Conquest 03 - Knights of the Hawk

by James Aitcheson

  ‘But you know which one to take, don’t you?’ I asked.

  He studied the ground closely, and squinted as he gazed out towards what looked like a ruined cottage, a spear’s throw away to our right. ‘I’ve only travelled these paths a couple of times, lord.’

  ‘Only a couple of times?’ Wace asked, and turned to me. ‘Why are we letting ourselves be led by this pup?’

  ‘I can find the way, lords,’ protested Godric. ‘I need some time to think, that’s all.’

  ‘Time is something we don’t have,’ I muttered peevishly. The lad didn’t seem to have heard me, and that was probably as well, because I didn’t want to hurry him into making a decision that we might come to regret.

  After long moments Godric pointed down the branch heading north. ‘This way,’ he said firmly.

  ‘You’re certain of this?’ I asked.

  ‘Certain, lord.’

  Wace cast a doubtful glance my way, but I could only shrug, and so we ventured on. Once in a while the path seemed to turn back on itself, or else peter out amongst the undergrowth, but we never lost it entirely, and I supposed that meant we were on the right trail. That suspicion was confirmed when, not long after, we came across what looked to be the same tracks as before, except that this time, trodden into the mud, were smears of horse dung, and freshly laid horse dung at that. We stopped and Serlo crouched down to inspect it.

  ‘Still moist,’ he said, rubbing some between his fingers and then sniffing them. ‘Still warm, too.’

  ‘If they’re mounted rather than on foot, then we’ve no chance of catching them,’ growled Tor.

  ‘They aren’t,’ Serlo said. He rose and vaulted back into the saddle. ‘If they had, we’d have spotted more of their dung before now.’

  ‘Sumpter ponies, then?’ Pons suggested, and looked to the rest of us for confirmation.

  I nodded and at the same time felt fresh hope rising within me. Hereward and his band would be slowed by their pack animals, and that meant we must surely be catching them.

  ‘Keep going,’ I said. ‘They can’t be much further ahead.’

  No sooner had I spoken than there came a distant shout from behind us. I turned sharply to see a band of horsemen, perhaps a dozen strong, approaching from the same direction as we had come, and I tensed at once, my hand tightening around the haft of my spear.

  ‘They’ve found us,’ Godric said. The colour had drained from his face. ‘It’s them!’

  So I thought at first too, but how could they have known we were following them, and how did they end up behind us on the path? My answers came in the form of a greeting, shouted out in the French tongue, and I realised that they were friends, not foes.

  Godric looked ready to flee, but I drew alongside him and seized hold of his mount’s reins. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘They’re some of ours.’

  Who they were, though, I couldn’t tell at such a distance. The sun was behind them and so it was difficult to make out their features, and I had to raise a hand to my eyes to shield them from the glare.

  ‘Lord Tancred!’ one of them called brightly. ‘You didn’t think you were going to claim the whole reward for yourselves, did you?’

  ‘What?’ I shouted back.

  ‘The reward,’ he said. ‘For Hereward’s capture.’

  The voice was familiar but only when he grew nearer, and I was able to see his ruddy jowls and small, hard eyes, did I finally realise who it was. In that moment my temper soured.

  ‘What are you doing here, Hamo?’ I asked.

  ‘The same as you. So I thought, anyway, except you all seem to be more interested in the dirt than in doing anything useful.’

  I ignored that, glancing at the eleven companions he’d brought with him, most of whom I remembered from our escort duties. But I saw no one who looked like a guide.

  ‘How did you know the paths through the marsh?’ I asked.

  ‘We didn’t,’ Hamo said with a smirk that spoke of self-satisfaction but which at the same time seemed to mock me. ‘But then we hardly needed to. We could see your helmets and your spearpoints a mile off. All we had to do was follow them, and trust that you were going in the right direction. And so here we are.’ He flashed me a gap-toothed smile. ‘Together once again.’

  ‘Together once again,’ I muttered under my breath. Eighteen men were better than seven, for certain, although Hamo was hardly a steadfast ally, or the kind of man that I could rely on to hold his nerve in the thick of a fight. His only loyalty was to his purse, and if things began to turn against us, his first thought would be to protect his own hide.

  ‘Are we riding on, then?’ Hamo asked. ‘Or are we just going to wait here while Hereward and his band get ever farther away?’

  ‘We ride on,’ I replied. ‘But first understand this: you’ll listen to us, and do everything that either I or Wace here tell you to, without question or hesitation.’

  ‘I am my own man, sworn to no one,’ he said with a sneer, drawing close enough that I could see the hairs sticking out of his nostrils. ‘I can make my own choices.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You’ll listen and do as you’re told, or else we could all end up dead. Do you hear me?’

  He returned my stare but said nothing. I only hoped he heeded my words, for I wasn’t prepared to waste any more time or breath arguing with him.

  ‘Lead on,’ I told Godric, whose colour had returned, although he continued to regard Hamo and his friends with an apprehensive look. He didn’t seem to hear me at first, but then I repeated myself and he turned to face me. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘The longer we tarry, the less chance we have of catching them.’

  He nodded and kicked on down the path, and we followed, past tangles of crooked trees and splintered branches brought down by the recent winds, past thick reed-beds and shallow streams in which wicker eel-traps lay. How many miles we’d come from Elyg, I had no idea, although it was probably not quite as many as it felt. My arse was aching; we’d left camp at first light and midday was fast approaching, and most of that time we’d spent in the saddle.

  We must have ridden for another half an hour before Godric gave a stifled cry. Perhaps half a mile ahead, a flock of marsh birds took wing, some hundred and more of them rising into the sky, turning as one in a great circle, before descending and disappearing from sight behind a stand of drooping willows. Straightaway I checked Fyrheard, and held up a hand to the others as a signal to stop.

  ‘Something must have scared them,’ Wace murmured.

  My heart was pounding as I squinted into the distance, trying to make out what that something might be, and whether at last we had found our quarry. If it was Hereward, however, he and his band were well hidden amidst the undergrowth. Yet who else had any reason to be out here?

  It had to be them.

  ‘Stay close,’ I said. ‘From now on, not a sound.’ I glared at Hamo’s men, who as usual were laughing between themselves at some private joke, probably at my expense. ‘We move quickly and we move quietly.’

  I didn’t wait for any acknowledgement but spurred Fyrheard on. The path led us to the willow thicket, which stood upon one of the many small islets that dotted the fen. Its slopes were slick with mud, but we struggled up them, ducking beneath low branches, pushing our horses as fast as we dared as the track dipped and rose, until we burst forth from the trees into the blinding brightness, and could see the way stretching out in front of us.

  And there I saw them. There were, I reckoned, around three dozen of them, although it was difficult to make an exact count, since they were not all together, but rather strung out along the path, the closest of them a mere hundred paces ahead of us. And those were just the ones who looked to me like warriors, for there were also women and even a few children, scurrying along behind their mothers, not to mention those leading the packhorses, who had taken up the rear.

  Hamo gave a whoop. Before I could do or say anything, he was galloping past me down the slope, almost knocking me from the sadd
le. Behind him thundered the rest of his men, their bows in hand.

  ‘Kill them,’ he yelled. ‘Kill them!’

  ‘Hamo!’ I shouted, but it was too late. I’d wanted if possible to surprise the enemy, but there was no chance of that now. I swore aloud.

  He nocked an arrow to his bowstring, narrowed his eyes as he pulled back, took aim and then let fly, closely followed by his companions. The air whistled and the midday sun glinted off the steel heads. The first struck one of the sumpter ponies on the rump, tearing through its flesh, and it went down with a shriek, thrashing its hooves and spilling the contents of its packs. The second buried itself in a man’s back and the force of the impact sent him tumbling forward, and then came the rest, raining death upon the Englishmen and their families. Children were screaming and crying; somewhere amongst them a dog was barking, and men were shouting to one another as they realised the danger. While some grabbed the hands of their womenfolk and picked up the smallest of the children to carry them to safety, others were shoving their way to the rear, unslinging their round shields from where they rested across their backs and forming a line to obstruct our path and cover their retreat. The way was wide enough for three men at most to stand abreast and they formed the shield-wall across it.

  But they could do nothing to stop the hail of steel. The air whistled as Hamo and his men let another volley fly, and another and another, and they did not seem to care whether they loosed all together or not, for they were merely intent on killing as many as possible and staining the marshes with English blood. One of the women stumbled as she ran, and fell upon the ground. A boy who might have been her son turned to try and help her up, only for an arrow to take him in the chest. The remaining ponies were whinnying, rearing up, kicking out at anyone who came too close, the whites of their eyes showing. The wounded lay on the ground, cursing, yelling out to God and the saints.

  And then, striding forward through the throng of fleeing women and children, came Hereward himself. It was only the second time our paths had crossed, and on this occasion he wore a helmet that served to mask his face, but I recognised him at once. His dark hair straggled about his shoulders, and there was the same purpose, the same confidence in his bearing that I remembered. He came with a seax upon his belt and his own bow slung across his back, and with a score of mailed warriors behind him. Abbot Thurstan must have been mistaken, for he didn’t look injured at all.

  He roared an instruction that I couldn’t quite make out, but I didn’t need to. At once the shield-wall was breaking and the Englishmen were surging forward with steel in hand and death in their eyes.

  ‘Get back!’ I yelled at Hamo. The path was too narrow to fight effectively on horseback, but if he and his men could withdraw to join us on the higher ground by the thicket, then we might just have the space in which to give our sword-arms room.

  Either Hamo didn’t hear me, though, or else he chose not to listen. Barking an order to the rest of the archers, he drew and loosed another two shafts from his arrow-bag. The first fell wide, disappearing somewhere amongst the sedge, but his second found the throat of one of the onrushing enemy. The man’s legs buckled and he toppled backwards to cries from the comrades into whose path he had fallen. Two of them stumbled as they tried to negotiate his fallen body and, as they did so, their shields dropped out of position, just for the briefest of instants, but it was an instant too long. One dropped his seax as an arrow pierced his upper arm, while another was struck upon the breast; the head must have found a gap between the links of his mail, for the shaft was buried almost up to the fletching. Suddenly the track was slick with blood and obstructed by the corpses of three men, over which the rest now had to climb.

  ‘Sceldas!’ Hereward roared at them, and at the same time lifted his own bow.

  The same bow with which he had felled Pons’s destrier. The same one with which he humiliated me before my own knights.

  He drew the string back past his chin and held it there for a few moments before finally releasing it. The arrow sailed over the heads of his countrymen, flashing silver as it flew, spearing towards Hamo and his company. There was a yell and then one of them was tumbling from the saddle to the ground: the gaunt one with the large ears who was forever grumbling about how empty his stomach was.

  ‘Ansfred!’ one of his friends shouted, but Ansfred was already dead. He lay on his back with his eyes and mouth open, a surprised look fixed on his face, and a white-feathered shaft flecked with scarlet protruding from his chest.

  ‘Get back!’ I yelled for the second time. Whether it was because they heard me, or because they had seen one of their number fall and had no wish to suffer the same fate, I didn’t know, but finally Hamo’s men seemed to awaken from their bloodlust. As the Englishmen charged towards them, they all began to turn, riding back to join us on the higher ground where the willows stood.

  All, that was, except for Hamo himself. Seemingly oblivious to the death of his man, he stood his ground, loosing arrow after arrow as fast as he could draw them from the bag at his side. Most fell wide or else stuck fast in the leather and limewood of the English shields, but a couple found their targets, and I saw that several among the enemy were beginning to waver as they stepped across the bodies of their slain comrades, their feet slipping on the blood-soaked mud, even as those behind pressed forward. Hereward called for them to advance, but while some were paying attention, confusion and indecision had gripped the rest.

  Long years of experience had taught me that such moments were fleeting. If we were to take advantage of their confusion, we had to do so quickly. An idea formed in my mind.

  ‘Stay here,’ I said to Wace and all the other knights as I pushed Fyrheard into a gallop, racing down from the cover of the trees towards the English ranks.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Wace called. ‘Tancred!’

  ‘Trust me,’ I shouted back, and then to the withdrawing archers: ‘Form a line in front of the trees. Wait for my signal!’

  Hamo must finally have used all his arrows, for only now did he follow the rest of his company. His cheeks were even redder than usual and his face showed a smirk of satisfaction as he rode past.

  I checked Fyrheard about fifty paces from the enemy lines, raising my hands in the air, away from my body, to show that I had not come to fight but to speak.

  ‘Sheathe your swords,’ I said in the English tongue. I was aware that I was taking a chance, but I reckoned that they would be intrigued enough to want to hear what I had to say. ‘I’ve come to speak with your lord.’

  I’d lost sight of him among the ranks of his men, but I knew he had to be there somewhere.

  ‘Where are you, Hereward?’ I shouted. ‘Come and show your face!’

  My heart was beating fast. This all depended on my sounding confident, but I was not confident at all. One arrow was all it would take, if Hereward decided to use this opportunity to finish what he had begun one week ago.

  His men broke ranks and I saw him. He handed his bow to one of his retainers and strode forward, stepping over the corpses as easily and indifferently as if they were fallen branches.

  He stopped about ten paces from me, removed his helmet and that was when I saw him properly for the first time. The man who by his sword-edge had probably accounted for more Normans than any other single Englishman had managed in the last five years. The man who had defied us all these months. But if his pride was at all wounded by being betrayed by his allies, by having to flee the place that for so long he had helped defend, it was not apparent in his demeanour. He was probably around the same age as myself, if the number of cuts and scars decorating his face was anything to judge by. Certainly he looked no younger. There was a hardness in his eyes, and a firmness in his stance that gave the impression of someone who didn’t know the meaning of defeat. He dressed not in mail but in an archer’s leather corselet, reinforced with iron studs that would deflect a glancing blow but little more.

  ‘Have you come to parley or just to gawp?’
he asked.

  ‘I’ve come to talk,’ I answered.

  ‘Then talk.’

  His voice was strangely measured and even, not at all what I had been expecting after everything I’d heard about him.

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘You know you can’t run. We can easily outpace you and pick you off, one by one, until you decide to surrender.’

  Hereward shrugged. ‘We might not be able to run but we can still fight. You’ll run out of arrows eventually and I doubt your men have the same stomach for a fight as mine. We have numbers on our side.’

  I forced a laugh, and hoped it sounded convincing. ‘You think we’re the only men that King Guillaume has sent?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘There’s a whole raiding-party four hundred strong following behind us,’ I said, hoping that he would fall for the lie. ‘King Guillaume is scouring the marshes with fire and sword to try to find you. He has put a price on your head of one hundred silver marks, and he doesn’t care whether you’re brought to him alive or dead.’

  It sounded believable enough that even I was convinced. With any luck he would swallow the morsel whole, and we wouldn’t have to risk another battle.

  ‘What, then?’ Hereward countered. ‘You would have me give myself up to you?’

  ‘That’s right. If you do that, and freely offer your submission, then the king might just be willing to show you clemency. There is no other choice, if you want to live.’

  He snorted. ‘There is always a choice.’ He turned his back and made to return to the shield-wall.

  ‘You can’t escape your fate,’ I called after him. ‘Your rebellion is finished. The Isle belongs to us. Your allies have forsaken you, as has your cherished saint, Æthelthryth. She heard your prayers and she laughed at them. She spits on your dreams. Do you hear me?’

  He rounded on me. ‘What would you know of St Æthelthryth?’

  ‘Only what Godric tells me,’ I replied. ‘To think that the feared Hereward, the scourge of the fenlands, was reduced to begging for a woman’s help to win his wars!’