The Conqueror by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online

clothed even to the helmet on his head.
    ‘What a brave knight is this!’ chuckled Galet. He made room for Raoul to pass him. ‘William my brother, you are well-served.’ He watched Raoul go up the stairs. ‘Sleep sound, William,’ he muttered. ‘He has a keen nose, your new watchdog.’
    When the dawn-light stole into the castle it showed sleeping forms on the floor, harsh faces softened in slumber, and swords lying beside straw pallets. Upon the stairs the jester was curled up with his head pillowed on his arm, dozing uneasily. Outside a shut door that opened on to the gallery above a young knight stood with his hands folded on his naked sword. He stood very still, but when some slight noise reached him from below he turned his head to listen more intently, and his fingers closed tighter on the sword-hilt.
    The light grew warmer, and with the rising of the sun new sounds broke the stillness. Scullions began to move about in the kitchen, and from outside came the stir of the waking town.
    With a sigh, and a stretching of weary limbs, Raoul left his post. Down in the hall the men still slept, but Galet was awake, and patted him between the shoulders. ‘Good dog Raoul!’ he chuckled. ‘Will he throw a bone to his two hounds, our master William?’
    Raoul yawned, and rubbed his hand across his eyes. ‘Fool, in the clear daylight I ask myself, am I also a fool?’ he said, and passed on out of the hall into the sunlight.
    On this second day’s ride they struck westwards along the coast until the rivers that separated the Bessin from the Côtentin were forded. The way led northward after that over wild country, and through many straggling forests. Adulterine fortalices looked down from every hill, each one a potential menace to the peace of Normandy. Unfriendly this land seemed, unlike Raoul’s own province of the Evrecin.
    Valognes itself lay on the edge of a forest, and the dwelling set aside for the Duke’s use was scarcely more than a hunting-lodge, easy of access, and with no fortifications. Besides the hall it possessed one or two solars built in the thickness of the wall upstairs, and round the main building, in a rude court, were a cluster of ramshackle wooden houses. In one of these were quartered the few men-at-arms; another accommodated the Duke’s scullions, cooks, valets, and huntsmen; and there was a third, somewhat larger, which was used as a stable for the destriers. Horses belonging to the less fortunate were haltered under a thatched roof supported on posts. Here Raoul had to see Verceray bestowed. As at Bayeux, the knights made what shift they could in the hall of the main building for sleeping-room, but Raoul, whose suspicions had not been lulled by what he had seen of the country and the people of the Côtentin, snatched what rest he could by day, and every evening when the torches were quenched, and the household slept, he took up his post outside the Duke’s door, and remained there throughout the night. He felt an odd pleasure in these vigils. This was service, and even though the Duke neither knew of his devotion, nor ever noticed him above his fellows, he was content, and felt through the long, still hours a queer bond tightening between him and the young man who slept, secure because of his watch, behind the shut door.
    The Duke hunted the beasts of the forest and the warren, and flew his hawks at the brook and at the heron, and conducted all the business that had brought him into the Côtentin with the firmness and dispatch that was as yet strange to his nobles. His grip on affairs seemed to be masterly; little escaped him, and he left little to chance. Yet if he saw so much, Raoul wondered, how could he be blind to the signs of hostility all round him? No one could misread these signs: the barons of the district held aloof; of his own attendants men whispered in corners, and when he went abroad he was accompanied by fewer knights than those who crowded round the handsome Guy of