Gods Concubine (41 page)

The gatekeepers were awake and alert, having been forewarned of this expedition the previous night. They bowed as William rode up on his black stallion, then put in motion the grinding and clanking which signalled the raising of the portcullis. William and Harold and their companions sat waiting silently, their eyes set ahead, their expressions drawn, their thoughts on what lay before them while their horses stamped and flicked their tails with impatience, lowering their heads and testing the strength of bit and rein and the hand of the man who held them.

The portcullis rattled into its place in the heights of the gate, and the riders kicked their horses forward.

“Which way?” William said over his shoulder to Ranuld, riding several paces behind.

Ranuld nodded toward the line of trees that stretched along a creek some two miles distant. “There, my lord. The report I had last night said they nested along that creek bed.”

“Take the lead,” William said, and Ranuld kicked his horse forward, guiding the party towards the distant trees.

For the first few minutes of the ride they kept to the road, and William pulled his horse back until he rode side by side with Harold. He’d given the Saxon earl one of his best stallions, better even than the one William himself rode, and William noted that Harold controlled the spirited bay easily and gently. The horse was unmanageable for most riders, and William had given it to Harold as a test.

Strangely, as he’d watched Harold gather the stallion’s reins and mount, William had found himself hoping that Harold
would
be able to control the beast. He didn’t want to see Harold tossed into the mire of the stableyard, or suffer the humiliation of having the horse bolt from under him while half the garrison watched from dormitory doorways or leaning over the parapets.

And why not? Brutus would have relished the chance to arrange Coel’s humiliation.

Wouldn’t he?

The horse had given one initial plunge as he felt Harold’s weight settle on his back, but then Harold had taken control, soothing the stallion with a calm but firm voice, reining him in with a determined yet gentle hand, and stroking the horse’s muscled neck when he’d finally settled.

Then Harold had turned amused eyes to William, knowing full well that he’d just been set a test.

William had given the earl a single nod—
that was well done
—and then mounted himself, leading the party out.

They’d not spoken since. But now, riding through the hoar-frosted countryside beyond Rouen’s walls, William felt the need to talk.

Honestly.

Harold had been with William now for some time, and this time had, after their initial conversation, been spent in hedging and wary verbal circling, interspersed with long and significant periods of eye contact over the rims of wine cups. Neither wanted to concede anything to the other, but both wanted to scry out the strengths and weaknesses of the other as much as possible.

They were, after all, likely to meet on the battlefield, and this time spent together was as much a part of that distant battle as would be the eventual clash of sword on sword.

Through all of this, William had not forgotten Matilda’s injunction to be Harold’s friend. His wary circling had been a way of sensing Harold’s character as much as sounding out the man’s strengths and weaknesses.

And William had discovered that he did, indeed, like Harold. The earl was as honest and true a man as ever William had met, in either of his lives, and William had come to regret bitterly his actions of his previous life.

William checked to ensure that Ranuld, and the riders following, were not within easy earshot, and said, “Tell me of Swanne.” He made no attempt at dissimulation, for that would have been an insult to Harold’s own integrity. “Did you ever love her, and she you?”
Is that why she lied to me about you, because then she loved you?

Harold shot William a wry look. “What is this, William? She has not told you everything that has passed between us?”

No.
“She has only mentioned that she is your wife, but nothing more.”

Harold raised his eyebrows, although his gaze had returned to the road before them. “I am her husband, I am the man who should rightfully succeed Edward, and I am thus the one she betrays the most both as husband and as future king. How strange that she has ‘not mentioned’ me, apart from naming me husband.”

He turned his head, looking at William once more. “If Matilda betrayed you with, for instance, the Duke of Gascony, and plotted to hand him your duchy, would you not expect her to hand him some reason for this betrayal? Would you not expect Gascony to ask, ‘Why, madam, do you betray your husband and your homeland in this manner?’ I find it passing strange, William, that Swanne does not ‘mention me’.
You
never thought to ask?”

“I asked her once, many years ago. She said you were but a man. Nothing more.”

Harold laughed bitterly. “Just a man. Nothing more. When I first married her I loved her more dearly than I had thought possible. She bewitched me. You have surely heard of her loveliness, if not seen for yourself.”

William nodded, his eyes now on the road before them.

“Gods, William. I could not believe I had won such a trophy to my bed. In the early years together she provided me with bed sport such as I’d never enjoyed before.”

William winced.

“And then…” Harold hesitated.

“And then…?”

“And then, as the years passed, I realised that Swanne’s loveliness was only a brittle thing. A sham, meant to bewilder and entrap. Swanne uses her beauty and love only as a weapon.” He paused. “I do not think Swanne knows what love is. Not truly. William, how is it you have fallen under her spell? What did she use to entrap you?”

Power. Ambition. The promise of immortality.
“I am not ‘trapped’,” William said.

Harold grunted.

“I hear tell you lust for your sister,” William said, stung into attack. To his amazement, Harold only laughed.

“You would have done far better to recruit Caela to your cause, William. Caela could have been born the lowliest of peasant women, and still she would have been a queen.” He looked directly at William, forcing the duke to meet his gaze.
“She
has true power, William, not Swanne, and that is beauty of spirit, not darkness of soul.”

“Caela is well served in you, Harold. She has always been so.”

“And I in her,” Harold said quietly, and for a time they rode in silence, each wrapped in their own thoughts.

“Harold,” William said eventually, “you cannot fight me. When Edward dies, I have the closest blood link to the English throne. I will have the stronger claim. Don’t oppose me.”
Please.

Harold grinned, easy and comfortable, and William felt his stomach turn over. Gods! Was this
guilt?
A conscience?

“A tenuous blood link,” said Harold, “through your great-aunt, and well you know that the English throne is not handed automatically from father to son…or from king to—what are you?—great-nephew through marriage. The witan approves and elects each new king. If there is a strong son with a good claim, then it will lean toward him…but they will not elect you, William. Never.”

They lapsed into silence again. Ranuld had led them from the road, and now their horses were cantering through stubbled meadowlands, the hay long since cut and carted for winter fodder. The pace had quickened, and everyone’s heart beat a little faster.

The treeline of the creek bed loomed.

“I
will
invade,” William said. “Believe it.”

Harold shrugged. “Then you will meet the might of the Saxon army. You will meet
England.”

“For sweet Christ’s sake, Harold, I have a battle-hardened force second to none! I have spent thirty years fighting for this duchy, and I will loose all that experience on you.”

Unwittingly, Harold echoed Matilda’s words. “And you are prepared to waste another thirty trying to seize England, William? For I assure you, thirty years of spilled Norman blood is what it is going to take.”

Furious now—although at quite what, William was not sure—he kicked his horse forward with a terse, “As you will.”

They descended into the all-but-dry creek bed, their horses slipping and sliding down the steep slope before splashing into the bare inch of water that wound its sludgy way around the larger of the stones in the channel.

At the head of the party, Ranuld reined his horse to a halt and held up his hand. “Prepare yourselves,” he said once the seven men had pulled up behind him. “They are not far.”

He extended the hand he’d held up until it was pointing straight ahead. “There,” he said, his tone quieter now. “See? In those bushes lining that slope?”

The other men peered, some swallowing in nervous anticipation, others tightening their mouths in grim attempt at fortitude.

All reached for weapons, and Thorkell and Hugh, Harold’s men, took a pike each from the men-at-arms.

All eight looked between each other, then forward again to the distant bushes.

At this time of morning, when the sun was barely risen, the shadows were so long and strong about the shrubs that it was difficult to distinguish detail.

Then a shadow moved, deepened lightly, and a single ray of sunlight penetrating into the creek bed revealed the roundness of flesh.

A shoulder, perhaps, or even a haunch.

The shadow moved, shuffling about, and then, for an instant, the watchers saw a head with thick curved tusks and small, bright, mean eyes.

William very slowly withdrew his sword from its leather scabbard and, even with that slight sound, the creature hiding in the bushes squealed in anger, and the world erupted into a seething mass of leaves and branches and hot flesh and terrible, grinding tusks.

The riders scattered, the horses—even as well trained as they were—terrified by the suddenness of the attack.

A boar, half the size of the horses, its hairy hide mottled tan and black and pink, had
roared
from the shrubs and charged down the creek bed towards the group of riders. It moved with the agility, grace and power of a master swordsman, and it used its vicious, deadly tusks with as much effect, breaking a leg on no less than three horses on its first charge.

The horses went down in a flurry of snorting fear and flailing legs, tossing their riders on to the sharp stones of the creek walls and channel.

A man-at-arms was one of those who was tossed. Horribly, he had fallen directly into the path of the boar which had made a nimble turn and was making a returning charge at the disarrayed hunting party.

The man screamed, rolling away. He got to his knees, his hands reaching for the roots of a tree higher up the bank, his feet scrabbling for purchase, then the boar slammed into his back, driving its tusks deep into the man’s ribs.

The man-at-arms screeched, so terrified—or so paralysed by pain and shock—that he did not even think to reach for his sword or knife.

The boar twisted its head and, aided by the immense muscles in its neck and shoulder, bodily lifted the man off the ground and tossed him some feet away.

The man, still screeching, landed with a sickening thud, his head smashing into a large rock.

He convulsed, then lay still.

The rest of the party had either got their horses back under control or, as in the case of the two riderless men who had regained their feet relatively uninjured, had grabbed pikes. The remaining seven men closed in on the boar, which had now turned its ire on one of the luckless horses, disembowelling it with two vicious sweeps of its tusks.

Harold was the closest and, guiding his horse in with the pressure of his knees and calves, hefted his sword. As the boar swung to meet him, he plunged it with all his strength into the boar’s back.

The blade of the sword missed the boar’s spinal cord by a mere inch, burying itself into the thick muscle that bounded the creature’s ribs.

Harold leaned back, meaning to pull the sword free so he could strike again.

The boar screamed—in rage, rather than pain or despair. Before Harold could twist the sword free, the boar twisted itself, throwing the weight of its body against the legs of Harold’s horse.

The stallion slipped to its haunches and Harold, still gripping the haft of the sword, was pulled out of the saddle both by the motion of the horse and by the continual, maddened twisting of the boar.

He fell, grunting in surprise as he hit the stones of the creek bed, slipping in the shallow water as he tried to right himself.

The boar, Harold’s sword still sticking from its back, had turned and was now watching Harold with its vicious, intelligent eyes.

Even though there were other men and horses milling about, and even though Harold could hear the frantic shouting of Ranuld and William, and of his two companions Thorkell and Hugh, it felt to him as if there were only two creatures in this world on this morn: himself, and the maddened, murderous boar.

Very slowly Harold managed to rise to his knees, his eyes never leaving those of the boar, and slowly drew free the long-bladed knife from his belt.

To one side William kneed his horse forward, grabbing a pike from one of the other men, and hefting it in his hand.

The boar had its back to him, and would be an easy target.

“No,” whispered Walter Fitz Osbern. Then, a little more strongly, “No!”

He grabbed at the reins of William’s horse, pulling it to a sudden halt and almost unseating William.

“Let the boar and Harold settle this,” Walter said, meeting William’s stunned and furious gaze. “Let God decide who has the right to take England’s throne, here and now.”

“You fool!” William yelled, and, leaning forward, struck Walter a great blow across the face that almost unseated the man from his horse.

Frantic, not even wondering why he should be so frightened, nor so determined, William turned his horse back towards where the boar faced Harold in the bed of the creek.

To his side, Thorkell and Hugh were already moving ahead.