Free The Last Conquest by Berwick Coates Page A

that he neglected to take regular precautions. It was Bruno who called a warning.
    They burst out of the side track on to the main one, and nearly ran into a small column of refugees, who stood rooted to the ground in terror.
    A carter was poised with his whip in mid-air; a monk trembled beside the oxen, both his chins sagging loose. Women clutched the heads of their children to their stomachs. Two or three old men
rested on their staffs, glad of any rest, whatever the cause. After a moment, a sweating priest tottered forward, fumbling at his waist for his crucifix on its chain. He fell on his knees, and held
up the cross in dumb, hopeless entreaty, his head bowed, his eyes tight shut at the impending blow.
    Carpenters and their boys paused on the scaffolding to watch Ranulf of Dreux limping round the stacks of freshly piled timber. Any excuse to take a break from the work; the
Bastard wanted the impossible – a castle up in days, not weeks.
    Ranulf put out a hand and touched a plank as if it were leprous. His mouth was turned down at the corners.
    ‘Is this the best you can do?’
    Baldwin threw up his hands. ‘God’s Eyes, man! What more do you want? Some of this stuff has been seasoning for months. What do you think you are building – St
Peter’s?’
    Ranulf looked bleakly at him, and coughed wheezily. ‘I am about to construct a hall for my lord the Duke of Normandy. I am used to working with the best materials.’ He waved a hand
to the timber behind him. ‘I suppose you realise I shall have to reject some of this; I am not sure there will be enough left.’
    Baldwin looked at Sir Walter Giffard and raised his eyes Heavenward. He turned back to Ranulf. ‘You miserable cripple, there are three full shiploads there. If you were to burn half of it,
you would still have enough left for two halls.’
    ‘There are always more walls and palisades; the Duke is never satisfied.’
    ‘And neither are you, you gloomy fraud.’ Baldwin waved an arm to indicate the country about them. ‘You have enough forest out there to build a whole town. I have had fatigue
parties lopping trees for a week. You could build walls and palisades from here to London. To London.’
    Ranulf shook his head. ‘Ah. Well . . . That may be . . . All that planing . . . insufficient tools . . . and the Duke is in such a hurry.’
    Baldwin prodded him in the chest. ‘Now you just get on with what I have brought you – at great trouble and expense, may I say. Let us have a hall to be proud of. Proud of.’
    Ranulf of Dreux made a great show of easing his bad leg into a more comfortable stance. Sir Walter Giffard smiled to himself; it had never occurred to Ranulf, in years of service, that his
masters and his colleagues had long since seen through his subterfuges.
    ‘My lord Baldwin, I have enough trouble attending to my own duties; I do not presume to advise you on the allocation of your accumulated food supplies. I should be grateful if you would
accord me the same courtesy.’
    Coming from any other person, it would have provoked an outburst of rage. Coming from Ranulf, it usually produced little more than silent amusement. If the Duke was prepared to tolerate it, so
was everybody else.
    Baldwin pretended to lose patience. ‘Come, Walter. Let us leave this prophet of doom to his private catastrophes.’
    They left Ranulf to his long face.
    Giffard grunted in disgust. ‘Ranulf thinks
he
is hard done by. Come and see what the ships have brought
me
.’
    They threaded their way past the Angevin contingent’s tents and the archers’ lines, past smiths and armourers, to the central pool of spare horses, where unwilling carpenters were
knocking together hasty stalls to accommodate the new arrivals.
    Baldwin had no more than a sound working knowledge of horses, but he could appreciate that they were of poor stock.
    ‘I see what you mean,’ he said.
    Giffard spat. ‘Offal. Four-legged offal. Fit only for wasting parties and light