Part One
the conquest…
“I don’t know who I am” – the voice was strengthening, although faltering out of the confusion established by the knowledge that nothing had gone before and the fear of what might be discovered. It was strangely cold, the ground was wet and some coarse powdery grains slipped through the stiffened fingers, bitten by the wind.
Looking straight upwards, there was nothingness interrupted by tiny intervals of silvery light, and something was brushing across the extremities of the face, freezing the nose, and making the body’s occupant shudder.
Voices began to register. There was a deeper commanding voice, peculiarly familiar, and however hard its owner tried, he was unable to disguise a note of anxiety that seemed to spread through everyone peering down over the bedraggled fellow.
The atmosphere was heavy with something that felt like fear. - ‘Was that what it was’? The blanket feeling of oblivion was lifting. Features came into focus. The body realised that he knew these people but didn’t know why. The mind endeavoured fruitlessly to explore its beginning, but was static, not able to travel in any direction.
Someone said, “Tell the Conqueror he’s coming around.” Large shapes moved, and more snowy light filled the space left behind and it got colder. Suddenly, the light was extinguished and radiance encompassed the figure of a very large being towering over him. His eyes were spellbound by this awesome apparition. From somewhere the strangled cords found the words to express the wonder of divinity – “My Lord!” The bizarre vision vanished and that experience of non-being enveloped him once more.
“Is he dead?” barked the Duke. “No, my Lord, he’s swooned. There’s an injury to the head, Sire.” The knight withdrew his hand from the back of the boy’s head on which there was dark sticky blood. The Duke waived the trusted companions on with their task and ordered the boy to his tent.
He took the knight, Roger de Busli, to one side and reiterated his earlier commands in the strongest of terms; failure to obey was fruitless and sometimes fatal, although he was wise enough never to rid himself of a valuable man. His anxiety to complete the project in hand was not caprice, but an effort to save the morale of his men and establish his plans.
It was a dark night, with the kind of cold that cuts through to the bones. The moon was hidden by the clouds which broke frequently to let its light shine through on the excavations and occasional stars twinkled on the velvety patchwork. Then the rain began to fall again, driven against them by the high west winds which had brought them into the Channel only to be violently crushed by the autumnal tempests that flourished in September.
Hundreds of bodies were now being washed up on the beaches near the beacon and William and his close associates, with their knights, were hurriedly burying the dead in the sand below the tall cliffs to avoid the inevitable panic such a disaster would afford.
It had taken six years of hard work and planning to set up this crusade of almost two thousand ships and he had recruited fourteen thousand well-trained men, yet he was determined more than ever that neither the weather nor his men’s morale were going to keep him from his rightful sovereignty. The disquiet of failure gnawed at him and he pushed on to get the clear-up operation completed, before dawn could creep up on them and their concealment discovered.
A messenger was sent post haste to Count Robert d’Eu who had gone ahead to Saint Valéry to stable the warhorses and pitch camp for the next stage of the journey across the Channel to English shores. The night’s events of their disastrous armada were commended to Robert’s secret knowledge and the messenger, under William’s command, bade him strongly in the Duke’s honour that no word of this was to reach his noble troops those of whom had successfully reached their destination and not fallen foul of the coastal current. They were to be given a shortened version that only one or two ships had been lost and that the others would follow later.
From Dives, where the expedition had been chartered, and many ships armoured, the journey had passed through a perilous passage into the Channel. Their destination, Saint Valéry at the mouth of the Somme, was nearer to Englaland and logistically sound. William had taken the advice of expert sailors who knew the uncertain wind conditions. Taking into consideration the navigational difficulties he would experience the length of the dangerous coastline, he therefore sent the warhorses overland. A total of about three thousand, vital for the success of the campaign, took the shorter and less hazardous route.
Undeterred the Conqueror spurred on with his plans and sometime after dawn had broken, welcomed the return of the courier. He relaxed a little now and ventured to his tent. The youth still slept. Trance-like, he recalled how he had recruited men of between fifteen and fifty four years of age, all skilled in warlike arts and bearing the scars and rigours of their combat games. Yet this young man was strangely exempt of the odour of man and was fresh faced, remarkably, he hesitated and checking himself, almost feminine.
What did he know about girls, really? Yes he had four daughters, and he thought of that tiny girl, his Constance, not long borne, nestled in her mother’s arms as she slept. She had reached for his outstretched hand and gripped his little finger with her tiny hand, her fingers hardly surrounding it. It had therefore been hard to leave this diatribe of loveliness.
Matilde had brought him three boys to complete his pleasure. He thought of Richard, his sickly second son, with an ache in his chest. Mournfully, he observed the youth’s pattern of breathing as he did his son’s, and a tear pricked the back of his eye and his big shoulders slumped.
In his pocket he sought out the piece of damp paper Roger had pushed into his hand earlier, most of the ink had faded now, the only writing discernible was the first few letters of what must have been the addressees name, two lonely letters in the body of the text and the first or maybe the only letter of the signature. These seemed to be impressed harder into the weave of the paper as if great emotion had weighed heavy on the writer.
He tried to make out the inscription. The other letters of the message were beyond recognition.
He laid the paper out to dry beside his bed and as the rain drummed on the skins of his tent, he lay back and listened to the breathing of his young companion and called to mind the days of his youth, when his father had left him in the care of his closest allies. In the long nights he lay awake looking at the moonlight through the window of their bedchamber and listened to the breathing and snoring of his childhood warrior friends. There was William FitzOsbern and Roger de Montgomery, both of his own age and closer than kin. They were with him now, and no doubt FitzOsbern would be hovering near his tent. He would sleep for a while now until the old dreams woke him, and his curiosity would be roused to the identity of his half-drowned neighbour.
More light crept into the tent as the sun rose higher in the wet skies. The youth stirred and groaned as the pain in his head increased on movement. The Conqueror was suddenly awake and alert, his eyes widened and face pale, drained, as if frightened out of a restless dream. He called out for Osbern and through the mists of hidden grief sought out the face of his young stray.
It was William FitzOsbern who came hurriedly into his tent and found his Conqueror applying a compress to the youth’s brow.
“Today, we must bring an end to this mystery and we must get him ready for the voyage.”
“He’s coming with us”? - asked FitzOsbern.
“We have no choice, he may remember too much….” The Conqueror sighed he could not bring himself to believe that anything else could go wrong but there was this troublesome doubt about the best made plans.
***
flandrina’s story…
She looked straight into Flandrina’s eyes; her lips fixed unsmilingly, to all appearances urging her to change her mind. Despite her queenly superiority though, the girl remained steadfast.
The life-sized image of the Holy Mother Mary seated upon her throne, glowed disapprovingly at the tears coursing down the penitent’s cheeks. The bright gold, silver and gems sparkled indignantly, whilst the Christ child cooed lovingly on her lap.
They said that the Virgin Mary could perform miracles in times of natural disaster and brought about peace and plenty. Everyday, Flandrina had celebrated the Mass to invoke her pleasure and lit a candle at the little altar below her image in the chapel at Jakesley. It was Ascension and she had fasted until the 15th day of the month of August, the day the Virgin Mary ascended body and soul into heaven and Flandrina muttered the Salve Regina repeatedly as she worked her black beads with the cross, the large gold cross, dangling from it.
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevae,
ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos
misericordes oculos ad nos converte;
et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exilium ostende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.
Back in Normandie, Ranulph was preparing for his crusade to evict the new King of Englaland, Harold Godwinsson, who had taken over the reigns of power on the death of Edward, who they called the Confessor for his eminent piety. Harold had committed the unforgivable sin and had gone against his word to William that he would marry into the kinship, of which Ranulph belonged, and be his Commander in Englaland. The plan was for him to promote William’s claim to the throne and receive him as the rightful successor on the occasion of Edward’s death.
The offer of succession had been made by Edward some years earlier when he was exiled to Normandie after the death of his brother at the hands of a Godwin. Only two years earlier, it was said that to confirm his position he had sent Harold to parley with William on the subject. Edward had vacillated between the land of the Norse men, Normandie and Flandrensis for his choice of heir, leaving William who had also been given the succession frustrated and increasingly irate.
For six long years now, the Conqueror had been preparing for his triumphal procession into London to claim his crown and be anointed at the Palace of Westminster. He had brought old enemies out of exile, which had included Ranulph’s cousin. They, as a family, were all going to make up the Breton army of the Bretheul and Val du Real and training of their knights and squires was in progress. Their infantry, the peasant farmers, were required in the fields to provide for the great expedition.
Flandrina, however, was twenty one years old now and had been betrothed at the age of fifteen to Ranulph the Sire of Glanville. He had estates situated in Lower Normandie near the Dives estuary where some of the ships were being constructed and supplies gathered together. Already in his minority, he had spent some time administering his father Rainauld’s estates and that of his cousin Nigel, the Vicomte of St Saveur. Then he was called up by the Conqueror and with his Breton cousins, under the guidance of the great tactician the elder Roger de Montgomery, began preparing for an invasion which seemed to be inevitable and secretly bargained for by Edward.
Her distress was the result of this absence. She had quietly spent much of her time at her family manor of Jakesley, being tutored in Latin and French, courtly manners and fine stitchery, and learning the manners of a lady of a great manor. Ranulph’s grandfather Niel had been a favourite of Edward, who had spent some time in and around Valognes and St Saveur as an exile, and had promised him wealth and lands on succeeding Harthacnut.
Edward had recalled the saga of how the great Ivar Ragnarsson the Boneless, had horrifically killed the Northymbrian kings and the eminent St Edmund in the Est Angles. He, himself, was related in some small way to the Viking marauders and the underlying fear weakened him and his friendship with them overcame any distrust he had of them and in time he would use them against his rivals the Godwinssons.
Swaying, and muttering her soundless prayers to her Holy Mother, and as her grief grew Flandrina prostrated herself before the silent deity begging her for an answer. Finally, she dusted her robes with her damp hands and moved towards the entrance of the chapel and it was only then that she saw the shadow of a young man in the doorway with the garb of a messenger from her Lord Ranulph. That was when the black void swallowed her up, with a suddenness that took her breath away.
When she came to, her head ached and she found herself on a bench in the coolness of the chapel and groaned with pain induced from the movement. It was the summer of 1066 and outside the sun had burned down all day, ripening the crops in the fields and parching the ground all around. The sky had been cornflower blue with a scattering of wispy trails. Through the drying grass of the meadows, red poppies danced in the little gasps of air. In the garden, the herbs emitted a powerful odour of sweetness and this found its way into the chapel until she realised that the young man had a nose-gay and was wafting it over her face. She recognised the fragrances of rosemary and lavender as her senses returned. A pair of hazel eyes met hers and he spoke in the Norman tongue.
***
the Conquest…
William FitzOsbern watched over his leader with a ferocious devotion as he had done so from a child. William as a youngster had shared the chamber of the young Duke as had his father Osbern who had slept dutifully each night at the foot of the eight year old’s bed.
William, the Duke who was to be called the Conqueror, to those who did not know him, was a tall, strong, heavy-built man, with a deep, gruff voice, commanding, forceful and dangerous as an opponent. The bodies of his rivals were buried; with poison in their bones, man and woman his alleged victims. But to FitzOsbern, he was a nervous man, occupied by an uncertain spirit which played endless sport with his emotion, creating such swings in mood that he was fearsome to behold and, in private, as a weak and wretched as a child.
Outwardly, what drove him was an anxiety fuelled by an intelligent understanding of the task to be embarked upon, and a positivity which contradicted his unexpected dips into malaise following each episode of success. A crippling exhaustion which devalued his tough exterior.
William, during the previous days, had been very conscious of the tides to Englaland, and was constantly interested in the weather in the Channel, but he didn’t seem to be waiting for the conditions to alter. He was however, being kept in touch with developments on English shores and the forewarned approach from Harald Hardrada from the Oplands whose armies had been predicted to arrive in Euruic.
Ranulph, his cousin had sent for his wife, who although descended from a Dane now belonged by marriage to the wrong side. Harald also had a legitimate claim to the throne, and this small matter of a fellow country man, a descendent of their great predecessors, whose descendents had long left Opland shores, would not deter him from his goal.
The cousins had conspired with a young squire of Ranulph’s to bring the lady of Eia to Glanville before he could set sail for Englaland and its Conquest. They felt that a young man with a Bretaigne name would be a better option, and as he was learned in the tongue, he had been employed on a number of occasions to carry messages between the two coasts. So Hyvernon had set sail in early August to bring Flandrina home to Glanville, and to ensure her of his authenticity, Ranulph had sent a note in his own hand.
In the meantime, they were both affected by a strong feeling of restlessness, an ingrown unease which intensified as the days continued. The final plans of the disembarkation from Dives alleviated the knot a little and they set about loading the ships with provisions for the expedition.
Hyvernon had not returned by the time they had left the estuary for the first leg of their journey to Saint Valéry and although they had spent days scanning the horizon for a sight of a fisherman bringing home his bride and her squire, they left without looking back.
The unfortunate situation that beset them along the coast of Normandie, where they lost hundreds of sailors and their boats, had distressed William greatly, and his push to conceal their bodies almost drove him into one of his mad rages. The quietness in him that followed for the next week or so told everyone close to him of the great weight he bore.
The nightmares of his youth had returned and FitzOsbern and William’s half-brothers the Bishop Odo of Bayeux and Robert Mortain, spent valuable time with him analysing and going over every detail pertaining to the plans to trick Harold Godwinsson into relinquishing his crown, and with this in mind, a strict watch was kept on any change in the damp and miserable weather which had dogged the Normandie coast that September.
The rages had become frequent in the past few months leading up to the mission, and there were those who recalled the sagas of Ivar Ragnarsson, who had crossed the great North Sea to capture the King of Northymberaland, Aella, who had reputedly destroyed his father Ragnar in a pit of vipers. He and his brothers had belonged to a brotherhood of Vikings calling themselves the Beserkergangs, and in order to fight successfully had to drink spiced wine, and excitedly fought in frenzied attacks. Yet wisdom always prevailed within Ivar and his tactics were remarkable but his punishments severe and imaginative.
The impatience grew in William, and he undertook to keep his troops busy as he did himself, battle tactics rehearsed time and again until perfected. The cavalry and infantry put through their paces. Word had also been sent to Glanville to discover the safe return of Flandrina of Sudfulc but a negative response was relayed.
It had only been a couple of days since they had discovered the only survivors of the shipwrecks. The youth they had found, grew more robust, and was transported on a litter at the rear of William’s horse as they continued up the coast to the rendezvous. Attending to him also, was a Monk who had been found wandering near him, drenched and frozen, but none the worse for wear. With the youth’s improvement, and their approach to their final camp on Norman soil, William’s mood seemed to strengthen and the concern that dogged him for his son dissolved somewhat. The shrewdness of his mind began to return.
***
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Copyright September 2009, Claire Lydia Ray.
