CHAPTER III.
Side by side, William and Harold entered the fair city of Rouen, and
there, a succession of the brilliant pageants and knightly
entertainments, (comprising those "rare feats of honour," expanded,
with the following age, into the more gorgeous display of joust and
tourney,) was designed to dazzle the eyes and captivate the fancy of
the Earl. But though Harold won, even by the confession of the
chronicles most in favour of the Norman, golden opinions in a court
more ready to deride than admire the Saxon,--though not only the
"strength of his body," and "the boldness of his spirit," as shown in
exhibitions unfamiliar to Saxon warriors, but his "manners," his
"eloquence, intellect, and other good qualities," [194] were loftily
conspicuous amidst those knightly courtiers, that sublime part of his
character, which was found in his simple manhood and intense
nationality, kept him unmoved and serene amidst all intended to
exercise that fatal spell which Normanised most of those who came
within the circle of Norman attraction.
These festivities were relieved by pompous excursions and progresses
from town to town, and fort to fort, throughout the Duchy, and,
according to some authorities, even to a visit to Philip the French
King at Compiegne. On the return to Rouen, Harold and the six thegns
of his train were solemnly admitted into that peculiar band of warlike
brothers which William had instituted, and to which, following the
chronicles of the after century, we have given the name of Knights.
The silver baldrick was belted on, and the lance, with its pointed
banderol, was placed in the hand, and the seven Saxon lords became
Norman knights.
The evening after this ceremonial, Harold was with the Duchess and her
fair daughters--all children. The beauty of one of the girls drew
from him those compliments so sweet to a mother's ear. Matilda looked
up from the broidery on which she was engaged, and beckoned to her the
child thus praised.
"Adeliza," she said, placing her hand on the girl's dark locks,
"though we would not that thou shouldst learn too early how men's
tongues can gloze and flatter, yet this noble guest hath so high a
repute for truth, that thou mayest at least believe him sincere when
he says thy face is fair. Think of it, and with pride, my child; let
it keep thee through youth proof against the homage of meaner men;
and, peradventure, St. Michael and St. Valery may bestow on thee a
mate valiant and comely as this noble lord."
The child blushed to her brow; but answered with the quickness of a
spoiled infant--unless, perhaps, she had been previously tutored so to
reply: "Sweet mother, I will have no mate and no lord but Harold
himself; and if he will not have Adeliza as his wife, she will die a
nun."
"Froward child, it is not for thee to woo!" said Matilda, smiling.
"Thou heardst her, noble Harold: what is thine answer?
"That she will grow wiser," said the Earl, laughing, as he kissed the
child's forehead. "Fair damsel, ere thou art ripe for the altar, time
will have sown grey in these locks; and thou wouldst smile indeed in
scorn, if Harold then claimed thy troth."
"Not so," said Matilda, seriously; "Highborn damsels see youth not in
years but in fame--Fame, which is young for ever!"
Startled by the gravity with which Matilda spoke, as if to give
importance to what had seemed a jest, the Earl, versed in courts, felt
that a snare was round him; and replied in a tone between jest and
earnest: "Happy am I to wear on my heart a charm, proof against all
the beauty even of this court."
Matilda's face darkened; and William entering at that time with his
usual abruptness, lord and lady exchanged glances, not unobserved by
Harold.
The Duke, however, drew aside the Saxon; and saying gaily, "We Normans
are not naturally jealous; but then, till now, we have not had Saxon
gallants closeted with our wives;" added more seriously, "Harold, I
have a grace to pray at thy hands--come with me."
The Earl followed William into his chamber, which he found filled with
chiefs, in high converse; and William then hastened to inform him that
he was about to make a military expedition against the Bretons; and
knowing his peculiar acquaintance with the warfare, as with the
language and manners, of their kindred Welch, he besought his aid in a
campaign which he promised him should be brief.
Perhaps the Earl was not, in his own mind, averse from returning
William's display of power by some evidence of his own military skill,
and the valour of the Saxon thegns in his train. There might be
prudence in such exhibition, and, at all events, he could not with a
good grace decline the proposal. He enchanted William therefore by a
simple acquiescence; and the rest of the evening--deep into night--was
spent in examining charts of the fort and country intended to be
attacked.
The conduct and courage of Harold and his Saxons in this expedition
are recorded by the Norman chroniclers. The Earl's personal exertions
saved, at the passage of Coesnon, a detachment of soldiers, who would
otherwise have perished in the quicksands; and even the warlike skill
of William, in the brief and brilliant campaign, was, if not eclipsed,
certainly equalled, by that of the Saxon chief.
While the campaign lasted, William and Harold had but one table and
one tent. To outward appearance, the familiarity between the two was
that of brothers; in reality, however, these two men, both so able--
one so deep in his guile, the other so wise in his tranquil caution--
felt that a silent war between the two for mastery was working on,
under the guise of loving peace.
Already Harold was conscious that the politic motives for his mission
had failed him; already he perceived, though he scarce knew why, that
William the Norman was the last man to whom he could confide his
ambition, or trust for aid. One day, as, during a short truce with
the defenders of the place they were besieging, the Normans were
diverting their leisure with martial games, in which Taillefer shone
pre-eminent: while Harold and William stood without their tent,
watching the animated field, the Duke abruptly exclaimed to Mallet de
Graville, "Bring me my bow. Now, Harold, let me see if thou canst
bend it."
The bow was brought, and Saxon and Norman gathered round the spot.
"Fasten thy glove to yonder tree, Mallet," said the Duke, taking that
mighty bow in his hand, and bending its stubborn yew into the noose of
the string with practised ease.
Then he drew the arc to his ear; and the tree itself seemed to shake
at the shock, as the shaft, piercing the glove, lodged half-way in the
trunk.
"Such are not our weapons," said the Earl; "and ill would it become
me, unpractised, so to peril our English honour, as to strive against
the arm that could bend that arc and wing that arrow. But, that I may
show these Norman knights, that at least we have some weapon wherewith
we can parry shaft and smite assailer,--bring me forth, Godrith, my
shield and my Danish axe."
Taking the shield and axe which the Saxon brought to him, Harold then
stationed himself before the tree. "Now, fair Duke," said he,
smiling, "choose thou thy longest shaft--bid thy ten doughtiest
archers take their bows; round this tree will I move, and let each
shaft be aimed at whatever space in my mailless body I leave unguarded
by my shield."
"No!" said William, hastily; "that were murder."
"It is but the common peril of war," said Harold, simply; and he
walked to the tree.
The blood mounted to William's brow, and the lion's thirst of carnage
parched his throat.
"An he will have it so," said he, beckoning to his archers; "let not
Normandy be shamed. Watch well, and let every shaft go home; avoid
only the head and the heart; such orgulous vaunting is best cured by
blood-letting."
The archers nodded, and took their post, each at a separate quarter;
and deadly indeed seemed the danger of the Earl, for as he moved,
though he kept his back guarded by the tree, some parts of his form
the shield left exposed, and it would have been impossible, in his
quick-shifting movements, for the archers so to aim as to wound, but
to spare life; yet the Earl seemed to take no peculiar care to avoid
the peril; lifting his bare head fearlessly above the shield, and
including in one gaze of his steadfast eye, calmly bright even at the
distance, all the shafts of the archers.
At one moment five of the arrows hissed through the air, and with such
wonderful quickness had the shield turned to each, that three fell to
the ground blunted against it, and two broke on its surface.
But William, waiting for the first discharge, and seeing full mark at
Harold's shoulder as the buckler turned, now sent forth his terrible
shaft. The noble Taillefer with a poet's true sympathy cried, "Saxon,
beware!" but the watchful Saxon needed not the warning. As if in
disdain, Harold met not the shaft with his shield, but swinging high
the mighty axe, (which with most men required both arms to wield it,)
he advanced a step, and clove the rushing arrow in twain.
Before William's loud oath of wrath and surprise left his lips, the
five shafts of the remaining archers fell as vainly as their
predecessors against the nimble shield.
Then advancing, Harold said, cheerfully: "This is but defence, fair
Duke--and little worth were the axe if it could not smite as well as
ward. Wherefore, I pray you, place upon yonder broken stone pillar,
which seems some relic of Druid heathenesse, such helm and shirt of
mail as thou deemest most proof against sword and pertuizan, and judge
then if our English axe can guard well our English land."
"If thy axe can cleave the helmet I wore at Bavent, when the Franks
and their King fled before me," said the Duke, grimly, "I shall hold
Caesar in fault, not to have invented a weapon so dread."
And striding back into his pavilion, he came forth with the helm and
shirt of mail, which was worn stronger and heavier by the Normans, as
fighting usually on horseback, than by Dane and Saxon, who, mainly
fighting on foot, could not have endured so cumbrous a burthen: and if
strong and dour generally with the Norman, judge what solid weight
that mighty Duke could endure! With his own hand William placed the
mail on the ruined Druid stone, and on the mail the helm.
Harold looked long and gravely at the edge of the axe; it was so
richly gilt and damasquined, that the sharpness of its temper could
not well have been divined under that holiday glitter. But this axe
had come to him from Canute the Great, who himself, unlike the Danes,
small and slight [195], had supplied his deficiency of muscle by the
finest dexterity and the most perfect weapons. Famous had been that
axe in the delicate hand of Canute--how much more tremendous in the
ample grasp of Harold! Swinging now in both hands this weapon, with a
peculiar and rapid whirl, which gave it an inconceivable impetus, the
Earl let fall the crushing blow: at the first stroke, cut right in the
centre, rolled the helm; at the second, through all the woven mail
(cleft asunder, as if the slightest filigree work of the goldsmith,)
shore the blade, and a great fragment of the stone itself came
tumbling on the sod.
The Normans stood aghast, and William's face was as pale as the
shattered stone. The great Duke felt even his matchless dissimulation
fail him; nor, unused to the special practice and craft which the axe
required, could he have pretended, despite a physical strength
superior even to Harold's, to rival blows that seemed to him more than
mortal.
"Lives there any other man in the wide world whose arm could have
wrought that feat?" exclaimed Bruse, the ancestor of the famous Scot.
"Nay," said Harold, simply, "at least thirty thousand such men have I
left at home! But this was but the stroke of an idle vanity, and
strength becomes tenfold in a good cause."
The Duke heard, and fearful lest he should betray his sense of the
latent meaning couched under his guest's words, he hastily muttered
forth reluctant compliment and praise; while Fitzosborne, De Bohun,
and other chiefs more genuinely knightly, gave way to unrestrained
admiration.
Then beckoning De Graville to follow him, the Duke strode off towards
the tent of his brother of Bayeux, who, though, except on
extraordinary occasions, he did not join in positive conflict, usually
accompanied William in his military excursions, both to bless the
host, and to advise (for his martial science was considerable) the
council of war.
The bishop, who, despite the sanctimony of the Court, and his own
stern nature, was (though secretly and decorously) a gallant of great
success in other fields than those of Mars [196], sate alone in his
pavilion, inditing an epistle to a certain fair dame in Rouen, whom he
had unwillingly left to follow his brother. At the entrance of
William, whose morals in such matters were pure and rigid, he swept
the letter into the chest of relics which always accompanied him, and
rose, saying, indifferently:
"A treatise on the authenticity of St. Thomas's little finger! But
what ails you? you are disturbed!"
"Odo, Odo, this man baffles me--this man fools me; I make no ground
with him. I have spent--heaven knows what I have spent," said the
Duke, sighing with penitent parsimony, "in banquets, and ceremonies,
and processions; to say nothing of my bel maneir of Yonne, and the sum
wrung from my coffers by that greedy Ponthevin. All gone--all wasted
--all melted like snow! and the Saxon is as Saxon as if he had seen
neither Norman splendour, nor been released from the danger by Norman
treasure. But, by the splendour Divine, I were fool indeed if I
suffered him to return home. Would thou hadst seen the sorcerer
cleave my helmet and mail just now, as easily as if they had been
willow twigs. Oh, Odo, Odo, my soul is troubled, and St. Michael
forsakes me!"
While William ran on thus distractedly, the prelate lifted his eyes
inquiringly to De Graville, who now stood within the tent, and the
knight briefly related the recent trial of strength.
"I see nought in this to chafe thee," said Odo; "the man once thine,
the stronger the vassal, the more powerful the lord."
"But he is not mine; I have sounded him as far as I dare go. Matilda
hath almost openly offered him my fairest child as his wife. Nothing
dazzles, nothing moves him. Thinkest thou I care for his strong arm?
Tut, no: I chafe at the proud heart that set the arm in motion; the
proud meaning his words symbolled out, 'So will English strength guard
English land from the Norman--so axe and shield will defy your mail
and your shafts.' But let him beware!" growled the Duke, fiercely,
"or----"
"May I speak," interrupted De Graville, "and suggest a counsel?"
"Speak out, in God's name!" cried the Duke.
"Then I should say, with submission, that the way to tame a lion is
not by gorging him, but daunting. Bold is the lion against open foes;
but a lion in the toils loses his nature. Just now, my lord said that
Harold should not return to his native land----"
"Nor shall he, but as my sworn man!" exclaimed the Duke.
"And if you now put to him that choice, think you it will favour your
views? Will he not reject your proffers, and with hot scorn?"
"Scorn! darest thou that word to me?" cried the Duke. "Scorn! have I
no headsman whose axe is as sharp as Harold's? and the neck of a
captive is not sheathed in my Norman mail."
"Pardon, pardon, my liege," said Mallet, with spirit; but to save my
chief from a hasty action that might bring long remorse, I spoke thus
boldly. Give the Earl at least fair warning:--a prison, or fealty to
thee, that is the choice before him!--let him know it; let him see
that thy dungeons are dark, and thy walls impassable. Threaten not
his life--brave men care not for that!--threaten thyself nought, but
let others work upon him with fear of his freedom. I know well these
Saxish men; I know well Harold; freedom is their passion, they are
cowards when threatened with the doom of four walls." [197]
"I conceive thee, wise son," exclaimed Odo.
"Ha!" said the Duke, slowly; "and yet it was to prevent such suspicion
that I took care, after the first meeting, to separate him from Haco
and Wolnoth, for they must have learned much in Norman gossip, ill to
repeat to the Saxon."
"Wolnoth is almost wholly Norman," said the bishop, smiling; "Wolnoth
is bound par-amours, to a certain fair Norman dame; and, I trow well,
prefers her charms here to the thought of his return. But Haco, as
thou knowest, is sullen and watchful."
"So much the better companion for Harold now," said De Graville.
"I am fated ever to plot and to scheme!" said the Duke, groaning, as
if he had been the simplest of men; "but, nathless, I love the stout
Earl, and I mean all for his own good,--that is, compatibly with my
rights and claims to the heritage of Edward my cousin."
"Of course," said the bishop.
