Hanged! The terrible word brought images into Baudouin’s head that he would far rather not have seen. Hanged. He saw the noose tightening, the face swelling, the eyes and tongue protruding and the dreadful, shaming loosening of bladder and bowels. Dear God in heaven, it was no fate for a lord, to be strung up like a common criminal for the entertainment of the peasants.
So far, it had not come to that. Aghast at the king’s words, powerful friends and relatives had spoken up, bravely facing the king in his fury — it was already well known that a fierce red-hot temper went with the ruddy face and gingery hair — and pleading for the rebels. They had learned a bitter lesson, their friends said. They now freely admitted that King William was the equal of his magnificent forebear and that England was as safe in his hands as it was in those of his illustrious father the Conqueror.
William considered. He kept them waiting, and perhaps he enjoyed making them suffer. Then he declared that he would not enforce the ultimate penalty. The old lords, he announced, would be spared punishment out of the respect they had earned through their long and loyal service to his father. Baudouin allowed himself a wry smile; no doubt, he reflected, the king had reasoned in the privacy of his own thoughts that these old lords would soon be dead anyway and no more threat to him, and it was good for a new king to be able to show leniency that was not likely to cost him anything.
The retribution meted out on others was, however, severe. Odo and the two leaders at Rochester were sent into exile, the king took possession of their estates and their lands, and everything they owned that was not on their persons was removed into the king’s keeping.
The rush to make peace with the king began as soon as this news began to spread. All over the country, the rebels changed in the blink of an eye from the king’s enemies to his staunchest supporters. It was already being whispered that those with the means to do so were trying to buy their way back into royal favour. The king, they said, was not proving unreasonable. .
‘I must have my crown!’ Baudouin cried aloud. There was nobody to hear. Of all objects to appeal to a king who, not yet a year into his reign, had already had to deal with a rebellion and a possible invasion led by his own brother, the crown must surely top the list. I will tell him all that I know of it, Baudouin thought. I will tell him of its extraordinary powers. The king was reputed to be half-pagan; he had no time for monks and clerics and some went as far as to say that he worshipped the old ways. He was the very man to understand what possession of a power object such as the crown would mean.
Gilbert de Caudebec must swiftly be persuaded to release it, Baudouin vowed, because time is crucial. I must be one of the first to petition the king for forgiveness, for I cannot rest until I know Drakelow is mine once more.
Baudouin was caught in a trap, and circling round and round in it was all but driving him to distraction. Gilbert’s reasoning for not returning the crown to him straight away was that the place where it had been found — Drakelow — was not actually Baudouin’s property at present, but it could not be until Baudouin had won it back: by presenting the king with the crown.
Gilbert had at long last been made to see the irony of this — Baudouin had all but exploded with the effort of keeping his temper — but he was still dithering over whether he would be right to return the crown to the man who claimed so forcefully to be its rightful owner. Do it! Baudouin thought fiercely. Just do it!
There was another, more serious problem for Baudouin to deal with. When he related to Gilbert and the assembled company of important lords’ men the harrowing account of Romain’s brutal murder, he had expected to be believed. He was Baudouin de la Flèche, lord of Drakelow; he was one of their own kind and his word should be sufficient. Now Gilbert was dithering over that, too, asking Baudouin if he could possibly bring the witness before him so that he could hear for himself what this person had to say.
The problem was serious, yes. Not insurmountable, at a cost, but still serious. In addition, there was that wretched girl, saying now that she’d been with Sibert all along and he had committed no murder. Fortunately she appeared to have a reputation as a liar. She had already convinced everyone that she had been nowhere near Drakelow and her tale had been backed up by some village healer who he understood to be the girl’s aunt. Gilbert, sensibly and reasonably, had dismissed the child out of hand. Despite this, Baudouin had a nasty suspicion that she hadn’t given up. There had been something about her; young, skinny and powerless as she was, she had stared him in the eye — something that few dared to do — and he was wary of her, sufficiently so that he had taken the trouble to work out a course of action if she persisted. He smiled grimly. Let her try. He would rather enjoy it if he were forced to do what he had planned. If he was to be denied the spectacle of a hanging — a state of affairs that he persuaded himself was purely temporary — then what he had in mind for the girl would provide some much-needed entertainment. .
Reminded, he brought his thoughts back to the most pressing issue. Sibert must be dispatched; there was no other way. Whatever it took, the crown must not return to the boy or his family. They too had a claim on Drakelow; an older and stronger one than Baudouin’s, although he would never have admitted that to a living soul. The king was in a strange, unpredictable mood, they said. Because his sympathies were rumoured to lie as much with the old religion as with the priests and the Church, it was just possible that an appeal by the original owners of Drakelow just might tickle his fancy and meet with success.
Then Drakelow, the new house and castle, the land, the outbuildings, would all be lost to him.
That was unimaginable.
It must not happen.
With Sibert dead, it was not going to happen.
Sibert will die, Baudouin told himself. The crown will be returned to me, and with it I shall buy back my manor.
The crown. .
Apart from its crucial use as a bargaining tool, Baudouin found increasingly that he longed to possess it for its own sake. He had seen it only briefly, held it for an even shorter time when he drew it out of the youth’s leather bag and held it up. Nevertheless, it had already taken hold of him and sometimes he woke from uneasy dreams in which it encircled his brow so tightly that his head ached and, when he put up his hands to ease it off, it would not move. And, despite his efforts not to dwell on it, he could not help remembering that terrifying moment when it had seemed to strike him dumb. .
The crown.
The crucial aim of making Romain believe that he alone knew about the wonderful treasure hidden at Drakelow had been achieved very well. Romain, indeed, deserved credit for perseverance, for he had encountered that mysterious man, Roger, and, refusing to give up, had finally heard from his own lips the strange tale he had to tell. Romain had been an innocent, Baudouin reflected, and did not seem to have suspected for an instant that his uncle had his own private ways and means of keeping abreast of virtually everything that happened at Drakelow. Much of what happened was at his personal instigation.
Baudouin now suspected — as he was almost sure Romain had not — that Roger deeply regretted having sold his ancient secret to a Norman newcomer. Well, that was too bad. If — when — Baudouin regained the crown, then nobody was going to wrest it from him and prevent him using it for his vital purpose. Especially not a turncoat who, in his attempts to ingratiate himself with his new Norman overlords, had even changed his name.