The Winter Mantle (36 page)

The swordsman hesitated and looked round at the gathered soldiers for instruction.

'So be it,' growled Eudo of Champagne with an impatient flurry of his hand. 'But make haste.' At his side Robert de Montgomery scowled, clearly irritated by the delay. He set his hand to the hilt of his own sword as if contemplating doing the deed himself.

Waltheof spread his hands, bowed his head, and his voice rose above the prelate's in recitation of the Lord's Prayer. '
Pater noster qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum
…'

Simon prayed too, clearing his throat and raising his strong young voice. Folk either side who had been murmuring their own responses looked at him askance, but he did not care. This was for Waltheof, an affirmation of support and belief.

Waltheof raised his head and followed the sound until his eyes met Simon's across the sward. They held him, nailing him to the promise he had made the night before and filled with a terrible entreaty that Simon was powerless to aid.

'
Et ne nos inducas in temptationem
.' Waltheof's voice died away and his gaze left Simon's and struck on the group of nobles whose pressure had brought him to this place. Roger de Montgomery, Robert of Mortain, Eudo of Champagne. He looked until their image blotted the gold and blue of the new morning from his sight. '
Sed libera nos a malo
. But deliver us from evil.' The crowd around him stirred restlessly and the bladesman's eyes flickered with apprehension. At a nod from Eudo the man laid both hands to the sword, drew back to gain impetus and struck round and down in a lightning movement that clove flesh and vertebrae in one crunching slice.

'Amen!' Simon's voice finished alone, then died in apalled silence. Some members of the crowd turned aside to vomit. Simon had done that yesterday. Now, dry-eyed, he bore witness as Waltheof's crumpled, blood-spattered body was lifted onto a bier and the head placed beside it. Some of the crowd tried to push forwards and the soldiers held them back with spears. Simon, being a royal squire, was permitted through the cordon. Already a servant was swilling the bloody grass with pails of water, removing ail trace of the deed. The bier was lined with absorbant hides to soak up the blood that still leaked from the body. The corpse had been covered by a blanket and this too was slowly reddening as the bearers carried it towards the grave that had been made ready.

Simon stood by the deep pit they had dug. Waltheof was permitted neither the dignity of a coffin nor even a shroud, but was tumbled from stretcher to pit in a single motion. One man leaned down to take the head and set it against the severed neck. Immediately labourers began shovelling earth into the grave, their haste as unseemly as the manner of Waltheof's death.

'Is the Earl not to be brought home to Huntingdon for burial?' Simon asked one of the monks attending the Bishop at the graveside.

The man shook his head. 'Our instructions were to bury him at the place of execution,' he said, clasping his hands and joining the others in chanting a litany for the dead.

Listening to their intonation, Simon knew that their prayers were a waste of time. Waltheof's soul would not rest easy in tins soil. His ghost would walk and cry out — if not for vengeance, then for proper reverence and peace.

The soil was packed down and covered with fresh green turf. Dry-eyed, burning within, Simon turned on his heel. A small girl and her mother had been watching from a distance. The woman was a servant from the palace kitchens. Her gown of natural brown wool was patched and her braids were bundled up in a simple working kerchief. Her daughter had flaxen braids and deep blue eyes set in a dainty face. Her arms were occupied by a mass of spring flowers, early campion, daisy, dogrose and mingled with them the greenery of young wheat, cut long before its harvesting time. Given a gentle push of encouragement, the child ran over to the raw mound of earth and scattered the flowers on the top. Then she crossed herself, curtseyed and hastened back to her mother.

Simon's throat tightened. He looked at the woman, intending to smile, but encountered naught but hostility in her eyes.

'Norman bastards!' she hissed and, taking her daughter by the hand as if she feared Simon would harm her, she hastened away towards the timber service buildings.

He paced slowly to the graveside. The breeze stirred the petals on the delicate flowers, already beginning to wilt from their untimely cutting. After a while, Simon too, crossed himself, bent his knee, and limped rapidly away.

Crowland Abbey, October 1087

Somewhere a skylark was singing. The bubbling song drew Simon's gaze away from the space between his horse's ears and upward to the expansive sky, deep autumn blue swept with a feathering of high white cloud. After a moment, he located the tiny warbling speck halfway to heaven. He wondered what it was like to look down on the world from the height of angels, to be a bird and feel cool air streaming against feathered pinions and see everything from a different perspective.

The song ceased and the lark plummeted towards the pasture, sere-gold at summer's end and autumn's beginning. Meres and pools glittered like a reflection off armour. Placid white cattle grazed on the higher ground, taking a final fattening before the days shortened too far and the grass ceased to grow. On the still, clear air the bells of Crowland Abbey tolled the hour of terce, summoning the monks to worship.

Hearing the sound, seeing the church rising from out of the flat, fenland landscape, Simon felt a flickering in his gut but whether of anticipation or unease, he could not have said. It was eleven years since he had made his farewells to Waltheof. Now he came to don a mantle bestowed upon him by the new king. But first he had a pilgrimage to make.

William of Normandy, known to some as the Bastard and to others as the Conqueror, had died in Rouen at the beginning of last month, mortally wounded when his horse tram-pied on a burning cinder and threw him so hard on to the pommel of his saddle that his bladder ruptured. During several days of lingering agony he had bequeathed Normandy to Robert, the eldest of his three surviving sons. England went to his middle son, William Rufus, and he had given young Henry five hundred marks of silver from his treasury.

Many thought that Robert, as the eldest, should have inherited England. Robert thought so too, and trouble was brewing faster than yeast froth on new ale. Hence Simon's presence in these parts at the head of a seasoned troop.

As he and his men drew closer to the abbey they passed a steady trickle of folk travelling in the same direction. Some were wealthy enough to be mounted, others rode in ox carts, but the majority were either on foot or had used the extensive waterways surrounding the abbey to arrive by barge and punt. Simon saw a small, golden-haired child walking beside her mother, a bunch of late wayside flowers clutched in her hand. The image reminded him of Waltheof's execution so vividly that his hands twitched on the bridle and his mount danced sideways. The child looked up with sudden fear and the mother's hand shot out in protective alarm. Simon drew the rein in hard, bringing himself and the horse back under control.

'I am sorry,' he said in English.

The mother's eyes flashed and then lowered. He felt the hatred and knew that, despite the passage of time, nothing had changed. Slapping the reins on the dun's neck he rode on at a faster pace. His troop followed, the hooves of their mounts churning the dust. The woman covered her face with her wimple and used the edge of her overdress to shield the child.

Near the abbey gates, hucksters had set up stalls selling chaplets of greenery, small wooden crosses and metal tokens to hang on leather belts. There were pie booths, a baker's counter and even a cobbler, industriously mending shoes that had not stood up to the road. Fascinated, one hand on his swordhilt, the other on the reins, Simon turned in the saddle and stared around.

'What's all this for?' demanded Aubrey de Mar, the serjeant in command of Simon's troop. He fiddled with the nasal bar of his helm.

'The English have made Waltheof of Huntingdon a martyr,' Simon replied neutrally. 'They say that miracles have happened at his tomb.'

Aubrey grunted. 'Do you believe it?'

Simon shrugged and felt the neck band of his gambeson chafe his neck. 'Stranger things have happened. It is rumoured that when the monks opened his grave at Winchester in order to bring his body back to Crowland, they discovered that his head had been miraculously restored to his torso and that the corpse was as fresh as the day it had been placed in the earth.'

Aubrey curled a sceptical lip. 'I heard a dragon was seen in York last month. Turned out to be a runaway bullock that overset a cauldron of fat and began a house fire.'

Simon gave a wry smile. 'It would be a barren world without wonders. What matters is that the people believe it.'

'Old King William must be rolling in his own grave. Look at 'em all.' Aubrey jerked his head at the pilgrims.

'He knew the risks when he agreed that Waltheof could be brought from Winchester to Crowland. He need not have given his permission for the reburial, but he did.'

'To ease his conscience you think?'

'Quite likely. Even before the Rouen campaign he was ailing. I believe that his past deeds had begun to burden his conscience.' Simon could still remember the morning that Abbot Ulfcytel and the Countess Judith had come to ask William's clemency and beg that Waltheof's body be exhumed and brought to Crowland Abbey for burial. It had been incongruous to see them together; the balding little churchman shabby and farmer-like despite the new robes he had donned for the occasion, and the Countess Judith, sombrely clad in charcoal-grey, her face wan and bloodless. She had knelt at William's feet, kissed his hand and pleaded with him to let her have Waltheof's body for Crowland.

'I thought you would banish him,' she had whispered in a choked voice. 'I did not believe that you would command his execution.'

'Treason is treason,' William had growled. 'And he was fairly judged by the law of his own land. If I had banished him, where do you think he would have gone? Straight to Denmark or Brittany, to organise more rebellion.'

Ulfcytel had stepped forward and added his own plea to Judith's petition that William at least grant Waltheof the grace of being laid to rest in Crowland Abbey, where once he had been a pupil. After a brief deliberation William had consented. Indeed, Simon had thought that there was a certain degree of relief in his manner, as if he were atoning for a sin and finding the price not too high.

Looking at the gathering around the abbey gates, Simon wondered if William had been right. Waltheof was viewed as an English martyr to Norman ambition and greed. Pilgrims came not only out of hope for a miracle, but as a way of defying their Norman overlords in a manner that could not be contested.

Simon gave his name at the porter's lodge, rode into the courtyard, and dismounted, tie had been on the road for several days, and his left leg was aching ferociously. Through long habit he concealed the pain but nevertheless it prodded at him. Turstan, his squire, took the dun in hand, and lay workers arrived from the stables to help with the horses. Lowering his mail coif, Simon thrust his fingers through his cropped hair, and looked around. The abbey was prospering on the proceeds of martyrdom, he thought, studying the fresh, bright paint and the ornate carving over the doorway. The little girl and her mother walked past, following the procession of pilgrims in what was obviously the direction of Waltheof's tomb. Simon ungirded his sword belt, handed it to Turstan, and bidding his men wait, took the path to the church.