The Last Conquest (10 page)

She nodded.

Gilbert turned to Edwin. ‘Tell her what I said.’

‘She knows,’ said Edwin.

Gilbert turned to Edith. He pulled the piece of wood from his belt; he had fashioned it into a rough doll’s head and body. He stooped and held it out to her. She cowered back behind
Rowena’s skirt and looked at him wide-eyed. Gilbert offered it again. She still stared at him.

Gilbert was about to withdraw, when he heard Godric say something. Slowly, Edith’s hand came out and closed over the doll. She clasped it to her chest without taking her eyes off him.

Satisfied, Gilbert stood up and looked at Godric. He could read little in the still, dark face. Before he could think of anything to say, Godric turned and walked away.

Gilbert held out his hand to Edwin. Edwin took it firmly. Once again, Gilbert felt sad that no words came. Edwin shifted awkwardly.

‘I will get your horse,’ he said. Gilbert followed him out of the house.

When he brought it, Gilbert could see that it had been thoroughly groomed.

‘That was for Berry,’ said Edwin.

The rest had followed outside. They stood around as if they were expecting him to say something. Gilbert looked from one to another and swallowed. Red with embarrassment, he turned to his
horse.

‘One more thing.’

Godric had returned, and was carrying a bundle.

Dear God! The hauberk! Gilbert felt almost sick again with the shock. To forget his own bedroll was bad enough. But the hauberk! The greatest gift Ralph had given him. And Ralph or no Ralph, for
a soldier to forget his hauberk . . . If he had been told that around the campfire, he would have laughed like anybody else.

And what had he been doing? Trying to think of something to say by way of farewell to a family of Saxon peasants.

Sweating with shame, he pulled the hauberk over his head, and readjusted his belt and weapons. He fixed the helmet and bedroll behind the saddle.

His cheeks still burned as he struggled to mount with his bad ankle.

Suddenly he heard a gate being opened and slammed. Then hurrying footsteps.

‘Listen! Listen! Something has happened. Something big, I swear. In the north.’

Gorm came round the corner, and stopped abruptly.

He gaped at Gilbert, his eyes dwindling in fear again. Sweat burst out on his face.

The silence became loud.

‘What does he say?’ said Gilbert.

There was another pause.

‘Nothing,’ said Edwin.

‘He has news,’ said Gilbert.

‘It is nothing,’ repeated Edwin. ‘He is drunk again, that is all. He has been drinking and gossiping.’

He looked Gilbert in the eye.

Gilbert stared at Edwin, then at Gorm, then at the others, who moved more closely together. Gorm rubbed his palms down his sides.

Gilbert swallowed. ‘He did not sound drunk.’

Edwin spoke flatly again. ‘Nevertheless, he is drunk. He is often drunk. Ask Rowena.’

At the sound of her name, Rowena tilted her head back an inch, but enough to make it a challenge.

In the stillness, Gilbert could hear the rasping of Gorm’s breath. He saw that Godric had picked up a pitchfork, and was leaning on it with his hands cupped over the top of the handle.

Think of something. Think of something! One of Ralph’s remarks came to his rescue. ‘When you have gathered important information, your duty is to get back with it quickly.’
This was his escape.

After another undignified scramble with his bad ankle, he mounted and rode away without another word.

As he rode, he began to gather some lost confidence.

Very well – so he had made a bad start. So he had allowed himself to fall ill. So he had been distracted by a lame dog. So he had consorted with the enemy, spent a night under a Saxon
roof, dreamed of his father and mother, been moved by the smell of a Saxon woman, carved a doll for a simpleton. So he had turned away from his quest; neglected the memory of Adele and baby Hugh
– all right. All right!

But he had news. Something that Ralph did not. And he was going to share it with nobody. He was going to report it direct to Sir Baldwin. Maybe even Fitzosbern. Then let Ralph find fault with
that, and let Bruno wag his long head.

Beams collapsed in showers of sparks.

William Capra raised his voice above the crackling and roaring. ‘Do you think that will prise some silver out of him?’

Florens mounted his rangy horse. ‘You will find that Fulk pays for work well done.’

Capra waved a hand behind him. ‘Is that not well done?’

Florens cast a glance about himself from the saddle.

It was indeed well done. Not a body so much as twitched. He looked at Capra wiping his blade and smirking at brother Pomeroy. Did they have to enjoy it quite so much? Would they be so full of
savage humour when they were called upon to do some proper soldiering? Could they not see that this was filthy work – more demeaning than mucking out horses? That the Duke was merely rubbing
their noses in their contract?

Florens could not bring himself to agree with the barbarian at his stirrup leering up at him. Instead he pointed towards an unburnt wagon half hidden in a small grove.

‘You have missed something.’

Capra looked round in genuine curiosity. ‘Oh? Where?’

Following the direction of Florens’ arm, he marched swiftly towards it, and began ransacking it, his jaw tight with greed. His brother followed close behind. They kicked aside two bodies
in bloodstained black habits.

Torn clothes, bundles of kindling, sacks of apples were pulled out and dumped on the ground. Teeth set, eyes glittering, they delved deeper, breaking fingernails on the lids of boxes buried at
the bottom.

Furious at what they found, they hurled books to right and left, and roared with delight as they pounced on two pewter candlesticks inlaid with coloured stones.

They rushed to gather torches of burning sticks from the collapsing ruins of the houses. Capra stuffed the clothing into small bundles against the wheels, and Pomeroy followed him, setting light
to them. As they stepped back to survey their handiwork, they trampled on open, sprawling volumes, grinding them into the mud. They twisted their necks to see what was under their feet, bent down,
and began tearing leaves out to feed into the fire.

‘Stop!’

They turned in surprise.

‘Stay exactly where you are. Do not move.’

Fulk walked slowly towards them. As he came closer, he lowered his voice. ‘I said do not move – not a muscle.’

In only a few hours, they had come to understand that the more quietly Fulk spoke, the more he was to be feared. Pomeroy had a great weal under his left eye to remind him.

Fulk stooped and retrieved something from the mud. It was a broken-backed book. He picked it up as gently as if he were a nurse with a baby.

‘At least I am in time to save this.’

Capra raised his voice in disbelief. ‘But, Fulk, it is only a book.’

He gestured with a crumpled fistful of parchment.

Fulk looked up from the page he was studying, his fingers spread across the lines of regular ink beneath the gorgeous illustrated initial.

‘Your ignorance is surpassed only by your invincible vulgarity and your crass stupidity.’

Capra looked uneasily at his brother, and back at Fulk.

‘There is nothing valuable in the wagon, Fulk. I checked. Only these. I was going to give them to you. Just look at that. Genuine. Look at the cut of the jewels.’ He held out the two
candlesticks.

Fulk glanced at them, and spat. ‘If your taste is for coloured glass, I can not redeem you. But your disrespect for the written word will cost you your first day’s pay. Let us see if
that helps you to remember next time.’

Pomeroy stared. Capra almost hurled the candlesticks into the flames in his rage.

When Fulk was out of earshot, they complained to Florens. ‘How were we to know he was a philosopher?’

Florens laughed. ‘You were not. But you have learned something else of value.’

‘What is that?’

‘Fulk has a better eye for a bargain than you.’

Gilbert was pleased that he saw Ralph and Bruno before they saw him. They were bending over something on the ground. As he drew closer, he could see the signs of tragedy. Ralph
looked up at the noise of his approaching horse.

‘God’s Breath, where have you been?’

Gilbert thought furiously. ‘I – I had an accident.’

Ralph glanced at the bandage on his head. ‘What do you mean – accident? Were you ambushed?’

‘No. I mean yes. That is, a kind of ambush. I thought it was an ambush. I fell.’ He put up a hand to his head. ‘But it was not serious.’

‘Serious enough to keep you out for a full day. Yet your horse looks in remarkably good order.’

‘I had the flux as well. I could not travel.’

Ralph looked totally unconvinced. Bruno’s face was a study in disbelief.

Gilbert began to sweat. ‘Ralph, I could not even stand, never mind ride. What with that, and my head—’

Ralph gestured to the countryside around them. ‘And you camped out here – alone?’

Gilbert clutched at a straw of dignity. ‘It is not the first time.’

By now he had gained a better view of the horror around them.

‘God – what is this?’

It was so awful that it drove all other thoughts from both their heads.

The first body was sprawled right across the track. The smock was caked with dried blood from huge gashes in the back. The tonsure was just visible around the split skull. Gilbert’s jaw
set hard. To kill a priest. What chance did a weak old man have, running from killers on horseback? And why crush his head with a mace when he was within a groan of death? Somebody had to dismount
to do that.

Ralph came to stand beside him. ‘Refugees. We saw them earlier. While we were looking for you.’

Gilbert was by now in such shock that he ignored the shaft.

The wagon was on its side, its contents strewn all around. The oxen struggled weakly in the broken yoke, their hamstrings slashed.

Gilbert rode about, his face ashen. One young woman, half naked, was spitted with a spear against the fallen wagon. The blood on her thighs showed that death was not the only horror she had
endured. One child lay nearby, its sightless eyes turned away from its groping mother. Another was stretched, disembowelled, at the edge of the trees. An old crone lay with the arm she had raised
in futile suppliance still fixed in the rigor of death.

If only they had been dispatched with a single skilful blow and laid out neatly, it would not somehow have been so bad. It was the wantonness, the obvious enjoyment of slaughter, that sickened
him. It was unnatural, and it was so un-private, this gazing upon Christian souls frozen in the moment of meeting their God; it was a sight for saints and confessors, not for humble soldiers.

Ralph answered his unspoken comment. ‘It goes on. You know it goes on.’

Gilbert, his face still grey, thought of the family he had just left at the mill – thrown down in death like broken dolls.

‘But like this? Does it have to be like this?’

‘You can lose your long face,’ said Ralph. ‘It is the way of war. And it is the Duke’s way of war.’

‘Why? Kill the soldiers, yes. But to butcher old men and infants. What was their crime?’

‘To be in the way,’ said Bruno, as he put the oxen out of their misery.

Gilbert spread his hands. ‘What is the sense? We shall need their labour when peace comes.’

‘We shall indeed. The Duke kills not to create a wilderness but to create terror. Terror creates confusion. Confusion makes weakness. Weakness leads to defeat.’

Gilbert pointed downwards. ‘Why do they have to enjoy doing it?’

Ralph spat. ‘There are such men in any army. They are well paid for what they do.’

‘They would need to be,’ said Bruno.

‘The Flemings.’

Bruno nodded.

Gilbert shuddered with loathing. ‘I should rather have such men as enemies.’

Ralph gazed about him and sighed. A familiar image was raising itself before the eyes of his memory. Burning buildings, the sightless faces of his childhood friends, private boxes raped and
pillaged, his mother whispering to herself in a corner, his father clutching the stump of his arm, and weeping more with impotence than with pain.

‘There are no enemies, no friends – only survivors and victims, lucky and unlucky, those on whom God’s Light shines, and those on whom it does not. War is the enemy, not the
other side.’

‘Do you feel nothing?’ said Gilbert.

‘Sympathy for the dead? Their agony is over. Rage? Can you take revenge on war? You might as well try to wreak vengeance on the weather.’

Hardly a word was spoken for the rest of the journey back to camp.

On the edge of it, they passed a pack of hounds being exercised. Great Jesus! thought Gilbert. Who would bring hounds on an adventure like this? He thought of the horror they had just left
behind. He heard Ralph snort with disgust and utter one word.

‘Beaumont.’

A whiff of latrines and stale bodies reached them. They forded one of the two small rivers that acted as natural fortifications on either side of the main camp. For several hundred paces the
ground had been cleared of all timber and cover. Groups of sweating soldiers were dragging tree trunks towards the ever-growing palisade. They looked up at the new arrivals, and complained bitterly
to them, cursing in the mindless, repetitive way of all soldiers. The sergeants in charge glared at them, in the way that all sergeants glare, and resumed their own loud swearing over the bent
backs of their glowering workers.

Gilbert could see that the work was going well. The palisade was nearly up to its full height in several places, and there was already a catwalk for sentries on top of the square tower. The main
building looked flimsy on its huge stilts, but the chief engineer had collected a sizeable party of Saxon prisoners. A few days of hard work with the shovel and the whip would get the gap
underneath filled with earth, and it would look solid enough – as if it had grown out of its mound like a great wooden mushroom. Ranulf of Dreux was a miserable devil, but he knew his job.
And for all his endless complaints about delays and shortages and other insuperable problems, he had found time to make a start on a hall for the Duke. Carpenters were carrying long planks through
bare doorways to begin floors and benches.