The Court was gathered in idle groups in the hall, awaiting the noble guest’s appearance. When he came round the bend of the stair, Count Baldwin went forward to meet him, taking his lady and his sons Robert and Baldwin with him. As she held out her hand to the Duke the Countess observed with an inward smile how he shot a quick look round. He kissed her fingers, and asked leave to present the Counts of Mortain and Eu to her notice. The lively Countess made little of Mortain, an honest young man of few words, but she was pleased to allow the Count of Eu to lead her to the high table.
The Lady Judith came forward at her father’s bidding, and made her reverence to the Duke. She sent William an inviting glance out of her large eyes, but met with no more response than an unsmiling bow. She had a habit of chuckling deep in her white throat whenever anything amused her, and she chuckled now. ‘Lord Duke, I am happy to see you here again,’ she said demurely.
The Duke thanked her, and having touched her hand with his lips, gave it her back again, and turned to Count Baldwin, who was speaking to him.
Baldwin had beckoned to a lusty young man who was lolling against one of the chairs, and now made him known to the Duke. He was Tostig Godwineson, a man of William’s own age. He came up with a swagger, and looked the Duke over with bold unabashed eyes. He had a florid complexion that flushed easily, and features that were handsome in despite of their irregularity. He looked to be something of a fire-eater, which indeed he was, and it was evident that he held himself in no small esteem. Count Baldwin informed William that he was lately become the betrothed of the Lady Judith.
William’s eyes kindled. ‘Ha!’ His hand shot out, and gripped Tostig’s. ‘I wish you joy in your spousing, and pray mine own may not prove more laggard.’
The Count stroked his beard at that, but said nothing. He led the Duke to an armed chair on his right hand, and looked down the hall to the curtained arch through which his other daughter had just come. The Duke’s eyes followed the direction of his glance; those who watched him saw him stiffen like a hound at the leash, and lean forward in his chair as though he would leap up from it.
The Lady Matilda came slowly up the length of the hall, bearing the wine-cup of ceremony between her hands. Her gown was of green coster, with long hanging sleeves, and a train that brushed behind her over the rushes on the floor. Under a veil of green, bound on her brow by a jewelled fermaille, her hair gleamed palely gold, and hung in two braids almost to her knees. Her eyes were downcast to the cup she bore; her lips were red in the cream of her face, still and folded.
She came up to the high table, and to the Duke’s side, and lifting the cup said in a voice that was like the ripple of a brook: ‘Be of health, lord Duke!’ She raised her eyes and looked fleetingly at him. It was as though a green flame stabbed him. As she bent the knee, and put her lips to the cup, he rose quickly to his feet. A tremor shook her; she took a step backward from him, but recovering in a moment, held out the cup with only the faintest blush in her cheek to betray her sudden alarm. Her vision seemed to be obscured by a blaze of crimson and gold, and a dark face that drew her eyes against her will.
William took the cup from her. ‘Lady, I drink to you,’ he said in a voice that rang deeply in her ears. He turned the cup with a deliberate movement that was watched by many, and set his lips to the place where hers had sipped.
He drained the cup in the middle of a profound silence. All eyes were upon him, all but my lord Count’s, who studied a salt-cellar on the table with an air of abstraction.
The Duke set down the cup, and held out his hand to the lady to lead her to the seat beside him. She laid her own in it, and as his powerful fingers closed over hers her eyelids fluttered. The silence broke. As though recalled to their manners those who had watched the little scene began to talk again, and looked towards the Duke no more than was seemly. For all the heed he paid to the others at his table he might have been sitting alone with Matilda in a desert. He was half-turned away from Count Baldwin, leaning his right arm along the carved wood of his chair, and trying to induce the Lady Matilda to talk to him.
She seemed strangely loth. She gave him yea or nay for the most part, and would by no means look at him.
Count Baldwin occupied himself between his dinner and Robert of Mortain, who sat opposite to him; Tostig leaned sprawling in his chair, and between courses fondled Judith’s white hand. He drank deeply, and as time went on grew flushed and noisy. His boisterous laugh sounded above the hum of chatter more and more frequently; he began to call healths, and slopped some of the wine from his cup over his tunic.
‘Waes-hael,’ he shouted, staggering to his feet. ‘Drinkhael, William of Normandy!’
William turned his head. A slightly contemptuous look crossed his face when he saw how Tostig reeled, but he raised his cup in polite response, and drank the Saxon’s health. Turning back to Matilda he said: ‘So Tostig has set the spousing-ring upon your sister’s finger? Do you know why I have come again into Flanders?’
‘My lord, I have small understanding of the affairs of state,’ Matilda said in a cool meek voice.
If she thought to turn him by such an answer she mistook her man. He smiled. ‘I have come rather upon an affair of the heart, lady,’ he said.
She could not resist the temptation of replying: ‘I had not supposed, my lord, that the Fighting Duke had interest in such matters.’
‘Before God,’ William said, ‘I think I have interest now in nothing else.’
She bit her lip. Under cover of the table the Duke’s hand closed suddenly over both of hers, crushing them in his hold. Her pulses leaped under his fingers; an angry colour mounted to her cheeks. The Duke’s smile held a hint of satisfaction. ‘Ha, is there fire beneath your calm, my fair?’ he said in a quick low voice. ‘Tell me, are you all ice, or does the blood run hot in your veins?’
She pulled her hands away. ‘If I burn it is for no man,’ she replied, looking at him disdainfully. His ardent gaze beat hers down; she turned her face away.
‘By my head, you shall soon eat those words, lady!’
‘Lord Duke,’ she said, ‘you speak to one who has lain already in the marriage-bed.’
He cared nothing for that; she thought his laugh betrayed the base blood in him, and curled her lip at it. But he was to startle her yet. ‘Found you a man strong enough to break down your walls, O Guarded Heart?’
She looked up quickly, and her eyes seemed to search his face. With a shiver she folded her hands across her breast as though she made a barrier against him. ‘My walls stand firm, and shall stand so to the end, please God,’ she said.
‘Do you fling down your gauntlet at my feet, lady? Are you a rebel proclaimed? What have you heard of me, you who call me the Fighting Duke?’
‘I am no subject of yours, fair lord,’ she said. ‘If I am a walled citadel indeed, I lie beyond your borders.’
‘So, too, lay Domfront,’ William replied. ‘Domfront calls me master today.’ He paused; she found herself compelled to look at him. ‘As you shall do, Matilda,’ he said deliberately. ‘I pick up your gauntlet.’
Her cheek flamed, but she judged it best to hold her peace. He might see that he had gone too far by the way she turned from him to bestow her attention on her brother Robert seated a few paces below her. If he did see it had no power to abash him. She felt his glance possessively upon her, and was glad when the banquet came to an end. She went upstairs to the bower with the Countess and her sister, and they saw how her eyes brooded, and how she stroked the thick rope of her hair in the way she had when she was put about. The Countess hesitated on the brink of speech, but in the end went away to her own chamber with no word said. The maids of honour sat down to their stitchery, but when one of them would have given her embroidery to Matilda she put it aside with an impatient gesture, and withdrew to the window, and began to draw patterns with her finger upon the horn-panels, wr
apped in her crowding thoughts.
It was not long before Judith came to join her. She slipped her arm round Matilda’s waist, saying with a comfortable laugh: ‘Fie, you are hot! What snug work made you at dinner, coney?’
‘Bastard manners,’ Matilda said. The words dropped slowly, under her breath.
‘Why, how nice you are become! It is a noble bastard, and will make you a handsome lover.’ Judith fondled her slender neck. ‘He looks at you as though he would devour you. A hound to pull down a white doe, Holy Sepulchre!’
Matilda stood still, suffering the caressing hand. ‘I am not for him.’
‘I think you will be glad of him ere many days,’ Judith prophesied.
‘I have had my fill of lovers.’
Judith chuckled and squeezed her. ‘You never had but one, child, and I misdoubt me he came not so near your heart.’ She paused. ‘For my part, I find Duke William hath more spice to him than ever had Gherbod. Nay, nay, he was cold, sweeting: there was no warming him; and you – Jesu, you are meat for a stronger stomach!’
Matilda did not answer, but stood looking at her sister, queerly intent.
‘If the Pope will grant a dispensation,’ remarked Judith insinuatingly, ‘our father would be glad of the marriage, as I think. William is a haut prince.’
‘I give him thanks.’ Matilda lifted her head. ‘I am a daughter of Flanders, born in lawful wedlock,’ she said proudly.
‘Eh, what is this?’ Judith tapped her cheek. ‘Normandy is no meagre prize.’
Matilda’s eyes were narrow under the white lids. ‘The Bastard reaches too high, by my soul!’ she said. ‘I have a King’s daughter for my dam, no tanner’s spawn!’
‘He is Duke of Normandy,’ Judith said. ‘What matter?’
‘What, is base blood to mingle with mine?’ Matilda said. Her hand clenched on the silk of her gown. ‘I say no, and no!’
Judith looked strangely at her. ‘God give you courage, sister, for I think I have surprised the secret you nurse.’
‘Saints! I have courage enough to withstand the Norman wolf!’
‘But to withstand your own desires, child?’ Judith harboured her in her arms. ‘O storm-tossed! O hungry heart! You shall find no comfort until William has his way and yours with you.’
If Judith had plumbed a secret, Matilda did not know, but she had fear for a bed-fellow that night, and for the many that succeeded it. William haunted her; she woke trembling from uneasy dreams, and thought she could feel his will engulfing her. Certain, he meant to have her. He showed it in a dozen ways, cat and mouse work, disturbing to a lady of spirit. She would, and she would not: God knew what the end would be. She sat up on her bed in the moonlight, hugging her knees, resting her chin on them, like the white witch he called her. Her hair was a cloud of spun gold, veiling her; her eyes remained fixed and blank, but behind them her brain wove and twisted its ploys. Guarded Heart! Citadel Remote! Her lips lifted in a slow considering smile. She turned the words over, liking them, doubting them. She would have been glad to have the Fighting Duke in thrall, but he was made of dangerous stuff, holding a stark demon in leash. She caught a glimpse of it now and then: enough to warn her she played a perilous game with one unused to the subtleties of such an affair. Base blood! burgher manners! She lifted her arm and observed a bruise like a shadow on the flesh. Her fingers touched it. Jesu, the man knew not his own strength! She shook her head at it, frowned in an assumption of anger, but ended by thinking no worse of him for his rough handling. If she kindled him to a blaze and was herself scorched she would not blame him for that. His fingers had crushed her soft flesh so that she had to stifle a cry of pain. She knew herself at his mercy, and could not be sure that he dealt in so gentle a virtue. Yet she could be calm before his brute strength; what fear she nursed she kept for the intangible power he held over her. It crept up to set her shivering in the fastness of her chamber, and stalked beside her even when he was furthest away. If she was already both wife and widow she had still borne a virgin heart until Normandy strode up her father’s audience-hall, and bent his hard stare upon her. She had seen the darkness of his eyes lit suddenly by an inward glow; he looked his fill; she felt herself stripped naked before him while anger fought exultation in her. Guarded Heart! Citadel Remote! Ah, Rood of Christ, if it were so indeed!
She shook her head. O frailty of poor women! Setting her teeth she built up her barriers, planning the besieger’s downfall. There was food there for consideration; her chin sank to its resting-place on her bent knees again; the moonlight showed an elf-woman weaving her spells, motionless and rapt.
Hatred burned in her. Wolf of Normandy! – desperate, marauding, marking his prey. Mary Mother of God, give aid to bring him fawning to her feet!
His strong face glimmered in her mind’s eye; the blood coursed through her veins, and on her arm the bruise throbbed warningly. She pressed her hands to her side as though she would still her heart’s beating. O dread Fighting Duke, leave that yet unassailed!
So she prayed, wordlessly, but slept to dream herself a bride again.
Three
The cat and mouse work went on; the man grew bolder, the woman more incomprehensible to herself and him. What the Wise Count made of it few could guess. He preserved a bland mien, considered the Duke out of the corners of his eyes, and talked of everything in the world but marriage. As for the lady, she folded her hands in her lap and bore all with the secret smile that cloaked her mystery. The Duke might have been warned by the glimmer in her eyes, but what did he know of women? Nothing, he swore: it was too sure.
Sweeping his hand down from her neck over the swell of her breasts to her waist, he cried hotly: ‘What, is this to be denied? Fie, you mistake the matter, lady: you are for a man, by my head!’ He flung out his arms; his smile held passion that swayed her against her will. She escaped from him, but left him sure of victory. Her barriers were crumbling under a more rigorous attack than she had expected. A lesser lady at this stage would have gone tumbling into his arms; Count Baldwin’s daughter had more beside her heart to guide her. If the Duke made a breach in her walls this served to throw fuel on the fire of her pride. She was outraged: backed in the last corner she would fight the more dangerously.
Judith, wrinkling her brow, murmured: ‘This is a brand that may burn your fingers, coney.’
‘I will bring him low.’ There was no more to be got from Matilda. She would bring him low. What, he was presumptuous? He should learn what gulf lay between the noble and the base-born.
Of this the Duke had no notion. Others may have guessed; one who knew with what whip the lady lashed up her enmity was Raoul, and he was indebted for his knowledge to the Lady Judith, who dropped lazy words in his ear, and chuckled to see him change colour.
‘Madame,’ he said earnestly, ‘the Lady Matilda would do very well to beware how she touches on that matter. I speak with good advice.’
‘Well! I suppose he cannot eat her,’ Judith said comfortably. She saw that he was troubled, and considered it time to inform her sister how the hint had been received.
Raoul’s words savoured enough of warning to whet Matilda’s appetite for more. She presently became aware of him, and at a morning’s hawking contrived that her palfrey should amble alongside big Verceray. She was sufficiently adroit to lead the talk into her chosen channels; after very little preamble she said with a faint smile: ‘Surely his friends, messire, would do well to advise the Duke to abandon his new quarry.’
‘Lady, the Duke is not advised,’ Raoul told her bluntly.
She sent him an appraising look up under her lashes. ‘He is besotted.’ She paused. ‘If I wed again the groom must be of birth as noble as mine own. I speak plainly because I perceive you to be very much in the Duke’s confidence,’ she added, between haughtiness and the impulse of a girl panting to come at her goal.
He shook his head. Meeting her eyes he read something of her mind in them. He felt pity for her all at once, suspecting that she was torn between two passions, both great in her. ‘Lady, here is counsel,’ he said. ‘With respect I would say, do not use that weapon against my master. Your womanhood, your high estate would not then protect you from his anger.’