For Mathilda relief quickly gave way to fear. The men were going into action at last but for her and her ladies it would mean more waiting and she dreaded it.
‘I could still come,’ she said to William when he finally crept into bed in the early hours of the morning.
‘And wait on a hostile shore instead of your own? You are not coming into battle, Mathilda.’
‘No. This fat belly would hinder my sword stroke!’
William kissed her.
‘You will be busy, my love. Life does not stop for battles and Normandy needs you. Robert needs you. He could be a good duke but he is, I fear, a little spoiled. He thinks too much of his own pleasure so you must help him harden to his duties.’
‘He asked me the other day if he would get to be King of England.’
‘If he does,’ William growled, ‘it will be by my hard work.’
‘I told him as much. But William, would you prefer him to have to fight as you have? As you will?’
There was a pause as William considered. Mathilda lay, feeling his body warm and strong against hers and listening to the collective snorting breaths of eight thousand soldiers on the brink of war.
‘I would not prefer it,’ William said eventually. ‘Of course I would not. Why would I wish a reign of endless challenge and uncertainty on my sons? Have I not battled for the security we have now?’
‘Always. And yet . . . ?’
‘And yet I fear that not having to do so will make him soft and his brothers besides.’
‘Is soft so bad?’
‘I’m not sure.’
His voice snagged and she held him, crawling tight against him and pushing her arms as far around his big body as she could reach. There was a seven year old in him still, lost and unsure.
‘You are not alone, William,’ she told him urgently. ‘You have good men at your back and you have me. We are loyal to the cause because we know it to be just and we are loyal to you because we know you are worth that loyalty.’
‘Truly?’
‘And because we love you. Now sleep. Tomorrow is a big day.’
‘Sleep, Mathilda . . . ?’
‘William!’
‘One last time?’
‘No!’
‘But . . .’
‘I mean, William, that it will not be the last time – just the last time until you are king.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Hastings, 14 October 1066
It’s dawn. Mathilda likes the dawn. She says the sky is painted with promise at dawn. She says things like that, my wife; things that sound as if they mean so much but actually tell you nothing. How can the sky be painted with promise? And yet today, as I stand here in the pink mist rising up off Saxon soil, I hope it is true. Today I am aware more than ever before of tomorrow’s dawn and what it will bring. For the sun will surely rise over me, be that as king or corpse, and I do not want to be a corpse. There’s so much still to do.
I glance along the lines – thousands of men stood to arms and all awaiting my command. It is a moment of almost beautiful calm. The preparations are done and we are ready. Normandy’s new navy sailed and landed safely in the Roman harbour of Pevensey where Hugh’s horse ships could unload unmolested by even local resistance. We set up camp as easily as if it were a hunting trip and not an invasion, but then, Harold was in the north fighting the Viking, just as we’d hoped.
He won. I’ll admit that surprised me. At some place called Stamford Bridge he killed the great Hardrada and his treacherous brother Tostig too – not that he was any loss to the world. I imagine even his poor wife did not weep at his passing. Mathilda would weep at mine these days, I think – not that I intend to give her the chance.
Harold’s swift return to the south surprised me but his haste, heroic as it was, may be his undoing. I can just about see his ranks above us on the ridge and I’d say we’re evenly matched. That’s more than we could have hoped for. There may be reinforcements coming of course but for now it is a good sign, a promise in the sky perhaps – though it is very much on land that we will fight today.
Next to me Fitz draws his sword, impatient as ever, and the sound focuses my mind. Now is not the time to dawdle in the past or dream into the future. Now is about now. Battles are won by calm and logic and sense. These men, these thousands of men who have sailed to England out of duty, excitement, greed, revenge and all manner of motivations of their own, are my tafel pieces today and I must arrange them as best I can to win the advantage. For now I cannot see them as men, not even loyal Fitz at my side, or big Fulk leading the left flank with Roger’s brave young son, or my brother Odo on the right, but as pieces in the game. If one falls it must be replaced. There will be time to mourn afterwards.
I look up. The sun is over the horizon to our right and the field is lit up before us, green and innocent. The Saxons are on foot, not a cavalryman amongst them, despite what Harold saw of their efficiency when he campaigned with us in Brittany. More fool him to still fight on foot with his peasants. They are too sentimental, these Saxons. I can use that.
I can see Harold’s ‘fighting man’ banner in the centre, his brothers’ either side. The southerners, I am told, the Kentish men, are on the left beneath Harold’s younger brother. They are not used to fighting and may be a weakness; they can perhaps be drawn from the precious shield wall that lines the ridge from end to end. They plan to defend, which is wearisome of them, but it makes this a besieging and besieging I know well. What difference is a shield wall to a castle wall, save that it will crumble more easily?
I look along my lines again, see my bold commanders on their fine horses, all fresh from their sea trip thanks to Hugh’s Italian ships. What chance do the Saxons have against such superiority? And yet every one of these men knows, as I know, that we have never fought a battle like this. Even at Varaville we won more by trickery than outright skill and in truth, this is the first full battle I have properly commanded. I must do it well – I owe my men that much.
It is speech time. I do not like it, do not see the need to remind men why we are here and what there is to win, for they surely know it themselves, but it seems it helps so I fling out the usual phrases about honour and pride and glory and winning land for their sons and by the end they are all roaring with bloodlust. The sound is loud enough to cover the heart-drum ‘Ut, Ut, Ut!’ of the barbarian Saxons. Out, out, out – never! I am here now and I intend to stay. Let battle commence.
It is hot work. The sun, though autumn-low, is large and warm. The horses pant and I fear for their stamina but Hugh has a great run of the lower ranks bringing water from a pond behind us and the beasts are well refreshed between charges. They work hard but, I must admit, with little gain.
‘We cannot break them,’ Fitz gasps as the sun climbs to the top of Mathilda’s precious sky.
‘Patience,’ I tell him. ‘Come, muster – let’s go again.’
I lead the charge myself this time, feel the pulse of the very earth beneath me as a thousand hooves pound up the slope towards the huddled Saxons in their paltry human castle. Blood rushes in my veins but I hold my lance steady and Caesar on an even course until suddenly, as we reach top speed, another animal, more skittish than mine, rears away from a Saxon arrow and crashes sidelong into my flank.
Caesar’s back legs are knocked and he staggers, collides with another horse and bolts, flinging me from his back so I land in the mud and can only cover my head and pray to God that I am not crushed by my own cavalry. A gasp of horror – not mine – runs across my ranks, whispering over my head like a pain but I cannot stand, not yet. It is not safe.
‘The duke,’ I hear. ‘The duke is dead.’
It is spoken in Norman at first and then, louder, in Saxon. The words grow in volume and when finally I look up, I see the shield wall straining, especially at the end where the less experienced Kentish men are bursting for an easy victory and starting to break ranks. Perfect. I get slowly to my feet, my head low. I can hear Fitz and
Fulk calling order and the horses pulling back into formation and am delighted to see discipline is holding in my Norman ranks. Unlike the Saxons’.
I smile and then, just as their left end breaks and the undisciplined infantry begin to charge, I whip off my helmet and stand tall, as tall as I can, and I am seen. I am seen by Hugh, who charges forward and leaps from his horse to proffer it to me. It is nobly done by my cavalry captain and I have a moment to clap him on the back before I leap high into the saddle to cries of ‘Le Duc, le Duc, le Duc!’ With renewed energy our ranks surge in on the fool Saxons who have run into the open field and cut them down.
I control my new mount and look out across the Saxon ranks as all eyes are drawn to their falling comrades – or not quite all. For there he is, Harold, looking straight at me, as well he might. We lock eyes. It didn’t need to be like this, I try and tell him. You should be at my side, not against me. We could have done so much that way. We still could. Surrender, I will him. Surrender now and I will be merciful. But he will not read my message and will not compromise. He rips his eyes from mine and turns to his men.
‘Hold the wall!’ I hear him cry and I know that the moment for surrender, if ever it was there, is gone.
I retreat with Hugh to regroup the cavalry and reset the archers, who are doing a fine job. Those days at Pevensey and then at Hastings were well spent for we have arrows aplenty. Sadly most of the Saxon wall has obeyed Harold and stayed put but we have had the first real blood of the day and it lifts our hearts. And there is more, for the gap on the left end is not filled. Harold has no reinforcements it seems and that information is more vital to me than the mini-victory. All we need now is patience. All we must do is maintain discipline and keep up the cavalry attacks and they will falter. And so we do.
It is long and hard and wearying. Men fall. The green field fills up with bodies, ugly heaps of flesh that make the horses stumble. Blood runs between the crushed blades of grass, making each charge slippier and more dangerous than the last. Hugh’s ranks bring more water and men and horses drink desperately from the same buckets. There is food but few want it for the very air is putrid as men claw it into their straining lungs. The banners, even the holy papal one, are spattered and torn. Men lean upon each other nursing wounds. Spirits are dipping as fast as the sun and for the first time I feel fear. The Saxons are not giving up and we must win. We must win today for who knows what further Saxon ranks are even now marching upon the field and we have nothing at our backs save the merciless sea.
I pull my commanders together.
‘We must draw them out, split them as we did when I fell. We must smash their damned wall; it’s the only way.’
‘But how?’ Fitz asks.
He has taken a cut to the head and the right side of his face is scarlet with caked blood. For one terrible moment I see in him his father, red in my bed and screaming for his soul, but I force it away. I have no time for memories. I must think. The Saxons hover still on the ridge, jeering at us, trying to draw us on again, but they will not attack so I have time. I need calm, logic, sense, for that is how battles are won. I force myself to breathe slowly. What does Mathilda tell the children – ‘You must sharpen your wits.’ Now I must sharpen mine.
‘They broke ranks before when they believed I was dead, when they thought they had the upper hand. If they think that again, they will come.’
Fulk’s eyes shine.
‘A feigned retreat?’
‘It would be hard. Controlling the horses is not easy. I would need skilled men.’
A Breton steps forward, a stout little man known as Count Alan Ironglove, and clearly someone with an eye for a chance of advancement.
‘My men have the skill, Duke.’
It is true. I saw it for myself at Dol. The Breton horses are smaller and stouter than ours, like Count Alan himself, but they are nimble and the Saxons may believe the Breton loyalty could waver. Harold, who fought against them at my side, may well believe that. I glance at the skyline to the left where the sun is flinging itself towards the earth. There is no time to dispute further.
‘It is decided then. We charge, you break, and if they come after you we encircle them.’
‘And if they do not?’
‘They will.’ There is no room for doubt now. For this to work it must be done with total conviction. ‘They will come.’
And they do. In the end it is easy, so easy that I wonder we did not manage it before, though no doubt the fading light and fading strength of the men has something to do with it. I lead the charge, the men fanning out behind me like one of our own deadly arrowheads, Fulk’s on the right and Count Alan leading the Bretons on the left. We hold the fight as long as the horses will bear and then I catch Alan’s eye over the flailing swords and spears between us and he gives the slightest of nods and screams a command.
Suddenly his men are peeling away and pounding off down the slope and our other ranks pause and watch as if dismayed, though in truth we are merely straining to see how, at such speed, the Bretons will pull their sturdy little mounts around if it is needed. And it is. The Saxons pour after them like grains of corn from a ripped sack. I hear Harold’s voice, hoarse and desperate – ‘hold the wall’ – but they are not listening. He has lost command. In that moment he has lost command and lost England and I know, with still certainty, that the day will be mine.
The rest is but a training exercise, only with blood – so much blood that after a while we cease to notice it. Is that callous? No, it is honest. Truth is a habit of mine, though some do not appreciate it. My senses shut down as I watch the Bretons encircle their pursuers even as Harold’s housecarls encircle him, ready for their last stand. My nostrils close themselves to the stench of death, my ears shut out the sounds of unending pain, my tongue refuses to taste the Saxons’ fear. My fingers feel only the reins of my borrowed horse as I hold her in check so I can monitor my gaming pieces. My eyes see only the patterns of victory in the gory mass of limbs all around.
Calm logic, sense – they are what win battles, but I confess I cannot stop a thrill running through me as an arrow arcs across Mathilda’s sky of promise and I hear Harold roar in pain at the centre of his ever-dwindling band of men and I know I have him. I turn from his death. I wish it hadn’t been this way. I wish he’d acknowledged my right as he’d sworn to do. I wish that he’d surrendered earlier in the battle before this senseless waste of life on both sides. I wish it for two reasons – the first because I liked the man; the second because England is going to be so, so much harder to rule without him.
But rule it seems I will. They are bringing me the crown. It is tarnished with blood but I can hardly wipe it away when all around men are suffering so much worse, so I take it and place it as it is on my head, ignoring the stickiness of death at its edges. I did not choose this fight; it was forced upon me. But God was at my back and the day is won and I am, somehow, King of England.
I look at Fitz and he grins the infectious grin he’s been giving me all my life and then he throws himself flamboyantly down on one knee before me.
‘God bless the King!’
The men take up the chant and all around they drop to the bloody ground in prostrated lines blurred at the edges by the darkness as the mist blurred them this morning at first light. Tomorrow’s dawn will come now, I think, and it will be mine, and a giddy, skipping, ridiculously glorious happiness rushes through me. I grab Fitz, raising him.
‘Send to Normandy,’ I command. ‘Send to Normandy and to Mathilda. Tell her I have made her the queen she was bred to be. Tell her that England is ours.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Bonneville, March 1067
William bounced onto the jetty and came running towards Mathilda, so light on his feet he was almost dancing. He swooped in and picked her up, lifting her high in the air in front of everyone, then clasping her tight to him and kissing her long and hard to whoops of joy from the vast crowd fanning out across the open port.
�
��William!’ Mathilda giggled as he finally let her go and turned, arm still firmly around her waist, to wave to the crowd, beaming and giving funny little bobbing bows to people who caught his eye. ‘What have you done with my husband?’
William kissed her again.
‘I have made him King of England, my Mora.’
‘It suits him.’
It did. Mathilda had never seen William so relaxed, so happy in himself, so at ease with the crowds crushing forward to welcome him. She watched him shaking endless hands, nodding and smiling and chatting – yes, chatting – to all his well-wishers and hurried after him, marvelling at this new man who had finally come back to Normandy from over the Narrow Sea. He was being proclaimed as a conquering hero and here he was, every inch the part. She felt her loins stir.
‘I have never been bedded by a king,’ she whispered in his ear.
She saw his body react first and then he glanced over his shoulder, a wicked silver gleam in his dark eyes.
‘Oh, you will be,’ he promised. ‘For I long to be bedded by a queen.’
‘Not yet crowned.’
‘No,’ he allowed with a grimace. They had both wanted her to make it to Westminster for his coronation at Christ’s mass fifteen years to the day after they had been promised the throne, but the seas had been rough and with Mathilda newly out of her childbed it had not been possible. ‘But you will be.’
‘When, William? When can I come to England with you?’
For a moment he looked strangely unsure, then he smiled so swiftly and widely that she thought she’d imagined it.
‘Very soon, my love.’
‘This summer?’
‘That would be perfect, wouldn’t it?’
It wasn’t really an answer.
‘Is all well in England?’
‘Becoming so, yes. Fitz and Odo have it all in hand, I’m sure.’ He didn’t sound sure. ‘But come, I am back. I am here in Normandy and everyone is so glad to see me.’
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