Vanquished
My Round 2 story for the writing contest - no picture this time, we had to write a story with a fight scene *eek*
Vanquished
The winter wind howled around the castle walls, the breeze that crept in through the windows causing the flickering light from the many torches to cast eerie shadows across the rough stone. Following his victory against the English king Harold, William of Normandy had been most generous with his rewards to those who had served him throughout his reign as the country’s new king. The newly acquired land had been carved up between those who had accompanied him across the Channel in his quest for the throne that had been promised to him by Harold’s predecessor, both his fellow Normans and those who had joined him from neighbouring regions.
Robert St. Hilaire and his twin brother Henry had fought alongside the new king while he was still the Duke of Normandy, and both men were only too happy to ally themselves with the Duke in his English campaign. In their beloved Normandy they were minor nobles, but Henry’s marriage to a wealthy heiress had started to revive the family’s fortunes. His son and heir, Raymond, was born five years before the brothers set sail for England. Sadly Henry did not live to see his son grow into the strong young man that he had become in the years since the Duke’s victory over Harold, for he was cut down by a Saxon blade as the battle was nearing its final stages. Robert did not know that his brother had been killed until the following day, as he had been badly injured during the first few hours of the battle and spent the rest of that blood-soaked day unconscious. As soon as he was well enough to travel Robert was sent home to recover, then he was to return to England and begin his new life as the lord of an English manor.
His brother’s widow soon re-married, much to Robert and his young nephew’s disgust. Raymond’s new stepfather was a man with a rather dubious character, Fulke de Vere. It was rumoured that Fulke had been responsible for the death of his sister’s brother-in-law, although he maintained that it was simply a hunting accident. Nevertheless, his treatment towards his servants and any man who spoke out against his other less than pleasant traits only served to enhance his reputation as a thug. Away from the eyes of his new wife he bullied Raymond, and when his own son, Geoffrey, was born within a year of his marriage, he ensured that his wife’s estates would eventually pass to him rather than be shared equally with Raymond. As the years passed, Raymond suffered even more at the hands of his stepfather. Therefore he was overjoyed when his uncle Robert, by that time married and father to a baby daughter, sent for him to be trained as a knight in England. At the age of thirteen Raymond left Normandy and vowed never to return.
