Conquest 03 - Knights of the Hawk

by James Aitcheson

  Too late.

  Already the enemy had come around our flanks, and now they were closing upon us from front and rear, presenting their bright-painted shields and overlapping the iron rims with those of their neighbours so as to form a wall.

  We were surrounded, and there was no way out.

  Then from the ramparts to the north came a sound that was only too familiar, as hundreds upon hundreds of warriors struck their spear-hafts and axe-handles and swords and seaxes against the rims and the faces of their shields, keeping a steady rhythm. With each beat they roared a single word, over and over and over, like a pack of ravening wolves who had scented easy meat.

  Ut. Ut. Ut.

  The white stag was advancing, leaving behind it the defences the rebels had built. Under that banner bobbed a thousand shining spearpoints. Morcar’s confidence had overcome his caution, and he would wait no longer. He saw a chance to press his advantage, to drive us back into the marsh, to win glory and renown among his people and give his followers and Englishmen everywhere the victory they had long desired: one that they would sing of in their feasting-halls and that would be remembered down the ages. They would praise him as the defender of Elyg, the man who dared to stand against King Guillaume and who did what Harold and Eadgar Ætheling could not. Little would they realise that he was nothing but a worthless perjurer, a foul oath-breaker.

  ‘Tancred!’

  I tore my gaze away from the stag banner just in time as the enemy surged forward and I found myself staring at more blades than I could count. Fyrheard lashed out with his hooves and my sword struck and struck again, but for each one I dispatched, it seemed that two more took his place.

  ‘Die, you bastards,’ Eudo was yelling as he heaved his blade around, backhanding the edge across an English throat. Blood gurgled forth, trickling down the man’s neck as he clutched at the wound and gasped vainly for breath. ‘Die!’

  One thickset warrior clutched at the bottom edge of my kite shield, trying to tug it down and out of position, while another, gangly and with dark hair trailing from beneath his helmet-rim, grabbed hold of my spear-arm. I smashed my boss into the first’s temple, then jabbed my elbow into the second’s chin, sending both stumbling backwards and bringing me a moment’s respite, although it had to be only a matter of time before they overwhelmed us.

  ‘There are too many of them,’ Serlo shouted, as if I didn’t already know. ‘We can’t—’

  ‘Hold firm,’ I said, shouting him down. Whatever he had to say, I didn’t want to hear it. ‘Stay close and don’t let them through!’

  My heart was hammering in my chest and my lungs were burning as I struggled to breathe. I was determined, though, not to give in. Not while I still had a sword in my hand and my head upon my shoulders. I would keep the battle-anger blazing in my veins as long as I could. If this was my fate, then the least I could do was take as many of the Devil-spawn with me as possible.

  That was when the shouting began. Cries of surprise, of panic and of pain filled the air, together with howls of the wounded and the dying.

  It took me a few moments to realise that those shouts weren’t in French but in English. That they weren’t coming from among my countrymen, but from the ranks of the enemy. I risked a glance towards the source of the screaming, and at first was convinced that my eyes were deceiving me. Surely I had to be imagining this. For what I saw seemed like a gift from God. My heart swelled with relief and joy, my limbs coursed with renewed strength, and suddenly I was laughing.

  Laughing, because those men of the white stag weren’t marching to aid their countrymen. They were coming to kill them.

  Morcar had held to his word after all. He had arrived not a moment too soon, and now the slaughter would begin.

  Eleven

  LIKE ME, THE foemen surrounding us were slow to understand what was happening. When they did, however, the collapse was as complete as it was sudden. No matter how many times I have seen it, it never ceases to surprise me how quickly a battle-line will crumble when fear and uncertainty take hold, and so it was then. One instant they were pressing at us, their war-cries filling my ears, drowning out my thoughts, and the next they were abandoning the struggle, running in all directions: towards the ramparts, towards the shore, towards the copses of alder and willow, towards anywhere they might find shelter. They didn’t realise that between our forces and those of their erstwhile ally, Morcar, they had nowhere to go.

  Chaos reigned. Bands of Englishmen who only a few moments ago had been friends, united by a common cause and by their hatred of us, suddenly found themselves on opposite sides and unable to tell each other apart. In their panic some of the enemy mistook their own comrades for Morcar’s troops, and set about one another. All the while the men beneath the stag banner drove on, as relentless as they were disciplined. At the same time the main part of our host was beginning to advance once more, not just the knights but also the spearmen, all led by King Guillaume himself, his helmet-tails flying behind him. Beside him rode his standard-bearer, raising the lion of Normandy for all to see. The golden threads glinted in the morning light, and to the east the sun shone with the promise of victory.

  And so the rout began.

  ‘Kill them!’ I heard Wace shouting, and the order was echoed throughout the conroi, passed on from man to man down the line. For the second time that morning we charged down the fleeing foemen, slicing our blade-points across their necks, slashing at the backs of their legs to fell them, only on this occasion there were none of their friends waiting to surprise us from their hiding places, to halt our charge.

  Crumpled bodies of the wounded and the dead lay all about, their leather and mail pierced by sword and knife and spear, their clothes matted to their flesh, their weapons and shields beside them, their eyes open but unseeing. Blood ran in rivulets, pooling in the hollows and running into the ditches and pits the enemy had dug, while elsewhere the ground, trampled and torn up by so many hundreds of feet and hooves, had turned into a sucking quagmire. Through it all we rode to the sound of the victory horn and with roars of sword-joy all around. After the heat of the fray, the battle-calm had descended upon me. Nothing mattered but finding the next man whose lifeblood would foul my gleaming blade. I gave myself over to instinct; each thrust and cut, each parry and drive, came without thinking. Long years of training in the yard and at the quintain had ingrained those movements in my limbs. All I had to do was lose myself to the will of my sword-arm, to let it guide me.

  What I do remember is glimpsing a blue, mud-spattered banner ahead of us. Beneath it a thegn and his hearth-troops, his huscarlas, stood amidst the screams and the chants and the roars and the howls, bellowing instructions that went unheard, desperately trying to rally the panicked hordes, but all their efforts were in vain. This must be one of the rebel leaders, I thought. He was the wrong build to be Hereward, for he was possessed of a stocky frame and hunched stance, and was fair-haired besides, but nevertheless I reckoned he must be someone of importance.

  ‘Take him,’ I yelled to my knights and everyone else who happened to be with me. ‘Kill the rest, but take him alive!’

  No sooner had the words left my lips than the thegn spotted us coming. His huscarls, the ten or so that remained, closed ranks around him, presenting their scratched shield-faces and their gleaming axe-blades, sharp enough to take a horse’s head from its neck in a single blow. But they were few, while we had the might of an entire army behind us, and he must have sensed that to fight on was useless. He let his sword fall to the ground and raised his hands aloft.

  ‘Gehyldath eowre wæpnu!’ he bellowed at his retainers, but they did not seem to be paying him any heed. Obviously they preferred to meet death with steel in their hands rather than suffer the shame of giving themselves up to the mercy of their enemies.

  I would have granted them their wish, but we were still some thirty paces away when their lord barged his way through their lines and wrested the axe-haft from the grasp of the huscarl to his left
, tossing it down.

  ‘Gehyldath eowre wæpnu,’ he repeated, gesturing towards the others’ axes and spears and seaxes.

  One by one, not daring to take their eyes off us even for an instant, his men lowered their weapons and dropped them to the ground with a clatter of steel. Their nasal-guards and cheek-plates made it difficult to see their faces, but even so I could clearly see the scowls they wore, and the hardness in their eyes. Even in defeat, there was much pride there.

  I reined Fyrheard in, halting before them, and Wace drew up alongside me. The rest of the conroi did not need any instruction from me, but straightaway formed a circle around the band of Englishmen, just in case they tried to make an escape, though I didn’t think they would.

  I fixed my eyes upon the thegn, their leader. He unlaced his chin-strap, letting his helmet fall by his feet. Unkempt hair fell across his brow and he swept it back from his face before staring, unspeaking back at me. His eyes were as blue as the midday sky, his chin raised in defiance.

  ‘Ic eom Thurcytel,’ he said flatly. I am Thurcytel.

  I recognised the name. He was, or had been, among Hereward’s oathmen, if I remembered rightly what Godric had said: one of those who had supported him only to later shift their allegiance to Morcar.

  ‘My name is Tancred of Earnford,’ I said, just as flatly. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of me.’

  ‘Should I have?’

  I moved closer. My sword was still in my hand, and I pointed it at his breast. ‘Don’t try my patience. Not unless you want me to bury my steel in your heart.’

  ‘You won’t kill us,’ said Thurcytel.

  Wace gave a snort. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Your king is, at heart, an honourable man. Were he to learn that you received our submission only then to kill us, I think he would not be best pleased.’

  Wace laughed. ‘Do you think that he cares whether you live or die? After he’s spent this long trying to capture the Isle? After all the trouble you and your countrymen have caused?’

  Thurcytel didn’t answer, which was probably for the best.

  ‘I’ll see that your life and those of your men are spared,’ I said, ‘provided that you do two things for me. First, I want your sword and your scabbard.’

  He spat, and grudgingly unbuckled his belt, letting it fall next to his sword. His scabbard was decorated with copper bands inlaid with gold, while in the middle lobe of the pommel was a single emerald. I nodded to Serlo, who dismounted and collected them from where they lay at Thurcytel’s feet and passed me first the sheath – though the thegn was wider around the waist than me and I had to pull the belt-strap tight to fasten it – and then the blade. The cord wrapped around the hilt was stained red and blood was congealing in the fuller, but otherwise it seemed in good condition, with few nicks along its edge. It was balanced a little more towards the point than I would have preferred, but otherwise it was a weapon befitting a knight.

  I slid it back into the scabbard. ‘A fine blade,’ I said to Thurcytel, who merely sneered. ‘Now, the second thing. Tell us where Hereward is.’

  His expression changed, from defiance to something like disgust. ‘Hereward?’

  ‘Is he here, on this field?’

  The reward for capturing someone like Thurcytel would be reasonable enough, but the prize for bringing Hereward before the king would be far greater. From everything I had heard of him, he seemed the kind of man to lead from the front, rather than skulk in the ranks. Except that there had been no sign of him during the battle, and that was beginning to worry me.

  Thurcytel made a sound that was neither a laugh nor a snort, but something in between. He spat upon the ground. ‘Hereward will not so much as talk to Morcar, let alone fight in the same shield-wall. Always he must do his own thing—’

  ‘Just tell us where I can find him.’

  The battle-anger still simmered inside me, and I was fast losing patience with this Thurcytel.

  ‘The last I heard, he was still at Elyg, praying at the shrine of St Æthelthryth for her to grant him her favour and help him to bring us victory.’

  ‘How many men does he have with him?’ Wace asked.

  ‘A hundred and fifty, perhaps two hundred. No more than that.’

  ‘Dead, all of them,’ someone called, and at once I recognised the voice, which was deep and harsh and rich in arrogance. ‘Or, at least, they will be shortly.’

  Morcar strode towards us, a wide grin upon his face, which was flushed with triumph. He was dressed in a leather jerkin reinforced with iron studs, but there was not a speck of blood or dirt on him anywhere, and I wondered whether he had dared enter the fray, or so much as unsheathed his blade during the battle.

  He clapped a hand upon Thurcytel’s shoulder. ‘Alas, my friend,’ he said. ‘Fortune did not favour you this day.’

  ‘You bastard,’ said Thurcytel, shrugging off the other man’s hand. ‘We gave you our allegiance and you betrayed us!’

  ‘Temper,’ Morcar said in a soothing voice, as if trying to still a querulous child.

  For a moment the thegn tensed, as if ready to hurl himself at Morcar, but that moment quickly passed. The earl was accompanied by some dozen of his own spearmen, and Thurcytel must have realised that any attempt he made would not go well for him. He contented himself with spitting at the other’s feet. Morcar only smiled, clearly relishing in his success.

  ‘How do you know they’re dead?’ I asked him.

  Morcar turned and fixed me with a stern look. ‘I recognise you. You’re Robert’s man.’

  I was not to be deterred. ‘How do you know they’re dead?’

  ‘Because I ordered it,’ he retorted. ‘As soon I glimpsed your boats arriving upon the shore, I sent my swiftest rider to Elyg with instructions to my hearth-troops there to kill Hereward and all his followers.’

  Even presuming he was telling the truth, that could have been around an hour ago at most, by my reckoning, which meant that Morcar’s messenger had probably only recently arrived.

  ‘And how can you be sure that all your hearth-troops won’t themselves end up killed by Hereward and his band?’

  Morcar drew himself up to his full height and inspected me closely, as if I were some manure he had trodden in, but I was not about to back down. He might consider himself an earl, but we both knew it was a title acquired through treachery and only then by the king’s grace. Whatever noble blood he’d once possessed had soured in his veins long ago. The man who stood before me knew nothing of honour, and he was mistaken if he thought himself worthy of my respect.

  He opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could speak something else caught his attention. His eyes fixed on a point somewhere beyond my shoulder, and then he and Thurcytel and all their retainers were bending their knees and bowing their heads. I glanced behind me and saw the king riding hard towards us, flanked as he always was by his household knights.

  Hurriedly I sheathed my sword. The king paid no attention to us, though, nor indeed to our captives. He was interested only in Morcar.

  ‘Where were you?’ he barked without so much as a greeting. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘My lord,’ Morcar began. ‘I don’t—’

  ‘The moment we arrived upon the Isle. That’s when you were supposed to begin your attack.’

  ‘Have I not given you victory, my king?’ he protested. ‘Have I not given you the Isle, as I promised? Is that not enough?’

  Suddenly I understood why Morcar had waited so long before committing his forces. He’d wanted to see which way the battle would turn before deciding whether to hold to his promise. Only when he could be sure of being on the winning side had he finally marched to help us.

  No doubt the king realised this too, since he regarded Morcar for what seemed like an eternity. In his eyes burnt a fire more intense than I had ever seen, and I think that, were it not for the fact that several hundred of the Englishman’s sworn followers were watching, he might have struck him down there and then.
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  ‘You have given me nothing yet,’ the king snarled as he turned away.

  ‘What about my nephew, lord?’ Morcar shouted to his back. ‘It was agreed that he would be returned to me.’

  The king curbed his horse, no doubt startled, as were the rest of us, by such effrontery. ‘What makes you think I haven’t already ordered him killed?’

  ‘If you have, then our agreement is finished,’ Morcar replied, but though his words suggested defiance, his tone betrayed his lack of confidence. Having wormed his way into the king’s favour and allowed our army on to the Isle, he would be foolish indeed to risk losing everything by fighting us now, especially over such a small point.

  The king smiled and raised an eyebrow in amusement. ‘It is as well, then, that young Godric lives. You entertain me, Earl Morcar, and for that I will see that your nephew is brought to you.’ He turned towards one of his household guards, a dark-featured man with a broken nose and a scar upon his lip. ‘Fetch the boy from Alrehetha.’

  ‘Yes, lord king,’ Scar-lip replied, and broke off from the conroi, making back towards the bridge.

  ‘In the meantime,’ the king said to Morcar, ‘you’ll come with me.’ He turned his gaze upon myself and Wace, although his expression showed no sign of recognition. ‘You too. Bring every man you can muster.’

  ‘Where are we going, lord?’ I asked.

  ‘To Elyg!’ he shouted over his shoulder as he galloped away. His household guards fell into close formation around him, and they made towards the head of the main part of our host, which was once more forming up in its ranks and columns. Frenchmen cheered as he passed, showing their respect for the man whose vision and unfailing resolve had, despite the months of setbacks and frustrations, despite the misgivings of almost every man in his army, despite the fact that the odds had not favoured us, led us to this victory.

  Except that it was not won yet. There remained Elyg and Hereward. For all Morcar’s conviction that he was as good as dead, I would believe it only when I saw it with my own eyes. Indeed if I’d learnt but one thing of Hereward in recent weeks, it was that he was not a man to be underestimated.