The Last Conquest (30 page)

‘I leave you to your misery. But reflect now and then. Are you the only person in the world to lose anybody? Must you wear your grief like a leper’s sores?’

Ralph almost jumped with the shock. It was the nearest he had ever come to Bruno’s feelings. But he continued to look bad-temperedly up at him.

‘Does nothing bother you? Does nothing agitate you?’

‘Many things distress me. But I can do little about them. If I could, they would not distress me.’

Ralph shifted his attack.

‘Does it not bother you that we can not find the English?’

‘Not much. Harold will come. We all know he is coming. He will take little caution. And he will use one of the main roads out of London.’

‘Do you not want us to be the ones who find him?’

Bruno patted the final ferns into place.

‘Yes. But I shall not feel bitter if we do not. Get some sleep. I shall watch first.’

Ralph gave up. But Bruno was right, damn him. They might find the English; they might not.

11 October

Bishop Odo of Bayeux said early Mass. Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances assisted. On the express orders of the Duke. Nothing else would have made him do it.

The attendance was poor. Odo was scathing.

‘Clods! Idiots! They decide that the enemy will never come. Can they not see beyond their own noses?’

‘They can see at present only one monster stalking them,’ said Geoffrey. ‘It is not death; it is boredom. But like death, boredom can also look eternal. A man can be equally
afraid of both. But he does not fight boredom with the sacrament.’

‘Ever the student of the human spirit, my lord?’ said Odo with heavy irony.

Geoffrey, although badly in need of breakfast, kept his temper.

Odo levered off his bulky episcopal robes, and dumped them casually into the arms of a servile attendant.

‘May I offer you something? I should like to show you a most handsome reliquary that has come into my possession. It will look well in my cathedral.’

If he had not been so hungry and cross, Geoffrey might have smiled at Odo’s lack of subtlety. There was one thing about Odo you could always rely upon – he was never rude to you by
accident.

The reliquary had turned up in some looting around Hastings. It was handsome work, in the finest Saxon tradition. Geoffrey had tried to secure it, but, by bribes and intrigue, Odo had beaten him
to it, and now wanted to gloat.

If Geoffrey accepted the invitation and exchanged barbed remarks over a cup of tepid broth, he knew it would be only a matter of time before Odo raised the stakes and began talking about his
son, John, knowing full well that Geoffrey still grieved for his own son, Raoul.

Geoffrey excused himself, and walked towards his own tent. There was a heavy dew. Tent ropes quivered and showered him as he brushed against them. From inside came the usual mindless swearing as
late risers bestirred themselves. Outside, in the avenues between bivouacs and half-dead fires, men stretched and scratched themselves, shivered and cursed, blinked and looked vacantly about
them.

Geoffrey glowered as he picked his way between half-hidden tent pegs.

How long had Raoul been dead now? Fourteen years? And it still hurt. Worse, it showed, as Odo had proved. Whenever he visited Sybil, neither of them talked about it, even after all this
time.

They were still good friends. No passion any more.

He had had other women since. Sybil had foreseen that. But he had not talked to them as he talked to Sybil. They were now totally at ease with each other; they liked, respected, understood, and
admired each other. Neither feared that any untoward demands would be made beyond the limits of the relationship that each of them, and circumstances, had helped to forge over the years . . .

They had found it hard at first, especially Geoffrey. As he struggled with the unwelcome vocation that had been forced upon him, he hammered away at Sybil’s decision to take the veil. What
did she expect? How many bishops these days lived like monks? Or were expected to live like monks?

‘More and more. Listen to the instructions of the Holy Father. Listen to Lanfranc. Listen to the Duke. It is the way the world is going, Geoffrey, like it or not.’

‘Look at Odo. He has fathered a brat.’

‘Exactly,’ said Sybil. ‘A brat. Is that what you would have wanted for—’ She grimaced to hold back the tears.

Geoffrey felt tears too. For the son he had barely seen.

‘Then marry me.’

Sybil shook her head, still in pain. ‘You know we can not outface the whole world.’

As the years passed, Geoffrey slowly came to realise why, as God and the Duke held his nose against the grindstone of the vocation he had not sought and did not want. Every time he sat at the
bedside of a man in fever or a woman in blood after childbirth; every time he raised his crozier over a huddled little flock in a chilly, dark castle chapel; every time he kneeled beside a broken
body on a battlefield and looked into terrified eyes – he crept snail-like towards understanding.

And she would have been the perfect companion, passion or no passion.

Now it had to be company only when his duties and his travels permitted. A healing balm of rest and ease at random intervals in his life of ceaseless travel, duty and danger. With each year,
further cares clamoured for his attention – the episcopal estates, the never-ending building and furnishing of the cathedral at Coutances (please God it would be finished before Odo’s
at Bayeux), the ceaseless search for relics and books and fine works of art with which to embellish it, the rebuilding of the town and – who knows, one day – the aqueduct. Visits to
councils, meetings with Lanfranc and the other bishops, longer journeys to Rome and to the south to seek more funds from his most famous and most wealthy parishioner – the Guiscard. More
recently, as his reputation for training soldiers spread and grew, increasing demands from the Duke.

Work had shown him, over the years, the truth of Sybil’s words. Work was now the only remedy. If God sent the Holy Spirit to him in the shape of sweat and blisters and a busy brain, who
was he to question the method? What right had he to expect visions and revelations and miracles?

As he looked about the camp, and saw men purposeless and bad-tempered, he became more convinced than ever that God was making a valid point.

When Gilbert waylaid him just after breakfast and begged to be taken back into his service, he sent him packing.

‘I have failed, my lord. I am no longer trusted. Bruno thinks I am a liability. Ralph agrees with him. What future is there for me?’

‘If you knew what was waiting for you further along the road, there would be no point in travelling it. Right now you have your duty. You tried hard enough to get yourself into this
position. Do you think Ralph was born an expert? Be about your business and do not trouble me with trivialities.’

Gilbert’s face puckered in anguish. He thumped a fist into his other palm.

‘You are like Ralph, sir. Why is he so sure? Why are you always so sure? Why can I not be sure?’

‘Be off with you. You are a soldier, not a philosopher.’

As Gilbert stumped miserably away, Geoffrey shook his head.

Sure!

Later that morning, Roger of Montgomery complained again about his relentless pursuit of perfection. Geoffrey had his answer ready.

‘Are you never satisfied?’ said Roger. ‘Are they not good enough?’

‘Yes. But not occupied enough. Never mind your knife edge, Roger. If we do not work them, there will be no knife.’

Armourers lost their tempers more often than ever. Noisy rows erupted from trivial accidents like tripping over tent ropes. Knives came out between Germans and Hainaulters over
an armful of kindling. The fatigue parties had stopped grumbling; sergeants muttered over their mid-morning pots of beer.

Fulk Bloodeye left Florens to do the swearing and the nagging – the dirty work. God’s Face – war was a tedious business at the best of times, but now!

Fully recovered, he roamed listlessly, struggling to recall the images that were last in his mind before his attack of the day before. With nothing else to devote his wits to, this problem
loomed suddenly large and important. It was also an exercise in self-reassurance. There was nothing wrong with his memory – not really. Nothing that could not be put right by some
concentration and some self-discipline. Nobody had laughed at him for it – not yet. Certainly not to his face. There was nothing wrong with his capacity to strike fear; he could see that
every day on the faces of his younger soldiers. Some of the newer ones, like young Dietrich, took obvious steps to avoid him.

So be it.

Fulk scratched his chin and fingered the scar on his cheek . . .

There was a woman. A fair woman. A proud one. And a big man. That was right – a big man with an axe.

‘Matthew?’

He turned about from force of habit to ask a question, but the Turkish shadow, for once, was not there.

Fulk shrugged off the feeling of unease, and continued his walk.

He passed a clump of hazel half strangled by briar. Higher up there still grew a few nuts that the short-limbed Saxon peasants and Norman foragers had not reached. With his great height he could
stretch out and pick them. A tough brown thorn caught the underside of his exposed wrist. As he withdrew it sharply, it scratched him.

He cursed and examined the damage. Nothing serious. Then he looked away, frowning. The blood on the softer skin under his wrist brought back another image – a dagger, blood on a soft neck,
a trembling woman, a flashing eye, the feeling of warmth against him.

He raised his head as if snuffing the air in search of further recall.

Just then he caught sight of Sir Baldwin making one of his rounds. The prisoners! There were prisoners – two of them. The picture began to fill out.

Taking care to stay out of sight, Fulk followed.

Baldwin hated armies with nothing to do. He had lost count of the fights over gambling losses. He was not a specially fastidious man, but he never could shed his disgust at the hideous things
that some men did to pass the time. He was no dog-lover, but he hurried to get away from the clumps of leering louts torturing strays that they had caught with tempting morsels of rotten meat.

On his way to check up on the two Saxon prisoners, he skirted the camp for a while to get away from the smells, and came upon the burst carcass of a dead horse beside a flooded privy pit. Some
bawling Bretons were beating the bloated body with sticks and betting on the number of rats that ran out into the seething mud.

Baldwin roared at them. They looked at him in surprise, and went off at last with surly mutterings. It would be only a matter of time before they found some other nasty things to do, but at
least he would not be there to see them.

He was not in the best of tempers when he found his prisoners and their unwilling guards. William Capra and Ralph Pomeroy received the sharp side of his tongue.

Baldwin walked up to Edwin. The boy looked cold and tired, but otherwise not unwell.

Baldwin began hesitantly. ‘You – you are the one who speaks French?’

Edwin nodded.

‘You have been fed?’ said Baldwin.

‘Yes, sir. The little Hungarian.’

Baldwin jerked his head to where Capra and Pomeroy slouched in surly watchfulness.

‘They have not hurt you?’

‘No.’

Baldwin nodded in satisfaction. He glanced awkwardly to and fro, then coughed once or twice.

‘Your – er – your sisters. What are their names?’

Edwin looked surprised at this unexpected line of questioning, and glanced at Godric before replying.

‘They are not my sisters.’

Baldwin swallowed. ‘Then one is your – your wife, I should not wonder.’

Edwin shook his head. ‘I am a friend. I was visiting. The fair one, Rowena, is loved by Godric here.’

‘And the other? The slim one?’

Edwin knew just enough French to appreciate that Baldwin avoided using the word ‘thin’. He glanced again at Godric.

‘Aud. Her name is Aud. She is unmarried.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘Ah. I see, yes. Yes. Aud. Hmm.’

He put his hands behind his back and kicked a stone.

‘Yes. Well, I must be on my rounds. I will come again later. I will see the Magyar and tell him to come again with food.’

As if searching for a way to end the interview tidily, he turned and found fault once more with Capra and Pomeroy before marching off.

Fulk lounged nearby.

So – her name was Rowena, was it?

Taillefer opened his eyes a fraction.

Feeling a draught, he looked down. His clothes were gaping open. Matthew the Turk had his hands upon him.

Taillefer’s immediate reaction was to recoil from the touch of an infidel, but the hands were oddly soft and reassuring. Matthew, or Selim, or whatever his name was, clearly understood his
business. Taillefer had seen Moorish doctors at work in Spain, and knew that their skill was far in advance of anything in Christendom. Indeed, one of them had once been captured and brought to the
court of Navarre, where Taillefer was employed at the time; the man was appalled by what he saw the Christians doing to cure their sick and wounded.

Matthew saw Taillefer stir. He flashed a charming smile under the silken black moustache, a smile that was curiously not reflected in the eyes.

‘It was like being blessed by a snake,’ said Taillefer afterwards.

‘You must rest,’ said Matthew. ‘I will prepare a medicine for you, and your friend will heat it. I will tell him when to give it to you. Now, sleep.’

Matthew pulled his clothes together again.

Before he shut his eyes, Taillefer glanced at Sandor, and saw the concern in his face.

When he heard them whispering in Greek, it was his turn to be concerned. He did not speak Greek, and Sandor knew he did not.

He opened one eye just enough to see, without perceptibly lifting the lid.

Matthew was asking a lot of questions, which Sandor answered readily enough. He then pulled out the bloodstained cloth from under the saddle. Matthew nodded as if that was what he expected, then
gave what was obviously his medical opinion, for Sandor listened attentively.