The Hawks of Delamere d-7 Read online

  The Hawks of Delamere

  ( Domesday - 7 )

  Edward Marston

  Edward Marston

  The Hawks of Delamere

  This man, with the help of many cruel barons, shed much Welsh blood. He was not so much lavish as prodigal. His retinue was more like an army than a household, and in giving and receiving he kept no account. Each day he devastated his own land and preferred falconers and huntsmen to the cultivators of the soil and ministers of heaven.

  ORDERIC VITALIS

  Prologue

  It took three strong men to help him into the saddle. Hugh d’Avranches, Earl of Chester and master of all he surveyed, was now so fat and cumbersome that he could barely waddle along.

  When he came lumbering into the courtyard, he supported himself on the sturdy shoulder of Dickon the Falconer. The rest of the hunting party were already mounted and they waited patiently until the three servants hoisted their master on to his horse, a mighty destrier specially chosen to bear the excessive weight of its noble rider.

  Hugh gazed around the assembly with a twinkling eye. ‘Are you in the mood for sport, my friends?’ he asked.

  ‘We are, my lord!’ came the unanimous reply.

  ‘Sport by day and more sport by night, eh?’ said their host with a lecherous grin. ‘Hawking in one forest then hunting in the dark in another!’

  Crude sniggers greeted the ribald comment but Hugh’s own laughter rose above it. Like the man himself, it was vast and overwhelming, beginning somewhere deep in the cave of his lungs before spreading quickly through the crevices and valleys of his mountainous frame until he shook uncontrollably with mirth.

  The sound reverberated throughout Chester Castle.

  Earl Hugh was amused. It was a good omen.

  They were all there. Robert Cook, Richard Vernon, Hamo of Mascy, Gilbert Venables, Ranulph Mainwaring, William Malbank, Reginald Balliol, Bigot of Loges and Hugo of Delamere were leading barons in the shire, holding their land directly from the earl and regular members of his court. Dozens of other important guests had come from far and wide to enjoy the fabled hospitality of Chester Castle and to share in the pursuits and appetites of its notorious master.

  ‘Are we ready?’ boomed Hugh.

  ‘Ready and waiting, my lord,’ said William Malbank, acting as spokesman for all. ‘We will lead where you follow.’

  ‘You will have to catch me first!’

  Pulling sharply on the reins to turn his horse’s head towards the castle gate, Hugh jabbed his heels into its flanks and set off at a canter. Taking up the challenge, the rest of the party went after him amid a cacophony of yells, giggles and hoofbeats. They were soon scattering the crowd uncaringly in the streets of a city which had long ago been taught never to complain at the antics of the earl and his retinue.

  By the time they reached their destination, the cavalcade had slowed to a trot. The Delamere Forest was a wide stretch of woodland which ran all the way from the River Mersey in the north to the southernmost fringes of the county. Bounded on the east by the River Weaver and on the west by the River Gowy, the forest was a series of woods, coppices, clearings and open land where several hamlets or small villages had taken root.

  Delamere was the favoured hunting ground of Earl Hugh. Those who dwelt in the forest feared his visits and always took care to keep well out of his way.

  Riding beside Hugh at the head of the long procession was William Malbank, a tall, thin, wiry man in his thirties, wearing the distinctive helm and hauberk of a Norman baron. Malbank was in a boastful mood.

  ‘You have met your match at last, my lord,’ he said.

  ‘Never!’ replied the earl with chuckling confidence.

  ‘My gerfalcon is a magical creature.’

  ‘No bird can compete with my hawk.’

  ‘This one can,’ argued Malbank. ‘I have not met a creature who can take partridge, snipe and rabbit with such speed. She comes out of the sky like an avenging angel.’

  ‘There is nothing angelic about my hawk,’ said Hugh, glancing over his shoulder at the bird carried on its perch by his falconer.

  ‘She is the devil incarnate and leaves havoc in her wake. No other bird is safe in the air when she is on the wing. Hares, squirrels and badgers are no match for her and I would even back her against a wild cat.’

  ‘Do not wager against my gerfalcon,’ warned the other.

  ‘She is a mere sparrow beside my hawk.’

  ‘We shall see, my lord.’

  They plunged into the forest and followed a winding path through the undergrowth until they emerged into a heath. Earl Hugh raised an imperious hand and the raucous banter which had marked their journey ceased at once. Hawking was a serious business. It demanded quiet and concentration. The noise of their approach had already frightened most of the game away. A watchful silence was now needed so that prey might be lured back to the area.

  They waited for him to begin the day’s sport. Nobody dared to unleash his hawk before Hugh d’Avranches. In everything he did, the earl had to be first and foremost. A stillness eventually fell on the Delamere Forest, broken only by the song of invisible birds and the occasional jingle of a tiny bell as one of the hawks shifted its feet on its perch. Hugh remained alert, his piggy eyes scanning the heath in all directions, his ears pricked for telltale sounds.

  When he was ready, he gave the signal and Dickon the Falconer untied the hawk, coaxed it on to his arm, then passed the bird to his master. Its claws sank into the thick leather gauntlet as it settled on its new perch but it did not stay there for long. A crane went flapping across the sky in search of marshland and Hugh responded swiftly. Slipping the hood from his hawk, he flicked his arm to send it soaring up into the heavens after the larger bird.

  The crane saw the danger in time and altered its course to dip and weave but the hawk did not go in pursuit. It had spotted a more enticing prey in the long grass and it hovered above its target for a full minute before descending with stunning speed.

  The hare had no chance. The impact knocked it senseless and the talons squeezed the life out of it. One more hapless victim had been claimed by the earl’s hawk.

  ‘Did you ever see such a strike?’ he asked proudly.

  ‘Let my gerfalcon have a turn,’ said Malbank.

  ‘What will it hunt — mice?’

  ‘Do not mock, my lord. My bird has been trained to kill almost any prey. She is the equal of your hawk.’

  ‘Impossible, William!’

  ‘Do you wish to place a wager?’

  ‘It would be an act of cruelty against a friend.’

  ‘Can it be that you are afeared?’ teased the other.

  ‘I fear nothing!’ retorted Hugh, his voice darkening to an angry snarl. ‘Are you accusing the Earl of Chester of being frightened, William?’

  ‘Only in jest, my lord.’

  ‘Then I will throw that jest back in your teeth. If you invite a wager, you shall have it. Pit your gerfalcon against my hawk, if you must, but offer a stake worthy of the contest.’

  ‘Whatever you suggest,’ said Malbank with an appeasing smile.

  ‘Name it, my lord, and it is agreed.’

  ‘Very well,’ decided Hugh, stroking his flabby chin. ‘If your bird proves to be the finer of the two, you can have the best horse in my stables.’

  ‘That is a worthy prize indeed!’

  ‘I will take something of like merit from you.’

  ‘My own best horse?’

  ‘No, William,’ said Hugh, slapping him on the back. ‘Your best mistress. Every time I ride her, I will reflect on your folly in parting with such a sublime creature.’

  Malbank writhed in discomfort and wished that he had never been
so bold as to offer the challenge, but the wager had been set and it was sealed by the general hilarity of the company. It would grieve him to lose his mistress and she would never forgive him if she were subjected to the merciless attentions of the man who was nicknamed Hugh the Gross for reasons not entirely related to his sheer physical bulk. There was no turning back now. Malbank was trapped.

  Earl Hugh made the trap more deadly. After taking advice from Dickon, his shrewd falconer, he insisted that they ride on to another part of the forest. Malbank’s bird was a high-bred Norwegian gerfalcon. In open country, it would be seen at its most effective. In more wooded locations, however, its long wings would put it at a severe disadvantage. Hugh’s short-winged hawk would be able to manoeuvre much more easily among the trees.

  So it proved. The gerfalcon was a fine bird of prey but it had been principally trained to hunt waterfowl on a lake. The hawk, by contrast, was in its element and showed the greater speed and accuracy throughout. Regretting his rash wager, Malbank soon conceded defeat and shuddered as he imagined how tearfully his mistress would react when he told her that her favours had been surrendered to Hugh the Gross.

  The earl was delighted at the outcome and sent his hawk up into the sky for one last celebratory kill. It rose, searched with a ruthless eye, observed its prey and hovered menacingly. Hugh looked up at it with the beaming delight of a father watching a child at play, but that delight soon changed to gaping horror.

  Before the hawk could make one more murderous descent, an arrow suddenly came hurtling up through a gap in the trees and knocked it out of the sky. One feathered weapon of destruction was itself summarily destroyed by another.

  Hugh d’Avranches watched in disbelief as his beloved hawk came spinning downwards with the arrow embedded in its breast.

  He let out a roar of fury which mingled with the shouts of dismay and indignation from his companions. Recovering quickly, he issued a curt command.

  ‘Silence!’

  The tumult ceased at once. There was no sign of the archer but Hugh hoped that sound might betray his position. It was a long wait but it finally yielded bounty. Dickon the Falconer was the first to detect them. He had the keen ears that were vital to his trade and had learned to sleep lightly so that he would pick up the faintest sound of a falcon’s bells in the night. What he heard this time was the muted crackling of bracken under foot.

  ‘Over there!’ he hissed, pointing to some wild hedgerow. ‘There are two of them. Trying to creep away.’

  ‘Catch them!’ ordered Hugh.

  Four of his knights kicked their horses into life. Pursuit was short and arrest was brutal. Terrified that they had been discovered, the two figures who had been sneaking away in the ditch behind the hedgerow now took to their heels in a mad but doomed dash for freedom. Before they had gone more than thirty yards, they were kicked violently to the ground and swiftly overpowered. Stripped of their weapons and dazed by the assault, they were dragged unceremoniously through the undergrowth.

  Both were Saxon peasants in the rough garb of men who tilled the soil. The older of the two was in his forties, a solid, broad-shouldered man with a thick beard covering most of his face. His companion, barely half his age, bore such a close resemblance to him that he had to be his son. They were lifted upright to face the ire of the Earl of Chester.

  ‘You killed my hawk!’ he thundered.

  The father recovered enough to shake his head and gabble his innocence, but his Saxon tongue was incomprehensible to Norman ears. Earl Hugh was, in any case, not in the mood to listen. Sentence was passed without the refinement of a trial.

  The quiver of arrows slung across the older man’s back was all the evidence that the judge needed. After giving himself the pleasure of buffeting each of them viciously to the ground, Hugh indicated a tall tree with an overhanging bough.

  ‘Hang the rogues from that!’

  ‘My lord!’ bleated the younger man piteously.

  But they were the last words he ever spoke. Snatching a lance from one of his knights, Hugh used the end of it to knock him unconscious. Rope was brought, the men were pinioned, then both were hauled up high by the neck to the derisive cheers of the huntsmen. The victims turned and twitched helplessly in the wind as the rope slowly choked them to death. The father tried to plead their innocence to the last but no words came out of his parched mouth.

  Even that grim punishment was not enough to satisfy the bloodlust of the Earl of Chester. He drew his sword and lashed at both men indiscriminately until they were dripping carcasses.

  When his anger had run its course and the mutilation was complete, his voice was cold and peremptory.

  ‘Cut them down and throw them in the ditch!’ he decreed. ‘Let them rot among the vermin where they belong. Leave them unburied so that their offence can stink to heaven.’

  Chapter One

  Ralph Delchard was in an unusually tetchy mood.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ he said with irritation. ‘Why did we have to come to this God-forsaken part of the country?’

  ‘To serve the King,’ Gervase Bret reminded him.

  ‘The King! He’s had more than enough service out of me. Twenty years of it, Gervase. Loyal and unquestioning devotion. It’s high time the King started serving me for a change. Why am I always given the most boring assignments?’

  ‘Try to see it as an honour, Ralph.’

  ‘Honour!’ snorted the other.

  ‘You were chosen because you are trusted.’

  ‘It is completely unjust.’

  ‘Nothing could be more just,’ said Gervase reasonably. ‘Ralph Delchard was appointed as a royal commissioner yet again for one solitary reason.’

  ‘Nobody else was fool enough to take on the work.’

  ‘You were the best man for the task in hand. Doesn’t that make you feel proud? Are you not pleased that the King has shown such confidence in you?’

  ‘No, Gervase.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I have had my fill of riding the length and breadth of England on royal business. I am weary of travel — and so are my buttocks. They are smarting like raw wounds. I need a rest. I yearn for the pleasures of retirement.’

  Gervase Bret smiled indulgently. What his friend really yearned for was the company of his wife, Golde, but she was visiting her sister in Hereford and would not be joining the party until later in the week. Ralph missed her. Genial and buoyant when she was beside him, he became moody and irascible whenever they were apart. The further north they rode, the greater distance they put between man and wife.

  Ralph lapsed into a brooding silence. The two commissioners were at the head of the cavalcade as it followed a meandering 7

  Edward Marston

  track through woodland. They were eighteen in total. To ensure safe travel on the long journey, fourteen knights from Ralph’s own retinue acted as escort and their presence in Chester would emphasise the importance of the embassy. In helm and hauberk, they were fretful after hours in the saddle.

  At the rear of the column, ambling reluctantly along on their mounts behind the sumpter horses, were the portly Canon Hubert and Brother Simon, the spectral scribe. They were even more unhappy about their latest assignment than Ralph Delchard. It was stretching their duty of obedience to the absolute limit.

  Simon shivered so violently that his bones rattled. ‘Are the stories about Earl Hugh all true?’ he asked.

  ‘Alas, they are!’ sighed Hubert.

  ‘Is he really such a monster of depravity?’

  ‘Yes, Brother Simon.’

  ‘But I understood that he was married.’

  ‘The state of holy matrimony has not, I fear, imposed any restraint on his carnal appetite,’ said Hubert sonorously. ‘It is common knowledge that the Earl of Chester has numerous mistresses and a large brood of illegitimate offspring.’

  Simon shivered afresh. ‘And this vile creature is to be our host in the city?’

  ‘Happily, no. We will b
e the guests of Bishop Robert.’

  ‘But we are bound to come into contact with Earl Hugh.’

  ‘Unhappily, yes.’

  ‘I will feel contaminated to be in the same room as him.’

  ‘I feel appalled to be in the same county. Yet,’ added Hubert with a wheezing practicality, ‘we must respect his position. Hugh d’Avranches is more than merely an earl. Cheshire is a county palatinate. King William has no land under his direct control here. To all intents and purposes, Earl Hugh is king. He is a law unto himself.’

  ‘Will he accept the authority of royal commissioners?’

  ‘He must, Brother Simon.’

  ‘And if he does not?’

  Canon Hubert displayed his most ecclesiastical scowl.

  ‘Then we have all made a very long journey in vain!’

  The riders ahead of them came to a sudden halt and Hubert had to tug on the reins to prevent his donkey from colliding with the rump of a bay destrier. Simon brought his straggly mare to a standstill and feared the worst.

  ‘Is there trouble up ahead?’ he wondered nervously.

  ‘We are well protected, Brother Simon.’

  ‘The countryside is crawling with outlaws.’

  ‘That’s why we brought such a sizeable escort with us. I am sure there is an explanation for this pause.’

  Gervase Bret’s horse came trotting back towards them.

  ‘We have decided to break the journey here,’ he said. ‘It will give everyone a chance to stretch their legs before the last few miles to Chester.’

  Most of the riders were already dismounting. Tethering their horses, they took advantage of the stop to satisfy the wants of nature among the trees. Canon Hubert rolled off his braying donkey and tied the animal to a bush.

  ‘Brother Simon and I are deeply disturbed,’ he confided.

  ‘About what?’ asked Gervase.

  ‘The character of Hugh d’Avranches, Earl of Chester.’

  Gervase shrugged. ‘He is no saint, certainly, but he has served the King exceedingly well. North Wales has been quiescent since Earl Hugh inherited the earldom. He rules the border with a strong hand.’