Man With a Sword Read online

  William came to Baron’s Steading sometimes. And once he made Hereward a surprise gift of honey-coloured stone brought from Caen in Normandy.

  ‘This will build you a winter room,’ he said. ‘And every evening when you sit in it, you will remind yourself of me, my friend.’

  But Hereward did not use the stone for a room. Instead, he had made a small chapel, much after the Byzantine style, behind the steading at a quiet place where the oak woods came down to the stockade. This gave delight to Euphemia, who never wearied of giving thanks to God for the return of her husband.

  Once when the King came in through the gates, after hunting up along Market Rasen with his half-brother one bleak November day, Hereward was out in the yard chopping wood for the fire, taking turn and turn about with the thralls of the household.

  He stood in his thick leather jacket, wiping the sweat from his forehead as William rode in, like a ship floating on a sea of hounds.

  The King called out, red-faced with the harsh wind, ‘Good day, Baron. I didn’t expect to find you playing the kitchen-man! Come, is there not a cup of ale for the King?’

  While Bishop Odo sat with young Cnut, showing him a new move in the game of chess, William lounged with his jerkin off near the roaring fire, praising Euphemia’s spiced beer and honey-cakes.

  ‘You must show the Queen how this is done,’ he said, his mouth stuffed full. ‘We Normans pay more heed to our castles than our tables. With you English it is the other way.’

  Then he looked round and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Yet, seeing the comforts of this house, I begin to wonder… You have carpets on your floor. How is that?’

  Euphemia said, ‘We always had carpets in my father’s house in Miklagard. I do not care for rushes; they smell so much after they have been down a while. So a trader brought these into Boston port for the Baron.’

  William looked shrewdly at Hereward, then said, ‘You are becoming a good man about the house, Baron, hey?’

  Hereward smiled and said, ‘Once I lived so long among reeds and rushes that I never want to see them again, lord.’

  William nodded. ‘I hated Ely as much as you, Baron. But it was God’s will - and it brought us together after all. These things have their purposes, if only a man can live long enough to see that purpose.’

  Suddenly Bishop Odo gave a great shout and slapped the oaken table with his fist. ‘This lad of yours has got my king in check, Hereward!’ he said. ‘He learns a mite too fast for my old brains! Let me have him with me at my castle for a while, and we’ll make a masterly captain of him. A man who can move his pieces cleverly can move men the same way. Let me have him, can I?’

  Euphemia bit her lip, but said, ‘If it is your wish, my lord Bishop. But only for a little while, I beg you.’

  King William frowned a while, then said, ‘My brother’s request makes mine the more difficult.’

  Hereward, who had looked forward to having Cnut with him for the hunting that winter, said suspiciously, ‘What is your request, my lord?’

  William poured himself another cup of beer, then answered, ‘My wife, the Queen, is greatly taken with your lady, Euphemia, Baron. Indeed, I am here today at her wish - to beg you to spare your wife for a month or two, so that she may travel into Normandy with the Queen.’

  Hereward began to pace the room in doubt. At last he said, ‘I mean no disrespect, my lord, but has the Queen no other lady to go with her?’

  William started to play with his cup. ‘You talk like a young lover who cannot bear to be parted from his sweetheart,’ he said, ‘instead of a gnarled old warrior with a heart of flint! Well, I will come to the point, Baron; the Queen is engaged on a great work - a piece of embroidery, of stitchery of some sort, and she wants your wife to help her. There will be a score of others at it, all stitching away - but the Queen feels that they should follow a different mode from the one they learn in Normandy. Matilda has a passion to set down things in the Byzantine manner. You know what an attraction the East has for us Normans, these days? So many of our people go out there, to gain a kingdom.’

  Hereward asked, puzzled, ‘Set down what things, lord?’

  Bishop Odo began to cough, as though his drink had gone down the wrong way. But the King answered without hesitation, ‘To tell the truth, Baron, the Queen has turned historian, and wishes to show the story of Normandy in a great tapestry.’

  Hereward stood by the King’s chair and said, ‘To tell how Harold lied in his oath over the holy bones; and how you came with horses in ships and a wooden castle, to draw him down from Stamfordbridge and punish him with death. That is what you want to tell, King?’

  The King’s dark face grew suddenly grim and his smile was not that of a man who makes a joke. He nodded, then waited for Hereward to reply.

  Hereward walked through the stillness of the room to the window, and there he saw a wasp buzzing angrily. He looked down at it, as it ran here and there on the stone ledge, then slowly crushed it with his horny thumbnail. He watched it, struggling in two pieces, for a while. Then he turned and said, ‘Very well, lord. Let us get into the new year, with the blossom on the boughs, and then you shall take my wife with you to Normandy to stitch with the Queen. And you, Bishop, shall borrow my son for a space. So, it is agreed.’

  The King came up to him and said, ‘Let’s have no bad blood about this, Baron. Every great lady serves her queen at some time, and every youth goes to another lord to learn the use of arms and how to carve a joint of beef. There’s nothing strange about it.’

  For a while Hereward gazed at the carpet-covered floor. Then he looked William in the eye and said, ‘Only this, that I am not like the rest of your tenants, King. I have seen little of my wife or my son since God gave them to me. Now it seems I am to see even less of them.’

  Bishop Odo swaggered from the table, his cup in his hand, and said merrily, ‘Still playing the old fox, Hereward? Still asking for a better bargain? Well, doubtless it can be arranged. Most of the tenants-in-chief hold other appointments at the court; butlers, chamberlains, stewards. Even men like Robert Malet and William fitz Osbern. So why not you? How would it suit you to be King’s Steward, somewhere or other? With a place at the King’s board, and a good picking off the land?’ Hereward raised his right hand on an impulse, as though he would strike the Bishop. Odo did not move, but his red face became fixed in its smile and something of a warning flashed out from his light grey eyes.

  The King hit at the table-top with the flat of his hand. ‘Splendeur de Dieu!’ he shouted. ‘Would you strike a bishop? A royal prince? What sort of man are you, Baron? You’d cut off your nose to spite your face, it seems.’

  Hereward turned away and said quietly, ‘I ask your pardon, both of you. I am overwrought. It is the cold in my bones, perhaps. I can hardly bend my right leg to find the stirrup some days now. I must be getting old.’

  The King clapped him on the shoulder and said,. ‘We’ll cure that, Baron. All you need is more hunting. We will ride after the tall deer, friend. That will do the trick. And, meantime, think well of what Odo said. It is no dishonour to be King’s Steward. In great Alfred’s day, there were the horse-thegns, who served their king; and in Cnut’s time, there were the stallers, the “place men”. And I have yet to hear that they felt demeaned by setting the King’s dishes before him at table. Think about it, Baron.’

  When the two men had gone Hereward went back to the window ledge and watched the dead wasp’s nerves still twitching the legs and the pincers.

  His wife and son waited long for him to turn and talk to them; then at last they left the room and went to Euphemia’s bower together, unable to bear his sadness.

  27. A Man Alone

  Spring came and went; and with it went Here ward’s wife and his son. Hereward hardly said a word of farewell to them, he was so locked up in his own grief. Euphemia travelled from the house in a covered litter, her face veiled, her lips tight, and her hands trembling. Before the men lifted the litter, she leaned out and sai
d, ‘Baron, my dear one, it will not be long. I shall be with you again before the year is out. I shall count the days as carefully as you do, I promise you.’

  Robert Curthose, the Prince, himself came to fetch young Cnut, riding a big bay gelding and laughing loud about the hall. Cnut was glad to go with the young prince, trotting beside him on the dappled grey that Hereward had given him - so that he could hunt with his father through the Lincoln woods. Now he was riding that horse away, but at twelve he was too young to think of this.

  When they had gone Hereward walked like an old man into the buttery and took down a cobwebbed ale-flask from a shelf. Then he sat on the cold stone that the cooks used to keep the milk fresh. He did not budge until he had finished the ale. And when he tried to stand his legs failed him. The servants found him the next day, snoring on the buttery floor, the flask empty, and his tunic spattered with its dregs.

  When they got him to his bed his limbs were shaking with an ague after the night in the cold. A Jewish leech rode all the way from Lincoln to tend him. He said to Hereward., ‘My lord, you are no longer a youth. Young men can lie out all night under trees or hedges, hunting, and come to no harm. But a man of fifty-four should take more care, should think more of a fur-lined gown and a snug place beside the chimney.’

  These words so stung Hereward that he struck out at the kindly leech and began to shout the worst abuse he could think of.

  One of the house-knights paid the leech off and sent him back to Lincoln. And when the knight went up to his lord’s room he found Hereward struggling to lace on his heavy leather jerkin and staggering about the place as though he had lost his sense of balance.

  ‘Baron,’ said the knight, ‘what are you thinking of? You should be in bed.’

  Hereward crawled to the oak chest where his sword lay and tried to drag the weapon from its wrappings. The knight knew then that there would be little profit in trying to reason with his lord. He went down the stairs and told the butler what had happened, and after that few would dare go up to him, except a young girl named Asa, whose folk were northerners from Wark. She was a bought-woman, a slave, whose widowed mother had sold her after the burning of the north so as to feed her little brothers and sisters. She was very thin and quite simple. Most of the time she hardly understood what was said to her, in English or French, for her own family language had been a sort of Danish that the men of Wark still spoke.

  Asa went to Hereward and took him beef-broth and bread, and a stone jar of barley beer. At first he hit out at the food and sent it skimming; but she picked it up patiently and handed it to him again. Then, in Danish, she said, ‘Eat this, master, and be well again.’

  The great fighter gazed at her in bewilderment. She was so thin, and her face so pale. He sat on the bed and drew her to him, stroking her straw-coloured hair.

  Then he said in Danish, ‘Thou art a tiny mite to be outfacing such as me.’

  Asa said, ‘I’m not feared o’ you, master. My dad was a man like you. And maybe even a harder hitter, master. I’m used to that. All I want is for you to get well, master. Then we’ll have some law and order in this house again.’

  Hereward made her sit beside him. Then when he had shared the food and drink with her, he said, ‘What is happening in this house, then, lass?’

  Asa said, ‘The stewards are selling meal and meat and the sawyers have given up work at the barns. We’ve lost thirty head of cattle since you took to your room, master. And the knights swear they’ll ride off and serve under another lord who is better worth their swords.’

  Hereward stared at her with bleared eyes for a while, then said, ‘How long have I been sick?’

  Asa counted on her fingers and answered, ‘Nigh on a month, master. And come another month there’ll be nobbut a few sticks and stones left here. And the servants all gone.’

  Hereward said, ‘Then we’ll quicken them up a bit.’

  So he put on his iron byrnie and got out his long sword, and went down into the house. It was hard going, for he was a heavy man and the hand-rails were flimsy ones. He fell three times before he reached the hall. The knights and serving-folk clustered in the doorway, wondering what to do. Hereward sent them all packing and followed them out of the gate, shaking his sword at them. The knights shrugged their shoulders and pretended not to care, but they saw to it that they were out of striking distance all the same.

  And then Hereward called Asa down and said to her, ‘It seems I lost a wife and son - and found a little daughter.’

  Asa shook her head and said, ‘Nay, master, I’m no man’s daughter. But I’ll be thy kitchen-wench, and I’ll wash thy shirts and comb thy hair when it gets lugs in it.’

  The next day Hereward took iron nails and closed the stockade gate so that no one could enter. Then he had a table and stools and bedding moved into a shed that his carpenters once used, and there he set up his home with Asa.

  ‘This’ll be less work for you, lass,’ he said. ‘And less woodchopping for me to keep us warm, hey?’

  Asa said, ‘This is like the house I used to live in at Wark, with my brothers and sisters in the good days. I have no liking for great barn-like places, like your hall. I get nightmares in yon

  places, and think the trolls be a-coming for me at night-time. But here all’s snug, master!’

  Hereward laughed for the first time for weeks, and told Asa some old tales he remembered about Beowulf and Grettir, brave warriors who lay in halls at midnight and caught the trolls and ghosts when they came looking for their prey among the sleepers.

  Asa grew to like Hereward; but in his heart he was still unhappy. And at night he tossed and turned and had dreams of loneliness and death.

  Then one day there was a great shouting outside the stockade and a messenger cried out, ‘Baron, open the gate. I have a letter, for you.’

  Hereward called back, ‘Throw it over the wall and be off with you. There’s no wine for you in this house. That day is past.’

  The youth grumbled, but he flung the letter over and rode away.

  Hereward sat on a pile of wood to read it as best he could. It was from his son, Cnut, and written by a scribe in a stilted manner.

  It said: ‘Honoured sir, the Prince reminds me of my duty to write to you, or else I should have forgotten it. My horse, the one you gave me, is of little use in the rough countryside of Normandy. The Prince has given me another, a better one. He is brave and generous, and the man I most love. One day, when he is a great king, I shall serve him wherever he commands me. He speaks of going to the Holy Land one day. I pray to God that this may be so. I shall ride with him, God willing. I have seen my mother briefly. She is well, at the work the Queen has set her to. Our family is honoured by this task, noble father. Last night I dreamed of you riding and laughing among the trees, the merriest man on earth. I woke envious to think that you should be so well pleased with life. The priest here says that the dream was a good omen, and that you must be merry indeed for the news to come by night all the way from England to Normandy. God be with my merry father, in all courtesy, Cnut.’

  For a while after he had read these words Hereward could hardly see. But at last he wiped his eyes, then went into the house and sat in a dark corner. Later he tried to tear the letter up, but the parchment was too strong for him, so he flung it on to the fire as it was, and watched the sheepskin smoulder.

  Asa came to him and said, ‘’Twas bad news, master, then?’

  Hereward nodded and said, ‘Aye, bad news. I have lost my son again, I think.’

  He said no more about it, and that night went early to bed and told no more stories. He said that the day had tired him. But Asa heard him muttering all night in his sleep, and sometimes laughing out in a cold and bitter way.

  A few weeks after this the King came. There was no warning of his coming. Only a blast on the horn as his troop of riders came over the hill and the loud drumming of the horses’ hooves.

  Hereward was sitting outside the stockade, scraping hides with som
e fellows from the village, his own serfs. He had wagered them that he could prepare four hides to their one, and seemed to be winning, until the King’s men came.

  William was leading them, dressed plainly in grey hunting clothes, and wearing a woollen cap on his head.

  He sat looking at Hereward for a while, then said, ‘I didn’t think to find the Baron scraping greasy hides when I came to visit him.’

  Hereward spat in the fire and said, ‘I could be at worse trades, King.’

  The King smiled and said, ‘Yes, and you could be at better, Baron. Send these louts about their business, and get yourself ready for hunting with me today. While you do that I will sit by your fire and drink some of your good beer.’

  Hereward said slowly, ‘There’s no fire, and no beer. And if you want me out hunting, then I must come as I am, for my gear is locked up in a chest and the key is mislaid.’

  Two of the knights drove the serfs away, while the King dismounted and took Hereward aside. ‘Friend,’ he said firmly, ‘there is much in you that I like; but there is also much that needs correction. A baron is not an ordinary man, Hereward, A baron must pay heed to his state, and must…’

  But Hereward would not let the King finish. He broke in and said, ‘Must, must, must! Is that the only word you Normans can say? As for my not being an ordinary man, I’ll give that the lie straightaway. Let me tell you that my father was a small thegn - a farmer, William. Just as your mother was a tanner’s daughter. So how noble does that make us?’

  The King gazed at Hereward as though he would have struck him down. His face was as dark as a thunder-cloud, and his eyes seemed to be straining from their sockets.