Usurper, page 28
Yvette was halfway through translating this, when a figure wearing scarlet over his chain-mail came furiously out from the pavilion, several attendants behind him.
Duke William had clearly been listening and had finally had enough.
All those knights and men-at-arms in the vicinity, including Turold, dropped to one knee, sword points in the dirt. Cerdic gazed at them as he leaned on his spade. Those who’d emerged with the duke included Count Cynric and several others who, from their swagger and superiority, were of similar high rank.
The duke came forward until he stood ahead of his brother. On foot, he was not a physically impressive man, squat and barrel shaped, though slightly taller than the bishop and lacking his excessive girth.
He too struck Lady Edith with a fierce tirade, which again Yvette was reluctant to translate, though, very gently, her mistress bade her proceed.
‘What you see here, my lady… is all you need to see. So says Duke William.’
The duke ranted on, pointing toward the darkling ridge.
‘See what your lover’s vanity has led us to,’ the girl said. ‘This host of the slain.’
The duke spoke again.
‘Your people as well as ours.’
He added more.
‘He broke a vow,’ she said. ‘He betrayed all our trust.’
Turold happened to glance up and noticed to his dismay that Cerdic was still standing. Swiftly, he grabbed the lad’s shoulder and yanked him down to one knee.
‘Because of that, God has smitten us both,’ the girl translated.
Duke William’s rage was cooling, but he continued to pin the Lady Edith with his odd goggle-eyed stare, and to lecture her hard.
‘We estimate that five thousand of our followers lie dead here,’ the girl translated. ‘Of your own people, it is twice that number at least. Maybe more.’
He added a footnote.
‘This is all you need to see, madam. This is the price of your lover’s treachery. There is nothing for you here. So, depart this place… with my blessing. While you still can,’ he added with a cold smile.
Bishop Odo clearly felt it time to add further thoughts of his own.
‘The bishop gives his word, madam,’ the girl translated, ‘in the name of His Holiness, Pope Alexander II, that Harold Godwinson will receive all due respect.’
Again, Cerdic was reminded what it was they’d been fighting. Not just some puffed-up brigand from Normandy, but the word of Pope Alexander, the mouthpiece of God himself. A mouthpiece, which on this occasion, whether God knew it or not, was lying through its teeth. Because they didn’t even have the king’s body.
Unable to constrain a sigh, Lady Edith signalled to her translator that it was time to leave. However, before the girl could move, one of Duke William’s counts stepped forward. Like many of his fellow Norman soldiers, he was well-built, his hair dark and cut to the bristles, but his features, which might once have been handsome, were odiously pock-marked, and when he smiled, his mouth hitched strangely to the left, as if the nerves in one side of his face had been damaged.
When he spoke to Yvette, it was unintelligible to Cerdic, but delivered in a tone that was only superficially friendly. For her part, the girl regarded him as though terrified.
‘Yvette?’ Lady Edith queried.
‘My lady…’ Yvette’s voice was tremulous. ‘This is Count Eustace of Boulogne. He bids us stay awhile.’
Count Eustace walked around the young translator, speaking airily, gracing her with another lopsided smile that was patently fake.
‘Yvette, what is happening?’ Lady Edith came forward. She looked to Duke William, who now was listening to Count Eustace. ‘My lord, you granted us safe conduct away from here.’
Count Eustace ignored her, addressing his overlord.
‘Yvette,’ Lady Edith said. ‘You must translate my words for them.’
‘My lady, I—’
‘What is happening here?’ Lady Edith demanded.
Count Eustace smiled again, speaking in gentle tones as he placed a forefinger under Yvette’s chin, and tilted her face upward.
‘Duke William, you have everything you could possibly want from us,’ Lady Edith protested. ‘I beg you… do not besmirch your honour with unseemly acts. Yvette, you must translate this.’
‘My lady…’ The frightened girl shook her head. ‘I can’t…’
Count Eustace then said something else. First of all addressing the duke, his expression hardening, and then turning to Lady Edith herself.
‘That message was for me, girl,’ the woman snapped. ‘You must translate that, at least. I command you.’
Yvette swallowed hard. ‘My lady, Count Eustace thinks he has recognised me.’
Lady Edith looked perplexed. ‘Please explain.’
‘My father, you may recall… Count Rodric of Hiemois, was in arms against Duke William only nine years ago. He sided with King Henry of France, a combined force that was crushed…’
‘At the battle of Varaville,’ Cerdic said half to himself, remembering Redwald’s potted history lesson about the Norman state.
Turold glanced down at him.
‘Your father is still exiled in Anjou,’ Lady Edith said.
‘That’s correct,’ the girl replied. ‘But I am here.’
‘And now they’ve recognised you?’
‘I was only eight years old at the time, but… I’ve often heard it said that Count Eustace has an eye for very young girls. I must have made an impression.’
Duke William, suddenly looking tired of the business, issued fresh orders.
Yvette hung her head. ‘Duke William says I must stay here. As his guest.’
‘You mean his hostage!’ Lady Edith glared at the Norman potentate. ‘That is unacceptable. Tell him, Yvette. You were sent to me by your father when you were only a child. You lived under my roof and my protection. You are no possible threat to any plans he may have for the conquest of this country…’
The girl explained as best she could to the duke, who shrugged when he responded.
‘Duke William says that at some point, he will need to make truces with his enemies at home. He cannot rule here if wolves are stalking his borders in Normandy.’
Lady Edith shook her head. ‘And you are to be a bargaining chip?’ She addressed Bishop Odo. ‘Your grace, I beg you… this cannot be allowed.’
The bishop waved her away, spouting some further venom.
Yvette coloured pink. ‘The bishop says don’t talk to him with your…’
‘Go on,’ Lady Edith urged her.
‘With your scheming harlot tongue.’
The lady fixed the prelate with piercing eyes. She no longer looked mournful. ‘And what of our Holy Mother Church, whom he claims to represent? What of our Holy Father in Rome? What will he say on the matter?’
The bishop chuntered in response, as though it was inconsequential.
‘The papal mission here is to supervise the reclamation of England’s soul from a wayward Church and apostate practices,’ the girl translated. ‘Duke William’s affairs with his nobles are his concern alone. The Holy Father will not interfere.’
Cerdic, still an enthralled observer, felt like shouting, ‘What did you expect? They’ve already permitted the invasion of one Christian state by another. Murder and arson are only sins if they’re committed by people they don’t like.’ Common sense forbade it, but he thought it nevertheless.
Try as he might, Cerdic now knew for certain that he’d never forgive those churchmen, of whom Pope Alexander was the foremost scoundrel, who’d endorsed this travesty of God’s will. It couldn’t be the Lord Himself; the lad refused to consider that. God was love, God was the Father who oversaw all things good. Yes, it was the case that many requests for assistance had failed during the unravelling of this catastrophe, but God knew better than His supplicants. Not all prayers could be answered with seeming beneficence. Cerdic had to believe that, because without it, what else was there? This though… this was different. This man, Alexander II, claimed to be the vicar of God, but on this evidence alone – the darkness, the dirt, the pain, the stony duke in his glimmering scarlet brocade, the gloating bishop with his poisonous words, the young woman seized while petitioning for kindness, the ghastly aura from that mountain of slaughtered men – he was more like an agent of Satan.
Again, Duke William issued orders.
‘His Highness, the duke, will allocate trusted men to escort you to safety,’ Yvette said. ‘Meantime, I must remain here.’
‘Tell him we need no escort,’ Lady Edith replied in a tone dripping with sarcasm. ‘I trust implicitly in the famous honour of his knights.’
When the girl told the duke this, he merely shrugged.
Now, Count Eustace spoke again, fondling Yvette’s shoulder, entwining his gloved finger in the dark brown tresses emerging from under her veil. Before she could translate, the duke issued another order. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to please the count, who stepped back with a peevish expression. As Duke William re-entered his pavilion, it was Count Cynric who stepped forward, pointing the girl to where Cerdic and Turold had now got back to their feet beside the burial pit.
With a final, mournful glance at her mistress, the girl called Yvette trudged toward them.
‘You are House Tancarville?’ she asked, when she reached them.
‘We are,’ Cerdic replied. ‘Welcome.’
She looked him up and down, scarce able to believe the cuts and bruises that covered his face and arms, the grave-filth that caked him, the open raw wound in the middle of his rank, ratty hair.
Count Cynric called over to them, this time addressing Turold, who listened attentively and nodded. Cynric then went back into the duke’s pavilion. Count Eustace, throwing one last, dejected glance at Yvette, followed him. Turold turned to the girl. ‘You’re now under the protection of Count Cynric of Tancarville—’
‘I heard, you dolt!’ she hissed. ‘You think I don’t understand my own tongue?’
Turold, big as he was, tinged red as he lumbered away to make arrangements.
‘Better Count Cynric,’ Cerdic said, ‘than Eustace, the lover of little girls, eh?’
‘Please…’ She sat on the mound of grave-dirt. ‘Just… don’t speak to me.’
‘Forgive me,’ he replied, stung. ‘I thought you could have appreciated a friendly thought. Clearly I was wrong.’
She glanced at him again, then dropped her head into one of her hands and wept.
Immediately, Cerdic felt awkward and sorry. There’d been no call to take umbrage like that when the girl had just been abducted.
‘Listen,’ he said. He glanced around to see if there was anyone nearby who might understand English, and spotting no one, added quietly: ‘If you can manage to speak with Lady Edith before she leaves, I can tell you where you’ll find the king.’
It took a moment or two for that message to strike home. When it did, the girl looked up sharply, eyes wet but suddenly bright with hope.
‘How… how could you know that?’ she whispered.
Cerdic glanced around again, specifically looking for Turold, but the big knight was fifty yards away, conversing with some men-at-arms.
‘I saw him die,’ he said. ‘I also saw what they did to him afterwards. I warn you, it’s not pretty.’
The girl nodded as if she’d perhaps anticipated this. ‘Where are they keeping him?’
‘They don’t have him. He’s still on the ridge.’
She looked even more startled.
‘They’ve searched,’ he said, ‘but they can’t identify him.’
She stood up. ‘Whatever state he’s in, I’m sure my mistress will. There are certain marks on his body—’
Cerdic motioned for quiet. He glanced again toward Turold, who’d been on his way back, but was now drawn into a second conversation with a different underling.
‘You’ll still need a lifetime of luck,’ he said, ‘but at least I can direct you. In the middle of the ridge there’s an old apple tree. You can’t miss it, it’s the only tree there. The king was slain thirty or so yards to the west. Close to the point where the land tilts downward. That’s as much as I can tell you…’
She nodded. ‘That should be enough.’
‘I warn you again, it’s a trail of woe getting up there. And when you do…’ He shook his head, grimly.
‘The choice will be my lady’s.’ Yvette glanced across the trench and the rows of half-naked bodies, to where her mistress, with the assistance of the two monks, was about to re-ascend to her saddle. ‘The least I can do is give it to her.’ She raised her voice to one of despair. ‘Madame! Madame!’
As fast as her feet would take her, she scurried around the trench and across the wet turf, throwing herself into the arms of Lady Edith, the pair of them weeping volubly. The captain-of-the-guard snapped something in French and lurched forward. But a barked command from Turold, now returned to the gravesite, brought him to a halt. The knight stood beside Cerdic as the women hugged each other and sobbed inconsolably, offering their low-voiced farewells.
At the same time, there was renewed wailing from the hillside. Another family had discovered their lost one.
‘My congratulations to your duke,’ Cerdic told his captor. ‘Since he arrived here, England’s never been happier.’
CHAPTER 28
They saw nothing of the female prisoner that first night, nor in the morning, though word spread that Count Cynric had made special provisions for her. She wouldn’t be chained, and would sleep in the back of one of the supply wagons, a covered cart, wherein she’d at least have privacy and shelter from the rain.
‘Maybe Cynric’s feeling guilty,’ Eadhelm said, as they were marched out again.
‘More likely it’s on the Bastard’s orders,’ Cerdic replied. ‘He wants to trade her to her father for some renewed pledge of loyalty. And it wouldn’t do to hand her over in a ruined condition.’
Eadhelm thought on this. ‘Maybe. But I’ve been watching them, Cerdic. I think I might have been wrong about the count. He’s clearly not his son.’
‘Just because he hasn’t hanged anyone out of spite yet, that doesn’t mean he won’t.’
Nothing else needed to be said, and they got to work under the same arduous conditions as before.
The mass burial was almost complete by the middle of the day. Clearly, Count Cynric was only taking responsibility for his own contingent, for by Cerdic’s estimate, they’d laid about one hundred and eighty corpses in the makeshift grave before the thin, pale priest he’d seen previously came to the trench side, wearing a stole.
Whoever the priest was, he had next to no constitution, rocking on his feet as though ready to faint while attempting to sing his way through a hurried Latin mass. There were many unburied corpses around, of course, other prisoners still working as personal grave-diggers for the Norman households that had captured them, so the air was increasingly noxious. Cerdic noticed that the priest’s gaze strayed all around him, but mostly into the sky. He never once looked down on the lumps of lifeless clay whose souls he was despatching to eternity.
‘Count Cynric could have found himself a chaplain with a stronger stomach,’ Cerdic commented, wondering how Aethelric would have coped but suspecting he’d have made a better fist of it than this. ‘What did this feeble specimen expect would happen on a military campaign?’
‘That’s Father Jerome,’ Eadhelm replied. ‘He’s some relative of Cynric’s family.’
‘Came here hoping for his own bishopric, did he?’
‘The rumour is it’s not his stomach that’s at fault, but his heart. Supposedly, he believes in the goodness of man.’
Cerdic struggled not to laugh.
Once Father Jerome had stumbled away, they shovelled the soil in.
‘I wonder how many men he has in total, our new master?’ Cerdic said as they walked tiredly back to camp. ‘Not counting the fyrd, my own father left Wulfbury with a compliment of four hundred fighting men. Of those, only ninety or so, his housecarls, made up his personal hearth-troop. The rest were carls in the service of tenant thegns.’
‘And you wonder if Count Cynric’s war-band was of similar size?’ Eadhelm said.
‘If it was, it’s surely smaller now.’
‘And what is the point of all this rumination?’
Cerdic lowered his voice. ‘At the very least, Eadhelm, we need to appraise our enemy, work out something of their strengths and weaknesses.’
‘You’re going to get yourself hanged, Cerdic. Excuse me if I make every effort to avoid standing beside you when that happens.’
Cerdic supposed he understood his fellow prisoner’s fatalism. Any attempted escape was likely to fail. They were too hungry, too tired, too wounded. And from what he’d seen, the consequences could be dire, and not just for those who’d made the attempt, but for those who’d known about it and done nothing to intervene. It was a hellish predicament, but surely no man could simply accept it? Not unless he was completely broken in spirit, and Cerdic was adamant that he wasn’t. There had to be some way out of this that didn’t lead to death, but it wasn’t going to be an obvious one.
He wondered again about those cryptic words of his brother’s.
You’ll need to be clever. Very clever.
For the first time Cerdic tried to break that down, to work out what it actually meant.
King Alfred had been clever by playing dead, by pretending to be defeated and then rounding on the Danes when they’d least expected it. Clearly, that option was not available at present, but these bastards had to have a weakness somewhere. And maybe, just maybe, it was their greed. Because that was something else Unferth had alluded to.
You won’t be able to throw yourself on their mercy. But you might be able to throw yourself on their greed.
Another snippet of homespun wisdom, tossed out in passing. But it had rung true. The Normans had only spared him on the battlefield because of his ring-coat, having assumed it meant he was descended from wealth. And he was, of course, even though he no longer had access to it. The real question therefore was how long could he fool them into thinking that he was worth keeping alive without actually having to prove anything?
