“Well, I promised you whatever you might ask. All my share of his ransom, or his person, bond or free, is yours. You have only to prevail with your own Jarls and Bonders.”
Richard feared this would be more difficult; but Abbot Martin came to the meeting, and took his part. Moreover, the idea of their hostage dying in their hands, so as to leave them without hold upon the King, had much weight with them; and, after long deliberation, they consented that Lothaire should be restored to his father, without ransom but only on condition that Louis should guarantee to the Duke the peaceable possession of the country, as far as St. Clair sur Epte, which had been long in dispute; so that Alberic became, indisputably, a vassal of Normandy.
Perhaps it was the happiest day in Richard’s life when he rode back to Bayeux, to desire Lothaire to prepare to come with him to St. Clair, there to be given back into the hands of his father.
And then they met King Louis, grave and sorrowful for the loss of his little Carloman, and, for the time, repenting of his misdeeds towards the orphan heir of Normandy.
He pressed the Duke in his arms, and his kiss was a genuine one as he said, “Duke Richard, we have not deserved this of you. I did not treat you as you have treated my children. We will be true lord and vassal from henceforth.”
Lothaire’s last words were, “Farewell, Richard. If I lived with you, I might be good like you. I will never forget what you have done for me.”
When Richard once more entered Rouen in state, his subjects shouting round him in transports of joy, better than all his honour and glory was the being able to enter the Church of our Lady, and kneel by his father’s grave, with a clear conscience, and the sense that he had tried to keep that last injunction.
CONCLUSION
Years had passed away. The oaths of Louis, and promises of Lothaire, had been broken; and Arnulf of Flanders, the murderer of Duke William, had incited them to repeated and treacherous inroads on Normandy; so that Richard’s life, from fourteen to five or six-and-twenty, had been one long war in defence of his country. But it had been a glorious war for him, and his gallant deeds had well earned for him the title of “Richard the Fearless”—a name well deserved; for there was but one thing he feared, and that was, to do wrong.
By and by, success and peace came; and then Arnulf of Flanders, finding open force would not destroy him, three times made attempts to assassinate him, like his father, by treachery. But all these had failed; and now Richard had enjoyed many years of peace and honour, whilst his enemies had vanished from his sight.