The Last Conquest (9 page)

Carpenters and their boys paused on the scaffolding to watch Ranulf of Dreux limping round the stacks of freshly piled timber. Any excuse to take a break from the work; the
Bastard wanted the impossible – a castle up in days, not weeks.

Ranulf put out a hand and touched a plank as if it were leprous. His mouth was turned down at the corners.

‘Is this the best you can do?’

Baldwin threw up his hands. ‘God’s Eyes, man! What more do you want? Some of this stuff has been seasoning for months. What do you think you are building – St
Peter’s?’

Ranulf looked bleakly at him, and coughed wheezily. ‘I am about to construct a hall for my lord the Duke of Normandy. I am used to working with the best materials.’ He waved a hand
to the timber behind him. ‘I suppose you realise I shall have to reject some of this; I am not sure there will be enough left.’

Baldwin looked at Sir Walter Giffard and raised his eyes Heavenward. He turned back to Ranulf. ‘You miserable cripple, there are three full shiploads there. If you were to burn half of it,
you would still have enough left for two halls.’

‘There are always more walls and palisades; the Duke is never satisfied.’

‘And neither are you, you gloomy fraud.’ Baldwin waved an arm to indicate the country about them. ‘You have enough forest out there to build a whole town. I have had fatigue
parties lopping trees for a week. You could build walls and palisades from here to London. To London.’

Ranulf shook his head. ‘Ah. Well . . . That may be . . . All that planing . . . insufficient tools . . . and the Duke is in such a hurry.’

Baldwin prodded him in the chest. ‘Now you just get on with what I have brought you – at great trouble and expense, may I say. Let us have a hall to be proud of. Proud of.’

Ranulf of Dreux made a great show of easing his bad leg into a more comfortable stance. Sir Walter Giffard smiled to himself; it had never occurred to Ranulf, in years of service, that his
masters and his colleagues had long since seen through his subterfuges.

‘My lord Baldwin, I have enough trouble attending to my own duties; I do not presume to advise you on the allocation of your accumulated food supplies. I should be grateful if you would
accord me the same courtesy.’

Coming from any other person, it would have provoked an outburst of rage. Coming from Ranulf, it usually produced little more than silent amusement. If the Duke was prepared to tolerate it, so
was everybody else.

Baldwin pretended to lose patience. ‘Come, Walter. Let us leave this prophet of doom to his private catastrophes.’

They left Ranulf to his long face.

Giffard grunted in disgust. ‘Ranulf thinks
he
is hard done by. Come and see what the ships have brought
me
.’

They threaded their way past the Angevin contingent’s tents and the archers’ lines, past smiths and armourers, to the central pool of spare horses, where unwilling carpenters were
knocking together hasty stalls to accommodate the new arrivals.

Baldwin had no more than a sound working knowledge of horses, but he could appreciate that they were of poor stock.

‘I see what you mean,’ he said.

Giffard spat. ‘Offal. Four-legged offal. Fit only for wasting parties and light haulage. I let some of them out to the Flemings today; they are too ignorant to know any better. Just look
at them, Baldwin! It is a wonder they survived the crossing. They are no use for any kind of action at all. Show them a fully armed knight, and they would break in the middle.’

‘What about the fresh knights who came in yesterday?’

Giffard spat again. ‘Human offal! And their mounts are not much better. I tell you, Baldwin, this battle had better be over quickly, or I shall never be able to provide enough spare mounts
to last.’

Baldwin grinned. ‘Losing your profits, Walter?’

He knew, and Giffard knew, that every respectable knight in the army provided himself with at least two, sometimes three battle destriers, to say nothing of spare mounts for the approach march
and the withdrawal to camp afterwards. What was annoying Sir Walter Giffard was that he might not have enough mounts of suitable quality to sell to knights who had accidents or casualties among
their stables.

Giffard growled. ‘I am expecting some proper mounts from Longueville. The very last I can manage.’

Sir Walter Giffard made a habit of protesting that the horses he trained and offered were always the last, the very last, that he would be able to provide without impoverishing himself, or
exhausting his breeding stock. Buyers made a similar habit of reminding him that the prices he charged should help him to avoid total ruin.

Giffard nodded in the direction of the shore. ‘I have sent the little Magyar down to meet the next tide.’ He made a noise of annoyance in his throat. ‘Another know-all like
your precious engineer.’

‘Not my fault. William hired him. All the way from Sicily. From Sicily.’

‘Well,’ said Giffard, ‘he does know his business. I give him that.’

‘So does Ranulf. William would not keep either of them a minute if they did not.’

Baldwin was one of the very few men in the army who referred to the Duke, not as ‘the Bastard’, but as ‘William’. Giffard had never got right to the bottom of the story,
but he knew it had something to do with some oath or other that the three of them had sworn as boys – William, Fitzosbern and Baldwin – after the murder of Baldwin’s and
Fitz’s fathers. Three orphans – all about twelve or thirteen years old – in a hostile world – it was scarcely surprising. What was surprising was that they had all three
survived and prospered. Fitz was the Bastard’s right hand, his other self; it was uncanny they way they reflected each other’s thoughts in their speech. Baldwin’s skills lay in
another direction. He was dull and stuffy, but he was also deliberate, and thorough. The perfect quartermaster.

Oddly, too, there was a bond between Baldwin and the lady Matilda, and Giffard had not really got to the bottom of that either. It was common knowledge that, after the murder, Baldwin had taken
refuge in Flanders, at the court of Count Baldwin (a lucky coincidence of names perhaps), and Matilda was the Count’s daughter. They were young then – Matilda was barely out of the
nursery.

But they had become genuine friends. She teased him – ‘Baldwin, why are you so old?’ – but it was obvious that she liked him, and he clearly enjoyed her company.

Giffard shrugged. It was none of his business. The Bastard did not seem to mind, so there was nothing in it. Heaven help the man he so much as suspected of making advances to my lady
Matilda.

They were walking back towards their tents now. Baldwin blew on his hands.

‘I shall be glad to stand by a fire for a while. Will you come in and take something?’

Giffard grinned. Baldwin’s perpetual complaints about the cold were a camp joke, but he was free with his hospitality, and the fire could be relied upon to be a big one. Moreover, as
quartermaster, he usually had good fare to offer.

‘Thank you. I will.’

They stood for a while, holding out their hands to the blaze. Then they went inside. Baldwin poured the drinks.

‘Where do you think they are?’ said Baldwin after a while.

Giffard looked up. ‘The English? Search me. They have to be on their way somewhere. Not to know we are here – it is inconceivable.’

‘They could have been drawn the other way.’

‘Norway, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then surely we should have heard something by now. News like that would travel on the wind. Hardrada and the northern host move, and nobody knows? Impossible.’

Baldwin tossed away the dregs of his drink. ‘At least it gives us more time.’

‘We do not need time,’ said Giffard. ‘We need action.’

‘You need an enemy for that. An enemy.’

Giffard pointed to the north. ‘I tell you, Baldwin, if we do not soon find an enemy out there, we shall start finding enemies for ourselves, among our own number. How long do you think the
Bastard can hold them? We only keep those damned Flemings out of trouble by sending them out to cause trouble elsewhere. If it were up to me, I should not have any infantry here at all.’

‘They are a vital part of William’s plan,’ said Baldwin. ‘And their commanders have a good reputation.’

Giffard made a face. ‘Fulk has a good record, I grant you, but who trusts mercenaries?’

‘Alan of Brittany, then.’

‘A mountain man. And who trusts them? They are all the same – Auvergnais, Swiss, Pyreneans. I have been in Spain too, in the sierras. I have seen them in action. Wild, undisciplined.
One against one, in a tavern brawl, they are unmatchable. Shoulder to shoulder, in line of battle, they will be like kindling in that fire of yours – loud and brittle, and soon gone.’
Giffard leaned forward to stress his point. ‘These are the troops that the Bastard plans to use in his first assault. The first, vital assault. If they run, it could panic the whole
army.’

‘Fitz seems to think it is a good idea.’

Giffard leaned back again. ‘Fitz plans everything like a game of chess. Too clever by half. You can plan too much.’

‘Geoffrey approves too.’

Giffard waved the cup in the air. ‘Ah! Geoffrey and his precious straight lines. Waste of time.’

Baldwin laughed. ‘So it always comes down to this: Sir Walter Giffard is right and everybody else is wrong.’

Giffard rose to the challenge. ‘No! Experience and tradition are right – not me. Common sense. Realism. The verdict of the last fifty years. Baldwin, there is no substitute for the
heavily armed, properly trained, professional knight. Throw enough of those at the enemy and no line can stand against them. Least of all infantry – which is all the English have.’

‘Suppose we do not succeed at the first assault?’

‘Then we regroup and try again.’

‘That is all Geoffrey is trying to perfect.’

Giffard snorted. ‘Geoffrey wants us to do it to order, to trumpets. In perfect lines. Great God, Baldwin! This is a battlefield, not a dancing floor. What is everyone afraid of? That they
will chase us – on foot? And where does it leave a man’s honour? What use does it make of individual talent?’

Baldwin shrugged. ‘It is what William wants. What he wants.’

Giffard handed the cup to a servant, one of many who were creeping closer to snatch valuable pieces of military gossip.

‘It may be what he wants, but it will not be what he gets. Oh, yes – Roger and I, and Montfort, and young Beaumont, and all the rest – we shall try, but it will not work. You
wait. Once the first proper charge is loosed, it will be up to the likes of Roger and me, and the knights we lead. It will be up to our strength and our judgement. Geoffrey’s trumpets might
as well be on the moon.’

Gilbert fumed at his own weakness.

He had to return, but it would be no use starting in this condition; the important thing was to reach camp, not merely to set out. If he fell off his horse again, he could not count on another
Berry to find him or another Godric to minister to him.

As he fretted, the nausea grew worse, and he knew he was going to bring up his morning meal. He got up and crawled on his hands and knees to the door. He was barely two paces beyond the
threshold before he vomited. Helpless and miserable, he wiped his dripping chin, and suddenly jumped.

Not ten paces away stood a fat man well struck in years. From his still, watchful stance, he too had only just caught sight of Gilbert. He had paused in the act of wiping some grease off his
hands. His eyes seemed to go small. Fear covered and froze him like hoar frost.

Without moving, the fat man called Godric and Edwin. The voice was loud and harsh, but there was no confidence in it. When they appeared, he simply pointed.

Godric practically carried Gilbert back indoors, and put him under the covers again. Edwin placed a large wooden bowl beside him. Gilbert waved it away. He did not expect to be sick again; he
felt too weak and empty. Godric nodded to Edwin, who left it anyway.

‘That was Gorm,’ said Edwin, in answer to the question in Gilbert’s eyes when Gorm was gone. ‘He is the miller. This is his house. Godric is his man.’

‘And you?’

‘I am not of this house.’

Gilbert lay back; he did not have the strength to pursue his questions. He had to rest. Perhaps later in the day.

When he woke, he felt better. He sat up and waited for the sickness to return. It did not. He crawled warily to a stool and sat on it. Still no sickness.

When Edwin and Godric returned, he told them he had to return. Godric demurred and Gilbert insisted. At last he agreed to wait until the afternoon sun dropped low.

‘Your horse will be ready,’ said Edwin.

The horse! Gilbert realised he owed them another debt.

While he waited he sat and talked to Edwin. Now that a term had been set to his waiting, the time passed more quickly. Now that each knew that the awkwardness would soon come to an end, each
felt a twinge of regret; each tried to pack in as many words as possible.

The talk was of dogs, and great chases, and dangerous moments. Many times they found themselves laughing together. While they talked, Gilbert had idly picked up a small, knotted piece of wood.
With a kitchen knife, he began carving a crude head and face. When the blade proved too blunt, Edwin lent him his own.

‘Your weapons will be ready too,’ he said.

Gilbert blushed as he nodded. A third debt.

When the moment arrived, they all came into the house – all except Gorm, who was nowhere to be seen. Gilbert tightened his leggings and pulled on his boots. The swelling was much less.
Godric brought his sword and dagger. He used the scabbard as a prop to get him to the door.

The others fell silent. They had not seen him standing upright before. The sick stranger had become a Norman soldier again.

Gilbert felt more sure of himself, but sad that a curtain had come between them.

The fat boy hovered in the background. Of the three girls, only one met his eye. Again he thought her bearing was royal.

He bowed slightly to her and said, ‘I am obliged to you.’ It seemed ridiculously inadequate.