Mercenaries (2 page)

CHAPTER ONE

T
HE
N
ORMAN/
F
RENCH
B
ORDER 1033

William de Hauteville could smell their destination a long time before it came into view, though he was at a loss to fully explain it. He pushed himself up on his stirrups to better test the air, away from the odour of his own sweating mount. The familiar stink of dung and horse piss was there, that mingled with woodsmoke and the strong odour of roasting meat, yet paramount was a powerful latrine smell that was damned unpleasant.

‘That, boy,’ growled his father, when he called ahead to ask for explanation, ‘is the smell of an army too long in one place.’

Tancred de Hauteville had taken part in many a campaign in his forty years, so it was, to him, familiar
– the stench of too many fighting men and their animals in too confined a space. It would be strange to all his sons and the companions of like age who rode with them – they had never seen or been part of a host of the size gathering in the Norman borderlands of the Vexin, a ducal army gathered in one place, preparing for battle. Suddenly Tancred pulled up his mount, hauling the head round to face those following.

‘Remember what I have said,’ he barked. ‘Behave yourselves.’

Forced to halt their own horses, the half of the party not of his blood nodded attentively, for he was their lord and master. His sons, a half-dozen in number, regardless of age, adopted the blank expression of those hearing a familiar parental admonishment, delivered too often.

‘None of your pranks and japes,’ their father continued; he knew his sons to be much given to mischief. ‘You will be among grown men, fighting men, quick to the knife and careful of their honour, who will not take kindly to your stupid jests. Do you heed what I say?’ The last words being shouted demanded an eager response, albeit a false one in the family members. ‘William, I look to you in this.’

‘Yes, Father,’ William replied, with the weary sigh of an elder brother often employed as a surrogate parent.

‘Now hold your heads up high,’ Tancred concluded,
as he turned his horse again and kicked it into a trot. ‘Let them know you are of the house of de Hauteville.’

That did produce a common response, for if these young men were proud of anything, it was their bloodline.

Having passed the picket set to ensure the encampment was not pilfered, the band stopped at the top of the rise overlooking the assembled force. The River Seine, a supply lifeline their duke would hug as long as possible, ran twisted and silver along the floor of the valley to where it was joined by the tributary of the Epte, hard by the hamlet of Giverny; here the land of the Normans bordered that of the Capetian Franks.

The north bank was now bare of the trees that had been cut down for firewood, which also allowed clear passage for the hundreds of horses to be brought, in turns, to drink their fill. Boats, some empty, others still laden with wheat, meat, hay and oats, were drawn up on another stretch of cleared riverbank with labouring serfs toiling to unload them. On the mound that overlooked the encampment stood the large double pavilion of their liege lord, the commander of this force, Robert, Duke of Normandy, armorial pennants fluttering from each corner, knights of his familia, in full mail and helmets, in plain view standing guard at the entrance where hung the tasselled gonfalon denoting the ducal title.

‘Christ in heaven!’ cried William as he took in the size of what lay before them.

Tancred looked askance at that exclamation, which bordered on blasphemy, not something of which he was tolerant. His children transgressed in that area often – as they did in many other ways – and just as often he was obliged to box their ears. Yet he let it pass this once; had he not himself felt much the same when he first became part of such a multitude and very much around the same age serving the present duke’s father? Then he had fought against the Capetian Franks, the very people to whom the Norman host was about to be allied.

In a blink, Tancred was back in his own youth, stirrup to stirrup with his own father, his uncle of Montbray on his other side, part of a line of Norman cavalry, ahead of them a Frankish host, their shields and fighting metal glinting in a low dawn sun. He could recall clearly the mixture of thrill and fear, the need to avoid the kind of fidget that would alert his elders to his anxieties, the snorts and tossing heads of the horses, the pennants on the lances of those leading the attack fluttering in a zephyr of a breeze.

The shouted command came eventually to have the horses move forward, slowly, holding their line, the point at which the command came to break into a trot that signified the commitment to the attack, followed by the sense of the world narrowing down to
that which lay right before you and immediately to left and right, his father raising his lance for jabbing or throwing and he doing likewise, the line of shields which looked like an unbreakable wall coming closer and closer. But break it did, faced with the charging horses of the finest mounted warriors in the known world.

‘I have never seen such a sight, Father!’

Those words brought Tancred back to the present, and to the knowledge that, with God’s Good Grace, his sons would ride with him in a like contest and win their spurs, as would his vassals, who included his fiery Montbray nephew, a doughty and eager fighter, even if the lad was an ordained priest.

‘None of you have, but perhaps if chance favours you, you will see it often.’

Serlo and Robert, mere boys, along as squires to their elder siblings, had kicked their donkeys to get alongside him, eager for explanation. Their brothers shared the curiosity, but affected an air of indifference, which they thought befitted their greater age, causing their father to smile at their posturing, given they were just either side of eighteen. With pointed finger, and in a voice that was inclusive to all, he identified the ducal pavilion, as well as the lesser posts of the Constable and the Master Marshall, set slightly lower on the slope.

From there to near the riverbank stood the various
contingents who had set out their fire pits and cloak-covered bedding around the small round tents of the lords to whom they were vassals. Close to the water’s edge and in the shade of some still-standing oaks, the blacksmith had set up a temporary forge, fire aglow, his hammer already employed. Likewise the armourer was at work with his vice and stone wheel, sparks flying as swords were sharpened, pommels roped with twine and hand guards bent in sword practice made square. Next to him the saddler toiled on the stout, newly constructed, rough wood bench, on which he would carry out repairs to harness and saddles.

‘The de Montfort pennant, Father,’ exclaimed Drogo, son number two, pointing to a far-off flag close to the river.

‘I see it, boy, but I think as cousins and relations to our Lord Duke we can present ourselves there first.’

‘Which will not please the Sire de Montfort,’ Drogo responded, with the kind of smirk that indicated the certainty that the response would be angry; he was not disappointed.

‘No, it will not,’ Tancred snapped, adding a touch of hypocrisy in the blasphemy line, ‘but he can go to the Devil.’

Unseen by his father, Drogo exchanged an amused glance with William who, too close to the parental temper, could not respond. Count Evro de Montfort, richer by far in both land and goods, and their nearest
powerful neighbour, claimed that the de Hautevilles were vassals to him. Tancred was adamant that he held his demesne and title direct from the duke; mention of the de Montfort claim was one sure way for his sons to rile him, though not the only one, given he had a touchy nature.

Spurring his mount, Tancred led his party along the ridge, turning inwards when they were abreast of the ducal pavilion to ride between squatting groups of the duke’s own knights, few of whom spared them a glance. He dismounted by the large open flap at the front, followed by his sons. The other six lances did likewise, but they knew their duty: they would stay with the animals until their master had completed his business.

‘Tancred, Lord of Hauteville, with his sons, to see his cousin, Duke Robert.’

One of the familia knights standing guard turned a head to look at him, eyes at either side of his nose guard showing no sign of welcome. The man before him had shouted that request, clearly desiring to be heard inside the canvas, in the forepart of the double pavilion, where the scribes laboured and the servants toiled. One of them would certainly scurry through to the duke’s quarters to tell him who sought audience, and if this grizzled fellow was a relative it was unlikely he could be denied.

Habit dictates that no fighting man can be in
proximity to another without assessment. Before Tancred stood a fellow of a height not much less than his own, in mailed hauberk and a helmet bearing the colours of his duke, hands resting on the long sword centred before him, the point in the ground. As a familia knight he was part of the personal contingent of warriors who would fight alongside their Lord and, if necessary, die to protect him. From what could be seen of his face it was lean and hard, his body too, as befitted his station and duty.

The summing up of the supplicant Lord of Hauteville started with the grey hair, tinged at the tip with a residue of the golden colour it had once been. The ruddy, weather-beaten face, much lined, showed numerous scars that looked as though they might come from hard warfare, wounds to cheek as well as one dent to skin and bone that had been inflicted under the line where a helmet would be worn. The blue eyes were as hard as the jaw was firm, and as if to add to the feeling of hazard that emanated from this old man, two of those sons who stood immediately behind him helped form a trinity of impressive size and girth, for both exceeded him in height.

The hurrying figure that emerged from the gloom of the tent had the hunched body, tonsured head and ink-stained fingers of a monkish scribe, and his voice, when he spoke, was silky enough to match his appearance. ‘His Grace, the noble Duke Robert, will receive you.’

‘Good.’ Tancred turned to his two eldest sons and said softly, ‘He knows I would wait till Doomsday if he refused.’

‘But he bids your sons wait outside,’ the monk added.

‘Nonsense,’ Tancred snarled, ‘they are his blood relations.’

As Tancred moved forward, indicating that his offspring should follow, there was a visible twitch in the shoulders of the guard, as if he was about to intervene, but the older man had already passed by and, faced with William and Drogo de Hauteville, that gave him pause. The two that followed were younger but well on the way to sharing the looks as well as the imposing build: even the boys that brought up the rear, hands firmly grasping the knives at their waist to go with an arrogant stare, had a lot of height for what looked like tender years. Their father led the way past the open mouth of the silently protesting monk and made straight for the inner sanctum that lay through a second open flap.

The voice, strong and irritated, spoke before the eyes of any of those just entered had adjusted enough to identify this liege lord or any of the numerous folk attending upon him, all stood in silhouette against the strong sunlight shining through the rolled-up rear canvas of the pavilion.

‘I said your sons were to stay outside.’

‘You would not slight your nephews, cousin?’

Tall enough to look over his father’s head, as his eyes adjusted, William saw the speaker was a man of decent height, though less than his own, fair of hair and beard, and richly clad in bright mail covered by a fine red surcoat bearing the ducal device of his two golden and recumbent lions.

Those attending him varied from a hunchbacked fellow who looked like a jester, a clutch of richly clad knights in fine garb, to a stout man in the clothing of a high-ranking prelate. But they all shared one thing, a look of plain distaste at this intrusion by a bunch of sweat-stained, leather jerkin-wearing ruffians. To each and every one, as he took up station alongside his father, William gave an engaging smile.

‘Cousin?’ the duke replied, in a piqued voice, looking Tancred up and down, taking in that he alone was wearing mail and a surcoat, albeit a threadbare overgarment that had seen many better days. ‘Do you not find that to be an outmoded form of address with which to approach your liege lord?’

‘We share a great ancestor in Count Rollo, sire, do we not?’

‘Of such long standing that it is no longer appropriate. The consanguinity has lapsed, Tancred. Count Rollo has been dead near a hundred years.’

‘But he is well remembered in my humble demesne, as are his deeds. I tell my sons of them often. However,
if it displeases you I shall be content to address you as brother-in-law.’

‘To a half-sister fourteen years deceased?’

The tone of Tancred’s voice, which had been playful, hardened immediately, and William, the only one who could observe any part of his features, saw his jaw tense. ‘She lives on in her sons. To slight them is to slight her memory.’