‘Born out of wedlock.’
‘As was your late wife,’ the duke snapped.
‘Your brother died without issue, which places my eldest son, William, your nephew, as one of your near blood relatives.’
‘There are others, not least the child of my father’s sister.’
‘Edward of England, that milksop! He is a man who fights on his knees. I fought on behalf of his father and he was a dolt. If you have family around you, at least have those with warrior blood, men who do not fear to lay down their lives.’
‘Do you think me a fool, Tancred?’ Robert asked softly.
The negative shake of the head he got in reply lacked conviction.
‘My own William, not yours, is my nearest blood relative, and given the love I have for him, I would not surround him with a tribe who might see, as blood relations, advantage in doing him harm. Do you really think I am mad enough to invite into my household your brood, all of whom, no doubt, thanks to your prattling, think they have some right to my title?’
‘Marry, have sons. Mine do not seek your title, they seek your respect.’
‘Even if I do marry, I would name William as my heir.’
‘Then stay alive, Robert,’ Tancred growled, ‘for there will be men in the hundreds who seek to do him harm, men to whom your dukedom is a glittering prize, though I swear on the grave of your sister not one of them will bear my name. I see the men you consort with and I can smell their measure. You surround yourself with silken tongues and see loyalty where there is only self-interest. The men you asked to leave our presence will not dare dispute with you, as I will and as they should, but this I will tell you straight. They are not going to respect a bastard boy regardless of how much you love him.’
‘Dispute with me! What has a bare-arsed baron from the Contentin got to tell me that I should take heed of?’
‘This bare-arsed baron has fought the Franks, the English and the Moors and he would tell you this campaign on which you are engaged is folly. A new Capetian King mounts his throne in Paris and his brother disputes his right? He calls on you to aid him and you oblige, and that is an error. We should let these Frankish brothers fight each other as much as they wish, for there is more advantage in that than there is in aiding one against the other.’
‘You know nothing, old man.’
‘I know your father would have stood aside. No doubt you have received promises of reward, of land and castles, but they are only as good as the strength you can put in the field in the years to come. Let your Frankish King Henry become powerful enough, which he will surely do with no one to contain him, and he will take them back and more besides.’
‘Yet you came to fight?’
‘It is moneyed service. The King of the Franks will pay for every lance you put in the field and I have mouths to feed, but I would gladly forgo it to let the Capets stew in their own fratricidal juice.’
Like a bursting damn the fury of the Duke spilt over, and he shouted in a voice that no canvas would contain, so loud that it was very likely audible on the bank of the Seine.
‘I think you came to beard me, Tancred, not for the silver you will be paid. You ask that I respect your sons? Well I will do so by not having you and them slung into the pit of the nearest donjon. I will do so by letting you join the battaile of the Sire de Montfort, as I say you are obliged to do, even if you dispute it. But when we fight, if we fight, make sure you are not in my sight when it is over, for I may forget that you married my sister, forget that you loyally served my father, and have that head of yours off your shoulders and, to protect myself and mine own from vengeance, take those of your sons as well down to the youngest babe in arms, as well as rip out anything carried in the womb of your wife. Now get out.’
‘Sire.’
CHAPTER TWO
It was a chastened Tancred de Hauteville who emerged from the ducal pavilion, and there was no need for him to tell anyone, sons or supporters, that he had failed in the task he had set himself. His grim visage was evidence enough, even if they had not heard the shouts emanating through the canvas. It fell to William to ask the obvious question.
‘Do we stay?’
‘What choice do we have?’ Tancred replied. ‘By the time we got back home we would be paupers with barely a fit horse left to ride.’
‘Then let us hope there is a battle,’ Drogo said. ‘It would be shameful to have ridden all this way just for some pieces of silver.’
‘Don’t go despising silver, my lad, it helps you eat when times are lean.’
‘When are they ever anything else, Father?’
‘Come, while I bend the knee to a swine so that you may fill your bellies, and on the direct command of our noble duke.’
Tancred was careful to call upon the Master Marshall before he approached the tent of his designated leader, first to register his arrival and second to indent for sustenance as well as monies owed to twelve lances in travelling from their home of Hauteville-le-Guichard to the River Epte. It was another monk who entered the details on a scroll, a clever sod who disputed the distance Tancred claimed to have travelled and thus the amount of time he had been en route, calculated at seven leagues a day plus fodder for mounts. After a long and acrimonious dispute, the Lord of Hauteville was forced to accept the clerical reckoning or risk being denied any payment at all.
‘Make your mark,’ the monk said, proffering an inked quill and a small piece of linen. When Tancred had done so, he added, ‘You may collect your payment when this has been passed by my master.’
‘The Devil awaits these scribblers,’ he swore as he emerged, which earned him a frown from his priestly nephew, who was holding the reins of his horse, though he refused to be cowed. ‘How can a man who swears to love God enough to renounce the common life treat a simple soul as if every word he utters is a lie?’
‘Would it be too much to say, uncle, that it might be based on a familiarity with simple souls?’
There was really no response Tancred could make to that, given that Geoffrey was his confessor and, though he would never breach the sanctity of the booth, he knew only too well that he had been obliged to request from his uncle much penitence for that particular transgression. Tancred was not more dishonest than the average, just human, and Geoffrey represented a deity who knew the need to forgive that failing.
The old knight threw several shaped pieces of wood to his eldest sons. ‘Tokens to draw supplies for our animals and us. We shall have meat to roast and bread to eat it off. Serlo, Robert, get some wood and a fire started, the rest of you see to the horses while I beard our pouter pigeon of a leader.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Geoffrey, ‘you had best give me safekeeping of your weapons.’
Tancred smiled at that. ‘No, it is my fist you must worry for. I long to box Evro de Montfort’s ears. He is not worth the price drawing blood would carry.’
‘Might I suggest, uncle, that I accompany you anyway. De Montfort may produce edicts and the like with which you will not be familiar.’
Which was a tactful way of saying that, unlike his sons, tutored by Geoffrey in the basics of education, Tancred could not read. ‘You will also restrain me from violence, will you not?’
Geoffrey grinned. ‘That too, my lord.’
The party split up, Tancred and his nephew to go to the de Montfort pavilion, while the others led their horses through the lanes of tethered mounts, makeshift tents and fires that filled the air with woodsmoke, each with its band of lances sat around, strangers until they came close to the men from their own part of Normandy, fellows they had met at local assemblies, or at the main religious festivals in the half-built cathedral in Coutances. Many a call came from recumbent figures, some asking for news of home, even if they had only left it days before the de Hautevilles.
There was still clear space next to the river, the least desirable part of the meadowland, being plagued as it
