I promised my woman I would never take up the sword again, so now I must do what I can with the tools I’m allotted. One of those tools is the quill, so if I can put this story down while I still remember it then perhaps that old saying that “the pen is mightier than the sword” might be true.
I should probably begin with the first time I ever met William. William, Duke of Normandy, as most knew him back then, or William the Bastard to some. It was before he was ever “The Conqueror.”
It was summer, in the year of our Lord 1064, and I was housecarl to Harold Godwinson. In short, I was a warrior enlisted in Harold’s Wessex household. My captain at the time, a burly man named Charles, had requested for a couple men and I to go with him and Harold on a short fishing trip.
We left Bosham, Harold’s home if his heart lay anywhere, and almost as soon as we were in the Channel a storm began tossing us about. We had an expert pilot for Harold’s vessel, a one-armed man named Erik I believe, but we still ended up smashing into some rocks on France’s border. That was all we knew at the time, but we figured despite the boat’s destruction and a loss of three sailors we would be all right.
There was little time to set up camp after we stumbled out of the wreckage as the storm still hammered the shore. Charles and I gathered everyone onto the beach and kept going back in for any extra armor and weapons on board. There was enough food to last us a week or so, but it turned out we would not need any. As the skies cleared, a group of riders approached from the south.
At their head was the Count of Ponthieu, no friend to any Saxon, and his greeting was about as formal as chains and drawn swords can be. So our boots and heads were finally getting a little dry and more comfortable when we found ourselves captive by Ponthieu’s count.
*
The count kept us in a cramped cell below one of the castles in Ponthieu. Our first day had been a series of questions as he evidently thought we must have been sent by someone rather than crashed there by chance. I thought this absurd because he had seen the wreckage and three corpses himself. Also, what one earl, four housecarls, and twenty-seven remaining sailors were supposed to do in foreign territory was hardly going to be worth recording.
There were two other men who died at this time, both of them oarsmen for Harold’s ship. They had already developed some sickness our first day on the beach, and that progressively worsened until a horrifically bloody end result. The rest of us were kept in with the stench as well, trying hard not to let that atmosphere affect us as days turned to over a week in the count’s captivity.
Now I understand there are many and more men who have spent time in captivity for much longer than we did, but we had done nothing wrong. There are also those who say one gets to know another when serving time together, but you never learn anything good. I knew Harold as well as any man back then but at that time he was easily agitated, humiliated by his circumstances, given to outbursts of temper, and an overall foul companion. When you share a twenty by thirty foot room with nearly thirty other men, though, everybody’s shit stinks.
We had been there for just over a week, but each day felt like a week in and of itself. Suddenly a bit more light flooded into the dungeon to herald someone’s presence. The man who walked down the stone stairs was garbed in a great cloak of trimmed sable, a chain of gold interchanged with silver draped over his shoulders, and he wore the expression of a wounded man as though Harold’s treatment pained him so. He rebuked Guy, the Count of Ponthieu, heatedly, making the wiry man cringe as though struck under the torrent of obscenities.
“My Lord and my God,” the nobleman swore as he looked us over. “Well… open the door, you fool!”
Ponthieu’s count nearly tore the door from its hinges, lowering his gaze almost in reverence to his prisoners. We filed out, each of us as confused as the next, with only Harold seeming to wear his clever face that showed so much and yet so little. That was Charles’ term for it, Harold’s “clever face,” and it was an expression bearing eyes of feigned bewilderment. It was a face I would come to know well.
“William of Normandy,” Harold Godwinson exclaimed and extended his arms uncertainly for an embrace.
In spite of Harold’s grubby appearance William pulled him in heartily to smash any discomfort in the air. They walked to the stairs, one the shining example of nobility and the other wobbling on pin driven legs. We housecarls followed next, hopeful that our weapons and armor would be returned to help us feel more clothed than the filthy tunics on our backs.
“I came as soon as I heard,” William explained in an exaggerated manner as he and Harold strode up the steps together. Sunlight was a devastation on the eyes but after a few moments they adjusted well enough to the surrounding beauty of Ponthieu. The castle was clearly maintained in every aspect above ground that it was not below. Gorgeous vines crept up gray stone walls while flowers of sky blue and yellow polka dotted the courtyard. We gazed about ourselves in wonderment at a world we had so sorely missed.
“We crashed about a week and a half ago,” Harold told his temporary savior. “Must have been close to Saint Valery, but I’m not positive. Anyway, we were just gathering ourselves when your count galloped up to offer us chains instead of aid.” He laughed then as if it had been a minor mistake easily forgotten. Perhaps I was just easily offended, but I wanted to slap that asinine count in the face… with a brick.
We were taken then to the armory where all of our weapons and armor was stored. At that time I had a coat of good mail, usually polished to a sheen that nearly spoke of silver, a small throwing ax, a sword in the fashion of a Roman gladius, and a plain iron helmet that tapered to a conical point. Charles and the other two housecarls were armed similarly, but Charles possessed a longsword of steel while the other two had massive battleaxes.
Harold, being the son of the famous Earl Godwin and an earl himself for years, did not dress until he had bathed the stink of the dungeon away. We waited for him until dusk was almost upon us, when no one would have been willing to travel at all, and then he finally came to the stables where William had rented five coursers and twenty-five palfreys.
The two men looked like brothers as they rode, each garbed in chains bearing gold and silver and wearing more expensive clothing in one horseback ride than any common man would afford in a lifetime. These were no common men though. For these two were fate-bearers, even though at that moment neither one knew it.
* *
William’s capital, and his home, was Rouen. Rouen is a grand city in Normandy that possesses all the pomp that can be expected of being the country’s capital. He had many retainers in his household, but they were not known as housecarls like the Saxons call themselves. These men called themselves chevaliers and they were mounted warriors in mail who preferred a lance as their weapon of choice. They seemed to delight in running circuits and training their massive steeds, called destriers, and honing agile skills by running their lances through rings of iron set up in places around their fields. It was all very odd to every one of us.
“You ever seen anything like this, Theo?” Charles asked me one afternoon as we watched the chevaliers engage straw dummies with their lances.
“No,” I replied in my thick accent.
“What kind of warriors do they have in Sicily?” Charles inquired.
That’s where I’m from. I was born to Greek parents but I lived the first twenty-two years of my life in Syracuse, Sicily. My name is Theophylaktos, or Theo for those who feel like they might get their tongues tied.
“They have Saracens there,” I said bitterly. There was a silence that followed for a few moments. Everyone knew who the Muslim warriors were. “Though now I guess these men are there too.”
Charles put a placating hand on my shoulder but to be honest I did not need it. He was easily a dozen years my senior but I was not in the mood for a brotherly role that day. I had been away from my family for four years and though it had been an amicable and even tear wracked departure I had no longing to go back. I did not know just where my heart lay because if it included payment and a roof above my head I could call just about any place home.
We spent some time in the yard with our weapons but most of those two months in Normandy were wasted in the lavish dining halls of Rouen. William entertained many guests, typically just Norman barons or other people of prominence from the area, but it was clear that this summer Harold and his retinue were on the premier guest list.
Charles and I had little to say to the Normans or their French friends, so usually we would just stand off to the side and try to appear soldierly. I say try only because that summer was filled with more drink than I’ve ever known in my life and it was difficult to be the man I’m reputed to be. Somehow we managed it and during those nights I learned the most about William’s ways. He was gracious as a lord could be, though he seemed to always be hiding something. Harold must surely have noticed as well, smart man that he was, for William had a cunning look etched into his brown eyes.
Whether Harold noticed or not I cannot say simply because we never had that discussion. He did, however, play his own roles well and at only three years William’s senior the two men found common ground in every conversation I witnessed. After a month or so of this the time and weariness was starting to drag on the Saxon warriors and sailors. As I said before, I could not have cared less, but they all wanted to go “home.” Harold rarely discussed the issue with the men, as it was a dead one for the moment. He talked instead with Mora, William’s wife and thus the duchess of Normandy. Her true name was Matilda, I believe, but it is hard to remember. It seemed as though everyone called her by the nickname, even Harold, which was a bit inappropriate in my opinion but Harold had always been somewhat debonair in his interactions.
“My men wish to go back to England,” Harold said with an exasperated grimace one night.
Mora smiled for him and bent slightly to scratch behind the ear of a hound at her feet. The dog’s tail wagged in response and cast a flicker of shadows from the hearth’s gentle blaze. “You would go back to the cold so soon?”
“Oh to depart brings my heart much pain,” Harold replied deftly. “But I’m afraid it must be done.”
The duchess giggled like a girl, which is a just observation because she was always the size of one. I am by no means a giant of a man but I believe I stood nearly a foot taller than her. I would be surprised if Mora had been any more than five foot, but that did not steal away any beauty she possessed. She was built like a young girl as well, to be sure, with very small high breasts and a childlike face that seemed unwilling to lose the slight chubbiness usually found solely in adolescent cheeks. Her skin was bronzed easily by the sun but her maids did well to hide that, using paling powders and rouge on her cheeks and lips. She never looked painted, but she almost always was.
“I don’t know how I’m to go back though,” Harold pondered aloud. “None of my countrymen have come this way.”
“You are no prisoner,” Mora said. “My husband and you are friends. All one needs to do is ask.”
“Friends in name, I suppose,” Harold replied with a little more reveal than he probably intended. Mora’s green eyes widened.
These feigned trysts of theirs were few and far between, I should add, and I can vouch with a certainty of my heart that Harold never had carnal knowledge of the duchess. The discussions were merely what they were: discussions. Harold and Mora each had a guard posted at the doors. Harold usually chose me, I think because even at that time he valued my opinion, as little as it was, more than the Saxon men of his household. Because of the guards, me and a Norman fellow named Christoph, William never felt compelled to jealousy as he lay alone in his bed upstairs.
“Perhaps you just need to prove friendship to him,” Mora suggested. “Then a… gift… would be appropriate. He could grant you a new ship, perhaps?”
“You know I would loathe to leave your family’s company,” Harold said with his grandest of smiles. His teeth shined pearl white in the light of the fire.
“Think nothing of it,” Mora replied coyly. “You have your kingdom to attend to.”
Harold smiled at that too, and well he should have. He was by no means a king, yet England was already being referred to as his. It was a bold statement, and perhaps a bit grandiose, but not nearly so much as those Saxons who already made snide comments that King Edward could hardly take a piss without a Godwin to lace the breeches.
“Anything he needs me to do,” Harold said with spread hands, “I’m his man.”
* * *
The cost of William’s friendship was fairly small, for all he truly wanted were battle companions. We only added five men total, including Harold, to probably a thousand Normans under William’s command. Despite the petty numbers we gave to bolster the chevaliers of Normandy, William was more than grateful for our company.
We rode on our borrowed horses towards Brittany, a neighboring country to Normandy and though not particularly hostile, William enjoyed going on raids. “It’s a good way to keep the men trained, and fill the coffers,” William told Harold as their beasts cantered alongside each other.
“Ah,” Harold said as though he had not already pieced that puzzle together. “At home we have training ground as well. We call it Wales.”
William laughed genuinely and clapped Harold on the back. My hands tensed on the bridle but that was only out of reflex. I had sworn an oath to Harold only a year before but I had known him a couple years already. Any lifted hand in the earl’s direction, even in the friendly manner William meant, could make me bristle like an old boar.
Horses are not really my favorite animal, but that does not mean I do not appreciate their uses. The Saxons fight on foot rather than ahorse, which always worked well for me because it came naturally to me to lock shields and work in a great unit. My father had taught me the basics on wielding a shortsword and round shield, and the rest came with Harold’s intuition about me. That summer, however, the Saxons and I were forced to mount up in order to keep pace with the Normans.
Charles and I kept close to Harold on the ride, both of us still a little wary of these Norse descendants. Our other two men mingled through the lines of Normans, trying to find common ground with the foreign people. Harold and William were intent on riding together for most of the trip, exchanging jokes and even talking tactics. At times Harold found awkwardness with the discussions as William had never learned how to read and one of Harold’s favorite subjects was books. That was one of the reasons I think I got along so well with the earl, because I could read and write in Latin and after only two years was starting to do so pretty well in the Anglo tongue too. Harold handled this difference between himself and the duke gracefully, after all it’s out of the ordinary for people to take the time to become literate anyway.
The landscape of Brittany was breathtaking, as was the weather in comparison to England. I was never too fond of the rains ever-present in Wessex and its surrounding countryside, but after time you learn to deal with it. Brittany made me forget that after a bit. It had the sun of a summer season reminiscent of the Mediterranean, but without the overbearing heat. Flowers and tall grasses shrouded the plains like massive blankets upon the earth. Where the plains turned to wooded areas the shade brought a brisk wind that helped cool the iron on our backs and even seemed to soothe the saddle sores. Either that or just made us forget about them for a moment.
At the other side of one of those woods was a gathering of Bretons, and they were the first opposition we had experienced. I think there must have been about two hundred of them, with only half mounted and the rest on foot armed with spears and whatever else they could find with a sharp edge. William commanded a thousand chevaliers near his home at all times, but we had left something around six hundred back in Rouen, and thus numbered about four hundred mounted raiders that day. More than enough for Brittany’s soldiers. Supposedly William gave the order but I don’t even think I heard it though I was so close. The Normans were like animals that had been bereft of food for a couple weeks. They galloped forward at hardly a signal.
I tried to maintain with those chevaliers but it was difficult. Most of them had destriers, great biting and bucking horses bred for war, while I had a sleeker animal. Mine was a courser, a great breed for speed but at times adverse to charging into flailing swords and axes. A beast smarter than men. Who would have thought?
When I crashed through the Bretons they had already been scattered and their minute resistance humiliated beyond relief. I found it hard to stay balanced on my mount with the shield strapped to one hand and my gladius clutched in the other. Charles had a rougher time of it, tumbling from the saddle when he struck out at his first Breton swordsman. A following Norman slaughtered the Breton before he could act on his advantage, but that did little to halt the pink flushing up Harold’s captain’s face.
I know violence well. I don’t claim to be a warlord but I know the difference between a battle and sheer butchery. This was the latter. That summer day that had begun with orange and black butterflies in a Breton woodland ended with the scarlet and grey of a clouded evening massacre. Harold must have felt obliged to prove some worth to William for he slew at least three Bretons himself, his sword rising and falling with deadly precision. He put himself in harm’s way by seeking the deaths he felt justified in delivering, and it was in one of those instances I killed my only warrior of the day.
The Breton carried a javelin and looked toward Harold’s back when he rode through a thicket of their troops. I don’t know if his aim would have been true, for he never got to hurl the missile. I placed myself between him and my lord. Instantly he dropped the javelin into a prodding stance, and I tried to move the beast between my legs like I’d seen the chevaliers do. They must have some magic in that touch, because my horse responded to my knees and heels with the same vigor it would have if it were dead. What did seem to provoke a response was when that Breton’s javelin prodded into my horse’s chest. The courser backed up and flung its hooves before it like two clubs but that lucky bastard dodged the blows. Somehow I stayed in the saddle and when the beast’s front legs touched down again I swung my sword and the Breton’s luck ran out. He had lifted the javelin to shield his face being sheared like cloth but the blade bulled through the shaft and lodged in a tangle of iron, skull, and brain.
The blood on the battlefield ceased to flow almost as quickly as it began, but in that short span of time a scarlet river was formed. The flowers and tall grasses of that plain at the edge of the woodland had been trampled and churned to a paste among the bloody mud. The Bretons had lost nearly every man, I think the final tally of their corpses numbered one hundred and twenty-six. The rest had somehow managed to flee the hunting Normans. With those scores dead the border towns of Brittany were virtually undefended. We swept in like the cold, ravaging towns and villages no bigger than ten buildings each with names I cannot even remember. Their defenses had been those strong young men sent to oppose us when we entered their land. Now they had nothing.
William’s delight was not in killing but in the domination of those lesser than him. To be honest at the time I envied him in that, because he had established quite a reputation even in his later teens. He had been baseborn, the product of Robert the Devil’s union with a tanner’s daughter, yet had risen above and beyond that hindrance at a young age. His name alone spoke volumes, and his men respected him because he promised to provide and he did just that.
Most of the loot gathered from the smaller villages consisted of iron pots and pans or dinnerware of pewter, but there were a few places that yielded a greater bounty. Those places had stashes of silver or even stones like amber and garnets at times. Then of course there were weapons caches of heir loomed swords and the like that now passed into Norman hands. I stayed close to Harold when we traipsed through those Breton lands; mainly because it was my duty, but also because the chevaliers were felling farmers and craftsmen, the old and the young, the weak and the untrained. There’s no glory in that.
Even without my seeking it, at times the sword of death seemed to be in my grip. Harold was well-dressed and groomed in William’s company and as such was a prime target for some of the more daring Bretons we faced. Those ones fell to either Harold’s sword, my own, Charles’, or even William’s blade on occasion. As a result, when our troop made its way back to Normandy we all had full bellies, hardly a loss to grieve over (maybe twenty Normans were killed), and many of us had a bit of wealth to smile over. I had two extra sets of mail in my horse’s pack, and though not of as good a quality as the set on my back I knew the Breton armor would fetch a pretty penny.
Harold had nothing, for he gifted all his trophies to William who beamed with his horse and packhorse straining under the weight of silver, mail, and a couple well-made swords. It was just for show, of course, because he would get much more kicked his way when his men coughed up a third of their takings. Not Charles and me though. We liked William well enough but he wasn’t our duke. As far as the Saxons and I were concerned we got some loot that would have us all eating the pick of the markets for a year.
We were hailed like conquering heroes when we entered Rouen, with a few regions of the city even waiting with pails of blue and yellow flower petals to shower down on us. As we entered William’s castle and left the din of Norman praise behind us, William dismissed his men and left his personal loot in the courtyard to be tended by servants that were little more than slaves. One of us had to go with Harold when he followed the duke, so reluctantly I trusted Charles to sell my loot with his in the city and give me my due.
“Draw two baths,” William snapped at a serving girl as the two nobles strode into his hall. “One in my quarters and another in our guest’s.” She nodded meekly and scurried off with her pretty blue eyes never lifting from the floor. Her lips turned up in a smile when she passed me and I thanked God she did not see the agitation on mine. I can’t stand a woman who would accept such a dismal fate of subservience. Well, I can stand them, but only for one night.
“A bath will feel nice,” Harold said with exaggerated weary when he plopped onto a lavishly cushioned chair in William’s seating room. I stood in the doorway and glanced about at books that clearly must have never been read in this castle. I suppose they were just for vanity. Books are expensive when you can even find them, and to own several often speaks of wealth.
“I try to remember every couple weeks,” William replied. “When you add the dust of travel to the time, there’s nothing for it but to soak yourself for an hour or so.”
Harold chuckled. “I agree. When you finish I have something to discuss with you.”
“Come now, my friend,” William said with a grin. “Now you know you can discuss anything with me.”
Harold shifted uncomfortably. “As much as I love staying here with you and yours, with autumn coming I have to be going back to Wessex.”
“Ah,” William said. “That is a topic for after a nice bath and a change into some comfortable clothing. I do, however, have a surprise for you. Your generosity in Brittany has not gone unnoticed, my friend. I have decided to release Hakon, your nephew.”
Harold nodded but was at a loss of what to say. Prior to leaving for Brittany he had requested the release of his younger brother, Wulfnoth. William had refused and most oddly gave no explanation as to why, which had irked Harold but he was in no position to demand anything. The release of Hakon almost seemed insolent, for he was nothing at that time. Hakon was the bastard son of Harold’s older brother Svein, and Svein had been enough of a disappointment to the Godwin family. There was nothing tangible then because it was frowned upon to speak of nobility’s mistakes, but now the people who remember Svein seem to recall a tale of rape and another of murder, even. Svein’s offspring then, in exchange for Godwin’s flesh and blood, was just another disappointment. Harold found that drink bitter but drank it anyway, and when the time came he welcomed Hakon into his household troops right off.
That night, however, I waited with Harold for what seemed like an eternity for William to finish bathing. Harold had already taken his bath and ranted about how much of a fool his older brother had been, thanking God and all his angels for granting Godwin the mercy of knowing that error was dead before he died himself. I stood aside and said nothing as my lord rambled on and eventually he calmed down.
“We need to go home, Theo,” Harold said finally. He looked at me then and chuckled because I was leaning against the stone wall of his room with not a care in the world. “You could stay here and be fine, couldn’t you?”
“My home is where you are, my lord,” I replied with a smile.
He laughed and acted as if he would strike me but I never flinched. He laughed again because he knew I had never cared for the title of “my lord” unless I referred to God. My loyalty, I am proud to say, is strong as iron, but that does not mean I’m going to kiss feet or fall to my knees.
“Oh you’re no good to me but for a laugh right now,” Harold exclaimed in feigned anger.
“I’m inexperienced in our present… situation,” I explained. “However, I think now is the time to ask. All William can do is say ‘no,’ and at least then we’ll know where we stand.”
Harold nodded for a moment and sighed. “You’re right, Theo. Are all Sicilians as wise as you?” he inquired with a mischievous grin.
I hardly believed that a man, learned himself, of forty truly believed in the wisdom of a twenty-six year old but I laughed anyway. “I wouldn’t know… not all of them are Greek.”
Harold guffawed and clapped me on the back. “Let’s go ask this great question, then.”
* * * *
In the time it took William to come downstairs we could have whittled ourselves a boat. Harold and I were bored beyond reason and sat with little to do and less to discuss as dusk turned into the purple of night. Several servants entered the room then, one carrying a brazier while the others went about lighting candles.
Charles came in eventually, and I must say I was a little ashamed at my former apprehension in letting him sell my spoils. He gave me a purse of silver that totaled a hundred and forty shillings. It was a great price to be had, and I was filled with excitement because unlike the others I never suffered from the sweet teeth they had for the market’s delicacies. I could do without the cakes and pastries their coins would win them and instead I now had enough to design and forge a helm of my own at any Winchester smithy. The excess money would go into my coffer there or be set to the mending of a rent in a few of the links of my haubergeon.
Now, for the layman, a haubergeon may sound the same as a hauberk, or a mail tunic, or a mail shirt, or anything including mail, but in fact there are differences to a warrior. A hauberk is a popular choice but it stretches far down the legs, beyond the knees, and to me that is just too much weight and not enough mobility. A haubergeon is nearly the same, but the sleeves of iron links stop a couple inches short of the elbows and the skirt ends just above the kneecap. I’d say there is a five pound difference between the two, at least, and if that sounds small try putting five pounds of metal in a knapsack on your back all day and you’ll see a difference.
That was the kind of stuff we chatted over while waiting for the duke to grace us with his illustrious presence. Charles only lingered with us for a while before retiring to his quarters in the Norman castle. He was already prepared for bed, and as a matter of course so were the earl and I. I even wondered if William had fallen asleep himself. As I was about to vocalize this he came striding down the stone steps with an air of exasperated pensiveness in his gait.
He plopped down at the dining room table and picked up a roll that had felt no warmth for at least three hours. “Now, where were we?”
I had to stifle the expression on my face at this audacity. William the Bastard spoke as if he had left the room for a quick piss. Harold, as ever, was tactful. “We were speaking on my matters at home, of which I should be tending to shortly.”
“Ah, yes,” William said as if he had not spent several hours with that single topic lodged in his mind. “There is of course the matter of transport. You, your four housecarls, and twenty-seven sailors if I’m not mistaken? Quite a load.”
Harold’s jaw clenched for the briefest of moments. “Twenty-five sailors, but your memory serves you well everywhere else my friend. It is a burden I regret placing upon you, yet what else can I do when my own brothers don’t come to my aid?”
William chortled. So Godwin’s sons’ infamy had spread through Normandy too? It was well reputed in England that Godwin only produced one boy with true vigor of spirit. Now Gyrth and Leofwine had never been bad ilk, but they lacked the ambition and level of grandiose personality their elder brother possessed. Tostig was another man who was well-equipped with ambition, but lacked all the sense to carry it out. Wulfnoth had never been given a chance, something I’m sure Harold was probably thinking at that very moment with William.
“Perhaps you need some new brothers?” the Norman duke suggested with a cheery smile.
“Maybe just one,” Harold answered with his clever face employed. The left side of his mouth tilted up slightly and his amber eyes glinted in the candlelight.
“Well then, brother, what would you say if I provided you with a ship to take you home?” William asked slyly. “A sixty-five footer, with eighteen pairs of oars. It’ll get you home like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“I’d say I never had a better brother,” Harold said with a laugh. He leaned forward and smacked the table in his excitement. I jolted at the noise and both men laughed at me. The air in the room suddenly seemed a little easier to breathe. We had never been true captives, but there was always this looming notion over our heads that William may just decide to keep his guests forever. The offer of the boat seemed too good to be true. The fact that William provided Harold with transport he could keep was enough to have us dancing.
“There’s one thing,” William continued once the laughter subsided. Ah, I thought, so here’s the onion. As though reading our minds William chuckled and exposed his palms defensively. “I would only ask for you to put my name forth to your witan back home when it comes time for Edward’s succession.”
England had an odd way of appointing its kings, because the requirement held that they had to possess royal blood but this in no way meant that a son was an indisputable heir. Instead, they had a witan, which was a council of elders that had shown themselves to be wise in the decisions of the state. These men would corroborate with one another to proclaim a new king when the old one was dead. From what I was taught, in the Anglo tongue witan basically translates to “wise men.”
Harold was taken aback by this request. Until that instant, I believe he had only taken the rumor of a Norman duke being promised the English crown as sheer tomfoolery. Overall, though, there seemed to be no reason I could think of on why he should not give his word about the notion. If the witan should choose a foreigner as king, a suggestion just as ludicrous as it sounds, then why should it not be a man as close to Harold as this one?
“I will put your name forth,” Harold decided with resolution.
William held out his fist and Harold was obliged to cover it with his own hand, which the duke subsequently covered with his other. “Swear it, my friend,” William said in a tone that brooked no argument.
Harold hesitated for a heartbeat. He nodded and forced a smile that dimmed the cleverness in those amber eyes. “I so swear, my friend, that when Edward’s succession comes into question, William of Normandy’s name shall be the only one on my lips.”
William grinned and so a sigh of relief escaped the three of us at the table. It seemed such a small moment in time, and when it was finally over we were all the happier for it. I had two cups of watered wine through the remainder of the night, but it was plain to see my company had much more. They laughed and jested into the early morning hours, telling tales of childhood antics and swearing a brotherhood between them only lacking in blood.
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