your father’s away to the hunt. Perhaps you should have spoken to him first?”
Eric had risen early and in good humour, chattering and laughing as he’d dressed, but had then watched his father approach from the keep with an odd, detached expression, which Gilbert had not found encouraging.
“No,” Eric said. “If he brings down a prize stag, he’ll be in a better mood.”
He opened a shutter on the other side of the room, and was immediately struck by the vast expanse of fenland rolling away to a flat, limitless horizon. Flocks of gulls and wild-fowl wheeled over the swaying reed-beds and rippling broads. The occasional outcrops of woodland were skeletal in their scant early-spring plumage. Dagobert and Turold had already diverged from the Roman road, and were picking their way off into the heart of this green, water-logged wilderness.
“Isn’t this rather dangerous?” Eric said.
Gilbert shrugged. “Your father knows the fen country. He’s made it his business to.”
“Even so, he takes one retainer with him?”
“That one retainer happens to be Turold.”
“It still seems like a risk.”
“He has little choice in the matter. Most of the rest of the household went north in January, to join the king at Chester. All our knights and the majority of the men-at-arms.”
Eric was surprised. “A new muster?”
Gilbert nodded.
Eric thought about this. It could only be good that landed forces had been brought into the northern campaign, albeit belatedly, as they had a vested interest in conciliation rather than slaughter. Though, in the long run, Eric didn’t expect that this would temper King William’s vengeance by very much. Since the initial invasion of England, over half the Norman bachelry – its richness of knights and squires – was now absent; slain in battle, disabled by wounds, or returned to Normandy either through guilt, disgust, or plain fear for the possessions they held over there. To make up for lost numbers, the king had offered rewards for new blood from the Continent, and as he might have expected, a jackal-like horde had responded, pouring in from every quarter of Christendom, murderers and bandits of all descriptions: thieves, vagabonds, freebooters, every common tyke and footpad fit to wear mail or carry a weapon.
It wasn’t as if enough mercenary scum hadn’t already arrived in England as part of the invasion force. After the initial fighting was over, they’d wrought a horror of rapine and carnage wherever they’d wandered. But, as Eric had seen for himself, those original depredations paled in comparison to the havoc wreaked by this new generation of ill-disciplined curs, primarily because once they’d struck northwards their liege-lord and paymaster had given them express permission to do their worst.
“Father must be glad that he wasn’t summoned, himself,” Eric said.
Gilbert yawned. “He was. As was your brother, Rolf. They were only excused when the king heard that it would interfere with the birthday celebrations.”
“Uncommon kind of him.”
“Be careful where you say that, Eric. These days it’s a crime in England just to voice dissent.”
3
Guiddon the Great, lord of war, sprang from the loins of our mother-goddess, Don. Though he had mastery of all martial skills, he preferred peace and diplomacy and could endure torments from his foes without ever striking back. He was also a sorcerer and a lover of art and poetry. But he was not all-perfect. In his early years, he assisted his brother Gilfaeth in the rape of his Uncle Math’s foot-maiden, Goewin, and for his punishment was cursed to spend one year as a stag, one year as a sow and one year as a wolf, each time mating with Gilfaeth, whose own punishment involved transformation into a hind, a boar and a she-wolf. The offspring of these monstrous couplings were the first members of our race
Eric marvelled at the great hall in his father’s keep.
It was church-like in its grandeur. Its lofty roof was ribbed with oak beams, and gaudily painted with scenes from the Bible, while the stone columns running down either side of it were hung with flags and battle-standards. The walls were whitewashed and decked with weapons and multi-coloured brocade, much of it exquisite in quality and almost certainly captured – for the needlework of the English women was unrivalled. The skull and antlers of a giant elk dominated the west end of the chamber, while at the east end, suspended above the immense hearth, was a colossal tapestry depicting the tree of governance that was Charlemagne, and the many fruits of his boughs: Louis the Pious in robes of black burrel, kneeling at prayer; Charles the Simple enthroned in Christ-like glory, with Rollo, the first Norman, crouched in homage; Charles the Bald assuming his imperial crown beneath the bells and steeples of Rome itself; Robert the Strong, also called ‘Outcast’, a giant with no face bestriding the crushed bodies of villeins and courtiers alike; and Charles the Fat, attired for war yet bearing a serpent on his shoulder, while behind him the Vikings plundered Paris.
Light streamed onto it from a dozen high casements, giving the embroidered figures an eerie quality of movement.
Only now that he was actually confronted by this dazzling spectacle, did it strike Eric how much his father had profited from the conquest of this country. Only now was the ruthless purpose of the expedition to England fully made clear. Back in Normandy their family had been wealthy: they’d held fiefs and manors and liberties; they could put hundreds of armed men into the field at the drop of a
hat, and their castle at Caux was a vast, rambling affair, centuries of workmanship having gone into its construction. Yet there was nothing there to match this, nothing anywhere in the duchy as far as Eric knew, not even in the ducal palace at Rouen. All the castles he’d visited in Normandy were dark, dank places; their smaller rooms hacked from stone, their halls large but draughty and in winter filled with smoke. It had long been the Norman ethos that piety and humility were a man’s finest qualities, as opposed to pride and ostentation – and in fact one of the many excuses made to justify the attack on England was that the English nobles were decadent and given to soft, sinful living – so it was entirely possible that Dagobert of Caux, like his many brother-magnates, might have possessed greater riches than he’d ever displayed. Yet Eric knew for a fact that his father had brought only enough gold across the Channel to pay his troops, which meant that all of this baronial splendour owed to tribute or booty.
In other words, loot.
Even after every injustice he’d seen in this land, Eric was stunned that ill-gotten gains could resource something like this; that a man could haul away so much of someone else’s wealth that it might be used to finance a power-base of this magnitude.
From the moment he’d quit the gatehouse that morning, he’d been startled by the might he beheld here, for only in daylight was he able to see the full dimensions of the new-look Wulfbury Castle. The stockade now served as a curtain-wall enclosing the outer bailey, which comprised dozens of animal pens and outbuildings: sheds, smithies, storage houses, barrack-huts for the men-at-arms, dwellings for the servants, all of which rose in concentric circles around the central mound, at the very top of which was the keep itself. And this keep, in the heart of which he now stood, was the stronghold’s most striking feature. It was at least a hundred feet high, but bulky, like a barbican, maybe eighty yards by eighty at its base, and surmounted with castellated parapets and four square towers, one in each corner. From the westernmost of these, his father’s pennon, a golden leopard on a blue background, flew from a central spire. The keep had its own dry-moat, and was only accessible by a high doorway; one must mount a flight of steps and cross another drawbridge in order to reach it.
Eric was reflecting on the efforts and expense required to raise such a bastion in less than three years, when he heard a clarion call from below. Initially disoriented, he went first to the southern casements, but saw only the currents of the North Sea as they swirled around the jagged headlands and poured foaming into the Wash. As always, his father had shown military cunning. With the ocean to the south and east of it, and the marshes and fens to the north, Wulfbury was only approachable from the west, and along a single-track road. Even the most incompetent defender could hold off an attacker with ease from such a position, and his father was far from incompetent.
Eric went next to the western windows, and peered down over the castle buildings – just in time to see a handsome procession enter beneath the gatehouse. Eight monks and eight men-at-arms were walking, while four knights rode on horseback, each with his own banner flying from his lance. At the head of the retinue, an elegant figure draped in Episcopal purple was mounted on a milk-white mare. The glint of the jewel-encrusted crucifix hanging at his throat was visible even from this distance. A page rode alongside side him, carrying a black banner emblazoned with a pair of crossed white keys, indicative of papal authority. The man in purple drew back his hood as he entered the castle precincts, and though his head was partially shaved in the tonsure of his office, Eric recognised the flame-yellow hair of his second-eldest brother, Anselm.
*
Bishop Anselm of Cadbury was received warmly by the castle servants, who, once he had dismounted in the stable yard, flocked forward to kiss his gloved and be-ringed hand.
“Yes, yes, good people,” he called. “It’s a delight to see you. Bernarde, Etoille – give alms to these good souls. Then repair to the chapel. Sing a Mass in thanks for our safe arrival.”
Two of the monks detached themselves from the bishop’s retinue, and doled out gifts of money. One of the kitchen maids, recently been delivered of a son, thrust her way forward and offered the child up to him.
“In nomini Patri, et Fili, et Spiritus Sancti,” the bishop said, making the sign of the cross and placing his hand on the child’s head. “A fine lad. He’ll make a warrior of Christ someday.”
Gilbert now fought his way through the crowd, with men-at-arms in tow. “Out of the way, all of you! Forgive them, your grace!”
“It’s no trouble to rub shoulders with the children of God,” the bishop replied. How are you, Gilbert?”
“I’m well, your grace. How was your journey?”
“Appalling. Isn’t March a joy in England? Winter never seems to end in this wretched country.”
“I have an apartment ready for you in the keep. It’s warm and comfortable.”
“Excellent. But first things first, Gilbert.”
Now that he was free of the crowd, Bishop Anselm ascended the keep steps, crossed the drawbridge, where the men-at-arms on duty bowed to him, entered the gate-tunnel and ascended the next set of steps to the main hall. The family chapel stood just to the left of it. This was a narrow chamber, illuminated by two cruciform arrow-loops, which were glazed with sheets of horn and thus cast a pinkish aura onto the faces of the saints and angels with whom the walls had been painted. Such decoration was another diversion from the Norman tradition of austerity, and it worried Anselm somewhat, though his father wasn’t the only nobleman to have embellished his new holdings with lavish, Frankish-style ornaments. It was almost as if their arrival here in England had signified a break from the old and the creation of something new. At least the altar was basic, consisting of a simple communion rail, a table draped with a white cloth and, behind that, a stone cross set on a plinth. The two monks, Bernarde and Etoille had settled themselves behind the lattice to the rear of it, and now provided a harmonious choral chant.
Anselm knelt at the rail, and joined his hands.
“Domine,” he said quietly, “refugium factus es nobis a generation et progenie; a saeclo, et in saeculum tu es …” Only then did he hear the faint rustle of rags.
He glanced up, and was startled to see a tattered, bearded form sitting on the altar table, his legs swinging.
“Good morrow, your grace,” Eric said.
Anselm rose to his feet, eyeing the vagrant as though he was something the tide had brought in, but recognising him nevertheless.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked curtly.
“What do you think I’m doing?” Eric replied, grinning.
“You are profaning God’s altar.”
Eric jumped from the table and stepped over the rail. “I merely offer greeting. Isn’t that what Christianity is about? Brotherly love?”
“There is a time and a place,” Anselm said indignantly. “At present, as you can surely see, I‘m at prayer.”
“Prayer is a two-way thing, brother. And few prayers are answered in England these days.”
“Facile impertinence does you no credit, Eric.”
“Ah, so we’re talking discredit. Shall we compare lists?”
Anselm tried to stutter a reply, but Eric strolled down the aisle and vanished from sight. The bishop gabbled what remained of his prayers, picked up the skirts of his robes and hurried in pursuit, finding Eric back in the main hall. A jug of win and several goblets had been set on the main table, and Eric was now helping himself.
“What do you mean by coming to father’s house dressed as a beggar?” Anselm demanded.
“I mean nothing by it. Will you share a cup of wine?”
“It’s Lent. Or had you forgotten?”
“One cup, Anselm.” As if anticipating the answer, Eric poured out two goblets.
Warily, Anselm accepted one. He offered his ring for the kiss of submission, but Eric ignored it and moved away, chuckling.
“Your attitude is outrageous!”
Eric
grinned. “As is your dress sense. Those gold rings, that gem-studded crucifix … they seem at odds with the purple of Holy Mother Church.”
Anselm was stung. “In view of the standard of your attire, I’ll treat that opinion with the contempt it deserves.”
“A good riposte. You were always a man of intellect, Anselm.”
“Am I to understand that some kind of disaster has befallen you?”
“I wouldn’t call it a disaster.”
“What would you call it?”
Eric sipped his wine. “A catharsis maybe.”
“A catharsis?”
“I’ve renounced my knighthood, Anselm. Which means I’m a commoner now. I have simple tastes … and very poor manners.”
“So not everything’s changed,” someone else said.
Rolf approached from the east end of the hall. He was a tall, imposing man in his mid-thirties, with a dark, angular face that might have been cut from wood. In honour of his father’s birthday he wore fine clothes: a loose, blue tunic, embroidered at its borders with silver thread, and russet woollen braies bound up to the knee with yellow cross-garters.
“Rolf!” Eric said. “I knew I could rely on you to welcome me home.”
Rolf nodded to Anselm. “Your grace …”
Anselm nodded back. Rolf turned next to his younger brother.
“Home, Eric? I thought you’d have a palace to call your own by now.”
“Why … would it make you feel better if I did?”
Rolf’s eyes clouded. “And what do you mean by that?”
“How could I mean anything by it?”
“Eldest sons take all, Eric,” Anselm said. “You know the law.”
Eric sipped more wine. “Easy for you to say. A consecrated bishop at twenty-four, and a lifetime of security ahead of you.”
“He achieved it through the sweat of his brow,” Rolf said.
“And King Edward was a good friend to us,” Anselm added. “Of all his Norman allies, he liked us the best.”