Book: Harold, Book 9.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Harold, Book 9.
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BOOK IX.
THE BONES OF THE DEAD.
CHAPTER I.
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.
CHAPTER II.
Not till after repeated messages, at first without talk of ransom and
in high tone, affected, no doubt, by William to spin out the
negotiations, and augment the value of his services, did Guy of
Ponthieu consent to release his illustrious captive,--the guerdon, a
large sum and un bel maneir [189] on the river Eaulne. But whether
that guerdon were the fair ransom fee, or the price for concerted
snare, no man now can say, and sharper than ours the wit that forms
the more likely guess. These stipulations effected, Guy himself
opened the doors of the dungeon; and affecting to treat the whole
matter as one of law and right, now happily and fairly settled, was as
courteous and debonnair as he had before been dark and menacing.
He even himself, with a brilliant train, accompanied Harold to the
Chateau d'Eu [190], whither William journeyed to give him the meeting;
and laughed with a gay grace at the Earl's short and scornful replies
to his compliments and excuses. At the gates of this chateau, not
famous, in after times, for the good faith of its lords, William
himself, laying aside all the pride of etiquette which he had
established at his court, came to receive his visitor; and aiding him
to dismount embraced him cordially, amidst a loud fanfaron of fifes
and trumpets.
The flower of that glorious nobility, which a few generations had
sufficed to rear out of the lawless pirates of the Baltic, had been
selected to do honour alike to guest and host.
There were Hugo de Montfort and Roger de Beaumont, famous in council
as in the field, and already grey with fame. There was Henri, Sire de
Ferrers, whose name is supposed to have arisen from the vast forges
that burned around his castle, on the anvils of which were welded the
arms impenetrable in every field. There was Raoul de Tancarville, the
old tutor of William, hereditary Chamberlain of the Norman Counts; and
Geoffroi de Mandeville, and Tonstain the Fair, whose name still
preserved, amidst the general corruption of appellations, the evidence
of his Danish birth; and Hugo de Grantmesnil, lately returned from
exile; and Humphrey de Bohun, whose old castle in Carcutan may yet be
seen; and St. John, and Lacie, and D'Aincourt, of broad lands between
the Maine and the Oise; and William de Montfichet, and Roger,
nicknamed "Bigod," and Roger de Mortemer; and many more, whose fame
lives in another land than that of Neustria! There, too, were the
chief prelates and abbots of a church that since William's accession
had risen into repute with Rome and with Learning, unequalled on this
side the Alps; their white aubes over their gorgeous robes; Lanfranc,
and the Bishop of Coutance, and the Abbot of Bec, and foremost of all
in rank, but not in learning, Odo of Bayeux.
So great the assemblage of Quens and prelates, that there was small
room in the courtyard for the lesser knights and chiefs, who yet
hustled each other, with loss of Norman dignity, for a sight of the
lion which guarded England. And still, amidst all those men of mark
and might, Harold, simple and calm, looked as he had looked on his
war-ship in the Thames, the man who could lead them all!
From those, indeed, who were fortunate enough to see him as he passed
up by the side of William, as tall as the Duke, and no less erect--of
far slighter bulk, but with a strength almost equal, to a practised
eye, in his compacter symmetry and more supple grace,--from those who
saw him thus, an admiring murmur rose; for no men in the world so
valued and cultivated personal advantages as the Norman knighthood.
Conversing easily with Harold, and well watching him while he
conversed, the Duke led his guest into a private chamber in the third
floor [191] of the castle, and in that chamber were Haco and Wolnoth.
"This, I trust, is no surprise to you," said the Duke, smiling; "and
now I shall but mar your commune." So saying, he left the room, and
Wolnoth rushed to his brother's arms, while Haco, more timidly, drew
near and touched the Earl's robe.
As soon as the first joy of the meeting was over, the Earl said to
Haco, whom he had drawn to his breast with an embrace as fond as that
bestowed on Wolnoth:
"Remembering thee a boy, I came to say to thee, 'Be my son;' but
seeing thee a man, I change the prayer;--supply thy father's place,
and be my brother! And thou, Wolnoth, hast thou kept thy word to me?
Norman is thy garb, in truth; is thy heart still English?"
"Hist!" whispered Haco; "hist! We have a proverb, that walls have
ears."
"But Norman walls can hardly understand our broad Saxon of Kent, I
trust," said Harold, smiling, though with a shade on his brow.
"True; continue to speak Saxon," said Haco, "and we are safe."
"Safe!" echoed Harold.
"Haco's fears are childish, my brother," said Wolnoth, "and he wrongs
the Duke."
"Not the Duke, but the policy which surrounds him like an atmosphere,"
exclaimed Haco. "Oh, Harold, generous indeed wert thou to come hither
for thy kinsfolk--generous! But for England's weal, better that we
had rotted out our lives in exile, ere thou, hope and prop of England,
set foot in these webs of wile."
"Tut!" said Wolnoth, impatiently; "good is it for England that the
Norman and Saxon should be friends." Harold, who had lived to grow as
wise in men's hearts as his father, save when the natural trustfulness
that lay under his calm reserve lulled his sagacity, turned his eye
steadily on the faces of his two kinsmen; and he saw at the first
glance that a deeper intellect and a graver temper than Wolnoth's fair
face betrayed characterised the dark eye and serious brow of Haco. He
therefore drew his nephew a little aside, and said to him:
"Forewarned is forearmed. Deemest thou that this fairspoken Duke will
dare aught against my life?"
"Life, no; liberty, yes."
Harold startled, and those strong passions native to his breast, but
usually curbed beneath his majestic will, heaved in his bosom and
flashed in his eye.
"Liberty!--let him dare! Though all his troops paved the way from his
court to his coasts, I would hew my way through their ranks."
"Deemest thou that I am a coward?" said Haco, simply, "yet contrary to
all law and justice, and against King Edward's well-known
remonstrance, hath not the Count detained me years, yea, long years,
in his land? Kind are his words, wily his deeds. Fear not force;
fear fraud."
"I fear neither," answered Harold, drawing himself up, "nor do I
repent me one moment--No! nor did I repent in the dungeon of that
felon Count, whom God grant me life to repay with fire and sword for
his treason--that I myself have come hither to demand my kinsmen. I
come in the name of England, strong in her might, and sacred in her
majesty."
Before Haco could reply, the door opened, and Raoul de Tancarville, as
Grand Chamberlain, entered, with all Harold's Saxon train, and a
goodly number of Norman squires and attendants, bearing rich vestures.
The noble bowed to the Earl with his country's polished courtesy, and
besought leave to lead him to the bath, while his own squires prepared
his raiment for the banquet to be held in his honour. So all further
conference with his young kinsmen was then suspended.
The Duke, who affected a state no less regal than that of the Court of
France, permitted no one, save his own family and guests, to sit at
his own table. His great officers (those imperious lords) stood
beside his chair; and William Fitzosborne, "the Proud Spirit," placed
on the board with his own hand the dainty dishes for which the Norman
cooks were renowned. And great men were those Norman cooks; and often
for some "delicate," more ravishing than wont, gold chain and gem, and
even "bel maneir," fell to their guerdon [192]. It was worth being a
cook in those days!
The most seductive of men was William in his fair moods; and he
lavished all the witcheries at his control upon his guest. If
possible, yet more gracious was Matilda the Duchess. This woman,
eminent for mental culture, for personal beauty, and for a spirit and
ambition no less great than her lord's, knew well how to choose such
subjects of discourse as might most flatter an English ear. Her
connection with Harold, through her sister's marriage with Tostig,
warranted a familiarity almost caressing, which she assumed towards
the comely Earl; and she insisted, with a winning smile, that all the
hours the Duke would leave at his disposal he must spend with her.
The banquet was enlivened by the song of the great Taillefer himself,
who selected a theme that artfully flattered alike the Norman and the
Saxon; viz., the aid given by Rolfganger to Athelstan, and the
alliance between the English King and the Norman founder. He
dexterously introduced into the song praises of the English, and the
value of their friendship; and the Countess significantly applauded
each gallant compliment to the land of the famous guest. If Harold was
pleased by such poetic courtesies, he was yet more surprised by the
high honour in which Duke, baron, and prelate evidently held the Poet:
for it was among the worst signs of that sordid spirit, honouring only
wealth, which had crept over the original character of the Anglo-
Saxon, that the bard or scop, with them, had sunk into great
disrepute, and it was even forbidden to ecclesiastics [193] to admit
such landless vagrants to their company.
Much, indeed, there was in that court which, even on the first day,
Harold saw to admire--that stately temperance, so foreign to English
excesses, (but which, alas! the Norman kept not long when removed to
another soil)--that methodical state and noble pomp which
characterised the Feudal system, linking so harmoniously prince to
peer, and peer to knight--the easy grace, the polished wit of the
courtiers--the wisdom of Lanfranc, and the higher ecclesiastics,
blending worldly lore with decorous, not pedantic, regard to their
sacred calling--the enlightened love of music, letters, song, and art,
which coloured the discourse both of Duke and Duchess and the younger
courtiers, prone to emulate high example, whether for ill or good--all
impressed Harold with a sense of civilisation and true royalty, which
at once saddened and inspired his musing mind--saddened him when he
thought how far behind-hand England was in much, with this
comparatively petty principality--inspired him when he felt what one
great chief can do for his native land.
The unfavorable impressions made upon his thoughts by Haco's warnings
could scarcely fail to yield beneath the prodigal courtesies lavished
upon him, and the frank openness with which William laughingly excused
himself for having so long detained the hostages, "in order, my guest,
to make thee come and fetch them. And, by St. Valery, now thou art
here, thou shalt not depart, till, at least, thou hast lost in gentler
memories the recollection of the scurvy treatment thou hast met from
that barbarous Count. Nay, never bite thy lip, Harold, my friend,
leave to me thy revenge upon Guy. Sooner or later, the very maneir he
hath extorted from me shall give excuse for sword and lance, and then,
pardex, thou shalt come and cross steel in thine own quarrel. How I
rejoice that I can show to the beau frere of my dear cousin and
seigneur some return for all the courtesies the English King and
kingdom bestowed upon me! To-morrow we will ride to Rouen; there, all
knightly sports shall be held to grace thy coming; and by St. Michael,
knight-saint of the Norman, nought less will content me than to have
thy great name in the list of my chosen chevaliers. But the night
wears now, and thou sure must need sleep;" and, thus talking, the Duke
himself led the way to Harold's chamber, and insisted on removing the
ouche from his robe of state. As he did so, he passed his hand, as if
carelessly, along the Earl's right arm. "Ha!" said he suddenly, and
in his natural tone of voice, which was short and quick, "these
muscles have known practice! Dost think thou couldst bend my bow!"
"Who could bend that of--Ulysses?" returned the Earl, fixing his deep
blue eye upon the Norman's. William unconsciously changed colour, for
he felt that he was at that moment more Ulysses than Achilles.
CHAPTER III.
Side by side, William and Harold entered the fair city of Rouen, and
there, a succession of the brilliant pageants and knightly
entertainments, (comprising those "rare feats of honour," expanded,
with the following age, into the more gorgeous display of joust and
tourney,) was designed to dazzle the eyes and captivate the fancy of
the Earl. But though Harold won, even by the confession of the
chronicles most in favour of the Norman, golden opinions in a court
more ready to deride than admire the Saxon,--though not only the
"strength of his body," and "the boldness of his spirit," as shown in
exhibitions unfamiliar to Saxon warriors, but his "manners," his
"eloquence, intellect, and other good qualities," [194] were loftily
conspicuous amidst those knightly courtiers, that sublime part of his
character, which was found in his simple manhood and intense
nationality, kept him unmoved and serene amidst all intended to
exercise that fatal spell which Normanised most of those who came
within the circle of Norman attraction.