‘Ethelred?’
William nodded. ‘You see, he was as active on the field of battle as he was in the bedchamber. He was much admired by Duke Robert’s father, as a soldier.’
‘If, as you say, Drogo is like his father, I need you to rein him in.’
William laughed out loud, and it made no difference to his humour that he saw the way it annoyed the Lord of Aversa.
‘Why do you laugh?’ he snapped.
‘You came here a long time ago, Rainulf.’
‘So?’
‘Do you remember that journey?’
‘That does not tell me why you laughed.’
William, though he was looking at Rainulf, was back on that long road south. The first thing the brothers had discovered was that they came from a race that was unpopular; it was better to deny they were Normans — hard, given their size and colouring — than admit to it. That they should not be loved in Frankish Anjou was accepted; the Angevin territory bordered on Normandy and had suffered much from incursion, though not without an equal amount of retaliation.
It was when they came to cross the Loire at Tours that it really struck home. The locals had memories that went back two centuries. Viking raiders — and the good folk of Tours saw no distinction between a Norman and a Norseman — had sailed up the river and inflicted on the city all the rapine and mayhem for which they were famous. To the inhabitants, it was as if it had happened yesterday.
Even the monks in the local hospice had treated them with a very unchristian reserve; they did not believe them to be true pilgrims, given the number of mounts and their nature — that was made obvious by the way they indulged others who were genuinely on the road to various shrines, pilgrims from as far away as Denmark, Caledonia, Hibernia and England. Too many Normans had passed this way claiming the status, when truly they were on the way to fight and that was before Drogo was caught in the nunnery, which led to much shouting, the drawing of swords in a place of sanctity, followed by a hurried dawn departure. It was that memory which had made William laugh, along with Drogo’s justification for his actions.
‘I feel sorry for them,’ he had insisted, when William castigated him for the twentieth time. ‘They don’t want to be in a nunnery, it’s their damn families who have put them there.’
‘They put them there to keep them chaste, not for the likes of you to deflower them.’
‘Deflower? There wasn’t a virgin in sight.’
‘No doubt you tried them all?’
‘Not even I am that stalwart, brother, though I confess, if I could have stayed, there were enough covert glances to make me think I could have died happy, and some of those from aged creatures who you would think past such impious thoughts.’
What to say to Rainulf: that Drogo had an appetite that made his own father look tame? That was unfair to Tancred who had never strayed from wedlock in his carnality. His second son could not see a wench without trying to have his way with her, and many a fight had he been saved from, merely because he had so many brothers who would take his part, even when he was clearly in the wrong. There must have been fathers in the Contentin who heaved a sigh of relief to hear he had gone south, just as there were those in that same part of Normandy with numerous bastards at their hearth, the paternity of which could be, with some certainty, laid at Drogo’s door.
In Tours he had climbed the nunnery walls to get at his conquests, and insisted they stay for extra days, with the excuse that the horses were fagged, only for his brother to find out the true reason when the hue and cry broke out, caused, Drogo had insisted, by the jealousy of some fellow engaged on the same mission as he, who opened the door of a paramour’s cell to find him on top of her. As trenchant as his activities, were his views on the subject of nunneries.
‘Me,’ Drogo had added, ‘I would shut them all. It’s one thing for a man to renounce the world and become a monk, but to force a woman into chastity is wrong. Mind, there were a few black habits sneaking about as well as my cuckold. I wasn’t the only one favoured with a bit of warm flesh, the hypocrites.’
William had ventured to advance the concept of family honour, even although he knew that Drogo had never let an insult to their name pass, knowing he was wasting his breath. Drogo would never change, and in truth, what he had said about nunneries had a great deal of validity. Certainly there were some young women who elected to become Brides of Christ, but for the majority they were incarcerated against their will because of some transgression real or imagined, and perhaps only on the possibility of sin.
Or they were widows; their late husbands’ families wanted them out of the way, and on many occasions it was more to do with an inheritance than any notion they might cause disgrace: a woman in a nunnery was not likely to remarry. Then, of course, there were the wives who had cuckolded husbands powerful enough to do with them as they wished. They, according to his brother, who had made a habit of night-time excursions in every place they had stayed, were the most needing of his attentions.
Looking at the man who now employed them he was tempted to relate the tale he had recalled, but he decided it might not sit well with him. ‘Why did I laugh? One day, Rainulf, you must let me relate to you Drogo’s adventures and you will laugh too. I assure you it will be a long day. If his seed is any good you will be able to trace his route back to Normandy by the bastards he created.’
‘It is that very thing about which I need to talk. Now he is here and he is causing trouble. He will not desist from disquieting the women of other men.’
‘So?’
‘He might be killed for this habit.’
‘I think you have already observed, Rainulf, that is not easy. So what do you want from me?’
‘To make him your responsibility.’
‘And if I decline?’
‘I like trouble with my enemies, not with my soldiers.’
William said nothing for several seconds, just holding Rainulf’s gaze. The inference was obvious: either rein in Drogo or saddle up and depart.
‘How do your men come by their women?’
‘Mostly they buy them. There is always a peasant with too large a brood willing to sell a daughter.’
‘Then I must ask you to advance the price of one and the time to find him a concubine. The only way to keep Drogo out of that kind of trouble is to give him something to occupy his attention.’
Rainulf thought for a moment then nodded. ‘The price is not high, but any woman who comes here cannot be the kind to cause trouble. If your brother buys, it must be on the arrangement that the girl can be returned.’
William decided, as he saw Drogo coming back to join them, that such a sanction was not one to pass on to his brother, otherwise he would try out every wench in Campania. Besides there was a more pressing concern.
‘And I will need another hut in which to sleep.’
‘That can be arranged when you return.’
‘Return?’
‘Yes,’ the Lord of Aversa called as he walked away. ‘You are about to earn your keep.’
CHAPTER TEN
William knew he was under scrutiny. The men on this expedition were all mercenaries of long experience; he was still, though popular, the newcomer, perhaps with a chance to show his peers that the tales of the fighting he had done in the past were not boasting but true. It was also significant that Drogo had been left out; separating them had been deliberate.
Bringing up the rear of the party he was enveloped in the dust of a dry autumn. There had been no rain for weeks and his surcoat was covered in so much dust that the red and black colouring that now identified him as one of Rainulf’s men was quite hidden. Once more, he had a leaf in his mouth to protect his lower lip, and on his head he wore a straw hat bought in Aversa. But it was battle service, so his helmet was to hand, hooked over his saddle, while under the mail hauberk, even at this early hour of the morning, his body ran with sweat.
