Chapter 68: Thrones of Dust and Ash
As the petty kings of Connacht gathered their levies, encircling Dún Ailline like wolves testing a wounded boar, weeks turned to months.
Word of the Norse incursions, of villages burned and fortresses stormed under moonlight, crept across Europe like rot beneath a polished floor.
By then, Richard III, Duke of Normandy, had arrived in Rome.
It was a city gilded by legend but rotting beneath its painted saints. The marble streets swarmed with merchants, pilgrims, and thieves in equal measure.
Bells tolled for vespers as Richard’s party was led through the Lateran’s heavy bronze doors, the clamor of the outer city fading to murmured prayers and echoing footsteps.
Pope John XIX awaited him in a vast audience hall lined with mosaics so ancient the gold leaf flaked in places like old scabs.
Cardinals clustered near the papal throne, eyes narrowed with the oily attentiveness of court vipers.
Richard bowed low, cloak trailing the marble. A courtesy, but not the servility shown by lesser lords. He was Duke of Normandy, scion of Viking warlords and Frankish counts, and even here, he bore himself as though Rome might itself be a temporary guest in his hall.
The Pope raised a ring-heavy hand in benediction. His voice was dry as old vellum.
“Your Grace of Normandy. Long have we hoped to see your kin’s banners more fully arrayed in Christ’s service.”
Richard inclined his head, masking the flash of wry amusement that rose in him. “Holy Father. Normandy stands ever ready to defend the Cross, where prudent and just.”
“Prudent,” John echoed, lips curling faintly. “Then perhaps it is prudent to consider the scourge rising once more from the north. This ‘White Wolf’ of Islandia; who dares raid even holy abbeys, dragging our own brothers from Bobbio to pagan sacrifice. You know these bloodlines better than any prince of France.”
“Aye,” Richard said evenly. “My ancestors were of their breed, before the grace of God softened their hearts. Yet wolves do not change their teeth.”
The Pope leaned forward, robes sighing over the steps of his dais.
“Then tear them out. Normandy is wealthy, your knights, famed across the kingdoms. Join with the fleets of Olaf Haraldsson and King Cnut, who have already pledged to harry these heathen outposts. Rome would see your piety repaid; land, favor, indulgences for your house unto the next generation.”
Word had yet to reach their ears regarding Olaf’s demise at Jomsborg. And thus Richard’s jaw tightened imperceptibly at the names Olaf and Cnut.
Two lions snapping at each other’s throats, yet both were too mighty to dismiss.
And now Aachen squabbled with Denmark over border marches and imperial fealties; more fires he preferred kept well north of his domain.
“Holy Father,” Richard said carefully, “Normandy stands by the Church. But to cast my swords across the sea for a feud whose tide shifts daily; what assurances have I that this crusade does not simply feed new wars? That these Danish and Norwegian lords will not turn upon each other, and us, when our blades have dulled from shedding pagan blood?”
John smiled, thin and knowing. “Then bind them by Rome’s banner. Ride with my legates. Let it be known across Christendom that Normandy acts by papal will. Any hand turned against you would turn against Peter himself.”
A chill wound through Richard’s gut. Such blessings were as much a noose as a shield. Still, he bowed again, offering the half-promises that greased all diplomacy.
“I shall consider it, Holy Father, and send my counsel swiftly.”
“Do so,” the Pope breathed, eyes hooded. “For the wolves grow fat on Hibernia’s blood, and they may yet sniff toward richer veins if unchecked.”
As he departed the Lateran, incense clinging to his cloak, Richard’s thoughts wandered homeward; unaware that even now, in the shadowed halls of Rouen, his brother Robert was gathering whispers and gold like a spider hoarding dead flies.
Plots within plots, all balanced on the knife-edge of distant fjords, where a Norse warlord with eyes like winter waited to carve his legend into the bones of the world.
The heavy doors of the Lateran audience hall closed with a sonorous finality. A papal guardsman laid the bar across them. Silence pooled in the marble chamber, disturbed only by the whisper of candles.
Pope John XIX sat back against the carved throne, his fingers drumming the armrest. Across from him stood Cardinal Benedictus, a lean man with eyes like polished jet, watching the Holy Father with cautious interest.
“Well, Eminence?” Benedictus finally ventured. “Will Normandy answer Christ’s call?”
John’s mouth twitched; something that might have been a smile on another man, but here was cold and faintly sour.
“Richard of Normandy is no fool,” the Pope murmured. “He wraps himself in piety, swears fealty to St. Peter, but his house is young yet, half-barbarian by blood. The Northmen’s pride is still raw in their veins.”
Benedictus inclined his head. “And yet he bent the knee before you.”
“Aye. For now.” The Pope’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial hush. “But these Normans are little more than Danes who found better farmland. They bow because Rome’s shadow is long, not because they hold true fear of God in their hearts.”
He glanced toward the tall windows, beyond which loomed the palaces of Rome and the ancient ruins of the empire.
“I have seen the way they look at our relics, our gilded halls. With hunger, not reverence. If ever their ambition grows faster than their faith, we may find ourselves facing a wolf we once thought a hound.”
Benedictus crossed himself lightly. “Shall I dispatch letters to Aachen? To ensure Emperor Conrad keeps watch on Normandy’s flank?”
John waved a dismissive hand. “Not yet. Let them imagine we trust them. A watched hound learns to bite. Better Normandy thinks itself free of suspicion, even as we keep the leash coiled behind our back.”
A flicker of dark humor crossed the Pope’s features.
“Besides… the Danes and Norwegians spill enough Christian blood without adding Norman treachery to our burdens just yet. Pray God these northern wolves feast on each other long enough for us to prepare,”
John finished, his voice a low rasp.
He looked again to the windows, as if expecting to see sails on the Tiber itself.
“Let them tear at each other’s throats. It buys Rome precious time to strengthen the flock’s walls before the next pack comes prowling.”
Benedictus made the sign of the cross again, softer this time, and breathed, “Domine, custodi nos ab lupis.”
The courtyard of Bayeux was alive with the clatter of steel and the snorts of warhorses.
Men-at-arms moved in practiced drills, shields up in tight formation as squires barked cadence.
Further off, knights in hauberks of bright mail wheeled their destriers in tight circles, lances lowered, practicing charges that ended in splintered fence rails and roars of approval.
Robert watched from a timber gallery above the square. His cloak of deep blue snapped in the sea wind, embroidered with the golden leopards of Normandy.
Beside him stood the Marshal of the realm, old Gautier de Mortain, a man with a face carved from oak and scars that ran like dry riverbeds beneath his beard.
Gautier’s eyes followed the drilling men below with a cold glint. “They are eager,” he rumbled. “Perhaps too eager. The younger knights come to your banners in such numbers one might think Richard already lies in his crypt.”
Robert’s lips curled in a half-smile. “Would that it were so easy. My brother is not yet dead, only too blind to see who holds Normandy’s future.”
He leaned against the gallery rail, voice lowering.
“The barons know what is coming. Even lesser knights, hungry for land and titles, smell the chance. They flock to me because they would rather their own prince than some Pope’s distant dog. It will not be long before the choice is plain for every man of consequence in Normandy: stand with Robert, or kneel before the Bishop of Rome like witless pilgrims.”
Gautier scratched at his beard, then spat over the railing. “Charlemagne was the greatest conqueror of his age,” he said with a grunt, “but the halfwit sold his crown to Rome without knowing the price. By the time he did, the Pope’s chains were already around his neck.”
Robert’s eyes darkened, flaring with an ambition older than either of them. “I will not see Normandy wear such shackles. When the hour comes, we will rise; and we will remind Rome that a duke’s blade cuts just as deep as an emperor’s.”
A horn sounded from the courtyard. Below, fresh columns of spearmen began to march, their banner poles tipped with iron that caught the wan sun.
Gautier clasped Robert’s arm, voice low. “Then best we sharpen these boys into wolves, my lord. For once blood is drawn, the carrion crows will feast either way.”
Robert’s smile returned, thin as a dagger. “Then let us make sure they feed on our enemies first.”