I Am the Chosen King

by Helen Hollick

  Conscious of a shadow across him, shielding the heat of the afternoon, Harold opened his eyes, lifted his gaze to stare up at William’s tall, dominating height.

  “That,” Duke William said, “was either an act of bravery or wretched foolery.”

  Harold laughed, held out his hand for the Duke to haul him upright. “Well, I am not especially brave, so I must, then, be the fool.”

  William slapped his hand, once, in a gesture of respect on Harold’s upper arm. “I think you are not the fool you masquerade to be, I think, my Lord Harold of Wessex, that perhaps you are a man who ought be courted as ally, rather than opposed as enemy?”

  24

  Dinan

  The breaking of the Breton army besieging Dol was a disappointment to Harold. With siege warfare being an uncommon practice in England, he was eager to observe the strategy of dislodging an encamped force. Conan apparently held no similar interest, nor the stomach for a direct fight. With the might of the Norman army rapidly approaching, he fled west, leaving Dol to celebrate its liberation. Harold would have left things at that: Dol was secure and Conan taught the lesson that it was unwise to challenge his duke.

  “In England, we would have offered a treaty.” Harold observed as, after a single short day spent in Dol, William ordered pursuit of the rebels. Negotiation is preferable to bloodshed, surely?”

  “Talk,” William answered disparagingly, pausing before lifting his foot into the stirrup to mount, “is for women and monks.”

  Harold said nothing as he swung himself into the saddle. It did not particularly matter to him what path William took, but it seemed, to his mind, ludicrous to initiate a bloody confrontation if disagreement could be settled amicably. The insult to English manhood he ignored. Already he was learning that to take umbrage at every contemptuous remark aimed at the Saxon way of doing things would have left him in a state of permanent rage.

  “I have no intention of ending it here at Dol,” William announced gruffly to Harold’s silence. “Conan must not be permitted to mock my authority. If he wishes to challenge me, then he can do so on the battlefield.”

  Harold half raised his hand in salute as acceptance of the Duke’s explanation. He would be the first to concede that authority must be maintained, but was this determination to fight not an indication of a possible weakness? To subdue an enemy by agreeing peace terms required a superior strength of character rather than the raw muscle of conflict. Skill in oratory and diplomacy could be as powerful as the honed blade of a sword, especially when one was backed by the other. William’s determination to fight at all costs showed Harold a crack in his defences. The Duke could only retain his command by strength of arms, but no man could fight for ever.

  “Perhaps,” William said scornfully to Harold as he nudged his stallion forward into a walk, “the king of your country would not have been so long in exile in mine, had there been more of an effort to fight against the invader Cnut when first he went into England.”

  “Or perhaps,” Harold answered amiably, “had the royal household fought the harder against Cnut, our king would not have survived long enough to reach exile in the first place.”

  Duke William shrugged and kicked his horse into a canter, iron-shod hooves sending sparks flying from the rough-cobbled streets of Dol.

  He marched after the rebels into Brittany, to Conan’s own-held town of Dinan, encircling the city and threatening reprisal without quarter if Conan was not immediately handed into his charge. The citizens of Dinan, resenting the invasion of a Norman force, duly refused and Harold was at last to witness, first hand, Norman siege tactics.

  William’s army, entrenching their encampment beyond arrow range of the town’s walls, began ransacking the surrounding countryside, looting what they could carry, destroying what they could not. Men were slaughtered—peasantry many of them, scratching a hand-to-mouth living from the soil. Cattle, crops, grain butchered or burnt. The younger women were useful for a soldier’s pleasure, the elder ones and the babes were butchered along with their menfolk. For two weeks, black curls of smoke darkened the landscape, and the smell of burning flesh tainted the prevailing wind.

  When everything within sight of the walls of Dinan was nothing but charred ruin, William began on the town itself. His terms were direct: surrender or burn. Dinan survived for a further three weeks, then surrendered—after letting Conan escape under cover of darkness. He left behind a minimum force which, as a token gesture of defiance, engaged the Normans in a small, insipid skirmish, in which two of William’s men received minor wounds. The Duke’s savage response was to let his men run riot within the town for four whole days. No one and nothing was left unscathed. Those killed outright in the first onrush proved to be the fortunate ones.

  Listening to the rampage of unfettered vengeance, hearing the screams, watching the pall of smoke, smelling the blood-scent of death, Harold felt sickened. This was not warfare, a warrior matching his skill against an opponent of equal worth. Where was the battle honour in the slaughter of innocents?

  While murder ran bloodily through the narrow streets of Dinan, Duke William took his ease within his command tent, enjoying a meal of lamb delicately flavoured with herbs and garlic, roasted wildfowl, baked rabbit, fruits and strong goat’s cheese. Rabbit was a dish Harold normally enjoyed, for the animal was barely known in England. Once or twice their meat had been served at Bosham, brought by incoming traders, but the English preferred the taste of their native hare. The animal had little potential value for the English, but for Normans living within fortified walls or facing the possibility of a prolonged siege, the coneys, so prolific in breeding and needing only the limited space of a warren, provided a ready supply of fresh meat.

  Harold had half considered taking a breeding pair back with him to his Waltham Abbey manor—the younger children might enjoy making pets of them—but henceforth, they would always remind him of what was happening on the far side of those fortified walls. He would never eat rabbit again without hearing the screams of women and children.

  “I will enter Dinan in full armour on the morrow,” William announced as he cleansed his fingers in the silver bowl held out to him by a servant.

  Could he hear the suffering? Harold wondered. Did it not stir his conscience?

  “You too, my friend, Earl Harold, must dress in splendour. We shall show this scum our superiority.”

  Poking a strand of meat from his teeth with his fingernail, Harold could not immediately answer. One woman’s frantic screams had risen above the other noises: “Ne touche pas l’enfant! Ne lui fait pas mal!” Then they stopped abruptly. L’enfant est mort, Harold thought despairingly, wondered how old the child had been. His stomach was retching, yet he dare not show weakness to the Duke. He reached forward for his wine goblet, to rinse the foul taste from his mouth. He was also mildly embarrassed. He had no chain armour of the quality of William’s, nothing save for the iron-studded leather byrnie he wore. He flicked a glance at Will fitz Osbern, seated opposite, who, to give him his due, looked as green-sick as Harold himself must.

  “My Lord,” fitz Osbern said quickly, “Earl Harold came to Normandy in peace and joined our venture merely as an observer. I believe he is unarmed.”

  “What? Has my bold companion not yet been suited with mail?” William appeared genuinely taken aback that this had been overlooked. He thumped his fist on the table. “This will not do! My dear friend”—he stalked around the table to Harold and offered him a modest bow of apology—“forgive this insult to your integrity and honour—and after your bravery at Mont Saint Michel too!”

  Further embarrassment overcame the Earl. While any man would covet the exquisitely made Norman armour, Harold possessed two full suits back home in England. Graciously he waved the Duke’s concern aside. “I have had no need of your fine workmanship, my Lord Duke,” he answered with tact. “Besides, I am an Englishman, your guest, not a knight of your
company.”

  William failed to catch the hint. “Well, sir, you ought to be!” he responded, gesticulating for Harold to stand. Fists on hips, the Duke assessed Harold’s height, grunted approvingly.

  “Will, fetch me my own spare mail. We are not much different in build or height, you and I, Earl Harold. I will give you a suit of my own, as reward for your loyal service and your bravery. And as for the other…” He drew his sword from the scabbard at his hip, commanded. “Kneel, sir, let me knight you!”

  Harold spread his hands, at a loss for what to say. “I thank you for your generosity, but—”

  The Duke thumped the table with his clenched fist. “Non! I have made up my mind to this!”

  Harold let his hands drop and peered in consternation at fitz Osbern who had conveniently already turned away to open the wooden coffer at the rear of the tent.

  Robert, comte de Mortain, Duke William’s second half-brother, William de Warenne and Walter Gifford, all sprang up from the table, cheering the sudden announcement: “Bravo!”

  Reluctantly, Harold accepted the Duke’s enthusiastic embrace and knelt before him to receive the investiture of arms. What choice had he but to accept the honour with grace? To refuse outright would be an insult, yet Harold had a shrewd suspicion that this seemingly impromptu performance had been well rehearsed. Why should William be so determined to knight a man of foreign birth who had no intention of fighting under the ducal banner? What advantage would it bring to Normandy?

  With foreboding, Harold placed his lips to the Duke’s ring, aware that to receive a knighthood was to pledge loyalty in return, to be bound as a liege man. And he was also aware, because his men had overheard the whispers, that William still nurtured the hope of laying claim to the English crown when Edward no longer needed it.

  In theory, as the Duke’s sworn man, Harold would be obliged to support William in that absurd intention. A theory with implications that Harold did not care to dwell upon.

  25

  Bayeux

  Promised a reunion with his kindred come the pre-Christmas gathering, Harold, who had begun to realise that Duke William’s promises were no more solid than waves running upon the seashore, was not in the least surprised to discover that only one of the boys appeared at Advent. His nephew Hakon came to the cathedral town of Bayeux, but not his brother Wulfnoth.

  “What of my brother and nephew?” he had asked William during the ride home to Normandy after that ragged victory in Brittany.

  “Pardon?” William had answered the Earl, his expression quizzical. “I know not what you mean?”

  Marvelling at his own patience, Harold had answered, “My brother and my nephew. Held hostage in Normandy this many a year. I wish to see them. It is, as I told you, the purpose of my visit.”

  Already he had tarried here in Normandy too long. The assault into Brittany, while interesting to observe, had achieved very little as far as Harold could see—and now this wearisome delay until the December Court.

  Conan had fled deeper into his Breton lands, where it was too dangerous for William to pursue. He had achieved the restoration of Dol and the submission of Dinan, bringing a few miles of Brittany under Norman control, but for how long? Harold saw a parallel to the English war with Gruffydd of Wales, the incessant border conflict, tit-for-tat raiding, exasperating skirmishes. Conan remained free to taunt the Duke if it suited him; had William sued for agreement before chasing his opponent into a burrow too deep to dig out of…ah well, that was William’s problem. Once Harold had secured the release of his two lads, he would head straight home for England, happily leaving the Duke to fend for his own future.

  On that mid-September ride home from Dinan the frown had deepened across the Duke’s brow as he had considered Harold’s question. “Have they not yet been brought to court?” he had said with puzzlement to William fitz Osbern. “I surely issued orders soon after our guest arrived?”

  Harold suppressed a sigh. Norman procrastination. He was damned sick of it!

  Fitz Osbern had responded with his usual diplomacy: “You were about to, my Lord, but the matter of Conan suddenly arose. Many pressing matters were left untended, I believe.”

  “Ah, there you have it then, mon brave!” William had answered with a smooth smile. “Let us return into Normandy and announce my victory. Later I shall send for your kindred. You have my word.”

  Later? Aye, if empty Norman promises permitted it.

  Bayeux was a rich, almost gold-gilded town dominated by the towering splendour of its elaborate cathedral—and equally elaborately attired bishop, Odo, Duke William’s eldest half-brother. Yet Harold was not impressed: the outward sheen of wealth belied the underlying stink of bad drainage and peasant poverty. Nor did he care for the portly bishop, a pompous, odious man.

  Odo was three years William’s junior, born to their mother Herleve soon after her marriage to Herluin, vicomte de Conteville. The two half-brothers shared the same arrogance but nothing else of likeness, except perhaps a similarity of hair colouring. Where William was tall and muscular, Odo stood a mere inch above five and one half feet, his lack of manly height emphasised by his stout bulk. Whereas William at least had the right to unquestioned respect, Odo’s haughty demand for deference stuck in Harold’s throat like a scratching fish bone. Where was the humility of a man who served God? The caring for the poor and sick, the devotion to the teachings of Christ? Ah, no, Bishop Odo cherished nothing more than the rich pickings of this worldly life.

  Without Harold being informed of his coming, Hakon arrived at Bayeux as another swirl of winter rain, heavier and more persistent, lashed across the courtyard. Duke William had not met Hakon before, for both hostages had been kept at various lodgings within the houses of lesser nobility. Harold had last seen him in England as a child of six years.

  Although the solar was more comfortable than the public Hall below, Harold felt tense and restless. He wanted to be surrounded by his own family, relaxing within his own manor. Edyth’s solar was so much more tastefully arranged than this rather carelessly furnished room. Harold could only conclude this was because the Bishop had no wife to make the place into a home. Although he did have a woman, a black-haired mistress, or so Harold’s men had overheard. That was nothing unusual; only the most devout of clerics practised what they preached, and Odo, Harold reckoned, rarely even preached unless it were for his own gain.

  The afternoon stretched ahead with no promise of relief. Harold was bored. He knew few of the men present and apart from the Duchess Mathilda, Norman ladies rarely spoke to him. The silly rumours that Englishmen ate Frenchwomen for breakfast had affected what little manners these Norman noblewomen possessed.

  A tall, slim-built young man with a tumble of fair hair worn in the English style entered and was escorted before William. The newcomer bowed, though not with the reverence usually shown to the Duke. There was something about him that attracted Harold’s attention. His stance, his build…when William pointed in the Earl’s direction and the lad turned to face him, Harold smiled and began immediately to move through the clustered groups of men and women, his hand reaching forward to greet his nephew. Seventeen years of age and the image of his father! Harold would have known the lad anywhere, so like Swegn was he, even down to the hauteur in his narrowed dark eyes and the pointed refusal to clasp hands in greeting.

  “Voilà! Your nephew, my Earl Harold, as promised.” The Duke looked smug as he indicated that the lad might go with the Earl, but added in a deliberately loud voice, “Though the lad seems none too pleased to be here!”

  Hakon’s disgruntled expression was evident to all who were watching. “So you have remembered my existence at last,” he drawled, not caring for the interest he was stirring, looking Harold up and down as if he were judging whether an ox be suited for the plough or the cooking pit. “Why? What has brought you here to seek me out? Do you come to gloat at my predicament? Placat
e me with apologies and regrets for not coming ere now?” He stood two feet from Harold, arms folded, head raised high. Angry.

  Aware of the intrigued audience, Harold nodded briefly in acknowledgement of the Duke’s dismissal and forcibly steered the lad away into the relative privacy of a window recess. “Hush, man,” he chided, matching Hakon’s anger. “Do you want this court to hear every word? You do not want the Duke to misinterpret your behaviour.”

  “You tell me that?” Hakon retorted, his mouth twisting, fists clenched. “There is very little that I have not learnt of William these past years. Not least that once in his clutch the snare will never be sprung.”

  “It is not my fault you have been kept here for so long,” Harold hissed. Through eleven years had he been pleading for Hakon’s plight and now, when they were here, face to face, they were arguing. Christ’s blood, how William must be enjoying the spectacle! At that, Harold glanced quickly over his shoulder at the Duke, saw that aye, he was watching with an amused smile. He took a breath and calmed his misplaced surge of anger. “We have repeatedly attempted to negotiate your return.” He indicated Hakon’s clothing, the fine leather of his boots and the gold brooch fastening his woollen cloak. “You do not appear too badly treated. You have not been left to rot in a dungeon as others less fortunate have.”

  “There are many forms of imprisonment; a dungeon is not obligatory. Being unable to ride where you will, write or receive letters without first having them read by the censoring eyes of others. Being shepherded day and night, aye, even to the privy or the flea-hopping bed of a tavern whore. That, my Lord Earl, is imprisonment.”