Laeghaire heard footsteps and slipped his hand under his cloak. The man who had given him entrance said, “There, in the archway, sir.”
“Wait here.”
That was Guillaume. Laeghaire relaxed. The man came, swaddled in a cloak, out of the smothering rain. He looked at Laeghaire.
“A man in Worms gave me a letter,” Laeghaire said.
“By the Holy, it is you. Come down from there; bow can I see you when you sit up over my head?”
Laeghaire dismounted. Guillaume clapped him on the shoulder. “Hunh. You’ve changed since I saw you last.”
“Nine years sit on a man,” Laeghaire said. “But you’re the same—do you still drink your wine with water in it?” He poked at Guillaume’s belly. “You’re soft.”
“You impudent whelp. Remember if you will who’s older here. Nine years? Is it that long?”
“The year the Count’s daughter married the Duke of Normandy. Have you forgotten?”
“Forgotten? Never. Come in. The hall’s warmer. Leopuild, come back to your post. Nine years. But I recognized you.” Guillaume put the edge of his cloak over his head. “Foul weather. Follow me. You’re late.”
“Four days.”
They went to the stable. Guillaume lit a torch. He looked at the black horse.
“Is that your war-horse?”
“Of course not. I left him by an inn.”
“Oh. And you weren’t sure of your reception.”
“I had reasons.”
“Let the boy do that.” Guillaume took him by the arm and pulled him away from the horse. “Come up to the hall. The Count’s drinking. He’s a good fellow. And important, too.”
“No, wait a minute. I had my reasons, as I said. I have a woman with me.”
Guillaume spread his hands. “No matter. Is she proud? She can work in the kitchen. Keep her out of mischief.”
“Good.”
“Now will you come? I left a good drink of wine.”
“No wonder you’ve gotten soft.”
“Hunh. I’ve been hearing about you. This way. Now left. They talk of you almost in the same breath with Harald Hardraadsh”
“Just almost?”
“By the Holy, you’re insolent.”
“Tell me about this place you have for me.”
Guillaume had his hand on a door latch, but he turned and his hand dropped.
“The Count, you know, is not a young man, and he dislikes warring.”
“I know.”
“But he’s bound by his alliance to the Norman Duke, and the Norman Duke is wildly fond of warring. He wants to fight against Maine soon—perhaps in the next year—now that Count Herbert is dead. Some business of a mutual pact. The Count has no desire to go, but he must send men, and these men must have a captain.”
“He doesn’t trust William?”
“No man with a good head on his shoulders trusts the lord William. Not that he would attack the Count, his own father-in-law, but he’s poor in the way of men and money and he does like to fight. He might use the Count’s men as his own, to fight somebody the Count would not like to have his men fighting—do you understand me? Especially since the Count is the regent-guardian for the King. You know?”
“I can see the difficulties.”
“So. The Count asked me to go as captain. But I—as you say you’ve noticed—am getting old for such things, and I like to have the court nearby, and plenty of wine. I told him I would find him a man.”
“Why me?”
“Because I heard in the summer that you’d finally left the service of that German pig. I knew you’d be by Worms. Your reputation is quite remarkable, especially when I remember the scrawny wild brat you were nine years ago.”
Laeghaire smiled. “I was coming here anyway,” he said.
“We’re all lucky,” Guillaume said. He opened the door and they came into a great roofed hall, where the platters from a supper still stood on the table. The Count sat talking to his Countess. Half a dozen servants and some women of the Countess stood and sat around them. A harper played in the corner. A little group of young men was in the far end of the room, talking and drinking. Guillaume bowed casually in that direction and led off toward the Count.
The room was very rich. Laeghaire thought it much more magnificent than the Thuringian great hall. It was not a warrior’s hall. He guessed that the tapestries were the work of the women of the Flemish Court. He paused a moment and looked into the eyes of the Count of Flanders and he knelt.
“My lord,” Guillaume said, “I’ve found you a captain for the army.”
“So I see. Bid him rise.”
“Rise,” Guillaume said. Laeghaire stood up.
The Count looked him over at his leisure, and turned to Guillaume. “A strong, healthy-looking fellow. Who is he?”
“Laeghaire from Tralee, my lord.”
“Yes. Indeed.” The Count turned to the Countess. “My dear lady, I ask your permission to speak at some length with this man. You may retire if you wish.”
“If I might take the harper, my lord.”
“Stay.” Baldwin turned back to Laeghaire. “You are Irish?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“A wandering knight? Not a thing to give me confidence in you. Where have you wandered here from?”
“Thuringia, my lord.”
“Whom did you serve there?”
“The Duke, my lord.”
“In what capacity?”
“Captain of the army.”
“And whom did you fight?”
“Slavs and Germans, my lord.”
“And is the lord of Thuringia too old to do his own captaining?”
“Too fat, my lord.”
The women laughed.
“Too fat?”
“There is hardly a horse in Germany can carry him, and he complains that long marches make him sick.”
“A poor lord.”
“But clever.”
“I said he was a poor lord, and you contradict me. I find you most insolent.”
“Do you, my lord?”
The Count wheeled on Guillaume. “What kind of knight is this? Insolent, disrespectful—”
“He’s young, my lord.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-three, my lord.”
“A guess. Sheer guesswork. You are too young. Far too insolent.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
The Count banged his fist on the arm of his chair. “Rascal, uncouth, unknightly rascal.”
“My lord.”
“By God, Sir Guillaume, he’s just the sort to send to my son-in-law. He will set William back on his heels. You, what’s your name again?”
“Laeghaire of the Long Road.”
“You know what I want of you.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Good. Now, listen to me. William is a rogue, a pious, bad-tempered, ambitious, good-for-nothing rogue.”
“Then he is well fitted for the work of this world, my lord.”
“I refuse to answer that. My sweet and godly daughter dotes on him. Sir Guillaume will show you your duties. Raise me some five hundred men and take them to Rouen, or wherever he wants to gather, sometime soon. Speak for them and for me, on instructions I will give you. Can you use a bow?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can occupy your empty time with training archers for this army.”
“He has a woman with him,” Guillaume said.
“A woman? Is she his wife?”
“No. Is she, Laeghaire?”
“No.”
The Count frowned. “This may prove difficult. But it is easily avoided. Give her a place in the kitchens. You see, Sir Laeghaire, my son-in-law is most incredibly pious. Being a bastard himself. Now, go with Sir Guillaume. He will give you a closet. Guillaume, you know better than I. Now leave me to my music.”
Guillaume went off through a little door, and Laeghaire followed. Guillaume turned in the corridor. “By God,”
he said, “I thought he was going to hug you. He loves men who have pride. He loves William, too—don’t you be misled. I’ll send a man to fetch up the woman.”
“First show me where we sleep. I’m dead tired.”
“This way. The Duke will come north to discuss his plans. He’s supposed to come over Christmas. I won’t give you any lists until then. Unless you want to be able to spit facts and figures at him. Here.”
The room was a little closet on the west side, close to the wall. Laeghaire nodded. Guillaume went out. Laeghaire sat on the pallet. He thought over the whole of what had happened. It was strange how men tried to test other men, and how they amused themselves and made themselves feel important. The Count amused him. He thought of what the Count had said about the Duke of Normandy. He sounded like a wild boar, like old Malachi.
The Count reminded him a little of the Duke of Thuringia, but he supposed that was only because neither of them led his own army. It was better for him that way, of course. A lot of lords were happier playing courtier than living off the land on a prolonged raid or risking an arrow in the belly during a charge. He remembered Heinrich’s merry little explanation of why he preferred to let a stranger lead his army.
“A lord is the anointed of God, and he should not waste his sacred flesh in such dangerous and unhealthy pursuits. Bring me that wine.”
“On the contrary,” Heinrich’s bishop-brother had said. “The lord is anointed of God for the specific purpose of fighting for God against the heathen.”
“And Christians too, ray lord Arnulf?” Laeghaire had said.
“And to punish evildoers.”
“You just say that to justify your own fighting,” Heinrich had said. “I for one do not intend to waste my sacred flesh on the battlefield, when I can pay the Irishman one mark a month to do it for me. I’d be doing him out of his way of living, anyhow.”
Heinrich’s brother was a good man, a strong-armed priest, who had taken Laeghaire’s part in the quarrel. Before fighting, he would hold Mass in the fortress chapel. Most priests made a Mass uncomfortable, but Arnulf’s Masses were short, strong and simple. Laeghaire would stand in the fourth or fifth row, behind the lords he commanded, and admire Arnulf’s logic. Arnulf swung a lusty ax, too.
The door opened and Hilde came in, carrying part of the packs, followed by a stableboy with the rest. She directed the boy imperiously. Laeghaire grinned. He was glad he had brought her. He watched her unpack and arrange his mail and helmet in the oak chest, hang his bow and quiver from pegs, lean his shield against the wall. She left for a moment and was soon back with a broom. She swept the floor.
“Busy little housewoman,” he said. “Did you hear that you’re to work in the kitchens?”
“Yes. I think I shall be happy to be among women again.”
“Well, I don’t know if you’ll be able to talk to them for a while. Flemish isn’t exactly like German.”
“That man spoke some Flemish to me and I understood some of it.”
“You’ll learn.”
She leaned on the broom, like a warrior leaning on his lance. “I like it here.”
“We’ll be here a while.”
He asked for the lists of the knights’ fees owed lo Baldwin, and Guillaume gave them to him. Baldwin held a good six hundred fees, plus the services of lords in his domains who held other fees. There were horses to be bought, besides, to carry packs and haul siege engines, if William of Normandy should decide for them. Laeghaire put all these lists on the table in his room. The sun ran over the paper, and the paper, thin-shaved, curled up into the sunlight, so that the curled edge made a shadow over the top three lines of script.
Guillaume had left him six fresh quills with badly cut nibs. He sat down on the bench and took out his dagger and cut new ones. It was cold out. The sun was cold. Dust floated in the stream of sunlight. He put down the quills and leaned against the wall. This is stupid, he thought; he drew up his knees and leaned his forearms on them, and thought, Now I’ll have to think of a reason for thinking it. I don’t know what’s going on.
His hands hung from his wrists, limp fingers. The second knuckle on his right hand was much bigger than the second knuckle on his left hand. The tendon was broad and flat, like a worm.
Somebody knocked on the door. He put one foot down. “Come in.”
It was the Count. He advanced a little into the room and looked around. “So he gave you the lists.”
“Yes.”
“Well.” Baldwin moved straight to the bed and sat down on it. “I think it’s a great gift you can read. Do you speak French?”
“Only a little. I was once in Burgundy, but their language is a little different.”
“Speak some Burgundian.”
“What shall I say?”
“Say anything.”
Laeghaire recited the first two lines of a Burgundian song.
“A pity. You must learn good French. What did you say?”
Laeghaire told him.
“Oh. No, don’t start for those lists, you’ll hurt your eyes and not get anywhere. Tell me, where have you been, besides Flanders and Germany?”
“Burgundy, as I said, but only for a little while, I think about a year or a little more. When I left Ireland I went to England and was in the Houseguard of—Wessex.”
“What? Wessex? Under Earl Godwin?”
“Yes.”
“His son married my sister.” Baldwin tapped his teeth with his fingernails. “Complications arise.”
“Why, my lord?”
“Nothing. You’ll learn. And where after England?”
“A while in Wales, two or three years here—”
“Where?”
“In Bruges.”
“I never saw you.”
“I was in the princess’ guard.”
“And then?”
“After Burgundy, Thuringia, and then I left Thuringia, and now I’m here.”
“Of course, that’s how you knew Guillaume. Well, you’ve traveled far. I suppose you’ll want to go back to Ireland.”
“Sometime, maybe.”
“Have you kin?”
“My father and my brothers.”
“Are they still alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you learn to read and write?”
“I was four years in a monastery.”
“You’re very precise with your times.”
“It’s my life, ray lord.”
“Your tongue will make trouble for you someday. Why did you leave the monastery?”
“My lord, why this inquisition?”
“I’m merely curious.”
“There is nothing in my life to be curious about.”
“For me, there is. I’ve rarely gone out of my own domains.”
“Everything is the same, everywhere.”
“Perhaps. Thank you for your answering.”
Laeghaire lifted his head and looked at Baldwin. He turned his head away.
“I’ll tell you about this situation—in Maine.”
“Good.”
“Anjou and Normandy have always fought over Maine. The father of this King used to think that if either of them ever won Maine, he’d be lost.”
“And you don’t believe it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re regent for the little King, aren’t you?”
“William will take Maine. But I know how his ambitions go, and to be King of France isn’t one of them. Besides, nobody can really hold Maine.”
“Oh.”
“The Count of Anjou’s dead, and the family is fighting over who will be the new Count. So William will take Maine. He had an agreement with the old Count of Maine, Herbert, that if Herbert died without an heir, William’s son Robert could be Count. Herbert died last spring.”
“Unexpectedly, of course.”
Baldwin frowned. “I know what you think.”
“Is it so?”
“I don’t know. I told you,
my daughter’s husband is a rogue beyond all accounting.”
“A sweet rogue, too, incredibly pious, you said.”
“He needs Maine.”
Laeghaire put his shoulders against the wall and wiggled into a comfortable position. “I’m listening.”
“By God, I don’t have to excuse him to you or explain him to you. You are paid to act in my behalf, on my orders, and what he thinks or wants is nothing for you to consider.”
“My lord. Such an outburst.”
Baldwin stood up He went to the window and looked out. The sight of his pretty town, all peaceful beyond this castle wall, must have comforted him. Laeghaire watched him look at the bright roofs of the houses by the canals.
“He has had a hard life,” Baldwin said. “He is a rogue, and pious, and madly fond of fighting, but when he was young he spent most of his life running from his enemies. He’s always had to fight, if only for his own protection. That kind of life can turn a man into a wild dog.”
Baldwin turned suddenly. Laeghaire watched the shadow on the lists of knights’ fees.
“As you say, it doesn’t concern me.”
“I’m uncertain about Herbert. He was a young man. There’s a chance that William… did what you suspect. But that agreement was eight years old. And there are other parties in Maine. Geoffrey of Mayenne, for one. The strongest of them. He and that damned Walter of the Vexin are like hand and glove, and Walter’s always wanted to be Count of Maine, or Count of anyplace he could fight William from. Now he’s claimed the title and Mayenne is backing him. Walter married Herbert’s aunt. Walter hates William, and William hates Walter more than any man alive, and the chances are not good that Walter will be alive much longer.”
“God, I hate these politics. These damned feuds.”
“I thought you should know. Anyway, my daughter and William are coming here for Christmas. He’ll want to talk about it.”
“All right.”
“He’ll undoubtedly want to hunt. Do you hunt?”
“I have.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
Laeghaire shrugged.
“You’ll have to come with us sometime.”
The Firedrake Page 4