The Lion and the Rose, Book Two by Hilary Rhodes

Author:Hilary Rhodes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical fiction, history, norman conquest, medieval history, harold godwinson, 1066, battle of hastings, william the conqueror, history 11th century, the lion and the rose
Publisher: Hilary Rhodes

Dol-de-Bretagne, Brittany

April 1064

‘Your Grace,’ said Turold. ‘We’ve a considerable piece of news to share. The English earl Harold Godwinson has washed ashore on your lands.’

William started to attention. ‘Mine?’

‘Well, not your own demesne, my lord. Guy de Ponthieu’s, as it happens.’

William groaned. ‘Why is it always a bloody de Ponthieu?’

‘Because they have a capacity for trouble nearly as great as your own, my lord.’ Turold had an uncompromisingly brusque, straightforward manner, which was one of the things William liked about him. He was an excellent spy with an eye for detail, no whisper of divided loyalties, and a lack of scruple almost as pronounced as his master’s.

There was one other pertinent fact about him: he was a dwarf. A giant in mind, to be sure, but the body had failed to keep pace, being born short and misshapen. Yet that, however, was where his effectiveness came from. Turold and his companion, a half-daft jongleur named Ivo Taillefer, had escaped from a travelling fair after years of being exhibited for the public’s amusement. However, rather than collecting a few fistfuls of silver and a pair of buxom milkmaids and calling it a day, they had decided to reach somewhat higher, and presented themselves at William’s doorstep, suing for a job. His guards had laughed them off three times before Turold succeeded in cadging an audience.

William himself, however, had taken one look at them and decided that he had the perfect spies on his hands. Their sheer improbability meant that no one else would ever take them seriously either. So, he told them, he was willing to see what they had to offer, and it had proven a remarkably astute decision. Turold could tumble and tell stories and stand on his head, and Taillefer could juggle anything, sing in a honey-sweet tenor voice, at least when he wasn’t going crazy and claiming to predict the future. Thus, the two earned their keep at every inn, tavern, and brothel across Normandy – and at each, collected a healthy dose of gossip and rumour along with the silver. It was thanks to one of Turold and Taillefer’s intelligences, in fact, that William was here in Brittany. But of course something like this would happen the instant he left.

‘Go on,’ he said, returning his attention to Turold. ‘What is a Godwinson doing here?’

‘I do not believe Guy has been able to wrest that out of him just yet. So far as I make it, Harold was shipwrecked and washed ashore in Ponthieu, where Guy – no doubt acting only as your loyal vassal – promptly clapped him in irons.’

William snorted. ‘I’d hoped the two years Guy spent in my dungeon after Mortemer would have knocked some sense into him, but it seems I underestimated the density of his idiocy. Then again, Guy’s not forgiven me for killing his brother, which I still fail to understand. Enguerrand being the paragon of manly virtues that he was.’

‘I know a song about a man with virtues,’ Taillefer piped up.

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