CHAPTER 4 –THE RIDE OF RICHARD OF NORMANDY
While the Admiral spent his time in rest and rage, the Paladins continued to work. Enemy soldiers could have slipped into the lower levels during the assault, and many continued to creep about outside in search of coin their fellows had missed. This threat required a room-by-room search. After that, they had to contrive a repair for the broken portcullis, new barriers to replace the drawbridge that could no longer be raised, and some manner of reinforcement for the many-holed Tower walls. Only when this work was done could they sit in conference over their captured supplies.
“Comrades,” said Richard of Normandy as they wearily chewed their bread, “we have done all that we can to keep the enemy without these walls, but those same defenses enclose us ever tighter within. Sooner or later we will fall to so great a siege. Wherefore it seems wise to me that we should send to the Emperor for aid, for without it our death is inevitable.”
“You speak a folly,” said Duke Naymon. “There is no man here that would take such a message. The land is filled with innumerable foes. He who left could not possibly survive to deliver our plea. Better to trust in Providence for delivery from the fate you foresee – which I cannot dispute – than to waste our strength and lives on a hopeless mission.”
“All I can add,” said Floripas, “is that you should fill what time we have left with as much joy as you can. You have here twenty fair maidens; let each of you take one at his pleasure.”
The younger knights, including Roland, Oliver and several others, rejoiced at this suggestion and thanked Floripas with words of great praise, but Duke Thierry of Ardennes interrupted them angrily.
“Sirs, you have seen with what great numbers we shall be shut in and there can be no doubt that we shall eventually be overrun. We must do as Duke Richard suggests and send a messenger to Charles.”
“That is all well and good, but who would risk such a fate?” asked Ogier.
Roland stood. “I will.”
“NO!!” This burst from many throats, but it was Duke Naymon who continued. “Of us all, Sir Roland, you are the one who must not go. The Pagans’ dread of your hand is half our defense. If they discovered you gone, the Admiral’s host would drown us like the tide; we could stack bodies like hay in the harvest and still they would not pause.”
Roland sat grudgingly but several other knights immediately stood and volunteered to go in his place – including Guy of Burgundy, though his name was withdrawn when Floripas would not consent to his leaving. After many disputations, it was the arguments of Richard of Normandy that finally held sway.
“My lords, you know that I am blessed with a son of great noblesse who, as I suppose, is valiant in arms already. If I am slain in delivering this message, he will receive my heritage, hold it, and continue our service to Charles. How many of you can say the same?
“But more, hasn’t the Emperor dealt more generously with me than he has with anyone else?” That prompted a storm of protests, but he held up a hand and forged on. “Did he not grant me a Duchy, even when I refused to accept it until he’d confirmed our ancient law: That any man, be he thrall or slave, who dwells a year in Norman land is thereafter free forever? Did he not heap me with honor and riches despite that defiance? Who but I, then, should undertake this perilous task?
“And finally, while I grant the presence in this company of arms as strong as mine, who among you would compete with me for saddle-skill alone?” No one answered, for Duke Richard had justly earned his fame as the finest rider in the Kingdom. “Since speed will matter more than strength in so desperate an envoy as we now consider, I am the best choice to serve as messenger.”
When the others had regretfully agreed, Duke Richard bowed his head. “Your tears do me honor, but we have no time for sorrow. Let us plan how I should depart; for if the Saracens discover my passage I could not possibly resist them.”
“My opinion is this,” said Roland. “If we rise with the light and make a sortie, the Admiral’s armies will assault our passage with such vigor as to loose their watch on the Tower. You may then depart in secrecy while the rest of us lead the foe on a merry chase. When enough time has passed, and we have sufficiently done our desire, we shall return to safety and pray for your success.”
So it was agreed, but so it was not to be. When the company gathered by the gates in the morning they beheld a force of countless Saracens crowded so thickly around the Tower bridge that a charge was impossible. They were trapped.
* * *
Two months passed in this way. The Admiral would not attack, but he massed his guards so tightly about the Tower that the Peers were pinned within. The break finally came when the Admiral lost patience and went hunting with many of his kings. With their captains away, the soldiers’ diligence relaxed. Sharp-eyed Ogier, watching from a high window, noticed the difference and quietly summoned the French to don their armor.
The shock of the Paladins’ charge shattered the boggling cordon and drove deeply into the heathen camp. The pursuit began slowly, but soon gathered up the whole of the surrounding force. First hundreds, then thousands of Saracens flew vainly after the racing group, like a mob of crows pursuing a hawk.
Duke Richard, half blinded with tears, waited in the Tower until the last guard had joined the chase, then softly left in their wake. He spurred his horse for the hills that ringed the city, riding without pause to the very peaks. Only then did he stop to rest.
A lesser rider would not have made half that distance, but as the other Peers had acknowledged, Richard was unique. Even so, by the time they finished the climb his mount was shaking so hard that it could barely take the final steps.
Looking down, the Duke saw the French retire in good order to the Tower and breathed a prayer of thanks. The sight lightened his heart. Only briefly, however, for a long journey lay ahead. He slipped from the saddle to attend to his exhausted horse.
It was at this moment that fortune had her laugh.
* * *
The sun emerged suddenly from behind a cloud and framed Richard’s image on the hilltop. The movement as he dismounted was just enough to catch the eye of the Saracen King Brullant and his hunting companions.
“Sortibrant, Clarion, look!” he said. “That can be no one but one of the French, a messenger to Charles seeking aid. Let us gather some troops to take him captive.”
“By my oath, we shall not!” said Clarion. “One of those Frenchmen slew my champion and friend, Rampyr. I shall not be content until my own sword rests at this one’s throat.”
Sortibrant remonstrated with the young king as he pulled on his armor. “Don’t be a fool! In a few minutes we could have a thousand troops at our side. Why not be safe and sure about this man’s capture?”
“You may run for help if you wish, but I am riding to battle,” said Clarion. He climbed back into his saddle, yanked the reins wickedly about and charged up the hill. Sortibrant watched with dismay as he left.
Brullant placed an understanding hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Go. I will render what aid I may while you bring up support. The messenger will no doubt be captured by the time you return, but it would be good to have chains with which to bind him.”
He spurred after Clarion with a loud blast on his hunting horn. In this effort he was quickly frustrated, however, for the younger King owned an enchanted saddle that gave his charger the strength to race without tiring for thirty leagues. So mounted, the Admiral’s nephew easily outdistanced Brullant over the difficult terrain.
Richard of Normandy jumped at the cry of an approaching horn, then gasped as if struck by a strong blow to the stomach. Two armored knights were riding toward him, the leader on a mount that raced over the ground like a bird on the wing. Meanwhile his own horse, the noble Doulstyn, still blew with exhaustion.
Flight was impossible, delay would be fatal, and he could already see a thousand more shapes stirring further downhill, beneath the forest canopy. His soul chilled at the sight, but none of Charlemagne’s Dukes were men to be ruled by their fears. Richard stroked Doulstyn’s proud neck with a murmured apology, then mounted to face the foe.
* * *
Clarion rode his enchanted horse into the clearing with a thirty-foot leap that cleared both a massive boulder and a screen of small trees. “Hold, Messenger! Here shall your errand fail, as shall the thread of your life!”
“What trespass have I done to you that you should accost me so?” answered Richard. “Leave me be and I promise to remember your kindness.”
Clarion raised his shield and pulled out his sword. “In a few minutes you’ll be past remembering or forgetting anything.” He spurred his mount to a savage attack.
Richard could feel Doulstyn trembling beneath him. He knew the stallion couldn’t withstand the shock of a fresh charge. Nevertheless, he urged the good steed forward and rose in the stirrups as if to meet his opponent strength-to-strength and shield-to-shield.
Clarion smirked inside his helmet as the distance closed. The Frenchman had lost his nerve! His mount was shying from the impact of a clash. It was a bit of cowardice for which Clarion would make him pay dearly.
He closed on the French messenger with his sword held high. Adding the speed of his charge to the force of his cut, he drove a blow that crashed through his opponent’s weakened guard. The man reeled in his saddle.
A sharp command to his mount brought them spinning around as they passed, parallel to the Paladin and slightly behind. Clarion’s sword rang down a second time on the Frenchman’s helm. This time he sagged.
The Saracen grinned triumphantly. “Now you die!” he cried. He rose in the stirrups for the final blow.
Richard had expected nothing less. With Doulstyn in such a condition he couldn’t hope to win a normal duel. Besides, he couldn’t afford the time, not with a second man approaching. So he’d traded those blows – deliberately weakened his defense – for the position he wanted. The two mounts now stood essentially still, side by side and facing the same direction. Clarion was a little behind him, on the shield side. The plan could still work if he could only clear his head in time.
Clarion roared an exultant war cry and drove down the killing blow, secure in the knowledge that it couldn’t be blocked from that height and angle.
Richard knew it too, so he didn’t try. Instead he dropped his shield hand to the saddle and threw his inside leg – the one between the horses – back and over the high cantle seat.
Clarion’s sword sped past Richard’s moving thigh and smote the spot he’d just abandoned. Sparks erupted from the iron shield. Richard, meanwhile, swung beneath Doulstyn’s wide barrel, burst up on the inside, and stabbed the lightly armored spot at the pit of his enemy’s extended arm. He dropped to his feet as the Saracen collapsed on the blade with an agonized cry. After pausing a moment to catch his breath, he heaved the body down like a bale of hay on a one-handed pitchfork.
Brullant, now less than a hundred yards away, howled with dismay but knew he’d come too late for vengeance. The victorious Frenchman vaulted lightly into Clarion’s empty saddle and raced off down the other side of the mountain. Brullant could do nothing but watch the fleeing back vanish into the trees. He reined up, uttered a curse, and sounded his horn for aid.
* * *
Saracens began to arrive on the spot within a few minutes. They came by the hundreds, but there was nothing they could do. The majority simply covered their faces and set up a great cry of mourning, while the others tried to catch the reins of Richard’s horse.
Doulstyn, however, would abide the touch of no heathen hand. With his reins flying behind him, the good steed wound his way back down the mountain toward the Tower where he’d been stabled for the past many months.
When the Admiral saw the riderless horse he rejoiced to the Kings around him. “By my god Apollo, see you there? My nephew Clarion has slain the French messenger! From this moment he stands highest of you all and dearest to my heart.
“You men,” he ordered. “Bring me that stallion.”
This doubled the number of pursuing soldiers but added nothing to their success. Despite all their efforts, the noble Doulstyn escaped to the Tower. The Paladins who’d remained met him with the deepest grief.
Duke Naymon spoke first. “Richard of Normandy, sore shall you be missed! And no less because your fall means that we shall have neither aid from the King nor help from your party in France.”
Roland, Oliver and the others, hearing these words, wept bitter tears. Only Floripas had comfort to offer.
“By God’s honor, my lords, leave your lamenting and sorrow until we know the whole truth of this matter. For I judge by the sounds outside that more has happened than we might guess.”
At her words the Peers noticed that the noise from beyond the gate had softened from a triumphant roar to a waiting silence. They hastened upstairs to a window and saw a large party coming down the mountainside, bearing a burden toward the Admiral’s flag. The entire Saracen army quickly caught up the shriek of dismay that followed its arrival.
Within the walls a grinning Floripas turned to Roland. “Would you know why the Saracens show such sorrow? Richard has slain King Clarion and won his enchanted saddle. So mounted, he could outfly a bird on the wing! Nothing but Mantryble can stop him now.”
Oliver leapt forward and grasped Roland in a joyous embrace. “Oh my fellow of arms, you cannot know how glad I am of these tidings. My very soul rings sure; our danger has passed. We could be no safer now in the strongest castle of France! Blessed be Richard of God, for he’s born himself nobly indeed.”
The other knights joined their praises to Oliver’s and then, teary-eyed with joy, looked back out the window. The day suddenly seemed brighter than it had but a few minutes before.
* * *
When the Admiral heard of his nephew Clarion’s death, he swooned three times and fell to the earth in a trance. He lay there for many minutes, bereft of his senses, as the Saracens indulged in a great weeping and lamentation. When he woke, though, orders were ready on his lips. He quickly called for a messenger.
“Go to Mantryble and give these letters to Galafer, the warden. Say to him that since it was he who suffered the knights of Charles to come over the Bridge, the which have caused us much grief and annoyance, as you can well relate, it shall be he who bears the responsibility for their actions. Tell him further that one of the French goes thither on an errand to Charles, and that if he succeeds my throne may be as threatened as my Tower. Charge him, therefore, on pain of death, to keep the Bridge so well that no man may pass over.”
* * *
Richard arrived at Mantryble that evening and found the gates of the city barred for the night. Exhausted though he was from the day’s journey and duel, he nevertheless pushed onward, searching far up and down the torrential River Flagot in search of a ford. He found nothing. Upstream the river ran deep and fast, while downstream it exploded in wide, impassible rapids. He returned to a vantage overlooking the city just in time to see the messenger arrive from Balan and to hear the city bells begin their alarm. A short time later, an army of fifteen thousand men poured from the gates and began to search the land.
‘They know I’m here,’ he said quietly. ‘What shall I do now? If I fight, they will strike off my head. If I enter into this hideous river I shall be drowned and lost. Yet if I return to my fellows it would be a great default to Earl Roland, who holds my vow to deliver this message through all trials.’
He pondered in this way for several minutes, searching for another solution, but found none. ‘Very well. It shall be success or nothing.’ He urged his horse down the hill and toward the foaming rapids.
This movement caught the eye of a Saracen troop led by the giant Mandysee, Galafer’s brother. Mandysee was as black as pitch, seven feet in girth, and twice the height of a man, though still smaller than his brother. He called, “Hold messenger! You have ridden too far already. Now shall the death of my cousin Clarion be avenged!” He motioned for his archers to loose their bows at the fleeing knight.
One of the shafts caught in the high cantle of Richard’s saddle and several more whirred past his ear, but none did lasting damage and with the aid of the saddle’s enchantment his mount outraced the cordon to the river’s bank. At that point, however, he was trapped. The searchers spread out behind to cut off his escape and sounded their shrill horns to summon even more hunters to their aid.
Duke Richard urgently searched the bank, desperate for some hint of a way across. There was nothing. The river, still wider than a bow could shoot, flew by faster than a crossbow’s bolt. Here and there it exploded against huge boulders with stunning plumes of white violence. No boat ever made and no swimmer ever born could have survived that current for a minute; and Richard had only his horse and his wits.
He was almost ready to despair when another flight of arrows whirred by. This disturbed a white hart from a small copse of bushes. It bounded away from the attack and down toward the stream. At the bank it paused, seemed to look at him, then stepped daintily into the torrent, dancing precariously from huge, wet stone to huge, wet stone.
‘It’s a miracle,’ Richard whispered. Then he sat up straight and his eyes widened. “It is a miracle!”
Commending his soul to Heaven, the knight spurred his horse into the deadly flood.
His pursuers watched helplessly, abashed. No mortal steed could have traced the white hart’s path, but this one had a magic saddle to sustain it. No mortal rider could have driven a mount into the churning foam; nor guided it from leap to leap; nor stayed in the saddle while it did; but this was Richard of Normandy. Impossible it may have been, but he did it anyway.
Almost.
Ten bounds from the further shore, the horse, exhausted beyond even the magic saddle’s ability to sustain it, staggered and collapsed. Richard leapt free and disappeared into the flood. Search parties dispatched by Galafer found the mount hours later, a mile downstream and battered almost to pieces by the water’s force, but of the messenger they found no sign. The Saracen giant retired to his chambers and prayed to his gods, but found there little comfort.
* * *
The camp and court of Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Emperor of the West, had divided into factions as the months dragged on and the King spent ever more time in seclusion. The depth of this division became clear when he at last called his barons in to council.
“My lords and friends,” he began, “I am much troubled. The cause is apparent; it was I who sent so many of my special barons as messengers to the Admiral Balan, and I who am responsible for their loss. We have idled here these many months, waiting for news, but neither word nor tidings has come.
“The fault is mine. I am no longer fit to lead you. Take this crown. Take it! I depose myself from the throne.”
These words filled Ganelon with relief, for his family had become ever more strident in their desire to abandon the campaign. “The missing men are no loss to us,” they’d said. “Let us return and claim what we can from their absence.” As the spokesman he had resisted, paying a price the King would never know. Now the family would gain its desire without any compromise to his honor.
He kept these feelings from his face, however, and said, “Sire, if you would hear my advice, I counsel that you delay this decision and instead give orders to take up our tents and return to France. The land of Aygremore is passing strong; the Admiral is of great fierceness; and in addition, he and the other pagans bear you a special grievance by reason of his son Fierabras’ conversion to the True Faith. Let us return then to France, where there are children who shall, in the course of time, wax great enough in arms to replace those barons you have lost.”
This he said with a telling glance at his cousin Aloys, who not-so-secretly coveted the lands those children stood to inherit. “It may take twenty years, but they shall be with us when we return to Spain to recover the bones of Roland, the noble earl for whom you mourn above all others.”
These words smote the King with so great a sorrow that he swooned and could not speak for the space of an hour. Bitterly he said to himself, ‘You poor, miserable wretch, what shall you do? Return and be dishonored? You would be better dead than shamed in such a way. They cannot love you who counsel such a course.’
When at last he came to himself his barons were still there. “You have heard the words of Ganelon, which give me no pleasure. If I return now, without avenging my Peers, what man could trust me thereafter? They would see only shame, and rightfully so.”
Ganelon’s friends and family, including Zachary, Aloys, Aubrey and several others, reacted to this with anger. “Sir Emperor, do not think to take any course but that which Ganelon has so wisely counseled. We have brought twenty thousand men at your command, but with Roland and the others dead they have lost their heart for the fight. If you purpose to go anywhere but back to France, you will do it without them and without us.”
Duke Reyner, Oliver’s father, rose in protest. “My King, if you believe these words your guidance shall be so evil that all of France shall be brought to ruination. Is it possible that men such as Roland, Ogier, Oliver and Naymon could be slain without some sign or portent? No! By this we may know that they live. You must therefore ride forward, to songs of glory, not back to the tune of craven counsel. Those who say otherwise see only a path to their own gain. They pass lightly over the harm they would cause.”
Aloys surged forward, spitting with fury. “Reyner of Atri, your words are lies! If the King were not present you would pay for them with your head. We know well what you are: your father Garin was but a poor man of low condition and you are no better than he. Your words count no more than a slave’s.”
Duke Reyner was never a man to suffer such an injury without taking action. He dove at Aloys and smote him to the ground with a fist.
After that confusion reigned supreme. The two men rolled on the earth, while others roared and fought above them. Had Charlemagne not been present someone would surely have died. Even then, it required the mass and might of Fierabras to separate the combatants long enough for the King to make himself heard.
“Hold where you are! By my crown, the next person to strike a blow shall be hanged as a thief whatsoever may be his estate.”
“Reyner,” swore Aloys viciously as he wiped at his nose, “it may not happen here or now, but your life shall be mine when we return to France.”
“Say not so,” interrupted the King. “You shame me, Aloys, to make such threats in my Court. Retract them now and make your amends or I will do open justice where we stand.”
Aloys glared bitterly at Duke Reyner for a long moment, then slowly dropped to his knee and begged the Duke’s pardon. No sooner had he done so than another great commotion began, this time outside the pavilion. One of the guards cried out, “Hold! You can’t go in there! What do you think . . . !”
He never finished the challenge. Instead he came hurtling back through the door, crashed into Aloys, and sent both of them sprawling to the ground. A strange apparition followed him in; a filthy, gray-haired figure that strode heedlessly past all who sought to restrain him and knelt before the King.
Furious, Aloys snatched the guard’s fallen sword and would have slain the beggar where he knelt but for Ganelon’s holding him back. Then the figure spoke in a voice as dusty as his clothes. “Sire, I have returned.”
“Richard!”
