Jack Ludlow - Mercenaries

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.’

Duke Robert’s face showed the frustration such a reminder had engendered, which clearly pleased Tancred, who had regaled his offspring more than they cared to hear of how he had known this man since he was a mewling child, had even held him as a baby, chucked his cheeks as a boy and playfully fought with him as he grew up. He had related to the youthful Robert and his elder brother Richard the great Norse sagas that he had learnt at his own grandfather’s knee. There had been a time, Tancred informed them all, when what shone from those deep-set green eyes was respect for a noted warrior. It was plain to William — if that esteem had ever existed — it was now no more.

His father saw the same lack: Robert, Duke of Normandy, who these days liked to be called the Magnificent, was probably unaccustomed now to anything other than flattery and agreement, so malleable, so Frankish, to Tancred’s way of thinking, had his court become. The older man came from a generation that did not fear to tell a liege lord to his face that he was in error. His own father had spoken to the late Count Richard, even after he had elevated himself into a duke, as an equal, never forgetting their shared heritage as Viking warriors and the rights that went with it; there could be no vassalage that did not rest on respect.

The duke was now looking beyond Tancred at this troop of sons: he would be aware there were even more of this tribe back in the Contentin, another five boys and a trio of daughters. Truly their father had the loins of a goat, and had found both in his late half-sister and his second wife a fecundity to match his carnal exertions: the only years in which his wives had not been brought to bed with child had been those when he was away fighting.

The one standing next to Tancred, who would be the eldest, was damned impressive, taller by half a hand than his father and his other brothers, with a look in his eye and a lazy smile that was not one that could be associated with respect. If anything he looked amused, as if what was happening bordered on an absurdity that might at any moment cause him to laugh out loud.

‘Name them to me,’ he said, relenting.

Tancred named William as his heir, then brought the others forward one by one and by age, each to execute an awkward bow that would not be seen as too obsequious. ‘Drogo, Humphrey, Geoffrey, your sister’s youngest Serlo and, though not a true nephew, my first born by my second wife, whom I named after you.’

That obliged the duke to fix his namesake, and call the thirteen-year-old Robert de Hauteville forward. What he saw was as affecting to the eye as the sight of his brothers, for his namesake was big for his age, even bigger than the year-older Serlo, and that boy was no dwarf: Tancred bred sturdy sons.

‘It is a good name, Robert; wear it well, boy, in respect for me.’

The voice that responded was newly broken and slightly rasping. ‘I shall endeavour to do so, sire, upon my honour.’

‘Now that I have named my sons,’ said Tancred, ‘and they have seen the duke they are eager to serve, I would ask to speak with you in private.’

‘On the matter of?’

‘That which I have sent word to you before, the obligations of family.’

The pause was long, the silence of it oppressive, as the two men, liege lord and vassal, locked eyes, both seeking to hide a deep and mutual repugnance. To the duke, who clearly now forgot how he had enjoyed listening to those tales of heroism and fickle Norse gods, Tancred, with his nostalgic adherence to the old ways, represented a relic of a bygone age and was given to haughtiness with it. The Normans were no more Viking now than those indigenes of the Neustrian March whom they had conquered, intermingled with and married, no more Norsemen than the Angevins, Carolingian Franks or Bretons whose lands neighboured his. The older man lived in a dead past and had no gaze for a different future.

‘Your late brother was aware of such an obligation, my Lord.’

The sudden rigidity of the duke’s bearing was evidence enough of the way he took that last remark; his dead brother was a subject no one in his entourage dared to mention, and few outside that circle, even his most powerful vassals, would do so either, likely as it was to produce a towering rage. The accusation was that Robert had murdered, in fact poisoned, his elder brother Richard, to gain the dukedom, hence the other name by which he was called, albeit out of his hearing: not Robert the Magnificent, but Robert the Devil.

The men around him, courtiers all, waited for the eruption, but they waited in vain, though a sharp eye would have detected the effort involved in containing it.

‘Leave us,’ Robert commanded, standing stock-still until the pavilion had emptied of courtiers. ‘Your brood too, Tancred.’

Tancred laid a hand on William’s arm. ‘I ask that my heir be allowed to stay.’

‘He may if he undertakes to remain silent. I am not given to discoursing with boys.’

William knew those words were meant to anger and diminish him; he had in his own mind long ceased to be a boy by many years, so the amused expression he wore broke immediately into a full smile which, gratifyingly, seemed to nonplus the speaker.

‘The rest of you, leave us,’ said Tancred.

They obeyed, but the last sound Tancred heard was of Serlo de Hauteville mimicking his younger half-brother, his voice high and mocking. ‘I’ll endeavour to do so, sire, upon my honour. Shall I lick your arse, sire?’ That was followed by the sound of a scuffle, then the bellowing voice of Drogo.

‘Stop scrapping, you two, or I’ll sling you both in the river.’

‘An unruly lot, your sons,’ the duke said softly. Then he wrinkled his nose, for they had left behind them a strong odour of unwashed travel. ‘Rustic too.’