The Bastard King Read online

  And a Saxon ambassador of no importance in royal circles had refused her.

  Never, never would she forget the humiliation.

  Only her pride sustained her. She would have liked to hide herself away but that would only arouse comment. No one must guess how she had humiliated herself. If Brihtric dared to tell anyone she would have him killed; she herself would kill him. She hated the thought of that betrothed of his kissing that fair skin. It maddened her; she wanted to have him dragged before her father; she wanted him punished. But how could this be done? They would have to know the reason.

  Her father misconstrued her state.

  ‘My dearest Matilda,’ he said, ‘you are wishing that you were to have a husband. It is natural. Judith is to marry. Why not you? I will tell you something. I heard William of Normandy is putting out hints that he is considering asking for your hand.’

  ‘William of Normandy! Normandy is in a sorry state, I believe.’

  ‘There has been rebellion in Normandy ever since the death of the Duke’s father. William was but a minor when the ducal cloak was placed on his shoulders. There is always danger when a ruler is too young to rule.’

  ‘He would marry me, I daresay, because if he did he would have you for an ally.’

  ‘A reasonable conclusion. I could not go against my own daughter, could I?’

  ‘Nor would you ever, Father.’

  ‘Nay, you know that well.’

  ‘This William knows it too. Hence he asks for my hand.’

  ‘It is the case with royal marriages. You know that well.’

  ‘Is it true that my Uncle Henry of France, who recently helped him, is now ready to turn against him?’

  ‘It may be so.’

  ‘And if he did what would happen then to my lord Duke?’

  ‘I feel he would not be subdued. By all accounts he is a strong man. I have made some enquiries about him. He is a young man of great vitality.’

  ‘The father of many bastards, I’ll warrant.’

  ‘I have heard of none. So seriously does he take his duties that his time has been spent in learning how to govern.’

  ‘He sounds a paragon of virtue.’

  ‘Hardly that. He was ruthless at Alençon.’

  ‘What happened there?’

  ‘The people of the town displeased him. They referred to his origins. His mother was a tanner’s daughter. He cut off the hands and feet of his prisoners and threw them over the walls into the city.’

  ‘And you would give your daughter to such a man?’

  ‘If she wished to go to him. Remember he was greatly provoked. He has a reputation for normally being just and has been over-lenient to his cousin who has betrayed him.’

  ‘Should I, a princess, a niece of the King of France, marry the son of tanners?’

  ‘He is the son of the Duke of Normandy who held that title before him. Think about this for I am certain that soon we shall have a visit from the Duke’s ambassadors.’

  ‘There is no harm in considering the matter,’ she said.

  Indeed there was not. It took her mind off the memory of her humiliation.

  She thought about William, Duke of Normandy. He would be some twenty years of age. He needed a bride such as she was. He needed her for several reasons. For one, there were many who sought her and it would be to his credit to be the one to succeed. He needed her father’s help against his enemies. He needed a wife with royal blood in her veins to make up for that which had come to him through the tanner.

  I have no doubt, she thought, that this William is a very clever fellow.

  What a fool Brihtric had been! He had turned away from her who was sought by the great men of Europe. How dared he – the little Saxon fool.

  When she thought of him she wanted to hurt someone as he had hurt her. What was the use of trying to forget that humiliating scene? She could not. How dared he! When she had expected him to fall on his knees in gratitude he had become frightened and simpered about his betrothed.

  She hated him. She hated the world. She hated all suitors.

  She was in such a mood when the ambassadors of the Duke of Normandy arrived at the Court.

  Count Baldwin listened sympathetically to their request.

  He told them that if his wife agreed to the match he would have no objection. Since Adelais was a daughter of a King of France she was of higher rank even than her husband and it was natural that her consent should also be given.

  Adelais declared that she would have no objection to a match between her daughter and William of Normandy.

  ‘There remains but my daughter herself,’ said Baldwin with a smile. ‘I will send for her and you shall hear her answer.’

  In her chamber Matilda was looking out disconsolately on to the drawbridge. She had seen the arrival of the ambassadors from Normandy and she guessed on what mission they came.

  William of Normandy, she thought, who needs my father’s help and my royal blood and will therefore marry me. And Brihtric did not need me at all so he refused me.

  She dreamed of Brihtric – all her love turned to hatred. How could any man have humiliated her so deeply. No matter how she tried to forget she could not do so.

  The lackey arrived with the message that her father wished her to come to the great hall.

  She went down, hatred in her heart not only for Brihtric but also for this William of Normandy who was only asking for her hand because he needed her father’s help.

  Her father greeted her, taking her hand and leading her to the men who stood looking at her. She was beautiful she knew, in her blue gown with the long hanging sleeves and her hair in two thick ropes, one arranged as though carelessly over one shoulder, the other hanging down her back. She hoped they would take home to their master a good account of her physical perfections.

  ‘This is my daughter Matilda,’ said the Count.

  The men bowed low; she stood smiling at them.

  ‘These knights are from the Court of Duke William of Normandy,’ said her father. ‘Duke William has sent them to ask for your hand in marriage.’

  She drew herself up to her full height and feigned astonishment.

  ‘My hand?’

  ‘Why yes,’ said Baldwin with a smile. Matilda was acting as she often did. She knew full well that William was going to ask for her hand.

  Her lips curled slightly. She was thinking of him at Alençon – this little ruler of whom her father seemed to think so highly. How infuriated he had been when the citizens had jeered at his birth. It was not so much that he had descended from tanners as that he was a bastard. She turned to her father and said: ‘You cannot think that I, a granddaughter of the King of France, would marry a bastard.’

  There was silence in the hall. She saw the faces of the ambassadors. Her father’s look of horror; her mother’s astonishment.

  She had not felt nearly so happy since her humiliation. She found great joy in hurting someone else as she had been hurt and she could not resist savouring her triumph. ‘I would rather become a nun than give myself to a bastard.’

  And with an intoxicating triumph in her heart she bowed to her father, mother and the ambassadors and turning, walked haughtily away.

  Baldwin was concerned; he and Adelais reproved their daughter.

  ‘How could you have spoken so?’ demanded Baldwin. ‘Do you not know that your exact words will be repeated to the Duke of Normandy?’

  ‘It is as well that he understand my feelings. Perhaps he will now look elsewhere to prop up his crumbling realm.’

  ‘Do you realize that had he been in a position to make war and we in a state of weakness, words such as that could have been disastrous for us?’

  ‘But, Father, he is not in a state to make war. It is because he is weak that he wants the daughter of a strong man.’

  ‘You are too proud, Matilda,’ said her mother.

  ‘You can say that – you the daughter of a King! Would you have me marry the bastard who though he may now b
e Duke could so easily be displaced by someone who has greater claim to Normandy?’

  ‘He will always be a Duke,’ said Adelais. ‘He has been crowned as such. Your father has a high opinion of his qualities.’

  ‘The qualities of a bastard!’

  ‘It was not kind of you to stress that. Had you wished to refuse him you could have given some other reason.’

  ‘Mother, have you not always told me that I should tell the truth?’

  ‘Sometimes, my child,’ said Baldwin, ‘it is politic to veil the truth. You will learn this.’

  ‘I am sure,’ added her mother, ‘that you have won the enmity of a man who could well be of great importance.’

  Matilda faced them boldly. ‘I have said what I have said. He will know now that he must take his suit elsewhere.’

  Adelais looked at Baldwin. She was implying: You have been too lenient with your children. You have over indulged them.

  Baldwin was ready to concede this; but he loved his beautiful daughter too much to punish her. She was bold and wilful; and he thought he had never seen anyone as lovely as Matilda with her flashing eyes and the faint colour in her cheeks angrily tugging at one of her flaxen plaits as though she thought it the hair on the head of the despised Duke of Normandy.

  She would make a fine wife for a man who knew how to tame her; and they did say that the young Duke of Normandy was a man who always got his way. So it was a pity she had so bluntly refused him.

  During the next week Matilda thought less of Brihtric. He avoided her as she did him, so she had not seen him. She did think a great deal about the Duke of Normandy though and imagined the scene when his ambassadors returned to him with the story of what they had been told at the Court of Flanders.

  How furious he would be and powerless to vent his fury on any but his messengers! She had learned a little of him. He was a great fighter; they said that he excelled others in the field. He was in truth a leader of men. And women? she had asked. How many had he made sport with? How many had he taken from his captured towns? How many bastards – like himself – had he scattered about his dominions? No one could tell her.

  ‘William of Normandy has had no time for women,’ she had heard. ‘In his youth he was under the close surveillance of tutors and when he came of age he was too busy defending his realm.’

  ‘He will be an oaf, ill-mannered, gauche, inexperienced. As if I would want such a man!’ she retorted.

  She thought viciously of Brihtric. ‘I have had enough of ill-mannered oafs.’

  It was a week or so after she had delivered her reply. She teased her father about it. ‘What, no declaration of war yet from Normandy?’

  He shook his head over her.

  ‘It was most unkind, Matilda.’

  ‘It is the language such as he understands.’

  ‘How can you know this?’

  ‘Because he must be an ill-mannered oaf. How can a prince be made out of a tanner’s grandson?’

  Baldwin knew it was no use reasoning with Matilda when she was in such a mood.

  She was going to hear Mass in the Cathedral. When she rode out into the streets people came out to watch her pass. She enjoyed startling them with her beauty and her fine garments.

  Before she left her women were commanded to take very special care of her toilette. She wore a rich white gown decorated with jewels. She was very proud of her long thick hair and this was made into two long plaits and on her head was a circlet of pearls.

  How soothing to her vanity to ride through the streets, to listen to the gasps of admiration. ‘Oh, how beautiful she is!’ Proudly she sat on her saddle with its gold and silver decorations – a gift from her father.

  There was a commotion ahead of her. She was annoyed. Who had dared distract the people’s attention from the Princess Matilda?

  Then she heard the shout: ‘It is the Duke. The Duke of Normandy.’

  She pulled up her horse. Her women fell in behind her. Her heart was beating wildly. It was a mistake. He could not have come to Lille. He would not dare!

  But she was wrong. A man was riding towards her. There was no mistaking him for a person of very high rank; it was in the very manner in which he sat his horse. He looked magnificent, being very tall with dark hair and his firm, rather prognathous jaw. His eyes were cold and murderous as they looked straight at her.

  ‘You are the Lady Matilda?’ he asked.

  She lifted her head high. ‘I know not who you are. How dare . . .’

  ‘I am William of Normandy,’ he said, leaping from his horse, and seizing her by her plaits pulled her to the ground.

  There was a shriek from the women; but they did not attempt to dismount.

  Keeping hold of her plaits he dragged her into the gutter. Her beautiful gown was spattered by the mud of the street. He had not finished with her then. She lay there looking up at him.

  ‘I received your reply,’ he said. ‘This is mine.’

  He bent over her and slapped her face; he kicked her, and as though not content with that he hit her many times.

  She lay bruised and almost fainting in the gutter. No one attempted to stop him. They stood in awed and fearful silence while they allowed him to mount his horse and ride away.

  Only then did they attend to Matilda.

  A litter was improvised and she was carried back to the palace.

  Her women bathed her wounds. Her mother brought special unguents and ointments. Her father paced up and down the apartment. Judith was filled with consternation.

  ‘By my faith,’ cried Baldwin, ‘I will find this fellow, I will hunt him to the ends of the earth. I will not rest until I have his head.’

  Matilda opened her eyes and said nothing.

  ‘How could it have happened,’ asked her mother. ‘There you were in a crowded street, surrounded by your attendants and our people, and this scoundrel comes along . . . and is allowed to maltreat you. How could it have happened? What was everyone doing?’

  ‘None dared do anything,’ said Matilda.

  Her father came to her bed and touched her forehead.

  ‘God’s Faith, look at these bruises! My poor, poor child. Would I had that devil here.’

  ‘Father, have they not told you who he was?’

  ‘They know?’

  ‘They do know and they are afraid to tell. They are afraid, even when he is not here. They must have heard as I did. The man who attacked me was the Duke of Normandy.’

  ‘My God!’ cried Baldwin.

  ‘He made no attempt to disguise himself. He said to me, “I am William of Normandy. I received your answer. Here is mine.”’

  ‘My dear child! I knew some disaster would befall us as soon as I heard you say what you did.’

  ‘He is a proud man,’ said Matilda, a strange smile on her bruised lips, ‘and I have learned that one thing he cannot endure and that is to be called a bastard.’

  She laughed aloud.

  ‘You can laugh . . . after such a thing! My child, are you feeling . . . yourself?’

  Her parents whispered together. They thought she was hysterical. She knew it, but it was far from the case.

  ‘I will make a potion for you, Matilda,’ said Adelais. ‘I will make it myself. It will soothe you and make you sleep. You poor child, this has been a terrible experience.’

  ‘If that fellow is looking for my help,’ muttered Baldwin, ‘he will look in vain. I will join his enemies. I will do all I can for those who want to take his dukedom from him. I’ll not rest until I have had my revenge on this man who has dared to ride into my town and ill-treat my daughter.’

  ‘Father,’ said Matilda weakly, ‘I should like to sleep.’

  ‘Yes, my dearest,’ said Baldwin. He kissed her forehead. The bruise on her arm; the swollen cheek so infuriated him that he was considering getting together an army and marching on Normandy.

  Matilda closed her eyes.

  ‘Let her rest,’ whispered Adelais. ‘Sleep will be the best for her now.�
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  They instructed one of her women to sit quietly in a corner and watch and to report immediately if she did not rest.

  She closed her eyes and thought of it. She could see him so clearly. What powerful shoulders! How tall he had been! What courage! He might have been set upon. Not he! ‘Stand aside,’ he had said in a voice accustomed to command and the cowards had stood aside. They dared do naught else. ‘I received your answer, and I have brought you mine.’ How furious he must have been when his ambassadors had returned. So angry that he must have begun to make his plans there and then as to how he could be revenged on Matilda.

  Not on her father, as some men might have decided, but on her. Her father had been willing for the match, so had her mother; she was the one who had declared she would rather be a nun than marry a bastard.

  Her shaft had gone home. She had ample proof of that. So he had ridden to Lille and without an escort! He had no need of escorts. He faced her alone. He had dragged her from her horse by her thick plaits. Had he thought her beautiful seated on her magnificent horse in her glittering gown?

  She could see him now standing over her, his eyes blazing with fury. What a man! To ride alone into her father’s stronghold and attack his daughter! What would have happened if those bystanders had had any spirit; they could have taken him easily. But they did not. ‘Stand aside,’ he said and they stood aside. They knew instinctively that there was a man they dared not disobey.

  What a man! What a great man!

  She thought of Brihtric, nicknamed Snow because of his beautiful fair skin.

  Bah! One could scarce call him a man when compared with the fierce bastard of Normandy.

  She examined her bruises; she was quite pleased with them. How he had tugged her hair. Had he admired it? He must have noticed how long and golden it was. When she allowed it to escape from its plaits it hung round her like a cape. He must have been aware of it when he had pulled her from her horse by it.

  What impertinence! What courage! To ride straight to her father’s domain, alone!

  She could not forget it. The knowledge filled her with a delicious sense of excitement.

  Her parents came to her chamber, their eyes full of concern.