Crusade

by Stewart Binns

  ‘And you expect me to accept it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You speak like a papal legate – full of fine words and crafty thinking. But I’m suspicious of men who won’t settle their differences on the battlefield. Words are easier said than deeds done.’

  ‘Robert is not a man to avoid a fight. Believe me, he would like nothing better than to defeat you in battle, take your head back to London and claim a vast new kingdom. But the Normans know they are not yet ready to try to impose their rule this far north. So, the compromise you should consider is for you to guarantee stability on the border so that they can continue to consolidate their power in England and allow you to have peace in Scotland – at least, for the time being.’

  ‘On the understanding that it is only a matter of time before the Normans bring a vast army here to take my domain.’

  ‘You’re right, it is only a matter of time, but I don’t think it will happen in William’s reign. He is getting weaker and his neighbours are getting stronger, especially Philip of France. So, you have time to make Scotland stronger. Take it! Build your alliances with the Norse in the Highlands and Islands, and with the Danes. Make preparations so that your sons have a better chance to resist when the onslaught comes.’

  Malcolm pondered for some time, pacing up and down.

  ‘I am relieved that Duncan is well and that the Normans treat him with respect.’

  ‘He is indeed well. He is kept close to the King, but he is well cared for and flourishes, perhaps a little too well. I didn’t mention this to Margaret, but I hear that many a fair maiden at the court of Rouen has fond memories of the boy’s Scottish vigour.’

  ‘Good boy!’ Malcolm smiled for the first time. ‘I’m glad he’s sowing his wild Scottish oats. I wouldn’t expect anything else from a Canmore.’ Growing serious once more, he said, ‘I suppose you are right. Perhaps Duncan will have a better chance of dealing with the Normans – at least, he’ll know them well. Perhaps your fine words are wise words.’

  ‘Scotland could prosper for a long time yet. If William splits his legacy between Robert and Rufus, sooner or later they will fight and the Norman Empire will be severely weakened.’

  ‘So, I must bow to the Normans once more?’

  ‘Yes, but it will be the action of a wise king, not a weak one.’

  Malcolm reflected for a while. Although he dreaded the prospect and the humiliation of it, he knew what he had to do.

  ‘Will you make the arrangements?’

  ‘I suggest Abernethy Tower again. Robert will like that; it will make him look good in his father’s eyes.’

  So, eight years after Malcolm’s first submission to the Normans at Abernethy Tower, the ceremony was repeated. Once more, Malcolm, King of the Scots, placed his hand on Bede’s mighty Bible and swore his fealty to William, King of England and Duke of Normandy.

  Robert was gentler with Malcolm than his father had been, and the two men showed one another a mutual respect.

  As Robert prepared his army to march south, we returned to Dunfermline so that I could say goodbye to my sister and to Scotland yet again. It was also an opportunity to introduce my brothers-in-arms formally to Malcolm and Margaret.

  After the courtesies, during which Adela and Sweyn behaved impeccably – just like the young courtiers they had become – the four of us sat at the King’s high table for dinner and enjoyed a typical Scottish banquet, heavy on meat and game and even heavier on mead, beer and wine.

  Although it was not apparent from their behaviour, I thought about how Adela and Sweyn must be feeling, seated within a few feet of a king at his high table. They had become part of the lesser gentry of Aquitaine – nonetheless, their life had been lived a long way from the tables of kings.

  After the banquet, I sat with Malcolm and Margaret to discuss the future and tell them of my fears for the Celtic peoples of Britain.

  ‘The Welsh princes are already in awe of the Normans. They have few natural defences and the Norman lords are building huge castles everywhere. William Fitz Osbern, Earl of Hereford, has taken Chepstow and Monmouth; Hugh of Avranches, Earl of Chester, is in control as far as Denbigh; and Roger Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, has pushed deep into the heartland of the Welsh tribes along the Vale of Powys. Scotland’s time will come and, in due course, Ireland will also face the Norman threat. For the moment, they are lucky; they have the great Western Sea to protect them, but it won’t keep them safe for ever.’

  As always, Margaret’s thoughts were for me rather than the affairs of kings and their realms.

  ‘Your advice to Malcolm to count our blessings and prepare for the future is much appreciated, but what will you do now?’

  ‘Well, I have my small band and we’ve sworn allegiance to one another. We may stay with Robert, or go in search of adventures of our own.’

  Malcolm laughed out loud.

  ‘You are wise in the affairs of others, but a fool to yourself. Your “band” is one knight of good birth, a boy who has the beard of an old crone and a girl who thinks she’s a man!’

  ‘Malcolm, please don’t be unkind to Edgar,’ Margaret remonstrated. ‘We owe him a lot, don’t forget that.’

  ‘I think our debts balance in the pan now! But I still maintain it’s ridiculous for a royal prince to have a retinue of three – two of whom should not even be in the same room as him.’

  Malcolm’s boorish comments were beginning to irk me.

  ‘Please don’t goad me; their origins are way behind them. They are exceptional people who have been brought up in very special circumstances and fully deserve my allegiance.’

  Whether Malcolm agreed with her or not, I felt that Margaret spoke for both of them as the evening drew to a close.

  ‘Go with our prayers and blessing. God’s speed, until we meet again.’

  It was painful to think that I had to leave Margaret yet again. She had such strength and had managed to make a life – indeed, to find happiness – in a place not of her choosing and with a man she had resisted for a long time. She had been the anchor in my life as a boy and in many ways her inspiration still guided me.

  I took comfort from the fact that Malcolm’s new treaty with the Normans should keep her and Scotland safe for the time being, but I remained concerned that, sooner or later, Malcolm’s temperament, coupled with the inevitable burgeoning of Norman ambitions in the North, would eventually lead to another crisis.

  We caught up with Robert’s army encamped next to the ruins of a Roman fort on the north bank of the River Tyne where, because it was significantly further north than his bastion at Durham, he had decided to delay in order to build a new fortress as a strategic stronghold. As the ruins marked the eastern limit of Hadrian’s great wall, the new castle would act as a very tangible reminder to Malcolm of William’s insistence that the old Roman wall was to become the new boundary between the two kingdoms.

  For now, his men were building the huge walls from timber felled from the forests in the west, but it would only be a temporary structure to keep the new garrison safe. Eventually, a great stone keep would rise to intimidate all-comers.

  Our small band decided to use Robert’s building project as an opportunity to discuss our future plans. Edwin picked out half a dozen men as an escort and we travelled along the bank of the Tyne for a few miles until we found a secure place to make camp in the ruins of another large Roman fort.

  After a supper of boar and beer, and much debate about the Normans’ ability to impose their will on the Scots, it was Sweyn who was the first to make his preference clear.

  ‘I would prefer to go to Italy. Hereward and the family often talked about it. They once lived happily in Melfi, serving the Guiscards, the Norman rulers of the south. He spoke very highly of Roger Guiscard, Count of Sicily, who, Hereward often said, was a great soldier and a noble knight. We were told in Zaragoza that he is still fighting for control of the western part of the island from Muslim and Byzantine warlords.’

  Adela sp
oke next.

  ‘I too would like to journey to the south, but first I would like to see if we can find some trace of what became of Hereward, Gunnhild and Estrith.’

  Edwin agreed with her.

  I suggested that, given the likelihood of Robert spending a lot more time in England consolidating the success of his Scottish campaign, we should continue in the service of Robert until we felt the time was right to travel to Italy. I liked the sound of Roger of Sicily – and the warm Mediterranean seemed very appealing as we huddled around the fire on a chilly autumn night by the Tyne.

  And so, we returned to London with Robert’s army before the worst of winter began to bite, leaving his garrison on the Tyne to continue their work. I did not envy them their task.

  We spent the long winter of 1080 amidst the intense activity of a burgeoning Norman capital. Only in January, when it became so cold that the Thames froze for three days, did the work stop.

  Our time there was full of mixed emotions for me. It was a thriving, boisterous place, full of old money and new. The Norman aristocracy passed through on their way to and from their estates in England and Normandy. The merchants, innkeepers and craftsmen benefited hugely as a result and some of these were rapidly becoming the new English elite. They adopted Norman ways, spoke their language and were starting to accumulate wealth.

  The areas around Westminster, Southwark and along the ancient route between the old Roman city and Westminster were all being transformed by new homes, churches and warehouses. The Thames, busy enough when I was boy, was now so crowded you could have forded the river just by stepping from one boat to the next. The vessels came from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. The sights and smells were intoxicating: leather, spices and wine were among the more appealing, with human and animal waste the most pungent of the less edifying aromas.

  With the rich citizens in their finery came those who fed on them – serving them and doing their bidding – and also the poor, hoping to acquire a morsel just to survive on, who were regularly abused by them. The Normans had healthy appetites for all of life’s pleasures and were more relaxed about moral turpitude than their Saxon predecessors. On both sides, and almost for its entire length, Ludgate Hill was the haunt of harlots and beggars, as were most of the taverns serving the wharfmen and stevedores along the river.

  As in all places where there are large gatherings of humanity, London exhibited much that was to be admired in my fellow man, and much that illustrated his frailties only too well. As for me, I was just like the rest of them – frail, most of the time – occasionally redeeming myself with moments of kindness or contrition.

  I resolved to improve.

  Sweyn and Adela made several journeys throughout southern England during this time in search of clues to the fate of Hereward and his daughters.

  They discovered nothing about Hereward, but did learn that after Ely the two girls had been placed under the protection of the Norman lord, Robert Mortain, Earl of Cornwall, at his keep in Launceston.

  Assuming that my status would be required to gain an audience with the Earl, Edwin and I were persuaded by Adela and Sweyn to ride with them to Cornwall as soon as the worst of the winter had lifted. We set out in late February 1081.

  It was another melancholy journey. Wessex was flourishing; its estates were prospering, its farms thriving, its burghs burgeoning. But it was a new Wessex. The quiet slumber that had been Saxon England was now a brash bustle of toil and energy. Many of the people were being handsomely rewarded, but most were not.

  The old Saxon lords and thegns had gone, their modest halls and longhouses replaced by huge fortified towers, earthworks, keeps and mottes. Norman soldiers were everywhere, jittery, belligerent, glowering. The realm was at peace and prospering, but this had come at a heavy price, paid in the rivers of blood that had been spilled in the past and the ever-present odour of oppression and brooding resentment.

  Adela and Sweyn took everything in, trying to come to terms with their own part in England’s traumas. They practised their weapons routines twice a day, every day – two hours in the morning, two hours in the evening – sword and seax, lance and bow, mounted and on foot. They ran and swam, climbed, crawled and clambered through woods, across heaths and along beaches.

  Their routines were like those of the devout monks, performed with the regularity of an hourglass, the dedication of a pilgrim and the intensity of a zealot. It was exhausting to watch.

  Edwin and I joined them in many of their exercises and routines, but never with the same ferocity of purpose. Edwin was as fit and strong as any warrior and I maintained good health and followed strict military disciplines, but Sweyn and Adela were relentless. Typically, if I felt sore or feverish, I would take a break, or if I had overindulged in one of the many pleasures of the flesh available to a nobleman, I would let lethargy get the better of me. Not so, Sweyn and Adela. Pain or discomfort seemed to drive them on – and if they were diverted by worldly desires, they kept them well disguised.

  As I observed them day after day, my admiration for them grew. They were so agile and strong and their close-quarters skills with a seax or dagger were a sight to behold. They often described how they had watched Alphonso of Granada in training at their home in St Cirq Lapopie. He was Hereward’s friend – the man he had admired more than anybody in single combat – and so they copied all his moves and routines.

  Passing in the shadow of the wilderness of Dartmoor, it reminded me of the North. It was a forbidding place, much of it still covered in snow. Its practically impenetrable forests stretched high up, almost to the crests of the moors, where the trees gave way to the bogs and mires that could swallow a horse and rider in minutes.

  The further west we went the more Celts we saw, still with their own language and ways, until we found only the occasional Saxon settlement close to the rivers.

  The Earl of Cornwall’s Launceston was like the rest of this Norman land. There was a huge wooden keep atop a towering motte, with the stone walls of a new fortress being built around it.

  The Earl’s greeting and hospitality were generous. A man in his mid-forties, he was typical of his warrior breed: forthright, strong and disciplined. He appeared to carry more Frankish blood than that of his Viking ancestors, for he was short and dark with a girth that reflected his age.

  ‘I am sorry to tell you that Gunnhild died two years ago. She developed appalling swellings and became very ill. Estrith nursed her for several weeks but she just wasted away. My physician said she was consumed by black bile, which produced terrible tumours that eventually killed her. Her pain was great, but she bore it with fortitude. When she died, Estrith took her to a secret place where Torfida, her mother, is buried. She then decided to leave Launceston. I had to seek permission from the King, which he granted. She left here about a year ago.’

  Adela got the question out just before me.

  ‘My Lord, may we know where she has gone?’

  ‘You may not, young lady. First of all, the King forbade the girls any more than passing contact with anybody outside my immediate jurisdiction until they married. And secondly, Estrith left specific instructions that no one was to know her whereabouts.’

  ‘But, my Lord, we’re her family.’

  ‘She made no exceptions. Even though her father was a mortal enemy, I was charged with the girls’ care and would not betray Estrith’s trust to anyone.’

  ‘You were at Ely, Earl Robert?’

  ‘I was, Prince Edgar.’

  ‘So, you were a witness to Hereward’s demise?’

  ‘I was, but the account of the events after the end of the siege is known only to the King and to me. My recollection will go with me to my grave. As for the King –’ he gave a short laugh ‘– I wouldn’t recommend that you ask him.’

  Sweyn then stepped forward.

  ‘My Lord, did the girls not marry?’

  ‘They chose not to, although there were many suitors. They were beautiful – indeed, Estrith remains so
– and very learned and charming; perfect wives for Norman lords looking for English brides to charm their tenants. But they chose to spend their days helping in the local communities with the sick and the poor; in the evenings they would talk and write, read and draw. Estrith is exceptionally talented with calculation and would seek out any churchwright or mason in the area to talk about the techniques of construction. She said that her mother had seen the great buildings of Rome and Greece and understood how they were built.’

  Adela and Sweyn looked at one another warmly, clearly enjoying fond memories from the past. It was obvious that the Earl had become very fond of the girls and remained fiercely loyal to their wishes. It was pointless to press him further.

  We made a detour during our return to London in order to visit the nuns at Hereford, feeling certain that that was where we would find Estrith. Hereward had first met Torfida there, and that was where she had gone shortly before her tragic death.

  To our surprise and disappointment, Estrith was not there, nor had she been there.

  Our trail had gone cold.

  Short of visiting every ecclesiastical house in the country, we had no choice but to return to London, leaving me saddened to think that our hopes of ever finding her had all but gone.

  11. This Turbulent Priest

  We spent the next few months on a grand tour of England as Robert undertook an inspection of the rapidly growing Norman fortifications which seemed to loom over every burgh in the realm. The monotony was broken only in the spring of 1082, when Robert asked me to take my conroi and four of his own to Rochester on a mission of some delicacy.

  Odo of Bayeux, apart from being Earl of Kent and a bishop of Normandy, was King William’s half-brother and closest confidant. He was also unrelentingly ambitious and had his eyes set on the papacy itself. He had begun to recruit supporters from the Norman hierarchy for an expedition to Rome to press his claim to be Pontiff by force of arms. It was a naive plan at best; the last thing the King wanted was for England and Normandy to become embroiled in the politics of Rome and in military campaigns in southern Europe, where other powerful Normans with friends and allies in Normandy ruled most of the Italian peninsula.