The Last Conquest (2 page)

One of those beings shielded his eyes against the afternoon sun as he squinted upwards at the curiously blunt silhouette.

‘They are annoyed with us,’ said Gilbert.

‘Hardly surprising,’ said Bruno, not bothering to look.

Ralph glanced up. ‘If they are patient, they will have carrion enough to feed them for a year.’

Gilbert spat. ‘Great Jesus, Ralph! Is that all you can think of?’

Ralph sighed inwardly, and looked sidelong at Bruno. Bruno let his eyebrows do the talking.

They rode on in silent file, their leggings scratched by fern and bramble, the hooves of their heavy horses thudding into soft soil. They scanned trail and landscape on either side, but there
was little knowledge to be gained.

Then, after a while, they breasted a small rise and came in sight of a settlement. They reined in beneath the last trees, keeping their helmets out of the sunlight.

Not much down there either, thought Ralph. He looked at Bruno, who was already shaking his head and pulling down the corners of his mouth.

Ralph screwed up his eyes at the sun. Maybe three hours of daylight left. Time to go back. He and Bruno had been in the saddle since daybreak. There was nothing here that they had not already
seen a dozen times.

When Ralph turned his horse’s head, Gilbert looked surprised.

‘Are we not going down?’

‘Not worth it.’

‘How do you know? You said yourself—’

‘I said a lot of things,’ said Ralph, his shoulders now aching all the more at the prospect of camp and rest ahead. ‘Now I say it is not worth it.’

‘I can go,’ said Gilbert.

‘Please yourself,’ said Ralph over his shoulder.

Gilbert looked surprised. ‘Do you mean that?’

Ralph paused.

Gilbert seized upon his hesitation. ‘How can I improve unless I try my own judgement? You said yourself—’

‘Yes, yes.’

Ralph looked at Bruno.

Buzzards and other birds hovered closely round the settlement. There was no sign of smoke.

Bruno nodded.

Ralph turned to Gilbert. ‘Go then. But be careful. We shall not hurry back. You can catch us up. If you lose our trail, go back by the way we came. You remember the landmarks, I
presume?’

Gilbert tilted his head scornfully. ‘Of course.’

For the first time, Ralph grinned. ‘All right. But take no risks.’ He began to turn away and suddenly remembered. ‘Oh, and—’

‘I know,’ said Gilbert. ‘Look after the hauberk.’ He plucked at some of the shining links of mail that he never tired of polishing.

They both laughed.

Ralph watched him pick his way down towards the settlement. ‘I can see no risk, can you?’

‘No,’ said Bruno. ‘None whatever.’

Ralph looked sharply at him. ‘Well?’

Bruno shrugged. ‘If there is no risk, there is no test.’

‘He thinks there is, so there is.’

‘Will that make him a better scout?’

‘In his own eyes, yes.’

‘And in yours?’

Ralph avoided Bruno’s gaze. ‘I see clearly enough,’ he muttered.

‘No man sees clearly through a veil.’

Ralph glared. ‘And what does Bruno the great prophet see so clearly?’

‘I am no prophet.’

Ralph swore. ‘Say it!’

Bruno shrugged again. ‘Very well. The boy is a loser.’

‘Damn you to hell.’

But Bruno was already on his way.

With another curse, and a final glance in Gilbert’s direction, Ralph turned for camp.

Edwin put his head in the doorway without knocking. ‘Anyone at home?’

‘Come in, Edwin,’ said Rowena, without looking round. She carried on with slicing some vegetables.

‘And bring no mud with you,’ said Aud.

Edwin grinned as he spoke to Rowena. ‘That is a fine welcome from your sister.’ He turned to Aud, who was frowning, and gave her an ironic bow. ‘But I have brought a peace
offering.’

He put a bundle of packages on the table.

‘Well, what is it?’ said Aud, still unwilling to look grateful.

Edwin gestured vaguely. ‘Oh, this and that. From my lord’s kitchen. Nobody will notice.’

Rowena pretended to look serious. ‘You wait till my lord Harold catches up with you.’

Edwin laughed, and ruffled the fur round the neck of his dog. ‘No danger. He is far too busy right now – no time for hunting. Eh, Berry?’

Rowena became really serious now. ‘Is there any news?’

Edwin became serious too, and sat down without being invited. ‘No. We know they have landed, but that is all.’

‘What is the King doing about it?’

‘The King is not here.’

‘Where has he gone?’ said Aud.

Edwin shook his head. ‘No idea. But he has taken his bodyguard – I do know that.’

‘The housecarls.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

Edwin shrugged and spread his hands.

For a few minutes nobody wanted to share doubts or worries. Nobody seemed to know where anybody was.

At last Edwin lifted his head. ‘Where is Godric?’

‘Working with Father in the mill,’ said Rowena.

Aud sniffed. ‘She means Godric is working and Father is sprawling somewhere.’

Edwin nodded. ‘You mean . . .?’

‘He has pots hidden everywhere,’ said Aud.

Edwin stood up. ‘I must talk to Godric. Excuse me a moment.’

He went out towards the mill. There may be no news, but there were rumours. Of burnings and wasting parties. Godric needed to know.

Gilbert paused on the edge of the settlement. There was no sign of life. Left behind were the neat stacks and bulging barns. Gilbert had seen them everywhere that he and Ralph
and Bruno had been. Here was a fat land indeed. And nobody to look after it, much less defend it.

He expected peasants to flee, but where were the fighting men? He had not seen one. That would not do; Sir William Fitzosbern would want information.

‘Never fear to tell the truth,’ Ralph would say. ‘If there is nothing there, you must say so. Fitz will be pleased to hear it. Remember, a scout is the only man in the army who
is allowed to think. The only man who can speak the truth to his betters. Ours is the finest work in the world.’

Gilbert always felt a glow of pleasure when he heard Ralph talk like that.

Taking care to make little noise, Gilbert went forward to make sure. But there were only a few scavenging pigs. An overturned bucket by a door; gates left open; a pitchfork cast at random on the
ground – hasty departure. Dried cowpats – gone several days.

Gilbert felt a sudden surge of patronising pity. Poor devils – what chance did they have? A life of constant toil, and it could all collapse at the mere whisper of danger.

How glad he was that he was a soldier. Soldiers made fortunes; peasants made do.

Ralph did not see it that way. ‘The peasants always lose and the peasants always win.’

Gilbert could not understand why it annoyed him. He picked up a stone and hurled it aimlessly at an open door. It clanged against an iron pot.

But Ralph was right; there was nothing to be gained here. He would eat and move on.

He found some neglected, rather green apples in the orchard, pulled down a hunk of stale salt pork from a beam, fished out some hard cheese, and filled his flask from a leaf-strewn water-butt.
He picked up the bucket and sloshed some water into the stone trough for his horse, then sat down to make the best meal he could.

Sir Baldwin de Clair counted bales of fresh hides as they were carried past.

‘Fifty. As they said.’

Beside him a thin, blue-jowled monk scribbled uncomfortably, resting his lists on the lid of a barrel. A sea breeze flapped the edges of his habit.

Scowling troops staggered up the beach, their shoulders bowed with casks of nails, bundles of spears, huge sheaves of arrows. Captive Saxons slipped and stumbled among the pebbles, lugging
between them great stretchers piled with sacks of tools and their ash handles, already fashioned for fitting.

Sir William Fitzosbern jumped ashore from another ship, which had just been dragged up on the shingle. Impatient to hear the news, he had had himself rowed out to it before it beached. He
stumped across to Baldwin. Behind him the puffing crew made fast, and began at once to unload. From the far side, patient grooms tried to coax wary horses on to uncertain land. A few late recruits
leaned on their hands, hung their heads, and thanked the God of journeys that their ordeal by water was over.

Fitzosbern stood beside Baldwin, put his hands on his hips, and watched the never-ending procession.

‘If Ranulf says he can not build a castle with this lot, I shall tell William to send him back to Dreux.’ He extended a hand towards a colossal pile of seasoned planks waiting to be
taken inland to the chosen site. ‘I wish some of my floors had timber like that, I can tell you.’

Baldwin did not fish for compliments. He and Fitz knew each other too well for that. All credit to the Duke for laying down supplies of sound timber, and at a time when the idea of an invasion
of England seemed to many the height of lunacy. (It still did, but most of the doubters were now shivering round their timid hearths in Normandy.) But all credit to him too – Baldwin de
Clair, quartermaster to his Grace Duke William II of Normandy – for concentrating those supplies, and for moving them so efficiently.

He knew that, and he knew that Fitz knew. So did the Duke. But they had long become so accustomed to the rarity of the Duke’s praise that they had got out of the habit of bestowing it upon
each other.

With the bond they all three shared, few words were necessary. Baldwin and Fitzosbern had each lost a father who had given his life as guardian to the young bastard Duke William. Bad times.
Three thirteen-year-old orphans had sworn a tremulous oath of mutual loyalty. After so many years of survival, they understood each other perfectly.

‘How is the lady Emma?’ asked Baldwin.

Fitzosbern did not look at him. ‘Mother is recovering. And the lady Sybil.’

‘Good.’

Baldwin blinked and grimaced.

Why should it have been Agnes? Why take his sister and leave Fitz’s mother and Geoffrey’s old paramour? God’s Teeth! They all lived in the same convent.

Fitzosbern continued to avoid his gaze. ‘It was Geoffrey’s man who brought the news.’

‘Thierry?’

Fitzosbern shrugged. ‘You know what I am like with names. He is the one who eats all the time.’

Baldwin pulled himself together. He indicated the ship – barely more than a barge – that Fitzosbern had just left. Some of the new arrivals were climbing out of it with great
care.

‘Great God!’ said Baldwin. ‘They look as if they are balancing eggs on their heads. Where did Thierry dig those up?’

‘God knows. Vermin. William is scraping the barrel now.’

‘If that is what we are reduced to,’ said Baldwin, ‘we are better off without them.’

‘Expendable,’ said Fitzosbern, ‘I agree. But employable. Not like that total waste over there.’ He waved towards the last ship in the small flotilla of new arrivals.
‘Half full of hounds and personal tenting. Enough canvas to set up a fair.’

Baldwin growled. ‘Only one young man would have the cheek for that. Treats an invasion as a glorified hunting trip.’

‘Just so,’ said Fitzosbern. ‘His father ought to know better. When every inch of deck space is vital.’ He pointed, again, at the new men. ‘At least we can use this
lot for wasting parties and any other dirty work. It saves the real troops.’

Baldwin growled once more, unconvinced. He gestured towards the horses, now being coaxed across the shingle by swearing owners. Behind them came small squads of grooms and servants lugging
armfuls of equipment.

‘You call them knights?’

‘They have all the gear.’

‘Geoffrey will not touch them with a scaling ladder. All those weeks he has spent with his training schedules and his trumpets and his straight lines? Half a dozen of these in a charge
would reduce it to a rabble.’

Fitzosbern refused as usual to be drawn into argument. ‘If Geoffrey can not use them, I can. In any case, the horses will still be valuable. You can never have too many mounts.’

‘Wait till Geoffrey sees them,’ said Baldwin. ‘Just wait.’

Again, Fitzosbern declined the challenge. ‘I shall accept Geoffrey’s word on tactics, just as I shall accept Walter’s word on the standard of the horses. Just as I accept your
word on anything to do with stores and equipment.’ He paused. ‘Just as I expect my word to be followed on the overall allocation of our resources.’

Baldwin laughed. ‘Why is it, Fitz, that nobody can ever have a row with you?’

‘Takes two.’

‘True, I tell you. I had it from my brother, and he had it from his best friend.’

‘What does he know?’

‘Courier. He rode a thousand miles in two days.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘A mighty host – ten thousand ships. More numerous than the pebbles on the shore, so they say.’

‘Amazing.’

‘Something else too. He was seen.’

‘Really?’

‘The man himself. Seven feet tall. Now do you believe me?’

Gilbert munched at his pork and cheese, leaned on an elbow, and looked about him. Where on earth were the enemy? Over a week had passed since the landing at – where was
it? – Pev – Pevoncy – something like that. And nobody had seen a single Saxon soldier.

It did not make sense. The English had known they were coming for months. Harold’s fleet had been patrolling the Channel coast since May. Great Jesus! He had seen their sails for himself.
The Duke had sent them on endless foraging expeditions – as far afield as Ponthieu and Flanders in the north, the Vexin in the south, and the Bessin and Cotentin towards the west. While they
were doing that, he gathered an army and built a transport fleet.

Everybody snatched time, when they could, to make rushed visits to family whenever they came nearby. Fitzosbern would go to see his mother at the convent of St Amand. Geoffrey would go with him
to see the lady Sybil. Baldwin would visit his sister’s grave. Gilbert himself would rush to his father’s tiny holding near Avranches. At first it was hugs and backslappings. His sister
Mahaut would cry, but Mahaut always cried. His brother Robert said little. In the morning he would carry some buckets of water for his mother. But he was relieved when Ralph came to fetch him.