So, Taillefer admitted, he had lain prostrate all day, punished for his sins with many pains and with the bloody flux. Numerous bloodstained cloths were displayed. Baldwin’s nose wrinkled at the smell of beer inside the wagon.
Taillefer thanked his God that he had had the company of his two faithful friends all day, here, in the wagon. Apart, of course, from the time when they took food to Sir Baldwin’s prisoners. How were they, by the way?
Escaped? Great Jesus! How could two watchful men like Capra and Pomeroy allow such a thing, especially with the threat of a flogging hanging over them? How could they be so stupid? Their story was what? Oh, Sir Baldwin must be joking.
Gilbert thoroughly enjoyed himself.
Baldwin satisfied his conscience that he had made all reasonable efforts to secure recapture. If they had gone, well, there was no great harm done. If they had any sense, they would go home and get the women out of the way. Frankly he rather hoped they did. The battle would not be long now. And there was Fulk.
‘Where is Bloodeye? Have you seen him? William wants him.’
Sandor pretended to cudgel his memory.
‘I did see him earlier, Sir Baldwin. He was – um . . .’
‘. . . at a bit of a loose end,’ said Gilbert. ‘Off duty, as you might say.’
Baldwin read it wrongly. He thought at once of the mill. Of two young women. Of Fulk’s leering face. He wrenched his mind back to the spot.
‘I go now to arrange two floggings.’
It was the nearest he could get to striking a blow at Fulk.
When he had gone, Gilbert and Sandor wrung each other’s hands, and nearly exploded with silent laughter. Taillefer lay back and held a cloth to his mouth.
Gilbert suddenly remembered something.
‘Tell me, Sandor,’ he said between stifled snorts of delight, ‘where did the horses come from?’
Sandor looked innocent.
‘Horses?’
‘There were five – mine, yours, and Taillefer’s nag. Who did the others belong to?’
Sandor grinned from ear to ear.
‘I take from two who do not need them because they are dans la merde. Did I not say that it was a very good plan? Besides, they were my horses anyway.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes,’ said Ralph. ‘We are out of reach now of their short-range scouts.’
‘Enough for an hour.’
They tethered their horses to a tree at the edge of the clearing. Ralph decided to risk a fire. It would be their last hot food till well into the next day. It was now dusk, and hard to distinguish a campfire from a charcoal-burner’s smouldering.
While Ralph cooked, Bruno saw to the horses. He was not happy about one of Sorrel’s legs. They ate and relaxed in silence.
Ralph felt curiously flat and without spirit. He had expected to feel excited, full in the chest, pleased with himself. After all, they had done it; they had found the English. They had done the one thing that the Bastard had been dying for.
‘We show him the enemy. Now it is up to him.’
Trust Bruno to put it bluntly. It meant, as he and Bruno both knew, that their work was over. There was a long, hard ride back to Hastings, but that was mere drudgery and boredom. Once they had announced their news, they dropped out of the picture. Up to this very hour, they had been the most important men in the entire army – the only men who could give the Duke what he wanted. News. The minute they announced it, they became expendable. There would be barely time for a gruff word of thanks, and they would be brushed aside.
Then it would be all rush and command – ‘Fitz’ this and ‘Fitz’ that; Giffard and Montgomery and Beaumont and Odo and Lord Geoffrey and all the rest barking orders; Bloodeye, his sagging eye gleaming with relief at the prospect of something at last to do. No more gossiping and grumbling and nagging and moaning. Archers and swordsmen and knights, tense-jawed over final clippings and fastenings of equipment, swearing at last-minute losses and breakages and failures, beating the nearest valets and servants and grooms. Sir Baldwin, totting up his sheaves of spare arrows and squeezing yet more barrels of water onto his wagons until the axles threatened to buckle.
He, Ralph, and Bruno would not be part of that excitement. They would watch, from the outside.
Ralph dangled some rind above the flames and watched it sizzle.
‘Do not distress yourself. The Bastard will need us again.’ Bruno as usual had read his thoughts.
‘He will not let us fight,’ said Ralph.
‘Of course not. He will need us to get him to London after the battle.’
‘More drudgery.’
Bruno shrugged. ‘It is work. Battles like this are fought once in a lifetime. Work like ours comes every day. You should be grateful.’
Ralph dropped the rest of the rind into the fire and wiped his fingers.
‘Is that how you see it? Do you not mind?’
‘It is my trade, and it is yours. Battle or no battle, there is always a campaign. And that means work. You chose it too.’
‘It chose me really,’ said Ralph.
Bruno shook his head. ‘This is no time for changes of heart. You are empty and drained because you have achieved your object – like a lover after passion. Have no fear – you will feel desire again. You are a scout because you are a scout, and there is an end of it.’
‘Is that really the end?’ said Ralph. ‘After the conquest, do you see nothing different?’
Bruno ran his tongue over the front of his teeth. ‘One battle will not do it all. It may gain the Bastard the crown, but it will not make every Saxon bend the knee. We shall still be outnumbered hundreds to one. There will be fighting and campaigning for years, or I do not know the Saxons. We shall not be short of work.’
Ralph looked into the fire.
He had not thought as much about it as Bruno clearly had. The Bastard had attracted most of his army by promises of land – land beyond their wildest dreams of grandeur and greed. Ralph had vaguely supposed that a small portion at least of that landed loot would fall his way, but he had not stopped to think whether that was what he really wanted.
The idea of settling down crossed his mind as frequently as it did everyone else’s. All men on the move dreamed of stopping, just as all men on the land dreamed of travelling. His father had been a landed knight, and so was his elder brother, Aubrey. If God had decreed that he should be the first-born of his father, he would have been settled for years by now at Gisors, like Aubrey, and generally content to be so.
The last time the thought had occurred to him was at the mill. The tall daughter, the fair one – she had put ideas into his head. Of course, it was quite out of the question; she was humbly born. And he had been campaigning long enough to know that she was sort of young woman with whom every man fell in love when he was far from home.
No doubt there would be celebrations after the victory. He had seen that too. He had caroused and whored with the best of them – or the worst. The trouble was that one forgot the pleasure so quickly. He had nothing against whores on moral grounds; army life made them indispensable. What he resented was that they offered only relief for the symptoms; they did not cure the disease. They left him with only an ache in his body, and did nothing for the ache in his mind.
Michael dying of fever, with his large, frightened eyes; Father waving his stump of an arm after the raid; Mother singing to herself in a corner; Aimery gasping to death in the infirmary at Cluny – the only remedy he could find was to move.
And Gilbert? Would he take away the pain of Michael? Unlikely. Now. Bruno was making him see the truth. Perhaps the boy really was not up to it. So the sooner he went back to his precious Adele and his baby, probably, the better for all concerned. What did it matter who the father was? In these troubled times, any father was better than none at all. Besides, it was clear that he loved the child, despite what he said. It shone out of him like a light. Just as Michael’s goodness had shone out of him.
He fidgeted
; this was intolerable. Much more, and he would be crying his eyes out. He began to scoop earth on to the embers.
Bruno said nothing, but collected his gear, and went to have another look at Sorrel’s leg.
‘Well?’ said Ralph, as he packed the saddlebags.
‘It will do,’ said Bruno. ‘We can not gallop in this forest. A good steady pace will cause no harm, I think.’
‘With the miles in front of us,’ said Ralph, ‘that is the best we can hope for. You know we must aim to be with the Duke by morning – midday at the latest.’
Bruno pulled on his gloves and grasped the reins.
‘Then let us be on our way. Being still seems only to make you miserable. Let us hope our news does not have the same effect on the Bastard.’
‘You wait. You just wait.’
Gilbert passed the back of his thumb over his lips. Sandor and Taillefer looked at each other.
‘“Dog-boy.” “Kennel boy.” “Master Senlac.”’
‘Words,’ said Taillefer. ‘Only words. They are worth nothing. I am a wordsmith; take it from me, they are worth nothing.’
Gilbert gave a wobbly wave of his beer mug.
‘It is all very well for you. The words were not thrown at you. They do not hurt you. Nothing hurts you, you old wineskin. You can not bruise a wineskin.’ He chuckled. ‘That is clever. Clever. Can not bruise a wineskin.’
He reached out for the pot. Sandor started to move it away from him, but Taillefer stopped him.
‘Let him,’ he said softly. ‘What else can he do but wait?’
Gilbert squinted in the bad light of the candle-stump.
‘What are you two whispering about?’
‘Taillefer asks me about medicine,’ said Sandor.
Gilbert waved vigorously. ‘No. You are lying. Lying. I know what you talk about. “Poor Gilbert,” you say. “Left behind while Ralph and Bruno do the real work. Not up to it, poor lad. Farm boy, you see. Not up to it. Not like sons of knights. Not like Ralph and Bruno.” Oh, no.’
The beer dribbled down his chin. He wiped it.
‘Well, you wait. I shall make them all eat their words. Bishop Odo – Bishop clever Odo. And high-and-mighty Bruno of Aix, with his great wall of a face. And Ralph, most of all . . .’
His face puckered at the onset of tears. He fought them down.
Sandor put out a hand. Gilbert beat it off.
‘There is a battle to come,’ said Taillefer, from his bed of straw. ‘A chance for all men.’
‘Ah! Now there –’ Gilbert waved the empty pot again ‘– there you say something.’ He hiccuped. ‘There can a man – a real man – prove himself. Not a mere scout.’ He spat over the tailboard. ‘Not a spotty bishop. You wait. Everyone will see me; there will be no argument. No remarks. Then let Bruno the Great Talker find something to say about that.’
Sandor and Taillefer looked at each other again. Gilbert caught the expression that passed between them.
‘Sympathy! Last of all do I want sympathy.’ He struggled to his knees, and clambered to the back of the wagon. He fumbled with the catch of the tailboard, failed to undo it, and tried to climb over. The mug clattered against something metallic. He slipped and fell right out, picked himself up, and lurched off.
‘I go to talk to men. Men, do you hear!’
Sandor retrieved the mug, refilled it, and passed it to Taillefer. He gave himself another full measure in his ivory horn. For a while they sipped in silence.
‘He reaches up so high,’ said Sandor sadly.
‘All to no purpose,’ said Taillefer. ‘He calls himself “Gilbert of Avranches” when he comes from a nearby village. He strives to be a soldier when he is gifted with animals. He bursts to be a scout when he works best with others.’
‘Is it so wrong?’ asked Sandor. ‘Wrong to wish to please your friend? To make him proud?’
Taillefer shook his head. In the guttering light, the shadows under his eyes and the lines in his forehead showed thick and dark. The bony fingers that clasped the mug glinted from the gaudy rings.
‘It is not Ralph he seeks to impress. Or Bruno, or Odo, or the Duke, or anybody else. It is himself. He searches for a means of being proud of himself.’
‘His honour?’
‘Yes, if you like. Honour helps a man to cope with fear. In the end it is fear that is the bane of all. Fear of the dark; fear of the forest; fear of the Devil; fear of Hellfire; fear of famine, disease, pestilence, pain; fear of failure; fear of the enemy; fear of death. These are great truths, which anyone with eyes can see for himself. This is God’s pattern. This is all that God chooses to show us of His purpose. What chance does a man have? Can he alter this pattern of the world set by Almighty God? Can he alter the place that God has fashioned for him? Can he remove a single one of the dangers that surround him? But honour can rescue him from despair. Honour can give a man pride. And pride can be a shield against fear.’
‘Stronger than hope?’ said Sandor.
‘Yes. Hopes are too often dashed. Pride is the wreckage to which a man can cling in the shipwreck of his hopes. But it must be the right pride. The pride in a man’s own position as decreed by God. That is where Gilbert is wrong. He can find a hundred armies in the dark; will that make him a professional scout like Ralph? He can kill a thousand enemies; will that make Bruno see him as knightly born? He can lead a squadron into battle and win the day for the Bastard; will that bring the respect of Bishop Odo? He is in distress because he searches for other men’s honour. He needs to find his own.’
Then let him find the man who dishonoured his wife, thought Sandor.
‘There is a devil that drives him,’ he said. ‘I remember it today, when we make our plan. Something the Saxon say to me once. About his love.’
Taillefer sighed, lifting yet more wrinkles in his forehead. ‘Ah – love.’
Sandor grinned. ‘You want I tell a story about love?’
Taillefer smiled. ‘You? You horse-prophet? You saddle-imp? What do you know of love?’
Sandor scratched the stubble under his chin.
‘I am a very deep man,’ he said with mock solemnity. ‘Be silent, and I tell you . . .’
12 October
‘The Holy Banner flutters out before’
‘Father! Father, you must wake!’
Rowena shook him roughly. She was past patience now. For nearly two days she had tried to get a decision out of him.
Gorm raised his heavy head from the table. The boards round his sprawled arms were blotched with stale beer. He hated Rowena for waking him.
He looked at the well-strapped bundles by her feet. He saw Edith, scrubbed and dressed for the road, her moon face lifted patiently to await Rowena’s word. In her podgy hand she clutched her stick doll and her pipe. Trust Rowena, he thought, to truss her up like a sack of wheat. He hated Rowena for being so ready, so capable.
He hated her too for what he knew, even in his stupefied state, she was going to make him do.
‘Father, you must make up your mind.’
Sweyn and Aud hovered in the background.
Gorm looked desperately this way and that.
‘Where is Godric?’ he said. ‘Where is that ox? Never here when you need him.’
Rowena shook him again.
‘Godric is gone. The Normans took him, with Edwin. They may come back at any time. We have wasted enough hours as it is. We are ready to go. All we need is your word. You must give us your word.’
Gorm frowned in the effort of recall. Godric and the axe . . . Godric at Rowena’s side . . . Rowena pressing her fingers to his lips . . .
‘Godric,’ he said. ‘That lust-ridden serf. He wants you. And you – I remember now. You love him.’ He pondered this in deepening disgust, and repeated with heavy irony, ‘Love.’
Rowena tossed her head in despair. ‘Father, we must leave – now.’
‘You do love him,’ insisted Gorm, unable to forsake his one coherent thought. ‘See?’ He turned to Aud and Sweyn.
‘She does not gainsay it.’
‘She has been making eyes at him for years,’ said Aud. ‘You were too – too blind to see, Father.’
Gorm turned back to Rowena. ‘You fool!’ he said. If he had been on his feet, he would have struck her. ‘Do you think I will give a portion for my eldest daughter to marry a bastard foundling?’
‘He is not a foundling. You told me once you knew exactly who he was.’
‘He is nothing,’ shouted Gorm. ‘Nothing. Do you hear? He shall not become my kin.’ He stretched out an arm for Sweyn’s shoulder. ‘He shall not share my son’s land. On free tenure, mark! Direct from the King. That ox shall have none of it.’
Sweyn nestled against his father and looked smug.
Rowena tried again. ‘Father, if we do not move, there will be no land, and no one to share it either. The Normans are coming from one way, our army from another. You saw what those men nearly did. We can not hope to be so lucky next time.’
‘She is afraid of being raped,’ said Aud. ‘That big man with the scar and the knife.’
Rowena turned wearily to her. ‘My sister, all women fear it, but we do not all think on it all the time.’
Aud glared.
‘Father,’ said Rowena, turning back, ‘It is not our honour but our lives. You saw how close we came. You are our father. I will do your bidding, but you must say.’
Gorm seized on it as one who looks forward to a meaty argument. ‘You have not done my bidding since your mother died. I fathered an empress in you. You will only do it now if I say what you wish.’ He looked intently at her.
Sweyn gazed expectantly at Aud; there was another good fat row in the offing.
‘I am not such a fool as you think,’ said Gorm. ‘I know why you wish us to leave. Godric will come back to an empty house and will take it over. A few months’ living here, and the local court will deem him the owner, especially if you have planned for something to happen to me.’
‘Father!’
‘A child could see that. No court will uphold me here – a mere Dane, an outsider. It has always been the same.’
The Last Conquest Page 27