Casca 31: The Conqueror

by Tony Roberts

  “I’ll find a way to get him. But then what? Will your father lose the contract?”

  She shrugged, nestling against his naked torso. It comforted her. It also excited her. She wanted more. But she had her reputation and position to think of, too. “I don’t know. But I won’t be able to marry you; you’re a common lowly soldier. Unless,” she looked up, her eyes red and swollen, “you become rewarded with land for some heroic deed. I’ve heard the nobility talk. They’re a bunch of rude and uneducated soldiers, too. But they’ve all been rewarded for acts of valor on the battlefield. If you get noticed by the Duke he may reward you, and then….”

  “You and I can be together.” Casca wasn’t entirely sure he really wanted that, but he wanted her physically and he wanted Lesalles dead, and he wanted to be comfortable and living in luxury for a while. He hadn’t been for some time, and he felt it was high time he got round to doing what he did best. He needed to do it.

  Aveline put both hands together, half in delight, and half in entreaty. “Oh, please, get rid of him! I’d hate to think what my life will be like under that monster!”

  “Leave it to me, Aveline. Now, let me go about my business, and carry on as normal. I’ll find a way.” Casca sat down and waited for Carl to return, while Aveline went to her room, almost in a daze. The Eternal Mercenary sat and waited for his new clothes, pondering on how he could achieve his plans. One way or another he’d have to kill two people. One of them now, the other in time to come.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Casca crept to the edge of the camp. The only person he didn’t want to see him was the sergeant, Robert. Everyone else wouldn’t give much of a damn, except the immediate members of his unit, and then they’d be pleasantly surprised. But word would get to Robert and Casca had to act before his ‘miraculous’ return from the dead was widely known. So he had to sneak into camp, get his equipment and, most important of all, his sword, and then deal with the murderous sergeant.

  Arnand was the key. He counted on his buddy hating Robert as much as he did. It was a fair chance; Robert was a grasping, scheming man and he’d screwed money out of them all, something they wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Casca was popular with the guys for stopping the extortion, and when push came to shove it was a safe bet they’d side with Casca, but only if nobody was watching. No one wanted to hang.

  Casca’s belongings were where he’d left them, in the tent. Casca had sneaked in unnoticed. Everyone else was practicing on the wide open space in the middle of camp. The sergeants were shouting encouragement, or adding threats, as appropriate. Casca buckled on the sword and sat down, waiting. Arnand and the others who shared the ten-man tent would return soon enough. Osborn and Geoffrey seemed reliable types; no-nonsense and not given to bullshit. Casca wondered what crap Robert had told them about his demise.

  The tent flap was flung open and the guys started piling in. The first three stopped in surprise, then astonishment spread across their face. Osborn was one of them. “What…I was told you were dead!” he exclaimed. Pleasure broke out over his face and Casca stood up, grinning. The others piled in hastily, wondering what was going on, and all of them reacted the same way.

  Casca was back-slapped and hugged. Arnand flung his arms round his shoulders and gave him a huge bear hug. “You bastard,” he said joyfully, “when you didn’t come back I went looking for you, and the sergeant told me he’d seen you fall into the harbor and he’d not seen you surface. We all thought you drowned!”

  “I did fall in, but I was helped. I got a huge shove and a bash over the head. Robert used the pommel of his sword on me and then sent me into the water.”

  The others gaped in disbelief. “Eh?” Geoffrey gawped. He wasn’t the most intelligent, a huge, bear-like man with a wide fleshy nose and a mass of thick brown hair, and an accent which everyone knew as ‘country’. “Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe getting his own back for stopping his nice lucrative wage stealing racket? Whatever, why would he be wearing his sword in town?”

  Arnand grumbled. “He was very pleased you’d drowned, so it seemed to me, anyway. You guys notice that?”

  He got a chorus of ‘ayes’. Casca growled in anger. “So I’m going to get even with the bastard. You lot don’t get involved. It’s between him and me, but you can make sure his retainers don’t follow. Let me and him sort it out, once and for all. You up for it?”

  “You bet,” Osborn snarled. “I lost a load of my money to his greed. He’s got it coming big time. How are you going to take care of him?”

  Casca told them, and they all nodded. It was a simple plan, but like most simple plans, it was the easiest and best way. While the others left to distract the last four of Robert’s retainers, Casca wandered across the camp towards the exit to the west, but keeping in sight of the center of the camp. Arnand did his bit; he ran up to the sergeant who was trying to teach one of the newer recruits how to use his shield and sword in tandem, and blurted out he’d seen Casca by the western edge of the camp. The sergeant refused to believe Arnand until Casca stood at the far edge of the camp clearing and faced them, arms folded.

  Robert stood in amazement. He knew his blow had been a killing blow, but there was Casca standing there taunting him. Even as he watched, Casca turned about and walked through the line of tents to the western edge of camp, passing through the perimeter fence and walked down the steep slope towards the marshes that lay at the bottom of the slope.

  Robert came racing after him, sword drawn. This was insane! Casca should be dead. This time he’d make sure. He closed in on him, the broad back recognizable, the same loping walk of a man used to striding over land. “Hey, you, stop!”

  Casca turned, pulling his own sword out and stood facing the sweating man, his back to the swamps. “Come to try what you failed to do last night, you back stabbing bastard? Not got the guts to fight me man to man? Is that what Lesalles paid you for? Is that what you are, Robert of Laval? A mere lowly murderer?”

  The insults brought a flush to Robert’s face. “You cocky swine; I’ll make sure this time you won’t return from the dead. How you survived last night I don’t know but now I’ll do a proper job; I’ll cut you into pieces and bury each bit in the marshes.”

  Casca laughed. “Come on then, face a real warrior and learn what it is to die. You’ll be the one rotting in these marshes, not me.”

  Robert growled and launched himself forward, blade cutting through the air. Casca stepped to one side and blocked it, then swiped a counter blow at waist level, aiming to open the guts of the sergeant. The Norman saw it coming. He parried it, flicking Casca’s sword aside. Now he pressed forward. His face a mask of fury, he aimed to disembowel this man, this troublemaker.

  The Eternal Mercenary had seen it all before. The intent was clear in Robert’s eyes. Casca’s memories of the training school of Corvu the Lanista outside Rome burned through his mind. Go for the guts! Slow your enemy down, then you can finish him off at your leisure! It was an old soldier’s tactic. Casca danced off the balls of his feet to the left, and the thrust passed harmlessly close to his stomach. Robert had overreached himself. Now Casca sent his blade down from high on the right, cutting across Robert’s neck. The blade cut through the padded jacket and bit into flesh and bone.

  Robert screamed in terror and pain. Casca’s blow went on. Blood flew out of the cut, splattering the ground and Casca’s right hand. The blade stopped, caught deep in the doomed man’s body. The sergeant slumped forward and was held on the sword. Casca held him for a moment, then planted a boot on the sergeant’s chest and pulled the blade free.

  Robert fell face down at Casca’s feet, his sword thumping harmlessly onto the dirt. How long Casca stood there staring at the body he didn’t know, but after a while he became aware that Arnand was standing by his side. “Well, you sure took care of him,” the young Norman commented. “Cut him up good and proper.”

  “Yeah,” Casca said tonelessly. He supposed he ought to feel pleased, elated, yet
he felt nothing of the sort. Robert had been a greedy, stupid man and ultimately paid for it. Lesalles had used him to do the dirty work and take all the risks. There would always be people like that, who only thought of the money and not the consequences. Casca wanted Lesalles so much that the killing of this turd meant nothing. He also wanted Aveline, but in a more basic and pleasant way. And he could only have her if he took care of him. “Come on,” he sighed, sticking his sword point first into the ground, “let’s get rid of the body in the marsh.”

  Robert’s absence was soon noticed, but none of the unit said anything when the company captain came asking. The four surviving retainers of Robert quit, their paymaster gone. They knew he’d been taken care of, but now the rest of the group had begun to show hostility to them and they’d sensibly turned tail and fled before the same fate befell them. Other units would absorb them and the army, some 7,500 strong, could easily hide them. The captain wanted someone to act as sergeant and the men unanimously pushed Casca forward. They saw him as a champion, someone who’d looked after them, and his size and skill made their choice a matter of course.

  Casca shrugged. He’d been squad leader before. Heck, he’d been a Baron once. And a God. And a Lord. Sergeant was humble by comparison but it meant he could pick and choose his lodgings, the training and the best equipment. The men would follow him. He had no intention of going down the grasping route Robert had taken. Casca was here for two reasons; revenge and sex. Let the others have their own motives, his were more fundamental.

  The men cheered up and trained much more enthusiastically now Casca was running the show, and the captain noticed it almost at once. He made a mental note to keep an eye on Casca in the campaign; who knows, maybe he had the makings of something more? The Duke liked good, strong fighters, and the new sergeant certainly looked the part.

  Then word came on the fifth morning. The Anglo-Saxon army was approaching down the London road and they were to get armed, get into units and get the hell up the road before the enemy came too close and bottled them up with their backs to the sea and the town.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The atmosphere in the town was tense. Lesalles paced nervously up and down the chamber he’d appropriated beneath the cliff the hastily assembled castle was resting upon. “Pack everything,” he ordered his staff. The lowly servants and employees of his company hurriedly moved to obey; to tarry risked a beating.

  Aveline sat by one of the windows that looked out onto the street and said nothing. Lesalles had practically made her a prisoner in the last couple of days, only permitting her father and her guardian, Carl, to see her. She was a forgotten and sad figure, silently sitting while confusion reigned all round.

  Finally Lesalles seemed to remember her. He was irritable and short tempered. The battle seven miles north of Hastings would determine whether he made a fortune or not. If the Saxons won, he might be captured and imprisoned, and as he was not of noble birth or standing there would be no one to ransom him. If the Duke won, however, as a supporter of him and someone who had helped finance the expedition, he stood to gain enormously. The thought of a Dukedom or County made him dizzy with expectation.

  And snappy as hell.

  “What are you doing sitting there while there’s work to be done?” he roared.

  “What?” Aveline looked startled. Nobody had spoken like that to her, ever. “You-you mean me?”

  “Of course! Help with the packing. Do you think it’ll be done by itself?”

  “But-but there’s no need to pack, is there?” Aveline sounded confused. “I mean, surely the Duke will prevail. You don’t think he’ll lose, do you?”

  Lesalles stamped over to her. “It’s a battle! Anything can happen! Of course he can lose. I’m taking no chances. If the Duke wins, then everything gets put back. But I don’t want to be caught here by those damned Saxons if they win! And you’ll be ready to leave with me for the ships in harbor the minute I tell you. Now you and your guard get to it!”

  Aveline stood up, shaking. He was a very intimidating sight, glaring at her, and Carl stepped closer, trying to reassure her. Lesalles pointed at him aggressively. “You do as I tell you or I’ll have you thrown out of here at once. I’ll have one of my own men act as guard to her. Understand? Now do it!” Spittle flew from Lesalles’s mouth as he raged, his face turning white.

  “Carl, let’s pack the linen. It’s easy,” Aveline said, a tremble in her voice. Carl stood there, his knuckles white on the hilt of his sword, glaring at the furious Lesalles. The Norman rent-collector saw it, and grabbed his own sword hilt. “You try anything and I’ll slice you up into pieces, you scum dog! I’ll fucking kill you, do you hear me?”

  Carl scowled and allowed Aveline to pull him to one corner of the chamber where a large trunk lay open, a pile of white linen lying in an untidy pile next to it. “My lady, we need to get a message to Casca. I fear for your life.” Carl spoke as softly as he could.

  Aveline nodded. “I just hope he survives the battle.”

  * * *

  The English were standing shield to shield at the top of the rise ahead of the assembling Norman army. Casca looked around and grumbled; the flanks were more or less protected by trees and a steeper gradient. So it looked like a frontal assault. The ground was firm, which was a blessing. The rains had stayed away and the October sun was rising away to the right, where the French-Flemish mercenaries were gathering.

  The Duke had put all his Norman units in the center and the Bretons over to the left. All three divisions were made up of the same groupings. Archers in front, the infantry in the middle and the cavalry behind. It was clear to Casca what the plan was going to be; soften them up first with the archers, then send the foot soldiers up the hill into the fray, and then once they had broken through, get the cavalry to cause havoc and carnage and that was it.

  Except that the English looked as though they had the advantage of the hill and had lined up their shields in a solid wall, telling the Normans to come and get it. Even now, they were beating spears, axes and swords on the rims of their kite-shaped and circular-shaped shields and chanting at the gathering invaders. “Ut! Ut!”

  “What are they saying?” Arnand asked nervously.

  “Out, out.” Casca looked up at the fearsome looking line of warriors waiting for them. “They are demanding we leave. Can’t blame them. I’d do the same in their place.”

  Arnand eyed the long two-handed battle axes being held by many of the better armored Anglo-Saxons. “They look big and bloodthirsty.”

  Casca grinned. “Aye, they are. Those are the Huscarls. The elite. Don’t mess with them. Kill them. Those axes will cut off your head or your arm with one swing, believe me. The rest….” He waved at the men holding spears and wearing more padded or leather armor then chain or scale. “Those are the irregulars, the Fyrd. They won’t last if the Huscarls are cut down.”

  In the center of the English line a red dragon-shaped banner could be seen waving in the breeze, perched atop a long pole. That was where King Harold Godwinsson would be. He was the key to all this. He was the reason they were all here today, to settle the argument over who ruled this land. The English were confident, having just won a great victory in the north over the Viking Norwegians and the traitors led by Harold’s brother, Tostig.

  Casca studied them. There were a fair few sporting bandages or dressings. “They’ve just marched the length of the kingdom,” he told his men, “so they’ll be tired. They also haven’t recovered from battle, and they would have been weakened by losses. So their army probably isn’t as strong or as good as it was when we set out from Normandy. We’re fresh, unhurt. They’re not.”

  Some of his men nodded, but they were all showing the anxiety men felt before going into battle. None had fought the English before, and it would be a test for all of them. Many would never see another sunrise. Casca looked from west to east. “They seem to have about the same number of men as us. So it’s man to man, Norman against Saxon. Are you c
onfident of beating your opponent?”

  “Aye!” they chorused.

  The Norman nobility were now walking along the front of their lines, checking that their units were present and ready. Walter Giffard strode slowly past the lightly-armored archers and looked at his men. With him were his bodyguard and lesser nobles, and his sons. “Men of Normandy!” he boomed out, “today we decide who is the rightful ruler of England. Do we allow the usurper Harold to steal what is not his, or do we put our Duke William on the throne? We have papal approval! God is on our side! Surely you will not oppose the will of God? Surely you will put the dog Saxon in his kennel where he belongs!”

  The men roared and raised their weapons high in the air. Giffard smiled and nodded in approval. “Then go with God and destroy the forces of the antiChrist. Victory!”

  “Victory!” the Normans yelled and began beating their shields.

  Now the archers began to move forward. They were all lightly armored, most of them having cloth headgear and hide jackets. It made them light footed and dexterous, but if they got involved in a melee they’d be chopped to bits. They halted in a line at the foot of the slope that led up to the English line, and raised their bows.

  Casca noted that these were about four feet in length and each archer carried a quiver on their backs of about twenty arrows each. As they prepared to loose the shields of the Anglo-Saxons raised themselves and presented, so it seemed to the Normans below, like a giant armored beast.

  The arrows arced away from their bows and the air was filled with a hissing noise. A dark cloud fell on the waiting men, and the distant sound of arrows striking wood and metal came to Casca. Not many of the enemy fell. “They can’t get the right angle,” he commented to Arnand, watching as most of the arrows passed harmlessly over the heads of the soldiers.

  Behind the Saxons the wood grew thickly, and it was that that received the majority of the arrows. The faces of the archers reflected their dismay. They’d all expected to strike down scores of the waiting soldiers, but their failure was plain to see.