Conquest 03 - Knights of the Hawk

by James Aitcheson

  Morcar, red-faced, was calling for someone to fetch him a horse. When a servant-boy finally brought one to him, he was rewarded for his trouble with a clout around the ear that sent him sprawling. The earl noticed me watching him and scowled, as if I were somehow responsible for having brought the king’s wrath upon him.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Pons and Serlo, gesturing for them to follow as I mounted up. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘What about them?’ Pons asked, meaning Thurcytel and his men. ‘We’re not going to leave them, are we?’

  The disappointment on his face was clear. The capture of one of the rebel leaders would bring us not just glory but riches too, and I was as reluctant as he to give those things up. But the king had spoken. Once the Isle belonged fully to us, then we could begin to think about prisoners, but not before. Not while there was still work to be done.

  ‘We have no choice,’ I said. ‘Now, with me!’

  We were in danger of being left behind. The king’s banner was already on the move, striking out across the flat country to the north and east, in the direction of Elyg. I searched among the assembled banners for the black and gold, and found it towards the middle of the column. Robert was there, together with his knights, most of whom seemed unhurt save for some small scratches and cuts, although as we grew closer I could see that our numbers were decidedly thinner than they had been.

  Only then did I realise that one of us was missing.

  Robert saw us then, and came over to greet us, but before he could say anything I asked him, ‘Where’s Eudo?’

  He glanced first at myself and then at Wace, frowning as if not quite understanding. ‘I thought he was with you.’

  ‘He was,’ Wace said. ‘And now he isn’t.’

  I turned to Serlo and Pons. ‘You were close to him in the fray, when the English had us surrounded,’ I said. ‘Did you see what happened to him?’

  ‘No, lord,’ said Serlo, while Pons merely shook his head.

  I swore under my breath, at the same time trying to think when and where I had last seen him. I didn’t recall having spotted him fall, but that meant nothing, for in the heat of battle one’s world becomes narrowed, and there are many things that one cannot hope to notice amidst the din of steel on steel, screaming horseflesh and the glittering blades of the enemy.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ Robert said, laying a hand upon my arm in reassurance. ‘He can take care of himself.’

  ‘His knights were with him,’ Wace pointed out. ‘They’ll have seen him to safety, I’m sure.’

  I hoped Wace was right, and silently prayed that the cost of victory here today did not turn out to be Eudo’s life. If it were, I would never forgive myself.

  We arrived outside Elyg a little more than an hour later. The skies were ablaze with pinks and oranges and the sun was rising, steadily burning away the remaining tendrils of marsh-mist, and glaring so brightly off the still fens that we had to shield our eyes.

  Exactly as Godric had told us, the rebels had fortified the place in preparation for a siege, strengthening the gatehouse and throwing up a stockade around the monastery. Instead of shutting themselves away inside those defences, however, men and women were flocking in their scores and hundreds away from the stronghold, herding their children and carrying the smaller ones in their arms, even as others drove swine and sheep from the pens and the fields towards the woods and the marsh. Others followed, with wagons and pack animals, but they were so laden with goods that they were in danger of being left behind. On first sight of our approaching army they abandoned their goods, instead taking flight as fast as their legs could carry them. No sooner had they done so than the plunder began, as groups of riders split off from the main part of the army, raiding those same wagons and spilling the contents of the packs on to the ground in search of silver and gold and anything else that might be valuable. They would be lucky to discover much of value among the possessions of mere peasants, however. The monastery was where the greater riches were to found.

  Or so I thought at first. We soon learnt that when Morcar’s order had reached his men in Elyg, they had taken it not just as the sign to attack Hereward and his band, but also as an invitation to begin looting, perhaps thinking that anything they didn’t quickly lay claim to would shortly be seized by us Normans. Breaking into the abbey’s treasure house, they had filled sacks with coin and gilded candlesticks and anything else they could lay their hands upon, before crossing the cloister to the church where the service of prime was then in progress. There they had drawn weapons and driven the monks out, seized jewel-inlaid crosses, torn down tapestries bearing images of the Passion, stripped altars of their expensive cloths and even stolen the strongbox containing the monies that had been given as alms.

  This news was brought to us by one of the king’s messengers, who in turn had heard it from Elyg’s abbot, an Englishman named Thurstan, who, together with the rest of the monks, had met the king at a small village named Wiceford a few miles from the monastery, having had no choice but to leave Elyg to the ravages of Morcar’s hearth-troops. On hearing that our army was approaching, he had come seeking his liege-lord’s protection, as well as his forgiveness for having harboured his enemies for so long, a circumstance which he claimed had been imposed upon them against their will.

  ‘What of Hereward?’ I asked the messenger. He was built like a bear, and was almost as hairy as one, too.

  ‘Gone,’ he said.

  ‘Gone?’

  He nodded grimly. ‘The king is less than pleased. From the sounds of it, Morcar’s men were less interested in risking their lives than they were in claiming booty. There was some fighting in and around the cloister, but it seems Hereward and his band had received forewarning that they’d been betrayed and had already started to make preparations to quit Elyg. They were ready when Morcar’s hearth-troops came for them, and managed to overpower them and break their way out.’

  ‘They escaped?’ I asked.

  ‘Not all of them. Morcar’s men killed a good few, and even managed to wound Hereward before his companions could pull him from the fray. So the abbot says, anyway.’

  Somehow I’d known this would happen. Not only had Morcar failed to keep to the strategy he’d agreed with us, but he had also allowed Hereward to slip through his fingers.

  Wace shook his head in disbelief. ‘After everything, who would have thought that the feared Hereward lacked the stomach for a fight? That he would turn out to be such a coward?’

  ‘He’s no coward,’ I assured him. Wace would have known that if he had crossed paths with him as we had. I turned to the bear-man. ‘Where did they go?’

  ‘Out into the marshes to the north of here, by way of the secret paths.’

  ‘And Abbot Thurstan saw all this happen?’

  ‘With his own eyes. He is a broken man. Three of the monks under his protection were killed in the confusion as they tried to flee. He blames himself for their deaths.’

  So he should, I thought, for nothing good ever came to those who threw in their lot with King Guillaume’s enemies. But that, at this moment, was not what was most important.

  ‘We need to get after them,’ I said to the others. ‘We can’t let Hereward get away.’

  ‘What does it matter?’ Wace asked. ‘If he’s gone, the Isle is ours.’

  He was right, I supposed. And yet as long as Hereward remained out there, it seemed to me that our task remained unfinished. I’d been readying ourselves for one last battle, expecting either that he would make a stand within Elyg’s walls, defying us to the end, or else that we would arrive to find the struggle between him and Morcar’s forces still ongoing. In a strange sort of way, I was disappointed. I’d wanted the chance to free my sword-arm once more, to make Hereward pay for all the injury he and his band of followers had caused, and for the humiliation he had inflicted upon me. Instead, after everything, the rebels had crumbled like a house whose timbers were rotten, shearing into so many splinters.

  Of
all those splinters, though, the most dangerous was Hereward. He had raised a rebellion against us once already, and would surely do it again if given the chance, if not this year then when the next campaigning season came around in the spring. That was why we couldn’t let him get away.

  And I hadn’t forgotten, either, the promise I’d made: a promise given to a dying man, a man of God, though I hadn’t even learnt his name; a promise that so far remained unfulfilled. Anyone who knew me well would attest that I never made such oaths lightly. Whether I liked it or not, I was bound to that promise, and unless I made good on it and brought Hereward to justice, I would have perjured myself before God.

  ‘Which way did he go?’ I shouted after the messenger who’d brought us this information. Already he was heading on down the column to spread the news.

  ‘Hereward?’ he asked. ‘He’s at least an hour gone. You’ll never catch up with him now.’

  He had a point. There was no way of knowing which of the many routes Hereward had taken through the marshes, or where exactly he might be headed.

  A cheer rose up from the direction of Elyg’s gates. I turned around to find them opening, and a contingent of men whom I presumed must be Morcar’s huscarls marching forth to greet the king. Elsewhere fighting was breaking out over some slight I hadn’t witnessed. Frenchmen were attacking Frenchmen, wrestling one another to the ground even as their friends tried to prise them apart, striking out with knife and sword, and some were staggering, wounded, clutching at their sides, their arms and their faces. Now that the battle was over, all their rage came pouring out. I had seen it happen before, and once witnessed it is a difficult thing to forget. It is as if a madness, a sickness of the mind, takes hold. Reason and restraint are forgotten, and those who in other circumstances one might count among the most even-tempered of men become wild creatures.

  Robert was bellowing instructions to his troops, trying desperately to keep some measure of control. Other barons, not wishing to let slip the chance of plunder, or to let their rivals claim it before they did, were leading their conrois towards the monastery, their banners raised high, kicking up clods of turf and mud as they went.

  That was when I saw Godric. He rode a grey palfrey, and was being escorted by three knights, one of whom was King Guillaume’s man, the one with the broken nose and the scarred lip. Suddenly an idea came to me.

  Waving to attract their attention, I rode to intercept them. ‘Where are you taking the boy?’ I asked.

  ‘To the king,’ answered Scar-lip, drawing himself up self-importantly. I thought he recognised me from earlier, but couldn’t be sure. ‘What business is it of yours?’

  ‘There’s been a change of plan,’ I said, aware that to lie to the king’s men in such a way was to commit a grave perfidy. I would worry about that later, and if need be suffer the consequences. ‘The king wants to keep him hostage until he has received formal submission from all the rebels. Only then will he return him to his uncle. Until then he wants him taken back to Alrehetha.’

  ‘Back to Alrehetha? We’ve just ridden there and back!’

  ‘I realise that,’ I said. ‘If you prefer, I’ll escort him back there for you.’

  He eyed me doubtfully, but evidently he could think of no reason to distrust me. ‘If you wish,’ he said with a sigh. ‘He’s yours,’ he said, and signalled to the other two.

  I watched them go, making sure that they were out of earshot, then turned to Godric.

  ‘What’s going on, lord?’ he asked. ‘I thought I was being taken—’

  ‘You were,’ I said, ‘but now there’s something I would have you do for me first. Hereward has fled into the marshes. I thought you might tell me where he’s gone.’

  ‘Me, lord? How would I know?’

  ‘If you were him and looking to escape, where would you go?’

  Godric shrugged. ‘To the ships, I suppose.’

  ‘The ships?’

  ‘The ones that we’ve been using to provision the Isle.’

  Of course. The king had been trying to find them and destroy them for the better part of three months, without any success.

  ‘And where are they?’

  ‘Some miles to the north of here, deep in the fen country, on the mere near Utwella, where the rivers meet.’

  If he had only thought to tell us this a few days ago, I thought with not a little irritation, we might have tried to stage an attack on them. But then I remembered how he had spoken of the lavish feasts that the rebels had been holding. If they were already that well provisioned, what difference would it have made even if we had been able to cut off their supplies? It would not have prevented King Guillaume with pressing ahead with the assault, nor would it have made our task any easier.

  ‘Could you show us the way?’ I asked. ‘And answer honestly. The last thing I want is for us all to end up cut off and drowned when the tide rises.’

  ‘I think so, lord.’

  That was good enough for me. It would have to be, for who else was there that I could rely upon? Who else knew the ways? Strange though it seemed, I had come to trust Godric.

  ‘Very well,’ I told him. ‘We don’t have a moment to spare.’

  As it was, we would be hard pressed to catch them. Our quarry had a good lead on us already, and even though we were mounted, whereas it sounded as though they were travelling on foot, this was difficult country for horses. Still, I would rather make the attempt and fail than not try at all.

  I searched about for the black-and-gold banner and Lord Robert, but couldn’t find him anywhere. Bands of men on horseback and on foot rushed past on both sides, most making for the monastery, while a few were tearing thatch from nearby hovels in search of treasures that the folk who lived there might have hidden before they took flight. All was disorder, as our proud and noble army dissolved into packs of wolves.

  I saw Wace with the Gascon and Tor, and called to them, waving for them to follow me. ‘Wace!’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Wace shouted back.

  ‘After Hereward!’

  He looked at me as if I had lost my wits, and perhaps I had, although the wildness that possessed me was of a different sort to that which had seized the rest of our army. A confidence burnt inside me that I could not account for. Suddenly anything seemed possible.

  ‘You’re going after Hereward?’ he asked, and wiped another trickle of blood from his cheek.

  ‘Why not?’ I replied.

  To him this no doubt sounded like a fool’s errand, but I knew otherwise. For I wasn’t only thinking of the oath I had sworn. I was also thinking that here was our chance to do something worthy of the king’s attention, something that the chroniclers would write of when, in years to come, they came to lay quill to parchment about the battle for the Isle. Whether they admitted it or not, fame was what all those who made their living by the sword craved, more than silver or gold or fine-wrought blades or horses with jewel-studded harnesses or land or power. I was no different. I longed to restore my dwindling reputation, and I saw in Wace’s eyes that he had the same hunger.

  ‘Why not, indeed?’ he said with a smile, and I grinned too, because I’d known he wouldn’t refuse.

  ‘Do you really think we can catch them, lord?’ asked Pons.

  ‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘But we can try.’

  No one noticed as, led by young Godric, we slipped away from the rest of King Guillaume’s host, leaving behind us the clash of steel, the shouts of triumph and of pain, as we rode in pursuit of Hereward.

  And glory.

  Twelve

  WE RODE HARD, following winding, flint-studded paths so narrow and treacherous that in many parts we were forced to go in single file. Reeds flashed past on both sides as we skirted stagnant pools and leapt fast-trickling rivulets, trusting in our steeds not to falter over the soft ground. In every direction a wide expanse of bog stretched to the horizon, broken occasionally by dense copses of birch and elm, above which jackdaws circled, cawing loudly as if warn
ing those ahead of our approach. I only hoped the enemy weren’t lying in wait for us there, since we would make easy targets if they were. I watched the trees carefully as we passed, expecting at any moment to see a flurry of silver-shining arrowheads flying forth from out of those yellow-green leaves, soaring over the reeds, glinting with the promise of death.

  But no arrows came. Fyrheard was flagging, his head bowing, but I coaxed him on. In some places the path had fallen away into one of the countless channels that crossed the land, and we had to dismount in order to lead the horses through the muddy waters. Every so often we would spy footprints, and by the number of them and the way the mud had been churned we could tell that a significant number of men had travelled this way. Whether those prints had been set down recently, though, none of us could say for sure. I wished then that we had Ædda with us. My stableman and the ablest tracker in all of the Welsh Marches, he was also my closest friend among the English, but he was back at Earnford. In his absence we had no choice but to follow Godric, and trust that he knew what he was doing. Every so often the path would seem to fork and he would come to a halt, his young brow furrowed while he looked for tracks upon the ground and gazed about the surrounding swamp for landmarks that showed we were on the right course.

  ‘Are you sure you know where you’re going?’ Wace asked when, for the fourth time that hour, Godric paused. The morning was wearing on and the sun was growing high in a cloudless sky, beating down upon our backs. There was no shade to be found anywhere; beneath my mail my arms and chest were running with sweat, and my tunic and shirt were clinging to my skin. Flies buzzed in front of my face and I tried to swat them away, but they kept returning.

  Three ways presented themselves. One continued straight ahead, leading due north, while the others branched out to the east and the north-west.

  ‘Not all of them necessarily lead anywhere,’ Godric explained. ‘Not anywhere we want to go, at least. Some look safe, but if you aren’t careful you can find yourself cut off when the tide rises. Many men have lost their lives that way.’