“It was promised to me!” By buying the pope and bulldozing the nobles he set his war machine in motion. He called on Sir Richard and Sir Rupert to once again create the juggernaut that conquered Maine in short order. Thomas and William Trivett came under pressure, Thomas to Richard and William to Rupert. Robert de Mortain, Roger de Montgomery, William fitz Osbern, Bishop Odo, Roald of Bonnetable, and Reginald of Le Mans were hastily assembled.

“Gentlemen, Conan II of Brittany has usurped my rightful position as Duke. You know I am a gentle forgiving man ,but theft of divine right is punishable by death. Not only was I promised by the Duke of Brittany, but also the church, the pope and therefore God supports my claim to the seat.”

William’s story was wearing a little thin, but these men were greed driven. If war in Brittany filled their coffers they would go to any length. The serfs, the arrow fodder in the absence of gunpowder, were not as anxious. They had had an extended expedition in Maine, they had a harvest to consider, and lastly, but most importantly they had families to support.

“Lord Harold will accompany us. I want him to be aware of the might of Normandy. He will see a war machine in action which may deter him of any vain glorious attempt to seize the throne of England.”

“My Lord,” begged William fitz Osbern, “understand, we had to cover high costs of the war in Maine. Besides, we have started on a ship building program unmatched in the history of France. You are employing hundreds in the lumbering industry here and in the far north. We have hundreds contracted to create the ships. Brittany may be costly.”

“As my financial advisor you may say that! But, I am decided. The usurper Conan must be punished. The resources of Brittany will be mine and Bretons are always associated with the sea. Understand?”

Look to your affairs. Your duties will be the same as our last war effort. Robert will handle war machines. Roger use Sir Rupert on the infantry and Sir Richard on the cavalry. Roald and Reginald will mobilize Maine. We want an integrated force, but troops are better with familiarity in the ranks. They depend and defend one another. Odo and William, organize the supplies. You must set up a depot somewhere near the Norman/Breton border. I leave it to you gentlemen. Dismissed!”

A frenzy of activity ensued. William Trivett was dispatched to the war machines by Sir Rupert. De Mortain and Will soon had catapults , slings and rams prepared. It hadn’t been that long since Maine. Thomas Trivett and Sir Richard were nearly overwhelmed by the arms-swords, maces, lances, arrows bows and armor all had to be in order and issued. Sergeant Olan whipped his archers into shape. They loosed legions of arrows. They ran the land.

Sir Rupert was glad to see Will back early and Roger de Montgomery and Robert de Mortain threw their weight into the organization of the invading force. Squire Jean was recalled from Mamers and on his return Sir Richard was free to train the knights.

Wulfnoth, Harold’s brother and William’s hostage was released to be involved in the training. Harold was not exempt and took to horse and training too. Anything was better than the boredom of William’s castle. Harold felt free, but he knew that William had a squad of men ready to intercept a bolting to the Channel on his part. Harold was accepted in William’s court. They dined together nearly every evening and often in the company of Matilda and her ladies. William treated Harold as well as any of his counts and maybe a little better. Two weeks of energy laden activity passed quickly. Ready of not, the forces began their march to the border of Brittany. De Le Mans and De Bonnetable were to meet the main force at Odo’s supply depot.

Bishop Odo and William fitz Osbern were not as successful amassing supplies this time. The harvest had been poor. The counts and habitants felt put upon. This form of taxation beyond the coinage was causing grumbling. Even the troops, who had not been satisfied with their loot in Maine, were griping.

Duke William called in Sir Rupert, Sir Richard and the two Trivett squires.

“Gentlemen, I am assigning Squire Thomas and Squire William to the Saxons, Harold and Wulfnoth. I don’t expect trouble from them, but it pays to be positive. Can these young men fulfill my wishes, my Knights?”

Richard replied, “ Thomas has always been dependable, a hard worker, My Lord.”

Rupert continued, “My Lord, I’ve placed my life in Squire William’s hands before”

“Yes, Could you kill these Saxons if necessary, young men?”

Thomas looked at Will. Will nodded, giving Thomas leave to speak. “My Lord, we would endeavour to fulfill your wishes. We do recognize the Saxons as accomplished warriors, but we would give our lives in support of our liege lord.”

“You will instruct these two siblings, Gentlemen. Do you know my mind?”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“Dismissed.”

The squires were assigned as servants to the captive Saxons. The Trivett lads tended to clothing, armor, horses, and food for the English lords. They were also spies, particularly Will, who had an ear for the English tongue. They were also assassins which may have suited Will more than Thomas. If the Saxons bolted or proved false the boys were to destroy Harold and his brother. Both Trivetts were expert with the bow. Both had experience with the throwing knife. Both had extensive training with the sword. Richard and Rupert continued to worry. They felt the job should fall to them in light of the fighters the Saxons must be. Richard was the more protective. If Thomas was injured or killed, his life with Joan and Jo-Anne would be to say the least difficult. The knights swore to keep a close watch on their former charges.

The army crossed the Normandy/Brittany border without opposition. The Normans expected a fight. “Rien!” The Breton peasants were content in their fields. They continued their work. The army pressed on. After a tiring route march, they made camp in a woods outside the town of Dol. There was plenty of firewood and Duke William, to relieve some tension ordered a hearty meal for the men. Since they had just left Odo’s supply dump they were loaded with food. A fine array was set out for Duke William, Harold, and the nobles.

As the camp settled in with full bellies for the evening, sentries were posted on the perimeter. Patrols were to scour the country-side. With good food, a lack of opposition and a general apathy possibly the sentries and patrols were not as vigilant as they should have been. In the gathering dark a youthful Bonnetable sentry heard a strange clicking to his left. As nervous as he was he challenged the unknown. “Who goes there?” He burst through the undergrowth. The infiltrator easily slipped the garrote around the boy’s throat. The lad never discovered the source of the mysterious clicks.

With his death, a small group of archers with full quivers slipped from dark to dark about the Norman campfires. As owl hooted, the archers nocked an arrow . A second signal loosed a flight of arrows to the fire lit targets. Only three Normans fell with the first onslaught. The Bretons loosed flight after flight and them faded into the familiar surrounding woods.

Physical damage and injuries after the initial attack were minimal as the Normans scrambled after discarded shields and weapons. Mental damage was much worse. It was demoralizing to be savaged by an unseen force. Duke William was beside himself. He vowed swift vengeance on Conan, Bretons and Brittany. He cursed and yelled while Harold smiled and snickered to himself. This was William’s, Duke of Normandy’s, show of might to discourage Harold Godwineson from the despair he would face if he forced the Duke to invade England. In spite of a quickly dispatched defense force, the archers flowed through the dark from tree to tree and became peasants of the town. The retaliatory force found nothing. Even the trampled grass had returned to normal by morning light.

Will and Thomas looked to their charges. Almost with the first arrow the two squires scooped up their cow hide shields and covered Harold and Wulfnoth from the long range arrow attack. Both Saxons were anxious to counter attack , but the lads squired them away from the light of the campfire keeping their Trivett body and shield between the captives and the arrow sources. Harold was impressed. He had maintained Duke William would arrange his “accidental” death. He thanked the boys. William the Bastard was livid, maybe on the edge of apoplexy. A war council was summoned.

“I’ll slaughter these Breton ‘batards’. I’ll have Conan “mange le marde”. Nom du chien! I’ll destroy this province. I’ll hang the miscreants. What kind of war is this! Tomorrow we will take Dol apart brick by brick, stone by stone. They will pay. I’ll reach into Conan’s chest and rip his heart out with my bare hands----“

The councillors knew better than to interrupt this tirade. They sat placidly looking at the ground. None wanted to catch Duke William’s eye. Who would get the blame for this? After fifteen minutes of venting his spleen, likely they would be able to talk to William. Odo, brother and bishop, was nominated to select the correct moment and turn this temper tantrum to a positive attack plan. Odo may not have been the best choice as he was tarred with the same stick. He carried a half of William’s genes and was an accomplished fighter. He did his best.

The Duke of Normandy and Maine was reminded, he needed the Breton sailors, he could use the Breton forces, some of his warships were being constructed by Bretons, ruined Breton land produces no wealth, and the destruction of Conan was more important than vengeance on the peasants.

At dawn they would attack the town of Dol. They would twist the Breton’s tail. Orders were dispatched to the captains and mobilization started. The older soldier looked to his food: the younger looked to his weapons. As the sun bit into the eastern horizon the army began to move. As William and his council broke through the forest a mile from Dol, they were astounded. Peasants were already in the fields. There was no retreat to the fortified town. Fortified! The town gates were wide open! A pennant was flying over the gate. It was too far to see clearly in the morning sun. A tiny group on horseback were approaching. The army drew rein. It appeared to be town officials in chain of office. The mayor and his council?? It was . They came before William, dismounted , doffed their hats and bowed low before him.

“Speak!” William demanded.

“My Lord, welcome to the town of Dol. Our town is your town. May I present you the key to our gate. Be comfortable and rest in our neighborhood.”

“Where is the usurper Conan?”

“My Lord, he hasn’t been to Dol for some time. Possibly someone could tell you the time of his departure. He came and made off with our gold and our young men. We are a destitute group of ancients and women.”

“What pennant do you fly?”

“Why yours, My Lord!”

Then William could see his own colors over the gate. The Normans entered the town with the mayor, but they had already suffered one ambush. They were alert troops who fashioned a house to house search. Every patrol returned with the same information- the old, the women and the children were without everything, but their lives. Even torture did not reveal any information as much as the victims wanted to tell. Only one man knew what the Normans wanted and he left with Conan. They did find out from everyone that Conan was at Dinan.

Harold could hardly keep a smile from invading his rugged features and Wulfnoth laughed openly. Their squires didn’t get the joke.

William wasted no more time. He had Roger de Montgomery select a force to garrison Dol and set the rest of his army off to Dinan just outside St. Malo. He was determined to overtake the dastardly Conan. At the second dawn of the forced march, a resolute force of Breton cavalry rode over the crest of a hill out of the rising sun. They bore down on the flank of the centipede army of Normans. They were preceded by a legion of arrows and followed by a second flight when they broke off. The Normans were

not unprepared this time. The toll of wounded and dead remained equal- three dead and ten wounded. The Bretons had used the war axe of the Saxons, a fearsome weapon. It was disheartening, and William fumed, but refrained from tantrum. He doubled the patrols for early warning and rearranged his marchers to accommodate a fighting and moving force. Archers were accompanying infantry with swords and pikes. The cavalry was more active. All were in an acute state of readiness. The Norman scouts and their resultant patrol ranged further. Wulfnoth and Harold and the two Trivetts were even employed. At one point their patrol was forced into an extensive detour around some swampy ground. The soft earth muffled the clop of the horses hooves and the men’s attention to footing kept them quiet as well. The scout raised an arm in warning. Each rider looked to his mount. There could be no neighing or nickering now. Their widened range had brought them behind another ambuscade. The Breton participants were unaware of the Norman troops. The ambushers were about to be ambushed. Nothing gave the Normans away. Even the wind was blowing Breton to Norman. The Norman captain deployed his small force of ten Normans and two Saxons. There were twenty Bretons in varying states of preparedness. The Normans quietly spread for their clandestine operation. All the captain’s signals were by hand. Wulfnoth and Harold were in the center of eight attackers. Squires Thomas and William were reserves for the middle of the line. Wulfnoth and Harold drew their battle axes and pulled down their leather and steel helmets. A shiver of recognition, a wave of fear shot through Thomas’ innards. He recognized the Saxons as his nightmare of many years. Someday he would face these Saxon axemen.

The captain began his war cry , immediately joined by eleven cohorts. They burst from their cover and rode down on the Bretons. Harold made the first encounter and buried his mighty axe in a Breton skull. The melee dissolved into chaos. Five Bretons were slaughtered in the initial rush. They had succumbed to the initial surprise and gave up the ghost in shock to Crusader swords or Saxon axe. The Bretons still outnumbered the patrol and reacted swiftly. They hacked at the horses hamstrings; they dragged Normans from the saddle. Horses screamed in agony and lashed out with hooves or kicks. Easy Walker was broadsided by Will’s horse and Thomas was forced to leap from the saddle. In close quarters and dehorsed the fight became mortal grappling accompanied by short swords or knives. Faced with a huge Breton with exceptional reach, Thomas launched a kick to the implanted enemy knee. Bone crunched. Anterior cruciate ligament snapped. The Breton went down and a Norman knife followed his descent. The victim hadn’t time to pray or scream. Before he could rise, Thomas took a war club on the iron of his helmet and over the body of his first assailant he fell.

Will, the agile wiry Trivett, launched himself from the saddle at a Breton attacking Harold. Will drove his shoulder into the man’s abdomen somehow avoiding the weaponed hand. Will’s own knife was already actively searching enemy life blood. A Breton fell upon the stirring body of the fallen Thomas. Thomas tried from his club induced slumber to avoid the descending knife hand. Behind the arm was a more fearsome sight as an enraged grotesque face of a Saxon warrior backed an axe in a killing arc. The axe reached its target first. The Breton literally lost his head and Thomas now enlivened scrambled to avoid the gouts of blood.

The battle was over at great cost. Not a Breton stood. Five Normans had met their maker and two were likely to die of their wounds. Thomas had the massive headache of concussion. Easy Walker had escaped injury and Thomas with assistance mounted. His dizziness nearly took him up one side and down the other. He had lost his breakfast and likely last night’s supper. Will as usual came away from the fray unscathed and excited, praised by Harold and thanked by Wulfnoth. The remains of the patrol rejoined the Norman army to lick their hurts. Duke William doubled the patrols, but Conan obviously called off his guerilla attacks. The Normans pressed on to Dinan, but Conan II had outsmarted the Norman wolf again. Under a flag of truce town officials presented the Duke of all Normans with another town key. The inquisitors went to work on the Breton inhabitants.

“Where is Conan?”

The Bretons answered earnestly and in truth that Conan and army had retreated to Mont St. Michel and no amount of torture could change the extracted answer. A frustrated Duke William set off in pursuit, dragging his struggling army with him. Bishop Odo’s supply lines from the storage depot were

stretching. Stress on food articles was going to become acute. Foragers did their best scouting the land for provender. Besides, the weather broke and not for the better. The rain began, not torrential but constant. The men tried to huddle within themselves, head bowed to the wind. Oily leather jerkins turned some of the downpour, but water sneaked in every aperture. It streamed down hair, rushed under collars and oozed through under clothing. The armored knights were worse off as the metal retained the cold. They were stricken with fits of shivering. Footing was treacherous for man and horse. Not a few horse laughs were evident when someone slid in the mud and sat heavily in the mire. Their misfortune was the only comic relief to a highly miserable existence. Supply wagons were incessantly mired and draymen literally put their shoulders to the wheel as the teams bogged down. It seemed to the men that mould, mildew, rust and foot rot would get them before Conan.

He seized the opportunity. Conan reinstituted his guerilla attacks on flank, rear, and particularly on the supply wagons. Conan had recognized the uselessness of frontal assault on the larger better equipped Norman army. The Breton made William pay. Conan’s attacks were mosquito bites on the Norman rump. There was not much damage, but constant irritation. They attacked with impunity after the patrol battle before Dinan. William of Normandy went about with a cloud of anger and maybe despair. This was not going the way he envisioned. Harold and Wulfnoth were finding it difficult to keep the smiles from their faces. The Norman commanders took the brunt of William’s anger They expended great energy and initiated many plans, but Conan and his disappearing army dissolved before them.

The army of Normandy, now short of supplies, drew up before Mont St. Michel. At last they would confront the Breton army. A trap opened for the Normans. Either it was planned by the Bretons or the rains were Breton good fortune as the Normans stumbled into the quagmire of quicksand. Horses and men fought the inexorable grip of the mire. Horses brayed like their cousins, nostrils distended. Men screamed for their mother, but the mire would have its due. Drawn by the disturbance, Harold and Wulfnoth with the Trivett squires arrived at the death scene. Harold immediately took charge. He yelled to the men entrapped. “Lie down!” The ensnared did not wish to bring their nostrils any closer to the ooze and likely didn’t trust the Saxon. Harold appealed to the commanders. “Have them lie down!” He organized Wulfnoth, Thomas and Will into a human chain and assuming a breast stroke swimming position they swam towards the apparently doomed men. Three had already been eaten by the mire. Four had heeded the yells of the captain. The Normans formed a swimming chain of their own and both chains inched toward the stricken four. The mired men got the idea and sidled toward their saviours floating along the surface of the swamp. All four were saved. In spite of the deaths there was jubilation for the rescued in the camp. William, the Norman, profusely thanked the muddy Saxon pair.

“My Lord,” the gracious Saxon replied, “our work would have gone for naught without the strength of these two manly squires you have assigned to us. If I may be so bold, I suggest My Lord,, they deserve advancement.”

“Done, My Lord Harold. Thomas and William Trivett—Before me!”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“Kneel!” He drew his gold encrusted Crusader. “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost I Duke of Normandy and Maine dub thee Sir Thomas Trivett. And thee, Sir William Trivett.” As he touched them on each shoulder.

The mud splattered brothers were awed. The men set up a clamorous roar and beat on their hide shields. Everyone looked pleased, but especially Sir Richard. Before anyone could be scoured clean or anyone could be reduced by celebratory drink Sir Richard drew Sir Thomas Trivett aside.

“Thomas, I’d be pleased to have you as my son-in-law. Excusez-moi for not speaking sooner. Jo-Anne would have strangled me for waiting this long. We and our families will accomplish great things.” He drew his daughter’s betrothed to him in a muddy hug that Thomas thought entirely out of Sir Richard’s character.

The Norman army settled into camp, tired from the forced marches, dejected by the dreadful weather and hungry from extended and severed supply lines. They were becoming dispirited. At that particular time Conan selected the opportune moment to exact a peaceful settlement to the Norman

invasion. A trembling boy, a page no doubt, advanced on the Norman encampment under the white flag. He requested an audience.

“I carry a humble Breton message for the great war lord, Duke William of Normandy and Maine. I request an immediate audience.” His shrill piping voice was an amusement, but his fortitude got him his wish.

Conan was quite aware of the Norman position. He suggested a peace treaty, Breton tribute, acquiescence to Normandy, and a withdrawal of Norman troops. William still fuming, with digestive juices churning, was about to reject it out of hand. Hastily assembled war councillors prevailed upon the

enraged Duke. They wished to make the best of a bad situation. With their arguments and their present position the Duke finally agreed to meet with Conan.

Duke William and Duke Conan met in secret and a deal was hammered out. Duke Conan maintained Brittany, but swore allegiance to William. William retired from Brittany extracting certain tribute and ensuring certain taxes. Land and estates were left intact and the Bretons agreed to support William in future war efforts. The Normans retreated.

Harold was amused.