On this occasion, however, the statement in Sir Brian’s monotonous voice was probably correct. There had been rumours.
‘My lord Odo got his English estates back last year,’ the messenger was saying. ‘But the king was reluctant; it was the prelates on the Council who pressed for it. And the king chose other men for his advisers, not Odo…’
‘Very wise,’ said Richard crisply. He had already lifted down his sword from where it hung on the wall. ‘In his place, so would I.’
‘Perhaps, but the lord Odo resented it,’ said the messenger. He had his story off pat; no doubt he had told it in half a dozen houses already. ‘Nearly all the great barons hold land here and in Normandy; he kept pointing out to them how hard it is to serve two masters, and he found plenty to agree. Now his idea is to shrink the two masters down to one – Duke Robert of Normandy. He’s taken fealty on behalf of Robert Curthose from a lot of barons and they’re on the rampage in Kent and they’ve fortified some of the Sussex coastal castles to protect the malcontents and receive the duke when he lands. But de Warenne is loyal to the king. Fallowdene is called to arms to assist him.’
‘I can be ready in an hour,’ said Richard.
Wulfhild nodded. She had been through all this before. ‘I’ll pack your gear. Pick the men who go with you and say goodbye to your wife. I’ll have the horses saddled.’
‘Alice,’ said Richard. His expression had gone bleak. ‘I’d as soon not be going from home just now. And so suddenly.’
‘Go and tell her,’ said Wulfhild shortly. ‘Leave the rest to us.’
He was shut away with Alice almost until the last moment and when he came out, his face was grey. ‘Try to comfort her,’ he said to Wulfhild, who was waiting by his horse.
Wulfhild said: ‘God keep you,’ and, ‘the saints grant you victory,’ and with the others watched the party ride away: the messengers, Sir Brian, Richard, and four young men from Fallowdene hall: Asa, Harold, Gurth, Swithin. Swithin was the eldest. He had been bom out of wedlock and under protest to Gerda the miller’s daughter, the year that Wulfhild and her father came to the manor. He was the fruit of an assault by an unmannerly housecarle, long gone from the place. Gerda had sworn she hated all men and would never marry but in the end surprised herself and everyone else by consenting to wed one of Simon’s Norman companions. Simon had given him the tenancy of Westwater and Rollo had made a good stepfather. Swithin was a powerfully built man now, expertly trained in arms. The youngest of the four was Gurth, who had looked after the stables. He was only fifteen. The brothers Asa and Harold might well be missed most of all; Editha relied on their goodwill to get her land strips tilled.
They did it for her in return for a share of the produce. Fallowdene would seem very empty until they all came back.
If they came back. That cruel possibility was always there. Wulfhild had known them all since they were babies.
She made herself watch them go with a steady face. She had had practice at this in the past and had long since terrorised the other women into doing the same because men fought better and were more likely to keep safe if their minds were not distracted by worry over those at home. But it was hard.
She was still holding her features rigid against the longing to let them crumple into grief when she went to Alice. Alice lay on her back, weeping hopelessly, tears running down her narrow temples into her mousey hair. Her nose was an unpleasing pink.
‘This won’t do,’ said Wulfhild. ‘It’s unlucky to send your husband off with tears. Sit up. You must get strong so that when he comes back…’
‘What if he doesn’t?’ wailed Alice, putting the un-mentionable into words. ‘I haven’t even got the baby, now.’ No, thought Wulfhild, her repressed dislike of Alice the intruder surging up through her with astounding force and suddenness. No, you haven’t and nor have I. If Richard doesn’t return, what will de Warenne say is to be done with Fallowdene? What if he looks on it as yours, Mistress Wheyface? If he does, he’ll make you marry again so that Fallowdene can still have a resident knight, of his choice, and the whole manor will pass to that man, for ever, not even in trust for a child of my blood. And where shall I be? What shall I be? A leftover, a pensioner, living on sufferance here at Fallowdene when I’m the one who for twenty-five years has loved it and slaved for it and, yes, sold my body for it. All because Richard wouldn’t let me choose him the right wife.
All because you’ve bewitched him with your proper ways and that maddening little tch though you can’t hold a pregnancy and can hardly even get one to start with. Oh God, or Woden Sky father, anyone! Bring Richard safely home and help me to have patience with this… this creature!
‘Mother!’ Sybil danced in. One always thought of Sybil as dancing rather than walking, or running. Her feet made sprightly patterns on the ground wherever she trod. ‘Mother, where has Richard gone? Is it Chichester again? Will he bring me back another red ribbon?’ Richard had last year brought Sybil a length of scarlet silk ribbon which she thought looked so wonderful in her dark hair that she wore it till it was worn out, regardless of attempts to dissuade or even forbid her.
Anger melted at the sight of her. ‘No, darling. Not to Chichester this time. You shouldn’t be in here. Off with you, now. Go and look at the fields and see if the corn is long enough for the ryedogs’ paws to show when the wind blows.’
Sybil danced away. ‘Ryedogs?’ queried Alice listlessly. ‘When the wind blows across the corn, it looks as if something invisible were running over it. Some say it’s the hounds of the Wild Huntsman, out for a run.’ Sybil’s intrusion had been beneficial; she managed to speak to Alice quite pleasantly. Which was as well, since this was Richard’s wife and there was nothing to be done about it. ‘Haven’t you heard the legend?’
‘The Wild Huntsman?’ Alice, who had not sat up when told to, did so now of her own accord. Her tears ceased, apparently shocked out of existence. ‘Yes, of course I’ve heard the legend. It’s that old tale of the heathen god Woden hunting the souls of the dead. Some call him Herne… but Mother, surely you don’t tell pagan tales like that to Sybil? What would Father Wenenc say? Our priest at home was very angry when a minstrel sang a ballad about Herne.’
It was too much. Wulfhild turned on her after all. ‘Where’s the harm? It’s just a story. Or perhaps it isn’t, perhaps there’s some truth in it. Who knows? Do you know, my lady? Are you so sure? You’re always very sure of yourself but how much do you know, really know, of anything?’ Alice recognised the loathing in Wulfhild’s voice and shrank against her pillows, eyes wide and lips trembling. ‘Before you tell me how to rear my children,’ said Wulfhild fiercely, stabbing home, ‘you’d best have some of your own!’
CHAPTER FOUR
The Sybaritic Duke 1088
In August, the stags’ antlers were fully grown and hardened, the velvet peeling off. The stag whom Helias of La Fleche had dubbed the Old One because he was not only old in years but possessed all the wisdom and cunning which were traditionally supposed to go with age, had sixteen points this year, ivory coloured dagger tips on horn branches stout as seasoned oak.
The Old One knew that the packs of two and four legged carnivores which from time to time infested his forest did not always hunt in the same way. But whether they were trying to drive him on to the arrows of marksmen in ambush, or flushing him into the open for a chase, his favourite method of self-protection was much the same. He made a younger stag take his place.
He had been flushed out this morning, his initial attempt to lie flat under a tangled bush while the beaters went past having been spoiled by the questing noses of unleashed hounds. Now, as he sped across a stretch of open heathland, he heard the horns and the baying behind him and knew they were on his scent.
But he was on familiar territory. He veered to his left, seeking lower ground and the shelter of the bushes in the valley. Plunging into them, following his own nose which was as sensitive as that of any hound, he veered again and came headlong into a dell where
another buck was lying. The other came to his feet at once and lowered his head, but six points were no match for sixteen. The Old One charged him, his weapons making contact while the other’s were still hopelessly far away from doing any damage. The smaller stag wheeled and fled. The Old One turned at right angles to the line, made several mighty leaps which put an astonishing amount of ground behind him, arrived at the banks of a stream and began to wade upriver.
***
‘What on earth are you doing?’ the huntsman Michel panted, spurring up as Ralph des Aix was calling the hounds off the line. ‘What are you about, Ralph? There’s the stag; God’s Teeth, I can see him!’
‘It’s the wrong one,’ said Ralph. ‘That’s not the Old One, look at the slots! He’s put up a substitute; his own slots are half that size. If my lord wants a sixteen-point head above his seat in the hall, he won’t find it in this direction. We’ve got to make a back cast.’
‘The old devil!’ said Michel, meaning the Old One. ‘Well, it’s natural. If I thought a pack of hounds were on my trail, I expect I’d switch them on to someone else’s if I could. There’s a stream down there; we’d best try that way.’
They brought the Old One to bay at the foot of a hill, where recent rain had caused a landslip and made a sheer face for twenty feet. With the hill to guard his hindquarters, he used his antlers to account for three deerhounds before Helias rode up to despatch him with a single arrow. ‘Magnificent,’ Helias said, looking down on the spread of the antlers. ‘Almost a pity to kill him. He might have sprouted eighteen points next year, though I doubt it. They don’t very often.’
‘We’d have lost him but for Ralph here,’ said Michel, with a meaning look at his lord. ‘He spotted where the old fellow tried to set the pack off after another deer.’
‘Ah. Yes,’ said Helias. ‘Ride with me going home, Ralph, if you please. I want to talk to you.’
‘…Michel tells me,’ said Helias ‘that you intend to leave us.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Ralph uncomfortably, looking straight ahead between his horse’s ears.
‘May I ask why? You are free, of course. You have a right to go where you will. Michel says you have some idea of adventuring off to England. But I must point out that if it’s adventure you want, in due time you’ll get that with me. And if you’re off to seek your fortune; well, you’ll get advancement here in time. Michel will retire eventually from active work. You’d be in line for his post, and it carries a good rate of pay, and land.’
One could not say to a lord as good, as likeable, as Helias that ‘in due time’ seemed a long way off, nor express regret that one’s friend Michel, from whom one had learned so much, looked fit enough to hold his post for ten years yet. Fortunately, there was another reason which he could offer.
‘I badly want to go to England, sir. My father died recently…’
‘Did he? I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, it was sudden.’ And had taken away some kind of foundation from under him. His father was dead and if he were to go back to Aix now, his brother Reggie would not fail to welcome him… but his brother would be Reginald of Aix, the master of the holding, whereas he, Ralph, would be no one except to his stepmother. ‘When I left home,’ he said, ‘my father asked me to let him know if I ever heard news of an old friend of his, someone who lives in England. I never did hear any news. Now I wish I’d tried harder to find out. And I thought, perhaps, I could go myself and look for this friend. Perhaps he might like to have the last news of my father, might like to know the friendship wasn’t forgotten. I’m not putting this clearly. I’ve got some savings. I can buy a passage and keep myself for a while.’
‘I know you’ve got savings. You’ve been training horses in your spare time, for other people.’ Ralph glanced round in surprise and Helias laughed. ‘Oh yes, I know. I know what goes on on my estate. I know what’s going on in your head, too. You’ve had bad news; it’s shaken you out of old habits. Suddenly you want to see new things, find out what’s on the other side of the horizon. The horizon of the English Channel, in your case. I’m not unsympathetic. I’ve always longed to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land and although I would most truly like to see Bethlehem and Jerusalem, that’s not the whole of it. I’d like to see far countries, too. I’d be lying if I said that that wasn’t part of it. Perhaps in some ways I’m not unlike you.’
‘It won’t be quite a strange country. England, I mean. My father was English and I speak the language.’
‘I see. All right, Ralph. I won’t say any more. I’m sorry to lose you and so is Michel. It was he who asked me to talk to you. If you decide to stay in England, you shouldn’t have much difficulty in finding employment as a huntsman, with some new lord. Perhaps in a more senior position than you hold here.’ Tactfully, Helias pretended not to notice Ralph flush. ‘One thing, Ralph. Be careful whom you pick as a lord. Open-handedness is a virtue but sometimes it isn’t as open as it seems.’
‘I will be careful,’ said Ralph, after a pause. He did not quite understand the warning, but it seemed necessary to say something. Helias did not enlarge. In fact, he did not quite understand it either. He had spoken without intending to, as though prompted by some misty prescience. The boy was young in some ways for his twenty years, and he was setting out alone…
There were no forebodings in Ralph’s mind, however, the day he sailed for England on a trading vessel bound for Dover, carrying a flag to assure patrolling English ships of her pacific intentions. Shipping from the direction of Normandy was suspect just then.
He embarked on a sparkling morning, with a high heart. He was off to adventure and new places, off to find people who had known his father and a new lord who would give him the land which his father could not, for which Helias would have made him wait. Land which would be his, to which his brother would have no title.
The weather grew heavy and sticky before the voyage was over and the wind failed. The seamen had to get out the oars, and complained about it. But Ralph had no complaints. He was exceedingly happy, and confident.
On disembarking at Dover, he found lodging in an abbey and there asked advice on how to find a particular manor in Sussex. The brother whose business it was to buy provisions for the abbey, told him to try a merchant who was that year head of the Dover Merchants’ Guild. ‘Merchants are good sources of that kind of information. If they don’t know, they can tell you who will.’
Good luck was with him. There were several guild members dining in the merchant’s hall that day and one of them knew of Fallowdene, had even bought wool from it.
‘You take the Guildford road and at Guildford turn south for Chichester. But when you see the downs – that’s what we call the range of smooth, bare-looking hills just inland of the Sussex coast – rise in front of you, look for a track to your left. These are the landmarks…’
He made the ride with perfect ease, although the land was strange to him and although it was technically at war. He saw traces of Odo’s rebellion, signs of ravaging, once a group of refugees plodding wearily in search of shelter. But he himself was neither challenged nor delayed.
In after years, when he looked back on the strange affair that his life had been, it seemed to him that nothing in it was as strange as that; the ease with which he got to Fallowdene. It was as if it had been meant.
No one from Fallowdene died in Odo’s uprising, though the brothers Asa and Harold came home with scars of which they were inordinately proud.
Richard came through unscathed despite – as he said when he reached home and regaled them all with his story – of having been in the forefront of all the action. He rode at his leader de Warenne’s side as they chased the rebels across Kent, over blackened fields and past smoking farmhouses. He was one of those who actually laid hands on Gilbert Clare when he was taken. Gilbert Clare, now lord of Tonbridge, had demonstrated an adult version of his boyhood tendency to bite, abandoned the king and gone over to Odo. He was a catch and was sent to London to aw
ait trial, amid much satisfied rubbing of hands.
Odo, however, escaped to the sea and turned up next eighty miles away in Pevensey on the Sussex coast. Richard was in the force which cut across country as fast as their horses’ legs would go and then, for the next six weeks, besieged Pevensey.
The castle was holding out in the hope of relief, but relief never came. Once, a handful of ships flying Normandy’s leopards appeared at sea but Rufus had ships enough to discourage them. Richard, recounting to his family the history of that halfhearted invasion, said: ‘We had two and a half vessels to every ship the Normans had. I saw the Norman sails retreat over the horizon.’
He then mounted to accompany de Warenne as part of the escort to a herald, who sounded a trumpet outside the castle and called on its inmates to surrender.
In later life Richard acquired the nickname of De-brouillard, the Resourceful. But some people maintained that luck played at least as great a part in his successful career and his survival to the age of nearly eighty. The response to the herald’s summons was a swishing rain of arrows, one of which passed harmlessly and well-nigh miraculously between Richard’s saddle pommel and the coarse grey mane of his horse, to bury its point amid the chain links of the mail on de Warenne’s thigh.
Richard helped his leader back to camp and saw him taken away by litter to the priory where eventually he died, from blood-poisoning. Then he returned to his duty and was present when Pevensey, brought down at last by hunger, surrendered and its gaunt inmates marched out, and one of them asked the king quite candidly: ‘Before you hang us, can we have a square meal?’
They were not hanged. Richard heard Odo make peace with Rufus on their behalf and his own and was in the royal escort when Rufus and Odo set out together to Rochester, the last stronghold of the rising, to announce that the war was over.
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