"And now," said William, reclining on a long and narrow couch, with
raised carved work all round it like a box (the approved fashion of a
bed in those days), "now, Sire Taillefer--thy news."
There were then in the Duke's chamber, the Count Fitzosborne, Lord of
Breteuil, surnamed "the Proud Spirit"--who, with great dignity, was
holding before the brazier the ample tunic of linen (called
dormitorium in the Latin of that time, and night-rail in the Saxon
tongue) in which his lord was to robe his formidable limbs for repose
[62],--Taillefer, who stood erect before the Duke as a Roman sentry at
his post,--and the ecclesiastic, a little apart, with arms gathered
under his gown, and his bright dark eyes fixed on the ground.
"High and puissant, my liege," then said Taillefer, gravely, and with
a shade of sympathy on his large face, "my news is such as is best
told briefly: Bunaz, Count d'Eu and descendant of Richard Sanspeur,
hath raised the standard of revolt."
"Go on," said the Duke, clenching his hand.
"Henry, King of the French, is treating with the rebel, and stirring
up mutiny in thy realm, and pretenders to thy throne."
"Ha!" said the Duke, and his lip quivered; "this is not all."
"No, my liege! and the worst is to come. Thy uncle Mauger, knowing
that thy heart is bent on thy speedy nuptials with the high and noble
damsel, Matilda of Flanders, has broken out again in thine absence--is
preaching against thee in hall and from pulpit. He declares that such
espousals are incestuous, both as within the forbidden degrees, and
inasmuch as Adele, the lady's mother, was betrothed to thine uncle
Richard; and Mauger menaces excommunication if my liege pursues his
suit! [63] So troubled is the realm, that I, waiting not for debate
in council, and fearing sinister ambassage if I did so, took ship from
thy port of Cherbourg, and have not flagged rein, and scarce broken
bread, till I could say to the heir of Rolf the Founder--Save thy
realm from the men of mail, and thy bride from the knaves in serge."
"Ho, ho!" cried William; then bursting forth in full wrath, as he
sprang from the couch. "Hearest thou this, Lord Seneschal? Seven
years, the probation of the patriarch, have I wooed and waited; and
lo, in the seventh, does a proud priest say to me, 'Wrench the love
from thy heart-strings!'--Excommunicate me--ME--William, the son of
Robert the Devil! Ha, by God's splendour, Mauger shall live to wish
the father stood, in the foul fiend's true likeness, by his side,
rather than brave the bent brow of the son!"
"Dread my lord," said Fitzosborne, desisting from his employ, and
rising to his feet; "thou knowest that I am thy true friend and leal
knight; thou knowest how I have aided thee in this marriage with the
lady of Flanders, and how gravely I think that what pleases thy fancy
will guard thy realm; but rather than brave the order of the Church,
and the ban of the Pope, I would see thee wed to the poorest virgin in
Normandy."
William, who had been pacing the room like an enraged lion in his den,
halted in amaze at this bold speech.
"This from thee, William Fitzosborne!--from thee! I tell thee, that
if all the priests in Christendom, and all the barons in France, stood
between me and my bride, I would hew my way through the midst. Foes
invade my realm--let them; princes conspire against me--I smile in
scorn; subjects mutiny--this strong hand can punish, or this large
heart can forgive. All these are the dangers which he who governs men
should prepare to meet; but man has a right to his love, as the stag
to his hind. And he who wrongs me here, is foe and traitor to me, not
as Norman Duke but as human being. Look to it--thou and thy proud
barons, look to it!"
"Proud may thy barons be," said Fitzosborne, reddening, and with a
brow that quailed not before his lord's; "for they are the sons of
those who carved out the realm of the Norman, and owned in Rou but the
feudal chief of free warriors; vassals are not villeins. And that
which we hold our duty--whether to Church or chief--that, Duke
William, thy proud barons will doubtless do; nor less, believe me, for
threats which, braved in discharge of duty and defence of freedom, we
hold as air."
The Duke gazed on his haughty subject with an eye in which a meaner
spirit might have seen its doom. The veins in his broad temples
swelled like cords, and a light foam gathered round his quivering
lips. But fiery and fearless as William was, not less was he
sagacious and profound. In that one man he saw the representative of
that superb and matchless chivalry--that race of races--those men of
men, in whom the brave acknowledge the highest example of valiant
deeds, and the free the manliest assertion of noble thoughts [64],
since the day when the last Athenian covered his head with his mantle,
and mutely died: and far from being the most stubborn against his
will, it was to Fitzosborne's paramount influence with the council,
that he had often owed their submission to his wishes, and their
contributions to his wars. In the very tempest of his wrath, he felt
that the blow belonged to strike on that bold head would shiver his
ducal throne to the dust. Be felt too, that awful indeed was that
power of the Church which could thus turn against him the heart of his
truest knight: and he began (for with all his outward frankness his
temper was suspicious) to wrong the great-souled noble by the thought
that he might already be won over by the enemies whom Mauger had
arrayed against his nuptials. Therefore, with one of those rare and
mighty efforts of that dissimulation which debased his character, but
achieved his fortunes, he cleared his brow of its dark cloud, and said
in a low voice, that was not without its pathos:
"Had an angel from heaven forewarned me that William Fitzosborne would
speak thus to his kinsman and brother in arms, in the hour of need and
the agony of passion, I would have disbelieved him. Let it pass----"
But ere the last word was out of his lips, Fitzosborne had fallen on
his knees before the Duke, and, clasping his hand, exclaimed, while
the tears rolled down his swarthy cheek, "Pardon, pardon, my liege!
when thou speakest thus my heart melts. What thou willest, that will
I! Church or Pope, no matter. Send me to Flanders; I will bring back
thy bride."
The slight smile that curved William's lip, showed that he was scarce
worthy of that sublime weakness in his friend. But he cordially
pressed the hand that grasped his own, and said, "Rise; thus should
brother speak to brother." Then--for his wrath was only concealed,
not stifled, and yearned for its vent--his eye fell upon the delicate
and thoughtful face of the priest, who had watched this short and
stormy conference in profound silence, despite Taillefer's whispers to
him to interrupt the dispute. "So, priest," he said, "I remember me
that when Mauger before let loose his rebellious tongue thou didst
lend thy pedant learning to eke out his brainless treason. Methought
that I then banished thee my realm?"
"Not so, Count and Seigneur," answered the ecclesiastic, with a grave
but arch smile on his lip; "let me remind thee, that to speed me back
to my native land thou didst graciously send me a horse, halting on
three legs, and all lame on the fourth. Thus mounted, I met thee on
my road. I saluted thee; so did the beast, for his head well nigh
touched the ground. Whereon I did ask thee, in a Latin play of words,
to give me at least a quadruped, not a tripod, for my journey. [65]
Gracious, even in ire, and with relenting laugh, was thine answer. My
liege, thy words implied banishment--thy laughter pardon. So I
stayed."
Despite his wrath, William could scarce repress a smile; but
recollecting himself, he replied, more gravely, "Peace with this
levity, priest. Doubtless thou art the envoy from this scrupulous
Mauger, or some other of my gentle clergy; and thou comest, as
doubtless, with soft words and whining homilies. It is in vain. I
hold the Church in holy reverence; the pontiff knows it. But Matilda
of Flanders I have wooed; and Matilda of Flanders shall sit by my side
in the halls of Rouen, or on the deck of my war-ship, till it anchors
on a land worthy to yield a new domain to the son of the Sea-king."
"In the halls of Rouen--and it may be on the throne of England--shall
Matilda reign by the side of William," said the priest in a clear,
low, and emphatic voice; "and it was to tell my lord the Duke that I
repent me of my first unconsidered obeisance to Mauger as my spiritual
superior; that since then I have myself examined canon and precedent;
and though the letter of the law be against thy spousals, it comes
precisely under the category of those alliances to which the fathers
of the Church accord dispensation:--it is to tell thee this, that I,
plain Doctor of Laws and priest of Pavia, have crossed the seas."
"Ha Rou!--Ha Rou!" cried Taillefer, with his usual bluffness, and
laughing with great glee, "why wouldst thou not listen to me,
monseigneur?"
"If thou deceivest me not," said William, in surprise, "and thou canst
make good thy words, no prelate in Neustria, save Odo of Bayeux, shall
lift his head high as thine." And here William, deeply versed in the
science of men, bent his eyes keenly upon the unchanging and earnest
face of the speaker. "Ah," he burst out, as if satisfied with the
survey, "and my mind tells me that thou speakest not thus boldly and
calmly without ground sufficient. Man, I like thee. Thy name? I
forget it."
"Lanfranc of Pavia, please you my lord; called some times 'Lanfranc
the Scholar' in thy cloister of Bec. Nor misdeem me, that I, humble,
unmitred priest, should be thus bold. In birth I am noble, and my
kindred stand near to the grace of our ghostly pontiff; to the pontiff
I myself am not unknown. Did I desire honours, in Italy I might seek
them; it is not so. I crave no guerdon for the service I proffer;
none but this--leisure and books in the Convent of Bec."
"Sit down--nay, sit, man," said William, greatly interested, but still
suspicious. "One riddle only I ask thee to solve, before I give thee
all my trust, and place my very heart in thy hands. Why, if thou
desirest not rewards, shouldst thou thus care to serve me--thou, a
foreigner?" A light, brilliant and calm, shone in the eyes of the
scholar, and a blush spread over his pale cheeks.
"My Lord Prince, I will answer in plain words. But first permit me to
be the questioner."
The priest turned towards Fitzosborne, who had seated himself on a
stool at William's feet, and, leaning his chin on his hand, listened
to the ecclesiastic, not more with devotion to his calling, than
wonder at the influence one so obscure was irresistibly gaining over
his own martial spirit, and William's iron craft.
"Lovest thou not, William Lord of Breteuil, lovest thou not fame for
the sake of fame?"
"Sur mon ame--yes!" said the Baron.
"And thou, Taillefer the minstrel, lovest thou not song for the sake
of song?"
"For song alone," replied the mighty minstrel. "More gold in one
ringing rhyme than in all the coffers of Christendom."
"And marvellest thou, reader of men's hearts," said the scholar,
turning once more to William, "that the student loves knowledge for
the sake of knowledge? Born of high race, poor in purse, and slight
of thews, betimes I found wealth in books, and drew strength from
lore. I heard of the Count of Rouen and the Normans, as a prince of
small domain, with a measureless spirit, a lover of letters, and a
captain in war. I came to thy duchy, I noted its subjects and its
prince, and the words of Themistocles rang in my ear: 'I cannot play
the lute, but I can make a small state great.' I felt an interest in
thy strenuous and troubled career. I believe that knowledge, to
spread amongst the nations, must first find a nursery in the brain of
kings; and I saw in the deed-doer, the agent of the thinker. In those
espousals, on which with untiring obstinacy thy heart is set, I might
sympathise with thee; perchance"--(here a melancholy smile flitted
over the student's pale lips), "perchance even as a lover: priest
though I be now, and dead to human love, once I loved, and I know what
it is to strive in hope, and to waste in despair. But my sympathy, I
own, was more given to the prince than to the lover. It was natural
that I, priest and foreigner, should obey at first the orders of
Mauger, archprelate and spiritual chief, and the more so as the law
was with him; but when I resolved to stay despite thy sentence which
banished me, I resolved to aid thee; for if with Mauger was the dead
law, with thee was the living cause of man. Duke William, on thy
nuptials with Matilda of Flanders rests thy duchy--rest, perchance,
the mightier sceptres that are yet to come. Thy title disputed, thy
principality new and unestablished, thou, above all men, must link thy
new race with the ancient line of kings and kaisars. Matilda is the
descendant of Charlemagne and Alfred. Thy realm is insecure as long
as France undermines it with plots, and threatens it with arms. Marry
the daughter of Baldwin--and thy wife is the niece of Henry of France
--thine enemy becomes thy kinsman, and must, perforce, be thine ally.
This is not all; it were strange, looking round this disordered
royalty of England--a childless king, who loves thee better than his
own blood; a divided nobility, already adopting the fashions of the
stranger, and accustomed to shift their faith from Saxon to Dane, and
Dane to Saxon; a people that has respect indeed for brave chiefs, but,
seeing new men rise daily from new houses, has no reverence for
ancient lines and hereditary names; with a vast mass of villeins or
slaves that have no interest in the land or its rulers; strange,
seeing all this, if thy day-dreams have not also beheld a Norman
sovereign on the throne of Saxon England. And thy marriage with the
descendant of the best and most beloved prince that ever ruled these
realms, if it does not give thee a title to the land, may help to
conciliate its affections, and to fix thy posterity in the halls of
their mother's kin. Have I said eno' to prove why, for the sake of
nations, it were wise for the pontiff to stretch the harsh girths of
the law? why I might be enabled to prove to the Court of Rome the
policy of conciliating the love, and strengthening the hands, of the
Norman Count, who may so become the main prop of Christendom? Yea,
have I said eno' to prove that the humble clerk can look on mundane
matters with the eye of a man who can make small states great?"
William remained speechless--his hot blood thrilled with a half
superstitious awe; so thoroughly had this obscure Lombard divined,
detailed all the intricate meshes of that policy with which he himself
had interwoven his pertinacious affection for the Flemish princess,
that it seemed to him as if he listened to the echo of his own heart,
or heard from a soothsayer the voice of his most secret thoughts.
The priest continued
"Wherefore, thus considering, I said to myself, Now has the time come,
Lanfranc the Lombard, to prove to thee whether thy self-boastings have
been a vain deceit, or whether, in this age of iron and amidst this
lust of gold, thou, the penniless and the feeble, canst make knowledge
and wit of more avail to the destinies of kings than armed men and
filled treasuries. I believe in that power. I am ready for the test.
Pause, judge from what the Lord of Breteuil hath said to thee, what
will be the defection of thy lords if the Pope confirm the threatened
excommunication of thine uncle? Thine armies will rot from thee; thy
treasures will be like dry leaves in thy coffers; the Duke of Bretagne
will claim thy duchy as the legitimate heir of thy forefathers; the
Duke of Burgundy will league with the King of France, and march on thy
faithless legions under the banner of the Church. The handwriting is
on the walls, and thy sceptre and thy crown will pass away." William
set his teeth firmly, and breathed hard.
"But send me to Rome, thy delegate, and the thunder of Mauger shall
fall powerless. Marry Matilda, bring her to thy halls, place her on
thy throne, laugh to scorn the interdict of thy traitor uncle, and
rest assured that the Pope shall send thee his dispensation to thy
spousals, and his benison on thy marriage-bed. And when this be done,
Duke William, give me not abbacies and prelacies; multiply books, and
stablish schools, and bid thy servant found the royalty of knowledge,
as thou shalt found the sovereignty of war."
The Duke, transported from himself, leaped up and embraced the priest
with his vast arms; he kissed his cheeks, he kissed his forehead, as,
in those days, king kissed king with "the kiss of peace."
"Lanfranc of Pavia," he cried, "whether thou succeed or fail, thou
hast my love and gratitude evermore. As thou speakest, would I have
spoken, had I been born, framed, and reared as thou. And, verily,
when I hear thee, I blush for the boasts of my barbarous pride, that
no man can wield my mace, or bend my bow. Poor is the strength of
body--a web of law can entangle it, and a word from a priest's mouth
can palsy. But thou!--let me look at thee."
William gazed on the pale face: from head to foot he scanned the
delicate, slender form, and then, turning away, he said to
Fitzosborne:
"Thou, whose mailed hand hath fell'd a war-steed, art thou not ashamed
of thyself? The day is coming, I see it afar, when these slight men
shall set their feet upon our corslets."
He paused as if in thought, again paced the room, and stopped before
the crucifix, and image of the Virgin, which stood in a niche near the
bed-head.
"Right, noble prince," said the priest's low voice, "pause there for a
solution to all enigmas; there view the symbol of all-enduring power;
there, learn its ends below--comprehend the account it must yield
above. To your thoughts and your prayers we leave you."
He took the stalwart arm of Taillefer, as he spoke, and, with a grave
obeisance to Fitzosborne, left the chamber.