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Guy hears what William's henchmen are saying. His dark hair, though shaved at the back, is combed across his forehead so that it almost flops into his eyes. On this occasion he wears an extravagant knee-length tunic, represented in embroidery in a manner that suggests overlapping leaves of leather; his over-cloak is long and buttoned at the side. His right hand rests quaintly on his hip, while gripped firmly in his left is an upright axe, a great English-style fighting axe with a handle almost as tall as himself. This last gesture is nicely symbolic of the fact that he currently holds in his custody England's foremost earl. But for how much longer? This is an uncomfortable encounter, more confrontation than meeting. Guy does not sit authoritatively on his throne; he cannot lean back comfortably on the seat of his power while those who speak with him are lorded over and left shuffling foot to foot in embarrassment. These Normans are the emissaries of Duke William, the man to whom he had been forced to swear his allegiance, so Guy must meet them standing upright, on his own two feet.

Perhaps Guy is thinking now, biting his lip, wondering whether he might just be able to defy Duke William and get away with it. He remembers his long captivity at Bayeux. He remembers the oath of allegiance he has sworn. He remembers that God is his witness and that William has a fiery temper, which no one in their right mind would wish to rekindle. If he disobeyed now, the Norman duke might invade Ponthieu and have him killed, and then take over the whole of the county, as he had done only recently in Maine. Other accounts (though not the tapestry) reveal that William sweetened the pill with promises. In particular, it is said that William offered Guy a stretch of land by the River Aulne if he would cooperate in handing over Harold.
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Threatened and bribed, the choice turns out to be surprisingly easy. It is agreed. Harold is to be passed, like a football, from one to the other, from Ponthieu to Normandy - from a covetous jailer to a duplicitous rescuer.

At this moment in the story the Bayeux Tapestry clarifies (up to a point) how Duke William discovered so quickly that Harold had been taken prisoner in Ponthieu. This intriguing sub-plot unfolds like a flashback, in a right-to-left direction;the thread of history is momentarily reversed. The two Norman knights, whom we have already seen at Beaurain, are now riding towards there [scene 11]. Their mission, as we suspected, was urgent for the horses gallop at full tilt. Hoofs rumble past us at great speed; the hair of the riders flows like streamers in the wind. Each carries his couched lance in the latest military style and a wing-shaped shield embroidered with a dragon motif. Evidently there was no time to be lost;William desperately wanted to ensnare Harold before he escaped. It is a strange thought, but had these two knights been riding slower, and Earl Harold been able to negotiate his release, the whole history of England might have been different. But there are many such moments in the Bayeux Tapestry, such is the pivotal nature of each passing episode in its story. Now we venture further back in time. We are shown where the two Normans have come from. This must be outside William's ducal palace at Rouen [scene 12]. Here, in flashback, we catch our first glimpse of the majestic Duke of Normandy, a large, imposing figure, sword in hand, seated on his carved throne. It has been estimated, on the basis of the surviving bones found in his grave at Caen, that William was about 5 feet 10 inches tall, which would have made him impressively tall for the eleventh century.
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Here he is being pleaded with by an Englishman who is on the point of falling to his knees. The giveaway is the thick mop of hair and the pencil-thin moustache: this man is certainly English. Somehow a member of Harold's party must have escaped or evaded capture in Ponthieu, secretly crossed into Normandy and hurried to Duke William in order to plead for his help in rescuing Harold. The tapestry does not tell us how. The reverse order of these scenes distracts us from pondering the question too long. Perhaps the furtive fellow whom, a little while ago, we saw hiding behind a pillar at Guy's castle had some clandestine hand in the plot.

Harold has evidently turned to Duke William of Normandy for help. This might seem to support the Norman case - that Harold had been sent to the continent specifically to give William news that he would be the next king of England. It is certainly consistent with the Norman story, but the Canterbury monk Eadmer, like the tapestry, tells us that Harold implored William's help in a bid to evade further detention in Ponthieu. Eadmer, it will be recalled, reported that Harold'spurpose in crossing the Channel had nothing to do with the English succession but rather it was to secure the release of his nephew and brother from Duke William's custody. In Eadmer's version it was one of the common folk of Ponthieu (not an Englishman) who, having been bribed by Earl Harold, carried the secret call for help to William.
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Whether the messenger was English or French, Harold must have weighed matters in the balance and concluded that incurring a debt of honour to William was preferable to remaining shamefully in the custody of Count Guy. This was not a wise move. In fact, it was one of the gravest political miscalculations ever made. Earl Harold, it seems, was still blissfully unaware quite how seriously the Norman duke took his claim to the English throne.

The flashback over, we pick up again the thread of the embroidered story. We are shown the formal handover of Harold as it takes place on open ground at a prearranged spot [scene 14]. HIC WIDO ADDUXIT HAROLDUM AD WILGELMUM NORRMANORUM DUCEM (Here Guy brought Harold to William, Duke of the Normans); this is all that the tapestry says on the matter, but the place of rendezvous is independently identified in the chronicle of William of Poitiers as the Norman border castle at Eu. Guy approaches from the left. He is riding a smaller, prick-eared mount rather than a warhorse, this in order, presumably, to symbolise his submission to Duke William. He is closely followed by Harold who is seated on a more worthy steed; each of them still has a hawk on his wrist. Behind them we see a group of Guy's knights. Now the Norman side rides in from the right. The duke appears first, wearing a great red cloak, two tassels trailing from his neck; behind him follows a handful of his own mounted knights. These Normans are aggressive, bent-forward soldiers, much more eager than Guy's, but at least they hold their lances pointing backwards in an effort to offset the impression of immediate hostility. One of them carries a shield threaded with the same dragon motif that we saw borne by the knights who rode to Ponthieu. The Norman at the back of the party points to the next embroidered scene, into the heart of Normandy, where Harold must be taken.

Harold now accompanies Duke William into Norman territory. They are heading for William's great ducal palace HIC DUX WILGELM CUM HAROLDO VENIT AD PALATIU[M] SUU[M] (Here Duke William comes to his palace with Harold). The English earl rides at the head of the party; he has no weapon and the Normans at his back keep him under constant watch. Evidently he is told to ride first so that he cannot turn tail and escape. His hawk has gone too;William has it on his wrist. The party arrives at what is probably Duke William's palace at Rouen, where a guard manning the watchtower greeets them with a smile. We are now inside the hall, a long and impressive stone building, with an arcaded upper level, like the clerestory of a church, consisting of eighteen embroidered arches [plate 2; scene 16]. William and Harold are deep in animated conversation. It is the first formal meeting of the two men and if, as we hear so often, the Bayeux Tapestry tells the story 'strictly from the Norman point of view', it is surely here that we would expect the inscription to make clear, beyond any measure of doubt, that Harold is fulfilling the supposed purpose of his journey - that he is confirming to Duke William his status as the next king of England. Instead the meeting is depicted in total silence; there is no inscription at all. It thus behoves us to look closely at what the embroidered picture itself reveals, what it covertly tells us of that distant meeting of the two men who, within as many years, would be the most famous of mortal enemies on the battlefield of Hastings. Each detail at this meeting is potentially telling. There are secrets here.

William, as we would expect, is seated authoritatively on his throne, with its dragon-headed arms, fine cushion and attendant blue footstool; for he is the Duke of Normandy and this is his palace. Harold stands, but unlike each previous encounter with a figure of authority, where the standing person is drawn artificially small, Harold is depicted as sufficiently large to look William straight in the eye [scene 16]. The artist, it seems, wishes to portray these two men as equals; there is no sense in which Harold is belittled, as he is so often by William of Poitiers. Observe, now, how Harold, while busy talking to William, points at the armed and bearded man standing to his left, and how this man reciprocates the gesture. Evidently this man is the subject of Harold's conversation with William. Behind him are three Norman knights. Each listens eagerly to the proceedings; each is also armed with a lance and shield; but closer inspection reveals two curious and unexplained anomalies: the three Norman knights have
four
shields between them and only
five
legs. Whatever the reason for that, it is clear that the mysterious man to whom Harold is pointing is different from the three Normans. Crucially, his hair is long at the back; he also has a thick growth of beard;
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his posture and bearing are quite distinct, too. In the iconography of the tapestry, long or facial hair is the trademark of the English. The man's shield also bears a design that is very similar to the one later borne by Harold at Hastings. The bearded man in William's hall is clearly English, but who can he be? Why does he bear arms in the incongruous company of these Norman knights within the close confines of William's ducal palace?

There is only one obvious answer. He is one of Harold's kinsmen who had been detained in Normandy since the early 1050s and whose return to England, according to Eadmer's later story, Harold had come specifically to secure.
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In the circumstances the artist has probably chosen to depict the more senior of the two, Harold's brother Wulfnoth. This would carry a certain poignancy, for Wulfnoth remained a hostage even when the tapestry was made, indeed he was never freed, and the woollen Harold would thus still be pleading for his brother's release long after Harold himself had died. Since William and Harold are not yet at war the hostage has evidently been allowed a measure of freedom and serves as a soldier in the Norman army. The implication of the tapestry's imagery is profound. At the first opportunity, Harold is portrayed seeking Wulfnoth's and Hakon's release, not conveying any supposed message about the English succession at all. Edward, it seems, had not sent Harold to Normandy as his ambassador; and he had changed his mind about William succeeding him. If this mysterious Englishman is Wulfnoth, he is not the only brother of Harold to be seen in the Tapestry. Later we will see his named brothers Gyrth and Leofwine fighting loyally by his side at Hastings. Harold's sister Queen Edith, though unnamed, also appears in the work.

This deftly drawn, wordless meeting of William and Harold is usually passed over with little comment, and the bearded Englishman is unnoticed or forgotten, but the silent allusion in these threads to the Canterbury tale later told by Eadmer, far from supporting the Norman case, substantially undermines it. It is an allusion which the artist must have made at considerable risk to himself, perhaps to his life, certainly to his career, and we should pause and listen to his brave witness, at a time when all others were drowned out by the noise of Norman propaganda.

Immediately after this meeting, there occurs an even more intriguing scene, one of the most curious in the whole tapestry, for it seems to bear no relation to what comes before or after. There is this mysterious lady called ÆLFGYVA, which is an aristocratic Anglo-Saxon name; she is the only named woman in the whole work [scene 17; plate 3]. Æfgyva is standing in an ornate wooden doorway, elaborately carved in apparently Norse style; the doorposts are topped by dragons' heads that sprout long, flicking tongues. Into this scene intrudes a tonsured priest wearing a green cloak; he leans across from an adjacent tower, thrusts his hand into the doorway and touches or caresses Ælfgyva on the cheek. The meaning of this gesture is obscure. It is certainly not elucidated by the inscription, which is teasingly short, omits any verb and leaves us still wondering exactly what the lady and the priest are up to. UBI UNUS CLERICUS ET AELFGYVA (Where a priest and Ælfgyva) is all that it says. Many have read a hint of sexual scandal into the mock coyness of this brief and abruptly curtailed sentence. The tower and the doorway are themselves erotically suggestive, at least in our post-Freudian age. So, too, is the appearance of the naked man in the lower border; he seems lewdly to be mimicking the priest and gesturing up Æfgyva's skirt. Was there, perhaps, a scandalous liaison between a lady and a priest, well known at the time, and that had some bearing on what we see in the tapestry? Does this scene reflect an aspect of William and Harold's discussions at Rouen? Like Turold the dwarf, the Lady Ælfgyva is one of the four mysterious figures named in the Bayeux Tapestry. We must return later to the enigma of Ælfgyva.

Harold's attempt to secure the release of his kinsmen is not going well. This is hardly surprising for in truth the whole idea had been unwise from the start. King Edward, in his dotage, had much the clearer picture of William. Cunning, implacable, supremely ambitious, with a cruel edge, he was the last person to bow down and release such valuable hostages without gaining something extraordinarily important in return. William knows that Earl Harold holds the keys to England; he can hardly believe how foolish the Earl of Wessex has been in allowing himself to fall uninvited into his grasp. For the moment, however, the Duke of Normandy is keeping his plans to himself. According to the written sources, he received Harold in Normandy as an honoured guest.
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The English party were fed and clothed and given every Norman hospitality; we can imagine them hunting by day and passing torch-lit evenings entertained by the likes of musicians, dancers, jugglers and acrobats in a lively ducal household. Harold should simply be grateful, the Norman sources imply, that William has taken such pains to rescue him from Ponthieu. By now, of course, he may realise that William's display of friendship is entirely false and that he has merely exchanged one kind of imprisonment for another, but he must wait and see what fate William has in store for him. There is no question that he can return to England yet. The coastline of Normandy might as well be enclosed behind iron bars.