Valkyries Calling-Chapter 76: The Treachery of Mortain

The road to Rouen was lined with fields yet bare from winter’s retreat.

Richard rode at the head of his column. Banner of the ducal falcon unfurled in the cold wind, expecting to see the wooden towers of his father’s motte and bailey thrown open in welcome.

Instead, he found them bristling with spears.

Men-at-arms crowded the ramparts, mail hauberks flashing. Along the palisade, the wolf banner of Mortain snapped alongside the old Norman cross.

Richard’s jaw tightened. These were his brother’s colors; Robert, Count of Mortain. His younger brother, who had once begged for a seat at Richard’s hearth.

Now here he stood, holding the family seat against him.

A horn blast cut the quiet. From the watchtower above the gate, Robert appeared, helm under one arm, his dark hair tangled by the breeze.

"Brother!" Robert called down in Norman French, voice half-taunt, half-plea. "Strike your banners and dismount. Yield your person to the Holy Church; take the tonsure and a life of peace at Fécamp, and I swear on Saint Michael you shall keep your skin and your soul. Normandy will pass into surer hands."

A murmur swept through Richard’s knights. Some glanced uneasily at the ridge where more of Robert’s levies gathered; knights from the southern marches, archers out of Mortain, men who owed fealty to Robert’s gold.

Richard raised his visor, meeting Robert’s stare without flinching.

"You speak of oaths, Robert, but you raise your hand against your own blood, against the line of Richard the Good!" His horse shifted beneath him, pawing the muddy ground. "I will not barter my duchy for a monk’s cell. Nor will I suffer Normandy to be torn by your ambition."

Robert only smiled thinly. "Then Normandy shall be torn by steel, not words. And you will find the gates of your fathers closed to you."

He stepped back. A trumpet shrilled. The drawbridge remained up, chains taut. From the shadowed courtyard came the clatter of men tightening girths, stringing bows, checking spear hafts.

Richard lowered his visor. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword, the old ducal blade gilded by generations past.

"To horse!" he commanded. "We make our camp on the far hill. If Mortain wants Normandy by force, by God and Saint Ouen, he shall taste our steel for every rood he claims."

And thus the Norman fields stood tense beneath lowering clouds, the blood of one house poised to spill upon the very earth that had birthed them both. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com

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The camp of Duke Richard lay sprawled across the low ridges west of Rouen, a sprawl of pavilions and smoky fires that seemed to breed from the frozen earth.

Horses stood picketed by the score, snorting steam. Mail-clad knights dined on haunches of venison, drank rough wine, and watched the gates of Rouen’s keep smolder on the horizon.

Inside his campaign tent, a tall red thing stitched with the falcon of Normandy, Richard sat at a trestle table littered with letters and broken seals.

Wax pooled on the parchment under his lamp. The duke’s hand moved steadily, pen scratching in careful Latin as he drafted summons after summons.

"To the lords of Bayeux and the marches of the Orne... you will muster your knights and serjeants at Rouen within twelve days hence, bearing your full levy of spears and crossbows, under threat of forfeiture of your lands."

A squire hovered close, gathering each sheet as Richard finished, sprinkling sand upon the ink before rolling it tight.

Messengers waited outside in the cold, cloaks drawn tight, ready to race to every corner of Normandy.

At last Richard leaned back, pinching the bridge of his nose. The candlelight showed lines of fatigue carved deep at his mouth and brow.

Richard’s marshal stood nearby, one hand resting on the pommel of his sword. His face was grave.

Though unbeknownst to the Duke, he had met in secrecy with Robert many times in the lead up to the Richard’s return. Why he was here now? Only he knew the answer.

"You reckon they’ll all come?" the Marshal asked softly.

Richard’s eyes flicked to him. "They’ll come. Enough of them, at least. The great lords have sent token companies to Mortain; to keep their hands clean should my brother take Rouen by storm. But they send me threefold that in mail and horse."

He gave a humorless laugh. "They would rather back the rightful duke, so long as it costs them nothing if I fail."

"Better to have wary wolves than open foes," the Marshal said.

"Aye. And if I hold Normandy, I’ll remember who rode quick at my summons; and who dawdled, or sent only second sons with ill-fitted harness."

He looked past the tent flap, where the campfires of his host shone like a scattering of embers across the dark hills.

Each flame a hearth torn from some village, each knight’s spear a wager laid on blood.

Outside, a herald’s trumpet sounded. More riders were arriving; men from the Vexin, from the misted valleys of the Dives, from the far marches toward Maine.

Their banners flapped ragged in the winter wind, stitched with boars and lions, crossed keys and wheeling hawks.

Richard closed his hand around one of the seals still warm from the wax.

"Send these missives tonight," he told the squire. "Ride them to every cloister and baron’s gate. Tell them Normandy bleeds for its duke, and any who will not come stand already beneath God’s judgement."

The squire bowed low and fled with the roll of parchment.

For a moment, silence settled between Richard and his marshal. Beyond the canvas walls, the men of Normandy were sharpening blades, whispering prayers to saints and war gods alike.

Richard exhaled slowly, his breath curling like smoke in the lamplight.

"Tomorrow, we ride to the gates again. If Robert means to hold my hall, then let him do so behind walls braced for a siege. This war will not end in weeks. But I swear it; it will end with Normandy whole, or with me headless upon those battlements."

The Marshal laid his mailed hand upon the duke’s shoulder, gripping it with iron loyalty.

"So be it, my lord. And may Saint Michael judge us both worthy."

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