Tim Severin - King's Man

Several times small groups of heavily armed men passed us. The weapons they carried looked well cared for, and I guessed them to be mercenary soldiers. Eavesdropping on their conversation as they passed, I identified men who came from Lotharingia,

Flanders, and even Schwabia. All of them were seeking hire by Duke William. When I commented on this to Maurus, he grimaced and said, 'Just as long as they keep their swords sheathed while they are among us. With the Duke you never know. He has brought peace to this land, but at a cost.'

We had reached the crest of a low hill and were beginning our descent into the far valley. In the distance a small walled town straddled the banks of a river.

'I once passed through a town just like that one over there,' Maurus recalled sombrely. 'It was border country, and the townsfolk had made the mistake of denying the duke's authority. They gave their allegiance to one of his rivals, and quickly found themselves under siege from the duke's men. They thought their walls could not be breached and compounded their error by insulting the duke himself. Some of the bolder citizens stood on the town walls, jeering and calling out that the tanner's daughter was a whore. The duke tightened the siege, and when food within the town ran out and a delegation of burghers came to beg for clemency, he had their hands cut off, then had them hanged from a row of gibbets erected opposite the main gate. The town surrendered, of course, but he showed no mercy even then. He gave his soldiers leave to put the place to the sack, then to set it on fire. There were only ashes and blackened house frames when I passed through.'

Duke William the Bastard, I thought to myself, was a match for my lord Harald when it came to being ruthless.

'Did not the town priests intervene, asking for their flock to be spared?' I asked.

'There is God's mercy, and the duke's mercy,' stated Maurus bleakly, 'and the sins of the earth can rise even to the heavens. The calamities we have suffered since the millennium of the Incarnation of Christ our Saviour are a sign that we have strayed from the path of righteousness.'

'It is true that there has been famine in the northern lands,' I commented, thinking of Runa's pitiful death.

'Famine, and worse, is our punishment,' said Maurus gloomily. 'My friend Glaber has written of it. For three years the weather was so unseasonable that it was impossible to furrow the land and sow crops. Then the harvest was destroyed by floods. So many died of hunger that the corpses could not be shrived in church, but were thrown into pits, twenty or thirty at a time. In their desperation men and women began to dig up and eat a certain white earth like potter's clay which they mixed with whatever they had by way of flour or bran to make bread, but it failed to allay their hunger cravings. Others turned to eating carrion, and to feasting on human flesh. Travellers like ourselves became victims of brigands who killed us in order to sell our meat in the markets. One trader even sold human flesh ready cooked. When arrested, he did not deny the shameful charge. He was bound and burned to death. The meat was buried in the ground, but another fellow dug it up and ate it.'

Maurus paused, and for a moment I wondered if he was imagining what human flesh tasted like, for I had noted that he paid the closest attention to his food and drink. Even in the humblest home he would encourage the housewife to improve her dishes with sauces, and he was constantly complaining about the standard of cooking in Normandy which, if he was to be believed, compared unfavourably with what he was accustomed to "in Burgundy.

'But that is all in the past,' I ventured. 'Today the people look well fed and content.'

'We must not ignore portents which foretell a great tragedy,' Maurus responded. 'In a certain town in Auxerre, the wooden statue of Christ in the marketplace began to weep tears, and a wolf entered the church, seized the bell rope with his teeth, and began to toll the bell. And you can see for yourself the blazing star which appeared in the night sky in late April, and now burns every night, moving slowly across the heavens.'

Years earlier my teacher, a learned drui in Ireland, had told me about this wandering star and predicted its appearance. But to have told that to Maurus would have made it seem that I had learned witchcraft, so I said nothing.

'The world is tainted with blind cupidity, extreme abominations, thefts and adulteries,' he continued. 'The devil's assistants show themselves boldly. I myself have seen one. In my own monastery in Burgundy, he appeared to me in the form of a mannikin. He had a scrawny neck, jet-black eyes and a lined and wrinkled forehead. He had a wide mouth and blubbery lips, and pointed hairy ears under a shaggy mop of dirty hair. His lower legs were covered with coarse brown fur and he dribbled. He shrieked and gibbered at me, pointing and cursing. I was so terrified that I ran into the chapel, flung myself face down in front of the altar and prayed for protection. Truly it is said that the Antichrist will soon be set free, because this foul mannikin was one of his harbingers.'

But when we reached Fecamp and the monastery of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, it seemed to me that Maurus's fellow monks did not share his pessimistic view of the future. They were busy refurbishing their church in a manner clearly intended to last for years to come. The huge building swarmed with stoneworkers, labourers, carpenters, glaziers and scaffolders. The central feature was the tomb of the Lord Abbot William, whose Life had been written by Rudolfus Glaber. It was the scene of miracles, so a monk told me in hushed whispers. A ten-year-old boy, gravely ill, had been brought there by his despairing mother and left before the tomb. The child, looking around, had seen a small dove sitting upon the tomb, and after watching it for some time had fallen asleep. 'When he awoke,' the monk told me, 'he found himself perfectly cured.'

His pious tale was of less interest to me than the cloister gossip. The monks of the Holy Trinity were remarkably knowledgeable about what was going on in the duchy. They had their informants everywhere, from the smallest hamlets to the ducal court itself, and they discussed avidly the war preparations that Duke William was making — how many ships each of his great lords was expected to supply, the number of men-at-arms needed if the venture was to be a success, the quantity of wine and grain being hoarded in great bins, and so forth. The monks were very enthusiastic about the forthcoming campaign, and listening closely I discovered why: the monastery of the Trinity owned rich farmlands in England, and after Harold Godwinsson took the throne, they had ceased to receive any income from their property. Now they wanted Duke William to restore what was theirs, once he had supplanted Harold as king of England. The monastery had even pledged to supply Duke William with a warship for his fleet, paid for from the monastery's ample funds.

I commented to Maurus that some might see it as a contradiction for the house of God to be providing instruments of warfare, and he laughed.

'Let me show you something which is an even more useful contribution to his campaign. Come with me; it is only a short walk.'

He led me out of a side gate to the monastery and down a rutted lane until we came to an orchard. Unusually, the orchard was surrounded by a strongly built stone wall.

'There!' he said, pointing.

I peered over the wall. Grazing under apple trees were three extraordinary animals. I recognised that they were horses, but they did not look like any horses that I had ever seen before. Each animal was broad and heavy, with short muscular legs like thick pillars, and a back as broad as a refectory table.

'Stallions, all three of them,' explained Maurus approvingly. 'The monastery will donate them to William's army.'