William, Count of the Normans, sate in a fair chamber of his palace of
Rouen; and on the large table before him were ample evidences of the
various labours, as warrior, chief, thinker, and statesman, which
filled the capacious breadth of that sleepless mind.
There lay a plan of the new port of Cherbourg, and beside it an open
MS. of the Duke's favourite book, the Commentaries of Caesar, from
which, it is said, he borrowed some of the tactics of his own martial
science; marked, and dotted, and interlined with his large bold
handwriting, were the words of the great Roman. A score or so of long
arrows, which had received some skilful improvement in feather or
bolt, lay carelessly scattered over some architectural sketches of a
new Abbey Church, and the proposed charter for its endowment. An open
cyst, of the beautiful workmanship for which the English goldsmiths
were then pre-eminently renowned, that had been among the parting
gifts of Edward, contained letters from the various potentates near
and far, who sought his alliance or menaced his repose.
On a perch behind him sate his favourite Norway falcon unhooded, for
it had been taught the finest polish in its dainty education--viz.,
"to face company undisturbed." At a kind of easel at the farther end
of the hall, a dwarf, misshapen in limbs, but of a face singularly
acute and intelligent, was employed in the outline of that famous
action at Val des Dunes, which had been the scene of one of the most
brilliant of William's feats in arms--an outline intended to be
transferred to the notable "stitchwork" of Matilda the Duchess.
Upon the floor, playing with a huge boar-hound of English breed, that
seemed but ill to like the play, and every now and then snarled and
showed his white teeth, was a young boy, with something of the Duke's
features, but with an expression more open and less sagacious; and
something of the Duke's broad build of chest and shoulder, but without
promise of the Duke's stately stature, which was needed to give grace
and dignity to a strength otherwise cumbrous and graceless. And
indeed, since William's visit to England, his athletic shape had lost
much of its youthful symmetry, though not yet deformed by that
corpulence which was a disease almost as rare in the Norman as the
Spartan.
Nevertheless, what is a defect in the gladiator is often but a beauty
in the prince; and the Duke's large proportions filled the eye with a
sense both of regal majesty and physical power. His countenance, yet
more than his form, showed the work of time; the short dark hair was
worn into partial baldness at the temples by the habitual friction of
the casque, and the constant indulgence of wily stratagem and
ambitious craft had deepened the wrinkles round the plotting eye and
the firm mouth: so that it was only by an effort like that of an
actor, that his aspect regained the knightly and noble frankness it
had once worn. The accomplished prince was no longer, in truth, what
the bold warrior had been,--he was greater in state and less in soul.
And already, despite all his grand qualities as a ruler, his imperious
nature had betrayed signs of what he (whose constitutional sternness
the Norman freemen, not without effort, curbed into the limits of
justice) might become, if wider scope were afforded to his fiery
passions and unsparing will.
Before the Duke, who was leaning his chin on his hand, stood Mallet de
Graville, speaking earnestly, and his discourse seemed both to
interest and please his lord.
"Eno'!" said William, "I comprehend the nature of the land and its
men,--a land that, untaught by experience, and persuaded that a peace
of twenty or thirty years must last till the crack of doom, neglects
all its defences, and has not one fort, save Dover, between the coast
and the capital,--a land which must be won or lost by a single battle,
and men (here the Duke hesitated,) and men," he resumed with a sigh,
"whom it will be so hard to conquer that, pardex, I don't wonder they
neglect their fortresses. Enough I say, of them. Let us return to
Harold,--thou thinkest, then, that he is worthy of his fame?"
"He is almost the only Englishman I have seen," answered De Graville,
"who hath received scholarly rearing and nurture; and all his
faculties are so evenly balanced, and all accompanied by so composed a
calm, that methinks, when I look at and hear him, I contemplate some
artful castle,--the strength of which can never be known at the first
glance, nor except by those who assail it."
"Thou art mistaken, Sire de Graville," said the Duke, with a shrewd
and cunning twinkle of his luminous dark eyes. "For thou tellest me
that he hath no thought of my pretensions to the English throne,--that
he inclines willingly to thy suggestions to come himself to my court
for the hostages,--that, in a word, he is not suspicious."
"Certes, he is not suspicious," returned Mallet.
"And thinkest thou that an artful castle were worth much without
warder or sentry,--or a cultivated mind strong and safe, without its
watchman,--Suspicion?"
"Truly, my lord speaks well and wisely," said the knight, startled;
"but Harold is a man thoroughly English, and the English are a gens
the least suspecting of any created thing between an angel and a
sheep."
William laughed aloud. But his laugh was checked suddenly; for at
that moment a fierce yell smote his ears, and looking hastily up, he
saw his hound and his son rolling together on the ground, in a grapple
that seemed deadly. William sprang to the spot; but the boy, who was
then under the dog, cried out, "Laissez aller! Laissez aller! no
rescue! I will master my own foe;" and, so saying, with a vigorous
effort he gained his knee, and with both hands griped the hound's
throat, so that the beast twisted in vain, to and fro, with gnashing
jaws, and in another minute would have panted out its last.
"I may save my good hound now," said William, with the gay smile of
his earlier days, and, though not without some exertion of his
prodigious strength, he drew the dog from his son's grasp.
"That was ill done, father," said Robert, surnamed even then the
Courthose, "to take part with thy son's foe."
"But my son's foe is thy father's property, my vaillant," said the
Duke; "and thou must answer to me for treason in provoking quarrel and
feud with my own fourfooted vavasour."
"It is not thy property, father; thou gavest the dog to me when a
whelp."
"Fables, Monseigneur de Courthose; I lent it to thee but for a day,
when thou hadst put out thine ankle bone in jumping off the rampire;
and all maimed as thou went, thou hadst still malice enow in thee to
worry the poor beast into a fever."
"Give or lent, it is the same thing, father; what I have once, that
will I hold, as thou didst before me, in thy cradle."
Then the great Duke, who in his own house was the fondest and weakest
of men, was so doltish and doting as to take the boy in his arms and
kiss him, nor, with all his far-sighted sagacity, deemed he that in
that kiss lay the seed of the awful curse that grew up from a father's
agony; to end in a son's misery and perdition.
Even Mallet de Graville frowned at the sight of the sire's infirmity,
--even Turold the dwarf shook his head. At that moment an officer
entered, and announced that an English nobleman, apparently in great
haste (for his horse had dropped down dead as he dismounted), had
arrived at the palace, and craved instant audience of the Duke.
William put down the boy, gave the brief order for the stranger's
admission, and, punctilious in ceremonial, beckoning De Graville to
follow him, passed at once into the next chamber, and seated himself
on his chair of state.
In a few moments one of the seneschals of the palace ushered in a
visitor, whose long moustache at once proclaimed him Saxon, and in
whom De Graville with surprise recognised his old friend, Godrith.
The young thegn, with a reverence more hasty than that to which
William was accustomed, advanced to the foot of the days, and, using
the Norman language, said, in a voice thick with emotion:
"From Harold the Earl, greeting to thee, Monseigneur. Most foul and
unchristian wrong hath been done the Earl by thy liegeman, Guy, Count
of Ponthieu. Sailing hither in two barks from England, with intent to
visit thy court, storm and wind drove the Earl's vessels towards the
mouth of the Somme [187]; there landing, and without fear, as in no
hostile country, he and his train were seized by the Count himself,
and cast into prison in the castle of Belrem [188]. A dungeon fit
but for malefactors holds, while I speak, the first lord of England,
and brother-in-law to its king. Nay, hints of famine, torture, and
death itself, have been darkly thrown out by this most disloyal count,
whether in earnest, or with the base view of heightening ransom. At
length, wearied perhaps by the Earl's firmness and disdain, this
traitor of Ponthieu hath permitted me in the Earl's behalf to bear the
message of Harold. He came to thee as to a prince and a friend;
sufferest thou thy liegeman to detain him as a thief or a foe?"
"Noble Englishman," replied William, gravely, "this is a matter more
out of my cognisance than thou seemest to think. It is true that Guy,
Count of Ponthieu, holds fief under me, but I have no control over the
laws of his realm. And by those laws, he hath right of life and death
over all stranded and waifed on his coast. Much grieve I for the
mishap of your famous Earl, and what I can do, I will; but I can only
treat in this matter with Guy as prince with prince, not as lord to
vassal. Meanwhile I pray you to take rest and food; and I will seek
prompt counsel as to the measures to adopt."
The Saxon's face showed disappointment and dismay at this answer, so
different from what he had expected; and he replied with the natural
honest bluntness which all his younger affection of Norman manners had
never eradicated:
"Food will I not touch, nor wine drink, till thou, Lord Count, hast
decided what help, as noble to noble, Christian to Christian, man to
man, thou givest to him who has come into this peril solely from his
trust in thee."
"Alas!" said the grand dissimulator, "heavy is the responsibility with
which thine ignorance of our land, laws, and men would charge me. If
I take but one false step in this matter, woe indeed to thy lord! Guy
is hot and haughty, and in his droits; he is capable of sending me the
Earl's head in reply to too dure a request for his freedom. Much
treasure and broad lands will it cost me, I fear, to ransom the Earl.
But be cheered; half my duchy were not too high a price for thy lord's
safety. Go, then, and eat with a good heart, and drink to the Earl's
health with a hopeful prayer."
"And it please you, my lord," said De Graville, "I know this gentle
thegn, and will beg of you the grace to see to his entertainment, and
sustain his spirits."
"Thou shalt, but later; so noble a guest none but my chief seneschal
should be the first to honour." Then turning to the officer in
waiting, he bade him lead the Saxon to the chamber tenanted by William
Fitzosborne (who then lodged within the palace), and committed him to
that Count's care.
As the Saxon sullenly withdrew, and as the door closed on him, William
rose and strode to and fro the room exultingly.
"I have him! I have him!" he cried aloud; "not as free guest, but as
ransomed captive. I have him--the Earl!--I have him! Go, Mallet, my
friend, now seek this sour-looking Englishman; and, hark thee! fill
his ear with all the tales thou canst think of as to Guy's cruelty and
ire. Enforce all the difficulties that lie in my way towards the
Earl's delivery. Great make the danger of the Earl's capture, and
vast all the favour of release. Comprehendest thou?"
"I am Norman, Monseigneur," replied De Graville, with a slight smile;
"and we Normans can make a short mantle cover a large space. You will
not be displeased with my address."
"Go then--go," said William, "and send me forthwith--Lanfranc--no,
hold--not Lanfranc, he is too scrupulous; Fitzosborne--no, too
haughty. Go, first, to my brother, Odo of Bayeux, and pray him to
seek me on the instant."
The knight bowed and vanished, and William continued to pace the room,
with sparkling eyes and murmuring lips.