The Conqueror Read Online Free PDF

not seen him. He has that look in his face which draws me. A man might put his whole trust in him and not fear to be betrayed.’ He stopped, and seeing how they stared at him, coloured up, and said more humbly: ‘Perhaps I shan’t be allowed to serve him. I thought my lord would be able to tell me.’
    Hubert banged his fist down on the table. ‘If you want to serve a great seigneur, serve Roger de Beaumont!’ he said. ‘God knows I have nothing against young William – no, and I would not join Roger de Toeni against him, as your brother Gilbert was fool enough to do! – but it does not take a sage to know that the Bastard’s days will be short in Normandy. Why, you silly boy, from the day that Duke Robert – God rest his soul! – died on his pilgrimage there has been no peace in Normandy – and all on account of the base-born child who was set up to rule the Duchy! What has happened to his guardians? Alain of Brittany was the first, and a rare end he made of it. You were no more than a babe yourself then, but Alain died, poisoned at Vimoutiers, and the King of France marched into the Argentan, and seized the border stronghold of Tillières which he holds to this day! Was there peace then? Was there peace when Montgoméri slew the Seneschal, Osbern, in the Duke’s own chamber? Was there peace when Thorkill died, and Roger de Toeni fought the ducal troops? Will there ever be peace while a mere lad holds the reins of government? Why, you are raving to think to find glory in the service of that ill-starred boy!’
    ‘Am I so?’ Raoul retorted. ‘Yet will you say that our Duke has made so ill a beginning? You speak of his childhood, but I seem to remember that when Toustain Goz dared to hold the castle of Falaise against him not so long since my lord Duke had a short way with the rebels.’
    ‘Bah, De Gacé took the castle by storm on the Duke’s behalf!’ said Gilbert scornfully. ‘It seems to me that you have filled your head with silly imaginings, and would be the better for a sound trouncing.’
    ‘Try it!’ Raoul challenged him. ‘I am ready for you, I promise you.’
    ‘No more of that!’ Hubert interposed. ‘The boy will soon find his mistake. Let him take service with the Duke, if my lord can so arrange it for him. If I am right and he comes back disappointed – well, there will be a place for him still at my board. If he is right, and the Duke is a man even as his father was before him, why, so much the better for us all! But now you shall clasp hands, and think no more of this quarrel.’
    Hubert’s word was law at Harcourt when he spoke it in just that tone. Across the table Gilbert and Raoul clasped hands with as good a grace as they could muster. Eudes still sat pondering over the talk, with his brows knit and his gaze abstracted, until, presently, having unravelled it to his satisfaction, he looked up, and said portentously: ‘I see what it is. Raoul looked upon the Duke, and finding him comely enough, he has taken it into his head he would like to serve under his gonfanon. Boy follows boy.’
    ‘So be it,’ said Hubert. ‘I see little good, but no harm. Let boy follow boy.’

Two
    The hall of the Castle of Falaise was rush-strewn, and hung with tapestries; at the dinner-hour trestle-tables were set up, with benches and stools for the Court to sit upon. Only the Duke used a chair with carved arms and a high back; his nobles had each a stool, but the knights and the squires crowded on to benches at the tables that ran down the length of the hall. There was a fire of logs on a pile of wood-ash, and beside this a couple of huge alaunts lay stretched out, blinking at the hot glow. The other dogs roamed among the table-legs at will, waiting for chance scraps of meat, and wrangling over the bones tossed to them by their masters.
    The hall seemed crowded to Raoul, still, after three months, unaccustomed to life at Court. The hangings shut out the draught, and the place was stuffy, with a