Caricamento
Trova il tuo prossimo book preferito
Abbonati oggi e leggi gratis per 30 giorniInizia la tua prova gratuita di 30 giorniInformazioni sul libro
Coming of Age: Crown in Conflict, #2
Di Jan Foxall
Azioni libro
Inizia a leggereLunghezza: 411 pagine6 ore
- Editore:
- Durovernum Press
- Pubblicato:
- Apr 10, 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781533702968
- Formato:
- Libro
Descrizione
With his duchy of Normandy still sporadically in revolt, William the Bastard's work at achieving supremacy there is hard and his efforts must be relentless. In addition to this he also knows that he must look towards the future, and he realises that without a wife and family the future will be bleak. He needs an heir. But William is also painfully aware that his bastardy is not a recommendation to any potential wife, so for him there are even more mountains to climb.
In England, Harold has chosen his own partner and is preparing to share his life with her. King Edward continues in his hostility towards the most powerful of his magnates, Earl Godwine of Wessex, and the favours he dispenses to Godwine and his sons are, in the king's mind, quite temporary. When an opportunity presents itself to dislodge Godwine from his position of eminence then Edward is unable to resist taking it. However, it soon becomes clear that the earl of Wessex is more resilient than Edward expects.
This historical novel is the second book in the series 'Crown in Conflict'. It is set between the years 1047-1053.
Informazioni sul libro
Coming of Age: Crown in Conflict, #2
Di Jan Foxall
Lunghezza: 411 pagine6 ore
Descrizione
With his duchy of Normandy still sporadically in revolt, William the Bastard's work at achieving supremacy there is hard and his efforts must be relentless. In addition to this he also knows that he must look towards the future, and he realises that without a wife and family the future will be bleak. He needs an heir. But William is also painfully aware that his bastardy is not a recommendation to any potential wife, so for him there are even more mountains to climb.
In England, Harold has chosen his own partner and is preparing to share his life with her. King Edward continues in his hostility towards the most powerful of his magnates, Earl Godwine of Wessex, and the favours he dispenses to Godwine and his sons are, in the king's mind, quite temporary. When an opportunity presents itself to dislodge Godwine from his position of eminence then Edward is unable to resist taking it. However, it soon becomes clear that the earl of Wessex is more resilient than Edward expects.
This historical novel is the second book in the series 'Crown in Conflict'. It is set between the years 1047-1053.
- Editore:
- Durovernum Press
- Pubblicato:
- Apr 10, 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781533702968
- Formato:
- Libro
Informazioni sull'autore
Correlati a Coming of Age
Anteprima del libro
Coming of Age - Jan Foxall
time.
1047
Beneath them the plain of Val-ès-Dunes, the valley between the downs, seemed to stretch endlessly. Somewhere over the horizon an army awaited them, and it was a host which they must defeat before the end of that day. William swallowed hard, feeling a lump in his throat, afraid to be afraid and yet knowing that apprehension was one of the greatest stimulations to bravery, or at least that was the comforting assertion Osbern de Crépon had always told him. At times like these his old guardian Osbern’s aphorisms came into his head, and then William missed him afresh although it had been more than six long years since the steward’s murder.
William blanked the thought of Osbern from his mind. He always linked the memory with death, and that was not a subject he cared to think about on this particular day. He glanced to his left, at the stately figure of King Henry of the Franks upon his horse, a generation older than he and wise in the politics of the day. Henry would want something in return for this help he was giving, and Duke William wondered what it would be. After his narrow escape at Valognes, when he had avoided the killers hired by Count Nigel of the Cotentin, the duke had fled to Falaise, to his mother and stepfather, and there he had gathered his wits about him, and also some information.
At Valognes he had ridden into a trap carefully laid by a group of unscrupulous rebels who sought his death, or so his informers told him, in order to place the legitimate Guy de Burgundy on the ducal throne. His cousin Guy, occasional boyhood friend and ally, one whom he had eaten with, ridden with, sparred with and with whom he had endured the hardships and privations of growing up. The smell of betrayal stank high and foul, and William’s gorge rose at it.
For two days he could hardly believe it, and then proof was brought in the shape of written messages, both from and to Guy, and some of them implicated others. Nigel de Coutances, Ralph de Bayeux, Grimbald de Plessis. The last-named one had vowed to take the duke’s life, I will have him secured first, then cut his throat myself, the message ran, bold in ink, addressed to Guy and sent to his castle at Brionne. It had been intercepted and taken to William, who heard its contents.
‘It is not Guy’s fault,’ William said to his mother. ‘They made him promises, they forced this on him. It is the others, and they will pay the price.’
William saw his gentle mother Herlève looking at him sadly but she said nothing; later on her husband Herluin urged the duke to go to the king of the Franks.
‘King Henry is your overlord and will help you. Your father helped him once when he was in sore need, and King Henry will not forget a favour to a comrade’s son.’ Herluin de Conteville was a trusted voice and William took his stepfather’s advice, riding out of his duchy to Poissy, where he found the king at rest. He waited for hours until his grace would see him.
That interview was one of the hardest trials he had gone through and now, on this grey morning of the battle to come, William did not know which he would least prefer, to go through the interview again or face the oncoming ordeal. He decided that the battle was marginally less unattractive.
As a result of that meeting the French king and his Norman vassal led a small army of warriors into the heart of Normandy with the express intention of crushing the rebellion before it amounted to anything dangerous enough to topple the established order. The king had brought the larger part of the army with him, while William had spent some time in upper Normandy raising troops among the men still faithful to him there. They met that chilly day in spring just north of Valmeraye where the king heard mass at dawn, the sky still dark and the house of God colder than ever, their prayers issuing from them amid a steam of air from their mouths, visible indications of the temperature.
Now, on the field that would be their field of conflict, King Henry sniffed the damp air, the rising mist all around them, and declared it was a good day for a battle.
‘Your first,’ he called across to his young companion and William nodded, not able to speak. He was not exactly frightened but the swirl of foreboding lay heavy upon him. He could smell the tang of death in the same way that King Henry apparently savoured the freshness of the spring.
My first battle. Perhaps also my last, William reminded himself, because a stray sword or axe or spear could end his life in an instant, destroying all those years of extensive training he had undergone, making of them a mockery and a complete waste. It was so easy to be killed, but maybe not easy to die. William could not help but picture a fatal blow to the neck or abdomen, slicing through flesh and muscle, exposing blood and organs; or the severing of a limb, seeing a familiar part of one’s own body struck from the whole, knowing then the helplessness of pain and anguish, the probability of lingering death and the certainty of permanent disability.
He had seen men thus afflicted and had given alms to them too, and he knew that their mutilation and incapacity was worse to them than death itself. Heroes die in battle, it was said: the inadequate are crippled. The soldiers who were injured mourned that there was nothing to distinguish them now from the criminals who suffered disfigurement, and silently William prayed that if this were to be his last battle, then let his body be left lifeless on the field and not hacked and spoilt and yet living.
The silence among the warriors surrounding King Henry was oppressive. William was aware that most of the experienced men who followed the king thought this venture a foolhardy one, an attempt to prop up the authority of a weak and ineffectual duke, and because of this they came unwillingly to the feast of battle, not fearing the fighting but hating the need for it.
Also it would be evident to the king himself that, quite apart from the obligation to repay the debt to Duke Robert, William’s father, this demonstration of William’s weakness was reassuring. It was an open secret that the king of the Franks wanted Normandy to become part of his kingdom, and it could be a small step from helping to crush the rebellion to taking the prize from the duchy’s impotent leader.
Henry beckoned to his man to help him down from his horse.
‘It is time to make our peace with God,’ he said loudly, signalling that the usual religious observances should now be made. Their mass at Valmeraye had been the formal ritual of which this was the corollary. The king knelt on the hard ground; he did not look to see if Duke William did likewise, but there was never any question whether William would. God was a powerful potential ally for the duke, and he would always try to harness any help from that direction.
William closed his eyes and framed a prayer in his mind, hardly listening to the king’s chaplain drone on. He wanted to say a prayer, the Lord’s prayer, any prayer that might ease his passage through this day, but in the end he simply found himself making the same chant.
Do not let me be killed, do not let me be killed. The words hammered in his brain, over and over again. At the end, when he opened his eyes to see the men around him resolute in their devotions and resigned to their fate, he felt ashamed at his temporary panic and so he added a coda.
Not my will but thine be done. It was a safety clause, just in case the Almighty took offence at William’s peremptory demands.
Back on his horse William surveyed the field in front of him, noticing with a trained eye the level areas where the fighting might be concentrated, and those uneven patches which could bring disaster. The rivers hemmed them in, so there would be close fighting and much of it, and this day would see the shedding of blood on both sides, blood that issued ultimately from William’s indignation. This was his fight for survival as duke, for recognition of what his father had handed down to him. This could be the most important battle of his life, and William accepted that fact. It had come early in his career, and it was crucial because of that. The duke had already been knighted by his overlord and king, but now was the time to prove his worthiness of that honour. There would be no soft options for William. It was victory or nothing for him, success or death.
I will not run from here a failure, he promised himself. Slowly he drew his sword, admiring the length and strength of it, the shining blade, the weight of it. It would send a few men to their deaths before it fell from its owner’s hands, that much William knew.
‘I think we may move forward,’ the king of the Franks murmured, with a glance at his young subordinate. His captains obediently spurred their horses on, and in an orchestrated move the army walked down to the plain between the rivers, a slow and seemingly cumbersome mass of riders, the king in their midst, banners flying high in the sharp air, pale watery sun glinting off the chain mail and helmets.
William held his breath without even noticing it until his body shuddered out its exhalation involuntarily, and then he felt a thrill of excitement mixed with fear welling in his stomach. This was stepping out into the unknown, a new experience like sleeping with a woman, something that had been done a million times before and yet every time different. He even felt his lips curve into a smile as the horses gathered speed, shaking their heads, their nostrils wide and their eyes wild. Before him, William saw the enemy appear over the brow of a small rise and he fixed his glare on them, wishing them dead, struck dead by a righteous God who would avenge the betrayal the duke had suffered.
It was an indeterminate passage of time before the armies clashed. William could not count the seconds, but during that time he swore he lived all his life again, remembering the few really happy moments and also the sadnesses. He wondered fleetingly if Osbern were watching over him, willing him to win, and then decided that it would matter little if only God were there; the prayer came again to his lips, and he gave low voice to it, unheard above the din around him.
Let me not be killed, let me live to glorify God. For some strange reason this gave him added comfort, and he began to feel as if he were invincible, a man apart from all these others, a man not destined for the clods of the earth to encrust him yet, but who would live to do other things, to bend all Normandy to his will.
The first encounter he had with the enemy soon put that out of his mind. A knight slashed at him, cutting through the leather of his glove where the mail of the gauntlet did not quite meet the mail of the sleeve, and he felt the hot slice of the blade in his flesh. A searing pain, quick and keen, and he did not then look down but paid back the blow with a like blow, striking the arm of the sender and having his sword deflected by the heavy protection his assailant wore.
Not discouraged, he struck again, this time at the man’s chest, at the mail that covered the leather hauberk worn; he pulled sharply on his horse’s reins and caused the beast to rear, thus avoiding a similar thrust from his enemy and managing to kick the other’s horse as well. This enforced a swerve and a neigh of dismay from the animal.
He heard the man curse, and saw that his opponent was concentrating on regaining control of the horse and so he struck again, sweeping his sword wide in an arc, finding the vulnerable area under the arms where the body protection was at its least so that flexibility of movement could be maintained.
The heavy weapon thudded into the man’s body, deep into it, and as the man groaned and his ribs cracked, the blood spread outwards from the wound. The duke saw it and was impressed; he followed up the blow with a spear-like movement, pushing the point of his sword into the wound. The man sagged and then fell from his horse, making no more sound. All around him men were carving similar paths for themselves but for William this was special. This was his first kill. Nothing else would ever be the same.
With a cry that came from somewhere deep inside him, William kicked his horse on, excitement coursing through his veins and enlivening his nerves still further. His men tried to cluster about him as he surged forward, swinging his sword indiscriminately, one of them actually dodging the duke’s own ill-aimed blow. But William only laughed, enjoying himself now that he had proved he could kill, and he believed that some kind of sanctity protected him, sheltering him from the harm he so dreaded.
Henry of France must have had no such notions of divine preservation, and especially not when his horse was killed under him and he was thrown to the ground. His assailant was swiftly dispatched and another horse was found, but Henry was visibly shaken and had to be helped up again, and he groaned when he saw his young feudatory galloping on into the ranks of the enemy.
‘Can someone not stop him?’ he cried, but to no avail. William was gone, surrounded by his men and the rebels, and Henry was left to decide whether it was extreme bravery or extreme foolishness. It was not, however, the action of a man who would willingly let go of his duchy. That would be food for thought for Henry, but not now. There was still a battle to be won.
The forces opposing the king and the duke were essentially under the leadership of Nigel de Coutances, the viscount of the Cotentin, but he was not commanding the widespread control necessary to create an effective resistance to the onslaught of the allies. The grouping of his men was disjointed and could not cohere into a manageable whole, with pockets of warriors mounting their own attacks separately, engaging the men of the king and the duke in small cavalry skirmishes during which almost always they came off worse.
There was much hand-to-hand fighting, the king in the thick of it, and his second horse was killed, this time by Haimo, whose buck teeth had given him the nickname Dentatus. Haimo, one of those upon whom Nigel relied heavily, suffered the same fate as the previous horse-killer, and Henry looked down upon the smashed body with an expression of regret. Haimo had been to his court many times and had eaten at his own table; he had been a man of huge appetite and a strong sense of humour, engendered in his youth due to the teasing he had undergone because of his teeth.
‘Carry him off the field of battle,’ Henry instructed one of his men. ‘He must be buried later with honour.’
Meanwhile, William had slashed a path through the milieu to where the standard of Rannulf de Bayeux stood. Rannulf, arch-traitor second only to Grimbald the would-be murderer, was leading one of the strongest contingents of warriors, and William knew with an instinct of which he scarcely believed himself capable that this was one of the greatest hurdles to winning the battle.
William fancied he could see the glitter of Rannulf’s eyes even as he raced towards him.
He did not think to see me again, thought William joyously. He thought I would be dead by now.
He saw Rannulf’s man, Hardrez, at his enemy’s side and heard him shout urgently, loud above the mêlée.
‘Let me get to him, my lord! Give me leave to kill him!’
‘This is a battle, you can kill anyone without my leave,’ Rannulf shouted back, and Hardrez was off. He was a mighty man, over six feet tall and very muscular, much feared among his rivals and much admired too. A single sword stroke from him was enough to hack off a man’s head, and one of his lightest blows caused broken bones aplenty.
Suddenly he was in front of William, his horse’s nose almost touching that of William’s steed. Both animals neighed, then reared; the duke, not holding the reins at this time but guiding his mount with his knees, almost lost his balance but his constant and strenuous training enabled him to maintain his position, his knees close against the horse’s ribs.
William raised his shield and felt the shudder of a thrust upon it, peering over the top of it to see the helmeted Hardrez preparing to hammer in another assault. For just a split second he felt dismay flood through his system, disappointment that he had got this far only to be swatted down by the power of Hardrez. It was commonly known how dangerous Hardrez was, how he defeated everyone who challenged him. Then he dismissed the notion and cleared his mind. He swerved to the side, causing Hardrez to miss him completely, and then rounded back upon him, catching the man unawares by a change of direction.
A lunge at Hardrez’s chest caused little damage but made the warrior pant a little and pause before returning the blow, by which time William himself had gathered confidence. He was faster than Hardrez, his horse was more manoeuvrable and could almost dance around the older man. Ignoring all else going on about him, the duke pushed his horse to the other side of Hardrez, all the while watching his enemy try desperately to turn in his seat and see where he was. William attacked again, and then again, making small inroads into Hardrez’s defences. A lucky glance of the side of his blade swept across the warrior’s neck and drew forth blood that spurted and dripped onto the man’s mail and also onto the horse, who smelt it at once and reared again.
As Hardrez struggled to regain control of the animal, William cut at the reins, severing them one side; he then gave a mighty blow at Hardrez’s foot and heard a crack as bones in the ankle broke and the foot was twisted backwards. Without thinking Hardrez gave a roar of shock and pain and he fell, firstly to one side and then slithering off the horse altogether. The horse, feeling the weight gone, tried to get away from its rider, but Hardrez’s other foot was still locked into the remaining stirrup, and he was dragged a few yards.
The duke did not realise it, but he was smiling. His lips were drawn back into a fixed smile that was not pleasant to behold. He scented the kill, and he went for it. Moving his own horse forward he trampled on Hardrez, slashing at the man’s good leg till it came away from its trap, part of the limb attached to the horse, which galloped off, and the other a bloody stump. William wanted to jump down and finish off the task with his sword, but he knew how easy a target a dismounted knight was and so he resisted the temptation and instead wheeled his horse about on its victim, the hooves grinding the body of Hardrez until the man was dead. Only when he saw the entrails of the man spread out under him did the duke stop and look up and around for someone else to fight. He thought Rannulf would still be there but Rannulf, obviously seeing which way the battle was going, had retreated to a safer area further back.
This frustrated the duke, who looked about him for companions to come on a swift gallop through the throng to reach Rannulf. He caught the eyes of many and they watched him, following him as he dug his heels into the sides of his horse, lifting his sword high as a token of his leadership, a banner that everyone could see.
Some scores of yards away King Henry was still battling against his own section of the enemy, but he saw William’s action and sighed for it. Heroic charges were seldom justified and almost never successful. He himself withdrew from one particular conflict as one of his men slashed the face off an opponent. But the next time he looked he saw William chasing Rannulf de Bayeux and his companions, the latter in full flight from the field. They appeared to be too timorous to meet the duke, their wronged duke, while he was in such a mood as this.
The spectacle was so surprising to King Henry that he dropped his sword for a moment, and suffered a slight chafe on his gauntlet, quickly paid back by an attentive bodyguard, and then he retreated behind the ranks of his men.
‘My lord, the field is ours,’ one of them was saying to him. King Henry looked at the growing heaps of bodies before them.
‘Where is the traitor Nigel?’ he asked, speaking of the viscount of the Cotentin.
‘Gone, it is said,’ came the reply, ‘and Guy de Burgundy too. They have recognised that they have met their master.’ The remark was meant as a compliment to Henry, and the king took it thus. There may be other days when William could share the glory.
Further west, on the banks of the River Orne just between Allemagne and Fontenay, the fleeing warriors tried to cross but the strength of the current, and their haste, caused many of them to stumble and get washed away in the flood. There were howls and cries and screams issuing from the waters as horses and riders became parted, the horses sometimes keeping their feet but the riders usually losing theirs. Downstream at Borbillon was a mill, and unless the men could stop themselves in time, they would be caught up in its wheels.
Duke William rode far enough west to see what was happening, having pursued his quarry a long time, waiting in vain for them to regroup and turn back on him again. At last he came to a standstill some way from the river, and simply watched the appalling scene there in silent amazement.
‘So the hand of God is with us,’ he whispered eventually, seeing in this some kind of divine retribution for the audacity of his vassals in raising their hands against him. He glanced up at the sky, wondering briefly if his father too was behind this. Perhaps Robert had intervened on his behalf, asking for succour and help for his son. William thought fondly enough of his parent to believe this, at least in part.
He turned his horse’s head, not speaking to his followers, and in silence they walked and cantered their charges back to where they had last seen the king of the Franks, picking their way through the litter of the battle, the trunks of men and of horses, the severed limbs and the mess of organs and tissue coming from the bodies. It was a terrible sight, one capable of heaving the stomachs of men into their mouths, and William was no exception. He wanted to vomit at all that destruction, to throw up the pitiful breakfast he had managed to eat that day. That was out of the question, so he diverted his eyes and searched for the king.
Henry had left the battlefield and was having his coat of mail removed and his appetite for food and drink satisfied. He was seated when William found him, but he raised his weary head and smiled at his young vassal.
‘A victory to remember,’ he called as William came nearer and the duke nodded, then bowed formally.
‘God was with us this day,’ William said.
The king gave the young man’s figure a cursory glance.
‘No wounds, then?’
‘None to speak of, my lord king.’
‘Well, I am glad of that. I had my horse killed from under me twice. It is a wonder I did not break my leg.’ Henry looked down at his legs, both of them still sound, but he winced anyway.
‘You are not hurt, sir?’ William allowed a little anxiety to creep into his voice, but it was more for effect than the result of a genuine concern.
‘Gracious, no. A little ache, that is all. It will take more than a few rebels to scar the sanctity of a king.’ Henry paused and laughed at his own joke, but no one else did. There was an air of exhaustion about the place: it had been a hard-fought battle. ‘You know that your cousin Guy has fled?’ he added, looking up into William’s face.
‘Has he? Then I will have to find him,’ William replied calmly. ‘I will hunt him in every corner until I do.’
Henry regarded him curiously.
‘And what will you do when you find him?’
The duke hesitated. He had not yet decided that. Guy was his childhood friend, his kin, his boyhood ally. There was no easy answer to this.
‘I will wait to hear his plea for forgiveness,’ he said at last, and Henry adopted a smile of satisfaction in spite of his growing inner suspicion of this fledgling duke. It was the sort of answer he might have given in the duke’s position. The boy was learning fast.
1048
I
The court that assembled in London for the meeting of the witan at Easter was alive with the news of the unexpected death of King Magnus of the Norsemen, who had passed away two months before Christmas. This mighty king had nursed designs on the throne of England and had only been prevented from invading by dallying in Denmark, the other crown at which he aimed, and which was now successfully wrested from the grip of Earl Beorn’s elder brother Svein. These young men, nephews of King Cnut and grandsons of the mighty King Svein Forkbeard, were now beginning to make their marks in the world. Svein, driven from Denmark only months before Magnus’s death, now returned there in triumph and Beorn, originally coming to England almost penniless and certainly landless, was now rewarded for his hard work and loyalty to King Edward by the gift of some of the lands of the exiled Earl Sweyn, his cousin and Godwine’s son.
Godwine’s second son Harold had also felt the practical benefit from his brother’s exile by being awarded much of the remainder of Earl Sweyn’s lands. The cousins had good reasons to congratulate themselves during the early part of the year, and they met together in East Anglia many times before the Easter court, mainly to carouse and exchange jokes, and to fix even more firmly the friendship between them. For Harold, Beorn was like the brother he would have wanted Sweyn to be. Beorn was easy-going, humorous, slow to take offence, whereas Sweyn had that temper which could be lit as easily as the kitchen fire. Harold found he could relax far more in Beorn’s company than ever he could with Sweyn.
Tostig was with Godwine when the Wessex contingent arrived at the royal palace in London for the witenagemot. Godwine was looking weary and resigned, mentally arming himself for another onslaught from the king. He greeted his son Harold cordially enough, and his nephew too, pleased to see both of them. Tostig, nearly twenty-one now and very serious in temperament, stood by his side; already, when he had the chance, he urged his father to get an earldom for him. However, it seemed to Godwine that at present there was little likelihood of that.
‘Make yourself pleasant to the king. Climb into his affections and he may smile upon you. I cannot promise anything for you from my own efforts,’ he had told his son, so Tostig had come with the intention of doing just that. Godwine suspected the young man had a good chance of succeeding. Tostig knew well how to please from his childhood days, from having to keep two elder brothers and an elder sister sweet towards him, so doubtless he would put those well-honed skills to work with the king.
‘Where are the boys?’ Harold asked, looking round for his three youngest brothers.
‘Leofwine came with me this time. I have left Gyrth at the estate with your mother and sisters. He is now old enough to think his duty is to look after them, but Wulfnoth is too young to come. I do not think I will be staying here very long. I have come to advise on one thing only.’ Godwine smiled at Beorn and addressed the next sentence to him. ‘It is to ask the king to respond favourably to your brother’s request for help.’
‘Has he sent here then, sir?’ Beorn asked.
‘Yes. He has repeated his request of last year for ships, this time to fortify his defence. Now that Magnus is dead, I see no reason why we should not renew our friendship with our Danish neighbours. It is good policy.’ Godwine seemed optimistic about the prospect.
He was disappointed, however, when the subject was raised at council. The king sat back and let his ministers talk, the argument dispassionate mostly, but when Leofric the earl of Mercia took a stand against the notion, Godwine rose to his feet and looked at the king for permission to speak.
‘You have my attention, sir,’ Edward said, leaning back in his magnificent chair, his eyes half-closed.
Godwine obliged, talking of England’s past historical links with Denmark, of the necessity of keeping the ties that bound the countries together, of the benefits that could accrue from an association with a land of latent power.
‘Your grace will remember well the sorrows we suffered when we turned our eyes from the German sea,’ Godwine said.
‘Mmm, yes,’ replied Edward lazily. ‘And I remember also that the king of the Danes happens to be your nephew.’
This was greeted by a grunt of laughter, mainly from the northerners, and Godwine frowned.
‘I speak of what is best for my country,’ he said, and the king nodded.
‘No doubt. And when what is best for England is also what is best for the earl of Wessex, then all is right in the world, is it not?’ He stared at Godwine, his eyebrows raised in the semblance of innocent query, but Godwine declined to answer. Turning abruptly, he took his seat, his brow cloudy.
‘My lord of Wessex has forsaken the field,’ Leofric said, his face sporting an unattractive grin.
Godwine slammed the palm of his hand down on the table in front of him and then raised it again, pointing directly at Leofric.
‘The day I forsake the field is the day you can close the grave on my body,’ he declared, the anger in his voice quelling the muttered amusement. Leofric started to reply but the king cut in.
‘God forbid that day should ever come,’ Edward said. ‘Well, now, lords, do I hear voices raised against the proposal to reject the request?’ He looked round the hall, and some of the lords would not meet his eye, and some looked to Leofric for leadership, some to Siward of Northumbria, and some to Godwine.
‘I think it would be foolish to turn him away again,’ Godwine said stoutly. Beside him, Harold fidgeted before speaking up.
‘I am with my father in this,’ he said at last, and saw that Leofric’s eyes were fixed on him.
‘However weighty we regard the support of the earl of East Anglia,’ Edward said, addressing Godwine in particular, ‘we fear that the witan is, in the main, against you. Let it be set down that we refuse the request.’
As the clerk began to write, Godwine stood up again and bowed towards the king.
‘I crave your pardon, my lord king, but I am suddenly sick, and beg your leave to go.’ Sick at heart, sick at the stomach, Godwine thought. He saw Edward’s hand flicker in his direction and took it as the signal he needed. The king did not even look up but was concentrating, too hard almost, on what the scribe was writing.
Godwine left the hall and went out into the fresh air, glad to be away from the fumes and the smell of those bodies, some of whom went days or weeks without washing. He breathed in deeply and tried to calm himself down, to regain the composure he controlled most of the time. Of late he had found the king’s attitude even more wearing than usual,
Hai raggiunto la fine di questa anteprima. Registrati per continuare a leggere!
Pagina 1 di 1
Recensioni
Recensioni
Cosa pensano gli utenti di Coming of Age
0Valutazione: 0 stelle su 5
0 valutazioni / 0 recensioni
Cosa ne pensi?
Valutazione: stelle su 5