Baldwin sniffed like Crispin. If something were to go wrong from now on, he did not see how the blame for it could be laid at his door.
The Duke had kept them at stand-to since clear sightings of the English arrival had been confirmed. As long as an evening or even a night assault had seemed remotely possible, he had maintained full readiness. Now the latest relays of scouts had brought detailed reports of a definite slowing down of the English army, and, later, of hosts of campfires over seven miles away.
Surely there was no danger now, not tonight. Harold had marched his men from Yorkshire. Yorkshire! That had to be over two hundred miles. If they were sighted only today and were out of normal scouting range yesterday, that meant they must have covered well over twenty miles since dawn. They could not possibly manage another seven miles on top of that in order to fling themselves, in the dark, on a heavily fortified position that had not been reconnoitred. Not even an army of Nordic gods would contemplate such a manoeuvre.
Nevertheless, William had waited until he was quite sure, until his best scouts told him that the campfires were genuine. There were old stories of clever generals who had fooled their enemies as to their whereabouts by getting their men to light hundreds of bare fires while the army left the camp empty. One was forced to admire William’s thoroughness, but his refusal to take the slightest avoidable risk could be tiresome.
So William at last gave the word, and everyone had a few hours to himself. For what? For sleep? Baldwin grunted and shivered. Hardly.
For confession? He had done that.
For talk? Crispin was not there. Baldwin had never thought he would miss Crispin’s hatchet fact and his disdainful sniff. The other commanders – Giffard, Montgomery, Alan of Brittany and the rest – had their own worries and their own preoccupations. Fitzosbern was still closeted with William, but the time would come when even Fitz would be sent away. Their threefold bond of mutual loyalty was no whit less valid now than it had ever been, but at a moment like this, only William carried the ultimate burden, and, without Matilda, the only company he could tolerate would be his own.
Baldwin wound his blanket closer and wandered to the door of his tent. His fire was blazing well – of course. Yet, from force of habit, he stooped and picked up another log to toss into the flames. There was still a big pile. And why not? He was the quartermaster; if he could not have a good supply, he would like to know who could.
For once, he did not wave away the young soldiers who sat around.
He looked up at the night sky. Plenty of stars were coming out.
It was going to get colder before the morning. No wind. Probably sunny tomorrow. Good for moving an army – the less mud the better.
Someone had dragged a plank from the Duke’s kitchen and propped it across two water barrels. Baldwin came and sat on one end. Without saying a word, the young man next to him edged up to give him more room.
He was peeling a carrot.
He glanced up at Baldwin, recognised his rank, and kept silent. He had been brought up by a stern father to speak to his betters only when he was spoken to, and the faraway expression on this officer’s face warned him against interrupting a private line of thought.
Baldwin sighed. It was a funny thing in life, he had noticed, that a man never really knew himself. If anyone had told him a week ago that he would feel easy with a woman, he would have laughed, albeit somewhat bitterly, and no doubt only inwardly. If they had told him that the woman would be English, he would probably have struck them.
For the life of him, he could not understand what had made him do what he had done for Aud. Aud . . . thank God it was a Danish name; getting his tongue round some of the Saxon ones would have been the very Devil. Thank God too for Crispin. He could be trusted to care for her. Trusted too not to blurt the name of Sir Baldwin de Clair all over Sussex.
He did not relish the idea of the story being passed round the camp. With Crispin and Aud out of the way, it would not be. He flushed at the thought of the insolence he had already been forced to tolerate from William Capra and Ralph Pomeroy. Well, he had seen to them; their sore backs would make them think twice before they did it again. They had disobeyed orders by not reporting to him that morning, but he would catch up with them after the battle – assuming that some Saxon housecarl had not obliged in the meantime by cutting them in half.
Baldwin raised his head suddenly.
Fulk!
Bloodeye! That monster. He knew. He knew about Aud. He had seen them together. That was why he had done it.
Baldwin knew he often became annoyed. He shouted and he swore at men. He had been furious with Capra and Pomeroy. Fulk Bloodeye he now hated. Not only for his outrage on Aud, but for his taunts about it beforehand. Yet more, because Baldwin suspected that Fulk enjoyed the taunting more than he had enjoyed the outrage; that he enjoyed creating badness for its own sake. With Baldwin’s hatred was mingled revulsion and fear.
He, Sir Baldwin de Clair, was no saint, God knew! He was an ordinary, human, fallible man, no better and no worse than most others of his class. He looked after himself and his own. Naturally. Why else would God have placed him here? What else would God expect him to do with the resources with which He had endowed him? What self-respecting Norman knight would not avail himself of every chance that presented itself? How else had they survived and prospered since the days of Rollo and his band of adventurers? How else were the Hautevilles surviving in Italy and Sicily? Why else was he here now, shivering by a camp-fire in a foreign land, committed – to the death – to a gamble so colossal that Robert Guiscard himself might have thought twice?
He, Baldwin de Clair, had made a good marriage, fathered sons, guaranteed his line. If Albreda’s tongue was the price, so be it. There were higher prices; look at Mabel of Montgomery. He respected the proprieties – the Truce of God, the knightly code, the concept of honour. He was not a blasphemer, aside from normal campfire swearing; he heard Mass; he went to confession; he gave alms; he endowed, and was proud of, his local monastery. Perfunctory, maybe, but he could never imagine himself not doing any of those things. They were all part of life, like camping or riding a horse.
There must be a worthwhile reason for it all; there must be something pushing him to do it. For want of a better word, you could call it goodness.
Certainly, the recent impact of Fulk Bloodeye on his life was causing him to suspect the existence of the presence and power of evil. He was enough of a philosopher to see that if you believed in the one you had to believe in the other.
It was not Fulk’s size or appearance; he had seen big and ugly men before. It was not Fulk’s profession; Baldwin understood the mercenary mentality. Nor was it the misshapen little Turk who fawned and purred at his elbow – though, God’s Teeth, there was something unnatural in that too. It was not the violence, the insolence, the cruelty. One saw only too much of that in life.
Perhaps it was all of those things, the sum total that by its very agglomeration created a fresh element, a new dimension that Baldwin could not put into words, could barely conceive in his own mind.
Perhaps it was simpler. Perhaps it was Fulk’s ease, not his effort; his casual strength, his lazy talent, his obvious education, his lack of interest in so many things that his betters thought important; the fear that, should Fulk ever put out all his force and all his powers, very little could stand in his way. Only William showed no wariness of him.
Baldwin, in short, felt threatened. This caused him, for the first time in his life, to bend his mind to, to concentrate on, the means of destruction of a single human being . . .
The sound of crunching broke into his thoughts. He looked at the young soldier, now halfway through his carrot.
‘What is your name, son?’
The young man swallowed quickly.
‘Brian, sir.’
‘Breton, eh?’
‘Yes, sir, from Dol. In the north it is, not far from the River Couesnon, just where—’
‘I know w
here it is.’
‘Sorry, sir.’
He fell silent. Baldwin, having found a friendly spirit to take his mind off disturbing matters, did not wish to kill the conversation through a misunderstanding.
‘In action tomorrow, then?’
‘Yes, sir. Swordsman, me. We go in after the archers.’
‘On the left?’
‘Yes, sir. Count Alan commanding. We have the Angevins with us, and the Poitou lot. Some Manceaux as well.’ He laughed nervously. ‘So we shall not be lonely.’
In the firelight his face looked pinched and tight.
‘First time, is it?’ said Baldwin.
‘Beg pardon, sir?’
‘This is your first major enga— your first big battle?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He pulled a face. ‘Always a first time, eh, sir?’
For some odd reason, a phrase from two or three days ago drifted into Baldwin’s mind: ‘All right for learning on’. He pushed it away, forcing himself to concentrate on the youth beside him.
‘Going to kill plenty of Saxons then?’
Brian fished another carrot out of his pocket and began peeling it.
‘Hard to say, sir. One at a time, I dare say. To be honest, all I have thought about so far is staying alive.’
Baldwin harrumphed. ‘Not a bad idea at that.’
Brian took another bite and chewed thoughtfully.
‘Well, you see, sir, a lot of these men here have nothing on their minds except victory and loot and honour and glory and trampling the faces of the dead. Me, I want more than that.’ He waved the stub of carrot. ‘Oh, I want to win, of course. And I want to – well, I do not want to let down the men beside me. But I have someone waiting for me at home. Most of this lot –’ again the carrot stub waved airily ‘– most of them think of nothing but killing and winning. I think about afterwards. It is good to have something to think about afterwards. Do you not agree, sir?’
Baldwin found himself smiling. ‘Yes. I do.’
He stood up. Perhaps he would have that doze after all.
‘Good night, sir,’ said Brian. ‘And good luck tomorrow.’
Baldwin patted him on the shoulder, a familiarity that he rarely had the confidence to display.
On an impulse, he turned away from his tent door and went to a store shed near the castle kitchens.
‘Open up,’ he said to a startled guard.
It took him a few minutes of groping in the dark before he found the sack he wanted. He ordered the mystified guard to lock up again.
As he passed the fire on the way back to the tent, he tossed the carrots into Brian’s lap.
‘For tomorrow,’ he said. ‘One at a time, eh?’
Brian gaped for a moment, then exclaimed in delight.
‘Thank you very much, sir. Good night, sir, God bless.’
‘Have you seen a big man, a big man with a crutch?’
If Gorm asked the question once, he asked it a hundred times.
For a mile or two he had tried to follow Godric’s trail, but lost it in leaf-strewn woods. He knew that if he kept in a rough north-easterly direction he would cross the track of the army, though before or after they passed he could not be sure.
When he had been travelling for two hours, he began to realise how many years it had been since he had settled down after his journeyings. He was bathed in sweat; his legs ached; his breath was short and laboured. One or two steep hills brought him almost to his knees.
Driven as he was, he would take no rest.
Find Godric. Find Godric and tell him. Then rest. Find Godric before it was too late.
By dusk, he was reeling with fatigue, when he came upon the marks left by the army. A few stragglers littered the sides of the churned track.
‘Have you seen a big man, a big man with a crutch?’
Tired beyond words, they shook their lowered heads without even looking at him, as if the mere sound of his voice added to their misery.
Stumbling and slipping on the broken ground, Gorm struggled on, pausing before each broken fyrdman and fighting for breath before he could gasp out his question.
‘Have you seen a big man . . .’
Now and then, he was forced to pause when nausea swept over him. He leaned on his stick, swallowed, and licked his lips, fighting to overcome the fullness in his throat and the tightness in his chest.
The only comfort was that it was now impossible to lose the trail. He knew he was getting nearer because the number of stragglers grew. Wiping the sweat from his stinging eyes, he accosted each one.
‘Have you seen . . .’
By nightfall, he knew that he had to stop. He was barely moving at all with each pace. Peering into the growing darkness, he made out a tiny, half-derelict hut on the edge of a copse – some makeshift shepherd’s windbreak or other.
With his breath rasping and his temples throbbing, he staggered the last few yards and crawled inside.
Weary swearwords met him. For once his extra weight told in his favour. He squeezed further in, and pushed aside the two mud-strewn fyrdmen by the sheer bulk of his body. They swore again, eased arms and legs into a better position, and went back to sleep.
Gorm had just enough presence of mind to wipe off as much sweat as possible and put on his jerkin, which had been dangling from his shoulder.
In the morning he would be less tired. He would be up early. A quick drink and a bite, then off. It would be easier to find Godric in daylight. With his height, you could pick him out anywhere, even among the housecarls. Then a few words of explanation and Godric would see.
Funny how you thought more clearly when you were resting. Silly not to have done it before. God’s Face – they smelled, these fyrdmen. But at least they kept you warm.
Robert of Beaumont stared up into the shadows at the top of his tall tent. Grand it all looked during the day. Now that he had dismissed his servants and valets, it was empty, vast, cold – like the vault of a great cathedral. He had had them take away his favourite dog.
He put his hands behind his head. His thoughts were more than company enough for this night . . .
It was not death he feared on the morrow; it was failure. No success meant no glory; no glory meant no reward; no reward meant no Judith. Waiting for his inheritance was out of the question; his father was in sound health. The very idea was base, not worthy of a knight. In the chill dark he blushed that the thought had even occurred to him.
To go to Judith’s guardian as a landless suitor – an adventurer – was worse. To have the world think that he did not love her. That he lusted after the fortune and the body of an underage girl. He took hold of the crucifix she had given him – the crucifix that had once been warm with the clasp of her soft hands.
He would never dishonour her, never! He would go back after the battle, loaded with favours and rewards from the Duke. The King! And he would marry her, make her his lady. No true guardian could refuse such an offer.
He almost moaned at the memory of their last meeting. Her shining eyes. Her merry, skipping step. Carrying her piggyback, feeling the caress of her forearms under his chin, the glow of her body against him, the vibration of her laughter.
Please God, on this one day of all days, let him do well!
Five blanketed figures lay in the straw at the bottom of the wagon.
Flat on his back, his long legs stretched out and his toes pointing straight up, Taillefer looked up into the blackness under the awning.
He had yet again played the role that the world demanded of him. He had lounged and slept and snored. He had returned joke for joke. He had drunk more than his share and played the coward and the sot and the false scholar.
‘Tell us a story, Taillefer.’
‘Blind us with knowledge, Taillefer.’
‘Wake up, Taillefer, you old trembler.’
‘Taillefer is at it again.’
‘Taillefer the “Cleaver of Steel”? Taillefer the “Cutter of Iron”? Ha! More like Taillebeurre, the “Cutt
er of Butter”. “Butter-Cutter”!’
They had all roared at that one.
How they had laughed too when they saw him sharpening his sword.
‘Not much butter in the English army, Taillefer.’
‘What is it for, Taillefer? Cutting a dash?’
The weariness of habit with which he replied was taken for the habit of weariness with which they liked to identify him.
Was he really somebody else, or had he become the person they expected him to be? Had the mask become the man?
Suppose they could have seen him as he was.
If they could have gone back thirty-odd years and seen him as a lusty young shepherd, as a lover, as a mourner, as a bitter, failed novice, as a soldier of fortune, as a pilgrim. Such stories could he tell them! Real stories!
He raised his eyebrows and pulled down the corners of his mouth. They would not believe those either. It was hard to believe them himself. Now.
Did his heart really leap with such love in those brilliant mountain dawns? Were the reds and blues and greens so vivid that no artist would dare to paint them for fear of being called a liar? In the agony of his loss, did the colour really drain from the world? Was he dead to everything save to the bleating of a newborn lamb? Did he really perform such prodigies of piety and self-denial in his search for purpose and peace? Did he really commit the whole range of deeds, from the heroic to the obscene, that all soldiers do in time of war? Did he really weep and tremble, at the end of his long journey, and feel such fullness that he expected his heart to burst?
He sighed.
The past existed only in the minds of those who remembered. It began to trickle away the minute it had happened, and, no matter how hard you tried, it continued to drain away from the vessel of the memory until nothing was left but a scum round the edge and a stain on the bottom. That was all you had to remind you of the richness and depth of it.
All he did nowadays was to make up a false brew to put in its place.
His hand felt the pommel of Edwin’s dagger. He wished now that he had not stolen it; it was a smallness that he regretted. He should have given it back when they parted yesterday. But then he had been in no fit state to remember such things.
The Last Conquest Page 39