XLVIII

The Duke arrived three days later with a small retinue. It was raining heavily in a continuous downpour like the tears of God at human wickedness, and Henry was not in a good mood. Having opened the great gates to them, the porter asked Henry and his men to wait under the archway, where their horses steamed and chafed and the puddles spread, while he hurried across to tell the usher of the arrival of royalty.

The Duke was an impatient man, and of course there was never enough time to do all the things in Normandy that had to be done so it added fire to his natural tendency. At any rate, after a brief delay, the Duke dismounted, giving his horse to a page to hold. Leaving his party to steam awhile under the arches, he strode off towards the hall as if he owned the place. When you are Duke of Normandy the whole place is yours, you can do what you like, and Henry did. He strode in today, as I say, and presented himself in his authority to the small gathering of knights who were still stationed at Breteuil and who were having their two o’clock dinner. This gathering included myself, for I had now been informally admitted by the Marshal to their company, so I was able to see the drama of the Duke’s coming as it unfolded.

Henry had not thought to warn the castle of his hour of arrival or, if he had thought about it, he had dismissed the idea. So now the usher was in full agitation. He had only just finished talking to the gatekeeper, Lady Juliana needed to be warned and here was the Duke himself needing to be lodged comfortably in some state. He could not be received while a meal was in progress; there was another chamber designed expressly for this purpose, a long room entered through a doorway at the far end of the hall where a table was ready prepared, only lacking a comtesse to preside. Pages were now despatched in various directions to alert cook, butler, pantler, and of course the Comtesse herself, while others went to the gate to bring the Duke’s knights in to the hall.

The Duke meanwhile, seeing a dinner in progress, and famously loving good food and drink – especially lampreys, and there were lampreys on the table (having but recently come into season) – stopped by one of the knights whom he flattered to recognise, sat down beside him, borrowed his knife, pronged a lamprey and wolfed it down with great satisfaction, taking a big draught of the wine from the fellow’s beaker. His dark mood was dissipating fast.

‘By the death of our Lord,’ cried the Duke, ‘this is as fine a welcome as a daughter could ever give to her father. I’ll have another of those, and another still. Bring me wine, good fellow…’

‘But sir,’ cried the usher, ‘we will serve you dinner with my lady in another chamber where you can talk at peace.’

‘Talk my lady’s talk? What kind of talk is that when I have these good fellows to speak with?’

‘Madame la Comtesse will be disappointed, sire. She especially asked to see you as soon as you arrived.’

The Duke relented. He had come in peace, hoping to patch things up with his daughter who was a good-looking girl though she had a temper like a firecracker, and he had loved her mother even though she was mad English. It was of course regrettable about his grand-daughters, but it was the parents’ fault. He could not allow family matters – and she was after all only half family, being a bastard, not the same thing as his son Prince William or The Atheling as they called him in England – he could not allow family matters to usurp the place of politics and power. Families were for lesser mortals. Kings were about countries and, for your country the first thing you had to do was have a son. The second was to leave him something worth inheriting.

While all this was no doubt turning over in the Duke’s mind, the acting steward (a decent little man called Gerard, standing in for the slimy Odo who had gone with Eustace to Pacy) came through the door of the far chamber, had a whispered conversation with the Marshal who in turn rose from his seat and spoke in the Duke’s ear. The Duke was about to help himself to another lamprey (I have never liked the fish, too rich and far too ugly, I do not like its sucking ways which remind me of certain people), but now, casting it aside, he too rose to his feet.

‘We must do what the lady wants, eh?’ he said with matey condescension, and strode towards the inner room and the feast that had been prepared for him. I followed in his wake, thinking that I might be of some service, since I am half knight now, though I am still the Comtesse’s Latiner and of her household.

The Duke pushed open the door and entered the chamber, and I entered with him. It was then that everything happened very quickly.

I was able to take in a sight that to me was quite impossible. My brain refused to register it for a split second. Juliana was standing at the end of the room with a fully loaded crossbow.

I had never properly understood up to that moment how completely her life had been broken when her daughters were mutilated – perhaps not being a mother I could never completely understand – but now, like a thunderclap, an awareness of her intention broke in upon me. Regardless of any consequence she was exacting her revenge.

My overwhelming thought at this stage was that it must not happen. Do not ask me why. I had no great liking for Henry, Duke of Normandy, though I was beginning to respect him. I had loved those little girls and loved them still. I suppose it was instinct, the outcast bastard preserving the status quo because he can never belong to it, whatever it was I knew that the apple cart was about to be upset, and that only I could stop it.

I had closed the door after me, understanding that Juliana would prefer it not to be a public spectacle when she spoke to her father for the first time since the terrible event. Only the Marshal was with me.

I don’t think Henry saw his daughter at first. His eyes had gone to the table where the lampreys were. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Juliana take aim. She didn’t seem to be totally at ease with the weapon, but I could tell she was going to fire it. The Marshal was too far behind me to do anything. It was my call.

At this stage, time – which had been spilling out so fast –went into slow motion as if it were running in treacle. My hand went up as if to halt her, but at the same time I flung myself on the Duke who went flying sideways with me on top of him. I could tell he was not well pleased. Then came the sound that will live with me all my life, the deadly thud of the crossbow releasing, and the almost simultaneous thwack of the bolt hitting something hard. A crossbow, shrewdly aimed, will penetrate an inch of steel armour. I could sense the vibration of the bolt and knew I must be hit though I could feel nothing.

We both lay on the floor for a while, momentarily winded and eclipsed, even the great Duke.

‘Oh my God … are you all right, sire?’ asked the Marshal.

He was mortally afraid. It was not good to kill a Duke of Normandy. I could feel the Duke under me examining himself as best he could. At the same time I could hear Juliana struggling with the weapon for a second shot. For some reason I could not move and thought myself struck.

‘I’m alive,’ he said at last, ‘but tell this great lump of a Latiner to move so I can get up. And take that crossbow away from my daughter.’

It takes some time to load a crossbow, even for an experienced archer. Juliana was not going to do it in a hurry. It is near impossible for a woman.

‘Are you all right, Latiner?’ asked the Marshal.

‘I … I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘I can’t move.’

He looked concerned and examined me more closely, then he laughed.

‘That’s not very nice,’ I said, ‘to laugh at a wounded man.’

‘You are transfixed like a stag by your coat,’ he said.

And so I was. There was no extracting the bolt from the floorboard, so my coat had to be torn. The bolt was left where it had penetrated, still imperceptibly quivering. The Marshal walked across to Juliana where she stood, still struggling to re-load, and reached over to take the crossbow from her.

‘I don’t think you will be needing this any more, my lady,’ he said.

She let him take it, but shot instead a look of pure and furious hatred at her father who had struggled to his feet beside me. It was she who found words first.

‘Get out,’ she said, ‘you and your men, before I find some more reliable way of killing you.’

No one had spoken to the Duke like that before.

‘It is I who should be killing you, Juliana,’ he said, breathing deeply and reddening in the face. ‘You have offended against all the laws of nature, religion, and your country. You have tried to kill your father and liege lord, and would have done so were it not for your Latiner here.’

‘A curse on him,’ she cried. ‘Had he left it a moment later, I would have rid our country of a monster. Basely done, Latiner. Do not speak to me again.’

I had acted instinctively, and now I was indeed regretting it.

‘Marshal,’ commanded the Duke, ‘you see how things are and the depths to which loyalty is fallen here. I command you now to take the Comtesse prisoner and escort her to the dungeons.’

‘No!’ I exclaimed.

The Duke barely glanced at me; he had already forgotten that I had saved his life.

But the Marshal too had his loyalties. He shook his head.

‘No, sire,’ he said, ‘that I cannot do for I would be betraying my loyalty to this house. The lady and her children have suffered grievously at the cruelty of your servants, and it is right that she should feel – as we all felt here – that you had gone too far. This is the castle of the Comte de Breteuil and his lady, and she shall not be arrested in her own home. You came with but few men. I advise you to leave. If you wish to return with your soldiers, so be it. You have seen the warlike spirit of the lady of the house. I promise you we shall show you what the rest of us can do.’

The Duke listened to the Marshal with growing impatience and anger.

‘Traitor,’ he cried. ‘I have you marked now. When I return, which I shall, and take the castle back – for it was mine and will be mine – than I shall have you swinging from the battlements, and I shall tell all who ask that this was a marshal who forgot his duty.’

The Marshal listened to him and smiled.

‘You mistake, my lord Duke,’ he said. ‘Had I been in front and not behind the Latiner, I would have done as he did. We do not wish you dead, but if I cannot show loyalty to my lady, how can you expect me to show loyalty to you?’

‘Chop logic, chop logic,’ said the Duke. ‘By our Lord’s death, you will see some disputation when I return.’

With that he turned on his heel and went back to the hall, calling his several knights around and bidding them leave their dinner and follow him outside. They rose mid-mouthful from the table and proceeded to the marshalsea where their horses waited, still saddled. Soon they could be seen riding at full gallop out of the gatehouse and on towards the road that led to Damville and Ivry.

Juliana turned and without a word or any sign walked into the hall and mounted the great stairs. I did not think it the right moment for me to join her. I smiled at the Marshal.

‘That was brave of you,’ I said.

‘Or bloody stupid.’

‘But you could not have got her beyond the hall. The knights would not have it. There would have been a fight and the Duke’s men, perhaps the Duke himself, really would have been killed. The Duke has a fierce temper, but a little reflection will surely tell him that you did the right thing.’

‘He will return’ said the Marshal. ‘He always wanted this castle back.’

‘And what about Comte Eustace? Will he be back to defend Breteuil?’

‘I do not think so immediately. He has Amaury de Montfort at Pacy, drinking and plotting and talking war. We shall be alone here and cannot match the Duke, but we will fight him while we can. Tomorrow I shall call a muster and we will prepare the castle for siege order.’

‘He wouldn’t really hang you from the battlements?’

‘Oh yes, he would. I saw him do that to Luc de la Barre. Oh no. I mistake. He would have blinded him but Luc jumped from the battlements without a rope round his neck before it could be done. He’ll string you up too, Latiner, if he finds you here when he attacks. You had better make yourself scarce.’

‘I shall remain at Breteuil,’ I assured the Marshal, ‘as long as you and my lady are here.’

‘But the two little girls must go,’ he replied. ‘We can’t have them here, frightened by a little war and, if we are overpowered, at the mercy of the Castellan’s thugs.’

‘True enough. I will speak to the Comtesse and see what she thinks. It would be best if they joined their father for the moment at Pacy. He will see no harm comes to them even if he was the cause of their ruin.’

I left him and went up to Juliana’s chamber. I found her sitting in a chair, still fiddling with the crossbow, and I told her what the Marshal had been saying.

‘The die is cast,’ she said. ‘It is war now. I will not have finished with that man until I have killed him.’

‘Come, Juliana,’ I told her. ‘You cannot kill the Duke. He is the King. If he were simply your father you might do it, but there are too many people, good people, who depend upon their Duke.’

‘Good people like that castellan?’ She laughed derisively.

‘No, but people like my father and the Comtesse Matilda, and many more who are loyal to him, churchmen and yeomen, who value what he has done to bring peace to the country.’

‘I will be revenged on my daughters.’

‘You must first dig two graves. It is another Sicilian saying,’ I said, recalling the words of Brother Paul.

‘Well. So be it. I will die in the attempt if necessary. Who else is to fight their battle?’

‘You should take the girls away to safety,’ I told her, mindful of the Marshal’s advice.

‘I will not leave here until I have faced my father in battle.’

‘It is a battle that you will lose. He has many more men.’

‘I am ready for that.’

I saw that it would be futile to argue further.

‘Let me at least take the girls to Pacy where they will have a nursery and their old nurse to look after them.’

‘And their father to bully them.’

‘He will not do that,’ I told her. ‘Not now.’

‘Are you deserting me, then?’

Before I could answer this, perhaps the most difficult question ever put to me, there was a cry of consternation from somewhere below. Juliana went to the door, I ran to the window, opened it wide, and looked down.

Almost immediately beneath me, in the bailey below, lay two little figures spread-eagled on the ground. They were still holding each others’ hands.

‘What is it?’

Juliana finding no answer at the door was looking across at me, the intimation of what I was looking at spreading across her face like the shadow of a cloud racing across the landscape. She knew before I spoke.

‘It’s the girls,’ I said.

I could have done nothing, said nothing, to soften the blow. She sprang to the window, thrusting me aside even as I moved, and took in the scene below. And then she let out a sound that I have only once ever heard since – the noise of a man being drawn, quartered and finally castrated. Half howl, half groan; a sound telling of the deepest pit into which the human animal can fall. I could not face her anguish. I turned and ran downstairs and out into the bailey

Servants were already gathering there. The Marshal’s valet, a knight called Jasper, Ralf the page, a man I had seen before in hall distributing bread, a laundress who had come in from the town with some shirts. It was good to see a woman there among all the men in that place.

I knelt and examined the girls. They were both dead. A sentry appeared, distraught, from his guard duties on the roof.

‘The little girls came up there often. I never thought they could do such a thing. I turned to look at a horseman on the road. And then suddenly they were up there. I ran to stop them, but they were too quick!’

‘You let this happen?’ It was Juliana, raving madly at him. She seized hold of him and beat at his face with her fists until the blood ran. The Marshal did nothing to defend him. Finally, I interposed myself as best I could.

‘It is not his fault,’ I told her. ‘They were going to do it anyway.’

Of course, that was what they had had in mind all along. Their supposed games had all been about escape. They had traced the castle with their hands, and though they were blind, their plan was clear, so clear I should have seen it. I knew the girls. They were intelligent; they could see the life ahead of them. They had no future except sitting by the fire listening to small talk. Their lives had been snatched from them by cruel men, and there was no recourse. There was nothing anyone could do to give them back what they had lost.

So they had decided. They were not going to be pitied, they were not going to be a burden, or an irritation, or have children point at them in later years and talk about the two old piggies in the corner. They were going to go out, holding hands, while people could still remember who they were, the Ladies Marie and Philippine of Breteuil, almost as lovely (people said) as their lovely mother. They had found the place they wanted, the highest point of the battlements, and while the guard commander was handing over to the new squad – inspecting men, checking weapons, passing the time of day, looking at horsemen on the road – they jumped.

They were not held up tiresomely by angels or carried to safety on the back of the castle ravens. No, they plunged to earth, holding hands all the way, and died immediately they hit the Breteuil turf, not even twitching. They were dead, and the best was yet to come.