Valkyries Calling-Chapter 90: Ashes of Loyalty

The herald had barely stumbled through the tent flap before Richard III was on his feet, eyes wild.

"Speak, damn you! Why is the Marshal not returned? Where is Gautier?!"

The herald swallowed, throat bobbing.

"My lord... Marshal Gautier... he has taken his men and sworn to Count Robert. They opened Rouen’s gates to him at dusk. By now he is feasting in your brother’s hall."

For a heartbeat, the tent fell silent but for the faint drip of meltwater off the canvas eaves. Then Richard let out a strangled, animal cry.

He overturned the heavy table with both hands, sending cups and crusts skidding across the rushes. A platter of salt meat cracked against the pole.

"Treachery! Treachery on every side!"

His captains flinched. A few stepped backward as Richard snatched up his sword and swung it, scattering a rack of spears.

"Dogs! All of you; would you run too? Would you crawl to my brother for scraps? By God’s own blood, I will hang any man who breathes of leaving this camp!"

Sir Hugues of Eu, grizzled and hollow-eyed from sleepless weeks, cleared his throat.

"My lord, we starve. The men freeze. Many have not shoes left to wear. Perhaps we might send a herald—"

Richard turned on him, face blotched red.

"And tell Robert he has won? To beg for his pity like a whipped cur? Never! I would see Rouen in flames first and you upon the pyre with it, old man!"

Hugues stiffened. Two other knights exchanged a look, shifting subtly toward the tent’s edge.

Outside, Richard’s raised voice carried over the whole battered camp, so that men tending weak fires looked up with wary, hollow eyes.

The Duke rounded on the rest of them.

"Get out! All of you. Prepare the horses. Rouse every man fit to hold a blade. Tonight we strike; we drive these traitors into the Seine or perish on the banks ourselves. Go!"

They obeyed, though some moved with the gait of men already half-broken.

The tent emptied, leaving Richard alone amid the wreckage, panting, one hand clutching at his temple as if to keep his skull from splitting apart.

Across the city walls, inside the warm glow of Rouen’s stone keep, Robert leaned over a small table strewn with markers and wax seals.

Gautier stood beside him, arms folded, the lines of recent strain still etched deep.

"If we strike at dawn, my lord, they may still be raw from breaking camp," Gautier said. "Their horses are weak, their bellies empty. Or what remains of them, most were butchered for meat weeks ago. They will shatter with the first hard blow."

But Robert shook his head, smiling faintly.

"No. Let them come to us. Richard’s pride is his own snare. He will not sit in his mud while I feast in Rouen. He will come tonight, certain he can catch us drunk and sprawled. We will be ready."

He moved a small iron figure across the table to mark where his household knights would lie in wait outside the city’s outer earthworks.

Another cluster of tokens represented archers in concealed ditches.

"When Richard strikes at my city walls, we will sally forth and fall upon him from both flanks. Crush what little heart remains to him. By morning, there will be no more war; only a brother’s corpse and a crown uncontested."

Gautier inclined his head.

"A clean end, then."

Robert’s eyes glinted.

"As clean as such matters ever are."

Beyond Rouen’s walls, Richard’s battered army stirred in the dark.

Men moved like shades through mud and half-melted snow, strapping on rust-pocked helms, checking frayed reins, tightening belts over hollow stomachs.

And inside his pavilion, Richard III stood alone, breath misting in the cold. His sword rested across both palms.

In the flicker of a single oil lamp, he seemed almost to whisper to it, or to himself, as if the steel alone could still be trusted.

"Tonight, brother. Tonight I will end your scheming."

Outside, the cold wind shifted. Fires wavered. And Normandy waited to see whose blood would be offered up to sate the hungry earth by dawn.

---

They came on foot, in the black hour before dawn, boots sucking at the wet ground, half their torches guttering in the wind.

The few lean mounts they still possessed were left behind; most had been eaten through the bitterest weeks of winter, boiled down to greasy broth that clung rancid on their breath.

Richard III led them himself, gaunt and hollow-eyed, wrapped in a black cloak lined with moth-eaten sable.

His sword was naked in his hand, the edge dull from too many rough sharpenings, like everything else in his dwindling warhost.

Behind him tramped knights on foot, their mail hanging loose over wasted shoulders, and levies whose spears were little better than pointed sticks.

They moved as men too tired even to fear. Only the promise of sacking the city Robert Occupied, of warm meat and plunder, pushed them on.

"Keep silent!" Richard hissed over his shoulder. "We strike like wolves in the dark. And tomorrow, Normandy is mine again."

But even as he spoke, faint lights danced ahead; not the careless glow of a drunken encampment, but the steady gleam of ordered watch fires.

He didn’t see how many torches lay carefully set in lines, a false sprawl meant to lure him on.

They were less than two bowshots from the outer earthworks when the first arrows fell.

A black hail swept through Richard’s ranks, hissing like winter sleet. Men staggered and dropped, cries muffled by mud.

Then from both flanks burst Robert’s hidden men-at-arms. Shouts ripped the night as steel crashed into the hollow remnants of Richard’s host.

Normandy’s lilies emblazoned on Robert’s men seemed to bloom in the dark; ghostly standards caught by lantern light.

Richard roared, swinging his blade with savage strength, cutting down a man who came too close.

For a moment, he rallied a knot of loyal knights around him, shields locked, faces grim under dented helms.

"Forward! Cut through them! To Rouen’s gates!"

But it was madness. The trap closed too swiftly. Arrows tore into their sides, mailed knights fell shrieking with shafts in bellies or throats.

Then Robert’s dismounted retainers crashed into them with axes and short swords, hacking through the last coherence of Richard’s line.

In the swirl of torchlight and cold breath, Richard fought like a beast cornered; until the pommel of a sword struck his helm and sent him crashing to his knees.

He looked up through a blur of blood and tears to see Robert’s standard approaching, borne by a man with calm, appraising eyes.

Rough hands seized Richard’s arms, forcing him to drop his sword.

It fell into mud already thick with other men’s ruin. He tried to rise, to bellow defiance, but someone struck him behind the knee.

He crumpled, breath exploding from his lungs.

Above him loomed Robert, Count of Mortain, his younger brother. His mail was fresh-polished, his cloak bright. For a heartbeat, Robert looked almost sorrowful.

"You should have yielded, brother. Normandy could have been yours still, under wiser counsel. Now it lies in ashes for your pride."

Richard spat, blood and filth.

"May God damn you, Robert. May all your line be cursed for this treachery."

Robert’s expression hardened. He gave a curt nod, and the guards dragged Richard up, binding his wrists with rough cords.

Around them, the last of Richard’s loyalists were cut down or surrendered, throwing weapons to the mud.

So ended the night; not with the feast Richard promised, but with cold dawn breaking over a field littered with Norman dead.

And in Rouen’s keep, new banners would soon be raised, proclaiming a realm no longer divided.

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