Part 5

William the Bastard of Falaise, thus standing in the ante-chamber of the presence by the chapel door, was taller than his servitors, yet he looked short, so round and bull-like was his head, with its close-cropped dark hair, and so broad his neck and shoulders. In that close-cropped dark hair one could see already lines of grey like steel, for the man was in his fortieth year.

The two guards that stood before the curtains of the arch moved backwards. An old man, dressed in the long tunic of a civilian, which was embroidered everywhere with thread of gold, pulled back the cloth, and William, striding through, saw beyond, upon a chair that was carved and gilt for a throne, Philip, the boy who was his lord and his king, yet no older than one of his own sons. The boy’s face was heavy and not courageous, but his eyes had in them already that look of patience and of knowledge which had built up the royal line.

William, Duke of Normandy, designing to conquer England, desired from his soul to have all France behind him, and secure peace while he was abroad: therefore had he come to the court of this boy-king of France, his relative, to offer him the shadow of suzerainty over England while he should grasp the substance of power in London. But the boy-king had been warned and was old enough to understand the ruse.

William, the Duke of Normandy, knelt on the second step of the throne and took the boy’s hands between his hands and kissed his finger tips. Then he rose and spoke of his petition. England was his of right, and he would seize it as of right with his companions; but he would not hold it against his lord, he would hold it for his lord. Such things already Philip had seen in the parchment, and he, William, Lord of Normandy, had come to hear the answer from the king’s mouth. The boy shook his gold-circled head very gently, but did not open his lips. Said William the Bastard, Lord of Normandy, “You are my lord and I am your man, but, a little way from here, where there are men that are my men and a land over which, under your allegiance, I am lord, my armies are ready, and from my treasury I shall have hired others from the east and the west, and even from Touraine, and there are strangers from the south that will sail with me; and if God grants me this kingdom, I will not hold it as king--God forbid that I should make myself equal to my lord. Therefore the headship of this island (if God gives me victory) is for you to take, King Philip, as a child may pick up a toy.”

Now when Duke William used these words “as a child,” King Philip smiled with his lips drawn downwards, and nourished revenge in his heart; for he knew very well what the great vassal meant, and how he had cast a net to bring in the power of all France in aid of him, and to have peace behind him when he sailed. He knew also, by wit of his own and by councillors, that whoever sat in Westminster beyond the sea could laugh at writs from Paris, and therefore, relaxing that smile of his and looking, though not courageous, stern--almost as though he were already a man grown--Philip refused again.

William, the Bastard of Falaise, Duke of Normandy, rose from his knees and looked angrily about him, at the servitors of the Court and at the guard, as he would look at equals, and even at the king he looked as he would look at an equal, thinking, perhaps, that with others to aid him he might dethrone that boy. But saying nothing more, he bowed as a man should to his lord, and turned and strode out again beyond the curtains; his clerk and his knight of the treasury, that had stood there for witnesses, following him.

Then he got back into his own land, to Rouen upon the broad Seine, where the woods are so deep for hunting all around; but he was for hunting things that do not live in woods, and for a ride into a farther place than the domains of the Caux country. And in those woods for many a month men were felling timber and bringing the green baulks in creaking wagons to the slips of the Channel shore, to Caudebec, and to Quillebœuf, and to Honfleur, and to the river that is below Caen--to all the places where men build ships upon the sea marge of the Normans. And for three months or so he was summoning by writ his men and their men’s men, and by letters with promise of pay and of booty he was getting from off his western March the sad Bretons, and from off his eastern March the pale Picards and the Lowland men. Until at last he had in Dives mouth a very great fleet of vessels large and small, the largest so large that fifty knights with their horses and all their men could cross the sea thereon, and the smallest boats of four fathoms long, not even decked, and stowed to the bulwarks with casks and stores, and the garnered oats of that year’s harvest, and wheat and little mills for grinding.

Men came to him from over the sea telling him how Harold laughed at his claim. William, the Lord of Normandy, watching the sea from the cliffs of the Caux country, found it still angry day after day and week after week, with the cold north-east wind blowing strong upon the land, so that he could not venture, and when he did there was shipwreck; but his mariners lay apart after the mischance, waiting orders, until at last he bade them beat up the coast to the great and wide bay of the Somme, where stood his Port of St. Valery, half sheltered from the gale.

Now some days before the Feast of St. Michael, in that same year, the strong cold wind from the north that had blown so long died down at last, and the sea heaved only and did not break, and a warmer air came up from the south-west, like a piece of summer again. So that, upon St. Michael’s Eve, Duke William put all that great host on board, his fifty thousand men and his many knights, and his horses and his provisions, and in the afternoon, the tide making outward from the bay, all his hundreds of boats set sail, making a cloud together upon the sea, and all that night, under the lighter breeze, they ran for English land.

When the morning broke, which was St. Michael’s Day, they saw, high and white in the dawn, the great cliff jutting forward, behind which was their harbour; and one hour and another, as the sun rose, those miles of sails drifted forward upon the flood eastward to behind the lee of the head until, in the third hour of the day, the square walls and the bright red roofs of a town stood close before them, and inland beside them a great sheet of water, shoal, but with fairways known to mariners, and a narrow entry from the sea; and this was Pevensey Haven. Then the men, looking out from the baskets on the mastheads of the great ships, called to the helmsmen below to shift the helm by this board and by that, that they might follow the fairway in. The smaller ships were beached within, all along the level sand, until at last, what with the greater vessels lying secure at anchor, and the lesser ones drawn up in rank beyond the high-tide mark, all his fleet was still and his great host made land. This was the way in which William, the Bastard of Falaise, Duke of Normandy, came with so many thousands to the kingdom of England, which he would win.

THE SERFS

(1087)

At Marmoutier the monks St. Martin had lived now for seven hundred years, the lords of much land. Before their ancient caves in the rocks, which had been their cells and which ran into the low cliff to the north of the river, stood now great buildings of stone. A vast church was there, round arched, enormous, heavy, and a great gateway with its gate-houses, upon the summits of which men had carved two angels, the one blowing a trumpet and the other sheathing a sword. And all around were barns and further buildings, the habitations of the monks, and their cellars, and their kitchens, their great hall, their place of account.

In this last, the place of account, in a smaller chamber apart, whose window without glass took in the full sun of morning, sat three clerks, monks of Marmoutier, two young, one old. Now the old one was the procurator, and his name was Augustine, for he was called after that saint; but the two others were in the service of the accounts, wrote at his bidding, and found for him what was owing and upon what date, and from whom, whether in money or in service, throughout all the wide lands of Marmoutier that were its dower. Of these two young clerks the youngest, who was but a novice, still bore his name in the world, which was Raoul; but the elder, who was already a priest, had now his name in religion, which was Leo.

They were nearly at the end of their business and at the last of the lists, for the morning was far gone, and very soon the bell would toll for the chief meal. Outside the air was filled with the scent of hay, for it was summer and the time of mowing. There was a noise of scythes far off. It mixed with the running of the river.

There was a difficulty and a doubt. The old procurator, Augustine, in the place of accounts that day had a troubled face, desiring to do right by young Walter (Reginald in his father’s name), a keen possessor, loving the land of his mother and his home near the monastery of Marmoutier. For on that farm called Hauterive, in the good pastures behind the dykes of the Loire, there was uncertain custom, and upon the same land service to two lords, the monastery and this same Walter (Reginald in his father’s name). And the procurator would not decide until he had spoken fairly with that lay lord.

For with the wealthy villeins upon this wealthy farm (which was full four furlongs of the river side) all along the Loire it was a custom as old as the woods that they should serve their lords upon Monday and Friday. So much was sure. But there was a division among them, some coming to the castle gate and some to the monastery gate; and in the time of Reginald, who was cunning and not just, some had gone to the castle who should have come to the abbey: which was a wrong. But now that Walter the young man, the heir, had possession (his father just dead), they could make a firm pact together, the monks and he, and each have his due of labour, for Walter was mild and equable; and also it was here at Marmoutier that he had learnt as a boy the Seven Arts, and the Psalms as well.

When, therefore, he came in (which he did without retinue) the old man greeted him friendly, and they sat down to the pact.

But still there was issue between them upon these wealthy villeins of Hauterive.

“Brother Raoul,” said Lord Walter, “what now is written down?”

“Give me the parchment,” said Father Augustine, the procurator. Then he said, “My lord, there is but one sentence as yet written here and the beginning of the next, but more cannot be written until we know that you will sign.”

Then the young lord said, “Read me what is written that I may hear.” And the procurator read out,--

“We, the monks of Marmoutier and Walter, Lord, hold in common sundry serfs, men and women, now to be divided between us in severalty. Therefore at this present, being the 6th day of June, in the year of the Incarnation, 1087, and Bernard being abbot, we have proceeded to the division of the men children and of the women children of----”

Then old Father Augustine looked up from the parchment and said, “My lord, until we have agreed, it can go no further.”

Walter, the young lord, rubbed his shaven chin with his hand, and looked sidelong at Novice Raoul. For Novice Raoul, being the son of one of the villeins adjacent, could bear witness.

Brother Raoul spoke,--

“The farm which my father has in villeinage marches, Father Procurator, with Hauterive farm, and as a boy, before I came to holy service here and to the special following of God, my father and I, on those two work days of the week that are due to the lord, went in company with those of Hauterive, who were more wealthy than we from the goodness of their land; and I can bear witness to custom.”

“Of the elders,” here said the young lord, “there is no question, for I freely allow what Abbot Bernard has written me and Father Procurator here--to wit, that Renaud, whose house is called the ‘Village House,’ is due for the two days’ labour at the monastery gates, and Guascelin, the other villein upon Hauterive land, is due at the castle gates.”

The monks nodded, agreeing.

“We have but to agree upon the children, their dues of labour, as they come to that age when the custom of the manor demands it. This must be settled.”

“So we have set it on the parchment,” said Leo, the monk who had not yet spoken. “So we have set it, lest, when they grow older, quarrels, as in the time of your father, should arise.”

Then the Father Procurator spoke again,--

“If Renaud of the Village House chooses to redeem in coin, we shall settle it upon our admitted rule, Lord Walter--two-thirds to the monastery, one-third to the castle.”

“That would be but just,” the young man assented.

“He will not redeem!” broke in Novice Raoul quickly.

“Surely,” said his colleague Leo mildly, “he is rich enough! It is the best land on all the river side, and there are one hundred arpents of it, and it has a vineyard too!”

But Raoul laughed, remembering his father’s neighbour.

“Yes, the Serf has money lent out; but for that very reason will not Renaud of the Village House redeem. For he loves the very metal. Also he has other labour of his own cotters on his land. And when his children grow up and pay their dues of labour days, Renaud will be glad to see them go to the monastery gate or to the castle gate, though he lose their arms and hands for that day, for he will say to himself, ‘There they go a-saving of many pence in redemption, and their food also this day they will have from the lord, or from the abbot.’ He will not redeem! He will in no way diminish his hoard!”

“See now,” said Father Augustine, who waited every moment for the bell and was weary of this long business over a small thing--“see now, if we admit this rule of a third the matter is quickly settled, for this Renaud has six children--two sons and four daughters; Guascelin three, or four if you shall count a very young child still in her cradle.”

When he had said these last words they all laughed, thinking of the baby and of what haymaking it could do. Then the young lord, to save them further delays, rose as to agree.

“Read me the list,” said he, “and take you in the one the first four names, in the other the first two. As for the one that is in the cradle, she can wait;” and at that they all laughed again. “It will be many years before we need speak of any labour in our fields from her. Perhaps she will wed out of villeinage, or perhaps with her portion she will farm free land, or perhaps she will be a nun. So engross the matter thus, and we will have secured peace and a settlement between us.”

Then Brother Raoul carefully wrote the square letters with his pen, adding, “We then have received for our lot of the children of Renaud of the Village House one boy, Bartholomew, and three daughters, Hersende, and Milesende, and Letgarde. And of the children of Guascelin one daughter, Aremburge, and one son, Walter. A very young girl child in her cradle is excepted from this allotment. She shall be between us, if she lives, until some settlement shall allot her to one or to the other lordship.” And with that his writing was done.

With these as witnesses, the procurator set the abbey seal, and Walter his seal also and the mark by which he was known, and so was the settlement concluded, just as the bell rang for the prayer and the chief meal.

Outside in the warm air the noise of the scythe ceased to the sound of the bell, and there was nothing heard but the gentle wash of the river running by its bank of reeds--the broad river Loire, low in the summer drought, and showing above its streams of blue water white sand-banks sparkling in the sun.

JERUSALEM

(_July 15, 1099_)

It was Friday, the 15th of July, in the year of the Incarnation, 1099, and about noon. A little sun stood right up in the height of heaven, blazing as no sun shines upon our tempered and well-watered lands, for it was the sun of Syria, a burning eye.

The rolling upland was brown and bare, scorched for weeks; the harvest long gathered, and all grass for forage lacking. Across its sweep rose a little town of tents, deplorable with use, torn, patched, and dirty; at long cords stood tethered the lean horses, their heads patiently drooping in the heat, and here and there a gap where one of them had fallen and would not rise again. Beyond the camp a dusty, winding track, very wide, just marked by shallow ruts, led away to the horizon and to the crest against the northern sky, whence could be seen, very far off to the westward, the Levantine Sea. Along that faint, broad line ominous wreckage was studded at intervals too close--carts broken down, glistening white bones, and little heaps of refuse which hid the dead. Of the millions that had marched out from Europe three years before to the rescuing of Christ’s grave, a handful were here, still breaking against the long, low wall of the city. Of twenty that had left the pleasant fields at home, in Picardy or in Touraine, from the Garonne, from the cool flats of Vendée, but one had lived or had persevered to see Jerusalem. And now for all these days the last effort had still been quite unavailing. But it was Friday, the day upon which Christ had died; it was noon, the hour of His Crucifixion.

In the camp, which looked southward towards the low wall of the city, the serfs were now painfully bearing water up from the stagnant pools below, or were attending the fires for the cooking of meat, against the hour when, once again, as for so many days, the armed men should come back at evening sullen and once again defeated; from that camp, I say, the serfs could see, all along the wall, the assault proceeding. Beyond, within the city itself, glaring in the intense light, was the low, whitewashed dome, the Sepulchre, and Golgotha was just before.

It was by groups that the desperate attempt was made, as it had been made day after day during that intolerable heat of the Eastern summer. One could see little figures running with the short scaling ladders, bucklers lifted in a tortoise to shield the bearers; the ladders rapidly put against the wall; men swarming up, now one group just getting a foothold, but soon thrust back again; bodies falling, heavy in their armour, to the ground; the ladders here and there along the half-mile of front broken or thrust outward, and whole lines of men that had mounted them crashing again to earth. While underneath the wall, cowering close in the dead ground, free from arrows above, were other groups that fiercely picked the ground with their steel, and that thrust into the gaps faggots to which they would set fire. The smoke rose, blackening the stones, but none crumbled, and there was no breach.

In two spots near either end of the line great beams had been mounted, swung on ropes from tripods, and these, with regular thud, pounded at the lower courses of the huge blocks that built up the rampart; while in one place a tall scaffolding, or tower of wood, having upon its every tier a hundred archers and slingers, poured missiles down upon the defenders of the battlements.

Far off as the camp was, one could hear above the regular pulse of the battering rams a noise like that of the assaulting sea in a storm when it bursts upon the shore and when the shingle screams under the retreating wave. And the high calls upon the God of Islam, which for now so many months and years had rendered a haunting sound in their ears, pierced through the general din. Voices were calling also from the minarets.

Very far away to the south, beyond the whole expanse of the city, could just be seen a squat, strong mass of masonry overtopping the houses. It was the Tower of David. And there these men, who were so fiercely pushing the assault from the north under so intolerable a strain of heat and clamour, knew that the men of Toulouse, the southerners under their Count, were pressing and besieging also. For beyond that Tower of David, higher than it and feathery against the sky, was yet another tall scaffolding of poles lashed together, black with tiny figures of the Christian soldiers, shooting down upon the defence and attempting to master its fire. But of that distant struggle no rumour could be heard; there could only be seen the general movement of men against the sky.

The general tide of this assault upon the northern wall perpetually repulsed, perpetually returning, sounded hour after hour. Noon was past, and the seventh hour and the eighth. The dust of the conflict had already mellowed the light of the sun, which no longer stood in the zenith, but was partly declined. The time was near that ninth hour when Jesus had cried out that God had forsaken Him, and had dropped His head and died.

The men watching the camp, the serfs, listless in their fatigue and broken by the noonday heat now past, thought they heard a new note in the distant noises from the wall. One looked up, and another, and there was almost eagerness in their gestures. Those with keener eyes pointed to a place a little east of the centre of the line, where, as it seemed, a blacker and a denser mass was gathering. It was like a swarm of bees. They saw the little figures racing up to join the edges of the rapidly swelling mound of men. The many ladders there concentrated were hidden beneath this cloak and moving garment of human bodies, and the whole surface of it running upwards in a slope to the very height of the battlements glittered and twinkled, like beaded stuff, with the points of steel, with the steel caps, and with the little bristles of swords ever mounting.

The camp was afoot, every serf was standing and looking. The wounded, such as could still know their names or the place in which they lay, such as could still move, were warned by their servants in the excitement, and crawled to the gaps of the tents. Such labourers as had fallen asleep were roused and stood, in their turn, straining their eyes at the wall, and one or two in their eagerness began to run forward, unarmed as they were, across the brown, burnt earth between the camp and Jerusalem. Was there a breach? There was no sign of it. No crash of boulders, no sudden rising of that cloud which booms up as from an explosion when a wall gives way. The regular thud of the battering rams continued far to the right and far to the left uninterruptedly, but between them this climbing, struggling, increasing mass of men gave forth a louder and a louder note. They were upon the edge of victory.