"Roulons-y sans remords, amazone inhumaine,
Afin d'éterniser l'ardeur de notre haine!"
- Charles Baudelaire, Fleurs de Mal, Duellum.
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the conquered and the conqueror.
_
For as long as he shall live, he shall never forget the harried expression of Angleterre as he stood beside his little king on top the hill.
It is a wonderful sight they make, certainly. An army and their leaders at the crest of a slope, the sun emblazoning their iron and steel. They are the country's defenders – with their young country standing beside them, at the brink of another battle that has come so recently after the last. It is surely magnificent, a sight that shall burn in the minds of the motley army for years. As it should.
Let them remember this, he thinks, looking not to his duke or the half-nation on either side but to the scowling nation far ahead. The thought is heedy, intoxicating with the promise of attainable glory, tangible power. His lands has been trodden on for centuries, languages and cultures cluttering his mind until he thought he might have taken his life; conquest is not as pretty when one is the conquered. Let him remember this day for ever.
His horse shifts below him, its ears flicking. The half-nation beside him, young and thirsting for foreign blood, fidgets noisily. The duke on his other side is silent. Everything is silent – including Normandy when he shoots him a disapproving look. There is no breeze today, nothing to rattle the bare branches of l'arbres. There are no birds, tittering and trilling in anticipation.
There is only silence.
Then, so abruptly he cannot discern the exact moment, there is noise – a shout from his men, not the half-nation's or Angleterre's, echoes in his blood, and then a horse whinnies from Angleterre's side and the duke on his right is shouting in his language, sword held forward. The little king on the hill answers the shout, his sword aloft and then there is noise everywhere.
He remembers everything of this battle: the panic when Angleterre's men do not bend but force them back, their rigid wall of honour pushing the French and the Normans and the panicky Bretons further, the pain and fear as his men are killed, blood bathing iron swords. There is the moment where the Bretons flee, their terror too much, only to be followed by l'Anglais, and the half-nation gives chase after the bellowing men with a band of cavalry.
He does not leave however. He guides his mount after the duke as he winds through the shouting men, all languages spoken in harsh, frightful yells. His – the duke's, his men's, his people's – swords are reddening as the l'Anglais fold, young men and old men crumpling in heaps of red on the ground. France does not look at the men on the ground. He does not listen to the crunch of his horse's passage, or smell the suffocating crimson scent. His sword swings, slices, arcs and catches the sunlight like a torch that carries fire through his entire body.
The duke cuts through anyone that means to stop him, as fierce as his predecessors.
The sun rises higher and higher.
The half-nation returns, blood on his cheeks and his armour and a wildness in his eyes. He rides alongside his duke, exultant and feral. France does not begrudge him this – battle is splendid, but victory tastes like the sweetest of wines and spiced mead and glory. Victory is close. Victory is just within reach, hiding beyond the tightly woven group of red-and-white men.
There, the little king is, prodding his little sword out whenever one of France's men comes to close or skewers a guard. The little king will not even face his adversaries, he thinks and splits away from Normandy and the duke, veering off to the side so he may drag his sword along the gullets of the guards. Shouts and hoarse cries from the opposite side inform him that the half-nation and he are parallels, duplicates of supreme power that may only be challenged by others of their kind and even then, it is not certain.
He turns his mount, grinning wildly. He shall not be conquered again. He shall never again feel the split and the rift as his people, his lands, become something else. Someone's else.
He is halfway through the turn when his horse makes a rough, worn sound and topples. He has the state of mind to scramble, dislodging himself from the dying animal before a desperate warrior deems him a foe. On his feet, he can now see the arrow shaft protruding from his horse's flank – close to where his leg had been, too close for it to be a simple poor shot.
He looks up.
The small, malnourished, young, intolerable Angleterre is standing with his bow drawn back, an arrow ready to loose. He is not with his little king? How curious.
An uneasy frown curves Angleterre's thin lips. His eyes dart to the side, where the duke and Normandy shove and fight to breach the circle of guards. They are a dwindling few who still protect their king; their shoulders slope in pain, their reflexes sluggish and slow. It is not long now before they – and their king – fall.
Victory, France thinks and turns back to Angleterre with a wide, wild grin. Victory is mine an—
The arrow is let loose. It soars, slicing through the air to lodge itself firmly in France's chest. He stares down at it, dimly aware of his tunic clinging to his dampening chest. Oh, he thinks, looking back to Angleterre. Angleterre's face is a pale white colour, his hands seemingly trembling; there comes a shout from behind him and France looks back, only to see the duke and his men holding bloody swords against the grey sky.
He glances to Angleterre and offers him a wide, bloody smile.
Conquest tastes sweet.
It is a slow journey to court. They all have their injuries, and hard battle has made the men sluggish and tired. The duke already is hailed a king amongst his and Normandy's men, the ruler of both the Duchy and this grey island.
The grey island does not agree with this statement, though. Neither the people nor the small child that embodies it. Angleterre trails after the conquering army, the few survivors his side has left staying close to him. He is perpetually scowling, folding his arms across his chest and glaring if France even thinks to look at him. When offered food or water by anyone, he glares at the timid knight until they slump back to their tent. It is suffice to say that he is not the best captive – but then, he does not need to be.
He may sulk as long as he likes. France has conquered him, he has won and the glory of victory is all his. His and Normandy's duke shall be crowned king when they reach court, and it shall be their language that is spoken, their god that the people flock to in reverence and fear. His, his, his. It will all be his.
This is his thought until he hears of the newly crowned king, a boy that is barely five-and-ten.
The duke is expressionless, cold, but Normandy is hot enough for the both of them. He rages, yelling and shouting his ideas of what should happen to this upstart boy-king, this hellish island, how victory and conquest works. His voice echoes through the camp in harsh accented French, stronger and stronger until it is like the gusts of wind that force the trees to bend.
No one is bending, though.
France does not react in kind. He settles for the most plausible theory and drags Angleterre away from the camp, into a tree where he pins him with an elbow across his throat. "Did you know about this?" he hisses, low and intimidating. He is not a half-nation, young and new and inexperienced in battles. He knows – he knows – and he is the ember, the spark, and the first frost.
Angleterre spits at him.
France digs his elbow in, pressing harder and harder. If he had been a human, his neck would have cracked; as it is, Angleterre's eyes water and his cheeks redden. "Did you?" he repeats.
Angleterre says something that France does not understand and glares. Frances presses harder and ignores Angleterre's gasp.
He has to have known. He has to have felt it, the moment when the Archbishop set the stolen crown on the boy's head. Lying will do him no good, not when victory and conquest and glory still thrum through France's veins. Destruction is his scepter and he knows how to wield it.
"Filthy English swine, I will rip –" he begins to say but Angleterre cuts him off, a wicked glare leveling at France.
"N-non," he answers, the word poorly accented and weak and his voice hoarse. "Rien." It is the last of the words that France understands – the rest are dripping with venom in that savage language of his. He is snarling, though, and struggling against the arm at his throat.
France lifts his arm, allowing Angleterre to catch his breath before he punches him hard in the jaw. Unaware of the coronation or not, it is still a stolen throne; a crown and a kingdom stolen from his duke.
That is not something France is going to forgive.
"Be ready to leave in the morning," he orders Angleterre, who must be cursing if the vehemence in his voice is anything to go by, holding his jaw and looking at France in a horrible way. "If you and your filthy, bloody men are not prepared, then we shall skewer you like the pigs that you are."
He doubts Angleterre understands what he says but this does not stop the younger nation from spitting at his feet, his lips curling into a snarl. France punches him again for good measure before he returns to the camp. Normandy is still storming, throwings swords like they are twigs and snapping the few bows that still remain.
The duke watches this with a blank expression, leaning against his tent. The men give him sympathetic and empathetic looks but do not approach him. France does, sitting on the cold ground next to him. It is too cold – not like the southern regions of his lands, where the sun is always bright and the waters are warm – and too close to winter for him to be comfortable in delaying this any longer.
Besides, delaying the true coronation will only give room for more upstarts, hungry and anxious noblemen that are eager for power.
"Your Grace," he begins to say to the duke. "I –"
"They will pay for this," the duke interrupts him in a bland tone that is somehow, more frightening than if he were to shout or snap. "This will not go unanswered. We are not waiting any longer. We will begin to ride to London in the morning and by the grace of God, nothing shall stop us."
This is a king, France thinks, but does not say. This is a conqueror. We are not defeated, not in this.
Normandy continues to yell.
Every rebellion they meet is broken, beaten into bloody submission that leaves more death than life in their wake.
One by one, the noblemen bend to their knees – and France is not counting those who are made to bend the knee, the flats of swords pressing down on their shoulders and cutting into their necks in a promise of consequence. The Archbishop of Canterbury goes to his knee with a muttered curse in a fading language, his entire body trembling as he speaks in faulty French.
December brings the men at court and their thin-lipped smiles, the treacherous looks in their eyes that do not match their kneeling. Pledges of fealty are forced from their lips but the duke – the king – smiles at them, anyway.
With each bend of the knee, Angleterre grows more and more pale. His expression is continuously caught between contempt and nausea, his hands balling into fists at every minute of the day. By the time the newly crowned king is getting to his feet, the crowd of nobles clapping politely with half-hearted hailing in stumbling French, Angleterre looks as if he will be violently sick.
That is a glorious sight in its own right.
France looks away from Angleterre to meet Normandy's eyes. The half-nation – or is he a nation now with a ruling king in another country – is grinning and clapping wildly, unfit for court but excusable by those who know him. It is not a common occurrence for one's lowly duke to conquer a country and become its king.
He smiles at Normandy, his heart skipping in delight. This is what power feels like, this is the joyous feeling that all those nations who took him in the past felt when their kings worn his crown. It is wonderful, it is an addictive feeling that he –
"They will resist." Angleterre informs him, drawing his attention back to him. His French is barely passable but it is getting better than the shaky attempts those weeks ago; the accent is still atrocious, empty and flat. "They will not accept him."
France makes an inelegant noise before he returns to clapping for his king, his man. "They will submit," he tells Angleterre indirectly. "William will placate them – they may retain their land and titles."
"They have lost their brothers." Angleterre bites out. "Their uncles, their fathers. Wealth and rank will remedy that, and you and your brute of a king are fools to think otherwise."
France does not say anything. He is not a fool, not any more than all the conquerors of the past are. If the noblemen do not submit, then they will die.
It is simple.