The great hall of Rouen Keep was alive with torchlight and quiet conspiracies.
Shadows leapt from the carved beams overhead, dancing like hungry spirits on the rough walls of the old Norman seat.
Robert sat at the long table, a cluster of loyal barons and mailed captains gathered close.
Beyond the hall doors, the weight of his brother’s siege lay on every breath. Yet inside, the mood was not one of dread; but of a patient, simmering satisfaction.
On the table before them was a detailed spread of vellum and scraped calfskin, inked with the roads and rivers of Normandy.
Small stones, marked with paint, showed the known encampments of Richard’s forces.
Another cluster of counters, shaped like wolf-heads, circled around them: Robert’s outriders and skirmishers, tightening the noose.
Sir Gautier de Bellême leaned in, tapping a gauntlet finger on one of the northern supply lines.
"We hit two more convoys at dawn. Left the carts burning in the ditches, took the oxen. They’ll feel that by week’s end."
Robert gave a thin smile, though his eyes remained distant. "They bleed a little more each night. It is a slow work, but sure. Better than gambling all on a single reckless charge."
Another knight, clad in a battered gambeson that bore the sigil of Mortain, grunted.
"Their camp is spread wide and shallow. Ditches barely cut, pickets poorly spaced. If not for that old fox, the Marshal, they’d be easy prey."
Robert’s gaze sharpened. "The Marshal is with Richard still, true enough... but only just. You’ll see by the way he drills their levy. Keeps them standing at arms by torchlight, yet never commits his best men to any forward works. He plays both sides, waiting to see which banner holds longest in the wind."
A ripple of dark amusement passed through the gathered men. None of them liked the Marshal, yet all respected his cunning; the very reason he remained dangerous even in his ambiguity.
Robert leaned back, drumming his fingers along the hilt of his dagger. "It matters little. As long as he hesitates, my brother’s lines will remain loose. His men will grow weary, their bellies empty, their backs cold. And ours will tighten like a noose."
A servant approached them, bearing a small folded missive on a carved tray.
The wax seal was fresh, pressed with a wolf’s head. One of Robert’s household knights took it, cracked it open, and scanned the lines with a wolfish grin.
"More word from the western marches, my lord. Another pair of Richard’s sworn knights found hanging from their own gate posts; their letters of pledge to you nailed beside them. Their sons have already ridden to Rouen to place sword and service in your hand."
Robert’s eyes glinted, catching the torchlight. "Good. Each house that breaks to us is another stone pulled from Richard’s crumbling wall."
He rose then, the scrape of his chair loud in the vaulted hush. His knights rose with him, fists pressing over hearts in salute.
"Hold steady," Robert told them, voice low and certain. "We have mapped out my brother’s camp, his routes, his strengths, and more importantly; his doubts. By the time he understands the ground has shifted under him, he will standalone among treacherous reeds."
He stepped toward the tall arched window that overlooked Rouen’s outer walls. Beyond the battlements, distant watch fires ringed the countryside, tiny embers marking where Richard’s hosts lay in a restless half-sleep.
"Let him stare at these walls until his eyes grow hollow," Robert murmured. "Let him wonder each morning who still rides by his side; and who waits only for the right night to slip away. This is how realms are won, not in the clash of lances, but by patience sharpened into a blade."
The men behind him murmured oaths of agreement. One by one they drifted back to the map table, already speaking of the next strikes on Richard’s forage trains, of false rumors to plant among his barons, of fresh letters forged with captured seals.
And Robert stood silent at the window, feeling the weight of Normandy like a living beast beneath his feet, breath slow and measured.
He had no need to storm his brother’s camp. Not when he could watch it starve itself to death.
The men behind him murmured oaths of agreement.
One by one they drifted back to the map table, already speaking of the next strikes on Richard’s forage trains, of false rumors to plant among his barons, of fresh letters forged with captured seals.
And Robert stood silent at the window, feeling the weight of Normandy like a living beast beneath his feet, breath slow and measured.
He had no need to storm his brother’s camp. Not when he could watch it starve itself to death.
It was then a steward slipped into the chamber, cloaked and dripping from the rain, his breath steaming.
In his hands lay a folded letter marked with an unfamiliar wax, dark green and pressed with some foreign sigil; a dragon or a serpent, it was hard to say.
Robert arched a brow. The steward bowed low, voice strained.
"A merchant vessel from Cornwall put ashore at Barfleur. They carried rumors out of Ériu. My lord, it seems Connacht is... undone."
The hall went still. Even the men who’d begun debating routes through the bocage quieted, drawn by that single word.
Robert stepped from the window, taking the parchment with an idle hand. He cracked the seal. Read. And read again.
A slow exhale left him white in the cold.
"Dún Ailline," he murmured at last. "An ancient fortress shattered in days. The Petty kings of Connacht who have fought for decades over whom to sit upon their vacant throne butchered, and their levies with them by the thousands. Grain stores seized, the land salted behind them."
His eyes drifted, unfocused, as if seeing not the chamber but something far bloodier.
"And not the work of Danes come to steal a handful of silver," he said, voice low, almost admiring. "A campaign mapped like the lines on a chessboard. Supply seized. Nobles executed. Fields put to ruin so no levy can rise again."
He looked around then, and some of the Norman lords shivered to find his smile was thin as a blade.
"Christendom will burn if the kings of old treat these wolves of the far north like petty brigands. They are not. I fear the pope backed the wrong horse when he tried to rope my brother to his side...."
He turned to the window once more, peering eastward; though it was only dark and rain that met his gaze.
"Pray Richard breaks first," Robert said softly. "So we might yet have time to make Normandy into a land savage enough to meet such beasts on even ground. For the old ways of banners and chivalry will not serve us when these ships make port."
Silence answered him. The men behind held their tongues, the torchlight wavering over faces that no longer seemed so sure of triumph.
In that hush, Robert’s breath steadied once more. Already his mind moved to harder measures: deeper levies, sterner laws, whispers sent to foreign courts to forestall papal meddling.
If the White Wolf was truly coming south one day, he intended Normandy to greet him not as prey, but as rival.
And perhaps, in that cold meeting, only one of them would walk away to forge the future in his own brutal image.