by Jean Plaidy
How fiercely the town burned! Spars of flaming wood were flying through the air. One almost hit his horse. The creature shied and in doing so trod on a burning ember.
It reared and William’s enormous body was thrown against the heavy pommel of his saddle. He cried out in sudden agony. The horse moved sideways and William slid to the ground.
They took him to the castle of Rouen. He was in great pain from an internal injury and he knew his end was near. His physicians, skilled men though they were, could do nothing for him.
His agony was prolonged but he did not complain. For six weeks he lay in misery but this gave him the time his orderly mind needed to set his affairs in order.
He had great need of forgiveness, he said, for he had been guilty of much wrongdoing. But he had been thrust into office at too early an age. He had escaped death too often as a boy to have much fear of it. He had seen his best friends killed for their loyalty to him.
He commanded that his notaries be sent to him that they might prepare his behests. First he wished a sum of money to be set aside for rebuilding the churches he had burned at Mantes. More sums were allocated to monasteries, convents and churches. Nor did he forget the poor – both of England and Normandy.
His two sons were at his bedside. Robert was not there. Who could say where Robert was? Living in the castle of one of his father’s enemies doubtless, awaiting the moment when he would rise and snatch that dukedom which had been the cause of the dissension between them.
It was William’s wish that all those whom he had imprisoned should be set free with the exception of Bishop Odo. ‘For,’ he said, ‘he was my brother and he owed all to me, yet he worked against me for his own gain. Let him remain in his dungeon.’
But his other half-brother, Robert of Mortain, fell to his knees at the bedside and implored William to reconsider his decision.
‘He has sinned,’ said Robert of Mortain, ‘but he is our brother. For the sake of the mother who bore us all, do not, when you are on the point of facing your Maker, deny this act of mercy.’
William could not, in face of such pleading, refuse to be lenient; so Odo was freed on his brother’s request.
‘Though,’ said William, ‘this man will do no good wherever he is and it is weak of me to give in to you.’
Then he called his son to come closer.
‘My son Robert,’ he said, ‘has been a traitor to me. Yet I promised him the Duchy of Normandy and shall not break my promise. He will not rule well. He is selfish, arrogant and lacks the qualities of a ruler. Yet he is my first-born, greatly loved of his mother, and I gave him my promise. To you, my son William . . . to you, Rufus, I leave the crown of England. And Henry, where is Henry? Ah, my son Henry. I have no land to leave you for your elder brothers have it. But I will give you five thousand pounds in silver.’
Henry looked dismayed. It was hard to understand that Robert, who had been his father’s enemy, should have Normandy and he, who had striven to be a good son, no land at all.
‘What shall I do with the money if I have no land?’ asked Henry.
‘Come close to me, Henry,’ said William. ‘Be content and trust in the Lord. Wait. I tell you Robert will have Normandy and William England. But in time you will have all my possessions and you will be greater in power and wealth than either of your brothers.’
There was hushed silence in the chamber. It was as though a prophet had spoken.
Death was elusive and the pain was great.
He lay on his bed waiting for the end. He was not always lucid in his mind, which ranged back over the past.
Once he thought he lay in bed with a brave man who had guarded him and that he awoke and found a bloodstained corpse beside him. Often he believed Matilda was with him. Then a smile of tenderness would curve his lips.
But again and again he was brought back to the chamber of death by the violence of his pain.
Through a haze he saw Rufus.
‘What do you here?’ he cried. ‘You should be claiming your kingdom.’
His mind wandered again. I have lived a long time, he thought. It is nearly sixty years. I have achieved much and men will remember me. I shall stand beside my ancestors. ‘Rollo,’ men will say, ‘Richard the Fearless, William the Conqueror’; and in the halls of Valhalla they would not be ashamed of me.
But he was a Christian and he could hear the bells of Rouen.
Soon they would be tolling for him.
‘I commend myself to Holy Mary, Mother of God,’ he said, ‘that by her prayers she may reconcile me with her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.’
It was the 9th of September of the year 1087, twenty-one years since he had landed at Pevensey Bay.
My life is ebbing fast, he told himself. The pain is nearly over. This is farewell to my power, to my conquests, to all earthly glories. Soon I shall be with God . . . and Matilda.
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First published 1974 by Robert Hale & Company
© Jean Plaidy 1974
Text decorations by B. S. Biro, FSIA
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