The Prince of Darkness
“At least she could not reproach him, and she would have done, comparing him with Richard much to his disadvantage. A plague on them all! Those Norman barons who had gone over to Philip, those English barons who were criticising him for losing his family’s inheritance!
‘I’ll get it back,’ he boasted to Isabella. ‘This is but the fortunes of war.’ He did not want to hear what was happening in Normandy, though he knew that castle after castle was falling to Philip.
‘Let them go,’ he shouted. ‘Knaves. Traitors. By God’s feet, when I regain my territories they shall suffer for it.’ He was playing chess when news was brought to him that Rouen had fallen. Rouen! Rollo’s Tower, the greatest of all Norman cities in the hands of the French! No duke of Normandy would have believed that could ever be possible.
The messenger came and stood beside him. He did not look; he merely nodded and continued to stare at the pieces on the board. Then very deliberately he moved his bishop.
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