‘Off! You might as well do it with permission now.’
They watched the portly figure disappear among the tents and wagons.
‘The longer we wait, the more difficult this training becomes,’ said Montgomery.
‘I do not need to be told that,’ said Geoffrey sourly.
‘And it will not do the slightest good,’ said Giffard. ‘All it needs is a windy day, and your trumpets will be useless. Gabriel himself would not be heard. And as for this unison charge – great God, Geoffrey! Five hundred men.’
‘You exaggerate,’ said Geoffrey.
‘Very well – four hundred. Three hundred. A hundred. You will never get them to strike at the same instant. And you will certainly never recall them. A knight is a knight. You are up against generations of habit and tradition; you will never change it.’
‘Have you seen the fyrd?’ Geoffrey said. ‘Have you seen the might of England in one place? How can we break that up with petty hit-and-run? And if they have a palisade, it will be worse.’
‘Then we see to it that they do not,’ said Giffard. ‘God’s Teeth, Geoffrey, we are the ones with the cavalry; we move the faster. It is up to us to choose the ground. We are the invaders; Harold must come to us. He has no choice.’
Geoffrey shook his fists in his urgency. ‘Walter – think! Imagine! Two hundred knights moving as one mighty human hammer. What a blow could we strike! No army on earth could stand against it. Is that not an end worth striving for?’
Giffard shook his head. ‘It is not possible, it is not natural, and it is not necessary. And it is not honourable,’ he added.
Geoffrey turned in frustration to Montgomery.
Montgomery put up his hands in a sign of peace. ‘I know, I know. I shall try to do what you say, if that is what the Duke wants. So will Walter; you know that. But permit us to have our doubts, Geoffrey. You only train them; Walter and I have to lead them.’
Gilbert turned his horse northwards, away from the ridge, away from the grey apple tree. The ground rose gently to the true summit. Here, Gilbert paused in wonder; he could see the countryside for miles around in all directions.
Great Jesus, what a position!
To the east, he could see the land fall away into a mess of small clefts and gullies. Nothing much worth noting there. That left only the north, where the hill sloped softly away from the summit towards the forest at its foot.
He winced as another pain nipped his stomach. He became aware that he might soon have to dismount. Out on the open hilltop he felt suddenly vulnerable and un-private. Almost as if he expected a hefty Saxon to spring out on him from nowhere.
Make for the trees! He dug in his heels. His stomach grumbled again at the greater movement.
The line of long grass and bramble that screened the entry to the forest looked almost welcoming.
Suddenly the ground disappeared. His horse tumbled. He heard earth and stones spilling. The breath was knocked out of him as he fell.
At once he began rolling uncontrollably. He heard his horse neighing in fear. He was careering down an almost precipitous slope, crashing through bracken and thorn, bringing cascades of earth and leaf mould after him. Visions flashed past his frightened eyes – his horse’s staring face, sliding tree trunks, fern fronds in the sky, his own flailing arms. He was sure he heard voices.
Ambush!
He felt the snap of one of the straps holding his scabbard to the belt. The scabbard banged against the tree trunks. As he fell over some loose stones, the handle of his knife dug painfully into his hip. Something wrenched at his ankle.
Ambush!
His mind raced even faster than his body. He must be ready for them. What would Ralph say about his being caught like this? He grabbed wildly for the hilt of his sword. How would they kill him? Would it hurt? Would Adele weep for him?
With a tremendous thump, he hit level ground. By a huge effort, he stopped himself rolling into the water. He lay there a while, totally winded.
As his breath returned, he raised his head, slightly surprised to be still alive. Looking to either side, he was more surprised to find no boots or leggings there. He turned over and looked further. There was not a living creature in sight.
He was in a smallish ravine, partly wooded and very steep, with a tiny streamlet in the bottom. The far bank was even higher than the one he had slipped down. Holes were everywhere, and he could smell and see badger droppings. He gazed up to the top. Half one side of this cleft in the ground seemed to be made up of one huge badger sett. Clods of earth still trickled on to his shoulders. He moved to avoid them, and winced at a fresh pain in his ankle. He must have caught his foot in one of the holes.
He wriggled into a sitting position and examined himself for further damage. Apart from a dense coating of dirt, there did not seem to be much else wrong. As if to correct him, his stomach turned again, and he almost retched.
He leaned back on his hands and rested his head far back on his shoulders. He took some deep breaths, gazing around and upwards.
What a place for an ambush! Thank God he really was alone. Bruised, winded, and sick, he could have been finished off by a half-blind old crone with a skinning knife.
Suddenly his nerves were jarred by a loud rustling slightly further up the ravine. He wrenched himself about, almost whimpering with shock and fear, and tugged again at his sword. Worse, there was another, heavier noise. He scratched and scrambled his way to his feet, and succeeded at last in drawing the weapon.
His horse appeared, trailing its reins. Gilbert collapsed into a sitting position, and laughed hysterically.
When he regained composure and tried to stand up, his twisted ankle reminded him that he had another problem besides his stomach. He started to hobble towards his horse; every step was agony. His scabbard now hung awkwardly from its single strap, and threatened to trip him.
Puffing and grimacing, he reached his patient mount and prudently tied it to a tree. He cut an end off a saddlebag strap, and fashioned a makeshift leather thong to support his scabbard. Taking the water flask from the saddle horn, he unfastened the stopper. Bad water or no bad water, he needed a drink. It might have been the apples; it might have been the bad pork or the stale cheese. What did it matter? The damage was done.
And now he had to get out of the ravine. It was just as well that he had tethered his horse so firmly. The animal could never have stood still while he made so many attempts to get into the saddle. When he tried to put his left leg in the stirrup, his right ankle shrieked with the pain of taking all his weight, however briefly. When the horse moved and he had to hop on it in order to stay upright, he cried out loud. He went round to the other side and tried putting his bad foot in the stirrup first, but could not stand the twisting that it involved. For one desperate moment he contemplated climbing a tree and dropping into the saddle, as he had seen tumblers do at Rouen during the Easter Sunday celebrations. Then he thought of the large wooden pommel at the front of the saddle, and shuddered at the awful possibilities. In the end he pulled the horse towards himself, grabbed both ends of the saddle, and hoisted himself over it until he drooped down either side like a bag of onions. Puffing and cursing, with his face pressed against the creature’s shoulder, he heaved and bounced until he fetched his injured leg over and down the other side. So ashamed did he feel that he instinctively turned to left and right to see if anyone was looking.
There was his water flask lying on the ground. He swore viciously, dismounted, collected it, and went through the whole painful business again.
It was then that he noticed that a spur was missing. Still cursing, he peered from the saddle at the mess of earth and stones where he had fallen. He could see nothing. He raised his eyes to the top of the ravine. A hopeless quest; it could have come off anywhere in the descent.
He could not go through the indignity of mounting like that a third time. He wrenched hard on the reins and dug in his one good foot. At last, at long last, he emerged on to the slope outsi
de the rampart of grass and bracken through which he had fallen.
Now what?
He was hot, flushed, uncomfortable, in pain, and furious with everything. What on earth was he to do now? What did he have to report? That he had made all the wrong choices, botched everything? He remembered Ralph; he must think clearly.
What did Ralph say? ‘There is always something you can do to improve things, however small.’
He was hot. His hauberk was unbearably oppressive. He was alone in a deserted countryside. Very well – it would come off. He kept sufficient presence of mind to stow it carefully in the bedroll behind the saddle. If he lost that Ralph would be furious beyond words.
Many months before, on the Duke’s punitive campaign against Count Conan, Ralph had salvaged that hauberk from a casualty at the siege of Rennes. He had cut it carefully away from a disembowelled Breton. It had then taken many hours of patient work by a surly armourer, and some handsome payments, to get it into proper condition. Ralph polished it lovingly. When, without warning, Gilbert had presented it to him, he was so staggered, and so touched, that it was difficult to hold back the tears. Quite apart from the generosity of the gift, it meant that Ralph approved. Gilbert hugged him in his delight, and he did not care if Bruno did shake his head.
Feeling cooler and more in command, Gilbert thought about the best thing to do. He glanced up at the sun. Still some daylight left. He had noted the landmarks. He could find his way back. What was wrong with another search further westwards? What sort of scout was it who gave in to a twisted ankle and a grumbling stomach? He could see Bruno’s eyebrows lifting yet again. Well, we would have no more of that. Even if he found nothing, he could look Ralph in the eye and say that he had used every scrap of daylight. But – suppose he found something! He – Gilbert of Avranches . . .
No – west it would be.
Bruno was seeing to the horses when Ralph came back. He asked a question simply by turning round.
‘Fitzosbern,’ said Ralph.
‘What did he say?’
‘About as much as you. You know Fitz.’
Bruno patted his horse’s neck, then bent to examine its forelegs. ‘No contact then?’
‘None. Nobody has seen a thing. Fitz says to rest and then spread out further – bigger sweeps. In threes and fours – maybe more. In case.’
‘Only a matter of time.’
Bruno moved to check the back legs, his hand gently running down, squeezing and massaging. He never gave the impression of being rushed off his feet, but at the same time he was never idle. At work or at rest, he was usually engaged in some humdrum chore or other. Normally, Ralph found it soothing. Now the patient, deliberate movements suddenly annoyed him.
‘Does it not bother you?’
‘No.’
Ralph ticked a tussock of grass. ‘Well, it bothers me.’
Bruno stood up. He was a long, gangling man, and towered over Ralph. He wiped his hands on a piece of cloth waste. ‘It is not the English that bother you.’
Ralph liked Bruno being there, just as he liked the sun being out. But the sun annoyed him sometimes with its heat; just so could Bruno sting him; he was not unkind, but he spared no truth.
‘There is no danger, or you would not have let him go. He is probably simply lost.’ He contrived to make it both a reassurance and a comment on Gilbert’s lack of experience.
Ralph tore a piece from a blackened carcase hanging above the tiny spit, and chewed moodily. Bruno had a down on the boy. He gave him no credit. What about that time on the cliffs at Etretat? He belittled everything Gilbert had said.
It must have been about the second week in September. They had been watching the sea yet again, straining their eyes for the English fleet. It looked as if it had just been disbanded. Why? Where had it gone? Gilbert had jumped in as usual.
‘Harold has taken his ships for repairs and fresh supplies. You wait – he will be out to sea again in a few days.’
Bruno hawked and spat. ‘He has no supplies. He has sent his men home to get in the harvest. I should have thought a farmer’s son would have known that.’
Gilbert blushed. Ralph tried to come to his rescue. After all, the boy had only been trying to gain their respect by his reasoning.
Ralph held out his short cloak. It flapped noisily.
‘Harold knows the importance of the wind as well as the Duke. So long as it is in this quarter, no invasion fleet can depart from Normandy, and Harold knows this. Now is a good time to send his men home.’
Gilbert’s face lit up with inspiration. ‘But the wind that keeps the Duke in harbour will bring the Norwegians. It will release the longships.’
‘Nobody knows what Norway is doing,’ said Bruno.
Gilbert’s eyes snapped in excitement. ‘Perhaps Harold has gone north to find out.’
Bruno tilted his head in tolerant amusement. ‘A strategist as well as an admiral.’
Gilbert fought back. ‘Would it not be good for us if Harold did meet Norway? Whoever survives will be that much weaker. Our task will be that much easier. What matters, surely, is not who wins the first battle, but who wins the last.’
Bruno pursed his lips.
Ralph laughed. ‘He has you there. Now find an answer for that.’
‘My business is scouting,’ said Bruno. ‘I stick to what I understand. I know my place.’
It was Bruno’s way of keeping the distance between Gilbert and himself. Privately, to Ralph, he was more explicit.
‘Earth in his ears. He does not listen.’
‘He does,’ said Ralph. ‘All the time. He hangs on my every word.’
Bruno sighed. ‘Well, he may listen, but he does not hear. He is trying to catch distant bells of honour and glory, and does not hear the sounds around him.’ Bruno tapped his ears. ‘A scout needs these for his life.’
Ralph fell back on sarcasm. ‘And Bruno of Aix hears all.’
Bruno was ready for him. ‘More than Ralph of Gisors. Ralph listens to the words of Gilbert, but he hears the voice of his dead brother.’
It was the smoke which first caught Gilbert’s notice. It took him almost by surprise as he emerged from a wood on the shoulder of a hill.
He backed hurriedly, dismounted – with great care – and tethered his horse to a young beech. He limped forward, his heart beating with excitement, and remembered just in time to take off his helmet in case the low sun caught it and gave him away.
This could be a Saxon encampment just ahead of him. Great Jesus – perhaps the whole army!
Leaving the shelter of the trees, he crawled to a vantage point behind a large clump of ferns. Ready to have his breath taken away by what he would see, he parted the ferns and looked down.
Nothing. A small valley, just as uninteresting as the others. Except that this one had a few people in it. No soldiers, true, but human beings at least. It made a change from the ghostly emptiness that they had seen earlier in the day.
Away to the left lay a cluster of peasant homes. One or two women were in a nearby field, gleaning. An ox-cart was creeping painfully along a path from the surrounding trees, straining under a huge load of firewood. The air was so clear that Gilbert could hear the creaking of the great wooden wheels. Two young girls were beating clothes on large stones by the stream that split the buildings into two rough halves. An old man was lifting vegetables from a garden patch. A boy was teasing pigs by throwing stones at them.
Gilbert’s spirits fell. It was all so normal. The large load of wood was bigger than any individual peasant was entitled to. The local lord was clearly making his usual preparations for the winter as if nothing was impending.
Ralph’s comment on the English came back to him.
‘They never take notice of danger until it forces them to fight for dear life.’ He had added, ‘Then you had best be wary of them.’
The absence of excitement caused Gilbert’s mind to take notice of his stomach again. Wincing in discomfort, he switched his attention to the opp
osite end of the valley, upstream.
There lay the mill. Rising from it was the smoke which had first attracted his attention. It was rising in the still air as straight as a shipbuilder’s pine. It was set slightly back from the stream, but Gilbert’s eye could follow the course of the mill leat which had been dug from the main watercourse higher up. It led to a well-filled pond behind and above the mill, whence a timber sluice gate and mill race fed the wheel itself. Gilbert’s ear could easily pick out the regular grinding of the great iron-bound, oaken shaft and the slapping of the flanges.
A cart was drawn up at the main door. A huge peasant – the first fit man Gilbert had seen – was loading flour, humping the great sacks as if they were weightless. The elderly driver was involved in an altercation with the miller, a balding, overweight figure with hands whitened to the elbows. As the miller waved his ghostly arms about in annoyance, Gilbert smiled to himself; altercations with millers were clearly as commonplace in England as they were in Normandy.
A young woman came out of the mill house, and went towards the chicken coop. She was tall, and moved beautifully. Even at a distance, her full figure was obvious under the shapeless dress. Gilbert felt a stir of longing, and at once a stab of guilt.
A second woman, thinner and plainer, came to the doorway. Her voice was edgy and plaintive. Suddenly a third, more stocky figure rushed out past her, and took shelter beside the skirts of the first one.
Gilbert began to wonder what this small domestic drama was about, but was interrupted by another wrench from his stomach. A wave of nausea made him feel hot and cold.
Some of the pigs were running in his direction, and the boy was still throwing stones after them. He could raise his eyes at any moment.
Gilbert knew he would have to move. There was nothing here to report. The pigs were coming closer up the hill, and the wretched boy was still following. If the nausea continued, he knew he was going to be sick, and the boy could not fail to hear the noise of retching.
Cursing again at the impossible situation in which he found himself, Gilbert crawled and scrambled back to the shelter of the wood. Sweating with the effort, he now discovered that it was not his stomach that was going to let him down but his bowels.
The Last Conquest Page 3