Man With a Sword Read online

  Hereward laughed in the King’s face and went on, ‘As for correcting me, first correct your own son, Robert Curthose, for stealing my son from me. But I warn you, don’t come here to correct me, or you will find a man that does not take kindly to the whip.’

  As he spoke Hereward stressed his words with the scraping-knife that he still held in his right hand.

  A knight who rode behind the King took this as a threat to the King and pushed his horse forward until it pressed Hereward against the wall of his house.

  But William called out to the knight to draw away. Then he went to Hereward and said quietly, so that no one else should hear, ‘For God’s sake, Hereward, let us behave like grown men, not like boys or old berserks. We are neither, at our age. Come with me riding, and let us put our differences to rights.’

  Hereward threw the scraping-knife into the grass and nodded in a surly way. Then he turned and went the back way to his stables. The King and the knights sat outside all the time he was away, without food or drink. And when Hereward appeared again he was sitting on the sorriest nag he could find. Even his harness was pieced together with twine. It was as though he was trying his hardest to offend the King.

  And so they went hunting that day into the Kesteven marshes, and up towards Grantham.

  One of the barons who rode behind them said to another, ‘This Englishman is not likely to keep his head on his shoulders for long, if you ask me. He has pressed the King to the furthest limit, I would guess.’

  28. The Quarrel

  But the baron had guessed wrong. Before the day was out Hereward had gone further. It was as though a devil had got into him, and was driving him on to destruction.

  After they had been riding half the afternoon, they started a tall buck with antlers like trees sprouting from his head. Because of the soft ground, the creature was soon blown and stood at bay, trembling and bewildered by the shouting men and plunging horses. It was the only deer they had seen that day, and the knights drew back so that the King should be first in at the kill, as was his right.

  Yet, just as William set his horse at the run and had his short spear levelled, Hereward came in suddenly from the side and flung his own spear, which rattled on the tines of the buck’s antlers to wake the beast from his trance and send him galloping into a narrow tree-hung gully where he could not be followed.

  William reined in his horse, then swung round furiously on Hereward.

  ‘Splendour de Dieu!’ he began; but Hereward laughed in his face and bent to pick up his spear.

  Then he called to one of the knights, ‘That was a shrewd cast - to strike without harming. It is a trick I must practise more often. It looks well!’

  No one spoke, for the King’s face was like thunder.

  ‘How far do you think you can travel along this road, Baron?’ he asked. ‘Did you not see that this was my quarry?’

  Hereward began to pick his teeth contemptuously with the point of a skinning-knife. Then he said, ‘I heard you cry out “Haro! ”’

  William looked at him, bewildered.

  ‘That I did,’ he said. ‘And I have a right to. It is my call.’

  Hereward said, putting on a silly smile, ‘I forgot that. I heard the word “Haro! ” and it put me in mind of Harold, Godwine’s son. So I flung my spear at Harold, not at the buck. As for the buck, you can have him and welcome, if you are as hungry as that, King of England. All you have to do is find him again.’

  Then he remounted his shuddering nag and turned his back on the King.

  William sat hunched in the saddle, his white-knuckled hands gripping the high pommel, like a man about to have a fit. One of the barons came up to him and whispered, ‘Say the word, sir, and I will see that this jack-ape troubles you no more.’

  King William shuddered, then shook his head. ‘I will do my own work, Gil, ‘ he said, ‘when it needs to be done. And that is not yet. Leave me now.’

  They rode until they got clear of the trees; the King in front, his heavy cloak wrapped round his ears, speaking to no one. Hereward cantered well to the side, at times singing an old Norwegian rowing-song, and at other times drinking from a beerhorn which was slung from his saddle. He seemed to ride in another world; and so did the King. But their worlds were not the same ones.

  By sunset they reached a manor that lay in the fief of Robert Mortain, on a small island of solid ground to the south of Grantham. Here the royal party was to spend the night, and a steward came out of the gate with cups of mulled wine to offer the horsemen.

  Hereward pushed past him, ignoring the offer, and leaving the King and the knights to drink alone. He was first through the gate, and soon they all heard his voice shouting out that they had come to a barbarous pigsty.

  The King went forward, his face white, to see Hereward waving his arms and letting his horse rear where it wished, knocking over trestles and barrels.

  The reason for his anger was soon seen. A half-starved fellow, dressed in rags, was hanging from a rough gallows, his hands tied behind his back. Below him lay another, tended by two monks. His head and chest had been wounded, and the monks were hard put to it to staunch the blood. On the dusty ground lay two horn-picks, shaped much like battle-axes.

  Hereward was shouting, ‘You Norman swine! To set ploughmen on to each other in combat! Is this your justice?’

  He bent from the saddle and tore a wooden support from the gallows. Then, with a great heave, he flung the baulk of wood through a window of the manor, breaking the carved shutters.

  The King came up to him and said through clenched teeth, ‘For the love of God, Baron! You break our law. It is the old law for men who have a difference to fight it out with the horn-picks. It is the ordeal by combat, and neither you nor I can change it.’

  Hereward turned red eyes upon the King and said for all to hear, ‘Your great Norman law - to let scullions and farriers use weapons on each other, as though they were knights? Is it justice to turn a blacksmith on to a pot-boy? Next you will be setting monks to fight apple-women, you Normans.’

  While the King raged, Hereward drew his knife and sawed at the rope from which the dead peasant swung. Then, with the body over his saddle-bow, he cantered round the courtyard calling out to the peasants who had assembled near the walls, ‘Whose son is this? Whose father is this? Whose brother is this? Take him and give him decent burial. Hereward will pay the church dues.’

  A group of ragged men and women came forward and took the body, weeping.

  One old woman, with a black shawl about her white head, said, ‘I wish to God you had got here an hour before, Baron. Then my son would still be alive. I wish to God that there were more like you in this land.’

  Hereward gazed down at her and said, ‘I am as English as you are. When I have gone, some of these Norman pigs may wish to root you out of your hovel. Some of them may wish to show what brave fellows they are by whipping an old woman whose son they have let be murdered. But if they do, mother, if they raise as much as one finger against you, I swear now upon the Holy Cross that I shall hear about it, and I shall come again. And I swear then that Robert Mortain must build himself another house, for I shall not leave one stone standing on another here. And Mortain must get himself another crew of ruffians to guard him, for there shall be gallows set about this courtyard from which his minions shall swing like bunches of grapes.’

  The peasants became excited then, and one of them even ran towards the King’s horse as though he meant to take the bridle. Shocked, one of the knights set his horse forward at the shaghaired fellow, but the King halted him and said, ‘Let it be. This is not the time to meddle, Alain.’

  Then he turned his horse away from the peasant and the hunting-party went into the house where the trembling steward waited to greet them.

  Hereward did not go in with them, but rode up the steps to the hall and shouted after them, ‘A mad baron to match a mad king! And soon, William, there will be scores of mad barons - and still only one mad king to keep them in c
heck. Then the fires will start to burn!’

  He swung about and rode from the courtyard, with the peasants crying after him.

  King William sat shaking with rage in the hall, his hands as powerless as though he suffered from palsy. No one dared come near to him.

  It was old Gil who knelt by him at last and offered him a wine-cup. ‘What is to be done, sir?’ he asked.

  William began to sip the wine, spilling much of it down the breast of his tunic. He answered with the shambling, halting speech of one who has been badly hurt.

  ‘Nothing yet, Gil. But soon, by God’s Resurrection and Splendour, I must put a curb on this mad old stallion. There is no other way.’

  29. The King’s Letter

  It was the best part of a week before Hereward got back to his house. He spent his time among the villages, drinking and fighting with any peasant who would take him on. He always won, whether at wrestling or quarter-staff; but no man bore him ill will on account of this.

  So he worked off his great anger against the King. But anger was replaced by sadness, for when he reached the house once more and called out for Asa he found that the girl had gone.

  One of his serfs told him that she had been afraid to stay in the house alone, and thought he had left her for ever. So she had packed up her few small belongings and had set off on foot for the north - to see if she could find her own folk, she had said.

  For a month Hereward brooded, blaming the King for everything, even a shower of rain.

  ‘He takes all, and gives nothing,’ Hereward said to himself. ‘He even takes the little lass who might have consoled me for the loss of my wife and son. Damn William! May he perish!’

  For a time Hereward thought of riding north himself, to be among good fellows who remembered the Danelaw and its customs. But then news reached him which sent a shiver down his back for all his loud talk of revolt. It seemed that three of the great earls were plotting a rebellion while King William was away in Normandy: they were Waltheof of Northumbria, who held a northern fief; Roger fitz Osbern, the Earl of Hereford; and Ralf de Wader, Earl of East Anglia.

  These men made little attempt to hide their intentions, but rode about the country calling Englishmen to their standards. Hereward suddenly dreaded that they might send to him after his quarrel with the King, expecting him to join them.

  Sitting alone in a barred and bolted house, he often wondered how he would greet the rebels if they came to him. In a way, his anger told him that this was a chance to revenge himself on the King for allowing his wife and son to be taken from him. Yet, when Hereward thought further, he saw that the King had all the power. After all, he had Euphemia and Cnut. They were like hostages in his hands. If Hereward joined the rebels, then he might never see his wife and son again.

  So he waited and brooded, alone, as the year went by. Sometimes, in dreams, he saw himself at the head of great crowds of men who waved axes and scythe-blades, and shouted ‘Down with the Norman!’ But always, when morning came, he felt a little confused and also ashamed of himself that by leading the rebellion even in his dreams he might be putting his family in danger.

  Sitting by the hearth-fire, attended only by an old woman who brought him food and swept out the hovel, Hereward came more and more to think of himself as finished. ‘I am as useless as a broken sword’ he said to himself. ‘Nay, even more useless - for a handy man can put an old sword on the anvil, and beat it into a hedging-knife.’

  Then at dusk one day a rider came to the steading, His horse blown, his mail caked with mud and rust.

  At first Hereward thought the man came from the rebel earls, and hesitated about opening the gate until the horseman called out loudly, ‘In the King’s name, Baron, let me in. I have ridden too far to play hide-and-seek now. I carry half the mud of Normandy on my legs and back; and I have worn out three horses to get here.’

  ‘What does the King want with me?’ asked Hereward, as he drew the bolts.

  The man almost flung a letter at him and said, ‘This parchment. I know no more. I am a soldier and do as I am told. I cannot read. Where is the stable?’

  Hereward sat on a horse-trough and opened the letter. His fingers could barely manage the great seal; but in the end he broke it. The crabbed black writing was hard to read, for it had been set down in haste, it seemed, by some overworked scrivener. As through a mist, Hereward read the clustered words.

  ‘Baron,’ it said, ‘as in life there are bad hours in every good day, so there are words in this letter which may mar the joy which the rest was hoped to bring.

  ‘First, I must tell you that the Queen is gravely ill with a disease from the East. It is of her that I now think constantly, setting aside all considerations of my kingdom. I would to God that you were here; yet if you came, you would arrive too late. I must break it to you that the Lady Euphemia, ever faithful to her mistress, has already gone to God with this same illness. My ill news shall be brought to you by the fastest rider I can find. Yet by the time he puts this message in your hands, it will be too late for you to consider journeying to Normandy. But I promise you, your lady shall receive all the honours her quality deserves.

  ‘I grieve with you, my friend, and hope that this shared misfortune shall bind us the closer together, forgetting all quarrels and differences. In token of which, it shall be my first duty to >return your son to you, that he may in some measure make up for your loss.

  ‘Further, since in my absence England lies to the care of the archbishop, and since a man of the Church may be weak where a soldier would be strong, and since in my realm there are to my certain knowledge great men who intend to profit from my absence, I offer you a further token of my trust. I command you, in my absence, be it short or long, to stand at the right hand of my Regent Archbishop Lanfranc, or, should his health fail, beside his appointed successor, the Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances.

  ‘The services you render shall not be forgotten.’

  Hereward pored over the parchment three times, lest he had missed anything in his clumsy reading. His eyes filled with tears. On one small sheet - great honour, and an even greater grief.

  Later, after he had fed the rider, he sent for Alfgeir, the blacksmith, and said, ‘Friend, my son is coming home at last. Fetch the women of the village to make ready the manor house. Tell all the folk that things shall be put to rights again. All shall be as it once was. I shall send for my knights before the week is out.’

  Alfgeir nodded his shaven head and said, ‘Now you are talking like a baron again, master. That’s what I like to hear, an Englishman who can be as good a baron as any Norman!’

  He went away whistling. Hereward walked in his tangled orchard and leaned against a moss-grown apple-tree, his forehead resting on his forearm. It was hard for him to make sense out of his life. The world seemed too muddled and twisted, like the boughs of his orchard-trees, for a man to find a clear path through it.

  ‘And God,’ thought Hereward; ‘what does He want us to do? What lesson is He trying to teach us? There seem to be so many lessons - and all being given in one breath.’

  30. Cnut

  At last Hereward put aside his grief and set about calling up an army of able-bodied men, as a baron must at his king’s command. All free men who did not rise at the call were threatened that henceforth they should be known as nithing, or outside all law - like a cat or a dog, or a wolf. Then any man could kill them and take their belongings.

  Hereward had little heart for this - or, indeed, for anything. It was a matter of form, and he had no intention of setting the army on to the three earls. So, after they had assembled, and Hereward had inspected them and sent word to the Regent that they were armed, he packed the men off home and told them to wait for a summons, which he never meant to send in any case. The King’s men were doing well enough against the rebels as it was: the Bishop of Worcester and the Abbot of Evesham, together with the Barons Urse d’Abitot and Walter de Lacy had got arrogant young fitz Osbern penned in beyond the River Sever
n, so that he could not join his comrades. Earl Ralf, defeated at Cambridge by armies under the Bishop of Bayeux and Coutances, had locked himself in Norwich Castle and was raving like a mad thing that the world had forsaken him.

  As for the great Earl Waltheof - he sent despairing word to Hereward, begging him to join them, and then, suddenly, his heart failed him and he gave himself up to Archbishop Lanfranc, the Regent.

  Lanfranc, unwilling to punish the Earl in case he himself did wrong, sent Waltheof under strong guard to Normandy, to make his own peace with King William.

  Hereward heard all this, sitting beside his reeve at the Hundred Court, and hearing the claims and complaints of his knights and tenants.

  Once he said to the reeve, ‘Dag, you could administer this part of England without my help. I am a useless old man and only get in your way. I think I will travel to Scotland, or back to Norway. The north suits me better, and I would like to see how my old comrades are faring, if they are still living.’

  Dag the reeve answered, ‘Baron, at the age of fifty-six, you are still strong. There is no other man south of the Humber who can handle an axe, or sit a charger, as you can. The King does right to trust you; and you would do wrong to leave your manor at this time. Besides, one day your son, Cnut, will come riding home, and it would be a sad day for him to come back to an empty house with no father there.’

  Hereward said no more. In his heart he had lost faith with all men; and he no longer believed that Cnut would ever come home, now that his mother was dead.

  But he was wrong. One blustering evening when the rushlights were flickering and the lowing cattle were jostling through the manor yard, turning the place into a sea of mud, Cnut came home on a bedraggled palfrey, and escorted by a score of knights from Montreuil. They could speak no word of English, but young Cnut had by now become so much the linguist that he had no difficulty in jesting with them, or in rounding on them in good set terms when the occasion arose.