It was not until Harecher said tentatively, ‘My lord?’ that he reached out and grasped the man’s arms.
Then he said hoarsely, ‘I will come. Go to those two by the door – wait for me.’
He turned away behind the pillar, out of sight, listening to Harecher’s retreating footsteps, his back pressed against the solidity of the stone as if to assure himself this was no dream. And deserted at last by the calm he had striven to keep so hard and for so long, he put both hands before his face.
That evening it was in very changed spirits that his little following gathered in his bedchamber of the poor inn where they lodged to listen to Richard Harecher’s plans as he described the town, the castle, the two narrow inclines that led to the gates, the bridge that crossed the Varenne, the places where Bellême’s men could be found and driven out.
‘But you cannot all travel together. There is a watch for you, my lord Count,’ and he spoke the last words with a different inflexion now. ‘Your brother would have you clapped into prison if he found you before you reach the safety of our walls. As for the Count of Bellême, I cannot guess what he would do if he had you in his hands.’
‘He would not dare to do anything. I am still a Prince of Normandy.’
‘May be so, lord, but he cares for no man – or woman or child. They say,’ Harecher lowered his voice as if he feared the Devil of Bellême’s spies were lurking even here, ‘they say he tore out the eyes of his godson with his own hands because the boy’s father offended him.’ -
There was a silence. Then Hamo said, ‘Can such things be?’
Herluin was paler than usual. ‘If it is true, then he is rightly named.’
‘It is true, and there are other tales, even worse. My own brother was taken by the Count’s men two years ago and I’ve not seen him since. Even the Count’s lady – rumour says he keeps her locked in her chamber, that her screams have been heard . . .’ The man from Domfront wiped his face with a corner of his mantle and looked across at Roger. ‘You are a priest, Messire. Tell me why does God not strike down such a man? Why does He let such evil exist?’
Roger’s mouth was a little twisted as he answered. ‘You have lived longer than I. Have your grey hairs not told you that the wicked flourish on this earth? They will get their reward in the next world, their flesh tormented as they have tormented their victims here.’
‘Pray God Bellême is cast into eternal darkness and that soon,’ Henry said. Yet he thought it was those very monstrosities, that insatiable cruelty, that had given into his hands the thing he wanted most. ‘But that is not enough to comfort the wretches he tortures now. We must take up arms for them.’
‘The Count is very powerful, my lord,’ Gulfer put in. ‘He has many castles, knights and soldiers, and the Duke’s ear as well.
Henry got up and stood facing them all. ‘I will bring him low. If it takes me all my life I will bring him down.’
Harecher was looking at him with undisguised approval. ‘I knew I was right to come. You are the lord for us. But we must get you safely to Domfront. Bellême’s men are everywhere and you would be a prisoner of such value that they would slay each other to take you.’
‘I know that,’ Henry answered gaily. ‘So we must go in twos and threes.’
His men nodded, even Gulfer was stirred from his usual phlegmatic manner, his rocklike face split into a broad grin while Hamo, who had set his back to the door as though Bellême’s men were already there seeking his master’s life, could not keep down his laughter. ‘So it’s haro! for Normandy at last. I wish I might ride openly, lord, bearing your standard.’
‘You shall carry it soon,’ Henry promised, but even as he planned and talked and laughed, below the surface he could hardly believe the miracle – that he had walked to Notre Dame at the lowest point of despair he had yet reached and that somehow the impossible had happened and he had walked from that holy place with hope born again. It was infectious, the laughter, the boyish entering into adventure, and he felt a deep and lasting affection for these men who had shared his exile so willingly. Not one of them, he thought, would ever want again.
It was arranged that Harecher with Herluin to accompany him would leave at dawn to take the good news to his fellow citizens waiting at Domfront, while the rest followed, Henry and Roger last of all.
‘How will we travel, my lord?’ Roger asked amusedly.
‘You as yourself,’ Henry said, ‘and I – I as a disreputable fellow who has repented of his sins and is going with you to enter the Abbey of St. James. We must go on shabby horses, so Raoul had best take Rougeroy,’ and fleetingly he was thankful that not even poverty had induced him to part with his favourite mount. ‘As for the journey,’ he gave a wry laugh, ‘my clothes are worn enough that they afford some disguise for a prince.’
‘But your face is the same,’ Herluin said.
‘Well,’ he rubbed his hand over it and after a moment’s thought added boyishly, ‘I will get some pitch and cover one eye so that I seem to have been in the wars and I will forbear to shave. What else?’
Hamo laughed, ‘My lord, do not be so thorough that none of us will know you.’
Roger got up from the stool by the window. ‘I will beg some flour from that wench who serves the ale. A slightly apologetic smile crossed his face. ‘She will not refuse me. And then if you rub that into your hair you will be grey instead of black.’
‘And not even Curthose would know me. Herluin, my friend, take Arnulf’s douceur and buy us wine, the best the landlord has, and we will drink to our new enterprise, to the conquest of the high rock. In three days I will be master there.’
Under cover of the talk and the luxury of good wine, Harecher said to Herluin, ‘Can he mean it – in three days?’
Herluin answered in a low voice, ‘You do not know him yet. If he sets a time for a thing it will be done then, unless he is taken – which God forbid.’
But he was not taken and on the evening of the second day of travel he and Roger came to a bend in the road as darkness settled.
‘There is a small house over there by the trees,’ Roger pointed towards it. ‘Shall we seek shelter for the night?’
Henry nodded. ‘It looks a poor enough place to be safe and who would know me now?’ He had not washed his face nor shaved since they had left Paris and with the flour in his hair and the uncomfortable patch over his left eye, he had indeed become a gruesome sight. He laughed across at his priest, full in the spirit of the venture. ‘I swear no self-respecting abbot would take me for a novice.’
‘A lay brother to feed the pigs more likely,’ Roger agreed. His cool instinct had told him, long ago after a morning Mass in his little church at Caen, to link his fortunes with this man, but now that sense of self-advancement had turned into respect which in turn had deepened into a friendship cemented once and for all by these last two days of solitary journeying together. If Henry once gave his friendship, Roger thought, it would be for life. He glanced now at his lord. ‘The good citizens of Domfront will wonder at the Prince they’ve chosen.’
Henry rubbed his bristly chin. ‘When we reach Harecher’s home I shall get rid of this beard and the pitch. The world looks lop-sided with only one eye.’ But his free eye was alight with amusement, and the truth was that he was enjoying every moment and the restoration of self-respect that Harecher had brought to him.
It was nearly dark now. They could see no sign of life from the little dwelling, though the small piece of ground cultivated around it showed signs of recent care and smoke was rising rather thickly from a hole in the roof.
Roger opened the door. Then he stopped abruptly, coughing as the smoke gushed from the doorway.
Henry pushed past him and then he too came to a sudden halt. ‘Jesu! ’ he said and put a hand to his mouth.
The single room of the house was filled with smoke from a fire heaped with damp straw and over it, strung upside down, tied by the feet to a beam set across from one wall to the other, was a man. He d
angled, head downwards over the fire, his face suffused with blood, gasping, feebly suffocating in the smoke and more dead than alive. His clothes were burned and torn and blood dripped from two long cuts, made with horrifying precision in each forearm. Around him lay the wreckage of his home, stools and table overturned, jugs broken, cooking pots emptied into a mess on the floor.
After the first stunned moment Henry and his companion ran forward together and while he lifted the man into his arms Roger found a knife and cut the rope. Free of the fire the poor wretch was choking, coughing blood, his lungs heaving, but there was little life left in him.
They laid him down on the earth floor, Henry still holding him. ‘Who did this to you? By Our Lord, I swear to you I will avenge such a deed. Can you tell us?’
Roger, kneeling with his hand on the faintly beating heart, said, ‘I fear he cannot hear you, my lord,’ but the man stirred and struggled to speak. His lips were too burned and dry to frame any words, so Roger fetched water and touched the parched mouth with it, letting a little trickle down his throat.
Then a faint croaking sound came and with it the words, ‘The Count – Bellême – his men – he took my daughter – everything – I could not pay…’
The two men holding him exchanged glances. Then Roger said, ‘Do not think of him now. Only make your soul ready for God, my son. Try to . . .’ but the dying man’s head rolled sideways.
‘He is gone,’ Henry said and closed the staring eyes. The priest made the sign of the cross over him and began the absolution of the dead.
‘“Non intres in judicum cum servo tuo, Domine…”’
Henry crossed himself and laying down his burden knelt in silence while Roger finished his priestly office. He could not bring himself to pray for the departed soul for he was too hot with anger, revulsion and pity. If anything was needed to complete his resolution, it was this poor wretch’s undeserved death at the hands of the Devil of Bellême and he could hardly bear any pause now before hurrying on to Domfront to begin the work he must do – as if God Himself had given it into his hands, as if the years of defeat, of adversity and poverty had been preparing him for this.
But because he had said he would be in Domfront tomorrow he forced down his rage, held his impatience in check. He knelt while Roger prayed, helped him bury the man in the clearing outside and at last, having eaten what food they could find, lay down to sleep by the killing fire.
He did not know it but long after he slept Roger stayed wakeful, his eyes on the door, Henry’s sword ready to his hand.
On the following morning they passed unrecognised through the gates of the town and at the house of Harecher Henry removed his disguise and emerged once more as himself to meet the chief men of Domfront. Harecher had done his work well. The citizens were organised and eager to throw out the hated men of Bellême, and at dawn the next day, when the guards at the castle let down the drawbridge for the morning’s traffic with the town they little guessed that this action was the signal for a totally unexpected attack.
It seemed, suddenly, as if the quiet town leapt into startling action. From every alley, from every doorway men emerged to fall on Count Robert’s men wherever they could be found and those that were not slain or seized were driven from the gates by the determined citizens. Every man that could bear arms joined in the fight and even the women who had had to quarter some of the Bellême men set about them with cudgels and broom handles and cooking knives.
Picked men, armed and resolute, followed their new leader. Mounted on Rougeroy and with all the horsemen he could collect he galloped up the slope and over the drawbridge, the men on foot streaming after him and yelling. ‘Dex Aie! Dex Aie! Henry – Henry of Domfront! ’
The soldiers, startled out of their wits, had no time to raise the drawbridge again and put up little more than a token resistance, many of them caught half dressed and without their arms, running hither and thither, searching for swords or spears, but without time to marshal themselves. A few made a stronger resistance in the inner bailey but they were soon driven back into the hall and Henry, leaping up the steps, sword in hand, dealt with two himself, sending one to the ground with a smashed skull while he drove his sword through the other. The commander of the garrison, who had been in his bed, tumbled barefoot down the spiral stair, without an idea who might be attacking him, and, dressed in no more than his braies, ran to seize a spear from the rack in order to defend himself. But even as he turned to face the unknown foe Henry came running across the hall to send the spear spinning from his hand and set his sword at the man’s throat before he realised what was happening.
‘Yield,’ Henry said, ‘yield and you shall not be harmed.’
The commander, half naked and disarmed, nevertheless held on to his dignity. ‘By God,’ he said, ‘Henry of Normandy!’ and flung up his hands in a gesture of surrender. For a moment he looked the astonishing invader up and down. ‘You will rue this day. When my lord of Bellême hears of this morning’s work he will come . . .’
‘Let him come,’ Henry said and laughed. ‘Let him come. He cannot stop me now.’ He shouted to the rest of the garrison that their captain had yielded and in a few moments it was all over, and with surprisingly little blood spilt.
Hamo, his face scarlet with a mixture of exertion and vicarious pride, unrolled the Prince’s standard from the linen in which he had preserved it for so long and leaped up the spiral stair whence the commander had emerged so precipitously a few moments ago. On the way up he encountered the commander’s lady who had by now realised something was wrong and had come from her tower chamber, wrapping a mantle about her nakedness, to find out what was happening.
Her expression was such a mixture of horror, embarrassment and complete bewilderment that he could not keep from laughing as he ran on up and out into the open air on top of the tower. There, with his own hand he set the standard flying high above castle and town, the single leopard on its red ground fluttering brightly against the pale blue sky as if to shout defiance to all Normandy.
Henry followed him up and for a brief moment they stood there, together, with the wind in their faces, the standard flapping over their heads.
From this high rock they could see Argentan, Séez and L’Aigle to the east; the heart of Normandy, Caen and Bayeux to the north; and to the south Maine and the good will of Helias, while to the west was their own country, the hills of the Avranchin, Coutances and the rock of the Archangel whence they had been driven more than two years before.
‘This time,’ Henry said, ‘We will hold what we have.’ He looked over the parapet, down to the castle courtyard and gatehouse, drawbridge and moat, and below that to the town and the river Varenne winding beneath the bridge.
‘Mine,’ he said, and looked smiling at Hamo. ‘By the living God, mine! ’
Running down the stairs, he took immediate and vigorous charge. Summoning all the leading citizens to the open space between castle and town there he pledged them their ancient rights and privileges and promised them that never, as long as he lived, would any man but he rule Domfront – a promise he was to keep for more than forty years.
Many of them had never seen him before but the impression that he made on them, standing in a cart so that all could see and hear him, dressed in his mail tunic, holding his sword high, was one they never forgot. He had removed his helm and stood bareheaded, his dark hair blowing over his forehead, his clear voice pledging himself to them with such sincerity that they were as won to him as he to them.
They cheered themselves hoarse, caps and hoods thrown in the air, pressing about him until he would have been swept away if his own immediate household had not stood firmly by him. Roger the Priest blessed them all, giving thanks to God, and then he rode through the streets, talking to the people, greeting the men, smiling at the women with their children, sending appreciative glances at the girls who waved to him until the whole town was wild with joy. Winter stores were brought out and a great feast set up; bonfires were lit and
the uninhibited rejoicing continued far into the night. He went out among them and everywhere they shouted their joy, hailing him over and over again, ‘Henry of Domfront! Henry of the high rock!’ until his head was spinning and he was half drunk with the joy of it.
CHAPTER 4
‘Will you go, my lord?’ Hugh of Avranches, Earl of Chester, was as always ready for action of any sort. Greedy, jovial, energetic, he loved food, drink, hunting, fighting and women, probably in that order, and everywhere his wolf’s head banner was borne men either hurried to join him or fled from his path. But in Avranches at least he curbed his excesses and abided by his new lord’s laws.
He had discovered almost at once that when Henry spoke of law and justice he meant exactly what he said, and his hand fell heavily on all offenders whatever their rank. The men at Domfront, conscious that it was they who had summoned this best of all lords to their aid, bore themselves proudly and were inclined to look down their noses at those who now flocked to ally themselves to Henry Beauclerc, once the Cub, now the Atheling again and in effect Count of the Cotentin.
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