FIVE DAYS LATER, Malet was laid to rest beneath the chancel arch in the small stone church at Heia, with all the ceremony befitting a lord of his standing. Rushlights lit the nave and candles stood upon the altar, while a thurifer spread incense to mask the smell and also remind those gathered of the ever-presence of the Holy Spirit. Prayers were said and hymns sung as Malet’s body, embalmed with cinnamon and salt, clad in a fine crimson tunic and shrouded in plain black cloth, was carried in upon a bier by Robert and five of his household knights, all dressed in white, one of the traditional mourning colours. The coffin was lowered into the hollow space beneath the stone floor, Mass was said, and afterwards alms were distributed to the men and women who worked Heia’s lands, while the church’s bell rang for nearly an hour, so that long after the procession had left and made its way across the crumbling stone bridge, beneath the browning leaves of the orchard and up the winding path that led to the castle, we could still hear its plangent notes sounding out across the manor.
I was in the training yard with Pons and Serlo, teaching Godric some simple thrusts and parries, and how and where to move in order to outflank an opponent in single combat, when Robert called me to see him. I found him in his solar, on the up-floor of the hall in the castle, kneeling in prayer in front of the slit of scraped horn that served as a window. Ashes smouldered in the stone hearth, candles stood in the corners of the room, and tapestries covered the walls, though they weren’t enough to keep out the draughts. He was still dressed in the same white tunic and breeches, which was strange to see, given his fondness for black clothing. He looked up as the wan light of late afternoon flooded in, and rose to greet me. His eyes were red from weeping, or tiredness, or a combination of the two, and he looked suddenly much older than his twenty-eight years.
‘It was as my father would have wished it,’ he said.
‘I’m glad, lord.’
‘As am I,’ he said. ‘Glad, that is, that you had the chance to speak with him before he passed away.’
‘I’m not sure that your mother was so pleased. Nor the priest, for that matter.’
‘Dudo has been his most devoted servant these past couple of years. All he wanted was to ensure that my father suffered as little as possible in his final hours. As for my mother’ – Robert gave a deep sigh – ‘she still holds to the belief that you betrayed his faith in you during the business with ?lfwold, as you saw. For that she will not forgive you.’
I stiffened. All that was more than two years in the past. How was it that talk of such things continued to plague me, after so long?
‘Do you hold to the same belief, lord?’ I asked.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘And if my father ever truly believed that you’d wronged him, don’t you think he might have discouraged me from accepting you as my man?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Not once. At heart he knew that you did the right thing, hard though that was for him to admit openly. I think in truth he always appreciated what you and your companions did for him.’
I wasn’t entirely convinced by that, remembering all too clearly the venom with which he had spoken to me but a couple of weeks ago. The memory of that still stung, despite the kindness he’d shown on his deathbed. He would not be the first to have felt a desire for reconciliation once he realised his time was short.
‘In any case,’ Robert went on, ‘what has passed, has passed. Regardless of what once happened between you and my father, and regardless of whether or not he recognised your good service, you have more than proven your worth to me, and that is all that matters in my eyes.’
‘Yes, lord.’
He looked troubled for a moment, but I did not press him. A draught blew in and caused the candles on the altar to gutter, and one of them to go out. There was a chill to the air, and a dampness too. Truly summer had departed.
Using a taper, Robert relit the candle that had been extinguished. ‘I realise that I am already in your debt, Tancred. Yet there is something more that I would ask of you.’
‘What might that be?’
‘I have received a message from the king. There is trouble in Flanders.’
‘Trouble?’
‘As you’ll no doubt have heard, the rightful heir to the province was killed in an ambush earlier this year at Cassel. The new count, who has no love for Normandy, is said to be gathering his barons to his banner in readiness for a campaign.’
I knew very well about what had taken place at Cassel. Guillaume fitz Osbern, one of the king’s closest and longest-serving companions and advisers, and by most people’s reckoning the second most powerful man in England, had been sent across the Narrow Sea at the behest of Queen Mathilda, the king’s wife, to aid the young heir, a relation of hers by the name of Arnulf, in his struggles against his enemies. He had been at the boy’s side when the attack came, and he met his end there too, which was hardly surprising given that he’d seen fit to take with him a mere ten of his household knights for protection. I couldn’t say that I was altogether sad to hear of his demise, as embarrassing a fate as it was for one so formidable. I had met him on more than one occasion and felt him to be among the most arrogant of men, with an exaggerated sense of his own importance that perhaps stemmed from his many years of friendship with the king.
‘A campaign against Normandy?’ I asked. ‘At this time of year? The leaves are already falling. In a couple more months it will be winter. What does the Flemish count think he can possibly achieve in so short a space of time?’